Sophie Duker interview: 'If you persist in doing comedy that punches down, you’re basically a garbage person'

Venus: Sophie Duker is making her Edinburgh Fringe debut this year
Matt Writtle
Zoe Paskett10 July 2019

Sophie Duker is not your Venus — but she’s got it, yeah baby, she’s got it.

It has been a storming first half of the year for the 29-year-old comedian. She’s been on Mock the Week, Frankie Boyle’s New World Order and is the new co-host of BBC podcast GrownUpLand. Now Duker, who lives in Hackney, is heading up to the Edinburgh Fringe with her debut solo hour and she’s fizzing with excitement.

“I don’t think a lot of people have ever seen a black woman do anything for that amount of time continuously — outside of a private browser.”

Her show, Venus, addresses the stereotyping, fetishisation and romanticisation of black women head on and “the idea that you have to be perfect, that you’re striving for some huge, unattainable ideal”.

“I’m not a goddess,” she says, “but it’s something that’s projected on to you from lots of different people. That happens from when you’re at school, when you have romantic relationships... People want you either to be an ambassador, they want you to be woke, or they want you to be sexually enticing or the ‘strong, powerful black woman’. But that ignores the real people behind the stereotypes.

"The show is about all the irritations and weird quirks, but also it’s a love letter to how f***ing cool it is to be a black woman.”

After her last show Diet Woke, in which she confessed to holding back on fully expressing herself for fear of being labelled an “angry black woman”, she wants to tell a story from her perspective and, as she puts it, go “full-fat woke”.

Duker has strong foundations for her stand-up career. She’s the host of regular comedy night Wacky Racists, which gives a platform to alternative comedians of colour — “a place where I could see that kind of diversity, but have it not be a big deal”. She also comes from an improv background, having taken it up while studying at Oxford.

“I started improv because... oh God, he’s going to read this.” She stops herself, leaving me hanging, and starts talking about how “super-nerdy” a pastime it is, before steeling herself to answer. “Ok. Yeah. I started improv because I fancied a boy, and as soon as I joined the troupe he stopped attending rehearsals. So that was really sad for me! But now we’re really good mates and he’s dating one of my really good friends.” She tells me he’s now the boyfriend of fellow comedian Joe Sutherland.

“It’s the whitest malest genre of comedy, at least in the UK. But it’s interesting because it’s very instinctive. You can really get a sense of people’s biases and prejudices in real time.”

The joy of improv helped her heal her unrequited crush. It also proved to be the way she found confidence to stand up on stage on her own.

“For a lot of my childhood I didn’t really want attention to be drawn to myself. I was so scared of this gaze that people’s eyes would like turn on to me and then they’d be like: ‘Oh, she’s actually s***’. I think when I started doing stand-up I was terrified about not being a real comedian. I was very insecure about the things that I wanted to talk about, the way I wanted to be funny, and who I was onstage.”

It just took a bit of practice — and inspiration from the likes of Josie Long, Sara Pascoe and Gina Yashere — for her to find her feet and realise that the most important part of it for her is to have fun on stage.

She says that now she doesn’t care whether or not people find the transatlantic slave trade funny, or the bad acting in porn films, or dating when you’re trying to get people to not touch your hair. “I know that’s funny and I know that people find that funny. Me talking about being a black woman or being queer isn’t because I think we should open up a discussion. It’s because it’s the stuff that I find hilarious.”

Does she think that certain topics are off limits? “I’ve had some white male comedians, some gammon jokers, coming to me and saying they could never get away with making the jokes that I do. And I’m like, ‘Why would you want to make the jokes that I do?’

"If you’re picking on something that doesn’t affect your life and you don’t know a lot about, the material’s probably going to be s*** and derivative and basic. And it could also potentially really hurt someone. If you persist in doing material that punches down or makes people feel unsafe then you’re basically a garbage person.”

She puts her faith in the audience to decide what works: “They’re smart. And they want to have a nice time.”

Duker is determined to give them exactly that for her Edinburgh run.

“It’s just nuts. I’m really excited to be black and queer and a woman and really ostentatious and loving myself. There’s going to be a room and, for an hour every single day, I can do whatever weird s*** I want.” She pauses. “I think that’s the deal, right?”

Sophie Duker: Venus is at Pleasance Courtyard in Edinburgh (pleasance.co.uk), Jul 31-Aug 25

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