I have never laughed a girl into bed... just been laughed at IN bed
By NICK FRANCIS
HAVING told more than 50,000 jokes at the 200 gigs he has done so far this year, it's fair to say Jimmy Carr is a pretty big comic. But he's not quite as big as he used to be.
The once podgy-faced funnyman, who sold his millionth ticket earlier this year, has lost nearly three stone in the past few months and now cuts a svelte 10st figure on stage. You may think he was not fat in the first place, but Jimmy swears he desperately needed to shift some flab.
He says: "I crept up to a 36in waist, but I'm back down to 30in. I would finish a show around midnight. Have you ever tried to get food in this country after 9pm? All you can get is deep-fried, delicious food. I would be eating pizzas or burgers in a hotel room and the waistline bulged. You know you're in trouble when you're shopping in M&S with the missus to buy a bra for yourself. I think I was an A cup. The most bizarre part is I've lost weight on my feet - I've gone down two shoes sizes. I didn't know it was possible. I must have had trotters. I no longer eat after 6pm, which is all I needed to slim down. I think it's good that blokes are getting more image-conscious and trying to improve the way they look. I always say, 'You can't polish a turd, but you can roll it in glitter.' "
Jimmy is one of Britain's best loved stand-ups. And the acclaim he gets is well-deserved as he works hard, packing in more than 200 shows a year. He says: "In a two-hour gig I tell about 250 jokes, so it's a lot of work. But I love my job. At a time like this, with so many people unemployed, I feel lucky to have one at all, let alone such a fun one. I'm captain of the lucky club."
Unfortunately, the comic's good fortune failed him last month when he made an ill-timed joke about wounded British troops. But Jimmy insists: "I'd been doing the joke since August and told it to close to 100,000 people by the time of the Manchester gig. I played to 9,000 people that weekend and just two complained. Initially I was a bit shocked by the reaction. But there's a lot of anger about what is going on with our troops. In the days following the show, the majority of members of the Armed Forces were very supportive. They have a very dark sense of humour. I think they know there was no malice intended. It was just a joke. The problem is when you're a comedian and speak to 2,000 people a night who don't find you offensive, you sort of forget that you are. It's easy to get carried away with freedom of speech. You think, 'I have the right to say these things.' But people have a right to be offended too. That's why I dropped the joke, out of respect."
The comic was also in the news when he was accused of using a mobile phone while driving. But last month he dodged three points and a fine after his lawyer, Nick "Mr Loophole" Freeman, explained that Jimmy was using his iPhone as a dictaphone to record a joke, not to make a call. Under UK law this is not illegal. When cleared on October 16, Jimmy was mobbed on the steps of the court by journalists begging to hear the joke that nearly landed him in hot water.
"I refused to say," he explains. "It was a court case and you have to respect that. I wasn't going to make light of it - people get killed on our roads every day and I was being dangerous by using the dictaphone. To this day, I haven't told anyone what the joke was." But Jimmy decided to break his silence during this interview. He says: "You want to hear it? This is an exclusive: 'My girlfriend had a phantom pregnancy. Now we have a baby ghost.' It is just a silly joke, but when I think of a gag I record it so I don't forget. Unfortunately, there was a police car near and it looked as though I was using my phone."
The girlfriend Jimmy is referring to is Karoline, his partner of nine years. And despite having a razor wit, Jimmy does not believe it ever helped with the opposite sex. He says: "I've been laughed at IN bed but never laughed anyone INTO bed. I don't believe being funny gets you girls, but you do need to share a laugh. Actually, you know what the best test for whether you are compatible with someone is? Newspapers. If you can share the same papers - laugh at the same things, tut at the same stories, go "Urgh" at the same celebs - then you are made for each other."
Jimmy believes comedy is more important now than ever, especially in these days of unemployment and recession. He says: "Britain has the best live comedy in the world. It's great at each level, from grassroots clubs to big names in big venues. Nowhere else has such a high standard, not even America. I love going to see comedians. Some people are performers and it's all about their act, such as Russell Brand. But others have genius material, like Frankie Boyle. Dara O'Briain is possibly the best comedian I've seen. He's just fantastic. I can't think of a better night than a trip to a stand-up show or comedy club. It's also a great place to pull. "When people say they 'clicked' with someone, what they really mean is they made each other laugh. You've got far more chance pulling at one of my gigs because everyone there shares the same sense of humour. Around half the audience are single and it's an even mix of men and women. I should have a dating service going! Even if you don't get a date, at least it is cheap. You're with your mates, partner, family. And laughing makes people feel better.
