John Bishop

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John Bishop reflects on amazing year before Liverpool’s ECHO arena
John Bishop tells Catherine Jones how the last year has been a whirlwind of sell-out gigs and TV shows
Apr 30 2010
Catherine Jones,
Liverpool Echo[/align]
A YEAR ago Liverpool comedian John Bishop could be found trying out his fledgling Elvis Has Left the Building routine on a small but appreciative crowd at the city’s Unity theatre. Fast forward 12 months and the 43-year-old is preparing for a sell-out appearance at the ECHO arena in front of thousands of fans. It’s the final date in a tour that has seen John take his show from the tip to the toe of Britain, and – along with a cascade of high-profile TV appearances – his profile rocket from stand-up circuit entertainer to major comedy star.

“I was talking to my mum and dad about it last night. I was saying, this is just mad isn’t it? I can’t do any more than just go with it and enjoy it,” says the bemused-but-happy dad-of-three.

So what happened John?

“It’s a chain of events really,” he muses. “If Jonathan Ross hadn’t had that little thing with Russell Brand and then got taken off the air then Michael McIntyre wouldn’t have been given his show. And then I wouldn’t have been on it and from there I got Live At The Apollo, and my Edinburgh show, and Skins. It’s once people see you on TV, the TV executives. The great difficulty is getting through the door. If you’re seen to deliver they give you another chance. I spoke to the producer of the Michael McIntyre comedy Roadshow and I asked if he could get us on to Live at the Apollo. He said ‘if you do well tonight I’ll put you on’ and before I’d even finished the set he’d called my agent and booked me. Really though it’s just hard work.”

The former pharmaceuticals salesman may not be able to quite believe what has happened, but he’s realistic enough to know he needs to make the most of it.

“I can’t really take the foot off the pedal, I’ve got to keep it going,” he tells me. “I know it’s not going to last. So I’m going to try to make the most of it in this next 12 months in terms of raising my profile. There’s a lot of things I’m saying no to. But there are certain things you’ve got to look at and think that’s too good an opportunity to miss. The important thing is that balance. At the end of the day there’s no point in winning the prize and then going home to an empty house.”

Despite a hectic schedule John maintains his first priority is his family, even if that means a long drive home after a gig. He reveals: “If I’m within three hours of home I will go home. Just so I can get up in the morning and see all the kids at breakfast. At least then I’ve seen them and that’s important.”

The ECHO arena show next Thursday – incidentally General Election day – is the biggest John has ever done in Liverpool.

“In the last year I’ve gone from the Unity to the Royal Court to the Empire and now to the arena,” he marvels. “The ECHO arena is going to be mental. What I’m trying to do is make sure the arena is a different gig than anywhere else. I don’t know how to do that but I’m going to put some effort into the stage set and make it a good experience for people. I went to watch a couple of people, Michael McIntyre and Eddie Izzard, and it was interesting to me because arenas almost take the comedy experience full circle. In a small room everyone can see your face and what you do. At somewhere like the Empire, if you’re at the back you’re a fair distance away, but at the arena I’ll have a big screen so everyone will be able to see my face again. So I’m working on making sure I don’t throw away little things.”

With tickets for two more ECHO arena dates – December 17-18 – on his new autumn tour already selling like the proverbial hot cakes, it looks like he’ll have to get used to his close-up on the big screen. Added to which, John has also got a role in the new Ken Loach film out in September. But stand-up remains his first love.

“The reality is I don’t regard myself as an actor,” he says. “I can’t actually see Johnny Depp being threatened. The joy I get out of doing stand-up is great. You’re totally in control – you’re writer, director and editor and that’s quite a unique experience. Sometimes I can’t believe I get paid for this. I had a normal job and I’m a long way from that. I don’t think it will ever reach the point where I’m tired of it.”

John Bishop’s May 6 show is sold out. Tickets for his show at the ECHO arena on December 17-18 are available on the ECHO ticketline 0844 800 3680.

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John Bishop: We talk to TV's hottest new comedian
By Beth Neil
11/06/2010
mirror.co.uk[/align]
Just two years ago, John Bishop was on the verge of giving up. The wannabe comic left his Manchester home to make the lonely journey across to a gig in Leeds knowing he'd sold just 47 tickets in a 500-capacity venue. With a mortgage to pay and three children to support, maybe it was time to quit the dream and return to the day job. How times change. Today toothy Scouser John is having the last laugh. He's one of Britain's most in-demand comics, a regular on high-profile panel shows and is selling out arenas for his forthcoming nationwide tour.

