I was cursed by being born into a funny family: Dad has a bit where he pretends to be scared of foxes; no-one has ever timed a burp better than my Mum; my brother does a napkin-salesman character which kills at dinner. I was the serious one who read books and did the laughing.
It was only when I went to school that I realised I was funny too, but I wanted to unequivocally prove this to my family and what better way to do that than to become a standup comedian.
After going to uni and joining the Drama Society and featuring in a series of very serious plays about very serious things, I packed this in and started doing open mics when I was 21 and continued building up my material.
I was a mixture of brilliant and horrendously shit – and I couldn’t really tell when I was going to be which one of either, but fortunately I had several moments that shaped my career for the better and now, I hope, I often lean more to the positive (although don’t put it past me to have a shocker!).
A seedling had been planted, though, when I was 16 years old and in Physics class. I say that: Mr Asonganyi was ill so Mr Richards Junior was covering. He was a cool dude who played in a rock band and knew a cover lesson was as big a doss as we did, so he was chatting with us while we hovered a pen near a worksheet.
It was at this point he said, “You’re really funny. You should do standup comedy.” And it actually felt like he meant it. This had never occurred to me.
I only knew about Michael McIntyre’s man drawer and Rhod Gilbert’s suitcase, but this sparked something in me and it felt exciting.
Matt Stronge
I went home and started watching clips of people I found on YouTube like Josie Long and Sara Pascoe and started writing my first ever bit. I read it back recently and it is one of the single worst bits of standup comedy I have ever had the dishonour of gazing upon, but cute that I was having a go, hey?
This desire lay dormant in me while I went through my serious acting years, before it reignited and I did my first ever gig at an open mic in Kentish Town. It was run by a man called Andy Onions who bought two pairs of the same shoe but in different colours and wore the opposite colour on each foot. He was lovely.
I absolutely smashed that first ever five minutes, because I filled the room with my closest friends and had seven shots of tequila before I went on. Even though it was cheating, I think that gig gave me the courage to keep going. Every time I died in a dingy pub basement around the capital that feeling of euphoria would come back to me and I hoped one day it would all be worth it.
As you then progress through the open mic circuit, you start entering competitions. About two or three years in, I started getting to the final of these competitions, one of which was the Funny Women Awards. The organiser is a character.
For example, my friend had won their semifinal the day before I won mine. We were the first two finalists. We are both gay. As the organiser announced my win, she said, in an earnest voice, “Don’t worry, not all the finalists will be gay.” Like she was worried we were going to start a rally.
Anyway, the final was so fun and did turn into a gay rally. I met Ania Magliano and now she’s one of my best mates in comedy. I came runner-up after a hotly contested show. But the coolest thing was, an agent was there and she said she wanted to sign me.
Matt Stronge
Turns out, she was the assistant of who was going to be my actual agent, Big Daddy Rob (don’t tell him I call him that). Now, a lot of people think that when you get an agent, you’ve made it. Not true, this is just the beginning of the journey.
He told me he’d get me on a bunch of gigs up and down the country and I should get my head down and get really good at standup for the next few years, then we’d talk about putting me up for stuff like telly etc.
I diligently did my work over that time then, almost two years to the day, BDR came to a gig I was doing at Ally Pally. It was socially distanced so we did it in the room where they do the darts. I made them play Chase The Sun and walked on like I was Phil The Power Taylor and had an absolute cracker of a gig (sorry for bragging). Rob came backstage and said, “Right, you’re ready now.” And the rest is very boring history.
I think back to all these formative moments when I’m nervous about doing things like Have I Got News For You and Live at the Apollo. I try and take a deep breath and think how proud Chloe from that Physics class would be if she could see me now.
If you’d like to see what all these experiences have created then you can come and see me on a tour of the UK with my third solo show How You See Me, How You Don’t.
Chloe Petts is bringing her brand-new show, How You See Me, How You Don’t, nationwide as part of her third UK tour, with an extra run at London’s Soho Theatre, Downstairs added from Monday 9th June – Saturday 14th June at 9.15pm. Full dates and tickets at chloepetts.org
