IThey say there is a first time for everything but I never imagined sitting talking about running and kettle bells with a comedian who is going from strength to strength, with an Edinburgh hour he is absolutely proud of, together with his ‘missus’, a woman who is so protective of him he should have a weapons’ licence for her.
There is, to be fair, a good deal less to get of both of them these days. Matt Price’s new best friends are his running shoes and a set of kettlebells and his missus, the brilliant Glasgwegian comic Martha McBrier is unusually excited about her new weighted hula hoop). Both are revelling in newfound sveltedom.
Matt says that the loss of weight has meant a gain in confidence, as has months of gigging non-stop to enthusiastic response and a regular demand for his funny, pretty much everywhere.
“I still have the same opener. I come on and come down to the front of the stage and say “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking ‘he doesn’t look like someone who is gonna be able to do this’, aren’t you?” he says “but now, if someone has a go, I have ten different ways to come back at them. And they are good.”
His skilfully engaging way – genuine palm of the hand stuff – with an audience means he gets a lot of work as an MC as well as a mere stand up. He has gigged all over the world. Theresa May’s 2018 New Deal grant-making committee certainly got their money’s worth out of their award to the unemployed comic-in-waiting Matt Price.
There were little comedy hiccups along the way – having honed skills on the circuit he decided to risk Edinburgh for the first time in 2006 only to find that the venue didn’t exist. But the chance a Fringe show offers a good comic to stretch their funny over an hour, is a powerful draw, and, in the years that followed, lucky audiences got to enjoy a Cornish-flavoured lifetime of unbelievably (in every sense of the word) funny stories from Matt’s event strewn past.
Expect mentions of the criminally insane and cancer victims in wheelchairs. Matt is a magnet for the … unexpectable. I remember when I met them at first, and it was Martha – the consummate storytelling comic – who was the one trying to persuade Matt how good he was.
In those days, despite looking as if he shared a gene pool with Shrek and Jethro, he was incredibly fragile. The hurts were deeply felt and it sometimes showed. Now he has enough technique and experience to be verging on the heckle-proof. “It still hurts me”, he says “but now it doesn’t show”.
I ask if he worries that – as I have seen happen too often – experience and technique – and even success – take over, and the loveability of the vulnerable, storytelling ‘country yokel’ (his words) will disappear into a sort of Cornish Michael McIntyre. He looks at me as if I am utterly deranged. “No.” We move on.
The narrative of this year’s hour comes from his (sadly no longer with us) podcast ‘Conversations With Criminals’. Oh yes. And the death threat he got.
And … well, you really should go and see the show. I do not tell the story nearly as well as Matt.
Matt Price: As Seen on CCTV
18:20
Just the Tonic
August 3 – 27
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/matt-price-as-seen-on-cctv
