Close to the Reg

The Samuel L Jackson of the stand-up scene? Perhaps. Reginald D. Hunter, however, remains indifferent to the endless ‘coolest man in comedy’ quotes that are thrown his way. Not cool, he reckons, but indifferent. “It’s a nice thing to say. I think sometimes people confuse cool with indifference. I’m probably one of the more indifferent men in comedy. Cool and indifferent are close cousins, but they ain’t the same thing.”

Thing is, as he speaks, his easy demeanour and Deep South drawl only serve to undermine his argument. He is smooth. You would know that boom of a voice – that laid back presence – anywhere. Or more specifically, you should know it from his appearances on shows such as QI and Have I Got News For You. These invariably find Hunter cast as the black American outsider constantly bemused by, and challenging, the social quirks and prejudices he encounters in the UK.
“I think the best comedy comes from being the outsider. Being an outsider gives you more room to comment. People seem to be less willing to hear it from one of their own sometimes.” He is the cool catfish out of water.
Controversial, then? There’s a strong case for it. Hunter’s comedy takes aim at the lines of division in the world: be they class, gender or race. With targets like that, you’re bound to rub people up the wrong way. He’ll also take time to express his hatred for Marmite, defend the gingers of the world, and denounce Batman as “a conservative’s wet dream”.
But it’s when he’s holding a mirror up to society’s problems that he is at his best. He has deftly tackled the binge drinking culture of Britain in previous live shows.
He sees the notion of a class system as simply “an advanced form of racism”. “Britain has racism,” he once observed, “it’s just not very good at it.” As for the controversy tag, Hunter counters that it’s all a bit of a misnomer.
“I don’t feel controversial” he says, “I don’t have anti-abortion campaigners in front of my house or nothing like that! I still have the same friends, so… I may be controversial to uptight middle class people who ain’t heard this point of view before. Anything that is new to you or different to you is weird.”
If he doesn’t go out of his way to get a reaction then he certainly has a knack for stumbling straight into one. Even before you’ve seen his shows, the names he bestows upon them are striking to say the least. No sooner had posters for his 2006 show Pride, Prejudice… and Niggas been put up around the London Underground than they were being torn down again. Part of his campaign to take the sting and taboo out of the N-word, he must surely have expected censorship.
His next tour, Fuck You In The Age Of Consequence, was a two-fingered salute to a media hysteria he found boring in the extreme. Causing outrage is not his intent.
“I honestly believe that anybody who sets out to be controversial will always look inauthentic. To be inauthentic on stage, the audience may not be able to articulate that but they know it when they see it.”
He’s made his name by being upfront and direct, in contrast to the gentler, more ironic British style. He concedes this may have contributed to his success – a refreshing approach for European audiences. Ultimately, his job is to get laughs. He’s not trying to lecture or portray himself as the fount of all wisdom – he’s telling jokes. “I like to think that any success I’ve had has been because I’ve been funny!” he chuckles. “Funny and honest.”
Reginald D. Hunter was born the youngest of nine in Altanta, Georgia. He admits to having had a tough upbringing – his father was a drinker and a gambler, his long-suffering mother took her frustration out on her children. Humour may have been an early way of coping, of staying sane. Was he always the funny kid growing up?
“I made a lot of jokes as a child, I was very witty and sarcastic and playful. Word puns. But nobody found me funny then. And it’s only now that people [back home] are saying ‘oh you were always funny back then!’ But you take that with a grain of salt.”
He left home in the hope of becoming an actor and, after seven long years, secured an elusive place in RADA. Soon, however, he had dropped out and was living in a Birmingham bed-sit. So stand-up, which he first attempted on a dare, was initially a pragmatic choice.
“It wasn’t a moment where it was like ‘I will do this now’. I wasn’t getting much work as an actor and in stand-up comedy there was plenty of places for me to go and try stuff out.” He had found his forté. “Gradually, over time – and when I say over time I mean like a week! – I knew I loved stand up.”
British audiences quickly grew to love him too. His debut show was nominated for a Perrier award at Edinburgh’s Fringe Festival in 2002 and he found himself amongst the nominees for the next two years running. Surely after more than a decade living in the UK some of his ‘outsider’ status must have been lost? Hunter is not one for too much self-analysis.
“I’m so busy being me that it’s hard to observe me. But I feel like myself – I don’t feel like I have an accent. People come up to me when I’m in America and say I sound more British. When I’m over here people say I sound completely American.”
His affinity for this particular side of the pond is clear, however. It is where he and his comedy feel most at home. He has done little stand-up in the States.
“You have to remember that America’s concentration span is different than it is in the UK, or in this part of the world period. Television and movies shape a lot of our concentration span. So Americans often need a certain pace. And are accustomed to commercials. Not really long, intricate pieces. You really need an audience that is more New York, San Francisco, Chicago. That’s more of an international crowd. Over here, the people have a very strong literary tradition, a strong poetic tradition.”
He should fit right in when he hits Irish shores then. The chance to catch him is just around the corner with the comic set to play both the Galway Arts Festival and Dublin’s Carlsberg Comedy Festival in late July.
He’s visited Ireland before (“in drips and drabs”) but not as often as he’d like. “I haven’t been able to do it [in Ireland] the way I’d want to – what I’d like to do is be able to just stay in the spotlight for a couple of weeks, to see the day-to-day.” He seems to get a kick out of Irish audiences. “They’re fun, less easy to offend. Sometimes even harder to surprise. And I mean that in a good way!”

Reginald D. Hunter plays the Roisin Dubh as part of the Galway Arts Festival from July 21 – 22, and the Carlsberg Comedy Festival in Dublin from July 23 – 25.