"Showbiz must be so glamorous..."
Lee Evans answers your questions

Lee’s 2000 Off the Kerb interview

2003 interview

Lee Evans gives us a tour of the workings of his mind and how comedy works for him... Thank you so much for all your questions back in April, and, it goes without saying, your patience.

From: Caroline Slater
Hi Lee, You are brilliant both as a comedian and an actor. My kids love you and want to come to one of your shows. We are always quoting you! You obviously love your wife and daughter very much, do you have to spend a lot of time apart? What do they think of your work?

All families have their ups and downs but, and I think I speak for most married men when I say, my family means everything to me. It goes without saying I love Heather and Mollie, my wife and daughter, unconditionally.

If I added up the hours spent away from the house working, it would probably tally up to no more than most men or women who go off to work every day and get back at eight that evening just before their kids go off to bed.

The job that I do is only different in perhaps the allocation of time. When I leave the house to go to work it’s in one large span of time, then, after a few months of being away, I’ll come home and send a few weeks banging around the house.

One of the sociological problems of being away for long periods of time is the day-to-day running and routines that every family has. It can take weeks getting used to being at home again after being on a film set or on the road staying in hotels.

For me there is nothing like waking up in my own bed, of being in my own space and spending time with Heather and Mollie. Being at home also works as a good source of material as most of my comedy is based on observations made up from watching and spending time with my daughter.

Since I can remember I have always seemed to be travelling. My Dad is a musician and his job has always taken him all over the country and he always took my brother and me along with him. When we were kids, we would travel for months on end while Dad played shows all over the country. We could be in one city one night then another city the next. So now, because I have been conditioned that way, after being at home for a few weeks, I get cabin fever and feel I need to be out of the house working, which is, of course, a completely false way of thinking, especially for Mollie’s well being. It is definitely good for her that I am around the house for a while; it gives her someone to jump all over in the mornings, and fight with when she gets in from school and the benefit for me is that I get lots more writing done when I’m at home. I therefore try whenever possible to turn work down that involves going away for massively long periods of time, choosing instead to spend more time with Heather and Mollie. I desperately wouldn’t like what I do for a living to affect her in any way: I’m no psychologist but I think having her Dad around is good for her head even though at times I can, like all Dads, get on her nerves.

It’s only in the last year or so I have managed to organise and plan things a little better as far as work goes – instead of charging up and down motorways to get to gigs, jotting down ideas on scraps of paper while on the move – essentially using the car as a twenty-four-hour-a-day office and bed and breakfast – I now spend more time at home at our kitchen table writing but I do have to get up extra early though, as Mollie enters the kitchen at 8am to get ready for school.

From: Matthew from Lincolnshire
Hi Lee My questions are: how do you psych yourself up before a show? How different is it doing films and gigs? Are they the same nerves or is it something totally different? cheers mate

I only have one set of nerves and they react the same for both films and live shows – they are both terrifyingly pant-filling.

Even though I will spend many hours preparing, writing, re-writing, going over and over the material, I still find walking out in front of an audience completely mentally and physically nerve wrenching. In fact, I could have been on tour for months, show 150 or something or other, but one minute before stepping out in front of what looks like very normal, smiling, happy people and, BAM! I just want the ground to open up right there and eat me up.

Basically I am not a very confident person and it is probably one of the reasons I went into comedy in the first place. So many doubts will suddenly enter my pea-sized brain whilst standing in the wings of a theatre waiting to go on stage: are the audience in a bad mood? it's raining outside and they are wet; the sun is out, they are too hot; they're cheesed off because the trains were late, or too early; they tried to park their car but the car park was full.

These lovely people have taken the trouble to come and see the show, have worked hard all week and they have paid their hard-earned money to see me and I don't want to let them down.

But by far the major worry and angst above everything else will be – is the material I have written any good. Is it funny? Is it funny enough? Will I remember any of it?

But at the end of the day what does it matter? It's only comedy, or for some – not.

Film is a completely different kettle of fish. Not only is it different, but who would want to put fish in their kettle? If you have a different kettle of fish, you must have had a kettle of fish in the first place, so after first ruining one kettle then going out buying a new one because the old one didn't work, then putting fish in that one in the thought that maybe it wasn't the fish that broke it...

