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Alan Carr is polishing off a late lunch as I arrive a little early at the busy hotel bar for our interview, says Julia Sherwood. He stands and waves me over: “Shall I come there or do you want to come here, is it silly if you’re here?”
Not for Alan, the enter the dragon’s lair/the talent will see you now type PR marshalling into a hotel suite. He’s perfectly at ease on a sofa in the window, surrounded by business people and hotel guests. He rises to greet me, all warm hellos and kind smiles, with those famous teeth, saying his lunch was “lovely, really lovely thanks” and there’s a sense of a man embedded-he’s probably been here all day? “Yeah, answering the same old questions.” A glimpse of the ennui undoubtedly experienced on the promotional conveyor belt by most inhabitants of the gilded cage of fame is rapidly waved off, as is my assertion to attempt to address some different subjects. “It doesn’t matter, you’ve gotta ask about the tour haven’t you. Anyway.” He swoops his hand across his body in a dramatic gesture.”I can turn it on”
His ability to do so has fast tracked him from a relatively unknown stand up to household name in just five short years. The man who supported former TV A lister Roseanne Barr on tour (more of which later) now has the Hollywood and celeb fraternity jostling for sofa space on his ‘Chatty Man’ chat show. The show won the TV Choice award for Best Entertainment Show last year, the latest in a long line of awards and nominations for his work. Winning the BBC Best New Stand Up in 2001 kick-started his journey, but it’s not until 2005 the general public get to know him, when his rapid ascent of the stand up ladder leads to a hosting job on The Friday Night Project. The show was a mishmash of the chat, game and sketch show genres, with a guest host joining Alan and co presenter Justin Lee Collins each week. It attracted stars of such calibre as David Tennant, Rob Lowe, Joanna Lumley and Pamela Anderson, all of whom embraced the chaotic sketches, intrusive audience questions and sometime unconventional interview style of the hosts with varying levels of enthusiasm and good grace. The show proved to be extremely successful, running for nine series and attracting several BAFTA nominations and a Golden Rose of Montreal for the pair. An amicable decision was made to end the show to pursue solo projects in 2009. Alan said: “It was an amazing show, but there comes a time in a man’s life when you have to step away from the leotard and stilettos and move on.”
And move on he did. The currency from FNP, the 2008 Best TV Presenter and Best Comedy Entertainment Personality gongs, alongside his bestselling autobiography and live DVD no doubt reaffirmed his popularity to the Channel 4 commissioners, who were quick to sign him up for the aforementioned Chatty Man. So why would someone decide to leave the relative comfort of their regular Radio 2 slot and hit TV show to venture back out into the gruelling and often unforgiving world of stand up touring, especially when they’ve been away for four years? “ It’s a really good dilemma really, because all the TV shows kept getting re-commissioned and it’s just like Oh god if I leave it any longer it’ll be like a comeback and“- he adamantly emphasises, “ It’s not a comeback, it’s just I’m so busy. So really, I’ve bitten off more than I can chew at the minute because I’m doing the chat show, the radio, the stand-up tour, but I just want to do it because I love it.”
I mention that I saw him years ago, one of the few people in the audience who knew him, supporting Roseanne at De Montfort Hall. “That was a weird gig, weren’t it?! All on autocue, you just can’t do that with stand up. I was standing offstage and she had “Hello Leicester” on the auto cue, I mean, at least find out, where you are! I know I can get a bit dizzy when I’m on stage, but I always know where I am!” He laughs, the first of many (his and mine) during the interview, ponders, and decides to dish the dirt. “She was a strange woman, ‘Roseanne doesn’t touch your hands’ You couldn’t shake her hand, she doesn’t do hands, so I slipped a tongue in instead.” And we’re off, laughing again.
His support acts days are resolutely behind him. The 2007 Tooth Fairy tour was a huge success. The stories of growing up, his relationship with his parents, (most people know of the attempts the somewhat uncoordinated, gay, theatrical boy made to impress his father- a former player and then manager of Northampton Town Football Club.) and early working life in a supermarket resonated strongly with audiences.
The new tour will be about his life now; he kept a notebook beside his bed and wrote everything down. “I’ve been doing some warm up shows and it’s going really well. I needed to see if it was funny because I don’t want people to start walking out of the arena of a really s*** show! But yes, I’ve been getting a great reaction, it’s funny so I said, go on and release the dates.”
