Judi Love was 17 when she was kidnapped, though she adds a couple of years on when reliving it on stage. It was only the anecdote\u2019s second to-audience outing when I watched her recite it, peppered with punchlines, at a late-October work-in-progress gig. The bones of her new show \u2013 All About the Love, embarking on a 23-date tour next year \u2013 are very much still evolving, but this Wednesday night in Bedford is a sell out, such is the pull of Love\u2019s telly star power.<\/p>\n
She starts by twerking her way into the spotlight, before riffing on her career as a social worker and trading \u201cchicken and chips for champagne and ceviche\u201d. Interspersed are opening bouts of sharp crowd work \u2013 Love at her free-wheeling best. Next, she\u2019s at college, studying IT, but mostly \u201cgoing into the games room looking for boys\u201d. It\u2019s here that Love meets this unnamed lad.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was damn crazy,\u201d Love tells me over Zoom a few days later. She\u2019s stuck at home in south-west London, waiting for a delivery. \u201cWe didn\u2019t do red flags then. He just had some issues, but I wanted to nurture, and didn\u2019t recognise the warnings. At that age, you don\u2019t know yourself, or what a good relationship is.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she tells it, the first date didn\u2019t sound promising: \u201cHe came to my mum\u2019s house, stripped naked and cried.\u201d Still, round two nonetheless followed (he was six foot four! And had a six pack!), this time at his place. He made them spag bol and then, from nowhere, forced her upstairs and into the shower, holding her hostage for the best part of 48 hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou try to convince yourself it isn\u2019t happening.\u201d She shakes her head in retrospective disbelief. \u201cAnd then: oh, it actually is.\u201d Momentarily, she contemplated the worst. \u201cI decided not to go down that rabbit hole. That wasn\u2019t going to be my legacy. Get out alive; I\u2019ll survive anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Today, again, she recounts it all, and her lucky escape, with a playful buoyancy. It\u2019s this everything-is-an-anecdote attitude that defines Love\u2019s appeal as both presenter and comedian; her dexterity when switching between serious sincerity and infectious laughs. \u201cWhat I\u2019ve learned now I\u2019m a 45-year-old woman,\u201d she says, \u201cis that traumas I\u2019ve gone through remain in my system. It\u2019s laughter that\u2019s helped me. Bringing the funny out of it all might allow someone else to also laugh, to lose that shame, to forgive themselves and to heal.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is a mantra that Love intends to shape her new show around, as and when she finds time to write it. Life has been hectic these past few years. \u201cLet me tell you, babe,\u201d she says, \u201cI\u2019m surprised I\u2019ve got a hairline left at this point. I should be slimmer, because of this up and down, up and down? I\u2019m doing jobs like I\u2019m on the stepper at the gym!\u201d There\u2019s the daytime chatshow Loose Women (she\u2019s a regular), where she makes drawing laughs from unscripted, off-the-cuff storytelling seem impossibly easy, and at times unintentional. It\u2019s all part of her charm.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
She\u2019s on a steady stream of TV panel shows, and has had a script commissioned. Recent turns on Amazon hit Last One Laughing UK and Taskmaster saw Love in her element. At the intersection between anarchic standup and more structured TV work, Love is able to showcase her improv chops, but with rules to poke fun at, other comics to bounce off, and authority to rub up against. She\u2019s also taking on acting work: an upcoming Channel 4 comedy, Schooled, and she just finished a stint on set filming Girl Group, a Rebel Wilson film slated for a 2026 release.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also been a relentless period personally \u2013 fertile ground, she concedes, for material. \u201cFriends losing loved ones, my family, too. I\u2019ve two children, aged 20 and 16, and let me tell you something.\u201d She shakes her head, lifting the thick rim of her glasses. \u201cWell, shit, I\u2019ve been a single parent for like, 20 years, and it\u2019s exhausting. I\u2019m fucking tired. Money and success doesn\u2019t take away the emotion of my kids not growing up with their dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also her fitness kick, \u201cnot necessarily to lose weight, but get healthy\u201d. She\u2019s in therapy now, with \u201cthe mental space and finances to afford it. Oh, OK, that\u2019s what that pattern is. And I\u2019m 45, perimenopause \u2026 that bitch is trying to climb her way out. I\u2019m like: not today! I can\u2019t be sweating on stage more than I already am.\u201d<\/p>\n
I say it how it is, but in a very TV, PC way. We haven\u2019t got time for Ofcom to be coming round every day<\/p>\n
It\u2019s almost surprising, I suggest, that Love has booked such a hefty solo tour \u2013 potentially exposing, definitely exhausting \u2013 with so many other lucrative opportunities dangling to which she\u2019s so well suited. She suffers severe stage fright, and while her first tour in 2023 relied on \u201cmaterial slowly worked on over years after coming into comedy\u201d, this time she\u2019s starting from scratch.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about authenticity,\u201d she says. \u201cI sometimes speak patois on TV, or like I\u2019ve just come off the road in south London. I\u2019ll speak about being a single mum and hard times, dealing with racism and sexism and misogynoir.\u201d However, lunchtime broadcasts of Loose Women come with certain restrictions. \u201cI say it how it is, but in a very TV, PC way. We haven\u2019t got time for Ofcom to be coming every day. It\u2019s a filtered version.\u201d She does spend a significant chunk of her stage time in Bedford recounting sexual exploits and contemplating the allure of \u201cbecoming a massive hoe\u201d in her mid-40s.<\/p>\n
