CELEBRITY WELLBEING I’m definitely very unstable, but I like that. There’s nothing I can do about it...
Dom Joly talks to about his war-torn upbringing and why he’s still proud of that giant phone
DOM JOLY has, by his own admission, had a career of two halves. In 2003, he was starring in the second season of Trigger Happy TV – his smash-hit hidden camera show, which saw him pranking the public in absurd animal costumes, and bellowing comically into an oversized Nokia.
In 2009, he was being probed by Geiger counters on a weekend break in Chernobyl, one of several left-field jaunts that would fuel a book on ‘dark tourism’. Other excursions included sight-seeing in North Korea, rubbing shoulders with Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge, and skiing in the mountains of Iran.
Dom, 52, who can currently be seen in BBC2’s Pilgrimage: The Road to Istanbul, says: “I’ve realised I have two entirely different sets of fans. Those that consume my travel stuff, and those that know me from
Trigger Happy and dressing as a squirrel.”
His new theatre show, Dom Joly’s Holiday Snaps, is an attempt to bridge the divide and combine his disparate audiences.
“It’s definitely not stand-up,” he says, “it’s an evening showing my travel photos. There’s elements of comedy but it’s literally a PowerPoint, so go in with low expectations.”
He’s aware the show may leave some fans confused, but even Dom sometimes struggles to pin himself down.
Professionally and geographically, he’s most comfortable when he’s not comfortable. Unsettled is his natural state.
“When I get back from travelling, I understand those bands that finish touring and sit at home on heroin because there’s nothing else to do,” he says. Not that he uses heroin, he’s quick to add, but he certainly needs regular adrenaline.
“I’m definitely very unstable,” he says, “but I like that. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
It’s at this point that psychologists would perhaps ask about his childhood, and Dom’s upbringing would give them plenty to work with. Born in Beirut to British parents, he grew up in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War, his school holidays marked by near-constant shelling and the very real risk of kidnap.
Term-time was even worse, as he was packed off aged seven to an English boarding school. “I was living a schizophrenic life,” he says. “Half the time, I was in a war zone, the other at school with most of Radiohead and the current Tory cabinet. I hated boarding school even more than the civil war. If you’re talking about defence mechanisms and brutal battles for survival, that wasn’t Beirut.”
Between them, the two settings left lasting scars. “When you’re sent to boarding school, you’re taught to repress everything,” he says, and with parents he describes as from the “pull-your-socks-up brigade”, Dom suffered panic attacks for years after. “On occasion, we had to flee Lebanon by boat, and I still freak out when I hear a whistle.”
He developed a dark, deadpan sense of humour – a common coping mechanism in trouble spots – and spent his teenage years as a goth. “I still love sad music,” he says, “and I’m very comfortable in melancholy. My glass is always just half-empty.”
For all its difficulties, Lebanon moulded Dom, and he grew up idolising foreign correspondents and ravenously consuming The Adventures Of Tintin. “I was always destined to travel,” he says, “and comedy just sort of got in the way.”
After attending university in London, Dom spent stints as a diplomat for the European Commission and a reporter for ITN, before Trigger Happy TV sent his stock skyrocketing. Suddenly, he was ‘comedian Dom Joly’, known across the nation for his surreal humour.
Success really did come overnight. After the first episode aired, Dom was on a train when he heard a familiar ringtone, and someone down the carriage stood up and started bellowing theatrically into their handset. Cue gales of laughter, and by the journey’s end it had happened twice more. No one realised he was there, but Dom realised that he had, in fact, made it. “Trigger Happy was an absolute labour of love,” he says. “I think in the snob’s mind, hidden camera is the lowest form of comedy, but when done well it can be amazing and I’m unbelievably proud of it. “I think I’m a smart guy doing a stupid genre.”
Trigger Happy was not a travel show, but Dom tried very hard to make it one. For one sketch he visited a Swiss ski resort, erected a sign reading, ‘Warning: Yeti’, and then, inevitably, dressed up as one.
“Police came down on skis and arrested me,” he remembers, “and I ended in Zermatt’s only prison cell, with
Dom with the famous phone in Trigger Happy TV
Switzerland’s only burglar, dressed as a yeti. I told him it was a long story...”
Trigger Happy ended after two seasons (“I knocked it on the head too early – never make a decision just as you finish something”), and Dom could finally indulge his globetrotting full-time.
Part of his ‘dark tourism’ shtick is that dangerous places are more relatable than they appear – “everywhere can stink, everywhere can be a pain in the a**e” – but even he edged out of his depth once in a while.
During a trip to the Congo, Dom found himself negotiating access to a lake with a group of villagers, and after a few drinks things took a turn for the ugly. “Someone put a spear through my tent,” he recalls. “All the way through, I was thinking, ‘If I get out of this then this is brilliant’, because as a travel writer you kind of want it to go t**s up. But I was also thinking, ‘I want to live’.”
Three books, endless travelogues, and one series of I’m A Celebrity later, age has mellowed Dom somewhat, partly under the auspices of graphic designer and “best wife ever” Stacey MacDougall.
“She’s just sort of let me do it, because she knows it keeps me sane,” says Dom.
Despite a cottage in the
Cotswolds and two grown-up kids, stability still eludes Dom, but then again, he still isn’t looking that hard.
“It you have a stable life, that’s great,” he says, “but it probably doesn’t give you a massive insight into things.
“I feel that there’s pluses and minuses to being mentally unstable.”
Dom Joly’s Holiday Snaps tour has been rescheduled to September due to coronavirus.
Pilgrimage: The Road to Istanbul is on BBC2, Fridays at 9pm.
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