When everything that can go wrong does go wrong, do you crumple and wave the white flag? Or do you dig into some secret reservoir of grit and push onward? For local comedian Sam See—who performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and appeared on The Jim Jefferies Show—the answer might lie in doing comedy overseas. But just as he is set to leave, life has other plans for him.

We meet See at Hoshino Cafe and learn that in the face of disaster—from a worldwide pandemic to an unexpected medical diagnosis—the only solution is to march on and sometimes laugh about it.

ESQUIRE SINGAPORE: So this is it for you?

SAM SEE: It’s done. My career is over.

ESQ: You’re finally moving overseas for a career in comedy.

SS: I guess I can say that, at this point, I have received the Global Talent visa. It’s all approved and I’ll be able to work legally in the UK for the next four years. So, there’s a deadline to make this work.

ESQ: Was there any sadness in leaving Singapore?

SS: Definitely. I leave my friends. I leave behind an art scene thatI love; I won’t get to work with the comics around the region as much. I won’t get to perform in Malaysia that much—and I’ve been playing there since 2014. I won’t get to play Vietnam again, which I love a lot. Bangkok, Cambodia, Myanmar, Philippines.

ESQ: You could remain here.

SS: But I have to. If not I’ll always wonder whether I could make it or not. If I don’t move to the UK, I’ll be stuck here, bitter.

ESQ: How long have you been working on this move to the UK?

SS: Since 2018? The original plan was that 2018 was the year thatI started the first Asia tour. That was difficult because bookers, at the time, were looking for a certain kind of comic, which is code for “Western acts” so they could sell to the expat markets. So I worked with Justin Heyes, an act from Malaysia to do an independent tour around the region and work with independent promoters. That was really, really hard but I liked it. It informed me that it’s possible to work outside of Singapore.

Then in 2019, I was contemplating a move to the US and that’s when The Jim Jefferies Show came about. Jim asked me to come to America and put me in touch with a few people from different agencies to talk about doing a show for them.

ESQ: How did you and Jim Jefferies connect?

SS: I opened for Kevin Bridges and a person watching the show wanted to interview a comedian in Singapore when Jim is in town; because of the piece he was doing, Jim needed to have a local comic to talk to. So I did the interview with him and even opened his stand-up show in Singapore. That’s how it came to be.

ESQ: What was it like having those meetings in America?

SS: I sat with [Jim’s] agent and the people from Viacom and Comedy Central and started pitching potential shows. I was also in touch with the LA comedy club scene. It all felt like, like, ok, this is going good. The plan was that when 2020 hit, I would move to LA.

ESQ: And we all know what happened in 2020.

SS: A rough year for me. Before the pandemic started, Viacom merged with CBS [Corporation] and all my connections in LA dried up. America was off the table.

ESQ: At least, you were still in Singapore during the pandemic. Did it feel like starting from zero?

SS: Yeah. I performed at Edinburgh in 2019 and then in 2022. That’s a three-year difference and festivals change and even more so in a post-pandemic world. But during the lockdown period, I made friends with a lot of people from the UK online so my UK connections grew stronger. When I returned to do the Fringe in 2022, I’d already made a lot of friends [from that region].

In 2023, I realised that the UK is the most probable choice to relocate to because I have the most connections there. And also given how tumultuous America was at the time... I don’t want me or my partner to die by gun.

ESQ: Does your comedy work better overseas?

SS: I think my comedy has always worked better overseas. Whenever I perform in Singapore, I am working with half of my ammunition—I don’t get to use all my jokes. I don’t get to use all of my skills. Let’s say if I’m doing a Welsh accent or a Scottish accent, a lot of Singaporeans are wondering, what is that noise? I’ve referenced the [Rwandan asylum seekers] in the UK and even the American expats have heard of that. Most of the Singaporeans have no idea what Rwanda was as a concept.

ESQ: Really?

SS: I’ve a theory about that and it’s because Singapore works well. Because we work perfectly as an independent state, we become oblivious to things outside of Singapore’s sphere. If the pound were to crash, it doesn’t quite affect us. If a natural disaster strikes somewhere, we will give some aid, but it doesn’t affect us. We had our chicken supply cut off from Malaysia and within three days, we had an entire new deal with Brazil. It didn’t affect us much.So why would you need to read news about asylum seekers in another country, if it doesn’t affect you? You don’t need to care about anything else when, where you live, everything works.

So that means there’s no incentive to educate yourself. I dare wager more than half of Singaporeans don’t even know who the members of [our local] parliament are. They just vote for this team or that team, regardless of what policies they are fronting or what bill has been passed. We can watch all members of parliament discuss and debate and see how policies are shaped in real-time. But nobody cares, nobody knows.

ESQ: Tell us about any invaluable lesson you’ve learnt during your comedy career.

SS: Honestly? Learning to talk to people. Before I started stand-up, I had a hard time having conversations with people. Because of this career, I’m able to travel the world and talk to people everywhere; just being able to communicate. Sometimes it’s difficult but stand-up has helped me overcome a lot of my anxiety. I can never be more thankful. I could still be an immensely odd video game programmer if stand-up didn’t enter my life.

This career gave me a chance to make more friends than I could ever have dreamt of. And for a kid who didn’t make his first friend until he was 17, it means a lot to me.

