AS multi award winning comedian, John Robins, sets off to tour his new stand-up show – Howl – the Coventry Observer had the chance to put some questions to the man himself.
John says his latest show ‘isn’t about mental health, it is mental health’ and is partly born out of a roadtrip he took around the UK in a Kia Sportage.
John said: “This show won’t end with something glib and preachy. Nor anything particularly uplifting. Nothing will be set to music. There will be both bangs and whimpers, it will end on a good old-fashioned laugh. That’s my motto.”
The Howl tour kicked off in Norwich on September 14, lands in Birmingham’s Town Hall on October 28, arrives in Coventry’s Warwick Arts Centre on November 18 and concludes with a show at London’s Eventim Apollo on December 1.
Here’s our Q&A with John on what to expect from his upcoming tour, including inspirations, his favourite places to visit, how comedy started for him, his relationship with alcohol and sobriety and more.
Four years since your last tour, what are your feelings leading up to Howl?
I’ve just come back from doing 44 shows at The Edinburgh Fringe which will combine into the tour show. It was very intense, but there’s nowhere else you can put yourself under such pressure and scrutiny, and it forces you to get the work done! Feelings wise I move between serene and insane from hour to hour. But I’m much better at staying in the moment than I used to be, accepting feelings on their own terms, and not extrapolating them into judgements about my life or personality or success or failure or anything like that.
You touch upon the show ‘being mental health’. You must deal with a lot of pressure because of your career as well as the same daily stresses as everyone else, how has your mental health shaped you and what was the inspiration for making mental health such an integral part of your new show and shows prior?
Well I guess over the last ten years what interests me is how can I make comedy from my lowest or most embarrassing moments. I like trying to communicate how my brain works, insecurities and anxieties. Recently I’ve been on kind of a crazy journey into sobriety which is all about understanding what alcohol did to me and for me. Living without alcohol is basically like learning how to feel again, in a healthy way, so that’s a hefty bunch of ideas to communicate to an audience. But I enjoy the challenge of connecting with audiences telling stories that are quite specific to me.
When you’re on an intense tour such as this one, do you have chance to see much of the different cities/towns you’re visiting? Name the best cities/places you’ve visited and which has exceeded your expectations the most.
In the past the only places I saw on tour were pubs I would obsess about going to after the show. Edinburgh, Nottingham, Leeds and Bristol are all great pub cities. So I’d look forward to those. I think understanding the history of places gives you better perspective on their superficial appearance. I went to see the singer Bonnie Prince Billy at St John’s Church in Coventry, and taking a walk down Spon Street I was struck by how beautiful Coventry must have been before the Second World War, in a sense the perceived ugliness of the city’s architecture is part of the sacrifice that the area, and the people of Coventry, made for the rest of the country.
Have you been to Coventry before? If no, do you know much about the place and are you excited? If yes, did you learn much about the place and did you enjoy it? Will you be sporting your birthday suit in honour of the city’s unofficial heroin, Lady Godiva.
One of my mum’s best friends (also called John), was evacuated from Coventry at the start of the war. He’s 94 now and as a child I would hear stories about Coventry. But aside from that music gig I haven’t been before, save performances at Warwick Arts Centre. Whilst my performances have sometimes been called “raw” or “uninhibited”, I think performing naked might be a step too far, and the refunds would take so long to process.
You’ve been on almost every comedy based tv chat/panel show worth watching so it’s safe to say you’ve made quite the career of comedy(Not to mention your awards and sold out tours), but where did it all start for you? We want to hear the stories of gigs in old pubs that smell like years of stale beer spilt on carpets or maybe you landed straight on the Live at the Apollo stage.
No my first gig was in the back room of a pub called The Hatchet in Bristol. It dates from 1606 and was always a goth / metal pub, which meant gentle people who looked dangerous, a far better combo than dangerous people who looked gentle. There’s a rumour that the large oak door is upholstered in human skin, but that can’t be true? Can it?
Can you dive a bit deeper into the Kia Sportage road trip for us? What inspired it and how did it help inspire your new show?
So I drove around The British Isles for a holiday and decided to get a couple of podcasts out of me talking to myself in the car. The end result is very funny, at times a bit poignant. But the truth was I was drinking way too much and going a bit mad. I kept that out of the recordings but that’s the side of it I talk about in the show. And the reverse parking cameras of course.
What different skills do you use in radio compared to in your comedy? Where do all of the skills overlap and how do the two mediums differ in terms of challenges faced and satisfaction when you complete a project?
It’s the same skill in some senses, but on the radio it’s all improvised. I like to improvise at comedy clubs when I’m trying out new material, or compering an evening. But there comes a point where you have to finalise it and nail your colours to the mast. That’s what the tour is for really. Also you can’t swear on the radio, even after 9pm, which I’ve never really understood the reasoning behind!
What would you regard as the highlight of your career or your fondest memory during your years of radio and comedy? Any regrets? And any advice on mindset and work ethic for achieving goals, whether it be in comedy or anything?
Winning the Edinburgh Comedy Award was a huge highlight. As was playing The Apollo in London. It really felt like the culmination of twelve years proper graft. But really the secret is that the act of creating something is the beginning and the end really. If you don’t enjoy being creative for the sake of creating things then you won’t enjoy doing it for a living. There’s something magic about making something that didn’t exist before, whether it’s a comedy show, or a table or a painting or an article. If you need more from the universe than the power of that simple act, then you’re going to spend a long time being frustrated and resentful.
Often achievements come with the support of people behind the scenes, who do you have to thank for supporting you through your career. Family, friends, colleagues?
Oh it would be an enormous list, way too long to print here. Every show whether it’s radio or comedy has hoards of people working far harder than me, for longer hours than me and with more expertise than me. Our producers on the 5Live show and podcasts I do create the majority of what sounds good. They cut out the stumbles and blips and bits that don’t go anywhere.
Is there anything you’d like to say to your fans who’ve supported you, watched you on tele, bought tickets to your tours, listened to your radio shows religiously?
Huge apologies if it all comes crumbling down before your eyes, but rest assured I’ll give it my absolute best.
If you had to choose a line-up of comedians to come on tour with you or for a special one night only all-star comedy show, alive or dead who would you pick?
Daniel Kitson, Nina Conti, Lou Sanders, John Kearns, Bridget Christie and Tim Key. Now that would be a f*cking good bill.
Over John’s career he has won the Edinburgh Comedy Award (formerly The Perrier Award) in 2017 and the Gold Aria Awards (Formerly The Sony Awards) for his BCC Radio 5 Live Show.
He has completed two sold out national tours: The Darkness of Robins and Hot Shame and appeared on Live at the Apollo (BBC Two), Celebrity Mastermind (BBC One), Live from the BBC (BBC Two), Mock the Week (BBC Two), 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown (Channel 4), Alan Davies: As Yet Untitled (Dave), and Stand Up Central (Comedy Central).
