Circuit Training 84: Matt Forde's Focus

Listeners to Matt Forde's new Saturday lunchtime TalkSport show, with old mate Jon Richardson, might be surprised to learn that the amiable comic is such a political animal. Forde is a former New Labour advisor, in fact, and runs a live interview show, The Political Party, at London's St James Theatre each month: you can hear his interviews with the likes of Nigel Farage and Neil Kinnock via The Political Party podcast, along with some sharp political stand-up.

Forde also took the taking-the-piss-out-of-MPs path for his latest long-form show, Get the Political Party Started, which is at the Soho Theatre this week - although you'd imagine it's evolved a fair bit since the Edinburgh run in August.

Forde is no great fan of Labour's new leader, to put it mildly. Or the previous one. So his views are invariably at odds with other political comics. Political he may be: diplomatic he definitely isn't.

Part One: "It was like a Daily Mail comments forum, but on air"

Matt, how's it going? What are you up to?

Very well thank you, just watching The Daily Politics and writing some material about Corbyn.

Silly question really. Presumably your show is evolving a fair bit, with so much happening?

It's a blessing in one way as it's always exciting, being up to the minute and relevant, but with an Edinburgh show you're honing it over months, whereas this... I mean, there's stuff in there that's honed, but I can put topical stuff in as well.

Let's start with your new radio show - you've been on TalkSport before?

Yeah I started off doing the overnights there a few years back, which was a war of attrition in the end, so I knocked that on the head quite a while ago.

Was the overnight slot a political show?

It started off as a topical thing yeah, then the station went all sports, but when I first started it was proper old-school late night radio; you'd be talking about the most inflammatory subjects you could get away with.

It's funny for a bit, but after a while you're talking to the most aggressive and deluded people - it was like a Daily Mail comments forum, but on air. It was just getting a bit silly. If you're only talking to people who are very aggressive and believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy, it's not good for your sanity.

Were you getting extreme left- and right-wingers ringing up?

Completely, people that believe the EU is a capitalist conspiracy to keep us all stupid, [that they're] putting stuff in the water - you could make up anything and someone would believe it.

Did you start believing it?

You just had to remind yourself that this is not representative of public opinion. Most callers were absolutely fine, but the ones you remember were extreme.

It sounds like good radio though?

I'd get a lot of comedians listening when they were coming back from gigs.

You made a great impression on the Channel 4 show last year, Jon Richardson Grows Up: is that how the radio slot came about?

It helped, yeah. We did a show on BBC 6 Music years ago with Russell Howard, and we've known each other for about 10 years now. I think we've got a good partnership.

You're a proper Nottingham Forest supporter: is he geeky about football too?

He's a big Leeds fan, he's a big sports fan in general, played a lot of rugby at school. I think a lot of people think that he's not because he doesn't have a stereotypical sports fan persona.

I caught a bit of your Sports Party show on TalkSport last week too - is that a regular slot?

Yeah, I do that every month, we've done nine or ten of them now, at the St James Theatre. We do a political one every month as well.

Part Two: "The Tories played a blinder"

Interviewing politicians on stage is quite a novel format for a comic.

I'm not sure anyone else wants to do it, to be honest. I'm a political nerd, I'm obsessed with it, I'm fascinated by people who stand for election and try to change things properly. People don't get to see politicians live, outside of political areas: I've met so many of them and I just wanted to show people that you can disagree with people but still like them.

The Tories are the most interesting ones. It's always funny how often you have a Tory on and so many people say "bloody hell, I can't believe how much I liked them."

You're a well-known Blairite, whereas it seems like every other comic I follow on Twitter is pro-Corbyn. Although I noticed that you've mainly been retweeting stuff about him, rather than ranting.

It's important not to look like you're being gratuitous or nasty about someone, but equally it's important to share information. And some of the things Corbyn's said in the past, and the things that [new Shadow Chancellor] John McDonnell's said in the past are unforgiveable. And yet there's this prevailing view that they're lovely guys.