ESQ: You had a medical scare. Can we talk about that?

SS: Absolutely. Would I be a good comic if I wasn’t milking an injury for more stage time?

ESQ: What happened?

SS: Well, the plan was to move to the UK in December 2023. The visa wasn’t cleared yet so I wanted to fly over there first to find accommodations and introduce myself to the clubs before the official move. My partner pointed out a bump at the side of my neck and I thought it was some weird wacky lymph node or a symptom of long COVID.

ESQ: I wanna state that this is the first time I heard lymph nodes described as “weird” and “wacky”.

SS: Yeah. So, I got it checked out as a cursory and then I knew something was wrong, when [the doctor] said, Hey, could you come back tomorrow?

ESQ: Not a good sign.

SS: Never. But my mind just went to how Singapore is so efficient.

ESQ: The bump, did it hurt?

SS: No, it didn’t and that was the main reason why I never got it checked out. Turns out that bump was a pre-malignant tumour. On paper, it is a “benign tumour that can become cancerous”, which falls in the category of “pre-malignant” but they don’t call it that.

ESQ: Maybe it’s an insurance thing?

SS: Possibly. So it was a week before I was supposed to leave that they gave me the diagnosis. I had to reschedule my travel dates and stay in Singapore for extra check-ups. That upended my entire plan to relocate to the UK.

I still left because I had booked tickets already and we still needed to do the legwork of finding accommodations and making introductions before the official move. We returned in mid-January and had surgery. Turned out that the tumour was bigger than expected. About 4.5cm in diameter all around. That’s the size of a lemon, I think.

ESQ: My God.

SS: The doctor says I can probably sing an octave or two higher now. So yeah, that tumour was pressing onto something.

ESQ: Is the tumour in a jar somewhere in the house?

SS: I couldn’t keep it because it’d be a biochemical hazard. It’s a tumour that could become cancerous.

ESQ: With all this happening, did you feel that the universe was telling you not to move to the UK?

SS: It felt like a last-ditch attempt by the universe to make me stay here. How dare you try to chase something more than what your current environment provides. Does it feel like everything is against me? Yes. But everything has always been against me. I’m an openly queer performer in Singapore. I’m not someone who is meant to succeed here. So, I have to go out of my way to go somewhere else. Despite that, I still managed to squeeze out a career to the point where the UK is able to recognise my efforts and allow me to work over there.

ESQ: What drives you?

SS: The first time I did Edinburgh, I was talking to a fellow comedian Struan Logan, telling him, Yeah, I’m gonna make it. Yeah, I’m gonna show them and Struan is like, Who’s “them”? I suppose it started out as spite but now I see that I am good and I have the talent to perform and entertain. I do not have the sense of, Oh, I deserve to be seen by more! It’s more of, I deserve to get the recognition that I’ve earned over the years. I want a career that can support me and my partner. And if people like it, that’s great.

ESQ: When did this shift in mentality occur?

SS: I think it was through the pandemic that things were tougher. I had lost everything that I was building in America. And then I started to talk to people and life seemed to be filled with colour again and realised I should explore other avenues that weren’t just stand-up. I worked with professional wrestlers around the region, I worked with the alternative comedy scene in the UK. It dawned on me that, yes, comedy is good, but being a human being is better. And by doing that, it made me a better comic as well, because there was more to things than just being the best comedian in the world. It matters if you can put food on the table. If you like what you do, you can support the people around you. That’s far more important.

ESQ: It sounds like a job.

SS: But it’s a job that I like. It would be foolish to look at stand-up as something frivolous. It may look like we’re just making jokes on stage but there’s effort and time placed into this. I’ve to file taxes for this!

ESQ: Is there anyone that you appreciative?

SS: Jim Jefferies, for sure. There’s Ed Byrne, who is genuinely helping me by putting me on his UK tour. He also helped with rent in the UK during a very difficult year. I guess, people who have booked me before. Oh, the audience. I’m grateful to them because, I know I’m not an easy first-watch but I’m thankful for those who came and stayed to watch the rest of my act. And finally, anyone who donated or supported me during the pandemic. That helped a lot. The COVID years were a dire time for a lot of performers.

ESQ: What’s your happiest moment in the local comedy scene?

SS: I don’t think I have just the one. Being able to sell about 500 tickets to my special [Government Approved Sex] in 2023.  Whenever any of the new acts do well in their 20-minute set or for their first time makes me very happy. When a corporate gig pays on time, that makes me very happy.

I’m very fortunate to work with a lot of the juniors [in the local scene]. I’m happy just watching them grow. To reiterate: I do not feel that I help them in any way; this is all on their own merit. I’m just there to sort of hold the door open for them to walk through.

ESQ: When you make it big in the UK, would you return to Singapore? Maybe to mentor the next crop of comics?

SS: If I made it big, I’d like to remain in the UK. I can do more good over there. Mathematically and strategically, it makes sense to stay there and use my platform to, hopefully, bring more talent from Asia to the West. Or put more Western eyes on Asia.

I mean, Ronny Chieng on The Daily Show... did he return to Malaysia? No, that would be foolish. Let the man have his career. Let me have my career.

This interview was edited for length and clarity.

Photography: Jaya Khidir