From Spitting Image to Spitting Truths: Andy Parsons- Comedy Assassin
By Fred Spanner
You probably know him best from Mock the Week, where he held court for over a decade, throwing out razor-sharp punchlines while everyone else was still warming up. Before that, he was writing for Spitting Image and riffing with Henry Naylor on Radio 2 with Parsons and Naylor’s Pull-Out Sections.
These days, he’s packing out theatres with tours that toe the line between hilarious and heady.
In a world full of shouty comics and TikTok try-hards, Andy Parsons is the bloke at the bar who’ll always get the last laugh.
Our meet-up comes the day after Musk began his handbags-at-dawn spat with Trump. This seems like exceptional timing for Parsons, who is going on tour later this year with his show titled, Please Piss Off To Mars.
Without assuming I can delve into the mind of a professional comedy writer such as yourself, I’m guessing the past 24 hours have been fairly productive for you?
“In terms of Musk and Trump, definitely. Let’s face it, if your show is called Please Piss Off To Mars, then yes, it gives you plenty to work on. With both of them at loggerheads, it’s been great, and there’s definitely some mileage to be had.”
We’ll chat more about your show later, but I would have been living in Cambridge at the same time you were at Cambridge University. We must have bumped into each other at some point. Where did you used to hang out?
“It was a long time ago, now. I was at Christ’s College and didn’t tend to stray too much from the centre of town, to be honest. I spent a bit of time in the Cambridge Arms and various pubs near the ADC Theatre, like The Eagle. There was also a late-night burger joint I used to spend way too much time in.
“I used to hang around with Ben Miller and his then-girlfriend, Rachel Weiss (Mrs Daniel Craig). I remember skipping along a road in Hampstead, holding Rachel's hand just after we’d left uni, when everything was hunk-dory. Haha! Fond memories.
“Ben and I were in a double act. We were a couple of clowns. We did unicycles, juggling, the lot. I ended up doing a double act with Henry Naylor, as neither of us was initially welcomed into the Cambridge Footlights, which was run by public schoolboys. We ended up doing our own thing at the Student Drama Festival, and they, very sweetly, took us up to Edinburgh a couple of times.
“Once we’d had some success, we ended up doing some Footlights stuff. Ben’s band, The Dear Johns, was the backing band when we went back up to Edinburgh with the Footlights.
You studied law at uni, but you ended up following the “fun” and ended up as one of the main writers on Spitting Image.
“Well, to be honest, there wasn’t too much fun to be had with law. I left university with a strong desire not to continue with it. So, basically, it was a case of ending up having to throw a lot of shit at a wall. I needed to get some money together, though, so I ended up doing some basic work for a law firm, while at the same time putting together some comedy work.
“I’d be doing open spots at comedy venues and trying to cobble some material together, doing sketch stuff with Henry, and I started writing for a BBC show called Week Ending. At the end, there was a whole list of credits that went on and on. My name would have been on there. You’d get about a tenner for a one-liner, and gradually they built up, and I became a commissioned writer.
“Then, they were looking for new writers for Spitting Image. They liked our work and asked if we could write for them. We eventually became the main writers on that show, too.”
Did you ever get to work directly with the puppets?
“Every new season, they’d ask us for ideas for new puppets, but because the budget was tight, they’d often use old puppets and change them to a different character. They’d film them from far away, so you didn’t notice as much. If you look at some of the old sketches, you’ll see a few characters that don’t appear too often being used to portray other people.”
A great way to recycle and save the planet, eh?
“Haha, yes!”
You were a regular on Mock the Week for a number of years. You and Dara go way back, don’t you?
“We toured together in the early noughties, including some overseas dates. I used to share his spare room in Edinburgh when I went up there. So, we got to know each other well before Mock the Week. He got the job chairing the show, and I was an ‘occasional’ for the first couple of series, before eventually getting my own chair.
“The original series with the likes of Frankie Boyle and co was proper ‘Gladiatorial.’ It was a proper bear pit. And you have seven comics. How many other shows have that many? And, remember, Dara was fighting for his space as well. It was a bun fight, and it only suited some comics. If you did a joke that didn’t work, it could get ‘eggy.’
You also went for a drive with Ed Byrne in World’s Most Dangerous Roads.
“Whenever Ed and I meet, we give each other a high-five, as we experienced severe cold during that show. We got to see the Northern Lights in Siberia, as we were doing the Road of Bones. It was minus 53 degrees. It was so cold, it cracked the camera. There was an open fire inside the tent, and we were huddled together, getting very little sleep. We went reindeer racing at one point.
