Ten years ago, Ellie Taylor was at the very beginning of her comedy career. Working a day job in marketing and trying to schedule gigs on the side, 2009 was the start of something special for the comedian and writer.

Flash forward 10 years, and Taylor has carved out a place for herself in the behemoth that is the British comedy industry. In the relatively short time period since her first gig at an open-mic night, she has landed regular slots on both BBC2’s The Mash Report and Mock The Week, and appeared as a guest on everything from 8 Out Of 10 Cats to QI.

Add to that the fact that she’s managed to appear as both a featured act and a host on the BBC stand-up comedy series Live At The Apollo and managed to headline three UK tours (with a fourth starting next week), and it’s evident that she’s been rather busy.

This week, as Stylist turns 10, we sat down with Taylor to reflect on what her world looked like in 2009, and everything that has changed since. 

I was about to…

I was about to start stand-up comedy! I was working in a day job in marketing but I had my sights on doing an open-mic night. So yeah, I did a gig and then it led to my whole career. 

I was reading…

It probably would have been Harry Potter. Still now, if I’m ever feeling a bit stressed, I’ll go back into Harry Potter. It’s always friendly: a safe place. Hogwarts is comforting. Otherwise, since the invention of Audible, I listen to books instead. I’m not very good at reading non-fiction but I’m better at listening to it, so I consume more non-fiction now because of that, which I didn’t do before. 

I was listening to…

Probably Sex On Fire. Who sings that? I’ve forgotten… Kings of Leon! In 2009 I had the Kings of Leon album. I’d moved out and was living with a friend in London, and someone had burnt me a dodgy CD of the Kings of Leon, and I listened to it and loved it. I was living with one of my best mates, I had broken up with a guy, and I was living in this place in London and it felt free and cool and a very happy time. I love that album. 

I was wearing…

I think I may have just been starting to pencil in my eyebrows. I only discovered eyebrow pencil then because obviously eyebrows were very skinny for a lot of time.

I was watching…

It was a bit old school even then but I’d never watched Sex And The City, and when I moved in with my friend she had the boxset so I thought I’d give it a try, and I gobbled it all up. I called in sick and had a day off just watching Sex And The City. I’ve never really watched it again since… it was just a thing that I loved then.

I was talking about…

I think it was around then that I first heard about Spotify, so I was one of the people to join quite early. The idea of free music at that time was quite new, so the fact that you could log on at any time and listen to anything was quite a revelation.  I remember feeling terribly cool, telling my friends about Spotify. 

I was obsessed with…

I remember I quite liked SingStar for a while. That was out about then wasn’t it?

I wish I’d paid more attention to…

Wearing SPF. I feel like everyone could do with starting wearing SPF at least a decade earlier than they do, just for ageing. Protect the old boatrace mate.

Images: Provided