Q and A

I do not remember this as I was only about three, but - as my mother recounts it - at the end of The Morcambe and Wise Showthere was a woman who came on and upstaged the pair and I used to mimic her. I would prance about our living room taking over-aggrandized bows and repeating, “Thank you for watching my little show; I love you all! I love you all! I love you all!” whilst grabbing all manner of stuff off the coffee table and pretending it was fans throwing me flowers and stuff onto the stage. My mother said I had her voice, her mannerisms, and all the theatrical gestures and it was so funny she encouraged me to do it for the uncles and aunties when they came round. So I started there, in my mother’s living room. That was my first impersonation and I now know that woman was Janet Webb.

I had a natural talent for mimicry so at school, after a spell of bullying, I started just doing the teachers voices and it earned me respect and friendship – which seemed a pretty good trade to me. Soon, encouraged by my classmates, I was doing 20-30 minute shows at lunchtime which became notorious. I just sat on-top of a desk and created this little theatrical world as the other schoolgirls crowded around me. The girls would shout out suggestions for teachers and gave me ideas on what I could say and I would just go into them. I had been doing them for about two years when I was encouraged to do a routine at the school talent show, and I was all prepared for it, until a teacher – who I did a pretty good impression of – pulled me aside one day and begged me not to do it. She seemed so desperate, had tears in her eyes and was shaking. Her grip on my shoulder frightened me a bit, so I decided to pull out. I was never in the business of upsetting people. Shortly after, I started focussing on celebrities. It wasn’t until my late twenties I started doing it professionally. I was working as a caseworker for the homeless in Glasgow and was pretty depressed and looking for a way out. I was reading the paper and came across an advert for a comedy course at Strathclyde University run by Viv Gee. I didn’t really think of myself as a stand up, but thought it might help me with my impressions, characters and comedy writing. Viv helped me to centre the stand-up routine on the voices. There was Lorraine Kelly, Kirsty Wark, Carole Smillie, The Queen, Oprah and some old movie stars including Audrey Hepburn, Celia Johnson and Grace Kelly. I also created a few unique characters – one I remember was a woman who ate nothing but sprouts and was obsessed with the Alexander Technique. I packed in my day job six months later and never looked back.

The overarching theme is unrequited love but there are many complex relationships within it filled with miscommunication, naivety, blind faith, longing, loneliness and the need for love and friendship. It is also the story of Scotland itself as represented in Mistress MacKenzie’s indomitable spirit, her struggle for survival in a windy climate and her love of a woollen knit. It is filled with myth, fairy tale, foreboding and ghosts.

She is sort of based on some nice old women I have met down the years. The happy ones who smile a lot, are filled with colourful stories of the past and grapple with the ‘modern ways’ whilst using archaic language. The idea of her being a radio ‘she-jay’ or ‘disc-jockess’ came from an interview I did for a presenter on a local radio station in Skye to promote a show I was doing at the Aros theatre. His studio was in the annex of his house overlooking a garden of cabbages and speckled hens. He was playing vinyl records, reading out updates from Teletext and speaking to his listeners as if they were children and knew absolutely nothing about life. He explained to them that I was a ‘comedienne’ which meant, incredulously, that I was ‘a lady who was funny’. He went on to say, “I know that might sound strange to you, up here it’s me and Archie who do the jokes…” I braced myself!

But his voice was so lyrical, his enthusiasm for his show so fervent, his face so kind and he seemed absolutely thrilled to have an actual human in his studio - so I couldn’t possibly take offence. Mistress Mac crawled into my head a few months later when I was putting together a two-minute voice-over as an introduction to a fuller character-based stage show I was doing for the Fringe. She was an appendage. I didn’t struggle to write her; she was just there one day. So I wrote down her words as they came into my head, and her voice was already there. So I recorded it, stuck it onto the beginning of the show and then forgot about her. In the feedback after the show, so many people mentioned her that I pretty much had to put her in the next show. She sort of burst into life through me; I really had no say in the matter. Which is in fact just like her.

Ha-ha! Well, I’ve been in two long-term relationships; a four-year one in my twenties involving me looking after his children whilst he toured the country playing bass in a country-rock band and getting drunk a lot. And then another lovely seven-year long one in my thirties leading to a three-year engagement, but not marriage. I am currently, happily, single. I’ve recently been out on the ‘dating’ scene, though (as the need for companionship even extends to comics) and it really is a scene. Also, the online dating phenomenon is so rich in material, if not love. Relationships are so central to our emotions therefore there is just so much invested in them. Consequently, when they go wrong, there is great heartache. And for every comedian, great heartache is always followed by great comedy. There are rich pickings in every text message, every date, every fling, every long-term relationship, every difference of opinion, every misunderstanding, and every break-up. We are all looking for love and happiness and most of us are failing. And those of us who have good relationships, still have to work hard at them. They are the strong people. Willie Nelson once said “Most of us end up with the wrong person and that’s what makes the juke-box spin”. Well, it also makes the comedy world go round. I cannot think of a better subject to write about. And, the fact that I have a lot of experience in that area has come in very handy.

Not really. I’ve always been good at voices and creating multiple characters, that is the reason I got into comedy in the first place after all. When I do stand up I act out conversations between two characters, so I’m used to quickly switching between the two. My first stand up ‘five spot’ had a conversation involving eight different voices. The challenge on radio, of course, is that the emphasis is placed solely on voice. The character cannot be defined by gesture, posture, facial contortionism (a skill I am so adept at it has scared off a few boyfriends) so, I made sure that each character had a very distinctive voice. At first my intention was to do all the male voices too, as I do them onstage. But for a radio audience, it made sense that we brought in a male actor. Happily, Colin McCredie accepted our invitation of guest star and his input really brought a new dynamic and texture to the show. Colin has such a great variety of voices in his repertoire and is naturally funny, so it all worked out just perfectly.

Yes, I did, I’m afraid. Thankfully, Madeleine Morningstar is not a great singer, so I found her quite easy to master! By the way, I’m available to host karaoke.

Far, far too many things. I feel a little bit like a Hindu Goddess at times – the ones with ten pairs of arms. I run a regular Vaudeville show in Edinburgh, which I also host. It’s been going a year now and is a really great night out. Everyone should come! I am also currently writing a brand new stand up show about failure called Murphy’s Law (What else!), and am in the process of creating a live stage show for Mistress MacKenzie and Friends featuring a host of new characters. Both shows will debut at The Glasgow Comedy Festival 2015.

There are another few projects I am involved in which I can’t say too much about, but I am currently writing a documentary for BBC Radio Scotland which will go out early next year; I will shortly be appearing in a new sitcom for CBBC so look out for that; I have also recently been cast as the lead character in a classic play which is planned for Edinburgh Fringe 2015. It’s a character role I have wanted to play for many years, so I am very excited about that as well.

So, yes, plenty going on. And, on top of that, I am also learning to sail. So, no time for a boyfriend really.