by Jules O'Brian

I started comedy in my mid-40s. I knew I’d be battling nerves, hecklers, and PA systems that looked like they’d last been used at a school fête in 1987. What I didn’t expect was how often my age would be an issue.

The questions came quickly:
‘Why now?’
‘Isn’t it a bit late to start?’
Or my personal favourite: ‘There’s no longevity in putting a woman over 40 through a competition.’

No one meant it cruelly. They were just reflecting what they saw around them - a circuit that still treats older women as curiosities.

If you’re young and new, you’re ‘one to watch’.
If you’re male and middle-aged, you’re ‘seasoned’.
If you’re female and over 40, you’re ‘brave’.

I’ve seen that when men start comedy later, they might get a few snide ‘mid-life crisis’ jokes, but as long as they can do the job adequately, audiences accept them. No one blinks at an older bloke with a mic.

For women, it’s different. Simply stepping on stage as a woman often invites the crossed-arms brigade. Doing it as an older woman can add fuel to the fire.

Throwaway comments can stay with you – no matter how innocuous they might seem to the person saying them. Not long after I started, someone said, ‘It took me 20 years to reach this point. What are you gonna do? Wait until you’re 70?’ Another, a seasoned pro, said flat-out: ‘I’m afraid audiences prefer younger acts.’ And you can’t help but think, ‘Well, they’re the ones who must know what they’re talking about… so what am I doing?’

Lately I’ve been working on a clean set, partly as a creative challenge, partly because some gigs specifically ask for clean material. The reaction has been mixed: curiosity from some, mild bafflement from others. It seems that when you’re new, female and middle-aged, any deviation from expectation (whether that’s your subject matter, your tone, or even your reason for being there) makes people a little uncertain. Each of those things alone is fine. Put them together, and you’re a social experiment.

In my show, I talk about how if my mum said: ‘Me and your Auntie Joan are starting a band,’ I’d think, ‘Oh my God, no… how embarrassing!’ But if they started playing and they were actually good, suddenly their age wouldn’t matter. (Riot Women, hello?) So maybe we’re all just a little bit conditioned to write people off after a certain age. Are we all, really, a little bit ageist?

Audiences enjoy honesty, confidence, and a sense that you know who you are. Surely age can help with that. Line-ups still often default to one (if any) woman per bill, competitions still favour youth, and the well-meaning assumption that I must be ‘doing menopause material’ hovers over far too many introductions. I don’t resent that topic, it’s just not the only story older women have to tell. My material covers dating, teaching, family and the small absurdities of life - the same messy, universal terrain everyone else mines. I’m a comedian, not a demographic.

Maybe that’s what unsettles people: the idea that a woman can start something new at 50, or reinvent herself after a career in something else, feels faintly rebellious. Comedy thrives on rebellion, but perhaps only when it’s performed by the right kind of rebel.

Experience isn’t a handicap; it’s stagecraft. Women don’t suddenly lose our sense of humour the moment we hit 40 - if anything, we’ve finally got the material to back it up. If we can make audiences laugh, why should it matter whether we’re doing it in our 20s or our 50s? The punchline lands the same either way.

• Jules O’Brian is on Instagram here and all be performing Avoid Excessive Cleavage (And Other Advice to Ignore)  again next year.

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Published: 6 Nov 2025