Limmy
“Standup changes your brain into thinking that anything is possible within reason, even if you’re scared.”
Brain Limond, or more familiarly known as Limmy, is bringing his Vines Tour to Cardiff’s Glee Club. The comedian has astonished crowds through stand-up and entertained with online anarchy. Ffion Riordan-Jones caught up with him ahead of his show, where Limmy discussed Twitter, nerves and all the daft stuff.
You’ve been known to explore darker themes in your sketches, are your Vines just purely crazy or do you explore some different themes?
What I like with Vines is that I just do it, can wake up and take inspiration from f*ck all when I’m walking about or a wee character pops into my mind. It’s just off the top of my head really.
Do you ever get any questions that shock you at your Q&A’s?
See I like strange things. Some people ask some strange things but nothing that shocks me given what I do. Some people just ask stuff to do with anything like, “what fridge have you got?”. They tend to get booed though. If anyone attempts to be funny they just get shouted at and booed which is kind of funny. The funniest thing is with Q&A’s is that rarely they are anything to do with what they’ve just seen. They might ask me about Twitter and some of the trouble I’ve gotten into like Trump assassination tweets.
You’ve been on the live circuit for years, do you ever get that feeling of anxiety back or do you feel like you’ve conquered it now?
Sometimes I get a wee bit of nerves, it can sometimes surprise you. I certainly don’t get it as much as I used to. When I first started to do stand-up it was terrifying, I was just ready to do a runner. I just have to think when I’m like 70 on my deathbed and arthritis is eating me alive that this is nothing. Sometimes I try to think of bad things like “this is going to be f*cking terrible, the worst experience of your life. You’re going to be isolated, this will be the worst one”, and by being evil to myself it kind of makes me laugh. It’s almost like you’re playing a game with somebody you know by taking the mick.
How do you think you’ve grown as a person from the first time you did stand-up?
You see the first time I did stand up it kind of broke something in me. I could imagine it’s the same for a lot of comedians that do stand-up but I haven’t asked them. I never thought I would get into it. You find when you’re terrified of doing something it tends to turn out alright. You hear these hotshots that still get nervous, but it really does something to you once you’ve done it. It was the same with the telly stuff and being a director for the first time. I came from being this person with low self-esteem coming out of uni, who didn’t get a job, had no intention of getting one and feeling like a freak. To then have all this responsibility, it changes your brain into thinking that anything is possible within reason, even if you’re scared.
What have you got lined up for the rest of the year?
I have a third book coming out, it’s an autobiography. I was asked to do a book about mental health because I have spoken about it a bit, but I didn’t know if I could write a whole book as I’m not a self-help type of person. So I thought I could write a bit about me and some of that stuff would be in it.
Do you feel it will be a challenge going deeper into your life or have you been quite transparent already?
I’m fine with being open, it’s just hard to pick out what the reader will like. I want to write about mental health, criminal stuff, self-harm and going through low confidence to having a job. Just don’t want it to be boring at the end. All the interesting stuff is when I was drinking and just being bad to myself. When you start to sort yourself out everything just gets a bit boring. I don’t know what the f*ck I’ve done for the last 5 years. I’m just drawn to the daft stuff.
Limmy’s Vines Tour, Glee Club, Cardiff, Thu 24 May. Tickets: £15 (£12.50 student). Info: www.glee.co.uk