I'm very grateful comedy worked out for me...there was no plan B

Nish Kumar chats to MARION McMULLEN about his comedy highlights ahead of his new tour

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Have you ever been star-struck?

All the time. I remember when I was 20 or something in Edinburgh and I saw Harry Shearer in a bar. He’s the voice of Mr Burns and Smithers in The Simpsons and was the bass player in Spinal Tap. To people like me, that is as famous as it gets.

I've also had to learn how to slightly park that admiration because you sometimes end up doing gigs with these people and working with them and you are all there to do a job. If you end up on British TV, you very quickly end up meeting people you have watched on TV your whole life. I did stand-up on Conan O’Brien’s show in America and I was just standing there staring at him at the end of the show. And he’s really tall. He already seems like a different species to you.

What did you originally see as your career path when you studied at Durham University?

I honestly don’t know if there was ever any sort of career path. I was doing English and history, so nothing is really screaming out at you. I think I was just so interested in comedy from a young age. I would stay up late to watch Chris Rock stand-up specials on HBO or I would sneak into comedy clubs that I shouldn’t have been in because I wasn’t 18.

I'm very grateful comedy worked out for me because I had not spent a lot of time thinking of a plan B.

University allowed me to go to Edinburgh. It created a space to do things without any consequence... it didn’t matter if it was bad or went wrong.

What was your early experience of the Edinburgh Fringe?