CityLife

Interview: Lee Mack

Lee Mack

Having been stuck in traffic jams on the way there, Lee Mack has just arrived at St David’s Hall in Cardiff with a couple of hours to spare before he goes on stage.

It’s while having a sit down, chatting to CityLife and putting his order in for what he wants for his tea that he spots something of interest in the corner of the room.

“We’re here and there’s a piano in the dressing room,” he exclaims, then laments, “but I only know two chords.”

Still, it’s an improvement on some of the dressing rooms Mack and his support act, circuit regular Simon Evans, have come to expect.

“One of the biggest shocks when you go touring is the state of the backstage areas of a lot of these theatres. I mean, I’m no Mariah Carey, but you turn the shower on and it’s like being in a bedsit,” he laughs.

“It’s that mentality, when you used to stay in B&Bs in the Eighties, you used to have to ask for towels, because people kept nicking them or the ironing board. They didn’t give you an ironing board, you had to ask for one,” he recalls warmly.

But the less than glam nature of being on tour keeps this Blackburn-born, Southport-raised lad’s feet firmly on planet Earth.

“You spend your life at service stations eating pasties. Touring is probably one of the harder things you do in terms of work; driving and being away from the family and stuff. But I’m not complaining, it’s still the best job in the world.

“But if you’re worried about your feet staying firmly planted on the ground it’s actually working in telly, that’s when you get picked up by a nice car, flowers in the dressing room... all the things that certain people expect of this job.”

Though Mack has experienced his fair share of the posh car/backstage blooms treatment, having spent a chunk of the last five years in the TV studio filming three series of his sitcom Not Going Out. The last time we spoke was in 2005, when he was out on tour after some TV success with the self-explanatory titled The Sketch Show. Not Going Out was still in the pipeline.

That tour was quite modest in comparison. This tour currently has more than 100 dates in it.

“It probably outweighs all the other tours combined in terms of dates and tickets and stuff,” he notes, seemingly unable to believe it himself.

'Right laugh'

But Mack has never been entirely away from stand up. He also toured after the first series of Not Going Out aired, but it’s too crucial to Mack for him to ditch the stand up completely.
After all, it was a significant house move as a child that started him off in comedy.

“I was the small kid in Blackburn, a sort of Kes figure, skinny – that’s what everyone was like in our school.

“Suddenly I was in this seaside town full of really healthy kids and everyone was dead tall and looked about five years older and I was this skinny kid in a new school and everyone was laughing at my accent.

“Southport was quite posh and Blackburn was quite broad and I turn up going ‘areet, ’ow you doin?’ So I played on it.

“I remember standing on top of the prefabs doing impressions of Bobby Ball and everyone was pointing and laughing and I was thinking, this is a right laugh.”

After many years spent putting off the inevitable first gig – backpacking to Australia, going to university – he tried it out, eventually developing a simple but highly effective gag-telling style.

There’s no gimmicks, no themes – simply laughs – and his latest show is more of the same.

“It’s my usual hour and a half about nothing at all. My jokes have no agendas, no particular topics. It may look like topics occasionally, but if I’ve a joke about shoes then I’ll do 10 jokes about shoes on the run just so I don’t forget to do them.

“And then people go, ‘I liked him, he was passionate about shoes…’ Not really, I just happen to have a collection of stuff about shoes around at that moment.”

Meanwhile, back in TV land his sitcom Not Going Out has been re-commissioned for a fourth series but his latest idea for a TV project is closer to the stage work he loves so much.

“I’m trying to get my own variety series off the ground, which I’m doing a pilot for. It’s early doors but I would be presenting my own show as opposed to being in a sitcom. I don’t know what it is yet, but basically it’s a variety show with a bit of stand up and sketches and that’s what I’m trying to develop.”

Lee Mack is at The Lowry on March 8 and May 9; and the Apollo on May 21 and November 3-5 (2010).