Angela Barnes

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“I find the tyranny of a blank page unbearable.” Angela Barnes is talking me through her creative process. She’s gracious and chatty today. Although, I’ve come to expect nothing else from the award-winning comedian. It’s still comforting, as I’ve forgotten to bring my A-game to the conversation. Already I’ve inadvertently mocked her hometown (Maidstone, I love you really…) and asked if she prepares for tours by sitting in a room and musing on everything she thinks is wrong with her life.

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She reveals that sitting down during preset hours and churning out a show isn’t really for her. “The panic sets in and I end up in tears, thinking I’m a failure.” Instead, she’s an obsessive note-taker, writing these all up later, playing with language and crafting them into what we’d recognise as comedy routines. “You might think something is funny, but the test is with people who don’t know you. And never think you’ll just remember something, because you won’t. Always write it down!”

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Just to heap the pressure on, she held her work-in-progress shows at Edinburgh Fringe. Partly, this was to scare herself into ensuring the show was good enough to take on tour. While she obviously sits writing in that darkened room at the beginning, most of her practice takes place onstage, performing in tiny venues, heading onstage with her notebooks and recording it all on her phone. “I need something to get it to that next stage, where it’s ready to go out on the road. There's a big difference between an audience knowing it's a work-in-progress and paying full price for a good show. There’s certainly an in-between stage.”

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So now, immaculately paced and pitch-perfect, Barnes is taking the straight talking and observant Angst around the country. It seems to be the start of a new stage in her career, where she’s taking on weightier subjects and bending them to her will. The last tour, Hot Mess, received massive critical acclaim and is now available as a special on ITVX (which was filmed at Brighton’s Komedia). “That was very much about the loss of my friend. So, it was a very emotional show; I would say this new one is a bit more introspective. I’m looking at myself as a person more than halfway through their life. What have I got to do? What have I done? It’s not got quite the emotional heft of Hot Mess. It’s more tongue in cheek look at where I’m at.”

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Originally Hot Mess was intended to be about Barnes’s recent ADHD diagnosis but, in her own words, she “got distracted.” Instead, the compelling show explored the events around her wedding and the loss of her dear friend – the brilliant and much missed local legend, Phil Jerrod. “Things evolve and happen in your life. For me, what changed its direction was when the Partygate revelations came out. During the pandemic, he’d been seriously ill. I’d been supporting him, by going to appointments and all that.” It was a difficult time to be unwell with Jerrod was going into surgeries on his own. When Barnes found out what had been happening on Downing Street at the same time, she was enraged. “I couldn’t not include Phil. I spoke to his wife, because I didn’t know how she’d feel talking about him. But she wanted people to know his name and what he went through.”

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While comedy can reveal hidden truths and help quantify issues in our minds, she knows she’s unlikely to change anyone’s life. “The bottom line is, if it’s a comedy show, are they laughing? But then, I’m not afraid to bring in real life and the things that are difficult to talk about. When I took Hot Mess on the road, I was getting loads of messages. More than I’ve ever had before. Everyone knows someone who had cancer. Everyone knows someone who was struggling during the pandemic.” She’s keen to point out it was a comedy show, rather than a poignant piece of theatre. “Although, it’s an interesting way to connect with people. You can laugh at this stuff, as long as you’re not hurting anyone…”

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By her own admission she worries a lot. And the subject laying heavy upon her mind can be almost anything. “There's nothing wrong with being a pessimist, because it means that only good things will happen. You’re always pleasantly surprised.”

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Perhaps this is to do with getting older. The show is called Angst, but another working title she had for it was Torschlusspanik. “It’s a German word, which describes that feeling of: ‘Oh God, I'm nearly 50. There’s loads of stuff I've forgotten to do.’ It’s that mid-life existential angst… but with lots of jokes.” Compressing together ‘the gate’ ‘the end’ and ‘the panic’, Torschlusspanik is one of those fantastic compound words. My Deutsch-speaking friends assure me that it originated as a reference to a growing dread often burdening ladies of a certain age; although it is now used to encompass anyone facing a new stage in life. A metaphorical gate is closing, and previous opportunities are slipping away. 

