Josie Long

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26 | February 19, 2015 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News

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THE HEADLINER: JOSIE LONG

“London’s Lena Dunham” tells Ella Walker about baring her secrets on stage and why she’s very proud to be an eternal optimist

“I honestly don’t know what I’d do without comedy in my life, I feel like I physically rely on it”

HOT TICKETS WHAT’S ON Josie Long: Cara Josephine, Cambridge Junction, Monday, WHAT’S ON HOT TICKETS February 23 at 8pm. WHAT’S Tickets £14 from HOT TICKETS ON (01223) 511511 / junction.co.uk WHAT’S ON HOT TICKETS

Editor: Ella Walker email: ella.walker@cambridgenews.co.uk For breaking entertainment news for the city, visit cambridge-news. co.uk/whatson Follow @CamWhatsOn on Twitter

Josie Long Y

OU can’t help but want to be mates with Josie Long. On stage the comedian fizzes with enthusiasm, her whispery voice sparky and bright, whether she’s spouting off on politics or, more recently, her personal life.

On the phone she’s just as open, witty and down to earth, and apologises with an audible grin for forgetting I was calling. “I just have to turn the telly off, sorry to be an idiot, it’s just the past few days I’ve done loads of interviews and then I was like cool I’ve finished at 2.30pm, woo!”

Just to note, she was watching Jeremy Kyle and doesn’t care whether you approve or not.

The London born 32-year-old has been performing comedy since she was 15 – taking a

brief hiatus to study English at Oxford University, as you do – but until recently has been known for the political bent of her shows.

Cara Josephine, coming to Cambridge Junction, is something of a departure, taking Josie’s baby niece as inspiration for the title and much of the content – there’s a wonderfully heart-warming but faintly gruesome skit on how Long loves her niece so much she wants to just squish her and eat her.

However, it all starts, she explains, with getting her heart broken in the summer of 2013. “It’s about looking at relationships and how I am in relationships and trying to move on from it, but it’s just also very silly and a show about love and my family and lots of personal things.”

She admits it was a challenge turning moments of her private life into joke-worthy material, particularly in comparison to directing her audience’s laugh at politics.

“When I write political stuff, even though it was a personal political journey, I felt quite strong and categorical about things so I could really easily be like: ‘This decision by these politicians was wrong, they’re idiots!’” she explains. “Whereas this show is so much more nuanced, like, what am I trying to say and why?”

“It makes me feel really vulnerable in a way that I’ve never really felt before on stage,” Long muses.

“You worry about what’s a level of appropriate sharing and I just don’t really know. Even when

Cambridge News | cambridge-news.co.uk | February 19, 2015 | 27

THE HEADLINER: JOSIE LONG

“I like to think I’d be able to say anything. I thought I’d never write anything about sex and then there’s an anecdote about sex in my show which blows my mind! I’m like, oh my god I can’t believe I’m saying this”

you’re not doing really personal stuff, people think they know you from having seen you on stage, so when you have genuinely shared – the show is quite open and honest, I really do talk about things that have happened – it’s funny because you think oh gosh, people really do know what’s going on with me and I don’t know them.

“But at the same time the rewards of it are amazing because it means that if people have been through a similar thing they really get it, you know? I really like performing it because it feels quite genuine and nice.”

She repeats with a laugh: “I promise you, it’s still a really silly comedy show.”

Talking of oversharing, is there anything she wouldn’t talk about on stage?

“I don’t know. I like to think I’d be able to say anything. I thought I’d never write anything about sex and then there’s an anecdote about sex in my show which blows my mind! I’m like, oh my god I can’t believe I’m saying this!”

Having seen a portion of the show at Latitude, I tell her I know what she’s talking about. You’ll have to see Cara Josephine yourself for all the hilariously graphic details, but it would be fair to say it involves periods.

“I partly wanted to do it on stage because all my life I’ve had people say ‘women comedians only talk about periods’ and I never had ever,” Long says indignantly. “It used to annoy me because I was like, no they don’t, because I never had, and then I was like, okay, how dare these people tell me what my experiences are allowed to be and what my writing is allowed to be?!

“So [with this story] I’m almost going ‘Well, you asked for it! You’re going to get it and it’s going to be the grossest one you’ve ever heard!’”

Despite her more exposing anecdotes (some of which will make you curl up in sympathy), Long doesn’t struggle too much with nervousness. “Now I honestly think I’ve been performing so long my adrenal gland is f***** and doesn’t produce adrenaline properly, so I’m a lot more chilled out now.

“I do get nervous but it manifests itself in weird ways like sometimes I’m yawning loads before a gig or my energy’s gone or I get really stressed out and grumpy and then I’m on stage and I’m like, oh, I was nervous!”