Have you ever wondered who it is that makes an old wives’ tale up? What wise genius has managed to think up such significant philosophy that will, once said, stop even the most expert of scholars in their little hush puppy tracks to examine the meaning behind an old wives tale?

For example:

You'll stay like that if the wind changes.

I tried this one. I stood out in the back garden gurning my face while patiently waiting for the wind to change – I even had the idea of standing in front of a rotating fan, but, not surprisingly, nothing happened. In a vain way of thinking that would, I thought, knock years off my ugly mug, I tried desperately to put on a better-looking face, say, David Beckham.

Anyway where the hell was I? Oh yes.

From a personal point of view, making a film is a completely incongruous way of trying to make an audience laugh. First of all there's no audience. When acting out a scene, the best you can hope for is to make the film crew laugh, so you do really have to put your faith in the director to capture something that might make an audience laugh.

Film is entirely different to performing a live show – it has its own distinct way of capturing comedy, which lies not just in the performance in front of camera, but also in the editing, sound and eventually in what context it has to the overall genre and subject matter of the narrative.

For example you could, during a live show, just flit from one subject to another, but comedy in film is different. It has to portray so many more elements, emotions, part of the character's behaviour you are playing and whether he or she might do such a thing within the context of the scene and story line.

Put basically, I have spent many nights in my hotel room working on the next day's shoot on what I think is something really funny to put to the director, only to have it rejected because it has no relation to the story.

Or even having shot something that to the director, crew and myself, was hilarious on the day, only to be edited out later by the producers, who have audience demographics to abide by and think it is too mad.

That is what I love about stand up: it's just you and an audience, no one can tell you what to do, you can do anything you like and it stays in.

From: Jake Newman
I am about to start big school in September and I thought that you might have some ideas about how to settle in, thanks (NOW REMEMBER THAT!)

Tool up would be my advice.

But then what do I know? I have just stumbled through life with an unfortunate face as a weapon, so I say use what you've got.

Or body armour would be another tip; I still use this today.

People ask me all the time. Were you funny at school?

I have to be careful how I answer this enquiry, as it may be the case that they were not in the slightest interested but were only asked to solicit a pre-prepared quip: "Because you're not funny now"

I was, in my tender years, most definitely funny looking without meaning to be. It is true that many comedians suffered bullying while at school and that's one of the reasons why they became comedians. To defend against bullying, they would make the big guy laugh and he would leave you alone.

That's how I found comedy. I would threaten the skinny kids, wait till they were funny, and then steal their jokes.

From: Emily
You talk about so many different things in your stand up, how do you remember it all? Do you have a script or does it just stay in your head?

Associated memory skills are the key to recalling a subject.

I find if I try to remember something associated with what I’m trying to remember it comes to me in a flash. The trouble is, I forget what the associated thing was and forget both of them.

I am so racked up with nerves while on stage that I'm not sure, but it could be just basic survival instinct that I even complete a show. In fact, I have no say in the matter. Any morsel of comedy knocking around the comedy department of my brain, that rests uneasily somewhere inside my odd shaped head, seems, for some unexplained reason that only a scientist could answer with the aid of lab rats, to be sent down to the mouth, which automatically opens and closes forming strategically pre-placed words into a joke – and before I know it, it's out and travelling down an amplification system to the waiting ears of an audience.

Then of course it's too late, the line is crossed, and the reaction could go either way.

However my brain seems to be aware of this and is already prepared. It has learned over the years from being carried against its will, by me, to some of the toughest comedy clubs in the country. In doing so it has developed by investing in a state of the art, little known and very hush-hush never mentioned HIT AND RUN, BLACLAVA MOB DEPARTMENT. Or codenamed INCONTINENCE PANTS, or just I.P.

I.P is a sub division of the DEFENCE AND PROTECT DEPARTMENT. A special unit formed and trained in England, and located next door to THE COMEDY DEPARTMENT AND SOCIAL SERVICES (to give it its full name) in order that they could more easily communicate after a major incident took place at a Loughborough University Student Union rugby gig, where it all went off. Big time.

