There’s something enthralling about the way Catherine Cohen speaks. First, there’s her voice – that slow, Old Hollywood drawl that perfectly matches her blend of stand-up and cabaret. And then there’s the content – words and phrases made up at random; accents adopted then put down. It’s “absolute nonsense,” she says, but utterly infectious. Over on Instagram, there’s an entire community obsessed (in Cohen-speak, that’d be “obsorsed”/“obsoosed”/“obsessiana”) with the bizarre comments made by her and Hacks writer Pat Regan on their podcast Seek Treatment. Do fans often imitate her speaking style when they meet her? “Yeah, like all the time. Like non-stop. But I love it. They’re just like, ‘Hey, girlina!’” That’s got to make her feel pretty iconic, I suggest. “Oh stooooop,” she purrs.
In 2020, Cohen was bringing that unique blend of weird and sexy to London’s Bush Hall when her parents rang to tell her some earth-shattering news: Tom Hanks had Covid. “He started it all,” she tells me. “He made America believe that coronavirus was real.” The run was meant to be Cohen’s UK victory lap after winning Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Comedy Awards. “My agents and my manager and my mom and dad [were] like, ‘Tom Hanks has Covid – you need to get on a plane.’” It was 2 o’clock in the morning. “I didn’t go to sleep. I just went to the airport.”
