Comic Lou Sanders: ‘I went around the houses trying to find my onstage persona. Turns out, it’s just me’

The comedian on being a people pleaser, her painful early gigs and the joy of trampolines

Born in Devon in 1978, comedian Lou Sanders was brought up in Broadstairs, Kent. In 2018, her show Shame Pig was the joint winner of the Comedians’ Choice award for best show at the Edinburgh festival fringe. She has appeared on QI, 8 Out of 10 Cats and Taskmaster, which she won in 2019. Her memoir, What’s That Lady Doing?, was published in 2023. Sanders performs her new show, No Kissing in the Bingo Hall, throughout 2025.

This is me aged six, having a game of cricket in a park in Thanet. It would have been me and my brother plus my stepdad’s eldest son, who was lovely, but very different from us. He was in the brass band and super smart, while we were feral, very free – the type of kids who would scoop the cream off a cake with our fingers.