Andy Parsons is touring this year with his brand new show, Bafflingly Optimistic. Despite everything that the UK has had to face in recent years, Parsons has managed to find something to be optimistic about. And, of course, lots to be funny about. Parsons, 55, is best known as one of the lynchpins of Mock The Week. He has also written for Spitting Image, appeared on Live at the Apollo and fronted his own Radio 2 series, as well as the podcast, Slacktivist Action Group.
Andy Parsons is at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 14 - 27. His tour starts on September 20 in Barnard Castle after a work-in-progress show in Bordon on September 14. Details here.
Your new show is called Bafflingly Optimistic. What are the themes?
There are lots of different strands. It's partly about parenting and what kids need to understand about the world. The world has slightly gone t*ts up recently and, obviously, our politics has gone the same way over the last 12 months as well. So it's marrying that to having an 11-year-old son and seeing the world a bit through their eyes in terms of prospects going forward, whether it's to do with houses or jobs or being able to work in Europe.
So where is the optimism?
I think there are reasons to be hopeful. It's not a depressing show, you won't want that on your night out. It's full of big laughs. The positive side is the pandemic is over, we are statistically more united as a nation than it might seem. And despite what you've heard, comics are not being cancelled.
You don't shy away from the big issues, from police criminality to the gender debate, but you ensure that there are jokes all the way. There's a hilarious section explaining economics to your son.
If you're shying away from subjects, then you're not utilising all of the advantages of free speech that you have. If you're just going to make decent points about the news, you can do that on a Sunday morning BBC show. Onstage there needs to be laughs there.
If you are talking about news stories how to you handle the problem of events moving so fast like they currently do?
I think the news that I'm most interested in is the stuff that's more structural, like, what's happening with the Bank of England, what's going on with inflation, tuition fees. Those issues aren't going to change any time soon. A quick gag at the expense of a BBC presenter is not something that I've ever been particularly interested in.
You are very funny though about Liz Truss in Baffingly Optimistic, comparing her to a can of beans in the back of the cupboard nobody wants. What is your opinion of politicians in general?
Having interviewed loads of politicians for my podcast, there are a lot of hard working, community minded politicians out there. Sadly a lot of them never get into a position where they can make a difference. Maybe having the mindset to be cutthroat enough to get to the very top is part of the problem. They say that we don't get the politicians that we need, we get the ones we deserve. I don't think politicians have got worse, there are a lot of good politicians out there. I would just like to see more of them being able to influence the decisions.
Was Mock The Week more political when you were on it?
There were times when myself, John Oliver and Frankie Boyle were trying to talk about the Israeli Palestinian conflict and they'd be trying to put up funny photos of a bloke shagging a reindeer. We'd be desperately trying to work out how we could get back to, you know, Saudi Arabia or something that we wanted to talk about.
Was it when you left in 2015 that it started to become less political?
It was going that way. It was supposed to be a rival of Have I Got News For You but gradually the BBC saw it as an access show, a chance for them to get young comics through the door. As soon as it became like that, you had loads of people who just did little bits of their set and weren't actually doing anything to do with the news.
Was that why you decided to leave?
Yes, very much. We were told that was the way the show was going to go. And at that point, I thought that, you know, we'd reached the high point. I could see it only going one way. And I would suggest that history [the show ended in 2022] is not letting me down on that assessment.
You are doing the Edinburgh Fringe before the tour. Your first run in 17 years after 17 consecutive years there. What kept you away?
It just wasn't feasible to go up because we started doing Mock The Week in the summer and I had young children. I'm really looking forward to it. I went last year and everybody was saying it's so different, but it felt a very recognisable festival to what I'd experienced there 17 years ago.
I'm sharing a flat with Marcus Brigstocke. He's doing the first two weeks, I'm doing the last two. He's got a small baby so I'm hoping all the sick will have been cleaned off by the time I arrive.
Do you enjoy life on the road?
That's the dream, to be able to have your own audience, play lots of dates up and down the country and see your name outside the building, whether it's spelled correctly or not.
While doing my research I came across a few people called Andy Parsons. Are you married to the Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington?
That's another Andy Parsons. And there is a photographer called Andrew Parsons who took photos of Boris Johnson when he was Prime Minister. There were a few social media posts about that at the time calling me a hypocrite. I had to put them right!
You read Law at Cambridge. Has that been of use?
At school I was advised to do science A levels as it was regarded as more likely to enable me to go to university. I wanted to study English and Law was somehow between arts and science. But for me it was between tedious and interminable. I didn't enjoy it at all. It was then that I started doing a lot of acting which I did enjoy, but it felt very serious, whereas the comedy people seemed to be more fun.
As I hadn't done English at A Level, I preferred comedy, because you didn't have to feel inadequate about knowing very little about literature. And, if worse came to worst, you could just fall over - which may explain why I have a bad shoulder.
You talk onstage about a concept called The Happiness Curve, where one's best years are early ones and late ones.
The theory is that in your twenties, you're getting a little bit of money, you got freedom and happiness then suddenly kids come and you're very much stuck, usually in the same area, often with the same job, and, you know, the same partner, and there is less excitement around. And then gradually, you know, you get more flexibility as the kids get older, or you get a bit more money, so the idea is that the early sixties is right back up there. Your health is usually still OK and gradually that curve actually goes all the way up again...
Here's hoping you are soon to enter your second happiness phase...
