The Sunday Times Magazine • 7the time. I find her very, very funny. She’s an idiot.
When we are getting ready for bed, if I take my sock off
and throw it at her, she doesn’t just catch it. If it hits her
she falls all the way over and I do the same. It’s a basic
common courtesy and we find it very funny. It’s lovely.
Rachel
When The Mash Report skits went viral [in 2018,
including a satirical take on how not to sexually harass
somebody, which was watched more than 30 million
times], I was getting responses from all over the world.
There was a hell of a lot of trolling. It coincided with
me getting together with Marcus, moving in and
acquiring stepchildren. It was a really intense time.
Marcus was amazing. I was glad I had someone to be
there. I had a breakdown from the stress a year later.
It lasted a few weeks intensely, and then a few months
of recovering. It was a dark time but he kept me sane.
We got married at Battersea Arts Centre in 2019. It’s
still only three years but we knew it was serious after
two weeks. It was important going into it that I’d hung
out with him and his children. They were teenagers by
the time we got together. They already know who they
are. I’m still learning. It helps that we just get on quite
well and they are easy kids to love. It’s like everything in
life, it’s beautiful and it’s hard.
Comedy didn’t really come into my life until I was in
my twenties. I did a music degree at Oxford and I fell in
with the Oxford Imps, a comedy improv troupe. That
was the first moment I thought I could be funny on
stage. It didn’t exactly skyrocket. A very steadily
ascending rocket at a sort of 45-degree angle. I tried
acting and nothing stuck. I wasn’t really a good enough
classical musician. Then I tried musical comedy and it
went pretty well. Even now I’m ten times more
confident behind a piano than I am a microphone.
Marcus is the first relationship I’ve had where we are
in almost exactly the same arena. We don’t always need
each other’s advice but it is helpful. There have been
moments working together when I’ve said: “That was
too much, I don’t think you should say that.” And he’s
said the same to me.
The pandemic hit us hard immediately. For both of
us our work disappeared overnight. But we had the kids
with us, home schooling, and you just have to get on
with things. We’ve been on a hell of a lot of walks.
During lockdown we’ve done our regular virtual
Tuesday Night Club together. We were both sceptical
at first about doing online gigs; you haven’t got that
immediate physical audience reaction or a stage to
stride around. But we’ve come to love it. We’ve stuck in
quizzes, songs, sketches and characters to fill it out.
Home life is very funny. We really love silliness, doing
impressions and stupid songs. My stepkids do it as well;
they are very funny. We can get an improv scene going
as a family. We have the same tensions and difficulties
and arguments anyone has, too. But when people say
you two must be constantly cracking jokes and doing
voices, we are those people nInterviews by Kate Leahy
Photograph by Jon Attenborough
To book tickets for Rachel and Marcus’s Tuesday Night
Club, visit alwaysbecomedy.comSTRANGE HABITS
Rachel on Marcus
If there’s a tiny bit
of light anywhere
in the room in the
middle of the night,
he wakes up in a
panic and thinks he’s
being huntedMarcus on Rachel
She rubs fabric. She
loves the feel of a bit
of silk. Sometimes
she’ll wake up in the
morning and she’s
got one in her hand.
I find it very sweet
and endearing