I’m a desperate show off when it comes down to it
RAISE YOUR GLASSES AS AL MURRAY TELLS MARION McMULLEN THE PUB LANDLORD IS BACK TAKING ORDERS
How has the Pub Landlord been managing during the pandemic?
He was locked in obviously but the first thing he thought of was a lockin not a lockdown.
So he promptly locked himself in and for the first two months lived on scratchings and past their sellby date dry roast peanuts.
But he’s also been on the internet doing his own research.
You are getting ready for your Gig For Victory UK tour. What can people expect?
(Laughs) If people know the Pub Landlord, all will fall within the parameters of what they expect...
The first show back I did was in Barnstaple last autumn. It was their first day back and my first proper day back and the audience was wild.
You sort of get halfway through it and start to think, ‘Come on, it’s not that funny, behave yourselves. It’s just me’.
When we were first going out on tour, we’d had the election at the end of 2019 so things were shifting on Brexit and beginning to change and my show then was all about it.
What is so amazing is that incredibly serious and important matter then got displaced by a microscopical particle that no one can see.
It’s weird something so tiny should have knocked something so big out of everyone’s minds.
Tells you a lot about life. You literally have no idea what is around the corner.
How did you manage during lockdowns?
The pandemic has been pretty ghastly but I’ve had the opportunity to grow hair. During the lockdowns I’d grown a big beard and hair, this fantastic disguise, but then I had no opportunity to try it because we were locked down.
The thing is, and I can’t speak for any other comedians, but I found the sheer lack of attention I was getting through Covid quite difficult to cope with so the tour is a brazen attempt to make up for the last two years really.
I was going to go on tour at the start of March 2020 and we basically had that weird week when suddenly everyone was taking the pandemic seriously and we had to decide whether to cancel and all that sort of stuff.
We moved everything by a quarter, then we moved it all again, then we moved it again and we eventually ended up doing some of shows in autumn last year.
Touring is the thing I love doing. I feel a bit starved of it. I’m a desperate show off when it comes down to it.
What were your thoughts at the start of the pandemic?
I had said to myself, I can sit this out, I can wait for the proper gigs to come back or resign myself to the fact that they never will.
At one point I did think that was it and live entertainment was basically finished.
I was trying to get my head round that when a mate rang me and said ‘I’ve got gigs in this pub garden do you want to come down?’.
I thought, he’s a friend and it would be nice to see him, and I went on and after I came off I was as high as a kite.
Absolutely sky high from the thrill of performing.
It was wonderful.
One of the things about stand-up is that is it different every time.
The gigs I have been able to do have really reminded me of that and why I love doing it so much.
You think ‘this is why I do this, I remember now’, because I had been getting a bit jaded going up and down the motorway and eating rotten sandwiches on the M6.
What has been the biggest change for you?
I was absolutely convinced there would be no vaccine, they wouldn’t be able to crack it. So I have the satisfaction in all of this of having been wrong, which I think is good.
No one ever wants to admit they are wrong any more, but I was quite wrong about that.
I was going round saying, ‘It’s never going to happen. We’re bu **** ed and we’re just going to have to wait for everyone to eventually become immune’.
But we haven’t had to, because how long would that take? Generations? You look at the plague, the
Middle Ages, and think what did they know?
Actually the word quarantine is a very old word and they knew what to do back then. They didn’t know it was bacteria, but they knew there were things like infections, of course they did, and again you had people back then saying ‘I don’t believe it’.
Has your successful Second World War podcast with historian James Holland been keeping you busy?
It’s a lot of work, but we’ve got a fantastic loyal listenership and they are really into what we are doing.
We did a live weekend event of the podcast last year with historians, demonstrations of equipment, speakers and some veterans, and it was absolutely amazing, so we are doing that again July 22-24.
It’s going to be the same, but bigger and better – WarFest II.
When we started the podcast I thought I knew about the Second World War and I gradually realised I know nothing about it.
I don’t even know the right dates because you can argue when it started and when it ended.
What are you looking forward to?
This is the longest I’ve ever been at home and I’ve got a four-year-old now and two much older daughters. I’ve been around for my youngest daughter from when she was two to four – far more than my other kids – and I really like it, and I really like being at home.
It sounds nuts really, the idea to say ‘actually I do like my family’.
I don’t know about keeping me sane, sane is a tall order, but as a little unit it has been really good for us. But by the same token I can’t wait to get back out there and be rude to the front row. I’ve missed it.
The gigs I have been able to do have really reminded me of why I love doing it so much
Al Murray
Go to thepublandlord.com for Gig For Victory tour dates