Ian Smith: Amusing is an Understatement
A Northern powerhouse at the top of his game, fresh from his two television appearances: Live at the Apollo and Have I Got News for You (hosted by Martin Clunes). It's interview time, my darlings. x
Have I Got News for You?.. You bet your doggy do-da I do, in the form of an interview. He’s the comedian I’ve been tracking down for months, like those odd blokes on the History Channel who go looking for Bigfoot. A Northern powerhouse at the top of his game, fresh from his two television appearances on the equally prestigious Live at the Apollo and HIGNFY. Oh, if only, if ooonly… OH, REALLY?! It’s Ian Smith!!
He's touring a work-in-progress show called Foot Spa Half Empty. “Spa” and “half” are what poets call a “near-rhyme”, by the way, which is both clever and sneaky. Oh, the chutzpah!.. One of his quips amused me so much that I momentarily forgot I was doing an interview. But I made an effort to stop laughing (“Rein it in, boy, rein it in”) and we got on with it.
To read or to listen? I dunno, but subscribing is a no-brainer (no brains needed).
How was Have I Got News for You? What was it like on set?
It was really nice, but it’s quite nerve-wrecking doing it for the first time because it’s such an iconic show. I was giggling to myself a bit when they played the theme tune. I thought, “This is so weird”, but in a good way.
I was on Ian Hislop’s team, and he was very supportive. After the first round, he turned to me and did a little thumbs-up/ “good job” gesture.
“It’s surreal, someone you’ve watched on television for 25 years giving you a thumbs up.”
It was lots of fun and I was very pleased with the experience.
That’s the impression I got; you couldn’t stop smiling.
Does Martin Clunes wear Doc Martens or is that just a rumour?
I never looked at his feet. Perhaps I should have.
He’s a great laugh; he’s such a warm guy. I was told I looked like a young Neil Morrissey when my hair was longer. But now that I’m older, I think my chance to appear in a Men Behaving Badly reboot has gone.1 I’m too weathered now.
What is your favourite word or phrase from Foot Spa Half Empty?
Oo, hang on, I’m going through a Rolodex in my head… My favourite at the moment might be:
“What you can forget about a pigeon is that it’s a bird.”
Ha-ha-ha, I don’t know if that’s the whole joke, but it worked on me.
There’s more context to it, but maybe I could just open with that.
I think anything about a pigeon works.
Yeah, pigeons are funny birds.
The show is about love and stress, are they linked?
I think so. I discussed a big breakup and the resulting stress in my last show. So, you’d assume being in a happy relationship would be less stressful.
Maybe it’s just me, but I find it’s almost exactly the same, because you care about the other person and want everything to be good. I’m realising that I get stressed out regardless of how my life’s going.
“My last show was born out of being the most stressed I’ve ever been, and it was probably my most successful tour. It’s frustrating to find that people enjoyed my comedy when my life was in a chaotic mess.”
The new show is in its early stages, so it might change massively from where it is now, but I’ve been writing about the stress involved in a happy life.
However, things have cropped up that have caused real stress, so the show might need to change to accommodate that.
The proper show starts in just over 3 months. So, it could evolve into something completely different.
That’s quite scary. Some people might take a bigger run-up. Do you think it will come together?
Yeah, I took a year away from doing the Edinburgh Fringe last year, so it’s been developing in that time. I’ve already done a few work-in-progress shows, and I have lots of material. It’s more a case of putting it in the right order and adding more of a story and context to it.
It’s my 8th show, so I’ve become accustomed to the stress of having a deadline to write one for Edinburgh. It’s the most exciting part of the process. You keep making revelations, and everything changes.
Is it the best show you’ve written?
I think it will be. I tend to write to the deadline. It’ll be ready for the start of the Edinburgh Fringe. You’re becoming a better comedian and performer after every show you write. You can make it funnier, and it gets easier. I’m still working on it, but I feel it’s heading in that direction. I feel much more comfortable in what I do now. So, I’m going to say ‘yes’.
Your stand-up was recorded for a weekly Radio 4 series: Ian Smith is Stressed. What can you tell comedians who’d love a Radio 4 series of their own?
I seem to approach these things long-winded; over the years, I’ve pitched a lot of radio ideas. Some of them were terrible, but eventually you find your USP. Producers tend to ask, “Why should you be doing this show rather than anyone else?” So, I explained that I’m best placed to do a series of excursions about stress, because that’s what I do in my stand-up.