"The credit crunch has hit people hard. You might not be able buy a car or a holiday but you're not going to deny yourself a night out and a laugh. It's probably cheaper than a night in a pub. Mind you, it's only good value if you think I'm funny."
Jimmy Carr's laugh has got its own Facebook group!
heatworld
15 January 2010
Jimmy Carr's laugh has been branded the most annoying in the entire world by some (seriously lacking a sense of humour) critics, who describe the sound as "a dying walrus" or "a distressed seagull" and even a "hyperventilating cat". Over 12,00 people have watched Jimmy Carr's tittering on YouTube in the past week, and his fans have now set up a Facebook group to support him. One admirer even commented that she'd like to "marry" his laugh. Hmmm, she'll have a struggle. Jimmy himself is clearly bemused by all the attention, saying of his distinctive chortle, "It sounds a bit like a seal being molested. It is a slightly silly laugh." Have a listen to Jimmy's chuckle by watching the above clip and then tell us what you think. Hilarious or just plain annoying? YOU decide.
Jimmy’s pulling power
Russell Leadbetter
heraldscotland.com
23 Mar 2010
Lots of comedians – and rock stars, for that matter – profess to love Glasgow and its audiences above all others, but when Jimmy Carr says it, you can’t help but believe him. Carr, without question one of the hardest-working figures in showbiz, returns to the city at the end of this month for a four-night run at the Clyde Auditorium as part of the Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival. The first three nights – Friday through Sunday – are sold out: the fourth night, a Monday, is heading that way pretty quickly.
Carr, interviewed by telephone as he made his way across Manchester en route to that night’s show in Southport, started his current Rapier Wit tour in Edinburgh last year.
“Scotland is very much my home away from home,” he said. “I do Edinburgh for the 10th year in a row this year, and for the first time I’m recording a DVD out of London – I’m recording it in Glasgow, at the comedy festival. The last couple of years I’ve been there, it has been the best gig. It’s always like a mental (thing) ...there’s something about the Scottish crowd. There’s a great quote from the music-hall days, I think it’s about a heckler at the Glasgow Empire who shouted, ‘It’s all very funny if you like laughing’ which is just such a classic Glasgow quote. Glasgow just has got a marvellous attitude for my kind of comedy. I absolutely love it.”
Lest anyone should be in doubt about the sales potential of Carr’s next DVD, let them consider two simple statistics: his first five DVDs have sold in excess of one million copies. The most recent of them, Telling Jokes, has sold about 200,000 in the three months since its release.
“There are some tickets left for the Monday night in Glasgow,” Carr is musing. “Monday is a weird night for comedy but it’s a great night for comedy, because the kind of people that book tickets to see a show on a Monday night are crazy. You’d think they’d be much more of a genteel, relaxed, affair but actually a Monday night tends to be mental.”
For Carr to sell out so many nights at a venue such as the Armadillo speaks to his boundless popularity. There are many rock and pop groups who, despite their own pulling-power, would struggle to sell out two nights there.
“I think that’s a weird thing where people keep on coming back to the show,” he said. “There’s a lovely thing that happens. I remember a woman coming to a show a couple of years ago and coming up to me afterwards and saying: ‘That was disgusting, that was offensive, crude and nasty. No better than last year.’ There’s a thing that happens where people who have the same sense of humour as me come every year, once a year. They come to see the new show.
“That’s the good thing about the Magners comedy festival – there are so many shows, there really is something for everyone. The great thing about comedy is you can recommend things to friends but you can’t really recommend things to people that aren’t your mates. It’s not like movies, or opera, where you go, ‘That’s a good one, that’s a bad one’. In comedy it all depends on what your sense of humour is.”
AH, that sense of humour. Like Frankie Boyle (who is also appearing at the Magners festival), Carr and his material have sometimes been dogged by controversy. Only this month, the media watchdog Ofcom cleared Channel Four of breaching regulations on religious offence after he made a quip about the Pope on the quiz show, Eight Out of 10 Cats.
