I’d had every job in comedy except actually doing it, says stand-up

AMY Annette did every job in comedy before taking to the stage full-time herself.

The 34-year-old, from London, says it started when she was at Durham University, where her fellow students included Ed Gamble and Nish Kumar, host of TV’s The Mash Report and now her partner.

Amy, who will be headlining at the next Honk! live comedy night in Henley next week, says: “I used to work in TV and before that in a talent agency, so I’ve sort of been around.

“I actually worked for Aisling Bea’s first agent and I was booking her gigs and working with her and then we became friends.

“Then I worked at Latitude Festival, which has a good comedy stage, and then I worked for a TV company called Tiger Aspect, best known for The Vicar of Dibley and Benidorm, which was really interesting and fun.”

She also worked at the Edinburgh Fringe, where she will be performing her latest show, Thick Skin, in August (next week’s show is a preview).

“I think I’ve done nearly every job you can do in comedy except for actually doing it, so it felt inevitable that one day I would do it — and that day has come.”

Amy, who has appeared on Channel 4’s The Paddock, says her comedy has a feminist edge but is “silly and nostalgic”.

“I guess it’s about growing up in the Noughties in a sort of one-liner and is really just about me and where I came from,” she says. “It’s a lot about the Noughties and Trinny and Susannah and our obsession with high-waisted belts and my fear that the kids who are now wearing the early Noughties fashions are going to move into the awful, ‘ballet flats, painful arches’ time that we’ve already lived through.

“It is that terrifying thing of being old enough now to see the fashion of my teenage-hood being worn by children.

“Right now I think they’re wearing slightly more like early Noughties but I think we’re all aware of what comes next. You know, we used to have quiffs and statement necklaces, I feel like all of that is coming back.

“And I’m worried for them, so my show is here to stop the children wearing high-waisted belts — it holds nothing up.”

Bea describes Amy as one of her favourite comedians, Lou Sanders calls her a “cutie patootie” and Suzi Ruffell calls her brilliant, adding: “In fact, if I didn’t love her so much, I’d hate her”.

Amy will making her Henley stage debut but she has been to the town before.

“I’ve been to see friends that live round there and I’ve been to the regatta with a friend of a friend,” she says. “It was very fancy. My cousin, Tom Swartz, who is Canadian, rowed for Cambridge. He won and then he went on to do the Boat Race.

“Many years ago Tom Rosenthal used to do gigs in Henley, so when I think of it I do think of comedy.”

• The Honk! live comedy night, also featuring Erika Ehler, is at The Relais, Henley, on Thursday, June 27 at 7.30pm. Tickets cost from £6.66 from www.eventbrite.com/e/honk-henley-comedy-night-june-tickets-783672324017