DRUM ROLL PLEASE... It’s Mr Christmas Day!
He’s the stand-up comic who conquered TV with his Big Show. As a new series starts – including a special in the most coveted slot of all – Michael McIntyre tells how he did it
Michael McIntyre’s entire career has been built on his ability to see the funny side in everyday events. Sometimes life hands it to him on a plate, though. Take a recent parents’ evening. He sat straightfaced (‘No, they don’t expect me to be funny there; quite the opposite’) as the teacher told him one of his sons needed to be a little more focused and do a little less larking around. ‘They actually said, “He’s always making jokes in class.” Well, to me this was fabulous news. Not to them. They said, “It won’t get him anywhere”.’
He raises one eyebrow. No punchline needed. This is the man whose ability to make people laugh has made him one of the highest-paid entertainers in the UK, worth upwards of €46m. His sons Lucas and Oscar, who are now 14 and 11, have been very much a part of Michael’s extraordinary rise to the top of the showbiz ladder. It was fatherhood that compelled him to step out of the lowly ranks of the jobbing stand-up comedian. When Lucas arrived Michael was €46,000 in debt, unable to afford his rent. Rock bottom was reached in 2004 when he wept in a Starbucks during the Edinburgh Festival, fearing that he was never going to make it in the industry.
The sudden arrival of a child in the mix made him, as he puts it, ‘get my s*** together’. He got a new manager and accepted every booking going, determined to give this comedy malarkey a last shot. Since then his boys (‘who still won’t put their coats on, even when I point out that my routine about that has had five million hits on YouTube’) have provided him with ‘hours of material, so much so I worry they’ll want payment’. Ditto his wife Kitty, who’s most famous for being the butt of a routine about her nighttime wind. ‘Prince William made a reference to that when we met him at Wimbledon,’ he says. ‘Obviously, he didn’t say the word “farting” but he said to Kitty, “Oh, you’re the one he makes those terrible jokes about.” I felt quite bad about that because it only happened once, and I did run the material by her first. I always do.’
I first met Michael, who’s 43 now, in 2009 when success was new and shiny. He’d just taken out his first mortgage and his fretting levels about his finances were off the scale. Fast forward ten years, a decade in which he’s not only consolidated his comedy success but become Mr Saturday Night TV. Last night seen the start of the fifth series of BBC1’s Michael McIntyre’s Big Show – a cocktail of pranks, stand-up comedy and celebrity guests that’s become a staple – and the cherry on the cake is a primetime slot on Christmas Day.
So how is he with money these days? He admits that when it did suddenly start flowing in it was ‘like being a lottery winner. It’s the only thing I can liken it to. Suddenly you can buy a new car, go on holiday. But when the dust settles it calms down, just with that security there.’ And firmly there. He shrieks at the idea he has high-risk investments. He’s more of a Bond Man, it seems. Premium Bond Man. ‘National Savings & Investments is the only safe place to put your money,’ he says.
His critics have always said Michael McIntyre is too safe. Yet his routines – about how we Hoover, get dressed, get in the bath – have worked their way into our psyche. He’s tickled by the idea that we think of him when we’re rooting around our herb and spice collection after his gag about poor paprika languishing in the cupboard while ‘arrogant’ salt and pepper have a permanent place at the table. Women even think of Michael in their bedrooms after his ‘yanking-the-gusset’ routine, it seems. ‘Women do say to me, “I think of you every time I put my tights on”,’ he confides triumphantly.
He was in an unlikely bedroom the night before we meet. He and his camera crew burst in on Craig Revel Horwood, the Strictly judge, in the wee small hours to film a Midnight Gameshow segment – in which unsuspecting sleepers are awoken in the middle of the night to take part in a televised quiz – for his new series. The targets used to be members of the public but now the focus is on celebrity victims. ‘The public love to see celebs and it makes it easier for me,’ says Michael. ‘I’m such a worrier, and in the past I’ve wondered if there’s a cruelty about it. With celebrities, that’s eradicated. There’s a showbiz instinct with them that won’t kick in with a member of the public.’
So far famous victims have included chef Gino D’Acampo and tennis champion Andy Murray, but there haven’t been any famous female victims yet, presumably because not even Michael is brave enough to attempt to film Joan Collins or Victoria Beckham sans make-up at 2am. ‘I suppose that’s why I haven’t done a female, yes,’ he admits. ‘When we were doing the members of the public there was
‘TV’S EASIER THAN STAND-UP – I GET TO GO HOME EARLIER’ ‘I GO A BIT MAD IF I’M NOT ON STAGE. IT’S THERAPY’