Star of Taskmaster and Unforgivable Lou Sanders brings her new show, One Word: Wow to The Wedgewood Rooms

Her exploits on eight wheels help form the backbone of the comedian’s new show, One Word: Wow!

(Relatively) hot on the heels of her much-delayed appearance in Portsmouth with her previous show, Say Hello To Your New Step-Mummy, she returns to The Wedgewood Rooms next week.

Lou had been due to come to The Wedge in March 2020 – hers was the next show due up when the lockdown forced all venues to close.

‘I didn't do it – don't associate me with the plague, please!’ she tells The Guide.

The re-rescheduled show finally happened last September.

‘That one was really nice – I enjoyed myself there, actually. You get different reactions in different places and there I remember thinking, they're bloody lovely.

‘There was a really sweet spot when everyone was coming back, and everyone was so pleased to be going out, and: “Wooh – we're allowed out of the house!”

‘Now everyone's gone back to normal, moaning about nothing – that's me, moaning about nothing.’

But back to the roller skating...

‘I should have taken it up at the beginning of the lockdown because it's really fun exercise, and you can meet people.

‘But I did it at the end of the lockdown when the comedy clubs were starting to open up again.

‘I think I was looking for adrenaline – all the comedy clubs had stopped, so I thought I could get the adrenaline rush in the skateparks instead, but then we went back to work!

‘So yeah, I would have got better at it – the people who took it up at the start of lockdown are much better at it!’

Was it something she did as a child, or was this a new hobby?

‘Well, there was Boxing Day in Broadstairs,’ in Kent, where she grew up, ‘sauntering down the seafront aged seven, but it wasn't something I did loads of.’

Did she take it up as a way of creating new material for her stand-up?

‘No – I didn't actually, I don't live my life like that. You can get material out of anything.’

Her social media regularly features clips of Lou skating, and while she’s not at pro level, she’s far from embarrassing – the clips show her executing some nifty tricks.

Naturally talk turns to whether she gets the chance to sample any new skate parks while on tour, and of course The Guide mentions our own venerable Southsea Skatepark.

Lou says that she plans to come down early so she can try it out, and Googles the park as we’re talking.

‘How exciting – there's loads of stuff going on down there… It looks amazing!’ she enthuses.

‘I know this is meant to be an interview,’ she apologises, ‘but I've got to get my skating in. Right, I will look at this afterwards in my own time.’

While Lou has become a regular on our TV screens in recent years, with appearances on The Late Late Show with James Corden, Live At The Apollo, and QI, Travel Man, Hypothetical, 8 Out of 10 Cats, it was her season-winning turn on Taskmaster in 2019 which seems to give her most joy.

The show features five celebrities – mostly comedians – who compete against each other for an entire series in bizarre tasks, overseen by Greg Davies and his assistant (and show creator) Alex Horne.

‘It was just so fun – so fun!’ she emphasises, rising in tone. ‘A dream come true. You pinch yourself because you're thinking: I'm getting paid to do this? It's unbelievable. Everyone loves that show.’

The show started on Dave becoming one of the station’s biggest hits, but has since moved to Channel 4.

And she’s kept a connection to the show: ‘I do the Taskmaster People's Podcast now where I talk to fans who have done different things, and the connection with that show is insane – it's so nice to see the joy it spreads. And Alex is so generous with his time – he'll do video messages for people, or retweet things that people have done and have a look at them. He's got four kids of his own – how has he got the time? But I love it. Good on him.’

Did she have a favourite task?

She barely pauses: ‘Ooh, that was one where I stitched Alex up, actually – after having said how nice he is! – I got loads of people to call him about jazzercise and things like that. I gave them his real number and a real backstory. I reeeeally enjoyed doing that – hehe!’ she pronounces the sound of the laugh quite distinctly, cartoon-style.

The Taskmaster People's Podcast isn't her only foray into the medium – she also has her own called Cuddle Club, which began in February 202, and is about to hit its 100th episode. Each week she brings in a guest from the world of entertainment.

‘You've got to pod these days – it's 2022, you're nothing with a podcast,’ says Lou.

How did Cuddle Club come about?

‘The name was just a joke. I was living with Brett Goldstein,’ currently doing very well for himself as the writer and co-star of Ted Lasso, ‘in Edinburgh and he was doing his film podcast, but he wouldn't let me on it because I don't know anything about films.

‘Well, I do, but I forget them...

‘So I kept interrupting his efforts to record, and then I said I was going to do my own.

‘They said: “Oh right then, so what's it going to be on?” And I said,’ she affects a nauseatingly twee voice, ‘cuddling?

‘The title is a joke but actually it's quite a good way of asking people nosey questions about their upbringing and stuff like that.’

When it comes to prying into people’s private lives, another recent hit TV show Lou’s in, is very good at doing that. She co-hosts Unforgivable with Mel Giedroyc on Dave.

The show sees comedians and celebrities – from Graham Norton, to Johnny Vegas and Harry Redknapp competing to convince Mel and Lou that they are the most unforgivable person in the room by dredging up their most outrageous sins, lies, legal transgressions and morally bankrupt behaviour.

‘It's very therapeutic – it's cathartic. We're offering a service there!’ Lou insists. ‘They're lucky to have us,’ she laughs.

‘But we're all just human, it's nice to celebrate that. We've all made mistakes, and we’re all trying our best.’

Are there things people said which didn't make it to air?

‘Some tiny, little things. Some people are more precious than others, or worried about being cancelled and stuff.

‘But I think it's very human to share your foibles and the terrible things we've done. It's not like someone did a racist attack – that would be truly awful. It's more like pooping, dating, stealing things – we've all got a past, and the sooner we realise that the better.

‘I like it when people laugh at themselves, I hate it when they're uptight or pretend to be someone else.’

Indeed, Lou has always been very frank in her shows about her own life and her own past transgressions. Does she ever worry about oversharing?

‘I think my parents and my brother probably think that,’ she laughs. ‘But how are we going to progress if we're in the shadows?’

Speaking of cancel culture there – is that something she’s ever worried about?

‘It's just a funny old time for everybody. There's pros and cons to everything, and the pros are that we all become a bit more sensitive and try not to hurt people, the cons are that good people are often worried.

‘I know men that have done terrible things, and generally they're not the ones who are worried about being cancelled!

‘And then the sweethearts – there's a really nice guy at this skatepark, and he refuses to give me tips because he doesn't want to mansplain, and I'm like, I want the tips!

‘But you know, progress is also good.’

It has been said that Lou can come across as insecure in her stand-up, a comment she – in the nicest possible way – takes exception with.

‘I feel I'm very confident. I feel I'm very comfortable in my skin, because I've done a lot of work on myself.

‘Maybe I don't know myself at all... Maybe I do come across like that.

‘I suppose there is a vulnerability there, but I wouldn't say it's an insecurity. If you're sharing personal things, maybe there is a vulnerability to that. I don't know...’

As to her future plans, there’s a third season of Unforgiven pending, she’s taking Wow to Edinburgh in the summer and there’s filming in Iceland, which she ‘can’t really talk about.’

Lou Sanders’ One Word: Wow, is at The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea on Sunday, May 22.

Go to ​​wedgewood-rooms.co.uk