The award winning, Martin Angolo, chats to Katerina Partolina Schwartz about his debut Edinburgh Fringe show, Idiot Wind, delving into the truths surrounding cancel culture and his approach to comedy.
I have a weird mind, weird turns of phrase, weird perspectives on things
What is the elevator pitch for your show?
As a comedian, when you talk to people these days, a lot of people say to you, “It must be very difficult being a comedian because you can’t say anything anymore.” And the show’s an attempt to respond to that without being obnoxious about it. So, I’m going to try to be politely offensive for an hour. You can say whatever you like as a comic, you know; I often do and it’s sometimes not very funny. So, I’m trying to do it well, be politely inappropriate in a funny way.
Where did the term “idiot wind” come from?
It’s a Bob Dylan song originally, not comparing myself to him. I thought it was a good analogy for comedians, for the jokes that come out of our mouths. At the end of the day, it’s really insignificant, very stupid things that we say which sometimes gets taken very seriously by people or a lot of significance placed on it.
What do you mean by ‘ringing the doorbell to be invited in’?
I don’t shout. You know those comedians who have those cancel culture shows and stuff? I’m trying to be nice about it and just be like, “If this is your kind of thing, if you’re interested in being slightly challenged, you’re more than welcome.” My usual stand-up wasn’t particularly edgy, it’s pretty silly usually – it still is – but I’ve been working in more material on subjects that that people perceive as controversial and two weeks ago after the show, people came up to me and were like, “Yeah, enjoyed the show, it was very good.” The word they used was ‘challenging’, which doesn’t sound like a compliment to a comedian, but he seemed to like the fact that, “Oh yeah, you don’t really hear about anything done that way,” I hope it was a compliment.
One of the big things people going on about cancel culture is a lot of people getting attacked physically. Chris Rock got slapped and stuff. And I saw Chris Rock a few nights before the Oscars, he was in the Comedy Store trying out material. He got divorced so he was doing material about his ex-wife. He’s very funny and very confident, but this is the American style, to the point where I was in the back of the room thinking, “I think this guy needs a slap.” It was a bit too confident for my liking.
How do you define ‘politely offensive’?
Potentially offensive comedy. A lot of a comedian is to with attitude as well, the way you say things. Like the way I’m trying to do this sort of material now, I kind of preface it by saying it’s a tight line to walk, it mightn’t be for certain people. You’re trying to show at the end of the day, you hope people understand where there’s irony. I say in the show, “There’s certain jokes that I don’t even agree with in the show and I’m disappointed in the audience for laughing at them.” But it’s where we are. It is an oxymoron now that I’ve thought about it. I’m starting to question the whole show now.
What do you hope audiences take away from this show?
Ultimately, I hope they really enjoy it. It’s been nice lately, I tour around Ireland a lot and even the gigs I do over in Europe, a portion of the audience seem to really get it and they like what you do and they’re like, “I want to see more.” So if this is their kind of thing, I hope they become, you don’t want to say ‘fan’. Paul Foot has a great one, he calls his fans “connoisseurs”, so connoisseurs of whatever I do. People who go, “I like that, I like this kind of comedy.” Good bits of feedback I’ve gotten is people going, “I like your material,” and material is the key thing, for me, anyway. So, I hope people think it’s a funny show.
How would you describe your unique blend of comedy?
It’s your own life really, experience and your own perspective. You’re unique to yourself. Just very silly. I have a weird mind, weird turns of phrase, weird perspectives on things.
What’s the biggest cultural difference you’ve noticed between all the places that you’ve performed? Have you had to adapt your style or material at all?
The biggest surprise is that a group of people anywhere are basically the same. I was in The Netherlands last night, Luxemburg on Thursday. You know, doing a little club there is like doing a little club in Dublin or doing a little club in New York. You don’t have to change much material. I have some Irish specific things that I obviously don’t do. I used to have this whole routine with the President of Ireland where I found that if you explain it well enough, you can talk about anything, so yeah, people are very easily manipulated! You need a good 20 minutes though.
What are you looking forward to the most about making your debut at the Fringe this year?
It’s the biggest push I’ve done in my career. What I’m excited about is the show itself. I’ve done hours around Ireland and stuff, a lot of club sets where there’s no theme to it. It’s sort of the American style of stand-up where you do an hour of your best stuff, but this is a themed show. I also think it’s very funny. It’s a balance between very funny club material and the ‘Edinburgh hour’. I’m hoping I hope it will be as funny as a club set but have a theme running throughout, so getting to do that is exciting.
You’ve been doing stand-up for roughly a decade. Is there any particular reason you’re making your Fringe debut this year?
A lot of things came together. As a stand-up, I think I’ve never been better. But I think you get better over time hopefully and I’m at the point I like to think I’ve found a voice of sorts in what I do. I’ve had a lot of luck in the past few years with TV opportunities here in Ireland and gigging a lot more in the UK and new management and stuff like that where it feels like now’s the time to really go for it. And at a certain point you’ve got to take some risks, this is the one.
How did you start doing comedy?
I wrote funny things in school. I was never a performer really, but I wanted to be a writer. When I was in college, I was writing ideas for things, scripted comedy. And basically, if you wrote something, what do you do with it? I didn’t know anyone in the industry or anything. If you do stand-up that’s a way of writing and seeing if your writing works. So, kind of got into that, did open mics and it sort of snowballed. I was lucky enough, my first ever gig there was another comedian, Alison Spittle, who was very funny. She was the MC, and she gave me lots of advice and gave me all these contacts for clubs and she was like, “How many gigs have you done?” and I’m just like, “This is my first one.” And she went, “Oh I probably shouldn’t have given you all those contacts.” So snowballed from there. There’s been very nice things along the way where you get messages from people, established acts that are like, “You’re doing really good.” You know, they notice that you’re doing new things or whatever. And I do that in return, if I see someone good, I always try to help, it’s a good way to do it.
In Shakespeare, the role of the fool and the king are very distinct, with the idea that a fool can’t be a king and a king can’t be a fool. How do you think this applies to the modern context?
Comparing comedians to Shakespeare, let’s get some perspective first. We’re not at that level. Coming from the guy who’s written a show after a Bob Dylan title. I think comedians are built up a lot, we are fools. This idea of the king being authoritarian figure, I always feel that some of the figures that comedians are trying to call out as the fool feel a bit constructed these days. Also I don’t know if it’s necessarily our job to call it out, because there’s so many ways comedians can act. I was just silly for many years, I don’t think I’m really making any points, calling out any truths, but I’m delivering my truth in a way.
