Geoff Norcott's comedy career has snowballed since his hugely successful debut Edinburgh appearance in 2016 with ‘Conswervative’. Subsequently, he has toured several successful national stand-up tours including Taking Liberties, I Blame the Parents and Basic Bloke.
Geoff has also appeared on The Mash Report, Live at the Apollo, Question Time and Backstage with Katherine Ryan.
In our exclusive interview, Geoff discusses introducing politics into his stand-up and the importance of inclusive material for corporate performances.
Watch the full interview here or read the transcript below.
In conversation with Geoff Norcott
Every comic's got their own origin story. I think that's when I was bit by the radioactive spider, like that moment I thought, "What is that noise? Did I do that?"
My first paid gig, in fact, this may not have been the first one, but it's the first one I remember, was for a promoter called Agraman, which it took me ten years to work out was an anagram of anagram. I just thought his name was genuinely Agraman, like some sort of weird word superhero.
He was running this gig up in Manchester called the Buzz Club and my main role at that point was to drive acts that were funny to gigs. But if you did that, sometimes you would get on the bill of a decent club. I took this comic, we drove, it took ages to get out of London, it was like a four-hour drive and I think I did five minutes for the sake of a nine-hour drive, but he gave me 40 quid in cash. And I just thought, that's amazing. It's amazing that I would get paid money for doing this ridiculous thing.
And it was a proper gig you know, people are having their nights out there. And that's one of the things actually that’s always stayed with me about comedy, I would sort of get a buzz about being part of someone's night out. When you see people are done up and got their hair done or they're wearing nice suits and all that, I kind of get something out of that, whether it's corporate events, gigs, or touring.
What first drew you to the world of stand-up comedy?
I suppose I was sort of funny as a kid, but not like the funniest among my mates, which is something I know comedians often say. Sometimes we're being disingenuous, secretly we think we're the funniest, but I never really have been.
I remember when I was about seven, we was at a holiday camp in the Isle of Wight and we had this thing called, sorry, this feels like a massive segue here, but I promise you I will come back to the point. It was the best cowboy competition and I don't even know if that's a thing; looking back now, it's a bit weird - grownups asking to dress in sort of Stetsons and holsters, but whatever. It was the best cowboy competition and I went out. It was sort of oversized what I was wearing, so I was dragging this kind of holster, the Stetson was over my head - I looked ridiculous. I'd heard a lot of the lads say like, "My name's Chet and I come from Texas." And I misheard this. I thought, I think I know what they're doing here. So I went out and went, "My name's Geoff and I come from Essex", and then all the grownups laughed.
And you'd think that the message there was that they were laughing at me, but I took it as they were laughing with me. And I think every comic's got their own origin story. I think that's when I was bit by the radioactive spider. Like that moment I thought, "What is that noise? Did I do that?" And yeah, it took me a long time before I knew how to make that noise happen again.
When did you introduce politics into your act?
When I started talking about my politics, which was back all the way in 2013, do you remember the coalition years? Clegg Mania. I don't think that was a real mania. I think the real mania was thinking that Nick Clegg could be Prime Minister, sort of madness that temporarily descended upon us.
Yeah, it was just weird because that was a time when things weren't quite as adversarial as they are now. And I was in comedy and I thought, well, I voted a way that a lot of the country had voted. It seems odd that no comedians ever talk about that fact. I knew for a fact certain other comedians have voted that way.
We could have a sort of pull quote here and a story if I just suddenly started outing people like a sort of political version of Stonewall in the eighties.
But yeah, I knew that it happened, obviously. Not every single comic was Labour voting, so I just spoke about it for a while. I wasn't very good at it. My jokes when I look back at them were not funny. But it was kind of a buzz to talk about it so I did it at the Leicester Festival.
I got nominated for Best New Show and I carried on talking about politics for a few years. And it was only really, I guess, around about 2016 when we all wanted to talk about politics. Well, not that everybody wanted to talk about it, but we all found ourselves talking about politics where it suddenly seemed to be a thing that people wanted more of.
And then I did Question Time and then I did the Mash Report that year. That was a high profile, new topical format for the BBC. Did Mock The Week the year after. I did only one performance on that, they didn't have me back, but it's fine, I'm over it. And yeah, just suddenly was in that world of talking about politics.
But what was interesting for me was that I spent a long time being a club comic, something I loved and still enjoy doing. So whenever I do live work, if I do talk about topical stuff, it's only one component of what I do, I think the first priority is to entertain.
Certainly if it's your tour show, that's one thing, but if it's club comedy, and in a way that's sort of a corporate type event, it’s that there are a lot of people there for different reasons. Really you want to plot a way through, not a safe way, but an inclusive way. I try to look at subjects for events like that where everyone's got skin in the game, quite broad subjects, but give them a kind of unique treatment in a way.
I mean, a lot of the events that I have done the bookers, or people involved with the agency, have sort of said to me afterwards, "Oh, some of us were worried you were going to come out and try and start a rally." I say, "Yeah, I just want to be funny first and foremost!"
I know that especially if it's like your company's night out, if it's your awards, first time you're seeing people in different regional offices that you don't normally see, a Christmas do - if it was me, and a geezer went up there and went, "So the goings-on in Westminster", I'd be like, uh. Kill me now.
