Comic Jon Richardson talks ahead of Birmingham dates

And the quietly sophisticated comedian will thrill fans when he headlines Birmingham’s Hippodrome on Thursday as part of a national tour.

The show follows on from his recent TV hit, How to Survive the End of the World, for Channel 4, which was screened earlier this year.

He says: “The show was basically a small terrified man and his (would you believe it) even smaller and sometimes more terrified wife making a list of the things that they’re scared might kill them, and then me going out and looking into them one by one, in the hope that I can come home and tell her, ‘D’you know what, actually these are all irrational fears. We don’t need to worry about any of them, and we can get on with our lives as normal’.

Jon was supposed to investigate major dangers, such as terrorism, but digressed into looking at the state of sausages and air pollution.

“I think I’m quite small, I don’t think that helps. I feel quite small in a lot of ways. And I also think I’m right – we’re all going to die of something, and there’s just a lot of awful stuff in the world. I know that’s not a particularly upbeat message, particularly coming from a comedian, but that’s all that life is, really: Dealing with horrific stuff and trying to make it funny,” he says.

demeanour

“I think it’s more that it impacts on my demeanour. We’ve had a couple of incidents where we haven’t done things as a family: We’ll avoid built-up areas, so there’s times when we actually have changed events. But it’s more that sort of constant fear of things just stops you being the person you’d like to be. I don’t know if this has come across in our dealings so far, but I wouldn’t say I’m a particularly sparkling, upbeat person to talk to. I need all the help I can get, so if I could at least not have that voice in the back of my had that’s always telling me to look left and look right and look up, and breathe through my nose and not through my mouth, so it’s double-filtered, and all those silly things, maybe I’d be a better person if I could live more in the moment.”

Jon’s wife is also a worrier and they often end up freaking one another out, rather than winding each other up. There are times when it might be easier for both of them to simply go and see a psychiatrist.

“It would, but that would be a selfish route to my goal! It would sort me out, but I am in the role of giving to the wider community, and that’s why I’m willing to film my investigations and put them on telly. You will see a genuine upsurge in the wellbeing of Britain. I would say, in the 2-3 weeks after this, there will be an immediate spike. And then in the six to 12 months afterwards we’ll start to see the economic benefit of my work.”

Jon found a number of weird scenarios in his new TV show. The strangest was meeting a man called Troy in Canada.

“What you often find with these documentaries is that everyone you meet could easily have a documentary all to themselves. People’s lives are fascinating, and this documentary was certainly like that. Every issue we looked into, you could have spent not just one documentary, but a series looking into it. As for Troy – there should be some Kardashians or Osbornes-style documentary. For a start there should be a webcam on him all the time, just so that we can tune in and watch him for a bit. He gave us so much footage. He’s not just invented an anti-bear suit.

“He’s invented what he thinks is an improved Kevlar. It’s a lighter-weight, more flexible, bullet and bomb-proof outfit for the army, which he’s just made himself in his garage. He’s created a chemical which he says if you drop it in an ocean, it’ll separate the oil from the water, so that you can clear up the oil from an oil spill in minutes rather than weeks.

“He’s invented his own laser, which he points at his own head daily, to regenerate hair growth. He’s one of the most intriguing people I’ve met in my life. We filmed with him in the bear suit, testing it by driving through a brick wall. The hours in his laboratory were so intense. We could have just aired that unedited. And there’s a genuine possibility that he’s invented something that could change the world, and no-one’s listening to him. Because he sounds so intense, you end up just shuffling out of the room, because he’s just terrifying to be with. But undoubtedly he was the most intriguing, and if I was more of a Louis Theroux type, I’d definitely go back and do a full week with him.”

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