Celebrity Interviews Alan Car Peforming Live Terrifies Me |
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Read the interview with Alan Carr and find out why Performing Terrifies him When did you first realise that you were funny?Well, it’s a bit presumptuous to think that you’re funny, though it’s very sweet of you to say so. I reckon if you start thinking about it then it becomes a problem. People used to laugh at me, I suppose, but you never knew if they were laughing at my voice or at what I was saying. I never wanted to become a comedian, though. I didn’t even like stand-up. It never really appealed to me. So how did you end up doing what you do? I had a really dead-end job working in a lost-and-stolen credit card call centre. It was really getting me down. So I’d tell people about the weirdoes that rang up, and they would laugh and tell me it was really funny and I should go on stage and say it. So I entered the BBC New Comedian of the Year, and I won it, just talking about call centres.  Thank God for the day job!Exactly. Back then, in 2001, call centres were a big deal. Every company was introducing a call centre, you know, “press one for this, press two for that”, and for the first time in my life I was seen as this trendy comedian who was talking about Zeitgeisty issues and stuff, and it was my job! If I’d died on my arse the first time I’d done it, I wouldn’t have continued doing stand-up. I didn’t have a passion for it. I have now, but I wouldn’t say I did back then. What have been the experiences that changed that, the things that really meant a lot to you? I think appearing on The Royal Variety Performance. And winning Stand-Up of the Year at the Comedy Awards. That was amazing. Talking of stand-up, comedians do a lot of touring. You did a British tour at the end of last year - which are your favourite and least favourite places to perform? I think it’s true what a lot of comedians say - the further north you go, the better the audience. I think a lot of London audiences can be a bit blasé. Birmingham’s one of my favourites, Manchester of course, and Scotland’s always a laugh. I just think London can be a bit ‘Okay, so, next please…’ I think London audiences are a bit spoiled for choice. My heart always sinks when it feels like a bit of a London gig. Do you ever do gigs which turn out to be complete disasters? I did one on New Year’s Eve ages ago, which will be my last ever New Year’s gig. I’d never do another. Everyone was pissed, they’d been drinking all day. It was dreadful. At one point I was halfway through a joke, and this woman came on and took off her top and flashed her tits. It was like Bedlam in there, the comedy was almost irrelevant. It was a shame, because some people had come along to watch comedy and have a good night. One of your more memorable days at the office happened with Lionel Blair on Blackpool Pier, didn’t it? That’s right, yes. We were doing a pilot for Channel 4, which never made it to telly. And we were having a glass of wine to celebrate, in a bar on Blackpool Pier. And a man runs in and says ‘There’s a man trying to kill himself at the end of the pier.’ So we followed this man, and there was a guy who had taken his shirt and his shoes off, and was hanging there half naked off the end of the pier, saying “I wanna die, I wanna die.” So Lionel Blair said “I’m Lionel Blair off the telly, come on darling, come and have a brandy.” And I think the man was in so much shock that we just pulled him back onto the pier. It was a shame - but we got a good anecdote out of it in the end! You’ve been on all sorts of comedy panel shows as well as your own programmes. Does any of it ever make you nervous? It’s easy to get a bit blasé. Once you know the workings of television, it doesn’t terrify you. You know that any awful bits will be edited out, they can put canned laughter on if you don’t get a laugh! Once you know the mechanics of it, it’s fine. Obviously performing live still terrifies me. Justin [Lee Collins] and I did something for Comic Relief, and all I could think of was ‘Don’t say shit or fuck, don’t go into Tourette’s mode,’ you know? Actually, Celebrity Ding Dong made me nervous, because it was my show, so I was worried about doing that. Did you invite Justin onto your new show Celebrity Ding Dong, or did you think it was important to show that the two of you aren’t halves of the same person? Well, he didn’t invite me to do Convention Crashers, so I thought ‘Fuck it, why should I invite him along to do my show?’ It’s a bit of a sore point at the minute! Do you think of yourself as a celebrity? No, no. I’m a stand-up comedian, that’s my main job. You have to keep your feet on the ground when you’re doing that, so that you can write decent material. No-one’s going to find it funny that Clara, your maid, came in and dropped your quails’ eggs down the back of the settee. I don’t think the British public would take too kindly to heirs and graces, or if I started name-dropping. That’s not my kind of schtick, really.
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