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‘I’ve only d e s u r e v e Comedian James Acaster is one funny guy. . .
one side of a cheese grater’
Jungle / James Mullinger / Ockham’s Razor / Cambridge Music Festival
26 | October 23, 2014 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News
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THE HEADLINER: COMEDY
The drummer turned comedian, turned undercover cop pretending to be a comedian, is set to reveal all at Cambridge Junction. ELLA WALKER plays along
James Acaster: “The genius of it is, no-one believes me anyway”
Editor: Ella Walker email: ella.walker@cambridgenews.co.uk For breaking entertainment news for the city, visit cambridge-news. co.uk/whatson Follow @CamWhatsOn on Twitter
James Acaster: Recognise, HOT TICKETS WHAT’S ON Cambridge Junction, Friday, WHAT’S ON HOTTickets TICKETS October 24 at 8pm. HOT £14TICKETS from (01223)WHAT’S 511511 / ON junction.co.uk WHAT’S ON HOT TICKETS
Cambridge News | cambridge-news.co.uk | October 23, 2014 | 27
THE HEADLINER: COMEDY
‘T
HIS show is my most personal show yet. It’ss me revealing that I am, m, and always have been, an undercover cop infiltrating a gang of drug dealers who are providing drugs to comedians.” And this is how my phone call with new kid on the comedy edy block, James Acaster, began. He’s good, right? The 29-year-old is, by definition, nition, gawky and awkward, with legs gs that are too long for his body and shoulder blades that are too spiky for his maths teacher look: scraggy jumperss over rumpled polo shirts. A scruff of red curls sit flickily on his skull above eyes that arch and wink with knowing nods.. He’s a character, and on hiss Recognise tour (coming to Cambridge Junction and nominated for Best Show at this year’s Edinburgh Comedyy Awards), he’s a character within hin a character, playing, er, another her character. It’s all a bit meta. Born in Kettering (“a small town next to the Weetabix factory. Yeah, if any of you thought I was a loser up until this point: in your face”), Acaster fell into comedy after a career as a drummer petered out. Since then he’s appeared on 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Mock the Week and Nevermind the Buzzcocks, and is a regular on Radio 4, as well as fellow comedian Josh Widdicombe’s XFM radio show. Deadpan and equipped with a flat, slightly nasal tone The Office’s Gareth (McKenzie Crook) would be proud of, he happily admits he’s not that adventurous (“I’ve only ever used one side of the cheese grater – I’ve no idea what the other three sides even do,”), treats relationships like “bouncy castles” and that’s just what he confesses in his show reel . . . So, where did the initial idea for Recognise come from? And won’t it blow your cover as a cop? My life. It’s what’s happening ng to me, and really, the idea came e from me not having any more ideas. as. For years I’ve been having to talkk about things, making up material, like ke proper comedians do. This year I’ve been way too busy and haven’t had d time, so I’ve just started talking about out my actual life, and the genius of it is, noone believes me anyway. So it doesn’t matter. It’s not like I’m even blowing any cover because everyone assumes it’s not true. Smart move. How have audiences been reacting so far? They laugh along like it’s one ne big joke and are like: ‘ah, it’s really lly clever to come up with that idea dea and frame a show around that’, at’, you know? (Pausing) I know what’s going on. It must be nice having people think you’re clever though. It’s nice of them to think that, but you know, the opinion down at the station is very different. They think it’s a stupid thing to do.. Tricky situation. How different fferent are the on and off stage versions of you? Part of being an undercover er cop is that you’re always pretending to be someone eone that you’re not. So on stage it’s a personaa that I’m doing
for comedy, then off stage I’m pretending to be an off-stage comedian basically to the d drug dealers, and then, when I’m on my own, then I’m myself, m differe and that’s a very different person. Different how? m A lot more reserved, maybe more easy to talk to. The stage a persona is very deadpan and wh deliberate all the time, whereas off stage I don’t tend to talk to people like that. And yeah, I’m probably a lot more smiley in real life. Do you find it liberating liberat being on stage? Sometimes, in front of certain certa audiences. audience In front fron of other ot
