What Would Beyoncé Do?! Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Epigraph

  Introduction: Partition, Please

  1. Let’s Start Over

  2. Once I Was 7 Years Old (Well, about 9)

  3. Working 9 to 5 (P.M. to A.M.)

  4. Nasty Put Some Clothes On

  5. Upgrade Yourself

  6. Yes!

  7. I Was Here

  8. Daddy . . . Issues

  9. I’m Not a Girl . . . Not Yet a Woman

  10. Crazy in Love

  11. Midnight Train to Chicago

  12. Like a Virgin (Sort of)

  13. Run the World

  14. Pray You Catch Me

  15. Sending the Ex an Email

  16. Getting in Formation

  17. She Works Hard for the Money

  18. Alma . . . *Foot Stomp Twice* . . . Check Your Battery

  19. Body’s Too Bootylicious for You, Mate

  20. Flawless

  21. I’d Do Anything for Love, And I Probably Would Do That as Well

  22. Romeo, Wherefore Art Thou? ’Cos You Ain’t in Singapore

  23. If I were a Boy . . . I’d Be Better at it than You

  24. Bat-Shit Cray (Cray)

  25. Hot Sauce in My Bag . . . Swag (I Just Want Some)

  26. Single Ladies’ Ball

  27. Keep on Runnin’ . . . Lose it All

  28. My Mother’s Love

  29. Pink Lemonade

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  You know when you find yourself approaching thirty and your dreams are broken? You’ve got a temping career going nowhere, a student debt that’s mounting and you’ve just had to move back into your mum’s house.

  Then to top it all off, you get absolutely annihilated with heartbreak because of an ex, who is just ‘not ready’ but then manages to be ready, a week later, with someone else.

  FML.

  Luisa Omielan is a stand-up comedian who turned her life around after she answered the mantra every person needs in their life: ‘WHAT WOULD BEYONCÉ DO?!’

  About the Author

  Luisa Omielan is a stand-up, improviser and actress. Her debut solo show What Would Beyoncé Do? was an underground smash hit at the Edinburgh Fringe, and has become one of the most successful debut shows to come out of the festival. The Guardian called it ‘one of the biggest stand-up hits of the decade.’ Luisa’s follow-up show, Am I Right, Ladies?!, was met with equal critical acclaim.

  ‘To thine ownself be true’ – my man Shakespeare

  Hello You. I wish you could see how powerful you truly are. Every breath, curve, bleed, laughter, tear. Every inch of your skinny, fat, saggy, toned river of skin. Every curve, breast, cunt is beautiful. You are beautiful. Nurture your kind, your gentle, your strong, your bossy. Embrace it; embrace every aspect of your female form, inside and out. When in doubt: Be Yoncé.

  PS Don’t worry, I only use the C-word once. PS It’s actually not a bad word, it’s not my fault someone made it derogatory, I think it’s actually a very beautiful thing to have one. Mine is lovely. HELLO NEW FANS!!!!

  Introduction

  PARTITION, PLEASE

  Hi babe, my name’s Luisa and I am 33 years old – well, I’ll be 34 by the time you read this, maybe even 35, who knows when this book will get finished? I’m a comedian and I do live shows, that’s what I’m good at. Some comedians are really good at writing jokes on Twitter, I am rubbish at it, but when it comes to writing live solo shows, mate, I’m your girl. Saying that, I am currently typing this on my way back from York, where I played to silence in front of 400 people, so I guess it really depends which day you catch me.

  With stand-up, you start with five minutes of material and then work your way up, a 10-minute set, a 20-minute set, and then the big one is writing an hour. My debut hour was pretty epic; it’s called ‘What Would Beyoncé Do?!’ Oh hello cheeky book title!

  So how did this book start? Good question! (When will it be finished? Even better question!) So there I was, doing one of my many sell-out runs at London’s Soho Theatre (I’ve had 7), and after my shows I like to stand by the exit and say bye to the audience and sell some badges. This woman called Francesca comes up to me and is like ‘Hi, I work for Random House’ and I’m like ‘Ahh, that’s really cool #neverheardofit. See you later. Bye!’ That was the first step in the birth of this book.