It's an introduction to you as a comedian.
“You want your first radio show to hone in on what’s unique about your stand-up.”
If they were to follow my career path, it would be to pitch 15 increasingly bad ideas, and by the 16th, land on a good one.
Do you send emails for your pitch, or is there a submission page?
BBC Radio has a specific way of doing things. Once or twice a year, they have a pitching period, but you have to find a producer at the BBC or an external production company to pitch on your behalf. You can’t do it directly.
It doesn’t matter if they’re a big shot producer; if they’re enthusiastic about you as a performer, it’s gold dust, really.
I think you’re reaching the point where every comedian wants to be at the moment, aren’t you?
I don’t know, ha-ha. It’s hard for me to judge because I’m naturally pessimistic, OR maybe:
“I have that very natural British instinct, where if somebody says ‘Oh, you’re doing well’ to go ‘Oh no, no, no I’m not’. ”
Ha-ha!
But I’m very pleased with where things are because I’ve been doing stand-up since I graduated from uni. It hasn’t always been going well, but I persevered. It feels rewarding to be doing better and to have a bit of a crowd. My radio work and the podcast2 helped this. Podcasts are great at helping you find your audience. Those two things were the game changers for me.
The podcast covers strange news items. You’re from Goole. How sensibly do you think the people of Goole would deal with an escaped crocodile?
I think small Northern towns would have greater confidence that they could capture the crocodile, without external help. There’d be a group of at least 5 lads who’d think, “We’re just gonna go for it”.
“I really respect that confidence. I mean, obviously, if they don’t pull it off, a crocodile’s eaten 5 residents, but if they do, they can dine off that story for the rest of their lives.”
So, I do think we would just corner it and the most confident or the most stupid townsfolk would… Would try and wrestle it.
I don’t know if that’s how you envision it playing out where you’re from.
I live in a small village full of elderly people. So, it would be a much smaller village.
“Yeah, I think the crocodile would maybe have a bit more success where you’re from.”
How do you deal with writer’s block?
The radio work really helped with that. I used to be in the writers’ room at The News Quiz, and then I started appearing on the show. On the Wednesday before the recording, you’re given 4 or 5 subjects to talk about.
Some of those subjects are very dry, and they don’t seem funny at all. But you have to come up with something, so you find yourself reading an article and doing quick bullet points. Thinking, “Maybe this could be the angle”, I realised that I can write, and sometimes you have to force yourself if you’re not in the right mood. Procrastination can often come from not feeling confident, too.
If you can get anything done at those times, it sets you up nicely for when you are in the mood. Because at least you’ve made a start.
“I brainstorm and look for an idiom, an observation and a prop: For the idiom, I think about common phrases people say about the subject. Then I think about my observations, i.e. what I’ve seen people doing. Then, regarding the prop, I think about what I might bring in if I did the stand-up routine like show and tell at school. What would I bring in?”
I think that would work well. I find that sometimes I have to write badly, too.
Yeah, you can edit something bad, but not something you haven’t done.
I wrote a sitcom script not long ago, and the first draft was 50 pages instead of 30 because I was writing completely uncritically. I was writing anything, and so much of it was bad, but it meant I had something to cut down and refine. I have to send it away for feedback, but I really like it.
Can you tell me about a joke that the audience liked more than you expected?
Yeah, I have a joke where I say that if I had a dog, I’d call it “I Wish I Had a Dog” because when I’m in the park, I’d get to shout “I Wish I Had a Dog” so when it would come to me, people would think I’d conjured up the dog.
Later, I say, “I have a girlfriend now. Her name is ‘I wish I had a girlfriend’”. I know it’s a callback, which people like, but I originally improvised it on stage, and it got such a big laugh.
In my head, I don’t really understand why that callback is funny. I guess the joke is that the girlfriend is invented. I remember being surprised that people liked it and feeling a bit stupid that I didn’t get my own joke.
Sometimes you feel like you just don’t know what you’re doing.
I think the rules of what’s funny must be unconscious for you, especially after doing it for so long.
Your comedy questions the logic of other people’s behaviour and your own. Are you quite a logical person?
I think so, yeah. I overthink a lot of things. I create a mind map when I make decisions; I can see all the options and the potential positives of each.
“Overthinking things is quite good for comedy.”
