Five minutes with… Last Woman on Earth’s Sara Pascoe
Sara Pascoe tells Rachael Davis about series two of Last Woman on Earth, which sees her go to Greece, Denmark and Jordan to try out endangered jobs
PLENTY of people have caught themselves dreaming about life beyond the 9 to 5, imagining all the weird and wonderful jobs that are out there. You could spend all day coming up with new career ideas in far-flung corners of the globe – but what if you were able actually to go and try out a rare and bizarre job for the day?
That’s exactly what writer and comedian Sara Pascoe gets to do in Last Woman on Earth, a travel programme with a twist which sees her jet off around the world to try out endangered jobs.
In this second series of the BBC Two programme, Pascoe, 41, jets off to Greece, Denmark and Jordan across three episodes.
In Greece, she meets the last monk in a monastery and a family of church bell-makers; in Denmark, she learns how to build Lego from a Lego Master and make a roof out of seaweed with some thatchers; and in Jordan, she lifeguards at the Dead Sea and spends the night in the desert with a family of Bedouin herders on the lookout for dangerous animals.
Let’s find out more from Pascoe about her adventures in this series.
You’re back for a second series! How would you describe this one?
I think it’s a really interesting way of finding out about other countries, because it’s not ‘a comedian goes on holiday’, and it’s not quite ‘here’s an encyclopaedia about the country Greece’ – it’s halfway between the two.
It’s meeting interesting people, finding out about how countries have changed, and the really huge thing of where they might be going in the future and how that affects individuals and their jobs.
What were your hopes coming back?
Just to find even more different things to show viewers. What you never want to do is be treading back over old territory. I think that’s what we’ve managed really well, that the themes that link the episodes together are different.
Even though Denmark and Finland, in some ways, are quite similar countries, we do completely different things in those places and show them in very different lights.
And then I like that Greece is very family orientated as well, we haven’t done that before, really.
Have people been positive about series one?
It had really, really positive feedback! And actually when we went out filming this one, sometimes we bumped into people at the airport, or on boats, or British people travelling who had watched the first series.
It was nice for the director and the crew to hear people saying that they love the show, because I get all the compliments, because I’m in it. So people tweet me saying: “Oh, you’re really funny,” and don’t give credit to the whole team. So they were always there when it was someone saying that they’d really enjoyed it.
How do you approach bringing humour into the travel series?
I think with humour, it’s always a difficult line to tread because you don’t want to be flippant, rude, silly… but you are aware, occasionally, you are supposed to be making this funny, and a very serious man is telling you how to make a knife.
So for me I’m thinking: “Oh, when can I come in, or get this wrong, or how am I supposed to be lightening this up a little bit?” Then usually, if you spend enough time with someone, it happens very organically.
I tend to make myself the butt of the joke, that’s what you have to do because obviously they’re doing things that really matter to them and they’re being so generous to share them with me.
In Denmark, you had to tattoo someone! How did you find that?
I was petrified, and I didn’t stop shaking for hours afterwards, because you are hurting someone!
If you are a trained tattoo artist and someone’s asked you to tattoo them, you can limit what pain they’ve got. But I kept going too deep on her arm and all this blood was spurting out!
I was doing it and I just wanted to stop and I couldn’t believe they were making me do it. And she was so sweet, it made it worse. I felt so bad!
This series also sees you travel to Jordan – how did you find it?
It’s really, really stunning, and obviously an absolute privilege to get to go to a place that feels so different to Europe in so many ways.
The people are very, very friendly. And so many of the stories were really relevant. And that’s about people being displaced, or finding a home, or finding new ways of making a living.
And then you’ve got this huge and very ancient history, which was just amazing to see.
What surprised you the most
about that region?
That the Dead Sea is getting so much smaller because of the heat rising – that was really terrifying to see.
The Dead Sea is shrinking by a metre every year. There are these hotels that used to be on the beach, and are now up a hill because the sea’s dried up so much.
These things are global issues, aren’t they? They’re not just one country’s problem.
Were there any mishaps during filming?
Well, the mishaps they leave in, like when I broke the bell we’d just made in Greece! So tattooing the woman and breaking the bell, they’re two of my lowest moments of recent years!
Series two of Last Woman on Earth starts on BBC Two at 9pm on Sunday, April 9.