The standup talks about touring with Ed Gamble, how comics enjoy the life of a retiree and the importance of exploring gender and its presentation
“I’m a radical feminist and queer,” says Chloe Petts. “But also a top football lad who wants to go to the darts all the time.” So her new standup set, Transience, has gags about being a diehard Crystal Palace fan and a routine about darts which, she claims, “could be the key to the whole show, but I also could just be delusional”.
Petts hadn’t exactly planned to cover gender and its presentation (she’d already done so in her debut, Alpha) but as Covid-19 restrictions eased and she went out in public more, the comedian decided to explore it again. She is, for example, sometimes read as a man when she wears a face mask. “I thought I’d resolved all of this stuff about masculinity and the way that people respond to me. But I hadn’t. I was just stuck at home and everyone else who had been problematic had been locked inside too.”
Chloe Petts is at Soho theatre, London, 3-7 May, then on tour