Back with a Bang
Comedian Miles Jupp reveals how he survived a brain tumour which then inspired his new one-man show and has given him a fresh perspective on life. Yvette Huddleston caught up with him.
MILES Jupp is a pretty busy man for much of the time. A sought-after comedian, actor, broadcaster and writer, he is also a father of five, so taking it easy isn’t very high on his agenda. However, sometimes life has a way of telling you to slow down.
In the midst of a particularly productive period of work – creating and starring in the award-winning BBC Radio 4 comedy In and Out of the Kitchen, appearing as an actor in several acclaimed television series, such as the Hugh Laurie-helmed Agatha Christie mystery Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?, the recent Disney+ serialisation of The Full Monty and ITV’s popular Corfu-set family drama The Durrells, a one-man play The Life I Lead about the actor David Tomlinson, as well as publishing his well-received novel History – Jupp had a brain seizure and was rushed to hospital.
It led to the discovery of a benign brain tumour the size of a cherry tomato which required immediate major neurosurgery.
That experience has partly inspired his latest stand-up show On I Bang, which he is currently touring around the UK.
It has been a few years since Jupp’s last stand-up show, Songs of Freedom in 2017, and he is happy to be out on the road again.
“It’s an itch really, I was ready to get back to doing stand-up and I think with this, it is particularly that I had a story to tell,” says the 44-year-old.
“I had done some stage plays in the meantime and quite a lot of live stuff and I enjoy doing that. I look at it from the perspective of an audience member – what will they be getting from it – so, I just thought it was the right time to do it.
“I have been doing almost two years solid of acting and it is nice to be doing something different again.”
His recent health scare has, inevitably, affected the way in which he approaches the world, life and work – he describes the show as “a tale about surprise, fear, luck, love and qualified medical practitioners”.
“If you go through something that is statistically a near-death experience, you can view anything through a different lens – feeling lucky and fortunate and all those things,” he says.
“It makes you think about your relationships with your family and friends and what you value.
“It is easy to fall into old habits and start complaining about stuff, but if you take a step back… and certainly in terms of writing and material, it is something big to draw on.”
He began writing On I Bang while he was still recuperating from surgery, initially as a way of processing what he had been through.
“And gradually I realised that I was writing as if I was writing a show,” he says.
“So, I thought I would just continue with it. Then I went to see someone else performing stand-up and I thought – I really want to be doing that again.”
An element of it was cathartic but it was also about “getting the facts down”. Then he began to shape it into a piece to be performed.
“What you end up with is the truth plus jokes,” he says. “You are giving the audience a lot of information about an intense experience. There may be some in the audience who have been through something similar and you don’t want to upset people, so it is about trying to convey it in an accessible and fun way.
“It is nice from a stand-up point of view to have such a definite subject.
“When someone asks me what the show is about – I can give a proper answer rather than a kind of university seminar waffle about it being about me moaning about croissants or the price of train tickets or something.”
Among the acting roles Jupp has taken on recently was playing Emperor Francis I in the blockbuster movie Napoleon directed by Ridley Scott.
“I have had little parts in about 20 films but nothing on the scale of that,” he says. “It was fascinating. When I arrived, I just thought ‘imagine having to be in charge of all this?’ It is a big machine and you have to turn up absolutely ready.
“It was exciting but there was no rehearsal and you just had to do it really quickly. So, I sort of enjoyed it.
“Working with Joaquin Phoenix and Ridley Scott was pretty awesome.
“But I also get excited about the fact that I am going to be working on a radio sitcom series with a group of really good friends.”
Switching from acting, to comedy, broadcasting to writing has been a feature of his career and it seems to suit him well.
“There is an element for me of not wanting to get too comfy,” he says. “And having your curiosity drawn towards something. With something like this show it is a piece of work that I have made but with other things you have no control.
“You can audition for things and not get it and then sometimes things will just fall into your lap.”
With characteristic modesty he adds: “The reality is that I have a range of skills that I am moderately good at. The main skill is looking like you are meant to be there.
“I am finding doing this show really interesting but stand-up is quite solitary so I also love being part of a team around the table in a writers’ room trying to finesse something and I like being in a company of actors.”
As a family man it is also important to him to make choices that allow him to spend as much time as he can with his wife and children too.
“The great thing about a show like this is that I can make sure I am around at home a bit more,” he says.
“I try to do about four shows a week and I don’t do school holidays so that we can all be together.”
The show’s title is also a kind of affectionate tribute to his family.
“‘On I bang’ is a phrase I tend to use when I have been moaning on about something and I can sense that my family are getting bored with it – it is a way of saying ‘okay, I’ve finished now’.”
The tour has been going well so far with the show receiving positive reviews and a warm response. “The audiences have been really nice,” he says.
“I love going out on stage at a theatre where I’ve never been before and then you and the audience go on a journey together – that feeling of having a room with you is very hard to beat. I always think that stand-up stays alive in a way that a play doesn’t – new things can occur to you and you have to respond to events.
“It is a living thing in a way that it is not possible for a play to be.
“And in the moment of performance, it feels very alive.”
Miles Jupp appears at Hull Truck Theatre on February 28, Harrogate Theatre on March 13, Leeds City Varieties on May 6 and Sheffield Lyceum on May 7. For more information, visit www. milesjupp.co.uk