MUSE :: INTERVIEW with Fern Brady: " I like to create memorable bits that hopefully help people feel less alone or weird"
The Muse Letter No. 52
In this week’s Muse Letter Scottish comedian Fern Brady and I talk about how to start a comedy career, what career advise is best not to take and how coming out as bisexual onstage and being on the autism spectrum can look like. After this I recommend you to watch all of the online content that you can get your hands on from this incredibly funny comedian and be in the same kind of bliss I was in, when I first stumbled upon her comedy special “Power & Chaos” on the BBC iplayer.
In the beginning of one of your sets you talk about how a career in comedy is often very long, very exhausting. How did you keep your motivation through all the years and how does it feel to have finally arrived at a point where you have your own audience?
Early on there were a lot of people I started with who would stop and start comedy, stopping every time they had a bad gig. It puts you at an enormous disadvantage as stand up is like a muscle and same as with going to the gym, its so much harder to restart an exercise regime than to just keep trudging through it. So I made a rule to not stop doing comedy ever. I definitely went to extremes with this though and my agent had to tell me that it was safe to stop taking every little shit gig after a certain point. I kept my motivation by thinking of my enemies and also thinking how I’d thrown in the towel on a great graduate career in journalism to pursue this so I had to work at it single mindedly. It’s really beyond amazing having my own audience as it means I can do the type of comedy that I want to do rather than generic stuff that’ll please a group of stags and hens on a Saturday.
Do you remember your first gig? What made you start comedy in the first place?