Multi-award-winning comedian Rhod Gilbert is bouncing back with a brand-new live show. Next month, he is in Leicester. Journalist Helen Barnes spoke to him about life, leukaemia and grapefruit.
Helen Barnes Hi Rhod! How are you?
Rhod Gilbert I'm all right, you know, I am all right. I am very happy and lucky to be alive and living life with renewed passion.
HB You’re coming to Leicester on June 15th, with your new tour – can you tell us a little bit about that?
RG Yeah, so it's called Rod Gilbert and the Giant Grapefruit. I've pinched Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach there. It's also a nod to the tumour in my neck, the grapefruit, it’s a bit dark but it's also very upbeat – it's a happy, uplifting show, and it's the sort of idea that – you know that phrase, when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade? I've sort of taken that and twisted it into what do you do when life gives you grapefruits? It starts throwing grapefruits at you. So this is the story of my cancer from diagnosis to now really. I've made it as funny as I possibly can because it's a stand-up show so I want people to come away beaming really.
HB Now, it's 130 dates. It runs until 2025. That's a lot of cities you're visiting.
RG Yeah, I think I'm doing every town and city in the UK pretty much. I'm doing a lot of smaller venues on this tour, some of them are 250 seats and some of them are 5,000, so there's a real variety. I've spread it out because I'm taking it easy as well. I've got to keep it going. I've got to keep my health going. I've got to keep the stamina going. In the old days, I would have done five, six, seven nights a week. I'm not doing that anymore. I'm doing three, four nights a week. So that's why it goes on for the next two years pretty much, and we keep adding more shows, so happy days.
HB Fantastic. Now, your last tour, The Book of John, critics described as ‘ amazing, your best work to date!’ Is this better, in your opinion?
RG I think so. I'm going to go out on a limb and say I think this is the best. Well, let's put it this way. This is certainly the thing I'm enjoying doing most, which is odd for a show about cancer, but it feels – I don't know. It's nice to – it feels like you're doing stand-up about important stuff, like stuff that matters to people, stuff that has a real impact, stuff that really has an emotional response from an audience, not just – you know, in the old days I used to do stand-up about duvets and TOG ratings and toothbrushes and lost luggage, and now I'm doing it about sort of much more meaningful stuff, but we will wait and see for the reviews. I won't read them - well, I probably will. I say I won't. I can't help myself.
HB Let's have a little chat about the Cancer. You look amazingly well now. In what ways has it changed you?
RG God, how long have you got? It's changed everything. It's obviously – it's clichéd, isn't it, and everyone says it, but it changes your attitude to life. It makes you realise the value of every day. You're trundling along thinking Cancer happens to other people, and you don't really think about it much, but you think you've got a long time left to do all the things you want to do and hang out with the people you want to hang out with, and suddenly you kind of think, oh, hang on, that's not how this works. I might not have much time. So it changes everything. Everything's a little bit more important. And it's definitely changed for the better, I think. I'm very positive about my cancer. I’D go as far as to say, if it's gone for good, I'm not sorry that I've had it. There's lots and lots of positives.
HB Which has been the hardest part of the journey?
RG Oh, well, I think the diagnosis is hard. There's a long time where you don't know where the cancer is, where it started, how far it's spread, where it's at. That's scary. But I think every cancer's different. Every patient's different. Every kind of treatment is different. Head and neck cancer that I went through is tough. It's one of the tougher ones, as far as I can gather, and it's pretty brutal. So that treatment was hard, and you've really just got to try and hang in there and listen to the doctors and the oncologists. Things can feel like they're never going to be okay, but they do get better. It is really, really tough.
HB I watched your documentary, ’A Pain in the Neck’ and the bit where you were crying, saying, ‘how much more of this can I take’, I found really difficult to watch. What was it that kind of inspired you to keep fighting at that point?
RG I think it's the people around you. I mean, I wouldn't say that I kept fighting, that's the other thing - I don't think I did much. I just lay there. My doctors saved my life. I didn't do anything. I just lay there, and their compassion, their kindness, their skill, saved my life. I don't credit myself with any of this, really. I'm lucky to be alive, and I'm also lucky that I had amazing treatment at a cancer centre in Cardiff called Valindra. But, you know, there are points in it, where you think things will never get back to normal. Things will never be the same again, and they can, you know. It's a new normal. But for me to be back on stage, running around like a maniac night after night now, just like the old days, and that's only a year since I finished my treatment, so to be doing that is amazing.
HB How did you deal with ‘the fear’?
