On the eve of his new stand-up tour, stalwart comedian Stephen K Amos talks lockdowns, laughter and loss with Emma Higginbotham
Most of us had to find new ways of doing our jobs during lockdown, but for stand-up comedian Stephen K Amos, having nowhere to stand up knocked him right out of his comfort zone.
“I did quite a few Zoom gigs online, and I even did some in car parks – like drive-in movies, but with comedians on stage – which was very difficult. You can’t hear what their response is because they’re all in their cars!” Some people, he adds, hooted their horns in lieu of laughing, “and that upsets your timing. I’d rather get a laugh than a hoot. Or the beeping noise as they’re reversing out...”
He’s joking, of course, but being single and alone in lockdown was no laughing matter, especially for someone famed for his sunny style. “The solitary existence was pretty tough,” he says. “Writing became very difficult because I wasn’t motivated enough, and I’m not ashamed to say that I struggled with mental health issues. But since lockdown has been easing, more shows have sprung up, and you can just feel the energy as soon as you walk on stage. It’s wonderful.”
Stephen, who’s 53, has been a constant presence in comedy clubs and on TV panel shows for nearly three decades, and was happily making his friends and family laugh well before then. Nicknamed ‘Smiler’ by his Nigerian parents, who came to London in the 60s, he grew up in a brood of seven children: he and his twin sister Stella were third in line (the K in his name stands for Kehinde, meaning twin; in one of his classic jokes, he recalls asking his mum what it was like having twins: “Like all the beauty and joy of one child,” she replies, “but totally ruined”).
Comedy came naturally to young Stephen. “If there was a chance to say a joke or add a punchline, I would do it. Probably because I was desperate for attention,” he concedes. “When you come from a large family you’ve got to say something to stand out. There’s nothing worse than sitting round a dinner table with all your siblings and your mother leans to your brother, points to you and says ‘Who’s that again?’”
At school, he was (obviously) the class clown, and excelled in drama. His parents had other ambitions for their boy, however, and he ended up studying law at university. But his life as a lawyer never began, thanks to a trip to New York and a chance encounter with Delphine Manley, a friend of a friend with ambitions to become a comedy promoter. “If it wasn’t for her, I have no idea what I’d be doing now,” he says.
“Over that long weekend she said to me ‘you’re so funny, have you ever thought of stand-up comedy? I'm going to open a comedy club, and I want you to be the resident MC.’ I said ‘don’t be ridiculous’. I’d never even been to a comedy club.” Back in London, she took him to see his first stand-up gig, “and I was mesmerised. She went ‘you could do this!’.”
At home, he duly wrote some jokes on a notepad, then took it on stage and read them out. “Because it was my first gig, all my friends and most of my family turned up, and they all laughed. I thought I was the king of comedy. Then the following week I did the same jokes, with the same notepad, none of my friends or family were there – and it didn’t go well at all. That’s when I knew I had to work at this.” Work at it he did. Within a year he was MC-ing at Delphine’s comedy nights five times a week, no notepad necessary.
Over the years, Stephen’s joyful, laid-back humour has taken on a more observational, thoughtful tone, which audiences will witness on his new tour, Before and Laughter. “The beauty of stand-up now is that everybody has a voice,” he says. “Back in the 70s, it was mainly white comedians doing mother-in-law jokes, sexist jokes, racist jokes. But now all those people that they were joking about are comedians! So I touch on race, sexuality, loss – things we can all relate to, but from my point of view.”
The theme of loss has taken on new meaning for Stephen. Three years ago, shortly after his mum died, he lost his twin Stella to cancer – and found himself floored by anxiety. “I used to laugh at my friends who said ‘ooh I feel stressed and anxious’, but it’s a real thing. I developed a rash, I had the shakes, I had fear, an empty feeling – your body is physically telling you that you need to stop, you need to look after yourself. It was just horrific.” He got through it, he says, by “trying to be positive, trying to honour their memory, trying to tell myself ‘would they want you to be a nervous wreck?’ At the end of the day, life goes on.
“And if you think about it, the people who come to my shows, every single one of them has a story. So if I say something from my own experience that resonates with someone in the audience – wow.”
A perfect example is when he first acknowledged being gay on stage at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2006; after the show, a 19-year-old told him he was going to come out to his parents that evening. “I mean who plans that sort of thing?” he says incredulously. “You just don’t know how you’re touching people.”
So it’s the best job in the world? “Well if there’s another job where I can stand in front of strangers and say exactly what I want, and a job that takes me round the world, I’ll go for it,” he laughs.
“People say to me ‘oh, you’re so brave, I couldn’t do it’. I couldn’t do anything else.”
Stephen K Amos: Before and Laughter is at venues across the UK until 22 January 2022 stephenkamos.com
LAUGHING MATTERS
Stephen is openly gay, but “never, never” discusses his relationships, “because the people in my life haven’t signed up to be part of the job. That’s why I don’t talk about stuff or express opinions on social media. I just do jokes, mate!”
Over the years he’s been nominated for a Bafta for Batty Man, his Channel 4 documentary about homosexuality in the black community, met the Pope in the BBC Two series Pilgrimage, and last month dipped his toe into theatre, starring in My Night With Reg at London’s Turbine Theatre.
He welcomes how diverse the entertainment world has become – with a caveat. “Obviously one is grateful for the opportunities,” he says, “but I want to be doing stuff based on merit, not because someone somewhere thinks it’s right.”
An edited version of this interview appeared in Waitrose Weekend in August 2021 (c) Waitrose