| Sara Pascoe | |
|---|---|
 Pascoe in 2019 | |
| Birth name | Sara Patricia Pascoe |
| Born | 22 May 1981 Dagenham, Greater London, England [1] |
| Medium |
|
| Education | University of Sussex (BA) |
| Years active | 2006–present |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Parent(s) | Derek Pascoe |
| Website | sarapascoe |
Sara Patricia Pascoe (born 22 May 1981) [2] is an English actress, comedian, presenter and writer. She has appeared on television programmes including 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown and Taskmaster for Channel 4 and QI for BBC Two.
Pascoe was born to Gail (née Newmarch) and Derek Pascoe, a musician. Her great-grandmother was Rosa Newmarch, a poet and writer on music. [3]
Born in Dagenham, Greater London, Pascoe grew up in nearby Romford. Her parents divorced when she was young and she was raised by her mother. [4] She attended Eastbury Comprehensive School in Barking. [1] [5] [6] She later attended Gaynes School in Upminster. [6] When she was 16 she became pregnant, and had an abortion on her 17th birthday, an experience detailed in her memoir, Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body. [7]
For a short while, Pascoe aspired to study philosophy at the University of Cambridge, motivated by both her enjoyment of the novel Sophie's World and her desire to join Footlights, the university's dramatic club. [8] However, she read English at the University of Sussex, where she met and became friends with Cariad Lloyd. [1] [3] After graduation she worked as an actor and supplemented her income with temporary work, [6] but found work "hard to come by" and declared herself bankrupt. [1]
 | This biographical article is written like a résumé .(December 2020) |
Before her comedy career, Pascoe was a tour guide in London. [9]
Pascoe has appeared in many television programmes and panel shows, including Stand Up for the Week , The Thick of It , Mock the Week , The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret , Campus , Being Human , Twenty Twelve , QI , Have I Got News For You , Would I Lie to You , Hypothetical , and W1A as well as all-female sketch show Girl Friday (part of Channel 4's Comedy Showcase ), which she co-wrote. [10]
Pascoe began performing stand up comedy in 2007. [11] In the following year she was a runner-up in the Funny Women award in 2008 with Rachel Stubbings. Katherine Ryan won the award that year. [12]
In August 2010, she performed her first show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Sara Pascoe Vs Her Ego. [13]
In 2012, she appeared in episode 11 of the Comedian's Comedian Podcast hosted by Stuart Goldsmith, [14] and in Live at the Apollo . [15] She appeared on the BBC TV panel show QI in 2013. [16]
In 2014, she performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and toured the UK for the first time with the show Sara Pascoe Vs History. [17] The show was nominated for the Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Award 2014 for Best Comedy Show. [18] In October 2014, she appeared in Never Mind the Buzzcocks and stood in line at the identity parade round as a former dancer and back-up singer for the entertainer (and Robbie Williams's father) Pete Conway. [19] [20] Also that month, she appeared on the topical panel quiz Have I Got News for You as a panellist and in one of the sketches of the Channel 4 charity night Stand Up to Cancer .
In 2015, she appeared as a panellist on two Radio 4 programmes, the science discussion programme The Infinite Monkey Cage in February, and the comedy quiz programme The Unbelievable Truth in September. [21]
In 2016, along with numerous other celebrities, Pascoe toured the UK to support Jeremy Corbyn's bid to become prime minister. [22]
She has written two books. The first, Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body, was published in 2016. [23] Her second book, Sex Power Money , was published in 2019, [24] which explores (mostly heterosexual) sexual relations, with particular focuses on male sexuality and on sex work. It is informed by evolutionary biology and social research, and by her own experiences and feelings. [25] She also hosts a related podcast of the same name, in which she interviews people who have experience around sex work, stripping and porn.
In 2016, she went on tour again with the show Animal. She participated in series 3 of the comedy challenge show, Taskmaster , which was broadcast on Dave in October and November 2016. [26]
She has appeared in all three of Frankie Boyle's Autopsy BBC programmes (2014–2016), discussing political issues, and from 2017 until 2020 has been a regular guest on his topical series Frankie Boyle's New World Order . [27] She also performed a half-hour stand-up set in episode 1 of series 2 of Live from the BBC in 2017.
On 27 October 2017, she appeared in an episode of the British travel documentary series Travel Man on Channel 4. In February 2018, she started a BBC Radio 4 series called Modern Monkey.
