Control Enthusiast Live

Sarah Millican is not a control freak; she is a control enthusiast, using that self-applied title to frame eighty minutes of cozy domesticity and graphic oversharing. The show thrives on her signature contrast of cup-of-tea warmth and smutty honesty, where tips on how to talk to shop assistants share the stage with stories of IBS, road rage, and a disastrous professional bra fitting. Recorded at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, the 2018 special marked a decade since Millican won Best Newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe. By this stage in her career, she had become one of the UK’s most reliable arena headliners, and the performance shows a comic who knows exactly how to give her audience what they want. While some critics noted that the show stuck closely to her established themes of sex, bodily functions, and her husband, Gary Delaney, the set is packed with distinctive phrase-making, including a breakdown of what she calls “Rescue Men” and a detailed list of things she has successfully said “no” to.