Pappys have blasted onto the comedy podcast scene with two different shows.
How did they come about?
We need someone else who can chivvy us along.
Its nice to have someone who can help us out.
Ad content continues below
Your role in Pappys is as the authority figure.
Is that quite a demanding role?
I never really feel stressed on stage.
The other thing people seem to think a lot is that Im genuinely angry.
It is an act.
Its useful for the audience to see someone on stage being angry.
For us, we just play to our strengths.
As much as we can, we try not to be like other people.
Klang, coming from a stand-up background, did the same thing.
The Beta Males are a good example.
Theyre doing kind of long form story shows that could almost be like mini-movies.
Stewart Lee has a fairly monotonous voice.
The same with [Daniel] Kitson.
All my favourite acts have a love of what they do.
If you cant make yourself happy, then what are you doing here?
If Pappys worried about getting paid for it, there wouldnt be three of us in the team.
Wed all do solo shows.
Speaking of which, youre taking your first hour-long show up to Edinburgh this year.
Im really genuinely excited it feels like a holiday.
and the answer was to spend a month in Edinburgh.
Youre on at the Pleasance Courtyard in the late afternoon thats quite a nice spot.
I saw you at Geek Night Out back in February doing fifteen minutes on Nandos.
Not necessarily material but I could talk for fifteen minutes.
I had the menu as well, which Id nicked from one of the Leicester branches.
In the show now, theres about twenty minutes of Nandos-related stuff.
The one thing I didnt want it to be was wilful.
Well, KFC… no, no… its about myself.
Its about me talking about myself and just trying to make sense of my life.
Which sounds a lot heavier than it actually is.
I like geeky, I dont necessarily like nerdy, but Im more nerdy than I am geeky.
So trying to discuss or examine the personality balance in my life.
Is there more pressure when youre alone on stage, as opposed to a Pappys show?
Weve just finished a tour so its really nice to come away and go into this solo show.
So its the perfect time to change tack and to try different things.
Were not stopping what were doing, we are writing another Edinburgh next year.
You mentioned doing TV, and you recorded a pilot in 2008, but nothing happened with that?
It was a very tricky show.
Ultimately we spread ourselves a little bit thin.
Thats the key challenge for us: capturing the live spontaneity and bringing it onto the telly.
I didnt dislike it, but its not as good as our live stuff.
Its aShooting StarsmeetsDont Forget Your Toothbrushstyle show, but with Pappys hosting it.
So we were thinking of the best way to capture that live-ness.
We kept saying, Weve got to save the Fun Club!
Why is there a Fun Club?
And why do we care if it gets closed down, or opened up?
I like doing it.
I always say Im not an actor, Im a performer.
In that a lot of scenes we were improvising within were real scenes with real people.
The great thing about being a comedian is that theres no right or wrong way to do it.
Kevin Bishop is definitely a comedian, but hes never done stand-up.
These are all very different people all doing the same job.
Who would you cite your influences as?
I was just starting secondary school whenVic Reeves Big Night Outwas starting, and I used to love it.
It was very silly and big, and they had songs and costumes.
There was an element of light entertainment to it.
I also really loved Chris EvansDont Forget Your Toothbrush.
I always saw him as not a comedian, but very funny and very inventive.
I really loved an old video of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
I thought they were superb, and what they did was they often performed as variations on themselves.
The typical rules of what makes you a comedian just didnt apply to them.
When we started Pappys, we wanted to do sketch comedy for people who dont like sketch comedy.
Trying to work within a genre where youre doing something that hopefully no one else is doing.
And I think that hasnt really changed.
I found out aboutMr Showin 1999 or 2000 when the DVD came out.
You impersonate who you like until you find your own voice.
And its starting to happen.
Yeah, youre right, so do you think Ill do two Brummie voices to compensate?
No, but Ive always seen the audience as the other part in the double act.
Its both my favourite thing to do and the thing I hate myself for doing the most.
or Why are you scratching your nose?
so I think I do have that need for a dialogue.
It felt like a Pappys moment.
Maybe it inherently shows a lack of confidence in the jokes I write for myself.
you might book ticketshere.
PappysBangers And MashandFlatshare Slamdownare both available on iTunes.