Interview: Rob Auton

A clip of award-winning poet and comedian Rob Auton performing on Comedy Central has recently gone viral with nearly 4 million views on Facebook (see clip below). Alongside stand-up, Rob’s spoken-word pursuits include having his poetry turned in to short films for Channel 4’s Random Acts, hosting the best poetry night in the country (as voted by The Times) and being Glastonbury’s ‘poet in residence’.
He’s also recently dipped his toe into the music scene, supporting psychedelic punk rockers and BBC 6Music favourites The Lovely Eggs on tour. Now he tells us about being back on the road with the second-best reviewed show at 2018’s Edinburgh Fringe.

The Guardian described you as ‘The Brian Cox of comedy’ – for those who don’t know you, how would you describe what you do?
I think that comparison was drawn because during an interview I saw a duck on the canal through the Guardian’s office window and said “that’s a nice Mallard.”
I guess it’s to do with the fact that I try to look at subjects and explore them for myself and get excited by thinking about things in the world – and Brian Cox does that too.
Every year since 2012, I have written an hour-long show on a specific theme and taken it up to the Edinburgh Fringe. I try not to worry about what genre it is; I just want to make a show that I value. If I have a funny idea, it can go in, if I have a more serious point then that can go in too. I put a word in the middle of a spider diagram and go to work on it.
The first year was a show about the colour yellow, called The Yellow Show. I made 3D-style glasses with yellow acetate for the audience to wear, so they saw the show through yellow tinted glasses. The show included bits about big car sponges, bananas and egg yolk, and I played Yellow Submarine on repeat at the start. I really enjoyed the experience and enough people did too for me to want to do a show the next year.

So in 2013, I did a show about the sky called The Sky Show.
2014 was The Face Show, 2015 was The Water Show, 2016 was The Sleep Show. 2017 was The Hair Show, where I grew my hair and didn’t shave for 18 months, and 2018 was The Talk Show. This year the word in the middle of the spider diagram is ‘Time’ and so the show is called The Time Show.

You went from working in an advertising agency to an art shop. How did you make the transition to performing?
I was working in advertising as someone who comes up with ideas for adverts – but the vast majority of my ideas were not suitable, so I started to retreat into my notebooks. I would unleash my frustration with the advertising industry onto the pages, and basked in the freedom of the fact I could write or draw absolutely anything I wanted. Some of the things I wrote down were short stories or alternative scripts for adverts – just ideas I wanted to keep, really.

The creative director of the agency I worked at was a real artist at heart, always drawing and painting and writing but somehow he had managed to adapt his output so it was suitable for advertising. One day he said, “I’m having a fireworks party at my house, there will be some of us reading a bit of poetry, do you want to come?” I didn’t know if my stuff was poetry or not – and I still don’t – but I asked if I could read out some of the ideas from my notebooks. That was my first gig in 2007.
After that, he asked me to join his poetry night, Bang Said The Gun. I started doing poetry nights, then someone asked me to do an alternative comedy night, and I started doing more and more.  Anywhere that would have me really. I left advertising in 2009 and got a job in an art shop to pay my bills and then left that in 2012 and I have been doing this full time since then.

You mentioned that each of your shows has a specific theme. How do you land on these themes? Basically I want to write about something that isn’t going to change anytime soon. Yellow, the sky, the fact that people have faces, water… I want the shows to stand the test of time so I can go back and perform bits from them in the future. Donald Trump is temporary.
With The Talk Show I wanted to focus on my need to talk and how I struggle in isolation and I think I will be able to say that until I die, or maybe I will not want to talk when I’m older.  Perhaps my 2051 show will be The Silence Show.

Who are your inspirations?
Brian Cox, mainly.
No, not really. I think he is inspired to talk about what is in our world, though, and I am a fully-signed-up member of that squad for sure. If you are talking about individuals, I would say Ivor Cutler, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Francis Bacon, Werner Herzog and John Lennon amongst others.  I take direct inspiration from people in bad moods on trains and impatient people in Post Office queues.

Rob’s publicity shot for ‘The Water Show’ This and top pic: Julian Ward

The Talk Show was the Edinburgh Fringe’s second-best-reviewed show. What can audiences expect?
Audiences can expect a lanky man from Yorkshire trying to come to terms with the fact that when he talks words come out of his mouth and the fact that other people do that too. I think it’s the show I have enjoyed performing the most, so fingers crossed I can work hard and do a good job on this tour.

You play comedy clubs, poetry shows, you draw and you act. Which is your favourite art form?
At the moment my favourite art form is writing the ideas down and saying them aloud to audiences. I love painting and drawing but currently the visual side is not the one that’s conveying how I feel effectively.
I attempted to act in a play for the first time in August, and that was one of the most challenging things I’ve done. I think the different ideas come from the same place and it’s just a case of catching them and getting them on paper or into my notes on my phone. For me, at this point in time, writing is the most effective way of recording them.

You’ve recently changed what has become an iconic hairy look. How does it feel now the beard’s gone?
‘Iconic’ is not what my parents called it, I can tell you that.

Shaving that beard off and getting a haircut got me back in the mix of civilisation. I’m pleased I committed to The Hair Show by growing as much hair from my skin as I could, but it was quite distressing how people’s attitude changed toward me. When I shaved, I washed the bottom half of my face properly for the first time in about 16 months and I’ll remember that moment for a long time.  Also feeling the sun on my chin will stick with me for a while.

You won the Dave Funniest Joke Of The Fringe award. What was the joke? How was it received?
“I heard a rumour Cadbury’s are releasing an Oriental chocolate bar. Could be a Chinese Wispa.”
It got a mixed reception.

Rob Auton performs The Talk Show at the Wardrobe Theatre on March 4. For more info, visit thewardrobetheatre.com/livetheatre/rob-auton

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