Could you first introduce yourself to the reader?
Richard Stott, comedian, writer, whisky enthusiast. You may have seen me on ITV2’s Stand Up Sketch Show.
How would you describe your show?
Afterparty is a coming of age show. It’s about realising you can’t stay young forever and you have to face responsibility someday… Imagine that but with jokes and a story about getting interviewed naked for a documentary.
Why do you want to perform at Edinburgh Festival Fringe?
It’s the best festival in the world.
What differentiates it from other festivals?
The size of it means there’s space for all performers, it means I can be watching a TV star then run over the road to catch an act I used to do 5 spots with in dingy pubs. (I still do 5 spots in dingy pubs).
What first motivated you to enter the industry? Who were your inspirations?
I’m not one for having individuals who’ve inspired me. I don’t have a favourite film, band song or comedian. I’m attracted to ideas. I like it when an act comes up with a concept that no one has managed to pull off and you think “how do I do that?” and get to work. As for getting into the industry… As for what motivated me to get into the industry, there’s no poetic story to it, I like performing, it’s the one thing I’ve always been good at. I tried my hand at stand up in 2017 after spending 8 years as an actor not getting any stage time. As soon as I started gigging I knew this was my path.
How has your background, upbringing and education had an impact on your artistic career?
So I’m relatively middle class in my upbringing, my parents worked pretty normal jobs but in Yorkshire in the 90s and early 00s you could live pretty well on that. My education was a normal state school, nothing really interesting there, basically it means my upbringing and education were so uneventful they are rarely featured in my work… There's just nothing interesting about it. I do however live with a disability called Poland Syndrome and for a while that was the main focus of my work. However not in this show. I believe though that growing up with a visible disability led me to developing a confidence and sense of humour in my formative years to combat the fact I stood out. I guess it’s helped.
What is your earliest childhood art memory?
Throwing up at a birthday party after eating too many hoola hoops.
If you didn’t have your current job, what would you probably be doing?
Who knows where I’d be if I wasn’t bothered about comedy? Maybe I’d have moved out to the coast to run a beach bar or work in a distillery, maybe I’d have decided to follow the money and gone into banking and own one of those lifeless apartments in Canary Wharf (I’d actually love one, no hate). Who knows what’s going on in the Richard Stott multiverse, but we’re in this one and in this one I’m here to make jokes.
Did Covid-19 change the way you create work? Do you approach shows with a different mentality now?
No. It’s not like my act pre pandemic involved me licking people’s faces, if it did I’d have probably packed that in.
Describe the last year in 5 words or less?
A bit harsh
Do you subscribe to the idea that art should be exempt from ‘cancel culture’?
No. Because then someone could just wave a swastika flag while shouting hate speech and claim it was art. It comes down to intention mostly but even if you are not trying to offend and a community tells you that what you are doing is going to have a negative impact on them you should listen. Let’s take jokes about the trans community from comedians who have nothing to do with it – a lot of the jokes come from an uneducated lens. Even if they don’t mean to offend and say “it’s just a joke” it’s still problematic. If you have a large platform and spread jokes that punch down on a marginalised group of people, you might mean it as good fun but you can bet some of your followers will take it too far. Online bullying is all too real… and it’s not good enough to say you can’t control your followers, you encouraged them, grow up.
If you could work with anybody, from any point in history, who would you pick and why?
Lots of people to choose from aren't there… I’m reading a book about the history of exorcisms at the moment. There’s a bloke called Lucian Of Samosata born in 150ce… he was a satirist who apparently used to just go about the Roman Empire taking the mick out of exorcisms and other ritualisms they used to do. He’d get banned from towns and chased out then just move onto the next one and piss them off too. He sounds great, join him.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to take a show up to the fringe?
Remember to have fun…………………………….
When and where can people see your show?
Underbelly Bristo Square The Dexter 4:15 eeeeeevery day apart from the 15th
And where can people find, follow and like you online?
Twitter: @ therstott
Insta: @ the_rstott
TikTok: Stottthescreami
Richard Stott: Afterparty is performing at Underbelly Bistro Square at 4:15pm from 3-29th August. For tickets and more information visit edfringe.com.
Read a previous interview we ran with Richard here.
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