I did not expect May to take it... I expected a high voltage shock to the back of the neck from a Taser
Simon Brodkin has carried out a good few stunts in his time – FIFA’s Sepp Blatter, Manchester City and even Donald Trump have fallen foul of the comedian’s wicked brand of schoolboy humour.
But funnily enough, none of the pranks were almost eclipsed by a persistent cough and a couple of rogue magnetic letters...
That’s because none of them, until last autumn, had involved Theresa May – possibly the only person so unlucky she didn’t need the help of a monumental practical joke to ruin her day.
Even for Mrs May, it was a bad day. And Simon, better known as his comic creation Lee Nelson, was central to it.
“Later, I did actually feel sorry for her,” 40-year-old Simon laughs, awkwardly.
He was the chap with the side-parting, who leant over the stage at the Tory Party conference as May gave the most important speech of her career, and handed her a P45.
He didn’t bank on her accepting it. But that’s exactly what she did.
“I wasn’t expecting her to take it. If anything I was expecting a high voltage shock to the back of the neck from a Taser, rather than someone gracefully accepting their P45,” he smiles, bemused.
“I very quietly said ‘Excuse me, PM’. I didn’t want to cause alarm or shock. ‘Boris asked me to give this to you’.
“I guess she thought Boris might have asked me to give her something. Her look wasn’t of fear, it was mild amusement and acceptance.”
And then something even stranger happened... no one really reacted.
“I got gently lowered back down, and I’m sitting there thinking ‘I don’t really want to hear the rest of her speech’,” Simon giggles, something he does a lot.
“They must have thought I’d handed her extra pages of the speech. I’m
thinking ‘job done’ – but I actually think I would have been left there.”
So that’s when Simon decided to ad-lib – moving over to Boris Johnson and making out it all was done on his orders. “I slapped his knee – that wasn’t planned. It felt the appropriate thing to do,” laughs Simon.
“Boris was looking perplexed, bewildered – it was business as usual.
“David Davis was looking like how some teachers looked at me at school. Shaking his head. It was then I was finally taken out to chants of ‘Scum, scum’ from the Tory Party – it’s one thing off the bucket list.”
Simon has spoken very little about the stunt. He didn’t need to. It was closely followed by May’s coughing fit, and the F and the E slipping off her message board, leaving it as: Building A Country That Works or Everyon. “Everyon” was talking about it... “I don’t blame myself for the coughing – I’ll get a doctor to back me up,” Simon grins. He’s grinning because he was a doctor.
He worked as a junior doctor for a year in the early noughties before giving it up as the pull of comedy was too strong, and the job too hard.
“I don’t regret for a second all the learning I did but it wasn’t for me,” he says. “You have got to really want it. It’s a tough job, you have to work very hard and you’re not getting huge pay cheques every week.”
Simon began doing stand-up on his nights off. He went on to land his own hit BBC3 series, Lee Nelson’s Well Good Show, and later, Lee Nelson’s Well Funny People.
Jason Bent, the Liverpudlian footballer, is another favourite character.
As Bent, Simon invaded the pitch at Goodison Park – warming up with Manchester City players. Simon didn’t realise being on the pitch was illegal. He ended up in court.
“I like the clash where comedy and reality cross over,” he explains. In 2016 he targeted Trump who was at Turnberry golf course in South Ayrshire for a ribbon cutting ceremony.
The prank was handing out golf balls with a swastika printed on them.
Trump didn’t see the funny side. Simon says: “I’m told there was a tussle as to who would get hold of me.
“I’ll be forever grateful to the Scottish police. They waited a long time for Trump to calm down.
“What persuaded Trump was that I would be escorted to the border.
“I think he thought it was some kind of deportation... Instead the police gave me a lift to the airport.”
He says he was more nervous with May than any of the others. He was also surprised to be there. To get accreditation, he applied as himself and was amazed to be accepted.
The night before the stunt he holed up at a hotel and couldn’t sleep.
“I piled up pillows on my bed to pretend they were Theresa May. I was trying to practise the most elegant and least-likely-to-be-Tasered version of gently handing someone a P45.”
At the conference, he had to spend four hours talking to a party member, pretending he was a wannabe political journalist, there to take photos.
He giggles: “She was great. I knew I needed a good seat to get close to Theresa and [the party member] was a real handbag swinger. We queued for ages and she was like ‘Follow me!’.”
After the stunt and he was finally frogmarched out, Simon was arrested and handcuffed – but not for long. He hadn’t done anything illegal.
A police officer whispered: “You’re free to go – by the way, that was very funny.” It was just unfortunate for May the comedy didn’t end with Simon...
Simon is touring as Lee Nelson. The Serious Joker tour includes a show at Henley Festival on July 14. Visit leenelson.com.
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