{"id":400249,"date":"2026-04-19T14:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T14:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/400249\/"},"modified":"2026-04-19T14:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T14:38:07","slug":"standup-and-author-susan-calman-comedy-is-an-industry-full-of-weirdos-i-found-my-people-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/400249\/","title":{"rendered":"Standup and author Susan Calman: \u2018Comedy is an industry full of weirdos \u2013 I found my people\u2019 | Family"},"content":{"rendered":"

Composite of headshots of S\u200bu\u200bsan Calman in \u200b1\u200b978 and 202\u200b6<\/a>\u200bS\u200bu\u200bsan Calman in \u200b1\u200b978 and 202\u200b6. Later photograph: \u200bS\u200bimon Webb\/The Guardian. Styling: Andie Redman. \u200bHair and makeup: Alice Theobald at Arlington Artists using GHD and Kevyn Aucoin. \u200bArchive\u200b photograph: \u200bcourtesy of Susan Calman<\/p>\n

Born in Glasgow in 1974, Susan Calman worked as a corporate lawyer before starting standup\u00a0comedy in 2006. She won a\u00a0Scottish Bafta in 2007 for a Channel\u00a04 sketch show, Blowout, and went on to become a regular on TV and radio panel shows. She hosted the podcast Mrs Brightside, co-hosts Carry On Up<\/a> and has published two books, Cheer\u00a0Up Love and Sunny Side Up: A\u00a0Story of Kindness and Joy. She lives in Glasgow with her wife, Lee, and takes her first show in 10 years, Tall Tales, across the UK from 11 September to 20\u00a0November.<\/p>\n

I look absolutely adorable, a little bit smug even. I\u2019m sporting a beautiful blond bowl cut, and the outfit is quintessential 1970s. When Dad went to London for work, Mum would join him and occasionally visit Harrods to buy me, my sister and my brother something nice, like this jumpsuit. It would have been expensive, so I was only allowed to wear it for special occasions. In fact, this was the only time I wore it. We got our money\u2019s worth in the end, though \u2013 I used this picture on the invitation for my 50th birthday party.<\/p>\n

I was the youngest of three and probably a bit naughty. A pain in the bum. I wasn\u2019t a clean kid \u2013 I\u00a0was always in the garden, a bit of a\u00a0tomboy\u00a0with scabs on my knees. I\u00a0was strong-minded, too. When I was little, we had a nativity at the local church and I was chosen to be Mary. It was a big deal to land that role, but I turned it down because I assumed it would involve kissing Joseph and I\u00a0didn\u2019t want to kiss a boy. Instead, I was relegated to Angel Gabriel. My parents were disappointed, but even from a young age I knew what I wanted and what I\u00a0didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The first time I experienced depression was in my teens. I\u00a0blame it\u00a0on isolation and loneliness. I\u2019m slightly strange and eccentric, and\u00a0when you go to a nice private school in Glasgow, they don\u2019t really like people who are different. I tried to\u00a0fit in and wore the same clothes as other girls, but I never truly related to\u00a0anyone my age \u2013 I didn\u2019t fancy Jason Donovan for starters. As well as being obsessed with Victoria Wood and Billy Connolly, my favourite thing to do was to sit with my granny watching Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich and Judy Garland movies. I would sooner hang out at the Glasgow film theatre than try to sneak into the local club.<\/p>\n

In the 80s and 90s in Glasgow, there\u00a0wasn\u2019t much information about\u00a0being gay. Now you can go on social media and see really positive examples of people who aren\u2019t straight, but that was not the case when I was growing up. I\u2019ve never doubted my sexuality \u2013 as far back as\u00a0I\u00a0can remember I knew I was gay \u2013 but I had to wait until I was 20 and my\u00a0grandma had died before I\u00a0came out. She did not like gay people and\u00a0she made that very clear. I got into\u00a0such a state about telling my parents, but they were absolutely super about it.<\/p>\n

In my teens I studied law, which\u00a0again\u00a0felt like a very normal world for\u00a0an abnormal person. I had none of\u00a0the requisite skills for the profession. The\u00a0only reason I went into\u00a0it was because back then you were\u00a0either a\u00a0doctor or a lawyer, and\u00a0I\u00a0was useless at science so that left\u00a0me one option.<\/p>\n