Previous comments, about gypsies, and soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, have also stirred headlines. Carr has said of himself that he is “quite an edgy comic. I like dark things”, and he thought that “the vast majority of my audience recognise a liberal, slightly over-educated man telling jokes and playing with what you can and can’t say”.
Carr, who studied at Cambridge and landed a job in marketing before striking out into comedy, has become one of the most ubiquitous people on television, cropping up on panel shows with impressive regularity (and on late-night US TV chat shows) as well as embarking on annual tours of the country’s theatres. He tours as often as he does, because – simply – it is what he does.
“Some people get into comedy so they can get on the telly. But for me, telly is just the gravy; it’s a wonderful, brilliant, fun thing to do, but it’s not your main job. Your main job is going out there and entertain people. Also, it’s that thing of being an entertainer, or not. I’m not an artist or a poet. I’ve got nothing to say, I’m not going to change your opinion about anything. I just want to make you laugh for two hours.”
Carr’s dedication to this is plain. His tour schedule is, at the moment, studded with more than 80 dates between now and August. But August also means Edinburgh. “I’m coming up and doing some dates on this tour in Scotland in July” – so far, Perth Concert Hall and Dunfermline Alhambra – “and then as soon as I finish these dates, I start the new show a couple of weeks later in Edinburgh. The new show,” he quips, “is exactly the same as the last one, apart from every single word. It’s still me standing on stage, telling jokes.”
In addition to his dogged touring, Carr has also contributed to the BT Sport Relief Million Pound Bike Ride (“I left it looking like I’d been to a pool party at Michael Barrymore’s house”) and, last night, hosted an all-star Teenage Cancer Trust comedy night at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
He’s also adept at tweeting stories against himself, such as the time when, on a train journey to Wales, he watched on his laptop, via iPlayer, an TV show he’d done. He was laughing at it – unfortunately, it was also a show he’d been on. He was “busted” by a female passenger who gave him a withering “get over yourself” look.
That’s the thing about Carr’s comedy. Not even Carr escapes.
Jimmy Carr interview: stand-up comedy, 10 O’Clock Live and the British sense of humour
Simon Brew
Nov 9, 2010
denofgeek.com
Just a couple of weeks before this interview took place, I went along to see Jimmy Carr's current stand-up tour at Birmingham's Symphony Hall. It was a really good gig, and it emerged the day after that he's played the venue more than anyone else since it was built. Thus, as we settled down to talk about his new comedy DVD, Making People Laugh, that seemed like a logical place to start...
When they built the Symphony Hall in Birmingham, I can't have imagined they'd have thought a stand-up comedian would have played it more than anyone else?
It's such a cool room, isn't it? We're recording the DVD there next year, because I just love that room. I think it's a fabulous space, and a lot of people go there.
There's a lovely bit on your new DVD in the extra features, in the part where you meet people after the gig. And you say in that segment that "it makes it for me when people join in". Seeing your current tour in the context of that quote, you seem to be further expanding just how people can get involved in your gigs? Is there a much bigger risk to that?
Not really, no. But I'm getting a lot more people up on stage, and making them part of the show. It's a weird tension. The show is dependant on other people. But I genuinely don't know what's going to happen in those moments. So, there's a bigger risk, but there's a bigger reward. If it doesn't work, it's kind of okay, I just get through it a bit quicker.
I interviewed someone [on stage] the other night who was absolutely fascinating, and it was 20 minutes long, the interview part of the [current] show. Sometimes you interview someone and it's five minutes, which is perfectly okay, but they get nervous and it doesn't quite work.
The fact that you're building a new show year after year, you seem increasingly interested in tinkering with the format?
Yeah. It's interesting. That thing of doing visual style has come on the last couple of years. On the new DVD, Making People Laugh, you've got visuals and amazing cartoons, so, as you go through, you've got something on screen as well as watching someone perform. So, it's something else to focus on.
How much of a sense of an audience do you get by how they react to the Powerpoint slides you run at the start of your gigs?
You get a very nice sense. I've always liked the idea of starting the gig before I walk out, because I don't have any support act. It always works. I can judge by the reaction to the opening sequence of the show what night of the week it is. A Tuesday or a Saturday. I don't think people talk about that enough. People talk about where is the best place to play. But it's not where, it's when. Saturday night is fabulous.
