With five or six shows a week, tour dates until the end of this year, the filming of Peep Show’s Seventh series and ongoing writing for comedy pilots, it’s no surprise that Isy Suttie is planning on taking a bit of a break after her current tour.
Suttie is no stranger to Cardiff having played at St David’s Hall a few years back, as well as more recently, the Norwegian Church in Cardiff Bay as part of the fantastically original Junket Club. “I really love Cardiff”, she says: “There have always been nice audiences. At the Norwegian Church the audience were really nice.”
Returning to St David’s Hall on Wednesday 27 Oct with the stand-up tour she performed at the Sydney Arts Festival earlier this year, Isy describes Love Lost in the British Retail Industry as “a story set in a supermarket, about a girl who works on the checkouts called Lisa who falls for a shelf stacker called Carl before subsequently going on their first date. There’s an American singer/songwriter, on as an act at the pub they go to, who steals Carl away from Lisa. And then the date all goes a bit wrong.” There’s also a fairy godmother in amongst this action, who as well as all the other characters, is played by Suttie.
The show could almost be described as a musical comedy as the majority of the dialogue for her show is performed in song by Suttie: “At one point I was going to sing it all but I thought it might be a bit much to just sing for an hour.” Of course, If you are familiar with Suttie’s previous stand-up, you’ll recognise the prevalence of music in her live performance. “Everything that I do live normally has a bit of music in it” explains Suttie, who sees her musical background as both a blessing and a curse in her career. It was initially how she came to be interested in comedy: “I’ve always written songs, then sort of had some songs I started to do in stupid accents and people started to laugh and then I got thinking, ‘I quite like this feeling’, so I started to write more comedy stuff, so it was always songs first, which became comedy.”
Suttie first began performing routines on the cut-throat stand-up circuit in London. The songs were not always well received and Suttie explains that it was initially a mistake to include the songs in her shows as they always set her apart. Sticking to her guns though, she retained the element of song in her comedy and she is now one of Britain’s rising female comediennes on the competitive stand-up circuit.
Along with many other comics, Suttie refined her skills at the famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where many rising comedians are discovered. Her overall feelings of the festival however, are somewhat mixed admitting that Edinburgh is: “A bit of a weird situation.” “You’re with a load of other comics for a month and you get into a bit of a bubble. You’re really worried about how ‘everyone’s sold x amount of tickets’, or ‘I’ve got this review we’re in’. And then you get back to real life and there’s much bigger things going on.” Although she does admit that she will no doubt return to the festival in some capacity. She says: “Edinburgh can be really great and really awful at the same time.”
So, what next? Following on from her undeniable success and popularity as Dobby on Peep Show – “I hope I’ll be in it forever” she admits – Suttie is also busy writing a couple of pilot shows among other projects. With many fingers in many pies, Isy is set to be around for sometime whether on screen, behind the screen or on the stage. As for the current tour, there’s something in it for everyone: “You can go on dates, they can go wrong…I don’t think there’s that many people that don’t identify with that.” And for the locals…”I’m learning Welsh as well so I might try and do a bit of Welsh in the gig.”
Full of enthusiasm, and effortlessly down-to-earth, Love Lost in the British Retail Industry by Isy Suttie will undoubtedly be a night full of laughs (and possibly Welsh!) for all those who bag themselves tickets to St David’s Hall on Wednesday 27 Oct.