Suzi Ruffell has made a name for herself for her hilarious take on everything from Naked Attraction to her mum’s dress sense. Now she’s back with a new show, Nocturnal, about the things that keep her up at night. I caught up with Suzi about social media, the new series of The Crown and Stella MCATney.
The great thing about stand up and about being in a room full of people that are all laughing at the same thing
The new show’s all about anxiety, was it important to you to write a show about mental health?
SR: The kind of stand-up that I am, every year I do a different show; it’s usually about something that’s affecting me over that year or something that is at the forefront of my mind. I didn’t really set out to write a show about mental health.
Just the fact that I feel like we’re living in a quite an anxious time, it feels like all you need to do is look on Twitter and find something to fret about in a number of minutes or seconds, rather. I’ve always been someone that doesn’t really shy away from talking about anything on stage. I think of myself as a confessional comic. The thing I love about stand up and about being a stand up is that its unedited. I found that when I started talking about it on stage, audiences really reacted well to it because I think a lot of people have felt similarly. So, it wasn’t that I set out to write that kind of show, but that is the show that I ended up writing.
Do you think comedy is a good tool for dealing with the 'anxious times' we’re living in?
SF: Yeah, I guess for me it is! I’m not trying to solve the world’s problems through stand up, I’ve never been that kind of comic, but I think comedy is sort of useful for everything. The great thing about stand up and about being in a room full of people that are all laughing at the same thing is that it’s really connecting as humans.
In that way, I think that comedy can be a great tool. But I certainly wouldn’t set out to solve any problems, or anyone else's problems using stand up. I sometimes solve my own problems using stand up, but that’s just cause it’s cheaper than therapy!
You’re in the public eye and have to spend quite a lot of time on social media. Is that something you find particularly difficult or anxiety inducing?
SR: Yeah, I kind of hate it to be honest. You do want to be able to connect with people that don’t know you already and the best way to do that is via social media. However, it can be a really toxic place. On Instagram you see this filtered edited version of someone’s life and it’s easy to go 'Oh I’m not good enough' or 'Why aren’t I doing that?' when actually you need to sort of remind yourself that, you know it’s all fake. It’s all just the versions of ourselves that we choose to put up.
So I try to be really honest on social media about that sort of thing. I’ll say 'I’m shooting this show or I’m doing this.' But I’m also quite happy to put up a picture of me with very little makeup on with my cat, saying I’m hanging out with my best friend. And that’s fine too.
You’re a huge cat lover. I wondered if there were any cat accounts that you follow that we should check out?
SR: There’s this one called Stella McCATney. I used to follow petit bacon who’s this tiny dog on social media and there’s like Duck A Day on Twitter that just shares a different duck every day. That’s the sort of side to social media that I find really sweet and lovely.
It’s interesting that you bring up social media because that’s the kind of starting point for the show this year. I talk about an encounter with a troll on social media and how that induces my anxiety. My friend Tom Allen, who I do my podcast with, summed it up perfectly. He said, 'people on Twitter are the same kind of people who would have gone to a public hanging.'
You need to really positively engage with social media, when you want to. I’m really bad: it’s probably the first thing I do in the morning as I’m having my first cup of tea of the day. You do sort of wonder, what did we do before Twitter and Instagram? Probably, you know, read the newspaper. But then that’s really depressing at the moment as well. We’re fucked either way is what I’m trying to say. And, therefore, let’s all go and watch some stand up!
I like that attitude. I often find myself worrying about really mundane things. So, I wanted to know what’s your most trivial worry?
SR: Oh, I don’t know. Whether the next series of The Crown is going to be as good as the first two?
That’s a big worry for everyone! But it’s going to star Olivia Colman so it will probably be great.
SR: That’s true. The thing is that in the middle of the night, the little worries become big, and the big worries become catastrophic. I call it my 3am press conference. All of the voices in my head all have to have a chat and they’re all worried about something different. And it is trivial worries and silly things….
I think that’s relatable for a lot of people. You’ve written about how Brighton was quite influential for you when you were coming out. I was wondering what it’s like performing here now?
SR: I love Brighton! I think Komedia is probably one of the best venues in the country. I’ve played the Comedy Club quite a lot and I play Zoe Lion’s night Bent Double there quite a lot as well. Last year we did a wonderful show and it sold out so quickly we did another one in the small room and this year they’ve moved me up to the big room now, which is wonderful but a little bit scary.
So, I’m really excited to be taking the tour there, I was at the Brighton Dome about a month ago and that was a really fun gig as well. I think Brighton audiences are generally really great, really comedy savvy. You know they are quite engaged with the arts it seems, and so it’s always a real pleasure to perform in Brighton.
Suzi will be performing her new show Nocturnal at Komedia in Brighton on the 18th March.
