You may remember comedian and actress Kerry Godliman from such TV shows as Ricky Gervais’ Derek (where she played ultra-caring care worker Hannah), Miranda, Our Girl and Extras. She’s also had her own Radio Four show, Kerry’s List. 

Like a breath of fresh, post-summer air, Kerry will be bringing her rapier wit to October’s BIrmingham Comedy Festival. What’s On caught up with her as she prepared to head out on tour...

Kerry Godliman’s new touring show, Stick Or Twist, zeroes in on why people take certain decisions and make particular choices - especially when it comes to that potentially life-transforming (or ruining) moment when they start to think about moving house, city or country. 

“I was prompted by whether I should move out of London with my family,” explains Kerry, “but it opens up beyond that to why people live where they live: some people choose it, others are forced to stay where they are or forced to move. Whether I’m happy where I live is the 64 million dollar question.”

As Kerry acknowledges, this is an age where we’re constantly being encouraged to consider alternatives to everything, but nowhere is this more prevalent than with regard to decisions about where we permanently lay our hats and put down our roots. “Generations ago, people were born somewhere and lived there and died there, whereas now, people go on Rightmove on a daily basis to find out what they can get for their house. It just seems as though we’re 24-hour consumers considering alternative lifestyles all the time.”
While Kerry began work on her show around this central theme, she soon found herself wandering into some familiar areas of concern. “It was originally about considering moving and then questioning why and how where you live influences all other parts of your life, such as your friendships and parenting choices. But it then seemed to open out into things that I’ve covered before. 

When you do a few shows, you do notice that you revisit things. Parenting is an ongoing subject, where you look back on your baby jokes with nostalgia. As they grow up, your material also changes with them.”
And so in Stick Or Twist, Kerry will reflect on why she’s kept her own children’s baby teeth in a box. “I didn’t keep them on purpose, I just did the tooth fairy thing and threw them in a box which I then stumbled upon recently and thought, ‘What am I going to do with that?’ I mean, they’re just teeth at the bottom of a box, which is a little bit macabre and sort of voodoo. They’re quite pristine. They haven’t gone rotten, which I think is a measure of my good parenting. That routine is about sentimentality and about why we keep every memento of their childhood, their hair and every birthday card they’ve been given, and take millions of photos of them. But to what end?”

 Friendship is still an area which Kerry believes provides a great source of material, particularly the ever-evolving (and occasionally warped) nature of companionship in this technologically centred age. “That’s all changed because of social media, and the way we conduct our friendships has become quite administrative. I do Twitter but I’ve had to step away from Facebook. People just know everything about everyone else now and it’s killed conversation. We can’t do exposition anymore. You can have a debate with someone about spurious facts and then somebody will google it and you suddenly have actual knowledge, Can’t we just meander around with half-knowledge?”

Part of Kerry’s stage persona is to be constantly bewildered at the stuff life throws at her. It turns out that in the real world, she’s just as perplexed. For now, she’s shocked by politics and the rise of divisive figures like Donald Trump (“it’s like they’ve got Yosemite Sam to lead the Republican Party”); she’s confused about the TV shows that get made over others which only reach pilot episode stage (she’s been there); and she’s also quite befuddled by the modern teaching methods that enter her home now that she has school-age offspring: “I’m bewildered about my children’s homework. Phonics bewilders me, but that’s how they do it. My husband went to a phonics workshop the other day and that was bewildering.”

Bewildered or not, 2016 is proving to be a big year for Kerry. As well as taking a stand-up show across the country (her second full UK tour, after 2014’s Face Time), her extensive acting CV is set be enhanced with a major role in Mascots, the new mockumentary film by Christopher Guest (This Is Spinal Tap, Best In Show) which is scheduled to appear on Netflix.

“I do love acting and going to work with different people and playing in an ensemble set-up, where you don’t have to worry about the lines because someone else has written them. But when I go back to stand-up, it’s such a creative opportunity to say all the stuff I want to say about things like politics and parenting. And that’s amazing - there aren’t many jobs where you can just say exactly what you like.”

Kerry Godliman plays Artrix, Bromsgrove on Sat 8 October and The Glee Club, Birmingham (as part of the Comedy Festival) on Fri 14 October and The Edge Arts Centre on Fri 24 November.