Malcolm Head

Seven Questions With… Malcolm Head

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Malcolm Head is a very interesting performer who has recently supported Paul Foot on his UK tour. His style of stand up is distinctly recognisable with its bursts of poetry, “heckle gaps” and lengthy comic pauses, as is his performance attire which includes his trusty National Trust cap and mysterious rucksack of possessions. His haikus are little insights into an entirely new world, a microcosm of the strange, the dull and the ordinary, all culminated into three lines. He’s concise, he’s unpredictable and he is absolutely hilarious.
I asked Malcolm these seven questions to learn a little more about him…

1) What is your favourite aspect of live performance?

I love being able to be silly for 20 minutes. I’m fairly introverted, and acutely aware of the drudgery of everyday life. And for me, acting like a tit for 20 minutes releases a lot of tension built up by all that drudgery.

I’ve never used the word drudgery before but as you can see, it’s here to stay now. Drudgery. Difficult to rhyme with though. Fudgery? A place where you make fudge?

2) Do you enjoy gardening?

Yes, but I don’t have a garden. But I like the sort of gentle, and slightly pointless, labour involved in gardening. Toiling away all day to remove weeds that just come back. I also get the impression that it’s much easier to just do gardening than it is to just do, say, architecture or engineering. Landscape gardening maybe is more complex, but simply pulling up a few flowers is within the remit of ‘gardening’. 

Also, I don’t like Alan Titchmarsh but I’m not at liberty to explain why. Just trust me when I say, he’s a bad egg.

Malcolm Head

3) Which book do you wish you had written?

All of them. All of the books.

If I had written all of the books then I’d be the only authority on any subject. It’d be great. There’d be no debate over who caused the First World War, for example. I’d just say ‘I know I’ve written 25,000 books conveying various perspectives on who caused the First World War, but I’ve now decided once and for all. It wasn’t anyone really, it just sort of happened. Case closed’.

Also this means I’d have written 50 Shades Of Grey and Gravity’s Rainbow, so I’d not only be loaded but also respected by critics. 

4) Should badgers be culled?

I don’t think anything should be culled and especially not badgers. They just dig about and eat insects. Like kids really. Fantastic.

I do actually think one thing should be culled – members of the House of Lords. A few of them are probably ok but mostly they’re stuffy, miserable, unelected and over-privileged gas-bags. Compare them to badgers and you’ll see it’s a no-brainer. Badgers are neither elected nor unelected – they’re just there. They’re under-privileged if anything. Maybe some are stuffy but overall they’re far better than members of the House of Lords.

5) Are you a good liar?

I’m good at telling white lies, but very bad at telling serious lies. 

So, for example, if I needed to tell someone that a casserole they made was great despite being average at best, I’d be fine. ‘This is a great casserole, Tina’ I’d say, and Tina would believe me. And potentially give me more – this approach can backfire.

If, however, I needed to say ‘we are going to bomb Iraq because they definitely have nuclear weapons’ even though I knew they probably didn’t, I’d have a problem. ‘We are going to bomb Iraq, which is fine because they have nuclear weapons, Tina’ I’d say. But I’d be looking elsewhere and giggling, and Tina would see right through me.

6) What is the best room in the house?

The scullery. I think it’s something to do with a kitchen – I’ve never seen one. But the name is sensational. Imagine bringing a date home and saying ‘this is my scullery’. Wait, scullery rhymes with drudgery! Sort of!

‘So to remove their daily drudgery,
The lovers fought in the scullery’

7) Who do you most enjoy watching perform live comedy?

So many people. Simon Munnery is one of my faves. Gavin Webster is so brilliant – great jokes but with a constant glint of madness, so exciting to watch. There’s a huge amount of fantastic young comedians like Rhys James and Fin Taylor who I love. Daniel Simonsen. Richard Herring. Tim Key. Paul Foot. I also loved Mitch Hedberg growing up. 

Review: Paul Foot: Hovercraft Symphony In Gammon # Major

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Another year means another Paul Foot show that I just had to see. This year, Paul brought along a support act in the shape of comical poet, Malcolm Head. Malcolm has a refreshing persona on stage, with his quirky dress sense, aka an over-sized jumper, schoolboy rucksack and small bongo drum, with a National Trust cap to top it all off, to promote the charity (inner workings at play there, as there’s a lot to be gained from having the National Trust on side, apparently).

This poet’s haikus are almost anti-jokes: deadpan and literal, but delivered intentionally tentatively. Malcolm came prepared for heckles of any kind (you’ll have to see him live to learn more) and also had a supply of observational poems and odd thoughts he sometimes writes down. He is a very quaint comedian with a quiet, calm voice but a powerfully funny comedy behind it; I really liked him a lot.

Paul FootPaul’s show, on the other hand, was mismatched and frantic but planned meticulously and performed effortlessly, with a double-bluff fake entrance and lots of shouting and running around in circles- this style of comedy is niche, to put it mildly.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a performer so happy to be on stage in front of a crowd, or so eager to become a part of the audience himself (at the expense of a poor man on the front row). Armed with a stack of whimsical stories, which we are assured are all lies, and a whole new batch of brilliant Disturbances, Paul had the audience in the palm of his hand. A hand that can’t keep still, mind, for this strange comedian’s physical ticks and exaggerated jolts, almost convulsions, are enough to convince an audience that he may be having some form of breakdown before their very eyes. His movements are air-guitar-esque, with hair flicking and head banging that tired him out so much, he had to take off his snazzy jacket.

But a talent of Foot’s is that he can effortlessly swap in and out of his seemingly uncontrollable lunacy, and come out with something quite profound, whether that be in the context of his ‘Hindu Humour’ or his take on homophobia (an extension, perhaps, of his infamous ‘levels of homophobia’ routine that explained the very worst kinds of homophobia, that are increasingly extreme, to say the least).

Paul showed his wicked side with pointless hypotheses, and here again I draw comparisons with Rich Fulcher’s Tiny Acts Of Rebellion, which highlights the most pointless but life-affirming ways to get your own back on the world, like deliberately upsetting owners of a bed and breakfast by abusing the unspoken rules of the breakfast diner. He also managed to mount the same man three times, scream at another man for being allegedly homophobic, and also give us insight into his life as a dinner party host.

I loved this evening of absolute madness and look forward to Paul’s next tour (you can still buy tickets for his current tour here) and I have also found a new hobby of meticulously checking Malcolm’s Twitter feed for more of his hilarious poetry.

READ MY REVIEW OF PAUL’S SHOW FROM LAST YEAR: WORDS.