In April 2018, she appeared as a panellist in two episodes of the BBC Radio 4 panel show Just A Minute . In May 2018, she starred in a BBC comedy short entitled "Sara Pascoe vs Monogamy". [28]
In 2019 she was announced as the host of Dave series Comedians Giving Lectures , in which comedians deliver a stand-up presentation in the guise of a lecture. In February 2020, Dave announced that they were commissioning two further series, with series 2 scheduled to be filmed and broadcast in 2020 and series 3 in 2021. However, the Covid-19 pandemic caused the project to be delayed, and both series were filmed at the National Gallery in London in summer 2021. Series 2 was broadcast in November 2021 and Series 3 in April 2022.
In March 2019, she appeared in Travelling Blind with Amar Latif on BBC2. [29]
In April 2019, a live recording of Pascoe's LadsLadsLads tour at the London Palladium was shown on BBC Two. [30]
In November 2020 she hosted An Evening With Yuval Noah Harari, a livestream book launch held by How to Academy and Penguin Books. [31]
Pascoe's six-part comedy series Out of Her Mind premiered on BBC Two in October 2020. [32] Exploring "heartbreak, family and how to survive them", the series is loosely based on her own life, with Pascoe playing a version of herself. [33] Co-stars include Juliet Stevenson and Cariad Lloyd. [34]
Pascoe's three-part BBC Two series called Last Woman on Earth with Sara Pascoe premiered on 27 December 2020. [35] In May 2022, the series was recommissioned for a second series, [36] which premiered on 9 April 2023. [37]
She is the host of a panel show Guessable broadcast on Comedy Central UK from October 2020. [38]
On 16 September 2021, it was announced that Pascoe would host the eighth series of The Great British Sewing Bee , replacing Joe Lycett. [39]
In 2017, Pascoe was one of four contestants on series 7, episode 8 of The Celebrity Chase , progressing to the episode's Final Chase.
Pascoe was one of the four competitors on a Christmas edition of The Great British Sewing Bee broadcast on Boxing Day 2020 on BBC 1. Her fellow competitors were Denise Van Outen, Shirley Ballas and Ranj Singh.
Pascoe lives in Crouch End, north London. [40] From 2013 to late 2016, she dated the comedian John Robins. [1] [19] Her reflections on that relationship and its aftermath were the basis of her 2017 show LadsLadsLads at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. [41] In 2020, she married fellow comedian Steen Raskopoulos. [42] [43] In November 2021, she announced that she was pregnant. [44] In February 2022, Pascoe gave birth to her first child, announcing it on Valentine's Day. [45] In May 2023, she announced that she was expecting her second child, via IVF. [46] She is vegan. [47]
Veronica "Ronni" Jane Ancona is a British actress, comedian, impressionist and writer best known for The Big Impression, which she co-wrote and starred in and was, for four years, one of BBC One's top-rated comedy programmes, winning numerous awards, including a BAFTA in 2003. Ancona also starred in the first series of the BAFTA-winning ITV series The Sketch Show. Ancona has appeared in the BAFTA-winning Last Tango in Halifax since its creation in 2012. She is a co-director, alongside Sally Phillips and Nick Hamson, of the production company Captain Dolly.
Sally Elizabeth Phillips is an English actress, comedian, and television presenter. She co-created and was one of the writers of the sketch comedy show Smack the Pony. She is also known for her roles in Jam & Jerusalem as Natasha "Tash" Vine, Miranda as Tilly, I'm Alan Partridge as Sophie, Parents as Jenny Pope, Set the Thames on Fire as Colette in 2015, Zapped as Slasher Morgan, and her guest appearances as the fictional Prime Minister of Finland Minna Häkkinen in the US TV series Veep. Phillips also co-starred in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies as Mrs Bennet and in the role of Shazza in all three films of the Bridget Jones franchise.
Jenny Eclair is an English comedian, novelist, and actress, best known for her roles in Grumpy Old Women between 2004 and 2007 and in Loose Women in 2011 and 2012.
Alexander James Jeffery Horne is a British comedian. Horne is the creator of BAFTA award-winning TV series Taskmaster, in which he takes the role of assistant to the Taskmaster Greg Davies. He is the host and bandleader of comedic band The Horne Section. Horne hosts the band's eponymous podcast and television series, and has appeared with them on BBC Radio 4, TV channel Dave, and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown.
Katherine Parkinson is an English actress and comedian. She appeared in Channel 4's The IT Crowd comedy series as Jen Barber, for which she received a British Comedy Best TV Actress Award in 2009 and 2014, and was nominated twice for the BAFTA Television Award for Best Female Comedy Performance, winning in 2014. Parkinson studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and has appeared on stage in the plays The Seagull (2007), Cock (2009), and Home, I'm Darling (2018), for which she was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Play.
