Comedy
Stuck In A Lift
Alasdair Beckett-King isn’t sure if he sold Vic Reeves a chess set
King Of Crumbs Alasdair Beckett-King talks dead poets, Prince Harry and elliptical trays ahead of his new stand up tour
Depending on who’s asking, Alasdair Beckett-King might describe himself as “a fairly tall IC1 male from the north east of England” or “a legendary comedian and writer, in that there is little historical evidence that he exists”.
He’ll likely be known to you either from his viral video creations, his run of successful Mock The Week appearances, or from sitting next to Suzie Dent on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Though that doesn’t actually nearly cover all the strings to his bow, as he also partakes in animation, has knocked out a fair few podcasts in his time, and continues to write a steady stream of children’s books. He even once had a side-hustle in crafting indie adventure videogames (you’re arguably overstocked on strings, Alasdair!).
But if we focus on just his stand-up, comedy overlord Stewart Lee has described Beckett-King’s performances as “clockwork comedy perfection”. And you somewhat suspect he’d be able to recognise clockwise comedy perfection when he sees it.
Now he’s back with a new tour, King Of Crumbs. In a fully-smitten five star write-up from The Fringe last year, Alasdair was complimented on his “delightful assortment of oddments of jokes, asides and flights of fancy.” Industry bible British Comedy Guide, meanwhile, awarded King Of Crumbs its fabled ‘Recommended Show’ stamp of approval, commenting that “seeing Alasdair Beckett-King is good for the soul. A joyfully silly, uplifting hour chock full of one liners, animation and lots of laughs”.
Fancy witnessing his delightful assortment yourself? Well before you rush off, we put some extremely important questions to him…
Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with?
One of my creative heroes is William Blake, the poet, but there’s several reasons why I wouldn’t want to be stuck in a lift with him. He’s dead. And he’s been dead for ages, so he would just be bones. but also, he had a very irascible character, and I sort of suspect that he would handle being stuck in a lift really badly, and sort of flip out. But on the other hand, I couldn’t really pass up the opportunity to meet him, so I’m gonna have to say William Blake and just deal with the consequences, however grisly they may be.
So, the best-case situation is that he’s… alive, yes?
Alive, but moody, is the best possible outcome.
And you would prefer that to the pile of bones?
I mean, a celebrity is a celebrity, you know, so if I had to just meet William Blake’s bones, I’d meet them. I wouldn’t turn my nose up at that. But ideally I would prefer to meet him alive.
Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with?
[hesitates] I have an enemy, and his name is Roger. I don’t think he knows he’s my enemy, but I met him once when I was a student, and I really disliked him. He’s the kind of person who would punctuate conversations with karate chops. When he said something that he thought was pretty good, he would do a [imitates karate chop] “hey-yah!”, or turn around and do a high kick. Unless he was dead, in which case…
A pile of his bones? Would he then become the person you’d most like to be in a lift with?
I suppose, yeah, the person I’d most like to be in a lift with is a pile of my enemy’s bones. [immediately follows-up] This is coming out way more warlord than I expected.
Yes we’ve seen you live before, and this wasn’t the tone.
Yeah, I’m usually quite whimsical and sort of gentle and fuzzy-feltsy as a comedian, but actually, I’m determined to crush my enemies.
Can you describe your new tour as if it was a Hollywood blockbuster film, and you are doing the voiceover for the trailer?
[Deepens voice] In a world where a comedian has attempted to tackle the biggest issues facing humanity and roundly failed. Alastair Beckett-King is the King of Crumbs. He dreamt of solving all the major philosophical questions of his time. But in fact, he’s just gonna spend an awful lot of time talking about ducks.
What’s the weirdest interaction you’ve had with a famous person?
I think I might have, back when I was a student, tried to sell Vic Reeves a chess set. When I worked in a shop. But he didn’t buy. He looked interested though.
What was his vibe? Was it business-like? Did he go in for hard negotiation?
His air was whimsical. He was dressed as a sort of gentleman farmer. I don’t know for certain that it was him. He was wearing tweeds; in my memory, a flat cap; possibly a walking stick. It might have been a farmer, now that I think about it.