  At the time I was touring my WWBD show and was in the process of writing the follow-up show ‘Am I Right Ladies?!’ My brain was mashed; I had no time to take on any other projects. You see, my shows are all-consuming, I put everything I have into them. They are pretty much parties with jokes in, you should come. I love them, they are a hoot. Francesca came twice, and then again and then again. I was like, mate, you are making this awkward, please be cool. She said, please consider writing the book, Random House is a massive publisher and I would love to help you get this story out there. I laughed in her face and told her no, but I’m pretty sure I eased the rejection with a free badge.

  Now when it comes to writing things down, I am rubbish (see Twitter and my Facebook page. What do you mean you haven’t liked my Facebook page? How did you even hear about this book?). I get bored so easily and have the attention span of a flea. When I am not doing shows, I just wanna get lost in American TV. I’m really into The Good Wife at the moment and keep saying ‘Objection overruled’ in confusing circumstances, like in Starbucks: ‘Would you like chocolate on top of your latte?’ OBJECTION OVERRULED. PS Do not watch Season 5 unless you are ready to CRY.

  I also love House, and every time I get sick I’m like, I swear this could be lupus, which is a ridiculous idea; it’s never lupus. I even tweeted Hugh Laurie once saying ‘Please can we have sex? Keep the limp and bring the stick.’ But he never replied. He’s probably still grieving over Wilson. Sorry, spoiler alert, I should have warned you.

  I have just finished Sons of Anarchy – THERE’S A BLACKBIRD PERCHED OUTSIDE MY WINDOW *taps nose to all the SOA fans for the reference* (see what I mean about my attention span) – and I cannot cope. I keep calling everyone brother and saying ‘Let’s bring this to the table.’ Mate, that final series was like Shakespeare, it’s beautiful. Watching box sets is one of the many things I have been focusing on in an attempt to avoid writing this book. Here are some others.

  Rewatching Criminal Minds. . . wheels up in 20. PLEASE CAN PENELOPE AND MORGAN KISS?

  Painting the skirting boards at my mum’s house.

  Learning all the words to all the Sons of Anarchy albums.

  Putting together a 90s playlist including ‘MMMBop’ and the NSYNC version of ‘Everything I Own’, and Usher’s ‘Separated’ (I’m sorry we didn’t make it).

  Watching Lemonade. Yes queen. Beyoncé, you are a goddess. This wasn’t a distraction, this was imperative to my personal growth.

  Washing my make-up brushes. I even found a make-up brush cleaner on eBay, it’s really cool, like a mat you wipe the brushes on. I digress . . .

  What was my point again? Oh yes, I have a short attention span. So when it came to my first solo show, I basically wrote a show that would appeal to someone with a minimal attention span who’s a sucker for pop culture references. Turns out there are loads of us out there! Hello ADHD! #notathing #totallyathing #whosaidthat

  Fast forward to 2015, I am still very grounded and humble and still catch public transport. I was invited out to Australia and asked to perform for three minutes for Australian TV. I performed three minutes of pulling my pants down and telling a joke about the thigh gap. At the gig, no one really laughed and I was just a mental woman with a London accent and no trousers on. Howev
er the people of Facebook loved it, it got shared and shared and has since amassed over 35 million views. After all the years of work and the hours I’d put in trying to master comedy, it was pulling my trousers down that got the mass appeal. Dreams really can come true.

  Once the clip went viral, I got really excited and thought, wicked, maybe finally I’ll be able to earn some money and take the cling film off my windows because I can’t afford the heating bills (double glazing on a budget). Maybe I can buy my own place, maybe this is it!

  I called my agent Debi: surely this thigh-gap viral clip will help get me on telly now? Live at the Apollo? Jonathan Ross? Loose Women? Come on, body image is huge and the views of my jokes are going up by thousands every day.

  ‘Sorry Luisa, the booker for Jonathan Ross needed to see you live but couldn’t get a babysitter. And Live at the Apollo say you’re not ready.’

  ‘Not ready? What do you mean, not ready? I’m on millions of views from one joke; show me another unknown Live at the Apollo act that has had that.’

  ‘Maybe it’s because you say bitches a lot?’

