Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S5 Ep11: Bookshelfie: Aisling Bea - Live at Latitude

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

In a special episode in front of a live audience at Latitude Festival, Vick Hope talks to the hilarious, multi-award winning comedian, writer and actor Aisling Bea about her early career, writing and starring in her much loved Channel 4 show This Way Up, and becoming the face of loneliness. Armed with the stage name ‘Bea’, a tribute to her late father, Aisling broke away from the family tradition of working with horses to pursue a career in performing. After winning awards at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2012 and the Edinburgh Comedy Awards in 2013, she gained exposure as a comedian and began making regular appearances on panel shows  such as QI and 8 Out of 10 Cats. She has since gained international acclaim as the creator and star of hit comedy-drama This Way Up. Aisling’s book choices are:  ** Animal by Sara Pascoe ** Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge  ** The Green Road by Anne Enright ** The Audacity by Katharine Ryan ** Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season five of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by an inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women. Don’t want to miss the rest of Season Five? Listen and subscribe now! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

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and I have an old cup a plastic bottle of my handbag with me like I'm someone's elderly aunt who's won a competition and a raffle I thought you were going to leave you a handbag backstage Yeah I was but then it all happened so fast It did happen very fast We were doing some historic dance out there

Yes and then we came here It's just that celebrity showbiz lifestyle story You hear about all the time With thanks to Bayleys This is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Vic Hope and I'm your host for season five of the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast. The podcasts that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them. We have a phenomenal lineup of guests for 2022 and I guarantee you'll be taken away plenty of.

reading recommendations. Hello and welcome to today's very special bookshelfy episode live from Latitude Festival. Can I hear a little whoop from Latitude Festival? There's an audience here and it's wonderful. They look beautiful. This is the Listening Post stage. I'm Vic Hope and I'm joined by the hilarious multi-award-winning comedian, writer and actor, Ashling B. Hey!

Hello. Hello, so. Ashting and I are going to talk about books and. also just about Ashling. Oh, my favourite subject. I can't read, so I'm going to be winging it for a lot of this to be on. I just wanted to be on stage,

and I lied to Vic in the email. And I don't even mind. I'm very happy to be here. A little bit about Ashling in case you don't know, but I think from the number of people in this tent, you probably already do. Since winning the prestigious comedy competition, so you think you're funny in 2012,

Aschling has become a regular on our screens, from roles on Doctor Who and The Fall, to performing stand-up on the BBC's Live at the Apollo and popping up on panel shows including 8 out of 10 cats, QI and Taskmaster. Ashton is, of course, also the creator and star of hit comedy drama this way up, which, yeah, I think we have some fans in here,

which first aired on Channel 4 and earned her the BAFTA for Breakthrough Talent. Oh, and again. It's very weird to just sit here and listen to a girl, yeah. Maybe this is the bit where I should have brought you. Anyway, you're here now. Series 2 released last year to international critical acclaim with The Guardian calling it TV so good

it's indistinguishable from magic. Oh. It's very nice. Thank you so much, Ashling, for finding the time to join me here today, for taking a little break from the historical dancing that we were doing just before outside. In front of this beautiful audience,

welcome to the podcast. Oh, thank you very much, Vig. That's really genuinely, you don't know what to do with your face when someone's... I've never gotten married, but I assume that's what it's like when you're the bride and everyone just keeps talking about you

and you're like, yeah, I'm great, I'm in time. Thank you very much for having me, Vic. Well, we're going to talk about books, but what kind of a reader are you? Have you always been an avid reader, a bookworm? Yes, I have. I've always loved reading,

and I'm not sure. Is everyone here just to get out of the heat or do you also love books? Yay! Oh, that didn't answer the question. Okay. Yeah, I have. I've always loved books, and I think for me, being able to escape into a book has been amazing

that I often look for books that don't make me want to go on my phone. So my attention span is shot to close your ears, darling. Shite, shite, shite, shot to shite. You can open them now. And yeah, and I find when I get a book that I can stay in, it helps my attention span and focus just like stay longer. So that's a little bit of an escape into a world that's not mine is Olisfield's, There's no better feeling than when you are so inside a book, you're so utterly transported,

and you cannot wait to read it again. You can't wait to pick it up and be leafing through those pages. And then when you get to the end, you're annoyed because it's over. Yes. You were so into it. And then you have to do all your goodbyes to the characters. I've just started reading one of Elena Ferranti's book. You know, The Lost Daughter.

She wrote The Lost Daughter, that movie that Olivia Coleman's in. And there's like three more books left. And I feel like I'm back in my old Harry Potter stages. I'm like, yes, no goodbyes. I talk to my therapist about it as well. I don't like saying goodbyes. So, yeah, so I love when someone writes more. What kind of fiction do you gravitate towards?

I think anything where, I mean, this sounds very, close your eyes again. Oh, no ears were better, yeah. But also, wanky. Oh, wrong time. So this might sound wanky. But I love when it's the first person and you get their point of view in a book and you're following the character's journey

and you see how they're privately feeling as opposed to how they're experiencing the world. So I love when you're sort of inside someone's head and following that character around. They're some of my favourite ones. I think that's what teaches us empathy. When we literally walk a day in someone else's shoes in so many people's shoes through books,

that's how we learn to know that everyone is going through something and they have their reasons. for their actions, for their thoughts, for their feelings, for the way that they navigate the world, and the more we can read, the more we can understand that, and hopefully go about the world with a bit more kindness. Yes, and you see their motives, which always...

