We asked our NextUp members to come up with some questions for stand-up comedian Tony Law. Check out his answers below!
1. Do your kids like your comedy? Do they think you’re funny? And are you a fun dad? (Bonus question: Does Wolfie think you’re funny?)
Sometimes. Sometimes. No. Yes.
They’re funny and purer ’cause they don’t do it for anyone but themselves.
2. Who would be your double-act partner if you could choose anyone (alive or dead) and why?
Mozart. He’s small so I can carry him about. Lots of visual gags. He’s pretty good at the music side too, right. Plus you could just go “Bro…do something that goes ……” and he’d be like “that’s already mine”…“oh yeah of course”. I’d keep him alive longer cause we’d be flat mates too. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. What a lovely thought. I’m off with this for a bit.
3. If you could change something about the comedy industry what would it be?
Embrace difference. I don’t mean filling quotas of the sexes or minorities. That wouldn’t be fair because thousands more white men go into it in the first place. Literally thousands. No, I mean embrace difference in style and technique and ideas. It can get very bland going always for the safe reliable stuff. Like music or film fans don’t stay being fans of pop chart hits, their tastes get more sophisticated. So with comedy. Less 28 year old boy observations you have heard before and more lady dressed as fruit comedy. But I would say that ’cause I’m totally shit at making observations that lots of people recognise.
4. What’s the most unexpected thing that’s happened to you during a gig?
I’ve gotten immune to that. My definition of unexpected has shifted so that someone would need to blow themselves up for me to go OMG this is the weirdest gig. I still say that though. What a weird gig. When it isn’t. It’s just not going the way I want it to go. I pooped my pants. Probably.
5. What’s your top ‘life hack’?
Get a dog. Mental health is always good when you have a dog.
6. Somebody asks ‘How do I be funny?’ In terms of craft – what would you recomend…
Go fuck yourself. Stop stealing everything. Enjoy what you already have.
7. How has doing comedy affected your mental health, and conversely, how has your mental health affected your comedy?
I really can’t tell. I’ve been doing it so long I don’t remember how else it is. Humbling. Perhaps it guides how your persona is.
8. What’s been the most pivotel moment in your comedy career?
Inside a horse head mask on stage having a kind of fracture in my mind and thinking I gotta get sober. Forever. Or maybe that was about life
Need more Tony Law?
Watch his stand-up comedy special on NextUp – a digital comedy club with over 100 stand-up comedy specials for your stream wherever, whenever.
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