THE TASTE OF SUCCESS

He’s entertained millions with his unique brand of humour, but it was his smash-hit podcast, Off Menu, that made Ed Gamble a star. He tells Danielle De Wolfe why tapping into his true passion was a revelation

F ‘ound it!’ exclaims Ed Gamble, clutching a tiny earring tightly between his fingertips. Mere seconds earlier, the 37-year-old comedian and co-host of chart-topping podcast Off Menu had been explaining via Zoom why a career in stand-up ought to be classified as the ‘loneliest of endeavours’. But, clearly, a far more important matter has arisen. ‘I’ve just found an earring in the bed that Charlie thought she’d lost,’ he explains, referencing his wife of nearly two-and-a-half years, TV producer Charlie Jamison. ‘It’s her most important earring. She’s going to go absolutely crazy with happiness,’ he says, a wide smile stretched across his face.

Chatting from the comfort of his bed in the east London home the couple share with their cat, Pig, Gamble is currently making the most of a bit of downtime ahead of his 53-date stand-up tour, Hot Diggity Dog, which kicks off this March. ‘If I’m not on tour, I try to have as boring a life as possible,’ he admits. ‘Quite often, all I want to do is sit on the sofa and stare at the TV.’

While the show features his trademark brand of self-deprecating humour, its title is a nod to Gamble’s love of food, as is the T-shirt he’s wearing, which is emblazoned with the words ‘delicious meals’. He describes his childhood self as the kid who loved Delia Smith and would eat everything and anything. ‘Food – and my enjoyment of food – has been pivotal to my entire life,’ he explains. Despite rising to prominence on the UK’S TV comedy circuit, with appearances on Russell Howard’s Good News, Mock The Week and Taskmaster, it’s Gamble’s appetite for top-notch cuisine that has propelled his career to new gastronomic heights.

And it all started with a podcast. In 2018, in the midst of his comedy career, Gamble teamed up with his former housemate and fellow comic James Acaster to launch their passion project, Off Menu. The concept was simple: invite a celebrity into their fictional ‘dream restaurant’ that can produce any food and drink and ask them for their dream menu (in case you’re wondering, Gamble’s currently features ‘a wheel of Parmesan, king crab lobster and Shackfuyu’s matcha soft serve’). The podcast has now been downloaded more than 130m times, and regularly attracts big-name guests, from Ed Sheeran to Stanley Tucci and Nicola Coughlan. Part of what makes the podcast such enjoyable listening is the charisma and chemistry of its co-hosts, with the bickering and banter that comes with long-time friendship permeating each episode.

The pair’s friendship can be traced back to 2013, when Gamble was renting a flat in London with comedian Nish Kumar, who he’d met at Durham University, and Kumar’s mate needed a place to stay. ‘I remember the moment James arrived, actually,’ says Gamble. ‘He knocked on the front door, bag in hand, like, “Hewwo, I’ve come to sleep on the sowfa,”’ he says, mimicking Acaster. It would be another five years before the idea for the podcast popped into Gamble’s head, who floated the concept to Acaster over text. Acaster responded immediately with the format – one that’s remained largely unchanged for more than 200 episodes. Gamble is still bemused by its success. ‘If I’m honest, I’m slightly aghast by how many people listen to it. I had no idea a podcast could become such a big part of someone’s career,’ he says.

Last year marked a milestone for the podcast, with the release of its 10th series and two live episodes in front of sell-out audiences at London’s Royal Albert Hall. ‘I’ll never wrap my head around that,’ Gamble reflects. ‘I’m not normally a fan when people say, “Oh, it’s crazy that my little project did this.” But two nights in a row, there’s absolutely no way you can’t be blown away by that. That’s a massive career high, right there.’ That, he says, and becoming a judge on BBC Two’s Great British Menu in 2022.

While his love of food has helped him excel in his career (he’s even written a food-inspired memoir, Glutton, released last year), Gamble’s relationship with it hasn’t been without its complications. At the age of 13, he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and gained weight as a result of his condition. In a bid to

‘As bad things are happening to you, you laugh and think, “I wonder if I can make this into a story?”’

become healthier, he shed seven stone during his early 20s, and it was a period that saw him become ‘obsessed’ with his body image after a lifetime of referring to himself as the ‘FFG: funny fat guy’.

