Comedy
Stuck In A Lift
Matt Bragg has the worst hangover story you’ll ever hear
We catch up with the comedian ahead of his headline tour to chat about the time he almost joined the army reserves and his unflattering celebrity lookalike
Gearing up for the second leg of his first headline tour, Matt Bragg is well prepared. He’s opened for many of the biggest names in comedy, including John Bishop, Jason Manford, Suzi Ruffell and Ricky Gervais.
“Opening for someone feels really nice, especially if it’s someone that you know,” he says. “Usually I’m friends with most people that I open for, and although it still obviously really matters and you want to do a good job, ultimately, no one’s walking away going, “God, I hated that support act,” because no one cares whether you’re there or not. It’s just a nice bonus if you’re like, half decent. The pressure is so different.”
The first leg of his own tour was quite a nerve-wracking experience in comparison, but now with new shows lined up this February and March, Bragg is well prepared. Matt Bragg Has Nothing Wrong With Him is a selection of highlights from his last seven years on the comedy circuit, tested on audiences all over Europe from basements to arenas. Ahead of his tour recommencing on 15 February, we caught up with Bragg to chat about joining the army, horse castrations and why he’s mad at his next door neighbour. What else are you going to do when you’re stuck in a lift?
Who would you most want to be stuck in a lift with?
I think I’d have to narrow it down a lot from anyone in the world, because the thought of being stuck in a confined space with someone that I don’t know is just awful. I don’t think I could do that, because I find small talk really difficult. So I think it would have to be someone that I know. Probably like my mate, Mike, who’s not a comedian a celebrity or anything like that, but he’s just really practical. That’s who I’d like. We’ve been on holidays before – I think it was in like Tenerife somewhere – and we lost a load of plastic furniture over a balcony, and he put together a bent up spatula with some fishing wire on it and got all of it back. He does that. He’s got people’s phones out of canals. He’s opened beer bottles with a banana. He’s just the most practical man on the planet, so I reckon him, because he’d get us out.
Who would you least want to be stuck in a lift with?
Probably, to be realistic, at the moment my next door neighbour, because we’re in a fence dispute. In fact, if you’re reading this, Paul, it’s your side. Cough up. I’m not paying for it.
What’s the weirdest interaction you’ve ever had with a famous person?
It was probably about five or six years ago. I’ve got a friend who’s a singer, and he owned a flat near Weston-super-Mare, and I was doing some gigs down there. He said, “I’m away, just go and stay at my house. Like, go and pick a key up from my sister, she’s like 10 minutes away, and just stay there.” So I took my girlfriend down, and then the first night we were in there, it was about two o’clock in the morning, and we heard the door being rattled. Immediately it’s: “the house is being broken into.” Then the door opened, and we could hear them downstairs. I picked up there was this metal pipe or tube, part of a wardrobe. I went downstairs, and it was Nick Pickard from Hollyoaks. I almost caved his skull in. It turned out he’d that my mate had also promised him that a place to stay for the night because he was on a night out, and he was just having trouble getting in because his key wasn’t working. So yeah, that was pretty weird. I’ve not seen him since.
He must have been way more terrified of you.
Actually, by the time I got downstairs. he was flat out on the sofa, and I just went back upstairs and said to my girlfriend, “I think that fella from Hollyoaks has broken into the house.” I didn’t really know what to do. I just let him crack on, let him sleep on the sofa. and then had a cup of tea in the morning.
What’s the last live show you saw?
Paul McCartney at Manchester in December. One of the best nights of my life, just brilliant. It was so, so good. It lasted about three hours, which, for someone who’s, like, 82 is crazy. As a 32-year-old who barely moves on stage – and I feel it afterwards – I’ve got a lot of respect for that.
What’s on your rider?
Nothing. I’ll make sure of that really, just because – showbiz lesson for anyone that’s reading – you pay for everything on it. That comes off the bottom line. Times are tight, so I just keep a crate of water and a crate of lager in the boot of my car. The couple of times where I have had stuff, it always seems like whoever buys it for the venue has no concept of a club card or anything.
What work of yours didn’t get the attention it deserved?
