First, can you tell us a little about ‘Curtains’?

Jason: “The show was a huge success on Broadway so it’s really exciting to be bringing this new production to the UK. It’s a comedy musical ‘whodunit?’ and I play a detective obsessed with musicals. When a murder happens in a theatre, he, along with the audience, turns up to discover who the killer is. It’s written by Kander and Ebb who wrote ‘Chicago’ and ‘Cabaret’, so the music is great and it’s a hilarious script”.

Did you know the show before coming on board?

Jason: “I didn’t know much, but as soon as I would mention it to friends in theatre they would say, ‘That’s one of my favourite shows!’. It’s a popular musical within the theatre community and I’m excited that we can share this love to cities all over the UK”.

You’re playing the role of Frank Cioffi, a local detective and huge musical theatre fan. What appealed to you about taking on the role?

Jason: “What I love about Frank is that he’s such a sweet guy, even considering he’s there to solve a murder! He loves theatre but hasn’t had the chance to be on stage, and that’s not dissimilar from how I started. I came from a different world, coming from the stand-up comedy and television world and was surrounded by these hugely talented actors and performers, so I can relate to that a bit. There’s something in him that is just fun to play with as an actor”.

How will you prepare for the role? Will you be swotting up on famous detectives and big musical theatre numbers?

Jason: “Yeah, I think so. The first thing to do is to adapt to the Boston accent. I’ve done New York a couple of times as I was Leo Bloom in ‘The Producers’ and Nathan Detroit in ‘Guys and Dolls’ so I know my way around a New York accent. However, a Boston accent is a new challenge. We get to work with an accent coach, and I’ve been watching lots of videos and films set in Boston to get an ear for it. We’ve also got a few dance numbers, so I’ve been hitting the gym to prepare for that!”

Audiences may know you best from your TV and comedy work, but you’ve been part of many musicals over the years. What initially made you want to make the leap?

Jason: “What I really love about theatre, which I didn’t realise at first, was how much I enjoy working with other people. You spend so much time alone when you’re touring as a stand-up. I mean, don’t feel sorry for me, I did very well out of it, but it’s a lonely job. So, in theatre it’s lovely to be part of a cast, a family feel, which I really love”.

Do you prefer performing in theatre to stand-up comedy, or do you find one or the other better suits you at different points in your life?

Jason: “I just find that there are times when stand-up is number one, and there are times when it’s theatre. With stand-up I’m starting with a blank page – I sit down and think about what I want to tell stories and jokes about whereas with musicals somebody else is setting the parameters that I then get to explore and play in. There’s something quite exciting about that – someone saying here are the rules, a script, story, songs, and then you’ve got to use what you’ve got to collaborate with them, with what pre-exists. It’s actually a really good discipline, and I’ve been able to use some of the skills I’ve learned in theatre and translate them to how I perform stand-up comedy”.

What was your very first experience of musical theatre, and when did you fall in love with it?

Jason: “I remember being about 9 or 10 at school, and I don’t know how they got away with it, but they took us to see Sweeney Todd. It was quite an experience, and I remember thinking it was just brilliant. I was in every musical I could be at high school, whether it was my year group or not I would badger the teacher until they let me be a part of it somehow. Then when I got to university they didn’t have a drama society, so I actually set the drama society up at Salford University called ‘Almost Famous’ and that’s still going now and I get invited to stuff by them all the time which is really nice. I actually also wrote a couple of musicals myself when I was at uni”.

Do you think you’d ever want to write any musical theatre in the future?

Jason: “I’ve got a couple of things that I’m working on that I would like to develop but it’s a big world to dive into and a flop is a real flop, so it’s a big risk. It’s a lot of work but I’ve got a couple of nice ideas that I might like to explore more in the future”.

Do you have a role you’d love to play, regardless of age or gender?

Jason: “Yeah, I’d like to play Jean Valjean in Les Misérables at some point! That feels like the ultimate aim”.

You’ve toured before with various shows, is it something you enjoy or do you find it a bit of a challenge?

Jason: “Both really. I love doing it, it’s what I have always known. My family do notice that I start to climb the walls after a few months off. I’m a bit like a wild child if I’m stuck in the house for too long. I couldn’t do it forever I must say, and it’s tough being away from my family. Over the course of the year I probably spend as much time at home as any other parent does, but it’s spread out differently, and in blocks of time. The kids get it and they come and see me on tour, they’ve seen most of the shows I’ve been in”.

You’re a busy man, but what do you like to do with any down time you get?

