Stefania Licari: Laughter, Medicine, and Conquering the Sahara

Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, Screen Rats.

And here we are with another episode of the podcast.

Today's guest is Stefania Licari.

Now I first met her last year at the Edinburgh Fringe while she was promoting her show Medico.

And she came on to our Ed Fringe episode essentially.

And I always wanted to get her back for a proper chat in her own right.

We were having some technical difficulties today when we recorded this.

And yeah, we ended up having to do it on Zoom.

So the audio is not great, but it's okay.

And it's a bit of a short one.

And there's barely any talk of television.

There's a little bit at the end.

It's mostly about her sort of process and her medical background and how she sort of started her comedy career whilst also being a doctor.

It's an interesting chat.

And she talks about, you know, the genesis of her show ideas and how she does all that and how she prepares for Ed and Fringe.

It's a lovely little talk.

And yeah, there's a little bit chat about telling at the end.

So yeah, I'm going to get stuck straight into this.

This is episode 49.

And next week, we'll have our 50th episode before taking a short break whilst I concentrate on the writing of my Edinburgh show.

Right, let's get down to it.

This is me talking to Stefania Licari today.

This one's going to come out nice and fast.

So there's a quick turnaround now.

And yes, again, apologies for the audio.

It is Zoom and it's terrible.

And I will never be using it again.

I try not to use it.

OK, here we go.

Stefania, Stefania, Stefania Licari.

Welcome to Television Times, a weekly podcast with your host, me, Steve Otis Gunn.

We'll be discussing television in all its glorious forms.

From my childhood, your childhood, the last 10 years, even what's on right now.

So join me as I talk to people you do know and people you don't about what scared them, what inspired them and what made them laugh and cry here on Television Times.

Oh, yeah?

You got me?

Yeah, yeah, I can hear you.

I mean, I'm sure it's me.

I'm like 30 years behind.

Don't worry about it, Stefania.

It's fine.

It's fine.

Nice to see you again.

How have you been?

I've been good.

It feels like Fringe is coming really fast.

I see you're doing your work in progress like in a few days, right?

I am.

How's that feel?

That's gonna be my third time.

I kind of fourth time had like a little preview like of the rehearsal.

So when do you start writing yours or do you sort of your last one?

So Medico was two years long, right?

I think it's from what I saw.

And then this one, Trust Me, I'm a Doctor, is a new show.

Trust Me, I'm a comedian.

Gunn, I've got it wrong already.

No, but this whole point, people are expecting that to be said.

So yes, I did start writing.

Basically, come back from writing more.

I had a week of shock and adaptation to the past and in the life.

And then I went to Manchester, did medical one more time.

And then I started writing.

So beginning of October, really.

Wow, that's early.

Yeah.

Just can't believe how fast it is, you know, since I was chatting to you on that bench, seems like.

I know, right?

And it's just like, I don't know if I said this before, but I use this metaphor.

It's like, at most like having the baby.

Now, I never had a baby, but I know as a doctor, what it looks like.

Basically, because of different hormonal things happening in your body, why are you having a baby?

Obviously, you're like screaming and pain.

You look at your husband, you're like a motherfucker, it's your fault.

I hate you for doing this to me.

Now, as soon as you have a baby, some of the hormones changes, and then you've got the happy hormones coming up, and then you're looking at your husband like, oh, when are we going to have the next one?

It's like it's exactly the same.

You're there and you're cursing yourself.

When did you think it was a good idea?

I hate the food.

I don't understand the accent.

I hate everything about this.

And then as soon as you leave, it's like, oh, what when I write another show?

Sometimes when I get off a plane, I'm like, I'm never stepping foot on a plane again, especially if it's rough.

And then you sort of forget, and then you just sort of get back on one again, and then it starts bumping around.

You go, oh yeah, I remember this.

This is horrible.

Exactly.

And I think it's addictive.

I keep saying, oh, this is my last one for a while.

So we'll see.

Maybe I'll come back next year with another show.

Because you have a medical background, you must have a good idea on how to stay healthy while you're up there.

How do you do it?

Yeah, that's a really good question, actually.

You know, I'm very lucky.

I don't know if it's a medical background.

I think it's a mindset.

I do feel, well, actually, there are two things going on.

First of all, I was telling a friend of mine, actually, a few days ago, that you used to, incredible amount of hours and exhausting work when you work as a doctor.

And I did that for years.

I mean, now I work very little as a doctor because I do comedy and acting full time on a side.

I do some doctoring.

But anyway, for many years, I was full time, I'm working anything between 80 and 100 hours a week.

But the good thing is, that gives you a lot of endurance.

So I think I'm lucky for that.

That gives me the ability to work on endurance.

But also, I think it's a mindset.