There is a weird thing where people sometimes book tickets on the basis of a date, so they say it's the 28th October, let's go to a gig. And then it turns out to be a Wednesday night, so they're wondering what they're doing out of the house!
Partly on that point. Much has been made about how mainstream comedy has gone over the past few years in particular. But what's that done to the audience itself, apart from it getting bigger? An audience in a comedy club, for instance, tends to be a lot more tuned in and involved than a more mainstream room with occasional comedy watchers? Do you find the same?
I don't know. It's a very good question, but I think I've kind of got critical mass now. I think that 70% of the audience get what you do, so the 30% of newcomers get carried along. I play to around 300,000 people a year, and I reckon around 200,000 of those have seen me before in the last five years. So, you're preaching to the choir, really.
Which of those groups would you say you target your show most at?
I suppose I target it at me, really. It's what makes me laugh, and sharing it with other people. I'm not trying to write something for them.
You're over a million tickets sold now, too?
I think it's 1.2 million, something like that. It's a lot!
That's an amazing number...
It's ludicrous! But it's little and often, I'm not an arena filler. I work a lot, little rooms all the time.
You say you're going to Symphony Hall next year to film the gig, and you've filmed this new DVD in Glasgow. But how do you select now which gig is the right one to film?
I'm getting better at picking! And what I do now is chat to people for longer. So, you know me, I get up there, do the first 15-20 minutes of gig, which is me doing 70 jokes. Then I'll do something visual, have a little chat with the audience, and try and get to know who the characters are in this room. Who wants to join in.
People present themselves, I think. People who have a claim to fame, or an interesting job, they'll say something, or they'll shout out in some way. You get better at tuning in and going, "Well, I think you're quite interesting, but I don't think I want you up on stage." It's a weird thing where getting better at that feels like a really exciting thing. Getting better at your job is really fun.
I've been looking at a few stand-up DVDs, and on one of the most recent, it's said that on a national tour, you really only find two or three problem audience members at most.
Not even that. I can't think of the last time I had a problem. We have a problem about twice a year, when someone is way too drunk and disturbing the people around them. I think I have the air of a deputy head, so when I say shut up, people tend to. You can break the fourth wall a bit and go out and say, "Look, I don't care, but you seem to be upsetting the people around you."
That kind of peer pressure tends to shut people up. And if you do ever have to kick someone out of a room, it's the most bonding experience. Afterwards, everyone goes, "Well, that was a bit awkward."
Don't you end up getting a cheer for it?
You can do, but we always make a point of making sure they're bought a drink or something. It's very rare these days, though.
What I enjoyed in the DVD is that you don't seem to have edited this particularly heavily, and you've accommodated the interval in the structure of the disc, which is very rare?
I used to record the DVDs straight through. So, I'd do 75, 80 minutes of the show. And they were always quite long. So, maybe a 90 minute show straight through. And then I thought I'd like it to be a reflection of what happened that night. So, we recorded Glasgow, a big, boisterous gig with lots of audience interaction. And I thought keeping that audience interaction in makes it feel more like it's a live experience.
Right down to putting the break in the middle?
I watch a lot of comedy DVDs. You talk about Den Of Geek, I watch them all! I love them. I'm a big comedy fan. As a consumer of DVDs, it's rare that I'll watch one from start to finish. I'll watch it, and pick a time to logically pause it, and then come back to it later on. I watch them on trains and planes or whatever. So, I wanted to put in that interval so you can go, "Oh, tell you what, I'll have a cup of tea and come back to that."
You do otherwise tend to get to the 50 minute mark, no matter how good the disc, and it becomes oddly harder to watch sometimes.
Yeah. I wanted to make it a two hour DVD this year, or as near to two hours, because I'm aware people watch them over and over again. I get people coming up after the show and quoting whole rafts of the show that they've got off the DVD. And I'm saying, "Right, you've watched that a lot!" So, you want it to be so you can watch it and enjoy it, but by the time you get to the end, you've forgotten the first joke.
You get a full transcript of the disc for you and the lawyers to check before the disc can go out. But were you pulling much out here, because you come across as really quite savvy in the way you're tailoring some of the jokes?
