Published: Thursday, 1st May, 2008 07:30
Vine tuning
By Alan Bunce
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FIFTEEN years ago Tim Vine spent most of his working hours writing jokes. He wasn’t meant to. He was meant to be working as a data inputter but found it gave him ample time to refine the act he was taking round comedy venues.
He thought the job was poorly paid but in practice, given his level of productivity, he now accepts the pay for the amount of data he actually inputted was not so bad.
“Someone later said to me, 'if you look at how much you did, you were incredibly well paid’,” he said.
As the middle sibling between older brother, TV presenter Jeremy Vine, and younger sister, Hotel Babylon actress Sonya Vine, the stage was always beckoning.
His first attempts were plays he wrote at school as a 12-year-old with himself as the lead roles.
His ego, he admits, was out of control in those days. Fostering that ego was his teacher Mr Moss, who would instruct the class to rehearse his plays and to whom Tim, now 41, remains ever grateful.
Out of school he moved around a host of unpromising jobs starting at Allders in Croydon or 'Stonehenge with windows’ as he describes it.
But his spare time involved stand-up comedy where the buzz of making people laugh excited him enough to travel long distances, frequently performing for nothing.
He said: “If you think about comedy, anyone can go up and have a go in front of an audience. That’s how you decide whether you like it or not. When I look back now, it was just for the love of it. This job was never a job you would do for the money.”
The star of ITV’s The Sketch Show and Not Going Out, Tim’s stand-up act, a tirade of punchy one-liners, releases his urge to be silly.
One of his heroes is a comedian called Noel James, another comic whose act is centered on silliness. Watching James convinced Tim that his own brand could work.
“'He said 'this man came in and he was bald. BALD.’ People were in hysterics. It couldn’t be more silly. I wouldn’t say it was particularly clever but people loved it. I just thought, 'maybe I could do that.’”
And he has, to great effect – including during interviews. For example, he reports news of a World War I soldier who was in charge of strawberry cheesecake. “He was shot for desserting,” he said.
Another Tim Vine hero is the late Foster Brooks. Tim said: “His entire act consists of pretending to be drunk. It’s absolutely brilliant. It’s one joke essentially but he just talks as if he is about to throw up.”
For relaxation he likes to make feature films. Very silly ones, produced at his own expense and distributed to friends. His last, Library Altitude Zero, comprised one hour and 20 minutes of none-too-serious footage.
“We spent the whole time laughing. The crew didn’t have a clue what the story was.”
He is considering another in which a giant moth attacks a small village. Tim will play the manager of a lightbulb shop.
His TV work began with a three-minute comedy stint on Pebble Mill. Nowadays, he confesses that he had secretly been hoping for an Elvis Presley-type public reaction and that the TV studio would demand him back for more.
Or just that the right person was watching who could send his career soaring. “I just thought I might get that call but it didn’t happen,” he said.
On The Sketch Show he formed a strong working relationship with Lee Mack, but still would have to argue to get some of the sketches he liked in the show.
He said: “I actually had to fight for some of those things to get on. There were five of us so it’s a sort of democracy.
“Myself and Lee wrote most of the stuff. I like 90 per cent of what Lee does and Lee likes 90 per cent of what I do.”
But he said the other 10 per cent was typified by one sketch where he pointed out a kingfisher. Then the camera showed a man in royal regalia in a boat with a fishing rod.
“Lee was dead against it. I fought for it and it went in. But some of the ruder stuff of Lee’s I don’t like.”
However, Mack knew he could trust Tim to play the role of the landlord in Not Going Out. “Because I had done The Sketch Show with Lee, I auditioned for that part. Lee writes it. Sometimes someone who is good at acting is not good at comedy. I slightly tick both boxes.
“The most important thing for Lee is that if he writes a funny line, that he trusts the person to deliver it the way he meant it. Sometimes people can be very good actors rather than very good with the jokes.”
Their respective roles, he revealed, were not unlike their own personalities.
“He plays a mouthy lazy, northern bloke. I play a slightly stuck-up poncy bloke. They are impressions of ourselves, really.”
For now though it’s stand-up and his 2008 tour that brings him to Reading’s Concert Hall soon. Fans can expect his usual quick-fire routine, plenty of silliness and lots of new jokes, all written by him. He doesn’t use those submitted by the public.
He said: “I slightly try to discourage people sending me lists because you don’t know where they have come from. I don’t want to find they have been used before so it’s best not to.
“I can understand why people in the film business don’t take unsolicited scripts. It’s a bigger deal with films but you don’t want someone saying: 'I sent you that line’.”
A few memory techniques are necessary to help remember such a fast-paced routine. A word he uses in one joke may prompt him to start the next one. Other jokes may be in groups of say four where the first reminds him the rest.
His landmark act – Pen Behind the Ear – in which he throws pens to try to land one behind his right ear, relies on some careful planning not to succeed too early. There is not a joke in sight but it inevitably ends with a huge cheer.
That act is a diversion from the joke-telling but is in classic Tim Vine style and illustrates much of what he is about.
“It’s just born of the fact that it’s very silly,” he said.
See Tim Vine at Reading’s Concert Hall on Thursday, May 15, at 8pm. Tickets cost £15 available from the box office 0118 960 6060 or online www.readingarts.com
He’s also at The Anvil in Basingstoke on Friday, May 23, tickets costing £15 are available on 01256 844244.
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