I suggest that comedians, even more-so than most performers, must broadcast a personality to the world at large – they must craft an image. McGhie agrees. “I think a lot of comedians probably like to think that they’re ever so clever and then when you actually de-construct what they’re saying there isn’t much to it. Conversely, there are a lot of comedians who are incredibly intelligent and you’re just sitting there thinking this is a really interesting mind at work. I’m not sure which camp I put myself in, but just in normal social interactions I do find that sometimes in my head I feel a bit like Joey in friends going ‘oh my god they’re talking about politics, I’m going to make an idiot of myself’. I just find it funny the difference there can be between what you’re presenting to the world and what’s going on in your head.”
Having never had any particular desire to be a stand-up comedian, McGhie studied drama at university. “Fortunately in my drama course there was a module in stand-up as a medium of performance, and it was a proper revelatory moment,” he recalls. “That’s what did it for me. I used to admire actors like Peter Sellers and what not – but stand-up was what I got into when I was at uni.”
“I think at first you have an instinct. The simple fact is that in any situation at any point in my life pretty much, my first instinct has been to say something funny. I think I have an instinctive need or desire to make people laugh. And then it’s just a case of whether or not you’re able to realise that, and I realised it through being a shit drama student. I was so spectacularly average that the only thing I was remotely better than anyone at was making people laugh.”
“It’s nice to make the step up now and do a solo show. I personally find that I almost come across better over here. If an Australian comedian in Melbourne says ‘oh hey Melbourne, why do you do this?’, people might have a chuckle, but if an international comedian does then people fall about laughing. Canadians come over and go ‘what’s the deal with the stuff?’ and people just go ‘oh my god, this guy’s a genius’. As a performer you have to have a sense of being an outsider, and people will take your observations and find them a bit more interesting. I make out that England is a miserable windswept rock just full of miserable people and you guys just love it.”
BY JOSH FERGEUS
