The actor, writer, musician, podcaster and comedian is returning to standup after overwork and parenthood left her burnt out. She discusses motherhood, Fomo and life after Peep Show
In one very important sense, motherhood is an exercise in mitigating risk: you are the cautious and dutiful protector of society’s most vulnerable. But what if you’re also a natural-born thrill-seeker who lives for transgressive fun? What then?
In Jackpot, her new standup show, Isy Suttie explores precisley this contradiction. As a teenager growing up in the picturesque spa town of Matlock in Derbyshire, her life revolved around the pursuit of excitement: some of her weirder escapades included touring multiple house parties in a single evening with her Ouija board, and jumping off a 30ft bridge for a £1 bet. Now, her life has all the hallmarks of measured domesticity – she has a seven-year-old daughter and three-year-old son with her partner, fellow comic Elis James – and yet “the element of me that does want to take risks” remains, she explains over a flat white in a south London coffee shop that is full of mothers conscientiously attending to babes in buggies.