Because I think it's not about the show itself, or good is necessarily, and it's about your mindset and how do you deal with the repetition or doing the same thing, and the rejections and the difficulties, how you talk yourself out of insecurities, how do you problem solve.

So it's a mindset, I think, is exactly that.

I'm pretty lucky because I work so much on my mindset all my life.

I've always been one of those personal development freaks.

It's me.

You'd be one of those American TED Talk people.

My room is full of like a motivational quote.

So because you've already had a job where you literally work 80 to 100 hours, you've already experienced, I wouldn't say the worst experience, but like that kind of level of tiredness and that kind of level of work ethic.

This must be a breeze by comparison.

I think in a way, the entertainment industry is worse when it comes to personal satisfaction.

Because the thing is, in a job like medicine or law or finances, even like high-flying jobs, the way you make your career is quite proportionate.

So you put in your effort, you get your qualification, there's more or less a set path.

If you're intelligent, you put in the hard work, you progress.

In the entertainment industry, there are so many variables, there's nothing to do with you.

There's so many situations where your talent, your hard work, it's all about do people like you for whatever reason.

So I don't think those careers prepare you for the challenges itself.

So I think the endurance build.

Up.

But the mindset is different.

And I think the more I'm into the acting and the comedy scene, the more I realize that the key of success is what you think of yourself way before what other people think of you.

That's really secondary because what you think of yourself is going to affect also how people perceive you, but mostly how you're going to respond to the situations.

Because the amount of rejections or obstacles is way more than the amount of success.

So it's like how you read the situations and what is your first reaction.

Because I do believe like human beings are basically divided into categories.

The one that see an obstacle is like, oh shit, maybe let me turn back.

And the ones that see an obstacle and they say, yeah, still shit, but how do I go around?

So yes, good question.

So I'm already preparing mentally for it.

Did comedy just sort of happen?

Did you do some open mics and then you thought, oh, I could do this?

Or was it just a complete left-hand?

Like, I'm gonna do something completely different.

Okay, so first of all, disclaimer, I do not recommend people trying this at home.

If you have a solid career for which your parents paid for medical school, do not change it.

Another full story is I wanted to be an actor when I was a kid.

So my first memories of my childhood is me memorizing, even before I could read.

I would memorize fairy tales, and I would go to school and pretend I could read.

So those were like my first scripts.

And then I even managed to convince the teachers to put up a Christmas production with the fairy tale I chose, I edited, I directed, and I was the lead.

You're like Tarantino.

And I still remember me trying to do what I edited, but at the time, I felt a very successful deep voice.

Yes, so yeah, I was kind of obsessed with acting, which was very strange because nobody in my family comes from an art background.

I mean, most of the people in my family are architects.

So I was never exposed to theater, to movies, to writers, to musicians, nothing.

So I don't know, it was really out of the blue.

I had this passion.

And as soon as I start reading and writing of like small stories, and I will just recite them.

It's also interesting to see nowadays, lots of kids that spend a lot of time with their iPhone or iPod.

And I literally remember these many years in my bedroom creating stories and performing them.

And then what I would do, because I had a younger brother.

Now I have a younger sister, but she's significantly younger.

But I had a young, like two, three years difference from my brother.

So I would force my brother to be cast into my performances and shows.

I would get my parents to come and watch, pay the ticket.

So look at this, how much producing I was.

I mean, talking about money, this was between the age of five and 10.

And I would do little things in front of them and they would pay money.

I think we should all go back and sort of work out what we did as kids when we were a bit older, because I recently remembered that I used to get like, you know, like an old reel to reel tape recorder?

Yeah.

An old one from, I think the 60s.

And it was in my house.

So it was already 20 years old when I was a kid.

And I've had this little mic that came with it.

And I would make little radio shows and I would make jokes and I would put music on and I would do all that.

And that's what I do now.

I don't think at that time, I don't know when it was just a generational thing, but I don't think it was appreciated how important that was to me.

It was seen a little bit more like, yeah, you know, she's good at school and she likes writing and talking.

And I don't think it was fully appreciated.

So, but the teacher saw something in me and I told my mom, oh, she needs to go to drama school, there's something, you know, she said.

But you know, just life took over.

I was too young to enter drama school, so we had to wait when I was a teenager.

And by the time I was a teenager, not to show what happens, but maybe I had told myself subconsciously that was not my possibility in life anymore.

When it came to choose what to do at the university, I chose medicine.

That was like my backup plan.

And then at some point, there was another turning point in my life because there was a particular episode that happened to me and that made me reflect.

And then I decided to get into acting and I never looked back.

I mean, I'm very lucky in a way because I feel like it could be much worse.

My backup plan in life is very beautiful.

And I always loved to be a doctor.

So for me, I always say when people like, I'm surprised, so why did you leave medicine?

Don't you like the NHS?

Is it because of the Tories?

