Tom deals with the ‘nonsense’ at Brighton

UK-based Canadian comic Tom Stade is happy to leave the heavy, political, social commentary-type comedy to others.

“I am much more personal in that I like to deal with all the (nonsense) that is going on around me,” says Tom, one of the acts lined up at this year’s Brighton Comedy Festival (Tom Stade - Totally Rocks, Corn Exchange, Saturday, October 20, 9.30pm).

“I am not one of those smart comedians that wants to show you that they read the newspapers yesterday. For me, it is much more about relating to people. Most people read the newspapers once a day; but they will be tidying the kids’ rooms seven times a day.

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“Marriage, kids, getting the mortgage paid, why they are only collecting the garbage every two weeks at the moment… those are the things that I go over.”

And yes, they are inherently funny things – once you view them in hindsight, that is.

“When you are in the whirlwind of something, then it is not funny at all, but comedy is 20-20 hindsight. It’s when you look at the stupid things you have done, the stupid things you needed to do to get your mortgage or whatever.”

And so his own life becomes his act – not that wife Trude minds too much: “She is great. We have been together so long. She has got this thing that whenever I talk about me and her, she knows that at least all other ladies know that they are not alone.”

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Tom’s latest show is very close to home: “It’s totally personal.”

So does he ever go too far, as far as Trude is concerned?

“Too far for me is personal choice. For some people it would be talking about the sex life, but this is our living; personal things have to come into. If it really came to it, I would back off. Maybe sometimes she will tell me to tone it down or say ‘Did you really have to say that?’

“But there is a lot of exaggeration to everything. It can’t just be ‘And then we went for a walk.’ There has to be a bit of suspended belief, but any great joke has to have a core truth. It is just that that core truth can take off in a surreal direction!”

Tickets on www.brightoncomedyfestival.com.

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