Born in Devon in 1978, comedian Lou Sanders was brought up in Broadstairs, Kent. In 2018, her show Shame Pig was the joint winner of the Comedians’ Choice award for best show at the Edinburgh festival fringe. She has appeared on QI, 8 Out of 10 Cats and Taskmaster, which she won in 2019.
Her memoir, What’s That Lady Doing?, was published in 2023. Sanders performs her new show, No Kissing in the Bingo Hall, throughout 2025. This is me aged six , having a game of cricket in a park in Thanet.
It would have been me and my brother plus my stepdad’s eldest son, who was lovely, but very different from us. He was in the brass band and super smart, while we were feral, very free – the type of kids who would scoop the cream off a cake with our fingers. The outfit in the photo isn’t particularly outlandish, but I loved clothes when I was growing up.
Mum says I would change three times a day to suit my mood. I felt as if I lost myself entirely every time I put on my school uniform, especially when I got to secondary school. We had to wear a three-quarter-length blue and green tartan kilt with a big safety pin.
I was quite big-boned and didn’t fit in my body. I thought: “I can’t thrive in this outfit!” I wouldn’t say I was funny as a kid. I was too busy being a people pleaser – emotionally checking in, making sure everyone was all right.
I was, however, wildly confident and delusional. Mum gave us a lot of independence and I happily took the reins, which, on reflecti.
