Sara Pascoe: I think, therefore I laugh

British comic Sara Pascoe says her show comes with a little mental exercise.

Sara Pascoe isn't afraid to drop the N-word when it comes to describing her show. Yes her Sara Pascoe Vs The Truth is inspired by Nietzsche.

No, not by his most famous quote "That which does not kill us makes us stronger" - surely the basis of any stand-up career.

But that other one: "There are no facts, only interpretations", which Pascoe has spun into a set which she says isn't quite as lofty as it might sound.

"It's not at all weighty," she's quick to explain. "Sometimes when I describe it to people it can sound like it's more hardcore than it is. It is just that behind the jokes there is a little thought exercise going on."

It includes, she says, a finale where she attempts to prove to the audience that they in fact don't exist. Which is slightly more profound a finish than you'll get in many of the shows in this year's comedy festival - where she's the only overseas female comic.

But that's Pascoe for you - online evidence of her past shows suggests she's cleverly hilarious in her mix of autobiographical memories of her adolescence, and what the modern women has to deal with, among other digressions which match a self-deprecating high-mindedness with an infectious delivery.

From Essex, she's been climbing the comedy rungs in Britain since switching from a acting career to a stand-up one six years ago. That's led to small television roles in The Thick of It, the London Olympics parody Twenty-Twelve and more recently the BBC-bureaucracy skewering one from the same team, W1A.

She's also appeared on British panel shows like QI and Never Mind The Buzzcocks. Yes, she'd like a sitcom of her own one day. But for now, stand-up - and the challenge to keep developing new material as her old routines live on forever on Youtube - remains her first love. Who does she think appreciates her stuff most?

"People who like to think with their laughs.I think my show would be good for people who had given up on stand-up comedy and thought it was boring."

And yes she's popular with female live comedy fans.

"Very occasionally there will be an audience of more women and they are always more fun. In certain instances the stuff I talk about like sexual frustration and being 32 - a women's sexual peak - and that's fine if the audience is of both genders. It's not attacking men in any way. But if it's a mostly female audience it can occasionally start to feel like a rally. We get all oestrogen-ed up and go 'Yeah!'."

Who: Sara Pascoe, rising English stand-up star
Where and when: Big Show on the Shore, Bruce Mason Centre April 25, 26; The Big Show, Comedy Chamber May 5-May 17; Comedy Allstars May 8-May 10, Bruce Mason Centre; solo show Sara Pascoe vs the Truth, Vault @ Q Theatre May 13-17

- TimeOut