FOLLOWING on from supporting Rob Brydon on his sell out Welsh tour, including five nights at the Cardiff Millennium Centre, Chris Corcoran is bringing his new hilarious stand-up act ‘What Goes on Tour, Stays on Tour 2010’ to Aberystwyth on Wednesday, March 24, 8pm
When Chris is not hosting the weekly radio show with Rhod Gilbert on BBC Radio Wales or enthralling kids (& mums a like) on his Doodle Do show on CBeebies/BBC2 or co-writing the BBC Radio Wales Sit-Com ‘Those That Can’t…’ he is a master of charming, cheeky and chatty stand-up. In this show Chris lifts the lid on Welsh culture and life and playfully plays with the contents!
“It’s basically looking at 21st century Wales from my generation’s perspective, and then looking at how we got here by looking back into our history,” he says.
“It’s a take on our national character – not stereotypes – just our traits. For instance, we don’t tend to take ourselves too seriously, which is great because it means we are a grounded, warm and modest people who look after their own.
“But we say funny things that we take for granted, like the way we use the word ‘posh’. People say ‘posh’ all the time but anything is ‘posh’ if you live in Wales.
Middle-England ‘posh’ and Welsh ‘posh’ are completely different but we use the same word. The basic rule of thumb in Wales is that if it’s not broken or covered in fluff, it’s ‘posh’. I remember buying my auntie a tea towel for Christmas once and she opened it up and said, ‘Ooh there’s posh’ and I thought, ‘If a tea towel is posh, what have you been using to wipe the dishes all these years?’.”
When he talks about the show, Corcoran’s eyes ripple with excitement and it’s clear he believes he now has the skills and material to grab the spotlight which is usually reserved for his housemate, Rhod Gilbert.
“Living with Rhod has helped me so much,” he says of his massively successful pal. “When I started out I was told by an agent ‘Improvise... keep talking and something funny will happen’, and that was really empowering in the early days.
“But over time that becomes unsustainable because you need to be on absolutely sparking form every night to make it work.
“Rhod and I started out at the same time but he approached it from the other direction; he thought out his ideas and wrote them down instead of improvising them on stage like I did. So from him I have learned that side of things.
“At the end of the day, I have one of the guys at the top of their game in the UK living upstairs from me.
“I only have to go up one flight of stairs to say to him ‘What do you think of this?’.
“And now I feel like I have the best of both worlds in my approach, I just can’t wait to get into theatres and start performing.”
Tickets for this performance are £9 Cardi Card £7 and can be booked by contacting the Arts Centre Box Office on 01970 623232 or online at www.aber.ac.uk/artscentre