By his own admission, Julian Clary isn’t having the most exciting of mornings.
“I’ve spent the last hour on the phone talking to people like you – though it could [be] worse, I suppose,” says the comedian/author/all-round media personality, with a laugh so dry it’s barely there.
Clary admits he has had his fair share of unpleasant journalistic encounters, which perhaps explains the guarded, ever-so-slightly removed tone he uses when talking to the BRAG. “There are sometimes tricky journalists, or ill-informed ones – people who can’t be bothered, or people who don’t like you,” he says. “It’s all nonsense, really. All I want to do is sell tickets to the show – to let people know I’m on. That’s my ultimate aim doing all this.”
Given that seems like a cue to ask Clary about The Joy Of Mincing, the comedy show he is touring Down Under this year, the conversation is briskly hurried in that direction. Clary seems relieved. “The show is about – well, all manner of things,” he says, suddenly cheery. “But, having been around so many years … I’ve noticed that I haven’t been awarded an MBE, unlike many of my showbiz chums. I think that’s probably because I’ve been so terribly rude about the royal family over the years.” He laughs.
“So I’ve decided to award myself an MBE. And then I’ve decided to hand out MBEs to the good people of Australia while I’m there, so I’ll be choosing those among you who I think deserve to be honoured. Then they come up onstage and they go away with the most beautiful diamond MBE that they can keep for eternity.”
That level of audience participation is a daunting prospect, one that most other comedians might balk at – after all, it’s basically public improv with a partner who might not even have the most basic handle on live comedy. But Clary has spent years honing the mysterious art of plucking willing – and unwilling – colleagues from crowds. “There must be a [skill] to it, but I don’t know what it is,” he says. “It’s very hard to analyse.”
“It’s sort of a psychic thing, I think. I make a lot of eye contact with people, then I can tell if they’re going to be good fun. I can tell if they’re mad too, or if they’re drunk. People are just so interesting. I’m much more interested in chatting to random people and improvising a comedy routine than I am in anything I might write, polish and hone. I just think it’s more exciting to do something that’s a bit dangerous.”
For examples of Clary’s mysterious psychic art, one need make only the most cursory of YouTube searches. There they will find clips of him calling out punters as diverse as an old woman in a pleat skirt – as on his TV show Sticky Moments – to a young, nervous looking boy sitting in the front row of the Rove Live audience.“People might think it’s humiliating, but it’s actually not – it’s actually good for people,” Clary says. “They might be petrified to begin with, but then I can reassure them. Then they have that experience. I think it’s something to talk about at dinner parties, if nothing else.”
This element of Clary’s act is also helped by his indomitable reputation. Although he is best known in his native United Kingdom, where he is a household name, he has fans across the globe. “Because I’ve been around the block a few times now, people kind of know what they’re coming to see,” he explains. “They like me. I think back to the ’80s when people used to book to see comedy and they didn’t know who you were. But this is different. These are my kind of people. Everyone is out for a good time.”
That said, Clary’s interest in spreading himself across every available medium has ensured that his audience is nothing if not diverse, and even he is often taken aback by the striking range of punters he has to pick from. “It’s very hard to define who the audience are. There are those who have been around since the ’80s and then there are those who are there depending on what I’m doing.
“So I did Strictly Come Dancing, which is the UK version of Dancing With The Stars, and then I got a silver-haired lady contingent coming [to shows]. Then I did Celebrity Big Brother in 2012 which brought in a whole load of younger people, but then there’s also the book crowd and the gay and lesbian crowd … You can’t say there’s one type. It’s ever so mixed. Which I like, really. I wouldn’t like it to be exclusive to one group or the other.”
And yet no matter what kind of audience Clary is performing in front of, the sheer thrill he gets from stepping up to the stage remains the same. “All your energy is focused on those two hours onstage. So all I have to do is sit in a car and be transported from one location to the next. I don’t go out raving after the show like I might have done 20 years ago. It’s really the joy of making people laugh, and sending people home happy.” He laughs heartily – a far cry from the dry sound that kicked off the interview. “That’s the satisfaction. It always feels like a job well done.”
Julian Clary’s showThe Joy Of Mincinghappens Thursday September 8 at Sydney Opera House, as part of Just For Laughs Sydney 2016.
