Book review by Steve Bennett

Helen Lederer has occupied a unique space in comedy for more than 40 years, working closely with some of its biggest stars but never quite making it to that big league herself.

Not That I’m Bitter offers some clues as to why, even though figuring out the fickle machinations of showbusiness is a fool’s errand, given it’s an industry with no logical career progression nor guarantees that good ideas will bear fruit.

She suspects, with good reason, that endemic sexism plays a role. When she started stand-up in the early 1980s, not only were solo female comics a rarity, TV had space for only a very limited number – a quota that Victoria Wood and newcomers French and Saunders already filled

Lederer, their contemporary, felt she missed the boat – and when the next generation, like Jo Brand and Donna McPhail, came along, she felt ‘supplanted’, as if her chance was now gone.

Whether she really is bitter about this, the book’s title notwithstanding, is moot, but there is definitely a feeling of ‘why them and not me?’ that pervades these memoirs,

Instead, she says she’s ‘decided to blame myself’ for her ‘always the bridesmaid’ comedy career, which has memorably included a cameo in Bottom and a recurring role in Ab Fab, among various radio and TV series.

Though treateed with humour, her anxieties are writ large on every page, from describing how she got into comedy as ’a short asthmatic show-off’ who ‘had to invent her own club because no one else would have her in theirs’ – and then finding little sisterhood on the circuit, with the notable exception of Jenny Eclair.

In this unfiltered memoir, she makes no attempt to gloss over her confused worries about her body, her relationships, and how she comes across to others.

Her attitude to her shape is heartbreaking. ‘I’ve always believed that if I could just have the perfect body, then the fear of failure would go away,’ she laments. Later, she writes sadly: ‘If I was a normal size, surely no one would be mean to me ever again.’

It’s led to an unhealthy relationship with food, which she may have passed on to her daughter, and attempted to treat with diet injections, amphetamines and a gastric band.

Maybe it’s low self-esteem, or more likely a reluctance to say ‘no’ for fear of seeming rude, that led Lederer to readily say yes to sex and relationships. Or maybe it’s just candour that she shares many of her dalliances here. I certainly can’t think of any autobiography from a male comedian that discusses who they slept with to the extent Lederer does, from teenage crushes to charismatic squat mates to comedy colleagues including Harry Enfield and John Sparkes. 

Politeness puts her in a predatory producer’s hotel room at the Edinburgh Fringe, but she escaped. More horrible is a story of abuse at the hands a drama teacher, which she shrugged off at the time. She went along with the excuse that his violation was a way of shedding inhibitions and opening up her creativity as an actor, admitting no more to being ‘taken aback’ rather than treating it as the assault it was.

Lederer is clearly not good with authority figures, admitting to a habit of doing embarrassing things in front of important people. ‘Fearing their criticism, by mistake I behave badly, as if playing into what I see as their disapproval of me.  This is all done in panic, but it’s how I mess up auditions, forget my lines or say the wrong thing to an agent, exactly when it matters.’

Sometimes, those she looks up to do her no favours. She recalls asking the producer of Have I Got News For You why she’d never been booked, only to learn her previous agent described her a ‘nightmare’. Another outright stole thousands from her.

Still, she battles on, for another defining feature of Lederer’s career is her tenacity. It’s clear she’s a grafter, slogging away – even when, in the early days of being a single mother, committing to a play she barely had the energy for.

In latter years, that’s been most obvious in her setting up the Comedy Women In Print awards, spotting a gap that needed filling. She might not be the most efficient organiser, but her scatty sociability gets the right people on board.

Not That I’m Bitter is easy, breezy, slightly scattergun reading, in line with her public persona. However, there are occasional editing slips such as giving two different years for her ‘first gig’ or conflating two characters created by Harry Enfield – Stavros and Loadsamoney – into one.

The book spans her entire life from her early days trying to break into the business – including a cringeworthy anecdote of accidentally finding herself trying out for the sort of masseuse who offers extras – through an early double act and various stage, radio, and, latterly book projects.

On her series Still Crazy, she claims to be a pioneer, noting:  ’ I addressed the audience and talked about being single and having sex. 16 years before Miranda, 23 years before Fleabag and 27 years before single motherhood appeared in the [Katherine Ryan] sitcom The Duchess. Not that I’m bitter.’

Incidentally, she worked with a pre-fame Miranda Hart, on an awful 2004 Edinburgh Fringe show Lederer had written (or half-written as she admits here), making for another female comic whose ascent left Lederer in the dust. 

While noting she ‘didn’t have a rise,’ Lederer reflects"  I started in stand-up, remained a stand-up for as long as was bearable, and jumped at the acting jobs when they came along. I didn’t want to be the comedy guest, who stays too long, sleeps with the host, and doesn’t bring anything new to the party… The public thought I was besties with the whole of alternative comedy. To explain the real pecking order would have disappointed them. So I didn’t.’

More recently, she became a novelist, with some success and has proved a stalwart of reality TV, of which she has a witty and pithy description: ‘It’s not about winning. It’s about taking people apart.’  A substantial chunk of the book is dedicated to her various projects in this genre.

Yet she also continues to perform… though it’s not 100 per cent certain why, suffering crippling anxiety in the day leading up to any performance. Sitting in her dressing room before hosting a London cabaret show as recently as 2022, she writes: ‘The misery won’t be over until I finish the show… I am very unhappy.’ 

Yet she was ‘thrilled’ to be asked, and wants to do the job. Armchair psychologists can ponder why this is - a latent desire to please her Czech emigrée father, who died young and in front of her, maybe?

On the broader subject of comedy, the long-overdue sea change in the business over the past decade or so has not passed her notice, even if it is too late for her. 

‘Women are more prevalent than ever. They are collaborative, they run companies and they are allowed to do this while having fun,’ she concludes. ‘I had to fight off the competition of other women most of my life, and rarely experienced the pleasure of female camaraderie. 

‘I have done my best and my worst to still be here; making mistakes, getting upset, upsetting people, relishing the laughs and hopefully coming to a stage near you soon.’

• Not That I'm Bitter by Helen Lederer is available from Amazon priced £16.97, or from Bookshop.org, below, which benefits independent retailers.

Published: 29 Apr 2024