Marcus Brigstocke: The Thinking Man’s Smart-Mouth
By Fred Spanner
Photos: Andy Hollingworth
“AI is the biggest threat to men. It’ll talk on any given subject without knowing whether the information is true or where the information has come from. If it learns to lean on a bar and interrupt women, it’s over for us.”
Marcus Brigstocke isn’t your average gag-merchant. Sure, he can work a crowd like a pro and drop a one-liner sharp enough to shave with, but this bloke’s also packing a brain the size of a small planet. Since bagging the BBC New Comedian Award back in ’96, he’s been everywhere, from Radio 4’s The Now Show to Have I Got News for You, bringing a mix of cutting satire, posh vowels, and the occasional eyebrow-raising rant about politics, climate change, and whatever else is winding him up that week.
He’s taken on everything from King Arthur in Spamalot to heartfelt drama in The Red, snagging awards and proving he’s more than just another stand-up in a suit. And he’s not afraid to get personal either; digging into fatherhood, addiction, and the messy business of being a modern bloke. Whether he’s sparring with the nation’s best on panel shows or cooking up a new stage set like Vitruvian Mango, Brigstocke delivers comedy with a kick.
His new show, Vitruvian Mango, explores what it is to be a man. Let’s discuss…
Tell us how your stand-up journey began all those years ago.
My first gig was set up by a mate of mine. I was really upset as I didn’t get into drama school, and I didn’t know what I was going to do. He said, “I don’t know why you want to be an actor anyway. You’re shit at it, but you are funny. You should do stand-up.”
I didn’t know you could just get up there and do it, and the next thing I knew, he’d booked me a gig. I tried it, liked it, and I walked off the stage thinking, “This is it. I’m doing this! This is what I want to do with my life”
That was in 1995. In 1996, I went up to Edinburgh and won the BBC New Comedian Of The Year award, which was on telly. Then I got a radio thing off the back of that, and got invited onto The Stand-Up Show. So it all happened really quickly. The fifteen minutes they all saw were dynamite, but I had nothing else. You know that thing when they say, “Now try something else,” and they’re like, “Oh.”
I knew so clearly that it was what I wanted to do, so I worked hard on it. I just gigged, and gigged, and gigged.
How has your comedy writing evolved over the years? Has it allowed you to become more open and honest about yourself?
I think I have, but it was always there in comedy. Richard Prior was the guy who shifted stand-up to the point where you could really go inside yourself to find pain and difficulties, and use it as a way to explore it. And being very funny about it. It took me about ten years before I learned how to do that.
I was quite resistant to it at first. I used to say to people, “I don’t really want to do a show about me.” But I had quite a few comedian mates going, “Come on. You were in rehab when you were seventeen, you were a podium dancer, and you’ve worked on an oil rig. You’ve got some tales, man.”
But I’m of the view that if a comic only talks about themselves, maybe they should look outwards a bit. I mean, there are more interesting things than me. Not for the purposes of this interview, of course.”
Do you feel we should be talking more about ourselves these days?
If you’re talking about being single, being out there, relationships, and kids, there’s going to be an overlap. But each individual’s viewpoint is unique as they’re seeing it through their eyes.
The kind of politics I deal with in my shows is social politics. With politics, you always end up referring to people higher up the chain who are fucking everything up. But I think if you’re not talking about tech, they’re wasting their time. Tech is the thing that affects all of our lives.
My view is that the owners of the tech companies are more powerful than our leaders. Because it’s still early days, the likes of comedians of my age go, “Ooh, look at the new technology.”
Are you worried that the rapid rise in AI technology means we simply won’t know what’s real anymore?
Absolutely. When I think about AI, I picture it where it is today. There are lots of AI videos knocking around, and I’ll probably get duped by one a week, but this time tomorrow, it will have evolved again. In ten years time it’ll be an entirely different beast. The idea that we’ll have any say in what AI will become is a false one.
Firstly, the tech giants are, by their training and nature, profoundly unethical people. I mean, ethics doesn’t enter their thinking. We can’t imagine what kind of world our kids are growing in to. That makes it difficult for comedy, but at the same time, it’s rich pickings. It’s what my show Vitruvian Mango talks about: being an adult dad to both a grown-up and young son. My next show will be purely about tech.
Is there anything off-limits when it comes to comedy?
No, nothing. The guardrail already exists, so yeah, there is something that’s off-limits: anything that’s not funny. I mean, if I wanted to make a routine about the suffering of the Palestinian people, I would find it extremely difficult to make it funny. It doesn’t mean it’s not possible. That’s one of the things I love about stand-up: the rules are clear, if I’m not making you laugh, I’m not doing my job.
It’s what Vitruvian Mango is about: the problems that men are facing right now. Why are so many being sucked into the manosphere where the likes of Andrew Tate dwell? Why are both younger and older males being drawn to the far right and even the far left? But none of it makes the cut if it’s not funny. Otherwise, it’s a Ted Talk, and I know I’m not qualified to do that.
