A flowering TV career, another top-selling tour, a bunch of Perrier nominations and THAT voice. Joe Spurgeon meets the coolest cat in comedy, Reginald D Hunter.

“You have to learn how people communicate. In some areas of Britain, people are constantly ribbing you, and fucking with you, and insulating you. That means they like you. The other night, I was having a cigarette and this woman comes up and says: ‘I don’t think you’re very funny. I don’t think you’re very good looking and I don’t see why everyone’s going on about your voice.’ And then she says ‘Wanna drink?’ Oh, I see, this is British love…”

Knee-deep into the first leg of his UK tour, RADA-trained Reginald D Hunter, he of the canyon-deep, butterscotch baritone, succulent Southern drawl and hang-loose on-stage prowl, is becoming somewhat adept at breaking down the British psyche. He should be, mind, having been here for some 15-odd years since relocating – originally to act – from a broken home in Albany, Georgia. Hunter only took up comedy for a bet in a Birmingham pub and now, with several successful Edinburghs (and three Perrier award nominations) behind him, he’s playing to the biggest venues and TV audiences of his career. Feeling at home yet?

“I still feel like an outsider here, but then, I felt like an outsider growing up in the States. In a weird way, being an outsider here at least makes sense. In the States, I couldn’t understand why I felt outside everything. I tried really hard to fit in, it just didn’t work. But here I’m just hanging onto that vibe – hey, it’s all new to me. I’m more relaxed about being an outsider.”

In fact, this notion of the curious stranger still informs Hunter’s comedy, which, coupled with an evidently well-tuned intellect and that boombox voice, gives him an attractively exotic air.

“I’ve had some women – and some men – make comment about the voice; it’s not an unusual compliment. I’ve had to teach myself to just go ‘thank you’ because whatever everyone else’s hearing, it doesn’t sound different to me. And I just like talking to people. I don’t mean that in some hokey, bakin’ cookies weird ass kinda way, but the thing with British people – and there are infinite varieties – is that someone’s always gonna say something you ain’t never heard before. It keeps life interesting. I always try to engage people during my shows, and if we get cookin’ on that and it’s better than my jokes, then bump! We go with it!”

The audience patter, a key part of Hunter’s on-stage weaponry, is supplemented by a considered study of his new homeland’s peculiarities: a penchant to slip the n-word into his show titles (‘Pride & Prejudice… & Niggas’, ‘Trophy Nigga’ etc) gently prods at sensitive Brit sensibilities, alongside other family-friendly tea-time topics: urinating on prostitutes, habitual masturbation and explosive diarrhoea. Shock tactics?

“I am perpetually astounded why anyone is shocked by what I say. Sometimes, I might mention menstruation and, guaranteed, there’ll be at least three women in the audience that go ‘ooo!’ If they didn’t have vaginas, I could understand the shock, but they do, they tend to them every day. If I do a joke about drugs, and it could be really funny, someone will still come up to me and say ‘didn’t like the drugs joke, my best friend’s sister was a drug addict and I just don’t think it’s funny.’ [Laughs.] All right buddy, I will never. Make a drugs joke. Again.” [Laughs again.]

Whatever the stage talk, in conversation, Hunter is clearly a dedicated student of his art, quick to poke our own leanings towards self-examination (“British people are constantly analysing”) yet capable of some pretty astute deconstruction himself.

“Easy as it would be to get pissed off driving around Britain all the time, you can’t let that get to you. One period of your life might be peaceful, one tumultuous. It’s easy to be funny when everything’s goin’ good, when everybody loves you and you’re getting good sex, good food. The challenge is to do it when you’ve got a cold, or you don’t like the promoter you’re dealing with. If I do 100 gigs, I’m lucky if for 40 of them I’m feeling great. But you can’t do it just when you feel like it. You have to notice yourself, figure out which habits are good and which ones don’t help.

“The bad part of that is that, if you’re not careful, you can become extraordinarily self-interested. It’s the risk of giving yourself to your work: your scan is inward, you notice less in the world. Yes, be mindful, but know when to say ‘mind, shut up’.”

REGINALD D HUNTER: SOMETIMES EVEN THE DEVIL TELLS THE TRUTH WAS AT THE COLSTON HALL ON THUR 3 NOV (THEN TOURING TO CORNWALL, PLYMOUTH, SWINDON AND NATIONWIDE). FFI: WWW.REGINALDDHUNTER.CO.UK

Copyright Joe Spurgeon 2011