“You can take it in a variety of ways: is it every man for himself, as it appears to be around the world at the moment? Or is it that we should reconsider the fact that the whole of humanity will only survive and progress if every man pulls together? It really does depend on your point of view. I’m not a preachy sort of comic, I prefer to leave things up in the air and for the audience to make their own decisions.”

On an annual basis, Stephen takes a sparkling new show out to the nation, and each time fresh social and political challenges are there to be faced. This time around, Everyman may well be performed in a country which is now no longer part of the EU.

“What I’m trying to be more prepared for is how the audience will react because I did a show on the night of the Brexit vote, and that was the weirdest crowd I’d had for many years: there was a huge division in the room and people were in shock. The only other gig I could equate that to was one in East Anglia where there was a funny mood in the audience, and after about seven minutes I just said: ‘Hey guys, there’s about 800 of us in here: what’s happened?’ Someone shouted out, ‘They’ve closed the car park and we had to walk for 10 minutes!’ So they just sat there in a grumpy mood, and that was the exact same thing that happened on the night of Brexit.”

Stephen insists that he won’t cover Brexit if he finds he has nothing new to say about it, but he does have some broad areas he will definitely be confronting in Everyman. “I’m tackling things as simple as how we face our own mortality as we get older, and looking at things you can do to improve yourself when you’re trying to find answers to questions.”

This desire for answers has been partly sparked by a TV show he appeared on earlier in 2019. BBC’s Pilgrimage featured a number of celebrities (including Dana, Lesley Joseph and Les Dennis) who embarked on a journey (both physical and spiritual) to Rome. As an atheist and gay man, Stephen was initially taken aback when the group was offered a private audience with the Pope as part of their adventure.

“Never in my wildest dreams, at the dizziest heights of stand-up comedy when you’re meeting very famous people and on bills with Rihanna or Madonna, never did I think I’d be sitting down for a half-hour private audience with the Pope. Particularly for a man with no religious leanings; it was so surreal. I was very apprehensive because I said I would only be part of it if I could ask some questions; I didn’t want to be sitting there being talked at and not have the opportunity to address issues. I had a weight on my shoulders that if I didn’t do this, that I would be doing a disservice to a whole community of people. They did say it might spark an international incident depending on the question, but I said bring it on.”

The Pontiff’s response to Stephen’s question about not feeling accepted as a gay man by religion and religious groups surprised him by being so open and generous. “I said to a friend there beforehand that I was 100% prepared to walk out, not flounce which may have been great for TV, but just get up and leave if he had given me a stock response. But I was blindsided by how candid he was. He wasn’t that explicit in what he said but it was enough to make me realise that, you know what, you’re one of the good ‘uns.”

His experience during Pilgrimage left him altered and has bolstered one of the long-standing ideas he’s had for his own comedy. “I’ve always wanted to have people in the audience who don’t share the same views as me whether politically, socio-economically, and racially, and to see if we can have a common ground for laughing together. I don’t want to be that kind of comic who gets a big round of applause and everyone goes ‘yeah, I agree!’. I want you to laugh and to be blindsided in the way that the Pope blindsided me. I want you to be surprised, not to feel like you’re at a rally with like-minded people.”

Stephen is happy to be back on the road and delighted with the show he has put together. “The structure is in place, and I’m very fond and pleased with it. I think there’s a maturity to the show; I’ve got peace with myself in terms of not having to show off. It’s a departure for me.” But one thing that won’t be different is Stephen K Amos’ ability to make audiences laugh, wherever they are around the country. Especially if the venue car park is fully operational.

Stephen K Amos brings his Everyman tour to The Lowry on 15 January 2019. See website for full tour details.

The post Stephen K Amos talks Brexit, unity and being blindsided by the Pope. 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.