Interview taken ( & edited ) from HermAphrodite #4.

GO TO: Leeds Antics GO TO: Ker-azy Ideas GO TO: Oranges

In the begining of 1998, something happened to Sunday lunchtime television.

Something big. Something strange. Something with reasonably consistently good hair. The world will not be the same, post 'This Morning With Richard Not Judy'. No. It will be slightly different.

"Ah, you should watch it, s'really funny... ...Ted Danson on the piano... ...there’s this kind of Ironic Review which is satire satirising satire, with wigs and hairpieces... ...Men Of Achievement 1974... ....The Organ Gang that all live together in a pedal bin and it's voiced by Brian Cant and there's a toe called Kramer... ...green jelly... ...there's a mute slave-boy called Trevor whose face is apparently too small for his head... ...Roger Crowley... ...there are these two teachers and they're really different... ...The Lord Of The Dance Settee... ....there's a one-eyed pirate puppet crow called Histor and his feather-brained ( hahah, FEATHER, like a bird's WING ) friend called Pliny who explain the grown-up news with lots of references to eggs ( EGGS, like a BIRD's EGG ! )... ...'I made this!'... ...there's a huge orange with a man's face that's kind of curious and who went mouldy and screamed a lot... ....Golden Grahams... ...there's a priest who can blow the longest raspberry in the world... ...SICK-man... ...there's My 2 Dads' Greg Evigan hosting the terrifying 'When Insects Attack', detailing the horrors of having a worm waved at you or a fly buzz near you... ...old Tony Blairs...”

You try explaining in a coherant and logical form the basic structure of TWMRNJ, in a way which will persuade people to watch it and not to politely but swiftly disentangle themselves from your company. Yeah. Go on.

( Heh-heh, seeing that particular mission achieved would prove particularly spectacular considering the programme in question is no longer on... ) Far easier to lure them into a room with a television tuned only to BBC 2 using scatterings of Jelly Tots, and then lock the door, forcing them to appreciate the murky depths of the light-entertainment minds of Stewart Lee and Richard Herring...

As is consistent with the exam-season, it's a gloriously glorious sunny day. I'm using my week of study-leave constructively by leaving college to come back to Leeds to see my friends & some very nice bands, talk to some people, do some shopping. Outside the Marriot Hotel the fountain is splashing in the bright sunshine, whilst the world is smiling and dripping their ice-creams down their ‘fresh-out-of-the-cupboard’ shorts.

And in the inside of the hotel, myself and Becca are sitting around a table in the bar with Rich and Stu ( who might prefer ‘Stew’ but I prefer not to think of him as a type of hotpot ), of TMWRNJ / Fist Of Fun / solo stand-up / script editor / playwright / rock-critic ( !? ) fame.

They've only been in Leeds a little bit, but already they've been having adventures.

Well, Rich has been sleeping. But Stu has been living the touring comedian's rock'n'roll lifestyle...

Stu: "I just got refused admission to a bar over there..."

Rich: "Why?"

Stu: "I just wanted to get some lunch, and the bloke on the door went 'Are those steel toe-caps, and I went 'I don't know; stand on them'. And he stood on them and went 'I can't let you in.' So I went 'what if I leave my shoes with you?' ( Rich starts laughing ) and he went ( grimly ) 'I don't want your bloody shoes."

Rich: ( sagely ) “It's a violent city Stu...”

Well yes. Later, as Stu ekes much material from this incident during that evening's show, he urges the crowd to make it still more violent. One 'Aim Of The Show' is to hire a wild gang of Leeds men to storm the Square On The Lane and kick the doorman repeatedly with their steel-toe-capped shoes...

But that's not a nice note to start on. Changing the subject, I compliment Stu on his Spiderman t-shirt. He grins.

Stu - "It's alright on the front, but on the back it's got something like 'ONLY NERDS DON'T LIKE COMICS' ( Rich starts giggling ) when it fact the reality is completely the opposite."

Ah well. Let's begin the interview-proper, shall we ?

I, in my infinite wisdom and post-modern & ironic way decide to start off with a question oh-so-beloved of comedians, writers and cartoonists the world over...

me: "Where do you get all your ker-razy ideas from ?"

Stu: "We copy them off The Goodies. ( straight-faced... ) We get old Goodies films and videos and books and change nouns. So that instead of a Giant Cat we have an orange."

Yeah, okay. An answer deserving of the question.

But then, with The Curious Orange, I can kinda see how that idea could have germinated.

me: "With that one you can see a logical progression..."

Stu: "The Curious Orange ?"

Becca: "SHE can."

me: "If you're pissed, and you're listening to The Fall, it would seem like a really good idea..."

Stu: "It actually happened that I was in the bath with my girlfriend who had orange hair, and she was asking questions, and it made me think of the phrase..."

Rich: "It's mainly from going in the bath with Stu's girlfriend, we each take it in turns to do that and get ideas..."

Stu: ( happily ignoring that ) "So that's where The Curious Orange came from. It's a good phrase as well; it's the sort of phrase that people seem to have a second-hand knowledge of even if they don't know where it's come from, and it's two words which seem to fit together to suggest an unusual character. But normally it's just, we get ideas from funny things that happen to us, or strange people we talk to. Or else we sit around for ages thinking about it... Or we'll just have a joke which we'll do with each other for years - like speaking with a high voice in an argument - and then you think 'ah we should do that onstage', and you do it, and it works, and you haven't even realised..."

Rich: "We haven't thought 'if it makes us laugh...'"

Stu: "...then it'd make anyone else laugh..."

Rich: "The 'moon on a stick' was something that Stu's been saying for years..."

me: "Is that why you're so... you're very nice about audience feedback, input into what you're doing. If we don't like 'Men Of Achievement...' then you say you'll change it and then you don't; is that because you're afraid that we won't find it funny because you do, your own sense of humour is so warped and scratched...?"

Stu: "Not really. We really like Men of Achievement... But it is interesting to get feedback from people because you know whether things are working or not..."

Rich: "...And whether they're accepted or not. Like The Curious Orange, everyone really hated that for the first two weeks..."

Stu: "And the funny thing is, at the end of the second week he went 'aah, you're all writing in saying it's rubbish but you'll all be doing it in a month's time' And now of course no-one ever stops going on about it."

me: ( grinning ) "Yeah, but you've killed him off. So are you going to have more curious fruit ?"

Stu: "No, we might have him doing more stuff as The Curious Orange."

me: "But he's DEAD !"

Rich: ( reassuringly ) "It's only pretend."

Stu: "Depending on what kind of budget we get for the next series - it'd be disappointing to have him in the studio doing the same thing - but if we get a bigger budget then we can afford to go and film somewhere, have him out and about doing things."

Things sadly unspecified. But things very probably orangey. And involving that terrifying scream.

I try suggesting to them the tangerine shaped ( converted Mini Metro ) car that were made in the 60's / 70's to promote tangerines (?) and were driven around Africa.

Stu seems much taken with the idea of such a Batmobile type mode of transport.

>>> Part 2

Last revised: 26/07/01