
Copywriting student Diana Bailey is fairly new to Toronto’s comedy scene, but she has already appeared on numerous Toronto comedy stages (Yuk Yuk’s, Comedy Bar) and was a finalist at this year’s Toronto Comedy Brawl. We chatted with the young comic about Sailor Moon, sweating and her crazy mom. 


Were you the class clown growing up?
I wasn’t the class clown so much as a total mouth-breathing weirdo. When my friends and I picked characters to play Sailor Moon on the playground, I was always the British cat, if that gives you any idea.
How did you know you wanted to pursue comedy?
My sister Laura (co-producer/host of Chicka Boom) is an amazingly talented improviser, so she gets a lot of attention from our parents and I obviously couldn’t let that go uncontested. I do stand-up because I can’t act, as I have zero control over what my face is doing at any given point in time.
Describe your first time performing onstage. Where was it? How did it go?

My first time doing stand-up was for my Comedy Girl class recital (taught by Dawn Whitwell, who is so funny and so great). It went pretty well, I think. I got really, really sweaty though. By the time I went on stage (second to last), I had pit stains down to my ribs. So I showed everybody. It was liberating. 

What do you like most about stand-up?


I like that I can just do it whenever. With sketch, you have to have writers’ meetings and rehearsals and time management skills, and that stresses me out. With stand-up, I can just go to a bar, have a beer, get on stage and gab about my vagina. I like that.
Who or what makes you laugh the most?


My mom kills me. My oldest sister just had a baby, so my mom has taken to making PowerPoint presentations of baby pictures with jokey captions. Sample caption: “Hey, what’s so hard about talking? It’s so easy! Goo, agoo, that’s all you need to know!” And then when she makes me laugh really hard, she says, “See, I always know how to get Diana off!” She’s absurd.
What’s one of worst things you’ve felt bad laughing about?


Oh, this is a bad one. But recently my Baba (my Macedonian grandmother) had this intense mystery abdominal pain for days and no one could figure out what it was. And after all the tests were done, they discovered that she was just majorly constipated. She’s fine though! And she doesn’t read English! So this is all a-okay!
In five years, where would you like to be?

On a houseboat.
The details:
Year started stand-up: 2011

Influences: Maria Bamford, Tig Notaro, Louis C.K, my crazy Greek mom. 

Next gig: The Incubator, Crown and Tiger, 414 College St., 416-920-3115. Dec. 10, 7:30 p.m.

