Prankster Simon Brodkin leaves the characters behind on new solo tour

SussexWorld

This is Simon as Simon, on the road with Screwed Up, with dates including Eastbourne’s Congress Theatre on December 11 and Brighton Dome on December 19.

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers.

00:05Lovely to speak to Simon Brodkin. Simon, wow, things are going brilliantly for you

00:10at the moment on a tour which keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger,

00:13and you're heading to Brighton and Eastbourne before too long.

00:16But the really interesting, the really significant thing is, it's not you as

00:20your characters, this tour is actually you as you. You've been liberated from

00:23your creations, haven't you? I have been liberated from my creations,

00:28what a lovely way of putting it, absolutely, yeah. I'm standing up there

00:31wearing my own clothes, speaking in my own voice, and slagging

00:35off my real family this time, yeah. And how, well that must feel incredibly

00:40different. So it's a very fun tour. Must be a huge difference to be doing

00:44that at last. It does, it does feel really different,

00:50it does feel really different. I think the main, you know, the thing

00:54that is consistent is trying to make as many people laugh

00:59in one show as many times as possible. That's always been the goal, but here I

01:03think there's a bit more of a, you know, a richer connection because

01:06I'm talking about, you know, this is, I'm really opening up.

01:09It's called Screwed Up and I'm talking about how I,

01:13yeah, there was a diagnosis I had that made me realise

01:17I'm possibly, you know, properly, it's not quite wired up right up there,

01:22but I'll leave that for people who are coming to the show

01:26and it does feel really different, but it's great.

01:29But the point is you have greater potential as you than you did as

01:33your characters. Yeah, well there's a connection,

01:36there's an actual connection that I'm getting with the audience.

01:40This is the second Brighton Dome show of this tour. Yeah, the tour's just

01:45been snowballing. I think I did, I did a hand many shows at Comedia

01:49and then came to the Dome and there's, I think there's a connection that people

01:54get. It's obviously, it is, you know, mainly about

01:57making people laugh, but when people know that it's

01:59coming a bit more from your heart and you're talking about real things and

02:02there's real skin in the game and talking about the,

02:05you know, some of the stunts and the hate I got from the

02:09KKK after the, after the Donald Trump stunt

02:15and I'm glad that stopped him from getting back into politics. Put that,

02:19put him back in his box. You showed him.

02:23I showed him, he's running a mile, I haven't heard from him since.

02:26This is interesting. So yeah, there's a real story. Those stunts were part of the

02:30pushing aside of the characters, weren't they?

02:33You started to emerge more as you, but through doing those stunts.

02:38Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. The stunts were, I guess, the beginning of me

02:45doing characters but not being completely

02:48committed to an exact character like I always was,

02:52sort of obsessively on stage where I wouldn't give interviews at a character.

02:57I think you were telling me about one where I refused to step out. I was on the

03:00end of that. And not be Lee Nelson. You were at the end of

03:03that. He's not for, he won't take no for an answer

03:08that lad. So I'm more malleable, more empathetic.

03:12But I started doing the stunts which were

03:15in the guise of characters, you know. It was Jason Bent

03:20as the Premier League footballer who did the deal with Sepp Blatter for North

03:24Korea 2026 World Cup did, but ultimately people aren't really

03:28thinking of that stunt as a character. It's just, you know,

03:31chucking all the notes over Sepp. And so the characters were starting to sort of

03:34become a little looser with the stunts, the more I did.

03:37You know, given Teresa made the P45, I was,

03:40you know, I was a Tory aide. But let's be honest, it didn't

03:45take a lot to brush your hair to one side, put on a

03:48a blue tie and be slightly arrogant and obnoxious. So that was

03:55sort of the character. And then

03:59that made me start thinking, hang on, there is,

04:03I'm starting to emerge here. I can see a path for me

04:07in this comedy world. So what's the future of the stunts? Will the

04:11stunts just the bit in the middle in between the characters and you being you?

04:14Or will the stunts still have a future?

04:19Yeah, interesting. Once a pranker, always a pranker. I

04:23or someone shouted some similar thing to me on the street once.

04:27I don't know is the honest answer at the moment. It's nice spending

04:31not a single night in a police cell for quite a few months.

04:35The family's happy. In fact, that's one of the family walking behind me now.

04:41So yeah, it's nice, I think, because also the

04:46criminal record starts to expire after a certain number of years. So it's

04:51looking really clean at the moment. And I'm enjoying, I'm enjoying

04:56doing the tour. The tour's going amazing. So at the moment, I'm a bit busy to stunt

05:00anyone. Donald Trump is breathing a sigh of relief.

05:05Say that again. 160 odd dates. That's pretty cool.

05:08Yeah, it's amazing. And some of them were and are in America.

05:14So let's hope that visa stays true. I'm sure Donald Trump will welcome you

05:19back, won't he? I'm sure he has. And I hope he's bought

05:23this whole I'm never going to stunt him again business that he'll be

05:26watching online on this interview.

05:31Fantastic. Well, really lovely to speak to you. Congratulations on this accessible

05:35tour. And thanks for your time. Good to see you.

05:38Thank you, mate. Well, thank you.

05:40Absolute pleasure.

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