Anyways, I am curious about non-American opinions too. Any female comedians you would like to list? C'mon, Brit comedy must have bowl-fuls!
(I've noticed nobody says "comedienne" any more - I assume that’s because it's not PC, although I never saw the announcement.)
To be honest, I can't think of many really great female
stand-up comedians. Victoria Wood stands out by a mile for me as an original and really funny stand-up comedian. There are several other good ones, but I think it’s a shame that they often tend to rely too heavily on single issues, such as Jo Brand (feminism) or Shappi Khorsandi (her Iranian ethnicity). They’re very good at what they do but I think it's a shame they’re not a bit broader in their topics. Maybe it’s a confidence thing. Or maybe it reflects badly on the public’s attitude to female comedians — they have to justify why they’re on stage.
There are a lot of great female comic writers and performers. Julia Davies is probably my favourite for writing and staring in the fantastic dark comedy, Nighty Night.
This has just reminded me of something. There’s an excellent TV series here that you may not be aware of outside UK called QI (Quite Interesting). It’s a humorous quiz show hosted by Stephen Fry and contested each week by 4 different comedians. In one episode, 2 of the contestants were (unusually) female, and so they asked the question: "why are there so few female comedians on that show and on TV in general?" The 2 female contestants, Sandi Toksvig and Ronni Ancona, launched into a long discussion as to the reasons for this, and after a couple of minutes another of the contestants, Jack Dee, said, Is it because once they start talking you can’t shut them up?