Micky Flanagan interview

For his new TV series, Micky Flanagan headed across the Channel with his mate Noel to put his own spin on the Tour de France. BCG phoned the stand-up star to find out more about the show, and his thoughts on his rise to stardom...

Hi Micky. 'Detour De France' sounds more like fun than hard work?

We put a lot of hours into the filming. I don't know if you know, but it takes 7 years to film 3 minutes of TV. So we worked hard, but we also played hard too... we weren't going to go to bed too early. You can't do that in France anyway, the food is too good.

Why France?

As someone who has really been to Thailand, America, Spain, Japan, Dubai and all these places, I suddenly thought I've not been to France, and I really want to go and discover the place a little bit. It's so easy to get there...

I love the idea of going to a country where there's a certain amount of... well, there's been a few problems between the British and the French, I don't know if you've noticed? I wanted to go there and expel a few myths... do they really dislike us that much?

The people you met on your travels suggest the French can actually be warm and friendly?

Precisely. I think, in general, what the French feel about the British is that we're sort of peasants really; we're not as sophisticated as them, not as intelligent or as thoughtful, but they'll give you a chance. If you behave like a buffoon, or an idiot, they've got no time for you... I think that's what people mistake for rudeness and arrogance.

They'll give you a chance. If you come across and behave in a very civil and decent way and try and speak a bit of French and accept the way they do things, great. If you don't, they're just going to walk away and not come back again... which we encountered a few times. They love to disappear the French! Very odd.

How did you order your steak over there?

I think you have to go up one. If you like your steak medium you have to say 'medium well', because if you say 'medium' in France they won't serve what you think of as medium.

If you ask for a medium, that'll come out fairly medium rare. Meanwhile, if you say you want it rare, they lead it into the restaurant with a bit of string!

That's something we got around in the end. "I'm really sorry, I'm English... could I have my food 'medium' please?"... "We'll see what mood the chef is in..."

That said, if you start saying you want your steak 'well done', they'll hit you with a lump of wood and you leave the restaurant!

What was the highlight of your trip?

There were so many little things we did that were fun, it's difficult to choose.

Noel climbing Mont Ventoux in the second episode, that was really exciting. Cyclists will know that Ventoux is the mecca: it's like the swimming the channel or climbing Everest of cycling, so Noel really wanted to do it.

It was really exciting taking him there. We didn't know if he was going to be doing it, that is the truth. I think even if you're not a cyclist you'll watch that and go 'blimey, that was something!'.

Have you kept up with cycling since you've come back?

When I got back from the show I went and had a hernia operation, which I was carrying during the filming. So that knocked me out for a couple of months, but over the last four or five weeks I have started to go back out on the bike, yes.

I think there are people who start cycling and go 'this is it, I've arrived, everything makes sense now' and then there are other people who buy a bike, really quite enjoy it, but if they look out the window and it's raining a little bit or they've had a late night the night before they can leave it ... I think I'm in that area. I will always be a cyclist but I'm not the guy who is going to do it come rain or shine or take on too many massive rides.

John Bishop recently presented a BBC One show where he cycled around Australia. Was it annoying his format was picked up about the same time?

I know John is a keen cyclist because I've done A League Of Their Own with him and he told me about how much he cycles everywhere. I knew he would probably use that in his career at some point. I watched it and I quite enjoyed it; I enjoyed seeing his journey back to his former life before he got married.

I think you'll probably see more of this [on TV]... more middle aged men on bikes! One of the things we did notice when we were away whenever we got around cyclists - whether they were French, Dutch, Belgium, whatever - they all were all somewhere between 40 and 55, a bit fat and on a break... 4 or 5 of them that have gone away cycling for a weekend. So it's no accident that more guys are doing that and making TV programmes about it.

They'll all have their different take on it. I think John actually cycled, that was the difference. We did a bit, but it wasn't "I'm going to cycle from here to here". We drove, and cycled the last bit. We were very honest about that as well.

Broadcasters are increasingly looking to engage the audience on social media. We note you're not on Twitter though, so won't be promoting the show that way?

I'm sure it has its purpose, and I'm sure that people who like that can use it to engage with the show and talk about it... they can to each other, but not to me.

That's the way I look at these things: I'm not saying you can't have any of that, but if there's a TV programme that's going to stand on its own, and you're just going to watch it. If you feel the need to continually tweet, text, post about it, you can do that, but I've got a sneaky suspicion you're not going to enjoy it so much. At some point you have to just watch something.

I refuse to believe this Twitter thing is all powerful, as they'd like you to believe. You can maybe measure things with it in a small way, and people do love to measure things. What they can't measure is hundreds of thousands or millions of people going "I really enjoyed that, I'm going to watch next week".

I've been very keen to say to people 'if you make a really good product that people enjoy, it doesn't matter who is tweeting about it or putting it up on their Facebook, people are either watching it or they're not'.

I drink in the evening, that is why I don't do Twitter!

This show has your name in the title, demonstrating your now heading towards becoming a household name. Do you ever look back and think about your time on the circuit?

Yeah, I think that's what you do all the time. I can still see myself standing in a room above a pub in front of 12 people, or standing there with the promoter at the back of a room going "are we going to go ahead, because if we could get just three more people we could make this gig work?", and not getting paid. I can remember that as clear as anything.

It has been a 15 year journey from that room above a pub to walking out to 15,000 people. I don't think you've got a huge amount of control [over your path to success]... I think you can nudge away at your career, and push it forward, but you can't ultimately say 'if I do all these things, I'll end up here'.

But it happens, so I'm just over the moon that it did. For a few us, a room above a pub turned into the O2 Arena.

Did you set out with an aim to play arenas?

No. I think you do it in steps. So you're on the circuit and you think 'one day I'd like to get paid'. Then you start getting paid. Then you think 'one day I'd like to give up work and make enough to be a comedian'. That happened...

'I'd love to play The Comedy Store for a weekend'. That happened. Cut to a few years later and you'd be doing that for a few years, now you think 'I'd love to be playing to my own audience... I wonder if there's an audience out there for me? I'll go to the Edinburgh festival to check it out'. 'Oh there is. Oh and we sold out tonight? Really? 130 seats for me?'

I think you're a fool if you standing there in front of 8 people in some pub in Camden and think 'if I'm not playing an arena in 10 years it's all been a waste of time'... because there is a very good chance that won't happen.

You recently tried your hand at acting in BBC iPlayer short Micky Flanagan's Foxageddon. Do you want to get into acting?

My aim is to become an eclectic comedian who can turn his hand his hand to everything. So if a travelogue comes along I'll do it; if a panel show comes along which I think looks great fun, I'll do it; if a comedy script comes up where I think 'that fits me perfectly', I'll give it a go.

I think the stand-up is covered. I will write a new show at some point, I know I can do that, but I see it now as a way of me trying other things, and hopefully out of all those things I try, we'll have a couple of hits... but you don't find that out until you try it.

So my aim is to be the go-to guy for everything... apart from those shows where you have to look at someone's genital warts!

Micky Flanagan's Detour De France is on Sky1 HD on Mondays at 9pm.