Phill Jupitus Interview Ahead Of Sydney Comedy Festival
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On an unseasonably sunny day in Essex, BBM Live’s Hannah Shakir speaks with funny man and spider tamer, Phill Jupitus, ahead of his return to Australia after 25 years!
“I think it was 1999, when we were all thinking about Prince. Poor Prince. So, I went to Melbourne. I went for Paramount Comedy Channel. We were doing a show about the festival.” Phill recalls of his previous trip to Australia. Continuing he explains, “I went out there, made a TV show for Paramount and while I was over there, I did four gigs. But it was just guest spots so, it was only twenty [minute slots] – I think I did three stand-up gigs and one telly show. That was it. So, I’ve never done a solo one-man hour in Australia ever. So, I’ve got to throw in a little bit of everything so, there’s going to be music, poetry and stand-up in my Australian shows.” He says, sounding excited about the prospect.
Explaining more about the show he will be performing, Juplicity, Phill unravels the thought behind the play on words title of his show, “I think it’s the fact that as a comedian, there’s a dual nature to you. And I see it in the faces of people I meet in the street. There’s an initial excitement. They go ‘oh, good lord, it’s that boy off QI, Buzzcocks, or whatever’ and they’re really giddy. And then who they meet is Dot’s son Phillip, who’s a very quiet boy. It’s about that. There’s not a central theme other than I thought ‘Juplicity’ was a really good word to do with my duality. I like a good title.”
Carrying on excitedly, Phillip – as he calls himself – elaborates “Usually I’ll make up a word for an Edinburgh Show title, rather than call it something like ‘Post Truth’ or ‘Diamonds Down, No Trumps’ or something like that – the dreadful Edinburgh titles that you see every year. So, I make up words just because I like playing with language. It’s good fun. So, it’s interesting, you do the name and then you start thinking about there is a sort of duplicity to comedy because you’re telling true stories but you’re embellishing them. All comedy is, is a good story told well. It’s like the audience and you as the performer, you’re all complicit in a lie. So, I think Juplicity is a great title for a stand-up show. I’d go as far as to say, the greatest ever. Well, not really, no. I would imagine that the one you want is ‘Live at the Hollywood Bowl.’ That’s the one you want.”
I remind him of the time he unveiled on stage about his daughter losing her virginity and ask if his daughter minded being the subject of his act, to which he explains that it was about four years after the incident, and that his other daughter even got annoyed that she didn’t get a mention. Explaining further, Phill says, “I changed the name of the young man in question. But all of the things I say in that routine happened. It’s all true. All of it. The beer in the fridge, all of it. That young man, he’d probably be within his right to give me some sort of invoice. But I think that’s just all of my stand-up that works the best is based on things that genuinely happened. There’s a routine I did years ago, I did about being frightened of spiders and my father-in-law holding a spider. I talk about the legs of the spider poking out from between his fingers. I can still visually remember that actually happening. There’s something I talk about in the new show, physical things that I describe. I paint pictures with words. What can I say? I’m a poet. It’s a curse.”
Going back to the idea of duplicity with regard to his ‘Juplicity’ show, Phill almost falls into a brand new routine by accident as his mind (and mouth) runs away with him, “…coming back to the duplicity, when you’re on stage, there’s Phillip Jupitus, the real me, is in that body that’s on stage, Phill Jupitus the performer, up there doing his thing. But Phillip Jupitus is still being carried along in this insane, like, meat taxi that is Phill Jupitus the performer. I’m like a really unruly Uber and I’m just going the route I want to go. So, I’ll be in the middle, going down a particularly dodgy route and there’s me inside going ‘no, don’t go this way.’ And ‘shut up mate, I know what I’m doing.’ I’m like a horrible taxi driver when I’m doing the gig. I quite like this as an analogy. This might actually make the act. This is what it’s like being a stand-up. You are your own taxi driver and you’re going a way you don’t really want to go, quite often. Sometimes, the taxi stops altogether.”
Phill Jupitus Australia Tour Dates
MELBOURNE PAVILION @ ARTS CENTRE MELBOURNE – 19-23 APRIL
Book at Ticketmaster 1300 172 183 www.ticketmaster.com.au
PERTH REGAL THEATRE TUESDAY – 25 APRIL
Book at Ticketek 132 849 www.ticketek.com.au or www.perthcomedyfestival.com
BRISBANE SIT DOWN COMEDY CLUB – THURSDAY 27 APRIL
Book at Club 3369 4466 www.standup.com.au
SYDNEY FACTORY THEATRE – 28 & 29 APRIL
Book at Festival Box Office 9020 6966 www.sydneycomedyfest.com.au or Ticketek 132 849 www.ticketek.com.au
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