Andy Parsons interview

Andy Parsons is off on tour. BCG checks in with him here...

Hi Andy. Your tour is called I've Got A Shed?

Well, I do have a shed. I tend to do my writing in my shed, so that was the starting point for me, but in terms of what is the show about... The thing is, Boris Johnson is the most popular politician in the country...

Politics is now regarded as the least respected of all professions, and as a consequence there's a lot of comedians thinking of becoming politicians. Eddie Izzard is going to stand for London Mayor, maybe on the strength of thinking that if Boris can do it, anyone can do it... so the theme is, 'why should anyone get out of their shed?'. The answer, in some ways, is that if Boris Johnson is perhaps going to be the next Prime Minister, maybe we should get out of the shed.

Do you yourself have any leanings towards taking office then?

That is answered in the show. It has been suggested that I might stand for political office... and I demolish that quite comprehensively! I explain why I would be the least good person to have in any political office.

Still on the topic of politics, there's been a lot of talk this year about how there isn't much right wing comedy. Any thoughts on why this is?

That again is something that gets answered in the show. I do a little bit of right wing comedy to show that it can work perfectly well, and I would like to see some of the right wing columnists come down and try their material out at comedy clubs. I think it would be very refreshing and exciting for all of us!

Mock The Week is one of the shows that it's actually hard to work out if it is right wing or left wing.

Part of the BBC's remit is - and possibly one of the difficulties with their remit is - to make sure everybody should get their fair say. If we've had a go at the Lib Dems one week, then we have to have a go at Labour the next week.

Various political parties have complained in the past that they feel it has been concentrating on the Conservatives too much, or whatever, so then the answer comes from on high that 'please could next week we say something about Labour'. So it's not just coming from us, that comes from the BBC as well.

Is it harder to mock the opposition at the moment? It could be argued they're so weak right now there's not much to get stuck into.

People say are there boom times for comedy and are there down times. I think at any time there's always so much going on in the world, there's never been a bad time. There's always been stuff there.

The only thing I would say is, because of the economy and people experiencing difficulties, people are much more aware of what's going on, whether it be welfare reform, whether it be the health service, or what have you... Now, because more people are interested that, it means rather than people just being completely turned off, people are actually concentrating now on what is going on.

On the topic of panel shows, Alan Davies recently spoke out about how panel shows are pre-planned...

I was absolutely livid, because I went on QI and they didn't tell me anything, ha ha!

I thought that was what was fantastic about QI, that they said 'we only ever told one person and he insists on having it'... and that surely is what a panel show should be. You turn up and you've got stuff you would do normally at your set gig or whatever, and some of it you can throw in and some of it you can't. Most of it is just the four of you, or however many, having a bit of banter though...

Now obviously there are many different things, and Mock The Week doesn't fit into that, but that's what I thought was fantastic about QI, so to find out they actually know stuff beforehand, I'm going 'so why didn't they tell me!'

Ha ha. How long do you prepare for Mock The Week? We don't see everything filmed on TV, so presumably you have to write a lot of potential gags in advance?

In that sense it's a very wasteful show - three hours we record the show for, and only half an hour goes out. Obviously there are compilations and other bits and pieces that contain some extras, but in terms of some material you go 'well, that would have been fun to do, but we never got around to that topic', you know? Any material that you're really fond of you'll always find an outlet for it at some stage though.

We've rambled on about Mock The Week a bit. Is it frustrating that you get asked about that show in every interview you do, rather than some of your other work?

Not at all. It's nice to have done something that people watch.

In terms of going out and doing bigger tours, Mock The Week and Live At the Apollo have been really good to me. In most towns in the country that there's a theatre, it's a nice thing to be able to sell enough tickets to play them.

Talking of your other work, it's been a while since you've done a sketch show or sitcom? [For those not aware, Andy's CV also includes the likes of Parsons And Naylor's Pull-Out Sections and Scrooby Trevithick]. Any plans to do another?

I've just been busy with other stuff, but no, I would very much like to do more, and there's a little bit of this year's tour that just nudges in that direction... so we'll see how that develops.

In terms of direction: this tour finishes, the DVD comes out at Christmas, and hopefully the plan is to sneak off and have a little bit of a holiday, and then come back and refreshed in the new year and go 'what's next, what do you fancy next?'

I won't be touring next year. Obviously there will be a new show to write, but also opportunities to get a bit of time doing other stuff.

Do you get recognised / bothered by fans on holiday?

It all depends where you are. Generally I'd say 95% of interaction is a good thing and enjoyable, but there are obviously times when it would nice to be anonymous and those times you are hoping you're with friends who will do a certain amount of 'liaison' on your behalf.

Back to your tour... who books your dates? We're curious, because we spot Much Wenlock on the list... Isn't that in the middle of nowhere?

Usually at the end of each tour, they go 'is there any you don't want to play?'... and I say something like 'well, I'm not sure going all the way to the Isle Of Skye for a room above a pub is in my best interests', or whatever it might be, but generally you go 'that's great, lovely, blah de blah'...

I think there was a gap between two dates, and Much Wenlock was available. The people who put your tour together like to give you one or two new ones just to see what the venue is like, just to give them a bit of feedback.

In some ways it's exciting, I've never been to Much Wenlock and it is the home of the original invention of the modern Olympic Games I believe. It could be very exciting.

When you visit a, er, 'out the way' venue do you find you get a different reaction?

When people are spoilt for choice [in a city] then there's a certain, um... For example, at the Edinburgh Festival if people have seen 10 shows, by the time they've come to see you on the 11th, they're not quite so up for it as someone who has been looking forward to your show for six months. If the anticipation for the one show has been fantastic, then the reaction is slightly different.

Andy Parsons is touring until the 15th November 2013. To see a list of dates (including the now over-hyped Much Wenlock show) visit www.andyparsons.co.uk