So you can see, I have no control over the comedy section of my brain. It just somehow happens instinctively. It seems it has evolved a way of keeping me out of harm's way.

From: Kathryn
Hi Lee! You must travel around a lot with your career, so how do you cope with being away from your home and your family so much? Best wishes.

I'm finding it more and more difficult working away from my family now that our daughter Mollie is older and we can communicate using real words. When she was first born it seemed all the appropriate letters were there but not in the right order.

It didn't seem to matter when I first embarked on this comedy lark, Mollie hadn't arrived yet, it was just my wife and me, and the simple fact that the rent had to be paid. Plus it all seemed like an adventure when I was 18, jumping into an old banger and racing up and down the motorway to get to a student union gig.

Now, whenever possible I'll try and turn work down that involves going abroad for long periods of time. Being incredibly disorganized until recently, the car was used as my office, stopping only to do a gig or pulling in at an overnight service station to get some sleep, purchase a (delicious) Ginsters Cornish Pasty which, at the time and to this day, while touring, is my staple diet.

Now I'm not sure what goes into the making of a Ginsters Pasty, but it would give my body enough carbs for days and the probable secret behind how David Blaine can stay in that box for 44 days.

However there is a down side to this food of athletes. They are marketed and sold as a fast, handy convenience food, because we all have way too busy lives we are supposed to grab one on the move at a service station and eat it in the convenience of your car.

What they don’t inform us is that it’s impossible to eat a Ginsters Pasty and drive at the same time. When flogging us one of these things, they are basically handing you a ticking time bomb. You really need the appropriate dining area to eat a Ginsters Pasty and, just as the tobacco companies have been forced to, should stipulate warnings on the packaging.

Now I’ve eaten a lot of Ginsters Pasties so I feel I have reasonable authority to comment. I’ve wolfed enough of these things to keep the company afloat for many years to come. With the money I have invested, I feel I have a major stake in the holiday home in Spain, with its own mooring that Mr Ginster owns and where he spends his winters soaking up the rays, while I’m busy back here in the cold investing in the future of “our” company.

I appreciate that Mr Ginster has worked hard over the years to build his company into the leading pasty provider in the country, however I do feel that without my cash influx over the years, he would, and he knows it, still be operating out of that small unit on the industrial estate in Basildon. I’m not blaming Mr Ginster entirely, or his hard working staff down at the factory. Probably the first pasties to whack off the conveyor belt in eighteen-something-or-other were meant, as it was appropriate then, for someone with a horse and cart. It probably didn’t matter that much in those days but times change and we move on, drive highly sophisticated pieces of engineering like…. The Proton? We like to keep them tidy so they have to realise that there is a massive flaw in the consistency of one of their ingredients.

They need to know, and this is my grief, that whenever you bite into one of their pasties great flakes of the dough casing propel themselves, like shrapnel, around the inside of your car. So many pasties have I eaten in my car and so much is the extent of discarded left over dough scattered across its interior that a family of rats have taken up residence in the map pocket.

Then there are the bigger flakes, dropping in sheets onto your lap. Lethal when driving – with one hand perilously on the wheel and the other picking bits, that have fallen, out of the crotch of your stage suit.

Even more dangerous is that you have to keep looking down, distracting your concentration from the road ahead and to clear your lap of untidy dough which, after a while, becomes much more interesting than keeping the car, which is now swerving violently across three lanes of traffic, steady

These days I have become more organised and when our kitchen table isn't available I manage to commandeer a small room at the back of the house where it's quiet and perfect to get some writing done, which is so much better than writing while on the road.

Also, now that Mollie is a little bit older, we tend to do lots more things together. But while away working it's the phone calls home that are the worst. I try to call every day and get my wife to tell me every single detail of what they have been up to.

It's the small things you miss, like seeing my daughter get up in the mornings stroll into our kitchen with her hair looking like she had it on charge all night. Of course it goes without saying I also miss my wife. I thought I'd better mention Heather; she'll kill me otherwise.

