{"id":653451,"date":"2026-06-23T05:35:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T05:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/653451\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T05:35:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T05:35:17","slug":"hannah-byczkowski-the-traitors-helped-me-become-a-better-comedian-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/653451\/","title":{"rendered":"Hannah Byczkowski: \u2018The Traitors helped me become a better comedian\u2019 | Stage"},"content":{"rendered":"

How did you go from a career in palliative care to standup comedy?
I had a bit of a midlife crisis. I was being with people while they were dying, and I kind of lost all sensitivity for it. That\u2019s when I realised that I\u2019d come to the end of that career. I always wanted to do something creative, but wasn\u2019t really sure how. I tried writing a book, then standup \u2013 and realised that\u2019s what I wanted to do.<\/p>\n

The show discusses craft projects with loved ones\u2019 ashes \u2026
People are doing some really weird stuff with them. People are getting ashes tattooed into them and people eat them, put them in a chilli.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s been one of your all-time favourite gigs?
I\u2019ve supported some really great comedians on tour, like Deirdre O\u2019Kane<\/a>. But I think my favourite gig was a work-in-progress show I did in Leek a few years ago. You start from the bottom and when you get to a point when you\u2019re in a full room, it\u2019s a really nice thing. Leek is right by my home town of Stoke so it felt like I was going home and it was such a gorgeous gig.<\/p>\n

You were a winner on The Traitors<\/a> in 2022. What\u2019s the question that you\u2019re asked most often about it?
Usually fans ask if me and Wilf are still friends, which we absolutely are. Filming The Traitors was one of the most traumatic experiences I\u2019ve had \u2013 in a fun way. You never saw it on the show but in between filming we laughed loads. We all got on so well we would absolutely howl with laughter. Then the next thing you know we were sat around a table accusing people of murder. If you know the comedy circuit at all, it\u2019s pretty much the same as The Traitors.<\/p>\n

Has being known for The Traitors ever actively worked against you on stage?
I haven\u2019t actually ever been heckled about it. So if anybody wants to, please do. I don\u2019t think people really know it\u2019s me, or they don\u2019t put the two together. I don\u2019t think it helped me in comedy at all because bookers and other comedians were just like, \u201cOh, you went on TV and you think you can do gigs, huh?\u201d But I\u2019d started comedy and gone full-time just before The Traitors. Everybody was kind of like: \u201cYou\u2019ve got to earn your stripes.\u201d So it didn\u2019t help me in terms of getting better or nicer gigs, but I think it kind of helped me become a better comedian.<\/p>\n

Can you recall a gig so bad that it\u2019s now funny?
The worst gig I ever had was in Skegness. There was about 20 people just staring at me the whole time. I was so bad, and my watch timer hadn\u2019t started so I didn\u2019t know how long I\u2019d done. I did my normal 20 but in 13 minutes. By the time I came off, the MC wasn\u2019t even back at the side of the stage yet. Horrific.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the best advice you\u2019ve ever been given?
That nobody else cares. No matter what it is in life, nobody cares. If you\u2019re at the beach and you don\u2019t like the way you look, or if you said something or have done something \u2026 nobody cares. Everyone cares about themselves more than they care about you.<\/p>\n

Do you have any preshow rituals?
I try not to think about my set too much because I can get in my own head about it. I\u2019ll usually just go and have a cigarette.<\/p>\n

Who is your comedy hero and why?
People like Alan Carr and Daisy May Cooper, just because they\u2019re inherently funny. I don\u2019t really care about a joke\u2019s structure or anything like that \u2026 I just want them to be funny.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s a joke you\u2019re convinced is brilliant, but just doesn\u2019t land with audiences?
I tried a bit recently where I confused the abbreviation for cocktail, which is cocky-T, and the bird cockatoo. When I wrote that, I thought: there\u2019s no way that this is going to fail. I\u2019ve yet to meet an audience that laughs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How did you go from a career in palliative care to standup comedy?I had a bit of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-653451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}