Comedian Chloe Petts’ very first stand-up was a rarity: it was a triumph.
‘The first one was great because I packed a basement of a pub with all of my friends, and took about 10 shots,’ she tells Metro.
Her confidence swiftly came crashing down after the next one, though.
‘The second gig was in an attic above a pub, I didn’t have the shots or my friends, and ate s**t for five minutes. In those two moments, it was like, “Okay, this is what stand up is – the highs and the lows. Do I want to keep doing this?” It was a great lesson in never believing in your own hype.’
We’re speaking ahead of Petts kicking off 2026 with her biggest tour to date. Mischievously titled Big Naturals – inspired by an inside joke with Off Menu’s Ed Gamble – the show opens with a three-week run at London’s Soho Theatre before heading out on the road around the UK.
The set was previewed at a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe last summer, where it became one of the most talked-about shows of the festival. Her name was inescapable as pundits drank pints and traded recommendations with strangers about the best things they’d seen so far.
Nostalgia, lad culture, and musical roots
Big Naturals is a nostalgic – though far from uncritical – retrospective of growing up as a ‘child geezer’, which Petts describes as ‘someone who looks like they could handle themselves at a wedding’, during the peak of ‘lad culture’ in the 90s and early 00s.
It was a ballistic moment when misogyny wasn’t just accepted, but celebrated – splashed across the covers of endless ‘lads mags’, Page 3, and in the work of many leading comics of the time.
‘Lad culture is obviously something I look back on now and totally interrogate,’ Petts insists. ‘It created a framework where lads are allowed to be a**eholes, and if the women don’t get on board, then they’re mocked. It was just like it was an excuse for misogyny. But a lot of the stuff was really fun, and I think it’s okay for that nuance to exist.’
For Petts, the pull of lad culture was rooted in music. ‘There was something about the simplicity of the music that got me. Noel Gallagher said Oasis wouldn’t be the band that they became if he were a fret wizard. He said the reason they were so good is that the music is simple and anyone could play it.’
Petts was attending the church of indie-pop, worshipping the god-like bands of lad culture. Her stand-up is packed with affectionate, hysterical anecdotes – including attending a Kasabian concert with her mum, a Christian minister and rocker.
Finding joy in trauma
Her family looms large in Big Naturals. At the time of writing, they’ve yet to see the show, but she says she asked for permission to share pivotal moments from her childhood, albeit with some poetic licence.
‘I’ve got a bit in the show about my brother always crying. I haven’t seen him cry since I was about four, and he just thinks it’s really funny that I’m painting him out as this little wuss that won’t stop crying.’
While getting swept up in the communal spirit of lad culture, Petts was simultaneously playing in a Christian rock band with her best friends. ‘We would meet two or three times a week to play music together in the church, and I find churches so emotionally evocative.’ Absorbing the preachings of the Church of England, however, proved more difficult.
She recalls: ‘I told the Vicar’s wife I might be gay. And then she said marriage was between men and women, and [being gay] wasn’t something that God wanted. But I was at an age where I was just like, “ok, shut up.”’
Finding joy and humour in the trauma of growing up a lesbian at the height of lad culture is no small feat. Homophobia was a consistent thread in the comedy of the era. ‘It taught you that butch lesbians were aggressive and a laughable group. I think I probably overcorrected myself at that time,’ Petts reflects.
Almost 20 years on, Petts’ stand-up feels entirely self-assured. ‘Part of being myself is the silliness and softness. I think the dichotomy of the aggressive football lout and the soft feminist is quite a funny clash.’
From the stage to the screen
The clash is clearly working. In 2025, Petts made her Live At The Apollo debut – a career-defining milestone for any comic on the rise. She sold out her third UK tour, starred in Hannah Gadsby’s Netflix special Gender Agenda, and became something of a regular on Have I Got News For You.
‘Have I Got News For You is the most intimidating thing,’ she says. ‘That show is hard. You’ve got Paul Merton, Ian Hislop, Andy Hamilton, and Stephen Mangan sat there, and I wouldn’t know how to make those men laugh at a dinner party, but now I have to do it on national television. It’s intimidating but thrilling and cool, and they look after you.’
Not all stand-ups translate seamlessly to panel shows. It’s a different skill entirely – and one that’s slowly disappearing. Throughout the 00s and 10s, panel shows were unavoidable, filling schedules most nights of the week and launching the careers of countless comedy legends.
‘It’s a shame,’ says Petts. ‘You need to do it loads to get really good at it. I wish I could do it more because I really want to improve. Sometimes it’s embarrassing and humiliating to fail on such a public scale, but you just have to go, “do you know what, I did my best, and it’s okay to muck it up sometimes.”’
I wonder if she’s ever felt that way herself. ‘Once,’ she admits, but even with a nudge, won’t say more.
She is, however, more than happy – even slightly excited – to recall one very public cock-up.
‘I went on Radio One, and Scott Mills was talking about his upcoming wedding, and then I asked him about his wife. It was so embarrassing that I came on as a semi-famous gay man and assumed that this famously gay man could only have a wife. I was so embarrassed by it, but now I find it really funny.’
Thankfully, it wasn’t enough to summon the rage-baiters, and Petts’ career still feels like it’s gathering speed. The last three years may be full of bucket-list ticks, but momentum is firmly on her side.
‘I’ve been working 11 years to get “overnight success,” and I feel incredibly grateful for it. From the outside, it might look like a wave, but for me it feels like this gentle floating downstream, and every bit of floating downstream has been a bit more experience to add to the jar, so that by the time this stuff starts happening, I just feel really prepared and and equipped for it, because I’ve been allowed to just practice, develop and have fun really quietly.
‘I now feel like I’ve done the training, and I’m ready to keep doing all of these amazing things, and just feel really grateful for them.’
Chloe Petts brings her critically-acclaimed and sell-out new show, Big Naturals, nationwide, starting with over two weeks at London’s Soho Theatre from Friday, January 2, and running until Sunday, March 8. For more info and tickets, visit chloepetts.org.
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