There are 33 dates at arenas across the country. There’s been a lot of commentary recently about the appropriateness of vast arena spaces for comedy, that it can be a bit soulless and Alan partially sympathises with this argument.
“I see the point; I do really see the point. But, from my point of view, you see the likes of Lee Evans and Michael McIntyre doing them, and I think if I didn’t do an arena tour there could be the, ‘well why isn’t he doing that?’ So, I’m basically getting it out of my system, but I’m a sucker for those old venues. You’ve gotta understand they’ve been there for years. Laurel and Hardy have performed there, Harry Houdini and Charlie Chaplin, you go in and you can almost feel it. But, I’ve only got a limited time before recording for Chatty Man in November, so I’ve had to shoehorn it in. Sometimes it’s weird, when you got to an arena and they’re packing away Chuckle Brothers On Ice tour. I think I’m the kind of act that will go down well because I’m quite open –some stand ups, I can’t think how they’re gonna work, you know when they just stand there with the microphone? It’s like watching paint dry. At least I move around…I’ll bring my pedometer.”
As Alan concedes, touring can be a lonely place (he takes his dog Bev on the road with him sometimes) so does he bring anything else to make it a home from home? “It’s teabags really… and I can’t stand UHT milk. You know the one that looks like milk and tastes like milk, well just give me milk then!” He pauses, raising his head, every inch the Drama Queen;”You see the more you’re picking at me, the more you’re finding out how diva I am. With my china cup with no chips.”
His words drip with fun and sarcasm, but it wouldn’t be amiss for someone of his stature-does he have any Diva demands on tour-Does Alan not touch hands now?
“I don’t touch hands; don’t look me in the eye. All four of them.” When he says “What you see is what you get” I can’t imagine not believing him. “On the Tooth Fairy tour I said I might like some fruit juice, and of course that was a 90 day tour so on the 90th day the last thing I wanted to put in my mouth was bloody fruit juice. This is a 35 day arena tour so I just bring food. I bring my own. I can afford it. I never get those people. Why would you want to do that? I don’t really have any demands.” He must have been party to some divatastic behaviour, surely, the big names he interviews on Chatty Man? “It’s really boring, because there’s no one. It’s the runners and the researchers you need to speak to. They’re the ones who come downstairs with soup tipped over their head where it’s not been right. It’s notoriously two faced and someone who’s been violent towards the runner then comes and air kisses me like ‘dahhling we must do lunch’. Everyone’s sort of fine when I come on.” Favourite guests have been Adele, “everyone had a laugh with her” Rihanna and Mariah Carey, who was apparently “lovely.” He clocks my surprise-wasn’t I just asking about divas? Mariah has a notorious reputation. “Well she was a diva; she has someone to check whether she could walk down the stairs and stuff like that. But she takes the mickey out of herself, she’s very friendly. She knows she’s a diva but she makes fun of herself. And I’d rather, if you’re going to be a diva, at least you can take the mickey out of yourself.”
He can’t reveal the line up for this series, citing a curse -if I mention their name they either die or go to rehab-but promises some ‘amazing’ guests, with ‘a real diva’ on the first show. Dream guests would be ‘Lady Gaga, Beyonce and Jay-Z.’ When I suggest it would be fun to have them on together for a celeb Mr and Mrs he gets really excited. “Yeah, let’s get Brad and Ange, do a Mr and Mrs Special. We’ve even got a crèche for all their children. They could play with the dog. Angelina can adopt me.” But what would his mum say about that? “Oh she’s fine, she’s shallow too.”
He’s treating his mum to a birthday trip to New York to see Adele, and is looking forward to a holiday where all he’ll do is read Elizabethan dramas. He’s thinking of Sardinia, but doesn’t know much about it, and asks me if it’s nice. I tell him it’s lovely, and that George Clooney has a place there. “Oh my god I’m there. He can share my windbreaker if he wants.”
He may joke, but as far as his actual love life goes, he’s notably private. The tour is called Spexy Beast. So…? “ It’s not very exciting my love life.” He admits a relationship is something he’d like in the future, adding: “Like I said before, if I mention their name they either die or go to rehab.” More joking. However, the pause, his reaction to the question, the look in his eyes, I’d hazard a guess the Chatty Man may already have someone to talk to.
Chatty Man starts June 17 on Channel 4
Spexy Beast Tour
1-4 October NIA Birmingham
0844 338 8000 www.theticketfactory.com
5 October Capital FM Arena, Nottingham
08444 124624 www.capitalfmarena.com
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