Irish comedian Joanne McNally has opened up about her career journey, acknowledging her good fortune while stressing that she still has significant ambitions to fulfill. The 43-year-old, known for her bold and confessional style, is currently on a world tour with her stand-up show Pinotphile and appears on the new comedy panel show Unacceptable, hosted by Ed Gamble.
From Podcast to Global Stage
McNally moved to London during the Covid-19 pandemic to advance her comedy career. With live comedy largely shut down, she and fellow Irish presenter Vogue Williams launched the hit podcast My Therapist Ghosted Me, which became a major success. She is now one of Ireland’s most successful female comedians and will become the first Irish female comic to headline Dublin’s 3Arena this December.
“I maybe didn’t expect to grow so quickly but I wasn’t messing around,” McNally told the Press Association. “I don’t have a partner, I don’t have kids, I don’t have a dog. This is all I do, and I’m obsessed with it. So I knew that once I got a sniff that I could make it work for myself and make a living from it, I just put my foot to the gas and kept going and I will keep going.”
Personal Sacrifices for Career
McNally acknowledged the personal sacrifices she made to focus on her career. “I think I had the opportunity to put everything into it, and I did. I’m not saying other people don’t, but I do think I’ve made some personal sacrifices to do it, because I think, as a woman in particular, if you’re trying to maintain a relationship or have kids and all that, having a career that takes up all your time isn’t really sustainable. So, yeah, I feel very lucky, but there’s still a lot more to do.”
New Panel Show: Unacceptable
McNally, relatively new to panel shows, joins actor and comedian Richard Ayoade as a team captain on Unacceptable. The six-part series, hosted by Ed Gamble, features comedians debating outrageous opinions to convince a studio audience.
McNally noted that while she built her career without relying on panel shows, she sees a resurgence of innovative TV comedy formats. “Because I’ve managed to build a career for myself without a huge amount of telly, I hadn’t really felt that panel shows were the be-all and end-all of TV the way they once were. But I think if you make something good, people will watch. And there does seem to be a bit of a resurgence now, particularly in different styles of comedy shows like Last One Laughing.”
She described Unacceptable as unique: “It’s an unusual format, it’s kind of zeitgeisty in a way, because there is a kind of tension sometimes with what can you say and what you can’t say. Where this is so tongue in cheek with these ludicrous opinions that if they clipped up on YouTube and did us dirty, we’d be cancelled immediately, because you’re saying mental stuff, but obviously we know that. And I think that’s maybe why people enjoy watching it, that you’re kind of saying technically unacceptable opinions, but it’s all in good spirit.”
Unacceptable premieres on TLC on Sunday July 5.