‘People ask me why I chose to lose weight,’ says Gamble. ‘I didn’t feel great – and I mean physically, rather than emotionally. But I was exercising and thinking about what I ate all the time, and at that point my mum said, “You don’t need to keep doing this. Build in having fun again,”’ he explains.

His diagnosis – and subsequent weight fluctuation – are now subjects Gamble regularly harnesses for his stand-up comedy. ‘I always used humour as an armour,’ he says during a brief, serious moment. ‘I was definitely heavier than everyone else – but then, you know, that just becomes material. It’s kind of weird being a comic: anything is source material – literally everything is up for grabs. You get to the point where, as bad things are happening to you, you laugh out loud and think, “I wonder if I can make this into a story?” – it’s bordering on the psychotic, to be honest.’

Everything, I ask? ‘The line I draw is whether it’s about other people in my life,’ Gamble responds. ‘If I was going to make a joke that was personal – about my wife or my family, then I’d draw the line. But if it’s me, then it’s all to play for – I have no shame left.’

Gamble grew up in Wimbledon (‘write Raynes Park, it makes me sound a bit more edgy,’ he says, deadpan). His mother, Anne, was a nurse and health visitor and his father, Andrew, a solicitor. While they separated when he was four, he says he ‘lucked out in the parent lottery’ where support was concerned. He attended King’s College School, which is where he began orchestrating ‘operation double dinners’: a packed lunch at 11am, followed by a second lunch at the school canteen. ‘You quickly work out that there are social roles when you’re at school, and I slipped into the ‘funny fat guy’ one quite easily,’ he says.

Regularly the youngest kid in the school play, he remembers being ‘totally enthralled’ by a poster advertising Steve Coogan’s The Man Who Thinks He’s It tour while strolling through London’s theatre district with his mum when he was 13. ‘I was aware of Alan Partridge – even though I probably didn’t understand why it was funny at the time,’ he says. ‘So, we literally walked straight into the theatre box office and bought two tickets for the next night. Now, that was an eye-opening moment for me.’ Receiving a VHS of the tour for Christmas that year would become a full circle moment when Coogan appeared as a guest on Off Menu in 2023 (‘it was like sitting in a room with Partridge,’ he enthuses).

Gamble barely remembers his first proper comedy gig, he says, because he was too nervous. He recalls the venue – The Watershed in Wimbledon – that he was 19 and that it was a competition called ‘So You Think You’re Funny?’ Oh, and that he won it. He puts the win down to the ‘baked-in confidence’ of youth, with the unpaid gigs and hours of travel only to ‘potentially die on your arse for 10 minutes’ enough to put most people off. ‘It’s the reason you rarely find people stepping into comedy in their 30s,’ he explains. ‘You need a natural, inbuilt arrogance – either idiocy or just overblown confidence. I don’t think my ego could take that much of a bruising if I started at this age.’

At university, Gamble studied philosophy and launched a stand-up night above a local fish and chip shop. His early collaborations with comic Ian Boldsworth, better known as Ray Peacock, began shortly after graduating, but it was his 2010 appearance on Russell Howard’s Good News, followed by two ‘support slots’ for comic Greg Davies, that he says marked the turning point in his career.

‘The first tour I did with Greg, I think I watched the show every single night from the side of the stage – he taught me how to exist on tour,’ he reflects. ‘It’s an experience I hadn’t had up until that point as a comic. The only thing that matters are those 20 minutes on stage. I wish I could just go and support people now, because I think that was probably the most fun I’ve ever had.’

He notes that, these days, he feels an immense pressure when performing solo. ‘You owe the audience a good night out, and when you’re coming up with it all, you have very few people to bounce off, which can be quite lonely,’ he explains. ‘But I realised a few years ago that the more pressure I put on myself, the more tense I get; and the tenser I am, the worse I am as a comic.’ It’s something, Gamble says, that he’s still working on.

Another integral player in Gamble’s life is his wife, Charlie. The pair met through mutual friends in 2010 and their first date took place at a restaurant on London’s South Bank. Gamble describes their meeting as a surprise, though he’s quick to dismiss the idea of ‘the one’ and explains he never had any intention of getting married. ‘If you’d asked me before I met Charlie, I wouldn’t have said that marriage was for me,’ he says. ‘But then, it just felt like the obvious choice with her.’

Right now, Gamble is content with their ‘low-key’ lifestyle, scoffing at the idea of A-list pals in favour of ‘existing comfortably’ instead. His ideal evening? ‘Charlie and cooking.’

Why, of course.