Before he even hits the stage in his new special, Stuart Laws is already performing. There he is physically in the audience, where he’s chatting with them and seemingly gaining their trust as a performer. He then proceeds to spend his first 10 minutes onstage by telling them a completely fabricated story about a wife that he does not have. So what was he doing in the audience? Planting the informative seeds that they’ll need for the end of the special.
That sort of calculation sums up how Stuart Laws approaches his new special, Is This Guy Still Going?. It’s a bit of a shift for the British comedian. This special finds him opening up and being vulnerable in ways he hasn’t before, specifically about the death of his father. While he has always enjoyed finding things out onstage, for this special, he had to know every single nuance of how he would approach the material before he ever hit the stage. The experiment pays off.
We recently spoke with Stuart about breaking the fourth wall with the audience, creating a false persona, how he approaches writing, wanting to avoid trauma dumping, and what he’s got planned for his next hour.
There’s a lot to unpack with the special, which is very personal. But before we get into that, what is the genesis of you opening the special in the audience? It immediately breaks the fourth wall.
In the show, when I did it on tour, I would come out in the five minutes beforehand and just chat with the audience. Basically, what I needed to do with that is I realized I had written a show where I needed to sell a couple of details early on. Number one is beer mat flipping. Some key bits like George Harrison being on the music. Little details where I was like “There’s no eloquent way of doing it in the show. You know what’s nice is to come out and just break down the barrier a bit early on.” And then when it came time to do the special, it was like “That doesn’t work so much.” As like me being onstage. So the director Nish Kumar - an incredible comedian himself - said “Well what if we do it with you in the audience? And that gives it a unique start to the show.” And I’m like “That’s perfect!”
And you find a way to connect it all together. You mention beer mat flipping early on and sort of allow the audience to forget about it until the end. And I think that’s a really powerful tool to have as a comedian.
In terms of structure, I’ve always been a big fan of the structure of the film The Prestige. And I’ve used it often when I’m writing stand-up and working with other people, as sort of this example of telling you everything you need to know about the film in the first two/three minutes. The explanation of what a magic trick is is an explanation of what the film is. And you only notice that when you watch it again like “Oh. He told us everything.”
And I think there’s something really eloquent about that. It’s so on the nose, and there’s so much fun that you can have with that when you’re telling a story to just be like “Here’s a bunch of stuff you need to know.” And then enough time passes that people forget it was spoon fed to them earlier on.
You spend the first 10 minutes creating this false reality about yourself. Tell me about your process of trying to break past that false persona you’ve created. Because I can understand - given how vulnerable the medium can be - that it might be tougher to get past that.
My first ever show I did was in 2013. I don’t know how many I’ve done, maybe 6 or 7. I’ve also done sketch shows and a play that I wrote and co-directed. And this was a thing I had been wanting to do for five years. I just couldn’t quite write what it was. Because I knew that I wanted to tell this story that ends where it does. And I just couldn’t find the way into it. I just couldn’t find the way to get to where that is, where it’s deeply vulnerable. It’s just not something that I’m comfortable with naturally. Being very open like that. But I knew that it was of value and I wanted to do it.
I was flying back from Seattle. I had been on holiday by myself. It was just after the pandemic when we were allowed to travel again. I spent the whole time there writing up new ideas, doing some creative stuff. Really trying not to connect too much. And I just had this note written in my phone “Pretend you’ve got a wife.” Because there’s been this long tradition in stand-up. Talking about “the wife.” And I was like “Wouldn’t it be funny to do a routine where it’s taking the piss out of those tropes, while also being funny, and then revealing that you were doing a piss take on it?” It’s sort of the ultimate in having your cake and eating it. But if you can make that funny, have people get on board with it, while still being interesting and quirky, and then pull the rug back. To me, that’s a really fun idea.
On that flight, I typed 1500 words. That whole routine basically. Went home, booked a gig to do the next day after I learned it. Performed it and it was like “Okay great. That is it. That’s what it’s going to be.” And then realized by opening the show by lying and then coming clean about it, it gave me permission to then tell the truth. And to have this slight air of “We think he’s telling the truth now, but we don’t quite know.” So it put a mini fourth wall between me and the audience to be like “I have lied to you about the wife thing. There’s a chance that all of this is being made up. But it would take a lot for all of this to be made up, because it’s very personal.”
And then you have that last line, “I don’t even have a dad.” And again, you have people questioning whether you told the truth or not.
Yeah. And also, my new show is more telling the truth about myself, more recent stories, talking about my Autism diagnosis and also my relationship. But a point I made earlier today in another interview is I think you can obviously say what you like. I think you are free as a comedian to say what you like, but you just have to accept that it might upset some people. And it’s okay if people are upset as well. And with the whole freedom of speech of it all, in my perspective, you CAN say whatever you like, but just choose not to. And if I’m going to tell personal stuff, I want it to be funny. But just because it’s my experience, that doesn’t give me carte blanch to say it however I want. Because there’s other people out there who have experienced that thing that it might be triggering to.
