Russell Howard

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Russell Howard on reading newspapers and watching TV for a living
Paul English
dailyrecord.co.uk
Oct 23 2010

EVERY journalist in the country can lay claim to a writing credit on Russell Howard’s new DVD as we’ve all helped him with his material. The 30-year-old’s career in comedy has taken off thanks to his musings on the world as presented in newspapers, online and on telly. And although he spends half his time on-screen slagging off the way the world is reported in the country’s papers, he knows he’d be lost without it.

A third series of his BBC3 show Good News has just started with Russell and his mates spending time poring over every media platform they can get their hands on. And his observations on the popular BBC2 panel show Mock The Week are often drawn from what he sees in the press. So could Russell Howard be the saviour of the newspaper industry? Does he have the biggest papershop bill in the country?

He laughs politely at the thought. “No, I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about that,” he says. “But there are certain papers which, when you flick through them, you find it hard to justify increasing their circulation.”

He’s speaking to us exclusively in a break from filming and researching Good News, so we’re confident he’s happy with the Daily Record. The series, in which he casts a Clive James-like eye over the media’s response to major and minor events, is never anything more than lightly mocking and always ends with a cheery, feelgood tale. He and three of his mates get their hands covered in newsprint trawling through pages and then bouncing ideas off each other.

Russell says: “We’re ruthless about it. We select stuff that we find interesting and I write it with them. We sit around in a room trying to make each other laugh. It’s not so bad, really.” Indeed, it beats working for a living anyway, and he’s generous enough to admit that it’s not real work. “Yes, it sounds a bit grand to call it work,” he says. “It’s basically just sitting around writing jokes. But I am reliant on all of you in the media. In many ways you deserve a writing credit. “Is that why you asked for an interview?” This is the only joke Russell attempts in our conversation.

Like many comedians, he’s perfectly ordinary during a straight chat. Presumably, the approval he gets from the audiences on his tours across the country and his TV appearances are enough for him. He doesn’t need to make a hack laugh. He’s saving the funnies for the cameras. And with subject matter ranging from Taliban monkeys, Nicolas Cage allegedly only eating animals which have sex in a dignified manner, and pigeons being put in prison in Pakistan for spying, there will be more than a few chortles.

But between writing this and material for his forthcoming tour, which sees him play Aberdeen AECC and Glasgow SECC on March 4 and 5 next year, does he suffer from comedian’s insomnia? To an extent. “It’s terrible,” he says. “Stuff like that gets into your dreams. You have to think about how you will present a joke on TV, which is different from how you present it when doing stand-up. So you exercise that part of your brain a lot more and that gets into your dreams. It’s terrible for my girlfriend. I start conversations with myself, which isn’t very good unless you have to think that way. I suppose that makes me a comedian but a really crap boyfriend.”

He never discusses his girlfriend by name, and when I ask why, there’s a suggestion of obsessed fans trying to get in touch with him through her. All he will say is that she’s a medic who last year delivered a baby on holiday in the Solomon Islands. “The last time I went on holiday I invented a game where you have to throw tennis balls at each other and hit the other person’s face without them flinching,” he says. “But she delivered someone’s baby. You can’t really compare the two.”

Russell is under no illusions that without the lucky break of landing a slot on Mock The Week, his career would be in different shape. He was spotted by the show’s producers after being nominated for a Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival and was asked to do the show. Five years later, he’s one of the highest profile rib-ticklers in the country, has become a regular on a variety of panel shows, and has released two DVDs. He’s got a new one out next month.

He says: “I wouldn’t be doing anything that I do these days if it wasn’t for Mock The Week. I owe a massive debt of gratitude to it. Without it, I’d be a touring comedian, playing smaller venues and not doing TV. I never really set out to be on the telly. I started writing jokes at 16 and did some gigs in Bristol at 19. But if I’d told my dad that I wanted to do something like this or drama or whatever he’d have slapped me purple. I just don’t come from a background where that sort of thing’s allowed.”

"I did an economics degree,” he adds, with a bit of a chuckle, as if he was taking it even less seriously at the time than he is now. “I just did a degree because it was what my mates were doing. But when I did my first gig in a little pub in Bristol I was obsessed with it. After uni I started making money from it, and eventually was earning enough to play the circuit, bombing around the country doing gigs. I had years in the wilderness before Mock The Week happened. And even when I got on the show I was still learning, working with heavyweights like Dara O’Briain and Frankie Boyle. It’s different now. Some people are getting on the telly at 21. I was nowhere near good enough to do that. I would never have been ready. I spent years learning.”

Some say the rapid fire nature of the show means it can’t possibly all be spontaneous. Russell admits they have a vague idea of what’s coming up in each episode, allowing them to get some material together. He says: “We do have a rough idea but it’s a case of just arming yourself with as many grenades as possible and running out into the battlefield. It’s competitive – but in the same way as backstage at a comedy club is. Everyone’s wanting to top each other – it’s a healthy rivalry.”

His hobbies are gardening and football. He’s a massive Liverpool fan but is horrified at the state of his team this year. Some things just aren’t funny. He says: “It’s just really frustrating. I’m deadly serious about football so joking about the state of Liverpool would kill me. But they’re so dull now.”

Despite his TV presence and raised profile, he avoids the ‘celebrity’ circuit. “I still go down the pub and play football with my mates,” he says. “If I went to premieres and out clubbing in London all the time then it would really affect my life. But I think comedians should stay on the periphery so you can see and observe things from the sidelines and see that they’re funny. If you go chasing fame then it will hinder your comedy.”

In fact, he’s so unaffected by fame that he’s been prone to asking other famous comedians if he can have his photograph taken with them. He says: “I met Eddie Izzard when I was doing the Secret Policeman’s Ball. I embarrassed myself by asking for a photo with him. He’s looking at the camera as if to say, ‘why does this idiot want his picture taken with me? He’s working with me.’ If I met Billy Connolly I’d go to pieces. But I’d never try to make him laugh. You don’t tell him your anecdotes, you’d just listen to his.”

● Russell Howard’s Good News, BBC3, Thursday, 10.30pm. The first series is released on DVD on November 15.