IT takes a variety of nerve to say you fancy your self as a comic — particularly someplace like Northern Eire the place humorous persons are in every single place.
So even self-proclaimed show-off Teresa Livingstone admits promoting laughs for a residing is one thing she fell into quite than got down to do. She’d by no means have dared.
“Saying you’re humorous isn’t one thing you’re actually allowed to say right here, is it?” she laughs. “I’m a hoot! You daren’t say it. However it is a job I sort of stumbled into at a little bit of a crossroads in my life. I used to be 33, single and residing at house with my dad and mom. Simply the place each aspirational younger lady desires to be. I’d give up my profession as a trainer, and nobody would give me a job so there was nothing else for it however to a minimum of attempt to make myself chuckle. It was both that or cry!”
After ending college at Our Woman and St Patrick’s in Belfast, Teresa headed for Scotland for a level in music.
Subsequent adopted a yr of trainer coaching in Edinburgh earlier than she landed her first job at 22 in a west Belfast’s boys’ college — an expertise that supplied numerous materials for her stand-up exhibits in later years.
“That was a baptism of fireplace,” she says. “There was hardly any age distinction between me and the boys I used to be instructing and sure, it was a geg ultimately, however I’d be mendacity if I mentioned it wasn’t arduous work.
“After a few years, I bought itchy toes. I used to be single, I used to be solely 25 and I wasn’t able to put my roots down in Northern Eire simply but. So very randomly, I moved to Spain.”
In 2005, Teresa upped sticks and moved to Gran Canaria, taking over a place at a world college within the sunny metropolis of Las Palmas.
“I do know, mad,” she laughs. “I didn’t communicate Spanish after I bought there, however I did by the point I left. It was a superb expertise, like going to uni once more, solely this time with a wage.”
Teresa was there for greater than 5 years ultimately, earlier than she determined to pack instructing in altogether.
“I didn’t actually have a clue what I needed to do,” she says. “However I knew instructing wasn’t it, so I handed my discover in and moved again to Edinburgh for a Masters in Music within the Neighborhood.”
As soon as that was executed, aged 33 Teresa discovered herself again house in Belfast and residing as soon as once more with mum Paula and pa Jim Livingstone. “I’ve felt higher about myself,” she laughs. “The oldest of 4, again house with my tail between my legs.”
However with loads of time on her fingers, the comedian began night lessons at Belfast’s Crescent Arts Centre.
“I principally wanted out of the home,” she says. “I wanted associates! So to begin with, there was Tai Chi, then I did Burlesque. These didn’t take. The third time period got here after which I attempted a comedy class, Improvisation for Inexperienced persons, and I liked it.
“There have been about 10 of us and it was all about creating humorous scenes within the second and each time I managed to make the others chuckle, it was unimaginable. It was virtually like being a child once more and I might chill out and play about.
“Across the similar time, I began writing songs at house about the whole lot annoying me — and again then, there was a variety of materials to work with.”
With a brand new circle of humorous associates and invites to come back alongside to comedy golf equipment and open mic nights, a brand-new world was opening up.
“I used to be at this open mic stand-up evening, and I assumed, ‘Okay, I’ll stand up and provides it a go’,” she says. “I bought up with my wee piano in entrance of about six folks they usually had been all laughing away by way of the tune. I had a ball, so I did it repeatedly.”
Quickly Teresa was invited to hitch Marvel Frog in 2014, a stay improvisation comedy group that carried out repeatedly in Belfast’s Black Field, the place she gained not solely expertise on stage, however discovered herself a person.
“Sure,” she laughs. “That was one thing off the checklist, a minimum of. I met Frazer Robb, a really humorous man who grew to become my boyfriend and later my husband.”
And proving in style with audiences as she carried out her laugh-out-loud songs, Teresa’s onstage persona grew.
“The entire act expanded from these wee songs in regards to the issues annoying me in life to an entire character growing spherical it,” she remembers.
“I ended up as this actually exaggerated model of how I felt on the time, bottle of gin in hand, mascara smudged throughout my face, saying, ‘Sure, I’m delighted for you, I’m so completely happy you’re engaged, I’m so completely happy you’ve bought a superb job’. That was again round 2014, and it’s all gone from there.”
Now one of many best-known faces on Northern Eire’s comedy circuit, Teresa, who has starred on BBC’s The Blame Recreation, Comfortable Border Patrol and Late Licence, is about to headline a present on the Portico Comedy Pageant in Portaferry on September 23, together with stand-up comedian Diona Doherty. Her personal present Class is on at Waterfront Corridor Studio on October 8.
But regardless of her personal success, and pal Diona’s unstoppable progress, Teresa says the comedy scene in Northern Eire is crying out for extra girls.
“Right here, we stick out a bit,” she says. “I believe it’s simple for folks to take a look at me or Diona and say, nice, that’s stuff for girls. Ladies will love that; they’ll discover it actually humorous. Like we’re a style, however that’s bizarre. You wouldn’t have a look at a person on stage and assume, nice, males will discover him humorous. Me and all the opposite girls do completely different jokes.
“As a girl I believe you do have a little bit of a more durable begin to get the viewers to chill out and reassure them you’re really humorous. And it’s not simply males who maintain again, you get some girls arising and saying, ‘I don’t normally like girls comedians, however I assumed you had been humorous’. Nicely, cheers. Thanks for that. It’s a bizarre factor to say.
“However I believe if there have been extra of us doing it, we wouldn’t stick out a lot. I've to say after I stumbled into comedy, I definitely wasn’t pondering of flying the flag for something, I simply needed out of the home. However I can see it shut up now, and the actual fact is we might positively do with extra girls out in entrance. There are many humorous girls on the market in Northern Eire — they only must get themselves up on stage.”
Which is the place Teresa will probably be on September 23.
“I completely love being on the market in entrance of an viewers,” says the star, whose grandmother Bridie Gallagher was one in every of Eire’s first pop stars again within the Fifties. “It’s within the blood. And I may not at all times have been a comic, however I’ve at all times liked performing, and what higher option to spend an evening than making folks chuckle.
“I could be biased, however I’d say that comedy will be lifesaving. I began it after I was at my lowest level and it modified the whole lot for me, and it’s what’s helped so many people by way of the previous couple of actually robust years. Nothing takes the sting off greater than laughing at your issues and realising that you just’re not alone.”
Teresa is performing on the Portico of Ards in Portaferry on Friday, September 23 in a stand-up double invoice with Diona Doherty. The gig is a part of Portico’s Comedy Arts Pageant, operating September 16-25, supported by Ards and North Down Borough Council. She can be performing her present Class at Waterfront Corridor Studio on October 8