Interview
Interview
Max Fosh wants to meet a Teletubby
With new show Loophole touring the UK, we get acquainted with the YouTube sensation to ask the questions that really matter...
Look through your phone contacts and you’re bound to find a few unfamiliar names with some handy parentheses pointers. Claire (Tinder). Florian (German Office). Ali (owes you a tenner don’t forget!).
Look through Max Fosh’s phone contacts, and you’ll find a collection closer resembling the crew of the weirdest heist film you’ll ever see in your life. “I’ve got Andrew (British Naturism), so if you need to get in touch with the press department of British Naturism, I know exactly who to call. I have also got Jake (Jousting), if you need a joust guy. Oh, I’ve got a buttonhole camera guy, so if you need a camera put inside a buttonhole, give me a call. I’ll pass on the number.”
Fosh, 29, is a walking April Fool’s Day: talking to him is like being in a perpetual state of Is he having me on? But since we last spoke at the Edinburgh Fringe, where he previewed his new show, Loophole, before embarking on a “World-ish” tour this week, he really has started a glasses range and visited the States to attempt make a sign more famous than the Hollywood one. “I hired a skywriting plane. Basically, my goal was to try and get people to take pictures of my sign, even though they traveled for the Hollywood sign. So I got a sky writer to write ‘Where is the airport?’ in fumes off the back of a plane whilst in the air, to try and get people to take pictures of that. And it kind of worked for that photo. And I also performed with the cast of Magic Mike as well. So I’ve been up to a few bits and bobs.”
Most of these pranks are, in their own way, based on Fosh’s hunger for life hacks or loopholes – essentially sly and cheeky methods of finding joy and fun in life in ways you might initially think aren’t allowed or possible. Loophole offers a window into this madness, but as the UK leg of the tour gets well underway, we get our own little glimpse as we get more acquainted.
Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with?
I’d most like to be stuck in a lift with any of the actors that played one of the Teletubbies. Obviously, when that job comes in, like, “Hey, we’ve got the Teletubbies, it’s a new show, you’ll be wearing a 10-foot felt costume of a Teletubby…” There would have been a few actors who were offered the role, and they just thought, “No, I think my career is going pretty well at the moment, I don’t think I’m going to take that on.” But then there was a tipping point for one of the individuals who said, “Yeah, screw it. Let’s give it a go.” I mean, you can probably keep it quite incognito. It’s kind of like whispering at a party. Imagine being a party: “You see Dave over there, yeah, he’s actually Tinky Winky.” That would be a brilliant bit of a side knowledge if you’re at a party. I would love to meet any of the actors that played the Teletubbies.
I also like the idea that if you’re over the age of maybe 35, you could basically get away with just lying that you are one of the Teletubbies. And no one would know.
The baby in the sun is now 29, I think that would be more believable…
I am 29 as well. So, there you go. I could be the baby. Although that’s easy to Google, but yeah, that’s a good little reference point for my age: I’m the same age as the baby in the sun in Teletubbies.
Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with?
I think the answer to that question is Lawrence Fox. Now that might be an obvious answer, just because I’ve got a bit of history with Mr. Fox. In the 2021 mayoral election, I realised that anybody could enter the mayoral campaign, and all you needed was 64 signatures from registered voters in London and a £10,000 deposit. That was all you needed to get yourself on the ballot. And so I did just that. I got the signatures and I paid the deposit and I was on the ballot. Then I was like, right, what do I do for my campaign? I needed a narrative for the campaign.
Lawrence Fox also went to the posh school that I went to, Harrow, and neither of us had any experience in politics. He’d been given five million quid in backing by some kind of rich donor. I had zero. And so for the next six weeks I just slightly tormented him. I found out where his campaign bus was going to be – you know, a big bus with his face on the side, Lawrence’s battle bus – and I had a tiny Volkswagen Up and I wrote on the side, “Don’t believe everything you read on a bus,” and then I just sat behind his bus the entire way around London. That was kind of like Strike One; Lawrence obviously initially hated me, and then decided to try and stop people, ie me, finding out where he’s going to be, so he would only send press releases out to certain publications. But then there was a 19-year-old kid who hated working for him so much that he would just DM me exactly where Lawrence Fox was going to be, every single day. So I would just turn up, and he would get increasingly incensed.
