Sarah
Mills
Writer / Performer
Entertainment
Sarah is a disabled writer, actor, comedian and producer.
She is the winner of the BAFTA Rocliffe award for TV Comedy and a Semi-Finalist in the Funny Women Stand Up Awards. Sarah’s debut comedy theatre show BADASS was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe 2022 and it transferred from there to Pleasance London as part of the BEST OF THE FEST SEASON.
Sarah was diagnosed with Bowel Cancer in 2018 but as a keen content creator, immediately turned her time in treatment into the world’s first ever chat show filmed on a chemo ward. The Chemo Chat Show featured guests including Phil Wang, Rob Rinder MBE, Harriet Kemsley and Dara O Briain.
Sarah has now recovered from cancer but her illness meant she acquired a disability. She now lives with a stoma – which is an opening in the abdomen through which waste can be collected in a bag.
When I was told I would be getting a stoma as a way to treat the cancer, I had never heard that word before. It has always seemed crazy to me how little it is spoken about, and how few people (including me at one point!) know about this surgery. I wanted to use my platform to keep talking about it, so that the next young woman facing Bowel Cancer and the need to have a stoma fitted wouldn’t be in the dark.
On TV, Sarah has appeared on The Last Leg, Stand Up to Cancer and Rosie Jones’ Disability Extravaganza. Her writing credits include Have I Got News for You (BBC2), Horrible Histories (CBBC), Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway (ITV1), The Stand Up Sketch Show (ITV2), Tom Gates (Sky Kids), Dodo (Sky Kids) and Channel 4’s Nasty Neighbours.
As an advocate, Sarah has spoken in Parliament, addressing the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions directly, about how the Universal Credit system was letting down cancer patients. She has had an open letter to Boris Johnson published by Macmillan Cancer Support about staff shortages in the NHS. And on Instagram, Sarah is busy raising awareness of invisible disabilities with her #StomaHeroes series where she recreates iconic pictures with her stoma bag in shot.
I am very proud to be the first person on the Disability Power 2023 to talk openly about living with a stoma, and I hope to keep raising awareness of life with this condition.”
Disability Power 100 2023 profile information has been self-submitted by the profile subject. Shaw Trust understands and respects that disability and impairment descriptors and language use varies from person to person. Shaw Trust assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or discrepancies in the content of this, or any other, profile page.
Image credit: Olly Courtney
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