This week’s guest is the comedian, writer, and all-round screen hogger, Sara Pascoe. Host of The Great British Sewing Bee, presenter of Last Woman on Earth and ubiquitous panel-show presence. She has written and starred in her own sitcom Out Of Her Mind (before TV realised women could write sitcoms too!) And she’s also the author of two brainy non-fiction bestsellers, Animal and Sex Love Money. 

Sara came and sat in my kitchen with Sausage the cat (who was still a bit poorly after his encounter with Ecoli. Thanks for asking) to talk about her debut novel, Weirdo, the tale of a woman desperate to seem like a ‘normal’, well-adjusted grown up...

We talked about everything from cat-love, the rhesus monkey theory of motherhood, Happy Valley, Strictly and her short-lived teenage rebellion, to IVF, the importance of sharing salary info, how she learnt to stop doing things resentfully and why she won’t be sad to be done with menstruation!

If you enjoyed this episode you might also like my conversations with comedians Josie Long and Cariad Lloyd. Find out more about Sara & Cariad’s Weirdo’s bookclub here.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including Weirdo by Sara Pascoe, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me.

* And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com

• The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker

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