London Hughes: ‘If I was a white dude, would I be at the Edinburgh Fringe or would I be selling out arenas?’ She started her career on Babestation and CBBC — now she’s UK comedy’s next big thing

In a very small, very sweaty, sold-out attic room at the Edinburgh Fringe, London Hughes is standing on the tiny stage in a red velvet jumpsuit and crystal-encrusted high-heeled Louboutin boots. “I’m London Hughes and I’m very funny,” she says as Beyonce’s “Diva” fades out.

Over the next hour, she plays the 50-seater room like it’s The O2, with tales of dating the boxer Anthony Joshua, her group of girl friends and an X-rated seagull impression, among other things. Her ambition, she declares, is to be “the next female Lenny Henry”. On the evidence of the whooping hysterical audience, you wouldn’t bet against it.

The morning after the show, we meet in a cafe on Edinburgh’s Nicolson Street. Hughes is running late because her taxi is caught in traffic (“I don’t do walking, babe”). When she arrives – Yankees baseball cap, massive coat, bright red nails and lipstick – she orders a green tea and instantly starts to make up for lost time. “I know I’m awesome,” she says, pausing for breath about five minutes in. “It just takes people a while to figure it out.”

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Specifically, it has taken London Hughes, now 30, a decade to get to the point of being the next big thing in British comedy. In between there have been triumphs and rejection, stints on both, improbably, CBBC and Babestation, and a lot of waiting for her moment to come, like she always knew it would. Two years ago, she did a show at the Fringe called London Hughes: Superstar (it’s just nobody’s realised it). “I spent £10,000 on it and the reviews were three-star at best. I was crying every day. I was in a hundred-seater and I was performing to 12 people a day,” she says. “But oh my god those 12 people had the best time. That’s just my energy.”

This year, things are different. She’s sold out her entire run at the Fringe, is about to launch her own dating podcast on Spotify and next month she will head to America to start writing her own sitcom, working with Larry Wilmore, co-creator of Issa Rae’s Insecure. Even her Jamaican mother, who for a long time refused to call her daughter’s comedy career anything other than a “hobby” is impressed. “Now she sells my autographs on eBay,” says Hughes, tutting. “Now she is my champion.”

Did she ever think about giving up? “Never! Not in one part of my brain. Even in my darkest times, I’ve always been angry at ‘them’. I wasn’t getting opportunities, not because I wasn’t good but because I’m a ‘risk’, I’m ‘niche’, I’m not ‘the norm’. If I was a white dude with the exact same career path and level of talent, would I be at the Edinburgh Fringe or would I be selling out arena tours?” she sips her tea, raises an eyebrow. “It’s so sweet now that I’ve proved myself right.”



London Dionne Misha Stacy Stephanie Estina Knibbs Hughes – every member of her family got involved in naming her – was born in 1989, in Thornton Heath, the same suburb of Croydon where Stormzy was born. “There’s nothing there but a 24-hour Tesco so you

will

get creative,” she shrugs.

Her father was a probation officer, who brought her up on Round the Horne, The Goon Show and recordings of Richard Pryor. Her mother, who represented Great Britain in the 100m but had to drop out of the Olympics aged 18 when she fell pregnant with London’s older brother, was a nurse.

Aged 14, Hughes moved to Brighton where her mother ran a hotel and where she joined Brighton and Hove’s first street dance crew, the Funk Stars – “We shut down Margate. We were big in Hastings!”.

After school, she got a place to study Television at Kingston University but before she even started her course, she landed a job on a cable channel. It turned out to be hosting the afternoon slot on Babestation, for £20 an hour. She kept her clothes on, and did silly skits about the shoes she was wearing as she encouraged people to phone the ‘babes’. “They were all lovely and they smelled amazing. Great women.”

At university she kept missing lectures to go to auditions until her agent asked her, “Do you want to study TV or be on TV?” She finally dropped out when she got a job on CBBC, sharing Broom Cupboard duties with fellow comedian and now voice of Love Island, Iain Stirling.

Having first tried stand-up in a university talent show, she started gigging on the black comedy circuit, and got a regular slot at The Sunday Show in Soho where she performed alongside Ed Sheeran, to an crowd of regulars including Adele and Daniel Kaluuya. “Everyone who’s anyone that’s about to be a someone, who was urban and a cool kid – they were all in that space,” she recalls. In 2009, aged 20, she entered the Funny Women comedy competition and won. She thought she’d have her own comedy vehicle within the year, but it didn’t happen.

‘Michaela Coel is the first, THE FIRST, black woman to have a sitcom in this country. The first. I can’t be mad at me because I’m not the problem’

“I wanted to leave kids’ TV but no-one was offering me any work,” she says. “That paid my bills and now, I have the best training. You want me to host? I’ll host. You want me to do stand-up? I’ll do stand-up. You want me to act? I’ll act. That’s because I started so early and I had 10 years of graft. Now I know that I’m ready for everything that comes my way.”