By the end, at City Hall, when we kind of had this kind of final face-to-face, he turned up and – I would say, allegedly – he may or may not have been absolutely drunk. He stank of booze and he just slightly went off on me. I don’t think he’s a massive fan. And so I think being stuck in a lift with Lawrence Fox, I would find joy in it, but he would be incessantly grumpy for the entire time.
What’s the weirdest interaction you’ve ever had with a famous person?
Louis Theroux, lovely man. He had a new show that was coming out on the BBC at the beginning of this year, and he was looking to market it. His team got in touch with my team and said, “Hi, Louie watches some of the vids, and he’d love if you want to do anything with Louie. He’s all in”. This is amazing – an opportunity to work with Louie Theroux? Absolutely! So they were like, “what concepts do you have?”. I’d always wanted to do this concept called Get In The Van, in which you get a white transit van, completely unmarked, make it look like the dodgiest white van you could imagine, and I wanted to get Louis Theroux in there with a little poetry book and some curtains halfway down the back, and then I’d stand on the street and say to members of the public, “Hey, do you want to get in the van? Louis Theroux is in there doing poetry readings”. No signs, nothing official about it at all.
So I pitched this idea, and I was amazed that he said yes. So then within two days, I had to source a transit van. We had to get curtains, we needed to write poems. We parked it in Soho, and Louis Theroux turned up with his agent, and he just said, “Right, do I do I get in the back?”. So we shut him in, we closed the curtains, and then I just had to ask members of the public whether they wanted to get the back of the van. And obviously loads of people said no. But then this one woman got in, the curtains open, Louis read her a poem for about 30 seconds. The curtains closed. She was very surprised. We did this for about an hour and a half, and at the end of it, Louie just got out, shook my hand, said thank you very much, have a lovely day. Just walked off. So, yeah, I think putting Louie Theroux in the back of a white van for an hour and a half to read poems to members of the general public was probably the weirdest celebrity interaction I’ve ever had.
What was the last show that you went to?
I saw Hadestown about two weeks ago, because a friend of mine who was the understudy was playing Hades, so I went to go and support that. And I thought it was fab, it was great.
What’s on your rider?
My rider is as many bottles of Lipton’s peach ice tea that I’m legally allowed. It is the most thirst quenching and delicious nectar that has ever been produced. I’ve heard comedians putting weird stuff on their rider to see whether they will source it, like a fun game. But I just worry that there’s a runner at the theatre who suddenly needs to find a fresh loo seat for Jason Manford or something. I just think it would be a little bit unfair if I start to ask for really weird items.
And you’d reduce your actual chances of getting your ice tea…
Exactly. I like the idea that they have two options, they’re like, do I get the Lipton iced tea, or do I get the cactus that Max Fosh has asked for? So no, it’s just Lipton ice tea and normally a pack of crisps and I’m good to go. That’s essentially my pre-show routine: ice tea and a pack of salt and vinegar Squares.
I’m with you on the ice tea thing. The best are the ones in Europe that you get in cans…
Ahh they’ve got that pre-Brexit stuff there that’s just full of sugar up to the wazoo. None of this woke sugar tax nonsense. The wokerati have taken my Fanta Lemon. Fanta Lemons haven’t tasted the same since 2016.
What work of yours didn’t get the attention that it deserved?
Two videos: one in which I took a granddad on the stag do that he never had. So we found this 89-year-old man called Gerald, who’d never had a stag do, and we took him to Amsterdam for the weekend, and he loved it. We went paintballing, we went on a booze cruise, we had a walking tour around. So this guy’s 89 and he was just an absolute trooper. We posted that video and it flopped. The rather sad revelation that we came to in the office afterwards, is that it seemed like nobody cares about watching old people do things, which is a really sad indictment on society. At least that’s the excuse that we’re making for why I didn’t do well.
