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FUNNY GIRL AISLING BEA GETS SERIOUS
Award-winning funny girl AISLING BEA only went into comedy because she couldn’t find work as a serious actress. Now she has achieved plan A – playing it straight in new BBC crime drama Hard Sun
If rising television star Aisling Bea had stuck to her original plan to become an actress, we probably would never have heard of her. But this country girl from ‘the middle of nowhere’ in County Kildare, Ireland, has become one of the shining lights of the British comedy scene, along with her ‘comedy sisters’ Katherine Ryan and Sharon Horgan. Her witty observational stand-up has won her several comedy awards and turned her into one of the most popular panellists on shows such as 8 Out of 10 Cats, Never Mind The Buzzcocks and A League of Their Own.
So when the 33-year-old started popping up in serious television dramas – BBC Two’s critically acclaimed The Fall and ITV’s The Town – and went on to win a major part in the hugely anticipated BBC One crime drama Hard Sun, the questions she suddenly found herself answering were: ‘Why have you switched from comedy?’ and ‘When did you discover you could act?’
‘It makes me laugh,’ she says. ‘I actually trained at a highly respected drama school [the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art] and my intention was to become a serious actress. But two years after leaving [in 2010], I was living in a pokey flat in North London with no money. I had no work and I spent most of my time being either rejected from auditions or sitting at home watching back-to-back Come Dine With Me. I can, hand on heart, say that I have seen every single episode made during that period at least once and very possibly two or three times.’
She tried everything she could to get noticed: knocked on doors, worked on accents, even danced flamenco (something she learned at drama school) while working as a waitress. She bleached her dark hair blonde and bought a ticket to Los Angeles, only to be told by a producer there that she needed to ‘shift a few pounds’ if she wanted even to be considered for work.
‘I was madly in love with my then boyfriend and had gone on the pill, which changed my body shape to a size 12. I thought it was hilarious because it was such a cliché to be told to lose weight. I got on a plane straight back to London with zero intention of going on a diet and the realisation that I was a slightly too tall, white Irishwoman – and no one could be bothered to look at me twice. I had to have a long think as to what the hell I could do to get noticed.’
It was her initial failure as an actress that drove her down the comedy route. Much of her stand-up is about disastrous events or major mishaps in her life – ‘all of them absolutely true’. In person she rarely stops talking. It is no surprise that her change of direction came at a casting audition when a producer pointed out to her that her greatest asset was her natural wit.
‘Getting a laugh was what I’d been doing with my family and at school since the age of three,’ she says. ‘I grew up in rural Ireland; we only had a few TV channels and had never even heard of sketch shows, but it was completely natural for me to tell jokes and stories. The revelation was that maybe I could get paid for it.
‘I started to audition for comedy shows [she appeared alongside David Walliams and Matt Lucas in Come Fly With Me and on the sketch show Cardinal Burns] and then I decided to have a go at stand-up.’ She did her first show in a tiny club in London’s East End. ‘I wasn’t nervous – I loved it,’ she says. ‘I made my friends come with me and just stood up and talked. I talked about what was going on in my life, made jokes about getting stressed and drunken nights out. People laughed. They clapped. I got booked again. I decided that comedy was going to be my plan B.’
Since plan B took over, Aisling has won The Gilded Balloon’s So You Think You’re Funny? award at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe and Best Female TV Comedian at the British Comedy Awards in 2014. Suddenly in demand as a guest (and team leader) on TV comedy panel shows, she was also given a prime live slot in front of 20,000 fans at the O2
Arena as part of Channel 4’s Comedy Gala.
Aisling, who has a degree in French and philosophy from Trinity College Dublin, has turned herself into a hot property. She can write, do stand-up and serious drama. In Hard Sun, the new six-part BBC crime thriller by Luther creator Neil Cross, in which two police detectives uncover a plan to end the world in five years, she stars with actor Jim Sturgess and former model Agyness Deyn. ‘That was a big deal for me,’ she says. ‘It’s a great part and an incredible script. Jim and Agyness are honest-to - God brilliant.’
She is also the protégé and writing partner of Emmy nominee Sharon Horgan ( Motherland, Catastrophe) who, like Aisling, couldn’t get work as an actress until, in her case, she started writing her own shows. After being cast by Sharon in her TV show Dead Boss, the two stars have their first joint writing venture: a comedy about two sisters, which is currently in production with Channel 4.
Aisling is on a mission. ‘I want to break America,’ she says with a serious look in her