Born in London in 1973, Kerry Godliman is a comedian and actor. She trained at Rose Bruford Drama School, before taking a course on standup comedy at the adult education college City Lit. In 2012, she was cast as Hannah in Ricky Gervais’s Derek, and has appeared in dramas including Save Me, Adult Material and Trigger Point, along with pursuing her career in live comedy and radio. Godliman hosts the Memory Lane podcast with Jen Brister, and is one of the judges of the Comedy Women in Print Prize. She is married to actor Ben Abell and they have two children.
This was taken at my mum’s 40th – a big house party where everyone dressed up. I was going through a 60s phase with the dress, the hair and the eyeliner – all of which was probably inspired by Deee-Lite. There would have been a lot of drinking and smoking and good music. Pretty raucous all round.
I felt suburban and strait-laced during my childhood, but as I’ve got older I’ve realised my parents were quite bohemian. My dad was a violin-maker and worked in the shed, and my mum was a secondhand clothes dealer who was always studying something new. When it came to work, she wasn’t risk-averse and collected interesting people as friends. There was never anyone around our house who had an office job – no accountants popping in. I must have taken that on board when I chose my career. Being self-employed is all I knew.
At the time this photo was taken, I was doing my GCSE retakes and about to start my A-levels. I may have failed some exams, but I don’t remember being that stressed about it. My general attitude was: “If I don’t get the grades, I’ll just do them again.” This picture captures my laid-back mindset perfectly.
In my teen years, I was very committed to the local youth theatre in Ealing. It gave me a lot of my creative joy and a real sense of identity. Instead of doing musicals, we were more interested in gritty pieces about HIV. We once made a safe-sex video for Ealing council, during which I played a mum wearing an awful wig and chain-smoking. Not that that was too out of character. For the best part of a decade, there isn’t a photo of me without a fag in my hand.
There was a lot of banter in my family and my childhood was a lot of fun. We watched tons of comedy on telly, especially Victoria Wood and Billy Connolly. I also enjoyed making the grownups laugh, which led to me wanting to try standup. I think if my parents hadn’t indulged me by laughing so much I wouldn’t be doing what I do now. There was also Miss Friend, a teacher at school, who was always encouraging. She once wrote in a report: “Kerry’s good, and she could pursue acting for a job … if she doesn’t muck around and waste too much time.”
I followed the traditional path into acting: I got one line in The Bill, a couple of scenes in Casualty. It was very incremental and bitty. There were lots of “nearly” moments in my 20s – I nearly got a job at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I nearly got a nice lead in a sitcom. While it was affirming that I was on the right path, there was also a feeling of never being quite enough. But I don’t resent it – that feeling is what pushed me towards standup comedy in the end.
Once I discovered standup, I threw myself at it, because I wanted to get better. I loved Victoria Wood, so always assumed I would do character comedy, but I quickly realised that on stage, I had to be me. Or a cartoon version of me. One that’s slightly heightened, hyperbolic and nutty.
It was very exciting when I got the email from Ricky Gervais about playing Hannah in Derek. It wasn’t the usual cattle-call that actors get, he just asked me: “Do you want to play this part?” I’ve always been too shy to ask him how he knew about me in the first place – but he loves standup, so he would have seen me on stage at some point, and I had sent in an audition tape for The Office. After Derek, he gave me a scene on Extras and Life’s Too Short. Then came After Life – which was mind‑blowing, because it blew up in lockdown when everyone was incubated. The show has since had a life of its own – even this week, someone came up to me and told me how important the show was to them. I feel very grateful to have been part of a bit of culture that creates intimate conversations between people about grief.
I always loved comedians who talked about social stigmas, who made human foibles funny. I’m really glad that I’m able to do that with my own standup now. Particularly because I am in the midlife “fuck it” years, where you have limited bandwidth to hold everything together, so you’ve got to let some things go. There are times where I get a bit self-conscious because my standup material is so domestic – but that’s the landscape of my life. There’s always some drama with my knickers or some household frustration to laugh at. Given I am menopausal, there are a lot of emotions to unpick, too. Some days I feel as if I’m drowning, and other days I am blissed-out and feel these are the best years of my life. It’s very cathartic to let it all out in a room with a group of women I suspect are all on the same page.
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When I was starting out in this career, I used to be riddled with all kinds of anxieties. I thought I’d never find my place in the world, or I’d never meet anyone special. I feel a lot less of that now, but naturally the odd bit of insecurity rises up at times. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t feel like that. Although I did recently meet a man who said: “Hey, have you ever heard of impostor syndrome?” I was like: “Yeah, I think I’ve heard of that.” Mind you, Ricky is genuinely a fearless person. Has his fearlessness ever rubbed off on me? He has a different profile, he is an older bloke in a world that listens to older blokes. I think sometimes women have had to fight a little bit more for that stuff, but we’re getting there.
When you have young kids, you devote so much of your life to them, so when they suddenly leave and do their own thing, you have to ask yourself: “What should I do now?” At the moment, I am doing a lot of standup, which is great, but it can get a little lonely when you’re on tour. I’d like to do more theatre, too, and I still love acting, even if it’s unpredictable. I didn’t get a job that I really wanted the other day. It was humbling, but I’m definitely better at rolling with the punches than I used to be. I’ve had more experience, and I have faith that something else will come along. My daughter has now decided she wants to get into acting. I’m like: “I hope I haven’t failed my kids by showing them that it’s perfectly normal to have this precarious, up-and-down lifestyle!”
As for big fancy house parties, I can’t remember the last time I went to one. My kids’ generation doesn’t seem to do them. Or maybe I’m just not invited!