Kate Dolan always knew she wanted to be a comedian. But the journey to making that dream a reality has been anything but smooth.
Dolan grew up in Cubbington (a small village in the Midlands), and started performing stand-up nearly a decade ago, taking a split-bill show to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017 and winning spots at Birmingham’s Glee Club. She also made it through several rounds of the Funny Women competition. Just as her career began gaining momentum, life intervened.
“My mum had been sick for some time, but then came a new diagnosis, a terminal diagnosis. I took time off to spend with her,” she says.
Yet despite her illness, her mum remained her greatest supporter. “She told me I needed to get out and do something,” Dolan recalls. Taking her advice to heart, she booked a trip to Australia in early 2020, intending to spend a year au pairing and traveling. “After secondary school, I’d always been locked into a job and never really took time off,” she says. But within two months of her arrival, the world shut down. “Then when I came out of lockdown, I’d lost my mum.”
Junkyard Debacle
Returning to comedy with renewed determination, she started gigging all the time, culminating in her 2024 Adelaide Fringe show. Signing with the talent agency Junkyard Artists seemed like a turning point. “It really felt like everything was coming together,” she says. Then, without warning, Junkyard Artists collapsed.
Comedians are often lone wolves from the start: self-determined, self-sufficient, self-employed. Signing with an agency is a big deal. “I felt like my dreams were coming true,” Dolan says. Junkyard’s roster had included some of her biggest comedy heroes, such as Aaron Chen, Sam Campbell, and Danielle Walker. “Most of Junkyard’s list were wonderful weirdos in a way. I just couldn’t believe I was amongst them.”
For Dolan, the agency’s support had been more than just practical; it was a validation. “You start to feel supported, affirmed. Because there are so many people who want to do this, sometimes you wonder, ‘Am I deluded?’ Having an agency behind you makes you feel like someone is fighting for you, getting people in to see your first hour-long show.”
The agency’s sudden bankruptcy left her reeling. “I honestly don’t know where the collapse came from. I got a phone call one day and never spoke to that person again,” she says. Financially, she was luckier than some, but the impact was still significant. “There was a quick succession of news to realise loads of things hadn’t been paid. I was taping my first show, like a small special… I got a phone call nine days before that.”
Despite the chaos, Dolan won’t dwell on frustration. “I like to operate from a place of gratitude. If I hadn’t joined [Junkyard], a lot of things wouldn’t have happened. We filmed a pilot, and I have all the footage, but not the money to finish it. That could be frustrating, but I just have to put it together as a pitch and apply for funding. Everything is still there. It’s all just been pushed back.”
Taking on her inner-critic
Her new show reflects her determination. She begins each performance as an audience plant, wearing an actual plant on her head. “Last year, I had so much negative self-talk up here,” she says, gesturing to her head. Using a voice pedal, she plays her inner monologue while delivering her routine. “I’ve felt so much anxiety about not having control over how crowds would react. I was doing 20 minutes of crowd work just to warm them up, to get them into my style. And I thought: I don’t want to do that every year; I want to be myself, be weird, have fun, be silly.”
By voicing her own inner critic on stage, she hopes to take away its power. “It’s ridiculous to think just because one joke doesn’t work people will walk out saying, ‘She should be dead!’” she laughs. “I think we are our own worst critics. I went for lunch with a mate in Melbourne who got a bad review. She was upset, beating herself up more than the review did. And I’m the exact same.”
So far, she has avoided bad reviews herself. “At one point, I couldn’t even get people in! Rue the day I get a bad review, but I thought, I’d happily take two stars as long as somebody came. But operating from a place of fear or perfectionism doesn’t help. It stops you taking risks.
“After what happened with Junkyard, I want to take charge of my own destiny. It just shows that I can’t rely on anyone else to make this a success for me.”
Inspirations
One person who would have been proud of her is her mother. “Mum would always put on Facebook, ‘with the very funny Kate Dolan,’ as if I was a celebrity in my own home.
“She was so funny. She was from Redditch, my nan worked in a social club, and my mum worked in Tesco’s.” She fondly remembers that their social club was much like Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights (one of Dolan’s early comedy inspirations).
Like many comedians, Dolan understands the unique challenges of sustaining a career in the industry. “If you’re not from wealth, it’s hard to keep picking yourself up, to keep going.”
She ended her last show by reading a letter her mother wrote to her during her A-level exams. “One of the sentences was: ‘Never give up on your dreams.’ That stuck with me.”
Dolan’s inspirations include Maria Bamford, particularly her special Old Baby, which starts with her performing in front of her mirror, then her front room, slowly increasing her audience to park benches and bowling alleys before theatres. It’s a fearlessness that Dolan wants to embrace with her new show: “The first step with this show is acknowledging the inner critic, saying those thoughts out loud, showing the audience that while I might look confident, like I’m having the best time, what’s happening internally doesn’t match that. I hope it makes people realise that we all feel this way sometimes.”
It’s something she has always valued as a fan of comedy. “You’re almost in a trance for an hour. You’re taken somewhere else, outside of yourself, immersed in what the performer is offering. That’s what I love. And that’s what I hope to give to people.”
Kate Dolan: The Critic, Rhino Room, until 22 March