Ventriloquist and America’s Got Talent winner Paul Zerdin has never seen any need to grow up.
“I'm sitting in my office right now talking to you about my show where I'm going to play with puppets and do some magic. What could be better than that!”
Paul’s latest tour brings him to Worthing’s Pavilion Theatre on Friday, September 8, and it’s a fabulous prospect: “I am so excited to be back on the road and I especially can’t wait to introduce you to my new characters which have really unsettled my existing dysfunctional family, and it’s my most personal show yet.”
“I'm sitting in my office right now talking to you about my show where I'm going to play with puppets and do some magic. What could be better than that!”
Paul’s latest tour brings him to Worthing’s Pavilion Theatre on Friday, September 8, and it’s a fabulous prospect: “I am so excited to be back on the road and I especially can’t wait to introduce you to my new characters which have really unsettled my existing dysfunctional family, and it’s my most personal show yet.”
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FunTranscript
00:00 Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers. Lovely
00:06 to be speaking again to Paul Zerdin. And Paul, you've had a fabulous past couple of years
00:11 coming through the pandemic and out the other side, and you're heading back to Worthing
00:15 September the 8th for a show which taxes you a little bit more. This is you taking things
00:21 one step more. What are you doing with this one that's new for you?
00:26 What am I doing? Well, I'm doing my stand-up comedy and my puppetry and my ventriloquism.
00:33 But there's a bit more, I'm trying to use the technology, the animatronic side of things.
00:38 I try and use it sort of, I use it sparingly because I just think, you know, there's nothing
00:43 better than just standing on stage with your hand up the backside of a puppet, doing gags
00:47 and routines and the audience laughing. It's kind of, it's quite when you, it's actually
00:51 quite simple when you think about it. And I've done that for a long time. And so a few
00:57 years ago, I started using animatronics and, you know, your puppet could be moving at the
01:03 same time as another puppet moving and I can still operate them, control them, but my hands
01:08 are free to do other things and I can still voice them. And then I started thinking about
01:12 how else you could do that. And on the last tour, I did a crossword routine where there
01:17 are three puppets walking virtually at the same time with me. And it's a misunderstanding.
01:21 And it was based on, inspired by a famous Abbott and Costello routine, who's on first,
01:28 at what's on second, I don't know, is on third. And it's a wordplay. And my friend in Sainsbury
01:33 wrote the routine with me. And it's probably one of the most difficult things I've ever
01:39 done. But I was using technology. So I had Sam on my hand, I had Albert, my old man character,
01:44 on his mobility scooter. He was animatronic. And I had the baby who was in his high chair.
01:50 He was also animatronic, but I was controlling, controlling them all and puppeteering Sam
01:55 at the same time as doing all the, you know, the dialogue. And that was probably the most,
02:00 it was the routine took me a month to learn. That's the longest it's taken me.
02:03 That's fantastic. But good job, you're controlling them. They're not yet at the point of controlling
02:08 you.
02:09 Not yet. No, but I mean, I'm sure that's not, that's not far away. But there's more of that
02:15 in this show, but we're doing magic as well. So I thought,
02:18 Yeah, and that's how you started, you were saying.
02:21 Definitely. And I thought, how can a puppet do magic? And, and me be able to puppeteer?
02:27 So if a puppet's in an illusion, how do I get the puppet to talk whilst I'm sawing him
02:33 in half? And so animatronics solves that problem. So, so I'm using them where I need to use
02:41 it, you know. And so that's really fun. And I think because I did a bit of that on the
02:46 last tour, I kind of, I've come back with it all kind of a bit bigger. And, you know,
02:50 I want to try and push it and see how far I can go with it.
02:52 That sounds fantastic. And as you were saying, you really are living the dream, aren't you?
02:56 Playing with puppets, playing with magic. No way ever to grow up.
03:00 Yeah, absolutely. I grew up playing with dolls, you know, I was given Sesame Street characters
03:05 as a kid for birthdays and Christmas presents. And I had all of them. I, you know, Grover,
03:10 Cookie Monster, Ernie and Bert and Kermit. And I'm still doing the same thing now. But
03:16 I think that I just knew I wanted to do something. Excuse me. And I was, it was encouraged as
03:22 well. I was very fortunate to have a very, you know, warm, loving family. And that really,
03:29 my parents really encouraged us being silly and showing off and dressing up. And they
03:35 both trained as actors. So it was kind of in the blood, really. They both went into,
03:39 my father trained at RADA with Roger Moore. And my mum also went to drama school. And
03:46 then they both went into the BBC and worked in radio and television. So my sister and
03:49 I grew up in and out of television and radio studios. And so I knew that I loved that world.
03:55 And I found it fascinating.
03:56 That world was in your blood.
03:58 Yeah. And so it was encouraged. So I was lucky because I know some people who I work with
04:02 in the business, who don't come from a show business background at all. And, you know,
04:07 father's a plumber, the mother's, you know, works in, you know, social care or whatever
04:11 it is. And then they suddenly become the most incredible dancer or the most incredible singer
04:15 or, you know, but I definitely think it helps if it is encouraged when you're growing up.
04:21 And now the encouraging that you need to do is to get people to come out. You're saying
04:24 that we're probably not quite yet over the pandemic, truly, in terms of just going out,
04:30 basically.
04:31 Yeah. And I think also there's so much people are spoilt for choice. There's so much to
04:35 see now because we had that, you know, two years really where things weren't normal and
04:39 you couldn't really go out and see shows or you didn't know if the show was going to happen
04:42 if you did book for it, because it might then get cancelled. You know, it was a very uncertain
04:48 time. So now everybody's out touring and we're all we're all after the same venues around,
04:53 you know, around the country. And I'm lucky that I've got a lovely big tour ahead of me.
04:59 And we've got all the venues that I wanted to go to that we couldn't get into everywhere
05:02 because, you know, they're booked up. They're booked up so far ahead this time.
05:06 Is that partly the backlog then? Is there still a backlog?
05:10 Absolutely. Yeah. Pandemic backlog for sure. But, you know, people are I think people are
05:15 getting back to normal and coming out. I don't think they were coming out as much as they
05:20 used to, but I think that's coming back. I think it's coming back.
05:23 And all you can do is just keep plugging away, can't you?
05:26 Yeah. And keep coming back with a new show.
05:28 Your dolls and your magic.
05:30 My dolls and my magic and my new jokes.
05:32 Fantastic. Brilliant. We're really lovely to speak to you again, Paul. Lovely to hear you're
05:37 back on the road and you've got that date in Worthing on September the 8th.
05:41 Thank you ever so much for your time.
05:43 Thank you.