Happiness Quote by Jane Horrocks

Horrocks delivers the origin story of a comic persona with the breezy understatement of someone who knows how precarious that origin story really is. “Doing people like Shirley Bassey” isn’t just mimicry; it’s a young performer testing whether the world will reward her for being a human loudspeaker. The punchline is the small, almost sheepish kicker: “Fortunately it worked.” That word “fortunately” carries the whole survival narrative of working-class British showbiz, where talent is real but so is luck, timing, and the audience’s appetite for a particular kind of exaggeration.

There’s sly subtext in the choice of Bassey: a powerhouse diva, all brass and glamour, instantly recognizable and therefore instantly legible as comedy when filtered through an impressionist’s lens. Horrocks isn’t saying she mocked Bassey; she’s admitting she borrowed the cultural volume. If your own voice feels too small to be heard, you learn to speak in someone else’s decibels.

The line also hints at a gendered tightrope. For actresses, being “funny” can come with a tax: you’re allowed to be brilliant if you’re also palatable, if the joke is on performance rather than on power. Horrocks frames her comedy as discovery, not destiny, which is what makes it land. It’s not a myth of genius; it’s a report from the hustle: find an angle, make it sing, hope the room agrees.