Luisa Omielan is the first stand-up to receive a BAFTA Breakthrough accolade, with four consecutive smash hit shows, she can fairly claim to have created the ‘genre-defining’ one-woman show. The adoration in the comment section of her latest, self-produced special ‘God is a Woman‘, suggests Luisa is still reaching new heights in her chosen profession.
Familiar to fans of Live at the Apollo, she set the comedy world on fire with her 2012 debut, ‘What Would Beyonce Do?!’ Another show, Politics for Bitches was made into a BBC3 series. So who knows what awaits her brand-new show, Bitter, which opens in Aberdeen this April 10th, before touring nationwide.
Luisa was generous enough to sit down for a chat with me to discuss Bitter, life, and the state of the comedy nation in 2024…
Hi Luisa, so you’re going out on the road again. I say again you’re a very familiar face on the comedy circuit. How are you feeling about taking ‘Bitter’ out on tour?
I’m genuinely excited. This is the first tour that I have properly booked by myself with my own production company. So I’ve kind of done it independently.
During, and then after the Pandemic, I was learning this side of the ropes, just trying to make it work here and there. It was very much hit-and-miss for obvious reasons, like booking shows, then having them cancelled, then booking them again. This time everything is working, people are going again but…times have changed. There’s a cost of living crisis you know? It’s difficult for people. So I’ve had to work out how to go out on tour, make it viable, and enjoy it.
So, I just picked 20 of my favourite venues that I’ve played over the last decade: rooms that I really like. I’ve kept tickets as affordable as possible and I’m really, really happy with how it’s going. Like, it’s shaping up really well. So I’m excited, very, very excited. It’s working for this time, and I’m happy.
Well, you seem to have cracked the code for success, you’ve won awards, and you have a very significant and devoted fan base. This is the automatic next step?
I’ve never won any awards actually! But I have got very devoted fanbase and I should have won awards. Like I very much believe I should have won awards. They should have happened, but they never did. But they won people’s hearts. Like the Princess Diana of comedy, I won their hearts.
Bless you, but you did receive the BAFTA breakthrough accolade!
Accolade rather than awarded, but yes. Very cheeky of them!
Well, who needs awards? My old pal Garth Cruickshank won one of the very first Perrier Awards back in 2001. Household fame has yet to descend! Back to Bitter! How do you approach keeping your material fresh and current? You make an impact with what you do, and in this digital age, the pressures have never seemed higher.
I only put something out when I’ve got something to say. I think what I’m quite good at is feeling the market for how people are feeling. Because I don’t think that TV reflects the live circuit at all. It’s so rare that you see something really good that lots of people really get into. When they happen, they are seldom made in the UK. It’s been a long time since we’ve had more than one or two really good homegrown shows.
But on the live circuit, it’s just completely different. There are just so many fantastic comedians, incredible gigs and clubs that are thriving! We’re talking content, entertainment, and just making people laugh, feel engaged and joyful.
You learn very quickly on the live scene what people are responding to, what they like. So this show is called Bitter and it is exactly what it says on the tin. I feel like now is very much the time and place for it. It’s not a show I want to do again!
“…the live circuit it’s just completely different. There are just so many fantastic comedians, incredible gigs and clubs that are thriving!”
Luisa Omielan
I really hope that things improve, and I don’t need to. But that’s just where I feel the mood is at now. I was a bit of a gamble to try it because all of my previous shows are so empowering and feel good. It does seem to have hit the right nerves and people seem to be responding to it the way I want them to. I’m pleased with it.
I think there’s something empowering about embracing what you’re bitter about and accepting, rather than denying it…
Absolutely. I think that every emotion is just like every other emotion. We have this sanitised idea of mental health I think, and everything is either like ohh, ‘support your mental health’, ‘look after your mental health’, or ‘depression is real’, and I’m thinking there’s a cost of living crisis, people are working every God damn day for nothing. Things have got worse. That is not depression: that is not a mental health crisis. This is the direct consequence of actions that have been taken intentionally to make our lives harder.
So rather than gaslighting them with ‘you just need anti-depressants’, I think it’s healthier to acknowledge how things are. Acknowledge it, and work through it.
Absolutely. Your messaging has seen you achieve an impressive online following and enviable engagement. There’s no denying this is a big part of the game
I think my online success is quite old like I think my peak engagement was years ago!
Still, you have a solid online game, do you think social media has been a positive development? Do you find it useful?
Some people are really excellent at it and it’s amazing what people do well. And I haven’t found what I’m good at on it yet because I share brilliant jokes, jokes that I’ve spent years working on and they’ll get like 10 views. Then you’ve got a girl pouring yoghurt on her face and she gets two and a half million likes and you’re like, OK so do I just put yoghurt on my face? Like is that is that it? So it’s hard to know what the rules are because there are no rules!