I worked in the same shop – this might count as a celebrity encounter: a man came in with a guitar on his back. And he claimed to be a chess grandmaster. But I think he was just lying. He said “I played Kasparov. And when I played Kasparov, neither could win. We were both equally good. And the reason I remember the conversation is he stepped out of the door, stepped back in, and said “and now I must go and play flamenco”, and then left. And that, as an ‘out’, has stayed in my mind. What an interesting man. But not necessarily a celebrity. Because I don’t think he was telling the truth about being a chess grandmaster.
What was the last show that you went to?
I think the last thing I saw was Eleanor Morton’s Haunted House when she did it at Soho Theatre.
You’re probably the two… most ginger people in comedy. Is this ginger solidarity?
It absolutely was, yeah. Obviously I just go and see every ginger comedian’s show, because I like to keep my money within the ginger community. It’s striking a blow against other hair colours.
Prince Harry?
I know I just said I support all gingers, but I don’t necessarily support all gingers. If they’re part of a regime that I think should be… brought down.
Ed Sheeran?
I cannot stand the man, because there was a glorious time – just before he broke through – where if you searched the phrase “Ginger Jesus” a picture of me came up. And I’d never done comedy. I had no profile whatsoever. But someone had posted a picture of me on the internet, taken without my knowledge, and tagged it as Ginger Jesus. And then, for some reason, Ed Sheeran’s fans started calling him Ginger Jesus, and he absolutely destroyed my search engine optimisation. It’s rubbish! He doesn’t look like Jesus!
What work of yours didn’t get the attention that it deserved?
I make social media videos now and again, and I guess everybody who does that knows that, weirdly, the ones that do really well are unpredictable. The difference between one that does brilliantly well and the one that does fine, and one that does badly. It’s really hard to predict, I think.
I’m gonna say that almost all of my work has gone unnoticed. [laughing] I think I could have had a lot more recognition up to this point. I don’t mean to say that I’ve been completely ignored, but, you know, 50% more admiration would be tolerable.
When you do get that 50% more adulation, do you think that’ll be enough for you, or do you think you’ll be like “I could do with another 50% of adulation”?
It’s like getting into a hot bath, isn’t it? You think… oh, it seems very hot, but then once you’re in, it feels a little tepid now. Let’s have a little bit more adulation in the pleasure bath.
What did 12-year-old you imagine that you’d be doing now?
Probably a private detective. So I now write a series of kids’ books about a 10/11-year-old detective. Because that was my dream. But the thing about being a private eye is that you’ve got to be quite nondescript. You’ve got to sort of blend into the shadows, and unfortunately, I don’t, except in autumnal woodland. I was forced to go with my backup career choice of being a stand-up comedian. We could just do a swap, and let all the private eyes do stand-up for a year, and we [comedians] could all take photographs of people having affairs in the car park of a Bannatyne’s. I imagine that’s where people have affairs, I don’t know.
If you had to have a song playing every time you walked into a room, what would it be?
There’s the David Devant song ‘Ginger’. It’s a little on the nose. [sings] “Do you feel born out of time? Does all the world seem behind you? You must be ginger”. Which is a very 90s track. So that sums me up in two ways, because I like a bit of 90s indie music, and I am ginger.
Some very pro-ginger stuff coming from you today.
I didn’t mean to be quite as ginger separatist about this interview, as I have been.
What’s the worst job you ever had?
I haven’t had a lot of proper jobs. One of them was I washed pots and pans in the canteen of a Norwich Union. And I was just very bad at it, because it’s a job that just involves a sort of degree of common sense that I’m not equipped with. I think I come across as pedantic, but I don’t think I actually am pedantic. I remember my boss saying “could you go and get me the round tray from the storage room?”. I went into the storage room. I couldn’t find the round tray, and I realised I should have gone back to him and told him, but I just carried on doing something else, and half an hour later he turned up saying “where’s that round tray I asked you for?”. I said “oh, I couldn’t find a round tray”. And he picked up an oval-shaped tray and said “this is a round tray”. And I was like “no, that’s an ellipse. I thought you wanted a circular tray”, and he couldn’t understand why I was unable to find it. So I was like “oh, but you didn’t describe it well enough. I would have found that if you’d said an ellipsoid tray”. And I feel like I know I’m in the wrong there, but I’m genuinely not being pedantic. It’s just, you don’t really need many abilities to do that job, and I wasn’t capable of doing it.
