Fedor Tot speaks with alternative comedian and writer Arthur Smith about his tribute to Leonard Cohen.
Could you tell us a little bit about the show you’re touring at the moment?
Well it’s the last version of Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen, which I originally did about 15 years ago kind of as a joke. I’ve always loved Leonard Cohen and the show is about other stuff too, it’s about my mother’s decline into dementia and about Leonard Cohen himself and about the idea of redemption, life, death, with a lot of songs and some marvellous backing singers. It’s a personal show, it’s about facing up to loss in a way; my mother kind of lost the person she was, and Leonard Cohen lost his life. But having said that, there’s lots of laughs in it, and a naked man dancing. Not me, you’ll be pleased to hear! You can have the job if you like!
What inspired you to do a show built around Leonard Cohen’s songs?
Partly it was because I’d done a show back in the early ‘90s called Arthur Smith Sings Andy Williams. I picked that just as a stupid title, and it ended up being a lecture about this Dadaist obscure footnote of a writer I was fascinated with punctuated by songs. We only charged 50p and offered people their money back. So, I got into the idea of Arthur Smith Sings… as a kind of little motif, and I went for Leonard Cohen because I love Leonard Cohen.
I was in a band a long time ago, though I wasn’t really a singer, but then nor was Leonard Cohen. As he himself said, if I wanna hear a great singer, I’ll go to the Metropolitan Opera House, but if you can tell your story through song it doesn’t matter whether you can sing or not. He had such a great sense of timing too, he died the day before Trump became president. He was a wonderful soul, he was preparing for it obviously, his last two albums were all about death in a way, what it meant, what it means. That said, Leonard Cohen was an extremely witty man! A lot of his songs are very funny, what’s that one about Janis Joplin? “You told me again you preferred handsome men, but for me you would make an exception”.
You’ve usually been labelled as part of the so-called ‘alternative comedy’ scene and you’ve never been one for the mainstream conventions of standup. When you write, what’s your process, where do you get your ideas from?
You have to be alert to what’s happening, people will often say things and you go “oh I could use that!” In a sense, you always have to be there with your notebook. You can’t ignore what’s happening around you. It’s no good making jokes about some TV show from 10 years ago. You have to be alert to the temperature of the world and what people are thinking. The ideal is if you come up with an encapsulation of something and the audience realises “oh yeah, I’ve been thinking that too”. That’s the best laugh you can get. Then again, there’s lots of room for just being silly. I’m always happy to take my shirt off and balance a balloon on my head. I try not to take myself too seriously.
I understand you have an interest in tramping or rambling.
Yes! I’m a big rambling man. And no doubt when I’m in Cardiff I shall set off and have a wander round, I might even go to Snowdonia next week! I find it’s great for thinking and relaxing when you’re walking in a beautiful landscape… I have quite an affection for Wales, I’ve played lots of places there and I’m always pleased to go back, especially as you never have to go far and there’s a nice mountain to walk up… I think you’ll find a lot of the great philosophers of the world were great walkers, Nietzsche and Voltaire and whatever all used to go off rambling!
Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen: The Final Tribute, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, Sat 17 + Sun 18 June. Tickets: £16. Info: 029 2063 6464 / www.wmc.org.uk