Maxine standing up for women in comedy with film
SHE is one of the nation’s best-loved actresses, but Maxine Peake has revealed if she could do it all again, acting would NOT be her first choice. Instead, Maxine says she wished she had pursued a career as a comedian. Maxine combines both her passions in her new film role in Funny Cow, about a female comedian forging a career in stand-up comedy in the 1970s and 80s.
Speaking ahead of the film’s release, she said: “If I knew what I knew now and I was starting again I wouldn’t do acting!
“You can’t beat making people laugh. Every Christmas I watch Morecambe and Wise and I get slightly over-emotional, to be able to do that, for that to still run every Christmas. I feel like I’ve missed out, that’s really what I should have done.”
Maxine says doing stand-up comedy for the first time in character for the film was a huge buzz.
“I’ve never done stand-up, I wanted to, that’s what I initially wanted to do when I was younger. Because I went to the working men’s clubs as a kid, that performance element, it was something I could relate to. But I think to go down that path you’ve got to be made of really stern stuff. I think if I was to now add another string to my bow in stand-up comedy I’d be asking for trouble.”
Maxine stars in the film as Funny Cow, alongside Tony Pitts as her abusive husband, Bob. Former Emmerdale actor Tony wrote the story specifically for Maxine after the actors had first discussed the idea more than ten years ago when both worked on awardwinning TV drama, Red Riding Trilogy.
It recreates 1970s northern working mens’ clubs in vivid detail in the film, as our heroine fights against sexism and domestic abuse to showcase her talent for comedy.
Tony said: “The idea came from Maxine, of visiting this world, this subject, that landscape was something Maxine and I had discussed.
“We met 10 years ago when we were working on 1980, part of the Red Riding Trilogy, and I knew that I wanted to write for Maxine very quickly, almost instantaneously.
“The phrase is we are shaped by the same winds, we come from the same place, we’re similar in many ways. It was the first time I wanted to write specifically for somebody.
“It’s essentially the culture of my childhood, and a culture that I didn’t fit in with.”
Tony ran comedy clubs himself in the past and saw how tough it was for wannabe comedians’ “dying on their arse”.
He said: “I think comedy is hard full stop. There’s no hiding. Even in acting you can to some extent get saved in an editing room or in an ensemble piece you can get through.
“But if you walk out on a stage on a Friday night and you’re saying I’m here to make you laugh, it’s a hard knock.”
The character of Funny Cow is not based on a real-life comedienne, but Maxine says she was partly inspired by comedy star Marti Caine who won TV talent show New Faces in 1975 after years spent on the club circuit in Yorkshire.
Maxine said: “In the 70s, it was bordering on impossible to be a woman in stand-up comedy, just because of the amount of sacrifice, the commitment, to do that.
“I’m fascinated by people who are obsessed, driven to do things at all costs and what that means, does that fulfil you? Does it make you happy? Do you ever reach the summit?
“Whenever you reach something you think you’re not good enough and thinking you’re going to find yourself through one route but it’s actually another. We’re all humans trying to find an identity, but then you don’t even fit in with yourself.”
Maxine famously worked with Bury’s late, great comedy icon Victoria Wood early on in her career on TV’s Dinnerladies and she says it is little wonder northern women like Victoria have paved the way for women in comedy.
She said: “Northern women can take a bit more flak than most! They roll with the punches. I think it’s something to do with the language. It annoys me when everyone goes on about the northern accent that we don’t talk properly, well we do. I think up north people have real beauty with their language and I think that helps with this lovely thick accent that feels great in our mouths.
“And we’re tough. There’s a soft centre but we have to be tough, we’ve been the brunt of other people’s jokes so we can give it back.”
Funny cow goes on general release in cinemas tomorrow.