CityLife

Met date for comedy giant Neil Innes

COMIC ICON: Neil Innes

“LET’S face it I’m not exactly half time at the Super bowl, I haven’t been in the jungle eating maggots so there’s no interest in my story at all,” chortles Neil Innes at his perceived lack of interest in the semi-autobiographical book he is currently writing due to his lack of ‘fame.’

He may be of that opinion but in fact Innes is a crucial cult figure, one of those key players in musical comedy history whose career has largely been spent hiding behind more flamboyant or bigger name front men - though it’s a situation entirely of his own making.

His CV is mightily impressive, he was a founder member of the late sixties art school comedic jazz combo The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (he wrote their 1968 hit Urban Spaceman while staying in Manchester) but preferred to let the eccentric Vivian Stanshall take centre stage.

He’s worked with The Beatles, and with members of the Monty Python team on the satirical pre-Python programme Do Not Adjust Your Set and The Holy Grail film.

Plus he co-wrote The Beatles parody The Rutles with Eric Idle in the ‘70s. Yet he’s not a household name. “It’s quite deliberate. I do it for a reason. I like to be able to go down to the shops and talk to ordinary people; I like to be a normal human being.

"I’ve been close to people who’ve been in this ridiculous frame bracket and it’s not for me. It’s much more fun being a Rutle than a Beatle. Even the Python’s poor old Cleese, as the tall one he was the most easy to spot so everywhere he went in the street, (people would say) ‘go on John give us your silly walk.”

He’s not altogether keen on the whole celebrity culture phenomena that television has spawned, he’d rather have a good old laugh at TV than appear on it. “It’s harder for comedians and satirists because the real world is getting sillier and sillier.

"The sad thing is that even back in Do Not Adjust Your Set we were deconstructing television, teasing it and Python did it (too). It’s the 35th anniversary of that marvellous film Network where Peter Finch had a breakdown and the network thought it was box office to have a breakdown on television.

"And that was 1976! And it’s worse now! So all this satire does nothing. We need to shape up as a population we really do.”

It’s not the only thing Innes holds strong views on and his shows mix his satirical thoughts on numerous topics with music, stand up and a lot of silliness.

Of the latest show, A People's Guide to World Domination, Innes assures, “there’s quite a few new songs but not too many that it’s going to make people nervous. I roped in some other things, but it is slightly themed. And there’s always the big question isn’t it, why are we here?”

Showbiz veteran

Being such a showbiz veteran, having lived through the cultural revolution of the sixties and now in his sixties himself Innes is unafraid of offending with his material.

“I’m 65 this year and I’m going to say what I think,” he smiles. “I took this show to America in May and June and even though I do evolution in three minutes and a lot of people don’t believe in evolution over there; especially in three minutes, they think it took a week. But I didn’t ruffle any feathers there because more than half of Americans believe in evolution and not creationism. Did Adam and Eve have navels?”

Talking of American culture, one aspect that never fails to rile Innes when he is on the other side of the Atlantic is the news reporting, though he’s becoming increasing disillusioned by the news reporting here too.

“The news is only about emotional engineering, it’s not about spreading any understanding. The BBC is outrageous. That should be the beacon of, well at least as much truth as they can gather. They’ve got techniques to try and keep the short span of attention they assume everyone who watches television has got.

"I think more people are using their computers to pick up on headlines and pick their own agendas of what information they want. And they’ll all go down the pan; the printed page is under threat, which is terrible.”

Aside from railing at the Beeb, for the next year as well trying to finish his autobiographical novel, Innes is planning to go even more lo-fi and unleash his show on some unsuspecting village halls.

“I was hoping to put together a tour of village halls where the village concern can put on a sort of supper with some wine and charge people for that and then I’ll do the turn. They come out with something, I come out with something and we don’t publicise it at all in the media, it’ll be simply vocal we’ll start from the ground roots.”

Best pretend you didn’t hear that then…

Neil Innes is at The Met in Bury on Thursday, October 1.