How do you choose material for a corporate audience?
I think you've got to be mindful that in this era when people have got lots of streaming services, terrestrial TV audiences aren't what they were - people are all watching their own stuff. Say you've done live at the Apollo a couple of times, I clearly just dropped that there by the time this goes out I would've done, you'd might have done Have I Got News For you and stuff, but the sheer number of people who've watched that now is very different to 10 years ago.
So I think unless you are Michael McIntyre, it makes sense to go out and presume that people won't necessarily have heard of you. And that can be a good thing too because the great thing about when I did club comedy was the pleasant surprise element. It’s you go out, no one's heard of you, and you bang out this 20 minute set and people go, "Oh, this is as good as anything on the telly." Yeah, it's the same 20 I've been doing for the last 10 years, but it works, right?
The good thing about corporate type events is the bespoke element of it, I think.
Weirdly it’s a more creative endeavor than club comedy because club comedy, as I just said, a lot of people will keep their club 20 minute set fairly static. But when you do a corporate gig, or certainly for me, the best gigs that I have done, the most enjoyable ones, is when you do a bit of research, find out about who the people are, what the sector is, who the personalities are going to be in the room, and try and play with that a little bit.
So pound for pound, if you're doing a 20 or a half hour set, you're likely to say more different things in that situation than you would if you were doing even your club or your touring show.
I did an event recently where there was a lot of overseas colleagues in that people had brought in for a meeting and they had some incredibly cool names, really cool, like Jean Esposito or something like that - names that we'd all love as British people. And then I noticed, I read some of these names of some people that were in from Brazil on one table, and then on the other table I think they were from Altrincham, not knocking Altrincham, well, a little bit, but there was a guy on that table called Trevor Mudd. I just thought, that is the absolute scale of names there! And I knew instinctively, you do this long enough, I knew Trevor Mudd would find that funny. I'm honoring the overseas guest as well, there's nothing negative in that. I'm saying that we all think Brazil is cool anyway ever since that advert where they were doing keep ups with mobile phones or whatever.
British people generally think Brazil is awesome and it's a way of honoring your guest and playfully digging out somebody. Because of course this guy's name, it won't be the first time people have brought up the fact that he's called Mr. Mudd.
What’s the biggest challenge with corporate bookings?
With corporate bookings, I think the thing that you are looking for when you arrive is set up, first and foremost, because that's the thing that gives you a chance.
Can they see you well? Can they hear you well? Are you close to them? Or as close as possible, because you accept that some events have situations where they need a dance floor or certain things, and so that's the thing. When I get there, that's why I always like to go and do the rehearsals and stuff, because I want to have a look at the room and that's the thing that will settle me a little bit.
And then bit by bit, you reassure yourself, you meet the toastmaster, they're great chaps to have about if it does have one, or you speak to the guy from the company who's going to bring you on. And that's often a chance to let them know, because often they're really sweet, they want to give you the biggest build up and you go, "Actually this is Britain. You build me up like that, there's only one thing British people want to do!” If you go, "This man he's done Have I Got News For You, Live at the Apollo, Mash Report, he's got a medal for this and blah blah blah" they're just thinking, “All right, okay, all right, come on then mate, yeah”. Just keep it nice and simple. I mean the best thing to say is, "You may or may not have heard of him, he's done a little bit of telly" and then just get you on because you start there and you can work your way up.
So those are the potential challenges, but I think at the moment, the production values of corporate events are wildly improved upon what I started doing. You get these sets and you get screens now and it can feel like quite a snazzy thing to do. Some of them feel like being on the set of a TV show. And then you think with all of those things are in place, then that's when my job begins and my job is to get out there, and get people engaged early.
One of the things I like most is, because sometimes they are all disparate groups of people, is that feeling when you finish. It's not the applause you get right at the end. It's after that when people are buzzy, they're standing up, they're talking to each other, they're talking to people from different tables.
There's a slightly different air in the room when a corporate event has gone well. And that's a nice feeling. You feel like you helped loosen people up a bit, and I think that's a great outcome.
Can you get the same reaction at corporate events as your tour shows?
Well, if you'd have seen me in Bridgewater on my tour show, you'd think absolutely yes. I went all that way and they stared at me. That was my own touring crowd! So the short answer is yes, but not for the best reasons. I think they can be very sparky, they can be very interactive affairs. I think it is important to acknowledge that you're starting from a different place.
Corporate events could be anything from one person in that company who likes something you did on YouTube. They're always terrified because the moment that they decide, "Oh, I'll book this guy.", so you’ve always got a responsibility to that person, or a few people on the board think you're funny, or that you were recommended. That is then something that you have to sort of transfer that trust to a much larger group of people. Whereas tour shows, the pressure is normally, for me, maybe the husband likes what I do, and then you see a lot of partners go... You know? And then that's who you've got win over, right? Because they might have this anticipation of what you are going to be as a comic and across more than a short clip, you're hopefully going to exceed their expectations. In any great stand-up, right? And this is what I'm striving to be, is someone that will be lots of different things within the space of the time that they're on stage.
So yeah, I think that the rush of nailing a corporate, I think is up there with the best feelings in comedy because you know that there are specific challenges to it, but equally you know that it takes a certain level of experience and know how to do it well.
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