Comedy of the Week - Sarah Mills' Bad Bod Squad

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

Sarah Mills' comedy guide to dealing with a fallible and embarrassing body.Since losing part of her bowel, comedian Sarah Mills has used a stoma bag. She might tell you that having a bag attached to her belly to collect her poo has made her unembarrassable - but the truth is she has always been completely shameless. Now, with the assistance of her outrageously candid celebrity guests, she wants to smash the taboos around bodily malfunctions and help us all banish bodily embarrassment for good.Recorded in her home town of Stevenage, in this this week’s episode, Leaky, Sarah explores bodily spills with comedian and writer Ola Labib.Created and written by Sarah Mills Starring Sarah Mills with special guest Ola LabibRecording Engineer and Editor: Jerry Peal Recording Assistant: Guy Thomas Script Editor: Zoe Tomalin Associate Producer: Antonia Gospel Executive Producer: Alan Nixon Production Manager: Co- Producers: Gordon Kennedy and Sarah MillsRecording in front of a live audience at Stevenage Lytton Players TheatreAn Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4Additional information on issues in this episode: https://www.bowelcanceruk.org.uk https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/urinary-incontinence/

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello and welcome to the Bad Bod Squad, a show all about the embarrassing things our bodies do. My name is Sarah Mills and I am a comedian, disability campaigner and future national treasure. Something you need to know about me is that I literally have no shame. Like I once had seven boyfriends all at once. And because my name's Sarah, I ended up calling them the S Club Seven. I didn't think I could get much more unembarrassable, but then in 2018 I was diagnosed with bowel cancer.

My doctor had to take so many stool samples from me I ended up offering him a loyalty card. I even had to drop one off at the hospital over a weekend in the run up to Christmas. The whole place was deserted but a nurse told me to leave it on the consultant's desk to be picked up on Monday. Worst secret Santa ever. Snash cut to now and I've made a full recovery but live with a stoma bag.

Big up NHS. A stoma is an opening in the abdomen through which the intestine is rerouted into an external pouch. What this means in practical terms is I now have a little bit of intestine that pokes out the front of my belly, kind of like a broken whack-a-mole.

So why am I telling you all this? I think it's cause we all have weird shit going on with our bodies that we just don't talk about. So this is the show that seeks to start of a bit of a conversation about it, along with my celebrity guests. There are many ways my stoma has improved my life. For example, I don't have to go to the toilet to poo anymore.

It's just always going on in the background like a computer update. I can be making a sandwich having a poo. Doing my tax return having a poo. I'm having a poo right now! Been doing it since we came on air. In my old job if I'd taken a shit at my desk I'd be given a verbal warning. But these days I get an auditorium full of people to observe it and record it for the nation. So I am very proud to be hosting the show from my hometown of Stevenage! Stevenage is most famous for being two things. The birthplace of Lewis Hamilton and the town where they built the Mars Rover.

I don't think the two are connected, but it does suggest people are keen to leave the town at speed. Like a Mars Rover or a Formula One car, my bum has been tooled up by a crack team of engineers. Sorry, I misread that. A team of crack engineers. But all this poking and prodding has made me acutely aware how prudish we are about our bodies. There's nothing quite like getting out of a colonoscopy and being told there's something angry looking up there. Is it angry looking or does it just have resting bitch face? You see, I think if we're honest about how our bodies actually work, we are more likely

to get the healthcare we need and live fuller lives with less embarrassment and shame. I also wanted to make this show so I could shout butt jokes at a terrified Radio 4 audience. On with the show! Thank you. So this week we're looking at leaky bodies. We are a fundamentally leaky species, absolutely riddled with holes for stuff to come out of. LAUGHTER And we get a lot of conflicting messaging, right,

