Harriet Kemsley has been performing for over a decade, ever since making her debut in 2011 and winning the Funny’s Funny contest. She went on to win 2012’s Bath Comedy Festival New Act of the Year and Brighton Comedy Festival New Act of the Year and has since been following an upward trajectory.
She has gone on to feature on a number of television programmes, including 8 Out of 10 Cats on Channel 4 and Roast Battle on Comedy Central, and has starred as an actress on Doctor Foster, the film Bonobo, and has voiced the final boss in game Dark Souls 2.
From 2018–2022 she co-hosted a podcast with fellow comedian Sunil Patel, where the pair attempted to find a balance between Kemsley’s emotional displays and Patel’s lack thereof. The show aired for 66 episodes and earned a 4.9 star rating on Spotify.
In 2017, Kemsley and then-fiancée Bobby Mair filmed a docuseries of them planning their wedding and subsequently getting married; the ceremony was officiated by fellow comedian Romesh Ranganathan. After celebrating the birth of their daughter in 2021, the pair later separated, with Kemsley using a stand-up set on The Now Show in April of this year to announce the news, along with the fact that she was now on the dating app, Hinge.
Following a lot of life changes, she has titled her latest show as the perhaps sarcastic, Everything Always Works Out For Me.
She is used to life being messy, but this year seems to be on a whole new level. She is trying to figure out how to rebuild her life, but there is no instruction manual to tell her which way the building blocks should go. This realisation of life’s unpredictable, sometimes chaotic nature speaks to us all, which means that this show is sure to have material that will be relatable to everyone – even if they aren’t a thirty-something single parent, freshly back in the dating game.
The performance will cover a variety of topics including break-ups, sloths, and trying to stay positive while everything crashes and burns around you.
Kemsley has already received her latest endorsements, earning 4-star reviews from The Scotsman, The Guardian, The Skinny and Edinburgh Festivals Magazine.
You can catch Kemsley at either ARC or The Stand this month.
Tickets, priced from £14.00 in advance, are available at arconline.co.uk for Stockton and thestand.co.uk for Newcastle.
