Milton Jones talks ahead of Midlands shows
“People have said to me, ‘On one level it’s quite clever, and on another level it’s not clever at all,” says Milton Jones, analysing his own comedy. “I think that’s a compliment,” he laughs. “I’m not sure. You could take it either way.”
Over the last 20 years Milton has established himself as the master of one-liners. The professor of puns. The king of the zingers. And nonsense has always played a crucial role in his streams of non-sequiturs.
Even Milton’s on-stage appearance screams ‘absurd’: the wild hair, wide eyes and garish Hawaiian shirts. Put those alongside his beautifully constructed pieces of wordplay, and it’s helped the 52-year-old stand-up stand out among the T-shirt and suit-wearing comics on ‘Mock the Week’, which Milton has been regularly appearing on since 2009.
The star plays Dudley Town Hall tonight before visiting Wolverhampton Civic Hall on November 4. We caught up with him for a brief Q&A.
The blurb for the new show talks about you ‘running for prime minister’ and having a ‘manifesto of nonsense’. What can you tell us about the show?
“As well as me doing loads of trademark jokes and little sketchy pieces, the show sees me thinking: with all that’s going on in the world, maybe I should be doing something more serious rather than talking nonsense. I seem to have a crisis of confidence in terms of: is nonsense of any value? And of course that results in more nonsense rather than less.”
Is it difficult to mould a show in that way – to include a message and a narrative – via lots of one-liners? “Yes, it is. I end up with a massive bag of jokes which probably don’t fit, which is really annoying.”
Is the show very political in terms of opinions or content?
“Not really. It’s all fairly jokey. There is one pseudo-political joke, which is as near as I get. With my stuff, people remember the joke rather than the point. Though my aim with the tour is to add in a couple of moments of pathos, really questioning whether I’m on the right track.”
The on stage Milton is a persona, which adds another filter for any opinions. He’s a character, but he still has your name, and you don’t specifically say he’s a character. Is that deliberate?
“No! I think if I was starting again I would give him a name. He evolved as I tried out things – he was working so I stuck with it. But there are levels to him. I can pull things back and talk about my real life.’”
What are the key differences between the persona and the real Milton Jones?
“I think most comics are accentuated versions of themselves, to some degree. I am, apparently, quite clumsy and I don’t approach things particularly rationally. I quite often see the other side of things. The differences are, hopefully, I’m not socially obtuse! I’m quite conventional.
Is there a particular formula to a Milton Jones joke?
“I was never good at maths, but there is a mathematics to it. It’s like balancing equations.”
Tickets for Milton Jones is Out There are available through venue box offices and Ticketmaster. For a full list of tour dates please check www.miltonjones.com/live
