My Comedy Career: Nathan Foad

A Q&A with Nathan Foad, who is about to play Costard in the Royal Shakespeare Company's forthcoming production of Love's Labour's Lost.

Tell us what you do in your job.

Hello friends and also enemies. My name is Nathan; I am a comedy writer and sometimes an actor when they let me. I wrote and executive produced a sitcom called Newark, Newark and occasionally I write on other people's TV shows, like Things You Should Have Done, The Young Offenders and Smothered. As an actor I play Lucius in Our Flag Means Death on HBO Max, and I'm currently gearing up to play Costard in the RSC's new production of Love's Labour's Lost. I have more credits but it seems gauche to list them.

How did you first get involved in the comedy industry?

I went to drama school straight out of sixth form and hated the experience, so I started writing comedy and quickly realised that was what I should have been doing all along. When I was 22, I got a job as an in-house joke monkey for a commercial production company. It was actually a great gig and my boss connected me with my first agent. From there I wrote approximately one million sitcom pilots and flogged them around the TV meat market; I performed self-written comedy monologues at scratch nights to single-digit audiences; I even did a bit of ill-advised stand up for a while. Basically I threw a lot of sh*t at the wall and prayed for something to stick.

What key skills do you need to be able to do your job well?

Obsession. Joy. An incredibly thick skin.

What has been your biggest career achievement to date?

I recently ran a writers' room for the first time. I've been in so many rooms as a writer-for-hire, but staffing and running my own room was the most professionally rewarding thing I've ever done. The writers (Jess Bray, Simone Nathan, Shivani Thussu, Adam Drake) were so funny and smart and the best thing I learned was simply to steal all of their perfect ideas. Writing is mostly stealing, okay!!!

And what has been the biggest challenge/disappointment?

Working in television is roughly 10% making stuff and 90% navigating rejection. It can be incredibly demotivating, particularly because so much time gets spent on development. Obviously it never gets less frustrating, but I think the best thing you can do to move forward is to keep making stuff. Create things that excite you. Don't wait for permission; you'll be waiting for an eternity!

Talk us through a typical day.

I'm in my final week of rehearsals for Love's Labour's Lost, so the days consist of running the play, getting notes, ironing out the kinks, etc. I'm also juggling a few different writing commitments, which I work on during lunch breaks, in the evenings and on weekends. It's a very exhausting time (for which I am very grateful no one be mad at me please!!!) and I am achieving a pretty poor work-life balance, but I have spent huge stretches of my career praying to be this employed, so I won't grumble! (Publicly.)

Tell us a trick/secret/resource that you use to make your job quicker/easier.

I write all of my first drafts long hand. Something about an empty Final Draft document sends me in to an absolute pit of despair, whereas a notebook and pen is very wistful and romantic to me. I once said to my boyfriend "This makes me feel like Emily Dickinson!" and then immediately googled Emily Dickinson because I was worried I'd made her up.

How are you paid?

I mainly make money from script commissions (and the American TV show I was in for a few years). I'm developing an adult animation for Netflix, which is currently my biggest source of writing income. Writers get paid in fits and starts, which can be very destabilising and prohibitive. I'd love to come up with a pithy solution to that problem, but I am just a boy.

If you could change one thing about the comedy industry, what would it be?

More jokes. More Actual Proper Funny Jokes. I enjoy dramedy as much as the next guy, but I wish there was more room in the British TV landscape for sharp weird gag-driven sitcoms.

What tips would you give for anyone looking to work in your area of the industry?

I'm repeating myself, but make stuff. Use the resources available to you, even if that's just an iPhone and your own flat. Collaborate with people; make shit stuff; don't be precious. Trust me, I know how many barriers to entry there are in this industry, but the only way you'll knock them down is by being dogged and productive. Also, don't worry about being cool. Just worry about being good - and not a twat, ideally.

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