Sarah Millican’s Late Bloomer is Champion - The Way I See It Theatre & Music Blog

Sometimes if you get lucky the Facebook algorithm can give you gifts. For example, a few years ago it included a clip from one of Sarah Millican’s older comedy specials in my feed and I happened to click on it and I watched it, and I loved it. The more I watched the clips when they popped up, the more Facebook fed them to me, and that is how I managed to watch most of at least five specials one five minute clip at a time. Last Fall when I heard that Millican was coming to Halifax on her Late Bloomer tour I couldn’t believe it. It had never occurred to me that she might someday come here, so it was an excellent surprise. I immediately bought tickets for my best friend for her upcoming birthday because she had been getting the videos in her feed as well and loved them too. I have never laughed so hard and so much at a show. We had an absolute blast.

The conceit of Late Bloomer is that Millican firstly takes us through a list that sorts folks into two groups: the late bloomers and the eager beavers based on experiences that they had or did not have (mostly as teenagers), and she professes herself to be a late bloomer, and then she begins to investigate how such a shy and somewhat awkward young girl could have bloomed into someone with the brilliant audacity to stand up in front of a sold-out Rebecca Cohn Auditorium audience and gleefully mime honking boobs and giving blow jobs.

Being a cisgender woman can be gross and not for the faint of heart. After all, from the time we are fourteen or so we are already quite proficient at removing (or at least minimizing) blood stains. Yet, the way we are often characterized in culture is in stark contrast to this reality, and thus we have been conditioned to not talk about our bodies in the full array of ways that they are strange, awkward, gross, funny, humiliating, and human. The makers of pads, for instance, don’t want the liquid in the Always commercial to be red, they prefer the daintier blue. They certainly wouldn’t want chunks. Millican’s comedy shouldn’t feel so revolutionary and refreshing in 2025, but it is.

I think what sets Millican apart from some other very famous female comedians who also don’t shy away from the bawdier realties of sex and bodily fluids in their shows is this “late bloomer” quality. I think, regardless of how popular someone was in school, most people can relate to feeling insecure as a teenager, and I think a lot of Millican’s audience relate specifically to having been girls who were wallflowers, or at least fell somewhere on the nerd-geek-dork spectrum. Millican speaks openly about rejecting the sort of femininity that has been peddled in women’s magazines for decades, and finds the humour in what is real and honest and all that refuses to be airbrushed out or ‘fixed up.’

I think there is also something really delightful in the disparity between the way Millican looks- she has the sweetest face, she comes out wearing an adorable dress, she has a charming Geordie accent- and what she says- a slew of words that would get bleeped on the CBC- with an infectious cheeky smile. She also emanates kindness- in all the clips I’ve watched of hers I’ve never once seen her do a joke where she’s punching down. Often when interacting with the audience, especially during the crowd work section of the show, Millican will even crack herself up, which is my favourite to watch. Many performers tell you at the end of their set that they’ve had a really good time, but with Millican you really can tell all the way through that she’s having as much fun as you are. Her joy is infectious in itself.

At it’s heart Late Bloomer is an exploration of how the essence of someone can remain so much the same as they grow up, but how it can manifest differently depending on the changing environments, circumstances, and contexts. I have been harbouring some frustration with the new Great Outdoors Comedy Festival here because such an obscene percentage of the comedians that they’re bringing here for it are dudes. Sarah Millican sold out these two Cohn dates remarkably fast. I think her being from South Shields in England, which is quite close to the border with Scotland, contributes to her sense of humour translating here quite seamlessly. She introduced many of us to Sally-Anne Hayward, her opening act, who also did a brilliantly funny set about the realities of being a woman in her fifties in the world. Any fans of CBC’s Baroness Von Sketch Show, and Nova Scotia’s own Meredith MacNeil especially, will love both Hayward and Millican. There are so many powerhouse female comedians working right now and there’s no reason at all for the Great Outdoors folks to not be bringing some gender parity to their festival. I’d also like to point out that the audience members who were sitting in front of me who I kept noticing because they were reacting so joyfully and audibly throughout Millican’s show, looked to me to be Gen X men, so even though Millican’s show can be especially empowering for women, it’s also just sharp, smart, well crafted, and well delivered comedy that any adult can enjoy.

Having watched so many of Sarah Millican’s specials online it was really special to get to experience one here in Halifax, especially to see her pivot seamlessly between what has been carefully scripted and rehearsed, and what is improvised in the moment. She got her start at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival when her show Sarah Millican’s Not Nice won the comedy award for Best Newcomer in 2008, and she brings seventeen years worth of experience, confidence, bravery, polish, and panache with her, throwing in a little bit of well measured debauchery, some candy, and her characteristic sauciness. I laughed so hard I was crying and the muscles in my abdomen were sore, which I’m counting as a workout. If you have the chance to see Sarah Millican live, definitely jump at the chance. It beats the hell out of going to the fucking gym.

Sarah Millican’s Late Bloomer Tour has one more sold-out show in Halifax at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium tonight September 14th at 8:00pm. Then she has two shows at the Holy Heart Theatre in St. John’s, Newfoundland on September 16th and 17th (that’s sure to be a time too!), and then she heads to Ontario and Québec with shows in Toronto, Montréal, Kitchener, Hamilton, London, and Ottawa. I think they’re all sold out, but check her website for more information, and join her Mailing List to stay up to date about her next Canadian Tour. Also, pick up a copy of her book How To Be Champion at your local bookstore (in Halifax consider supporting Bookmark or King’s Co-Op Bookstore ) or at Chapters/Indigo/Coles. You can also listen to her Podcast Standard Issue wherever you get your podcasts.