Interview taken from HermAphrodite #8

A part of it was the pastel striped wall-paper of his set, as it was reminiscent of a nursery. And, of course, the way in which his material dips in and out of reality with childish glee. But mostly it was because, whenever he opened the door of the stage’s stripy back-wall, there was a different comedian standing there, ready to chat with him. It all reminded me so very much of Kermit The Frog…

Isabelle – “Was the set and the inter-action ‘Muppet Babies’ related? When you open the door, and exciting things will happen?”

Dan – “I haven’t seen ‘Muppet Babies’, so I don’t know.”

Isabelle – “You were never profoundly influenced by them as a child?”

Dan – “I can’t claim to be influenced by the ‘Muppet Babies’.”

But there is a comparison to be made.

Isabelle – “They’d open the door, see The Keystone Cops behind it, close the door and have an adventure in their own room.”

Dan – “Oh right. Well it’s not that.”

It would be worth his giving it a retrospective glance, though. Particularly considering the argument there is to be made for its being the first truly modernist piece of children’s entertainment; the isolation of its peculiar lead characters, the unquestioned lack of visible head to its only human star, the juxtaposition between fantasy and reality, the integration of cartoon figures into live action footage, the door they’d open to an ever-changing world of adventure…

Dan – “Magic doors are quite common: Mister Merlin, Mr Benn… It’s not a very new idea.”

He’s not claiming originality. Or hoping to dazzle with his cleverness (and ability to time his lines exactly). Just appropriate a slightly unusual stage-convention for his own giggle-some ends.

Dan – “The whole thing of the magic door and the technology is not supposed to be impressive in that ‘Oh Look, Isn’t This Modern!’ way. It’s just supposed to be a fun way of doing actual gags, of doing a two-man sketch. That’s what I hope comes across, rather than a showpiece of technology.”

Isabelle – “So is it nice working with other people even if they’re not really there?”

Dan – “Yeah, it’s brilliant. It was really enjoyable filming my mates. Of course. We had a nice day. And in a funny way, it’s nice to see them every day. I feel like I’m hanging out with Kitson for five minutes. It is nice, yeah.”

I feel obliged at this point to enthuse over Daniel Kitson, who we saw yesterday. Dan agrees with me. On both the stunning resemblance to an Open University Lecturer of the 70’s, and his comic abilities.

Dan – “He’s fantastically funny. Yeah.”

But he’s not the one I’m here to take about. So we move back to all things Antopolski. And where he wants to go from here. Into mirrors, maybe, for next year.

Dan – “I suppose ‘theatre’ is the word for the things I want to do, just like metaphors. The audience just accept them. Like they don’t believe that the people on the Magic Door are real, you know they’re on film, and yet you enjoy imagining it as real, hopefully. It’s not an illusion, but it’s theatre. And I just want to do more things like that.”

Isabelle – “Trap-door Envy as a small child at a pantomime?”

Dan – “Trap-doors yeah, I love trapdoors. Everyone loves trapdoors.”

Isabelle – “And trapezes as well…”

Dan – “Yeah. And maybe trampolines.”

Though for the moment, his big toy is the video screen. Which enables him to serenade a drunk homeless friend, help move a Lee Mack gig along, chat with an increasingly depressed Simon Day… Though the latter has proven the only (purported) TV failure to attend one of Dan’s shows – ex-Popstarz ego-blimp Darius has not, as yet, turned up. Dan attracts a far higher standard of clientele.

Dan – “Frank Skinner came yesterday, obviously to make sure I hadn’t stitched him up in that little cameo. That was very nice.”

The cameo appearance which didn’t stitch him up, so much as show him grinningly flanked by two nubile young schoolgirls.

Dan – “Well he was delighted with that, as you can imagine.”

Top comedians onscreen & onstage, top comedians in the audience…

Isabelle – “It all just proves you’ve got top-showbiz mates…”

Dan – “Yeah! That’s the idea…”

Even if they are made to seem depressive…

I explain that there was one point during the set where the onscreen Simon Day was our only focus, as he set about bemoaning his lot and wringing his wig, where I did expect Dan to appear in the video with him, just to make him feel better. But he didn’t. There was only the one instance of him going through the door, into the screen world, and that was to address us, set-end, from a lush woodland. (Or common.) He didn’t want to overplay on it.

