You’ve just started your first stand-up tour, ‘Hello Ladies’. Is this something that’s been in the works a long time, or just a hare-brained scheme to meet women? What can we expect from the show?
I did stand-up after I left university and I was a finalist in some comedy competitions. I was good enough to get paid and I used to gig regularly, but somewhere along the line I lost interest. Once The Office took off, it just seemed easier not do it. I didn’t get enough of a kick from performing to warrant driving up and down the motorway to gigs, eating Ginsters in service stations at midnight. I used to look at Ricky doing stand-up and think, ‘Why’s he bothering? It’s so much effort.’ Then I just woke up one day and I had the itch again. I felt I’d never really nailed stand-up. So I started doing five or ten minute slots here and there and I’ve been pottering around the circuit for a few years now. This tour is the result of that itch. The show is about my failed search for a wife and how I thought fame would be the answer to everything and it isn’t. My life has always revolved around my search for a mate and the show explores every aspect of that, from teenage hopeless ness to the time I got thrown out of a wedding. It’s very confessional.
It’s been a while then since you’ve been on stage by yourself in front of an audience, and the first time since the huge success of The Office, Extras, The Ricky Gervais Show and your other work. How different is it playing to a room full of people who, for want of a better phrase, know who you are?
It’s tricky because different audiences know me as different things; as an actor or from the podcastsor from chat-show appearances – and each of those is different from the stand-up ‘me’. If you go and see, say, Jack Dee, you know that he’s going to be grumpy and dead-pan – but audiences don’t know what to expect from my stand-up show. But basically, as long as you expect something honest and very physical and surprisingly sweaty you’ll be pleased.
You’re a week in so far, with the tour ending in New York just before Christmas. How is ‘The Road’ –and the accompanying rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle that we can only imagine – treating you?
Backstage at a theatre is the least sexy place in the world. The dressing rooms are about as glamorousas a boys changing room after a school rugby match in the rain. If the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle is a cup oftea and a sandwich from M&S, then yes, call me Keith Richards.
This is your first major solo creative project since working with Ricky. Is it more difficult writing alone, or do you appreciate the peace and quiet?
Writing on my own isn’t a problem, it’s just that writing a stand-up act at all is hard work. I don’t find I can just sit down and write stand-up. It has to evolve over time on stage. Or an idea will occur to me on the way to a gig and I’ll try it out, then refine it each time I go back on stage. The audience is my writing partner in a way, because they tell me what’s working or what’s unclear or what’s simply not funny. Awriting partner that doesn’t get paid, obviously. Make that clear.
Have your podcast colleagues seen the show yet? Have you had much support or feedback from Ricky? And how about from Karl [Pilkington, former producer and butt of the jokes in both the Ricky Gervais podcast and An Idiot Abroad]?
Ricky will probably wait for a free DVD so he can watch it as home in his pajamas. I run ideas past him sometimes but mainly I learn what I need to know from the audience. They either laugh or they don’t.That’s all that you can go on in the end. I don’t think Karl even knows the stand-up show is happening.He’s too busy filming the new series of An Idiot Abroad [Sky1 HD, 23rd September]. This time we’ve made him compile a bucket list – things to before you die. Karl chose things like whale watching and swimming with dolphins. Obviously Ricky and I have meddled as usual, so he doesn’t realize he’ll actually be swimming with sharks.
As well as Hello Ladies and the return of An Idiot Abroad, there is also a new project with Ricky Gervais and Warwick Davis, Life’s Too Short [BBC 2, this autumn]. Ricky has described the latter as ‘the life of a showbiz dwarf’ – can you add any more?
In real life Warwick Davis is an actor – he was in Return of the Jedi, Harry Potter – and he’s happily married and a nice guy. In Life’s Too Short Warwick is playing a fictionalised version of himself. He’s hustling for work and contending with a divorce, a failing career, a giant tax bill and being only 3’6′. Warwick is exceptional in it: great at comedy and drama, tremendous at physical comedy as well. He throws himself about with such abandon. I think people will be amazed at how good he is. Also in the show he often bothers Ricky and I for work because he knows us having appeared in Extras. And like in Extras, big stars pop up on occasion.
The BBC have confirmed an impressive list of guests, including Johnny Depp, Sting and Helena Bonham-Carter, as well as returns for surprise Extras highlights, Keith Chegwin and Les Dennis. Has it got to the stage now that you and Ricky can pick up the phone to work with almost anyone? Haveyou had any rejections from people you’ve been desperate to get involved – or are you standing at the doors like bouncers turning away a queue of disappointed A-listers?
I wouldn’t say they were queuing up but lots of stars have made it known they’d be up for doing something with us. Or sometimes we meet them on our travels and try and persuade them on the spot. I think they enjoy doing it because it’s a great release for them to take the piss out of their public image and defy audience expectations. And they always have fun. Actors love to act and we give them loads of time and freedom to do that. There’s no sitting around in trailers for hours while we get the lighting just right. They come in and we start shooting. It’s a playdate for them.
Have you ever had a guest-star, for Extras or Life’s Too Short, who just didn’t get the joke?
No, because we never spring anything on them. Everyone who agrees to be in our shows knows what they’re getting into. They talk with us beforehand and we explain the idea. It’s not a stitch up. What is more likely is that they will add something during the filming. Johnny Depp improvised some brilliant stuff in the new show. And Les Dennis threw in some extra lines that were hilarious. For instance he was supposed to be making love to a woman in the dark at the end of Extras and he shouted his old Family Fortunes catchphrase: ‘If it’s up there, I’ll give you the money myself…’ Inspired.
So we can now add ‘stand-up’ to Stephen Merchant, writer, director, actor, producer, DJ andbroadcaster. Have I missed anything, and what’s next?
If this tour goes well then I’ll be getting married to a gorgeous wife on some tropical beach on Christmas Day. Of course what’s more likely is I’ll be sat at home in pants watching The Great Escape.
Finally, I’ve noticed that articles and interviews you’re involved in tend to carry less than complimentary tag-lines, along the lines of ‘Ricky Gervais’ lanky co-writer’. This can’t help with the ladies, so I was wondering if you could suggest anything more appropriate for this one?
Leggy blonde Steve Merchant, 36.
Stephen brings ‘Hello Ladies’ to the Oxford New Theatre on the 29th and 30th of September. Tickets are available from Livenation.co.uk.The second series of An Idiot Abroad begins on Sky1 HD on the 23rd September. Life’s Too Short will transmit this autumn on BBC 2.