1 A TV SHOW

I SAW an American show called Horace and Pete about four or five years ago that is one of the best pieces of television I’ve ever seen. The main writer is Louis C K and he had seemingly touted the idea round many different broadcasters but naebody was interested so he raised the money and made it himself. At first it was only available on his website but you can now watch it on Amazon.

His independence and the fact that he kept getting knocked back but just made it anyway was quite inspirational.

It is just so different. The first 10 minutes I wondered what I was watching – good pals had recommended it and I was wondering why. I wouldn’t know what genre to put it in because at times I was hysterically laughing, at times I had my hands over my face because it was quite shocking and other times I was just sitting greetin’.

You could see there was no network filter on it and it let me see that it is possible to make a quality piece of work without any corporation behind you. The actors are well-known names, it’s very high quality and how it came together completely opened my mind to what is possible.

2 VAPING

IN 2010 I met up with an older friend who had been diagnosed with lung cancer and she had one of these wee electronic cigarettes. I asked her how she was getting on with it and she said she wished she had found it years ago. She died about eight months later.

I had smoked from when I was 12 and then I was just coming up to 40. There were times I had stopped – once I stopped for a year but other than that it was six months here, nine months there or just two weeks, and I was at a point where I was thinking I would have to give up giving up because it was depressing. On the other hand I knew I couldn’t go on like that so I went online and ordered a starter pack which I think was £20.

I took to vaping straight away. It definitely transformed my life. I vaped for 10 years and it went from these wee fags to the things you see today.

During the first lockdown I managed to stop vaping too. I’m not advocating it – all I am saying is that I was never able to make the transition to being a non-smoker before. I don’t think vaping did me the world of good but I don’t think it did me the same harm as another 10 years of smoking.

3 A TRIP TO THE USA

THIS was February 20 years ago. We had done the second series of Chewin’ the Fat but I was still a DJ, doing karaoke and general club entertainment. Then I woke up one morning thinking I would pack my job in and just go to America and that’s what I did.

I got an open ticket which meant I could fly into San Francisco and fly out of Las Vegas a month later. That was all I had as I didn’t book any hotels, motels or car hire. There were no mobile phones or internet either so the only way to get in touch with home was by me putting dimes in a call box.

It was hard because I was on my own and there were times when I was desperately lonely and lost, literally and metaphorically. I remember being in a motel and just about falling asleep when I heard a car backfiring. Then it did it again and I realised it maybe wasn’t a car. I hired a car and it was the first time I had ever driven on the other side of the road. I drove from San Fran right down the coast to Big Sur, LA and San Diego then over to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon. It was a life-changing experience. It sounds dead twee to say travel broadens the mind but that is exactly what it did. It totally opened my mind to life, the vastness of life. Being able to spend that amount of time on my own and away from home, really boosted my confidence. It was phenomenal.

At the moment I am rehearsing for a play called Distance Remaining which is going to do a virtual tour of Scotland in April and May. My character is a volunteer driver on a delivery round that quickly descends into a bolt for freedom during the first lockdown last year.

It’s a brilliant script and a month driving through America certainly let me know what it was like to be completely isolated.

4 A MUSIC PROGRAMME ON MY MAC

I’VE discovered this programme called DJay and oh my god, it is exhilarating but also a bit frightening because of the time I am losing. I am just disappearing into it but the excitement I get from it at a time like this has been great.

I was a DJ for three nights a week, five hours a night, for seven years and then it all stopped when I gave it up to be an actor.

The programme is fantastic. Basically it is digitally mixing your music. I can do all the things I always wanted to do but just didn’t have the equipment or the time.

It’s a £50 subscription and at first I thought I would just get the seven days free trial but 20 minutes into that and I was like “yes take the £50 – do you want more?”.

I played my first live set on Zoom recently which is the first time I have DJed with punters for about 20 years and I had an absolute ball.

The wider world is changing and I have so much hope for it opening up but it is not doing it yet so realising I had to make the transition to online has really spurred me on. Even if everything opened up tomorrow I would continue doing online stuff.

5 RAP WORKSHOPS

THESE have been completely transformative, really life-changing. It sounds a bit airy-fairy but they have opened up a part of my creativity that I just would not have accessed otherwise.

At the start of the pandemic I was doing various bits of pieces online but finding it really hard to connect to them. I just wasn’t connecting to my normal routes of creativity and I realised I had to do something.

It reminded me that before we all became familiar with the word Covid I had been talking to a pal and saying I would love to do some kind of workshops with people to make music – rap music. I love rap music, I love the rhyming of it but I didn’t have the time.

This year I did, so I held my first rap workshop in October and I’ve been doing it ever since. Again it sounds a bit airy-fairy but the experiences I have had in that time with groups of refugees, children in care, people with disabilities and people in general have been amazing.

