Brighton Comedy Festival is keeping the laughs coming for its second week. Duncan Hall and Dominic Smith speak to some of the big names heading south – for tickets call 01273 709709.

"WHY can’t you be more ladylike?” is the despairing cry many young tomboys will have heard growing up.

And former corporate lawyer turned comic Susan Calman is no exception.

“My family used to call me Pigpen after the character in Peanuts who used to get covered in dirt as soon as he left his front door,” says Calman as she prepares to bring her new show to the Brighton Comedy Festival.

“I would be put into nice dresses and things like that, but I wasn’t ladylike in the slightest.

“I have never followed fashion in the slightest – I’ve got bad feet so I wear comfortable shoes, although people think it’s a lesbian stereotype. It’s good if I want to run for a taxi – I’ve no idea how these women in high heels do it.”

In reality the title of Calman’s show is more of a play on words –following her personal journey of learning how to like herself.

“It’s about how you go through the process, getting rid of insecurities and being positive about yourself,” she says.

Part of the inspiration came from her own social media experiences.

Like many women who dare to allow their opinions to be heard by the wider world she has been the victim of internet trolling.

“I use a couple of examples of things people have sent to me about how I look as the starting point of the show,” she says.

“People will email me or whatever saying I’m fat or ugly, which happens fairly regularly when I’m on television. The show is about getting a coping strategy to deal with that. The first time it happens you take it personally – you don’t realise that people send this stuff to everybody.”

Calman doesn’t have a team of PAs dealing with her Twitter or Facebook feed – she looks after it all herself. Now she tries to ensure whatever she puts out is relentlessly positive.

“If people know that have got you then they’ve won,” she says. “My Twitter feed is a constant stream of positivity, but it took a while to realise how I could take control of the situation and not let other people control how I was feeling.

“I never criticise anyone on Twitter apart from politicians, and usually the people who follow me feel the same.”

Touring the show around the country she has met many others with similar experiences.

“I wanted to be honest with people and tell them some of the things that have been said to me,” she says. “It’s not just women who go through self-doubt – hopefully people seeing me being honest about the situation and how I dealt with it will make them feel positive about themselves. Trolling is just another example of the power games that people have played for years.”

As a former corporate lawyer, specialising in IT, she feels ‘trolling’ is too far-reaching a term for the different levels of abuse levelled at people on the internet.

“You get really vile behaviour to someone simply saying somebody is different,” she says. “The issue ranges from light-hearted banter to extreme misogyny and sexism.

“We can’t stop using social media, we just have to get better at it. The law is still using regulations from 2000 which are far out of date – it takes a while for the law to catch up with technology. Socially and legally we have all got to conduct ourselves in a way that makes us proud.”

Calman had always wanted to be a comic, but growing up in Scotland in the 1990s it wasn’t really an option to take to your careers advisor.

“I went to university and became a lawyer,” she says.

“Having a high pressure job made me realise to be successful you have to keep on working. It often surprises people how much hard work comedy can be.

“It’s not all about standing on stage and making people laugh.”

Her work rate is reflected in the many other branches she has to her career. Although she is touring until April she is also working on BBC Radio 4’s News Quiz and has two series of her own stand-up show under her belt.

She is hosting a new series of BBC Radio 2 panel show Listomania which will hit the airwaves in December, has a new sitcom in development for BBC Radio 4, and a project with a major broadcaster which she is not allowed to talk about. But she is particularly looking forward to coming to Brighton.

“Audiences in Brighton are very comedy literate and giving,” she says. “I’ve done Bent Double at Komedia and the Brighton Fringe. You have an audience which is ready to laugh and happy to go for it – it’s one of the best places for comedy in the UK.”

Susan Calman: Lady Like Brighton Dome Corn Exchange, Church Street, Thursday, October 23