Interview: Scally Wag
He’s back! Chatting life, laughing and empty nest syndrome – It’s John Bishop: Supersonic
Following last year’s hugely successful sell-out UK arena tour, John Bishop announces that he will be performing his critically acclaimed Supersonic show in a select few venues, in March 2015.
“I’m thrilled to be performing Supersonic again,” John said. “The reaction to last year’s tour was amazing, so I’m really looking forward to getting back on stage. I hope the fans are too!”
The 47-year-old, who has been happily married to Melanie for the past 21 years and is the proud father of three sons, has built up a reputation as perhaps the finest, and the funniest, live comedian currently at work in the UK.
So what is it that makes John such a special stand-up? His act can be summed up by all those adjectives beginning with ‘C’: charismatic, coruscating, compelling, charming and comic. He also possesses that most valuable quality for a stand-up; a rare likability. Audiences simply love being in his company. They feel like they know him and see him as a bloke it would be great to accompany on a night out.
The critics are equally enamoured: The Times comments that “Bishop has funny bones,” The Daily Mirror calls him “a fabulously gifted comedian,” while The Daily Telegraph describes him as “unimprovable … a comedy superstar”.
John was widely praised in 2012 for raising £4.2m for Sport Relief when he heroically cycled, rowed and ran from Paris to London. The stand-up comic is also a talented actor with starring roles in the teen drama Skins, Ken Loach’s movie Route Irish and Jimmy McGovern’s lauded BBC One drama series Accused, but stresses that nothing beats the buzz of performing live comedy. “How can I explain the feeling of doing stand-up? It’s where I feel more comfortable than anywhere else. It just feels such a privilege to be performing in front of an audience. It’s an incredible feeling to bring joy to all those people and so nice to get personal messages from people afterwards. They say things like; ‘We were going through a terrible time, but watching your show gave us a real lift’. That’s very, very gratifying.”
Getting his teeth into the subject, John continues: “The best moments on any tour are those nights when something just pops into your head and comes straight out of your mouth. Everyone’s laughing and I’m laughing as well, as I wasn’t expecting it. I love those moments. When you’re testing out material, beforehand you don’t always know if it’s funny. But once you perform it, you don’t have to do a survey afterwards – you know instantly whether it’s funny or not.”
John never just sits back on his laurels. He is already immensely popular; on his last sell-out Rollercoaster tour in 2012, he played to 500,000 people, and the DVD of the show topped the charts. But he is still always striving to give his fans an even better show. According to the stand-up, “There is always a moment in the run-up to a big tour where I become very critical of myself because I want people to have a great night and get real value for money. That means I have to keep pushing my standards.”
Ever self-effacing, John adds; “You have to avoid getting drawn into the world of showbiz. You have to be careful not to become famous for its own sake. You don’t want people to forget why you’re famous. That’s what’s good about stand-up. You can’t do that. You have to deliver. You can’t just walk on stage and be famous!”
John has a marvellous rapport with his fans – another factor that makes his live shows so memorable. “It’s all positive. The more well-known I am, the more people want to come up and chat. There is no small talk – it’s like I’m in a middle of a conversation with them. It’s surprising how many ask, ‘How are Melanie and the boys?’ I keep thinking, ‘Do I know this person?’ But that’s great because it means people think they know me very well.”
So what themes are tackled in Supersonic? The comic reveals that much of the show focuses on his home life. “This is me getting back to being me. The last tour was about the rollercoaster of becoming famous. But that’s happened now. So these shows are not a list of the things I’ve been doing in ‘celeb-land’. It is about the norms of domestic life. It’s about getting back to the core of what I do.”
One of the topics he will be addressing in Supersonic is “…empty nest syndrome. We’re a hair’s breadth away from it. Two of my boys have already left for university. That has had a massive effect – in a way I didn’t realise until they went. We may be about to encounter the empty nest, but at least it will be cheaper to go on holiday!”
Could he have predicted the level of success he has attained? “I’ll always have the feeling that someone is about to tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘This wasn’t really meant for you’. I’m getting a bit more used to it now, but I’m still waiting for that tap on the shoulder. The moment you think you belong is when you realise that actually everyone else has left you behind.”
“Stand-up to me is essential. I don’t know what I would be if I stopped doing it. Everything else will fall away. TV definitely will because fame is transient, and other people overtake you in the fame stakes. But performing stand-up and making people laugh – whether it’s an arena or a fifty-seater – is something I want to do for as long as I can.”
Details of John Bishop’s Supersonic tour can be found at www.johnbishoponline.com