Jason: “I don’t really have down time! Even when I’m off I like writing down ideas or music – even my hobbies are similar to my work but that’s a privilege really. I suppose my real down time is hanging out with my kids, they’re a good laugh and I love it”.

Have you ever been given a piece of advice, or some words of wisdom that have stuck with you?

Jason: “I’ve had quite a bit actually over the years. I remember Peter Kay telling me when I first started stand-up that the rest of the country is working a 40-hour week at least, so just because you work in show business why should you be any different? As a comic if you wanted to you could probably get away with working for 20-minutes a night, four nights a week but he was a real inspiration to get me to say okay what am I doing with the rest of my time? He made me write a lot more and do a lot more.

“I also remember doing ‘Sweeney Todd’ and feeling really nervous around these incredible singers, dancers and actors and I said to Michael Ball that I feel like I’m winging it, that I’m on that TV show ‘Faking It’, and he said to me, “Darling, we’re all on Faking It” which I thought was good advice as it reassured me we are all sort of winging it to a point!

“My Dad always used to say to me “Your horizon should become your middle distance” so that you aim for things, and when you get there you head on to the next thing. That’s a great piece of advice”.

Finally, what can audiences expect when they come and see ‘Curtains’?

Jason: “They can expect great music from the team behind ‘Cabaret’ and ‘Chicago’, a wonderful and talented cast, hilarious comedy and you’ll be questioning right the way through to the end, whodunit?!”

Curtains is at the Palace Theatre, Manchester from 8-12 October 2019. Visit website for full tour details.

Read our review of Curtains at Manchester’s Palace Theatre.

From ‘tarty girl’ to comic, Emily Atack talks thirty.

The post Jason Manford: ‘As a comic you could probably get away with working 20-minutes a night’ appeared first on Quays Life.

Not for nothing is Stephen K Amos known as a feelgood comedian. His years of touring the nation with crowd-pleasing shows have helped him build up a loyal fanbase who expect an evening of non-stop laughter. With his new show Bouquets and Brickbats, Stephen is promising the usual quota of gags and funny stories, but this time around he’s being a little more contemplative about the universe.

“I picked that title because the last 18 months have been awful both personally for me and in the whole world at large. Some things are so joyful and joyous on one hand, and on the other, so devastating. So I was trying to find a way of saying that some days are rosy and other days are downright shitty.”

Across 2017 and 2018, Stephen has lost both his mother and his twin sister, and working through this sadness has given his comedy a different perspective. “I never thought I could do something like this, as my whole thing has been to keep them laughing and not to hold the silence. But I’ve now found out that it’s more powerful to hold the silence. That whole thing about losing people and death is a bit in the show and there’s a silence in the room where you can hear a penny drop. For me, that is a bit weird.”

As he has proved for many years now through touring shows such as The Spokesman and World Famous, on his Royal Television Society Award-winning Channel 4 documentary Batty Man, and in radio programmes such as What Does The K Stand For?, Stephen is a potent social commentator as well as a highly popular stand-up. You can rest assured that he will be looking to tap into the issues of the day during this tour, albeit in his own distinctive style. “I don’t want people to sigh when I mention the likes of Trump and Brexit, but I try to tackle them by using another example of something just as ridiculous. But I don’t mention any names and will try to do it in a subtle way. At the start of the tour, I start off with a script but it will undoubtedly change depending on world events and my own mood. Things are constantly happening.”

One thing that he most certainly won’t be doing is shouting down the opinions of anyone in his audience. He knows full well that in this divided nation, there will be people coming to his shows who will have voted differently in the EU referendum and he is more than willing to hear both sides of the debate. Not all current comedians are of that mind, though.

“I was doing a late-night show in Edinburgh with a mixed line-up and a very well-respected comic just slammed down a woman who admitted that she had voted for Brexit. I thought that wasn’t very fair because people are entitled to their own opinions and instead of tackling this in a creative way you’ve just slagged her off and made sure that she will never admit to anything like that again in any situation. I think we should be able to sit down and discuss things like adults; when it descends into abuse, you’ve lost the argument.”

In this fractured world, how does Stephen stay positive? “I get my positivity from human beings. Something good happens on a daily basis: a text from someone, a stranger doing something nice for you on the street or someone just saying something positive. We all have a story to tell; you might see a façade but you never know what’s going on inside a person. Sometimes people have come up to me after this show with tears in their eyes or wearing a badge for Breast Cancer or something and it’s about being touched by other people’s stories. I haven’t really had time to stop and take stock and think. It’s all about going out there and listening to people’s laughter or their reactions to what I’m saying. At one show, one lad felt confident at being out and proud at the age of 15, something I couldn’t have done: those moments make it all worthwhile.”

