FEATURE:
The Duchess, The Queen
why I wanted to focus on Katherine Ryan. I am going to do some housekeeping first. I will bring in a couple of reviews from last year. With one of the most impressive and busy C.V.s you can imagine, the Canadian comedian, actor, writer and author is someone who has made a big impact on me. I am a music journalist, though occasionally I do divert – being neurodivergent, it is very in keeping with tradition! – and focus on women outside of music who have impacted me. Aisling Bea, Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie are recent examples and feature heroines. I am going to get to hopes/predictions relating to Katherine Ryan in 2024. First, she is in my mind because I was rewatching her BBC interview with Louis Theroux in 2022. I find her inspiring, formidable, and enormously impressive anyway! Someone I have always respected – even when I have not liked or bonded with some T.V. projects she has been involved in -, she is one of the most important voices in comedy and culture. As someone who considers themselves a pretty passionate feminist – and that being unusual and rare for a male music journalist -, I am always learning from amazing women. We all remember the Dispatches documentary earlier in this year where Russell Brand was revealed to be this decades-long predator and abuser. Someone literally abusing and being inappropriate with women in plain sight, Katherine Ryan revealed to Louis Theroux how she knew about his crimes all along. She did not name Russell Brand, though she said she mentions this famous male comic who is a sexual predator. When allegations came out, there was new focus on Katherine Ryan. As she said, it was not her story to tell. She just knew that the stories she heard were true. That bravery to talk about it and help bring about progress and justice (as I write, 9th December, 2023, Brand has not been imprisoned and legal proceedings and police investigations continue) was really stirring.
IN THIS PHOTO: Katherine Ryan hosted GLAMOUR's 2023 Women of the Year awards in Gyunel Couture/PHOTO CREDIT: Holly Molloy for GLAMOUR
I was interested in the Louis Theroux interview, as Katherine Ryan spoke about feminism. How, as she worked at Hooters and got breast implants at the age of twenty, could she ever consider herself a feminist?! She has presented a dating show, made a lot of money and has a really nice home. A successful and wealthy success story, that presumption that she is someone fake or inauthentic. The reality is that this sort of attitude seems to pertain to a rather stereotyped or false-minded view on feminism. That a woman needs to be a certain way and have a particular journey. It was angering to hear that she has been judged and criticised. Someone who has forged a successful career on her terms and can be free and frank on stage, but she is also sensitive, a proud mother and someone who stands for women and is a feminist, one can never call into question her ethics and stances! For me, as someone always keen to be more educated and aware when it comes to feminism and challenges women face in the music industry, Ryan’s strength and amazing talent has moved and connected with me. I am a member of The Trouble Club. As I have written about a few times (most recently here), it is a member’s club made up mostly of women. Though there are a few men. It is open to all. They are there to create ‘trouble’ in terms of passion, activism and advocacy. Holding events where amazing and important women discuss their careers, books and industries, I have learned so much from the events. Always in great London venues surrounded by some incredible, very warm and compelling women (from being moved and teary to heartbroken and (romantically) stunned; it has been a really emotional and eventful time there so far). I think that Katherine Ryan would make a perfect guest and speaker for them next year! I am not bold enough to suggest her myself but, maybe alongside fellow comics like Aisling Bea and Caitlin Moran, she could discuss her career in comedy/writing. I would love to hear her speak!
PHOTO CREDIT: Justin Downing for Only Natural Diamonds
2022 was one where she put out her book, The Audacity: Why Being Too Much Is Exactly Enough. A hugely successful debut book from her, it allowed her to go beyond the panel shows we know her from. Away from that circuit – where female guests are still in the minority and it is still imbalanced -, Ryan is honest and fascinating throughout the book. This review shows why it such a must-buy and important book:
“From the star of the hit Netflix series The Duchess comes a brilliantly funny, fiercely honest, and dangerously astute handbook of life instruction.
Detailing Katherine Ryan’s journey from a naive ex-Hooters waitress fresh off the boat from Canada to comedy megastar, The Audacity combines Katherine’s unerring ear for the perfect line with the warmth, compassion and hard-won wisdom that makes up a life on and off stage.
IT WAS HARDLY THE TIME OR THE PLACE FOR A MUM LECTURE, BUT I FELT QUITE PASSIONATELY THAT THEY SHOULDN’T BE SO BLASÉ WITH THE NEXT CALLER FACING AN INTRUDER. I HAD PAID A LOT OF TAX THAT YEAR AND I THINK I WAS MOSTLY FRUSTRATED WITH THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY AND THEIR BUDGET CUTS. THE WHOLE SITUATION WAS SOOOO LIBERAL-ELITE: A SHOELESS WHITE WOMAN HOLDING A GLASS OF MERLOT WHILE CRYING IN THE STREET ABOUT CUTS TO GOVERNMENT FUNDING AND TRYING TO BE POLITE ABOUT HER HOUSE BEING ROBBED.