  Oh FFS.

  By the way, if like me you hate these pre-story ambles – JUST START THE BOOK ALREADY – you can always skip this bit and then come back to it at the end, it will probably make more sense. But this prelude is imperative to the book, as I have a word-count deadline.

  Anyway, back to the thigh gap. I was so happy it went viral, 35 million views and counting, and yet so disappointed that I wasn’t getting more opportunities off the back of it, hello?! I should be famous by now. I have been training in performance my whole life, and doing comedy since the age of 19. Come on, I’m 33 now. I am tired of getting the bus.

  Why is it taking so long? So I didn’t fuck a footballer or go on Big Brother – OK, I auditioned but didn’t get in, and I did once have sex with someone that played for Sunderland, but apart from that, I have gone the long route and you know, developed a skill.

  So then my agent called me in for a meeting and what do you know, Miss Big Shot Random House was there and the pair of them accosted me. I wasn’t ready, I was ill prepared, I don’t know if I had even washed that day. Big Shot Random House was like, Luisa, hi, please write the book What Would Beyoncé Do?! Oh how I laughed in her face: listen honey, stop being so desperate, it’s not going to happen, I am not a writer, hello? I am an artist, you need to see me live for the experience, you can’t bottle me into pages . . . I clicked my fingers, flicked my hair and left.

  The next day I was leaving for a gig in Singapore, and as I walked around the airport looking for something to read, I was like, man, there really should be a book called What Would Beyoncé Do?! Instead I picked up How to Become Rich and Think Like a Billionaire and went to pay for my new purchases. My card got declined. Motherfuckers. The irony that I should have bought these books sooner was not lost on me.

  I called my agent. ‘Fine, tell Big Shot Random House I will write her stupid book, but tell her it’s because I think it’s really important that I share my story and reach out to the people and not because my card got declined in an Asian Waterstones.’

  THE END

  #Jokes. That was the prelude.

  1.

  LET’S START OVER

  Here is the beginning. PS I am really sorry if you think this book is going to be all about Beyoncé. In this book, I am Beyoncé. In fact this book is my Adele 21, bitches.

  AND WE START.

  So growing up I always thought I’d have the same lifestyle as Beyoncé, I thought I’d be really rich and famous, but God decided to give me a very different set of cards, ah she’s hilarious. It’s weird, because I’ve always had an affinity with Beyoncé, like in many ways me and her are really similar: we’re both fabulous, both have booty and both our mums still make our clothes. In fact very often people get us confused; only the other day someone stopped me on the street and said:

  ‘Have you had an accident or an injury at work lately?’

  I was like ‘I have hot sauce in my bag, swag.’

  At 21, I graduated from uni with a first-class degree. Even though I didn’t have an agent and was living in a run-down estate in Salford, I was adamant fame and fortune beckoned; just give it a year or so Luisa. I mean, look at Keira Knightley, she was like 19 and became huge. I mean, sure, I am a little older, but that’s OK, you just wait, in a few years’ time I am going to be massive. I genuinely thought that by 28 I would have it covered. Career, marriage, a house with two garages, babies. Tick, tick, tick. That was where my 21-year-old self saw me.

  So when at the age of 27 I found myself moving back to my small home town of Farnborough and sleeping in my old room, even though my mum had turned it into an office (it was really fun sleeping on the photocopier every night), I wasn’t where I’d thought I would be at this stage of my life. The photocopier did come in handy when I found myself making up waitressing experience on my CV trying to score a job in Costa with a first-class degree (who the fuck needs to write a CV for a coffee shop; what qualifications do I write down? I bet Beyoncé isn’t in her local library typing ‘warming milk’ as one of her skill sets. It’s just coffee, FFS, I prefer granules anyway. No, I didn’t get the job).

  This is how it started.

  My brother (who is 26 and also lives at home, though he actually doesn’t mind as his biggest ambition is to do handstand press-ups) blocked the toilet with a really big poo, you know, one of the massive long, thick ones, like if it was a penis, you would be well in, but it’s not, it’s a poo. He ran out of the house and my mum told me it was my job to clean the toilet. Me? Why is it my job? It’s his shit!