What’s the skill that no one else knows that you’re great at?
I’m a bit of a show-off, I suppose, so all the things that I’m into – like animation and stuff, I do squeeze into my stand-up shows and my videos. I don’t know that I’m great at any of them, but I do squeeze my interests into the shows.
The benefits of the job, isn’t it.
I suppose it is. You have to be a bit of a show-off, I suppose. I did spend a lot of my teenage years learning sleight of hand magic tricks, and I have so far not really integrated that in any way into stand-up, because I’m actually not great at it. That’s the main reason. I do know lots of magic tricks, but I’m just not great at any of them. I can do the cup and balls routine. I can back-palm a card, I can do the French drop, the most basic sleight of hand in history.
The kind of stuff that would get an uproarious reception at a 6-year-old’s birthday party?
Yeah, you’ve really got to be a child to be impressed by the level of skill that I have, absolutely. I can make a coin vanish and come from behind your ear, if you’re the kind of child who is impressed by that. [Hesitates briefly]. I guess they probably don’t want cash anymore, with contactless. It’s probably impossible to produce a pound from behind a child’s ear and get a good reception these days, because what’s that worth these days? You can’t buy anything with that. Inflation has destroyed close-up magic.
Would a chocolate coin now mean more to a 6-year-old than a regular coin?
Probably. Probably would, yeah. That’s sad.
What’s your controversial food opinion?
Well, I’m a vegan, so that is quite controversial, I suppose. I think people feel like vegans are judging them all the time just by existing and they get a little bit defensive. I try not to be a judgy vegan. I’ll be honest, I was never a huge fan of dairy. I don’t think dairy was a great idea. I just don’t think it’s that nice. Milk coming out of a cow’s boobs? Doesn’t sound that nice to me. I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’m not saying it’s unhealthy or anything, I just… don’t like it.
I’ve never had proper fried chicken, and I’ve tried the vegan fried chicken, and I didn’t really like it because I don’t know what it’s imitating. I’ve never had halloumi, because I became middle class the very instant I became vegan, and so I literally found out about halloumi later in the week when I became vegan, as someone was eating it, I was “what is that weird rectangular, squeaky cheese?” And they said “oh, it’s halloumi. Would you like some?” And I said “no, thank you. I’ve just become a vegan”. So I’ll never know. I’ll never know all the wonders of halloumi. Maybe that would have changed me on dairy.
What film have you most re-watched?
Probably 12 Monkeys by Terry Gilliam. Or maybe Little Shop Of Horrors. One of the two. I love a bit of low fantasy, sci-fi weirdness. That’s my kind of thing. I watched 12 Monkeys fanatically. I think I watched it about 15 times before someone explained the ending to me. I think I’d been misunderstanding it. But it hasn’t affected my enjoyment of the film at all, to have misunderstood it fundamentally for a long time.
What do you have on your rider?
Imagine if I had a big rock n’ roll rider! I like a cup of ginger tea, so I can have that in the interval of the tour show, to soothe the old throat. Is that sufficiently rock n’ roll for you? I don’t have, like, blue M&Ms or any of the cliches. Vegan crisps? “I must have some vegan halloumi there in the front of the mini-fridge”. I don’t have any of that sort of thing. Imagine.. what a sad man, eating vegan halloumi, just directly out of the fridge on his own, in the interval.
But at the Edinburgh Fringe, if you had blue M&Ms every day, you’d be turning over so many blue M&Ms…
People really damage their bodily health at the Edinburgh Fringe, by getting into bad rhythms, bad rituals, yeah.
I’m glad you managed to swerve that with nice relaxing, calming teas.
I mean, I do eat quite a lot of cakes, but, you know, you gotta have something.
Alasdair Beckett-King: King of Crumbs is on tour now. Find tickets here
