Star of Taskmaster Rosie Jones is heading back out on the road with her brand-new stand-up show I Can’t Tell What She’s Saying, where she’ll be talking about the big stuff: being single, the pressures of representing huge sections of the population… and gravy.

The tour comes on the back of last year’s first-ever UK tour – a tour so successful that it lasted a year and saw her nominated for Most Outstanding Show – Melbourne Comedy Festival 2023.

Rosie recently fronted her own hit Comedy Central series Out Of Order, her hard-hitting Channel 4 documentary Am I A R*tard and two travelogue series, Mission: Accessible and the BAFTA nominated Trip Hazard as well as ground-breaking roles acting in primetime dramas Silent Witness, Casualty and Call The Midwife.

Dates coming up include: Portsmouth’s Wedgewood Rooms on Tuesday, September 23; Brighton’s Corn Exchange on Sunday, October 19; and Southampton’s MAST Theatre on Friday, November 7.

“I only started stand-up in 2017, and then during that time since then obviously we've had Covid, and that was two years. But my first job ever was in TV. I was a researcher and then I began writing jokes for all the comedians on the panel shows. And I still really enjoy writing but a combination of things happened and the first is really that I am a big attention seeker. Although I really really like writing for other people, part of me wanted to have the laughs for myself. I wanted the limelight but the other thing is that as a disabled person growing up, I never saw anyone disabled on the TV and then on the rare occasions when I did they were always someone that was depicted as the vulnerable one, the victim, the one that everybody should feel sorry for. That was never me. That was never my story.

“And coming through TV made me realise that there was a place for a strong independent disabled voice, particularly in the comedy world. I saw a gap and I wanted to be that positive representation – not just for other disabled people but for also for non-disabled people to see me and to see what I do and to realise that because a person has a disability it doesn't mean that they are incapable or disadvantaged or that they live half a life in some way. I wanted them to see that disabled people can be on TV, they can be on stage, they can be out, they can be proud and they can just be themselves.

“My favourite part of touring is meeting my audience. I love to chat and I do find that a lot of the people that come to speak to me have a disability. They come up to me and say ‘Thank you for going out there and for being unapologetic.’ They say ‘Thank you for being yourself.’

“Because of my disability I do receive a lot of hate and abuse online and I'm a victim of ableism. Sometimes it’s pretty hard to get over and difficult to swallow so when I meet disabled people that are saying thank you for representing them, then for me I just think that's the reason why I do it.

“I did a documentary about online abuse and hate. I don't know all the answers. I think it comes from different angles. I think it's partly fear and anger of the unknown and I also think it's from a lack of education. I do think it's because some people have never met a disabled person. They don't know anybody that talks like me so when they see that I am very happy being myself, that brings out confusion for them because they have grown up believing that a disabled person should be sad and should be vulnerable and they see that I am not.”