If there's anything to be said in a broad way about different audiences it's that I live in a major city, and those themes of isolation, protectiveness, loneliness tend to resonate with other people in major cities. In a sleepier village, where people are married with their children, me standing up and saying, "This marriage idea is a funny old convention that we invented" - various things that are deconstructions of the norms of a culture - if people have already made decisions like that, they're more inclined to say "Please, stop talking about our marriages, 'cause we're here now."
Simon AmstellI'm not playing a character. What I'm doing though is taking the worst, most shameful, peculiar, or troubling aspects of my personality. So there are elements of me that are not there. The happy version of me is not really in the show, because there's nothing funny about being happy. So it's more like I'm poaching on the funniest parts of me rather than actually creating some other character.
Simon AmstellI've stopped doing things that aren't clear comedy gigs - to do something that's not "comedy night," it's a difficult thing. People have to be given permission to laugh. You need to know it's comedy; otherwise you might just think I'm a man talking out loud.
Simon AmstellAbout once a week I think about going and living in a cave and meditating instead. I think that would be a more peaceful life, where my spiritual journey was not interrupted by egomania so regularly.
Simon AmstellI am not keen on the idea of an oversharer. I don't like that as a problem. I have more of a problem with an undershare. If I'm talking to somebody and I ask them how their love life is and they say "fine," that's a problem for me. I want to know things about people, I feel like we're all here on this planet, and intimacy is important.
Simon Amstell