But we all gained weight in the last few years. Yes?
[AUDIENCE]: Yeah. - Yeah.
I decided I wanted to try and lose a bit of weight
just the weight I gained in the lockdown
That was my plan, and most people
when they decide to lose weight
there's something that starts them off, spurs them on
kind of keeps them going.
Maybe there's a holiday photo
and they don't quite like how they look in it.
Or maybe they're sitting in a bath of gravy
and it's not even for Children in Need.
For me, it was when I sat on a public toilet
and the sanny bin opened and I hadn't asked it to.
"Did you want me?"
No, but my arse cheeks seem to disagree.
But I tried really hard. I tried really hard.
And I lost two stone. That's alright, isn't it?
I lost two stone. That's pretty good.
[AUDIENCE CHEERS] - Oh, that's very kind of you.
Thank you.
I say two stone, it was the same half a stone
four different times.
Nobody gives a shit
if you tell them you've lost half a stone.
Everybody knows it's just two big dinners
and a chocolate orange
and the fucker's back on again, isn't it?
But I've always had a belly
even when I was much, much slimmer.
I've always had a belly. I always get offended
when people think that this is pregnant
like I would ever let a pregnancy get this far!
No!
But I did a thing the January before last
that I think a lot of people do, especially in January
I downloaded a diet app.
Now, the phone I was using at the time was
a thumb-recognition phone.
It didn't immediately recognise my thumb.
It just kept juddering.
First of all, I thought my phone was just really clever
and it was like "It's a diet app.
We have clearly been stolen".
And then I looked at my thumb
and it was just covered in biscuit.
So I licked the biscuit off cos I thought
it might be my last biscuit in a while
and I downloaded the diet app.
What came with the diet app
was a WhatsApp group of other participants.
It was open to all, but my group happened to be all women
and it was so we could support each other
and help each other.
Everybody knows diets are hard, and a bit shit.
Also in the WhatsApp group was a nutritionist
who was no fun at all, it transpired.
One of the women asked a question of the rest of us
a perfectly reasonable question
especially on day one of a new diet.
She said, "I'm having trouble with my sweet craving.
Can anybody recommend something that isn't bad for me
but will help?"
And one of the other women responded almost immediately
and she said, "I usually find a mug of hot water
with one small drop of lemon works for me".
And I just thought
"I'm not going to make it to the end of the week".
My suggestion was going to be half a Twix.
Then the nutritionist, she was called Poppy
of course she fucking was...
she said, "Can I just chip in?"
And I misread it and I was like
"Chips! Hooray! Nom, nom, nom".
She said, "Just brush your teeth.
That fixes everything." I thought, that's so unhelpful.
The only thing that would help this hunger
if I could eat me fucking toothbrush
cos I'm so hungry right now.
You daft cow.
Cows... yum, yum, yum.
There were some recipes that came with the diet.
I tried one of them.
It was how to make banana pancakes
out of almost no ingredients.
The first time I tried them, just looked like vomit in a pan.
Second time managed to make them look a lot more like pancakes
and I was so excited
and a little bit light-headed from all of the hunger
that when I ran from the kitchen to show my husband
I tripped and the plate smashed on the floor
but because it was a really low point in the diet for me...
let's call it "day two"
I ate them off the floor!
Then I had to check to see if the fragments of plate
and cat hair I'd also ingested
counted as my sins for the week.
One of the women in the group got told off.
Told off, as an adult
got told off for eating goji berries.
If you've never had goji berries
it's like chewing elastic bands.
She got told off because goji berries are...
[IN A SMUG VOICE]: "...full of natural sugar
not really allowed on this plan".
She wasn't having Coco Pops
with cider poured on.
She was having goji berries on her Bran Flakes.
Some sad sprinkled on some more fucking sad.
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
I'd had eight years of my life without any pets,
the longest I've ever gone, because of the lifestyle of my job,
then my husband and I realised we were finally in a position
where we could definitely look after a cat.
Our friend's cat had just had kittens so we locked a date in my diary
when that kitten could leave his mam and come and live with us.
It was locked in my diary,
and my agent, she said, "But it's the Queen's Jubilee."
And I said, "But it's a kitten."
(LAUGHTER)
She tried all ways to persuade me.
In the end I just said, "Look, I don't care how good her tits are.
- I'm not fucking going!" - (LAUGHTER)
Second to last one, I said no to someone shoving a Crunchie up my fanny.
(LAUGHTER)
I don't know when you last had a Crunchie. You might not remember.
The chocolate is very thin and would have fizzled off in no time...
(LAUGHTER)
...leaving very angular cinder toffee that would have hurt.
(LAUGHTER)
And also, I don't do adverts anyway.
(LAUGHTER)
But while I was in Australia,
I got a phone call from the fraud department
of my credit card company
inquiring why I was spending so much on my credit card,
she said, "Can I check a couple of transactions with you?"
I said, "Of course, you can."
The first one was a cashpoint withdrawal,
and I had withdrawn the money, so that was all above board.
The second one, she said,
"You spent 102 pound in a place called
Holt's and I went, "Oh,
yeah,
yeah, that's right, it's a chocolate shop."
(audience laughing)
And she went, "102 pounds?"
(audience laughing)
And I went, "Yeah, it was for presents.
For me."
(audience laughing)
'Cause I was nowhere near Brad Pitt's cock.
(audience laughing)
But I did get a nickname while I was out there,
I've never had a nickname before,
I've been called things but that's different, isn't it?
I think that's bullying.
(audience laughing)
My nickname is The Cake Pigeon,
'cause whenever I walk past a cake shop
(chuckles) walk past,
(audience laughing)
whenever I press myself up against a cake shop,
I go (coos).
