Kate Cheka, current holder of the Funny Women Stage Award and nominee for best newcomer in the 2024 Chortle Awards, brings her debut show A Messiah Comes to the Soho Theatre in London later this month. Here, she shares five of her most memorable gigs.

First gig

My first gig was in a bar called Kara Kas in Schöneburg in Berlin. I  think the night was called Crackers Comedy or possibly even Krackers with a K. 

It was hosted by a guy called Mark and I was with a new comedian friend Saeed I’d made in the two weeks prior where I’d been going to gigs to see if I felt it was something I could do. 

The bartender recognised him and said, ‘Oh do you want five minutes tonight’ and he was like ‘Nah it’s my night off’ and then the barman turned to me and I think as a joke said ‘Do you want five minutes?’ And I replied ‘Yeah I kinda do’. I was told I could have three.

 I downed three beers in the first half (and a bunch of shots cos’ Berlin comedy nights always had free shots), then when it came to my turn I went up and did four-and-half minutes talking about the door handle in the toilet cubicle falling off and the problem with dating men (oh how I have evolved - not). I also used to wear this necklace that said ‘kiss me where I pee’ on it, so I talked about that. And people laughed. 

I came off shaking, My mate Saeed was like ‘you’re a natural!!’ I still have a video of the last minute or so somewhere. Mark the MC said: ’That was her first time doing stand-up but I don’t think it is the last time we’ll hear from her.’ 

Second gig

In comparison, my second gig was an absolute bin fire. I think I had all  this assuredness from the first time going so well and so the second time I tried to do the same thing and the audience just weren’t into it. 

I panicked a minute in and ran off the stage, ran out the bar and ran down the road. Just kept running LOL.

I did come back and thank god it was Berlin because Liliana who hosted the gig, Sunday Slips, was very understanding. She became my first ever comedy mum and she was like: ‘No worries, next time you’ll get it.’

Worst gig

Oooff that is a hard one to answer. 

I tend to try to forget bad gigs as quickly as possible and I have some utterly traumatic ones – usually where other comedians have said awful racist or sexist shit or whatever. 

But I will say, in terms of recently, most frustrating was doing my final Edinburgh show. I hate watching myself so I don’t tend to bother filming my shows but my director really convinced me I wanted my whole Edinburgh hour recorded for later down the line. So I set up the camera and everything (and also put on my pubic hair moustache) to do my final Fringe show… and someone literally played a piano throughout the entire thing. 

Because I was in this yurt, there was no soundproofing and some idiot thought a fun street piano nearby would be nice. But they played it the whole hour non-stop. It was wild.

I had a full-on breakdown from just doing the whole month and this piano soundtracking my final show. To be fair, whoever it was can really play piano. But, yeah, at that time I felt like I was losing my mind.

Most exotic/redeeming gig

I’ve gigged in so many different places (ten countries and counting)  that it is hard to say which is my most ‘exotic’ gig but just under one year after I started comedy I went back to Kathmandu, Nepal for a comedy festival called Top Of The World and performed there. 

It was super meaningful to me because it was in Kathmandu  where I first decided I was going to start stand-up, having flown all the way there for a boy just to end up broken-hearted.  So it felt like this real full circle moment.

 I love the completion of a narrative and this one felt like I had reclaimed this place  in a positive way. And then I ended up in the newspaper in Nepal!

Gig that taught me the biggest lesson

I don’t know that it is the biggest lesson but recently I performed at  a rather infamous UK comedy club and the proprietor who is like nearly 100 has this post-show Ritual where he takes newer comedians into the back room and gives (unasked-for) feedback. 

Historically he has always tended to like me a lot, but the time before last he was like ‘enough sex jokes, let’s hear about your dad and Tanzania and so on’ which I would never bother to do in a ten-minute set because having this African politician father is not relatable to the average Friday-night UK audience. 

But he asked, so I delivered… and, boy, did he not like it. He really wanted me to know I’d had a bad night (even though I got an applause break) but it was a real reminder that some rooms only really want some parts of you. They might think they want the other stuff but they don’t. 

It was interesting because having spent the whole summer doing my show – which really is the work I wanted to build for me and people like me who often feel marginalised in lots of institutions, including comedy ones – I'd stopped caring about the audience in that way. I wasn’t trying to please everyone, you know? 

As Desiree Burch said to me before the Fringe. ‘It is you who is going up there and going to perform this show every day so you may as well like it’.

It was a real reminder that not all places can handle all of you. I want my show to be a space for people who feel helpless or unwelcome in the face of systems of oppression and can feel some catharsis and also have a laugh.

•  Kate Cheka: A Messiah Comes is on at London’s Soho Theatre from January 16 to 18.