When chatting to Frank Skinner, it’s impossible to resist the topic of football. I skirt the issue of whether it will ever come home for England, turning instead to his beloved West Bromwich Albion and their chances in the Championship.
“Getting promotion is like winning a lion in a raffle,” says Skinner. “You think ‘I’ve won the raffle – now, what am I going to do with this monster?’. I’d rather be a big fish in a little pool than the other way around.” It’s an interesting take from a comedian who has been one of the biggest fishes in British comedy for the past three decades, culminating in his recent 30 Years of Dirt tour which he promised would be “much cheaper than Oasis”.
I’ve grown up watching Skinner on the tele. But the first time I read about him was in Steve Coogan’s autobiography, Easily Distracted. Skinner casts his mind back to the 1990 Edinburgh Festival when he supported Coogan at the Pleasance Theatre.
“We shared a flat in Edinburgh, and then we went on tour with the same show. But he was bone idle in those days. I would say we need to get together and write and he was always saying ‘oh, I’ve got a voiceover for Vimto’ and stuff like that.
“I love Stephen. He’s an amazing talent. In those days I remember him ordering a pizza as Roger Moore and I was literally crying on the floor.”
Coogan admits in his book that “Frank had put in the hours” and “the audience responded to him much more than they did to me”. That rapport with audiences is a mainstay of Skinner’s career, which began in Birmingham.
“I started my own club and hosted it every week,” he recollects. “When you’re compering a club, you’re not really an act and you’re not an audience member. You’re some bridge in between. I’ve never got out of that habit. When I go on stage and see a load of people looking at me, it would feel really weird not to have a conversation with them.
“I don’t feel separate. I don’t feel us and them. I feel it’s us trying to have a good time. That sounds a bit grand and sentimental, but if I break it down, that is how I feel.”
Frank Skinner. Credit: Avalon.
However, the gigs started long before the club nights. Unsurprisingly, Skinner was the class clown in school, and humour was his “currency with the other kids”, as it was with the teachers.
“I remember when I was about 11, maybe 10, the teacher had to go out. She said to me ‘can you just stand at the front of the class and tell some jokes?’. That’s quite a tall order at 10, so she must have noticed something. I’d love to end this story by saying now she’s my agent, but that didn’t work out.”
Frank Off The Radio
Telling jokes and talking have long been Skinner’s bread and butter. With two podcasts on the go, he has no plans to shut his mouth anytime soon. Frank Skinner’s Poetry Podcast is returning for a tenth series, and the recently launched Frank Off The Radio is already garnering good ratings. “It’s a podcast based on the fact that I had a radio show for 15 years, then I got the shove. So I’ve just taken the people who did it with me and we’ve turned it into a podcast.
“I am liking the freedom. It means you can really go to some strange places. My problem is I forget that other people are listening to it. I forget we’re being recorded. It draws a bit more honesty out of you, because it does feel like three people just sitting in a room talking.”
Skinner’s embrace of a modern entity like podcasting is interesting given his admission that he’s still very much a “front of cloth” comedian.
“It used to be a technical term meaning that when the comic came on, he came to the front of the stage, in front of the curtain,” explains Skinner. “But it’s not like touching cloth, if that’s where you’re going. For me, it’s just making people laugh as much as I can and as many times as I can.”
All good conversation comes back to football, so I finish by asking what Skinner’s match day combo is. A pie and a pint of Bovril? Or something else?
“At the Albion they do a thing called the chicken balti pie, which is a Birmingham delicacy. And I always have tea, that is my thing. But I haven’t had a Bovril for a long time. I sort of forgot Bovril existed until you just mentioned it. Now I’m thinking I might quite fancy a cup.”
Main image of Frank Skinner by David Monteith-Hodge @Photographise
