BBC comedy star admits the one thing the broadcaster | UK News

Comedian and actor Ian Smith, who has appeared on BBC’s Have I Got News For You and Live At The Apollo, has admitted there was one stunt his bosses at the broadcaster would not let him undertake for his Radio 4 show Ian Smith is Stressed, which noticed him talk about the issues that stress him out, and examine weird strategies of rest. While they OK’d most issues, including driving over a car in a tank with his hairdresser in Slovakia, cow hugging and making an attempt to land a airplane, bosses stated no when he requested to strive a rage room.

Speaking solely to Express.co.uk in advance of taking his new show Foot Spa Half Empty to Edinburgh Fringe, he stated he “understands” their reasoning. “I guess the only one that the BBC wouldn’t let us do for the radio series, and I kind of understand, was that I wanted to go to one of those rage rooms, where you just smash up TVs.

“I feel the BBC felt that it was barely glorifying violence as a stress reliever,” he pondered. “And I might see that level that it possibly wasn’t the best thing to put on the market on the BBC, me saying, if you are stressed, it’s best to smash up as many issues as you possibly can. So, yeah, that was the only one that they weren’t on board with,” he said.

His Edinburgh show will deal with similar themes. When asked if he perhaps feels he can’t be funny without stress in his life he answers in the negative.

“I do not suppose it is a concern of not being humorous without it,” he shared. “But I really feel like I’ve an obligation to reside as fascinating or ridiculous a life as I can.

“So I kind of feel if I have a genuine, stressful thing that I want to talk about, I want to pepper it with these unusual experiences so it becomes a fun and silly way of talking about something with this kind of serious undercurrent,” he stated.

Despite testing out quite a few strategies that are supposed to relieve his stress, Ian admitted he hasn’t yet managed to alleviate it, which is mirrored in the new show.

“This is a slightly more personal show, I guess. I’m trying to still add in my usual stress relief and unusual escapades. I thought I was going to be writing a show about how my life changed in quite a positive way (after trying these methods), and wondering if that chimes in with my stressful working-class northerner persona,” he stated.

“I thought it would be about the fact that things are sort of going a bit better for me in life. But ‘luckily’, in inverted commas, lots of very stressful stuff has happened from March onwards.

“So my exhibits utterly modified, and I’m back to being harassed again, which appears to be my unavoidable destiny at the minute,” he laughed.

Ian Smith: Foot Spa Half Empty will be at the Edinburgh Fringe from July 29 to August 24 and then on tour from November. Tickets and more details are right here.