Down Arabella: Sexual rife in TV and theatre
Campaign is making a difference
wearing knickers.” Arabella said: “I never used to capitulate as a young actress.
“I used to just say nothing and then tell my friends all the appalling things that had happened, or made jokes about it on stage when I used to do a bit of stand-up.
“By the time I started doing The Fast Show, I had finally reached a point in my career where I felt I was there as an equal member, so I was not about to just say nothing.
“I remember thinking, I’m here, I’m definitely going to get equal representation. But I didn’t. I think it was just that my ‘essentialness’ in the show became clearer as the show grew.”
She added: “Even now, with the Me Too campaign, the whole gladiatorial aspect of stand-up, which often happens in drinking establishments, lends itself better to the male culture.
“Women will always have to be that bit harder, be that bit funnier.”
Arabella adds that she has hope that the Me Too campaign is finally making a difference in the industry.
She said: “I’m old enough to remember when stand-up comics used words like ‘P**i’ and other appalling racial epithets that, to a middle-class, welleducated white girl like me, were totally unacceptable.
“Now, 25-30 years on, we’ve come to a place where that sort of thing would render them unemployable.
“I like to think we’re sort of in that place now, in terms of women, where people are starting to realise not to structure jokes in any way where women are not fully participant.”
But she added: “As long as men are running most of the industries, it’s always going to be easier for the same gender to get purchase.”