I remember when I was in The Fall, the classic murder drama where Jamie Dorden kept on murdering Irish brunettes, and I was like, surely it's my turn now. And it was. And I remember him saying that when he was trying to research his character, who's a very handsome murderer and people were like

oh if I had to be murdered by anyone people would often say that and I'm like oh you don't have to be murdered by anyone that's not the choice but I remember him saying that to get the audiences you had to make them sort of give him a human side

and when he was looking at the character that he would be a great dad and that kind of messes with your even when I'm writing my characters in the TV show I always try to give them like other sides to them that are surprising. So no one becomes the bad guy or the awful X or even that I'm not so nice all the time that sometimes I'm a bit of a close your ears and dickhead.

Not quick enough. You didn't hear that, did you? I'm trying not to teach you any new words, but it sounds like you already know them all from home. Not judging. Not surprised. This is a literature to text. It's what it's all about. We're learning new words.

Exactly. It's vocabulary. It's words, you know? I'm the Susie Dent of curse words. Exactly. Ashling, we're going to get straight into your first bookshelfy book, which is Animal by Sarah Pasco. A combination of autobiography and evolutionary history, this book provides a witty and compelling insight into what moulds and affects modern women.

Filled with plenty of anecdotes and the science to back it up, Sarah's book explores love, the body and consent with reference to her own securities and insecurities. What does this book mean to you? So does everyone know who Sarah Pasco is, the stand-up? So Sarah Pasco is also one of my best friends. And when someone you love write something or put something out there, there's a bit of trepidation because you're like, what if I don't like it?

Or what if I don't connect with it? And you have to do the sort of brave face to them. And when she wrote this book, like I called Sarah my unofficial GP because if she didn't do comedy, she genuinely researches all of the science. And I think a lot of comedians are sort of failed teaching. where they're trying to show a subject matter using comedy and their own lives to sort of make it more accessible. And when I read her book Animal, it's all about like the history of human beings and what makes us tick.

And there are so many bits of actual science in it that just blew my mind. And Sarah, like we all talk about our personal lives quite a lot in comedy and put our stuff into it. But Sarah does it a bit more than sometimes I even do. And there's a bravery in that in the sort of degree to which. she'll go to sort of like bring her own stories into it. That's so vulnerable that I'm not sure even I'd allow. And it makes you feel so privileged that she would have used her own stories and stuff that happened in her childhood to allow us in to learn more for ourselves.

I remember her even, one fact I learned from it. I was going through a breakup at the time and we kept on texting each other, myself and my ex. And she was in the book, it talked about the bonding hormone serotonin, which is when you have a kid or something like that, what makes you go, that was really sore but I'll still look after you. And it's this bonding hormone you have with your loved ones

or when you're in bed with someone and it develops bonding. And that dopamine is sort of like a sort of a fictional version of that bonding hormone. So if you have a cup of coffee or a drink or drugs or whatever the thing is that sort of gives you a dopamine happy hit, it's a mimic of serotonin, but it's not real. It's not real. It's just a sort of hit.

and she was like every time you're texting back and forth you're getting a hit of dopamine that reminds you of the old bonding system and what you have to do is try and break away for like 30 days to break that physical memory and there's loads of stuff in it like that which just when she was explaining it I just learned a lot of what was sometimes happening in my body and I was so surprised by how medical and scientific it was not a comedy book it's she's a scientist writing sort of about anthropology and the body and biology, just using comedy.

And it was just so funny as well how she's written it and made it so accessible. And I was like, oh, imagine if our, I know a lot of people felt like, God, if I had gotten that book when I was a 16-year-old girl and knew more about what was happening in my body, it could have changed so many feelings. And so that's why I was so proud of her,

but also I learned loads from the book and my friend, which was mad. When you're telling stories about yourself, about your feelings, about your personal life or experiences. Does comedy as a vehicle make it easier for you? Or does the expectation to be funny make it a little bit more difficult to express yourself authentically? I think you have to find the genre. Roshin Connety, another stand-up.

Do you know who Roshin-conity is? Yes. Rochene always said to me, she was like, you might have a story and you have to work at what format the story will fit into. So some things I've tried as stand-up, and I'm like, oh, it just doesn't work. You need to do more jokes when you're doing stand-up. And actually, if you can make it a character,

you can find it more easy to be vulnerable and write it into a TV show, or it might be an article, or you have to find the right way to tell it in the best way possible. So some stuff I felt, oh, it doesn't work in stand-up, and I would put it into this way up, and you have more creative allowance.

