Interview: Ivo Graham

Super-articulate, self-deprecating Eton and Oxford alumnus Ivo Graham started stand-up in 2009 at the age of 18 and, eight months later, became the youngest ever winner of the prestigious So You Think You’re Funny award for new acts at the Edinburgh Fringe.

His four solo stand-up shows have enjoyed sell-out runs at Edinburgh and London’s Soho Theatre. As the Evening Standard put it, “if you like your comedy with long words and beautiful linguistic flourishes, buy a ticket immediately”.

And now, after an eventful year off (got a new laptop, etc.), the boy’s back in town, with resolutions galore but less courage in his convictions than ever. How much has Ivo learnt? And what good has it done him?

“Sharp punchlines, topper gags and the unmistakable sense of a young comic finding another gear.” The Scotsman

“Like Hugh Grant’s less well-adjusted younger brother.” The Guardian

Hello, Ivo! Tell us more about this eventful year off, then.
My decision to reference an ‘eventful year off’ in my show blurb was, I’m afraid, nothing more than a ploy, a cunning ploy to make my non-comedic life sound more glamorous than it is, or to suggest that my absence from 2016’s Edinburgh Fringe was due to a higher calling rather than the fields of inspiration just being a bit too damn arid on that occasion.

All that being said, I had an excellent time not doing the Fringe, instead hawking my wares around various music festivals and the odd semi-working holiday (three days on a Croatian island in exchange for a desperately awkward 20-minute set to 12 people in a forest? Yes please!). I was very fortunate to get to appear on Mock The Week and Live At The Apollo, which reassured my parents that things were Moving Forwards, and I moved in with my girlfriend, which provided her with similar reassurances.

How much would you say your upbringing feeds into your comedy – both your material and your general onstage demeanour?
Material-wise: unquestionably, relentlessly, exhaustingly. I have wanged on about my upbringing onstage for the entirety of my (increasingly not short) career, stretching “talk about what you know” as far as I possibly can, shuffling the jokes around just enough each time to add a veneer of novelty, shouting “but it informs who I am noooow!” at anyone who dares to suggest they’ve heard quite enough about my schooldays, thank you.
As for onstage demeanour, it’s largely bumbling, hapless, stuff, but with occasional, thrilling moments of assuredness that reveal a steelier confidence underneath all the mumbling. In other words: vintage Eton boy.

Where do you sit on the spectrum from ultra-political, up-to-the-minute stand-up (e.g. Ahir Shah) to ultra-confessional, my-life-is-a-bit-of-a-mess stand-up (e.g. I don’t know, John Robins?)?
Of all the spectrums to be on, one bookended by Shah and Robins isn’t a bad place to be, given I’m a massive fan of both. The answer is, predictably enough, in a pointless, unsatisfying middle ground between the two, dreaming of doing both but without enough political zing or personal turmoil to hit either height. Instead, it’s a thrillingly surface-level stew of minor political concerns and minor domestic quibbles: all rooted, lest we forget, in My Upbringing And How It Has Shaped Me.

Eight or nine years into your stand-up career, how has it been for you? Have there been any moments when you’ve considered jacking it in and trying something else?
It has largely been a wild ride, full of top lads, top bants, and topper gags. I feel very lucky to have started it while footloose and fancy-free in my first term at university, to have been able to get to a point of just-about-professionalism by the time I moved to London, and since then to have had chances to do the gigs, and occasionally the TV/radio shows, that I idolized as a teenage comedy fan. And I do think I’m improving.
All that being said, it’s very unstable, frequently lonesome, and I’ve still got considerable reservations about its long-term viability. But best sweep those back under the mat, at least until this tour is done.

“Like Hugh Grant’s less well-adjusted younger brother.” – The Guardian. How do you like (or not) that little summary?
I clearly like it enough to use it in my promotional materials. Though I wish my taste in films (and everything else) was a little less consistent with exactly the sort of thing one would expect a privately-educated luvvie to enjoy, I cannot deny that I absolutely adore Hugh’s performances in Four Weddings, Notting Hill, and, you know what, to hell with it, Two Weeks Notice (which should, as we all know, have an apostrophe). So yes, I’ll grab at any opportunity to associate myself with the brand.

Ivo Graham plays the Wardrobe Theatre on For more info and to book tickets, visit thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/ivo-graham-educated-guess