'These things have a critical mass'

Jerry Seinfeld says he’s quitting arena shows – as he’s getting too old for it.

The comic played London’s 16,000-seat O2 arena last year, and will be playing arenas in Birmingham and Manchester this week, but he says it has to end.

‘I won’t perform this size of show again,’ he told the Mail on Sunday’s Live magazine. ‘These things have their critical mass, which does not sustain indefinitely.

I’m 57 now. Do you really want to see a 67-year-old guy in front of 10,000 people? I don’t want to. I’m going to let it wither and die.’

However Seinfeld says he was flattered to be able to fill the O2 – in a gig that was criticised for its £100+ ticket prices.

‘I didn’t think I had that kind of audience there [in London],’ he says ‘I thought I could play a gig in London, but I didn’t think I could play the biggest place. It was a special night. I’ll never forget it.

‘If you ask me what the greatest moments of my career have been, it’s playing at the White House a few years ago, my first Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1981, and the gig at the O2 last year.

'Just before I die, those are the three shows I’ll remember.’

He also said that the current stand-up boom that allows comics to play arenas is a response to the constant mumble of social media.

'The human voice is the opposite of that inauthentic digital experience,’ he said. ‘We crave it. We crave contact. I think it’s cool and interesting and odd that one person on stage can give you that.

‘The problem is, to really get good at this particular craft is very, very demanding.’

Published: 7 May 2012