...and I hate performing live

Stephen Merchant has admitted he’s a ‘mediocre’ stand-up who hates performing on stage.

The Office co-creator revealed that he often disappoints audiences who expect much of his comedy, given his award-winning track record on TV.

And he admits he gets no joy from making an audience laugh, considering a gig to be no more a cold experiment that tests his theories on whether his material is funny or not.

He made his confessions in an interview with The Simpsons star Harry Shearer, to be aired on Radio 4 on Friday.

In the Chain Reaction programme, Merchant said he returned to live comedy to prove to himself he was still funny without Ricky Gervais – and because he was ‘frustrated’ with his collaborator’s success on stage.

He said: ‘I started doing stand-up many years ago… One of the many frustrations I have is that Ricky is now seen as one of the premiere stadium-filling stand-up comics, even though I did that many years before.

‘So now when I do stand-up, people go, “Oh, he’s trying to do what Ricky’s done”. The frustration is that he’d never done it before, and then instantly booked a tour, and was brilliant [but] I’m still kind of mediocre. And I’m not trying to be falsely modest, I really am mediocre.

‘Just in case anyone sees me live – it’s a real disappointment. They really think it’s going to be dynamite because I’ve won awards and stuff, but it’s a real let-down. No, it’s poor.’

Merchant said he had to change his act when he made his comeback because of his fame. When he started performing, his persona was of a bitter comedian who considered himself a big star in the West Country, although no one else had ever heard of him.

‘Sometimes it would go great and they would see it was postmodern… other times they would think I was just a terrible, arrogant comedian,’ he said. ‘And you when you’re in a character like that you can’t step out and explain, otherwise it all falls apart.’

So he admitted he had to ‘relearn to ride the bike again’ and write a routine as himself, which he said was a ‘much harder thing to do’.

‘A couple of comedians said to me, “If you speak honestly and truthfully it will be funnier for the audience and it will be more rewarding for you as a performer,”’ he recalled.

‘And I though that what do you mean? Surely any joke is worth telling, whatever that gets a laugh is worthwhile. But actually no, you find that the stuff that’s most satisfying is when you share a piece of yourself, something you feel very strongly about. It could be something silly like bad experiences in nightclubs but somehow because it’s something that you’ve experienced that you feel passionate about, and if someone engages in that and responds to that, it just seems much so much richer. And that for me is one of the things I look for in comedy, and in entertainment in general, that someone is giving a piece of themselves.’

He said it was ‘refreshing’ to work alone after such a long time as part of a partnership. ‘There’s nowhere to hide,’ he said. ‘You cannot blame the other person if it doesn’t go well. It’s testing your own comic abilities, it’s reminding yourself.’

But in revealing that he gets no joy from performance, he said: ‘If there was a machine, like a breathalyser, that could tell me if a joke was funny, then I’d use that… it’s the academic application of it that’s fascinating to me: ‘Why’s that not working? Why did they not enjoy that joke? Why was that not fun?

‘I love people enjoying it, but I don’t come off saying ‘Wow, I really stormed that” I don’t take any pleasure from the buzz of the crowd. Some people say they come alive on stage, that’s when they’re complete. No! What are you talking about? I don’t care what these people think…’

Chain Reaction airs at 6.30pm on Radio 4 this Friday (September 10). In the following week’s programme Merchant becomes the interviewer to quiz Pulp frontman Jarvic Cocker on his protests against pop, and what really happened when he interrupted Michael Jackson’s routine at the Brit Awards.

Published: 6 Sep 2010