Stephen K Amos interview
Stephen K Amos talks to Latest 7 about his latest stand-up tour, as well as the odd archbishop, homophobia, and a fear of the sea
The title of Stephen K Amos’ new show, The Spokesman, is highly ironic. Among the things that the globally successful London comic would least like to be, a spokesperson is right up there. “I couldn’t be a spokesperson or a role model; people are often saying to me, do this and do that. And I say no, I have my own issues and if I can’t be 100 per cent certain about what I’m saying, I’m not going to speak up about it.”
In the show, Amos cites the case of Keith O’Brien, the former Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, who resigned his position in early 2013 when a series of allegations were made about improper conduct. “He was very vocal and had very hideous views about abortion and homosexuality so when it came out that he was dabbling, well, it was a prime example of double standards.”
Amos knows what it’s like to be asked for his views on social matters especially after he made a film for Channel 4 in 2007 which later went on to win a Royal Television Society Award. “I did a documentary called Batty Man, because I knew someone who had been killed in a homophobic attack. That was my impetus to speak out but I was then asked to appear on all these programmes, current affairs shows and Newsnight and so on, and be a spokesperson. Well, I said no; there’s more to me than that and I don’t want to be defined as a black gay comic. I don’t want to see that in the press; my stuff is much more than just being black and gay. It doesn’t define me; we are all very different and there’s a myriad of people in the gay world.”
If you are after a definition of Stephen K Amos, you can arrive fairly quickly at a comedian who is at ease on his stage and very comfortable with an audience. Which is just as well, as his shows wouldn’t be the same without lengthy periods of crowd interaction. “I never want an audience to feel that I’m going through the motions; there has to be something about every show that makes them know that this is all in the moment. At the end of The Spokesman, I get someone up on stage to read out a statement on my behalf; normally I get a girl because boys try too hard to make it funny and a bit silly, but the girls just read it straight and that makes it more funny.”
Having initially performed the show in Australia during the first half of 2013 before giving it a run-out in the UK with some work-in-progress dates at the Edinburgh Fringe, Amos knows what will and won’t be staying in as he takes it on the road. One section that definitely will remain is a bit on phobias.
“The fears and phobias we get are not something we’re born with. It’s a trigger or something that happens that affects you; if you had it as a child, then you might be affected forever. I can’t swim, and the idea of going into the ocean fills me with dread. As an adult now I just can’t overcome that. And then there’s a fear of heights. When you’re a kid, you’re climbing up on everything and nothing is off-limits until adults say, ‘don’t do that’, ‘don’t go there’ ‘that’s dangerous’. I try to find ways of overcoming these fears but I haven’t found any. One thing I would say is don’t try skydiving while drunk.”
Of course, given Amos’ love of bantering with his audience, he has managed to tease out some particular fears from his various crowds. “Someone said grabbing their own throat. Another said holes that were too close together. Because my show is inclusive, people will say such funny things.”
While he admits that touring can be a tough old slog (“it’s one night here, then one night there: the travel is a killer but the gigs are just terrific”), he is not alone among the comedy fraternity in believing that he has landed the best job in the world. “I don’t know of any other line of work where you can go up before a captive audience and say what your perception is on absolutely anything at all. If you work for a TV channel, you have to toe a certain line; not with this.”
Amos has worked successfully for a TV channel, with The Stephen K Amos Show, a sketch and stand-up affair which gained a hefty number of viewers for its one and only series in 2010. “When I did the BBC show we should have got two series written into the contract. We got a million viewers so it wasn’t a failure in terms of numbers. Live At The Apollo and Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow get the same figures, so it’s a bit of a mystery why we couldn’t do more.”
More TV work will surely lie ahead of him but for now, Amos is gathering up plenty of other work on radio. “I’m doing Life: An Idiot’s Guide and a sitcom written by Jonathan Harvey [Gimme Gimme Gimme] called What Does The K Stand For?; I write the top and tail of the show and he writes the body, and he is very amusing. I didn’t do radio before TV; people will usually do it the other way round, but you have to learn a lot to make it work.”
Another avenue, which has proved a rich vein for Amos in the past, is in the world of acting. The Edinburgh Fringe has long been a showcase for plays based on popular films with a cast largely comprising stand-up comedians. Amos previously appeared in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Talk Radio. “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest was a runaway success in Edinburgh and they asked me to do London and I said no, because I didn’t want to spend six months saying someone else’s words. But in the end I agreed to do it, and I took to it like a duck to the water. For opening night, I said to all my friends, ‘can you send me lots of flowers backstage so that I get more than Frances Barber?’”
He hopes to pursue his acting ambitions further in 2014. “I’m going to be in America for three months and I’ll put some feelers out for a bit of acting while I’m there. My book, I Used To Say My Mother Was Shirley Bassey, is still out and it’s very funny. Let’s just say that I’m not going away.”
Stephen K Amos: The Spokesman, Theatre Royal Brighton, Sunday 16 February 2014, £23.90–£38.90, 0844 871 7650, www.atgtickets.com/venues/theatre-royal-brighton
