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Sara Pascoe · 2019 · BBC Two
A post-breakup stand-up set about the virtues of staying single.
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The angle of the post-breakup special usually leans toward self-pity or score-settling, but Sara Pascoe takes her split from comedian John Robins as a prompt for aggressive self-sufficiency. Rather than wallowing, she decides to spend a year alone doing the things couples usually do, resulting in disastrously unromantic solo trips to Costa Rica and Paris. The hour leans heavily into the absurdity of forced spiritual healing and the awkward realities of trying to buy a high-end vibrator without feeling judged.
Filmed during a sold-out run at the London Palladium in March 2019, the special was broadcast on BBC Two later that spring. At this point in her career, Pascoe was transitioning from a reliable presence on British television panel shows to a major headliner and author, coinciding with the release of her book Sex Power Money.
Her delivery on stage plays with expectation, moving from a bright, slightly airy stage persona to sharp, clinical oversharing about teenage memories, drug deals, and a bizarrely persistent bit about an imaginary brother. Instead of typical self-discovery clichés, Pascoe compares human beings to Peperamis rather than Twix bars, arguing that we are designed to exist as single units.