A legendary Brummie comedian will be celebrated next month when the Rik Mayall Comedy Festival returns to Droitwich. As well as honouring the great man’s influence on the alternative comedy scene, the festival supports some fine emerging talent – and one headline act that we reckon is destined for greatness is a very loud, pink-haired comedian from Northfield
Lindsey Santoros’s first attempt at comedy was an open mic night in Digbeth that she described as utterly disastrous, but thankfully a brighter future beckoned after enrolling on a comedy course in Kings Heath run by professional comic, James Cook. “It was really useful. It’s not so much teaching you how to be funny – you’re either funny or you’re not – but it teaches you about comedy. At the end of the course, you do a five-minute bit on stage. I thought I’d be sick and die”.
Although she still admits to getting nervous, die she did not, and she bravely continued with open mic nights and gigs around the UK before eventually making it to the Edinburgh Comedy Festival in 2023. Despite finding the experience a bit overwhelming, she enjoyed remarkable success, winning Next Up’s Biggest Award in Comedy and earning an Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Newcomer nomination for her critically-acclaimed debut show Pink Tinge. Her career had begun.
TV, RADIO, AND BEING LAZY
Just a few years later she can now boast her own BBC Radio 4 comedy series, The Lively Life of Lindsey Santoro, and a host of TV appearances including Live at the Apollo, Mel Giedroyc’s: Unforgivable, and The Stand-Up Sketch show as well as stand-up support for the likes of fellow Brummie, Joe Lycett – “he’s a genuinely lovely bloke and he’s done so much for me” – and Russell Kane.
The journey may have taken a while, but she was finally fulfilling her dream of becoming a comedian. “It’s been a longer process for me since I’m lazy. My ideal gig would be one run from my back garden. My Nan always said, “Imagine if you’d tried.” Growing up, Lindsey attended St Thomas Aquinas Catholic School in Kings Norton and although she was far from being the class clown she discovered a love for making her friends laugh which ignited the desire to push it a bit further. “I always wanted to do comedy. Initially I was nervous about being perfect.”
WET KNICKERS!
Her comedy hero back then was Lee Evans. “I remember watching him on the telly and thinking, ‘what is this man doing? Why does he have a towel? Why is he so sweaty?” She’s now trying to bring some of his famed energy and dynamism into her own act. “I’ve started being more physical – I ain’t got the cardio though. I take a spare pair of pants whenever I gig now. I get so sweaty and who wants to be driving down the motorway with wet knickers?”
Lindsey’s comedy style has been described as meeting up with a mate you haven’t seen for a few years who’s rocked up with a load of gossip. “If I’d started doing comedy when I was 18, I’d have been terrible. I wouldn’t have had any life experience. What would I have talked about?” Now her set ranges from discussing private parts that look like a horse’s face to rock climbing with her mate Jenny. “We have to stay friends – she knows me from the slag years – and it’s right up our street. As a proud Brummie she says she’s looking forward to performing at the Rik Mayall Festival, but what can audiences expect? “It’s a bit of fun heavily based around me being a bit of a twat. Just silliness. I’m not trying to make you think. Just turn up and have a laugh.”
BOOB JOB?
Other established acts will be taking part including Alexi Sayle, Nigel Planer, Richard Herring and Peter Richardson and a host of other local, up and coming comedians, like Hannah Weetman, Jules O’Brian and Abbie Hale. If you can’t get a ticket for the Festival, Lindsey’s a regular at fine Brummie institutions like the Glee Club and Cherry Reds and also co-hosts the monthly Hare of the Dog comedy night at the Hare and Hounds with three other female Birmingham creatives – Janice Connolly, Kate Glaze and Alice Rosenthal. “It’s great. I just turn up and fanny about.”
So, what future plans for this talented, lazy, pink-haired lovely? “Go back to Edinburgh, get a nice tour out of it. Pay off the mortgage. Get a boob job, then die.” It surely won’t be long before a major, lucrative tour is secured, so make sure you see this fab comedian before that final boob job!