I don’t often read celebrity memoirs, but I’ve always really liked Katherine Ryan. She’s funny, fabulous and I absolutely adored her Netflix show The Duchess. After all, a gal who appreciates the comfort and sheer style of Sleeper feather-trimmed pyjamas is a gal after my own heart.
From watching her stand-up, I was already familiar with a few tidbits recounted in The Audacity, such as her time working at Hooters and her visit to the Playboy Mansion, but Ryan really lifts the lid on her life. She discusses everything from cosmetic surgery to miscarriages. The Audacity is obviously hilarious and Ryan’s sardonic humour is ever-present, even in those darker moments. Yet, I was stunned by how honest and heartfelt it is. It’s a little bit all over the place in terms of structure and is perhaps less linear than we expect from an autobiography – hopping back and forth between Ryan’s upbringing in Sarnia, her current life with Bobby, Violet and Fred and her past diabolical relationships – but I was too engrossed by Ryan’s authentic and humorous voice to really mind. Rather than tell a straightforward narrative from birth to comedic superstar, Ryan breaks the book down into ‘How-to’ chapters that focus on a particular time in her life. For example, ‘How To Get Started In Comedy’, ‘How To Nearly Be In A Music Video’ and ‘How To Be Crowned Miss Hooters Toronto’.
Ryan’s sarcastic, no-nonsense style won’t be for everyone. However, there are some tender moments and reflections from Ryan in The Audacity that are really interesting. Her musings on adolescent insecurity, toxic relationships and sexism within the comedy industry and healthcare were particularly insightful and relatable. I admire Ryan’s take-no-shit attitude and left The Audacity feeling empowered and at times very seen.
Not everything in The Audacity was a hit for me. While I can get onboard with Ryan’s #girlboss persona, the chapter dedicated to ‘cancel culture’ felt, in part, as a way to justify her own offensive behaviour in the past. Ryan acknowledges her mistakes and has very clearly grown and matured both personally and professionally, but the excuse of ‘it was the early 2000s’ or ‘that’s just how it was back then’ feels a bit wishy-washy and does leave a bit of a sour taste.
That aside, Ryan’s lived a heck of a life and it makes for great reading. As someone who used to be an avid panel show fan, the anecdotes about the British comedians she’s friends with were particularly enjoyable. I have a newfound admiration for Jimmy Carr, even if he did glare at me once for running to catch my train and nearly bulldozing him in the process. Pls invite me to your parties with Kourt Kardash, Jimmy xoxo
Cheeky, brash, brazen, inspiring, empowering, heartwarming, raw, beautiful and downright audacious. The Audacity will leave you wanting to be as glam-and-not-giving-a-damn as Katherine Ryan”.
Last year also found Katherine Ryan on tour. Missus – an account and exploration of her unexpected marriage to her childhood sweetheart, Bobby, and their surprisingly traditional new life together – is quite a change of pace from her usual style. If many feel Ryan’s comedy is bracing, very open, challenging, provocative and impersonal, this is a more intimate and ‘toned-down’ (though that sounds offensive!) show. The Guardian shared their reaction to a truly amazing comedy set from one of the industry’s very best:
“Be your authentic self!” I don’t love it when standup sets end with self-improvement homilies for the audience. But at least Katherine Ryan seems to be practising what she preaches. The Canadian made several successful shows off the back of a steely, self-loving and showily cynical persona – brilliant in its way, but never quite transcending caricature. Her new and best outing, Missus, is quite the departure, as Ryan loosens and softens up, dedicating the 70 minutes to an account of her unexpected marriage to childhood sweetheart Bobby and their surprisingly traditional new life together.
It’s a story that finds Ryan inhabiting a more fully human – and even self-deprecating – character without stinting on the tart, high-quality jokes that made her name. The story it tells is rooted in an episode of the genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are?, which sent Ryan home to Canada – where she hooked up with her first boyfriend. Bobby follows her back to the UK, where his unworldly antics and struggles with the local accent (“he’s not shouting at you, he’s just from Belfast”) supply some fruitful fish-out-of-water comedy.
The productive line Ryan treads here is between naked adoration for her new beau and horror at finding herself living conventionally and shackled to a straight white male. There’s a fine gag trading on the coincidence, timing-wise, of her marriage and the restrictive first Covid lockdown. There are set pieces, both starring Bobby as a backwoodsman from central casting, about Ryan’s house being burgled, and the not-as-planned birth of her second child.
The Ryan that emerges here is blindsided by her life, not in control of it, and prey to a lively array of emotional responses – which makes for animated and sympathetic comedy. That doesn’t at all undermine her command as a performer, on show here in some expert crowd-work when a couple in Row B divulge intriguing details of their not-quite-relationship. Additional material invoking tolerance for anti-vaxxers, and toying with the cultural downsizing of straight white men, flesh out an excellent show. Missus feels like Ryan in three dimensions, a richer, more sympathetic (authentic, even?) persona, albeit with acerbity very much intact”.
