Laughing is enough _{by Madelaine Empson}

“John Bishop has taken on the mantle of Britain’s top comic”, writes Daily Mirror. Born in Liverpool, the superstar – who describes himself as simply a comedian, husband, dad, and animal lover – came to the artform later in life and now celebrates a quarter of a century on the rollercoaster. Through tears of laughter (mine), we looked back on how it all began and revisited the career highlights of “the hottest stand-up going” (The Daily Telegraph), who has achieved global success on the stage and screen with a number of sold-out international tours, comedy, documentary, and entertainment TV shows, including Doctor Who, The John Bishop Show, and four series of the critically acclaimed John Bishop: In Conversation With… A film about his life, starring Bradley Cooper, Will Arnett, and Laura Dern, is coming out next year. But first, his 10^th stand-up tour will reach Michael Fowler Centre on Sunday the 23^rd of November.

I have to warn you, we’re at my house so my cat is almost 100 percent likely to interrupt this Zoom call. Are you a cat fan?

No problem – a cat is probably the only animal we don’t have and have never had.

Really! They’re so low maintenance…

That might be the reason. Everything else is high maintenance.

That’s what you prefer?

It’s not what I prefer, it’s what I’ve got [laughs]. My wife rescues animals, so over the last few years we’ve had a whole menagerie. We’ve got stables and did think about getting a stable cat who could deal with all the mice. 

Wow, so your house must be a veritable zoo. This isn’t how I intended to start the interview, by the way! But I’m loving it.

Yes, have we started the interview! [Laughs] I’ll tell you anyway. We’ve got two donkeys, three horses, two Shetland ponies, 12 chickens, two ducks, six sheep, six pigs, two dogs, no cats.

Wild. I hope that a donkey interrupts our Zoom call because that’d be a story and a half.

It would be a hell of a story coz I’m in a hotel room in Cardiff. That’s one of the things that eventually gets you cancelled.

Oh boy! Okay now that I’ve caught my breath [I was laughing too hard], let’s start with your very first gig. 2^nd of October 2000, the Frog & Bucket Comedy Club, Manchester. What got you up on stage?

What got me up there was that I didn’t want to pay to get in. Literally, it was four pounds unless you put your name down. I wasn’t really interested in stand-up comedy, I was just looking for somewhere to go to stop being miserable, because I’d split up with my wife and didn’t have the kids and didn’t want to be in the house on my own. That was it. It came, literally, from that. It’s bizarre, even as I say that story. Your memories over time get filtered by the circumstances that you’re in, but it’s so clear to me when I stood there. I remember walking up the road and there’s a junction – you can go one way and you’ll end up at this comedy club, or another way and there used to be a music bar in the middle of Manchester. And I was literally thinking to myself, will I listen to comedy or will I listen to music? Often I’ll say I could’ve been in a band instead. I could’ve ended up in Oasis [laughs] but I ended up a comedian.

I was going to ask what was it about comedy that hooked you – was it a bit of a respite, the whirlwind that ensued?

Yeah. And I think the thing is with comedy, it’s the most instant form of communication that there is. It’s instinctive. You stop talking, and the audience laughs or they don’t laugh. Nobody thinks about laughing and then comes back the next day and goes ‘Well actually, that was funny’. You say the last word of the sentence and you’re judged on it. That’s why it’s a meritocracy, that’s why when somebody new comes into comedy and they’re good at it, the comedy community – certainly in the UK and I’m sure it’s the same in New Zealand – recognises that somebody’s good and tells you. So you get absorbed into this community, you get supported to move, because people go, ‘You’re good at this’. And it’s not just an opinion – when you walk on the stage, it’s obvious. I think that was a real attraction to me, the fact that I could get positive feedback instantly if I said something funny. And that’s really also the addictive side of it.

That buzz of making people laugh – laughter is joy, isn’t it?

It is! And often I’ll get asked, do you want to put a message in your comedy, do you want to talk about politics (because that’s what I did my degree in), and I just think, no – laughing is enough. Taking people out of the world that they’re in at the moment when there’s so much negativity flying around and so many burdens placed on people because you’re carrying a phone round that’s constantly telling you about all the disasters going on – it can feel onerous sometimes just to be awake. Whereas if you go into a comedy venue, whether it’s a small club or a big arena, and you’re sat with people you don’t know and you’re all laughing at the same time, it’s incredibly unifying.

What were your experiences of Wellington when you performed here last year?

I loved it. It was raining – I don’t know why that surprised me, but it did! I remember coming into the airport along the bay; it’s beautiful, striking. Wellington was one of my favourites on the tour. Such a great venue and audience.

I’m doing this tour because it felt last year when I came over I just didn’t do enough; it ticked around too quick. It felt like there was more oxygen in the tank. Also it’s a whole different show. This tour is celebrating 25 years since I started in stand-up comedy.

What moments most jump out at you looking back over those 25 years?

There’s loads of individual moments: there’s the moment you get your first gig, there’s an obvious moment when my ex-wife came to see me in a show unexpectedly – that’s a whole other story but it led to us getting back together. There’s been some brilliant things. But I remember what really struck me, the first one-man show I did at the Royal Albert Hall in London. It was in the middle of my career building, things were going very well, and we’re doing all these big arenas in the UK, and then there’s this iconic venue. I hadn’t really paid attention, it’s just another venue on the tour, and I got to it and then I’m backstage and I’m walking through the Albert Hall and I’m seeing photographs of Frank Sinatra and people who have played there. The dressing room is literally just behind the stage and I remember sitting with my wife and my agent Lisa and thinking, I can’t believe I’m doing this. At the top of the Royal Albert Hall you can have people standing when there’s no more seats, and you can see the silhouettes of the people standing and it’s a bit like the colosseum. I remember walking onto the stage and before I spoke – it felt to me like it was five minutes, it could’ve been 15 seconds – I just went… oh. Oh my god. I just looked. This is unbelievable. That will live with me forever.