He’s busy partying when he’s not on tour, but Didcot’s very own stand-up star Matt Richardson can still tickle Katherine MacAlister

Matt Richardson has been impressively hard to pin down, his career having taken off to such a ridiculous degree that he’s finding it difficult to keep up with himself. But while the Didcot lad, turned comic, turned TV presenter is riding the wave, he’s determined to keep his feet firmly on his home ground. And while he may be partying with the likes of Kate Moss and Katy Perry, he’s got a tour to do, and that takes priority.

After all, touring is all he ever dreamt about when slogging up and down the country’s motorways, doing five gigs a week, playing to 20 people at a time, desperate to make a name for himself — so he’s not about to mess it up. “I feel like I have two lives, but no one can say I bypassed any stage because when I decided to concentrate on comedy I started at the bottom and put in the hard graft. And it’s not glamorous. You spend a lot of time on your own on trains and in cars. It was quite demoralising, but now I’ve played to crowds of several thousand and that’s amazing,” the 22 year-old says.

So when did he know he had the gift? “My first gig at Oxford Brookes in the student union went really well, and then I got into the ‘So You Think You’re Funny’ competition final and looked up the previous finalists and it was like a who’s who of comedy and I thought ‘maybe I could do this as a job’“ he says.

Spotted at the Edinburgh Fringe, it’s no wonder then that Simon Cowell waded in and nabbed Matt for The Xtra Factor slot, which he now hosts with Caroline Flack, replacing Olly Murs, turning Matt into even more of a household name.

“I’m good at chatting to audiences, having compered at Jongleurs where I had to deal with hen and stag dos, so ad-libbing and thinking on my feet was something I learned the hard way,” Matt says.

A fascinating insight into the world of comedy then and how hard you have to fight to get to the top. “Comedy is a great example of metiocracy - what you put in you get back,” Matt agrees. “I just said yes to an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.”

His own lightbulb moment occurred when watching a Jimmy Carr DVD at home in Didcot aged 14: “I thought, I want to do that,” Matt remembers. He waited until he was 18 however before he started gigging properly, quitting his publishing degree at Oxford Brookes aged 20 to pursue his comedy goals: “My lecturer could see I wasn’t happy and asked me what I actually wanted to do. I was gigging five nights a week by then and she told me that university would wait but if this was my time it might not come round again. She gave me the push I needed and I never went back,” he remembers.

And now here he is appearing at Childish Things, Oxford’s two night charity bonanza, alongside his comedy hero Jimmy Carr, his Hometown Hero tour having been extended with dates at Oxford’s Glee Club and The Theatre Chipping Norton, a panellist slot on new ITV2 comedy show Viral Tap, several other TV pilots under wraps and the X Factor returning soon: “It’s taken 300 shows and 35,000 miles to get here so I’m going for it,” he grins.

For those of us yet to see him then, is he as slick as his comedy hero Jimmy Carr? “No, the total opposite. I’m not a king of the one-liner. To me that’s magic. I’m more yappy and anecdotal, rude, physical...I talk about my mum and dad a lot, it’s not highbrow stuff” he tails off, as if unable to see the attraction. “My friends are funnier than me. I think I’m just more vocal.”

So what do his parents think? “My dad [a lighting salesman] wasn’t happy, until he saw me at Cornerstone and said ‘you can do this. I can see that now’. But he could also see how much I liked it. I love it more than anything — it’s addictive like nothing else and tangible because you can see yourself visibly improving.”

Even so, Matt still has to pinch himself: “It is ridiculous introducing my mum to Gary Barlow or my dad to Keith Lemon, or having dinner with Nicole Scherzinger. But even though they are incredibly famous, they are normal people. The next day I’m back in Didcot drinking coffee with my mate who works in a pub.

“Staying in the real world is important for comedy. If I got up on stage and started talking about celebs I’d partied with, the audience would think I was an ass.”

Still living at home, Matt has yet to make the inevitable move to the Big Smoke. Does his mum still do his washing? “Yes, but I  iron,” he says defensively, “that’s how rock- and-roll I am. But I love Didcot. It’s where I come back to and always will.

So what’s the dream? “To fill Oxford’s New Theatre. It’s where I always went to see my heroes Russell Howard, Greg Davies and Jimmy Carr.
“But Childish Things will be amazing, because last time I was the new boy who had to beg to get in.

“But then all comedians are a bizarre mix of enormous egos and crippling self-doubt.”

Childish Things
Matt Richardson appears on the bill with Jimmy Carr, John Lloyd, Newton Faulkner and Gaz Coombes 
March 24 and 25.
New Theatre, Oxford
helenand douglas.org.uk/childish-things/


Hometown Hero
The Theatre, Chipping Norton, March 12
01608 642350


Glee Club, Oxford. March 30
0871 4720400 or glee.co.uk/oxford