Katherine Ryan: Role Model?

Ask Katherine Ryan how she's feeling about becoming the first comic to sell out her Fringe run and she'll confess, “like a cheater”, because she's only playing 11 nights. A homebody with two dogs, two rabbits and a young daughter, the Canadian-born Londoner is determined for Edinburgh to remain a relaxing “holiday”, where she can catch kids shows and as many standups as will let a five-year-old sneak in the back.

Performance was in Ryan's blood from an early age – tap, jazz, ballet and piano, all channelled into the grotesque beauty pageants she evoked in her Fringe debut, Little Miss Conception. But most of all, she “valued comedy".

“I loved making people laugh” she recalls. “Even when I did the pageants, I would sing the deep, male part of an Italian opera because I thought it was funny. I didn't want to be the centre of attention, I'm actually really shy and have few friends. I didn't even know I wanted to be a comic. But I loved watching it. I loved creating comedy, even then.”

Early reviews of the 31-year-old implied her preoccupation with celebrity might hold her back. As it transpired though, being “comedically inspired by the ridiculousness of that religion” has been what's made her, earning her burgeoning exposure on television, across the likes of Mock The Week and 8 Out of 10 Cats.

“Everything that I am is topical. I'm really interested in pop culture,” she affirms. “My love of dissecting current events is why I was able to make that transition to panel shows. And I really enjoy the old model of late-night American chat. When I was little, my mother let me stay up and watch Letterman. I always wanted to write that opening monologue about the news.”

Ryan emphasises the importance of her daughter appreciating what she does, if only because “she'll shy away from the performing arts – it's not cool to follow your mum!". She adds, “[my daughter] respects me because she sees how hard I work.

“And I respect her, I don't disparage her in any way on stage. When I embarrass her in the future, it'll only be as a parent.”

So in Ryan's new show, Glam Role Model, she doesn't set herself up as an example. Quite the opposite. But she does believe it's important that young people, and women especially, know that they have choices about who they seek to emulate.

“When Sara Pascoe and I were starting out, we only had a few,” she reflects. “Maybe Victoria Wood or Jo Brand. Then later, Sarah Millican. Or in the US, Sarah Silverman and Tina Fey. But the next generation can see Sara, Angela Barnes, Susan Calman, Tiff Stevenson and Aisling Bea on television. They might not identify with what I do. But they might look at their styles and think 'yes, that's really inspired me, I could do this'. You need an array of different voices, male and female”.

Despite the recent BBC directive enforcing a quota of one woman per panel show, and the graphically sexual death threats she received on social media last year, when one of her lines on Mock The Week was misinterpreted as offensive to Filipinos, she retains a thick skin. “I'm actually very calm about the direction [broadcast comedy is] going. I've always been confident that the time will come when it's pretty much 50-50 gender-wise. I've always felt at peace about that happening.”

Instead, the feminist streak coursing through her latest hour focuses on the phenomenon of glamour models, inspired, partly, by finding out that her ex-partner cheated on her with one. Although “we have girls in Canada who get their tits out, we don't have a name for it and it's frowned upon,” she ventures. “It's not mainstream like here. Now, I can't start to tell people how to live their lives. But it's my assertion that, like it or not, these women are role models. They're in the Big Brother house, in the jungle and on panel shows. They are celebrities”.

By contrast, as an “immigrant single mother”, she sees herself as “living proof that a young girl can do whatever she wants, no matter what odds are stacked against her.

“Why you'd want to throw all that away and be a decoration is something I struggle with. I've never seen a culture like the UK, where it's fine and normal for little girls to want to grow up and get their tits out in a newspaper. It's like saying 'I want to grow up and be a necklace!'”

Rejecting pop icons like Nicki Minaj as a “sex cartoon”, after memorably spoofing her in a fat (arse) suit for Let's Dance For Comic Relief—“I was pointing out the ridiculousness of bum implants for charity”—Ryan retains greater respect for Beyoncé. “She plays the game beautifully, has reached the top and is sexy on her own terms”. Nevertheless, her intense, po-faced recreations of Ms Knowles' vagina-gyrations also reflect that “you have to weave a bit of a pisstake through everything with an unyielding undertone of sex".

And besides, “I do love a funny dance. I've never danced with a sexy dance face in my life, I've only ever danced for laughs.”

Remaining upfront, if self-effacing and playful when discussing sex, Ryan is reluctant to condemn Hooters, the North American restaurant chain with skimpy waitress uniforms, as she sees it as operating in the same way. She started performing standup while working at an outlet in Toronto, but only after finding her “voice” by “learning that customers valued a good chat and you being quick on your feet. It was about more than just being sweet-looking and beautiful. I couldn't work there again but it was invaluable experience.”

After co-starring in Pappy's BBC Three sitcom Badults, bitchily demeaning Matthew Crosby—“I never want to play the nice girl and I'm always pretty mean to boys I have crushes on”—Ryan is developing her own pilot based on helping launch Hooters in the UK.

Ultimately though, she'd like to return “to my first love”. Supporting US chatshow queen Chelsea Handler in London last month, “I would love, love, love to follow in her footsteps and do a format like that over here.

“What's wonderful about comedy is that you don't lose value with age. I was mental at 16. But I love being a mum, being older. And my message in my show, especially for young people, is that no-one can take your voice away from you. It's the one thing that gets stronger with experience.”