Dee gets tour on the road again
Jack Dee was ten dates into his first stand-up tour in six years when the pandemic wiped it from the calendar.
He is delighted to get back to it now, especially a string of dates across his beloved Sussex including Crawley on Saturday (October 2) at the Hawth.
“We had everything cancelled in March 2020, and I was mid-tour. I was about ten shows in when the curtain fell. It was not a total surprise, obviously, but it was pretty dramatic when everything had to stop.
“In the context of what other people were going through, obviously it wasn’t huge, but I had spent about eight months travelling around very small venues aroundtheUKtogettheshow justhowIwantedit,andithad got to the point where I was doing the bigger venues.
“I did Liverpool and then Blackpool. And then it all stopped.It was quite a spooky atmosphere everywhere. I was driving back and the roads were suddenly very quiet. I had to get some paracetamol and they were asking questions about why I was needing it. It was all pretty strange.
“ButIjustcamehome,and like everyone, I treated the first three or four weeks as just like a bit of a sabbatical. I justtreatedthefirstlockdown as extra time to get to do a few things that I wouldn’t have otherwise done.
“And then it became apparent that it was going to last considerably longer. Ihadpreviouslybeenaskedto write a book. We got in touch with the publishers and they were keen, and that’s the book that is coming out in October 2021.”
What Is Your Problem?, published by Quercus, sees Jack take life’s biggest dilemmas and answer them with his “unique and very professional” advice.
“Writing it was good. It kept my mind in the same zoneIhadbeenononthetour. I was still writing comedy which is what I like doing.”