Jojo Sutherland is a charismatic stand-up who is as well known for her compere abilities as she is for her own routines. Her “healthy neglect” attitude to her children proves extremely popular amongst many and varied audiences including the armed forces where she remains as one of the few women to go to military bases to entertain the troops.
Tell us about your latest show.
‘JOJO SUTHERLAND – IN CONVERSATION as it says on the tin, me talking, for an hour, about me!
‘It will be quite confessional but then I’m rarely anything else – it will also be funny, that’s important that people know that, it will be funny’
Tell us your best and worst experiences on stage.
‘Best experience was an all male audience at a sportsman’s dinner who had never had a woman comic before and I got a standing ovation – worst was an all male audience at a gig who were in complete silence until one man piped up “ is she still talking?” that’s going to be the title of my autobiography!’
Do you agree with the BBC ban on all male panel shows and are they right to axe BBC3?
‘Don’t talk about it just do it and same goes for having women on panel shows’
You performed at The Stand show for Kids. Tell us the concept behind that and how did it go?
‘It’s a chance for parents to enjoy comedy along with their kids but it’s hard to find the balance that appeal to all. Tommy Sheppard who owns The Stand suggested I just talk to them like I do my own kids and then very quickly counteracted that advice with “ actually, on second thoughts – don’t do that” It was fun though, not dissimilar to a normal rowdy Friday night except the audience of kids were high on fizzy juice and Skittles’
If you were curating a stand up show for television, who would be your guests?
‘Everyone who has strong opinions and is naturally funny – there’s a lot of them about on the comedy circuit who haven’t had the opportunity to shine on TV, I’d let them shine.’
Gonna have to push you…
‘Oh – that’s hard, OK Dave Allen would be my star guest as he was at my 8th birthday party and I totally didn’t appreciate how big a deal that was at the time so would want to redress that but as far as comics go – my wish list would be Paul Pirie, Mark Nelson,Scott Agnew, Jo Caulfield, Wendy Wason, Steve Gribbin, Susan Murray, Katie Mulgrew, Karen Bayley, Joe Lycett, Alyson Smith, Vladimir Mctavish, Keir Macallister ,Gus Lymburm and Tom Stade, essentially all the people I always get hammered drunk with.’
