Every couple of years I sit down at my laptop and write the words "why isn't Boothby Graffoe a household name?". It's that time again. I don't like to use the word genius but I'll happily use it when referring to this seasoned musical comic. Graffoe fits into a long line of absurdist comics, from Spike Milligan to Vic and Bob. You don't quite know which direction Graffoe's material is coming from and you often don't know which direction it is going until it gets there. His songs and stories have a neat way of pulling the rug from under you while making you laugh your guts out. If I had to suggest a reason why he is not a huge star it may be that he is just that little bit unpredictable. Sometimes you don't know which Graffoe is going to turn up. But go and find out why I'm making a fuss about him this Thursday, December 3, when he opens this year's Grotto @ Hoho Theatre in the City of London, joined by regular musical sidekick Nick Pynn. Tickets here. And if you want to make a night of it Richard Herring is also doing his new show on the same evening – there's a special deal on a double bill here.
**Editor's note - the spelling and grammar is the way Graffoe wrote it.
1. What is the last thing you do before you go onstage (apart from check your flies, check for spinach between teeth and check your knickers aren't sticking out of your skirt)?
i take a drink, usually. In clubs i used to try to remember the best joke that the open-spot just told. Then i'd tell the audience i was going to undermine the open-spot's confidence and get them to quit and steal all their best stuff. Then i'd tell their best joke again.
i was* such a git.
*am.
2. What irritates you?
Wool. i would have made a terrible sheep.
3. What is the most dangerous thing you have ever done?
Apart from suggesting to Lee Hurst that he might have written a joke that had already been thought of?
i ab-seiled down a 24 storey building in Spain a few years ago. The guy who organised it had been drinking since breakfast, he was so drunk he couldn't tie the ropes. He ended up wrapping them around a TV ariel and himself. I remember him holding the rope in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other saying, "Off you go." And, for some reason, i did. Halfway down the building the TV ariel fell past me.
4. What is the most stupid thing you have ever done?
see above - ha ha - It really happened. Hard to believe, isn't it? What an idiot i am. Lee hasn't talked to me in years.
5. What has surprised you the most during your career in comedy?
that i still make a living. also that i'm not a faded red stain on a pavement outside a hotel in Spain. Oh, and the continued success of Adam Hills, when i first met him he was working in a garage.
Interview continues here.
