Hannah Byczkowski on snobbery on the circuit

Five years ago, I was standing in a basement ready to go on stage at my very first gig wondering....would this become a thing? Would I ever make it a job? If I got a big break what would it be? I thought it wouldn't matter what form the break would take.

But it turns out, it kind of did. 

I got asked to go on The Traitors just as I was about to move back to my childhood home and take on comedy as a full-time job. I thought The Traitors was going to be rubbish, but I agreed because there was a cash prize and I needed a car to shuttle me up and down the country doing gigs in basements to all manner of audiences. 

As it turns out, I was wrong and the show was a massive hit. 

These days, people might go on a show like The Traitors expecting a huge profile, a new career in ‘the biz’ and all manner of fame and fortune. But I managed a few more Instagram followers and a Hyundai i10 with my spoils and I was thrilled. 

With Claudia Winkleman on The Traitors © BBC

I didn't want to be an influencer, or a TikTokker. I wanted to be an excellent stand-up comedian. I was happy with my lot, but in the green rooms? I wasn't taken seriously. Ironic that I wanted to be taken seriously as a comedian? Maybe. 

Some comedians and promoters who had been on the circuit for a while seemed to think I hadn't paid my dues, that I'd gained a profile from reality TV and that I might have been ‘cheating’ my way into a career. It didn't matter that said green room was in a Skegness community hall with 10 bald blokes with their arms crossed as an audience. As far as they were concerned, I'd unfairly gained attention and used reality TV as a way of muscling my way into stand up. 

It didn't matter that I rarely spoke about my time on TV during my sets, nor that I'd made sacrifices like giving up my London flat and lifestyle to pursue this job. I wasn't one of them and they seemed to hate me for it. 

As a woman in comedy, it was already difficult to walk into a room of male stand-up comics, but being on a reality show made it almost impossible. 

If a gig went well, that was because I had done TV so… of course it would. If I died on my backside, it was because I hadn't cut my teeth enough. 

I couldn't win. 

It was a tiresome few years of having to defend myself. Just because I'd done a reality show didn't mean I wasn't funny. And thankfully, I eventually proved that. And on the way, I have met loads of wonderful comedians, some I'm thrilled to call friends today. But that doesn't change the fact that there are still plenty who refuse to believe that I'm worthy.

Since The Traitors, I've gigged everywhere. From rooms of hundreds to rooms of…. well, ones, if I'm honest.

 I've also co-built one of the UK's top comedy podcasts (Ghost Huns) but who really cares? As far as a few members of the comedy circuit are concerned, I've never earned it. So maybe alternative routes in comedy will never be accepted, maybe they will always be shunned and laughed at. 

And sure, I'm the winner of one of the greatest reality TV shows on the planet. But last weekend I managed to make a stag group made up of 65-year-olds from Manchester laugh… and it was a beautiful thing. 

• Hannah Byczkowski’s debut stand-up show Killer will be at the Gilded Balloon Teviot Turret at 5.10pm during the Edinburgh Fringe.

Published: 28 Jul 2026