At first I thought I\u2019d be a trailblazing humanitarian lawyer working for the\u00a0United Nations. I believed I was going to change the world. Then reality hit \u2013 I\u00a0got a traineeship at a\u00a0corporate law firm and I became a corporate lawyer. Again, I didn\u2019t like it\u00a0and I didn\u2019t fit in. I would wear Tank\u00a0Girl boots into work as I had to walk a long way to get there, and one boss took me aside to tell me I\u00a0needed to stop dressing like a gardener.<\/p>\n

double quotation markI worked on death row cases at a maximum security prison. It was a shock to the system, but also the start of my world expanding<\/p>\n

I did have some positive experiences, though. While studying law, I went to North Carolina to work on death row cases at a maximum security prison. I was meeting prisoners who had committed murder, sometimes multiple times. It was a bit of a shock to the system, but meeting people from different backgrounds was also the start of my world expanding. Afterwards, I met up with a friend who was going to a massive gay resort in Provincetown. I slept on the floor of a house where there were 20 other women staying. Glasgow still had such a small gay scene, so it was life-changing to meet hundreds of women who were so comfortable about who they were. It was an extraordinary summer of extremes.<\/p>\n

I had always been going on about wanting to do standup, and eventually my friends got fed up with me and said, \u201cJust try it.\u201d A comedy club in Glasgow did something called Red Raw and I phoned them up and asked for a spot. I had never even been to a\u00a0comedy club before. The compere introduced me to the stage as \u201cSarah\u00a0Calamari\u201d and I did an awful five minutes. I was so nervous that afterwards I was sick on myself in the\u00a0toilet. In spite of that experience, I\u00a0was\u00a0hooked. Comedy<\/a> is an industry full of weirdos \u2013 people who aren\u2019t quite right in some way. Finally, I\u00a0found my people.<\/p>\n

It took me six years until I started getting good at standup. At the beginning I\u00a0was caught up in what I\u00a0thought would lead to success, but it wasn\u2019t clicking. In 2008 I did a show that was terrible. Everyone hated it, and I did, too. I went away for three years and decided to work on a show full of long, rambling stories \u2013 and that\u2019s when my comedy fell into place. I love Sarah Millican and Gary Delaney \u2013 all of these people who write proper jokes \u2013 but I can\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n

There are two main lessons I have learned in my career. The first is to have the self-assuredness to say no. The second is to come off Twitter and Facebook. I don\u2019t need live feedback of\u00a0how my Edinburgh run is going, thank you. Now I live a very nice life where people can be burbling away about me all they want and I just don\u2019t pay any attention to it. It can still happen in real life \u2013 occasionally I\u2019ll get a \u201cI think that\u2019s Susan Calman\u201d when I\u2019m out and about, but I don\u2019t mind. I do have to warn my loved ones\u00a0that people might be listening in\u00a0to our conversations, but mostly, I\u00a0don\u2019t tend to go out very much.<\/p>\n

The last time I toured, I was 41. I\u2019m\u00a051 now and the brain fog is awful. I\u00a0never write down any of my shows, so the thought of remembering two hours of material is daunting. Thankfully I am on as much HRT as\u00a0the doctors will give me. I have stopped drinking alcohol. I go to the gym five days a week. I\u2019ve lost four stone. I have done everything I can to\u00a0stay focused.<\/p>\n

Perimenopause aside, I am the happiest I have ever been. I lived most of my life as a slightly odd woman, not being in the right place at the right time. I am now full of confidence and believe that everything falls into place as you get older. My teens, 20s and 30s were miserable; life got better in my 40s. But 50s? Hello, here we go! It\u2019s as if I have finally kicked down the door and realised that I\u2019m exactly where I\u2019m\u00a0supposed to be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Composite of headshots of S\u200bu\u200bsan Calman in \u200b1\u200b978 and 202\u200b6\u200bS\u200bu\u200bsan Calman in \u200b1\u200b978 and 202\u200b6. Later photograph: \u200bS\u200bimon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-400249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}