Stuart Goldsmith is performing his award-winning new stand-up show “Like I Mean It” at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff on 30th June 2018, We interviewed Stuart about his new stand-up show.
I call myself a DIY comedian because I’m building a tour following without having much of a TV or radio profile. I’ve done the odd bit of telly, but I perform on the free fringe at Edinburgh, and am obsessive about cultivating the small but loyal fan base my “Comedian’s Comedian” podcast has accrued. I’ve had over 9 million downloads now! I really love having it all belong to me and be a thing I’ve built from the ground up; rather than having loads of audience members who saw me on a thing once, I’ve got a smaller following who know me really well, and that’s how I like it.
I’ve had some amazing guests on the show recently, talking about their craft: Simon Munnery, Andy Daly, Jo Brand, Stewart Lee… I had anxiety dreams for a week before the Stewart Lee episode, mostly about ending up in his act! I put it to him that I was nervous the character of Stewart Lee might look upon a comic turned interviewer with disdain, and he replied “yeah he might do…”
People often ask me who I’d get to interview me for the podcast; you’d be amazed how many open mics offer me their services as an unbiased interviewer! I think the nature of the show is that I pick apart my guests answers and try to get in the cracks between them, so it’d be very hard to replicate that with myself as the guest. I imagine there’ll be an app for it before long though… I’ve always said if I make it to 500 episodes I’d guest on the show myself. We’re almost halfway there.
I’ve learnt a lot from the podcast both emotionally and technically. A good joke has to be both surprising yet satisfying. That’s incredibly difficult to achieve if you think about it; it needs to be a shock that somehow makes sense. There’s also another layer that only the very best jokes have, where it absolutely reflects the truth of the teller’s personality, so there’s a simultaneous effect where you “learn” something about their humanity that is also surprising yet satisfying at the same time! I tried to use that understanding in the writing of my new tour show “Like I Mean It” – which comes to Chapter in Cardiff on Saturday 30th June. It’s “about” desperation and compromise in the face of parenthood, but it’s simultaneously a load of daft jokes about blueberries, frogs, insomnia and that thing where people in movies calmly pass their hands over a dead persons eyes and magically close them…
Podcasting is awesome but you can’t smell the audience from your bedroom. Comedy is a sensual art, you have to be right there in front of them to really be doing it properly – that’s why I still tour even though I can reach millions of people through a podcast…
Listen to the “Comedian’s Comedian podcast” at www.comedianscomedian.com or on iTunes.
All ticket info for Stuart’s tour is at www.comedianscomedian.com/tour
