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Born in Watford in 1993, Jack Rooke is a comedian, actor and writer. He studied journalism at the University of Westminster, and began his standup career in 2014. Rooke’s breakout show, Good Grief, was written with his grandmother, Sicely, and documented their experiences of bereavement following the death of Rooke’s father, Laurie, from cancer. His next show, Happy Hour, became the basis for his two-time Bafta-winning Channel 4 comedy, Big Boys. Rooke is taking an updated version of Good Grief on a UK tour, starting at the Roundhouse in London on 14 August. Rooke is an ambassador for the suicide prevention charity Calm.
I am three years old and being pushed by my nan on a swing. She’s in a lovely powder-blue two-piece while I am sporting an iconic all-in-one black-and-white striped mini boiler suit dungaree scenario. For reasons we will never know, I look rather unimpressed.
This sums up most of my childhood – hanging out with Nan. My parents worked a lot, so she’d pick me up from school every Tuesday and Thursday. We were always out and about, often in a park, supermarket or shopping centre. She was an ex-dinner lady, and her energy was soft and gentle. She was very active and a real prankster. Her name was Sicely. “Nicely but with an S,” she’d say. It’s a non-name and nobody I am related to has any idea why she was called that.
By comparison, my grandad was quite strait-laced – a man who liked brass rubbings and Emmerdale. Nan was always on charm offensive, and liked musicals, laughing, and had a regular slot down the bingo hall. Mostly, Nan understood creativity as catharsis. Older generations have a reputation for having a stiff upper lip and being stoic, but she was very conscious of mental health and being emotionally available.
As well as our shared curly hair, we were also both the non-drivers of the Rookes. Everyone else in our family was either a mechanic or a black-cab driver, so it felt like a joint rebellion. When I was old enough to drive, I refused to learn because gays don’t drive. Gays are born to be driven.
That said, I never spoke to Nan about being gay. She must have known I was a bit fruity, but my sexuality never came up in conversation. Being gay feels quite low down on the list of things about my identity that I am most preoccupied about. Grieving, or class or size, are far more prevalent subjects in my mind. Size especially. Nan would always wind me up about being bigger, in an affectionate way. Her love language was food, and she was always popping a Werther’s Original in my pocket or making huge amounts of spaghetti bolognese or shepherd’s pie for me. She used food to feed, nourish and also mock me. There was one time I came home from school and opened the fridge. Inside was a big plate with a lid on top and a note saying: “Homemade apple pie for you.” When I took the lid off, I realised it wasn’t a pie – it was a stack of carrot sticks and a Post-it that said “lose some weight” with a smiley face next to it. Nan had quite a laddie sense of humour.
When my dad died, I was 15 and Nan was 80. We were experiencing this huge loss and both missed him in different ways. Our common ground was that nobody was talking to us about it and everyone was being awkward. She was annoyed at certain friends who didn’t know how to address the fact that her child had passed away, and at school I felt people would be weird with me, making me feel like The Boy Whose Dad Had Died. We had lots of great mates, but both felt isolated sometimes. That was where the idea for my show Good Grief came from.
Before becoming a writer, I thought I wanted to be a documentary-maker. More specifically, I thought I wanted to be Stacey Dooley – an ambition I still hold to this day. I was 21 and in my third year at uni when I asked Nan if she would be up for talking about her experiences of grief with me. She was elated and so encouraging. I was the first person in my family to go to university, and she was chuffed to help. She probably would have wanted to go herself if she had had the money or the education or access. Instead, she wanted to make sure I did the best I could do.
On Father’s Day in 2014, I brought my uni friends to her council estate in Harefield, west London, to film our conversations together. We would sit around her kitchen table and chat. At first she was reluctant to be filmed; she hadn’t done anything like it before, so it took her a while to open up. We had to make sure we got her right side, and eventually she warmed up. It was emotional at times – not Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande on the Wicked press tour emotional, but more quiet and considered. Often the most powerful stuff was when my nan was saying nothing. She would stare into space reflecting for a few moments and then say something like: “At least we’ve got a fucking holiday booked.”
In 2015, I took the show we made together to Edinburgh. It was on at four o’clock in the smallest room and I was out flyering every day. Within a week the first three reviews were all five stars. Nothing will ever beat that buzz. Winning a Bafta was nice, but the summer when I realised people liked my show, when audiences were coming to see it – when the New York Times were coming to see it – that was all that me and Nan could have hoped for.
Nan died quite suddenly, before she ever got to see me on TV, way before Big Boys. She’d been ill for a few months. The grief I felt for her was different from when Dad died. This time it was less traumatic because through making Good Grief, I had this wealth of film, audio clips and photos of her that I just didn’t have with my dad. When someone dies, they vanish overnight and it is so painful. Whereas with Nan, I can see and hear her whenever I want. My mum often says she misses Nan more than my dad, which is weird, because obviously my nan’s my dad’s mum. But Mum had never had a mum – hers died when she was six. To my mum, and to me, Nan was a huge crux of support.
Experiencing a lot of grief early on in my life means I’ve been to a lot of funerals. Sometimes I think that if my career ever fucks up, I’ll become a humanist celebrant, as I am now the family’s designated speech writer for funerals. Whenever someone dies, my mum or auntie will be like: “Oh, you do it, Jack, you write such wonderful words.” I’ll always do it, even if I barely knew them, because I think funerals need a rebrand. People should not be defined by their death, but celebrated for who they were in life. I’d much rather hear about the holiday in Magaluf where they got rat-arsed than platitudes about how they will be missed.
I owe my nan my career. Good Grief was the first time I made something, the first time I could be creative professionally. And that all comes down to Nan – that she was always so emotionally available and encouraging to me. For that I feel very lucky.
