Comedian Eddy Brimson: ‘If you don’t mean it, don’t say it’

Jesterlarf returns to the Junction early next month and on the bill is Eddy Brimson, a successful stand-up comedian, writer, actor and TV and radio regular.

Eddy, who was at this year’s Edinburgh Festival in August, has been a headliner on the circuit for a decade, and has also appeared at Comedy Unleashed, a ‘free-thinking’ comedy night at The Backyard Comedy Club in Bethnal Green, London, for “stand-up comedians who think outside the groupthink bubble and make us laugh”.

“It’s a good club that,” says Eddy, a Londoner who now lives just outside Stoke (he’s also previously resided in Edinburgh, Brighton, Worcester, and Barnet), “there’s a bit more freedom, it’s very diverse in the opinions, the crowd are very open because a lot of comedy crowds at the moment are... or a lot of promoters are quite edgy about what sort of comics they book or what kind of comedy they like.

“But Comedy Unleashed is quite unique, in that it allows people to express themselves more than some other clubs do – certainly more than you’re going to get on TV, because TV’s so sanitised at the moment with stand-up.”

He adds: “Comedy’s subjective, comedy’s also got a role to hold a mirror up to stuff in society sometimes – that’s its purpose. That’s why politicians don’t like comedians very much, because comedy can be very immediate and in-your-face and sometimes we do hold a mirror up in the face of stuff that just needs to take a look at itself.”

Has Eddy ever got into trouble for anything he’s said on stage? “The thing with being on stage is if you’re not prepared to say it in front of a room... I’m very anti-Labour, I’m very anti-Tory, I’m very socialist in my views – and if you’re not prepared to say it on stage, that means you don’t mean it, and if you don’t mean it, you shouldn’t say it. Simple as that really.”

At the present time, Eddy is working on new material to perform in Australasia early next year. He is set to appear at the Perth Fringe and the Adelaide Fringe, before heading to New Zealand to do some gigs at the famous Classic comedy club (“Virtually every comedian you’ll speak to, if they’ve played it, will put it in their top three”).

Asked how he writes, Eddy, a fan of fellow comics Bobby Mair and Lou Conran, replies: “I am quite observational, so when things happen that’s how my inspiration comes. My partner is a comedian as well so we have a lot of fun in the house, and that starts off all sorts of ideas.

“I actually find it quite difficult to sit down at a desk and write – so my stuff’s mainly observational stuff and I build stories around that. I dictate loads of stuff down... I like silence in the car; that gives me a lot of time to think. There’s a lot of driving in this job but I love that because then no one can get hold of me and I’ve got my head to myself.”

Away from stand-up, which he started doing back in 2000, Eddy has written a number of best-selling books, hosted a top-selling video, Teargas and Tantrums (about the World Cup of 1998), and is a ‘talking head’ on various radio and television shows on subjects as diverse as football, dodgy builders and sexy baldness.

As an actor, he has appeared in popular programmes such as Absolutely Fabulous, The Thin Blue Line, Casualty, The Bill, and EastEnders, where he played an East End villain who torches Frank’s car lot, and was also a presenter on the Bravo TV show The Basement.

“I’ve just done something for BBC that Lenny Henry has written, which I think will be out sort of March time,” reveals Eddy, “and then another thing for Apple TV, which is a comedy drama. Everything’s going in a very good direction at the moment – very happy.”

Also in the line-up with Eddy at Jesterlarf in December will be Kelly Convey, Tom Lucy, and Marlon Davis. On what we can expect to see and hear from Eddy, he says: “It will be lots of storytelling, a bit of messing about, a little bit of politics, a little bit of everything really. Hopefully good, solid proper stand-up comedy – a bit more in-your-face than you’re ever going to see on TV.”

[Read more: Comedian Bobby Mair: ‘The show’s called Cockroach, but it’s not harrowing....’, Comedian Leo Kearse: ‘You’ll see more exciting stuff in the clubs than you will on the BBC’]

Eddy’s father was a well-known folk singer named Derek Brimstone and when Eddy was younger, family friends included Jasper Carrott, Billy Connolly and Mike Harding. “So I grew up around those kind of storytellers and joke-tellers,” he recalls, “and my dad was a very funny man. But I never had any intention of becoming a stand-up; I just kind of fell into out of necessity.”

See Eddy as part of Jesterlarf at the Cambridge Junction’s J2 on Friday, December 2. Tickets, which are £16, are available from junction.co.uk. For more on Eddy, go to facebook.com/eddybrimsoncomedian/.