'I didn’t realise that stand-up could be like this' | Robin Morgan picks his comedy favourites

'I didn’t realise that stand-up could be like this'

Robin Morgan picks his comedy favourites

Tom Wrigglesworth’s Open Return Letter To Richard Branson

This show changed everything for me. From 2008 to 2014 I worked behind the bar at the Cardiff Glee Club, and I came in on my night off to watch Tom perform this show on his tour.

I’d never been to the Edinburgh Festival, so didn’t realise that stand-up could be like this - a storytelling show with an arc, beautifully put together with such warmth and love, not to mention brilliant gags. First stand-up show that made me laugh, cry and cry laughing. Wonderful.

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace

I convinced my parents to let me buy a small television for my room when I was 14, and late one Thursday night I was channel-hopping and landed on Channel 4, which was halfway through the pilot of Darkplace.

Good lord. It blew my mind. I thought I’d travelled into a different dimension. I got up in the night to go downstairs and read the Radio Times to find out what it was called, tried to tell my friends the next day, but couldn’t find the words to do so.

Bought the DVD when it came out and introduced everyone I could to it.

Shaun of the Dead

Again, when I was 14 (why did I get into so much comedy at 14? oh right, bullying) I saw this in the cinema, bought it on DVD when it came out (RIP play.com) and watched it about three times a week.

It’s just wonderful. I saw this before I saw Spaced, so this was the first Pegg-Frost-Wright-Hynes thing I’d witnessed.

I adore the joke where Shaun says to Dylan Moran’s character 'Get FUCKED four eyes' just as Moran’s taken off his glasses.

Eddie Izzard - Glorious

The first stand-up I ever saw was a DVD of this show, which my uncle (hi, Andrew!) had brought over from New Zealand.

My brother and I watched it on his laptop (in between playing Doom - thanks, Andrew!) and quoted it to each other for years.

I recently had a preview rearranged at a venue because Izzard was booked for the date I was due to perform. 11-year-old me would find that very exciting, if he knew what a ‘preview’ was.

The Day Today/Brass Eye

I can’t remember how old I was when I first watched it. Far too young. My brother Louis is two years older than me, and his friend Joe had brought over one of these shows on tape. And we watched it again and again and again.

I’m not sure if I thought it was actual news, but I was transfixed on Chris Morris throughout. Actually, come to think of it, the first episode I saw was Brass Eye’s Paedogeddon, and then we worked our way back. What our parents were doing, I have no idea. A lovely education nonetheless.

Perfect World

Late 1990s I think I used to go through the Radio Times and record anything that was described as ‘comedy’, without my parents knowing. I’d pop in the Videoplus number (LOL) and then watch whatever it was when I came back from school.

And this is something my brother and I watched. Paul Kaye being an arrogant, womanising piece of shit while working in head office of a toiletries company. I was so obsessed with it, in Year 7 I was asked by my English teacher what I wanted to do for a job, and I said, in front of the class: 'I want to work in head office of a toiletries company.'

No wonder the bullying started.

Robin Morgan: What a Man, What a Man, What a Man, What a Mighty Good Man (Say It Again Now) is at Laughing Horse at The Pear Tree 4.05pm.

Published: 8 Aug 2019

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