upfront
Steve Hughes
Oscar Wilde, Hitler and wet wipes. These are some of the things that
stand-up comic Steve Hughes talks to Heather Arnold about.
“
I’m a conspiracy theorist mental case,” says
Hughes as he discusses his new stand-up
show While It’s Still Legal.
It’s easy to see why Hughes would describe
himself as a ‘conspiracy theorist’. The Australian
stand-up comic and former thrash metal drummer
is recognised by his long, raggedy hair and the wide
eyes usually associated with someone who has too
many thoughts and not enough sleep.
Despite thinking of himself as a bit of a conspiracy
nut Hughes doesn’t sound like it. His views
concerning control, power and ‘health and safety’
feel honest and his serious observations are
discussed in a light-hearted manner. This is the crux
of his stand-up.
When asked if comedy is the right medium for his
unique form of honesty, Hughes replies eloquently.
“Oscar Wilde once said if you wish to tell people
the truth you’d better be funny, otherwise they’ll
kill you,” he says before letting out a hearty Aussie
laugh.
“Perhaps audiences are getting sick of jokes about
pap,” says Hughes as I ask him about his tour, for
which tickets are selling out fast. “You don’t need
comedy to tell you that women take ages to get
ready!”
“Why [would tours sell out] unless this sort of stuff
is starting to affect everyday people? Which it is,
which is why my comedy doesn’t seem as strange to
people any more as they are actually realising that
they are grown adults who are at work, who have now
been stopped from sharpening a pencil without filling
in a form for their own safety.
“Human beings claim to be the most advanced in
human history and yet stop people from getting a
hammer to a car.”
“Once we broke down on the motorway, on tour with
Reginald D. Hunter,” explains Hughes; “just a tyre
blow out, so we could change it. But the two blokes
who came up, sort of a motorway patrol who pull up
when someone’s broken down and put on flashing
lights so you don’t get hit by a truck and so forth. In
the old days they would have had tools but they were
going ‘No, we can’t help you’. What? These are grown
men. And they’re like ‘No, we’re not allowed to help
you anymore in case we get injured’.
“At the end of it they offered us a wet wipe. How can
we descend to grown men who are driving around
with jobs were they used to have boxes of tools and
now they’ve got boxes of moisturised towelettes.”
Hughes’ different take on the world has meant he’s
stayed away from more mainstream jobs, and before
taking the dive into comedy he was a drummer in a
number of thrash and heavy metal bands.
“I’ve never really been involved in normal jobs,
I’ve had a few in my life but I knew at school that
they were a trick,” states Hughes. “School was the
psychological conditioning of getting you used to five
days on and two days off. Which surely didn’t take
the 16 years you’re in school, and what did we learn
in there? We learnt how to do some sums and make
a fruit cake.”
“I always wanted to get out of Australia,” says
Hughes, “and I was in that position of being in a
band with really creative people but it was really
difficult to get people on board with the same
drive to get out of Australia. I just realised if I
do comedy, and I was always quite funny, I thought
there would be no-one else to blame for anything and
there would be no-one else to have to drag along.
“I mean I was 33 years old by this point and the
worst that can happen is that I’m not funny enough
and I have to go home. I may as well give it a go and
it worked out alright.”
Speaking to Hughes, who lives in Manchester and
career started in the UK, it’s clear he has a great
respect for Britain’s comedy circuit – particularly for
small and intimate venues such as the Glee Club.
“The UK has, really, the only comedy circuit in the
sense of you have a small country. The British are
well versed in comedy on many levels. They like
comedy, they’re good at comedy.”
“I did a 12,000-seater arena in Antwerp and it’s an
experience that you want to do but it’s not great for
comedy,” explains Hughes. “There’s a punter barrier
there, the audience is 30 feet away and the people at
the back, they’re watching on screens.
“Obviously the powers that be can make more cash
by selling 70-80,000 seats over four nights then 12
nights in the Hammersmith Apollo. The O2, what
do they hold? It must be 16,000 fucking people! It’s
ridiculous! You wouldn’t want to be ticket number
16,000. You’re at the back, mate.
“I’ve got nothing against them doing it, why not?
You can fulfil your Hitler fantasies, standing in front
of thousands of people. Obviously they’re happy;
they probably rake in a quarter of a million pounds
a night! I don’t know why they stick to comedy after
that, I’d be out of here – bye! I’m going to make
albums!”
Glee Club, Cardiff Bay, Wed 6 Nov.
Tickets: £15. Info: 0871 4720400 / www.
glee.co.uk. Muni Arts Centre, Pontypridd,
Thurs 7 Nov. Tickets: £15. Info: 0800
0147111 / www.muni.rct-arts.org
“Oscar Wilde once said if you wish
to tell people the truth, you’d better
be funny otherwise they’ll kill you.”
BUZZ 18