You’re looking closely at things that other people gloss over. You’re pulling them apart. I think I might be overly logical, but that’s helpful. It’s common in my writing to start by questioning why someone did something odd.
My most open-ended questioning now… How mysterious are you?
Probably not very. Everyone likes to think they’re capable of being mysterious, but…
“It’s quite hard to give off a mysterious energy without looking like an idiot.”
It’s something we project onto attractive people. It’s kind of like thinking you can look cool by wearing a cool person’s clothes. But if someone’s at a bar, nursing a whisky, and they look great and they’re brooding, staring off into the distance, you think “Oh, what a mysterious guy”.
But if they look awful… Or they don’t have trousers on… I mean, it’s a mystery why they don’t have trousers on, but not in a positive way.
It’s turned from mysterious into a mystery.
Yeah, yeah, mysterious is good, mystery is bad.
Yeah, ha-ha. Topic change, what goes through your mind on stage?
It’s almost like you’re not thinking when you’re having a very enjoyable gig. You just go with the flow. Although… I did one gig that wasn’t going well or badly for anyone. So, during my set, I was thinking about what to eat when I got home.
I was coasting through the gig, and someone shouted something out.
“As I was talking to this heckler in the crowd, I was also thinking about how I had a real craving for a fish finger sandwich.”
So, I could be having an out-of-body experience, or I could be thinking about fish fingers.
That’s very Northern.
Who are your influences?
I was blown away by Daniel Kitson’s live shows when I started. I was young and wrote straightforward jokes with no turns of phrase. I didn’t know how they did it. I was like Johnny Vegas, I’d shout and get in amongst the crowd. I’ve more recently been impressed by the work James Acaster puts out.
The trouble is, the job can feel a lot more serious than it is when you’re a comic. So, I’ve made an effort to listen to sillier comedians like Sam Campbell and Rory Scovel.3 Reminding me of the playfulness of comedy.
Did you dream of being a comedian as a kid?
I put on shows with a couple of friends when I was 14 or 15. We’d do half an hour of sketches and then a short play. I became aware that we were going to different universities, and I really wanted to carry on comedy.
So, I knew I had to get into stand-up. It’s the only thing I ever really wanted to do.
Did you watch sitcoms?
I remember watching the DVD outtakes of Phoenix Nights with my brother. Looking back, Peter Kay was really angry. He seemed unhinged in those clips.
But it looked like the most fun you could ever have, messing up and laughing, poking fun at eachother.
“If I ever did a sitcom, I’d insist on an outtake reel. The death of the DVD has really affected outtakes. You don’t see them as much. I love directors’ commentaries too. They were the original podcast.”
Is there such a thing as a Yorkshire sense of humour?
I don’t think it’s as different as I once thought. I’ve lived in London for a while now. But when I joke about the North when I’m in London, it goes very well. There’s still this perception of gravy-drinking northerners.
Did anything surprise you about your Live at the Apollo experience?
The amount of smoke. We did a run-through where you get to walk under the sign. I said to the producer, “There’s so much smoke, I nearly walked off the end of the stage.” He said, “You’ll be fine”. But yeah, you’ve got to be prepared for the smoke. It’s so thick.
Why should people come and see your new show?
Because it’s on at 12:30 in the afternoon. It’ll be like having a Red Bull (seeing me at midday). But without the damage to your body. Just let me shout at you and wake you up.
That’s all, folks! I’ve never laughed as much as this whilst doing the blog. If you had told me in my mid-teens I’d eventually interview two comedians from Live at the Apollo, starting with Spring Day and now Ian Smith, maybe everything wouldn’t have seemed so pointless. But that was ages ago.
For the love of all things holy, grab a ticket for one of his upcoming shows, if you can. You should also follow him on Instagram.
I encourage you to like, comment and share this post. It helps the blog tremendously and, more importantly, it makes my hard work feel worthwhile.
I’d love to hear from you… By the way, the like button is the heart at the bottom of the page. Under the footnotes, you saucy minx.
Men Behaving Badly was a British sitcom starring Martin Clunes, Neil Morrissey and Harry Enfield.
Northern News with Amy Gledhill
Sam Campbell and Rory Scovel are Australian and American comics, respectively.
Wonderful interview. Hilarious clips. Eggplant. Haha. When’s Ian Smith performing across the pond?
Really enjoyed reading x