upfront
AL MURRAY
After 20 years of boozy standup, Al Murray talks to
Alistair Corless about how he became the ultimate
Pub Landlord pretender.
W
hilst for centuries philosophers
have debated whether the artist
can be truly separate from their art,
the distinction between comedian
Al Murray and his swashbuckling onstage guise
the Pub Landlord could not be more clear cut. In
stark contrast to his xenophobic Cockney façade,
Murray is an alumnus of Oxford University who has
bloodline connections to both Scottish and Austrian
aristocracy. During our conversation Al is eloquent
and razor-sharp, and after establishing we share a
name, we discuss whether he had always wanted
to be a comic: “I never imagined I would. I got into
comedy because I wanted to perform – I never thought
I was particularly good, and I’m not very patient either
– but when I got to University there was a great scene.
After watching the likes of Stewart Lee and Richard
Herring, I thought ‘I’d have a go at that’ because it
looked like great fun more than anything.”
After beginning his career with an act primarily
based around sound effects – his car boot is very
impressive, I must say – Murray went on to win the
Perrier award at the Edinburgh festival in 1999,
after a record four nominations. Regarding the
foundations of his winning act The Pub Landlord,
Murray says, “I like things that start in one place
and finish in another. In that sense, he is kind of a
stereotype as we end up someplace all together where I
can use him to talk about things in a way that I wouldn’t
know how to address if I was being me.
“He came about completely by accident in a dressing
room in Edinburgh, with Harry Hill in 1994. We had
to fill the gaps in a show that we were compèring and
I thought, ‘why don’t we say that the compère hasn’t
turned up and the barman’s offered to fill in’ – as we
were performing in a bar at the time. It was a success,
and we have gone on from there, just like that.”
With almost a third of his standup routine
TIM IS KEY
Great comedian/terrible
poet Tim Key will be bringing
his tour Single White Slut
to Chapter this month.
Heather Arnold finds out
what it’s all about.
BUZZ 20
comprising of improvisation and audience
interaction, Murray places a high value on breaking
the fourth wall.
“That’s the thing for me that standup has got, that
no other art has got, that you can ask a question and
it will change the course of an evening. That doesn’t
exist in music, it doesn’t exist in art, it doesn’t
exist in anything – bar some experimental theatre,
perhaps. Last night we were in Monmouth, for
example, where we had such a weird array of people
at the front. That evening won’t repeat itself,
that evening won’t happen again. That’s
what I like, where ‘tonight’s the night’.”
With The Pub Landlord entering its 20th
year, what is it that keeps Al motivated to
carry on with the same act?
“Once you’ve done a show 150 times
you’re desperate to talk about
something else. I’ve always made
sure that with each new tour it is
completely different. He [the Pub
Landlord] is kind of the same but
he changes and develops with each
tour as well. This year’s he’s offering
himself up to be the ‘Guv’nor’ and
the audience are putting together a
manifesto to save the country.
“There are enough 'Pub Landlord
For PM' pages on Facebook to
really put the fear of God into me,
though,” he adds.
Al Murray The Pub
Landlord: One Man, One
Guvnor, Wales Millennium
Centre, Cardiff Bay, Thurs 30
Oct. Tickets: £26.50. Info: 029 2063
6464 / www.wmc.org.uk
Where do you get your poetry/
comedy inspiration from?
Don’t know. Usually things like
deadlines. It’s surprising how
inspired you can make yourself feel
when you’ve booked a room to do
a new hour and there are people
coming. A morbid fear of being
hopelessly exposed spurs you on.
Also, seeing something really good
can help. That sinking feeling that
you need to work harder because
people – or worse still, friends –
are making brilliant shows. That
can drive you on. I watched Alex
Horne’s show in Edinburgh this
year. I was appalled. I realised I
needed to get writing.
What can you tell me about your
new show Single White Slut?
Well, it’s me and obviously some
poems. But not too many this
time – I talk a lot around them,
discussing romantic disasters,
tooth fairies, India, anything really.
Then occasionally I’ll scuttle back
to my stack and read one. There’s
also a bed in this show. In the
last one I had a bath and the one
before there was a fridge. I cannot
operate without a large piece of
domestic furniture somewhere on
stage. The whole thing’s lit nicely
so it has a theatrical feel about
it. Also, I wear a denim onesie
throughout. So it’s a difficult show
to categorise.
Where did the name of the show
come from?
My first poetry show was The Slut