1 A TRIP TO THE GFT

The reason I got involved with making sketches is because I want to make films. It’s what I studied and it’s what I’ve tried to do for a while but it’s just easier to make comedy with no money.

I was about 15 I went to the GFT for the first time. One day they were doing a [Pedro] Almodóvar week and I saw a film called All About My Mother – I’d never seen something so camp, so funny, so heart-breaking, vibrant and colourful. I remember watching it and thinking that is what I want to.

The National:

I started making short films and I realised I’m really good at storytelling. I really want to make more short films and get on the route to making a feature film one day, that’s the ultimate goal.

2 COMEDY

ONE of my favourite TV shows is Kath and Kim. That is genuinely the funniest TV show in history. It’s something that made me go: “I need to do something like this”. I also love the Karen Dunbar Show. She’s a queer woman and she’s come from a small town and she’s got an inspiring story.

A lot of the stuff I like to write is for female characters. A lot of the notes I get if I write something for myself, they’ll be like “you’ve written the female characters really strongly but you’ve not written your character strongly”. And I’m like I don’t care … I want to see these funny women. Aside from Limmy, most of my comedy heroes are women.

The National:

I genuinely just think he’s the funniest person on Earth. Seeing him go from making online content to a TV show to now streaming, he’s an absolute icon in Scottish comedy.

What I’ve seen from Limmy is just trusting your own instinct – if you know what’s funny, you know what’s funny, and sometimes you don’t need that to be shot down and picked apart by people.

3 THE INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM

THE referendum was the first time I ever got involved in politics. I remember telling my aunt and my older brother that I thought I was going to vote No and they were like ‘WHAT?!’. They sat me down and talked me all the way through everything that I ever needed to know. Then I went from 0 to 100, I was the most staunch Yes voter ever trying to recruit everyone I met.

The National:

I was gutted at the time, I actually think I cried watching the results come in. I don’t know what’s going to happen, nobody knows, but I have faith. Knowing a lot of people who’ve changed their minds, it makes me hopeful. I just love that slogan, “hope over fear”. It makes me want to cry. I’m such a crier. I just want to listen to Caledonia and cry.

4 SCOTTISH DRAG

I REMEMBER going to my first drag show and being so amazed at how talented these people were. I look at drag queens and they’re a comedian, they can sew, they can dance, they can perform, they do their own make-up, they’re so highly skilled and still terribly underappreciated for the talents they possess.

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There’s something about throwing all your insecurities away and being a larger-than-life character that is adored by everyone. If you feel like a nobody in your everyday life and you put on drag and feel like Madonna, that’s the most amazing thing. It is an artform regardless of how people look at it.

5 BEING UNEMPLOYED

IT’S one of the most humbling experiences you can have. I realised how not having a routine and not having an income affected my mental health. The stress that comes from thinking about money takes away your ability to do creative things to help you get out of that rut, and it’s such a hard thing to manage.

The thing unemployment taught me was a lot of people have the financial backing where they can do whatever they want and not work, or not work as much. I just don’t have that option. Realising that was so important to me. I was like I need to have a job, I need to use all my spare time pursuing my creative endeavours until it works out. I’m now self-employed, it’s going well for now but you might see me in a year working in a bar and that’s fine. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.

6 ANTI-DEPRESSANTS

PAIRED with CBT, out of everything this is the thing that’s had the biggest impact on my life. I started taking anti-depressants when I was 18. I came on and off them since. For me looking back now I’m 24, I’ve noticed that they’ve always been able to give me that boost to start doing things that improve my situation when I get in a really low place.

I was very shy towards taking them. I thought what if I take anti-depressants and I become reliant on them or they mess up my brain? They just worked for me, I can’t say for everyone, but they did for me.

7 CBT

I’VE spent so long with an extreme anxiety disorder … I just lived with it for a long time. It’s not how it should be. When I did CBT therapy it was about learning how to deal with feelings, a lot of traumatic things and bad life experiences I didn’t realise were subconsciously still affecting me. I only did it last year and I feel like an entirely different person.

Now I can react to situations in these ways I’ve learned through this therapy that allows me not to let anxious thoughts or negative thoughts to take over or make decisions for me. I’m not like “I’ve completed it now, it’s all good”, but I feel in a good place now, a positive place, a creative place.

8 SELF-HELP BOOKS

MY friends and family are going to roll their eyes as soon as they read this. I am obsessed with self-help books and getting really high off the information in them for a month and telling everyone they need to read it. I’m all about that self-improvement. This book called The Power of Now, that book is all about living in the present. It’s basically a mantra and a way to live your life and it has changed everything for me.

It’s very easy for your friends to think you’re a nutcase, but it’s about trying everything that works. They’re not an answer to everything but you can read them and take what works for you.

9 TRAVELLING SOLO

THE first time I did it I went to Barcelona and it was so incredible to see the kind of things you would do out of your comfort zone, just because you have no choice but to do them.

After that I went to Venice Film Festival. A Star Is Born was premiering at it, obviously being the big gay Lady Gaga fan I am I was like I’m just going to go! There were very scary situations, like when I was trapped on a little island in Venice and thought I was going to get mugged. But that’s character building.

The National:

When it came to the premiere – this is the best moment of my life – I don’t know what came over me, I scaled a fence to watch Lady Gaga come out of her car in this amazing pink feathered dress and I was like oh my god she’s right there.

At the end of the screening the lights came on and Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper walked in and said thank you. I was so buzzing off that, on the way home I was like “I’m going to go everywhere myself”. You just get to do whatever you want.

10 SOCIAL MEDIA

SOCIAL media was the first time I had any validation outwith my friends that I was funny or that I could make people laugh.

It has given me opportunities I never would have had without it. I don’t even know how people went about getting things on TV before, when they couldn’t have proved themselves on social media beforehand.

TikTok seems to be the medium of the moment so I just went and posted loads of shit on it and luckily it’s worked out. It’s allowed me to gain a massive reach I didn’t have before. Michelle McManus follows me, which is a big deal for me.

I’m still paranoid that I’m annoying people and they’re sick of seeing me all the time, but that’s the anxiety I guess. I’ll just keep doing it until hopefully I can make a TV show again.