I don't like lying when I do stand-up. You try, other than maybe fudging the odd name so you don't get sued by your record. And then you mostly I try not to do truthful stuff whereas at least in this way up or something you can make it a character You can split it between different people and stuff like that in 2012 when you won so you think you're funny You were the first woman to win that award in 20 years Yeah, I was the only person who entered that year And I remember you saying that

You felt like you needed to apologize for your success because you you you you know you you maybe hadn't grafted enough, or that might be the perception of it. Have you moved on since then? Do you feel like you've earned your place that you're supposed to be here? Yeah, I think that happens with time, and I'm sure everyone's had that in their workplace,

where you don't feel like you're owed the situation. And it's really annoying that the only thing that fixes it generally is time and time again working and not getting fired. And you're like, oh, I'm still not fired. maybe just maybe I'm not terrible and so I think time has sort of fixed that but I would hope that I mean I'm not that

old but things have changed in the last 15 years and I'd hope that a lot of the younger female stand-ups coming up or just any stand-up who doesn't fit the classical mould feels like they are owed a place I remember there was this American stand-up

and I can't remember who it is and he was in his 60s and he was a gay stand-up and he remembers his nephew sent him a text and said, oh my God, I need to talk to you, something's happened at school. And he remembers, he came from the South and he remembers, like, when he was

trying to come out as a young gay man in the South of America, it was so homophobic and he would get beaten up and endured so much violence. And so he was ready to talk to his nephew about the awful stuff he assumed he was enduring. And he rang up his nephew, and his nephew was like, it's so awful. They're putting the gay prom

on the day after the straight prom. And he was like, that's your problem. And you're like, that's what every kind of generation fights for, that you hope that's the problem someone else would have. Like, you'd hope it's that female comedians just don't like what's in their dressing room now or that you're not. And I profited from everyone who had a hard time in front of me

and that's the sort of, you hope it changes with a little bit of time for the people. And in turn, you're paving the way for another generation. and another generation of female comedians coming up. And when it comes to paving the way for the next generation, it actually brings me on to your second book, Shelfy book, which is why I'm no longer talking to white people about race by Rennie Edo Lodge. This is a vital wake-up call to tackle pervasive, institutionalised racism.

It's an unflinching polemic which reframes the debate around race. Based on a blog post that Edo Lodge wrote in 2014, the book was born out of years of frustration and white inaction around race. racism, from lazy cultural stereotyping to open hostility. How can you pick this? I picked it because when I read it, growing up in Ireland, it was so monocultural and we didn't even know what thing, like there was no other cultures. And I remember when I picked it up and read it, when you talked there about inaction,

sometimes it feels like you want to be told what to do, which is not the job of any black person or especially women to kind of tell you what to do, but it was really nice in this book. It talked about like guilt doing nothing and just generally for anyone trying to help whether it's another community or another group of people or the friends in your life, feeling guilty you're not doing enough or in action sort of doesn't help. So going, oh, that must be awful, it doesn't really do anything and for me it made me want to engage more in action and how could I use my platform to help it in the way I could have influence. And also it was just just a reminder of how much history,

and generally we're all getting to this in so many ways. Like in Ireland, most of our history that we learned was British history. So we learned sort of about the world in a little bit about our own, but we learned British history or bits of American history. And so when I moved over here, I was so surprised that, like, in British schools, you don't learn about sort of what happened in Ross Common in 1948? And you're like, what?

And I was so surprised that it sort of didn't always work back. backwards and I was on a job with a young actor about, oh, it must have been about eight years ago and he was reading a book about black history and he was of Nigerian descent and he was only kind of 20 and he remembers putting up his hand in class in a middle of a history class in London and being like Miss during this time the 1920s where were all the black people and she sort of laughed and said don't be silly. and the idea that it was first of all putting him down when he put his hand up but also that you're like

that whole like changing our mindset and the frame which we come from and sorry to reference another book but when I read Grayson Perry's book All Man and he talks about how we it's like we use and I know there's a lot of you guys in here big fan of some of your work white guys bridges buildings that you've done lovely stuff honestly big fan

I've had sex with loads of you so you're welcome but that he was talking about how we use kind of straight white men almost like as the norm and that we think anything under or around that is like minorities are different and that's just a perspective like where we open up a map and we have like

the UK and Ireland in the middle but somewhere else the middle is a different part of the map because it's a sphere and that just stuff like that really just kind of reframed my brain brain and gave me so much to process and think about. So that was a really important book for me and the amount of history that it had that I had no idea about, even though we'd learned so much British history.

We hadn't really learned at all. Didn't know about the Brixton riots or anything that had happened. History is written by whoever's in charge at the time. I did my dissertation on the erasure of Afro-Argentines because there was a time when Argentina and Buenos Aires in particular had a lot of black people and they just don't exist anymore. I was like, well, what happened to them? And everyone was like, I don't know. Like, we don't talk about it.

It's not been written down because the people in charge of writing history didn't want anyone to know about that. And in fact, they were used as cannon fodder in wars and lived in areas like Santa Helma where there was huge yellow fever outbreaks. And this stuff doesn't necessarily make the books. And that's something that we can actually all change. We can change.

You talked about the idea that silence is being complicit. And I think that is something that we had a conversation about in 2020 when the Black Lives Matter movement swelled. And it made a lot of people angry. And it was having these conversations, it felt like people didn't want to because it made them hold a mirror up to themselves and have to think about some difficult things.

Did you experience any backlash or any reaction that wasn't comfortable? when you did speak up or show your allyship? I don't think so. I mean, there'll always be some out idiot on Twitter. The people who follow me are a very broad kind of spectrum of people. Some people are like, I love QI! I don't like rice! And you're like, okay, mate, fine, yeah, fine.

