Russell Howard’s been all over the telly these last couple of years but now the West Country comic’s back round our parts road-testing his new stand-up show. Melissa Blease cheers up.

“Is he a massive boy? Is he a man and a child at the same time? Who cares: he’s funny and we fancy him!” And so it came to pass that mischievous young merry-maker Russell Howard secured himself the number three position on Heat magazine’s Weird Crush 2010 chart, bookended by Hugh Laurie and Benedict Cumberbatch. For today’s thinking woman, that’s a rather delicious sandwich. But isn’t topping a Weird Crush chart a bit... well, weird? “There’s something quite nice about it really,” Russell tells Venue on the eve of his nationwide ‘Right Here, Right Now’ arena tour, which will itself be preceded by his ‘Work in Progress’ warm-up shows at Komedia in Bath (23 Jan) and a three-night run at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory just a few days later. “At least I beat the Go Compare guy – he only made it to number 11. Does that make me a weirder crush or a less weird crush than Mr GC, though? I’m not really sure...”

And neither are we. But while the ‘should we/shouldn’t we fancy him?’ debate rages, we can rest assured that Russell is, right now, one of the UKs hottest contemporary comedians: a regular panel guest on ‘Mock the Week’ and ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’ (both BBC2) and Channel 4’s ‘8 out of 10 Cats’, while his own show ‘Russell Howard’s Good News’ (in which he shares his own unique take on the week’s major news stories) is BBC Three’s highest ever rating entertainment series. And where did it all start? The West Country, of course – a region that’s easily overtaken even Merseyside as the birthplace of mirth (see panel).

“I was born in Bath in 1980, but my family moved around a lot before we settled in Bristol when I was 18,” Russell recalls. “My very first stand-up experience was at a comedy club called Virgin Mirth on Park Street in 1998, and I went on to perform at the Bunch of Grapes behind the Hippodrome every Sunday for about five years. Were they hard times? No, they were great times! For me, everything started in Bristol, and it still feels like home today.”

Which may explain why, although Russell currently lives in Leamington Spa with his girlfriend, he’s still a familiar face on the local comedy circuit, treating audiences who snuggle down in non-superstar-orientated, intimate venues such as The Porter’s Comedy Cavern in Bath to impromptu previews of his Next Big Show. “I love the subtle differences between Bristol and Bath audiences,” says Russell, on his penchant for impromptu local pop-ups. “If you ask a Bath person what they’ve been up to lately, they’ll say, ‘oh, this and that –pottering, really’. Pottering! That’s so Bath: they even describe doing nothing in an elegant fashion. Ask a Bristol person the same question, though, and they’ll say, ‘Oh, fuck all, mate!’ They tend to be a lot more down to earth, and I love that difference, it makes me laugh.”

But when that intimate audience is supersized to become an average of 10,000 chuckle-buddies per gig, surely regional subtleties are blitzed off the radar? “I never really think about the audience in terms of numbers,” says Russell. “I concern myself with writing jokes and trying to be funny, without giving much thought to where I am. There were only around 20 people at my first ever gig, but it felt like thousands. Today, I perform in front of thousands – millions, on the TV – but it feels like 20. But all live gigs are, by their nature, far more random than a TV show. If an audience member suddenly decides to bellow ‘I keep chickens’, then great, we can all have a chat about that, which personalises the whole experience. In one way, live stand-up can sometimes feel like a lovely release after being in front of a camera – I guess I feel a bit freer. But please don’t ask me to state a preference: that’d be like making me choose between my two children!”

RUSSELL HOWARD: WORK IN PROGRESS IS AT KOMEDIA, BATH ON SUN 23 JAN BUT IS SOLD OUT. IT’S ALSO AT TOBACCO FACTORY, BRISTOL FROM WED 26-FRI 28 JAN. SEE WWW.TOBACCOFACTORYTHEATRE.COM FFI.
 

Copyright Melissa Blease 2011

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