audiences, it’s not. It depends if they like you. But even when they don’t like you, you can cut loose a bit and do whatever you like. I guess that’s what’s quite liberating about stand up: you do what you want. No-one’s telling you what guidelines to keep it in. That sounds dangerous… It’s not like a job where you work behind a counter and you’ve got to be nice and the customer’s always right. If you want to, you can be rude. Say whatever you like, do your time and walk off. What does that mean for your hecklers? I don’t like them, they can shut up. I think if they’re funny, fine. 0.0000001 per cent is funny, and the rest of them are not funny. Sometimes it adds to it, but I’m very cautious to say that in interviews because anyone reading the interview will read the line “sometimes it adds to it” and they’ll immediately think they’re in that percentage and that
applies to them. (He pauses, as if turning to look directly into a camera) If you are thinking that to yourself, you are absolutely, definitely not that person. If you fancy yourself as a heckler and are thinking of going into it, then that means you’re the worst kind of person and shouldn’t be doing it. What does make you laugh then? The word ‘butt’ is very funny, that really makes me laugh, and just silly things; putting on American accents and ridiculous characters. Any particular comedians? Ross Noble, Louis CK, Bill Cosby, Dave Chapelle, Stuart Lee, Daniel Kitson, Josie Long, loads and loads, there’s too many, you start naming all of them. How do you think your life might have panned out if you hadn’t, um, become an undercover comedian cop? Well, if I hadn’t gone into comedy, I would’ve done another undercover
“ “It’s not like a job where you work behind a counter and w you’ve got to be nice and the customer’s always right. If you want to, you can be rude. Say whatever you like, do your time and walk off” ti FAVOURITE: Ross Noble
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28 | October 23, 2014 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News
THE HEADLINER: COMEDY
James Acaster’s serious, tried and tested advice for budding comedians:
case. That could have been anything. But if I hadn’t become an undercover cop, I don’t know really, it’s quite hard because I originally wanted to be in a band. I was a drummer, I was doing that for a few years, and when that stopped, I didn’t have any qualifications. I didn’t go to university or anything, so I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. So if I wasn’t doing this, I think I’d probably be doing some other kind of performance. Without qualifications, I don’t really have anything to fall back on. I had to do something off my own back. What would you say has been the
maddest moment of your time in stand-up so far? A guy at a festival that I did in the woods jumped on stage and started [performing a solo sex act]. What did you do?! I told him he could tell a joke. It was pretty horrible. Sounds traumatic! Yeah, I took a few steps away from him and then a lady who was dressed as a dog jumped on stage, wrestled him to the ground and started beating him up, and then they turned the lights off and that was the end of the whole festival. That was a weird moment. So stand-up has it’s challenging times then? Well, yeah, as far as I have to get away from the man who’s [performing a solo sex act]. As a challenge, I thought it was pretty easy one; I could definitely outrun him because he had his trousers round his ankles. Fair enough. What was your first ever gig like? It was in Kettering at a little pub, and I spent the whole day pretending I wasn’t doing a gig in my head, so I wouldn’t panic all day. Then I got there and they said my name, my heart was really pounding in my chest. I was walking up to the stage thinking: ‘turn around, what are you doing?’ But then as soon as I said hello into the mic and they all shouted hello back, I felt relaxed, I felt much calmer. Do you still get nervous sometimes? I do before the big gigs or gigs that matter to me, or gigs that look like they’re going to go badly. You need a bit of that, you can’t be too relaxed.
Do it. Just try it. Experiment with all the ideas that you’ve got and just remember that you’re not meant to be good straight away. You’re meant to fail a lot, and you’re meant to find it hard. Don’t get disheartened and don’t think that the audience should be giving you more and that they don’t get you, because it takes a long time. With each gig just go, what was good, what could I have done better? And then improve on it, and if you do that, while experimenting and trying out your ideas, then you’ll be fine. Be in tune with yourself. Figure out why you’re funny and not why anyone else is funny. If you do something on stage that gets a laugh, go off stage and ask yourself why that happened, and build on that.
“I originally wanted to be in a band. I was a drummer, I was doing that for a few years, and when that stopped, I didn’t have any qualifications. I had to do something off my own back.”