Stuart Laws

When bits of the comedy world won't listen, find other ears to burble gags into - that's the Stuart Laws, er, law. The busy stand-up, sketch artist and bloke behind production company Turtle Canyon Comedy has a lot on his plate with a self-made sitcom and several Edinburgh shows on the go, so we asked him to talk us through them, and Laws-have-mercy he did, kicking off with the most ambitious one:

"Charity Starts At Home is a sitcom that I've worked on for a few years," says Laws, "had loads of meetings about and cast read-throughs and I got to the stage where I thought: 'I run a production company, why don't I just commission it, surely I can get it past myself.' So I did. I got the best cast, shot it over three days, with two cameras so that I could let the cast be a bit freer with their performances and I'm now so proud of it and happy to get it out there."

"For Edinburgh this year I'm doing two shows: a solo stand-up show and a sketch show with Matt Winning and Anne Klein. The solo show is my fourth hour and is called "Stuart Laws: So preoccupied with whether or not he could, he didn't stop to think whether he should (1hr show)", surreal observational comedy. At the moment it seems to be all about the year I spent working at a puffin sanctuary and how people should try to blend in and be as normal as possible."

"The sketch show is called I Am Wario and basically I try to end every single sketch with the same pull-back-and-reveal punchline: that my character was Wario for the whole sketch. Even when it's clear that's not true."

Phew! Right, back to the beginning:

First gig?

September 2006. It was in the corner of an arts cafe in Slough. An open-mic night where an 80 year old man played rhythm guitar for 10 minutes, a 20 year old man read out an offensive poem three times, in different accents, and eleven people, including two of my friends, were in the audience. I was awful, my friends laughed loudly, it kickstarted the horrible addiction. In my first year of performing around half of all my gigs were back at that open mic night.

Favourite show, ever?

Green Man Festival 2015 was pretty special for me. In 2010 I had been booked to do 15 minutes there and my performance came on the back of me having quit performing four times in the past 18 months. I really didn't enjoy doing stand-up because I couldn't make what I wanted to do work. And then I went to Green Man in 2010 and got booed off by an audience of 700 people. Biggest audience I'd played, the biggest failure.

It was pretty horrifying but it did lead to me completely changing my stand up and finding what I wanted to do on stage. Which was a positive, but then, understandably, Henry (the promoter) wouldn't book me again for years and it took numerous friends bullying him until he eventually relented and started allowing me on his bills again. Then, in 2015, I was only doing a week-long run at Edinburgh, so I was free to do Green Man.

August arrived, I was dealing with a pretty godawful year, had an emergency appendectomy, finished my Edinburgh run and then arrived at Green Man to do a 45 minute slot on the Friday night, straight after Sara Pascoe. It went well, me and Henry had a hug, then Rose Johnson let me have some of her cocktail '50/50', which is 20% lemonade, 80% rum.

Worst Gig?

Oh. Yeah. 2010 Green Man.

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

It's an industry filled with people who were never the most popular person in the room who now get to occasionally be the most popular person in the room. It's a headfuck and drives people crazy. So I try to be as nice and straightforward as possible and not get involved in the crazy. I also only do nice gigs, that really helps.

Weirdest gig?

An Australian man wanted to punch me once. The door to the room was right next to the stage and about 20 minutes into the show he just wandered in, hammered and annoyed he'd walked into a room full of people who immediately turned to look at him. He was wearing triple denim as well so looked stunning.

So I talked to him and asked whether he'd just come from a B*Witched cosplay event, he obviously didn't know what I was talking about and was angered by a room of people suddenly laughing at him. He started to yell at me so I tried to calm him down and told him he could always just "Blame It on the Weatherman". The additional laughter provoked him into starting to approach me before venue staff stepped in and started guiding him out, much to his displeasure.

I'm not sure if he heard me turn back to the audience and say "C'est la Vie" but I'm sure he wouldn't have enjoyed it.

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

I don't think any audience not liking a joke of mine is inexplicable, I'm surprised when they do like it.

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

I'm so unqualified to answer this, I've supported James Acaster on tour and spent the majority of the time trying to wind him up by speaking to him as a variety of characters for long tracts of time, then singing the lyrics to Dancing In The Moonlight to any song that came on the radio and then pretending to smoke a cigarette. It passed the time for me but I'm not sure it's good advice.

I've toured my shows a little bit and always have Jay Cowle come along with me. So maybe that's a good tip, make sure you travel with people you like. Doing circuit gigs with people who are bitter and angry about having to do comedy is really not fun.

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

Green Man 2010: "Tell a fucking joke". Edinburgh 2011: a man in a balloon Dalek costume wanders into my show halfway through my set. Edinburgh 2014: me and Matt Winning run a Comedy Roast late night, unadvertised, in the basement of the Banshee Labyrinth (the joke being that each act has to do stand-up and then eat some roast dinner straight after, plus everyone gets hammered) - wake up in the morning to two particular tweets: Best Show Ever and then #GETOFFTHEFRINGE.

I also caused four people to walk out from a show where I was the support act - they hated me so much they couldn't even face waiting around to watch the act they'd paid money to see.
I know a lot of people reading this will be thinking: who is Stuart Laws? And by my own words, I sound like I'm not very good, so it'd probably be a good idea to put in a memorable reaction to my show that shows me in a positive light...

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

Good! Fourth show, I feel very confident in what I do on stage, it's what I want to be doing, it's what I enjoy performing and I'm getting to make lots of great comedy with Turtle Canyon Comedy. I want to keep working with great people and focus on making comedy that is unique and independent. Is that a crime?

Stuart's solo Fringe show "Stuart Laws: So preoccupied with whether or not he could, he didn't stop to think whether he should (1hr show)" is at the Pleasance Below, 6pm, until August 28th. Listing

His sketch show with Matt Winning, "I am Wario", is at Sneaky Pete's, 12.05pm, from August 6-27. Listing

And for the sitcom, head to stuartlaws.com