There's not much that was contentious. There were a couple of things where we changed names to protect the innocent. But the fact of the matter is that people don't sue comedy DVDs, so it's not like defamation of character or anything. It's a joke.
Have you got a name for the seventh disc?
Maybe we should run this as a competition on Den Of Geek? [the names of Jimmy's DVDs put together form a sentence in themselves]. So, what have we got? We've got Live Stand Up Comedian In Concert Telling Jokes Making People Laugh. It's got to work as a standalone title as well, so maybe For Your Entertainment?
If anyone's got any ideas, seriously, you can have a DVD if you name the next one!
You're on.
On this current DVD, though, and I know I'm going back to it, but I do like the extra where you have people queuing up, and we hear some of the off-stage comments you get there. Was that a fair cross-section of what you get? Because there's a real affection that comes across.
Yes, it is. It's really nice to meet people after the show. It's nice to meet people generally, and after the show during a signing, I've tried to capture that during the DVD, just as a little kind of extra. Again, it's trying to put across what the live experience is. You've been to see the gig, it's two hours long, and afterwards you can come and meet me.
That signing thing is there because of the experience I had of meeting Chris Rock a few years ago. Because I've played the Hammersmith Apollo a lot, and they let me go backstage and say hello. All I did was go backstage and say "good gig", but it made it feel like much more of a night out, or occasion in my life. I'm not suggesting I'm Chris Rock, though.
I think your DVDs over the years have tried to capture so much more than the gig itself, arguably more than anyone else's. Because, in the past, you've put alternative audio clips in there, too, for instance?
The cartoons? That was good fun, yeah. Comedy Idol on another.
One of my favourite DVD extras.
Comedy Idol, the idea of getting people on stage really came from that. Giving people a go, getting them on stage to mess around.
Have you advanced your plans to revisit Comedy Idol?
I'd love to. If I could find another Ed Aczell, he's bought so much happiness to me. Extraordinary. So many great people off the back of that.
I also want to ask about your upcoming television project, 10 O'Clock Live, which you're doing with Lauren Laverne, David Mitchell and Charlie Brooker early next year...
You know what, I saw Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell the other night. We all independently said that it's going to be fine, I've got you two there! We've all done nothing, but are relying on the others.
It's interesting, though. Your stand-up work is, by definition, very much you on your own, on a stage. Your television work is far more collaborative. Is that part of the appeal to it, and specifically to 10 O'Clock Live?
Well, I suppose it's that thing where I'm trying to replicate that live feel, the excitement of being on stage, on TV. But also, live TV is exciting to watch. And the idea of doing a live show, Thursday night, 10 o'clock, that people can tune in to, is kind of an exciting thing. The last couple of years I guess it's been the preserve of Saturday night ITV.
Live television has become about light entertainment, certainly, and it has decreasingly much to say. Live surely presents other opportunities, though, which aren't being exploited.
Yeah, I agree with that. I think it's a really fun thing, but I'm so enamoured to be working with Charlie, and Lauren, and David.
But also the behind the scenes team. A couple of my favourite writers, Don English, Charlie Skelton, a girl called Christine Rose, bloke called Shaun Pye. They're fantastic comedy writers, really top of the class. And they're coming in and working on this.
The next year, then, is presumably taken up with touring and 10 O'Clock Live?
10 O'Clock Live will be the first three or four months of the year, certainly.
But is there anything else you fancy trying? You've hinted at an autobiography as part of the gig on the DVD, for instance?
Well, I don't know if my story is all that interesting. I don't think I've got that book in me, I don't think.
But do you have another book in you?
I'd love to write another book about humour and comedy. Writing The Naked Jape was such labour of love, just about jokes. I've been toying with doing a book about the British sense of humour. If I can nail that. I think the really interesting thing about the British sense of humour is how much pride we take in it.
I wish you the best of luck with it, Jimmy Carr, thank you very much...!
Jimmy Carr heading to Kendal - Interview
Daniel Orr
7th April 2011
thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk
Jimmy Carr is on his way to South Lakeland this spring. The star of shows such as 10 O'Clock Live and 8 Out Of 10 Cats will perform on Thursday, May 23, at lakes leisure Kendal.
Q: Are you excited about touring?
