CityLife

Valentine's and April Fool's shows for Addison

Chris Addison

CITYLIFE got a little excited prior to chatting to Mancunian comedian Chris Addison. As we were perusing websites that pondered who the next Doctor Who would be, Addison’s name was mentioned.

“It would be the fulfilment of a dream I’ve had since I was about seven, but in all honesty it’s not going to happen.

“You’re not the first person to say that to me, but I believe that rumour was started by someone completely unconnected to that programme,” Addison sets us straight.

Bah. You’ve got to admit that Addison would make a great Doctor Who. We can see him now in a jaunty hat, the 11th doctor – a clever, rakish, thirtysomething (well we know the Doctor’s 903 years old but he’d look like he was in his thirties) plus he’d be the second Manc to take on the role after Christopher Eccleston.

An unknown, Matt Smith, was of course confirmed in the position, so Addison's wait continues it would seem...

Brief hiatus

Still those qualities in Addison that would have made a great Doctor are instead an asset to the comedy world – though maybe minus the hat.

In fact, after a brief hiatus working on many other projects including a sit com Lab Rats (co-written with Manchester’s own Carl Cooper), political satire The Thick of It and a book It Wasn’t Me, he’s returning to the stand up he started performing on the Manchester scene while still at Uni in Birmingham.

That was back in 1995 - he went on to win CityLife Comedian of the Year tile later that same year - and since then has become a popular presence at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with a series of themed shows combining intelligent research with a huge sense of silliness.

Among other topics, he’s covered evolution in The Ape That Got Lucky, the periodic table in Atomicity and civilisation in well… Civilisation.

Smarty pants

Plus he’s earned himself three Perrier/if.comedy nominations for being such a smarty-pants, too. This tour, though containing some of that material, also features earlier stuff: it’s a kind of a ‘greatest hits.’

“I’ve written all this stuff over 10 years that I really love but a very limited number of people have heard.

“Since I’ve been last out on the road there are a lot more people that are inclined to come and see me because of The Thick of It, Lab Rats, Have I Got News For You or one of those sorts of things.

There’s something about junking that material before I’ve been able to show it to people properly, I just wanted to take some of it out again for new people really.”

Circuit

Plus after his time spent away from the circuit he’s keen to get back to the live work.

“In a way it’s good because when you have a break from something, no matter how much you like the thing you always come back invigorated, the absence re-energizes you, I think.

“Stand up, it’s muscle exercise. It’s really hard if you don’t do it all the time. Even if you don’t do it for a few weeks, you’re not on your game.

“So if you don’t do it for 10 years you’re not quite having to learn from scratch because there is a bicycle riding element to it but you do definitely have to get yourself back in shape and it takes time.”

Blaming people

So what about the book you’ve written, ‘It Wasn’t Me’ (out now in all good bookshops…)? “It was a contractual obligation,” he laughs.

“Beyond that… well, it’s a ‘have your cake and eat it’ type of book as far as it’s both a spoof of the idea of blaming people for the way the world is and it’s also me blaming people for the way the world is.

“Everybody blames everybody else and the whole thing goes around in a big circle where it ends with nobody being to blame as well as everybody being to blame. Which is exactly how things are.

“Obviously some people are to blame,” he acquiesces. “Radovan Karadzic, he’s definitely to blame, that horrible man in the Congo, him too.

“But there’s so much moaning and finger pointing and it all seems to me to be fairly fruitless and I wanted to write a book about that but funny.”

Hefty workload

Phew, with the book, stand up and numerous TV appearances that’s a hefty workload.  

So really he’d have never had the time for Doctor Who. “Obviously if the call comes I’ll consider,” he confesses. And who wouldn’t. “It’d be brilliant wouldn’t it? But it is simply a dream.”

Chris Addison is at the Middleton Arena on Valentine's Day, 2010. Call 0871 230 0010. He also plays Bolton Albert Halls on April 1. Call 01204 334400.