“We had the problem of having to go for a wee in sub-zero temperatures. They told us it was cold enough to freeze the urine back onto your penis. The advice we were given was to shake it around a bit.”
Have politics and comedy fallen out a bit over the years?
“I went back to the Edinburgh Festival after having not done it for years, and there were far fewer people doing politics. When you think about how important it is to be talking about politics these days, with everything going on around the world, it surprised me. I counted on two hands, out of a thousand comedy shows, the number of shows actually dealing with current events.
“Everyone seems to be talking about themselves, and very few people are talking about things going on around them.”
People say they’d like to go back to the ‘good old days’, but those days, especially post-war, were when everyone looked out for one another. Do you think we’re becoming more selfish as a nation?
“I think it’s very much that. It’s very much reflected in the world leaders, too. With everyone online talking about themselves and putting themselves first, there’s that element to it. I would argue it’s much easier to write about yourself, as that’s the one thing that's unique and original. Trying to be political and work out how you and others feel about the world around you is a far more complex issue. Trying to make that funny is much harder.”
What’s also interesting is that you don’t appear to take one side. You look at politics from all viewpoints. That can’t be easy, either.
“One reason is that I don’t want to be pigeonholed. It’s nice to surprise people and play with that narrative. And being on the BBC for a decade, there’s the aspect of it that you have to have a go at everyone to look balanced. Let’s face it, no political party is so good that they’re beyond reproach.”
Where do you sit in the ‘things you can or can’t say in comedy’ debate?
“I hear this from a lot of comics, that you can’t go out there and say how you truly feel. I haven’t experienced that at all. The most important part of writing a comedy show is that you’re able to go out there and say what you want to say. Finding ways to do that in difficult circumstances is part of the challenge. Like, if you find yourself in a very conservative town, and you might not be their natural sounding board, well, great!
“One of the great things about comedy is that it allows you to say what you like. Arguably, online, you can say too much, of course. They’re working out the boundaries of what that is at the moment, and we’ll see how that plays out. Nobody’s stopping you from using your freedom of speech in a comedy club.”
Do you set yourself any boundaries?
“Not really. I mean, part of the boundary is the audience that’s in front of you. If you upset an audience, they’ll let you know about it soon enough. When you’ve gone out there and said something that hasn’t hit in the way you hoped, you have to work out how you can tweak it so it works, without changing what you’re trying to say. And, of course, you have to make it enjoyable for the audience.
“I want to do a show where everyone can come along, regardless of their political viewpoints. I don’t just want people who historically felt that they agreed with me. I’m happy for people who don’t agree with me to come to the show, because in some ways, that’s what you want, isn’t it?
“You’re never going to have a world where everyone agrees with you, but half the fun is trying to give a reasonable argument to the people who think you’re wrong.”
Do you think it’s more important than ever for the world to find some common ground?
“Well, it would be much nicer to live in a world where everyone isn’t tooth-and-claw with each other. You want communities to get along, not to despise each other so much that they want to get rid of them. I’m all for everyone getting along, but I’m also all for everyone talking to one another and saying how they feel.”
Is there anywhere in the world where people are more reluctant to laugh?
“No, I think with comedy clubs all over the world, everyone likes a good laugh. It’s not even just countries that have English as their first language, either. I did a gig in Croatia once, and the first half of it seemed to go okay. But, someone came up to me during the interval and said, “Could you not speak so slowly, as it sounds like you’re patronising us.” I hadn’t noticed I was speaking a bit more slowly, but I obviously was.”
What can we expect from your new show?
“It’ll pretty much involve five characters throughout the entire show: Trump, Musk, Reeves, Farage, and me. We play into this idea that we have all these multi-billionaires that keep everyone else struggling financially. They keep talking about Mars, so basically trying to find a reason for them to go there and leave the world in peace.”
I’m guessing the plot will change and develop as the tour progresses?
“Oh, yes, always. The tour will be 100 dates around the country over eighteen months, so it will change as it goes on. When you have an acting role and you have to say the same thing every night, it’s as tedious as anything. One of the fun things about comedy is being able to go out each night and do different things each time, depending on what’s happened in the news that day. While the material will be a bit different each time, I don’t see any of the main characters going anywhere real soon.
“Maybe Elon Musk will go to Mars, and I will encourage him in that pursuit.”
You can check Andy’s progress in his endeavour by catching him on tour.
Full details are at andyparsons.co.uk.