Exeposé
| WEEK SIXTEEN
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Arts Diary Our regular Arts Diary column shows you all the important events going on in Exeter...
ARTS
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Joshing around in Exeter
Emily Tanner, Arts Editor catches up with star of stand up Josh Widdicombe at Exeter’s LOL Festival
Art Maia Conran @ Phoenix 1 February-16 March Exeter’s Fine Art Collection @ RAMM until 30 March
Comedy Tony Law @ Phoenix 13 February
Drama Amadeus @ Northcott Theatre 6-9 February Endgame @ Bikeshed 1 -16 February
Dance Richard Alston Dance Company @ Northcott Theatre 26-27 February
Art Attack WE have chosen a piece by the well known comedian and artist Noel Fielding! This is a piece from his 2010 exhibition ‘Bryan Ferry versus the Jellyfox.’ Do you think there are any connections between Fielding’s art and his comedy? Does his time at art college show in either of the art forms (comedy and visual art) in which he works?
JOSH WIDDICOMBE has had an incredibly busy year. From a sell-out show at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, a nationwide tour of this material and his involvement in the Paralympics’ The Last Leg, it seems that Widdicombe has not had much time to sit down and catch his breath. Coming straight off stage after his performance at last week’s LOL Festival, Widdicombe is clearly in demand. Friends congratulate him on his show, audience members acknowledge his work and he is asked for autographs all before he sits down at the back of the Bikeshed’s bohemian bar to chat. The rest of the year is still very much ahead.
“You need to concentrate on yourself. Run your own race and don’t compare yourself to others” “I never have a day off,” Widdicombe smiles when asked what the year holds for him, “I’m writing a show for Edinburgh at the moment, still touring last year’s Edinburgh show, there’s six KRISSI HILL: The cat does make me laugh -I think it’s the teeth -but otherwise I find this particular painting quite sinister. The dark purple and swirling strokes of the background give it an eerie atmosphere, as does the moon’s radiance. The angry hedgehog does look a bit ridiculous but the eyeless blue -is it a dog?- I find quite spooky. TOM BOND: They look like the sort of roguish scamps that you’d meet in a Soho backstreet, expecting them to rob and kill you. In reality they’d probably
more weeks of The Last Leg [a show which Widdicombe presented with Adam Hills and Alex Brooker during the Paralympics and which is continuing on Channel 4] and then I’m doing a show on XFM from 10-1 every Saturday. Yeah, I’m quite busy!” It seems that Widdicombe’s hectic schedule and rise to success has been incredibly rapid. At first comedy was just something which Widdicombe saw as getting him out of his mundane office job but after a few successful stand up shows “it suddenly felt serious. You never think it’s going to happen but then it’s your job and it takes over your life.” Since his first Fringe performance in 2008, Widdicombe’s success has escalated but he doesn’t like to dwell on the speed with which he has found fame. “To stop yourself from going mad when you do stand up, you have to concentrate on yourself. Run your own race and don’t compare yourself to other people. I’ve done well in the right situations and it’s got me through.” TV, however, has admittedly helped Widdicombe to get where he has. It’s rare nowadays that a comic can sell out tours without a few appearances take you for wonderful adventures on their pet unicorn and feed you hallucinogenic berries until you cried marmalade. EMILY TANNER: I think it’s a cool painting and really lively, as though the four figures have real character to them - as Tom said, you’d definitely expect to meet them in a dark alley somewhere! I suppose, as a comic, Fielding is very used to creating characters like this in his sketch/Mighty Boosh work so it’s kind of inevitable that it’d rub off in his artwork.
on Mock the Week or Live at the Apollo and Widdicombe is very happy to embrace this; “TV is fun and I do enjoy it but I am primarily a stand up and it is that which has got me a lot of the opportunities I’ve had. Most people aren’t fans of comedy so TV is a good way of getting people to come and see you.” Yet it is not just lucky breaks on the television which has got Widdicombe where he is today. As is the case with a lot of comics’ effort, hard work and trial and error are the factors that really separate the exceptional from the average, it’s not something which you can necessarily be good at instantly. “That’s why you could never have a comedy X Factor,” Widdicombe muses on the subject, “It would be dreadful and it just wouldn’t work because it’s a trade you need to know. I was doing new material tonight and you need those gigs to go through it because then when you do it on Live at the Apollo it’s been properly tested.” Trying out new material seems to provide Widdicombe with the opportunity to think of new ideas which may later become part of his completed show. Despite commenting upon how rare it is for an amusing
interaction with an audience member to make it into the final show Widdicombe thinks that “you do come up with new stuff when on stage, in that heightened state of anxiety, which you could never just come up with in a coffee shop whilst staring at the paper.” Material, for Widdicombe, appears to be constantly evolving and something which becomes finely tuned to perfection over time.
“You could never have a comedy X Factor. It would be dreadful because comedy is a trade you need to know” With such a busy year behind him and a packed year ahead, Widdicombe’s passion for his comedy and particularly his stand up work is still clear. Still touring and already at work on his next show, will there be any rest for the rapidly rising star of stand up? “Well,” Widdicombe laughs, “I am only doing two weeks in Edinburgh this year. I think if I did anymore I could go a bit mental.”