I was 28 the first time I did standup. It was an open-mic competition where the audience decided the winner. As I held the tiny gold trophy, I decided to quit my job the next day. Some people might call that crazy, and it probably was. But I’d been honing that delusional self-belief since I was eight when I first watched the film adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s story A Little Princess.
I already almost had the same name as its protagonist, Sara, a young girl who is sent off to boarding school while her father fights in the war. I wanted to be exactly like her. She was so sure of herself, and believed so completely in the worlds she created, that all the other girls at school wanted to be her friend. My favourite scene is the one where the girls sit on Sara’s bed, forming a circle round her as she tells fantastical stories. I would watch it and think: I want to tell stories that make people gather round me.
But unlike Sara, I was shy and making friends didn’t come easily. I did, however, understand how to use my inner world to escape my reality. My imagination became my most powerful asset. It’s why I told everyone the reason I didn’t get into S Club Juniors was because I would overshadow the other members, when the reality was that I couldn’t sing or dance and hadn’t even got through the first round of auditions.
“Don’t you ever do that? Believe in something just to make it seem real?” Sara says in the film. At the boarding school, Sara’s belief that she’s a princess – “All girls are! Even if they live in tiny old attics, even if they dress in rags, even if they aren’t pretty, or smart or young” – helps her to stand up against the cruel headteacher, Miss Minchin.
As a teenager, I wrote poems and short stories about boys I fancied, imagining they fancied me back. As an adult, I would fantasise about being anywhere else to escape my meaningless nine-to-five that largely involved sending emails. Those fantasies were a refusal to believe that this was my fate. It was as if by having them, I was preparing myself for a bigger, more exciting life.
As a standup comedian, delusion is your greatest asset: you have to believe in what you’re doing more than anyone else. When it’s 2am and you’re at a service station on the M6 after bombing to a room full of stag dos, knowing you have to do it all again tomorrow, you tell yourself that it’s just one show, and you’re building towards something bigger.
after newsletter promotion
Sara never loses her resolve. Even after everyone believes her father has died and left her penniless, and she’s forced to live in the attic as a servant girl, she still insists she’s a princess. One day, when Miss Minchin locks her in with no breakfast, lunch or dinner, Sara imagines a feast with candles and trays of good things to eat, and there, laid out in the morning, are platters of sausages, muffins and fresh fruit. Her imagination helps her to survive her reality until her fantasy becomes her reality. That’s the thing about delusion: you have to believe it’s real until it becomes real. Fantasy isn’t just escapism, it’s strategy.
I have been doing standup consistently for five years now. The longer you do it, the more you embrace failing: you don’t get better if you don’t bomb. You need delusion, resilience and persistence, the same qualities I admired in Sara all those years ago. You have to believe in your version of reality even when everything around you seems to prove the opposite.
Every time I do standup now, I want to feel exactly like Sara, enchanting her classmates at her boarding school. I didn’t realise until I rewatched A Little Princess as an adult that she’s not just a fantasist – she’s a standup comedian.
Sarah Roberts: Scary Movie 7 is at the Monkey Barrel 2, Edinburgh, to 30 August.
Did a cultural moment prompt you to make a major life change? Email us at cultural.awakening@theguardian.com
