5:06pm Thursday 1st February 2007
So rarely is Marcus Brigstocke off Radio 4, he is a dead cert for the Russell Brand Award for Media Ubiquity (radio category). But scan the Brigstocke CV and it gets more tasty the further down you get, writes Paul Fleckney.
Numerous award-winning stand up tours behind him - that's fine. Serial writer and performer for Radio 4 aficionado - splendid. Lead role in BBC1 sitcom Savages, star of Excuse My French and a Love Actually cameo- marvellous, brilliant. But really, podium dancer'? Stint on oil rig'?
" I did do both of those things," admits Marcus, who performs at Banana Cabaret in Balham this weekend.
"I did the dancing when clubbing was at its peak in the early 90s. It was nothing indecent, of course."
And the oil rig? "I was a deck hand until they realised how rubbish I was at it, so they got me to do things like laundry.
"In fact, there was a time when I was doing both at the same time. When I was home from the rig I would go back to doing the podium dancing."
Maybe it's just coincidence that an oil rig looks like a massive podium.
Furthermore, Marcus enjoyed a number two chart hit in 2000 with DJ Dee-Kline's Don't Smoke Da Reefa, a "pretty awful" track which sampled his voice from a comedy sketch he performed.
For all his chameleon-like tendencies, Marcus is probably best known for being chief writer and presenter of BBC4's topical comedy The Late Edition.
Okay, it's a wafer-thin silver lining to a vast black cloud, but people like Marcus are one bunch who benefit from the failings of politicians.
Speaking from his Wands-worth home with a fork full of prawns (marginally past their sell-by date), he explains: "We are blessed by the amount of incompetence there is.
"On one side of the Atlantic we have a highly malevolent, utterly incompetent President, and on the other is a man who I had lots of faith in when he was elected, but who has been completely dazzled by power."
The show is described as "Newsnight with jokes", and its foundations lie in the age-old British pastime of satire. But the path laid by Have I Got News For You is not the one taken by his stand-up routine.
In fact, the whole performance is an entirely different discipline. "Stand-up is so immediate, if anything goes wrong it's not anyone else's fault and there's nowhere to hide. It's very straightforward like that," says Marcus, who has enjoyed great success in his 33 years.
But what a shame we didn't get a chance to discuss his most dazzling acting role. The film: Piccadilly Jim. The part: "man having sex under the stairs". It's got Oscar written all over it.
Marcus Brigstocke; Banana Cabaret, The Bedford, 77 Bedford Hill, Balham; Friday & Saturday, February 2-3, 9pm; Fri £12/£8, Sat £15/£12; call 020 8673 8904, visit bananacabaret.co.uk.
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