No, it's nothing political.

I love being a doctor.

And I feel like it's a blessing to have that type of skills that allow you to have such an impact on somebody's life.

I mean, we're talking about over the years, how many families I have affected, impacted with having saved one of their relatives.

So, I will be completely foolish and ungrateful if I say, oh, I don't care.

I do care.

For me, it's like a happy divorce, you see?

It's like, I just love something else more, you know?

There was this particular event in my life that was back now, exactly 10 years ago, to decide to leave the medical career as such, and to get into drama school.

I was on a plane, and somebody was chatting me up.

Stefania just said, chatting me up.

It's just that the audio wasn't very clear, so I thought I'd just emphasize that, because it sounds like something else.

Chatting me up.

It is an important part of the story, the chatting up, because I can tell you as a doctor, what I think happened was, because I was disengaging from this, what happened next is he asked me a question and the way I answered was very much my subconscious answered.

So it was a very honest question.

So he was chatting me up and he said, oh, will you do, I'm a doctor.

Oh, do you like it?

Yeah, whatever.

And then he said out of the blue, but if money wasn't an issue, what would you do?

And I said, well, we'll be an actress.

And then I remember feeling such a sense of honesty in what I said, so raw and so true.

Then literally that kind of shocked me completely.

And I couldn't stop.

I had this like enlightenment moment.

Literally, I really looked into the mirror.

Wow, I mean, I say that.

That's what I said at the beginning, I think, because I was so disengaged, I just answered so spontaneously and so truthfully.

It was a point on my return, you see, because I was like, that's the truth.

And now that I know the truth, I can either live the rest of my life feeling miserable by myself or do something about it.

So yeah, I started doing some courses.

I progressed quite quickly.

I studied for audition.

A year later, I was taken into a very good drama school.

And it's a blessing.

So I invested everything in that.

And I've only been working on the side as a doctor since then.

So you work on the side now.

How does that balance into your comedy career?

Well, I work on a lot of bases, like when there's availability and there needs to be a fill top.

And I'm reasonably strong in the market because I'm quite senior as a doctor and specialized in anesthetics, critical care.

You just need a bit of flexibility, obviously, and mental flexibility.

So I pick up shifts based on what I need and around my comedy and acting career.

So I was, for example, I won't be working in August or any more.

I will be working a lot just before because everybody is very offended.

And it's good because I still really much enjoy it.

I support financially.

It gives me also a lot of material.

It must be quite a contrast, though, to be in, I don't know, in Leicester doing a comedy night and then the next day being in a hospital or the other way around.

That must be quite a contrast and feel strange.

It does feel strange.

And sometimes I do struggle a little bit to be with that identity.

And I also, you know, in medicine, you're very constricted in terms of how you express your thoughts, opinions and emotions.

So that's, you know, sometimes it's a fine line and I think, okay, I need to remind myself, these are no hacklers, they are surgeons.

That valve tightly turned off.

Having said that, what I really discovered is the more I do comedy in particular, the more I find actually people have a better doctor in me because I feel the empathy and the ability to listen has become really tuned and really emphasized in a way.

And also the sense of humor, I feel now I'm so quick in making jokes and it's really beautiful because I do believe that in places like medicine, that's the place where you really need some lightness in some jokes because of the amount of drama.

And I feel obviously you need the sensitivity to make those jokes and being a professional comedian allows me to read the room properly.

And I find it's fantastic because people are just really happy and you can see that the change of mood is a relaxation.

And also very often there's a trust.

So I feel the patients like me way more than how they would have liked me 10 years ago.

Because I think the moment you can allow the bitterness of a joke and the other person there who is frustrated or suffering or upset or bored or in pain has a moment of laughter than the patient that sees you as a human being, rather than somebody up there, he or she in a different level than is commanding them what to do.

So I think that there really is an equalizer, doctors, to the way they are seen and perceived by patients.

It's beautiful, it's a beautiful thing.

And also what I teach sometimes with the medical setting, and I'm using humor way more than I obviously used to do.

And I think it's beautiful because this medical school, doctors and nurses, in the courses, first of all, they learn more, but also it gives a sense of, yeah, this is human stuff.

This is not just in academics.

So there's a lot of space for using comedy skills in medical setting.

And it's a shame that it's not being recognized.

I do think you need to be very sensitive.

You need to be able to put in context.

That's a difficulty because badly said jokes in the wrong context, in the wrong timing can be very devastating.

I think everybody should appreciate how important.

Now, can everybody do jokes?

I don't know.

I think sometimes I hear some colleagues and make some jokes.

I'm really bad at them to just shut up.

How realistic do you find, or is it difficult for you to watch medical TV shows, like even ER back in the day, or Grazing At Me With All The Pretty People or Casualty?

How is that for you?