What frustrates me the most is the idea that left-wing people are really moral and right-wing people are evil: it's a stupid idea, and social media has amplified it. The people who behave really badly on there aren't centre-right Tories but angry lefties.

You interviewed Blair recently and made an interesting point about how the centre-right just can't articulate their views as easily as, say, a Corbynite can.

I always class myself as a centre ground person, and I feel like a lot of the language is boring and stiff and knackered, and passionless. However, the idea that Jeremy Corbyn is offering something new is absurd. The main problem is that the standard bearers on the right of the party don't have a talismanic figure to coalesce around. And on top of that, the vilification they face for saying things like "maybe free schools were a good idea", or "not everything has to be state owned" - then you're called a Tory, a Red Tory, a Tory Lite.

It does seem difficult to have a discussion these days, just throw a different idea out there without everyone ganging up against you.

The aggression and the nastiness, most people are around the middle ground and they're put off by that, they're not the short of people waving placards and shouting - but Corbyn's lot are, because they're activists by nature. Most Blarites, they're normal people, they're not aggressive, but they have to put up with this volley of abuse.

It's funny seeing Corbyn and McDonnell on the podium calling for unity. Corbyn voted against the last Labour government more times than David Cameron did. They've absolutely no right to call for unity, these are people who've campaigned against the Labour Party for years, and now claim to want to heal it.

That welfare vote after the election seemed a big turning point. I think a lot of people just wanted someone who'll at least argue with Cameron.

The thing about welfare cuts, not every welfare cut is bad. A lot of suggestions that have been put forward by the Tories are things that people in Labour circles wanted to suggest for years but didn't dare, things like not every child receiving child benefit in a family of two or more. These aren't all nasty horrible Tory cuts.

Should rich pensioners all get the winter fuel allowance? I think a lot of people think they shouldn't. That's not necessarily my view, but not every welfare cut is evil. The Tories played a blinder, they deliberately scheduled a debate to throw a grenade into the Labour leadership race, and it worked.

If the next election was a presidential style one-on-one, Corbyn against Cameron, who would you vote for?

I dunno, it's difficult. Cameron's definitely the better leader out of the two, and Cameron is the more serious politician and would be more trusted with the economy. Does Corbyn make it to the next election? Cameron said he won't stand again. I think Osborne is the one to look out for, he's exceptionally talented and I think Labour have fundamentally underestimated him. He's a shrewd political operator, he's clever, he's funny. People assume he's nasty; he's not. I think Labour's going to get a shock.

Osborne versus Corbyn would be interesting, given the media image of them both...

It'll be fascinating. I don't know if Corbyn will be there, but he's got to be given time, because obviously he's got a mandate which he's constantly reminding us of. But it'd be unfair to try to unseat him immediately - you have to let him go through the Holyrood elections, the Welsh Assembly and the London Mayor. If Labour loses in London, that'll be a major blow and a real verdict on his leadership. If you can't put a mayor in city hall when you've got a Tory Government, more Labour MPs in London than Tories, then that's the capital's verdict on Corbyn as a leader really.

It's certainly livened things up though. Corbyn was voted in then Everton immediately beat Chelsea 3-1 - suddenly everything seemed to be better!

Ha! In that regard it's very exciting, if you think about the last year in politics: the Scottish referendum, Labour got wiped out in Scotland, UKIP didn't get the Parliamentary breakthrough that they deserved - they got nearly four million votes. Politics has splintered in a way that it never has in my lifetime, it's gone ballistic, it's brilliant. For entertainment purposes it's wonderful. It'll wake people up.

Part Three: "He's a grumpy little shitbag"

Do you ever feel caught between stools, being known as a serious political comic and a jokey sporty one?

I think it's good to do different things. With the political thing, I interview politicians but I'm not standing for office; my sole focus is still comedy, but it's good to have a spread of interests. And the other thing is you get fucking bored if you just do one thing. It's nice on a Saturday to have a chat about football with Richardson, then back to the politics on Monday. You wouldn't want to eat pasta every night would you?

You're a good impressionist too - have you ever used that elsewhere?

I've done a couple of things for Rory Bremner, in the run up to the election, which is great as he's an idol of mine. As a comic it's nice to throw them into your set.

