When an unnamed male comedian called Grace Campbell “lazy” for drawing stand-up material from her sex life, she laughed and told her friends. The criticism also helped inspire The Lady Is a Tramp, her show about deciding how much of herself she’s willing to change for mainstream success.
Campbell, 32, said she’s heard the same complaint from men online. She sees it as an attempt to diminish comedy that makes men the target: “It’s always from a man who probably feels threatened that men are probably, in that case, the butt of the joke, and they want to minimise it.”
She’s also challenging the idea that the women and gay men who primarily make up her audiences represent a narrow market. “Who is someone else to tell me I’m not going to be mainstream?” she said. “My audiences are primarily women and gay men, and I think some people look at that and see that as niche. But that’s half and then some of the population.”
The show’s title began with her dog, who resembles Lady from Lady and the Tramp. Campbell also wanted to play with the sexual judgment attached to the word “tramp,” giving herself room to embrace different sides of her personality. “You can be really sexual when you want to be. You can be really elegant when you want to be. You can be sexual and elegant.“
The show takes audiences through a day in her life, including a story about a man who got angry at the sound of her voice in a sauna. Campbell describes it as “a show about being loud and being unapologetically sexual and talking about what I want to talk about and feeling free to do that.”
She’s still working toward feeling that freedom herself. “I can’t wait till I’m in my 50s and, hopefully, truly don’t give a f***,” she said. “That’s what I want to be. I want to be that now, but I’m still 32.”
The Lady Is a Tramp premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August. Her 3rd national comedy tour begins October 30 at The Attic in Southampton, with dates through December 10 at Brighton’s Theatre Royal, including the London Palladium on November 7. Tickets are available at aegpresents.co.uk/event/grace-campbell.