JASON ON SHAUN His life’s an eye-opener! I’ve had to rein him in
SHAUN ON JASON Best advice he gave me? Don’t give up the day job!
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks or so the saying goes. But comedian Jason Manford is giving it a go and it’s really twisting his melons, man.
Jason has taken on the challenge of teaching Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder how to become a stand-up comic in just two weeks.
It sounds like it should be easy. After all, Shaun is a charismatic performer who has lived a wild showbiz life, experiencing decades of drink and drugfuelled shenanigans that could surely inspire a joke or two.
But it didn’t take Salford-born Jason, 39, long to realise he’d bitten off more than he could chew.
“Shaun’s got severe ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder),” he explains. “So remembering things, collecting information and taking on new thoughts, it’s been a real challenge. “Is he a good student? No, not at all!” The pair teamed up for Channel 4’s Stand Up and Deliver, a two-part series starting tonight where comics teach famous faces how to be funny.
After one-on-one training the novices, including Conservative Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Corrie’s Katie McGlynn, Love Islander Curtis Pritchard and
Reverend Richard Coles, had to perform in front of a live audience at the Battersea Arts Club in London.
But for Jason, who’s been entertaining crowds for more than 20 years, it was no laughing matter because when it comes to Shaun, nothing is straightforward.
The singer, 58, was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and admits most people think his erratic behaviour is down to years of drug-taking.
“It does p*** me off, that. No, this condition has been with me since I was f***ing born,” he says firmly.
“For the first 40-something years of my life I didn’t know I had it.
“When I was at school they didn’t know about ADHD, there were just four sets, one being the brightest and four being crowd control.
“So every kid in my class, now I think about it, was autistic or ADHD. You’re made to think you’re stupid because you can’t learn like other people.”
It begs the question why he took on such a big challenge in the first place, when he knows learning something new is not his forte. “You know what? I thought I’d be able to do it!” he laughs.
“I get asked to do all these kinds of shows and I thought to myself that I actually might have a chance at this one. F***ing hell, how wrong was I! I think I
am funny in real life, that’s probably where I went wrong!”
Cracks started to appear on day when Jason sat Shaun down for first lesson and his apprentice ldn’t shut up.
Battling not to lose his temper, Jason ggled to get him to focus enough to pen to paper and write down some ny stories from his past that could be focus of his stand-up set.
Shaun is a naturally funny guy,” mits Jason. “He’s obviously performed t over the last four, five decades, I ss and, in that respect, he’s already the hard part down which is stage
Hence and confidence.
He’s got that in abundance. Some ple might say he’s got too much! So
I’ve had to try and sort of rein him in a little bit to find out where the real Shaun Ryder is, not just the public perception he has. That has been the biggest challenge, to find those stories about him that are very funny but also a bit revealing or interesting.
“He’s had a hell of a life. He’s probably lived five lifetimes in the world. It’s been an eye-opener, I must say!”
For someone like Shaun, who’s done everything from performing sell-out tours around the world to taking part in I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! narrowing down stories for his set proved rather difficult.
“Jason got my autobiography and gave that a bit of a read, there were a few stories in there that he thought would make really good stand-up.
“There were a few topics he told me I wasn’t allowed to talk about, they were too rude or bad for TV!
“One of them involved beatings off my dad. My old man used to chase me through the estate in his underpants and nothing else on, he would walk back through the estate proud that he was faster than me!
“I think by the time I got to my teenage years I wasn’t that fast at running; it was when I’d started getting stoned so I really couldn’t care less!”
Fans will have to tune in to the show to see what made the final cut. But could Shaun be about to embark on a new career as a comic?
“Well, he’s a style of comedy you’ve not seen before... and you may not see again!” laughs Jason. “What you can’t do in these situations is teach somebody how to be you because that’s not going to help anybody.
“All you can do is go, ‘Look, here’s all the tools and which ones you pick to do the job is up to you’.
“It’s very hard to teach comedy because it’s something that generally you can either do or you can’t.
“It’s been a bit of a learning curve for me as well to see what I do, what I’ve always done, that I’ve taken for granted almost. How do you teach something that is almost like second nature to you?
“The thing with comedy is they often say, studying comedy is like studying a frog. You dissect it to learn how it works. Then it doesn’t work any more!”
Even for two seasoned performers like Jason and Shaun, taking on a challenge like Stand Up and Deliver is a risk. While Jason’s putting his comedy credibility on the line, Shaun’s facing humiliation on national TV if he fails to win over the crowd.
But both men said signing up to the show was a “no-brainer” when they found out it was part of Channel 4’s Stand Up To Cancer campaign.
“Cancer runs through my family like f***ing madness,” admits Shaun, who was also frontman and co-founder of 90s dance act Black Grape.
“My nana had both her legs amputated because she had cancer and my grandad had bowel cancer, he died when I was about nine. I’ve got young children, I have to keep on top of my health so I am always around for them.”
Jason adds: “I can think of three people in my immediate surroundings, my grandparents, uncles and aunties, that have had to go through it.
“That’s hard at any time. When you look at the last 12 months that we’ve all had, that’s been hard for many people, but if you’re also having to deal with something as life-threatening, lifechanging and horrendous as cancer, as well as everything that the country has had to go through, I couldn’t think of anything worse.
“To not only be able to do a show that’s going to lift everybody’s spirits and make people laugh and enjoy themselves for a few hours, but in the process also be able to raise some money for such an important cause.
“It was a no-brainer to say yes to it.” With all the training over and done with, as Shaun prepared to take to the stage and put his dignity on the line, what pearls of wisdom did Jason have to offer him?
“What advice did he give me? Don’t give up my f***ing day job!
“I’m just going to have to do what I always do… wing it!”
Stand Up and Deliver is on Channel 4 tonight at 9pm.
Is Shaun a good student? No not at all...
JASON ON TEACHING SHAUN STAND-UP