Basically all of it. I put a post on Instagram last week that was about me embracing technology and using AI to help with my tax return. It was a screenshot of chat GPT that said that expenses related to buying a canoe and destroying any trace of your existence are not tax deductible, which I thought was really funny, but it got barely anything. Also, I had a bit about how seasonal veg in restaurants never changes. I was adamant that there was something in that, and it just never, ever worked. But I did it throughout the whole like six month run, and it always got a decent laugh from the side of the stage, because it would always fall on its ass.
What’s the worst advice you’ve ever been given?
In comedy, simultaneously the best and worst advice you can give, I think, is ‘get as much stage time as you can’. You do need that, but there is a tipping point where if you keep doing too many horrible gigs it starts to become detrimental because it’s just really, really miserable. I think that there’s that pressure sometimes that you just gotta keep getting up, keep doing it. It’s like, yeah, if you’re in comedy clubs. But if you’re like, in the corner of a Toby Carvery just dying on your ass every week, maybe just rein that in a little bit for your own mental health.
What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
Really early on I was a pot washer at a private school. I mean, you’ve got to admire the work ethic of future politicians and all that – they really graft at being absolute wankers from an early age. I worked at a corner shop for a bit. I was a Chinese delivery driver but I got fired because my car was too unreliable. Probably the worst one was just before stand up, I was a cameraman and I used to do a lot of corporate stuff. All the crew went out one night, and the next day I had to film a live horse castration and was violently sick into a bin halfway through. There’s very few situations that a horse castration improves, but that’s probably the worst one, I reckon.
If you had to have a song playing every time you walked into a room, what would it be?
It’s a really hard one that, because there’s so many. It took me so long to figure out and cut down the pre show playlist for my tour and what I was going to walk onto and all that, because there’s so many. I reckon maybe ‘Swamp Song’ by Oasis. I think that’s a good one.
Who do you often get told you look like?
You know The Enemy, the band from Coventry? I’ll be honest. I mean, God bless the lead singer, but it was not the most flattering. I used to get that a lot, when we were about 18. Yhere was one night where I think The Enemy were playing in Coventry, and Banbury is only about 40 minutes away. There was a group of girls who were absolutely convinced that The Enemy had come to Banbury for a night out afterwards, and were following us around. There’s also a painting in the Four Candles pub in Oxford that looks exactly like me.
What’s your most controversial food opinion?
Probably that it’s not got to be nice. If it’s nice, it’s a bonus. I do really enjoy food, and when it’s nice, it is good. But for me, it is sort of sustenance, because I can’t be bothered spending too much time on finesse in the kitchen. It’s just a case of just staying alive,
What film have you re-watched the most?
I’ve seen Titanic a lot. Or A Bridge Too Far, the war film – that’s probably top. It’s a World War Two film, and it’s brilliant. It’s got a really good cast. It’s either that or Airplane! probably.
Do you have any superstitions?
I don’t know if it’s really a superstition, but I’ve had loads of people point out at club gigs that it’s weird that I change my shoes before going on. I’ve got gig shoes that I’ll bring in a bag, just because I think you need to feel like you’re going to work. Otherwise, if I’m wearing the same shoes that I’ve just been wearing all day at the football or whatever, it still It feels weird to be going to work in them. I don’t really click into that sort of headspace until I put different pair of shoes on.
What did your 12-year-old self imagine that you’d be doing now?
At 12, I probably thought I would end up being in the army or the navy or something like that. It’s an insane thought, as a absolute coward. It was never going to happen. I wouldn’t even get into parcel force. There’s no way that would happen, but I think that’s probably the only thing that I ever wanted to do at 12.
I just wanted to be a roadie from when I was like 15. I just wanted to work in music, doing the camera stuff. But actually there was one day when I was 18, after a night out, when I was at a bit of a loose end. My mate’s Mum, was like, “You should join the Army Reserves.” I was like, yeah, do you know what, I should. I should just do it. I got the paperwork and stuff, and I said to her, “You know, if everything kicks off with Russia or China, I can always just leave. I don’t actually have to be involved. Turns out you can’t leave, once you’ve joined. You can always be called on. I was like, “I’m not doing that.” My plan was just: I’ll join, get the natty uniform and all that, and when it kicked off I’d just hand my notice in. But apparently that’s not the case. I’ll happily entertain the troops, but nothing more.