And my poor sister, my sister has a, like, she runs this thing called the costume directory. And sometimes if I mention her on Instagram, she'll suddenly get kind of a swath of panel show followers going. This isn't funny at all. And you're like, no, it was my sister. doing costumes. But when that happened,

I often think about intent and where we're afraid to get it wrong and the idea that if we get something wrong, there's going to be this backlash. And I think more people than we realize see intent. And I remember I was one of the people who posted one of the black squares

at the time. And I remember on the day thinking, I'm not sure I understand what this is. I don't think anyone's is. Yeah. And I remember thinking, God, but I better do it. someone else I saw was doing it and I was like, I better jump on the bandwagon and post a black square.

And first of all, and this is a side note, I accidentally screen grabbed the black square from my ex-boyfriend's page and I didn't notice until my sister said, were you supposed to leave his insta-phing? And then I deleted it and posted another black square, which I cropped properly.

But I, like, and I was like, this is a roller coaster of emotions. and I remember thinking I don't totally understand this and I try not to post anything whether it's no matter what it's about if I don't really understand it because I'd want my intent to be like

what's the action from using your platform and do you understand it and it was that one thing and then afterwards people were like this isn't right and I was like but I left it up there I didn't delete it because I wanted a sort of historical account of when I was a bit of an idiot

but I think people are more likely to see your broader if your intent is to try and help not display allyship. And it's hard. Sometimes you're like, am I doing this to look? Is it performative? Is it performative? And when you are a performer and you've a platform,

you're like, sometimes you're like, oh, I have to have a bit of a question with myself and go, am I jumping on this because I feel I should or do I understand and feel like my voice could help in any way? Or are you just sort of like putting content out to look a certain way? And it's not, you know, I don't think anyone's free of maybe being a little. bit from both columns sometimes. And we still move. We're still not there, yeah. We still move. Bayleys is proudly supporting the women's prize for fiction by helping showcase incredible

writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Look in for a treat to pair with your favorite book. Bayleys is the perfect accompaniment to enjoy either over ice or over coffee. There are no better friendships than those formed around brilliant books. And since you're listening, we're guessing you love books as much as we do. The Women's Prize has created an exclusive community that gives you a bookish backstage pass offering surprises and freebies plus unmissable reading recommendations and book chat from my founder friends, including me, Big Hope. Search for Women's Prize friend to become a friend today.

We cannot wait to meet you. At Harrison Healthcare, we know that lasting health starts with personalized care. We're not just a clinic, we're your partner in prevention, helping you achieve your health and longevity goals. Our expert team combines evidence-based medicine with the compassionate, unhurried care you and your family deserve today and for many years to come. When it comes to your health, you shouldn't settle for anything less than exceptional. Visit harrisonhealthcare.ca.ca.com slash Toronto. Let's move on to your third book now, which is The Green Road by Anne Enright. Oh, yes.

So this is a book about fracture and family sets on the West Coast of Ireland, which was shortlisted for the Women's Prize back in 2016. The full Madigan children have left their Irish coastal home for lives they could never have imagined in Dublin at New York and beyond. But when their mother, Rosaline, decides to sell family home, the now adult children return for a final Christmas, a feast which will force them to confront the weight of family ties. God, that was read out so beautifully. even need to read the book.

I love that. If you want to, you can. Pretty much it. Why did you pick this? When did you first read this? I probably read it about five or six years ago. Has anyone read Ann Enright? Yes.

An N. She won, I think, was it the Booker Prize? Was it the Gathering? I think was her that won a big prize for fiction. And she's an Irish writer. I first came across probably in my 20s, what, last year. And she has such a lovely use of language.

It's so beautiful. And she had this book of short stories. And she has a darkness in her writing that's also really funny. And I love that. I like when you can put kind of, and I think that's a very Irish way of writing or talking as like being able to use death and darkness alongside comedy. And we don't find it dark,

but people describe it as dark sometimes like darkly comic. And we're like, but that's a normal day laughing around a coffin. And we're not supposed to make jokes here while Granny's dead in the box. Whoops. And this book follows three sisters and a brother through kind of different times in the lives from like the mid-80s to the 90s. And again, it's just seeing their different perspectives of different situations.

And I love writing about like this way up is all about sisters and family. And I always want to try and write things. Imagine what is like from their point. point of view and you can also get it from their point of view. And I think when families fight, for a writer, it's really interesting to try and understand where people would have been coming from.

And that's harder to do sometimes. It's harder to try and go, I see their point of view, but I don't agree. And this book is a beautiful story of that. And also, one of the characters in it, he's like a farmery Irish guy. Can everyone still hear, by the way? And can everyone hear that music?

It's not just in my head. No, no, no. There's also some voices and I don't know where they're coming from, but I think it's from a different stage. It's the comedy stage. Boo, comedy. Try sitting down and doing it. That's difficult.

