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Around the world with 8 hot lesbian comics

Sometimes there’s so much great comedy I don’t know what to do with myself, and that’s just counting the extraordinary comics in my stateside backyard. And then I’ll happen upon international comedians, like Jen Brister, Susan Calman and Urzila Carlson, and remember that it’s probably about time to get my passport renewed. Never have I found a group of comics harder to track down, then again, never have I been waging communication wars against multiple oceans, time zones and comedy festival schedules. Whether performing on the festival circuit, creating podcasts, headlining shows or appearing on national TV, these women are some of the hardest working comics I’ve ever had the pleasure of creeping on the interwebs. Join me, won’t you? Since stepping on stage at 16, Sabrina Jalees has become one of the most recognizable faces in the Canadian media. She’s crossed over into acting, hosts a Canadian reality series, as well as a national radio show (CBC’s Laugh Out Loud) and is best known as a fixture of the most popular show on Canada’s version of MTV (Much Music’s Video On Trial). She broke Mike Myers‘ record as the youngest improviser ever hired by Second City and, most recently, moved to the U.S.

Jalees is very open about being as she said, “Who you are without making it all you are. My racial diversity-half-Pakistani, half-Swiss-and sexual diversity are big parts of my identity and I make a point of not shying away from either. I was flying to LA last week and my plane partner was this very conservative Indian lady. We got to know each other and she told me, ‘You know you’re the first gay I’ve really met.’ It’s amazing.”

“I had an impossible time taking the leap and coming out onstage,” she said. “It took me years to realize that avoiding this big important truth onstage was leaving me completely blocked creatively. Once I accepted that if I was gonna be honest onstage, I was gonna be real about my sexuality, I had a resurgence. Jokes came easier, not just the ones about sexuality, and my act saw a huge growth spurt. Regardless of what makes you unique, being open and proud of the things that make you different transforms that once ’embarrassing’ thing into an empowering thing.”

Did I mention Sabrina is also a motivational speaker? No joke!

You can catch Sabrina on the next season of NBC’s Last Comic Standing and her Just For Laughs Gala hosted by Eddie Izzard should be airing this spring (Comedy Network in Canada and Comedy Central in the U.S.) She’s currently working on a new podcast called My Sexy Podcast. “I think the film Ace Ventura had something to do with it,” Mae said in regards to her becoming a comedian. “I became obsessed with Jim Carey and begged my family to take me to a comedy club in Toronto called Yuk Yuk’s when I was 11. They eventually agreed. I sat in the front row and one of the comics got me up on stage and made me sit on his lap and be a ventriloquist dummy-he thought I was a little boy (I had a bowl cut and was wearing a suede vest and corduroy pants) and he made me say filthy things about Pamela Anderson. At the end of his set I said, bluntly, ‘I’m a girl’ and got a huge laugh. After that I was hooked.”

Currently based in the UK, and starting her own comedy career at 13, Mae was the youngest ever nominee for the prestigious Tim Sims Encouragement Fund Award and, this year, she won Best International Performer at the Brighton Fringe and received stellar reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

“There are lots of great queer female comics in London,” she said. “We don’t cross paths that often because people are reluctant to put us on the same bill! As if people might be confused and unable to tell us apart: ‘This girl was just on in the first half, why have they put her on again?’ But I do feel like I’ve always been surrounded by tons of inspiring, talented female comics on the live circuit. There are thousands of us knocking around. What REALLY needs to change is the number of female or female-friendly TV commissioners. There is a massive shortage of ladies being given screen time.”

I’ll be the first to say, give this girl a show. Mae is getting excited about this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival and gearing up to record her first comedy album. “My nasal, muppet-like voice will be on BBC Radio 4 a bit this spring, as well.” South African born Urzila Carlson moved to New Zealand and started doing comedy in the late 2000s. Since then, she has received awards as the Best Newcomer and the Best Female Comedian at the NZ Comedy Guild Awards and in 2013 she won People’s Choice Awards at the NZ International Comedy Festival. Seems she found her calling, considering comedy wasn’t something she ever considered as a child.

