I was hatched from an egg as part of The Human Genome Project. Not many people know about this side of the whole thing as it was kept pretty hush hush, but certain high-ups in the Clinton/Blair administration had become obsessed with the notion of creating a fully-formed homunculus using forbidden knowledge gained from the mapping of human DNA.
There was a sluice pipe of black budget funding aimed directly at this idea, and I guess it paid off because my first memories are of blinking into the harsh light, covered in albumen, being prodded by men in hazmat suits speaking an unfamiliar tongue (later discovered to be rhyming slang).
Anyway, after about 18 years of living in the lab being given whatever I wanted and nursed by a rotation of matronly Swedish au pairs, I finally broke free and decided to go into stand-up. My first gig was perfect and it’s only been upwards from there.
Rebecca Need-Menear
Millican’s Rule
One of the first great pieces of advice I was given was at the Comedy Store in 2011 when a young Sarah Millican took me aside after a particularly wobbly gig in front of an audience composed entirely of other people’s uncles, and told me to “get a gun”. I didn’t understand what she was on about and tried to change the subject, but she gripped my arm really tight until it hurt quite badly and said, “You can borrow mine.”
The next night, I went out there in front of 200 feral Mancunians and before even touching the mic, I flashed the gun. It was all the crowd needed.
For the rest of the set they were really attentive and laughed at all the right places and if anyone heckled I’d loose a couple rounds into the rafters and they’d settle back down. The atmosphere was electric that night and ever since then, whenever I’m gigging out of town, I always follow Millican’s Rule (“have a gun”).
Become a Vampire’s Thrall
Age is everything in this industry, and when it comes to keeping score, golf rules apply.
No-one wants to see some decrepit 35 year old being helped to the stage by nurses, struggling to remember their opener before snapping their brittle fingers trying to adjust the mic-stand.
Youth is the lifeblood of the industry, and if you’re no longer in the TikTok demographic you can either lie about your age like everyone else, or you can find an elder showbiz vampire who is willing to grant you immortal life and an eternal playing age of 24-30 in exchange for your heavenly soul.
I struggled away in a variety of television-thrall jobs for a while before Joel Dommett was kind enough to sire me after we met at a charity fundraiser for which I was running the tombola. We are part of a wider coven/polycule, and I’m sure he won’t mind me saying because it’s basically an industry open-secret but our head vampire is Jimmy Carr.
Talie Eigeland
Eat Toast
I don’t know what it is about this stuff but I’ve been munching away on sliced and toasted loaf for just about 2 out of 3 meals every day going on for a decade now and I feel great.
I feel like I’ve observed a direct correlation between days where I’m not quite clicking with an audience, and days in which I’ve not eaten my crusts. I’m not saying that’s science, but there’s a kind of folk wisdom to it that I feel bears acknowledging.
The craziest thing is - it’s just hot bread. That’s all it is. Bread, but hottened. For some reason the light-burning effect of the heat is essential. Once I did a gig in Saltaire after eating a sandwich and I died on my ass but I went back there the month after, fresh from an all-you-can-eat toastie buffet, and I absolutely blew the roof off, although part of that was down to my trusty gun.
Genuinely couldn’t tell you what’s going on there, but it’s not nothing.
Talie Eigeland
Be Sincere
Sincerity is the salt of life: too much is overpowering, but a light sprinkling adds flavour. Also never put it on dessert.
I’m being sincere now. Everything else I said before was made up, but this part here, right now, this is real. I’m serious, you have to believe me!
One time I had this job looking after sheep, I was off my meds at the time and suffering quite severely from psychotic episodes in which I’d hallucinate wolves. It was really scary. We were out on this sheer exposed Welsh hillside and it was so silent and the sky would seem so vast that I was scared I was going to be ripped off the hill and pulled into space.
I’d see wolves when I closed my eyes. I tried to warn the villagers about my symptoms but they didn’t believe me, said I was making it up and should get back to work.
I left that job before the next lambing season to focus on my transition, which is just as well because I heard the boy who got the job after me experienced the exact same thing and actually died.
It was all over the news, they made a whole fable about it, which is how you know when something’s really broken through into the zeitgeist.
On tour
My show Baby Doomer, which is about being trans and skirt-suits, will be at Soho Theatre from 3-13 and 22-27 September. We’ll announce a tour for the Spring of 2026, you can subscribe to my newsletter on my website samnicoresti.com to keep abreast of that.