But the Green Road is about this family and one of the characters is like an Irish farmry type who only when he moves to New York gets to come out. And I think of all of the young Irish men existing at a time when it was illegal to be

gay in Ireland. It was a crime. There were so many things that were crimes in Ireland. At one point in Ireland, suicide was a crime and it was punishable by hanging. And that's the most Irish situation I've ever heard in my life. But he goes to New York,

but he lands into New York, quite a green Irish person during the 80s. And this is a spoiler alert, sorry, but he ends up in the AIDS epidemic and get sick. And I remember working with a makeup artist in New York. I was doing this show called Living

With Yourself, which is on Netflix. It's with Paul Rudd. And there was a man in his 50s who was my makeup artist and he grew up during that time as a young gay man in New York where a lot of people would flock to to be themselves. And he talks about like an it's a sin, the panic and the hysteria. And he also talks about the erasure of a group of young men who didn't have children to go on and tell their stories.

They might have nephews or nieces, but this whole group of people and that's what was so amazing about It's a Sin and Russell writing it that there's this actually really interesting people a really interesting time in history with all of these different types of people in one of the most amazing cities in the world and all of their stories are just gone because they don't have kids or young people because they were all like young men just gone in their 20s and the stories aren't there so it's sometimes friends telling their stories about their friends and that really struck me that there's no no people's children to carry on their tales and that was something

that really stood out for me in the book and them losing their brother and not knowing that their brother was and him being afraid that the sisters would judge him more than they missed having their brother and so it's just a beautiful book and again you get everyone's point of view

in it. You know what? That's why it's a sin was so stunning because it was devastating, it was so sad, I had to keep stopping it to cry and yet it was also a show about friendship and love and colour and vibrancy and partying

in a great time and those stories need to be told too. Because that's what we don't want to lose. Now this is a book as well about family. How close are you with you? You mentioned your sister. They're all dead to me. I don't like my family. Chenet, who I talked about earlier, is a poor man's me

at best. But follow her on the costume directory on Instagram if you want some zero laughs. Mostly about costumes. That was actually me I'm trolling her. I troll her. My brother-in-law, Maddo, his favorite thing is to troll any daily mail article about me and screen grab it and send it to me. And that's like his big joke. Or when someone comments on any of my Instagrams and says things like, it just shows you that anyone can do it. I think he'll send me those all the time and I'm like, okay, Madso. But yeah, I'm very close. Our family, it was just us little three women sort of growing up, myself, my mom and my sister. and so I think any story about kind of family and different points of view

and I think in a I always wanted to be in like the big family where there'd be noise in the house so this book as well has like four brothers and sisters and I've always kind of been drawn towards people who have big families and that there'd be noise in the house because we lived in the middle of nowhere myself, Shanaid and Mamie and if someone creaked or moved I'd know who it was and we were always aware of each other's sounds I'm like oh mommy's upstairs about to rise probably time for a tea and a kit cat off she goes and there was just no noise or surprise in the house

and even like myself and shenade still get if someone goes ashling I'll go wah like we're really jump because we don't ever expect anyone to be around so we're very very close for that reason I think as well and very bonded little family so that I loved that's like another reason I loved

and I love family stories whether it's like writing about it in my show or even watching Succession my favourite part of Succession you forget about the what I think succession does so well is you forget about the business deals it's all about brothers and sisters fighting and having issues with your parents and I think most more people relate to it than that than obviously the helicopters bit but yeah I love those sorts of stories it can go both ways you know I was in a big family

we were four as well and me and my brothers and you always just have to be on edge that you never know what's going to happen one day I came home from school and my brother was waiting behind the door with a turkey that we'd been preparing for Christmas and he hit me on the back of the head as I opened the door. With the turkey! Yeah, I hit the deck, I passed out, and when I came to, he put the turkey's neck in my mouth,

and I threw straight up. It all happened so fast, and that's the kind of thing you need to watch out for. That is my... This sounds like I said, was it cooked? No, it was raw. Raw turkey. Vic, that's full murder.

That's attempted murder. Do you know what I mean? So he hit you with a raw turkey. You fell, and he put a bit of the raw turkey. all turkey in your mouth. And I threw up all in one episode. It happened so fast. Oh my God. So I didn't grow up with any

brothers. So a lot of the bullying we used to do was kind of psychological manipulation. Kind of like, well you sat in that chair. Well, okay. What do you think of yourself today? Do you think you're a big deal, do you? Like, that's what we sort of do to each other. Brothers and sisters, get like, hitting you with the turkey?

It's honestly, it's amazing. You always have to watch out there could be kicks on the back of the legs. as you're walking up the stairs, woken up to water thrown in your face, anything could happen at any time. Oh, your poor parents. I know. I know.

Rob Delaney has a bit of standabout. He is all boys. And he talks about how they're always just trying to, sometimes like one time they put all the knives on the floor when he turned his back and pretended it was a swimming pool of knives. And they jumped into the knives. And I'm like, oh my God, that was the most contraceptive story I've ever heard.

Your children started swimming in the knives. To just keep an eye on them all the time. Holy God. One thing I would like to ask if it's okay, I know you lost your father at a young age, but on the subject of family, do you remember a change in the family dynamic before and after? Are you too young? No, I was too young, so my father passed away when I was about three. And it's sort of we didn't really, I suppose we didn't really know any different.

