Sara Pascoe isn’t the first comic to get a laugh by appraising the precise dimensions of her fame. She’s rare in making a whole show out of it. One of two shows, as it turns out. Success Story is a night of two halves – the first chronicling the 20-year fulfilment of her teenage TV dreams, the second her life as a new parent. Act One is an amuse bouche, likable but not peak Pascoe. Act Two, addressing an experience that has eclipsed for her the importance of everything described in the first, cuts accordingly closer to the bone.
What the first hour has going for it is a lovely structure which mirrors 14-year-old Sara’s fruitless audition for Michael Barrymore’s TV talent show with a parallel screen singing gig for her 40-year-old self. There’s also a droll presiding conceit whereby – with reference to her sceptical therapist – Pascoe can’t be sure if her stardom is real or a delusion. All of which is winningly humble and heart-on-sleeve, with Pascoe as ever playing the overthinking girl-in-a-woman’s-body, maladjusted to adulthood.