As well as making people laugh in the live arena, you can hear him being funny with his own podcast, The Stephen K Amos Talk Show, the first series of which came out on Audible in August and reached number one in Australia. A second series should be available sometime during the tour. Meanwhile, he has plans to spend a few months working in the US during 2019. “I think this is the right time to go to America as Brits are doing very well out there; the likes of James Corden, John Oliver, Gina Yashere and Idris Elba.”

For now, though, Stephen is very much looking forward to taking to the nation’s roads and getting out and about to meet his public. “I love touring and I’m very grateful that people still want to come out and see me because I don’t do that much on TV these days. I try to mix it up and go to venues and cities and towns that I haven’t been to before or I’ll go back to places and play bigger venues. Travelling around does give you an idea of the mood of the nation. Live comedy is thriving and people are coming out to see lots of different kinds of comedy and it’s great that people are prepared to listen to a person on stage saying whatever they like. That’s one of the beautiful things about this job. Unlike television or radio or newspaper print, I can literally say whatever I want.”

Stephen K Amos brings his UK tour of Bouquets and Brickbats to The Lowry, Salford Quays on 2 December 2018. For full details of the tour visit www.stephenkamos.com

The post Stephen K Amos on finding laughter in the extremes of life appeared first on Quays Life.

Tell us about your new stand-up show, Traditionalism?

Politics and social attitudes are changing at a dizzying rate. I’m like a lot of people in the middle: I want to hold modern views, but the labels we use are changing so fast it’s almost impossible to keep up. If you go out of the country for a month you come back and something else is now deemed offensive. I got called a ‘dinosaur’ for the first time recently. Well just like dinosaurs I hear men like me are soon to be extinct, I might as well have a laugh about it before the meteor strikes.

So, are you a traditional sort of bloke?

I guess my relationship operates on a very gender typical basis. I think a lot of people’s still do, yet the chattering classes are engaged in fervent debate about gender neutrality. I think male and female characteristics are slightly more innate than that. Having a baby brings issues like this into focus. Right from the start my son was visibly more at ease with my wife around. And why not? She could feed him with her body, I couldn’t even do it with a spoon.

What is the most radical thing you’ve done?

Being a Conservative and Leave voter in the world of stand up is reasonably out there. Those views are pretty common in wider society, but somehow in stand-up I’m seen as ‘exotic’. I’m the comedy version of that white tiger in Vegas.

Do you think Tories are ‘shy’?

Less so these days. It helps when the leader of the opposition is at odds with the Jewish community. I don’t know if Corbyn himself is definitely anti-Semitic, but at the very least he’s like a gangster’s wife; he hasn’t personally killed anyone, but has seen plenty of shovels go missing from the shed.

Brexit? That’s the question.

Well I voted Leave and I’d like to say that yes, I did realise it would be this complicated, and I absolutely thought through all the ramifications of a hard border in Northern Ireland and…look I don’t regret my vote, but it’s tricky. I might not be able to make jokes in support of Brexit, but I can certainly crack a few at the expense of certain Remainers. You know the ones who developed this lifelong love of the EU the moment the vote went the other way. And they go on the marches, but only if it’s on a Saturday and they can factor in brunch at Browns.

Do you ever get adverse reactions from audiences?

Sometimes people get triggered. Corbynistas cannot take jokes at Jeremy’s expense. I was at a gig in Bristol and remarked that Corbyn looks like a pensioner at a service station who thinks he’s lost his coach party. One lady got up and said ‘Stop being mean about Jeremy!’ Which was fine, but the previous comic to me had been making jokes about Theresa May’s appearance and she’d laughed throughout. I made that point and she stormed out, ironically no-platforming herself.

Why do you think there are so few comics on the right?

Historically the alternative scene was a reaction to the stand-up of the day. Even though that was ages ago, some lefties cling onto this view that any right-wing comedian must be unpleasant (so unlike the left to get their big ideas from the seventies). If anything, me not turning out to be a totally evil git seems to annoy them more.

Geoff Norcott brings his show, Traditionalism to The Lowry, Salford Quays on 14 October 2018. See website for full tour details.

The post Geoff Norcott the ‘exotic’ Tory of stand-up appeared first on Quays Life.