“Ma’am” is not a word usually described as a cool one, but Reginald D. Hunter can make anything sound cool, as Cheryl Livingstone was to find out
HI REG. THANKS FOR FINDING SOME TIME TO SPEAK TO US
No problem, ma’am. How’s the weather up there?
IT’S PRETTY SUNNY TODAY, SO PRETTY GOOD
Any time I have ever been up there it has been somewhere near frigid. That’s just the luck of the draw; I don’t blame nobody for that.
HAVE YOU BEEN TO SCOTLAND ON HOLIDAY OR JUST FOR WORK?
I’ve only been to Scotland for work. I haven’t come up there to play yet. I don’t normally take a parka to play. I function better in warmer climates.
YOU WERE IN QUITE A FEW WARMER CLIMATES DURING YOUR TOUR LAST YEAR – AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND AND AMERICA. DO YOU ENJOY TOURING?
I do enjoy it. I like it most when you get to post up on a place for more than a day or two. I can’t think of many people who like packing or like moving or like airport security. So they are probably the worst parts of my job.
Too often I do one-nighters. I mean I’ve been to Paris several times, but just to do gigs, and normally when you tell people that, they go “Awwww” and I’m like, “I’m working!” Sometimes people look at you like you know you should at least go to a museum, but going to a museum is not going to help me with no jokes.
DURING SUCH A LONG TOUR, DO YOU STICK TO THE PREPARED MATERIAL OR DO YOU ADD JOKES AS YOU GO ALONG?
All of the above. I know some comedians who do their set show and the show they’ve been planning to do on tour and all the jokes that they come up with while on tour, they just drop them into a box, and, by the time their tour is over, their next tour is almost written.
I write my show and then my show will grow, and if I come up with something funny that afternoon then it’s going in the show that night. However, if the joke is really good, but it doesn’t fit with the things I’m talking about, then I’ll put it to the side myself. Some comedians have a hard and fast rule about that – I am not one of them.
DO YOU USE DIFFERENT MATERIAL FOR DIFFERENT COUNTRIES?
People in Holland have a better grasp of English than in Russia, so that instantly restricts what you can talk about. I mean, obviously. I try to keep my set universal enough that if you can speak English you will know what I am talking about. But in some countries, you might want to talk about something like Oscar Pistorius or Lance Armstrong and they are not covering those stories, they don’t care about those stories, so if you are going to talk about those stories, you have to say something like “OK, so there is this guy and he killed his girlfriend and the rest of the world is really upset about it”, if you have to say all that before you even get to your joke, you have to wonder if it’s worth it.
IS THERE A PARTICULAR AUDIENCE YOU LIKE PERFORMING IN FRONT OF?
I love everyone, especially people in Britain, I love them all. I swear to God. All of you are like my children.
WHAT’S YOUR EXPERIENCE OF SCOTTISH AUDIENCES?
It depends on what night you get a Scottish audience and how late. That’s all it is. I have done seven o’clock shows in Scotland and people have just been as nice and orderly as English people. I’m sorry to tell you that. It might not be what you want to hear, but you do have some things in common with English people. I’m so sorry. I wish I didn’t need to tell you this, sorry it had to be me.
WE’VE SEEN YOU ON A LOT OF TV SHOWS OVER THE YEARS, BUT LAST YEAR WE SAW YOU DO SOMETHING A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT – SONGS OF THE SOUTH. HOW DID THAT COME ABOUT?
The owner of the production company happened to be a fan of mine and he thought it might be a good idea if I narrated the show. They had no idea that I would have as personal a connection to the thing as I did. And it was just a lot of hard work and a lot of luck. I had a perspective that they didn’t know I would have. They were all like “it must be great to be from a city that makes this kind of music” and I was like well you know they actually kill a lot of black people here and they were like wow really? Maybe we should film that, too.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE REACTION TO THE SHOW?
It definitely exceeded my expectations. I kept playing worst-case scenarios in my mind, you know like will these people hate this? I wonder if this is potentially career ending. That kind of stuff. I did not anticipate at all or even consider that people might actually enjoy it.
THE MAN WHO ATTEMPTED TO DO AS MUCH AS SUCH IS THE
TITLE OF YOUR NEW TOUR. WHAT’S THE TITLE ABOUT?
Apart from being an ode to Dr Seuss, there is a man involved in my show – that’s me but don’t tell nobody – and there will be things that I will be attempting to do. I mean, it’s nothing like attempting to play the guitar or have my arm up a monkey’s butt, I’m not doing that.
NO GUINNESS WORLD-RECORD ATTEMPTS THEN?
No, no no.
DO YOU WANT TO SAY ANYTHING TO YOUR SCOTTISH AUDIENCES?
I miss you. I went to Russia to see if Russians can out-drink you, and no they can’t. You are still the world-record holders in my book.
Reginald D. Hunter will perform at Aberdeen’s Music Hall on Saturday, June 13, and Eden Court, Inverness, on Sunday, June 14.