Chris Purchase

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Thursday 2nd February 2017

If you're in Leicester during the big, impressive Leicester Comedy Festival this month, can we suggest a purchase? Chris Purchase that is, who's performing his new hour, Distracted, which sounds terrifically timely.

"I wanted a show that was about finding the funny in the darkest stuff," he says. "There's jokes about North Korea, terrorism, racism, custody battles, adoption and my parents' sex tape. Basically anything that needs to be mocked in order to take the power out of it. Everyone's so distracted by fear, I'm showing them there's nothing to be scared of. Except nuclear war and the inevitable crushing debt of modern life."

Right. Purchase personally is actually quite optimistic right now (which is a shame, as 'pessimistic' would've been way better for our alliteration there), as he's a semi-finalist in an "international comedy shots competition, one of 60 comedians from around the world to be given the chance to go play a full weekend at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles. It's pretty exciting."

Meanwhile, he's working on two high-concept podcasts, apparently: Gods And Sods, which is Purchase interviewing mythical figures about their thoughts on modern events ("the first episode has me talking to Zeus about his view of modern dating"), and Agenda Reassignment "where every episode we take one political party's new policy, push it to the extreme and catch up with it 30 years into the future. The first episode, The Wall, is about Trump's wall and how it backfires."

But now, some events from the past.

First gig?

It was August 2009. I was a radio presenter on a local Milton Keynes station doing a Sunday morning sketch comedy show. Me and my co-host were asked by another show's presenter if we'd like to try stand-up at a charity comedy show.

There was supposed to be us and two pro comics plus the MC. We didn't know any better so we wrote 20 minute sets each and memorised them then three days before we found out that the two comics and MC had dropped out but we'd sold 100 tickets.

We wrote another 20 minutes each and ended up performing for 40 minutes each on the night. It was better than it should have been and we raised £400 for Cancer Research but looking back it was crazy. 40 minutes for a first gig is insane.

Favourite show, ever?

Last March I performed my first solo show in a theatre. I hadn't ever done a show completely on my own before and had weeks of nerves and panic. Then on the night it went so well, people had come from around the country to support me and at the end someone came up to me to tell me I'd made a difference to them, the things I was talking about were important to them and they'd felt better for hearing me talk about them. It really stayed with me, made me realise I was better than I thought I was.

Worst gig

There's a few that come to mind. I did a run with a couple of friends for a promoter in the Midlands. The first had zero audience, the second had 12 who thought they were seeing Lee Evans, and finally the last was in an EDL pub where a guy got his penis out and waved it at an act then tried to punch another act.

There was a corporate where there was no mic, lights and it started three hours late with everyone so drunk they couldn't understand. Just before I went on stage the guy who'd hired me said "You can do darker stuff, we've got a Paki and a chocolate drop in but they'll love it". I did my 20 minutes and left straight away.

Who's the most disagreeable person you've come across in the business?

Ha ha, there's been a bunch. One comic called the [promoters of the] gigs I was doing in the future to say I was rubbish and he'd do the slots for cheaper than me. As for promoters, the worst ones haven't stuck around: the guy who booked those horrendous gigs also stole material and was caught doing it.

The weirdest gig?

I showed up at a gig in Birmingham to find that it was three comics and two burlesque dancers. The audience were just dudes and the comics were on between the dancers. The audience were disappointed that comedians were getting between them and the dancers.

Is there one routine/gag you loved, that audiences inexplicably didn't?

Yeah loads! I have one about how the new Ghostbusters wasn't filmed in China because it would have been 90 minutes of Bill Murray crying while he busted aborted girl foetuses; that one split the room every time. I know why, but still I loved doing the mime of Bill crying.

What's your best insider travel tip, for touring comics?

Always add 30 minutes to your journey for every hour you'll be travelling. So if your journey is two hours leave three hours before the show, it's better to be there much earlier writing out your set than it is to be half an hour later because you got stuck in traffic.

Also take 20 minute power naps if you're doing a long drive back, pull into a service station, lock all the doors and set an alarm for 20 minutes. My first week of being full time I stopped at South Mimms to do this and woke up because a fox was eating a burger out of the bin next to my car. Showbiz!

The most memorable review, heckle or post-gig reaction?

Last November myself and another comic, Simon King, hired out the Manchester Comedy Store to do a two-hander called Dark Times. It was a big risk as the material was going to be about topical stuff and taboo subjects (not racist or sexist or anything bigoted), we managed to pull it off and this is the review I got

That's my best review. Also after a show at The Stand in Newcastle a guy came up to me and said that my bit about the custody battle for my daughters had really moved him and made him realise it's ok to talk about, he was going through a battle to see his own daughter and he was in tears talking about it. We ended up getting drunk on whisky while talking about being dads. That's the thing I live for, to see the material I'm doing making a difference.

How do you feel about where your career is at, right now?

I'm happy with it. I have a lot of projects I'm working on, run some great shows, been nominated for What's On best comedian 2017 plus the LA thing, so I feel like I'm at a place where things are all falling together. I found my voice about 18 months ago and it's made writing so much easier, now everything comes out consistently and I know what I'm saying with it all. I'm already writing my next hour and it looks like there's some massive stuff on the horizon, it's the greatest job in the world.

Comedians are the outcasts, we're those people that look at society and go "this is hilarious, see how it's funny?" we hold up a mirror and show people a different perspective to things. That's important for an artist, I feel like I'm finally doing that.