W.Emma Sidi was seven years old when a classmate predicted she would one day become a comedian. His reaction was total horror. “I was like: No! I thought I was being very rude and that I looked like an old man. I thought, Wow, I really am. the morning Very ugly and not cool at all.”
Twenty-one years later, on an unusually warm September afternoon, CD's gratitude can be seen. she did it Having become a comedian, he has honed his own hilariously sarcastic character comedy while making scene-stealing appearances in leading British comedies over the last decade (Starstruck, Ghosts, Black Ops, Stath Let's Flats, W1A, Please Like) and yet , the 33-year-old actor. -old has no idea where his old self comes from. You get it: Some queer female role models disappeared in the early 2000s, and it's not hard to imagine why a teenage girl might fear being compared. Yelling into the microphone at a sweaty middle-aged man.
Fittingly, the comedy CD is a far cry from testosterone-fueled millennial fare. In fact, it's far from an end point for anything else. On the comedian's new show, she takes on Sue Gray, former chief of staff to head of participant research Keir Starmer, in a blatantly vague way. Her Sue Gopi is decidedly downtrodden and emotionally confused, less about politics and more about office gossip and the boys she likes (i.e. Rishi Sunak and Starmer himself).
Presumably she's not like the real Sue, but the humor is partly based on the fact that the counselor's true personality is shrouded in mystery. One night in late 2021, having read that morning about his takeover of the Partigate trial, Sid begins impersonating Gray. At the time, Grey's sudden rise to household name status came as a shock: one of the first jokes on the show was about her feeling embarrassed by her sudden ubiquity (“Oh my God, I'm Sue Gray – NoThey tickle me!”) However, despite constantly making headlines since then, Gray remains a ridiculously enigmatic figure: he has never appeared on television and not even his date of birth has been revealed. public domain.
Sid deliberately didn't investigate Gray further, making sure she was very blank on the canvases. Instead, he combines the basic realities of his government job with a banal, melodramatic conversational style that he associates with his teenage years working at Bobby Brown's counter at the House of Fraser branch in Guildford. There, the talk is “endless, trivial, but very important. There's a lot at stake, but you don't say anything.
However, earlier this month, those basic facts changed dramatically; Two weeks after our conversation, Gray resigned from the job that made her the most powerful woman in government, saying in her resignation letter that rumors about her behavior meant she “risked becoming a distraction.” When I spoke to Sid the next day, he made clear the fact that he had to change the overall narrative of his show, saying, “I think it could have had a better ending, it's almost like Icarus,” while Gray remained grateful. He does not deliver a public mea culpa (“a big speech in the rose garden”) that clearly conveys his true nature to the audience. Even better, the reasons for his downfall are, at least as of this writing, thankfully hazy: Sid knows the mystery will allow him some creative freedom when discussing the cause of Grey's downfall. (“Who knew, kids?! I know it's too good to be true,” Sue told me of her announcement over the phone.) The show is not, as you probably already understand, a heavy-handed political satire. However, its creator says Gray's resignation sums up his most serious point: that this country is more interested in “dumb systems” and “playing with people in this puppet government” than real politics.
Overall, though, Sue Gray's CD is a work of glorious anachronism, peppered with millennial-inducing anachronisms: at one point Sue remembers the 2000s indie band she played during her freshers' week at the university. It permeates Siti's own self. Although the character is a comedian – his other flamboyant work includes the absurdly melodramatic soap opera star – all of Sid's alter egos contain at least a bit of his true personality: in his opinion, “the best comedy is real to the person.” who writes it.” or do it. I think Alan Partridge is the best example of that. Alan Partridge is no Steve Coogan, but it doesn't take much to realize that a lot of people are Steve…” he said, unable to suppress a laugh. (She knows; in 2022, Partridge performed with Coogan – brilliantly – in a stage show and the pair will reunite in the cast of Thatcher's next play, Brian and Margaret.)
Considering the CD's leaning toward Sue Gray parodies, it's not a huge surprise to learn that some viewers didn't get the joke right away. During this year's sold-out Edinburgh Fringe Run, there were some bemused Americans who curiously asked about the veracity of a story about Gray's visit to TK Maxx. Still, Sid says it's hard to mistake the show for serious biographical theatre: “There's a bit about giving a tampon to Cressida Dick, the former head of the Metropolitan Police. There are some milestones in it: not true. Another is when she is attacked by a goddess. CD is about to take Sue on a UK tour, but she's recently been busy perfecting an even more eccentric role – the current part of Taskmaster Cohort, her first TV appearance. Sidi was delighted to be asked to appear on the show, and dismissed any doubts by telling herself: “The worst thing that can happen is embarrassing yourself, and I feel like I've done that before anyway.” While most famous comedians may use their long-standing personas – for example, fellow competitor Jack Dee – cartoonishly polished, Sid says he's playing the game as his unfiltered self, even though it “gives me chills on the edge.” “.
Sid's most prominent television role to date essentially has a different name. In the BBC romantic comedy Starstruck, she co-starred as Kate, the best friend and flatmate of Jessie, played by Ross Matafeo. The couple were actually best friends and Matafeo wrote the series while they lived together. When Sid first saw the script, which featured a character named Emma at the time, “I thought, Hmm, enough. A little bit of eye rolling.” She sees Kate as a distillation of her “very annoying” self. Kate is like me if I'm always nervous. I can be very bossy.
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Starstruck is a rare example of a female-led sitcom: the show was largely written by Mattafeo and fellow New Zealander Alice Sneddon, and produced and directed primarily by women. Over the last decade, Sid has noticed that things have improved gender-wise: “You're not the only girl, but that's not the case. One of the clearest indicators of progress, he believes, is how outrageously rare cases of overt sexism.” now they appear. “I recently worked with a director who called me a stupid actress,” she says, still expressing disbelief. “I was completely shocked and immediately complained to the producer. I think it's a good sign that it's not typical at all. In the past, CD has spoken about her less than ideal experiences at Cambridge Footlights, where she received support from her male peers. Today, she likes to emphasize that she never felt Footlights was institutionally sexist and that her negative experiences arose from the behavior of two individual students.
Sidi's father, a former professional rugby player, encouraged her to go to Cambridge. At the time, he was determined to become an actor and honed his acting skills at school. In fact, after learning about her antics, her classmate's divination powers aren't very impressive. In primary school, at the height of the Harry Potter craze, he put on a Quidditch scene at the assembly and presented himself as an exaggerated commentator. Did it go well for you? “To be honest, I think they killed him!” A couple of years later he chose paintings by Victoria Wood for his class. Inspired by Wood, he wrote some sketches of his own and sent them to the BBC. “They didn't realize it was a boy or they didn't care. They sent me the cruelest comments of all time,” he recalls. “They said: the quality is bad, the design is really bad, there is no character, but to be fair, it's a good prototype. I was nine years old and I had tears in my eyes. eyes: Well, smart!
It was a baptism of fire, but CD later got used to the disappointment: a few years ago he tried to create a sketch show with Matafeo and Lolly Adefope, but it never took off (“I went through that process a lot. There's no point in being bitter”). However, having contributed his talents to several people's passion projects, he hopes to soon develop something of his own, an idea especially in the “sitcom world.” A little more real and grounded [than her live work] But still Fun Fun”.
If someone can write a Fun A funny sitcom, it's a woman who spins an hour of comedy out of the fictional interior monologue of a clueless former civil servant. At the very least, you can expect a slightly less hostile response from the BBC's comedy department this time around.
Emma CD is Sue Gray on tour Until November 29.