At the time, back when I was a uni student, I could see myself be next to George Clooney and with the CPR and falling in love, and I was dreaming that one night shift, that would happen for me.

Now, I'm just a bit less interested.

Is it hard to sort of watch what's wrong with it?

A little bit, a little bit.

A little bit to focus on, oh no, that should have not given that drug, or no, that doesn't look sterile anymore.

Yeah, clearly maybe it was pretty easy to make that diagnosis.

Oh no, the wrong symptoms.

So I'm becoming a little bit too judgy.

I would love to do maybe a sitcom, a medical sitcom.

I think that would be great.

But yeah, but I think now a lot of my interest is I'm getting away from medical comedy.

So there's still, for example, in my new show, there still is a hint of medical comedy.

Those are obviously a huge chunk of my life.

And I'm really focusing on women's rights at the moment.

So my show is really, it's a feminist show, but starting from a perspective of, I wanna make everybody feel that they can relate to this.

So it's not a preachy show about I hate men.

I don't hate men, I love men.

It's more like, hey, in my experience as a woman, in the society, and yes, also in the NHS, so here, the reference is to the NHS, I have experiences and I wanna inspire people to see stuff that maybe they never thought about.

I wanna inspire women to speak up and I wanna just empower generally the society to find out injustice and move towards finally some equality at some point.

Yeah, real equality.

I mean, I think that's a problem with a lot of men.

They don't understand that feminism just means equality.

If you just told them that, they could all just go, well, yeah, of course.

Who wouldn't agree with that?

I've got a daughter, so I want her to have equal chances in life, if not more.

And that's why I think it's important that women are really speaking up now and I feel like it is a beautiful moment to be a woman in comedy, but I like this metaphor.

I say, women in comedy nowadays, we are like suffragettes because we are fighting for the right on stage to speak and to be heard.

And I think the society is really moving forward and something is boiling underneath.

The women are really tired of being shut up and shut down.

And now is the time of we gaining a voice that we want to have a voice.

So my new show is a lot about be like a medium of a voice and maybe other women and history of women in my family haven't had a chance.

Now I can speak up publicly and I will.

So having this show is like an inspiration, a thought provoking, obviously funny.

It's a bit of crying as well, but you know, mostly funny, a bit of crying.

So do you want to tell us where it's on and what time?

Oh, fantastic.

Well, I'm doing a little tour of the edu book.

So it's gonna be at the Glitch for the Work in Progress this Friday, 7 p.m.

at Waterloo in London.

Then I'm at the Brighton's Fringe, 15, 16, 17 of May at the Caroline of Brunswick, 8, 15, on the 25th of May at the Walrus at 7 p.m.

Then I do another couple of previews in London and the Museum of Comedy on the 12th and the 13th of July, 8, 30 p.m.

And then I'm off to Edinburgh, Underbelly, Bristol Square, at 4, 15 in the afternoon.

4, 15.

Obviously, 4, 15 a.m., 4, 15 in the afternoon, at Bristol Square, Underbelly, for the entire month.

Well, I'll be there.

I'll definitely come and see that.

I will book a ticket today.

Oh, well, thanks for coming on, Stefania.

I'm gonna end it there so I can talk to you after the beep.

So thanks for coming on to Television Times, where we talked about no television whatsoever.

Sorry about that connection.

I don't know what was going on before.

I mean, in all fairness, I even brought it down.

There was a pop-up message and said, your device is not supported or it's too much for the hardware to handle.

And I thought, that's the story of my life.

I'm too much to handle.

That's where we'll truly end the show.

Well, I'll see you up there, I guess.

I'll come and see the show.

And by the way, I'll come and see yours.

Please do not.

You told me where it is.

That was Stefania Licari there, talking to me for the second time after bumping into her quite by chance at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023.

And now we're gonna see each other at 2024 with a show up there each, obviously.

She's very established.

Go and check her out online, find her shows, go and see her life, come up to the Edinburgh Fringe and see her and see me too if you want.

Now to today's outro track.

Now today's song is called Don't Cry.

It's from my album After the Fireworks, which came out in 2009.

It's a really personal song, I guess.

It's one of those sort of heart stringy ones.

I don't even want to talk too much about it really.

It was recorded in Ireland in the summer of 2008.

And yeah, I used the...

There's an accordion in there, a real accordion.

And that is my granddad, Irish granddad's accordion.

He sort of left it behind for his son and he lent it to me to use on this track.

So that's kind of poignant, I guess.

So here it is, this is the song, Don't Cry, from After the Fireworks, 2009.

That was my song, Don't Cry from 2009 from the album After the Fireworks.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode.

I hope you enjoyed my little convo with Stefania Licari.

Please check her out online and be back next week for our 50th episode.

Don't forget, it might be less than a week actually.

So until then, bye bye for now.