Dan – “Last year I had a cassette equivalent of that. So it wasn’t video, it was audio, and I really did all the gags to do with messing around with the medium; pressing PAUSE and all that. And I think this year I didn’t want to do that, it wasn’t the avenue I wanted to do down. I wanted it to just be a way of doing a sketch.”

Though he did take the time, within the show, to play on the ‘Oh Look, Isn’t This Modern!’-ness to the proceedings.

Isabelle – “I liked the way you were satirising the inter-action itself by having a tape that isn’t there actually be a peanut that isn’t saying anything.”

As a part of a ‘pre-recorded’ voice Dan was to do a sketch with. That appeals. And not solely for the excellent use of a peanut. (Or that various members of the audience were actually craning to see what – if anything – the peanut was actually doing on the silent stage…) It appeals to Dan too. For just such reasons. And because it allows him further excuse to bring peanuts into the set. Earlier in the show, for example, he had cloned the personality of an audience member into his peanut, cheerfully eaten the peanut containing the qualities of a black man (nothing happened), and, Russian Roulette-style, offered the man before him a handful of peanuts one of which was possessed by someone allergic to them. (Thankfully, the man chose the Mildly Depressive peanut, and the show was able to continue without mishap. Just some faint groaning.)

Isabelle – “With the slight peanut fetish, is it just a good way of spending your budget on 27 packets of peanuts?”

Sadly no. But the idea tickles.

Dan – “I got the peanut in to do the Personality Cloning thing. And then I can just play with them. What I’ve found is that – I’m not massively lazy, but certainly I don’t do an enormous amount of work during the year, but if you do Edinburgh you really become super-creative – stuff will come up, just like that, because you’ve got a deadline. It’s very healthy, it focuses you, makes you learn something.”

About peanuts, if nothing else.

Isabelle – “When you’re onstage you do seem to be entertaining yourself…”

Dan – “Yeah. This is a sort of principle that I feel I’ve learnt from people like Ross Noble. Audiences want you to have a good time; there are bits in the show where it flags and you have to pick it up and those bits become hard work, you see people looking concerned, cos they really want it to go well. People have to be pretty nasty to actually not want it to go well, having made the effort to pay and come and sit there. So the best way to do it is just to try and have fun. So you’re all on the same team. That’s really good. And I really feel that, watching Ross, is that he’s just like a team leader, and he’s leading us and we’re all facing the same way. Rather than him acting like one of your big Americans – they’re great, but their dynamic is that they’re dominating you. And that’s fine. But I prefer this.”

As do we.

Isabelle – “You do involve people as well, which is nice, there’s no Fourth Wall…”

Dan – “Well it makes it a bit more organic, yeah. If you can create random situations, and bring people into them. Yeah.”

Isabelle – “And you don’t ever get bored with bits?”

Dan – “Well I do a bit, with routines. By the end of the month I’ll probably be quite…”

Isabelle – “Fed up with rabbits?”

Dan – “Fed up with rabbits, yeah. You try not to get bored, but it shifts; when material is fairly new, you find it funny, and then obviously you find it less funny once you’ve examined it from all angles. And then you have to be more of an actor, and put as much energy into the performance – not in a cynical way, but just not in the same joyful way. In a more professional way.”

Isabelle – “Do you have a favourite bit at the moment? Something that really makes you laugh?”

Dan – “I like the peanut bit. I like the Black Person In The Peanut.”

Isabelle – “You see, you’re teaching us as well as entertaining.”