Often pitted against other women – though that is an experience many women go through! -, I don’t feel like the world has embraced and given Katherine Ryan the true respect she deserves. Going back to that Louis Theroux interview. She said how she spent years on the poverty line (or near it) living in London. She was in an office job and struggling. I am in that same situation in terms of finance and occupation. I am about to be made redundant next week, so the fact that she found success and has come from something stressful and horrible to where she is now is providing (however brief and small) hope. More than anything, Katherine Ryan’s mix of feminism and incredible comedy is something I am always learning from. A hugely admired women who attacked panel show Mock the Week in 2020 because of its sexism (she quit the show, partly to give way for other female comics; also the rife and toxic nature of the show it seems) -, I know that Ryan’s influence extends beyond comedy. No doubt pioneering when it comes to greater female representation on panel shows and through the industry, I keep in my mind how she always knew about Russell Brand and how she have strength for women to speak out. Ryan was attacked by some after it was revealed she knew for a long time. It is heartbreaking to imagine what she had to read! She is a feminist superhero that is a huge inspiration to me. I don’t know if that would surprise her – she is never going to read this, so I will never know! -, but there are not mainly out-and-out and active men who feminists in the music industry, let alone journalism. I often look around to see whether there are other men writing about gender inequality, sexism, misogyny and sexual abuse through music like I do. I have not experienced it myself, though it is important to be an ally and to highlight this.
I think there is still a reluctance among many men to embrace something more feminist and feminine. In researching this feature, I am reading through online editions of GLAMOUR. I often read websites designed more for women. Same with articles, magazines and other outlets. I find more enriched and rounder by doing this. If there is this rightful perception that Katherine Ryan is loved by women (most anyway!) and has this blend of boldness and huge strength with something more tender and emotional, she is also reaching people like me. I continue to take from her when I write about gender issues and harrowing subjects. Before rounding off, I want to bring in a 2022 article from GLAMOUR where, when at their Women of the Year Awards, she discussed the ‘shame’ of single motherhood:
“Discussing the most significant thing she has overcome in her career, Katherine explained: "I feel like its really crucial that I overcame shame. To do what I do, you have to be shameless, and when I came to this country, I was a very young single mother, very vulnerable, and was miles away from anyone who loved me. I did feel shame about that - the narrative was I was damaged goods. Everyone was like, 'why did he leave you?' And I was like, 'because I asked him to'. Soon I started feeling good about myself and enjoying the privilege that it was to have that time with my daughter and be a single mother to my daughter. It was then wonderful things started coming into my life.
Katherine also said that the most radical thing she had done in the name of feminism was to be "the only person standing in a room with a microphone allowed to speak", as it's "considered to be very masculine".
However, Katherine Ryan explained that she thinks that action is actually alpha. "It's only recently that we started recognising alpha behaviours as feminine and non-binary as well. My lifestyle is very alpha, so I hope to inspire young people with the things that I say, and anyone who feels not good enough or dishearted, you can be the alpha in any room”.
For me, feminism and addressing subjects other male music journalist do not address regularly is not a flex or virtue-signalling. It is not an act! I may not be as versed and authentic as many of my female peers, though I think that I am in an industry – if you can call a non-professional male music journalist in the ‘industry’ at all! – where there are so many issues and evils to battle and redress. Most of the campaigning and writing comes from women. Ryan recently spoke to Lauren Laverne on Desert Island Discs about why she spoke out against Russell Brand but did not explicitly name him. She got pushback about her stance. It must have been an ethical wrestle for Ryan. Her actions and attitude always amazes me. Someone I respect hughley. Her entire career and life has directly influenced my journalism and approach to women and feminism. A reason why I am becoming more invested and want to be as ‘good’ – in terms of getting things right and not being a ‘bad feminist’ – a feminist as possible. She is a mother to several young children (her third child is one I believe) and has recently, like me, turned forty.
There are decades ahead for her. I wonder whether Ryan will be used for Hollywood films. Someone obviously a screen natural, she would be incredible, not only in comedy films but a range of genres. As an actress and writer. Same for T.V. I would love to see her both in great and arresting dramas and a range of comedies. I can see her in U.SA. productions too. I am sure Ryan is thinking more about a new tour and perhaps another book, though she should realise that she is a magnetic personality and a tremendous talent. Her filmography shows that are reality/panel-based. I loved her time show, The Duchess (which was on Netflix in 2020) deserved to run for longer. Katherine Ryan would be a sensational actress, truly. I would love to speak for The Trouble Club, as the ‘troublemakers’ (as we are known) would love to hear her speak (maybe at a venue The Ned or Allbright). She would make a phenomenal guest - but, as I say, maybe bold of me to suggest it directly to its director, Eleanor (Ellie) Newton (even though we know each other fairly well by now). As much as anything, for all that she has done and all she will do, I wanted to salute the duchess and queen Katherine Ryan and offer up immense…
THANKS and love.