12:12pm Thursday 4th February 2010
Viv Hardwick talks to Tom Wrigglesworth about turning his moment as a Good Samaritan into a stage tour and an important rail campaign.
AT first sight, Tom Wrigglesworth is an unlikely champion of Britain’s elderly rail passengers.
He’s a 6’ 4” stand-up from Sheffield with a gift for turning everyday occurrences, like his dad keeping his computer terminal under a white sheet, into a crowd-pleasing routine.
But a journey from Manchester down to London saw him confronted by 75-yearold Lena Ainscow being charged £115 by a train manager because she’d been shown onto a Virgin train not covered by her cheaper rate ticket.
Outraged Wrigglesworth almost got himself arrested and ended up with a new stand-up act, Tom Wrigglesworth’s Open Return Letter To Richard Branson, in which he reveals to his audience how Virgin amended its ticket policy because of the 2008 dispute.
“I was shocked that a man in a peaked cap could treat an old woman in this fashion and I could see she was paying with all the cash she had on her. I thought the incident was needless and unfair,” he says.
Having failed to persuade the manager to change his mind, Wrigglesworth hit on the plan of asking fellow passengers to have a whip-round to help Mrs Ainscow. “When I’d collected most of the money, the manager returned to tell me he was going to have me arrested for begging.
It was at that point I realised that if I ended up in handcuffs I had all the makings of a great stage act,” he explains.
The comic duly took the idea to the Edinburgh Festival last year, where Richard Branson’s sister came to see the show, and did a week’s run in London before setting out on a 29-date UK tour which arrives at Darlingtion Arts Centre tomorrow night and Harrogate Theatre on February 15.
“Normally people won’t speak out when these things happen, but I don’t think we should be at the mercy of whatever fare prices that rail companies want to inflict on us,” explains Wrigglesworth. He has launched Lena’s Law on his website and is looking for signatures to support a UK-wide rail ticket system where passengers who have made a genuine mistake are not charged a maximum price fare.
“I was using this as a surprise end to the show but now word is out and I think I’ll hand over the signatures when I finish the tour at Newbury in March,”
explains the comic who ended up with a Good Samaritan award from Norris McWhirter.
The one secret he does keep from show-goers is the response he got from Richard Branson, although Wrigglesworth reveals that one mystery remains.
“Despite asking, I’ve never been able to find out what happened to the manager who I nominated as King Jobsworth 2008,” he says.
Using family life for his comedy material doesn’t please everyone, he reveals. “My wife actually wanted me to talk about her more, she was complaining that she didn’t feature enough whereas my mum and dad did get quite bad press, so they were grumbling about being used. You do have to look out for things that other stand-ups don’t use. If you find your own comedy voice any subject that you tackle will be original from your point of view,” says the man who started on the circuit in 2002 and won Channel 4’s So You Think You’re Funny prize in 2003 and has appeared on the Paramount Comedy TV channel and BBC Radio 2’s Out To Lunch.
Wrigglesworth admits that his main ambition was to pull together his current tour.
“It took me so long to get this tour underway that it became my ambition for quite some while. So now I’m doing it I haven’t had time to think about what comes next.
“It took so long to write it and rehearse it and then decide on the tour dates that it became a constant battle,” says the East London-based comic.
“I do love going back to Yorkshire, it always cheers me up. My wife always says she can’t understand me at all when I go back because of the change in my accent, but then she is Danish.
“Many a time I think something is funny but no one else will agree with. Often, I’ll say something that I don’t think is funny, but it always gets a laugh, so I’ll leave it in the show,” says Wrigglesworth.
His biggest concern is that he feels too tall when he’s standing on a stage and prefers clubs where he’s on the same level as the audience.
He also doesn’t want to join the band of comedians who have attempted to create a TV vehicle or sitcom.
“Even these compilation shows are just clumped together. I’d like to do some acting at some stage. I think the ability for comedians to act comes out of the fact that you can’t laugh at your own jokes all the time. You do develop a way of saying funny lines over and over again where you still retain the funny but don’t find them funny yourself. I do have a specific look that would have to be catered for, but I see myself more in a comedy-drama than putting Doctor Who to rights,”
he jokes.
■ Tom Wrigglesworth, tomorrow, Darlington Arts Centre, £12. 01325-486-555 February 15, Harrogate Theatre, £10. 01423-502-116.
tomwrigglesworth.co.uk
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