It was Phoebe Waller-Bridge who encouraged her to keep at comedy. In 2015, she auditioned for the writer’s squatting sitcom Crashing. She didn’t get the part but Waller-Bridge remembered her and cast her as a sex-shop assistant in the first series of Fleabag. At the wrap party, Hughes performed karaoke in character as Britney Spears; Waller-Bridge took her to one side and said (Hughes puts on a posh voice): “‘London, you’re f***ing magical. Have you done Edinburgh? Have you done a one-woman show? You need to do one.’”

That inspired her Fringe debut in 2017, but when the show flopped, she was ready to give up on the UK. The only black British female comedians she knew of growing up were Andi Osho and Gina Yashere and they had both left for America. “I saw what happened with Daniel Kaluuya and Nathalie Emmanuel. She’s in Game of Thrones and the Fast and Furious films; she was in Hollyoaks when she was here. I was like, ‘this town ain’t for me.’

“There was no Lolly Adefope, no Sophie Duker, no Sindhu Vee, no Rose Matafeo. There were no black women doing anything. Michaela Coel is the first, THE FIRST, black woman to have a sitcom in this country. The first. I can’t be mad at me because I’m not the problem.”



Eventually, she caught a break in late 2017 with an appearance on Celebs Go Dating which led to regular gigs on panel shows such as Mock the Week and Don’t Hate the Playaz. Finally, the world caught up with her, she says. “I was ahead of my time. Because I was talking about sex. Ten years ago, that was seen as crass.

“Ten years ago that wasn’t ‘in’, middle-class white guys talking about their average family dynamic were in – they’re never not going to be in. I went to a meeting at ITV and the woman said ‘You come across aggressive’. Wow. They just weren’t used to the energy.”

Her Edinburgh show, poetically titled To Catch a D**k, is the story of her life told through dating. It was inspired by her cousin’s hen do in Marbella where it rained constantly so she entertained the group with tales of her sex life and made them fall about. There isn’t much of a divide between London Hughes the performer and London Hughes the person, it seems. “What you saw last night is what my family have seen every Christmas….”

She has no boundaries about what she will and will not talk about on stage – “No. Zero. None,” she says. In her show, she jokes about having slept with “all of Mock the Week series seven.”

“That ain’t exactly a lie. But as a woman that’s the talk of the town the next day whereas men can go forth and do what the hell they want and no one cares. I’m sure people think I’m loose, I don’t care. That’s why I do this show. I like to have sex. I’m a single girl and you can’t make me feel ashamed for it, there’s no point. It won’t happen.”

‘I like to have sex. I’m a single girl and you can’t make me feel ashamed for it, there’s no point. It won’t happen’

She has never been particularly interested in the comedy circuit. “I did three gigs last year. Some comics are all about the grind, working up from nothing and gigging in Torquay for £40. That’s not my energy! I can’t be bothered! Also, I’ve done it! Ten years ago I was driving all the way to Inverness, doing a gig, next day I’m in the Cotswolds. Now, I do the classy gigs.”

Hence the Louboutins. “Proper aren’t they?” she says lovingly. “I don’t want to look shabby. Also, I walk out as a black woman, people don’t think I’m going to tell jokes, so what’s a dress going to hurt? Might as well look sick while I’m doing it.”

Her audience is mainly white women, she says, though she’d like it to be more diverse. “People who go to comedy clubs? White people. People who go to Edinburgh? White people. People who listen to podcasts? White people. I’m not shocked when white people are in the room. I’m in your space,” she says. “I look like an R’n’B singer. You don’t look at me and think, ‘that’s a funny chick’.”

‘I started with Jack Whitehall, Josh Widdicombe, these are the people I was seeing blowing up. Women in comedy get TV shows if they have experience. Men get them if they have potential’

Her dream is to have her own sitcom or late-night entertainment show. Last year, she was in talks to make a travel show, in which she would try to break America with Whoopi Goldberg as her mentor. No one picked it up. Why not? “I’m a black woman! Russell Howard and his mum are in their fourth or fifth series. You’ve got Romesh and his mum, Bradley Walsh and his son, Dara O’Briain and his mates, Nish and Joel – all these travel shows with dudes.”

“I started with Jack Whitehall, Josh Widdicombe, these are the people I was seeing blowing up. Women in comedy get TV shows if they have experience. Men get them if they have potential. You don’t see women getting their own shows until they’ve been in the game for years. They have to graft.”

She’s off to America now anyway, after someone spotted her sketches online. “I gave myself five years to break America. Now I’ve got Kevin Hart’s agent, Beyonce’s lawyer and three development deals,” she smiles. “And here I can’t even get on 8 Out of 10 Cats”.

And after that? “World. Dom. I. Nation,” she says. “I’m talking Books. Movies. Entertainment. Everything. Life’s short, I’m going to try everything.

“If James Corden – James Corden! – can go from Fat Friends to hosting a late night chat show in America, then I can do it”. She shrieks with laughter. “The sky’s the limit.”

London Hughes, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh to 25 August (0131 556 6550); ‘London, Actually’ launches on Spotify on 9 September

