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Last year Joanne McNally took to the stage to talk about how everyone around her was getting married and having kids. A year on, she’s changed. And so has her stand-up.
The comedian, 41, is touring again after her sold-out run of Prosecco Express last year – which was the booziest in the London Palladium’s history, breaking the venue’s wine consumption record. In short: she’s a legend.
‘Maybe if I’m still touring at 80, me and the entire audience will have finally gone to rehab,’ she jokes in a chat with Metro. ‘But I think for the moment, not enough time has passed for any of us to have improved ourselves that much.’
You may recognise Joanne from a little TV show called Taskmaster (she came second in the 17th series). If not, you will definitely know her voice from My Therapist Ghosted Me; her uproarious side-splitting podcast with bestie Vogue Williams.
But Joanne is a thriving stand-up comedian. That’s her bread and butter, and something she has mastered over 10 years of comedy, with her intense woman’s woman likability, shrewd observations and outrageous gags.
While the Prosecco Express was a show filled with Joanne’s late-30s terror of weddings and kids popping up around her like whack-a-mole, the Irish comic’s new show Pinotphile sees her make a transition: she’s moving on from that pressure and away from talking about herself.
‘Prosecco was all about everyone around me getting married and having babies and I haven’t done those things. It was asking, will I, won’t I? Do they matter? And why do we bother? What are the pros and cons?’ she reflects.
‘In this show I’m not doing those things. There’s no more debate about that. I’m not going to get married. I’m not going to have kids.’
She explains: ‘I’ve realised now those things just aren’t for me. I think if you have to think about things that hard, leave it.
‘I always think if I’ve managed to get away without doing those things by the age of 41 I’m not doing those things.
‘It’s funny, because I just always assumed I would, and they seemed like such important thing, but now they don’t feel important at all.’
Life does seem to be working in Joanne’s favour, as her career is skyrocketing without kids or men standing in her way.
When straight men turn up to her shows without a partner dragging them along, Joanne’s success hits her the most.
‘Why are you here?’ she jokes. ‘I do get recognised a bit but I’m always really surprised. Because the podcast is the main gig, and it’s audio. But nothing is invisible anymore.’
Joanne and Vogue’s cackling antics will crop up on most 20 or 30-something womens’ social media reel algorithms daily.
‘Everyone can see you all the time, which drives me a little mad. My face is not a morning face,’ she says looking make-up free but radiant. In the morning.
Vogue and Joanne record in a bit of a bubble, she says, and sometimes Fridays – the day of the podcast’s release – can be quite exciting if ‘something slips through the net’ in the edit.
Jo – who the duo ‘don’t derseve’ – is the person giving the podcast’s over-sharing a chop, and Vogue does some too. But Joanne can’t listen to it.
‘I listened to one episode at the start, and my reaction was so bad that everyone decided it was best if I just never listened again,’ she says.
‘Imagine listening to your own hysterical voice notes for an hour? That’s what it feels like to me.’
2024 has been a stationary year for Joanne – not in terms of pencil cases or life trajectory, but physically, as she’s stayed largely in her South London home. (If you follow her on Instagram you will likely have taken interior inspiration from her – and if you don’t, you should.)
Next year, Joanne wants to buy a house. No, she is determined to buy a house.
‘If I spend another year renting, I will throw myself off of balcony, right? Is that too grim?’ she says, offering: ‘I will drown myself in the toilet. How about that, right?’
What’s stopping her, I wonder, racking up her string of accomplishments in my head: sold out tour dates, chart-topping podcast, TV appearances…
‘It’s really hard on your own with all the paperwork,’ she says.
‘One of the one of the great parts of past relationships is that I kind of go into autopilot.
‘I tend to go out with people who lead. They fill out paperwork, and they sign forms, and they know where there are driving licenses are, and it’s kind of like having a PA who you ride.’
But surely it’s not just the lack of horny PA to shift paperwork that’s standing in the way of her buying a house.
‘It’s the cost as well!’ Joanne says. ‘That’s why a lot of people are looking to be in relationships and stuff, because it’s better to have a dual income than a single one, isn’t it?
‘The world is wired to suit couples.’
It really is: according to Zoopla, for the average first time buyer an income of £60,600 is needed to take the plunge – the equivalent to two average UK salaries.
In the capital, the story is even bleaker, according to the property site. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of working people in London are unable to buy an average two- or three-bedroom property with an 80% loan-to-value mortgage.
It’s hard out there – even for successful comedians it seems, and especially for anyone who doesn’t have the luxury of joint income or a wad of inheritance.
Right now, Joanne is living by herself for the first time, like, ever. Before now, she’s always lived with boyfriends or friends.
On the subject of those two things – houses and exes – if Joanne could come back as a ghost… Which she wouldn’t because she doesn’t believe in ‘woo-woo’ or horoscopes (‘I’d love to be blaming the moon for s**t’ ) or psychics (‘prove it’)..
But if she did…
‘In an ideal world, all my exes would live in one house and I would just haunt one apartment for ease, instead of having to travel around to all of them.’
Pinotfile is touring from April 2025 to March 2026 in cities across the UK and Ireland; tickets are available on her website.
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