A: Absolutely. I think, 'How flattering that 2,000 people have actually paid to see me.' In some towns where I play, there are 50 different options for a night out, but they have booked a babysitter and organised transport and food and come to my show.
The amount of effort they take, you want them to go away from the show thinking, 'That two hours was the most I've ever laughed!' Over two hours, you have a real opportunity to ensure that it's their funniest ever evening - and that's what I try to do.
Q: What do you love most about performing live?
A: The buzz. Some people have only ever seen stand-up on TV or DVD, but it works so much better live. It's good watching at home with two friends, but imagine how much better it is watching in a theatre with 2,000 people. In that company, you get carried along and laugh more. Laughter is such a social activity. I love that thing where 2,000 people all get me at a level that even some friends I've known since the age of eight don't.
That's an amazing connection to have with people. In the past couple of years, comedy has become a night out, like going to the movies or the theatre. There is nothing better than going for a night out, having a great laugh and talking about it with your mates afterwards. It's a very visceral activity.
Q: You have a wonderful relationship with your audience. Tell us about it.
A: It's wonderful. It's such a special space when you're on stage with an audience. You all share the same sense of humour - much more than you often do with members of your own family.
The healthiest couples have the same sense of humour. If you have the same sense of humour, then there's nothing you can't get through together. In some ways, it's a strange bond, being in the room alongside 2,000 strangers with the same sense of humour. But when people talk about community spirit, that's what it is.
Q: Can you expand on that, please?
A: Because the audience has the same sense of humour as me, I want to have a conversation with them. It makes a gig a very, very friendly place. If people don't like you, they just ignore you. But if they do like you, they want to have a chat. I've not yet met a fan who I didn't really get on with.
It's like supporting a football team. Because you know you're right, you have a real sense of ownership. People who are into it think, 'Of course, he's funnier than other comedians.' We're all in the room together - it's tribal. I sometimes think I should run a dating service in the interval. They're way ahead of the game because they've all got the same sense of humour.
Q: You have a real bond with the fans, don't you?
A: Yes. As an actor or a musician, you're on a pedestal and you have a special skill that makes you magical. But a comedian just has a sense of humour - and everyone has a sense of humour. Laughter is a reflex action - you can't fake it. My favourite noise in comedy is a laugh followed quickly by an 'Ooo'. That means the audience laughed before their consciousness kicked in.
Q: Do a lot of fans come to see you at the stage door after a show?
A: Yes, but I love that. I always wait behind and sign things for them. I really enjoy it, and I know it also makes it more of a memorable night out for them. I got to see Chris Rock, who is one of my stand-up heroes, at the Hammersmith Apollo. They said: "Come backstage and meet him after the show." All I did was shake his hand and say: "Great gig." But it made it much more of an event for me. To say hello to people and get some feedback is a lovely way to end the evening.
Q: During the warm-up shows, do the audience help you decide which jokes to put in the finished act?
A: Absolutely. They help me whittle 350 jokes down to 270. I do stand-up for a living - you'd imagine I'd know more than the audience about what's funny, but I don't.
Lenny Bruce was right: the audience is a genius. There is this weird moment where the collective mind decides what's funny. It's a very humbling thing. This random collection of people knows instantly what's right and wrong. They are the ultimate arbiter about what will fly and what won't. It's amazing how consistent their opinions are. There's no other test - it has to be the audience!
Q: You're an exceptionally popular comedian who has achieved an immense amount already. Do you still feel you have new places to go?
A: Yes. Looking back at my earlier stuff, I'm much better now than I was then. I'm very grateful I've had the opportunity to grow as a performer. I've learnt that the looser you are, the better you are - I like a bit of loose! Because you're on TV, people think you're the finished product, but you're not.
I saw Billy Connolly at the Hammersmith Apollo in January, and he was even better than he was in Montreal last year. He got the entire audience into his space - he was awesome! How brilliant that people can keep improving. Maybe someone reading this will think, 'I don't like him much now, but perhaps in 20 years he'll get the hang of it. I'll give him a go then'.
Q: So what helps you improve - is it down to experience?
A: That helps. If you talk an airline pilot, he doesn't talk about years in the job but hours in the cockpit. It's the same for me - hours on stage are what counts. Everything else is a training ground - the time on stage is what's real.
Q: You have a special affinity with the Edinburgh Festival. Why is that?