about how moist we should be. LAUGHTER Dry hair is bad, but a dry bum is good. Our skin is supposed to be not too dry but also not too greasy like Greg Wallace is going to be sampling it as a starter course on Masterchef. Yeah advertisers want me to believe that I should be my very own micro climate and have everything in a perfect balance and if I don't there's always something that they can sell me that will correct it. I think we should

stand firm against this. Some of us are just naturally sweaty. It's nothing to be ashamed of. And denying it is only going to get you in trouble with Emily Maitlis. Since my treatment, my body has become way more leaky. So over the stoma I fix a stoma bag, which is a little waterproof pouch that I wear for about three days before replacing it with a new one. And then the bag is held there by two sticky strips on either side. It's like Anthea Turner on Blue Peter made me a new bowel out of carrier bags and sellotape.

But I genuinely can see the bright side of all of this. When I first saw my stoma bag coming around from surgery, it was obviously a big change to my body. Nonetheless, I decided that having the bag was going to be way better than having cancer. So I decided to embrace it and my newfound leakiness and welcome it into my life. I gave it a name. I called it colon the caterpillar. Side note, right? Can we talk about how lucky we are to be living through an era where there's a celebrity cake? So I actually used to call my bag Gillian McKeith. But genuinely, it turns out that Gillian McKeith these days, she's quite litigious, so I thought I'd pick Colin,

because he has never sued anyone who isn't another cake. LAUGHTER And if you haven't heard of her, right, Gillian McKeith is a presenter who was very popular in the noughties for presenting a show where she looked at other people's poo in order to give them health advice. For any Gen Z in the room, it was basically one girl, one cup. LAUGHTER I love getting to use disabled loos and there's one

reason for this right the law states that a disabled loo has to be at least 220 centimeters by 150 centimeters. I'm a renter in 2024 that's a palace! Like in this current housing market you kidding me like if I set one up with my air fryer, my ice box full of Roseco and my life-size pillow of Dwayne the Rock Johnson, I'd already be living better than I did through most of the pandemic. So when you have a non-apparent disability, people can be suspicious of you as you exit a disabled loo And so I've been given the evil eye more times than I care to count

Though once it was because I'd accidentally switched my iPhone torch on and they were just squinting It must have seemed for a moment as that door opened like it was the second coming of the Lord And Jesus came down to earth and said I'd give it a minute if I were you. The thing is right, the world is constantly in flux. Buildings rise, buildings fall. And we have an opportunity in all of that to make it all a bit more comfortable for everyone in it. But the first thing we've got to do is chat about what it is we might need. With that in mind, it's time to bring on my guest. Okay, I am delighted to share the wonder of this person with you all tonight. She's a comedian, a writer, a pioneer.

She's leaky, she's cheeky, and she's here to get freaky. It's Ola Labib! She's come all the way from Portsmouth. Which is like the stevenage of the sea. Just come all the way from Portsmouth. Which is like the stevenage of the sea. We've actually talked a lot about... Okay, do you want me to intro your condition or do you want to tell everybody? You intro it.

Okay, so Ola is my guest on the leaky episode of the show because she has urinary incontinence. So this is one of the things we bonded over when we first met. We met like two years ago. Basically I was sat on her lap and she was like, she was like, Oh, you're a little bit too excited to see me. So is there a name for the condition that you've got? No, so they didn't really know what it was. So when I was younger, I'm sure a lot of people in this, I don't want to make assumptions, wet the bed. And so it wasn't anything suspicious. But then when I got to 15, they were like, so my parents were like, either this is a condition or Ola's very lazy. And it was both.

Basically, when you go to the toilet, you start to get an urge. But with me, I don't have that sensation. So I go from not feeling anything to if I don't go right now, I will wet myself. Like I do think this urinary incontinence is often associated with older people. So what's it like being a younger person with this condition? I think it's the same whether you're old or young. I don't think it makes it any easier or any worse on age. But I think the only thing that concerns me is that I've got this when I'm young What is it gonna be like when I'm older and if I have kids? Yeah, the second I get pregnant. I'm buying tenor pads. I'm not even messing around and as a pharmacist

Can you just nick the tenor pads before the boots? Now I just nick it out of old people's shopping trolleys on the way home. I like to think of us both as being like incontinence prodigies, like we just got there young. Yeah. Some people get grade seven violin, we got incontinence. I've also got grade seven violin. So has developing this condition had any any unexpected positive effects in your life? No.