To watch the transformation in people is great. They start off saying they can’t do it but you should hear the content that comes out. It seems that people are able to express themselves more easily in a rap poetic form. It is a collaboration but each individual has a part in it and it is phenomenal.

I’m now booked up to the end of June. When I started it I approached some organisations like the Citizens and they want to develop it further by getting a studio engineer in. At the moment I make all the music for the raps and I record everything but I am not a studio engineer. I do not a bad job and it gives them an idea but we are actually trying to produce music so I’m hoping to take it further.

6 VICTORIA WOODS

SEEING her when I was a kid, a woman who was funny, musical and on the telly was absolutely transformative.

I must have been seven or eight when I first saw her. I was not sitting at that stage saying “if she can do it so can I” but there was something in me that knew I could do something similar. Seeing her and seeing the response she was getting with my mum laughing, my dad laughing and my sisters laughing – all genders and all ages – was instrumental in me doing what I am doing today.

I actually got to meet her when she came to see a play I was in, directed by Conleth Hill in Belfast. She was very friendly with him and was there not long before she died. I didn’t know she was in the audience but after the show he was introducing me to this family and then, to my surprise, said “and this is Victoria”. I totally clammed up but she said hello and told me I was very funny. She didn’t say any more but that was enough.

It’s a great sadness she is no longer here.

7 SPECS OUT THE POUND SHOP

I BOUGHT them about four years ago because they looked funky. They were red specs and I thought I might wear them as a character but more and more I found I was just sticking them on to read things.

When the first lockdown was over I went and got my eyes tested and was told I needed a pair of readers so I went out and bought another six pairs.

The pound shop specs have done me great as I could have ended up doing some damage to myself by straining to read things if I hadn’t had those wee red specs.

I did panic at first when I realised I needed them as I thought it was the beginning of the end but if it is, it’s a slow beginning.

8 THE COMEDY UNIT

THIS was unquestionably life-changing. I was working as a DJ in pubs and clubs when I went into a pub in Glasgow one afternoon to drop something off and heard someone saying my name. It turned out it was a guy I had been to school with, who now lives in Stirling and was just in the pub for a pint before he got the train.

He said he couldn’t believe he was seeing me as he had found out there were open auditions at the BBC’s comedy unit and he was just thinking “Karen Dunbar needs to go to that”.

I’d never been to an audition and I didn’t know what to do but I went home, phoned directory inquiries, got the number for The Comedy Unit then phoned them and told them I would like to come to an audition. They told me there was one spot left on the Thursday at 2pm. That was the Tuesday.

I’d no idea what to do but I dressed up as an old woman, which I know now is creating a character, I wrote down some stuff about myself and made it funny, which I now know is creating a script, and I went in and said it to them, which I know now is called a performance. At the end they thanked me for coming but nothing else so I thought I would never hear from them again.

However they phoned me next day and asked me to come for a chat and from there they put me into the Chewin’ the Fat radio show which was then commissioned for a TV series.

So bumping into my pal on that random afternoon and then getting the last audition slot was bizarre. If I had been half an hour later I would never have seen him and I just wasn’t aware of that stuff going on.

9 PALS

THE friendships I have in my life have changed it, undoubtedly. I’ve always known their importance but I don’t think I realised the literal life-giving vitalness of them as much until now.

My mantra during the lockdown – not that I’ve always managed to follow it – has been pals and exercise, pals and exercise. By the way, when I say exercise I am talking about going out and walking round the block. I’m no’ an exercise fanatic but pals and exercise have really kept me going and kept my sanity.

I’ve got one pal called Leigh that I’ve been pals with since P4. We were seven when we met so that’s 42 years. It’s our 50th this year. Mine is on April 1 – April Fool’s Day.

I was brought up in Ayr and she is still there so I nip in and see her when I’m there and whenever we can. I have many pals that are vital in my life but she was my first friendship and I am grateful to still have it today.

There is also Sarah who was an English lassie I met at Ayr Academy when we were 13. Those two are the first responders in my friendships but there are a handful of other people where I just do not know where I would be without them.

10 MUSIC

I WAS torn between music and humour for this but ultimately, and especially during this last year, I don’t know where I would be without music. It’s the solace and energy that is in it. Music transformed my life and continues to do so. I have got a permanent jukebox in me which means that there is music playing in my head even when I am speaking to people.

My first iPod meant so much to me that when it cacked it, I kept it for years and didn’t want to let it go. I like symbols so I eventually took it to where my mum’s ashes are scattered and stuck it behind this wee rock, digging it way deep in. I wanted to put it somewhere really ­significant for me because it changed my life.

For me, music is not a pastime or a hobby, it is a necessity. I cannot imagine what my life would be without it. It gets me out of bed and into bed, it helps me create and helps me relax. It does literally change how I feel. It changes something inside me, it changes my brain chemistry.

Distance Remaining opens on April 14. www.distanceremaining.com