It’s like a cowboy kind of game. Like there’s no rhyme or reason. And now like, I feel like we’ve all developed ADHD from social media because everything is so quick. Now you watch TV and you’re like, can I play this back double speed?
So I’m trying not to buy into that social media hype of like, open with a really strong hook and get to your point out straight away. I’d rather just be slow and take my time and talk to you: work our way to better laughs.
To me, giving your audience more credit is part of your MO. I’m thinking of your series Politics for Bitches in particular. Luisa Omielan a political thinker, you aren’t afraid to be serious…
That’s really astute. I think anyone who’s followed my work will think ‘Bitter’? How could she not be?
Like I came into this game in 2012 with What Would Beyoncé do? It was just so exciting, and there was no other show like it out there. I’ve seen the influence. There’s so many people I’ve seen copy or imitate it, to the point now they don’t realise it came from that show. I was wearing my heart on my sleeve, and getting in your face, and I would get criticised for wearing the wrong earrings! I’d get criticised for talking about mental health, for having music on stage, for gyrating, for just being a woman on stage, doing what I was doing!
What’s frustrating for me is that I look at many of the peers I’d do festivals with and they were international artists and like household names selling out arenas.
In England, you have a big hit, and people are just like, ‘what else you got?’. It’s exhausting. Like, why are people lying to me? Why are you telling us that hard work pays off? To say that out loud is considered the wrong things to say because you’re supposed to believe in just working harder, or doing something different.
But for me, since I was 20 years old, every time I’ve jumped through a hoop or done ‘something new’, it’s never worked. Thay payoff you’re promised like a dangling carrot never materialised. So now I stick to something I picked up when I was 19 from Shakespeare, “To thine own self be true.”
All I can do is do comedy which is authentic and real, and what I care about. If that’s not for you, or not part of the mainstage or the commercial hits then fine! But in 10 years my work will still be relevant. I can stand by what I do, and what I’ve done. Hopefully, I’ve grown.
I love my audiences: I think they’re phenomenal. I would love to reach more people, and put on more shows – and I would love for it to be easier. Until then, I think you just keep plugging away in your own little corner of the world, keeping a roof over your head. That’s it.
Amen! Talking about the circuit, you’ve been on it over a decade now. How has it changed? For the better? Or otherwise?
It’s so different. I was talking about this in the green room over the weekend. I was gigging with Jeff Innocent, a great comic around for a long time, and Jimmy McGhie, again a great comic.
Jeff has been doing really well on Instagram recently, but he’s been a headliner a the Comedy Store for years. I don’t want to say decades, but I want to say a decent. But it’s now he’s getting the love deserves, and now through social media has reached a new fanbase.
Otherwise, you could say I’ve been a bit of a snob because for me, I hate it when you see people who might be comedy actors or have performed comedy someone else has written – call themselves a comedian. That’s not being a comedian.
Like, being a comedian is being out of stages, in the trenches, gigging, gigging, gigging, travelling up and down the country for hours; picking up a headliner to drive for another 5 hours to get paid virtually nothing. But that’s my old school, because no you don’t do that.
You’ve got comics going online doing a funny little monologue to camera, and they’re playing to 200, 400, 600 seaters and selling them out. But they don’t have the live experience to be able to hold the show or to book a return gig. I think that’s scary, that has to be really damaging to a person’s self-esteem when you throw them out too early.
You have agents pushing them out because they can sell tickets, but then there’s no return, you don’t get called back to do a show again. You’re going to see them once, and then never again.
“In England, you have a big hit, and people are just like, ‘what else you got?’. It’s exhausting. Like, why are people lying to me?”
Luisa Omielan
I feel there’s just no escaping the hard work, there’s no shortcut. You have to have a go. I remember I did a gig with someone a while back, they went out on stage did 5 minutes and left! They were like, “I don’t need to play to that. I’m done.”
Is that what we do now?
Are you telling me I’ve got PTSD for no reason when I’ve stayed on stage, done my time, and died a death? Eat the shit: learn the lesson. Now we just don’t put ourselves through that. But, maybe that’s the way forward? You know, self-care is a good thing, but I just don’t know we’re going to foster resilience in ourselves.
The world never seems to get simpler, that’s for sure. The swings and roundabouts never seem to quit. But back to the tour, you have Bernie, your beloved dog, how does she deal with the touring?
Oh, she’s amazing. She’s the best on stage. She comes on stage with me. She’s good. I can’t do shows without her.
And with that, the rightfully popular Luisa Omielan had to run to another press call. You know it takes fortitude to speak your mind these days, the internet isn’t notoriously forgiving in the ‘be kind’ era. However, the history of great comedy is a history of comedians wrapping up their unvarnished truths in superb timing and a unique turn of phrase. Assuming that talent and hard work pay off – sometimes – then Bitter could be one of the best things to hit UK comedy clubs this year.
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