The 43-year-old former sales director says: "I said to my wife that I was sorry and maybe I should go back to my old job. But she told me to go and make those 47 people laugh. As it happened two people didn't turn up so we were down to 45. And there was this heckler who wouldn't shut up. I would've asked him to leave but he was too big a percentage of my audience to let him go. I won't forget that. I never planned any of this. Only 12 months ago it was touch and go whether I'd carry on so all this madness now doesn't feel real. Part of me thinks someone somewhere is living my old life and I've just borrowed theirs for a while. I'm half expecting them to turn up and say, 'Giz me life back and fuck off!'"

It was a stint on Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow this time last year which sent John's profile and career into the stratosphere. He happened to be touring at the same time the show aired, the TV audience went out and bought tickets to see him live and his purple patch culminated in a highlyacclaimed run at the Edinburgh Festival. Everything started to fall into place.

Appearances on the likes of 8 out of 10 Cats, Mock the Week and Live at the Apollo continued the momentum and at the start of this year he was booked as a guest on Jonathan Ross. His conversational style and laidback delivery have seen him bag a regular panellist spot on James Corden's Sky1 sports quiz A League of Their Own and he's just landed his own show John Bishop's Britain which kicks off on BBC1 this summer.

"I've got dinner with the controller of the BBC next week in Manchester about the series," he says. "My agent has asked me to suggest a nice restaurant, but I don't know any. Things have moved on professionally but socially it's the same. I'm more concerned with who's going to buy Liverpool FC."

John, who's launched an animated World Cup app for the iPhone which can be previewed each week on MirrorFootball. co.uk, started on the comedy circuit at the ripe old age of 33. He'd split from wife Melanie and was down in the dumps when - spontaneously, he claims - he decided to have a go at an open mic session in a local comedy club. He says: "I was spending my time feeling depressed or getting drunk. I'd only ever been to two comedy clubs in my life, but I ended up at this place and thought I could sit at the back and not talk to anyone. The fella on the door said it was an open mic night and you didn't have to pay if you got on stage. After that I did a couple more open mic spots and then my first headline slot and I started getting paid. A lot of people on the circuit have a drama school background or have always wanted to be performers. I stumbled into it."

Not only was comedy to change his life, it was also about to save his marriage. After two years of living apart, Melanie turned up at a gig. John's name wasn't listed on the bill so she had no idea her estranged husband, whose act was based on the split, was about to come on stage and unleash a tirade of material about their failed marriage. Luckily, she saw the funny side. I spent my act slagging her off," says John. "We met up after the show and she said seeing me up there reminded her of me as I used to be. When I was a good laugh. Marriage is fucking hard. There are ups and downs. If I lived with my best mate for 10 years I'd end up hating him too. You get married, you have kids, I worked too hard and became a bit boring. If it hadn't been for comedy I'd be an alcoholic on a bench shouting at buses."

Now reunited, parents to Joe, 16, Luke, 14, and 12-year-old Daniel, John and Melanie are celebrating 17 years wed. She has been his backbone since he gave up a lucrative career in pharmaceuticals three-and-a-half years ago. "I knew what I had to earn each month to pay the bills and I had no choice but to make it work," he says. "Although we weren't on the breadline, we had to forego luxuries like family holidays. If there was a chance to earn £100 at a gig somewhere I didn't really want to go, I had to take it. I didn't want to have to sell the house."

It was a gamble which paid off. John is far too modest to brag about his bank balance but he does admit to having treated himself to a flash car. And he's splashed out on a house for parents Ernie and Kathy - they moved into their new place in an upmarket area of Runcorn just last week. He says: "I'm selling out big venues so it doesn't take a genius to work out I'm doing OK. But I never came into it for money. I'm not going to get a spray tans and I'm not interested in Botox or boats. It's just nice to help the family out.

"I've never been into cars but I drove to a Jaguar garage and asked if they had a car I could buy today and bought one there and then. It's by far the poshest car I've ever owned." He's adjusting to the loss of his anonymity but says most people who approach him in the street mistake him for Bez from the Happy Mondays. "Him or Jamie Carragher," he says. "I'm not uncomfortable with being recognised but I don't regard myself as famous. I'm sort of well known. I've never tried to get a table in a restaurant. I wouldn't know how. That's the good thing about coming to this job late. Me and Melanie aren't caught up in the glamour of showbiz. I go home and there's a dog to be walked, arguments to be had, kids that need picking up and dropping off."

That's not to say he hasn't had the odd showbiz moment. He's just returned from the Cannes Film Festival where he worked the red carpet promoting Route Irish, Ken Loach's latest offering in which John stars alongside Mark Womack. "I was filming it all on my iPhone," he says. "People must've thought, 'Who's this knobhead?'" And he bumped into Noel Gallagher at a post-Brits party and discovered the ex-Oasis guitarist is a huge fan. Liverpool-born, Runcorn-raised and now living in Manchester, John's heart is firmly in the North.

