TQS Staff
Comedian Stephen K Amos is bringing his The Best Medicine tour to Leeds City Varieties, we caught up with him to chat about the inspiration behind his new show, his acting ambitions and social media.
Hi Stephen, thanks for taking the time to speak with us.
No problem.
Your new tour is called The Best Medicine, can you tell us a bit about the inspiration behind it?
Well basically I think that laughter is the best medicine, unless of course you’re slipping into a hypoglycaemic coma in which case maybe insulin should be your first port of call. [laughter] Basically what I’m doing is looking at a certain period of my life where I didn’t know where I was going, had no direction and looking back and laughing! Maybe we can’t look back and laugh in the moment but we can look back on those situations with a bright light.
You’ve been touring quite a lot recently but also regularly appear on television, which do you prefer?
I love live stand up comedy, nothing beats it. When you’re doing stand up you’re in the moment and you’ve just got to deliver and of course if something happens in the room that’s funny I just run with it.
You’ve also done quite a lot of compering do you prefer that to actual routines?
I prefer routines, when you compere or host most of the stuff you say you have to come up with as you go along and that can be quite difficult. I’ve been doing it so long now I don’t mind it that much, I’m very interactive with the audience anyway and it’s great to see where the comedy takes us!
What if the audience aren’t particularly responsive, can you tell and what do you do?
Well you can tell, as you’re going out you can tell by the noise by they make, is it an excited noise or is it a crap noise? Which you can get on a Sunday or freezing wet night and you think oh maybe it wont be great but it still can work and work well you just have to factor that in to the performance.
You’ve also done quite a bit of acting, is that a sideline project or something you’d like to do more of?
Well let’s just say that if Steven Spielberg gives me a call for his latest project then I wouldn’t say no! I’m actually in talks with the BBC to do a sitcom for next year which is quite exciting, but in general, if the project is good, I’ll do it.
Can you tell us anymore about the sitcom?
Oh no, couldn’t tell you any more, might jinx it!
Well can’t blame us for trying! At TQS we’re very interested in social media and how public in the public eye use it. How do you use Twitter? Have you had any particularly good or bad experiences with it? (He tweets under @stephenkamos)
Well I use it mainly as a tool to say what I want to people that might be interested, or if I think of something funny I’ll put it on there but I don’t use it to communicate with my friends or family by any means. It exposes you very openly, people will go on there and do and say whatever they like, that includes negative things, I don’t take any of it personally but on your own site you can delete it but that’s not always the case with social media.
Well Stephen, thanks for your time and see you at the show!
My pleasure, see you there!
Stephen will be at Leeds City Varities on 6th November, you can buy your tickets online here or by ringing the box office on 0113 391 7777
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