| Description | Omid Djalili interviewed by Oliver Double by telephone, 28th June 2004 This interview was conducted by Double for his book 'Getting the Joke: The Inner Workings of Stand-Up Comedy' (2005)
Summary: [00:04] Phone call begins [00:08] Oliver Double asks Omid Djalili [OD] how he got into stand-up and how long has he been doing it. [00:16] OD has been doing stand-up since 1995, and fell into it by accident, had been doing theatre [00:57] his wife took him to the Comedy Store in 1994. [01:04] OD’s wife went to Kent University with Alan Davies.
[01:52] Lee Hurst was the MC, OD thought he was the owner of the club. [02:06] OD saw him on They Think It’s All Over on TV a year later. [02:19] First act were the Tracey Brothers, [02:32] Mark Maier [02:40] last act was Martin Coyote. [03:00] Opening act was impressionist with big nose whose name escapes OD.
[03:30] OD went to the Edinburgh Festival with a show called “I’m a Short Fat Kebab Shop Owner’s Son”, a compilation of all the bits he’d done at weddings etc. [06:01] he got a response from the Bearcat Club. [06:33] Gordon Southern confided in OD three years later that Harry Hill checked him out. [07:27] review in The Independent said OD was caught between Ayatollah Khomeni and Dickie Davies.
[08:05] Ivor Dembina took OD under his wing, and they did a show called “The Arab and The Jew” despite OD being Iranian not an Arab. [08:42] they found it was working as a double-act so they took it to Edinburgh Festival in 1996. [09:33] OD says Ivor Dembina taught him how to write jokes. [11:00] in late 1996-early 1997, OD was invited to go see the Adelaide Company Festival
[11:17] Oliver Double asks about the process of performing and whether OD has any superstitions like a lucky item of clothing or a ritual before he goes on stage. [11:51] OD says he studies his set list and drinks lots of water.
[12:34] Oliver Double asks how OD generates material. [12:57] OD watched Goodness Gracious Me on TV, and tried to write a sketch for them, and came up with an idea about an Indian bingo caller. [14:35] OD tried it on stage, and it got such a big laugh that he kept it for himself. [14:43] OD’s point is that things inspire him, he writes it out, and then performs it.
[15:01] OD says most of his material is inspired by bad theatre, and asks what he would do better in the theatre space, tangentially from the play he’s watching. [16:25] Oliver Double confesses that he does a similar thing.
[16:44] Oliver Double asks if OD’s material is precisely worded. [17:15] After September 11, he wrote material about the world leaders, and thought what he could say about Tony Blair. [17:36] OD picked up on Blair mentioning his Scottish roots and knew he wanted to turn him into a drunken Glaswegian, but it had to be perfectly set up.
[18:20] OD never wrote down the routine word for word, he describes the build-up as being like theatre blocking, he starts with Bush, Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, and now Blair. [18:54] John Hannah doing charity voice-over to illustrate that the Scots are trustworthy, but “that with every reasonable Scot there’s a nutcase bubbling underneath”.
[19:46] Oliver Double mentions seeing this routine at the Gulbenkian Theatre. [20:46] Oliver Double asks if OD has to talk through the routine before he performs it [21:03] OD collaborates with his wife to find the funniest words to use.
[24:17] Oliver Double says OD has fantastic performance energy on stage, and asks how he generated the Arab character he begins the show with to trick the audience [24:53] OD answers that the accent was inspired by his distant uncle, a professor of English Literature at Oxford University. [25:13] OD always laughed at his uncle’s wild passion, he’d tell OD that he’d met Samuel Beckett. [26:22] OD says that his fake Arab accent isn’t even a well-rounded character like Al Murray’s pub landlord, he tells the audience that he’s just putting on an accent.
[28:15] Oliver Double says that the reveal of the real Omid as the British office clown is also a construct [28:35] OD agrees, and says comedy is about putting diametric opposites together. [29:41] Oliver Double says the Arab is exotic, but the office clown character is more relatable.
[30:17] Oliver Double asks how OD finds characters [31:00] OD warns to be careful not to showboat, and says there’s a fine line between showing off and moving the story along [32:32] OD says Eddie Izzard does minimalist and subtle characterisations. [32:51] Even Bill Hicks tried to do an English accent.
[33:40] Oliver Double asks if OD tries out certain voices before he goes on stage. [33:53] OD wanted to do a joke around a Nelson Mandela impression. [34:57] OD includes an element of silliness because the audience will be engaged in what you’re saying if you show them that you don’t take yourself too seriously.
[35:14] OD talks about Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm [35:41] he’s not a big fan of Seinfeld but likes how Larry David always manages to make fun of himself. [36:04] OD says political comment in comedy has to be subtle and sophisticated these days, otherwise it’s like the anti-Thatcher stuff of the 1980s.
[37:47] Oliver Double talks about Milton Jones telling him that people recommend that he gets help after seeing him because they think his persona is real. [38:16] Oliver Double asks about the more serious political aspect of OD’s stand-up, and whether anything has changed in terms of how he is racially judged.
[39:01] OD tells a story about doing Comedy Festival in 2002 with Richard Jeni, who did jokes about Arabs, and OD followed; he talks about the different reception the two acts got when Richard Jeni went on before Omid and when Omid went on before Richard Jeni at a separate gig, he sees this as a triumph in showing people a human face to the Middle East.
[41:36] Oliver Double talks about OD playing with stereotypes, challenging them and having fun with them. [42:30] interview wraps up, general chat.
[43:20] Phone call ends.
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