Reviews
New comedy reviews - and our reviews archive.

Features Archive
Return to the Features Archive.

MARCUS OUT OF TEN

TOP STAND-UP comic and TV star MARCUS BRIGSTOCK - mainstay of BBC1's The Savages - exclusively tells StandupCom Magazine's OLLIE WILSON about his juvenile drink and drugs hell - in the first of our Doing A Ten slot

1. When did your childhood problems start?

I was seven and at a prep school in Surrey. I was expelled because I didn't like football and set fire to the goal posts. I was also kicked out of my next boarding school - in Sussex - for leading an escape expedition. When I was 14 at a third school in Somerset, it got worse.

2. What happened?

I'd drink absolutely anything I could get my hands on. I became an alcoholic. When I was kicked out and sent to a private college in Devon, I started shoplifting to raise cash to buy drugs.

3. What was your worst experience on drugs?

I lost a few days once on magic mushrooms. When I came round, I didn't know where I was. It was frightening.

4. Why did you do it?

Everything in my life seemed shit. It was nothing to do with my parents. I had a compulsive eating disorder. My weight doubled to 23 stone. I was sad and lonely and would eat nasty things like cold, days-old pizza covered in cigarette ash.

5. How did you get out of mess you were in?

When I was 17, my parents got me into a private rehab clinic in Kent. It probably saved my life. I was in rehab for seven months. It was tough but I managed to get straight. I lost half my body weight, dropping from 23 stone to around 11 stone. I also stopped eating anything with white flour in, as it turned out it had been a trigger for my eating disorder.

6. And how did you rebuild your life?

I went to drama school and started doing comedy. By the time I got to the London circuit, I had some good material, so my open spots sounded slick. I won the BBC's talent contest in 1996 and a lot of things followed from there.

7. Do you still drink alcohol?

No, I haven't touched a drop of it or taken drugs for more than 10 years.

8. Do you use your troubled past in your stand-up routine?

No, I don't want to sound like a poor little rich kid. I'm not interested in talking about myself on stage. Anything that strikes me as fun I'm happy to do.

9. Did you enjoy appearing in Men Behaving Badly writer Simon Nye's new sitcom, The Savages?

Yes, it was great. Acting is not a problem for me, but I wouldn't give up stand-up. I make a big effort to keep it up.

10. Now you're successful, do you have girls throwing themselves at you on the comedy circuit?

I am not interested in all that. The idea of someone fucking someone because they are funny on stage, I find distasteful. Comics who do it must have low self-esteem to do it. Most of the people who go into comedy to get laid are not funny, anyway.
I'm engaged to be married to my girlfriend Sophie.

© 2001 Ollie Wilson