RG Well, not very well, I think, is the answer. I wish I could say something inspiring. You saw the documentary. I fell apart. Lots of tears, but I guess I was lucky to have good people around me, friends, family, and you've just got to draw on that, haven't you, really? And you really do sort of realise the value of the friendships that you've had. Some of my friends go back to primary school kind of thing, and I'm very lucky to have lifelong friends and great friends and family around me. So I think you do draw a lot on other people, you know, but we've also got wonderful cancer services in this country, and there's Macmillan to lean on, and there'll be local services that you can get help with and talk to people. And you're not alone. There are so many people going through this, it's everywhere. On stage every night, I go out and talk about it, and hands pop up everywhere. I've got people saying’ I've got ovarian cancer’, ‘I've had breast cancer’, ‘ I've got leukemia.’ Hands go up everywhere. It is everywhere. We're surrounded by it, so you're really not alone, and I think that's quite an important thing to keep in mind.
HB Time Out say that you are, without doubt, one of the best comedians in the world. If you take yourself out of that, who would you give that title to?
RG There's so many. There's so many... In this country, I've very much enjoyed the work of Bridget Christie over the last few years, James Acaster, and one of my all-time favourites, who you may or may not know, is a guy called Paul Foot, who I've been a fan of since the day I did the circuit. We did little rooms above pubs in London 20 years ago when we both started out, and I've always been a huge fan of his.
HB Now, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, 8 Out of 10, Cats, Do Countdown, Would I Lie To You, all these shows we love seeing you on. Which have you enjoyed doing the most and why?
RG I enjoy all of those. They're all so different, aren't they? I like the variety more than anything, I guess. I guess I like doing podcasts, I like doing stand-up, but I don't just want to do any one thing, so I like doing serious documentaries and then going from that to Would I Lie To You, and I guess it's the variety that keeps it interesting for me. So I don't really have a favourite at the moment. I suppose I should say that my favourite is Growing Pains, Rod Gilbert's Growing Pains on Comedy Central. I should take this opportunity to plug my own TV show, so that's my favourite, yeah, Rod Gilbert's Growing Pains on Comedy Central, going out on Monday nights at the moment, and we're looking to do a new series later in the year, so that's exciting.
HB Great answer! I remember seeing a few years back where you did this rant about an egg and cress sandwich on the train, and it was hilarious. Is that really your favourite sandwich, or do you have another particular favourite?
RG No, in fact, it's not my favourite sandwich at all. In fact, I'm a bit weird about egg and cress sandwiches. I don't really buy them. I don't know why. I like my own egg mayonnaise. I don't let anyone else make me an egg mayonnaise sandwich. I'm fine with tuna, I'm fine with ham, cheese, and eggs. Ironically, I wouldn't even buy one. After all that rant about waiting for an egg and cress sandwich, I wouldn't even buy one if you paid me.
HB My kids don't believe that you've got a potato tattoo, but you have, haven't you?
RG Yeah, I don't know if I can show you. (Rhod pulls his top off his shoulder) Can you see a bit? That's a little bit of King Edward poking up at the top there with hair sticking out of it, probably.
HB this because you love Jackie Potatoes so much?
RG No, it’s a very long story. It was a show called the Flaming Battenberg Tattoo in 2012, where I, I was ranting about potatoes, the fact that they only sold them in packs of two in my local Tesco's with, with a styrofoam tray and cellophane over the top and a label. I just wanted two loose potatoes. I just wanted one potato actually. And they only sold them in pairs. So I lost it and had a big old rant in the thing. And then that became a whole story. I ended up going to New York with the spare potato. We had a holiday together, a romantic holiday. And then I ended up getting a tattoo of this. You'll have to watch the show (laughing), it's available on DVD out there somewhere on streaming platforms.
HB We'll check that out! You're married to a fellow comedian. Does that help when you're planning your your tour, does she help with the jokes?
RG She hasn't even been to see it yet. We don't really work together. She's a writer, a comic writer and sometimes performer as well, but we don't really work together. We did a podcast together during lockdown for a few years. That was good. We don't write together. We don't go and see each other's stuff. We sort of don't take it home with us really. Every now and again, I'll sneak it into the conversation. I'll say, what do you think of this joke? What do you think of that? And, and she'll give me her opinion on it. And yeah, she's got a very good radar for when I've gone wrong.
HB Fantastic. Now, normally I’d say ‘tickets are on sale now, why should we come to see the show?’, but your gig at De Montfort is already sold out! But sell it to us anyway - why come and see this new tour?
RG Well, it's a weird idea to come and see a show about somebody's cancer story, if you want cheering up. But we need all the laughs we can get in the world at the moment. We all need cheering up. And if you want to come in and go away, have a few tears, lots of laughs and feeling better about the world, uplifted and full of life, then that is how I would sell it to you. Come along and watch, watch me take some power back from cancer by ripping it a new one.
Rhod has embarked upon a full UK and Ireland tour playing over 130 dates nationwide and running until November 2025.
Tickets and Tour dates here: www.rhodgilbertcomedian.com