  ‘Yes Luisa, but he isn’t here and you can’t sit around doing nothing all day.’

  ‘What? But that’s not my fault. It’s gross, can’t you make him do it when he gets back?’

  ‘No, he’s too lazy, you know better; now clean the toilet!’

  So I’m there with the toilet brush, desperately trying to make it go down the one-way system, but it’s not moving and the water is spitting back in my face and a splash lands on my eyelid and I nearly vomit. It’s not budging.

  My mum comes in to check on me, like she wants to make sure I’m doing a thorough job. She’s Polish, the stereotype is true, they do make the best cleaners. She actually teaches English as a foreign language, which is ironic really because she always gets her English wrong, but hey, don’t hate the player, hate the game! My favourite English she ever got wrong was ‘Luisa, I’ve noticed you have been going through lots of toilet roll recently. When you go, how many slices do you use?’ Classic. Anyhow, she is the worst to clean for as her standards are unmatchable. So there I am, elbow deep in the toilet basin trying not to vom, and somehow I have managed to get rid of all the water but not the giant shit.

  ‘Luisa, that’s not going to work, you have to do it properly. Go to the garden and fetch a stick.’

  ‘What! FML, I’m not getting a stick!’

  ‘Listen, if you want to achieve anything in life, you have to work for it; whether it’s a career and being famous, or unblocking the toilet, it’s all the same, it’s your attitude that counts. So do it properly, go fetch a stick.’

  That’s how, at the age of 27, I found myself walking around my back garden looking for a reasonable-size stick to break up my little brother’s poo.

  Luckily, just at that moment I got a text from my equally jobless best friend Zana. I have known Zana since I was 18. We met at a temp job and spent a summer in Zante together. She had just moved back home after a year’s travelling hiatus. She’d been really hoping the experience would help her ‘find herself’. All she found was how quickly nine months’ worth of drinking fresh coconut water on a beach in Thailand can feel like a long-distant dream once you’re looking for semi-skimmed in the local Co-op.

  Zana saved me from my shit-stick search and suggested we meet up. So fast forward to 1 p.m. and we are in our favourite bistro, Le Weatherspoon’s, drinking Blue Lagoon out of the jug w
ith a straw, swapping tales of Thailand and poo sticks. It did not take long to get reacquainted. We ordered another pitcher and laughed about the last time we were on this high street. It was four years ago; we were two stone lighter and filled with hope about getting out of this small town. Oh how convinced we were that our first-class degrees would be our ticket to a brighter future.

  It was at this reminiscing moment that Zana said something that blew my mind; it was like I had my very own personal Jesus sat in front of me, like I was speaking to Gandhi himself as she uttered wisdom that changed the course of my life for ever:

  ‘Do you remember when you had anal sex with that personal trainer on that bench over there?’

  ‘It was an accident. I was very drunk, I’d had like three Smirnoff Ices!’

  That wasn’t the mind-blowing bit; I’m just trying to give you the context of the banality of the conversation so that when I tell you the mind-blowing bit it blows your mind too. She said – wait for it:

  ‘Hey Luisa, you do know we are the same age as Beyoncé?’

  ‘WHAT THE ACTUAL F?!’

  ‘I bet Beyoncé never had accidental anal on Camberley High Street.’

  ‘Of course she hasn’t, when Beyoncé has anal, skittles pop out.’

  ‘Ahhh queen!’

  It was at that moment in my life that I made a promise for the future ahead. It’s a two-part promise:

  Never let a guy accidentally give you anal. I don’t care how many Smirnoff Ices you’ve had; you either do it planned and prepared for or not at all.

  If she couldn’t sing and she couldn’t dance but she found herself at 27 living at home and breaking up her little brother’s poo with a stick, when life gave her lemons, WHAT WOULD BEYONCÉ DO?!

  PS FYI, yes, now we know, she would write an album that becomes a cultural, ground-breaking phenomenon which is so close to what I did it’s not even funny: babe, the whole ‘When life gives her lemons, WWBD?!’ is the first line in my solo show which I wrote a good FOUR YEARS before Lemonade even existed. I swear me and B are psychic twins.