I want what I do to be a comfort. Like “Oh, he said it in a way that I never really comprehended before. And that helped me understand some stuff I’m going through.” While also being - crucially number one - funny. I’m not out there to be “Because I’ve got trauma, now you do as well.” I’m talking about it because I’ve worked on all this stuff and feel balanced on it and feel like I’ve got something to say on it. I’m not trauma dumping. I’m giving a narrative that I’ve carved the corners of.
Was there a moment that it felt a little more trauma dumping that you had to get past?
In the UK, we have a bigger acceptance of working progress culture than I think the U.S. does. You have people who specifically come to see work in progresses. You’re seeing something where you might be reading off of notes. You’re saying stuff that will never get said again. So I was previewing the show for 2 years before getting it to Edinburgh Fringe. Then I reworked it again before taking it on tour. And even in that little gap, with Nish coming on board as a director, it changed again.
But I wrote a lot of the stuff in the show as essays originally. Where I was trying to explore how I felt about things. So the porn DVD analogy for grief came from one of those essays. Talking about the vasectomy and wedding started with me writing it out as a short story. Just trying to explore every point, and then taking it onstage. You do it, you work out what jokes are funny, and what you can’t get rid of without losing the point of it. And that final monologue was something I went into the Edinburgh Fringe with it written, in quite like a wordy sort of way. And my producer Molly had never given me a note before. And she told me after the first couple of days, “It’s too much. And I don’t really know what you mean in a few lines.” I had overly written it to try to make it more profound than it was. So I had to strip it back to being my language. And that suddenly made it so much more effective.
Do you alway overwrite when you’re working out a new show, versus finding things out onstage?
No. I generally find a lot of stuff onstage. It just happened that this show had a bunch of points where it’s like, “I think this needs to be really specific. Because I’m telling a story that I think might affect people beyond just comedy.” So I knew that I wanted to put in the work so when I was going onstage and improvising around a bit, I had every bit of information about my dad passing or how I felt telling this story about my vasectomy or every possible wife joke I had written for the opening. So when I’m onstage and going off on a bit, I know everything else I’ve got to talk about if it runs dry on this point.
I want to break the show as much as possible. So I had started shows by telling them my dad had passed away. Started with the end and told them that. And then worked how the show worked once I had given away the most vulnerable bit. It’s something I like to do, write down every thought on it. So when I’m improvising, you’ve got stuff to grab from.
And how are you approaching the new hour, where you’re also talking about personal things like the Autism diagnosis?
So the structure of this one naturally arrived when I realized that the show is about relationships. Me with myself, with audiences, and being in a new romantic relationship since knowing I’m autistic. So it’s a different situation in many ways. But it also is a sequel to this special, because it’s more personal stuff. And my relationship with the audience has changed since that show, where people have really responded to it. So I knew that I wanted to do the show as the structure of a relationship. So I wanted to start with small talk and nervous energy that then progresses into going steady and telling nice, fun stories. To then getting a bit more serious and then going into a break-up. So it felt much more natural and that’s what the structure would be.
My plan as a tour and to film it as a special is to bring chaos back into it. In that the special that just came out is very structured and very composed. And what I think that show about relationships should have is an element of chaos to it. And I really enjoy doing that. So I’ll be filming it in multiple locations. I want to know the show inside out and be able to go on a tangent and try something out, and not worry that the audience is going to be shortchanged or the special isn’t going to be what it needs to be. Because ideally it’s going to be four or five shoots compressed into one. You’ll visually know we’re switching locations, but you’re feeling the chaos building.
Have you gotten to do the show in the U.S. yet?
I haven’t had the chance yet to do the show - closer to the British style - over here. I’m planning to do it in New York in June and hopefully LA and Nashville and Minneapolis. I’m just aware that I’ll be coming over here with a very small profile. But I think there’s a value in it. My partner, Chloe Radcliffe, has been doing her show that’s a theatrical show, Cheat. And it’s been doing great. But in terms of doing gigs, I have noticed that there is this focus on the rapidity of it and hitting those punchlines. Which I believe in and I think it’s absolutely an important part. When I’m doing shorter sets, I want to hit those punchlines as much as possible. I’m stripping out the storytelling bits and pauses.
But there’s got to be a bit of a middle ground. I love when you get a real sense of the personality. For me, that is so much more vital than every sort of punchline being precision engineered within an inch of its life. I think that a precision joke is great and fun. But if you get a barrage of them, you just can’t take that. You want to connect with the person.