It's funny when you do break out an impression, as you can hear the audience go "ooh, he's actually got a talent!"

Yeah, it's true - because comedy isn't enough! One of the great tricks of comedy is to make it look like it's not rehearsed, it hasn't been slaved over. But I've never worked harder at being a comedian than I have in the last couple of years.

Longer-term, would you want to tour stand-up shows about regular stuff?

That's something I'd really like to do at some point, do stand-up about everyday life or whatever, but I feel like I've found a niche at the moment, and I really enjoy doing it. The great gift is that the time in which we live really lends itself to good topical comedy, and there's always something to talk about with politics. But I started out doing non-political stuff.

Your audience must be interesting for the political shows, as you slag Labour off too?

I take the piss out of everyone - we've just had Miliband for five years, he was dreadful, of course I'm going to take the piss out of him. Corbyn's crap, he deserves to have the piss taken out of him as much as Cameron and Osborne. They're all there to be shot at, why not shoot at all of them? It means you get a more diverse audience. I've been harder on Labour than anyone over the last five years, the ridiculousness of Miliband's leadership: I can't believe more people didn't go for him.

It probably seemed a bit harsh on the poor bloke. But will you get heckled by aggressive left-wingers now?

I've never really had a problem with hecklers, I think because I'm seen to take the piss out of everyone. I do try not to make it a platform for my opinions - it's more about taking the piss out of the stupid things politicians say.

Can you keep politics out of the TalkSport show?

I'm sure Richardson will try to provoke me on Corbyn, just to wind me up. Ripping each other is all part of it.

You have quite a classic double act really - you could almost have been put together by a producer.

This is the thing, we've got the same interests but different opinions within those things: politics, football, similar tastes in comedy and music, but we have different outlooks on life. There's nothing constructed there, genuine light and shade: I'm the light and he's the shade. He's a grumpy little shitbag, but he's very funny.

People probably don't realise what a deep thinker you are, from the double-act persona...

That's it, and I hope that's the case, sometimes there's a danger with satire or political comedy that it can appear quite exclusive, and can put people off rather than bring people in, as it feels quite establishment by its nature. The more people realise that ordinary people are interested in it and you don't have to be Mr Serious, it's a good thing. But yeah, some people are quite surprised that I've got A Levels.

You've got two distinct personas, the guy in the suit on the Edinburgh posters and the guy in a rugby top...

...weeing behind a bin.

So what are you up to for the rest of day?

I've got my Political Party gig tonight where I'm interviewing Suzanne Evans, from UKIP. I like her - obviously her politics aren't mine but I get on with her, she's always very funny. UKIP people give good interviews, I've interviewed Farage and [Paul] Nuttall and now Suzanne. I completely disagree with them on the EU and various other things, but they bring a sense of fun to politics, so there's something to be learned from that.

Will you get UKIP people in the audience?

That's what's interesting about the St James gigs: depending on who the guest is, that slightly affects the demography of the audience - so when you've got a UKIP person in it's always a little bit rowdier. They'll all come in, they'll have a table, they'll be drinking wine all night - they bring their own atmosphere. The Tories are the same as well.

A fair bit of braying, I'd imagine?

Absolutely. Tim Loughton brought about 10 backbenchers with him, and they were heckling throughout the whole thing, they were hammered. 10 Tory MPs at the back, wasted - brilliant! It was a bit of a pain in the arse at the time, but in retrospect it was bloody hilarious. They were trollied.

It must be interesting to see politicians in the wild. They're usually so packaged and on-message.

And they're often packaged against their will, by party managers, press officers. Actually a lot of them would want to be themselves in public, and would want to speak more freely.

So no one's tried to do that with you? I can imagine your agents going "if you concentrated on this side of your career..."

Oh God no, no one's ever tried to package me, you'd have to have a big package! An oversized box.

'Get the Political Party Started' is at the Soho Theatre from Tuesday 6th - Saturday 10th October, visit www.sohotheatre.com for tickets. For Forde's monthly interview sessions check out www.mattforde.com