Waiting for the Man Interview with Jason Manford

It’s the message no music journo wants to get when they arrive in the office first thing: you’ve missed a call from a “Something... Mumford?”

As it is, the cold sweat doesn’t last long – rather than a banjo-botherer, it’s Manchester funnyman Jason Manford trying to get an extremely early start on today’s press obligations.
“That’d be me!” he chirps down the blower a little later. As for the Mumford mix-up: “I get that a lot at the moment. I think I do get people turning up occasionally, wondering when I’m going to get my guitar out.”
As he’s demonstrated, as the series winner on talent show Born To Shine and in his role in a new production of Sweeney Todd, he might just have the pipes to pull it off.
“Yes, I might get away with it.”
Acting and forays into musicals have all slotted into Manford’s increasingly varied CV of late, as he took a breather from touring. Best known to Irish audiences for appearances on the likes of Live At The Apollo and Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow, as well panel shows such as 8 Out Of 10 Cats and QI, he’s only recently returned to his first love of stand-up.
Comfortable now with a two-hour set, he admits to “dreading it” when venues were initially booked.
“About 18 months ago when the tickets went on sale, and your agent rings you up and says, ‘We’ve sold another 5,000!’, it’s like ‘Ohh...’ Those people are buying tickets for something that doesn’t exist yet.”
Despite enjoying his other roles, and keen to do more TV presenting, Manford always knew the tour would happen sooner or later.
“If you’re Jimmy Carr or Tim Vine and you’re just writing gag, gag, gag, gag, then you’ve got a formula and you can tour more often. But when you’re doing jokes that are coming from life experiences...”
You have to live a little.
“You do, yes, you need to have a few years.”
Not that we can expect cathartic, forensic dissections of his recent marriage break-up when he arrives in Ireland, or for the Northern comic to pour over his 2010 resignation from his brief role as co-host of The One Show, after admitting to allegations that he’d swapped tweets with admiring ladies that would be considered inappropriate for a married man.
Instead, preferring not to get into ‘all of that’, the family life he touches on centres on his children.
“At the moment, my kids are about the last 20 minutes of my set. It’s about having toddlers and them coming into the world. Getting up early, doing all of those things. So I imagine, the next tour will be when they’re hitting 9 or 10? So you’ve managed to build up a load of stuff.
“Although, you don’t want to force yourself into things... ‘Right, we better move house so I can experience a load of things about moving house’, y’know?”
It could reach a stage where the kids realise they’re essentially coming up with the material and demand royalties...
“Even now I look at them and go, ‘Look kids, I know you’re only four, but you better start doing some funny things, making some funny friends. Because if you like this house and you like your holidays, then you need to make sure you keep your daddy in material!’”
In truth, much of the jokes are jump-offs from the show’s title, First World Problems.
The theme was prompted by his dissatisfaction with how his car’s reverse camera handled in the rain and his brother, present at the time, noting that only 20 years back their parents didn’t even own a car.
“It woke me up a little bit and made me think, ‘Who am I?’”
When he first spied ‘#firstworldproblems’ on Twitter, did Manford feel “I can relate”, or, “Well that’s an irksome term?”
“A bit of both really. I’ve had to block the hashtag. You just want to write your own stuff. In a way, it’s just an easy umbrella.”
Last year, he took to his blog to take a stand against internet trolls on behalf of Gary Barlow. Having praised the Take That singer for performing at the London Olympics closing ceremony mere days after his daughter was stillborn, he was shocked to find his Facebook full of disgusting “doing it for the money” remarks.
“I’ve noticed it myself; some people have said horrendous things to me. Awful things about my kids, my family. You just think, ‘Who does that?’ What I’ve got to remind myself at times, is there are more nice people than not nice people.”
Since that incident, he’s also expressed online outrage at the fees added to tickets for his shows.
“I think I’ve got to that age now where I just start moaning about things. The problem is, people listen to me. Because if you’ve got a big Facebook or Twitter following, you can have a rant. If I was anybody else, it’d just be. ‘Who’s sat in the corner moaning?’. But now it makes the news!”
Would he be better off if the internet didn’t exist for comedians? The only technology Tommy Cooper needed was a fez and a flopping wand.
“Haha, very true. No, I think the great thing about the internet is that it’s given a chance to a lot of people who wouldn’t have got a break. There’s comics like Bo Burnham who, without YouYube, wouldn’t be selling out a tour around the world. If it’s handled well, just go for it.”
Speaking of Cooper, Manford is set to play a small part in a forthcoming biopic about the “just like that” comedy icon.
“To be part of what I imagine will be the seminal biopic of Tommy Cooper is just special. Because he was such a massive hero.”
A troubled hero, too.
“Well yeah, he was tight. He didn’t buy a round. He had his demons like a lot of people. He liked his drink, he got angry and lashed out I suppose. I dunno, everyone has something wrong with them. Everyone has some problem. What can you do? At the end of the day, as a comic, you’re not a politician, you’re not a bishop, you’re not a priest. You’re not trying to tell them how to live their life, you’re just trying to bring them a bit of laughter for a few hours. I think that’s important to remember with a lot of comics, because they do tend to get it in the neck quite a lot.”
A fair point. If there’s one thing Manford would hope to take away from Cooper’s career, it would be his genuinely mainstream appeal.
Every now and then, the 32-year-old will walk through the doors of the BBC’s Broadcasting House. Rather than being met with a pointed “What are you doing here?”, he will instead be asked what he wants to do next.
And in those moments, Manford thinks Forsyth, Grayson, er... Davidson.
“Let’s just do The Generation Game!” he replies with a laugh. “I love all of that sort of stuff. That’s what I grew up with. The mainstream, being in the middle? You need the middle, without the middle there’s no edge!”

Jason Manford plays Vicar St., Dublin on November 27 and 28