Andi Osho

March 2011

I’M meeting up with friends tonight, which is a rare treat. We’re having dinner together. I tend to prefer the low-key and quiet socialising rather than the big night out. It’s because I’m out all the time. Everything is about going out when you’re working in comedy. So I appreciate being indoors.

Do they expect me to be funny? No, they’re much funnier than I am. I sit back and let them entertain me.

Part of the weekend will be dedicated to getting material together for Stand Up For The Week.

I start thinking about that every Thursday, the morning after we’ve recorded the last one. There’s not really a day when I’m not thinking about it.

It’s a quite a challenge finding stuff that’s interesting that you can get some good jokes out of. But it’s good because it sharpens you up as a stand-up.

There isn’t so much crossover in to the material you’d use for a stand-up tour because you are writing specifically for the show. If you do Live At The Apollo or Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow you will be using up material that you’d been working on for the circuit.

But if you’re going to get good as a comic you have to do that. I think that’s why Michael McIntyre’s been so successful. He isn’t precious about the stuff he’s done. He accepts the shelf-life the material and moves on. Let’s write another ten minute routine for the Royal Variety.

Stand Up For The Week is a ten week series and it’s intense so I’m not getting much time for chilling out.

The only TV I ever watch regularly these days is Friends because it’s always on. I really wanted to watch Episodes but I never got round to it.

I’ve only once sat down with a DVD box set and watched episode after episode and that was The Wire. I was watching five or six in one sitting, so I got through season four in about two days.

I’m not reading anything at the moment. There’s no time. But I did have to read three books in a month for a Radio 4 show. I got to pick one, which was Stewart Lee’s book (?????) and I was really enjoying it but then they sent me another book. And then another. I thought I’m never going to get through all these. The only one I read in its entirety was The Help by Catherine Stockitt???, about maids in Mississippi during the sixties. It was very well researched and very interesting. The other one was Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim, which I didn’t even start.

To keep fit I try to go to the gym but when I was doing Let’s Dance For Comic Relief that took care of that because I was dancing for two weeks. I need a lot of rehearsing for that. It’s amazing how we as normal people are away from professional dancers. They learn a routine within ten minutes. They made the show. The rest of us were just tarting about in front of them.

Now I’m trying to get the will power to go back to the gym.

I do want to make more time to see live music. I like good R&B, mostly the older stuff like Stevie Wonder.

I don’t go and see live comedy because I’m doing that all the time. If I was to pay to see anyone it would be Chris Rock. But comedians don’t really laugh a lot when they’re watching someone else doing comedy. I remember sitting with some comics watching Russell Brand or someone like that and we all sat texting or on their iPhones. None of us were really listening. You just become immune to it.

So doing this as a job has ruined my appreciation of performed comedy. I laugh more when I’m with friends.

A perfect weekend would be doing nothing for the whole two days at home in East London.

Andi Osho brings her Afroblighty Tour to The Glee Club on April 14. For tickets call 0871 472 0400 or visit www.glee.co.uk.