"We have this weird thing in England where everyone is a ‘national treasure.’ Come off it. They are not a national treasure. I know that person personally and they're an asshole," Alan Carr explained about naming his 2023 tour Regional Trinket. "It is just a tongue in cheek middle finger. I'm not a national treasure, I'm just a little trinket. I came up with that name before I'd even written a single joke."
Carr spoke to GayCalgary.com from his home in England in advance of touring Western Canada for the first time in his career. The Regional Trinket tour features two shows nightly in Edmonton November 10th and Calgary November 11th. He’s excited to be performing for his first time in Western Canada.
"The only place I've performed is Montreal. I loved playing it. The people were just great. The audiences are off the wall, but I was itching just to get on a plane and explore a bit more of Canada. To be able to go to Vancouver, Calgary, you name it, Toronto, and everything, I just can't wait. I've performed in Lisbon, in the Arctic Circle, in Athens, Antwerp, you name it. So, if you don't laugh in Canada, it's your sense of humor, not my material." He said, adding that the challenge now lies in packing for a tour that starts in Canada and ends in California. "I do not know what to pack for Canada. You know when you see photos of Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian where they're at the airport and they have about 20 bags. That's going to be me. Should I bring a fleece, a thick coat, or a normal coat? I don't know."
Speaking to Carr is like speaking to a friend. He’s instantly engaging, fun, and down-to-earth. It’s not a surprise that he had a talk show in the UK
Alan Carr: Chatty Man that ran from 2009 – 2017. He’s also an author, has appeared on numerous shows, and is a judge on
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK.
"Why do I do so much? I don't know. Because I started out having the worst jobs in the world, I packed shampoo, I was a driver's mate, I packed dog food. I worked in call centers for four years. When I started getting famous, I thought,
oh, I like this. So, I just want to keep on working. Don't send me back to the factory. That's basically why, I don't want to go back there. I think it's such a lovely job I have, I hate it when celebrities moan about being famous because it’s so much fun. It's just great. You get to do crazy silly things. And I love working. I've recently been divorced and everything, so I'm just sort of throwing myself into new work, you know what I mean?"
Keeping material fresh is a challenge for any comic, and Carr explained how he keeps creating shows.
"It's like Eddie Izzard said to me once - I'm name dropping - when
I finished a tour
I felt like I couldn’t do it anymore. They said
Alan, you've just got to keep going. Why go to the bottom of the mountain? I've always remembered that. When you finish a show and then you can't do those jokes anymore, it is losing an old friend. But this has gone down so well for me, I thought, and with Covid and everything being stuck in the house for a year and a half, I just want to see the world."
Carr’s style of comedy is more storytelling than joke – punchline – joke. He draws from his own experiences which are relatable.
"We all have different styles of comedy and I've always been the same. And if I do get any criticism, it is always that I don't have a theme for my show. You'll go and see some standups and they're talking about Syria or the Ukraine or farm food or blah, blah, blah. But with me, I've always just gone on stage and told people what I've been up to over the last three years. And that's what this show is all about. I got married by Adele. I got divorced. We talk about the wedding day. I talk about lockdown being stuck on a farm. So that is what I do. And then I'm already writing what's happened in the last three years for the next tour. So, I'm always anecdotal, always storytelling. People say to me,
what's your tour regional trinket about? And of course, it's just a name because I just talk and that's why the show grows and grows and grows. Something funny will happen to me down the supermarket or something silly. I'll go and get my prostate examined and something stupid will happen there. Then I add it to the thing. It's an organic thing that goes and goes and goes."
Carr and Adele have been friends for years. He has been there to watch her grow into one of the biggest superstars in music yet stay the same person.
"We met the Brit Awards, and she lived around the corner for me in West London and we just sort of hung out loads. And then of course she was working on the album 21 and she wouldn't tell us anything about the album.
