No, That's Not the Theme of the Show...

Ben Pope is touring his new stand-up comedy show, The Cut. You can see it at the Edinburgh Fringe and around the country. Though it's not about what you might think, it's something else.

Ben Pope is touring his new stand-up comedy show, The Cut. Could it be about editing a film? No, that’s not the theme of the show. Then surely a haircut? Again, that’s not where his story goes. I've got it! He cut somebody out of his life? Well, not somebody, no.

Alright, it was a medical decision: a circumcision. That’s where his story goes. He told me it’s a show about bodies and putting things off, and about families and how we affect each other, but with a truckload of dick jokes along the way. Oh, it’s going to be funny, alright. Trust me, I’m a comedy aficionado, he’s so full of humour it’s coming out of his ears.

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The Interview

*You can listen to the interview or read my refined transcript below, but I wouldn’t try to do both, or you’ll get in a pickle.

Can we cover your background before we get to the tour? What can you tell me about being president of the Cambridge Footlights?

Gosh, that’s a while ago now. I was the president of the Cambridge Footlights in my third year of university, 2013-2014. But it feels much further in time.

It’s a strange job, because I was a student. People tend to have outdated notions about Footlights; they think about John Cleese and all the Monty Python cast, Mitchell & Webb, and Richard Ayoade,¹ people who became very famous — The Stephen Frys of the world.

It’s imagined as this big machine churning out comedy stars. Except in the modern era, it’s the same as any student club.

“Picture loads of people sitting around in the function room, having a Diet Coke, trying to work out what to do at the next performance.”

The mystery, the imagined pomp and circumstance, was, in reality, me sending out lots of emails, asking people to audition for bi-weekly shows.

But I wouldn’t be where I am without it. They were my formative years as a comedian.

“You’re a big amniotic blob trying to figure out how to be a person.”

With plenty of time for little mistakes and victories. We were at a place with a lot of infrastructure and money, which meant regular shows and people coming to see them.

Student comedy isn’t always what people want to spend money on, but it was an ideal context for quietly building confidence. You get past that scary bit of going up and doing something on stage for the first time.

Were the shows collaborative, or did stand-ups take it in turns?

Footlights always leaned towards sketch comedy, as you’re on a theatre stage. Someone might go away and write a script, but it was rehearsed in groups, and people would chime in with their ideas. We did hour-long shows, once or twice a year, always as a group.

I have a slightly rose-tinted view of that time; you had other people’s skill sets to work with. We had access to people who could do physical comedy or impressions, often with unique tones of voice that were funny in a different way from yours.

Were you among any big names?

It was an extraordinary group of comics when I joined. The president in my first year at university was Phil Wang.

Oh wow!

He was in a year group with Pierre Novelli, Ahir Shah and Jason Forbes. Phil and Jason were in the sketch group Daphne, and Jason has gone on to act in television and radio shows. George Fouracres was a member of Daphne, too.²

Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen from the sketch group The Pin were in the year above them, and Sheeps were coming back to do shows. So, we had a wealth of stuff happening around us, and people were going on to big things. I felt I had big shoes to fill!

The Cut

Your new show, The Cut: It’s not about making a film, it’s not about getting your hair cut, it’s not about the rat race and wondering if you ‘make the cut’. It’s about a cut more commonly administered in America. I do apologise for this, but can you tell me about your injured Johnson?

Ha-ha, yeah. My new show is about getting circumcised last year. It’s becoming an interesting question: how can I market this show? Because I’m taking it to the Fringe and then on tour in Autumn.

I have a few people who come and see me, which is great, but you also want to attract those who say, “I wonder what’s on at the comedy tonight.” So, I worry about the walk-ins, “Oo, what’s on tonight? Oh, the circumcision show. I’ll give it a miss.”

“I’m wondering how to make that pitch, but I genuinely think it’s an interesting topic of discussion. It’s also undeniably funny. In America, around 80% of men are circumcised, but here it’s less of a thing.”

