UK favourite Stephen K Amos is World Famous. Appearing regularly on British television, the soft spoken comedian is a professional when it comes to making light of a dark situation.
Drawing on his touring experiences as a veteran comic, Amos’ new show set out to explore the insanity of the world – but ended up evolving into something new as he learned there was a lot more common ground than he expected.
Amos tells OUTinPerth how World Famous found its new voice.
You’ve been travelling the world with your comedy for years now – surely you are World Famous now?
That’s one of the luxuries of doing this job, you get to travel and meet people of different cultures and it’s really good to be able to get the vibe of what’s going on around the world.
I read that your show draws on interactions you’ve had around the world on tour?
I must admit, the show has really evolved since then. It started off talking about the things people say and making those funny, but you know the big thing I found is that generally speaking: most people in the world are decent people.
People just want to go through life, so in a weird way the whole ‘World Famous’ thing now means something more along the lines of that any one of us can be world famous because of social media and the internet making the world smaller. It’s more focused on the information you get and how you use it to treat other people.
Do you agree with the critique that social media makes us live in “echo chambers” and that we only interact with like-minded people today?
I don’t think that’s true at all! I think it’s about your perspective. In the days before social media, yes you absolutely just interacted with people you knew were like-minded. Now, because of social media you’re exposed to all sorts of ideals.
Be it in the newspaper, online, comments sections, your news feed… some of your friends don’t know your other friends, and they won’t all agree but they will be able to read those opinions online.
If you all agree with each other, and live in these “bubbles”, no one would argue.
Speaking of bubbles, Rhys Nicholson joked that you and the other LGBT comedians at comedy festivals have become a coven since there’s so many queer comics on the scene.
I think the reason for that is that comedy is a very strange job. It does attract outsiders, misfits, people who have a different view, or people who have been through something.
When I started in comedy there were not many out comics, but now there are so many different voices being represented and even still, those different voices are not talking about the same thing. We’re very well represented!
Stephen K Amos will be at the Perth Comedy Festival from Thursday May 4th – Sunday May 7th. Tickets and more information available from perthcomedyfest.com.au
Leigh Andrew Hill
