In 2001, after his graduation from Queens’ College, Mark Watson made his first trip to the Edinburgh Fringe with a Footlights show called ‘Far Too Happy’. Since then Mark has visited the fringe a number of times, performing several ground-breaking twenty-four hour pieces. He has starred in a number of television and radio shows including ‘We Need Answers’, ‘The Mad Bad Ad Show’ and ‘Mark Watson Makes the World Substantially Better’ while featuring in ‘Mock the Week’ and ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’.

Earlier in his career, Mark always spoke in a strong Welsh accent. Since then his on stage persona has changed a great deal, not least in its more English accent. “Compared with when I started out I am much more my true self on stage… It’s quite hard to tell what your true personality is… My on stage persona has merged with my actual life”. Why did he chose a persona? He spoke frankly: “I was trying to draw a line between my actual self and the person on stage. Not consciously; it was just comforting to have something to hide behind.”

His new tour show ‘Flaws’, which is coming to Cambridge on 31st January, is claimed to be Mark’s most revealing act yet. Why did he choose to move away from the caricature? “I just gradually grew tired of having a construct that I was putting in front of audiences and I wanted to make more of a personal connection with them”. After he left Cambridge, Mark recalled how his stand-up was “rather gag based” but that “there’s only so long you can pedal jokes for before you want to show yourself.” What is new show ‘Flaws’ about? “There’s not too much to give away… It’s partially about my own flaws and inadequacies: drinking, swearing, excessive negativity”. He joked that he “ought to have the life of a vaguely responsible adult and the show is about the ways I’m not really living to that”. 

I was interested to know where he found his material. “I tend to pick up everything in the course of everyday life. Most of what I say on stage comes from things I hear as I go about my business”. Many comedians don’t really watch comedy and Mark is no exception: “I’m so caught up in comedy myself that I don’t actually watch a lot of it now.” Do you ever lock yourself away to write stand-up? “[Some comedians] I know will go into an office, put pen to paper and write but I’ve never really worked like that”. Does this have a bearing on your comedic style? He spoke slowly and thoughtfully: “One of the things you have in stand-up is that latitude to go off on tangents and structure things in eccentric ways… There is a large element of the unexpected, some of which is unexpected to me”.

Mark is also the author of eight published books, so how does he find the more methodical act of authorship? “When book-writing you do have to impose a structure on things and I’m not always that well suited to that”. However he explained how he felt that he was “lucky to have two things in my career complementing each other in that way… I suppose I’m having the best of both worlds”. He made clear how he divides stage comedy and writing, treating writing as a sort of “day job” that provides him with routine, and stand-up as a way to be “looser at night”. 

The current tour is enormous, comprised of 65 dates. How does one juggle comedy and family life? He spoke very openly, telling me that “the simple answer is that it’s really hard… There is no way of balancing them that feels satisfactory.” What effect does family have on his comedic material? He was clear about how he is always reluctant to make jokes and talk about his family “partly for reasons of preserving privacy and partly because it’s often quite boring.” He paused and thought a moment, answering “the reason my shows have become more personal is probably because I am far more conscious of the responsibilities I have as a human than I was 10 years ago.”

Mark’s Cambridge experience gave him “a huge number of opportunities to get up on stage and there is that whole culture of comedy and performance.” Did Cambridge inspire him to go into comedy professionally? “Cambridge planted the seeds… I’m not sure if, without the experience of Footlights or Cambridge, I would have gotten into comedy in the same way”. Did the Footlights help you get into the media world? He spoke slowly and carefully. “I don’t think that applies now so much. If anything because of the notoriety of that tradition there is maybe more prejudice against it… It was probably less useful to me for making connections than it might have been 20 years ago”. He laughed and told me how he “didn’t want to discourage people” but that “I wouldn’t say there were any connections I made in [the Footlights] that had any long-term bearing on my comedy career”. However, it did mean that Mark was “exposed to a lot of brilliant people while I was there and so I had the opportunity to be inspired by other people who were doing stuff I wanted to do”. In comedy nowadays “everyone really is on their own and has to prove themselves on their own”.

Mark performs ‘Flaws’ at the Cambridge Corn Exchange on 31st January 2015