Your latest show is called: ‘After Me Comes the Flood (But in French) drip splosh splash drip BLUBBP BLUBBP BLUBBPBLUBBPBLUBBP!!’ How would you describe it?

John-Luke: “I’m debating whether to describe it as “An hilarious stupid romp through too many daft characters and far too many silly ideas performed by me in a pink suit” or “just terrific”. I guess I’ll go with just terrific because I don’t want to undersell myself”.

Why do your shows have such long titles?

John-Luke: “I find them funny. But it’s also quite a good way of getting the right people in to see it – if you don’t find an awkward and ridiculous long title funny, then this probably isn’t the show for you”.

You are just over a month into your tour, do you change the material much as you go along?

John-Luke: ” It changes every show a bit – the performance changes with the audiences reaction to different bits. And the material changes over the tour, but not in any planned way – it’s a mixture of improvised bits and sudden thoughts of “oh it would be funny if this character did this thing”. Over the course of several shows I’ll find some sketches or routines have changed significantly, but I didn’t really notice it while it was happening.

How did training at the school of master clown, Philippe Gaulier influence your comedy?

John Luke: “I learnt some every useful lessons and got thoroughly irritated at the same time. I mean, the basic teaching method is you perform in front of the class and an old man hits a drum when you’re boring and you have to leave. So, the main lesson is don’t let an audience get bored. Another lesson was think about what the audience see, not just what they’re hearing. Why not have a costume that’s fun to look at? Why not use your body to make jokes land better? Another lesson (let’s call it lesson 3) was you don’t entirely get to choose the type of comedy you do – you need to listen to an audience and let them tell you the ways in which you’re funny. And lesson four, if everyone (you and the audience) are having fun, then that’s enough”.

Which clowns have inspired your comedy and how?

John-Luke: “It was a workshop with Doctor Brown that let me know I was missing something. He said something about how if you spend the first 15 minutes listening to the audience and giving them what they want, then they’ll go with you anywhere you want to take them. And watching Carlo Jacucci’s caterpillar routine was a thing of wonder. Oh and Spymonkey – they do the funniest naked scene I’ve ever watched. Although I’m keeping my clothes on in this show”.

Why did you choose stand-up comedy over circus clowning?

John-Luke: “I studied clowning quite far into my comedy writing and performing career, so I was already used to stand-up spaces. I wouldn’t know how to pursue circus clowning properly, and I guess there’s an anonymity to being a circus clown that doesn’t really suit my ego. To some extent, all these different art forms are the same thing anyway. It’s just a label to let the audience expect ‘something’.”

In this show you give away a lot of the punchlines before the joke. Where did that idea come from and how does it work for the audience?

John-Luke: “I was thinking about how I find surprises hard to deal with – I like it when everything goes to plan. That made me think about how a joke is a sentence with a surprise at the end: I thought “can you give away the punching and still have the joke work?” I’ve found when I tell the audience a punchline, then when it pops up in context, they sort of laugh harder to reward themselves for having remembered. And it’s fun to give the audience all the pieces, and still surprise them with how they come together”.

What is your favourite prop in the show and why?

John-Luke: “My ingenuity, because it makes me feel clever”.

Your last tour, ‘All I Wanna Do Is [FX: GUNSHOTS] With a [FX: GUN RELOADING] and a [FX: CASH REGISTER] and Perform Some Comedy!’ included 53 props. How many have you got this time?

John-Luke: “None! I’ve streamlined! Partly because I love having an audience imagine all the scenes and characters and the things they’re playing with, and partly because touring with a lot of props is tiresome”.

What is your favourite gag or sketch of all time?

John-Luke: “What’s ET short for? Because he’s got little legs”.

Is there anything else you’d like to say about the show?

John-Luke: “If you bring your friends, ask them if they like the title first”.

John-Luke Roberts brings his show, ‘After Me Comes the Flood (But in French) drip splosh splash drip BLUBBP BLUBBP BLUBBPBLUBBPBLUBBP!!’ to The Lowry, Salford Quays on 23 November 2019 and is touring the UK til March 2020. See website for full tour details.

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John-Luke Roberts is on a journey to discover the 24 lost Spice Girls. Yes, as well as Mel B and Mel C, he introduces us to the forgotten Mel A right through Mels D-Z. He meets a few pirates along the way and comes across a little-known Alan Bennett tale, ‘A House With Too Loos.’

