I want to be like Robin Williams – do serious acting and stand-up
Comedian Paul Chowdhry tells MARION McMULLEN why he’s not playing it for laughs when it comes to acting
You are known as an awardwinning comedian, but has acting been keeping you busy lately?
Yeah, I was in Rome filming the second season of Devils about a banking crisis. That was 10 episodes with Patrick Dempsey and will be on Sky Atlantic in February.
Then I did a cameo in an episode of The Cleaner on BBC1 with Greg Davies who is a good friend of mine and I did another cameo on the movie Cruella with Emma Stone.
I quite like the acting. It’s very different to stand-up unless you’re a character comedian. With standup it’s a performance, an exaggerated version of yourself. It’s basically you up on stage talking for an hour and a half.
Acting can be about four hours of filming for three minutes of film... if you’re lucky.
Could you see yourself stepping into Daniel Craig’s shoes as the next James Bond?
It’s funny. I’ve had a few tweets on Twitter asking ‘Are you going to be the next James Bond?’ I’d love to play the next 007, but they talk of a black or a white Bond not a British Asian one. There’s not that diversity.
I’d definitely be up for that though, but I’ll probably get to play the baddie than Bond.
I’d like to be like Robin Williams. He was acting in serious films that people did not expect from a comic, but was still doing stand-up as well. I’d like to do the comedy and get serious with the acting also.
I’m a regular on Devils and it is a serious acting role, but there are elements of comedy to it. There are so many different things between stand up and film. There is a lot of hanging around while acting and getting angles right and filming reactions.
You’re heading back out on tour with new adult stand-up show Family-Friendly Comedian. How did the name come about?
(Laughs) I want to be mainstream like Ant and Dec.
I’ve been called controversial, but there is not really anything controversial about me. I just speak the truth on stage.
I think we took live theatre for granted really before we lost it.
Are you looking forward to being back on tour?
It’s great to get back out there. I didn’t think it would be possible at one point to be back out there performing in front of a life audience.
It was always felt our industry was almost recession-proof, but the pandemic has been difficult for theatres.
I’ve done a lot of online performances, but they don’t really work very well.
I was doing jokes on Zoom for 500 people and you get some who have forgotten to turn their microphones off and you get talking over the punchline and feedback through the speakers.
It was just a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh sound coming through the speakers.
I’ve done some live preview and warm-up shows just to get ready for the tour and there is nothing like a live performance.
It’s not like watching some panel show where four hours of film is edited down to just 28 minutes to get comedy gold.
How have things changed on the comedy scene?
In the 1990s the diversity and inclusion was not really active. It’s changed a lot since then.
Before the pandemic, I played to 100,000 people at Wembley. It was one of the top-selling shows of the year and was up there with Jack Whitehall and Micky Flanagan who also played Wembley that year.
I was probably the least known out of all of those. I can still go out to the supermarket and not be bothered.
What have been some of your comedy milestones?
I’ve been doing stand-up for 20 years now. In 2012, I was the first British Asian to host Live At The Apollo and the following year I hosted Stand Up For The Week on Channel 4.
It featured comics like Josh Widdicombe and Seann Walsh and was Romesh Ranganathan’s first show and I was the host of it
What do you like most about stand-up?
I’ve never been a television-made comedian. TV can build you up fast, but then you can disappear just as quickly. For me it’s been a long build playing up and down the country, putting on shows and playing to 50 to 100 people.
You have to build up a trust with the audience. When people pay to see you live they have to trust you for an evening and then they say ‘We had a good time let’s go to the next one’.
Family-Friendly Comedian runs until December 16. Go to paulchowdhry.com for tour and ticket details