In one very important sense, motherhood is an exercise in mitigating risk: you are the cautious and dutiful protector of society’s most vulnerable. But what if you’re also a natural-born thrill-seeker who lives for transgressive fun? What then?
In Jackpot, her new standup show, Isy Suttie explores precisley this contradiction. As a teenager growing up in the picturesque spa town of Matlock in Derbyshire, her life revolved around the pursuit of excitement: some of her weirder escapades included touring multiple house parties in a single evening with her Ouija board, and jumping off a 30ft bridge for a £1 bet. Now, her life has all the hallmarks of measured domesticity – she has a seven-year-old daughter and three-year-old son with her partner, fellow comic Elis James – and yet “the element of me that does want to take risks” remains, she explains over a flat white in a south London coffee shop that is full of mothers conscientiously attending to babes in buggies.