No. I'm literally racking my brains for something positive about pissing yourself in public. It was a challenge, I will give you that. This whole show that we're making here is like, it's about me being sort of like cheerful about living with my bag and living with being leaky and incontinent. But the answer can be no, there are no upsides. I agree. Like, I never talk about it. I was saying before I came, like, it's not even something I've ever even spoken about in public.

But I do appreciate that you're giving us this world exclusive. Yes, you're seeing a world exclusive of my bladder issues. So... Cos you are very fortunate in having a husband, which I'm painfully single. So you have a husband... What does your husband make of it all? So... Before I married him, I never told him!

LAUGHTER Before I married him, I never told him. So tell me about yourself. Well, I'm a comedian and I piss myself in public sometimes. No, I never told him, but I was okay. Like I've got certain routines during the night. And I think since I've been married married it's only happened three times. The first time my husband kind of poked me and then he was like, I don't know if it's raining and you've left the windows open. And I'm like, he was trying to be polite because the windows are like 10 metres away from our bed. I've got this

thing, I don't know what it is. And I think this side of it is psychological, that I might not need the toilet, but as soon as I'm walking down the street towards my house, as soon as I know my house is in close proximity, I always call my husband, he'd keep the door open and he'll know and I'll just like sprint upstairs, toilet door open. Like he's used to it and oh, he's so adorable

because sometimes I'll hear him shout did you make it? So your student is Muslim. Yeah. Do you think that fed into like how your parents like managed it when you were growing up? I think obviously they didn't speak about it nor did they tell people and maybe that's why I'm only just talking about it now because it was always something that they suppressed. It was really difficult for me because I was never allowed to have sleepovers and I never was allowed to have people over to my house.

I never went to those school trips because my parents were genuinely so worried that I'd wet myself. And I used to have this like plastic sheet that I used to put over my mattress. I would be too embarrassed to take that with me because I know kids would ask and stuff. I definitely think that if it's hereditary and I have a kid and they do have it, I would like to think that more awareness will come out about it and then like they won't be prohibited from doing certain things, especially up to the age of 16. That's when like you live and that's when you

go out and that's when you spend more time with your friends and stuff. But I didn't have any of that because of this problem. And yeah. When I've wrapped on this show, you and me are having a sleepover. I'm going to drink five cups of coffee and three liters of water. So now for my closing thought. When you're disabled, people will often assume you're an expert about all areas of disability, like for example by giving you a Radio 4 series about the human body. Jokes on them, I don't know my arse from my elbow.

All I know is that I don't need either of them to take a dump. Good night! Sarah Mills' Bad Bod Squad is written by and stars Sarah Mills with special guest Ola Labib. The script editor is Zoe Tomlin. It is produced by Gordon Kennedy and Sarah Mills and is an absolutely production for BBC Radio 4. I'm Andrew Hunter Murray, host of The Naked Week, a brand new Friday night comedy for Radio 4. Nigel Farage, bit the head off a clanger.

Where you'll probably find this kind of thing. Sadiq Khan, London's most unpopular mayor since Dick Whittington charged his cat to enter its own litter tray. Not to mention this kind of thing. The complete works of Steely Dan, far longer than the lifespan of a Kyr Starmark policy. And this sort of thing. The first time a bullet catcher's ever been performed on the radio. And when we got a magician to fire a bullet through a popular current affairs magazine to test the strength of its opinions. 3, 2, 1.

The Naked Week from BBC Radio 4. Listen now on BBC Sounds.