Season 5 #2 Cally Beaton

How To Be Sad with Helen Russell

Cally Beaton was working as a senior TV exec until she was 45, when the late great Joan Rivers told her she should try stand-up. So she did. Now a successful comedian – you’ll have seen her on shows like QI and on The Apprentice You’re Fired – Cally’s nonetheless out to challenge the ageism she sees around her in the industry…an industry Cally admits she was a part of creating. She worked on MTV’s The Real World, one of the first reality shows, back in the early 90s and then later on Geordie Shore and Ex on the Beach in previous life as a television executive. She says now: ‘It’s fair to say I was a big part of the problem now biting me in the arse.’ Here, we talk about:

- Ageism

- Profound change

- Breaking down and building back up

- The u-shaped happiness curve

- Invisibility

- Imposter-offs

- Asking for help

- …and how there’s no prizes for styling it out

For more of the brilliant Cally, check out her live dates http://callybeaton.com/ and follow her @callybeaton

In this episode, I bang on about Robin Ince’s books again. They’re all brilliant (and he’s interviewed in my latest book, How To Be Sad but the one I’m talking about here is I’m A Joke And So Are You – highly recommend!