Anthony, hello! and thank you for joining me today. I have plenty of questions for you, lets start with a nice cold drink. What's your preferred choice of poison? and what's the oddest drink or combination of drinks you've ever had?
Hello Boff! Thank you for having me at this conceptual dive of yours. Very swish indeed! I received your brown envelope behind the flowerbed as you requested, however I wish that you gave me some warning in regards to the volatile nature of the message. I gave some poor bugger a heart attack! A drink would be a fine social lubricator! My usual poison is either a gin and lemonade if I’m feeling spiritual, or a Pendle Witches Brew if I’m feeling like a bitter bastard!
The strangest drink that I have ever had isn’t strange per se, but I bloody well felt strange once I drank it. It was a ‘Brugal 151’, which is rum from the Dominican Republic that is unsurprisingly illegal in this country, but spies will be spies. It is 75.5% proof and is the only drink that I have ever had which has made the room spin around. Never again.
haha brilliant, now, I want to ask you about comedy. You've started along the heady world of the stand-up comic. So I wanted to ask what inspired you to want to do stand up?
Yeah, I started comedy a little while ago. I’ve only done two gigs, so whether I can call myself a comedian is up for debate, but I have started now and I have no intention of stopping yet. I’d have to say that initially it was friends and family that inspired me to do so, as they have often said how I should go on stage and do some stuff, but I never really bought what they were saying because they’re my friends and so they’ve had longer to get used to who I am rather than total strangers who have come specifically to see someone who will make them laugh.
My main comedic inspiration would be Peter Cook who I first saw on one of the Secret Policaman’s Balls when I was a young child and found myself kicking my legs in joy during the coal miner sketch. Cook just demonstrated to me that you can really perform comedy in such a peculiar way that is hilarious to the point that it is delivered with stern seriousness. As I got older, I heard the Derek and Clive albums, and his conversations with Chris Morris (I came across the 2001 Brass Eye special when I was in primary school at the time and that also had a tremendous influence on me). There are several influences that I can name; however, Cook was defiantly the first for me.
My first gig was absolutely terrifying! I went to The Frog and Bucket in Preston to lose my virginity, and I lasted the whole five minutes (which may seem like a short amount of time, but once you’re up there, there is no concept of time at all).
I went on my own as my girlfriend had some work to do and so I was even more terrified when I was up there. Before I went on the stage, I could feel tremendous pressure pushing down on my chest and I was beginning to feel a full blown fit of anxiety.
Once I got on the stage, I was still terrified, but I found comfort in the fact that the light was so bright that I couldn’t see anybody and so it felt as though I was completely alone.
When I finished my set, my girlfriend was next to the stage cheering and I couldn’t contain myself at all, it was like I was on drugs. She came down to surprise me and it bloody well worked. I feel that nerves are tremendous for performance and the minute you stop having them is the day to pack up and do something else. It was truly a wonderful experience.
As a fellow beard wearer, I often get folks shouting 'hello Gandalf' at me, you yourself have something of a more biblical visage. I'm keen to know how you handle heckles when people shout 'Alright Jesus' at you?
Haha! Yeah, I get called Jesus a hell of a lot when I am walking around, but it is a cross that you have to bear if you have long hair and a beard. I’ve yet to reach the rank of Gandalf, and I must admit that he is the superior magical character of the two. How do I deal with it? Well, I used to absolutely hate it, but now, not so much. If I see a group mentioning it to one another in front of me then I defuse it by walking towards them with my arms stretched out. I’ve occasionally offered my forgiveness, but if I notice that they also look like somebody, then I would highlight that also. Sometimes they laugh, sometimes they don’t. I do wear flares from time to time, and some kid once pointed and said ‘Look at this guy with the Jimmy Saville Pants’… The boy in question was wearing a tracksuit.
...in a related question, have you ever been tempted to go into any well known banks and open an account in the name of Jesus?
You know, I haven’t until now but I will certainly consider doing so. When I walk past preachers in the street, I do have to fight the urge from snatching the bible from their hands, getting my pen out and asking ‘Who would you like this out to?’ I guess that’s just the devil on my shoulder.
I get a lot of my ideas from watching people. Someone once said that life is the strangest thing that you will ever do, and it is certainly one of the strangest things to observe. It is often wonderful when you’re walking down a street and you hear a snippet of a conversation. It is like a little window into the private affairs of others.
But I also get a lot of inspiration from how people react to me when I am out and about. It is a difficult thing to isolate where my ideas come from, as they can just fire across my synapses when I’m walking around. There is nothing wrong with making yourself laugh, and it is about time that people stopped feeling ashamed of doing so, as I feel it is the first step in making others chuckle.
...that's interesting, do you have any amusing anecdotes from being in a supermarket? That's where all the best people watching takes place. In many ways a person in a supermarket surmises all human behaviour.
I completely agree with you about supermarkets. They are a hive of all things human, and to place people in that unnatural environment can truly reflect their nature entirely. There was one time when I observed a chap having a disagreement with a self-service machine. Literally, he was screaming ‘How can there be a fucking unexpected item in the bagging area, when I pissing placed it there!’ One of the members of staff had to come over like an orderly and instruct him on the best way to resolve the issue. I truly felt for this individual, and he received my sympathy as well as some degree of amusement.
...and what about family? do you have any good anecdotes about family? any father - son stories or the time your embarrassing uncle got drunk on egg-nog and showed nan his 'scar'?
I have a couple of anecdotes about my late, Great Grandfather. I never met the man, however I feel a natural affinity towards him. He was a very strange man and enjoyed playing practical joke on the children of the neighbourhood.
There was one story that I heard which I will keep alive until the day I die, and that is that he had a tree in his garden which he hung exotic fruit onto, such as pineapples, lemons, kiwis and the like. Children would walk past and marvel at Mr Ellison’s tree whilst he stood by and chuckled. When he was a child, he and two others were tasked with painting a fence green. They came across a pig, and naturally, the pig received the same treatment.
There isn’t much on for me in the next two weeks. I had a gig in July and likely more lined up so I’ll be doing some writing and practicing for them. Other than that, just enjoy the sun whenever possible.
Finally as we're doing the spy thing and meeting up incognito I'd like to ask what kind of James Bond you'd be? and what kind of gadgets would you insist on having?
I am a huge fan of James Bond, and so this is a harder question to answer than it seems. I guess that I’d be more like 009, the chap who is dressed as a clown and gets a knife thrown in his back in ‘Octopussy’ (not all 00’s lead the lifestyle of Bond). My gadget of choice would probably be a tooth implant from Q branch so that I become more interesting in conversations. Thank you very much for interviewing me, Boff. This has been really enjoyable. The pigeon flies northwards other St. Petersburg.
...and with that Anthony purchases a bag of pork scratchings and some bacon frazzles for the journey and heads for the door. Then on a spur he spins and shouts 'think fast' throwing the pork scratchings to Boff before disappearing out the door into the gale. "Boff sighs and whispers under his breath, 'what a guy'". Anthony can be found whizzing around twitter on a unicycle and at his website 'http://www.deskcafe.co.uk/'. you can also see the fabled Frog and Bucket gig as well as other stand up routines on youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLbjGfbESAQ
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