Have audience reactions changed much since Brexit?
Those who backed Brexit are completely incapable of being criticised from the stage. They really struggle with it, but they’re not alone. Those who backed Corbyn are just as incapable, I’d say. Scottish independence supporters, too. It’s because this shit runs so deep and is so powerful.
I mean, Brexit made me really angry. Just real fucking rage. The fact that they got away with it. Here we all are, suffering. We’ve got somewhere between 3 and 4 per cent reduced GDP because of it, and it’s still not the main topic of conversation. It’s a source of great angst to me, and I haven’t stopped pushing against that and Reform.
Have audiences changed? Yeah, but again, we’re back to tech, and the groups that we belong to are smaller and smaller circles. What we do is we drag the idea we disagree with into the middle of the circle, and we publicly tear it apart while the circle approves of us.
Let’s say you’re a trans-rights activist and you start to suggest that one of the ideas from outside the circle is worth considering, you’re expelled. The same if you’re a Reform supporter, or a Corbyn fan. The nature of how that affects us has affected how stand-up works.
Comedy is in such rude health at the moment. There are so many funny comics out there. When I’m out touring, I only see other comics in-between, or when I’m doing benefit gigs, and every time I’m like, “Holy shit! Who’s this?” Have you seen Tom Ward? He’s brilliant. Laura Smyth is amazing, too.
There’s a guy called Jack Skipper who got very famous online and then decided to try stand-up. Many have tried to make the transition into the stand-up world, and every time we’re like, “Yeah, we’ll see,” but every gig I’ve seen him do, he’s better than the time before.
So comedy is in great shape right now, and anyone who moans that, “You can’t say anything anymore,” is talking out of their arse. It’s bullshit.
Do you think the younger generation has difficulty processing something they don’t like due to their apps only showing them stuff they’re into?
I don’t like the word ‘Snowflake’, because I don’t think it’s helpful. I do think the younger generation is censorious. They censor themselves and each other all the time. In Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation, he talks about the constant onslaught of information that pours into all of our lives. It flips your brain from discovery mode, where you’re interested to learn new things, to defence mode. This is because you’re being attacked, although they don’t seem hostile in their original form.
For instance, if you’re a young person and you see countless doctored pictures that don’t look right, your brain flips into a defensive mode, which some call ‘snowflakery’. And then they call for everything they disagree with to be deplatformed. It’s not their fault. It’s a deliberate attack on them by people who own the tech.
Let’s move on to your podcast, How Was It For You, which you co-host with your wife, comedian Rachel Parris. I’ve loved the Wedding Food episode, because it mentioned one thing that I’ve always wondered about: Why the fuck am I always at my hungriest at a wedding?
Yes! We should have talked about the timing a bit more. Most often, a wedding invitation says it kicks off around 1pm, and you think, “Well, I won’t have lunch. I’ll be fine.” Then the service drags on, and you get to the reception and manage to grab something to drink. Then a canapé the size of a fingernail arrives. When the food finally arrives, the portions tend to be tiny.
This is why I was so proud that at our wedding we ordered the largest canapés, a “help yourself” set up on each table, and mountains of food. We wouldn’t have it any other way. They frown on ordering in to weddings, but it should be the norm.
In a recent interview, you mentioned your biggest disappointment was Morrissey. Care to expand on that?
Well, yeah. I mean, all the clues were there. The kind of delicacy that existed in his lyrics was also the sign of a narcissist. That word is dangerously overused, but you can’t really get comfortable as a narcissist.
I’ll risk this: What Morrissey had to say as a vegetarian about China was not unreasonable. He might have expressed it better, but I’ve been to China and I asked our tour guide where all the animals were. He replied, “Oh, we’ve eaten them all.” He had to be quite delicate in the way he explained it, but he said that after Charman Mao, the poverty was such that you had to eat what you found.
The fact is, our ethics affect our politics, and our politics affect our ethics. So their politics affect their ethics at that time, which brings us back to Morrissey- a passionate campaigning vegetarian- going, “They’re a subspecies.” Well, I wouldn’t have put it like that. Deep down, a Smiths fan never recovers.
On the other hand, Robert Smith has never let me down. In fact, he’s got better. Lyrically, ethically, and in his power as a performer. When you think about how he took on the ticket giants, telling them they weren’t prepared for their fans to pay that much money for a ticket, for me, he’s just got better.
I’ve seen you in a number of acting roles, but one that stands out is the restoration comedy you did at the Fringe with Lionel Blair, of all people.
Oh, that was amazing. Do you know, I was messaging Bridget Christie recently to let her know how fantastic I thought The Change was, and we were talking about that show. What a cast, Lionel Blair, Bridget Christie, Phil Nichol, Stephen K. Amos, and Ella Kenion. It was fun and wild, but the critics mostly tore us a new arsehole. There were four shows that should have got five-star reviews; the rest were pure chaos.
