Q&A: Steve Day

Ahead of his gig at Redland’s bijou Little Black Box Theatre on Thursday, March 19, the UK comedy circuit’s first deaf comedian reveals his unique worldview to Steve Wright.

How much of your comedy comes from your particular perspective on the world as a deaf man – and how much of it is your own more general worldview?
I don’t think I bang on about the deafness, I just talk about things that interest or annoy me – but it’s impossible for deafness not to influence things a little bit. If deafness comes into a story I will happily talk about it, but I don’t shoehorn a deaf gag in where it isn’t relevant just to get Arts Council funding or something.

Comics get a lot of their material from the absurdity of the world, and I imagine you may see more of that than most….? 
I do get a bit from other people’s foibles, but mostly it’s my own confused attitudes and absurdities that I pick on. I have a sort of different perspective on things, and I’m happy to utilise my uniqueness but I think there’s lots more stuff that makes me strange that isn’t related to hearing. 

What sorts of things are making it into your set at the moment?
I do like to talk about universal themes, life, death family and so on, and they tend not to be affected by fashion. In fact, I think I’ve kept up to date by always being unfashionable. If a topical joke comes to me I might do it on the night, but there’s nothing worse than comics stretching out a news story months, or even years, after it was in the public eye. “Remember George Bush? Wasn’t he awful?”

One review tells how you talk about “the politics of ‘small d’ and ‘big D’ deafness”. Explain more?
I grew up hearing, it wasn’t till my late teens that deafness became apparent so I’m not a sign language user, or what has come to be known as ‘culturally deaf’. The shorthand is that I may be deaf, but not Deaf. This has caused resentment for some of those who are big D, they accuse me of misrepresenting them and Deafness as a concept. But the truth is that I don’t represent anyone but myself. I am 100 per cent honest about who I am, and if audiences don’t like it it’s their problem not mine. I knew nothing of this and was surprised at the vitriol, but it is quite funny. I actually sympathise with BSL users’s feeling that their world is under attack. Cochlear implants mean there are fewer British Sign Language users, and BSL – despite being the fourth most used language in the UK – has no official status. But I think their anger with me is misplaced.

Who and what have been your influences as a comedian?
I used to love the old TV comics I watched as a boy: Les Dawson, Morecambe and Wise, then Billy Connolly and Jasper Carrots, the first alternative comics. After this my hearing went and I missed out a generation of comedy – and it wasn’t until I started doing my own stuff that I became aware of what was going on. I think this was a good thing as I wasn’t a copy of someone else. I always wanted to be a comedian but thought deafness excluded me. It turns out it was quite a good thing to have, and my only regret in comedy is that I didn’t start ten years earlier.

What do you think you would be doing if not stand-up?
There’s a strong chance I’d be dead. In my loneliness and isolation from the world I made up for it with alcohol. I was a brilliant drinker as I had no distractions. With comedy and all the driving it was clear to me I had to stop drinking and I did, 15 years ago. Comedy is a more manageable addiction, one you can just about make a career out of.

Steve Day plays the Little Black Box Theatre, Redland on Thursday, March 19. For more info and to book tickets, visit www.thelittleblackbox.net/new-events/2015/3/19/steve-day-faces-the-deaf-sentence-national-tour