No one talks about it or why it’s done, partly because British people are polite and repressed. But also because of the male thing of only wanting to talk about your penis if you’re saying how big it is, and how you’re this alpha silverback of a man.

It’s perhaps a good thing that it’s not a common topic in the UK, because the debate now is whether it’s acceptable to do that to kids, without giving them a choice, as things stand in America. I’m glad we see it as an adult choice.

Well, I talk about this in the show, clearing up quite early that it wasn’t a religious thing. Tom Rosenthal did a show 6/7 years ago about getting circumcised. His perspective was that he’s Jewish, but that it was done without his consent, and that he was quite angry about it.

Whereas I had it done because of a medical thing that needed sorting. I just had minor discomfort, and it wasn’t an emergency or anything like that. So, it’s more about the choice I had to make, and why I’d been putting it off.

Often, men put off medical issues, put them in a cupboard and forget about them… Particularly when there’s a weird taboo around it.

“It’s also just a show full of jokes about dicks. I don’t want anyone to think it’s too ponderous.”

I’m sure you’ve considered this, but how have you thought about broad appeal… given the fairly masculine nature of the theme?³

Really, it’s a show about how we approach our bodies. Even when I’m talking about male behaviour, that behaviour affects the people in our lives. I’m trying to take it from both sides, but it’s also about a decision that involved men and women, because it involved both my parents and my girlfriend.

It's a brave subject to broach. How did you feel when you first started testing out material?

It was fascinating because every audience member had their own reaction. Some people have been like “Woo! Great, you had it done. Hurray!”

But I did a work-in-progress in Oxford, and a woman in her 50s said “No!” out loud. I started asking her questions because I really wanted to know what she was thinking. Was it squeamishness? Or was it “No, I wish you hadn’t done that.”?

I’ve enjoyed performing new material and giving the audience time to react. But I’m still working out what to expect from the audience. What are all the possible ways a person could respond? This knowledge is being built into the show gradually, allowing me to discuss it with them a bit. I have pre-prepared ways of dealing with different reactions.

I think it’s alright if not everyone gets it, because that’s basically all comedy.

Exactly. Even if you’re doing observational comedy about toast, someone will think, “This is not for me”.

“I’m a decade into my comedy career now, so hopefully I’ve got the tools to make it a broachable topic.”

Do you have any favourite lines or phrases from the show in its current form?

There’s a big set-piece towards the end about my parents trying to smuggle an entire pig through a school. I won’t spoil the story, but it’s a story I was told constantly as a kid, and I use it to make a wider point that links everything together.

I have a few diversions from the main theme, and I’ve written a lot about charity shops. I enjoy talking about them. They can be sad places, that’s one perspective, but poetic and lovely places too. Because it’s all about recycling and the lives that other people have lived.

The Compliment

Watching your comedy in preparation for this made me feel like being funny is a video game you’ve completed.

Thank you, that’s such a compliment. Since the pandemic, I’ve better understood who I am on stage. But I’d never say I’ve cracked the code or anything. There’s always more to explore, i.e. different tones of voice and positions you can take.

I had a moment during the pandemic where I thought stand-up might never come back. So, when we started up again, I was way more relaxed because I was aware it could all go away again. I was so keen to entertain the audience, because it could have been the last gig for the next six months.

The Bookseller

How come you have so many stories?

Partly, it’s because I spend lots of time in the real world. Sometimes you talk to comedians who say, “Nothing ever happens to me”. But I’m not a full-time stand-up. I’m a bookseller and I manage a bookshop in South London. I’ve also worked in a toy shop and a terrarium workshop. I was a receptionist, and I used to tutor kids. Career-wise, I’ve lived a bit of a life.

“Plus, I spent a lot of my twenties being fairly useless, and trouble attaches itself to people who aren’t organised.”

I remember Elis James saying on a podcast that he started running out of stories in his 30s because you don’t, for example, go paintballing on a drug comedown. And you start paying attention to where you keep your passport.

