Sarah Mills: Bad Bod Squad coming soon to Radio 4
- Sarah Mills' debut Radio 4 series features the comic performing stand-up about invisible disabilities and feeling less embarrassed about our bodies
- Mills also interviews other comedians about their hidden health conditions over the four episodes, including Felicity Ward, Eshaan Akbar and Ola Labib
- Surviving bowel cancer and living with a stoma bag has "made me sort of shameless" said Mills. "I'm talking about the embarrassing bits of our bodies that other people might be prudish about"
Sarah Mills has landed her debut Radio 4 series, a guide to invisible disabilities and feeling less embarrassed about our bodies, British Comedy Guide can exclusively reveal.
In Sarah Mills: Bad Bod Squad, the comic performs stand-up about living with a stoma bag after she was diagnosed with bowel cancer, and interviews fellow comedians with hidden health conditions, including Felicity Ward, Eshaan Akbar and Ola Labib.
Recording later this month in Mills' home town of Stevenage, the four 15-minute episodes are slated to air in November.
Mills won the Bafta Rocliffe Award for television comedy writing in 2020 for her script Badass, about her experience of being diagnosed with cancer two years before. She subsequently turned it into a live show, making her Edinburgh Fringe debut in 2022, and it was optioned for the screen by a major production company.
Now cancer-free, the comedian and producer, whose broadcast credits include performing on Rosie Jones's Disability Comedy Extravaganza, and who has worked behind the camera on shows such as Charlie Brooker's Election Wipe, Unspun With Matt Forde and Jon Richardson: Ultimate Worrier, previously hosted YouTube series The Chemo Chat Show, in which she chatted to guests on her chemotherapy ward, including Akbar, Dara O Briain, Phil Wang, Sikisa and Harriet Kemsley.
She credits cancer with "igniting" her desire to embrace stand-up as a vocation.
"Because I would have kept it as a hobby, a side hustle, if it hadn't happened" she told BCG. "But it gave me a story. And a mission. I guess until I had cancer, I didn't have enough tragedy in my life to speak about. So it's become a bit of an asset in a weird, roundabout way."
Bad Bod Squad's "starting point is my living with a stoma bag" she explains.
"If anything, having it has made me sort of shameless. I'm talking about the embarrassing bits of our bodies that other people might be prudish about.
"I'll be getting up close and personal. The embarrassment factor around bags is part of the reason that they're not engineered better, it's an underfunded area of scientific research. Until recently, people haven't talked about stomas and it's felt like a taboo area.
"But the show is also about social engineering, making the world a better place for people with invisible disabilities."
Although she doesn't tend to talk about "bum cancer" at weekend club gigs, Mills believes stand-up is a "great tool" for raising awareness.
"I get the best of both worlds as I'm flexible" she maintains. "I can be a champion and visible as a person that speaks about having a stoma in some of my work. But on other occasions I can just be a fun, light-hearted comedian doing dick jokes."
Mills produces Bad Bod Squad alongside Gordon Kennedy (Absolutely, Lucy Porter's Lucky Dip) for ABsoLuTeLy Productions (The Absolutely Radio Show) and believes there is potential for many more episodes.
"It's about living in an embarrassing human body and that's pretty much a universal experience" she reflects. "There are so many things that we're not open about, that remain taboo, so we could go in a million different directions with it."
The recording of Sarah Mills: Bad Bod Squad will take place at the Lytton Theatre in Stevenage, on 29th September and 1st October.
The theatre does not currently have a disabled toilet but the production is providing one for the taping, with funds raised from the hiring of the venue going towards installing one in the building.