(audience laughing)
And because I talk about cake's and puddings on stage,
sometimes people bring cakes and puddings to shows for me,
which is lovely but can sometimes be a little bit weird.
Some lady came up to me a few months ago
at the end of the show, she handed me a small round
fruitcake and she said, "This is for you,"
and I said, "That's lovely, thank you very much,
what a nice thing to do."
And she said, "I'm sorry it's just that,
but it's all we had in."
I said, "Have you been looking through your cupboards?
It's not the fucking Harvest festival, pet.
(audience laughing)
You bought a ticket, you can just come to the show."
(audience laughing)
Which really pissed off the woman behind her
who was standing with a tin of fucking peaches.
(audience laughing)
I always get annoyed by my period.
I've had period for over 30 years.
I've never wanted children, not a moment, not a flicker.
I'm sure a lot of you have got kids
you're having a great time and that's smashing for you.
It's not for me. It's not for me at all.
The best way I can describe how annoyed I get
every time my period starts is like this.
Imagine you've got a friend at work.
She's called Deborah. She's great.
Deborah's got a rabbit hutch
and every month she cleans it out.
Puts fresh bedding in, fresh water in the water bottle
fresh food in the food bowl, looks spotless. Amazing.
Spick and span.
And you say to her, "Deborah...
are you ever going to get a rabbit?"
[AUDIENCE LAUGHS]
What I've decided to do to help me relax
is just to find things that make me happy,
'cause I think generally whatever makes you happy
makes you relaxed,
and I thought at 35 I knew everything that I liked
but in the last 12 months, I found two new things
that I didn't know I liked.
The first one was courtesy of a nice lady on Facebook
who said, "I understand that you like chocolate,
but I don't know if you know this fact,
that if you have a square of Dairy Milk
and a square of Galaxy
at the same time,
it's so good
that it makes you do sex noises."
I mean like good ones, I don't mean like,
"Ow, ow, get it out, get it out!"
(audience laughing)
I can tell some of you are now working out
your route home via a news agent's.
This show should be sponsored
'cause I'm telling you to go and buy chocolate,
the show is not sponsored,
but if a future show is called Dairy Millican,
(audience laughing)
then maybe things have changed.
But it was about this time
last year that I was worried about my family.
My mum and dad are both retired and both disabled.
And I was worried about them sort of thinking
before they put the heat on, you know,
it was a very cold winter sort of thing.
And can we afford it before they put the heating on?
And I said, "You know what?
"You've looked after me all these years,
"including the two I moved back in after I got divorced."
Never have kids 'cause they'll never fucking properly leave.
Said, "Maybe I could start giving you a bit of a hand.
"Maybe I could start paying your heating bill."
Not happy, not happy, very proud people my parents.
There's a lot of sort of wrestling went on.
I mean, verbal, I wouldn't have let me dad on the floor.
(audience laughing)
Popping out hips willy nilly.
(audience laughing)
And they eventually agreed.
They still weren't happy about it,
but they agreed it's the most sensible option.
Started to pay for the heating bill.
Month later I went to visit them.
My dad opened the front door
and he was just wearing vest and pants.
(audience laughing)
And I went, "Dad it's three in the afternoon.
"Why haven't you got any clothes on?"
"Oh, it's boiling in there."
(audience laughing)
And I heard my sister shout from the kitchen,
"We've never even been on holiday anywhere this hot."
(audience laughing)
But we had a very good upbringing.
We always had loads of, we had loads of pets.
We had loads of pets.
Give us a cheer if you've got a pet.
- [Audience] Yay.
- I'm very jealous. I'd love to have a pet.
I don't have that kind of lifestyle.
I'm away from home too much. And it would be cruel.
So, me and my fellow when we've got a bit of time off,
like an afternoon off,
we like to go to zoos and aquariums
but you can't always do that
because those places are expensive
and they take up a lot of time.
So, we have perfected the art
of wandering round pets at home.
You got to go in with a lot of confidence, you know,
that you could totally own a fish, you know.
To be fair, I sometimes wander around baby clothes shops
and I haven't got a baby. That's a lot weirder.
(audience laughing)
I always think I can pass as a new mum
because I've got a bit of a belly
and I always look knackered.
And if I think anybody's suspicious,
I just lob a boob out.
That doesn't work in pets at home.
(audience laughing) The last time we were in pets at home,
they had a special section to one side
of animals that had been reduced.
Just let that sink in for a second. Reduced.
It was one of the saddest things I think I've ever seen.
They had a big rabbit in a hutch
much bigger than the other sort of sexy rabbits.
Sexy is not the right word, is it?
Depends on the rabbit.
(audience laughing)
(audience member whistles) Thank you.
And the big rabbit, to make it
that little bit more heartbreaking,
they'd written a sign for it in the first person.
And the sign said, "Hi, I'm Honey.
"I'm a little bit bigger than the other rabbits.
"I'm a little bit older than the other rabbits.
"Please take me home."
I thought, you never expect to come face
to face with a rabbit equivalent of your teenage self.
(audience laughing)
I didn't buy it.
It's got to learn.
(audience laughing)
We had load of pets when we were kids,
we had rabbits and budgies
and hamsters and fish and dogs, we had loads of things.
But whenever they died, we were never told that,
we were just told some story, instead, some lie.
Anybody else have this?
- [Audience] Yes.
- Yeah, yeah. What lies were you told? Shout out.
- [Audience Member] A farm.
- Gone to a farm.
What animal was it, love?
- [Audience Member] A dog.
- A dog. Oh, it's still in your voice, isn't it, flower?
Dog, farm, dog, can't talk anymore.
This lady the other day, she said,
"My rabbit never died."
I said, "What?"
"My rabbit never died.
"It's just sometimes a different colour.
(audience laughing)
"And occasionally it was a Guinea pig."
(audience laughing)