5 MINUTES WITH... COMEDIAN SARA PASCOE

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 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, Pascoe, 41, jets off to Greece, Denmark and Jordan across three episodes.

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.

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.

WHAT SURPRISED

YOU THE MOST

ABOUT THAT REGION?

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. Last Woman on Earth, BBC2 at 9pm, Sunday.