Interview
Interview
Sophie Duker is terrified of Beyoncé
We chat to the Taskmaster winner about Yorkshire puddings, Ayo Edebiri, and the time Boris Johnson came to her school
Sophie Duker had a triumphant run at the Edinburgh Fringe this year with But Daddy I Love Her, a tight hour of comedy in which Duker slickly unpacks absentee fathers, sugar daddy woes and queer dating. Still, she has a tumultuous relationship with the festival.
“The Fringe sometimes feels like a bad boyfriend – it’s sometimes quite toxic as a place,” she says. “You think you’re having fun, but then you’re incredibly overstimulated, and you’re not sleeping or eating or talking to any of your loved ones because you’re so wrapped up in it.”
Despite this, Duker set out to have a “delulu ridiculous time, both with the show and with the Fringe.” It’s her hope that the festival is on the rise. “Right after, like, the global panna cotta, the Fringe seemed really bleak. I was like, why would you go? It’s like your bad boyfriend just got out of prison. But I think the Fringe is sort of clawing itself back to what it once was.”
Duker is in conversation what she is onstage – charismatic, chatty, and able to address the funny and the not-so-funny in the same breath. She’ll take But Daddy I Love Her to Brighton later this month, with a string of other shows sprinkled across the calendar and country until May next year. We got stuck in a lift with Duker to get to know her a little better – and to find out about the time she sang Westlife for Nichole Scherzinger…
Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with?
There are a lot of people. I guess it’s like, do you want to be stuck there for romantic aspirations or professional aspirations, or just because you can’t get hold of them? So… my dad? No. I’d want it to be someone cool, like Doechii… Actually, the person that I’m going to say is the person that I would most like to Freaky Friday body swap with – Ayo Edebiri. I think she’s really cool. But if we did body swap, which I will suggest to her while we’re in the lift, what I would spend my day doing is I would just be going on Instagram Live and being like, “Oh my god, there’s this really cool comedian…” The thing is, if the power dynamic is too weird, then it’s just gonna be uncomfortable. I don’t think I’d like to be stuck in a lift with Rihanna. I think I would be too tense.
Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with?
Beyoncé, because it would be terrifying, but I keep accidentally slagging off Beyoncé in my sets. I think being in an enclosed space with just Beyoncé would be horrific. I don’t think you should ever meet anyone that famous, especially without anyone else. Then again, if Beyoncé is in the lift with no one looking at her, is she Beyoncé?
What’s the weirdest interaction you’ve ever had with a famous person?
I have a memory with my friend Nick Mohammed – five years ago I wouldn’t have called him a famous person, but he definitely is now. He was one of the first acts I saw when I went to the Fringe Festival, and me and my best friend were obsessed with him, and we used to follow him around. When people say they used to follow someone around, they mean they went to their gigs. No – we would stalk him through the streets of Edinburgh. We’d be giggling down alleyways about how we could stuff him into a sack. And then I met him socially, and I was like, “You definitely know who I am. I’m that weird girl that’s been following you around corners and giggling.”
I have so many others. Boris Johnson came to my school. I’m not flexing to say this, but I took such a horrific dislike of him, immediately. There were photos of the day, and I’m just giving him the most horrible death stare from where I’m sat with my horrible relaxed hair in my school uniform. Oh, and Nicole Scherzinger made me sing for her.
What?!
Nicole Scherzinger and I were both on this show, and there was a song playing, and she was like, “Oh, this song is a beautiful song. What is it?” The song was, ‘You Raise Me Up’ by Westlife, and I said “It’s ‘You Raise Me Up.'” She said “I’ve never heard this song before. Could you sing it for me?” So, I do, and she does nothing as I’m singing. She’s literally classically trained, and I’m just singing to her. I sing the whole verse. She’s been a pop star her entire life. Obviously, she knows ‘You Raise Me Up’. It’s on every singing competition ever. Then, on a later episode of the show, it was the Christmas episode, and the song that was playing was ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ by Mariah Carey. She went, “What is this song?” I was like, not again. I kind of wanted to say, “What the f*ck, dude?”
What’s the last live show that you went to?
I’m such a nerd, I’m literally checking my iCal. It was Reuben Kaye. I’d never seen him before, but it was incredible. It’s the show that was nominated for the Comedy Award this year, and he just has so much charisma. He’s oozing charisma out of every pore. Such a fantastic, talented human.
