STAND-UP COMEDY IS FUNNY PHILOSOPHY
Ed Gamble, 35, tells MARION MCMULLEN how he is looking forward to returning to live comedy... and finally getting married
How many cancellations did you have to deal with because of lockdown restrictions?
On a professional level, TV stuff got cancelled and lots of gigs, but luckily I wasn’t on tour. On a personal level, my wedding has had to be postponed twice.
I know its’s a cliché, but so many people have been through so much worse and we’ll get married when we get married. At some point comedy will also come back and I have been incredibly lucky through the whole thing. I’ve been busy doing podcasts like Off The Menu with James Acaster and the Taskmaster podcast.
I’ve been doing interviews on a laptop but am looking forward to face-to-face interviews again.
Are you looking forward to touring next year with your show Electric?
It’s a great feeling knowing that cool stuff is going to be happening next year. Comedy is pretty resilient and people have been doing online gigs and drive-in gigs and podcasting, but nothing beats the punch and excitement of doing live stand up itself. It feels a bit giddy to get back to it.
I’ll be doing a lot of gigs in the build-up towards this. I’m looking forward to when we can play a packed stand-up room, everyone sitting where they can, crammed in, and there is that great atmosphere. I want the tour to give people a bit of time to relax, have fun and generally take their mind off stuff.
Where did the tour title come from?
I like to pick single words and have had tours in the past like Blizzard and Stampede. I wanted something to pick up on the energy of the show and what I want to do and be switched on.
I want people to come out at the end and be buzzing. In comedy, you always have to come up with a title, sometimes eight months before you do the show, so you don’t want to call it something specific and three months down the line find you have not got enough material to make it work.
I did philosophy at university and I think it is the one topic that most lends itself to stand up. You are formulating your own arguments. Stand up is funny philosophy.
I never had a career path in mind, but I did a lot of comedy at university and when I left I just went for it. When I decided to do it I went all out for it. I just wanted to do comedy so much.
What else are you looking forward to over the coming months?
Chatting to people, small talk. I miss small talk. I’m looking forward to small talk and chatting about the weather and if it’s raining or not. Normal chatting with my friends and no-one brings up the pandemic.
Going to restaurants again. You get trusted with things as a comedian that are not part of the job, so this year I was guest judge of Great British Menu. It’s one of my favourite programmes and I got to eat all that exciting food as well.
I got used to not doing stand up during lockdowns. After a couple of months I really liked being home in the evening, being with my girlfriend and watching television on a Saturday night and having weekends off.
I finally realised what I had been missing. I was watching all the big shows on TV, whatever people were watching, but I also missed doing stand-up more than I realised.
You are a past Taskmaster champion. Where do you keep your gold trophy of Greg Davies’ head?
(Laughs) It’s in a cabinet in my office and is behind me on all Zoom interviews. I’m very proud of it and it is proudly displayed.
In Taskmaster there is no one right way to do any task, but thousands of wrong ones.
Presenter Alex Horne is such a funny man and is up for almost anything, but I think the only time when he was feeling annoyed was when I changed him into a mermaid fountain. The water was freezing and falling down into his trousers and he was saying ‘It’s really cold’. But he’ll do anything for good television.
People love the show so much and always want to talk about it. There’s talk of doing a Champion Of Champions show later this year. I get recognised for Mock The Week as well, but I think it’s mainly the podcasts now that people know me best for, which is great. It’s the best job in the world.
I’m looking forward to small talk and chatting about the weather
Ed on his hopes for this summer