Like we knew there was a loss there, but our little unit, was so sort of small that that's what we grew up with. I mean, I think when you're that young, you know there's something missing. And I still always felt like there's something missing, like there's someone waiting to come in the door. And I think there's different forms of grief. Like I can't imagine what it must be like to lose someone

who you really know really well, and you miss them in your daily life. And anyone who's had anyone pass away, especially in the last couple of years, that must be so awful. But it was that sort of like something's missing there, but you don't know what it is type of thing. I think when you have a loss as a kid,

it's a different sort of grief. But we didn't know any different. And I wrote an article a couple of years ago sort of talking about it and trying to sort of destigmatise suicide in particular and sorry if that's triggering for anyone. But I want to try and use comedy to talk about it because it was very difficult to talk about.

And I suppose with that loss, one thing that really helped me was I was doing grief counselling as an adult. And they were like, is there any way you can reframe the bad thing that has happened to you. And if anything bad has ever happened to you, that's not something you want to reframe as something positive. You fight against it. You're like, there's not a chance I'm going to do that. That feels like a betrayal to me. And actually to have to sit

down and write the positives of a loss or a death really just shifted something in my brain that really helped. I could literally feel a sort of like gear change. And it was to find like, oh, I grew up without any men in the house. So I was sort of in charge, lording about myself, like was Anna Winter in the Vogue magazine, just going, no, no, don't like it, where's my coffee? And I grew up thinking, I was actually saying this to Munya, who's on very soon, a very funny comedian, follow on Instagram. Way funnier than my sister on Instagram. And that, for me, men when I was growing up were sort of elderly people, or my mother was a tired jockey, or jockeys, or passed away. so men to me were actually like oh they're not that dangerous at all sure there are only old dead or jockeys

and and it gave me I was like the people who were in charge are women and then when I started going out into the world I was like quite surprised by this yeah everywhere so I did get there were things that not that it was a positive but I think I was able to eventually see a different way and that wasn't it helped me it gave me something rather than it's just me trying to be grateful or it freed me a little bit that I think as well, which was positive. Ashling, your fourth bookshelfy book is The Audacity by Catherine Ryan. Written with Catherine's trademark wit and of course, audacity. Catherine's memoir traces her path to fame

from naive Hooters' waitress to superstar comedian. She shows women they can be themselves and that they should do so unapologetically. How can you fit this? So I assume you all know who Catherine Ryan is? Yes. So Catherine Ryan is

one of my best friends and I know everyone's like you can't have that many best friends you've got to choose one and I do a rotating circle each year of who's number one in my best fans. But Catherine and I have very different ways

of loving and loving each other in our friendships and she's a lot of a less emotional fish than me I really absorb things that happen and I can get really bogged down by feelings or if I have a bad day at work I'll bring it home with me and Catherine genuinely can leave work at the door

She was like, I made my fucking money. Bye. And there's a real lesson to it. And I listened to this book, which I'm not sure. Do you think listening to books is cheating? No, it's not cheating at all. Either do I. Someone said that to me, oh, so you didn't read it.

You listened to it. And I'm like, yeah, I'm busy. Well, I wasn't busy. I was lazy. But I love, especially if it's fact, not fiction, I love listening to books. And I feel like I'm carrying around someone with me when I sort of walk around.

Like, I've got this little friend as I walk around. I'm not a big, sorry, podcast listener, but I love listening to books for some reason. I think because they're longer. You get more time with something. And so I listened to Catherine reading it. And it was really strange because I felt like I had more emotional chats with my friend through her book than I maybe did. Like I learned a lot more about her friend. And that's not just the reason I love the book.

Like Roshin was saying to me before, there are certain things that she was able to put into a book that really expand. a lot of her brilliant stand-up that needs to go along and make you laugh every couple of minutes. And it's like there was enough space there for her lengthier ideas to give... And even though she's, you know, she's a kind of hard-ass,

there's a beautiful softness to her that you get in the book. And it's not just about being audacious as a woman, it's about sort of being audacious as anyone and having the audacity to own your space and be confident. And someone who's unapologetically confident like that really

I just found it really inspiring, despite knowing and being like such a good friend with this person for 15 odd years. There was this other side that was within the book. And loads a bit of great gossip in it as well. And yeah, there was just something about the word, the audacity that is seen as a negative. Like the audacity of her coming in here, the audacity of him thinking he's entitled to that. But actually to own audaciousness was really brilliant and lovely. and she also talks about I like when someone puts things

that were difficult or messy in their lives into things as well and she put that into it and I thought it was very brave and vulnerable she didn't do a book just to sell books she really is a beautiful author as well and she's such Catherine has sometimes in stand-up some people are performers

and some people are great writers she truly can do it all like Catherine can do so much even with her podcast she turns over news and ideas so quickly I've actually never met her or met a stand-up as quick and who processes things and sees them from different angles as Catherine. So I just loved it.

I just, I loved it outside of her being my friend. By the very nature of what you do when you're putting your stand-up out into the world or you're creating a show that you put out into the world, it's for an audience. You've got to want them to like it. You've got to want them to watch it to enjoy it. What's your journey being when it comes to wanting, needing to be, liked how to process that. I think

what I've always struggled with and when I at least when I wrote this way up I'd a lot more authorship over what went out and I thought to myself at least if I like it and you say I don't like your show then at least I'm going up you really don't

because that's what I think is the best version of that story. Now after that you actually have limited budget, limited time you're like oh it absolutely could have been better if I've been given five more minutes and I like I've never been able to watch my shows since they've aired, because I would notice lots of things I would have loved to edit it. And that need to be light is definitely something that a lot of people have, but definitely comedians who are like, like me. But when you start making work and you've more

control of what actually airs, and you feel like that's my best, then at least it's easier to sleep at night. What's been hard is sometimes, if you feel like when I've done panel shows, and they've left in jokes which makes sense for the conversation. But I'm like, oh, I know on the night that that wasn't that funny and yet that's gone out on telly. And I've thought, oh, I wonder if people think that that's what I think is really funny. But it's not. The joke didn't work. I would never have left that in the edit.