"Northerners are funnier, 100%," he says. "If you're funny, you're funny wherever you're from. But I do find Northern humour is more personal. It's not here's a gag, here's another one. There's a make-do attitude in the North. We never got the good jobs or the breaks and during the Thatcher period it was almost government policy to run us down. So finding optimism in humour has been encouraged up here. You go to the provincial cities in the North now like Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle and they're all buzzing, but that sense of humour is ingrained."

The whole family came to see the shows at the Liverpool Echo Arena which finished off the six-month tour. They were panicking more than he was, he says. But only a few years after warning him to stop making a show of himself, mum and dad must be proud of him now. "Yeah," he says. "Well, they tell me they are in cards at least. You know what Northern dads are like." He laughs, baffled at how far he's come. "The three best jobs in the world, in order, are rock star, footballer and comedian," he says. "I've got the bronze. But it could all end tomorrow and if it did I'd just like to be happy with what I'd done. And I would be. I really would."

For tour dates go to www.johnbishoponline.com

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John Bishop offers to fight audience member
David Simister
champnews.com
4th November 2010[/align]
The top comedian lost his temper on stage in Southport after misunderstanding a joke, members of his audience have told The Champion. Several visitors to Scouse funnyman John Bishop's show at Southport Theatre last night (November 3, 2010) claimed that towards the end of the performance he lost his temper with a member of the audience and verbally threatened them, after a suggestion for a joke was misconstrued.

“It was absolutely disgusting. He told the audience about his BBC show and invited the audience to suggest jokes that he couldn't say on it, so the people in audience started shouting suggestions that weren't very funny, including quite a lot which were in bad taste,” said one member of the audience, who only wished to be identified as Mark. “Then a joke which started with ‘your mother' got shouted about by one person there, and [Mr Bishop] completely blew a fuse about it, and basically offered to have a fight with this guy. It was absolutely awful, you could the atmosphere in the room with a knife.”

John Bishop, who grew up in Liverpool and played with Southport Football Club before turning his talents to stand up comedy, has appeared on a string of TV shows before being given his own primetime BBC One series, John Bishop's Britain, last year. His official website has yet to make any statement on the performance, but it is understood he apologised to the audience member at the end of the performance, and also made reference to the incident on his Twitter feed hours after the show.

“To clear things up I mistook a comment as an insult to my mum so lost my temper a bit,” he wrote. “I was mistaken but the rest of the gig was lovely.” His publicist also commented after the show: "John misinterpreted what he had heard and thought it was a direct insult towards his family. He took great offence which he expressed towards him. However, he did apologise there and then, and also shook hands with him after the show, which cleared up the misunderstanding."

Actor Kent Riley was one of several in the audience who wrote about the gig on Twitter. He tweeted: ‘Haha I went to see John Bishop and he lost it an threatened to quote “twat fuck out of you” to an audience member who heckled him.’

Stuart Wright, from Liverpool, said: ‘Weird experience at John Bishop tonight. All really funny up until the point he lost it with a heckler and threatened to kick their teeth in.’

Michael Hill tweeted: ‘Still bemused by John Bishop losing his rag on stage last night. Bizarre and a bit excruciating. Killed atmosphere yet still a great show.’

Neil Illing from Preston said: ‘ never seen a comic have a meltdown. If you want an audience to participate don't get offended by their replies.’

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He was offended by a 'your mother' crack? Fucking hell...

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John Bishop - Richard Bacon - 2010-11-15
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John Bishop: Where did it all go right?
Brian Logan on the giddy rise of John Bishop, ex-pharmaceuticals salesman turned superstar standup comedian
guardian.co.uk,
17 November 2010[/align]
Three years ago, in his show on the Edinburgh fringe, John Bishop described walking out of a career in pharmaceuticals to pursue comedy. His show, called Stick Your Job Up Your Arse, had considerable confessional appeal, the more so for being performed, in Bishop's words "in a hut". The venue, a prefab, was certainly inglorious and the audience was very small: it seemed Bishop's gamble was not paying off. And things got worse. "There was a deficit," says Bishop, "between what I was earning and what my family needed to live off. I was resigned to the fact that, while I may do the odd night, I was going to have to get a proper job."

Well, Bishop's got a proper job now – if "primetime TV comic" counts. His riches-to-rags tale has swung back to riches, after a year in which Bishop, 44, has gone from half-empty gigs to a Saturday night show on BBC1, John Bishop's Britain, and a never-ending tour of arenas. If he has a problem now, it's success: Bishop built his standup on everyday tales of a blokeish middle-aged man and his family. Can he be both celebrity and everyman?

The new show he's touring, Sunshine, traces Bishop's journey to fame: from his last London gig, when 14 of the 16 audience members were his friends, via his game-changing December 2009 appearance on Live at the Apollo, to a night on the tiles at Robbie Williams's post-Brits party with James Corden and Freddie Flintoff. "I thought, I could either ignore what's gone on, or I could address it," he says. But surely it's tricky playing the bloke next door while talking about life on the A-list? "There is a thin line between being honest and autobiographical and sounding a bit like a cock."