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She freely admits there’s some accompanying benefits to be found in talking out inner turmoil onstage. “It’s cheaper than a therapist. It is quite cathartic. The nice thing about being a comedian, whenever something bad happens in your life there’s a little bit where you think: ‘I can get ten minutes out of this.’ A few years ago, an accident gave her some nasty burns and she spent some time in A&E in absolute agony, which anyone seeing her last show will know all about.

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Swapping a nursing career for stand-up around 15 years ago, she hasn’t looked back. A familiar face on Mock The Week and Live At The Apollo, she is slightly disappointed at the BBC’s apparent slight scaling down of its stand-up and topical comedy shows – especially with the cancellation of the former. “Mock The Week" was unique in that it introduced new talent. The BBC still has comedy shows, like Have I Got News For You and QI, but they tend to only have established people. Telly isn’t the main route for young comics now. You can put your content out on YouTube or Instagram. If you’re under 30, that’s most likely where your audience is anyway.”

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She’s been a regular fixture on BBC radio for over ten years, including stints on The Now Show, The News Quiz and Newsjack. One of Barnes’s previous shows, Fortitude, revealed a fascination of nuclear bunkers. This led to her hosting a show on Radio 4 Extra which looked at different aspects of the decade’s long stand-off between global superpowers.   

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Blending archive and studio interviews, Cold War Secrets explores this distant, but now strangely relevant, period in modern history. From examining civil defence plans to revealing the hidden world of espionage, it uncovered a new talent for making the past entertaining. “I’m regularly pitching documentaries to history channels, so hopefully one will come off. There are a few things in the pipeline. But talking about cold war nuclear bunkers in the current climate does make some people a bit nervous.”

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There’s more delving into past lives on We Are History, her podcast with author and comedy writer, John O’Farrell. This highlights almost implausible and almost unbelievable historical anecdotes. From nudism in East Germany to the Spanish civil war, it unravels some of our culture’s wildest and intriguing periods.  “What John and I have always said is that we’re not historians. We’re taking about stuff whilst we’re learning it. If you watch a historian on TV, it can feel like you’re at school. But seeing someone being enthusiastic about finding out things at the same pace as you, it can bring a different energy and engages with different people.”

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Despite being delightful with all the guests on her podcast episode, Barnes doubts she’d be a decent chat-show host. “I’m one of those people who asks a question and won’t listen to the answer. Touring as a stand-up comedian was always a dream, and I'm lucky enough to be doing it. All the other stuff that you do, like TV, radio, TikTok or whatever, enables you to keep touring and make sure people know that you're out there. If they like you on Have I Got News For You, hopefully they’ll buy a ticket to see your show. That’s the main thing for me.” She tells me she would like to write a book. For a long time it was a childhood dream. As a youngster, she’d write stories and poems all the time, a part of her thinking it would be what she’d end up doing. “The thing about doing that, which is so intimidating, is when you’re doing comedy you know if it’s working or not. Are they laughing? Great. But putting a book out there and then having to wait for people to judge it, is quite a scary thing.”

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So, as well as providing some loose form of catharsis, does the ephemeral nature of comedy appeal to her? “Oh yeah. Absolutely,” she says with a big laugh. “With stand-up, it lives in that moment for those people. If a gig doesn’t go well, only those in that room know. Not the whole world,” Then for a few seconds, she pauses. “You’re only as good as your last gig. You’re in that moment. And then… it’s gone.”

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Angela Barnes is touring Angst around the country this spring, which includes shows at Brighton Dome Studio Theatre on Fri 21 Feb, London’s Leicester Square Theatre on Weds12 March, and Horsham’s The Capitol on Sat 29 March 2025.                          

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www.angelabarnescomedy.co.uk 

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