The 2021 Funny Women Awards are proud to have TIME’S UP UK as our charity partner. We talked to their chair Dame Heather Rabbatts about TIME’S UP UK, balancing boardrooms and how comedy can be used to get a serious message across…
Funny Women: You’re the TIME’S UP UK chair, can you tell us about TIME’S UP UK?
Dame Heather Rabbatts: TIME’S UP UK was launched in February 2018, in the wake of Harvey Weinstein and #MeToo revival. It is a movement dedicated to a safe, fair and equal working environment for all. We champion 50/50 pay parity, and equal representation across leadership to bring about sustainable cultural change. We are a small team in the UK with a big voice. We work closely with our sisters in the US and have a powerful and engaged board, which I chair. Here in the UK, we work closely with our industry partners and friends like Funny Women, to ensure impactful and sustainable change.
FW: You have worked in various male-dominated boardrooms, how have you navigated this and have you noticed a change in attitudes over time?
DHR: I have often sat in male and white only Boards and increasingly there are now more women on Boards but still too few and the position is still woeful when it comes to representation of people of colour. But there has been change and we need to push for more so that we achieve equity. There is still some distance to go! I have navigated my way through with a mix of humour, resilience, finding allies and having great mates who listen to my latest trial and tribulation and remind me who I am and what ultimately matters…love.
FW: We are very proud to have TIME’S UP UK as our charity partner for this year’s Funny Women Awards. How do you think the TIME’S UP movement can help make comedy more accessible to women?
DHR: TIME’S UP and Funny Women I hope will be a mutually beneficial relationship as humour finds ways of opening up the debate and as TIME’S UP contributes to supporting safe spaces for all to work including female comedians who have often been isolated themselves and subject to harassment.
FW: Do you think comedy can be used to get serious messages across?
DHR: Comedy, satire has always been one of the most powerful ways that serious messages can be made and heard in a different way. Think Richard Pryor, Ruby Wax, Victoria Wood, all of whom posed a challenge with wit, raw humour into racism and sexism, relationships and politics. Naomi Sheldon’s show Good Girl about learning to inhabit a female body which the world is intent on defining lies in that tradition.
FW: And lastly, who are your favourite funny women?
DHR: Phoebe Waller-Bridge for Fleabag which she performed at the Soho Theatre, which I chaired in the early days of her career and underlines the Theatre’s commitment to discovering new voices. What a voice.
Find out more about our Awards charity Partner TIME’S UP UK here!