And not just about prejudice. Oho no. The set also includes a fine example of how not to conduct an interview; one of the screen-door guests is a Crap Journalist happy to ask Dan a series of Crap Journalist Questions For Comedians. Such as: ‘Where do you get your crazy ideas from?’, ‘Is humour a defence mechanism?’, ‘Are you sure you’re name’s not Greek?’… Thusly, we learn that the beard is real, a lot of journalists are weasels, and Dan’s inspiration was the time Phil Collins appeared to him in a drum. During the interview, therefore, I was consciously avoiding describing him as ‘offbeat’ or ‘wacky’. And maybe trying to ask slightly better (less crap/common) questions. Such as why all that kind of information isn’t available on some sort of print-out sheet to prime interviewers, and to save folks such as himself having to answer such questions over and over. So as they don’t have to tell the story of their gradual move into comedy for the umpteenth time, to folks like me, wondering if he just started off making his friends laugh and went on from there…

Dan – “I’ve always been jokey. Trevor Lock – who writes plays now, he’s doing one at the Pleasance – started running review nights at college, with sketches and poetry and stuff. We left college, and started doing A Night; we used to hire a room and just do it for our friends. Then we started running a weekly club. He was doing circuit gigs and open-spots, and I just started doing that. So it was quite gradual really, it just grew out of plays and reviews and things at college.”

Isabelle – “So you didn’t have to quite anything to pursue the dream full-time?”

Dan – “No, I was lucky in that way, I didn’t have a career. I did different jobs, but there was no direction, so when this came along I was able very quickly to focus on it.”

Isabelle – “What are you qualified for?”

Dan – “I’ve got a degree in linguistics, so I’m not really qualified for anything.”

Isabelle – “So you can’t bring it in…?”

Dan – “Well no. I mean, it comes in the sense that…”

Isabelle – “You’re speaking words.”

Dan – “I’m speaking words, yes. [pause] I do know a bit about language so I suppose there’s that…”

Isabelle – “I’ve seen Dave Gorman do complicated maths stuff.”

Very complicated maths stuff.

Dan – “Yes, that’s right. That’s great that routine, I’ve seen that.”

But a similar use of his degree is unlikely to be seen in the Antopolski onstage world.

Ah well.

Moving on…

Isabelle – “I’ve been trying [mostly failing] to find out stuff about you on the internet. And I found your name on a page about Terry Oldfield, and a mention of comedy breasts, and that was about it.”

Happily, for my web-stalking abilities, a flicker of recognition met both of those suggestions. The Terry Oldfield thing was part of a show-related quest for ‘Storyteller International’ song lyrics. And the stag-night accessories? Now then…

Dan – “The comedy breasts, well, I used to come on with some plastic breasts on and do a sort of clowny beginning, it’s just something I did in stand-up for a while…”

Isabelle – “And now you’ve moved on…”

Dan – “Now I’ve moved on. To pants on my head. Yeah, I’ve really grown up…”

Other bits of interest on the internet were the descriptions of Dan and his act; ‘befuddling’ said one, pithily, ‘slivers of genius’ declared another, while This Is Mid Sussex went with ‘brilliant’. I was also quite taken with the description, sadly not taken as a quote for his promotional material, which noted him to be ‘As surreal as Harry Hill’ but with the ‘Mannerisms of Alan Partridge’. I mention this.

Dan – “That’s fair.”

Is it?

Isabelle – “Are you chuffed with that?”

I’d have thought a Steve Coogan comparison would be a little more complimentary.

Dan – “Well, it’s about right, isn’t it?”

Isabelle – “I’ve never looked at you and thought ‘Yeah… Alan Partridge!’”

Is there a certain specific angle required? Or have I just missed the episode of Alan Partridge where he betrays a New And Faintly Worrying Womble-Instigated Expression Of Surprise?

Dan – “Just with the awkwardness, I think I am. Because I play the awkwardness a bit. He is awkward. But I am pretending to be awkward.”

Isabelle – “But you’ve got bigger hair.”

Dan – “Yup.”

And then because I’m curious…

Isabelle – “How big can it go?”

Dan – “The hair? Pretty damn big!”

Which could be witnessed by the general public in future months. Probably won’t be. But then, there is very little fixed agenda…

Isabelle – “Do you have future plans which involve sitcoms and books…?”

Dan – “I don’t really have very fixed future plans – I just wait to be asked. Certainly at the moment I wouldn’t want to do a sitcom, or something, not for snobbish reasons but just because I’ve got plenty to be getting on with. And I’m fairly new in the scheme of things, in stand-up. So I’ll just get a few more Edinburghs under my belt, and then we’ll see. There’s no hurry. I’m quite happy. I just want to keep developing; I’m better as a stand-up and a writer and everything than I was last year, and I was better then than I was the year before. Hopefully I can keep just developing, which is a great pleasure, to make progress and feel a sense of achievement.”