It’s impossible to imagine her being remotely grumpy, though. Permanently animated, words spilling merrily from her mouth, Long is forever being described as an ‘eternal optimist’ and is more than happy to admit that’s an accurate assessment.

“I think it is,” she says without the resigned sigh I’d expected. “I think even when I go through periods of feeling down, you just sort of are what you are, and I just can’t help but be sunny side up.”

“I’ll tell you what, I’ve come across this really great quote by Albert Camus, there’s a bit of it that’s like ‘I discovered in the depths of winter the invincible summer within me’ but it’s really long.

F***,” she laughs. “I’ve got it on my laptop.”

There’s a fumbling and the click of closing windows, then Josie’s back. “I don’t know why I’m telling you it. Okay: “My dear, in the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love / In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile / In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.”

She breaks out of her ‘I’m reading a quote’ voice to shout: “It’s so nice!” before continuing: “I realised, through it all, that / In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer / And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.”

“I think that’s beautiful, and I feel that that’s what people are like. In the small scale and in the big scale everyone is, no matter what happens, like ‘f*** it, it’ll be all right’.”

It’s a tactic she employed the day before we spoke when she was invited on Radio 4’s prestigious Woman’s Hour for the first time.

“With anything like that you just hope you haven’t done anything too badly that they never invite you again. I did Just A Minute and the first time I did it I was so nervous I think I just really didn’t do very well and then it took me years before I was ready to go back on it again. “[Radio 4] is like a mum or an auntie that you really don’t want to let down.”

28 | February 19, 2015 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News

THE HEADLINER: JOSIE LONG

Q&A

How do you deal with hecklers?

“I try to assess each heckle on a case-by-case basis, so sometimes people are really taking the piss and sometime people are just trying to join in and sometimes people think they’re trying to join in but actually they’re really drunk. I’m never too mean,

Josie’s no stranger to the station though, having presented Short Cuts, sharing short documentaries, inspired by her love of This American Life (which she describes as “the daddy of all podcasts”). The show, she says, has been “a really wonderful, lucky thing in my life”.

And her focus recently has become ever more skewed towards film, after working on two short movies with director Doug King in 2012. The duo are now hoping to make a full-length feature film this year – which Long wrote herself.

“My character is called Josie, but that might

I always try to be a bit light hearted with it. But if someone’s being really mean and disrupting a gig that might be when I’m like ‘you are an a******’, but I quite enjoy trying to befriend people in the crowd and trying to win them round by being silly.”

change.

“It’s a hapless version of myself, a very fictionalised version of myself, and then there’s Darren, who’s my best friend, and the film is about this woman who thinks she’s got her life all sorted: she lives in Glasgow, she’s got this boyfriend and she lives with her sister who moves away to Qatar; the bottom falls out of her world.

“The whole film is about belonging, really, and we’re really hoping to make it. It’s a sweet sad comedy – I hope it is anyway.”

It’s comedy, she explains, that will always

Q&A

What comedy acts and comedians are you loving right now?

“As a matter of fact I just did a gig at The New Wave, called The Invisible Dot and they put on different and alternative acts.

“I saw a sketch group called Daphne and I thought they were absolutely fantastic, and a sketch group called Beard who were these wonderful, odd clowns.

“I saw Nish Kumar, his solo show at the Soho Theatre last week, and absolutely loved it; Mae Martin a stand-up, she’s brilliant; Sara Pascoe is absolutely killing it at the moment I think (Josie says, putting on a silly critic’s voice) ‘she’s a woman in the prime of life, at the top of her game’.”

be the thing that lights up her brain the most.

Josie has been nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award three times (just give it to the girl already), worked with Robin Ince, Charlie Brooker, Andrew Collins and Jon Richardson, and appeared on all of the panel shows (don’t make me list them). It’s no wonder she’s frequently dubbed ‘London’s Lena Dunham’.

“I actually feel quite awkward about it,” she says, squirming slightly at the label. “I wish I was anywhere near as phenomenal or intelligent as that woman. I think she’s absolutely wonderful, I just feel awkward because I’m loads older than

her and done nothing like what she’s done, but at the same time it’s quite flattering.

“But she’s definitely losing out in the comparison stakes.”

Having taken up far too much of her Jeremy Kyle-watching time, I ask Josie a final question, one she finds trickiest to answer. Without comedy, what would she do?

“God knows, maybe I’d be a hermit and live in the middle of nowhere? I honestly don’t know what I’d do without comedy in my life, I feel like I physically rely on it. Apart from that, maybe. . . nah, there’s nothing!”