Petty? Me? Well, yes, admits Josh

Comedian Josh Howie shares his failings with his audiences on his Messed Up Tour, coming to the Hawth Studio, Crawley on February 17 at 8pm and the Komedia, Brighton on February 22 at 8pm.
Josh HowieJosh Howie
Josh Howie

“I guess I am messed up – and I mess up,” he admits.

“That seems to be my default. I don’t do it intentionally.

“I am not doing it for comedic effect. But I can turn it to my advantage for comedy.

“I guess it’s just about feeling out of step. I just get angry about all the wrong things and get worked up about things that seem silly later but that at the time seem incredibly important. A lot of it is directed at my wife. There is a lot of pettiness there.”

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There is a sense of proportion that gets lost somewhere along the line, he confesses.

“I did a sitcom on Radio 4 last year, and I used a real incident as the basis of each episode.

“ In one, my wife had a hospital appointment letter, and I didn’t want to stress her out, what with her being pregnant, but she went to the wrong location at the wrong time.

“So I had the letter and I left it out so that she knew that I knew about it.

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“ But she found the letter and then hid it from me so that I still couldn’t say anything, so I had to get it back from her.

“It just got worse and worse. I had to get her handbag so I could steal the letter back.

“We went for the baby scan and all I could focus on was this letter rather than the new baby.

“I just get very myopic and focus on the seemingly-stupid things. We have got four children now, and my life at weekends is just endless birthday parties dragging the children along, and I usually do the presents because I wrap them much more nicely than she does and I always attach the card to the present.

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“But we didn’t have time at the weekend and she wrapped it and she didn’t attach the card.

“And I had bought a really nice present, and so I spent the whole party checking that the present and the card didn’t get separated so that they still knew that the nice present came from us.

“It is that kind of thing. It’s only when I look back afterwards that I realise what an idiot I have been.”

There’s nothing he can do about it.

“I just can’t help myself, but there is always a part of me that just gets worked up.

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“My wife is the most beautiful, most lovely human being, and it is sort of annoying.

“My family and my friends all like her more than me, justifiably so because she is a great person.

“And she is a therapist as well. But she can give as good as she gets – or even worse. Her nickname is Darkness because it is so contrary to her nature. If you cross her, she will destroy you.

“She is the opposite to me, outgoing, friendly, everything. She has all these positive qualities. She is from New Zealand and born optimistic and thinking everything is going to work out and that everyone is going to be nice. It’s an attraction of opposites.

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“ She needs a bit of my cynicism and awareness of human nature!”

Josh most recently appeared on Dave’s As Yet Untitled with Eddie Izzard, and has recorded for two series of Comedy Central’s show Comedy Store, and featured on World Stands Up and Comedy Blue for the same channel. He spent four years as the writer/presenter of The Movie Geek on Sky Movies.

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