As you’ve probably guessed, Roberts revels in absurdity. Even the title of his most recent show, now on tour after a successful Edinburgh Festival Fringe run, is designed to cause chaos for headline writers.

As a writer, the Newcastle born comic has contributed to TV shows: ‘Have I Got News For You’, ‘Newzoids’ and ‘Nevermind the Buzzcocks’, as well as penning a sitcom ‘Bull’, co-written with Gareth Gwynn, starring Robert Lindsay and Maureen Lipman, in which he also takes an acting role as, Nigel Mainpart.

After 7 solo Edinburgh Fringe shows Roberts has steadily carved out a reputation as a master of mayhem. His new show ‘All I Wanna Do Is [FX: GUNSHOTS] With a [FX: GUN RELOADING] and a [FX: CASH REGISTER] and Perform Some Comedy!’ is touring the UK til May 2019, stopping at the Lowry on January 19. Here’s what to expect:

Tell us about your show?

My show is a manifesto for absurdism told through 24 fictional Spice Girls. It’s also got 10 too many jokes, 42 too many characters and exactly the right number of plinths.

What happens if you get an audience of millennials?

Everyone has a lovely time, while also thinking “I wish there were some Generation Xers, some Xennials, some Baby Boomers and some over-seventies here, because then we could use this shared experience of a comedy show to see that there is more that unites us than separates us, and start to heal the deep rifts in our society”.

Your act is described as ‘alternative comedy’. What does that mean to today’s comedy audience?

It’s not a very precise term, but it’s a good way of letting people know that this might be a little different to what they might otherwise expect to see. It’s a way of preparing people to watch it, maybe, with a slightly different attitude. And a way to let people who might not like it know that they might not like it.

Out of the comedy characters you’ve created, which is your favourite and why?

In my last show I played a version of the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer – but played him as an idiot who’d had his clothes stolen by a fairy, and who spoke a mangled version of English the audience could barely understand. I wore some flowers on my head, a penis made out of an uninflated modelling balloon and a blanket to precariously cover my modesty. There’s something fun about taking a high-culture reference, and doing the stupidest possible thing with it. “Ee am Jiffrey Chowcer, middy evil poot. A poot is lick a reeter, but moo ee lick to rim! At end of every line ee rim. Lick, lick lick, rim, rim rim”. But this year I get to play a witch, a giant, a vampire and the ghost of an Irish girl who left her country, like many thousands of others, in pursuit of a new life in the Spice Girls.

Is it important to you to look funny as well as talk funny?

The way I look at it, it’s a way to put some funny on top. Sure, you can talk funny and that can be really entertaining. But if you can look funny too, then that just adds more funny. And why stop there? It’s also useful to feel funny, to taste funny, and to smell funny.

What part do props play in your act?

The part they play is this:
Stage 1. I think “I am not going to use any props this year because they are too much trouble to carry around.”
Stage 2. I think “But it would be funny to have a prop to at this point in the show. OK I can use just one prop in the show, because it will make it funnier. Just one though.”
Stage 3. I have 53 props in the show.

Any singing or dancing in the show?

I cannot give away all my secrets – but what I will say is that if you like singing and dancing the answer is “yes”. And if you don’t like singing and dancing the answer is “why don’t you come along and find out”.

You’ve been touring since October. Has it changed much since then?
It’s basically the same show, but there’s always bits changing and new jokes turning up. You need to keep a show slightly fresh for yourself because the audiences can tell if you’re bored of it.

How do you keep yourself interested when doing the same material every night?
Each audience is different so the show always feels new.

As well as stand-up you do lots of other writing and presenting work. What else are you working on at the moment?
I’ve just been co-writing a top-secret radio revival for a beloved comedy troupe, but I’m not allowed to talk about it yet. Apart from that I’m writing a novel about a bee who thinks he’s a horse (it’s an allegorical piece about consumerism and the Lisbon earthquake of 1755) and working on my next show.

John-Luke Roberts: All I Wanna Do Is [FX: GUNSHOTS] With a [FX: GUN RELOADING] and a [FX: CASH REGISTER] and Perform Some Comedy! is at The Lowry, Salford Quays on 19 January 2019. Tickets available from www.thelowry.com 

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