Jon Richardson interview

Jon Richardson – star of 8 Out Of 10 Cats and so much more – is coming to Brighton as a part of the Brighton Comedy Festival. Victoria Nangle had a word with him ahead of this weekend’s show to find out more.

Your show is called ‘The Greatest Hits So Far’. What were your three biggest ambitions as a kid?
To put on weight, to be able to drink alcohol and to play for Leeds United.

What are your current three biggest ambitions?
To lose weight, stop drinking so much and to play for Leeds United.

I know it was a while ago but I miss your podcasts. With so many being released these days, do you think it’s a medium you’ll ever return to?
I’d love to make some more podcasts and to do another radio show, but it’s the sort of thing you have to be asked to do. There’s an element of madness to recording your opinions unrequested and releasing them to the world with the assumption that anyone cares. I stopped making my own radio shows when I was ten, though this was less because I realised the vanity of it and the lack of artistic merit to my work and more because we moved house and I was too far away from my friend Lee and his tape recorder.

Little things seem to niggle you, which you exposed even more in your BBC documentary investigating OCD. What was the last thing to rile you that no one else seemed to notice?
I’m trying very hard not to live like this any more; once you start letting some things go it becomes a lot easier to do it again and again… That said, if I never hear another continuity announcer on BBC3 it won’t bother me one iota. If I gave a toss what a total stranger thought about “what’s coming up” or what they did at the weekend I would turn my TV off and go and bother someone in the street.

What last made you laugh in a totally undignified way?
I never lose dignity. Ever.

Do you enjoy gigging in Brighton?
I enjoy everything about Brighton. Getting paid to spend weekends there working at the Komedia was how I first learned how ridiculously unfair it is that I get to do what I do. To think I spent hours toiling in kitchens and driving to sales jobs I hated when I could have been spending twenty minutes talking about myself then getting drunk with cool people in a fantastic place.

If people were to bring you, say (nonchalantly), some kind of treat to leave on the side of the stage… what would you prefer them to be? ie posh chocs, Top Trumps, flatscreen TV?
Answering this question would count as ‘incitement to cause people to put me in a very awkward position’. I don’t deal well with compliments or gifts. If people have paid for a ticket to my show all I ask is that they laugh as much as possible. Within reason. I mean don’t be a dick about it.

Has a fan ever given you anything really bizarre?
Most of the things I have been sent are the sort of things you would give to a bed-wetting child. Nightlights, teddy bears, sweets. I’m due a pack of adult Pampers and then I can think about going to bed with the light off once and for all.

What are your plans for the rest of today?
I’ll be preparing for Room 101 and 8 out of 10 Cats, both of which I record this week. It’s not difficult listing things I hate but I’ve been out of the country for 2 weeks recording a show in the US so I need to remind myself of the news. Apart from that I’m going to make a huge bean and lentil broth. Huge! After this I will be known as Big Broth-er. Then I can truly feel comfortable in Room 101.

Jon Richardson: The Greatest Hits So Far Tour, Concert Hall, Brighton Dome, 8pm, Sunday 7 October 2012, £17.50, www.brightoncomedyfestival.com