With a mammoth tour featuring 50 dates across the country, Alun Cochrane must be one of the busiest comedians on the circuit right now. From Aberdeen to Aldershot, the quick-witted Yorkshireman will travel the length and breadth of the UK in support of his new show with hardly a moment’s rest. One of these dates includes a whistle-stop show at the Glee Club, Cardiff, on Wednesday 13 Oct, which will be unmissable as it’s the only gig in Wales of the tour. “I always enjoy coming back to Wales, especially Cardiff,” he said. “I studied my acting degree there at The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama from 1995 to 1998, and I have fond memories of the city. But then I decided that I was better at being funny than acting.”
The last time Cochrane performed in the capital was October 2009 when he performed in the L3 Lounge of St David’s Hall, where he had the audience eating out of the palm of his hand: “I remember it being a strange gig because I was performing in some kind of foyer area”, he said. “It felt as if I was opening for another performer who was going to be on the main stage, and I was like ‘Am I really performing here?’ But it turned into a pretty good night.”
His previous tour, Alun Cochrane is a Daydreamer at Night, featured several tongue-in-cheek references to his lonely existence travelling vast distances between venues, armed with just a bedsheet with his name scrawled across it in bubble writing as his “elaborate stage set”.
So is the new tour – entitled Jokes. Life. And Jokes About Life – any more optimistic? “The new tour still has its darkly comic moments,” he said.
“A few jokes on the last tour took the mick out of my solitary lifestyle on the road. I recently changed my car to a black one with a leather interior and when I finish my gigs at night, it can often feel like I’m driving a hearse, so there’s dark comedy in that as well I suppose.
“This tour centres around a box of my very own hand-chiselled, lovingly created jokes.
“Not so long ago a heckler got up and shouted at me ‘Tell me a joke’, and the new tour is very much about that. Whereas in the past my shows have drawn from my own experiences and observations, this tour features much more jokes and one-liners as well as my usual stories.”
Even from the tour’s promotional photos – which feature him wearing a red nose – it is obvious to see that these shows will feature far more obvious gags.Yet, even though Cochrane draws his material heavily from mundane and absurd oberservations of everyday life, he also likes to delve a bit deeper: “My first rule is that the material has to be funny first and foremost. Although I often talk about trivial things like pizza toppings and crisps, I also address sensitive issues.
“In my new show I talk about my feelings for my gran who died this year. I am pretty sensitive when talking about my family, and one of my golden rules is that I will not misrepresent people who are not there to defend themselves.
“Comedians who market themselves as controversial are just so one-dimensional, tawdry and boring.”
Cochrane prides himself on making his own brand of humour unique. And he possesses an uncanny ability to be equally hilarious with his deadpan delivery as in the moments when he acknowledges his own humour with a glint in the eye and a devilish smile creeping across his face: “I try to make my humour my own and I don’t really model myself on any comedian,” he said.
“I suppose my brand of humour has poured in from different places – as I was raised in Glasgow, it was practically the law to love Billy Connolly, and I’m a big fan of Frank Skinner. It was a real honour when I met him and he said he really liked my stuff. And I think there’s bit of Jerry Seinfeld and even Alan Bennett in there too.”
After recently honing his routine to perfection at the Edingburgh Festival, Cochrane has assured that the show will have reached peak performance by the time he arrives in Cardiff.
“The more you know the show, the more you will add to it,” he said.
“I’ve done 25 dates of this tour at Edinburgh and the jokes just get added to and get better and better with the help of the audience’s reaction each night. By the end of the tour I find myself making jokes on the way to jokes.”
Although, he is still not widely recognised in the mainstream yet, Cochrane is mainly remembered by passers-by in the street as ‘that peach guy’ due to a true anecdote on Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow, which revolved around the bizarre sight of a businessman nibbling on a peach and glugging a can of red Bull, whilst casually tapping away at his laptop on a train.
“When I was on the show in June last year it was watched by around five million and it was the most high-profile thing that I’ve ever done,” he said.
“That episode has now been shown loads of times since, and I when I bumped into Michael recently he said it was still attracting 3.5 million viewers on repeat. “Stand-up comedy has been ignored on mainstream TV for the last 15 years. That is why shows like Live at the Apollo and the Comedy Roadshow are now providing a vital springboard and breeding ground for up-and-coming comedians.
“The comedy clubs up down the country are thriving and have a real buzz about them because of these shows. Stand-up comedy is in a really healthy place right now and I could think of about 10 comedians off the top of my head who have been on that show but are good enough to do the entire duration of the programme on their own.”
If there is any justice in the world, Cochrane should certainly be added to this list of comics who deserve wider recognition. But what does he think makes a good comedy show? “One of the best bits of advice I ever received was when I was performing in Belfast and the man who booked me said to me just before I went out on stage, ‘Just be good company.’ “And that’s what I try to do on stage – imagine myself being somebody you could go to the pub with and have a laugh and a good time with.”
Down-to-earth and endearing, Cochrane will prove just that to anyone who comes along to his show at the Glee Club. Don’t miss it!