Stephanie Figueira

Barcelona is the best decision I’ve ever made. I had been in Rome for three months and then all of sudden these feelings started taking over and I thought: “I have to get to Barcelona, something big is waiting for me.”

When I arrived in March, I made a pact with myself to start writing to five theatre groups a day. I picked up the Metropolitan, and there were only four listed, so I thought: “What the hell, I’ll email Comedy In Spain too.” They were the only ones who responded.

This is the first time in my life I’ve done any performance. But doing the Edinburgh Festival this year is the best experience I’ve had in the last 15 years.

I did my first stand-up show after just two weeks working with the group. It was at the Re:public. It went great. The second show I bombed! And yes, I did go home and cry.

I write from life. I have comedy gold in my family, which most people do, and it’s a tough one for me, standing up to your parents and saying, “Hey, I’m going to tell everybody what happened when we were kids!” It might get to a point where they may not talk to me for a while...but what the hell, I need a break…

Audiences are strange. You can get them and you can lose them, just like that. And how people can laugh at one thing one day, and the next they’ll laugh at something unfunny.

People think that all female comedians talk about is relationships, periods, hormones, and marriage. And they’re right! Men keep providing me with so much material, I can’t throw this stuff away!

Delivery is everything. It’s something I’m working on. After that 15-day run in Edinburgh, I realised that once you know your material inside out, once you can do it in your sleep, you can mingle with the crowd and come right back to it.

I’ve only been heckled once. It was a fellow comedian here in Barcelona, and the night before I’d told him it was my greatest fear. He thought it would build character, but it backfired and I completely forgot my set.

I always get heartburn just before I go onstage. I get this thing in my chest, but then the second I pick up the microphone, it’s just gone...and then the first words come out and I’m away. Afterwards, I’m on such a high.

I like to spend my days happy. I was the high-energy one in the crowd, the one people used to say they could only take in small doses. My mother tried to put me on Valium when I was a child because I would always be jumping up and down in front of the TV.

My advice to anyone starting out? Don’t be hard on yourself. Public speaking is the number-one fear, and it’s the hardest thing in the world to make people laugh. But if you have the balls to get on a stage and you are confident in your material…GO FOR IT!