Stand-up Stuart Goldsmith brings a more mature comedy show to The Hawth

Stuart Goldsmith is delighted to say he has reached a new maturity in his comedy '“ all part of his vastly-changing circumstances.
Stuart GoldsmithStuart Goldsmith
Stuart Goldsmith

Now a dad and married, Stuart brings his latest stand-up show Like I Mean It to The Hawth, Crawley, on Saturday, February 17 (£11.50, 01293 553636).

It’s a tour which finds him fresh off the plane after four weeks of honeymoon in New Zealand – not that getting back was complete bliss.

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“We are dealing with a jet-lagged baby, and there is no such phrase as ‘as calm as a jet-lagged baby!’ But it was great. I would dearly love to live out there. I am a huge fan of New Zealand. It is the fifth time I have been there for various comedy festivals. I just love those bumpy volcanic hills like the hills out of Postman Pat, and then you drive for an hour in any direction and it is different again and it might be all densely forested. But the great thing is knowing no insect there can kill you and the people are lovely.

“But actually, talking about New Zealand is quite apposite. This tour is all about finally being happy. I have completed the therapy. My therapist emailed and said ‘I haven’t heard from you for ten months.’ I suppose I had all the required anxiety and depression that a lot of comedians suffer from. It is just one of the challenges along the way, the two-way street. You are anxious and so you become a comedian and then you start writing jokes about anxiety. But it was never driven by any particular event, just the way I am.

“I suppose it is that constant over-analysing. I have like a constant hovering eyeball second-guessing all my decisions and analysing all my thought patterns. And then I have been able to relax that a bit, having achieved a wife and a baby. It has been such a huge year. The show last year was based on the birth. This one is really about how it finally feels to have got all that you wanted – and yet still sometimes find yourself feeling furious!

“I suppose that any comedian will be driven by fear or anger or some kind of crisis all the time, and if you resolve all that, then you might be wondering whether has the comedy gone, but I do feel that my comedy is getting better and better. I feel a new maturity in the comedy as I start to see the world from the point of view of somewhere different in my place in the world. I have recognised that I am no longer a boy, no longer an adolescent and that I can give up a lot of the struggle of my earlier life; that I am no longer wanting to visit every country and go out with every girl.”

Inevitably it all reflects back into the show.

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“I can only ever really write about myself and what I am going through. Each of my shows is my attempt to get through some sort of challenge and you look back and you realise that it also had some sort of therapeutic value. But that’s not the main thing. The main thing is to be funny!”

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