THE NECK'S BIG THING
| Published date | 12 April 2024 |
| Publication title | Evening Chronicle |
I'd rather look like a giraffe. I wanted a really stupid picture for the tour poster, with no ego.
This is gonna be a big old tour. It'll be tough being away from the family for a while.
Don't get me wrong, I love my children/podcast content providers but I do also enjoy a lie-in and a hotel buffet breakfast. so I'm sure I'll cope. I expect to put on about three stone from takeaways and drinking after the shows.
You are always so busy and also have two young children. Do you think you've got the work/life balance right? That's the biggest problem, but I think I've got a really good balance now, whereas before I was just manic and I wasn't really in the family. I was almost like an uncle that would come round.
I realised I didn't want to become a dad that knocks his b******s out for 15 years and earns decent money, and then the kids just don't want to know you. I'm home way more now, but leaving the house when you could be all watching Gladiators together, that's hard. I wish comedy was at 11am at the end of my road. Then I'd gig every day.
Do you talk about your family in Giraffe? Yes, but what I've noticed is I've actually been reflecting less on my kids and more on my parents and the way I was brought up because I can now compare the way they brought me up with the way I'm bringing my kids up. And there's a thing about how as you get older you become a parent to your own parents. Although I've been a parent to my parents since I was about 15. I was always more sensible than them! Is there a theme to Giraffe? I like getting the crowd involved. There's no theme, the show is always evolving.
Romesh Ranganathan
My job is to read the energy of that room and respond. I've basically got an arsenal of stuff that will make them laugh, but it'll be different stuff depending on if it's a nice sunny day in Cambridge or a rainy night in Hull.
The best comedy is when you don't actually do your material and you're jumping off stuff that they've said in the crowd. There's nothing more exciting than having a thought and then saying it in front of a thousand people and they laugh.
How do you view comedy?
I think the best comedy is honest and truthful and about how you feel.
I've realised I am an everyman. I do have quite boring life choices. I like having a lie-in on a Sunday. I'll watch TV with the kids, take them to the park, watch the football, have a...
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