That line is trickier to tread for working-class comics, into which category Bishop – with a Liverpool accent so rich it's got calories – falls. The distance travelled, and the potential for sell-out, is so much greater. But, laidback, charismatic, and never far from a big, alpha-male laugh, Bishop is unconcerned. "There's no chance of me going, 'You know when you're eating olives in the Ivy?'" he says, "because I don't live that life. I have the same mates I always had, I go to the same pub. I've got the same wife and kids and the same house. Nothing's changed." Well, that's not strictly true. Today we're meeting in an exclusive Soho club, one floor of which has been reserved for Bishop, who arrives an hour late, having crammed in meetings for this rare London leg of his tour.

His wife's first grey pubic hair

Bishop grew up on a council estate in Runcorn. "The only way to get off it," he says, "was either playing for Liverpool or being in a band." He heard a line on Radio 4 the other week that summed up his childhood. "When I was young," it ran, "I only ever wanted a job where, when I went home, I didn't have to get a wash." Bishop's dad was a labourer; his brother still is. But Bishop got out: to Manchester Poly; then into semi-professional football for Southport FC; and, latterly, in pharmaceuticals.

In his late 30s, Bishop gave up the "good job, mortgage, pension plan, Bupa, company car and gold cards for two airlines" to pursue comedy. He was depressed, his marriage was collapsing, and one night he wandered into a comedy club and took to the mic, cracking the only joke he could think of, about French farmers, then waffled about his divorce.

Bishop had caught the bug. The compere encouraged him and, if falteringly, Bishop was off. But it took him until last year to hit the big time, after his Elvis-themed set secured a Edinburgh comedy award nomination, and TV snapped him up. It's a thrill to hear Bishop tell the tale: his excitement is contagious. But once a marketer, always a marketer: he's well aware of the box-office value of this ordinary-boy-done-good narrative. In his new show, he overplays his naivety, casting himself as the Scouse bumpkin embarrassed by his own face on advertising hoardings and nervous at having to snog Ronni Ancona in an episode of Skins. His current popularity, and the rocketing of his ticket sales, he traces directly to the telling of his how-I-got-into-comedy story on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.

His secret? "I didn't just tell gags." Indeed, emotional directness is key to Bishop's appeal. In his standup, he doesn't pretend that marital breakdown is funny, or that his newfound fame isn't disorientating. "If comedy is just gag, gag, setup, gag," he says, "you leave knowing nothing about the comic. I think there's a thin line between pathos and comedy, and I'm not afraid of putting my heart on my sleeve." The climax to his Elvis show, when footage of his debut for his beloved Liverpool FC (in a charity match) was screened to the strains of Love Me Tender, left few dry eyes in the house.

Bishop admits that the confessional standup can be icky for his wife and three sons. He frequently riffs on the difficulties of stroppy teens; and, in his Live at the Apollo set, he joked about his wife's first grey pubic hair. "When nobody knows who you are," he says, "it's easy to talk about your marriage and your kids. But now, I've got to work with the fact that the audience has a perception of who I am already – and who my family is. My lads have sat me down and said, 'Don't talk about this, Dad, and don't mention that.' It's something I'm still learning about."

He credits his TV breakthrough to the current proliferation of standup on the small screen. "It was about numbers. I don't think somebody in the BBC said, 'Let's give the others a go.' I think they said, 'We've run out of the ex-Footlights people we usually go to. We'll have to try some new ones.'"

A detour into the bank of Blair

Bishop has a common touch seldom associated with ex-Footlights comics: it's a brand of trad standup that pleases a mass audience, but it can alienate comedy snobs. One journalist referred to Bishop as the Oasis to Stewart Lee's Blur. Bishop laughs; after all, he prefers Oasis. But he thinks it's a remark loaded with prejudice. "I don't think there's any need for me to prove my intelligence. I'm happy with where I am. I don't have to go on stage and say, 'Guess what book I read, aren't I clever?' But if somebody wants to have a conversation with me about politics or the economy, I'm happy to do it." He detours, at one point, into a critique of Tony Blair setting up his own bank. "Can you imagine Harold Wilson doing that? It's a fucking disgrace."

But Bishop keeps the politics out of his comedy. "I don't want to be categorised as a comedian going down any particular avenue," he says. "Besides, political comedians are hamstrung, because they're waiting for other people to do stuff before they can come up with something funny." That's a simplification, but Bishop has a simple, utilitarian take on comedy as a whole, which success won't compromise. "My job is looking around for funny stuff to happen, and then telling it in a way that people enjoy. Now I've got this far, I'm pretty sure I'll be doing it for a lot longer than most people want me to."