A: I just love Edinburgh - it's always been my thing. This year will be my 10th Festival. I started off there doing Rubbernecker with Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Robin Ince.
As always, I'm putting together this new show for Edinburgh. If you didn't have that deadline, you'd never be able to make yourself write jokes every day. Why would you? I do have times where I think, 'Oh my God, August seems to be coming up very quickly!' People underestimate the power of fear as a motivation. You're soon going to be standing in front of 2,000 people for 90 minutes and trying to make them laugh - you'd better find some funny stuff quickly.
Q: You've also got a new DVD out this November, entitled Making People Laugh. Tell us about that.
A: Making People Laugh features the entire show, recorded in Glasgow. I wanted to capture the feistiness of a Glasgow show, and there was certainly a really cracking atmosphere when we recorded the DVD. There's this great story from when Ken Dodd was playing at the Glasgow Empire. He was storming the gig when a voice in the audience piped up: 'It's all very funny if you like laughing'. That's the definitive heckle. You can't come back to that!
Q: How do you cope with a high public profile?
A: Let's not get carried away. As soon as you need a bodyguard, it becomes another world. Comedy is a low grade of fame. We're clowns and jesters. In the social standing of entertainers, we're just one up from jugglers. We're only two rungs up from those guys who spray themselves gold and stand still for a living.
Q: Is there a downside to fame?
A: Not for me. You are who you are when no one's watching. So if you're driving down a remote country lane and you throw your coke can out of the window because no one can see you, then that's who you are. But if someone were driving along behind you, you'd never do that. Being famous makes you a better person because you're constantly being watched in a way that most people aren't. It keeps you honest.
I'm sure I'd be a terrible person if left to my own devices. But luckily, I'm being kept under constant surveillance by people who have Heat magazine's number.
Q: Are you in the happy position of not having to court the press?
A: I am. I'm not in the tabloids every day. I'm respectful of what the press have done for me, but I'm not reliant on the press. If I never appeared in a paper again, I'd still sell tickets. The best possible advert for my show this year is my show last year.
Q: What do you have to say to people who claim you're on TV too often?
A: You have to go out of your way to watch me on TV. I'm easy to avoid. When people say to me: "You're on TV too much," I reply, "Are you saving the batteries on your remote?" There are 200 channels - watch something else! TV reviewers have the worst job in the world because they're the only people who have to watch TV they don't like.
In the same way, you'd have to make a pretty big mistake to buy £25 tickets for you and your missus and think, 'I really hate this guy!' That's a major error - it's more than just bumping your head on a door.
Q: Do you still get the same thrill as ever out of touring?
A: Yes. It's my job. There is no other job apart from entertainment where people just take a year off. Pop stars say: "We recorded an album and then we took a year off." You did what? You're a grown-up, it's your job! What would I do with a year off? But fortunately stand-up is my job, and I absolutely love it.
A lot of comedians have acting aspirations, and there are always offers to do other things. On any given Sunday night, I could be a detective driving a vintage car with a personality quirk. But for me stand-up is enough. It's a great job.
Q: Tell us more.
A: It's such a privileged position to be in. I don't want to sound overly 'Aw shucks' about it, but this is an unbelievable job to have. The day I stop getting a kick out of stand-up is the day I get a proper job. I did have a proper job for five minutes, but I didn't like it much. Now I've got a job where I can sleep in till 11am. Your days are your own, then come the evening, a bit of guy-liner, a touch of tinted moisturiser and you're away!
People think I left my job to become a successful TV comedian. No, I left my job to join the circus. I feel so grateful to have a life less ordinary.
Q: Why is that important to you?
A: I grew up in suburbia and I had a boring childhood. Now I'm scared of being bored - that's reflected in the type of comedy I do. It's three jokes a minute because I don't like being bored. I love gigs on a Sunday night. Nothing happens on a Sunday night, it's the most boring, melancholy night of the week. But people who come to my show are squeezing the last bit of juice out of the weekend.
Q: Finally, why do one-liners work so well for you?
A: Audiences don't have to enjoy every single joke. If you didn't like that one, don't get hung up on it - there'll be another one along in a minute. But doing one-liners is a voracious monster. Each joke only takes 30 seconds, or ideally 20 seconds.
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