Russell Howard interview: “It’s been so long since I performed I forgot I was famous”

The comedian has some adjusting to do after 18 months of making tea for his wife, but he’s not been idle
Russell Howard
Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures Ltd
Bruce Dessau23 July 2021

Russell Howard had a shock when he went to watch a Euros match in a pub with his friends recently. He expected everyone to be watching England’s performance. Instead everyone was watching him and chanting “Russell, Russell, sing us a song”. His mates found it hilarious, but the 41-year-old superstar stand-up was dumbfounded.“I’d forgotten I was famous.”

Which was understandable because Howard had hardly been socialising during the pandemic. “I’d spent nearly two years feeding the dog and making my wife tea.” But he had certainly been active. Having suspended the global tour of his latest show Respite, he did a quick turnaround lockdown series for Sky, Russell Howard’s Home Time, and any gigs he could bag. “In car parks, lay bys, in the woods. If your gags can work there they can work anywhere…”

And when New Zealand and Australia re-opened he toured there. After two weeks of strict hotel quarantine – the Kafkaesque prize during a quiz for residents was extra accommodation – he played to packed houses, updating the show as he went so that by the time Respite reaches London this summer it will be a mix of the 2019 iteration and deft Covid observations.

“It’s all in the sausage maker,” is the way Howard describes his creative process. Nothing funny is wasted. If it doesn’t fit into the stage set it may well pop up in his Sky One series, The Russell Howard Hour, which returns this autumn.

I last interviewed Howard in 2017 and post-Brexit he felt the country was already sliding off track. But nobody could have predicted what happened next. “Back then we thought Corona was a beer,” he chuckles as we share a bottle of sparkling water in a quiet Primrose Hill pub near to his home.

It has been a disconcerting period for someone who is usually so good at finding life’s positives. He spent the first lockdown back in his childhood bedroom in Bristol so that his wife Cerys, a geriatric doctor, could be safer in their London home. “Time has never felt more elastic. It seemed to go very fast then very slow. It was a peculiar blend of inertia and rapidity. Two weeks in quarantine in New Zealand felt like three years.”

Having seen how both the UK and New Zealand dealt with the pandemic he has strong feelings about which method worked best. “I remember talking to Prime Minister Jacinda Arden’s partner Clarke Gayford. They looked at statistics and shut down harder.”

While he sings the praises of the vaccine rollout, he is less impressed by pretty much everything else: “I get the sense of the man at the top being haphazard when the situation is screaming for logic. Instead we just get frustrating platitudes that make him sound like an instagram influencer with an Etonian accent.”

He sees a contrast between soccer management and country management: “Maybe it’s because I’m used to the world of football. There is such leadership there with people like Klopp or Guardiola, and we don’t see that level of quality in politics. This goes across right and left. You don’t feel that sense that this is the person I want to represent me. There’s a general paucity of leadership.”

Howard has clearly evolved in recent years from bicep-bulging stand-up pin-up with a penchant for childish humour into a more considered comedian with a serious side. He dates this politicisation from a conversation with comedian and actress Roisin Conaty before his last tour. “I remember having this conversation about how many 16 to 24 year old girls in the UK self harm. I had to talk about it onstage because it genuinely pissed me off. I’d love to be the kind of ‘safe hate’ comic that gets angry about pizza or cereal but I don’t. I like them both!”

He steers clear of social media brawls though and only uses Twitter to announce new projects. “I just don’t want to burden people with the tedium of my day. Six hours writing a joke. Social media is the worst comedy club possible, because it’s full of people who don’t want to laugh. Whereas with comedy clubs we are all here to laugh.”

Another reason for resisting social media is to keep his anxiety levels down by avoiding seeing negative comments. Howard suffered a lot from anxiety as a teenager and despite his huge success it has never completely gone away. “When I started doing stand-up I would Google myself and notice the nasty things said about me and agree with them. And that sort of sent me into a spiral of self-loathing.”

These days he looks after both his mental and physical health. Howard has recently got into biohacking: “It’s about all the little incremental things you can do to boost your immune system. Cold water therapy, that sort of thing. I read a book about a bloke trying to live to 180.“ Longevity appeals to him. “I’m terrified of death. It’s a thing both me and my dad share. Whenever we find books about health and fitness we send them to each other.”

He has tried meditation but maybe he has too much nervous energy: “I find it so hard to be still. The closest I get to that kind of flow state is stand-up. You’re almost like in this sort of fluid, in-the-moment state of having these jokes that you know all lined up and operating in this very confident way.”

For Howard humour is part of a near-holy trinity: “comedy, curry and a kickaround.” It has kept him sane during this toughest of periods: “I’ve yet to find a better mechanism to do life. You can have clever, silly, profound thoughts and take those thoughts and present them to other people and make them laugh. It’s like a cosmic tick where you realise you are not mad. Where else in life would you get an hour and a half where it’s all about you? It’s an egotistical joyride.”

Russell Howard is at the Eventim Apollo, W6 from August 25 - 29 (0844 576 5483, ticketmaster.co.uk). The Russell Howard Hour returns to Sky One later this year

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