More than that, a full standup set offers Love the space to go deeper. \u201cYou can be selfish and take up the time,\u201d she says, \u201cOn TV, you\u2019ve got two minutes, with someone in your ear on the next subject. Up there, I can explain, whether about childhood or the last relationship I had. As nervous as I am, and as sick as I feel before, the moment I step on that stage it feels like: this is me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Love grew up in east London, the youngest of five. \u201cI was the class clown at school,\u201d she says, \u201cbut shy and nervous. I was dyslexic and didn\u2019t know. I would look at words and think: I don\u2019t understand. Anything creative, however, I did great.\u201d She was raised by \u201cwomen who came over in the Windrush era: nurses, social workers, cleaners or social carers. Those were the jobs they were allowed to have when they came \u2026 For me, that always seemed the natural thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Becoming a young carer herself also steered her in that direction. \u201cI was exposed to social services from nine years old. My mum wasn\u2019t well, and my next sister was only 19.\u201d The rest of the siblings and extended family weren\u2019t around, \u201cso we had support from social care. Mum was in hospital for months.\u201d She had an aneurism, five strokes, and was later diagnosed with dementia. \u201cA social worker came round and looked at what we needed. I learned about these people out there who could help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Talk to the hand \u2026 Judi Love. Photograph: Suki Dhanda\/The Guardian; Hair: Edmund Bossman; makeup: Sam Lascelle using S\u2019able Labs Skincare & Lisa Eldridge Beauty; stylist: Adama Paul; dress: River Island.<\/p>\n
Love worked in social care for years: young offenders, kids in the care system, mental health services. \u201cI could empathise,\u201d she says, \u201chaving a complex family with complex lives myself. There\u2019s a lack of funding, and a high proportion of Black and working-class women in there. Seeing women who look like me, but just had a different path. It was a constant reminder of how easy it is for things to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2009, Love\u2019s mum died; later that year her second child was born. \u201cIt was around then that I got bad depression,\u201d she says. \u201cI was lost. I\u2019d grown up as \u2018Judi with the sick mum\u2019, but then she died. Who was I now?\u201d On the brink of breaking down, \u201cI said to my family: please look after the kids, I need to take a break.\u201d An old colleague had relocated to Barbados. \u201cI didn\u2019t even know her that well, but I called her, at my most vulnerable, and told her I needed to get away but couldn\u2019t afford \u2026 I didn\u2019t even finish the sentence. Come, she said.\u201d Love wraps her arms around herself. \u201cI stepped off that plane, and was shown so much love and empathy.\u201d Her voice breaks. \u201cI came back thinking: right, I\u2019m going to do something. People had always said to me: you\u2019re empathetic, and you\u2019re funny. I started comedy around 2011, then a few years later [2014], my social work master\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a banging at the front door. \u201cSorry babes,\u201d Love calls out, springing up, \u201cthat\u2019s my delivery.\u201d Off-camera, she jokes (and flirts) with two burly blokes. \u201cIt\u2019s a velvet sofa to go in my outhouse,\u201d Love says, leaning briefly into view. \u201cIt\u2019s blue, but I wanted orange. The kids weren\u2019t having it. Booboo, I said to them, we\u2019ve got an outhouse. Easy on your damn selves.\u201d Eventually, Love returns, having slipped them a tenner. Then the door goes, again. \u201cYes babe, we can take a selfie.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Love has funny bones, she took the scenic route into entertainment. Open mics first, before making a name for herself on the \u201curban circuit\u201d. It wasn\u2019t her comfort zone, initially, but something shifted on stage. \u201cIt felt like I found my power: I\u2019m a big girl, the boss, and you love it; I\u2019m a beautiful Black woman and I\u2019ll tell you how it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, she was working full-time at Waltham Forest council in north-east London. \u201cWe\u2019d moved to south London \u2013 there\u2019d been a lot of black mould in my previous council property.\u201d It made for a two-hour commute, impossible to juggle with childcare and comedy. \u201cI was getting tiny offers \u2013 bits of filming, small roles on pilots \u2013 all clashing with work.\u201d In 2019, she quit her job, taking on cleaning work and zero-hours care roles to supplement her comedy income. \u201cIt was very scary, but I thought: girl, please, you\u2019ve been broke before.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m constantly confused for another Black woman. It doesn\u2019t matter how rich or successful I am: bitch, you\u2019re Alison Hammond <\/p>\n
Life is unrecognisable now, hanging out with Dave Chappelle, Talib Kweli, Kevin Hart and Chris Rock. A Soho House dinner \u201cwith the director of The Greatest Showman on one side, and James \u2026 Corbyn? Corden! I was talking to him about his whole mess, because you know \u2026\u201d Home now is a fancy corner of the London suburbs. \u201cMy daughter will always say,\u201d Love mimics a teenage voice, \u201c\u2018Yeah, I remember the days, yeah.\u2019 Girl, what do you remember? My son don\u2019t remember shit. He thinks we always lived this good life.\u201d She\u2019s pleased about that: \u201cEven then we were rich in love. We might have only had a couple of three-for-a-pound packets of noodles, but we filled our time with joy, because we had less.\u201d<\/p>\n