Arts > Comedy
Interview with Mark Watson
04/01/12
The idea that some time in the last couple of years Mark Watson had time to procreate is beyond me. Mark still clocks up record comedy miles on the road with his shows – the latest being his Request Stops tour that’s winging its way into Norwich in Jan – whilst being the ubiquitous host or guest panellist on literally every funny making programme on the box. His schedule is exhausting, and we’re one of three professional engagements left on Mark’s calendar before Christmas, so we better make it a good’un…
Mark, you’re making a return to Norwich, which you’ve always been committed to visiting in the past… I’ve always had a brilliant reaction in Norwich and I’m not sure why… the venue itself has a certain part to play in it, because it’s not just me that’s found it that way. Caroline, who does the booking at The Playhouse does a really good job and certain venues are just really set up well for a comedy crowd. So that’s part of it, but also my Tour Manager’s from Norwich and I have some connections from the area – my father in law again, but even beyond all that, they’ve always been my fastest selling shows apart from my own hometown and stuff. It’s impossible to say exactly why, but the more I go back, the more I have a special bond with Norwich.
It’s part of the Request Stops tour, but we’re the only stop that seems to have multiple dates – and we’ve got four at that! It’s at the end of the tour for you… It is, and in fact it will probably be pretty much a brand new show, because the Request Stops tour, I’ve actually been going back over a lot of material that I’ve done before, and some of that will overlap with what I did last time I was at the Playhouse. I think for Norwich though, I’ll do lots of my material that I haven’t done before, so although it’s the end of the tour, it’ll actually be like the beginning of a new show for me I think, and again, because it’s a familiar venue for me, and a familiar audience, I think I can probably take a risk – well it’s not that much of a risk actually, I won’t be doing any old rubbish! But yeah, it’s a good place for me to debut new material.
Now if the internet serves me correctly, you’re doing a photo shoot today, Mark… I did it this morning actually, with my kid, yeah.
From what I’ve deduced from Google, there seems to be an equal number of pictures of you with glasses on and without glasses – what’s the reason for this change in image? There’s not much mystery behind it actually, it’s just I’ve only had the glasses for about three years, so the ones without glasses are normally older ones, except I’m quite disorganised, so occasionally I forget to bring them. Also, I’m not that short sighted; I do need glasses, it’s not a fashion move, but I can function without them. If I were really short sighted, I’d obviously always have them on! As it is, sometimes I just haven’t and if I were more of an expert at branding myself, I’d probably make sure I always looked exactly the same. But as it happens, and as you said from your Google research, there’s sort of a mismatch of pictures. This one was different because it was for a magazine that I was contributing to an article for about when the ideal time is to have kids. They had an older dad, and then a guy who’d had kids very early in life and then me, who was sort of in the middle. We all had to have pictures taken with our toddlers, which was a bit of an issue!
And did you deduce whether there was a right age? Are you at the Goldilocks age of fatherhood, you know, not too young, not too old? Well I’m 31, so I guess I’m kinda average age – well I was 30 when he was born, so it’s about right, but I’m not sure there is really a Goldilocks age for doing it; I think no matter when you do it, you’ll feel really under-prepared in some way! I think there’s a lot of pressure put on people to do it at certain times, you know, they older they get they think they should’ve done it by now, but then sometimes when people are young there’s pressure on them to settle down, so I kinda think you’ve just got to play it by ear really, when it comes to kids!
Now Mark, we cannot ignore the Christmas countdown – are you feeling good about its impending arrival? Well I really love Christmas and my family generally goes for it, but I do think that in order to keep it special, it is important not to go at it too early, so I’ve only just started acknowledging it now basically. What I have done though, or my wife has done is put a tree up on 3rd of December, as she always does, almost without fail. I tend not to engage with it too much until… what date is it now? The 14th… I think that’s about right. I think anything from the teens is quite nice, but when it starts with 6 weeks to go, even someone who loves Christmas as much as me could have my fill of it by the time the day comes round, so I’m just starting to get festive now. And I read that your professional engagements start to quieten down about now… Oh yeah, they really do; I’ve done a lot of touring this year and I’ve had a really busy autumn in particular, so yeah, there have been years where I’ve done a few Christmas sort of gigs, Christmas parties and things like that, but it’s a bit of a thankless job when everyone’s understandably really pissed and half the time they’re not even that keen to listen to a comedian because it’s a Christmas party, so they quite rightly think, ‘why won’t you just leave me alone!’ So I decided the last couple of years just to get to the end of touring and then pretty much just allow myself to retire for a bit. That does mean that you can really enjoy Christmas; I do know some comedians who work right up to Christmas and then don’t sort of look forward to it very much because you spend more time shouting at strangers in a club than you do actually enjoying it.
As you’re coming to Norwich in January, as a responsible adult, your mind must be on New Year’s Resolutions – do you adhere to any? Well I did a lot this year and looking back, I’m not quite sure how many I stuck to. I do try and do it and I’ve got quite a good record; I have been known to give up some of my bad habits for periods – I’m not sure I’ve ever kept one for the entire year, but I have got quite a good record. I do take them quite seriously. I think that although it is just a date, you might as well use the date as a springboard for good intentions, so yeah, I do keep them. I’m not sure this year… my main intention is just to be a little less stressed in the new year, because I travel so much and I’ve taken on so many things this year, that this time – as always – I’m just a bit frazzled, so my intention is to have some sort of resolution about coming down on stress. Unfortunately that’s the same resolution that I make every other year. I’m not very good at it because it involves changing my personality, but no harm in trying!
