For the comedy treasure that is Simon Munnery, a dream he never had has come true. And he is thrilled. “The Stand are putting my face on the side of a bus” he says “I want to see what photograph they are using so I can be sure of always looking just like it.” Now there’s a man who looks after his fanbase.
You will be able to judge for yourselves as Simon with be out and about a surprising amount this year as he plans to “flyer the shit out of this show”.
Unlike last year, when he could not even stand up for his full hour show, Munnery Version 2026 is in impressive form.
He stopped drinking seven months ago. “Longest I have ever been sober” he says. And it is working for him. He has never, he says, looked forward to coming to the Fringe as much. And, if even half of what I learn in our chat lives up to its description, the Fringe should seriously be looking forward to Munnery’s coming. As it were.
The Munnery Method has stood him in excellent comedy stead over the years : “If I find something funny, I want someone else to find it funny too”, he says. Seems fair. And he thinks he is funnier now he is older. Old and new material is “crystallising” into something that works better than either. What he considers to be the best thing he has ever written is the fairly recent sketch involving the two theives(both played, of course, by Munnery) crucified alongside Jesus, chatting, once he has been taken down. And he is not stopping there.
“I keep thinking of things to do” he says. And when a brain like Munnery’s “thinks of something to do” you should stand your laughing gear by for a full workout.
From his original creation ‘Matthew’, with the Cambridge Footlights, through The League Against Tedium and Alan Parker Urban Warrior, Munnery has whittled himself a uniquely shaped niche in the art and craft of character comedy. Now he is enjoying himself, as himself.
Without giving too much away, ‘the algorithm’ is taking a bit of a beating and he is spending a fair bit of time with a number plate attached to his face, trying to get a parking ticket. More, presumably, on this story later.
Munnery’s life has been packed with activity since he got sober: he has been waging the mildest and wittiest of wars (through the unlikely medium of hand crafted posters) at small villages in Bedfordshire, popping up at four open mikes a week, braving the stage at the roughest pub on Bedford High Street and singing with a professional jazz band.
None of this was in the original plan, of course. He claims to have harboured a desire to be an astronaut, only to have his fear of heights and any form of training scupper that idea. Instead he went to Cambridge, read Natural Sciences, joined the Footlights once he got bored with that, and enjoyed (I use the word loosely) a career in creating computer games. Next time your thumbs exhaust themselves in a frenzied game of Space Invaders … spare a thought for the young Munnery, hunched over a keyboard in Liverpool.
He is thrilled to discover, he says, that he is still able to “make a tit of myself” while stone cold sober. And has not lost his taste for “the sheer excitement of going onto a stage with absolutely nothing”. His love for it is palpable. And he has been enjoying that excitement in several previews so far. Catch one if you can. Munnery winging it is an extraordinary experience. This,after all, is the brain from which was mined such comedy gold as
“It is said that at the age of 55 each man becomes what he most despised at the age of 25. I live in constant fear lest I become a badly organised trip to Bournemouth.” ,
“Brevity is the soul of wit,” said Shakespeare. “ I say, “Wank!” Thus I win”.
He has, as I mention, been a positive blur of activity lately, envigourated by a newly found passion for swimming and fuelled by dark chocolate, for which he has developed “a penchant”. “I buy two bars at a time” he says. “That is thinking like an addict … one for me and one to share. An alcoholic will always buy the first round in the pub. And have a cheeky little tot while ordering”.
But currently, AA meetings aside, Munnery is building a series of enticing sounding props for the four Edinburgh “set pieces” that will make up the structure of his hour : a door (collapsible), a large mortar board and an Airship 101 hat to name but a few. I will tell you no more about the treats in store from comedy’s answer to the question “what if Kierkegaard had found his funny and gone into stand-up?”, but there is an energy and a spark here that will light up The Stand, I guarantee. In a non-arsony kind of a way, I hasten to add.
As if the promise of Peak Munnery for an hour is not enough, he reveals that he will be ending on a song. Fans of The Jam may (or may not, depending how it goes) be delighted that he will be finishing with Start.
One might expect no more.
Simon Munnery, 12.50, The Stand One, August 6 – 31
