All this month we are speaking to comedian Stuart Goldsmith. After a really successful run at this years Edinburgh Fringe, the comic is now taking his show Canary on the road, his first tour in the United Kingdom for a decade! All this month we are speaking to Stuart about the show, climate change and much more. Today, we talk about his incredibly popular podcast The Comedian’s Comedian plus the world of Climate change.
Hello Stuart how are you? Tell us three facts about yourself
I’ve hosted a podcast called The Comedian’s Comedian for fourteen years, which means I’ve now spent longer interviewing other comics about their insecurities than most therapists spend with a single patient. I live in Bristol. I can juggle any three objects (bigger than a matchbox, smaller than a shoebox)
You were at Fringe this year, how was your run?
Glorious thanks! My second climate comedy show “Canary” changed the goddamn world! Or at least gave a few hundred people permission to feel their feelings about the climate crisis, whilst also having a laugh. Well, several laughs
How did you get into stand up?
The usual way.
Oh OK then, I started as a street-performer in Stratford Upon Avon, doing comedy acrobatics and juggling, primarily as a means of never getting a real job. Eventually me and my double-act partner went to the Edinburgh Fringe and it blew our minds; after a few years of working there and at Covent Garden (now a solo performer eating crisps on a tightrope), I eventually took the plunge into something a bit more normal, like standup comedy.
You are known as the ‘climate comedian’. What does that mean for those who do not know?
It means I stand on stage and talk about the climate crisis without pretending to have it figured out. Most climate communication asks people to feel guilty or to feel hopeless, and both of those shut people down. I skewer my own hypocrisy first; the flights I’ve taken, the meat I eat, so the audience isn’t being talked down to by someone claiming a clean conscience. If I’m implicated too, there’s nowhere for anyone to hide, which oddly makes it easier to laugh.
You also host the podcast The Comedian’s Comedian, who have been some of your favourite guests and why?
With 511 guests and counting, this is like asking me which is my favourite child, if all the children were bees.
We will speak more about this next week but you are going on your first UK tour in nearly a decade. How are you feeling about it?
Genuinely thrilled! I do the hour-long show and then the second half is a much looser, Q&A and new material spot, so it’s playtime really!
If people want to follow you on social media where can they find you?
Instagram or Threads – @stuartgoldsmithcomedy
Three words why people should come to Canary?
Coward creates bravery
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