Comic loaned failed feminist mag £500k

CoMEDiEnnE sarah Millican has found that running a feminist magazine is no laughing matter.

The 42- year- old Geordie stand- up (inset) pumped more than half a million pounds into the online magazine standard issue, but it was forced to close last year after failing to make any money.

The extent of Millican’s investment has only now been revealed, in accounts for her business sM Comedy.

At first sight they look healthy with retained earnings of £1.2 million. But closer scrutiny shows that, although she has £735,000 in cash in the company and £550,000 owed by the debtors, the bulk of the debt will not be repaid. The documents say that Mitten Publishing, which ran standard issue, was loaned £ 530,541 ‘ with no fixed repayment terms’. Millican said she was ‘utterly broken’ that it had failed after two- and- a- half years. The mag’s earnest ethos might possibly explain its demise: ‘no celebrity tittle- tattle, no Photoshopping, no calorie counting, no cellulite circling.’