Is this Northumbria’s funniest woman? Meet third year stand up Lauren Pattison

She’s definitely funnier than you are


How funny are you?

You might be able to crack a joke or two but you’re definitely no Lauren Pattison.

The 21-year-old Performing Arts third year has been rubbing shoulders with comedy legend Katherine Ryan while the rest of us are revising for exams.

She’s probably going to do okay, post-grad wise.

Third year Lauren with Katherine Ryan

We caught the up-and-coming funny woman just before her gig in London at the Chortle Student Comedy award competition — a casual event where she performed on the same stage as Chris Ramsey and Simon Bird have started their careers.

“I’ve always done drama and I think it’s through drama that I realised I not only enjoyed making people laugh, but that I wasn’t bad at it.

“I never wanted to be in the really serious, dramatic roles, I always wanted to be the funny one.

“Eventually, that filtered from me wanting to perform funny roles as an actor to wanting to try and make my own comedy as a comedian.”

Lauren on stage

Lauren tried her hand at comedy before she came to uni, but her Performing Arts course helped her find her funny bone.

“I’ve always loved watching stand up and comedy on TV and most of my money has gone on tickets to see comedy over anything else. I first tried stand up when I was 15 but I’ve been doing it properly since I was 18.

“I loved doing comedy before I decided I wanted to be a comedian, I absolutely love making people laugh so in a way it’s been really nice that it’s shifted from hobby to potential career without me ever losing sight of why I do it, which is because I bloody love it.”

Lauren’s boyfriend Tom acts as her material guinea pig but he doesn’t always give a warm response.

“I don’t think going out with a comedian is as funny as he maybe anticipated.

“Audiences get to see the shiny polished however-many-minutes-of-material delivered by a confident performer and he gets to deal with all the nerves and stress beforehand.

“It’s weird for me as well, having him meet the comedians who are kind of like fatherly or brotherly figures cause they’ve worked with me so much over the years and watched me attempt to grow up.

“It’s a bit like he has to meet another family, only this one’s incredibly sharp and quick witted and will ridicule him within an inch of his life to test him out.”

It’s not always laughter lines and applause, though. Lauren’s hit some bum notes and experienced a few tumble weeds at her gigs. But some of her proudest moments have been on stage, too.

“My proudest moment has been making the finals of Funny Women last September when I was only 20.

“I was the youngest competitor in the final, and the calibre of past finalists has included Katherine Ryan, Bridget Christie and Sarah Millican. I finished as runner-up and it was amazing. Being straight back in uni the following morning, not so amazing.

“I once went all the way down to London to gig for four minutes in front of a handful of audience members who’d been dragged to watch from the pub downstairs.

“Then I got straight on a train home. Eight hours of travelling and I was in London under an hour and on stage for 240 seconds in front of people who looked like they had been forced against their will to come and watch.”

She’s pretty picky when it comes to choosing her fave comedian. And she can’t offend any potential gig buddies.

“I like Ross Noble for the sheer genius and madness behind what he does, I like Bo Burnham because he’s so young but what he does is so clever, I like Sarah Millican and Katherine Ryan who are pretty much my female idols and I really look up to them.

“I like people on the circuit like Matt Reed and Lee Kyle because I’ve grown up working with them and they’re great comics as well as lovely blokes.”

The comedy finals take place in Edinburgh this August and Lauren isn’t sweating it. But when you’re this funny, why would you?

bit apprehensive about posting this but here’s an edited down video of my set from the funny women final 🙂

Posted by Lauren Pattison on Thursday, February 5, 2015