Comedian headed to Pockets for gig

Comedian Simon King is headed to a gig in Yorkton.

King, who was born in Sheffield in England moving with his family to the Vancouver area when he was young, will perform at Pockets Billiards and Sports Bar, Thursday, Feb. 9, at 8:30.

King said being on the stage has always been part of who he is.

“I was an actor from about seven years old so being a performer was very much part of my life from a young age,” he told Yorkton This Week. “I spent some time in my mid-to-late teens doing sketch and some improve (isation), but was never a huge stand-up fan.

“However, the first time I saw a live stand up show I knew it was something I had to try. I did, and I knew right then I had to be a comic.”

So what was it about it that drew King to it?

“Interesting question,” said King.

“There’s a few things that really appeal to me about stand-up; the loneliness of it I guess.

“The fact that the failures, when they happen, are all yours but so are the victories.

“There’s something very freeing about that solitude. There’s no one else to depend on but yourself and you live and die by what you do.

King said the connection with an audience is also obvious and immediate.

“It’s a very direct way of getting humour to people,” said King. “It’s a conversation. You can speak to people without anything between you and them. In my time I’ve done stand up without even a mic or a stage or lights; just talking. There’s something pure about that.

“Humour is a personal thing and stand up is, in my opinion, the most simple and efficient way to share that humour.”

That does not make being a comedian easy, and there are challenges, and King said the biggest is finding balance.

“I would have to say overall, for me personally, finding the perfect balance between all the parts of myself,” he said. “I like absurd humour and dark humour -- physical humour and word play.

“I also believe in trying to be as honest as I can with what I say. Being as open about what makes me tick, and trying to find common ground. That process of taking the big idea or concept and making it accessible to as many people as I can is a constant challenge.

“Making people laugh is easy, making them laugh for the right reasons is a life-long pursuit.”

Interestingly, King said he does not have vivid memories of his first time on stage doing comedy.

“I remember it was at an old burned out comedy club in Vancouver, a place that had seen much better days” he said. “I was up third on a Tuesday and was quite nervous.

“I don’t really remember the set.

“Suffice it to say that I talk fast on stage now but back then, with youth and inexperience fuelling me, I was a hurricane.

“I remember it went pretty well, I got laughs and applause and as soon as I left the stage I knew, no matter what, I had to do that again. Long story short, seventeen years later I’m still absolutely in love with stand up.”

Equally interesting is that King doesn’t exactly have others in the industry he sees as inspiration.

“I wasn’t really a fan of stand up when I started stand-up,” he said.

“In fact, for the first few years I did stand-up I hadn’t really listened to or watched any stand-up specials. So I came to that kind of education later than most.

“I remember when (George) Carlin died in 2008. I knew of him of course but didn’t really understand what he meant to comedy. I wasn’t super familiar with his work. It’s a shame, I wish I had known of him more, I would have liked to have seen him live.”

Perhaps having been born in England he did gravitate to a notable humour troupe from across the ocean.

“I was influenced early on by more absurd comedy. Sketches like Monty Python’s Flying Circus and radio shows like The Goons (a 1950’s BBC radio comedy program) loomed large in my consciousness,” he offered. “I enjoyed the chaos of it all and found the almost uncontrolled and disconnected from reality nature of it all really appealed to me.

“As for stand up, I’d say I always found that kind of stuff funny in that genre too.”

King said he uses the stage as the incubator for ideas.

“I write all my material on stage, take up an idea, a riff from there to build a piece,” he said, adding that too led to him gravitating toward certain comedians.

“To that end improv heavy comics appealed. Robin Williams was probably the first stand-up I knew of that I really connected with. I loved his speed, how quick his mind was, his characters and his good natured but often sharp and socially aware material. That’s a connection I still have and likely will forever.

“As I grew comedically and personally and wanted to say more with what I did I started to be drawn towards the comics that talked about the world, had honesty and openness to them no matter what they wanted to say. George Carlin, Doug Stanhope, those names have significance for me because they took no prisoners and said what they wanted to and needed to say. To this day I’m trying to reconcile those two very different sides of myself and become a combination of those two pieces.”

In terms of material King said it’s not a single source for comedians.

“There isn’t one source. It’s kind of observing and reporting the world and people with a humorous bent,” he said. “So the news, media, that’s a big thing for me; taking that stuff and making it make sense and using humour to deal with it.

“Then there’s social behaviour. If you’re out or even online and observing people you see hundreds of different interactions a day. There’s humour all around you. You just have to figure out how to crack the code and find the silliness of it all.

“Finally, there’s talking about yourself. I don’t tend to do that too much because I talk more about the world around me but I have mined that vein occasionally. I talk about how my brain works, what I feel about certain things and sometimes even what made me a comic (in terms of my mentality).

“We’re all in an orchard of trees ripe and heavy with comedy. Most people pick up the odd piece here and there. Comedians are just the people who brought a basket so they can grab enough to share.”

And even after you have an idea, it has to stay fresh to audiences, and to the comedian as well.

“For me that’s the fun of it,” said King. “I turn over material a lot.

“I love the feeling of a new joke and finding a new premise. That’s really what I’m in this for. Given my druthers I’d write and release an hour special every year. It’s not always that easy to do business wise but I’m constantly working.”

And King does work at the craft of comedy. It is his ‘job’.

“I’ve been a comic for 17-years, a professional comic with no day job for 15, and even now when I’m in London or Vancouver, four to five times a week I’m out at open mics or clubs working new material,” he related. “That’s over and above the shows I do when I’m on tour. Even then I’ll throw new stuff in, riff on a concept etc.

“I don’t hold myself back so if I’m doing my act I let myself run free. I’ve been known to improvise entire headline sets. I’ll talk to audiences, go off on something I see or something that struck me as funny that day.

“Sure you have an act you have to perfect and has to be funny because that’s what people paid to see but there’s so much to play with inside that structure.

“When it comes down to it I want to be enjoying myself too. The best times are when everybody in the room, including me, is having fun. As long as you get to that place it always stays fresh.”