“I didn’t really aspire to be a comic,” Urzila said. “Comedy happened to me, I didn’t happen to it. I started doing comedy on a dare and I was hooked. Thankfully people kept booking me for gigs. Now it has a life of its own and I can’t imagine my life without it.”

As a quick-witted storyteller, Urzila has a commanding stage presence and isn’t one to shy away from her personal life on stage. “I’ve never done comedy in South Africa but I’m sure it would be an open and accepting environment, that’s how it is in New Zealand it’s not an issue ever.” I think I’m the same on and off stage but my friends and fiancĂ© say I’m a little different.” It’s not always so easy to be yourself, but Urzila brazenly keeps herself open, no matter where she performs.

“I was in a small town New Zealand in Katikati and I’m always a little nervous about doing gay material just in case of trouble, but that day I thought oh well take it small town NZ and it went well and afterwards an old lady called Mavis came up to me, she was in her 80s and she gave me a hug and said we love you we don’t care about your sexuality. It was great, I was putting the stress on myself meanwhile they had no problem all along.”

Having just finished performing at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Urzila will tackle the NZ festival and then head back to do the Sydney and Perth comedy festivals. “So it’s a busy few months,” she said. “I think the next time I have time off is in July and I’m planning a wedding in the meantime too.” Getting a straight answer out of Jen provides it’s own set of challenges and yes that pun was very much intended. When asked about the comedy climate for queer women in the UK, Jen said, “I think it’s about 27 degrees and fairly humid, which is about average for comedy at this time of year.” It’s that kind of sarcasm that makes Jen one of the most genuinely hilarious women on the list. In her own words, “My persona is an exaggerated version of myself that allows me to have an extreme response to things that happen in my life or anything I don’t like. Which at the moment, appears to be most things.”

Since getting her start in comedy, she’s taken a number of shows, including Me My Mum & I, Jen Brister is British(ish) and Now & Then to the Edinburgh Festival, the Adelaide and Melbourne Comedy Festivals and the Adelaide Fringe. As a festival a veteran, Jen has impeccable insights in women in comedy.

“I honestly don’t think women are under represented, particularly anyone that wants to work live,” she said. “The fact is that fewer women do stand up comedy so therefore fewer of us break through. As for queer women, I think proportionately there are quite a few of us making a name for ourselves. There is always a lot of emphasis on what women ‘aren’t doing’ rather than celebrating what we have achieved. I could reel off a dozen names of successful, funny stand up comedians who are all women. As a stand up comedian it doesn’t matter if you’re black, queer, trans, disabled or a woman as long as you’re funny. If you can make people laugh any prejudices that that person may have will disappear the moment an unexpected guffaw leaves their mouth.”

What’s next for Jen? “I’m working on a hit sitcom for HBO right now-haha! I wish.” She just finished performing her new show, Wishful Thinking, at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. She’ll be taking it to the Edinburgh Festival in August. Wanting to be a comedian at a young age, Susan didn’t think having such a career was possible. “I suspect if I’d told my parents I was going to be a comedian they would have fainted,” she said, “so I left school and went to University to study law. It was only in my mid 30s that I decided to resign from my job and give comedy a go.” She has since reached the semi-finals of the BBC New Comedy Awards and won numerous awards, including Best New Scottish Comedian at the Real Radio Scottish Variety Awards, but she counts her greatest achievements as what she’s been afforded to create.

“I was given my first Radio 4 series called Susan Calman is Convicted. Nothing I have done before or since has been so enjoyable. I was given complete freedom by the station to write about anything I wanted to. The first series included my experiences of working on Death Row and the fact that I have depression.” The second installment started on April 2.

Susan is one of the brightest comedy voices to come out of Scotland. “In general there are more women in comedy these days,” she said. “The main attitude that needs to change amongst producers and bookers is that one woman represents all women. There is a movement to ensure that there is at least one woman on a panel show in the UK. Personally I dislike the requirement for quota systems in general, and specifically in relation to comedy. I’d like to be booked for a show because I’m good at what I do rather than because they need someone to fill a seat. “

Susan will be at the Edinburgh Fringe, will present Don’t Drop The Baton, a BBC comedy broadcast during the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in July and August, and STV quiz show The Lie. Her stand-up tour, Lady Like, will tour the UK and Ireland in Autumn 2014. Bethany Black describes herself as “a comedy geek from a young age.” “In the UK in the late ’70s we had a comedy revolution, from the old school ‘working men’s club’ comedy that had been popular in the 1970’s with fat northern men with frilly shirts telling racist, sexist and homophobic jokes we had the birth of alternative comedy,” Bethany said. “It was really influential so growing up comedy was all around me.”

