Limmy is back: Madness, anti-depressants and the end of trolling
Brian Limond’s new sketch show aims to recapture the spirit of the online films that made his name. There is humour in everything, including drugs and depression, he tells Finlay Greig
If comedian Brian “Limmy” Limond were to die tomorrow, friends and family would likely describe the Glaswegian as down to earth and VERY funny.
Despite the release of two collections of short stories, a return to television and a blossoming career as a DJ (he has been invited by Glasgow’s Sub Club to host a techno night) Limond is affable, open and grounded during our chat, turning the darkest topics into sources of hilarity.
The comedian’s return to the small screen is a treat for longterm fans, taking inspiration from his pint-sized, homespun sketches originally featured on his website Limmy.com and more recently exhibited on Twitter and defunct app Vine.
Impersonating a seasoned and elderly Scot, Limond reveals: “I wanted to go back to where it all began.”
As ever the comedian’s blend of the everyday and surreal is sublime – featuring Fifers fretting over Ouija boards, a confrontation with a tiler and techno-drenched nursery rhymes.
Limond explains that he finds the creative process liberating.
“I loved doing stuff in Limmy’s Show, but this time I enjoyed getting a camera and making stuff up, partly knowing what I’m going to be doing and partly not knowing what I’m gonna be doing,” he explains. “You can’t do it if it’s something professional because everyone is waiting and everything is time constricted.”
Though many of the characters and sketches featured in Limmy’s Show have been absorbed into Scottish culture, Limond admits that his homemade show is a more polished and streamlined affair.
“Sometimes there were certain things in Limmy’s Show where I’d be having to come up with six episodes and as a result there was stuff in there that wasn’t my favourite and I’d think, ‘Ach I’ll shove that in this episode’.
“But with this it’s just one episode and I’d already come up with loads of stuff and I could bin the stuff that I didn’t like.”
Limond’s brand of humour is niche, dwelling on the strangeness and madness in everyday life.
He describes his humour as “weird, thoughtful and not particularly funny”.
“I like wee arguments, I’ve never been into jokes,” he says. “I’m more into strange things and madness and things escalating and things not really making sense.”
“Madness” has been a constant in Limond’s work – in one online sketch he portrays a bank robber who misidentifies his mother, shoots her and promptly loses the plot. The sketch ends with Limond breaking character and nearly crying with laughter. It’s dark, and ludicrous. It’s also priceless.
Limond is currently working on an autobiography which explores his own run-ins with “madness” – or, as he puts it, “losing the plot” and “being a weirdo”.
Limond is the first to admit his humour isn’t to everyone’s taste, and says he struggles not to trivialise serious topics.
“In my book I talk about stuff like cutting my wrists and feeling suicidal and wanting to jump in the Clyde and alcoholism.
“Things like that, how you cope with being bored out of your nut because you don’t drink and you don’t take anything anymore and you’re going out of your f***ing mind.
“I don’t find any of that stuff upsetting, if anything I find it f***ing funny.
“One of the problems I’ve got is that I love joking about wanting to top myself.”
Making light of the bleakest situations is a tactic that Limond hasn’t always employed.
“Early on in my life I used to be sensitive and I used to think it would be better if the world was a certain way.
“I was a vegetarian for a year because I saw these pictures and stuff like abattoirs and then after a year I thought f*** it.
“If you’re working in a mortuary you just learn to distance yourself from it all because the horror’s constant.”
Quizzed on whether this “gallows humour” is a Caledonian trait, Limond is reluctant to agree.
“You hear people talking about a Scottish sense of humour, or a Glaswegian sense of humour, all sort of countries and cities think that they’ve got this thing that they’re funny.
“I read about the Liverpudlian sense of humour and I was like, ‘Aye? What’s that then?’ You get that and you especially hear about a dark Glaswegian sense of humour.
“I think no matter where you’re from, you’re going to be laughing about stuff going on around you.
“You’re going to be laughing about the state of your area. You’re going to be laughing about thing-a-me-bob that you know getting stabbed. You’re going to be making a joke about that. You’re not going to be going, ‘This is so terrible’.
“But there’s lots of Glaswegians and lots of Scots who haven’t got that sense of humour. There’s plenty of people that I’ve met who will shake their head at that kind of humour.
“Especially online someone will criticise what you’ve said and you’ll see that they’re from Glesga.”
Being a prominent figure on social media giant Twitter means that Limond naturally comes up against opposition when he reels off some of his pitch-black humour.
Pleasing everyone is difficult explains Limond.
“The internet, it brings all these senses of humour and non-senses of humour together.
“I think people think that on Twitter we’ve all got to get on and we’ve all got to be considerate as if someone is in the same room at the same time and can all overhear each other.”
Despite deliberately drawing the ire of Trump supporters and fans of rapper Chris Brown in the past, Limond has largely downed his tools as a professional troll.
His tendency to wind up was largely down to boredom explains the comedian.
“Before I went on antidepressants, I used to be quite angry and fidgety and wanting a buzz and not really knowing what to do.
“I used to say things because I was bored and I wanted a thrill. I’d bait people.
“But these days I don’t bother, I don’t even bother with Trump supporters now.”
Limmy has been open about his use of antidepressants in the past, opening up about his use of Citalopram to his loyal band of followers.
The internet discussion has often overspilled into his book and film tours, as fans with issues in common have thanked him for his openness.
The comedian details his journey on selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIS).
“That’s five years now [since I came off them].
“They don’t work for everybody and they can make you worse. But it just gave us this time to see how I could be
“One of the problems I’ve got is that I love joking about wanting to top myself”
and see how happy I was.
“When I was on the pills I didn’t care as much, I put things in their proper place. I wasn’t in a trance not caring about anything that happens, I was more proportionate, more happy.
“I was giving the right time to
negative things rather than just thinking bad, bad, bad.”
Limond concludes our chat by discussing the damaging stereotypes attached to the pills which helped turn his life around.
“The way people talk about it, it sounds like you’re eckied or something, is it really you? Is it really you? What does it actually feel like?
“If you’re on these pills and you’re at a funeral for your family who have died in a plane crash are you just happy as Larry?”
He breaks into laughter at the thought of it. Once again Limond proves a master at putting a humorous and twisted spin on a dark topic. ● Limmy’s Homemade Show is on BBC2 at 10pm tomorrow