Comic hates backlash from his peers

Michael McIntyre has said he has been shocked and hurt by the abuse he gets from other comedians since hitting the big time.

Appearing on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs today, the comedian said he received ‘an amazing amount of hostility’ becoming famous.

‘I think it comes with the territory,’ he told presenter Kirsty Young. ‘And I can't say, it's water off a duck's back and I'm so thick-skinned, I can't just say that.

‘I'm getting used to it. but it did come as a shock at the beginning I can't deny that. I would never be rude about somebody else in my profession because we all do this same thing. We're just trying to make people laugh. I have my audience - other people have their audience.’

McIntyre said the backlash intensified when he won a British Comedy Awards in January, but also became the butt of a few jokes.

‘It just made me feel awful because I'm there with my wife - and she's gone out and bought a dress - and it's my big night and I won and the overriding experience was that of nastiness,’ he said.

Among McIntyre’s comedian critics us Stewart Lee, who has talked of him ‘spoon-feeding his audience warm diarrhoea’… although the joke is also at Lee’s own expense for being much less successful.

Published: 17 Jul 2011