Which explains Bethany’s dark comedy tendencies. “When I started doing stand-up I think my biggest influence was Richard Pryor and my friend the excellent comedian Michael J Dolan who gave me the best piece of advice: ‘Find the thing you normally would be ashamed to tell your closest friend and talk about that, that’s where the art lives.'”

In regards to being a “confessional” comic, Bethany said, “I’ve just got one of those lives. From my experience, talking about being trans, people still have a way to go in terms of understanding trans issues by and large they’re not going, ‘You’re an abomination against God and I want to vomit in your crotch!’ So, y’know, progress. Also if you look at the UK’s most successful female comedians at the moment, the queer women are actually the majority with several gay women being considered national treasures. “

As one of those national treasures, Bethany is most proud of her impact with her fans. “I think my two proudest moments in comedy were getting emails from people who saw my two Edinburgh Fringe Shows. I could retire happy after those.”

As for what’s next for Bethany? Writing. “I’m in the process of writing a sitcom with my girlfriend loosely based on how we met, because, let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to watch a sitcom about a Swedish nurse who ends up with a Goth transsexual?” Zoe Lyons has been working the comedy circuit since 2003. Before that, little known fact, she appeared on the television show Survivor in its first season. But that’s for another day. After creating a huge comedy buzz winning the Funny Women Awards in 2004, her debut solo show, Fight or Flight, was nominated for the best newcomer award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She was also featured in The Independent’s tenth annual Pink List”for 2009, detailing the 101 most influential lesbian and gay people in Britain.

Describing herself as “a clown,” Lyons’ comedy is physical, boisterous and wildly charismatic. “I lark about and I am overly physical on stage,” she said. “It is a kind of over exaggerated version of myself. My comedy falls into the observational category.”

As one of the most energetic comedians coming out of the UK, her modesty is when it comes to her craft. “I spend my professional life as a stand up on the UK circuit. I run a monthly night in Brighton that gets a loyal gay following but other than that I am not really focused on the queer scene as such. The thing is the circuit has for a long time been heavily populated with straight white (largely middleclass) guys. Lots of groups are underrepresented in comedy. If you stick at it and you are any good your gender or sexuality should in no way hold you back. There are definitely more female comics coming through now than when I first started over ten years ago.”

Next up, Zoe will be taking a show to the Udderbelly on the Southbank in June and then going back to Edinburgh for the festival again in August. “Who knows?” she said. “It might be the last Edinburgh Festival of a United Britain.” “I have always loved comedy,” Suzi Ruffell proclaims. “I remember watching Victoria Wood doing the ‘Ballad of Freda and Barry’ on the TV when I was younger and whilst I didn’t understand all the innuendoes and subtle jokes, I still thought it was the best thing I had ever seen. French and Saunders were a massive influence as well. Also watching Live from The Comedy Store with my dad, I can’t even remember the comedians on it but I remember thinking, that’s so clever. So many people laughing at the same thought, what a brilliant job! If I am having a bad day I remind myself of that!”

As an optimistic observational storyteller, Suzi considers herself “too honest,’ but we as comedy fans know there is no such thing! Nor can there ever be too many female comics. “There are more women on the comedy circuit than ever before,” she said. “I think its constantly growing and its an exciting time to be a female comic. I don’t think the audience really cares about your sexuality, you just have to be funny.”

As for what’s next, Suzi said, “I am currently writing my new show Social Chameleon which will be at the Edinburgh Festival for the whole of August. I’m on the road at the moment supporting Josh Widdicombe.” She’ll also perform on Live From The Comedy Store later in the year.

“I would love to do more radio and telly and sitcom stuff but who knows,” she said. “The great thing in this job is you never know what’s round the corner!”

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