Performer: Garrett Millerick Photograph by: Matthew Hall Show: Sunflower Venue: Just the Tonic @ The Tron Promoter: Rabbit Rabbit, in association with PBJ Online: Box Office Facebook Website
Tell me about your Edinburgh show.
I’d planned to do a straight hour of stand up. No theme or gimmicks. It’s a real artistic challenge to do that. But then a whole tragic nightmare happened in my personal life so I have to talk about that because I can’t think about anything else and the show is in five weeks. So, it’s half the show I wanted to do and then a meta exploration of why I can’t finish that show. I’d promised no politics and no sad stories. But I’m delivering both, in spite of myself. I didn’t want to do an ‘Edinburgh show’ I wanted to tell some jokes. But then fate came over and fucked all my shit up.
Tell me about your first gig.
No.
Do you have any rituals before going on stage?
These Q&A forms make you feel odd by the time you’re on the fourth or fifth one.
Tell me about your best and worst review.
I was flyering for my show a few years ago mid festival. Feeling a bit despondent and sleep deprived. Standard mid fringe crisis point. Then a man bounded up to me and said ‘thats the best thing I’ve ever seen’. I was immediately lifted, this was a real review from a real person, not some bloody critic, a man on the street, a regular Joe. I spent the next three hours positively bouncing around Bristo square talking to people enthusiastically about my show.
Then about two hours later I went to the toilet and realised he had been referring to the ‘Paul Simon Graceland Live in Hyde Park 2012’ T-Shirt I was wearing. And to be fair, Paul had put on one hell of a show and if I’m honest it was better than mine.
During this Edinburgh run, do you plan to read reviews of your show?
No. But I will. I don’t plan to drink either. But I will. Probably because I’m reading reviews.
How do you feel about reviewers generally?
Total Film gave Star Wars Episode Two: Attack of The Clones five stars in 2002.
In April 2018, YouTube comedian, Markus Meechan (aka Count Dankula) was fined £800 for training his girlfriend’s pug dog to do a Nazi salute with its paw, in response to the phrase ‘Gas the Jews’. Do you believe Meechan committed a criminal offence, and why?
Yes. Because I had to purchase a pair of noise cancelling headphones at the cost of £379 to stop myself from having to listen to people talk about it. They may have started talking about something else by now I suppose, I don’t know I was listening to music.
Anyway, yes he’s a fucking criminal and should be thrown in jail or it’s a free speech issue. I don’t care. But B&Ws new PX headphones are outstanding.
Actually, I just re-read the question. If you describe yourself as a ‘YouTube comedian’ you should be thrown in a pit for teaching your dog to do anything other than apologise for what a pointless waste of skin you are.
Are there any subjects that are not suitable for comedy?
No. Some are just harder than others. It’s like landing a ski jump. You can do it if you know what you’re doing. It’s just that too often people try a fifty foot jump with a triple back flip on their first trip to ski camp and the results are horrific. That doesn’t mean you should close the slopes.
Have you ever gone too far?
I recently told an employee of a telephone company that if he had half a brain cell he’d be fucking dangerous and that I’d smack him up the side of the head if I wasn’t morally opposed to animal cruelty. My wife tells me that you can’t talk to people like that. It doesn’t much matter, I don’t talk to anyone anymore. She deals with the household admin now.
Looking back over your time as a comedian, tell me about the best gig of your career.
End of The Road Festival in 2015 was pretty perfect.