What’s on your rider?
I feel like there’s the standard rider, which is like, “Please make sure she’s warm. Please make sure there’s central heating in the venue.” I don’t actually write my own riders, but sometimes I look at them and it says, “If there’s no heating, maybe give her a hot water bottle.” Whenever people ask, “What sort of snacks would you like?” I don’t know what to pick, because you can’t eat loads of delicious food before you have a show, otherwise you fall asleep. I often ask for popcorn, which is really bad, because it makes your mouth dry and it gets stuck in your teeth. Sometimes I get gummy sour sweet to sort of shock myself into being stage ready. When I did Drunk History, they asked me what my drink was, and I asked for a really specific French wine called Putes Feministes, which means feminist whores. They gave me tequila.
What work of yours didn’t get the attention it deserved?
In the last decade in television, there’s been a real trend of dudes going places, possibly with a family member. I worked on a travelogue with some other incredible comedians – Maisie Adam, Catherine Bohart, Olga Koch, who I love. We made a show that, to this day, I think was phenomenal. It was so funny. Everything was super smooth. No one got sexually harassed on set. Everyone was on time. Everything was really fun, and that show didn’t end up getting commissioned. I just think that people don’t believe people will watch women. I feel like most of the funny, factual stuff that I’ve worked on with people who are not cis men at the helm is absolutely fantastic, but they’re rare. The Traitors, for instance, is incredible and has such an amazing woman presenter at the helm, but I think that’s incredibly rare to give a woman responsibility alone to do that.
Having a production that’s super big budget, super mainstream, and just happens to have a creative team or front of camera team that isn’t men, without it being a ‘woman show’, is something that is still really lacking in television. When I was part of one, it was genuinely one of the strongest pieces of content programming that I’ve ever worked on, and yet it didn’t get made.
What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
This isn’t necessarily bad advice but I took it the wrong way. When I was working TV, I was told that you should never go in with the same rate twice. You should always raise your rate every time, which is good advice, I think. But because I was very unconfident, I would raise my rate by the smallest increments. So I’d be like, “£115 pounds, that’s my rate.” A piece of advice people give you for comedy is to imagine the audience naked, which I think is meant to be a sort of weird power play. But I think it’s for people who have quite mean imaginations. If I’m imagining the audience naked then I’m just gonna get distracted. I don’t know why it makes people feel relaxed or focused on the task at hand to imagine a nude room.
What did 12-year-old you think you’d be doing right now?
I think 12-year-old me probably thought that she might be a journalist. When I was in year 7, my friends and I decided to run our own magazine. We just wrote this magazine, printed it out on the school printers and tried to distribute it. Then we got shut down by my school because there was already a school magazine. They didn’t encourage our youthful entrepreneurship, which is bullshit.
What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
I had some of the worst and best times in my career working in television production, because it’s so weird and unpredictable. One time I got onto this development team, and I was the most junior person there. All of the team were going on an away day, so before I’d ever done a day in the office I got flown to Spain. It was so terrifying because we were in this villa, we had to be in bathing suits around the other people that we worked with, and no one was having fun. I was there doing what I do on holiday, which is stand by the side of the pool and pretend to be shot into the pool. I did that, and I fell into the pool like I’d been shot. No one reacts. Then I come up and still no one’s reacted to my amazing fall, and I look at my face, and there’s just blood everywhere. I had a nose bleed because of how I fell into the pool. So I just have to get out of the pool with blood all over my face, and no one ever mentioned it. I was like, these people literally do not respect my humanity.
What’s your most controversial food opinion?
I don’t like Yorkshire puddings. I think they’re quite pointless. They’re like little mooncups for gravy.
Do you have any superstitions?
I’m quite pick ‘n’ mix with superstitions. I’ll follow one thing one day and then the next day I won’t give a shit about it. I just don’t think I’m superstitious, because I think magic is real. I’m not afraid of black cats, but I wouldn’t cross, like, a witch. I’ll step on the cracks. But magic is real.
What’s a skill no one else knows you’re good at?
I’m really good at identifying whales by their flukes, which is what you call the tail of a whale. That’s what we in the whale community call it. I did a bit of work for Greenpeace, and there was this whale scientist who did a test on me to see how many whales I could identify by just their tails. I have a stronger than normal aptitude for identifying whales.
Sophie Duker’s But Daddy I Love Him tour continues this month. Find tickets here
