BIG PREVIEW
Michael McIntyre is back on the road with his new stand-up show after a three-year break. He explains why he is so excited to be on tour again...
AFTER a gap of three years, Michael McIntyre is returning to the live arena and visits Cardiff for his tour next month. The most successful comedian in the country, he is delighted to be coming back to stand-up comedy with this huge new Big World Tour.
The multi-award winning comic, who has broken box office records all over the world, is absolutely thrilled about the forthcoming tour. “I’m so excited about it!” Michael beams. “Stand-up comedy is what I do, and it’s so
rewarding. If you write a joke and tell it to an audience of 15,000 people who laugh their heads off at it, it’s the best feeling in the world… What more could you ever want?” Michael is without doubt the most popular stand-up in the UK. What makes his shows so exhilarating is the sheer joy he pours into them. He loves his work, and that passion is contagious and his audience can’t help but be swept along by his infectious brand of comedy. His philosophy is very simple: get on stage and try to make people laugh their socks off for two solid hours. “But this is comedy. We are trying to make people laugh here. So, let’s be really silly for two hours. That’s where I come in. My show is about silliness and exaggerated stories. I like jokes where people don’t stop laughing. I want that all the time. “I don’t just like to use punchlines anymore, especially in arenas. They freak me out. There is nothing worse than 15,000 people waiting for a punchline. You’re standing there thinking, ‘I hope I remember the punchline.’ But once you start to think that, you immediately forget it. I much prefer getting into that sense of rolling laughter. When you get that right, there’s no better feeling.”
Over the years, Michael’s most memorable routines have invariably prompted that sense of rolling laughter. He has an uncanny knack for finding the funny in his accounts of the most mundane things.
“I sometimes reflect on my own life on stage and no one laughs, but you have to have faith in it and hope that people will laugh. It’s fantastic when you suddenly get those moments and they resonate with everyone.”
In the past those moments have included such widely loved routines as the “man drawer” and “herbs and spices”. They have struck a universal chord.
A comedian who has sold more than 1.5 million tickets in the UK alone, Michael says: “We’re all living the same lives. I highlight something that people haven’t really thought about before. They realise we all do the same thing, and it makes them laugh. When I hit those moments, it creates a very big laugh indeed.”
However, not everyone pays heed to his jokes.
“I did a joke about the daily struggle to get your kids to put their coats on, and my children still refuse to do it. I say to them, ‘Put your coat on. I did a joke about this on the telly, and it’s gone viral. It’s got five million hits, and still you’re resisting!’”
Michael, who as well as playing UK and Ireland is revisiting Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa and Norway and travelling for the first time to America, Canada, Switzerland, Iceland, Sweden, Malta and the