成人快手

In her 成人快手 Radio 4 podcast Young Again, journalist and broadcaster Kirsty Young asks fascinating people what advice they would like to give their younger self.

Sara Pascoe is a woman of many skills. She became famous as a stand-up, but she’s also a presenter, actor, screenwriter and author. And she’s an open book. In a frank and funny conversation, Sara tells Kirsty about her mistakes, her passions, and the big decisions she doesn’t regret. Here are seven things we learned.

This interview contains discussion of abortion.

“I always think I should have limits,” says Sara, when asked if there’s anything she doesn’t feel comfortable talking about. “But actually, it’s a personality thing. I’m an over-sharer. I like over-sharing. It doesn’t ever feel exposing. It feels like showing off and it feels like connection when I do stand-up.”

She used to worry about her most embarrassing stories being found out, but then decided there was power in talking about them on stage. “If I think it’s off limits or really embarrassing, that’s where the interesting stuff is.”

2. Her parents had an unusual relationship

Sara was born when her mum was 20 and her dad 24. “They met in an unusual way, so I wouldn’t say it was a very secure relationship,” she says. “My dad had been in a pop band [The Flintocks] and my mum had been a fan of that band as a 14 year old… My dad was very young and unhappy. He didn’t know what he wanted to do but he knew he didn’t want to be famous. They got pregnant, not on purpose. Several times.” Sara has two sisters.

“Don’t drink before going on [stage],” would be Sara’s advice to her younger self. She began performing stand-up in her mid-20s – her first gig was to a room of 12 people – and would drink alcohol to try to boost her confidence.

I was looking at my son the other day, thinking, 'How were you in a freezer?'

“I was searching for that moment where the first drink hits and you just get that little burst. I was trying to escape nerves. My advice to myself would be, ‘The nerves are good for you.’ Trying to numb that feeling was the wrong direction.” She decided not to drink at all while performing.

“It felt like starting stand-up all over again,” she says. “Really feeling the nerves and connecting to what I was saying… I don’t even take water on with me now… I became a much better comic.”

4. She has no regrets about getting an abortion

Sara had an abortion on her 17th birthday. “I don’t regret having an abortion,” she says. “And I think probably one of the saddest things is someone who has a different experience, because it wasn’t the right decision [for them].”

Later in life, she had challenges trying to conceive, but it didn’t change her feelings. “Even if that [terminated pregnancy] was my chance to have a baby, then that’s the narrative,” she says. “I couldn’t have had one. I didn’t want one then… Because my mum had me so young, it wasn’t like I hadn’t considered being a young parent. I absolutely knew I didn’t want to be one. My mum didn’t get a life because she had children so young and had to financially support us… I had my son at 40, which is old for a mum, but I’d had my mum’s whole entire life again – 20 years.”

5. She was relieved her first child was a boy

Sara had her first child at the age of 40, via IVF, and felt huge relief when she learned she was having a boy. “It’s not because I think boys are better than girls,” she says. “I just thought, ‘I have nothing to project onto this’… I don’t know young boys – I don’t even really know men! – but I just thought, ‘I’m not going to project anything from me and my sisters and my mum onto this brand-new relationship.”

She now has two boys, who are “technically twins, because they were created on the same day”. Her second was from an embryo frozen in the same procedure that created her first. “I was looking at him the other day, thinking, ‘How were you in a freezer?’”

Sara has lots of strings to her bow – presenting, novel-writing, acting – but she’ll never give up comedy. “I’m addicted to stand-up. It’s a compulsion. It’s the pudding at the end of my day. It’s not work. You go with a pad to a pub that has 40 or 50 people in it, and I wish I could bottle and show people how good it feels afterwards when a new idea works.”

She loves it as a communal experience. “All these human emotions, a whole spectrum in a really safe space. I really love it as a form and I’m still sort of in a honeymoon period with it, because that’s what I’d like to do every night.”

7. She found her life mantra in a yoga class

Asked if there’s anything she wishes she’d known when she was young, Sara answers, “There was something a yoga teacher said to me once that was so massive to me. I now write it on all my pads and say it to myself before I go on stage: ‘Nothing to prove, everything to share.’ The reason it’s so massive to me is it takes off all the weight of, ‘Be better than you were last time!’

“It doesn’t matter how people receive things; it matters how you meant it. You’re just sharing. I think it’s a bit like cooking. ‘I baked you a cake!’ And the audience might go, ‘This is disgusting! This is the worst cake we’ve ever had!’ ‘Well, my intentions were good.’”