Katherine MacAlister talks to award-winning comedian Mark Watson

The last time we spoke, Mark Watson had been dealing with identity fraud while on tour in Australia, which gave him some great material. This time he is at home changing nappies while preparing to embark on a mammoth 65-date tour, a massive departure for the famous comedian.

“That’s the most depressing snapshot of my life I’ve ever heard,” he says in response, “but in some ways things are better now. I’m going back to Australia on tour. And yes, I have just had another baby, but I don’t talk about that on stage.

“Your children are never as interesting to everyone else. I just don’t talk about my domestic life that much. I think it’s a bit boring. I like to escape from all that when I’m on stage, so my agenda is not to do that.”

Hitting the Oxford Playhouse next week then will be a much more vocal, vibrant, focused Mark Watson, rather than the shambolic, lovable rogue of yesteryear.

“Well, everything gets recorded and put on YouTube these days so you have to be a bit more careful, a bit more prepared. I don’t want to tell a bunch of strangers anecdotes about my children which they can then watch when they are 14. It just makes me uncomfortable.”

Is he saying then that his private life is private? “Well you can’t be too picky about that as a stand-up who talks about himself,” he laughs, “but yes, it is part loyalty. Although I can’t be too precious about being an entertainer. As long as people still find me funny...”

So will his fans be surprised about his new show Flaws, in which he will be discussing his own inadequacies? “No, they are the most flexible because they like you and want to come and see you, to see how you have moved on and progressed. I think I’m more ambitious about my material now though and I still want to improve.”

What is the new show about? “Well, about the fact that we are all flawed and about the experience of being human and my personal struggles. I had no idea what would work but that’s one of the most fun and fantastic things about this job. Nothing is foolproof.”

Flaws also marks a 10-year anniversary since Mark first appeared at Edinburgh Fringe, when as an unknown and poverty-stricken comedian he made an indelible impression.

Since then, the novelist and regular contributor on numerous hit TV shows including Live at the Apollo, Never Mind The Buzzcocks and Mock The Week has won five major comedy awards, as well as hosting cult BBC Radio 4 series Mark Watson Makes The World Substantially Better, and the successful Mark Watson’s Live Address to the Nation.

But then, hailing from Cambridge University Footlights, his success was almost guaranteed, or was it?

“No, it’s no longer a failsafe way of making it big,” he says. “There is almost a backlash against that now. The Footlights is not a passport to success any more.”

Instead Mark went to London, temped by day, filing death certificates in a cold warehouse, and gigged by night. “It was quite interesting seeing what people died of,” he remembers.

Having originally intended to be a writer, he soon discovered that comedy was his forte.

“It was an unusual path but one of the few good decisions I’ve made,” he says. “And it wasn’t a big leap from poor student to impoverished comedian, so there was no financial risk because I had no money in the first place and there was nothing else I wanted to do.

“For me it was just a case of finding something I was good at and then getting as good as I could. What that says about me I don’t know? A constant craving for love and attention, something as exposing as stand-up. But any comedian that moans about it has got to think about why they are doing it in the first place, because it’s an amazing job that takes you all over the world and very few days are the same. You just have to be prepared to take risks.”

Mark Watson: Flaws
Oxford Playhouse
Thursday, January 22
Box office: 01865 305305 or oxfordplayhouse.com