Sara Pascoe on IVF, gigging as a parent, and redefining success

When we speak over Zoom, Sara Pascoe is in the back of a taxi on her way to Heathrow airport, zipping through London to make it to the next leg of her 50-date tour, Success Story.

"It makes me sound like Madonna, doesn't it? It's because of the rail strike, there was a last-minute panic realising I couldn't get to Newcastle by train."

This is a perfect example of the first half of Sara's show: the idea of a glamorous lifestyle versus the mad-dash reality.

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With a debut novel on the way, and a long list of accomplishments as a comedian, writer, and actor - not to mention her role as celebrated host of BBC2's The Great British Sewing Bee - it would be easy to assume that Pascoe's own story of success has been a straight shot.

It hasn't, she assures me.

"I used to go to children's parties wearing those big character costumes," she explains. "I used to do Bob the Builder and Pikachu and things like that."

"Actually, what's amazing about it is that people are always really pleased to see you," she muses. "Children's faces light up around you, and then you take it off and get the tube home and can't understand why no one is looking at you."

Growing up in Essex to a creative family, a career in the entertainment industry held a special kind of appeal to the Londoner, who says she dreamed of the full-blown showbiz experience.

"I definitely would have had quite a shallow idea of success," she agrees. "I really had my focus on being an actor with people clapping and big magazine spreads. It very much would have been the things that I admired in other people.

"I grew up really adoring all the boy bands and pop stars and things. There was definitely an aspirational lifestyle, so I would have had a teenage sense of bottles of champagne and parties and getting to wear different clothes all the time."

Falling into a career in stand-up, she quickly realised that for every night spent dressed up at an awards show, there are hundreds of nights spent sitting alone on trains eating "sad sandwiches".

Despite the lack of glitz and glamour, the comic realised that playing herself on stage held much more appeal than acting on TV. The real struggle, she explains, has been learning to respect the boundaries of those around her while divulging the stories most personal to her.

"You make mistakes and you learn your lessons," she says. "When I first started, especially because my comedy wasn't on the radio or TV, I had absolute freedom to say what I wanted. It was when I started to become more successful that people heard what I had been saying about them for years."

"Like, oh God, I won't single anyone out, but someone in my family had plastic surgery and I used to talk about it and they didn't know until they saw it on something."

When it comes to romantic relationships, she says the learning curves come hard and fast. A recipe for disaster at the best of times, the result is all the worse when you've got an ex-boyfriend "talking about how bad your PMT is".

These days, however, things are a lot more contained.

"I check with my husband and he says 'no, you're not having that' or 'I don't want you talking about that part of our relationship', and it's been good for me to have those boundaries."

While the first half of Success Story looks back at her hilariously haphazard journey to her now-thriving career (she auditioned for Barrymore, scared Pete Burns, and ruined Hugh Grant's birthday), the second half addresses her journey to motherhood.

Sara and her husband, Steen Raskopoulos, welcomed their son in February 2020 through IVF, following years of fertility issues and a miscarriage.

In fact, the concept of the tour came about when she heard her miscarriage being labeled as 'unsuccessful'.

"I've got a leaflet in my house about an 'unsuccessful' pregnancy and, yeah, seeing the word success in that context was what got me thinking of all of this. It was such a point of reflection for me.

"Two years of COVID and years of infertility and then a lost pregnancy was what made me want to say 'I've got all these stories that I've never told anyone'."

Following in the footsteps of working mothers who came before her, Pascoe says Canadian-born stand-up and mother of three Katherine Ryan offered some sage wisdom.

"When I announced my tour, Katherine Ryan was the first comment and she said 'don't do it'," she laughs. "In person, she was much more trying to make me hear just how hard it is, so shout out to all of the parents juggling, compromising, and occasionally thinking that it will be fun. It's not."

"Katherine's baby was younger than mine, they were all together, and she was breast-feeding and that kind of thing," she explains. "Mine is 13 months now, so at this point, I can say goodbye in the afternoon and be back by midnight so I'm there in the morning.

"In that way, stand-up is kind of a good job for mums."

Success.

Sara Pascoe brings Success Story to Dublin's Vicar Street on Thursday, March, 23. Click here for more info.

If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.

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