So, I’m doing a show about circumcision because that was the main thing that happened to me last year. Plus, I like telling stories. That’s the type of comedy I love to watch.

In search of inspiration, I watch American comedians, like Mike Birbiglia and John Mulaney. They tell long stories with a big climax and loads of laughs along the way. You learn that there’s always a way to connect two separate events, and eventually you pick up the tools to do that. You build a structure, an architecture for a long narrative.

You have loads of strong opinions on books.

Who would be the main characters, what would the book title be, and what would the front cover look like, for a book designed specifically to make you roll your eyes?

That’s a great question. Well, we’ve seen loads of books about, say, a little cafe, or a little bookshop with maybe a Japanese cat in it. Generally, it’s a twee romance story involving someone who likes to sit in a big armchair.

I find them frustrating because often the covers are poorly illustrated, and the story has become a cliche. Although I’m sure there are good examples, the ones I’ve read cash in on this TikTok obsession with Japanese interior design, which feels a bit like cultural appropriation.

Plus, the vibe of these stories tends to be twee, sweet and soft, in a way that real life never is. They’ve all felt written and designed by AI.

“We’re aware that movies and music can sometimes be manufactured in a very corporate way, but we assume that books are different, which isn’t the case.”

Just as many books designed for the mass market lack quality.

In terms of characters, women written by men can make me roll my eyes. When they’re stunningly beautiful but totally unaware of it, and they’re having a crisis, but one that can eventually be solved by shacking up with someone. That’s not a new thing, it’s been going on for the last 600 years of literature.

What I'd like to see more of: Gabrielle Zevin released a popular book in 2022 about two gamers who fall in love: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. Whenever there’s a popular book, it tends to start a trend, but nobody’s written much about gamers since. I think that’s a gap in the market when you think about how many people play games.

Final Reflections

Has your comedy led to any surprising friendships?

Yes, it has. What’s great about comedy is that you meet everyone. I’m from a certain wedge of society, having gone to private school, and I was a little choir boy when I was young…

“I went to Cambridge University and spent most of my formative life in sandstone buildings.”

There are plenty of us in the comedy industry, that’s for sure.

And the way things are going in the country, the culture is becoming increasingly full of creatives who look and sound like me. But what I love about comedy is that from day one, having moved to London and doing open-mic nights, you meet a much wider portion of society. And you learn how they really feel about life.

I’m not just talking about other comics, although you speak to all the other comics in the green room at shows. You’re learning to pick the lock off their sense of humour, all these different people in different places.

“It’s troubling to think who I might have been if I hadn’t gone into comedy. I would have stayed in the same circles and been closed off. But it’s still not a perfectly diverse space.”

It’s like the service industry, in that you have to learn to work with people you might not understand at first, or might even think are annoying. I sometimes think about how great it is to be friends with people I never would have met without comedy.

Well, it created this conversation, for example.

Exactly. Comedy is so open now, with social media. People bounce into your DM’s or comment on your stuff and then come and see you a couple of times. Suddenly, you’re mates.

I think comedy attracts slightly impractical people. It’s a social club for people who drop things.

Ha-ha! That’s excellent. That’s exactly what it is.

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Awake from your trance, you’re reaching the end of the article.

In April, I was faced with a list of possible interviewees for the Edinburgh Fringe, so I sat with one of the W.H. Smith notebooks I got for Christmas and made notes on each comic. Interviewing Ben was one of the easiest decisions. He’s effortlessly funny. You can get tickets for his upcoming Brighton Fringe dates, his preview show at the Edinburgh Fringe, and the Autumn tour. You can also find him on Instagram.

I encourage you to like, comment and share this post. It helps the blog tremendously and, more importantly, it makes the 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.

1. Not to mention Simon Bird from the Inbetweeners, comedy titan Phil Wang, the late Tony Slattery, TV’s Clive Anderson and even Bill Oddie.

2. Star of the Flo & Joan musical

3. Not forgetting my trans friends!