‘I hope those bullies have all got their tellies on now…’
In December Sarah took time out from her tour to travel to the LG Arena in Birmingham, and perform a one-off stand-up routine at the Rock with Laughter event. Put on annually in the Midlands, it combines top comedy acts and live music for a show that many Midlanders view as their Christmas tradition.
There were plenty of jokes and toe-tapping tunes for the 14,000 members of the audience, and Sarah was perfect for the line-up – The Guardian had once written of her: ‘She can make a room rock with laughter…’
Sarah’s pal Graham Norton was responsible for introducing all the acts, which included Jimmy Carr, Dara O’Briain, 10cc, singer Gabrielle and 90s crooner Marti Pellow. Sarah covered an array of subjects, from Twitter and exercise DVDs, to her almost obsessive love of Twix bars, while Dara shared his hilarious experiences of being a stay-at-home dad.
But the show was interrupted half way through, by a live link up to an entirely different event happening in London on the same night: The British Comedy Awards. Sarah had been nominated for King or Queen of Comedy, but after missing out on an award last year, she didn’t think for a second that she would win. So when Dara O’Briain approached her backstage with the massive award in his hand – followed by a camera crew – she was overwhelmed.
She had beaten off stiff competition for the award, with nominees including Miranda Hart, Jo Brand, David Mitchell, Graham Norton and Jack Whitehall. The winner had been voted for by the public, which made it extra special for Sarah. She may have been shocked, but her colleagues in Birmingham weren’t surprised in the least.
After a year that had seen her complete a nationwide sell-out tour, embark upon another, secure her own BBC2 show and become a regular face on the UK’s top comedy TV shows, Sarah had ascended to become one of the nation’s best-loved comedians.
A few moments earlier, Barbara Windsor and Danny Baker had got on stage at the comedy awards to announce the winner. The audience had looked around, trying to spot the nominees, to catch a glimpse of their surprised face when they won.
‘This year’s king or queen of comedy is…’ Danny had said, opening the envelope for Barbara to read the winner: ‘Ah, the people have a new queen – Sarah Millican!’ The audience whooped and clapped, as camera footage of a very surprised looking Sarah appeared on the screen. She was close to tears and fanned her face with her hands to fend them off. ‘Cry, cry for God’s sake,’ teased Dara, while handing her the award. Jimmy Carr suddenly appeared by Sarah’s side, looking confused – he had no idea what was going on. ‘She’s won Queen of Comedy,’ Dara explained, before turning to the camera and joking: ‘Which is funny because both Jimmy and I blew her off stage tonight.’
Sarah giggled before fighting Dara for the microphone. ‘Cor, thanks very much,’ she said, when she’d finally wrestled it off him. ‘Thank you to everybody,’ she said, trying to regain her composure. ‘Thank you to my agent, my family and my boyfriend and to everybody who voted for me, I’m so thrilled, and I’ve just had to put my cup of tea down and I’m going to cry any minute, thank you very much.’
It was clear it was a crowning moment for the hard-working comic. In a mere seven years she had embarked on and risen to the top of a brand new career – one that is notoriously difficult to even survive in. As the applause rang out, Sarah tried to take it all in. She had made it.
The following day, her smile was beaming out from every newspaper and her phone was ringing off the hook with interview requests. Her Twitter and Facebook pages were flooded with praise.
But as well as the kind congratulations from well-wishers, Sarah was shocked to also receive some startling abuse from a group of online haters. It was her first real experience of the ‘trolls’ who spread venom and misery indiscriminately all over the web, and she was not impressed. But the thick-skinned Geordie took it all in her stride, treating the trolls in exactly the same way she had tackled her bullies as a child.
She told her Facebook followers: ‘Just a little note to say I’ve done some tidying on this page. 99 per cent of you who post are lovely and polite, but for the remainder, if you want to bitch about me, I will delete and block you. My page, my rules. Ta ta for now.’
Two days later she was still being targeted, and decided to use humour to cope with the nastiness. ‘Have started blocking the daily trolls while having a sh*t. Seems appropriate.’ It was an example of Sarah’s unsinkable attitude. Her rapid rise to fame has been a way of standing up to the nasty, the treacherous and the faithless; to tell them that she can live without them, outgrow them and eclipse them.
The world was now laughing with her, not at her. If childhood bullies, a heart-breaking ex-husband and the tough world of stand-up couldn’t destroy her, there was absolutely no way a few bitter, anonymous cowards would even break her stride.
Besides, Sarah had far too much to celebrate. She’d just received word that sales for her Chatterbox DVD had passed the 150,000 mark, smashing the previously held record for a female comic’s DVD sales.
It was an astonishing achievement, made more so by the fact that it had only been on sale for a month. It had been released in late November, alongside a whopping 35 other stand-up comedy DVDs, all competing for a share of the lucrative Christmas market. The record had been set a decade earlier by French and Saunders, and since then no other female had even come close to breaking it.
The French and Saunders’ follow-up DVD Still Alive sold 38,089 copies in 2008, Pam Ayres sold 25,544 copies of her DVD in 2007, while Victoria Wood had shifted a massive 48,339 copies of her Royal Albert Hall show in 2002. But Sarah’s DVD – which went on to sell more than 250,000 copies in total – had literally flown off the shelves at a rate of over four every minute.
‘It feels incredible to be at the heart of a major development for women in comedy,’ Sarah said. Her agent, Hannah Chambers, added: ‘We are extremely proud of Sarah and what she’s achieved. It bodes well for other female comedians in the market and Sarah’s success has certainly paved the way.’
And distributor 4DVD’s product manager Jessica Scott said: ‘We are over the moon that Sarah has achieved this incredible feat. Given her infectious sense of humour and her down-to-earth delivery however, we are not surprised. Sarah really seems to have captured the nation’s hearts this year, as demonstrated not only by these record-breaking sales but by her being crowned The Queen of Comedy at the British Comedy Awards. Here’s to another record-breaking year in 2012!’
Back on the road in the run-up to Christmas, Sarah continued her epic second tour, fuelled by the echoing laughter she heard in every venue. But as she explained to the Newcastle Journal, she was most looking forward to the 10 record-breaking dates she was booked for three months later at the Tyne Theatre.
Despite her recent fame, Sarah would always be a ‘home girl’. Her new life was, she admitted, exciting and she would give it her all – but her family was more important than anything. ‘Wherever my case is, is my home at the moment,’ Sarah told journalist Gordon Barr. ‘I leave it on the floor half packed, take out dirty underwear, put in clean underwear, that’s it. But where my family is and my roots are, is still in the north east. I still love going back. If I’m in a café or train and I hear my accent, I love that, it makes me feel all warm and gooey inside. As soon as I hear someone talking “propa Geordie” I absolutely love it. It’s where my family are so it’s where my heart is. I visit them as much as I can. We sit in the house and we drink cups of tea and we put the world to rights. That’s my favourite time – all together in the house where I was brought up, just chewing the fat. I love it. Absolutely.’
Despite being on tour, Sarah was also focusing on her forthcoming new show: ‘It is a bit of stand-up, audience stuff and some guests. A bit of a mish-mash of those,’ she explained. ‘My main priority is that it is consistently funny for half an hour. It is exciting and slightly terrifying at the same time. You have to really put your all into it and make sure it is as good as it can possibly be, for if something like that fails, then I think it is harder to come back.’
Only time would tell what kind of reception she could expect from her hosting debut…