COMEDIAN Lou Sanders will be making her Belfast debut when she brings her brand new stand-up show No Kissing In The Bingo Hall to the city in May.
“I’ve not been to Ireland before,” she confesses as we chat over the phone.
“I supported Nick Offerman in Dublin but I’ve not done a tour show there myself because everyone said it’s very hard to sell tickets in Ireland because they hate the English.
“And I though fair enough – I’ve watched the documentaries – I’m on your side.”
Known for her brutally honest, occasionally cringey, but ultimately unfiltered style of comedy, Lou first got a taste for the funny business after attending a six-week comedy course.
Since then, the Kent native has gone on to establish herself as a rather unpredictable but popular figure within British comedy, particularly after appearing on various panel shows and winning Channel 4′s Taskmaster in 2019. She also co-presents comedy show Mel Giedroyc: Unforgivable, which sees celebrities share their most shameful stories in a bid to prove they have committed the most ‘unforgivable’ act.
“I think people who do comedy often get quite bored just doing one thing so it’s quite nice to be able to jump around and do lots of different things,” she says.
Indeed, Lou is jumping between lots of different projects in 2025. Most notably she is currently starring alongside 10 of her comedic contemporaries (including Bob Mortimer, Daisy May Cooper, Joe Lycett and Rob Beckett) in Amazon Prime’s Last One Laughing, which is hosted by Jimmy Carr.
She is also launching a new podcast A Psychic Told Us to Do It – which, she claims, is exactly what happened.
“A psychic told my best friend Georgie to do the podcast and that we were going to perform on stages with this new project,” she explains.
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“Then another psychic told her she’d seen a similar thing so we thought we should definitely do it if two psychics are saying it’s going to be successful.
“I hate the word wellness but that is essentially what it’s about because we’re really into alternative health and Georgie’s lost the weight of a Great Dane, so we’ll also be exploring that,” she laughs – clarifying that Georgie herself had Googled that.
“And I’ll be talking about my nonsense, so it’ll be a really nice time – we’re recording it in my sauna which will be relaxing.”
She will also be taking her brand-new show on the road. Entitled No Kissing In The Bingo Hall, Lou claims the name was genuinely inspired by an angry bingo-goer.
“A woman shouted ‘No kissing in the bingo hall’ at me when I was a younger and she was quite angry and quite insistent that I didn’t kiss at the bingo hall but unfortunately I was off my face at the time so I didn’t take much notice,” she says.
“But it just popped into my head when I was trying to think of a title for the show and I thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll just call it that’.”
“And just to be clear – people can kiss at my show, if the mood takes them, they are free to express themselves,” she giggles.
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She explains that the show is split into two parts. In the first she will be doing some “old school” prop work and interviewing audience members on a Graham Norton-esque big red sofa.
“I’ll only interview people if they want to be interviewed because consent is very important,” she says.
“But I really like getting to do crowd work, it’s a great way of keeping it fresh because every audience is different and you never know what people are going to say or do which is exciting.”
The second half will “resemble more of a traditional stand-up routine” which at its core will focus on finding the joy in getting older.
“I was feeling myself becoming a bit of an old bore,” recalls Lou, who infamously went years without revealing her real age until last year, when she disclosed that she was 46.
“I was doing up a house and I was quite stressed, and I thought, ‘My god I’ve turned into a Karen complaining about things’, so I decided that I needed to find the joy in life which is what the show centres around.
“You don’t have to become more miserable just because you’re getting older, I know the hormones are changing and everything else, but you can still participate in fun stuff – it’s just about how you think about things.”
Following her own advice, Lou reveals she has taken up gymnastics and bought two trampolines.
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“I bought a couple of trampolines for the garden – but I have to keep putting them in the shed because they get rained on and I haven’t worked out how to use a protective cover – joy does come with price of admin sometimes,” she cautions.
When asked about how others can find joy in their lives she said: “I really would recommend getting a couple of trampolines or getting into the sea or kissing in a bingo hall if you get the opportunity.
“Or come and see the show – it’ll a be a great time and what’s the alternative? Sitting in the house watching re-runs? Come on.
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“But in all seriousness, in relation to finding joy, it’s not about going out raving as soon as you hit 40 or anything like that,” she clarifies.
“It’s about accepting where you are and realising that life is short, so we’ve got to get out there and try and have a nice time.”
‘No Kissing In The Bingo Hall’ is coming to Belfast’s Limelight on May 1. Tickets available via ticketmaster.ie and Lousanders.com.