Life with comedian Laura Davis: ‘I go for a three hour walk almost every evening, to write’

Australian comedian Laura Davis on the loneliness of comedy, Scotland’s rich wildlife, and how finding a large number of dead birds on a beach in Fife inspired their latest show. 

Comedians aren’t generally known for being early risers. I’ve worked nights ever since I started comedy about 17 years ago, so to me a 9am meeting feels worse than a 4am flight. I live across from a school and I wake up every day to the first bell and an enveloping wave of relief when I remember that I don’t have to go to school anymore.

I don’t have a lot of routine, so I try to stick to a certain order of tasks each day. The morning is for jobs with deadlines and anything that sucks. The middle of the day is for meetings and anything collaborative. In the afternoon I’ll tackle smaller creative tasks, so after five when I start on my writing, I won’t be interrupted.

I go for a three hour walk almost every evening, to write. I like to find some nature and take notes as I go. I’ve been enjoying walking out to the Pentlands here in Edinburgh, and out along the coast. Moving from Australia I’m really enjoying how close everything feels here. If you’re keen on walking for 3 hours you have quite a lot of options. Back home that won’t even get me out of my postcode.

‘The fun thing about moving to Scotland was coming in with a completely blank slate on all the wildlife’

It usually takes walking the first hour just to clear my head but sometimes you get lucky. Most stuff (ideas, jokes, new ways to shape them) comes through in the second hour and then I’ll dawdle for a bit in case anything else is straggling behind. I’m usually home by 9 or 10, and then I keep writing until about 2am. When I have shows at night I like to walk to the venue to help keep up the habit.

People often talk about ‘finding your voice’ in the arts and a lot of my stand-up centres around politics and the environment. Sometimes it’s frustrating to talk about topics that feel so serious in a comedy context, but there’s also something precise about it that I have become pretty obsessed with. I like the challenge of it. There feels like there’s a sportsmanship to the art-form where as long as I am making people laugh and keeping them engaged, then I can talk about whatever I want. I seem to enjoy just making it hard for myself, now. In 2019, I did a show about the climate strikes and the declining numbers in British moth populations – can confirm people still did laugh.

Laura Davis. Credit: Chayla Taylor

My new show Albatross started coming together after I found a large number of dead birds on a beach in Fife. It got me thinking about the ways that we perceive ourselves in relation to nature. I put the show together hoping I could make something that helped people locate themselves better in the changing chaos of these current times. I wanted to talk about empire and destruction, polarisation, our disassociation from nature, and the invisible infrastructure of cultural dysfunction. 

‘I live quite close to the Water of Leith and I’ve loved looking for the kingfishers’

The fun thing about moving to Scotland was coming in with a completely blank slate on all the wildlife. Even the blackbirds and the bumblebees are brand new to me. I’m quite close to the Water of Leith and I’ve loved looking for the kingfishers and those shy herons with the big eyes. I even see otters sometimes. I was worried that it might get a bit drab here in winter, but turns out there’s nothing prettier than the sound of one robin telling lots of other robins to stay away.

Being a comedian can be really lonely when you’re always travelling around a lot. I work days, nights, and weekends so I’ve missed pretty much every social event I’ve ever been invited to. The plus side is that you do get to meet a lot of really interesting people and see a lot of different places. I try to make the time count and try to take in as much of it as I can.

Some comics seem to thrive off the travel required for this job, but it does get me down a bit. Perhaps those times when I’m alone in a budget hotel room after a gig heating tinned spaghetti on the hotel iron. Just for instance. Though if the gig goes well enough, even tinned spaghetti can feel like a celebratory feast.

Laura Davis: Albatross, Monkey Barrel Comedy (Monkey Barrel 2), 1-25 August (not 14), 14:55

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