Isabelle – “You’re obviously in the right job.”

Dan – “I enjoy it very much. And I’m able to work harder at it, and to take it more seriously than I ever was able to take studying, or anything like that. It’s definitely the right job, yeah.”

Where else could you get paid for turning your keyboard into a robotic rapping cuss-machine, or for being chased by a very large Womble…?

Me – “Are Wombles the funniest animal?”

Dan – “Dunno. I think Wombles are funny.”

Hence their being brought into the set as the kind of creature who’d be willing to steal your right eyebrow and ride it like a giant caterpillar. And then being physically brought into the set, on just such an eyebrow theft mission.

Dan – “An interesting fact is that that Womble suit at the end is not actually a Womble suit. It’s called a Wimble. Because you’re not allowed to use actual Womble suits.”

Isabelle – “So you can’t get into trouble...”

For implying that actual Wombles are crazed eyebrow-thieves willing to break into the Pleasance Over The Road and chase a comedian around a stage for the sake of his forehead-hair.

Dan – “So you can’t get sued. Yeah.”

Which makes it finely choreographed Wimble-tastic entertainment of the wholly legal kind. Choreographed, by the way, in the great tradition of the Scooby Do chase scenes, with much confusion and flailing of limbs. And one spot-on moment where Dan is rendered unrecognisable – to the Wimble – due to his donning of a blond milkmaid wig.

Dan – “I’m glad you say Scooby Do cos that’s pretty much what we were going for.”

Isabelle – “I did like that. The way it plays on the way the [the ghost/monster after the Scooby Gang] never ever thought ‘Hmm, a chef in the middle of a haunted house, maybe that’s our man!’…”

Dan – “Exactly.”

So.

Isabelle – “Is there a comedy hierarchy you’ve found, where certain animals are funnier than other animals? Like ‘spoon’ is funnier than ‘fork’, for example…”

Dan – “Yeah, that’s right. One day, I forgot the orange for the Mission Impossible thing. I had a fruit jelly [naturally] that I use for a gag, and I used that, but it wasn’t as funny.”

Isabelle – “Maybe it’s that it’s an orange with a button on it.”

Dan (thoughtfully) – “Yeah. But if it was an apple with a sticker on it, it wouldn’t be as funny again.”

Isabelle – “So is there some sort of science to it then?”

Dan – “Not a science as such, but…”

Something you have to learn by trial and error, or just a good nose for such things.

Dan – “It’s mysterious to me. But you need to learn to trust your instincts, to say ‘oh yeah, that’s funny, and I don’t need to know why’. Just because you can’t explain it. But we both agree it’s funnier, therefore it’s funny. It’s weird that. But to go back to Ross, again, who I keep harping on about cos he’s a hero of mine – he trusts his instincts in that way. He knows to say ‘spoon’ instead of ‘fork’ just cos he feels it. And he doesn’t have to explain it. Noel Fielding is another one who’s really good at those images.”

Isabelle – “I miss them [Boosh] up here.”

Dan - “Yeah, it’s odd, isn’t it.”

Though I do feel they’re here in spirit. And not just because Elly found a previous year’s sun-bleached promotional flyers still glued to the lampposts at the bottom of The Pleasance (road) with their grinning Arctic faces on it…

Isabelle – “We’ve passed a hairdressers called Boosh. And in the proper context of the word. That made me happy.”

Dan – “Yeah, it’s weird them not being here. There’s loads of people who aren’t here: Stewart Lee’s not here, Dave Gorman’s not here, Lee Mack’s not here.”

Isabelle – “But in spirit, see, you’ve got them all. They’ll just have to come and see your show.”

Dan – “Yeah! ‘If you liked X you’ll love Y!’.”

Cos he’s got Y with him onscreen! In addition to the X-man comedy power he holds alone! What better recommendation (aside from the copious amounts of probable-peanut-excitement) do you need…?

Last revised: 19/08/01