CityLife

Amos on rise after Royal seal of approval

FIND THE FUNNY: Amos

STEPHEN K Amos is doing pretty well for himself. He’s received critical acclaim for his Edinburgh fringe shows, recently went down a storm at Prince Charles’ 60th birthday celebrations and is about to star alongside Omid Djalili in Simon ‘Men Behaving Badly’ Nye’s latest sitcom In My Country.

Nevertheless Amos still feels a touch in the shadow of his academic siblings who all have professional jobs - one brother is a scientist. 

“Do you know what it is?” he ponders, “I think it’s because our parents really instilled into us when we were growing up – ‘got to get an education, got to get an education, when you get that bit of paper nobody can take it away from you’ and it kind of worked for the rest of them but me… ‘I’m trying to get an education but I can’t add up and science confuses me!’ I know what I’ll do, I’ll just be a funny boy.”

He’s no reason to feel like the less accomplished sibling as when CityLife had the pleasure of meeting those siblings after the recording of the pilot of In My Country – a show that now commissioned will probably elevate him to ‘being mentioned over the tea table’ status - they were beaming with pride.

Despite his claims to have not been the academic one he nevertheless had studied law and it was post his degree that Amos first had the inkling to perform comedy.

“To be perfectly honest I had never had any intentions of being a comic,” he confesses. “It wasn’t on my radar at all. I went travelling to America living with a friend who’d emigrated out there and living with him at the time was a girl from England and she said to me one day, ‘you’re really funny why don’t you do stand up?’.

"I said to her don’t be silly, I haven’t even seen stand up, I’ve never seen a black stand up and then she said I’m going to go back to London I’m going to open a comedy club and I want you to come and do it. And I went all right then and that was 14 years ago and I haven’t stopped.”

She, Delphine Manley, went to work on the Leicester Comedy Festival and became an agent continuing to spot fresh talent.

“We’ve both kind of grown together but without her I’d have certainly not been doing this. She saw something in me which I’m eternally grateful for and I just think it’s brilliant that certain people come into your life when you’re least expecting it.”

Latest offering

Now on tour with his seventh solo show, the latest offering isn’t as personal as his previous one man shows - in one he outed himself to his audience as a gay man.

This one is “not semi-autobiographical like the shows I’ve done in the past, this show is just about finding the funny, looking for jokes anywhere and having an upbeat approach to your life.”

Though he first performed it last year at the Edinburgh Fringe, it has been morphing along the way since then.

“I think it’s transformed already because I want to get a new show ready for next year and this tour doesn’t finish until March so I need to throw some new bits in but the essence of the show’s going to be the same. So if it means it has more jokes in it but doesn’t ruin the basic the idea of the show that’s great.”

Still at least the gigs on this tour aren’t going to be as tricky as some he’s performed recently. Like Charles’ birthday do.

“I put that on a par with the Royal Variety Show,” he recalls. “People in the audience, generally speaking, because they’ve paid a lot of money for those tickets and they aren’t really comedy fans.

"So when I’m on that stage and I’m the least known person on the bill, I find a bit of resistance. People are going who is this guy? I’ve got to work harder and you’ve only got a certain amount of time, when I’m on tour I’ve been doing an hour and a half and then you’ve got to come down to eight minutes, which eight minutes should I do?

"My God! I’ve got to get them quickly as well!” But it all worked out, and most importantly he enjoyed the, albeit nerve-racking, experience.

“I did it with the cream of comedy not just England but America, Joan Rivers, Rowan Atkinson, Bill Bailey, John Cleese, to be on stage with these cats, Jesus Christ! That was a buzz in itself standing in the wings waiting to go on and (someone said) ‘knock ‘em dead kid.’

"Don’t say that. I don’t need that pressure!”

Stephen K Amos: Find The Funny is at The Lowry on Saturday, January 24. Performances at 5pm and 8pm. £14. Call 0870 787 5780.