Sarah Jane Millican is an English comedian, writer and presenter. Millican won the comedy award for Best Newcomer at the 2008 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In February 2013 she was listed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Radio 4's Woman's Hour, and in the same year she married fellow comedian Gary Delaney. Her first book, How to Be Champion, was published in 2017. Millican has performed on various tours, mainly across the United Kingdom, over the years.
Roisin Conaty is an English comedian, actress, and writer. She won the Best Newcomer Award at the Edinburgh Festival in 2010 for her show Hero, Warrior, Fireman, Liar. She played Jo in Channel 4 sitcom Man Down from 2013 to 2017. In early 2014, the pilot of the sitcom GameFace, of which she is the writer, lead actress and executive producer, aired on Channel 4. The first full series aired in 2017 on both E4 and Hulu in the US. The second series aired on Channel 4 and Hulu in July 2019. Conaty won the Heat magazine's "Unmissables Comedian of the Year" award in 2019. She played Roxy in the first two series of the Netflix comedy-drama series After Life.
Jessica Amy Knappett is an English comedian, actress, and writer. She is the creator, writer, executive producer, and star of the E4 sitcom Drifters, and appeared as Lisa in The Inbetweeners Movie.
Aisling Clíodhnadh O'Sullivan, known professionally as Aisling Bea, is an Irish comedian, actress and screenwriter. She created, wrote and starred in the comedy series This Way Up on Channel 4. As a stand-up comedian, she won the So You Think You're Funny award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2012, being only the second woman to win the award in its then-25-year history. She also appears regularly on light entertainment comedy panel shows such as QI and 8 Out of 10 Cats.
Katherine Louisa Ryan is a Canadian-Irish comedian, writer, presenter, actress and singer.
Katie Cariad Lloyd is a British comedian, actress, writer, and podcaster. A member of the improvisational comedy group Austentatious, the host and creator of Griefcast, and an improv teacher.
Rose Matafeo is a New Zealand comedian, actress and TV presenter. She was a writer and performer on the New Zealand late-night comedy sketch show Funny Girls. In 2018, she won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for her show Horndog.
John Michael David Robins is an English stand-up comedian and radio presenter.
Lucy Ann Beaumont is a British actress, writer, and stand-up comedian from Kingston upon Hull, England. Her performance is based largely on anecdotes about Hull and the wider Northern England region. She was a finalist on So You Think You're Funny in 2011 and won the BBC Radio New Comedy Awards in 2012. Her 2014 debut show at the Edinburgh Fringe, We Can Twerk It Out, was nominated for that year's Best Newcomer Award.
Taskmaster is a British comedy panel game show created by comedian and musician Alex Horne and presented by both Horne and Greg Davies. In the programme, a group of five celebrities – mainly comedians – attempt to complete a series of challenges, with Horne acting as umpire in each challenge and Davies, the titular "Taskmaster", judging the work and awarding points based on contestants' performances. The concept for the programme was first created by Horne for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2010; he later secured a deal with Dave to adapt it for television with the first episode premiering in 2015. After the ninth series in 2019, the programme was acquired by Channel 4. The programme has completed sixteen series as well as three Champion of Champions specials and four New Year's Treat one-offs by January 2024, and is set to continue for at least five more series until 2026.
Mae Pearl Martin is a Canadian comedian, actor, and screenwriter. They co-created, co-wrote and starred in the Channel 4/Netflix comedy series Feel Good. They received a nomination for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Female Comedy Performance for their work on the series.
Lou Sanders is an English stand-up comedian, writer and actress. Since beginning her career in comedy, she has appeared regularly on panel shows and performed on Live at the Apollo. She also appeared as a sidekick on Mel Giedroyc: Unforgivable and was a contestant on the sixteenth series of Dancing on Ice.
Sophie Willan is an English actress, narrator, writer and comedian. She has won two BAFTAs for her television sitcom Alma's Not Normal.
Desiree Lea Burch is an American comedian, actress, television presenter, and voice actress. Originally from Diamond Bar, California, Burch has also lived in New York, Streatham, Croydon and Peckham, having moved to London to live with her boyfriend Samy Ouarkoub in 2014.
Sex Power Money is a 2019 book by Sara Pascoe and the name of a related podcast which Pascoe hosts. The book discusses sex through the medium of evolutionary psychology, sex work and public perceptions towards it and the role of money and capital in modern heterosexual relationships. It is Pascoe's second book, following Animal (2016). In the podcast, Pascoe has conversations with sex workers, academics and comedians. The book and podcast received positive critical reception and the book entered The Sunday Times' bestseller list.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
