You may remember Harriet Kemsley from Amazon Prime Video’s side-splitting comedy Last One Laughing. (Yes, she shot pingpong balls from her undercarriage into an audience, which included the legendary Bob Mortimer.)
‘I’ve had ping pong yelled at me on the street a lot more than before the show,’ Harriet laughs, while chatting to Metro ahead of her short Edinburgh Fringe run at Hotel Indigo.
While Harriet has been on the stand-up comedy circuit for over a decade, laying her most shameful experiences on stage for laughs, through Last One Laughing, she’s found mainstream success.
A roaring success, 6.1million people tuned into Last One Laughing, making it one of Amazon’s most-watched original shows ever.
With so many eyes now on her, is Harriet more cautious about opening up on stage?
She thinks carefully about her response.
‘Just as long as the joke is always on me is what I want, rather than on the people I love, I guess,’ she says.
‘I can’t help sharing things,’ Harriet explains. ‘Sometimes I’m saying things and I’m not always thinking, and then I read them in print and I think, “Oh, that isn’t how I meant that at all.”‘
But at this year’s Fringe, Harriet has no option but to throw caution to the wind.
Going back to her on-stage roots, Harriet will be entertaining audiences from a hotel bedroom (not in that way, obviously).
‘Yes, there will be security,’ Harriet confirms, when I suggest the show’s premise may attract some creeps in the 15-person audience.
Explaining the concept while fizzing with laughter, Harriet says: ‘I will be on the bed… Talking to them.. I don’t think I’m going to have a microphone, because I think that would be mad.
‘I guess it’s quite like… John and Yoko, kind of Paula Yates style…’ she says, apparently unsure of what the hell is going on herself.
But it will be fun, and something a bit different. That’s the whole point of the Fringe… right?
‘I think that’s what the Fringe should be about,’ Harriet says, before explaining: ‘The Fringe is very stressful because it can make or break people.’
The worst part of the Edinburgh Fringe for Harriet – and its most widely-known problem – is the cost for performers to take a show there.
Lucky ones get a room for £1,000 for the month. Others are cramped into apartments with way too many people than is acceptable. A few years ago, The Chase star Jenny Ryan told Metro of a high-profile comedian who was sleeping on the floor. Add that to the cost of putting on a show, and prices snowball into thousands.
‘It used to be more of a given that you do it every year, and that’s no longer the case,’ Harriet says. ‘It used to be the place to go and experiment and have fun and now the stakes are too high to do that. The show has to be perfect, and every night has to be perfect.’
If it isn’t perfect, then the financial implications of a bad review or just no bums on seats are too high. Once you’re there, though, Harriet raves about the festival for being an invaluable ‘training ground’ for comedy, where you get to do what you love every night and hone the craft.
‘The Fringe really needs to try and support the artists, because it’s getting harder and harder for new acts to be able to afford it,’ she adds.
As for Harriet, she’s working on a new show, as well as her podcast Single Ladies In Your Area, which she hosts alongside fellow comedian Amy Gledhill.
Both have recently come out of serious long-term relationships, as Harriet and fellow comedian Bobby Mair divorced in 2024 after seven years of marriage.
For Harriet, the hardest part of emerging onto the dating scene after divorce was finding her identity again as a single woman.
‘I felt like such a prude because my identity was that I’d suddenly become a mother and I was married, and I felt like a different person to who I was when I was last single,’ she explains.
‘But I’ve realised I can have a bit more fun,’ Harriet says. ‘I remembered who I was last time I was single, and also I’m dating with self esteem this time.
‘I didn’t have that in my early 20s. So that’s really helpful.’
In Bed With… Harriet Kemsley is running from August 1 to 4 in a hotel room at the Hotel Indigo, York Place. Tickets here.
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