Well that made me laugh

DD thought we could both do with a laugh, so he took me to see a comedian called Sara Pascoe over the weekend as an early Christmas present.

Like me, Sara is an overthinker, so he thought I’d relate.

She was hilarious.

I laughed slightly more at Kitty Flanagan – we’re becoming quite the devotees of female comedians – but I still had a lot of fun.

Much of the show was based around Sara breaking up with her boyfriend of four years, fellow comedian John Robins. Pascoe was pretty open about many of the emotional and physical aspects of their relationship, which must be rather confronting for him. Although apparently his latest routine is all about how devastated he was by the break up. He paints himself as a neurotic, socially maladroit manchild and even announces at one point that “I would leave me too”. Ouch)

Anyways, after spending a tear-stained last Christmas together, Sara went to a yoga retreat in Costa Rica … and was surprised to discover Costa Rica is nowhere near Costa Del Sol or anywhere else on the Spanish Riviera, but was in fact in South America.

The yoga retreat didn’t do the trick, so Sara headed to a sex shop and treated herself the most expensive vibrator she could find … at which point I wondered WHAT ON EARTH THE COUPLE IN THE AUDIENCE WERE THINKING WHO BROUGHT THEIR 12-YEAR-OLD SON ALONG.

Lordy, do your research people!

Anyways, the vibrator riff was very funny, especially since the reason it was so expensive was that it had 15 settings – when she noted that all a woman needs is one really good setting – and was wi-fi enabled.

I’ll let you ponder why a vibrator would be wi-fi enabled.

I felt Sara was a bit of a kindred spirit – erm, not because she bought an expensive, wi-fi enabled vibrator – with all her oversharing and anxiety and attitude to equality.

At one point during the show she noted that the TV show ‘First Dates’ gets to her because the men are always expected to pay for dinner. Sara jokes that the reason men used to pay for women’s dinners was that “if you didn’t feed it, it would die” as women weren’t supposed to have careers and earn money and stuff – that was a man’s job. So why, now that women do earn money and have careers, are men still expected to pick up the tab? Apparently it’s polite or good manners or something.

I think it’s “equality” with a few too many sub-clauses.

She’s also with me on how boring it is to watch live theatre, which had me in stitches as one of the reasons my husband left me is that he loooooooooooooves it and was forced to find other women to see it with him. As I type those words I’m wondering whether that should amuse me …

People occasionally suggest I become a comedian, as I tend to mine my crazy life for laughs in social settings – I love making people laugh – but there is no way I could get up on stage and potentially falling flat in front of a room full of people. So I have huge respect for anyone who is brave enough to do it.

The line from the show DD kept quoting at me all weekend was about how you only reveal a few of your flaws and foibles in the first few months and then wait until the other person falls in love with you before exposing the rest.

“Oh nooooo, it’s too laaaate now, I love youuuuu …” she jokes about being stuck with whatever horrifying things you discover about the other person.

Sara’s show was the perfect antidote to the emotional moment that was the youngest walk inside the primary school gates for the last time (I cried as I watched that blonde ponytail swish off into the playground) and then as she walked out through the guard of honour of younger kids and into a new life as a high schooler.

Groups of graduating girls were sobbing everywhere, but the youngest had a radiant, happy smile plastered on her face.

God bless her.

I can’t believe it’s over.

Far out that went fast.

Here’s a clip of Sara Pascoe in action: