Kathryn Roberts tells how attack drove her from stand-up

Former comedian Kathryn Roberts has told how she quit the business after being raped by a fellow stand-up following an industry party.

She has waived her anonymity to reveal she was attacked after a drunken night out at the Scottish Comedy Awards five years ago to draw attention to the abuse and harassment that is still rife on the circuit.

Roberts, who was 21 at the time, had gone back to the man’s house to crash out on his sofa but he hauled her off it and pulled her to his bed. She told him: ‘No, I’m drunk, I want to sleep,’ Kathryn recalled, before adding: ‘He raped me.’

It took her several years to acknowledge that fact, having initially  felt ‘ashamed’ by the incident.

She texted a friend the morning after as she made her way back to her home outside Glasgow to tell him what had happened. ‘He said it sounded like I had been raped,’ she said. When she eventually came to the same realisation, she decided to quit stand-up. ‘It really upset me that I was OK with being hurt because I loved comedy so much,’ she added. 

The man – a fellow open spot just starting out in the business – has also since left comedy, reportedly because he was drinking too much.

Roberts was speaking out to the Daily Mail after the issue of predators in comedy was publicly raised on the new Amazon series Backstage With Katherine Ryan, when the host told Sara Pascoe how she had called out an offender on set of a TV show.

Speaking on ITV’s Lorraine this morning, Ryan added: ‘'I wasn't trying to name or "out" anyone, but female comics have that conversation - should I work with that person?’

Roberts, now 26, echoed that notion saying she felt she can only speak out now she’s not part of the business.

’Every single comedian has to work with a male comedian they know is predatory, but it’s still talked about in hushed tones, because everyone loves comedy and if it’s spoken out loud they fear the circuit will fall apart because o f its bad reputation,’ she said.

She also told of how promoters stopped booking her when she declined their advances, and an incident in which  a male comedian undid her dress as she was about to go on stage, excusing his behaviour as ‘banter’. ‘I was so shocked, I wanted to cry,’ she told the Mail. ‘[But] I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to make a scene. He was more established and friends with more bookers than me.’

Despite her testimony, Roberts told Chortle: ‘It isn’t all bad news. There are women who are trying to make efforts in changing things, namely Kiri Pritchard-McLean, and more locally my good friend Ruth Hunter organised for venues and bookers to do a course with the Good Night Out campaign to learn techniques in dealing with reports of sexual harassment.’

Pritchard-McLean has previously said: ‘I don’t know a single female act who doesn’t have an unsavoury story about abuse or harassment when it comes to working in comedy… we’re talking about abuse at all levels of the industry and at every point on the spectrum of misdemeanours.’

In her 2020 article for the i, she called on men to join women in speaking out more about the problem – however uncomfortable that might be –  to stop more people becoming victims.

Published: 16 Jun 2022