Joanne Degarian is UK Comedienne, Performer and overall artist. An alternative evenin alternative comedy, she’s described as cool, amazing, interesting and gloriously f*cking mad. When anyone asked to describe what she does, the general response is no one knows what to call it, but it’s genius. She is about to start performances of her new show Cats and Capitalism.

I met Joanne by chance at the infamous Vulcan Studios down by Liverpool Docks. It’s a grubby, loved but extremely well worn converted mill cum rehearsal block for local bands. She’s sitting on the dirty concrete in the corner of the huge, high ceilinged room known as The Floor With No Name. She is surrounded by a thousand bits of paper and scribbled notes. The sound of 15 bands rehearsing elsewhere in the building drifts up through the floors.

My first thought is how tiny she looks. And focussed. Very, very focussed. I standthere for a while before she notices me.

The interview

Joanne Degarian’s appeal is undeniable and obvious: she’s quite definitely extremely talented, a captivating and fearless performer who hits the stage with a style that’s completely irresistible and could really only ever be done by her. She’s what is known as a Category Of One artist.

Degarian is an anomaly, with a heavy theatre background and whose influences we’re almost all dead long before she was born. ‘Or at least they’re mostly all dead now’ she says ‘except for Liza Minnelli’. That seems to be a strange influence for someone who does comedy mixed with serious theatre. ‘Liza is a genius. If you look at hercareer, she’s managed to bring some very layered subjects right to the front of the show, she knows how to get into your head without breaking the door down’. I doubt Liza has ever been described like that before.

How do you write your shows?

“Carefully” she giggles, gesturing at the piles of paper at her feet. “It takes a long time, they’re actually extremely complicated by the time they’re finished. If someone, an audience, is giving me their attention, you know, a moment of their life, it would be disrespectful to treat that lightly. So I work on my shows for a long time, so they’re as good as I can get them.”

You do comedy. Why don’t you perform at more comedy only shows?

“I just like the idea that of an audience having something unexpected, life can be so routine and humans desperately want a bit less of that. And for me, it’s a real test. Performing for people who like you is one thing. Performing to those who don’t havea clue why you’re even there is a whole other level. That’s how I know if I’ve gotsomething really good or if I need to work harder”

Don’t you think you’d have more success if you were a bit less… different?

“Probably. I’ve done that and I was good at it but it’s not me and it’s not what….” shepauses for a long time. “It always comes back to this.”

Why do you think you have such appeal?

“I’m quite often covered in blood.”

That’s it?

“People seem to like it! I heard once that what an audience wants, what theatre should be, is spectacle. And to quote one of my dead influences, ‘theatre will never find itself again except by furnishing the spectator with the truthful precipitates of his dreams, in which his taste for crime, his erotic obsessions, his savagery, pour out.’

That sounds very serious doesn’t it. But it’s also lots and lots of fun.”

She has the expression of someone who says “Oh….nothing’ when you ask them what they did last night and yet everything about them tells you they did something very very… naughty?

Degarian is a real paradox. She talks with unbridled enthusiasm and absolute seriousness about the societal need for theatre and human connection while at the same time holding a stuffed toy cat covered in fake blood, who she says is the starof her new show.

Last time I saw her perform, the topic was murder. She took the stage and for a full 60 seconds, just stood there. And it was riveting.

“You need to leave now” She says. “I’m rehearsing”

She’s smiling but she’s serious.

I can’t wait to see the show.

Follow her on IG @jo_degarian and www.joannedegarian.com