Circuit Training 23: Isy Suttie

"MAAAT-LOCK!"

It's both the plaintive cry of Grandpa Simpson, yearning for his regular dose of trashy legal drama, and the Derbyshire town where Isy Suttie honed her considerable talents, while pining for the gold-paved streets of, er, Guildford.

Suttie will probably be best known to armchair comedy watchers as Dobby from Peep Show, and also has a regular part in the Alan Davies-fronted chef sitcom Whites, is a voice on talking-animals affair Walk On The Wild Side, played a talking dog on Kristen Schaal's Comedy Lab pilot Penelope Princess Of Pets, and has written for Skins. Good CV, that woman.

Now the quietly ambitious lass is testing her pulling power with a nationwide tour, but isn't entirely sure who'll be buying tickets. A fair smattering of Peep Show fans, presumably, and hopefully at least a few punters who actually have some vague idea what her solo work consists of. FYI, she does wonderfully witty, whimsical songs and has woven several into a show called Love Lost in the British Retail Industry. And very good it is too.

Did you begin your showbiz career on the bustling Matlock scene?

I did I suppose, because I wrote songs from a pretty young age, ten or 11, and was in a lot of bands, so was always gigging in Matlock. Then I very much wanted to go to drama school and go to London - I wasn't very interested for some reason in going anywhere but London. Streets paved with gold I suppose. And then I went to Guildford, which isn't London. But I thought it was.

How did you end up a comedienne?

I always used to dream of being a singer or an actor, I was always larking around and I was always the funny one within my group of friends, but it really didn't strike me that I'd end up doing stand-up. Since I could speak I wanted to be an actress, so that was always the plan, 100 percent, I never deviated from that. So everything else came second at that point, although I did always write songs and they were always such a big part of 'who I am.' If I needed to relax, or bad things had happened, that was the only thing that would make you feel better.

I didn't realise that I'd get into comedy in any capacity really until I was at college. I'd written a serious song about the perfect guy, it really wasn't supposed to be funny, then I started to put on this really stupid accent in the songwriting competition and everyone laughed. I must have been 19 or something, and I remember that moment of pausing then laughing and me thinking "Oh my god this is the best feeling in the world!"

You came into Peep Show several series in - was that a bit intimidating?

I hadn't done much telly so it was completely nerve-wracking, and I didn't speak to anyone between shots, just sat on my own, reading. But then this last two series I've got to know everyone a lot better, David Mitchell has been teaching me how to do cryptic crosswords. It's nice going back to meet all the same crew.

Did you know in advance that Dobby was destined for big things?

No I didn't at all. I didn't know what was going to happen in the series after that, but I knew I was in series five and I really didn't want to fuck it up. I knew the show had such die-hard fans and I was quite intimidated by the notion of doing it wrong, but I thought "what you did at the audition came naturally, so just keep on doing that," and thankfully it was okay. But I had absolutely no idea if the character was going to be received well, because people could have been over-protective of Mark: 'Why are they trying to pair him up with her?'

Whites features quite a stellar ensemble - Alan, Katherine Parkinson, Maggie Steed, your good self. Is it all terribly luvvie and diva-like behind the scenes?

No, it does really feel like a family. We did the pilot for Whites over a year ago, we were only in Cardiff for a week filming and when it got commissioned we all went out and it felt really exciting - I haven't felt that camaraderie in a new cast before. We were all staying in this block in Cardiff so we'd go round to each other's houses and play computer games. They were obsessed with this boxing game that I can't do at all. My player kept getting disqualified for doing illegal moves.

Your new tour show is your old Edinburgh show from 2007: why dig that back out?

The reason I did that show, I was going to write a brand new one to tour with but I haven't done Edinburgh for two years as I've always had filming at the same time, and I thought it was really stupid to try and write a new show then start touring it immediately without knowing it inside out. So I decided to go with the slightly safer bet.

That Edinburgh show was in quite a small room I recall, which is quite handy in retrospect - not many people have seen it...

Yeah, that's what I'm hoping! I did Edinburgh again in 2008, but it wasn't as good as the year before. It was alright, I did characters and songs and stuff but I thought "ah, I think I wanna do something that's got a beginning, middle and end." I just like telling a story.

You haven't done much stand-up on TV - were you pretty confident that the tour would sell anyway?

I don't worry too much about ticket sales, although that's not to say I'm selling amazingly - that's not the case at all - but you can't control that. It's not going to make any difference if I go to Middlesbrough with a sandwich board at nine in the morning, I'm gonna get maybe four extra people to come. But I never mind doing shows in front of a small audience. In fact, I think I'd prefer to be in front of 100 people who wanted to be there in a little quirky theatre than a massive theatre with 1000 people who have just come because I was on telly.

So do you have any inkling what the split is: Dobby fans vs Isy fans?

I've got no idea, I don't know how I'd find out, I guess I'd hand out a questionnaire. But then there's no way of knowing if they were being honest. I'd hope that Peep Show is closer to what I do live than a lot of other sitcoms are, the demographic might reasonably be similar. It's not 2point4 Children or Holby City or something like that.

I felt like just before I was on Peep Show - when I'd done a little bit of telly but nothing that you'd ever remember - that I was starting to build an audience in London. But then Peep Show happened and you just don't know. If people stop me sometimes and go 'I really like your stand-up' instead of 'I really like you on Peep Show' I'm always really surprised. Maybe one in 40 times they say 'I like your stand-up.'

You also wrote for Skins - how did you find it?

The way that Skins is written is really great because it's quite collaborative and it's quite open, and people can say what they think and will be very passionate about the characters and the storylines in a way that I haven't seen anywhere else. I think it's quite an American approach, everyone sits in a room and discusses the storylines.

I did two series. It was really, really useful for me to work on it and I'm very grateful that they let me in a way, because when they hired me I hadn't written for a lot, but I got on with them and they thought that I had something to bring, especially my upbringing in Matlock, because going from quite a small town I had a lot of stories about teenage years that I could bring to the table.

Would you like to do more serious acting?

I'd absolutely love to. I went to drama school and did serious acting there, and then it just turns out that I love doing comedy and I ended up doing stand-up and then auditioning for comedy parts. I'd absolutely love to play a murderer or something.

You'd be a great murderer in a whodunit - no-one would suspect you.

Yeah, that might be the reason I'd get cast as it, but they'd have to play against type. I think what happens with telly is that you get a little bit categorised, partly because of what you look like and partly because of what you most naturally do. Maybe later on in people's careers they can go "you know what, I really want to play a murderer." And someone will go, "alright, you're a name." But I'm not at that point so I think I'll have to carry on doing vulnerable-stroke-quirky.

Isy's show 'Love Lost in the British Retail Industry' is touring now.
Visit www.myspace.com/isysutti for details.