Yes, and you’ve given so much time to places that may never have seen live entertainment on this tour – places such as Wem and Millom… Yes, there were a couple of places on the list that hadn’t seen a lot of live entertainment… or a lot of humanity actually! Those places were really good for that reason because it’s good to feel that you’re going to places that are reasonably uncharted territory, and indeed for a couple of the places, that was the first time that they’d had a comedy show, so that was nice. Having said that, you probably don’t want to be doing that forever, because it’d be nice to come back to somewhere like Norwich where I’m reassured that there will be a proper sort of theatre there, that’ll definitely have electricity, where the people will have seen a comedy show before!
And if you’re doing four dates in Norwich, do you get to spend a bit of time in our fine city? Yes, which will be nice. I’m fond of Norwich; as I say, I’ve got family in – well my wife’s side of the family live in Essex actually, but my father-in-law is originally from round there and he’s a Norwich City fan and everything, so I’ve spent a bit of time there. I think it’s an underrated city, Norwich, it’s very nice.
I was thinking of your relationship with football actually, and talking of being a responsible parent, have you done that thing where you’ve bequeathed your son Bristol City at birth, or are you an open parent who’ll let him make his own decisions? Well yeah, as you can imagine, I’ve had to wrestle this a bit. At the least I’d certainly expect him to – in the first instance – take an interest in Bristol City, and I’d be disappointed if not. But having said that, I would understand that we live near Arsenal at the moment, for example, just down the road from Arsenal, so it’s only right that he would be keen to support them. I can certainly see how the lure of Premier League football might cadge him away from Bristol City, so I’ll accept that, but I don’t think I would let him support a team like Man United, just by seeing them on the TV and automatically jumping on the band wagon. That’s not really supporting a team. If he finds a team that he wants to go and watch every week, even if it’s not City, I guess I’ll go along with that.
You can’t underestimate the responsibility… Exactly, it’s a huge responsibility – it’s almost as important as giving someone their name! But yes, there’s a chance that his grandfather may get involved and make him into a Canaries fan and I think he could do a lot worse than that, to be honest, but I’ll certainly do my best to have my way.
I wanted to talk a little bit about the warm relationship you have with your fans… I was thinking about your book, ‘Eleven’ and the kind of ‘six degrees of separation’ theme – is it because you don’t feel that far apart from your fans? Well I certainly don’t feel at all different from them at all, because as you say, I do seem to be interacting with them quite a lot! I do think it’s important to have a sense of your place as someone who’s one part of a big, interconnected society. I do think everybody’s lives have a bearing on the rest of humanity in all sorts of ways that we’re not necessarily aware of – that, as you say, is the theme of the book, so yeah, I think that that kind of message does inform the way that I deal with fans. I don’t have a problem with comedians that do try and separate themselves completely from their fanbase, and just do the show and as quickly as they can, and keep that distance. It suits some people’s stage persona to be like that, but if you try to be what I’m really quite like basically, which is friendly and approachable – that’s what I sort of trade off in my act, then it makes you a nicer person.
I was reading a couple of comments on your blog and I saw possibly the most sinister reply ever, which was just, “Sleep well now Mark…” Ha, yeah, I always feel that my fans are on the right side of fanaticism, and they’re actually just concerned for my well-being without being too bonkers, but you’re never quite sure of course! But the people that post regularly on the blog, I sort of know who they are by name and I kind of recognise them when they’ve been to my shows and stuff, so I’m satisfied that pretty much all of them are relatively normal people! Having said that, you’ve only got to be wrong once I suppose with these things…!
You’ve got new plans for 2012, including the Mad Bad Ad Show – can you tell us a little about it? Yes, well I’m doing this show in February, but we’re recording it now – in fact that’s where I am now, at the BBC and we’ve nearly finished; there’s two more shows to record and I think that should be on either January or February. It’ll be about advertising with me and Micky Flanagan in it. I’ll be doing a new show as well; the show that I’ll sort of premier in Norwich, I’ll take on tour – I’m going to Australia in April, and then I’ll eventually tour this country again in Autumn. Oh, I’ve got a book coming out, a novel, in the summer as well – that’s kind of done though as well; the projects that I’ve got on are all sort of done, so by summer next year, I hope to be sort of thinking about new books and new stuff, which is not a situation I’ve been in for a while really. This year I’ve been kinda chasing my tail a bit really, so I’m hoping that next year, things will be just a little bit more easily spaced and I can just have a bit more time and relax, but as I say, I do say these sort of things a lot as well and it doesn’t always happen!
And do you think you might debut your novel at Latitude’s Literary Tent? I think I was camping near you at Latitude last year, but you don’t want to approach someone when they’re camping - camping is when a person is at their most vulnerable, I think… When someone’s queuing for the toilet for half an hour, they are more vulnerable, definitely! If I’m asked, I’d definitely like to do the Literary tent – I love Latitude Festival – that would be a great place to do it actually… so fingers crossed. We might meet there if nothing else…
Emma Garwood
Mark Watson comes to Norwich for a four-date run of his Request Stops show at The Playhouse from 26th – 29th January. Tickets are almost sold out, so go to www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk to book them. Read the uncut version of this interview at Outlineonline.co.uk