Richard Gadd interview

The label 'troubled comedian' has started following character comic Richard Gadd around. We find out more below...

Hi Richard. What is your latest show, 'Breaking Gadd', about?

Breaking Gadd tells us the story of a man trying to piece back together his life after being attacked in a street by an unknown assailant. Nobody came to his bedside in hospital and so he knows nothing about his past or family, and is left to piece everything back together using hypnotherapy. He eventually concludes that his life sucked and he was probably better off not remember it in the first place.

It's like a low-budget, comedy Memento, only more depressing, with a less attractive lead. Oh, and there's mattress related jokes and gags thrown in. There's a quite a lot going on. But it does make sense. Honest...

Do you like comedy?

I have a love/hate relationship with comedy. I sort of enjoy the self-harm of it all. The blood-from-a-stone creative process - particularly when it comes to writing full hour shows - can sometimes be challenging and unenjoyable, but that is just the natural and necessary pain you need to go through to produce something good. The moments when you go through all of that and finally work a routine up to a point where you are proud of it, and the audience are laughing, then there are big, unparalleled moments of satisfaction where you think "yeah, okay, I enjoy this..."

That being said, there are also those moments where you self-lacerate on stage, or eat entire wedding cakes and do the really surreal shit and the audience stares blankly back at you in silence, when you think to yourself, "What the fuck am I doing with my life?! Really?! Am I going to be doing this when I'm forty...?!". But the feeling you get when it goes really well or somebody comes up to you after the gig who seems touched or affected by what you have done - that is enough to make all the doubts and neurosis go away. That's a priceless feeling.

So yes, I like comedy. In the same way a prostitute enjoys money but hates the sex they have to go through to get to it. That's probably too coarse an analogy...

Ha. Are you an anti-comedian?

I'm really not sure what that phrase really means any more. What is anti-comedy? I think when I got into the scene five years ago, there was a real sense of what 'anti-comedy' was with the likes of Tony Law and Sam Simmons making waves and subverting the norm. But times have evolved now and everyone is doing weird shit - to the point where it has almost become the comedy norm.

Back when I first started on the scene playing the guise of a "terrible comedian" who came out and rattled off terrible joke after terrible joke from a notepad in his pocket I'm sure I was considered original to some degree. I reckon if did that routine on the circuit now, I would be considered old hat. Comedy moves at an alarming pace. Honestly, look at the Chortle Student Comedy Awards these days, it's almost like they've unlocked the doors to an insane asylum and let them run loose on the audience for three hours. It's fucking mental!

There's no rhyme or reason to it any more, it's just how it is. Boundaries keep on getting broken and pushed, broken and pushed. You have just got to keep evolving with the times. Anti-comedy just means being progressive - giving the audience something that feels new and ground-breaking.

The label itself is so overused that I do not know where it starts or begins any more. There's always vague connotations of pretentiousness and intellectual superiority that comes with it too, which I have never liked. It's like the comedy term for 'hipster'. So no, I'm not an anti-comedian. Just an experimental one.

Are you as dark and dangerous as you suggest in your shows? More dark or more dangerous?

No, not really. But, at the same time, yes. It has been said a million times before but comedians are troubled souls. Something must be wrong with you to need this kind of attention.

It's not a bad thing. If anything it is a good thing. I definitely take solace in art. I take pleasure in going to those dark places that are often a little bit troubling for those watching. But there's always a release there. Art offers comfort for audience in places where they struggle to find comfort in real life - not to be pretentious about it or anything, it is just the way it is. It the same for the performer and I am sure it is why a lot of comedians do comedy: to embrace certain sides of them they have struggled to accept themselves.

Airing your dirty laundry to an audience of smiling faces can sometimes give you validation that it is okay to feel depressed, manic, confused, angry, and everything in between. So no, not dark and dangerous. Merely human.

Your material often goes into odd and unexpected places. What's your writing process?

My writing process is extremely boring. I'm constantly trying to come up with new ways to make the writing process easier and more interesting, but I have not managed to yet. I will go for a walk in the park in a bid to find inspiration, then get annoyed when it doesn't come, thinking, "I could be sitting at a desk right now!"

My process is to leave it till the last minute then sweat, slave, and hammer away at a computer until something comes out, and regret not doing it sooner. I wish I could be one of these comedians that can pull something out of thin air, but I am not one of those. I work hard at it.

I sit down and I stare at the wall until something vaguely entertaining comes into my head and I work at it until it becomes funny. Which takes ages because I am almost pathologically convinced that nothing I ever write is in the slightest bit funny, and so I spend hours and hours on a joke or a story that was probably passable a good while before. Even a tweet I am known for spending ages on - obsessing over what word works better in what place and so on. It's all very all-consuming and weird and relentless. I'm pretty sure a similar situation led to Van Gogh cutting off his ear...

Do you think you have more 'insanity' to mine for new shows?

I'm absolutely sure I do. My process is just to write about the themes in my life. Cheese & Crack Whores [his last Soho Theatre show] for example was very autobiographical, exposing my horrific break-up and relentless unemployment for all to see, and this next show contains many elements of autobiography too. So when it comes to the point where I need to sit down and write a new one, I'll just take a look at my life and figure out what else I can eke out and exaggerate for comic affect.

Anything is funny, really, as long as you care about it enough to make the audience care about it too. I just feel the most important part is staying true to your life and voice and not trying to look anywhere other than yourself and how you work for most of your inspiration. I often feel the best comedy is the most truthful, honest comedy, rather than the character acts and the one-liners and the observations. I often feel that leaves the audience with the most satisfaction, even if it is harder to do. So as long as I continue to have a vaguely interesting and troubled life, I am sure a show will come.

The plan is right now is to do a third instalment at next year's Fringe, following on from my recent two. Then that's a trilogy of shows in a similar multi-media, psychologically disturbing vein. Then it will be probably be time to do something different!

Before that, what's next for you?

Arguing with my family over Christmas dinner.

'Richard Gadd: Breaking Gadd' is at the Soho Theatre Wed 3rd - Sat 6th, Wed 10th - Sat 13th, Wed 17th - Sat 20th at 10pm. Tickets here