Oh yay, I think it's going to be so good. And then of course we all heard
Someone Like You and we're like,
you never told us Someone Like You was going to be all that amazing ballad that is just brings you to tears every time you hear it. And what I don't see her as much as often as I used to because she lives in America and with my tour and her tour, but definitely going to catch up with us soon once this tour's over, which can't wait speak all the time. She just hasn't changed. I get a lot of leading questions from journalists and they're like,
do you see much of her? I suppose now she lives in la, she doesn't really have time for her old friends, this leading clickbait kind of crap. And I just have to say,
look, I've just got to stop you there. She is the same as where she was when she popped around the house for cup of tea. You know what I mean? Or so yeah, I won't have a bad word. I mean, hugely generous, incredibly generous, incredibly kind. I feel like that's what she's like. And anyone who knows her will tell you the same. She’s a wonderful human being. But then doesn't that just come out when you see her on stage? You see people, I've been to a restaurant with her and then a woman just looked up from a meal and started crying when she saw her. She has that effect on people because her music's so good. And you can tell, can't you, when you watch someone on stage and you think, I bet you are a right asshole, but you do get that with her. She's special. That's why she's a superstar."
Something Adele doesn’t do is 2 shows a night, but Carr has 7:00 and 9:30 shows back to back in Edmonton and Calgary.
"Oh, I'm dreading it. I'm absolutely dreading it because normally I go off stage and I have a large glass of red wine. So now I'm going to be gagging to have a glass of red wine and I mean, I don't want to come on and then do the late show and I'm paralytic and it looks a bit like, you know what I mean, Oliver Reed or Amy Winehouse. I've got to be quite professional, but hey, I can do it. Listen, have you seen the New Madonna show? I saw the Madonna show twice in O2 (arena). I did. If she can go out and do that show at 65, I'm sure I can go and do my set twice."
On the mention of Madonna, Carr made me instantly jealous.
"It's so good. But she's already complaining. Can I tell you something about the tour? Love the tour but she had a blue leg support on. And I'm like,
love you are telling me there's no one backstage with a glue gun and some rhinestones that can just zhuzh that up a little bit too. You know what I mean? Maybe I've watched too much Ru Paul's Drag Race, but come on girlfriend, come on. She looked amazing. I was a bit worried about the whole puffy face when she had the ginger hair, but she's looking good. She's looking slim. She's doing all the dance moves. But come on, bit of glitter on the old leg brace."
Madonna was one guest that Carr wanted on
Chatty Man and the schedule didn’t work. He was excited about the possibility of sharing the judging panel on Drag Race UK.
"Wouldn't that be amazing? I can imagine her being such a bitch."
Of course, we cannot talk with Alan Carr without talking about RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, whose 5
th season is currently airing on CRAVE. Carr alternates with fellow brit comedian and talk show host Graham Norton to judge the queens alongside RuPaul, Michelle Visage, and guest judges.
"The show is so veiled in secrecy. I absolutely love it. I mean, even the man who brought my Waggamamas (a UK Asian restaurant) had to sign an NDA. No photos backstage, no nothing. I love being part of something that is a phenomenon, and you have to have that kind of mystique, that velvet rope. You've got to have that. There is an air of mystery. Working with RuPaul is like working with the Sphinx, you just don't know what's behind that face. He is. The first time I ever went on the RuPaul Drag Race set, it was like a religious experience because you don't hang out with him before, he's backstage getting his makeup done. The first time you see him is when then the lights come up, which happens like it does on the spotlights, come on him. And wow, he appears and walks down the runway. It has just revolutionized my career. I'm a household name in England and the UK, but the phenomenon that is RuPaul and the Drag Race franchise, I can go everywhere. And it used to be Chatty Man's Alan Carr. Now it's Drag Race, UK's Alan Carr."
We tested the severity of the secrecy with one question... is it true from the waist down RuPaul wears track pants during judging?
"I'm not saying anything! Mama Ru will have me assassinated. I've signed an NDA. What do you think? Tell me some of the other questions though and I'll blink yes or no."
If you have seen clips of Carr’s stand up online, you know to expect an evening of stories and laughter.
"It is one of the most personal tours I've ever done. It's been one of the most critically acclaimed tours. It is weird, you're going through shit, and you are writing from the heart and people are laughing about it in the audience and you're like,
when life gives you lemon, you make lemonade. My God, this last three years I could start a lemonade factory. Honestly, I could give out free samples of lemonade at the show and for some reason it's just engaged with people. When they said
you want to go to Canada? I thought,
sod it, I'm going to go. I'm doing two shows a night, so come along and see what all the fuss is about."
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Contributor Jason Clevett |
Person Alan Carr |
Topic Celebrity Interview | Celebrity Video Interview | RuPaul’s Drag Race |