I got to play a drunken libertine who wore thigh-high boots. Let me tell you, put thigh-high boots on a man, and it affects you. No wonder Adam Ant always looked so confident on stage.
I’d love to go to the Fringe, but by the time you’ve added up all the travel, ticket and hotel costs, I wouldn’t be surprised if it came to as much as a thousand pounds.
A thousand pounds! That’s ridiculous! I hope your show gets cancelled!!
For those who don’t know what we’re on about, this was a character you played in the hit kids' TV show, Sorry I’ve Got No Head.
Ah, that was so much fun. That was me, the now-staggeringly famous Nick Mohammed, and James Bachman. We were supposed to record about two or three of those sketches in a day, but we only ever got one done because we kept laughing so much. That’s always a good sign, though.
If you’re working on something and you can’t get through it because you’re howling with laughter, you know you’re making something good. I’m fiercely proud of those particular sketches. I think it’s some of the finest work I’ve ever done.
The characters were based on a true story about someone's mum who simply didn’t know what anything cost. She’d always end up saying, “Oh, I don’t know, I suppose about a thousand pounds.”
So tell us what we can expect from your show, Vitruvian Mango?
Well, it’s funny! I’ve successfully avoided advising men on any particular thing, except one. As I’ve got older, I've come to understand that male friendship- sharing a physical space with my mates- is massively important. In fact, the reason I pushed this interview back fifteen minutes is because I go for a walk with my best mate each day and I knew I wouldn’t be back in time.
I do this thing at the end of the show when I get two willing participants to come on stage who are mates. I get each of them to say something they admire about each other. Usually, it starts with something like, “Oh, he’s a bit of a knob, but I like him,” but I’ve learned over time to give them a bit of space. Then they start opening up, and a few of them have said things that have moved me profoundly.
The other day, one of them said, “Every time I think I don’t know what I’m doing as a dad, I think about what you might do. ‘Cause I’ve never seen someone devote so much time and energy to his daughters. I think you’re the most fantastic dad.”
Now, he said that out loud, in front of a crowd of about five hundred people. I really liked that, and luckily, I was still able to be funny afterwards.
The show is also about how men are misrepresented, and it’s interesting to be talking to someone writing for Loaded, which charts the journey of men in such a fascinating way. The original Loaded lads are grown-ups now, and the amount of stuff that men are required for is getting less and less. You can summarise it by saying it’s doing stuff for women that they haven’t asked us to do.
The jobs in the past that required us to have any physical strength are all but gone now. All those jobs requiring physical labour have just about disappeared.
We’re still needed to get the lid off the ketchup, though.
Yes, and maybe attempt some shelves, haha. But a lot of the muddled-headed assumptions of what women might have wanted from us in the past has gone. Loads of stuff in the working world has been replaced by tech. AI is the biggest threat to men. It’ll talk on any given subject without knowing whether the information is true or where the information has come from. If it learns to lean on a bar and interrupt women, it’s over for us.
So, it’s looking at where we’re mistaken in our beliefs. I mean, the number one cause of death in men under fifty is suicide. If it were in the top ten, you’d be horrified. The number one cause of death in young men should be parkour. I’ve seen the videos, but it’s not. It’s suicide. It’s monstrous.
My advice is that I’m all for talking, but make sure the person you’re talking to is someone you admire or who you aspire to be like. I talk about role models too. A lot of people of our generation grew up admiring The Fonz. This was a man in his forties who had a string of meaningless relationships, hung around with school kids, and lived in a rented space above a stranger’s garage. What chance did we stand?
Guys, get down to see this show. Women, take your men. It’s brilliant, clever, and a damn sight cheaper than therapy.
Vitruvian Mango tour dates:
September:
Friday 12 Holmfirth, Civic Arts Centre
Saturday 13 Bath, Rondo
Tuesday 16 Birmingham, Glee
Wednesday 17 Cardiff, Glee
Friday 19 Brighton, The Old Market
Saturday 20 Bridgewater, McMillan Theatre
Wednesday 24 Aldershot, West End Centre
Friday 26 Eastleigh, The Point
Saturday 27 Goring-On-Thames, Village Hall
October:
Thursday 2 Leeds, Glee
Wednesday 8 Margate, Chump’s Comedy
Friday 10 Swindon, Arts Centre
Friday 17 Cranleigh, Arts Centre
Saturday 25 Twickenham, Exchange
Wednesday 29 Canterbury, Gulbenkian
Thursday 30 Loughborough, Town Hall
November:
Wednesday 5 Carlisle, Old Fire Station
Friday 7 Chorley, Theatre
Saturday 8 Walton On Thames, Riverhouse Barn
Monday 24 Banbury, Mill Arts Centre
December:
Sunday 7 Portsmouth, Guildhall (Lens Studio)