‘Especially in this country, I think you required me. You didn’t realise it but you needed me, to lift some of your own embarrassment.” The performer, the 42-year-old Canadian humorist who has made her home in the UK for nearly 20 years, brought along her recently born fourth child. She removes her breast pumps so they avoid making an distracting sound. The initial impression you see is the awesome capability of this woman, who can project motherly affection while articulating sequential thoughts in complete phrases, and remaining distracted.
The following element you notice is what she’s known for – a authentic, unapologetic audacity, a refusal of artifice and contradiction. When she emerged in the UK comedy scene in 2008, her challenge was that she was exceptionally beautiful and didn’t pretend not to know it. “Attempting elegant or attractive was seen as catering to male approval,” she states of the early 2010s, “which was the antithesis of what a comedian would do. It was a norm to be self-deprecating. If you performed in a glamorous outfit with your underwear and heels, like, ‘I think I’m gorgeous,’ that would be seen as really alienating, but I did it because that’s what I liked.”
Then there was her material, which she explains casually: “Women, especially, needed someone to come along and be like: ‘Hey, that’s OK. You can be a feminist and have a enhancement and have been a bit of a promiscuous person for a while. You can be flawed as a parent, as a spouse and as a chooser of men. You can be someone who is afraid of men, but is self-assured enough to mock them; you don’t have to be deferential to them the whole time.’”
‘If you took to the stage in your lingerie and heels, that would be seen as really alienating’
The drumbeat to that is an focus on what’s authentic: if you have your baby with you, you most likely have your feeding equipment; if you have the profile of a young person, you’ve most likely had tweakments; if you want to reduce, well, there are drugs for that. “I’m not on any yet, but I’ll think about them when I’ve stopped breastfeeding,” she says. It touches on the core of how women's liberation is understood, which I believe has stayed the same in the past 50 years: liberation means looking great but without ever thinking about it; being universally desired, but never chasing the attention of men; having an unshakeable sense of self which perish the thought you would ever surgically enhance; and coupled with all that, women, especially, are supposed to never think about money but nevertheless thrive under the demands of current financial conditions. All of which is sustained by the majority of us pretending, most of the time.
“For a while people reacted: ‘What? She just discusses things?’ But I’m not trying to be challenging all the time. My personal stories, actions and missteps, they live in this area between pride and embarrassment. It took place, I discuss it, and maybe relief comes out of the punchlines. I love telling people private thoughts; I want people to confide in me their private thoughts. I want to know mistakes people have made. I don’t know why I’m so keen for it, but I sense it like a connection.”
Ryan was raised in Sarnia, Ontario, a place that was not especially prosperous or metropolitan and had a vibrant community theater musicals scene. Her dad ran an industrial company, her mother was in IT, and they demanded a lot of her because she was sparky, a driven person. She dreamed of leaving from the age of about seven. “It was the type of place where people are very pleased to live close to their parents and stay there for a lifetime and have one another's children. When I return now, all these kids look really familiar to me, because I was raised with both their parents.” But isn't it true she partnered with her own high school sweetheart? She returned to Sarnia, caught up with her former partner, who she dated as a teenager, and now – six years later – they have three children together, plus Violet, now 16, who Ryan had brought up until then as a single mother. “Right,” says Ryan. “Sometimes I think there’s another life where I haven’t done that, and it’s still just Violet and me, stylish, worldly, portable. But we are always connected to where we originated, it seems.”
‘We are always connected to where we originated’
She managed to leave for a bit, aged 18, and moved to Toronto, which she enjoyed. These were the time at the restaurant, which has been another source of discussion, not just that she worked – and liked the job – in a venue (except this is a inaccuracy: “You would be fired for being topless; you’re not allowed to be unclothed”), but also for a bit in one of her sets where she mentioned giving a manager a blowjob in return for being allowed to go home early. It crossed so many boundaries – what even was that? Abuse? Prostitution? Inappropriate conduct? Lack of solidarity (towards whoever it was who had to stay late so she could leave early)? Whatever it was, you certainly weren’t supposed to joke about it.
Ryan was amazed that her anecdote provoked outrage – she got on with the guy! She also wanted to go home early. But it revealed something broader: a strategic inflexibility around sex, a sense that the cost of the #MeToo movement was demonstrative modesty. “I’ve always found this fascinating, in discussions about sex, permission and manipulation, the people who fail to grasp the subtlety of it. Therefore if this is abuse, why isn’t that abuse?” She brings up the equating of certain remarks to lyrics in popular music. “Certain people said: ‘Well, how’s that different?’ I thought: ‘How is it alike?’”
She would not have come to London in 2008 had it not been for her then boyfriend. “Everyone said: ‘Don’t go to London, they have vermin there.’ And I found it difficult, because I was suddenly broke.”
‘I knew I had comedy’
She got a job in sales, was told she had an autoimmune condition, which can sometimes make it hard to get pregnant, and at 23, decided to try to have a baby. “When you’re first diagnosed something – I was quite sick at the time – you go to the worst-case scenario. My rationale with my boyfriend was, we’ve had so many ups and downs, if we are still together by now, we never will. Now I see how extended life is, and how many things can alter. But at 23, I didn't realize.” She managed to get pregnant and had Violet.
The subsequent chapter sounds as nerve-wracking as a chaotic comedy film. While on parental leave, she would take care of Violet in the day and try to break into standup in the evening, carrying her daughter with her. She felt from her sales job that she had no problem winning people over, and she had faith in her quickfire wit from her time at Hooters; more than that, she says plainly, “I was confident I had comedy.” The whole scene was permeated with sexism – she won a prestigious comedy award in 2008, just over a year after she’d started performing, a prize that was established in the context of a turgid debate about whether women could be funny
