Mark Watson talks ahead of Much Wenlock gig: Stand up is about instant gratification

He named his tour MW and only agreed to visit towns and cities where either the place or the venue began with one of those consonants. So while Mawnan Smith, Much Wenlock (double points – an M and a W) and Middle Wallop were in, Stafford, Lichfield and other non-MW towns were out.

The novel approach was intended not just to give Watson a talking point – and that, it surely does. It was also designed so that he’d visit off-the-beaten track towns – he’s surely never played Westbury-on-Trym before – ahead of a return to a tried and tested path next year.

Happily, the Mac, at Birmingham, gave him the opportunity to visit the Second City and Mark will be in town on October 6.

He’s enjoyed mixing it up and visiting new venues.

“It’s hard to get round all the places you want to go to when you book a tour. No matter where you go, people will tell us we didn’t go to the right place. So we were thinking of a way to whittle it down. As a joke, we had neon initials made of an M and a W.

“So the beginning of the joke was that we only played places that began with M or W. Gradually we started to gather places together and realised that there were enough to do a tour. It’s quite a nice schedule of places I haven’t been to before.”

MW will, therefore, ruminate on Mark’s unique approach to touring. But fans can expect a little more than Watson’s alphabet soup. And visiting new venues and new towns means he’s more likely to improvise than if he’s returning to favourite haunts.

“There’s certain material I’ll do and have confidence in. But it’s much more challenging in a new town; it certainly puts you on your mettle. But that’s no bad thing. It provides you with more of a chance to interact with the audience because you’re learning on the spot.”

Mark will dwell on the need for people to understand one another and empathy on his present tour. The material has gone down well and Mark’s enjoying his time on the road, with shows through to February. Bigger things lie ahead.

“One of the reasons why I like the MW thing is that it’s a rogue tour between bigger tours. If you do 80 or 90 shows, there are some bits, some chunks, that you get a little sick of. It’s impossible not to. And I think the moment I feel that, the audience can tell because the freshness goes. So this set of shows are special because that can’t happen.

“I like having enough of a script to never completely run out of material, but at the same time I will go off piste as often as I can, especially if there’s interesting stuff in the audience. Sometimes I’ll be asking the audience to write down things that I can mess around with. I tend to see it as a good thing if I can go off piste because I know I can get it back. As I get more experienced, I get better at steering the show.

“Years ago I did an interview with Eddie Izzard when I was doing work experience as a young ‘un. He talked about a gig being like a motorway journey, you can go straight on but it’s more interesting to go off on the little side roads. As long as you take it from one place to another, in between you can do as you like.”

Mark is a happy tourer. He used to be ruthless about getting home after a show but these days he likes to hang out. He’ll enjoy visiting new towns or dropping by to visit relatives if he’s in their neck of the woods. And if there’s a little downtime before a show, he can always turn his hand to writing. The Celebrity Island contestant is an accomplished wordsmith who has written six novels. He believes comedy and writing go hand in hand.

“Both are about having ideas. I tend to use the novels to explore ideas in more depth and do stuff I wouldn’t normally do on stage. Quite a lot of novels or books are just an extension of what people do in real life. They’re different to the shows. Logistically, it’s quite difficult to do both because of the time they take. So I do a lot of writing on the road because otherwise it would be difficult to fit everything in. It’s sort of in my blood to be doing it. It’s natural to me to be doing that.

“Stand-up is about adrenalin and instant gratification. The audience is there and they laugh right away. But book writing gives you a much longer sense of fulfilment. They work well together. If all I did was write books, I’d be bored. If I just did stand up, it would be too frenetic. So I’m happy doing both.”