photo: Shamil Tanna
Chris has been stuck in the car with his friend and fellow comedian Carl Hutchinson. Full of energy he informs me that I am the first person he’s spoken to in two hours. As excited as he is, you wouldn’t know that Chris is now well accustomed to interviews and fame, having been performing comedy professionally for the past nine years.
Chris is from South Shields, a stone’s throw away from both Newcastle and Sunderland, which has produced big names like Sarah Millican and Ross Noble. Do you think it’s the accent that lends itself to comedy or is just a really good circuit? “The accent doesn’t hurt I can tell you that much. If you haven’t got a strong punch line, Geordie it up a bit and it’ll get a bigger laugh than it was going to.” Chris also feels the attitude of the region is more important. “We don’t take ourselves too seriously, we’re not snobby, we don’t really play the victim. Obviously I’m totally generalising here, but I think it helps that we can laugh at ourselves and the main thing about being a comic is that you’ve got to laugh at yourself. You’ll see tonight that this show is essentially about me being a world class bell-end in every walk of life.”
Starting out at 19 years old, Chris was one of the youngest comedians on the circuit. Do you think it’s easier to go into comedy later when you have more stories under your belt, like Greg Davies for instance? “I’ve often thought I don’t have any anecdotes for in the pub because every funny thing that happens to me goes straight into stand up, so I’m really fucking boring on a night out. It’s worth it though, why would you want to talk to five of your mates in the pub when you get to do it in front of hundreds of people a night, it’s much better. It’s the best job in the world.”
With his gig being at the Library he was expecting a heavily student audience. Does he prefer gigging for students or would you prefer a much more varied audience? “I love doing student gigs, if I walk in there tonight and it’s mainly non-students, I’ll be a little bit disappointed and I’m not even joking, I know they’ll be my fans and that’s still lovely, but if it’s mainly non-students in there tonight I’ll be gutted.” Chris also reveals the importance of student gigs in a stand up comedian’s career. “When I first started out, doing a student gig was like what you did when you got better, it’s alright doing the open-mic nights but everyone would say such and such runs a student gig and it’s really good and they all get pissed, so they’ve always been this sort of holy grail for me”.
Chris’ current gigs are a warm up for his actual tour. Where do you start when constructing a topic for a big tour like this? “I wait for something to happen and make that the focal point of the show, pick a title around that one little thing, then I’ll spread it out from there that I think I can make fit that narrative. Russell Kane told me years ago that you should pick a goal post and punch everything you think of that’s funny for the next year, through those goal posts, even if its about being at the shop, it can still be about being the most dangerous man on Saturday morning television, which is what this show’s about.” Turning to Carl, Chris comments that “Carl will write a script and be like, well that’s how I’m going to say it, but if I do that I go on and I can’t form it, I need to think of it on the moment. Then the trick is making it look like I’m thinking of it on the moment again and again.”
Talking to him, it is easy to see how he is able to hold a crowd so well on stage. Is that charisma and confidence an essential trait for a standup comedian? “I’m not usually this confident in interviews. You can’t be too confident though, there’s always a moment where I feel the crowd are going to realise I’m just an idiot talking shit. Jimmy Carr was famously quoted saying that the moment you think you’ve got comedy you’ve lost it, it’s like a tightrope.”
We regularly see comedians battle to get the best joke away on panel shows but is that the same socially with comedians? “It’s horrible. It’s like having a kick up competition with the best footballers in the world. There’s a very fine line between a comedian showing how good he is in public to a knob head monopolising the conversation.”
Ramsey’s working title is ‘the most dangerous man on Saturday morning television’, and he spent the first 15 minutes of his warm up show interacting with members of the crowd, pointing out that to the right of the stage there was a Connect 4 of men with extravagant facial hair. As the gig went on we were treated to Ramsey’s anxieties: from offending thousands during the live recording of Soccer AM to miserable attempts to spice up his sex life. It may be a work in progress, but Ramsey’s show delights the audience.
Freddie Gray