Mum’s the Word | Phill Jupitus

“All I will say is that I am in the performing space for the full three hours,” teases comedian Phill Jupitus, relishing the air of mystery he has conjured when discussing his latest stand-up show, which rolls into Lytham St Annes’ Lowther Pavilion on Wednesday 4th April.

“He talks glowingly about the four times he traversed the Yorkshire Dales”

He lets the words linger in the air for a good ten seconds, before puncturing the atmosphere by admitting that this omnipresence causes havoc if he needs the loo halfway through the
performance.

The Never Mind the Buzzcocks star has already criss-crossed Lancashire and Yorkshire with his Juplicity tour, hoping beyond hope that audiences do not take to Twitter to reveal too much about the goings-on at each performance, and thoroughly enjoying keeping his audiences on their toes.

“I want it to be so much more than a guy standing there with a microphone. I enjoy playing around with people’s expectations of a night out,” he enthuses, clearly excited about what he has in store for the crowds that are packing out the venues in which he plays.

All we know for sure is that he is a constant presence from the moment the audience come in until they leave, that there are biscuits provided by him at the interval, classic copies of the Beano to be won and a bucket filled with badges, in which you are free to rummage, although he hopes you’ll bring one of your own to swap.

Jupitus, who began his stage career as Porky the Poet, opening for bands in the 1980s, has enjoyed a varied career so far, taking in TV and radio panel shows and hosting the BBC6 Music breakfast show for five years, but he obviously still adores stand-up comedy.

“It’s amazing how it activates the mind,” he says, citing the fact that no two shows on his tour are the same, “the performance is different every night, and a lot of that is down to the audiences. I used to hate it when you’d go and see a band like The Jam on a couple of dates on the tour and the shows would be exactly the same; the same songs in the same order, no matter how the audience reacted.”

Another facet of touring a show that Jupitus loves is getting to travel through some of the country’s most stunning scenery, and he talks glowingly about thefour times he traversed the Yorkshire Dales during the first half of his jaunt, before Christmas.

Despite his, in his own words, “estuary bark”, the funnyman has abandoned the South East to settle in Scotland where, also in his own words, “it’s quite bumpy, and if you go further north than us, it gets really bumpy.” It’s not exactly how Visit Scotland might choose to advertise the country’s famous mountains, but you certainly understand what he means.

So, grab your old badges, leave a little room after your tea for a pink wafer or two and prepare for a step into the unknown in Lytham this spring with Phill Jupitus.