Su Mi and the horns that honk
Stand up, musical comedy, drag! Su talks us through their day from waking up, sleeping on the way to the gig, to making your work kid friendly.
I wake up. I might clean myself sometimes, who knows?! Get clean. No food. Don't have time for food. I don’t really have breakfast unless it's a day off, then I'll treat myself. Then head to work and do my eight hour shift.
If it’s a drag gig then I might get things ordered to the store. Sometimes I’ll get into my outfits during work. It’s quite normal for my coworkers to come downstairs and I’m in something that I should probably not be wearing… Recently, I've been in a morph suit. When I was competing in Top of the Slops, one week was burlesque themed. My idea was that I’d take off my burlesque gown, then I start to take off my body parts as well. My colleagues came in and there were fake body parts everywhere.
If I’m doing stand up then there’s not much prep, unless I'm doing musical comedy, then I'll bring my guitar. I'm a bit neurospicy so I often do things last minute. But it works for me!
Case in point. I’ve had this drag idea for years where I just covered myself in horns. I told my partner, my sister, and finally I thought you know what? I'm gonna do it. So I bought a whole bunch of horns. Months passed, I never did anything with them, and then the day before my friend’s fundraiser gig, I found these fishing pants in Lidl and I attached a bunch of horns to it. It worked! It was great!
During the day I might practise a few things or go over what I need to do and then maybe grab something to eat. Or maybe not. Who knows? It depends on the timing. Then it’s run, run, run, go to the gig. Hopefully I have friends there. If not, that’s okay.
Usually I get the train to the gig and then I’m sleeping. I might go through the tech with my headphones in and try not to have anyone on the train notice me. But mainly sleep. I love sleep. I don’t get enough of it.
I've cut down on gigging these days. I used to do up to three in a day, sometimes nine in a week. There's something internally wrong with me. I did that for maybe like two and a half, three years. I've cut down, so now I probably do around two a week.
What do I like to do just before I go on stage? Take a massive shit? My most consistent ritual is probably a nervous poo. Then run through any last bits I’m not as confident on. Maybe hug and kiss my partner? A little kiss, a little poo.
I'd love to see the vibe of an audience. If they're not completely smashed then that’s great. But even if they are smashed, I don’t mind, especially with stand up because they're often prone to some back and forth. I'm actually not adverse to heckling, and all my shows are fairly immersive and so I like some chat, it gives me more to work with.
I feel like the drag community is quite welcoming and very up for a laugh. A drag audience laugh way more than a stand up crowd. With stand up I've had a few gigs people are just screaming at you, but then you just scream back. That’s what I'm learning now, these past few years. I’m trying for it not to be so serious.
In an audience I like cool, nice people who look really pleasant and up for a laugh. I do like to see people of colour in my shows, because in my head, I'm like, ah that's nice, they came out, they showed up! But otherwise, just people. Anyone will do.
When the gig’s happening, the initial joke is the telltale sign of oh do these people like me? So if that goes well in my head, I'm like, okay, it's fine. I do change what I'm gonna say to how they react. If I can tell like there's an audience that might not really find the certain jokes funny I'll reword it. I did a kids festival recently – it’s weirdly one of my favourite festivals. This year I was very unwell the day before. I’d planned all this new stuff I was going to do there but I didn’t manage to do any of it. So in the end I just had my guitar and my stand up, and I had to redo everything to make it kid friendly. I managed to pull it off and obviously I took out all the pegging stuff. But it’s not taking away from the authentic-ness of what I'm talking about, it’s just not putting pegging in.
I feel like the drag world is nicer than the stand up world. With stand up I'm a lot more conscious of what I'm doing. With drag I feel a bit loose and arrrghahahahaha. But I’ve dipped my toes with drag, my baby toe, so I still don't know the horrors of it! Although when I'm doing stand up, and it's going well, I love it. I talked to my friends all about the horrible nerves that you get before a gig, but then when you're in it, it's just like crack. The adrenaline! You can be so unwell, then do a stand up gig, and the next day you’re healed! But it's a hard world too.
The gig happens. Hopefully it's good. If not, who cares? In my first couple stand up years, I’d always have a drink after the show, but now I’ll probably drink water and go home if I'm having an early night. If I have had a drink then maybe I’ll get a little midnight treat on the way home which can be anything on the scale of a packet of crisps to a kebab. Or both. I probably reach home around midnight or one. Then, if I haven’t had a snack, I’ll have my dinner - something I can make in the air fryer or packet noodles. Nothing that will keep me awake too much because I have to sleep!
I’ll usually need to watch something. I love trash TV. Major, major tash. What’s on the trash list right now? I've watched every episode of Selling Sunset. And Love is Blind: UK, Japan, Brazil - all of them. Too Hot to Handle? Annihilated that. Then I go to sleep and do it all over again.
Catch Su performing next at….
Piñata, The Ivy House, 10 October, 7.30pm
Funny Business: 1st Birthday Party!! Two Brewers, 20 October, 7pm
Twat Union, The Old Blue Last, 8 November, 7.30pm
Top of the Slops – All Stars, Clapham Grand, 9 November, 6pm
And finally from us…. recs! recs! recs! 🎟🎟🎟
Here’s some upcoming nights where comedians, artists and performers are raising money for important causes…. check them out! 👀
Stand Up for Bangladesh Charity Comedy Night, Bold Theatre Elephant and Castle, 4 October, 7pm