Originally not aired on ??/??/????

So Christmas is over. There’s wrapping paper everywhere, the fridge is empty, all the Quality Streets have been eaten (apart from the shit toffee ones), you’re tired, you’re hungover, you’re lonely, you’re in a romantic relationship with the wrong person, your job doesn’t fulfil you, you can’t resolve the traumas of your childhood, your fantasies of happiness all involve proving someone wrong who stopped caring about you long long ago…

 

Anyway, enough of that. if you need cheering up but your ears are too tired from all the screaming you do to try and drown out your inner-demons, then I’ve got just the right thing. Today is episode 2 of my unrecorded festive podcast “Comedians Outside Edinburgh Getting Gingerbread Lattes”.

 

Close your ears, open your eyes, and welcome to the show today’s guest LINDSEY SANTORO.

 

Funny as fuck and firmly in her thirties, Lindsey is one of the strongest acts on the UK club circuit at the moment. When I’m on the bill with Lindsey, there’s a part of me that always dreads it. Not because of her abrasive manner and overbearing personality, but because of her comedic prowess. Following her is like following Piers Morgan on twitter – you can do it, but you’d have to be an idiot to want to.

 

Lindsey is also known and widely mocked on the circuit for turning up to all her gigs with her pussy-whipped husband David. Whereas she is loud and obnoxious, David is a sweet and lovely man who looks like he couldn’t hurt a fly. Never mind physical skirmishes, David would lose a fight with even the concept of confrontation. The thought would arise in his mind and he’d instantly apologise to himself for being so beastly.

 

“Lindsey, you have a ferocious personality.  How have you ended up with someone who is essentially Ned Flanders?”

 

“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess opposites attract. I just love him.”

 

When she said this, I could tell from her angry face that she absolutely meant it. She went on to tell me that David is her whole world. She says she loves him so much that she constantly wants to squeeze him, but is worried she’ll crush and kill him like Lennie when he kills Curley’s wife in Of Mice and Men.

 

“Good reference,” I said.

 

We then went on to have a wider discussion about the comedy circuit. Lindsey told me she’d been thinking a lot recently about how spending time with lots of comedians in quite a close-knit community changes you. She thinks, at first, you’re a bit stranded mentally, and you get to know all these people who are in a similar position. The rules and norms of the industry provide a framework so that people can work together in harmony. But after a while, that framework gives way to people’s darker and less civilised sides. Egos reign supreme and bitching begins. The whole thing becomes toxic. The comedy doesn’t provide mental salvation, and so we turn into savages.

 

“It’s a bit like how William Golding describes the breakdown of civilised behaviour in his famous novel Lord of the Flies,” she said.

 

Hmmm. I began to think something else was going on here. It was when she started making references to J. B. Priestley’s An Inspector Calls that I got really suspicious.

 

“Are you studying GCSE English by any chance, Lindsey?”

 

She looked down at her seasonally sumptuous gingerbread latte. She was humbled. The confident beast that walked into this interview had been tamed.

 

“The thing is Eric, when I was at school… well… I never did no good in my exams. And I’ve always felt like I’m just a stupid loudmouth. So I’m trying to put that right now.”

 

What followed was actually quite moving. Lindsey opened up and told me how she’s always been quite insecure intellectually. She feels like she doesn’t know what so-called “clever” people are on about half the time. She said she used to be able to cope with it, until she realised her posh husband David was also a clever person. So in an effort to be able to connect with him more, she’s grappling with texts such as A View from the Bridge and To Kill A Mockingbird. How sweet is that? I think she’s the real clever one.

 

On that note, I promptly wrapped up the interview, leaving her to study her Macbeth revision guide in peace.

 

Sometimes there’s a lot more to a person than you’d think.

 

Good luck with your exams, Lindsey!

 

Tune in next time, guys xxx

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