Interview: Lara Ricote

As Lara Ricote is listing her influences, it becomes clear what’s important to her in comedy. Maria Bamford, Josie Long, Rory Scovel, John Kearns. It’s all about being silly, being truthful and following your fun.

“I would love to be more in line with that,” she says. “That you show up with an idea, trust it and see where it goes. I think it’s amazing to watch someone play for an hour.”

By all accounts, she has achieved this in her latest hour, Little Tiny Wet Show (Baptism). It’s a show about relationships – the one she has with her partner, her parents’ relationship, and the one she enters into every time she steps in front of an audience. For someone who embarks on hundreds of one-hour relationships a year, Ricote is interested in exploring the ways she can keep it fresh and remain mindful every time.

“I’ve felt so many times that I do the same show for every audience. And I wanted to change that in this show, to explore how I can be as present as I can in the room so that it doesn't feel like things just mesh into each other,” she says. “It’s also about giving the audience an identity, letting them pick their own identity, which is what really does happen in the show.”

It’s difficult to find the right balance, she says, between authenticity and playfulness. There’s a sweet surreality in turning the audience into an amalgam with its own name, finding the silly moments and leaning into offbeat humour, but this goes hand in hand with having something real to say about the world.

“I tend towards heightened reality, but every time I try to do something silly, I always end up saying something,” she laughs. “I keep finding a lot of truths in comedy, so no matter how stupid my bit is, the reality is that I believe this is something special. I’m feeling a lot of things and I want these things to come through, even if I’m playing.”

Photo by Wesley Verhoeve

The way Ricote talks about her craft is raw and without pretension – it’s fascinating to see just how much she believes in comedy as a force for finding fun and authenticity without losing sight of reality. We discuss how stand-up can often feel as though there’s an ironic detachment from feelings, an assumed air of coolness, of being above it all.

“Comedy is the most aggressive way to connect with people,” she counters. “To build a link between people so you feel less alone in the world. Let’s not pretend that everyone didn’t practice this in the mirror. It’s vulnerable, comedy is tender as hell. It could not be sweeter.”

This insistence on openness speaks to the amount of respect Ricote has for her audiences. Being willing to try so hard to make sure all her relationships go as well as they can is a theme in her life – she’s recently done couples therapy with her partner, for example – but it’s one she’s insistent on. With Little Tiny Wet Show (Baptism), she acknowledges that it isn’t always easy; there are a lot of things you don’t necessarily want to do – or that you learn along the way – wrapped up in being in any kind of relationship. A lot of that is to do with being focused on important moments while they’re actually happening.

“That’s incredibly difficult for me. It’s beautiful to always be separating yourself from the situation in order to see that it’s funny,” she says. “And reshaping every story into a narrative that ends up being funny is an amazing thing that comedians are able to do. But it also keeps you from being inside of the situation: the moment you’re living it, you’re already shaping it.

“It makes you feel like connection can happen in a way that's one-sided, so is that even really connection? Is the point of my job to connect with people, or is the point of my job to tell people how funny I am?”

Both these things can be true for comedians at once; connection and laughter don’t have to exist as mutually exclusive things in a show. However, it feels so important to Ricote – she describes herself as being “an earnest little baby” about it – that if the alternative is living both her professional and personal lives isolated from seeing the magic in reality, or from creating something that means something to her, then that doesn’t seem worth it. It’s all about balance.

Ricote is right in that if there’s one thing she will do, it’s embrace the unironic sincerity she has, and use that to create meaningful experiences, specifically with regards to her Fringe show, and what she hopes it will spark in the people who come to see her.

“I want audiences to feel like I was honest with them. I think it brings up nice things about us as human beings to spend time with someone who's really trying to get to some sort of truth,” she says. “I hope that they come along on the journey. What I hope the most that they get out of this is that they think it's worth trying really hard for relationships. That's kind of the point of my hour: that if you try and be the best person you can, you can keep the people in your life that are worth being there. Circumstances are hard, but if you work hard, I think you can get it.”