But it was up to someone else's control. And to have to learn to let that go was sometimes very difficult. So I've never watched a single panel show I've done in 10 years. I've never watched an episode of 8 out of 10 cats with me or a taskmaster or I just have to remember. Once it's done, it's done, what you're going to do? Exactly. And I will, I know my personality runs over. I would not be able to watch it. I'd be like, is that what my nose

looks like? Or, oh my God, I didn't think my hair was like that on the day. Oh, Ashling, you're Irish. I didn't even know. Listen to your voice. And sometimes when I'm on stage, even sitting here now, I feel like I've got the presence of Johnny Vegas. And when I see that I'm not hit, I'm genuinely shocked. Like when people take pictures and I'm like, I'm like, who is that?

Like I don't associate the feeling with the look of the thing. So I just kind of go, do you know what, once it's done because I don't have any control over it and it will make me sad, I have to let it go out to the audience and just let them, yeah. It's theirs now and they can do what they will.

Yeah, because I know I'll give myself a hard time, I think. Some people don't. Some people love watching their stuff and they learn from watching themselves, but I know I'd get in a little bit of a spiral. I'm the same. A lot of my colleagues will, use it as a way of self-critiquing

and then learn from it and I'm like, if I do my best, I'm doing my best, and then we'll move on and do the best at the next thing. And that's okay. And then I'll go home and have a nice time. Yeah, I think being on screen or even, it's like, you know when you, do you ever listen to your own voicemail?

I know no one really used voicemail before. But like you accidentally get through to your own voicemail and you hear your own voice. You're like, like, hi, this is Ashling. You're like, oh my God, stop. It's like that, but with your face, your body trying to be funny.

It's like all the worst things. You're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. So that's where I draw the line. Looking at myself. Ashling, let's talk about your fifth and final bookshelty books. And it's so good, and I'm so excited to get to talk about this. It's Soro and Bliss by Meg Mason. Yes.

Have you read it? Has anyone read Soror and Bliss by Meg Mason? It came out. What was it, a year ago? So it's a relatively new book. And it's just so good. It's so good. It was shortlisted for the Women's Prize of Fiction this year.

It is no wonder because honestly, it's just so remarkable. It blends brutal honesty and laugh-out-loud humour to tackle the theme of long-term mental illness. The book follows Martha, who's just turned 40 and has struggled to find contentment throughout her adult life. It has a searingly honest portrayal of a marriage breakdown and possibly one of the best written sibling relationships I've ever read. When you chose this book, you actually told us that you saw a lot of yourself in Martha, good and bad. So can you speak a little bit more about that? So the book follows, we're inside Martha's head, so we're following her in the first person.

And she's very, very funny, but seems to upset people sometimes without knowing why. And at the start, we think that's just her sort of personality or character. And what's interesting is when you're following someone's journey, you're seeing their point of view of how people react to you. And then we all do it. We put the narrative on that. So someone was a bit quiet.

said something, oh my God, you know what, they've never been nice to me. I don't like them. They're not my friend. Now that person might have been tired, whatever it is, but we do little narratives in our head the whole time, and that's what she's doing throughout it. And then only at the end of the book, do we almost like a reveal, do we see actually what was going on for those characters

when they tell her, like, you know, I bloody loved you. Like, I loved you that day, or... And it's just... And one thing as well, which I love is we never find out what's wrong with the character. And this would happen sometimes with this way up. I'm not sure if you've seen the show. But I was really adamant that I would never put a label on what was wrong with Anya

or what her illness was or what caused the nervous breakdown. Because then you were going, oh, it's that. And can you fix that? And that's the problem. Rather than just sometimes, whether you are neurodiverse or have an issue or you're depressed or whatever it is, sometimes it's just being in existence and being yourself and trying to navigate the world for who you are. and that pain can be sort of universal no matter what sort of thing you're dealing with.

And so I love, she kind of almost calls it. I can't remember what she calls it, but it's like in Harry Potter when it's like, he who must not be named. She almost calls it like that thing throughout the book. So when the doctor finally diagnosed me with that thing, I couldn't believe, and I went and researched that thing and how that thing had affected my life.

She never names what it is. And we don't really need to know. Like there'd be things you could guess from some of the things that she says, but it's just how funny the book is as well and I suppose I connected to the idea of that you can talk about pain through someone funny and how being sort of difficult for want of a word

was always her thing she was thinking I'm difficult even though I'm funny and she forgot to remove any element of being lovable from that and only at the end does she realise how loved she is and she just kind of hadn't seen it and again like what I was talking about earlier on about the thing that changed my head about my dad, we can hold on to a narrative about our lives for so long.

