the times | Tuesday October 20 2020 1GT 3
times
Darkness of Robins, won the
Edinburgh Comedy Award ( jointly
with Hannah Gadsby’s show Nanette).
That, Pascoe says with a smile, was
poetic justice. When she and Robins
were together he used to sit in the
bath practising pretend acceptance
speeches for the comedy awards. She
always teased him that he wasn’t the
kind of experimental comedian the
awards liked to reward.
“And it felt like the end of a movie,”
she says. “All I had to do was break
up with him and then his dreams
could come true.”
She insists that “it was never
awkward”, both featuring so heavily in
each other’s shows at the same time. Juliet Stevenson, Sara Pascoe and Fiona Button in the new seriesMelania Trump has a new hobby.
Is it fantasising about what might
have happened if the Regeneron
hadn’t worked?Dark. And no. It’s essay writing.
Sorry. I’m in a dark mood these
days. But also — really?Yes — and even better, they
are personal.Ooh! Go on.
Melania has taken to the White
House website to address the
salacious claims made by Stephanie
Winston Wolkoff’s tell-all book,
Melania and Me: The Rise and
Fall of My Friendship with the
First Lady.Isn’t that website for more, er,
important issues? Like addressing
child hunger?Not these days — right now it’s
practically MT’s personal blog.
This is the second personal essay
she has posted on the site recently.
The first detailed her experience
with coronavirus.Wild. It’s like a White House Gossip
Girl. Or Deliciously Melania. So what
did she say?She didn’t name Wolkoff, but she
did reference “a former contractor”
who “wrote a book of idle gossip”
about her, recorded private
conversations between them and
who “clung” to her after Donald
Trump won the presidency.Shots fired!
It gets better — Melania claims
that, in truth, she “hardly knew”
said contractor and has complained
about the media focussing “on
pettiness over my positive work.”Meow! Cat fight! But why
now? Didn’t the book come
out months ago?Yes, but this comes just days
after the Justice Department
filed a lawsuit against Wolkoff
for allegedly breaching a
confidentiality agreement
with the book.Ah. So she has picked her moment.
Sort of. She’s also just drawn
attention to
something she
wants everyone
— the media
especially
— to forget
about.Well, duh.
But who is
going to
tell her?
Hannah
RogersThe lowdown
Melania Trump
comic in the family is no fun’
She trusted that he would never be
nasty. And she told Robins that she
would never go to see his show
because she didn’t want him to have
to consider her feelings. He, likewise,
hasn’t been to LadsLadsLads, although
Pascoe’s mum has watched The
Darkness of Robins on Netflix. “And
she is not happy! I don’t know why.
I didn’t ask specifics,” Pascoe says.
“Mums are very defensive of you.
And we’ve got lots of friends in
common and none of them have ever
said, ‘Oh God, John’s saying stuff.’ ”
Now Robins is engaged to Coco
Fennell, a fashion designer. Last
September Pascoe married the
Australian comedian Steen
Raskopoulos. So far, she says,
Raskopoulos hasn’t done anything
she can use in her stand-up. Instead
she is talking about “the love of my
life” — her new dog — and her
experience with Covid-19. She got it
early in lockdown, having abandoned
a documentary she was filming in
Finland in March, and it went on for
several weeks. Each time she thoughtshe was getting better, she had to
go back to bed. “This is hyperbolic,
but it was a bit like being run over
by a truck, and then each time you
think you’re better the truck reverses
over you again.”
Since then she hasn’t been hugely
productive, she says (Out of Her Mind
was recorded in January). “Everyone
likes to think they are in control of
their lives, but at the moment we are
definitely not.” And although she is
playing some shows this month,
including two big ones at the O
Forum in north London, she is not one
of those comedians with such faith in
the future that they have announced
a big tour for 2021.
In fact, she rather thinks comedians
who have announced big tours for
next year are being cavalier. “I
wouldn’t announce a tour until there
is a vaccine,” she says. She will spend
the winter trying to think up new
ideas, however. Could that
include more Out of Her
Mind? She wrote it to be
self-contained and gave it a
proper ending, but then, two
weeks after they finished
editing it, she started having
new ideas. So, if the ratings are
good enough, she would love
to do more. After all, having
your own sitcom, about
yourself: what more could
any comedian wish for?
“In some ways this show is
my dream, is what I always
wanted to make. And all the
other stuff was kind of jumping
through hoops so I could get to
this point.”
Out of Her Mind is on
BBC Two at 10pm tonight;
sarapascoe.co.ukCOVER: PAL HANSEN/GUARDIAN/EYEVINE. BELOW: REX FEATURESI wouldn’t
announce a
tour until there
is a vaccine
in
M s p w e n g t y y a m w o t t O B