Sean Morley

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Friday 20th March 2020

As you're probably all-too aware, most British comedians are currently trying to make the world a better place by cancelling their shows. Which is a particular pity in Sean Morley's case, as his latest creation is a thing of typically imaginative wonder that deserves to delight and bewilder audiences across the nation.

Actually his later dates aren't postponed just yet - Alphabetti, Newcastle, you're our only hope - so let's be optimistic and laud that show anyway. We'll leave the title to Sean...

"Soon I Will Be Dead And My Bones Will Be Free To Wreak Havoc Upon The Earth Once More is a show about bones first and foremost. After a childhood growth spurt I got my arms trapped in the wrong holes of my school jumper (right arm in left hole, left arm in right hole) and was trapped like that for an excess of one hour.

"After I was freed, the lack of blood flow to my arms meant I could suddenly see the whites of my bones through my translucent knuckleskin and it allowed me to feel existential horror from an incredibly young age. There is a skeleton inside me. Whatever could it want?"

Thankfully there are recorded bits of Morley to muse on in the meantime. The solo situationist and Glang Show co-founder recently made the world aware of a TV pilot he was part of a few years back, which is as mainstream as you might expect.

He's launching a solo streaming sitcom on Twitch at 1pm on Saturday called, er, King Lear - check the Twitter feed for updates: @seanmorl

And for your aural pleasure, he also has a regular podcast, the politically-leaning Mandatory Redistribution Party, if you're that way inclined.

Now let's get this written-down party started.

First gig?

In my mind I have two first gigs. My actual first stand-up gig was in the protective womb of a student comedy community where I talked a lot about a world in which every time you closed your hands and opened them again they'd be full of earwigs. They were receptive and kind. You couldn't die at that kind of gig.

But my first real gig was at one of Michael 'Spikey' Bottomley's Gong Shows. I talked a lot about fly tipping as though it was like cow tipping but for flies. I didn't do dreadfully, all things considered, but he approached me after the show to recommend I stop dropping out of my material to justify my creative decisions.

I met a comedian at that night called Holly Grainger. She got me my first ever paid gig. One of my last memories of her was us running out of the pub in Blackburn where I'd just done my first paid gig after the landlord forcefully pulled the microphone out of my hand. I think she quit not that long afterwards. I'm sorry Holly. I was doing my best. I still am, in fact.

Favourite show, ever?

It's going to be one of the early Glang Shows. Myself and Sam Nicoresti inviting the audience to make-up our faces with a random collection of cosmetics we'd bought from Boots on the way to the gig and then belting out a full volume karaoke to a midi version Edelweiss set to 70% speed in front of a full-wall projection of an aquarium. No one in the very small audience knew what we were trying to achieve, but those memories have imprinted on my brain forever.

Worst gig?

Don't make me choose!

A benefit for a dying policeman, MC'd by a drag queen who threatened to turn my mic off mid-set if I referenced her existence, where the spotlight couldn't be angled to illuminate anything above my stomach.

A benefit for a dying baby where I was following an Elvis impersonator who was getting physically aggressive with me because I snapped one of his guitar strings when I offered to teach him how to tune it (that was the Blackburn gig again).

A gig in a tent outside a Vimto factory to people who thought I was a musician.

A summer gig at a restaurant in Brussels where the council was working on the sewers outside so every time someone opened the door to the outside it flooded the room with the smell of raw sewage.

The gig where one of the tripod legs of a speaker stand buckled and concussed a woman on the front row with a 100-watt speaker.

The gig where only one person turned up and minutes later threatened to hit me because I was talking to them too much.

These are the gigs who made me who I am today - I regret all of them.

Which one person influenced your comedy life most significantly?

Barnaby J Thompson.

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

Si Hawkins, writer for British Comedy Guide, for encouraging me to burn my bridges in this way. Please let him know what you think on Twitter.

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

I find these ideas hard to remember because they, understandably, don't stick around very long.

And which routine are you most fond of, from your illustrious canon?

I think it has to be me clapping in the audience pretending to be an audience member that's come to see Sean Morley and slowly getting more irate that he hasn't turned up. Sometimes people would quite slowly and deliberately say "But... you're Sean Morley" during this routine in a desperate bid to check they've got a handle on the situation.

Are there particular reviews, heckles or post-gig reactions that stick in the mind?

I flush all negativity from my mind instantly. One thing I do remember is a gig I did as the only comedian in a line-up of musicians. It was a lovely show and the atmos was ideal. The musician following me, GIRL SWEAT, proceeded to incorporate quotes from my set during a 20 minute noise-punk-art routine.

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

So many comedians are very bitter!! You're never finished. The ladder never ends. There's always people higher up than you and always people lower down than you and they're never ever distributed according to your own highly subjective metric of artistic merit.

I spent a while getting scared I'd go that way, I could feel the capacity for it lurking on some dark and mismanaged subcutaneous layer with each kneejerk frustration that someone I thought was a goon was soaring to unimaginable heights, fuelled by genuine sorrow that my idols and heroes and friends be overlooked in the great lottery of our arcane and incoherent industry.

I have since centred all my chakras and feel only pride that I manage to exist at all in an industry so antithetical to human happiness.

For more of Morley, head to seanmorley.co.uk

And his Mandatory Distribution Party podcast is available here