Laura Lexx, Jürgen Klopp and a postponed date in Crawley

Laura Lexx admits lockdown back in the spring was devastating for her and her husband, a fellow stand-up.
Laura LexxLaura Lexx
Laura Lexx

They lost their income overnight – and it was a long time before they found out whether there would be any financial support available to them. In the event, Tom got it; Laura didn’t.

But professionally, the pandemic – as awful as it has been – hasn’t been completely awful for Laura.

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After all, she took Twitter by storm with her imaginary marriage to Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp.

And then she was venturing back onto the live circuit – until national lockdown number two struck. She was due to be playing The Hawth in Crawley on Friday, November 20 at 7.30pm, sharing the bill with Andy Robinson and Mo Omar, joining forces for a night of socially-distanced comedy. The date has now been reconfirmed as Saturday, January 16 at 7.45pm.

It’s been quite a year, as Laura recalls. “It has certainly been up and down! It hasn’t been what I was expecting, but to be honest, I can’t say that it has all been dreadful. You have just had to roll with the punches and take it as best as you can. It was gutting at first, but I think because it was happening to the whole world, I felt an odd comfort in that, just knowing that it was happening to everyone – and I don’t mean that in a heartless way. But it just felt that because we have all got the same problem it just felt that we were all going to have to solve it. I was not as panicked.

“But the main stress was that my husband and myself are both comedians, and both of us lost our income overnight.”

Oddly it was Herr Klopp who provided the comfort.

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“It all started as a Twitter thread. It was March 13, the week before lockdown, and I was up in Glasgow in a hotel gigging, and I was feeling a bit insecure, thinking was everything going to shut down. Italy was shut down. Our numbers were rising. I was lying around in the hotel room watching a press conference with Jürgen Klopp and he was saying ‘Why are you asking me about coronavirus? I don’t know!’”

And it prompted a little bit of silliness on Laura’s part – a little bit of silliness that went a long way. She Tweeted: “If I ever met Jurgen Klopp I’d say “omg if we have a baby we should call it Klipp” just so he’d raise an eyebrow at me and tell me I’m a moron and I’d be so naked by the time he’d finished doing that.”

The first tweet amassed 5.6 million views, and her subsequent posts imagining life married to Klopp continued to go viral. A book, Klopp Actually: (Imaginary) Life with Football’s Most Sensible Heartthrob followed.

For Laura, rather than sweeping romance, she wanted – she laughs – a life with a sensible, decent, down-to-earth man. Yes, she wouldn’t mind sweeping romance in small doses, but much more, she wants life with someone who makes each day just a little bit calmer, she says.

“He knows about the book. He has got a signed copy. But there is no restraining order on me at the moment!”