From: Tara-Jade Holtom
Hello Lee, over the past few years you have experimented with different ways of performing through stand-up, sit-coms, movies etc. You are getting bigger and bigger and more popular each time which must be incredibly overwhelming. Do you ever feel like going back to entertaining in smaller environments or do you feel comfortable 'havin' it large'?

Before a tour begins, notes that have been hastily scribbled in small scruffy notebooks over a period of about a year are carefully brought out into the open air, like an old relic, from the darkest depths of my shoulder bag, where they have been for the last year. They are only ever disturbed from their resting place by my eager hand because I have been stricken by the divine intervention of my comedy god with the most hilarious idea that I must put down before it deserts my thoughts and loses the chance to be shared by an awe inspired audience.

After taking them from my bag I blow off the dust then gently place the books on the table in front of me, sit, and stare at them with the expectation and anticipation you might get when receiving a long awaited letter that might contain good or bad news, but you resist opening because not knowing is better than knowing.

Plucking up the courage, I'll lift the cover of one of the books and peer inside. After flicking through some of the pages of garbled notes it dawns on me that I have made a huge mistake agreeing to go on tour again.

A 150 date tour with an average audience expected of 3-4000 people each night and what's in front of me? The writing of a lacking imbecile. What is contained in these books can only be described as the meaningless markings of drivel that only a 4 year old could form with a broken crayon. What’s more unbelievable is the state of mind I must have been in when I made this undecipherable crap

It's usually at this same time that the people that organise the tour call me up, ask if I want to go back on the road. "That's a great idea," I say, convincing myself. "I mean, I love touring, plus, I've written lots of new material". "Right I'll organise that then," they say, and the phone goes dead. "Hello?" I say. "Hello? I never said yes, yet. Hello?"

Too late, they've gone off to organise it.

After coming off the phone I pace the house mumbling to myself, not quite committed that I have agreed to another tour?

Touring is relentless, every day is the same: hotel, pack bag, get to the theatre, set up all the equipment, write, then re-write; two and a half hours of physical contortions on stage that, upon reaching the hundredth or so gig is excruciatingly painful; back to another hotel at two in the morning to be informed by the night staff that the kitchen is shut so there is no food; checking into your room; staying up till three to go over and re-write material for the next day’s gig; up at eight am, shower, pack bag, load up and get in the car (that’s never cleaned for the duration of the tour and towards the end has the stench of tramps pants); begin writing in the car on new material until reaching the next gig; try finding a dry cleaners that will show some form of mercy on my suits; set equipment up… and so it goes on for weeks, months, until eventually, after lack of sleep and a proper meal you return home an exhausted quivering idiot, numb.

But, wait a minute, I say to myself. What's wrong with me? I'm getting soft. I begin persuading myself that I am indeed very lucky, I think back to how fortunate I am to have escaped the days when Heather and I used to hide from the rent man because we couldn’t pay, of having to live in a small back room at my mother’s house, the dark depressing days of relentless employment, after finding, what I thought at the time was my calling in life, a job cleaning toilets, or the happy days of refilling the urinal fresheners, anything that would pay off the massive debt we had.

I thought back to the first days of cracking show biz, of racing up and down motorways, sleeping in the car and doing gigs for nothing, taking risks, chances? All that… to one day get a call from a bloke at a promotion company to organise a tour.

I'm convinced I should do the tour.

Not only am I convinced, I begin personally giving myself a dressing down, slating and shouting at myself for going soft.

As I begin pacing the house a little quicker, anger runs through my head, I'm ashamed; I start to have a frantic conversation with myself.

What's the matter with you? You love touring?

Yes. But.

But nothing monkey boy, you've gone soft.

No it's just exhausting and I have other stuff I have to do.

What stuff? Pansy films.

Films are not...

OK I'll call them up, tell them you don't want to do it.

No...

I'm calling now. I have the phone in my hand!

I GRAB THE HAND HOLDING THE PHONE WITH MY OTHER HAND AND START FIGHTING WITH MYSELF ACROSS THE KITCHEN FLOOR.

Give me that phone

I SQUEEZE MY OTHER HAND TIGHTER.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh, you've broken my wrist.

