Review of the comic's first tour in ten years

She has spent the last decade not as a comedian but as a TV personality, from Strictly to her camper-van tours to being Channel Five’s face of cruise ships. Now Susan Calman is making a return to the stand-up stage with a show that very much reflects her transitional state.

There’s material here for those wanting to hang out with that jolly lady from the telly, ready to spill a bit of behind-the-scenes tea. But there are also frank personal revelations and a baring of some piercing attitude when she eventually gets to the meat of the show.

Calman starts with some gentler, stock material about being perimenopausal – playing very much to her audience of older women and their ‘reluctant husbands’ – and observational comedy along the lines of noticing how water bottles are big these days. Fragments from her set from more than ten years ago are still remain, from the way the Glaswegian accent can make anything sound intimidating to her ability – at 4ft 10in – to stand upright in a black cab. 

She remembers her days in the Brownies and admits she still harbours a grudge all these decades later, pointing to a personality trait that will come back later in the show. There’s a routine  about tending to her pubic hair, another expressing comic intolerance for small-plate restaurants. Routines like this are perfectly fine, but not distinctive, although they are accompanied by little windows into her life as a homebody and nerd, obsessed with Hart To Hart, Doctor Who and her six cats, all of whom have theme songs.

But it later becomes apparent that Calman has something deeper to say.

Sexism’s first on the agenda. As a keen golfer, Calman has a palpable vitriol for the men who dominate the clubs, and her passion hints at something more unhinged – and artistically way more interesting – behind the affable everywoman shtick. The segment speaks to a wider social injustice about how she’s always had to justify herself as a woman, the world of comedy very much included.

She exposes more of herself in a second half that feels raw and revelatory as she discusses an addictive personality prone to catastrophising that’s had consequences on the gambling tables and with alcohol, which she acknowledges has not led to her finest moments, without going into too much detail.

Her work in her days as a law student, interacting with serial killers on Death Row, is touched upon – in retrospect, she realises, a psychologically fraught situation for any young woman to find herself in, even one who thinks being Glaswegian gives her a shell of toughness.

She exposes, too, fault lines in her marriage from her obstinacy to her wife having to tolerate the comic’s belief she’s ‘a bit psychic’ and treating her to the least romantic Parisian excursion imaginable.

Tall Tales feels like a transitional show and Calman expresses an uncertainty as to whether she will make this return to stand-up permanent. It would be the audience’s loss if she choses to call it quits now – for the best moments here demonstrate she’s got plenty to talk about once she gets over the expectations of those who think they know her from her cheery telly appearances.

• Susan Calman is on tour until February. Susan ​Calman tour dates.

Review date: 8 Oct 2026
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: Brighton Theatre Royal