The LGBTQ+ New Comedian Of The Year Competition is the flagship event from Comedy Bloomers, and 2024 sees 93 acts from the UK and Ireland compete across seven heats. The heats are hosted by some of the UK’s best LGBTQ+ MCs, including Kuan Wen, Charlie George, James Barr, Sue Gives a Fuck and Matthew Ali. Headliners include past finalists Dee Allum, Lachlan Werner and Dick Denham, as well as previous competition winner Victoria Olsina. To celebrate both this important competition and the arrival of a fabulous new venue to the scene, The Divine, QX had a chat with multi-talented MC, cabaret star and comedian, Sue Gives A Fuck, who will be overseeing proceedings of Heat 4 of The LGBTQ+ New Comedian Of The Year Competition, at The Divine on 11 April.
Hello, Sue. Thank you for joining me. You were very successful as a cabaret artist and now are a successful comedian. Please tell us why you made that career change.
In cabaret there are only so many words you can say before you have to do a death drop so comedy allows me a bit more scope to talk about myself.
Do you think that there is something unique about queer humour, and why do you think that might be?
As a stand up comedian you usually need audiences to relate to you, which is a bit easier when you’re a straight man in chinos talking about trying to pull. If you’re queer (or in any other way different to the majority of the comedy audience) you can’t rely on your experiences being universal so you need to either work harder to get the audience to understand your perspective or ditch relatability and go weird. As a result I find that queer comics tend to be more experimental and a bit less lazy.
Why do you think The LGBTQ+ New Comedian Of The Year Competition is so important?
The extra work queer comedians have to do in order to get straight audiences laughing takes time and space, which the LGBTQ+ New Comedian Of The Year provides. It also helps queer comedians to get to know other queer comedians and gives them a chance to perform for largely queer audiences, which is rare in comedy.
“a model of stylish grandeur and innuendo-laden wit” – The Times
What can we expect on the night?
A bunch of up and coming queer comedians battling to the death. Don’t worry, if any of them bomb I’ll do the splits or a death drop to keep the energy up because there’s no escaping drag
Is Sue Gives A Fuck a political creature?
I’m afraid so. My all-Palestine Instagram content is not doing me any favours with the corporate bookings
We can’t mention The LGBTQ+ New Comedian of the Year Competition heat at The Divine without a quick chat about the fabulous new venue. For those who may not know, the much-loved The Glory closed, and the gang upped sticks and transferred to this new venue. Can you do a quick compare and contrast for those who have yet to pay a visit?
I basically lived at The Glory so I mourn its departure but The Divine is in every way a bit better.
See Sue Gives A Fuck at Heat 4, LGBTQ+ Comedian Of The Year Competition on 11 April, 7:30 pm. The Divine, 33 Stoke Newington Road, London N16 8BJ, United Kingdom.
Tickets to Heat 4, LGBTQ+ Comedian Of The Year Competition are available here.
