Ray Bradshaw on sign language, selfemployment, and his look-a-like search
He is setting out on a new tour, Doppleginger, which, as the tile suggests, sees him undertaking the search for the man who looks most like him.
It comes after Ray has been slowly inundated with recommendations of people who ‘look like’ him, ranging from characters like Max Branning from EastEnders to random friends of fans on Facebook.
“I’ve had so many people coming up to me about it, so
I tell not only my story as a bald, ginger man, but I also get to tell the stories of other bald gingers through this meetings.
“There was a guy who works in Glasgow who looked so much like me, his colleagues have kept changing his name tag to Ray.
“I love doing stuff that’s a bit different, so for this tour, I’m searching for the person who looks most like me: bald and ginger.”
And he means searching: he’s even set up a website to field suggestions of who in the world looks most like him, with some unexpected consequences.
“I think somebody put the website up onto a gay dating website, so I have received a lot of rude pictures.
“But I have also been sent pictures of some folk who look very like me, so I have some big days out planned, and they’ll be worked into the show.”
But it is only the latest in a line of shows which are changing the way that comedy is experienced by audiences.
“My last two tours dealt with the fact that I was raised by deaf parents. I was the first person to have fully-signed shows, and that was so much fun.
“I’m self-employed, so I love seeing how much nonsense I can get away with, especially when your job means you come up with your own ideas.
“It’s all driven by me.
“If I’d gone to my touring agent and said that I wanted to trawl the world for ginger people, they’d ask what I was going on about.
“So you learn how your own style works, and you learn what you can get away with – then you get to play with that.”
His previous work, he says, has seen him build up a bigger than average deaf audience, due to the provision of sign language interpreters.
“That’s quite important to me, and a big part of it is visual, because why would you leave some of the audience behind?
“And I really enjoy it – it takes a bit of awareness, and getting funding for things like interpreters can be quite expensive.
“But huge comics like Joe Lycett, Aisling Bea, Sara Pascoe have interpreters, and even Frankie Boyle is learning, so sign language is sexy right now.”
And this is a boon for those who need it, of course: “I didn’t meet any other CODAs [children of deaf adults] until I was in my late 20s.
“But I see people who look like my family in the audience, and I never had that while growing up.
“And I get heckled in sign language, and often they’ll deny it, which I find so enjoyable.”
Not only does he feel it brings the show to a wider audience, but it enriches it for other audience members too.
“Signing is a visual and expressive language, which lends itself to comedy; it includes facial expressions which are a great part of that.
“And it’s very direct, there’s not a lot of padding, which can seem odd for those who aren’t a part of it.
“It’s funny, you don’t think much about it when it’s part of your own culture, but actually people are interested and you find that you can get away with more than you think.”
In fact, he argues it should be a lot more universal, too.
“But it blows my mind it’s not taught in schools as a second language – there are so many people who would benefit from it, and it became an official language in the UK twenty years ago.”
■ Ray Bradshaw’s live tour, Doppleginger, kicks off in February, and comes to Reading’s South Street Arts Centre on Thursday, April 11. All shows feature a British Sign Language interpreter. Details and tickets for the Reading show are available via: whatsonreading.com