Please tell us about your brand of comedy- what can audiences expect?
Andrea Hubert
I never know how to answer this! I know other people have described me as "not suitable for children". I guess I lean towards the slightly nasty, but not on purpose. I just don't think any subject or point of view is taboo, if you make it funny enough.
Which comedians have been your biggest influence?
I adore everything Maria Bamford does and I pretty much worship the ground Simon Amstell walks on, comedically. I have seen all his shows many times and his grasp of narrative, structure and language is sublime. I try and sit at the back now when I go to see him, I don't want him to start to recognise me and get scared I'm a creepy stalker. I'm not. I'm a really non-threatening one.
What random things make you laugh in everyday life?
I like watching animals get in over their heads. Last week a pigeon flew onto the tube and seemed incredibly pleased with himself. But two stops later you could see he was like "OH my god. I have NO idea where I am. This is the worst." and all the wind went out of his little pigeon sails. Of course, nobody but me was endowing him with an emotional narrative, so I looked pretty ridiculous giggling to myself. At a pigeon.
Please tell us about your best and worst moment on stage so far.
The best moments are trying a new joke for the first time at a big club and you're not 100% sure it's going to work, even though you've tested it at new material nights. It's a gamble and you need to do it, but there's a moment of unadulterated terror just before the words leave your mouth. And if it works…there's no feeling like it. I imagine it's how scientists feel when they cure a disease. Except less objectively useful to the world.
The worst is when you realise the gig has turned and that everything you try to turn it back just makes it worse. That's when I start to sweat in weird places. If that happens within the first few minutes, I'm soaked through by the end. It happened to me a little while ago in Essex. Twenty straight minutes of silence. It was excruciating for everyone involved.
Do you still get nervous when you do a gig?
I get SO nervous. My mouth fills up with phlegm and I have to spit it out. If I don't remember to take that disgusting spit-filled tissue with me when I leave the club, I'll wake up that night in a panic, wondering who found it.
Why is Edinburgh Fringe Festival such a great platform for comedians?
Any platform is great for comedians, we need to feel one step up from everyone else or else we don't exist! But Edinburgh is amazing because you're working solidly for a month. You get so much better at what you're doing. It's unparalleled for that.
Who are you looking forward to seeing as an audience member?
My friend Rob has been a massive supporter of me for many years, and will let me be hysterical on the phone to him at any time of the day or night without a scrap of judgement. So I very much hope he enjoys the show! He deserves it after what I put him through.
What is your advice to aspiring comedians?
I don't have any advice! I don't know how I feel about advice in general. When it's unsolicited, I'm very wary of it. It's well-intentioned but it feels like the person giving it is telling you the ways you're not doing something the way they'd do it.
What is the oddest heckle you've ever received?
Once, a drunk man didn't seem to enjoy my Jewishness. He walked from the back to the front and said "So, Anne Frank. Why don't you just gas yourself?". How weird is that? Any fool knows she died of typhoid fever. I hate uninformed interruptions! And that's what I wish I'd said to him, instead of welling up with fury-tears, and rage-choking my way through the rest of my set.
What is next for you?
Work, work, work. Just one of the many things I have in common with Rihanna. And maybe a trip to LA. We have some script stuff happening there so my hope is that we'll get to fly over, because as cool as conference calls are, you really can't go to the beach when you're on them.
Andrea Hubert: Week is at the Gilded Balloon Counting House Sitting Room at 3:45pm, 3rd - 29th August (except 15th & 16th) as part of the Edinburgh Fringe
Tagged in Edinburgh Festival Fringe