The past decade has not been kind to the British sketch show. It is so rarely seen on television, that, in purely televisual terms, you would be forgiven for thinking the form had died out with 00s mainstays, such as the landline, DVDs and outrageous misogyny masquerading as friendly and completely harmless conversation.
But sketch comedy has thrived on the perimeters of mainstream culture. Social media teems with incredibly clever and inventive quickfire skits, while character-comedy acts have been responsible for some of the slickest and most entertaining material on the live circuit in recent years.
Finally, it seems, TV wants in – again. This week, BBC Three – newly revived as an actual on-air channel – has launched with a brand new series from Edinburgh fringe favourites Lazy Susan, AKA comics Freya Parker and Celeste Dring.
And it’s not the only sketch show BBC Three has committed to: it has ordered a full series of Ellie and Natasia, following a 2019 pilot by comedians Ellie White (who happens to be the braying Princess Beatrice to Dring’s Princess Eugenie in the excellent royal sitcom spoof The Windsors) and Natasia Demetriou.
That’s right: two female-led sketch shows on the same channel in the same year. Although all debate about womankind’s propensity for producing tenable comedy has officially been declared over, this fact is still relevant – largely because many of Lazy Susan’s most inspired sketches revolve around gender dynamics. Singing In Your Face sees the romantic tensions of vintage Hollywood movies get a very satisfying (and very minor) nudge into sexual harassment territory, and, in a recurring skit titled A French Woman In A Film (Written By A Man), the pair send up the liberated, vacantly eccentric lady trope with aplomb.
Some of the series’ sketches – including those examples – are taken from the pair’s uproarious 2018 Edinburgh fringe show, Forgive Me, Mother!, which featured a running narrative arc about Parker’s fear of being murdered by an obsessive male fan. The TV iteration isn’t quite so direct, but themes of sexism and gender norms hover ambiently behind most sketches.
And, just as those themes have had a modern revamp in recent years, so has comedy about them. “You’re skewering things but not in a way, from 10 years ago, where there’s a woman in a meeting and everyone’s talking over her,” says Dring. “Yes, that still happens but we know that in comedy now, so you don’t want to be making the same point.”
Instead, it’s the more insidious aspects that seem most ripe for parody, such as how “skincare has replaced makeup as another standard of beauty, or clean eating replaced dieting”. In their musical parody Sleepy Girls, a dreamy, Lana Del Rey-esque number is used to home in on a contemporary, Insta-friendly sort of damsel in distress: the ideal of a woman who is “beautiful and waif-like and their main trait is that they have no agency”.
Although the pair’s sketches frequently revolve around gender, this isn’t about pointing fingers, but, rather, spoofing the culture that has shaped all our brains. Yes, there is an element of resetting the power balance in some small way – “It’s always fun to play the men we’ve been subjected to, it feels quite cathartic,” says Dring – but part of the fun of parodying misogynistic tropes is acknowledging their own complicity.
“I think a lot of women who grew up in the era I grew up in probably have quite a lot of internalised misogyny,” says Dring, who, like Parker, is in her early 30s. “I thought for ages, when I was a teenager, that I was one of the boys. When you realise that wasn’t that authentic, and take a step back, you’re like: that’s quite funny.”
I’m speaking to Dring and Parker over Zoom: Dring is in the spare bedroom of her north London home (“for guests or when me and my boyfriend have an argument”); Parker is wearing a blond curly wig and having her makeup touched-up on the set of Wonka, the Willy Wonka origin story starring Timothée Chalamet, in which she plays a character called Miss Bon Bon (“real ‘blink and you’ll miss me’ vibes, but I’m very happy to be here”). The pair have been working together for a decade, but have also made a splash individually: as well as her recurring role in The Windsors, you may also recognise Dring as Kurtan’s love interest, Kayleigh, from This Country; Parker, meanwhile, played various characters in the news satire Late Night Mash, and also has a role in the upcoming Jurassic World sequel.
As Lazy Susan – and their other work – makes abundantly clear, the pair are both extremely talented actors, far surpassing the usual sketch comedy standards. So it’s no surprise to discover they started out on the more straight-faced end of the spectrum. Parker was a jobbing actor (repeatedly cast as a child in theatre productions “because I’m small”), and Dring was in the post-university “wilderness years”, when they were introduced and quickly began making some “inexcusably bad” serious theatre. In one play they were two little boys whose father had left them. “It was like a reverse Waiting for Godot,” says Dring. “It died a death.”
Soon after, comedy called. For one thing, it was more accessible – stage time was easier to come by and they could perform something they had written that day. “It seems like more of a meritocracy,” says Dring. “Dramatic acting feels like you need connections, you need to look a certain way.” Yet, on the other hand, comedy also seemed impenetrable – like magic, says Dring. “Or maths.” Growing up, she says, “I didn’t have any notion of how I could be funny. I saw sketch in that tradition of Monty Python and Fry and Laurie. Posh men doing wordplay, and I was like: what am I going to contribute to that?”
The show sports an impressive roster of recognisable guest stars, including standups James Acaster and Lou Sanders, double Edinburgh award-winner John Kearns and Stath Lets Flats star Kiell Smith-Bynoe. Most are friends of the pair, who, nine years on from their Edinburgh fringe debut (they were nominated for the newcomer prize a year later in 2014) are well entrenched in the British comedy scene. Surely by now they are sketch experts, too? Not so, they insist.
“If you said to me, you’ve got to write three sketches this week I would be like: ‘oh no!’” says Dring. “I honestly feel like, every time, we’re fumbling around in the dark – neither of us feel like we know what we’re doing. Not in a self-deprecating woman way – but that’s definitely part of it as well.” Parker laughs. “Please don’t let that be the headline: “I don’t know what I’m doing.” She pauses to view her, now visor-covered, face on her phone screen. “I look absolutely insane with this mask on.”
New comedy is always divisive – particularly in the UK, and particularly in the everyone’s-a-critic social media age – but sketch shows, with their inevitable hit-and-miss nature, are especially so. The series even includes a sketch about a hotline that disgruntled viewers can use to vent at the pair (“if you don’t like our material, or you think we’re ugly and need to know!”). So, how are they preparing themselves for the reaction to Lazy Susan in real life? “I’ll put my full address on Twitter and I’m just going to let them come,” deadpans Parker. In fact, they say, the extreme, bile-filled “kill yourself” criticism is not the most painful.
“I’m a massive perfectionist, so fair criticism is actually worse,” admits Dring. “I find it easier to tolerate people being like ‘I hope these sluts die,’ than someone that’s like ‘I feel like it lagged in the second half’. You’re like: ‘Owww, that’s really fair.’” So, if you really must criticise Lazy Susan’s inventive, ludicrous and sharply satirical sketches, then please ensure your grievances are as disturbing as possible.
