Sam Nicoresti just landed the biggest award in British comedy, becoming the first trans person ever to win the gong. But she’s not entirely comfortable with the label.
‘I just wanted to prove that I could be funny without going on about identity, because that’s what my first show had all been about,’ Sam tells Metro in Central London, fresh from her win and a night into a celebratory Soho Theatre run.
‘And unfortunately, I f**ked up, I messed up, I dropped the ball,’ she admits with a chuckle, oozing that on-stage confidence, but with the ease of a friend you feel like you’ve known for years.
‘Listen, next show I promise I won’t mention it,’ she adds.
Describing the Edinburgh Comedy Award (ECA) win as a ‘body shock’ – which it feels like she hasn’t quite come to terms with yet – Sam likened getting the gong that launched the career of so many greats (Stephen Fry, Frank Skinner, Steve Coogan, Bridget Christie and Al Murray to name a few) as like ‘encountering an angel’.
It’s everything, and nothing. It’s hard to describe.
That’s understandable: the ECA’s two gongs – best show and best newcomer – are the Oscars of British comedy, and Sam had some 3,000 acts behind her competing for the prize.
In her show Baby Doomer, Sam details – cackles-galore – the trials and tribulations of trying a skirt suit on in TKMaxx. But it’s about much more than getting stuck in said skirt suit, and having to wriggle herself up onto the counter to pay for it. (Although that is a highlight.)
Sam explores the nuanced, everyday struggle of being trans in a country that’s decided to make this tiny sub-section of the LGBT community the most battered political football on the pitch. But she doesn’t harp on about the politicisation of it all with tear-jerking anecdotes and snide jabs. That’s not Sam’s style.
The style, for example, is exemplified by JK Rowling and Graham Linehan, who tend to flourish when sharing their opinions on the trans community.
‘I think it’s crazy thatit seems to eat up their entire world,’ she chuckles.
‘To be honest, I take a lot of joy in the fact that all I’m doing is continuing to make art and make work, which is really all they wish they could do. That’s what they’re probably quite salty about because they can never go back to that.
‘I’m not going to get down in the dirt with them. I’ve just got to keep on selling out a Soho Theatre run. I’ve just got to keep on winning the Edinburgh Comedy Award,’ she laughs.
Instead, Sam’s show has put the human back into the ‘trans’ conversation with gut-punching gags, making the whole bloodied experience one important thing: relatable.
But while her win feels like some milestone for the trans community, Sam is hesitant to embrace her title.
Feeling like she had to talk about being trans in her Baby Doomer show is the very reason Sam was initially reluctant to do a show that is, yes, all-encompassing, but at its core, is about the trans experience.
‘It feels like this success comes from having made a show that’s exploring these themes in a sort of nuanced way that people respond to, and then the critical claim is that you get described as being a trans comedian,’ Sam says of her ‘first trans comedian to win big’ title.
‘Then people assume things about you based off that, about the kind of things you’re joking about and what you’re doing. I don’t know, make of it what you will, but to me, that’s strange. I’m sure none of us would enjoy having a label slapped upon us. I’m not the weird one, as far as I’m concerned.’
At the end of the day, Sam is just a human trying to make people laugh. It seems, in the cosy confines of LGBT spaces – and even in the theatres of the Edinburgh Fringe – on stage, Sam is allowed to be and do just that.
‘I think with transness, there’s a predefined community in place where they can go to Mumsnet or whatever, shout about that privately amongst themselves. It’s quite an online discourse,’ Sam says, confirming she hasn’t experienced any audience hostility so far.
But that could change: with success comes exposure.
‘I’m quite new to playing to the general public. I’m only just now leaving my like queer little niche alternative comedy bubble, so I’ll have to let you know how bad it gets,’ Sam says.
‘I’ve been more worried about getting the broadsheet readers in. I was on edge going into Edinburgh of having disruptors in the crowd, but that kind of stuff hasn’t happened.
‘I think it’d be mental for somebody to spend their own money on buying a ticket to come and heckle me and get thrown out instantly.’
While Sam hasn’t looked at online discourse, she’s been told it’s there. Making art for Sam right now is toeing the line between giving enough of herself to do it justice, but not too much that it betrays her privacy.
‘It’s a little scary because with the sorts of things I talk about and the kind of person I am, there are people that get obsessed and try to actively be quite nasty about you,’ she says.
Sam will not personally engage with all that hateful online drivel. That’s what they want. Plus, she’s going about it in a far more interesting, hilarious, and wildly entertaining way through Baby Doomer.
‘I don’t read things about myself. Why would I? I am myself. I already know what’s going on with me,’ she says.
Sam Nicoresti is performing Baby Doomer at Soho Theatre until September 27. Tickets here.
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