What is your favourite of the lines you've written?
Ooh, this is a good interview because I get to be self-indulgent and talk about my own work! Uhh... Uhh... I don't know. I think, um... I think the end of Ten Foot Cock, "Stumbled on a watch, I’d assume it had a watchmaker. That a muffin presupposes a baker". I think that that is nicely structured. You know, I like those sort of things. I like, like I was saying earlier about getting a lot of meaning into a short space of time, uh, and my favourite line is probably not in my songs actually, I like the end of Tony the Fish, and I like Paedophile; going to a pool with aviator glasses, which you might not have heard? And a couple of little lines. Hmm, one of my songs? What's my favourite song? I liked um, Radical of eyebrows.. that did the job.
What are you going to do now [John Howard]'s out?
I haven't being doing that line for a while now actually, because it doesn't really work overseas, and the song was too long, so I've just been jumping from country to house, which is a bit weird but ehr..
What's the best-
I'm not doing that song tonight actually, I've got a new song! A new sentimental encore!
Do you want to sneak us into your show so we can hear it?
Are you not coming?! [he looked utterly appalled]
No.. the uh, the tickets sold out... in.. like... an hour..
They didn't really sell out in a hour.. [said with a bemused smirk] Why didn't you ask Marilyn (manager) for tickets?!
My boss told me never to ask for tickets when requesting interviews, which I thought was ridiculous.. but, yeah, I don't know.
Yeah, well you should’ve! But, anyway.. if you can be bothered, I'll tell Martha, the front of house manager to put your names on my list. And just wait around until eight o'clock to get in, because there's always fucking seats and if not, you can just get drunk or whatever.. You're not allowed to get drunk are you?
Legally, not for another three weeks.
Well, I've got a bottle of wine in my dressing room if you girls want to sit and wait in there. That'd be weird. [laughed nervously/perversely] If you were nineteen and I was a different type of man, you'd be in!
Danna: Oh no!
Ali: If only.
Yeah..
What's the best audience that you have performed to?
Um, things I do in that Royal Albert Hall are big - you can see it on YouTube - and it was fucking amazing just because of the scale of it. Soon after I did a show on the West End, at a theatre called The Lyric, which was my Perrier, where I won this award and it was a thousand seater, and it was the first time I'd done my full show to that many people, which, was also fucking amazing. On tour I did and amazing show in Cardiff recently, at the beginning of this year. I don't know what makes a good audience, it's a very complicated formula, but they were; a bit pissed, they were smart, they were students - a little bit of all the good things.
A lot of people, comedians, love playing in Cardiff because the people are largely University based..
Oh right the Uni, yeah that makes sense! There were enough people who knew me enough, but, there's the problem with shows; like tonight probably, where the percentage of people who know your material is too much. You loose the element of surprise, half your gags, they're laughing in weird places because they know what's coming, and then the rest of the people who don't know your material, are wondering why they're laughing and the audience doesn't gel, but yeah, it was good. Um yeah, every now and again, oh.. Uh, Durham, another university town! Yeah, uni towns are really good for me. And it's really good when there are sort of fifty, sixty year olds in the crowd too. You know, when you've got that spread and everyone's in it together, it's a nice feeling.
My uncle was one of the fifty year old men in the audience in Norwich.
Oh really, did he like it?
Yeah, he was like, "I got to see that Tim Minchin chap you like so much, and he was bloody great!", then I got to show off and say, "Oh really, well I'm going to interview him and a few weeks-"
"So fuck you very much.."