Next leg for Josh

JOSH WIDDICOMBE knows the value of being in a hit TV show. While last summer’s Paralympics did much to promote the sportsmen taking part, he was in a spin-off TV show that struck gold itself.

The Last Leg ran daily on C4 during the games with Adam Hills hosting and Alex Brooker and Widdecombe helping out on the sofa. It was such a hit with viewers that a series swiftly followed. Now there’s news of another series and the ultimate accolade, a Christmas special.

Widdicombe,– who tours to Middlesbrough next week – has been a regular on C4’s Stand Up For The Week, Mock The Week and other TV shows. But he’s noticed the difference since The Last Leg was on. “I did Cardiff last night, the same venue as last time – and I was sold out. The time before it was only half full.

I’ve got into people’s minds in various ways.”

The TV show hasn’t necessarily brought him a different audience. “I realised I didn’t really have a demographic, which is good. I get a very mixed audience – couples, middle-aged couples, middle-class couples, teenagers, groups of lads. It’s difficult to identify what kind of audience I get,” he says.

He hopes this new-found fame doesn’t change his comedy. He likes to think he’s a consistent person. “Obviously, the main fear whenever you do tour is people turning up and saying it’s not what we wanted.

They’ve paid good money for babysitters, so it had better be good.”

If he had to label himself, he’d say he was a standup comedian. “I would say that’s my job. The reason I’m on TV is I want people to come and see me live. So I say principally I’m a stand-up comedian.

“But the other thing is it’s great to have other things and do TV and radio. I didn’t consciously do it like that.

The beauty of The Last Leg for him – and one of the reasons it worked, he thinks – is that it’s not based on people sitting in a room saying how can we make a TV show. “It was a small thing that’s happened gradually and has been allowed to grow organically,” he says.

“It’s a dreadful analogy but it’s like a band that got together because it works rather than a band put together by a music impresario. What’s good about The Last Leg is someone like Adam Hills whose judgement is excellent. He knows his mind and working with him you are not afraid.

“Everyone involved in The Last Leg understands why it works. It will improve. There are some things we say we’d never do that now. You have to keep what makes it great.”

Hills and Brooker were first on board The Last Leg.

“Then they said we need another comedian. No one knew what it was going to be like, how it would go,” he says.

“The worse case scenario was I got to go to the Paralympics.

It was only ten days’ work. The aim was just to make a good TV show.

“The moment you aim for something that’s when you lose. It’s the same with stand-up, you can’t control it. All you can control is doing something you think is good and everything else is in the lap of the gods.”

He’s a regular at the annual Edinburgh Fringe Festival, long enough to have seen it change. “It’s become quite high pressure and is maybe not the place for experimentation that it was. It’s become quite an intense month. I do enjoy touring a lot more.

“It can drive you mad when you’re up there. I’m only doing two weeks this year, which is a lot less stressful.”

Much more stressful was appearing with Brooker on a charity edition of the C4 quiz show Million Pound Drop. “That’s stress,” he says.

“I hadn’t seen the show properly beforehand. I didn’t realise what we were signing up for in terms of stress. I can’t really believe that we did it.”

What they did was win £100,000 for their two charities.

“It was good fun but once you reach the business end it’s a horror show of fear,” he adds.

• Josh Widdicombe appears in a double bill with Seann Walsh at The Crypt, Middlesbrough Town Hall, on May 22. Box office 01642-729729 and 01642- 815181 and online middlesbroughtownhallonline.co.uk