Number two was a video that we filmed pretty recently, actually, in which I taught cowboys how to play polo. I went to Texas, and I set up a polo match with the polo team. I was like, “Can I source my own team?” They said yeah, sure. So then I found four cowboys to play polo within the space of 48 hours, and we had a match and it was so weird, like they had no idea what was going on. I didn’t really understand them and their accents; they were very Texan and there were so many guns everywhere. I think each of them was carrying an average of like 2.4 guns. You know we have an average of 2.4 kids in this in this country, they’ve got an average of 2.4 guns.
What’s the worst advice you’ve ever been given?
Probably “have you thought about going into insurance?”. I did the nepotistic thing of, you know, my family asking if I wanted an internship in the underwriting world of insurance? I spent probably four days doing work experience when I was 18. I thought, this is pants. So, yeah, probably, “I think you should probably go into insurance” is the worst piece of advice I’ve ever received.
What did 12-year-old you imagine that you’d be doing now?
I thought I’d be an archeologist. I absolutely thought that I was going to find the new Tutankhamun coffin. Obviously the Egyptology class in year three absolutely slapped, so that’s what I thought I was going to be. For some reason, competing at the Mr. Universe bodybuilding competition when you’re not a bodybuilder wasn’t on the form of jobs you could do when you’re older. But yeah, I thought I was gonna be an archeologist.
What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
The worst official job I’ve ever had was when I worked at Wowcher: “Get a wow a day at Wowcher.co.uk!” I still remember the strap line. I was basically tasked with writing the bios of 3000 companies that were on their website. They sold products from 3000 different companies, and they were like, “We need bio about what each company does!” People know what Adidas is! This was back before ChatGPT, this was only like 2012, and I cannot tell you how easy my life would have been if I had had ChatGPT when I worked there. They also said to me that I could choose whatever job title I wanted. So I was actually the Chief Admin Officer at Wowcher, so I was the CAO. That was pretty bad.
If you had to have a song playing every time you walked into a room, what would it be?
Happy birthday, because the attention would always be on you.
Who do you often get told you look like?
Basically just “posh twat” or variations of that. Who do I get told I look like? Just because of the glasses, Harry Potter. I got that in Prague, I was just walking along the street and about three different people in the space on an hour pointed at me like “Ah! Harry Potter!” Like what? That’s rubbish. I kind of look like if Claire Balding worked in Shoreditch, or, I mean, currently, if Claire Balding worked at Pizza Express, because I’ve got my Pizza Express chefs outfit on today. So, yeah, probably Claire Balding.
What’s your controversial food opinion?
Pizza Express is the nicest restaurant in London. That is my controversial food opinion, and I will stand by it. Not just pizza. It is the best restaurant in London. I absolutely love it. Give me an American Romana any day of the week and I’ll bite your hand off.
What’s the skill that no one else knows that you’re great at?
I was gonna say I do a good Ed Milliband impression, but 2016 doesn’t want their impersonations back. Um, I can do a reverse click. So obviously people click with the finger hitting their palm, but I can do it on the back of my hand, where it just snaps the back of your hand, which is, you know, a terrible skill to have.
What film have you most rewatched?
The Silence Of The Lambs. Weirdly, when I was about 10, we would go to the same little cottage in northern France as a family. In the draw underneath the TV they had one film, and that was Le Silence Des Agneaux, which, surprise, surprise, is The Silence Of The Lambs. I was 10, and I watched it every year. We went for like 10-15 years to this house, and I’d watch it every single year, sometimes in French dubbed, sometimes in English with French subtitles, sometimes in French with English subtitles. It was kind of like a pick and mix every single time I turned up to the house: “I think this year I’ll go for a French dub.” I had his kidney with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
Do you have any superstitions?
It’s not really a superstition but, this is so lame, on the way to the tube from my house the layout of the paving stones is very irregular. I play a game every single time I walk to the tube where when I put my foot down, the top of my foot needs to line up perfectly with one of the edges of the paving stones. And my personal record is five. I’ve never beaten five in about six years of playing this game. I think on average you get one to two and if you get two or three early on in the run, you’re like, oh my god this is very exciting. And you can’t modify your gait in any way. This is less a superstition and more of a weird game that I play. But yeah, I have to make sure that my feet are lining up with the top of the paving stone perfectly, and that’s gonna be quite difficult thing to explain in a written format.
That and the backwards clicking…
Catch Loophole around the UK until 28 October – find tickets here