I LET GO. PANICING I MAY HAVE HURT MYSELF.

I’m sorry I didn’t want to hurt you.

Well you have. I hope you’re satisfied, you’ve broken my arm, and I won’t be able to play the piano.

You don’t play the piano.

No, not now, I have a broken arm.

OK, I’ll do it.

I mean. I must have written lots of new material by now? It’s been a year since the last tour, sure I’ve been working on other projects, but, I’m always making notes, writing idea’s in my notebooks, they must be full of stuff by now?

I GET UP FROM THE FLOOR AND PULL MYSELF TOGETHER, I SMILE. AND ANNOUNCE THEATRICALLY.

Tomorrow. I begin writing the tour.

The next morning, I’m sitting in stunned silence at the kitchen table with a look on my face similar to a lobotomy patient after shock treatment, just sitting, stock still, staring at note books, brand new neatly placed writing pad in front of me, pencil hovering, poised at the ready inches away from a clean page.

Nothing.

Not a whimper. Not one neuron in the brain is firing.

It’s hopeless, I can’t think of anything that would tickle, who’s very name suggests he’s up for a good time, I refer to of course, THE LAUGHING HYENA. I couldn’t even make one smirk if he was in a good mood that day, let alone laugh, five minutes with me now and he would walk out the room suffering depression, drive him into therapy for the rest of his life, would be forced to change his name by deed poll to, the depressed Loweena.

Then… Suddenly, there’s a spark. I make a grab for one of the notebooks and slowly but surely begin trawling back over the pages of what appears at first glance ridiculous drivelling rubbish, but persevere, desperately trying to re-motivate my comedy brain that sits in my head sprawled out on a lazy chair eating Doritos watching TV farting and burping.

Day after day I slowly get the rusty comedy muscle pumping again. In a desperate attempt at making sense of the claptrap from my notebooks, meticulously writing and re-writing onto A4 Oxford pads.

After about a month, a half-grown beard, hunched over shoulders and eyes the size of Roman fruit bowls, the words on the page begin to form into what I think may be good comedy ideas, to others, just the ramblings of the insane.

I gather all the pages up into a pile and decide that now may be a good time to put the material to the test, try it out, in front of a live audience.

Fortunately over the years I am proud to boast that I wrangled my way in to play some of the most glamorous and prestigious entertainment establishments in the country and have bombed in every one of them.

Not many people can say that.

But I have made great friends with the owners of The Comedy Store in London, The Glee Club in Cardiff and The Glee Club in Birmingham. So, a couple of months before starting a tour they will, with a bit of pleading from me, kindly let me pop into their clubs on their weekend shows and try, at risk to my safety, various snippets of my material on their unsuspecting audience.

(Poor people.)

Smaller clubs are so much more enjoyable and fun to play than the bigger venues; it's so much more personal and up close. Sometimes too close, within easy punching distance if the material isn't going so good. With the bigger venues the crowd are miles from the stage and you have to wait for the laughs to pick up a kind of a roll then come back to at you. You have to watch out for that, as there are some members of the audience who may well pick up a roll, and then throw it back at you.

So there I am. It's one in the morning and I'm backstage at the Glee Club, notes in hand ready to try virgin material when the compere introduces me onto the stage.

You can't beat the comedy clubs. They're so intimate. For me it's like playing your living room, like you have invited some great friends round for the evening, the atmosphere is electric, it's hot, smoky, and usually by the time you go on stage, at one in the morning, everyone has already had a couple of their favourite drinks, and can let their inhibitions go a little and are up for some laughs together.

It's also a very creative process. It involves writing and re-writing, material in the dressing room before and after the gig. It's a time you find out if a subject that seemed at first, not to be very good or thought was just some gibberish scribbled in your notebook or scrap of paper weeks before hand, suddenly, while on stage, becomes a whole routine.

Of course, there is a danger that it may not get a laugh at all, not even a whimper, just some mystified vacant looks, in which case my suspicions are confirmed, it was indeed a piece of gibberish. But in the end, who gets hurt? It's only the ramblings from an idiot's notebook.