And we're like, well, I'm like this because of X, Y, and Z. And I was talking to my therapist about how I'm like this because of this. And imagine, and I think this happens as you get older and you reach stages of your parents' age, that you suddenly start seeing your childhood from your own age or your parents' age, and you realize what an idiot you are comparatively to what you expected of your parents, and you start looking back.

And it's just as she gets older, looking back at stuff that happens to her as a kid and a teenager and looking at it from an adult's point of view. And the mother-daughter relationship is really beautiful at it as well. And she starts to understand her mother more and how she would have talked earlier on about her mother totally changes when she realizes she's an older, she's a lot older as a woman looking back at,

her mother would have been in her mid to late 30s to early 40s, coping in the way she was and she probably also had that thing and how that was displaying and it was just it's just a gore i would love everyone to read it just because that's the journey i found through and i found it like oh ouch there's a word i learned not long ago um sonder which is the realization that every passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own and you see that realization that journey to that realization throughout the book as all of these kinds of these kinds of characters, he realized they're going through so much themselves as we all are. And I found the most evocative depictions of whatever it is that she has when she described the most mundane

things, like getting dressed in the morning, not being able to leave the house, this blistering loneliness, which you portray really beautifully as well in this way up. Is that something that you found difficult to explore or actually very easy? easy for easy in that it was a subject matter I cared about and I wanted a deal with loneliness in a sort of way I remember reading somewhere that people treated loneliness a bit like they would have treated like some terrible disease back in the day or even COVID like you're afraid if you talk about it or tell people you have it

they're afraid they'll get it off you because to be lonely sort of feels like what you're saying is there's something wrong with me you just you don't. just haven't seen it yet, but once you, if I'm lonely, like, you'll want to leave too. And it actually doesn't make people connect. It feels a bit disgusting to be lonely as a state to exist. And I was like, if I can make someone that seems lovable, lonely, then you can, it just, it was almost like going straight into the thing I'd sort of fear most about someone looking at me as, and if I can tackle it there, then that will sort of be quite freeing as well. And I even remember, I mean, I've talked about this before, when the first series of

this way up came out and I talked to a journalist about loneliness and the guardian wrote the like put me on the front of the guardian and inside and on the main page of the guardian they had my face like this and loneliness underneath my face and I was like ah why did you like Victoria Secret model or something but they had loneliness and I was like oh no I'm the face of loneliness and I was so here was this me on the front cover of the Observer magazine yeah and I was so embarrassed that my first instinct was like oh how do I is there any way they can take it down has it gone to all the shops yet have people seen it

what are they going to think what are they going to think and that was something I just sort of process through and I'm like what the world didn't fall apart but I felt really embarrassed by the feeling because it was me not the character as well and it's one thing she deals really well with as well and again so many people get in touch with me about that now

and you'll never know by the looks of the people or the people who come up to you, that that's their thing as well. And I'm very, my mother doesn't suffer from loneliness. Even when she's been alone, she doesn't have it. And I think if you have it, it's something you sort of carry around. It doesn't matter

if you're in a relationship or not or around people. It's sort of like a little sort of hole somewhere. And that's what I wanted to sort of show in the show. And that's a massive, I'd forgotten that I connected actually so much with that in her book as well. Because I loved this person in the book. And yet she felt lonely.

And I was like, oh, I don't want you to be. I want to be your friend. But that's not the key to fixing it either. I really do urge anyone who hasn't read it to pick it up. It's a really beautiful book, and you've sold it so well. I get 50p for every book. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ashling, if you had to choose any one of your five books.

Desert Island. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which would it be? What's your favorite? Or which could you read over and over again? That's really because two of them are my best friends. Yeah. This is a WhatsApp group ready to kick off guys.

Before that reason, I'm not going to pick Sarah or Catherine only because I can't pick between, so I'll kill them both. Yeah, I can't because I can't, I'd rather, is this, like if I'm on a desert island, I'd like them to come so maybe they could read me their books. Oh, that's awful, that question. You're really struggling with this. I'm sorry, it wasn't supposed to be like this. I think because it wasn't supposed to be like this.

We were just doing historical dancing outside. Oh my God. It's taking a turn for the worst. Oh, maybe I'll take Meg Mason's book because she sent me an email and isn't that nice when you get an email

and I'm like, oh, well that's worked. You know, because here I am talking about it and I pick her. Maybe, yeah, maybe that. Maybe. Oh, God, I don't know now. Can I just let her take all five? Is that?

I'm just looking at the producer. You can take all five. You know when it's kind of like, I'm sorry I'm going to have to push you, I don't make the rules. You do make the rules. I do make the rules and I just did. Yeah. All five, yes, please. Yes.

Oh, well, Ashling, it has been such an absolute pleasure chatting to you. Because I feel like we've chatted about lots of things in our time, but never about Biggs. And what a beautiful way to get to know someone just that little bit better. Yes. And big shout out to Vic, ladies and gentlemen. What a beautiful gal. What a beautiful host. And put your hands together for Ashling Bee.

Thank you so much, everyone. Thanks so much. And yourselves. Thank you so, so much. It's been lovely to be able to do this in person, to do a live podcast recording and have all the laughs and all the applause and to be able to see your faces. We really appreciate it.

I am Vic Hoat and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast. Brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. And that is that. Yay, Birdline Media. We love them. Thanks, guys. Have an amazing rest of latitude.