I did a show for Radio 4 from under the stairs Joanna Neary tells MARION McMULLEN about the classic British movie behind her hit comedy podcast Wife On Earth and how she’s kept working in lockdown
A new series of your podcast Wife On Earth is now out. How did your create your very British housewife Celia Jesson?
A RADIO station asked me, in 1997, if I could impersonate Celia Johnson in classic British movie Brief Encounter for an advert for a £10 fee.
(Laughs) I said yes. I can do pretty much anything for £10 and I wanted the tenner. Celia Jesson has gone on to appear in monologues, has performed as part of Cosmic
Shambles 9 Lessons and Carols for Curious People, the Channel 4 series Dogface, BBC Shuffle, ITV’s Comedy Cuts and Radio 3’s The Verb. There have also been Faceful Of Issues at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the latest live comedy show Wife on Earth (3000 Light Years From Doing The Ironing).
How have you kept busy during lockdown?
I BUILT a little recording studio under the bottom of the stairs so I could continue doing voiceover work. I did a show for BBC Radio 4 from under the stairs.
This new podcast series has been a family affair. My husband is an NHS nurse and has been helping out, and my eight-year-old son has been doing the voice of a mermaid for me for a puppet show.
I actually found I didn’t need to go shopping. I’ve finally been using all those three for two bargains I’ve had at home.
I kept thinking should I put on my favourite dress and paint my nails, but I’ve not bothered.
It does makes you think how much you do for yourself and how much you do for other people. Working has helped to keep me fairly grounded when the world has just felt so bonkers. I missed people and my mum and dad’s Irish coffees. I’ve also been reading
– right now I’m on Ulysses. There were five kids in my family and we all read books growing up. We’d be sitting around the living room in silence reading.
Celia tackles diet scandals, baking and has fantasy romances featuring Robbie Williams and the supermarket bloke from the seasonal aisle in the new series. What do you enjoy most about the podcast? YOU have complete autonomy. There is no director or producer changing what you are doing. It’s a great form of escapism. We’ve not really touched on lockdown in the podcast because that would date it really quickly, but husband Fred has taken up the ukulele.
The podcast looks at the peaks and troughs of Celia’s life. (Laughs) She’s a posh version of me.
Who comes along to see your shows?
I USED to worry my shows were too weird and too niche for everyone, but you can never second guess who you are going to reach.
I once bought an inflatable dolphin and cut out a hole for my face so I could wear it as a costume. There were teenage boys in the audience when I came on stage and probably thought ‘What the hell is this?’
The dolphin was pondering if humans were intelligent and taking the mickey out of celebrities... and the teens totally got it.
How did you start in comedy?
I WENT to Falmouth Art College for several years and my mum and dad are into art as well. I was doing painting, printing and sculpting and came up with a character to perform in the gallery.
There wasn’t really much money in performance art in the late 90s and I started doing comedy. I was one of three women doing comedy in Brighton at that time so pretty much cornered the market. And that’s how I got into it really.
I’ve always done voices and once did a show where I played 20 different characters in an hour. Thirteen of them were from Cornwall and I had to come up with different Cornish accents for all of them so you could differentiate them and follow who was talking.
I’ve also never figured out if I should call myself Jo or Joanna. I was worried at the start people might expect a man to turn up if I called myself Jo.
What is the best advice you’ve been given?
I’VE worked with Stewart Lee and performed before 5,000 people and that was really, really scary, but he told me if 10% of this audience likes you that 500 people. If you are performing before 100 people that’s just 10.
My gran isalso 104 years old. I asked her ‘What is the secret of a long life?’ She said – three meals a day with four hours in between and strictly no snacking. And be kind to yourself.
She also has a glass of wine every day at lunchtime.
She doesn’t let anything stop her doing what she wants.
■ Wife On Earth is available from cosmicshambles.com/celia and podcast providers.
Go to joneary.com for further details