Home city debut for comedy pioneer Chris McCausland
Jan 26 2009 by Vicky Anderson, Liverpool Daily Post
CHRIS McCAUSLAND is, as far as he knows, the only blind stand-up comedian in the world. The comic, originally from West Derby, performs his debut solo Liverpool show next week.
He has been professional for more than three years after deciding to try out stand-up in 2003, taking to the national circuit, and picking up the Jongleurs Best Newcomer award just a year later.
“I went to see an open mic night to see what standard of people were having a go,” he said.
“I didn’t want to set the world alight, I just didn’t want to be the worst person there!
“It just started off as a hobby. I was working in a call centre and it was something to look forward to of an evening.”
His blindness, the result of a slow and degenerative condition, is never the focal point of his show.
“I always have to mention it at the beginning, because people don’t know what it is that’s different about me,” he says.
“They’ll think ‘is he drunk’, or ‘has he got a broken leg’, because somebody shows me up to the microphone.
“The best way to do it is to take the mick out of yourself – and that’s the way it is with a lot of comedians anyway, if you’ve got a fat bloke or someone blind, because if you ridicule yourself it makes you look humble and people are far more open to you taking the mickey.”
The show, he says, is about “everything, from the English language to electric tin openers, and finding a way to connect it all together so it runs like a story”.
Chris, 31, moved to London to study software engineering at Kingston University – and stayed there.
After taking his latest show to the Edinburgh Festival, he is now concentrating on building up audiences in the capital, Liverpool and Manchester where there are strong comedy scenes.
Chris appears at the Unity Theatre on Hope Place on Tuesday, February 1.
Tickets are £9/ £7, available from the box office on 0151 709 4988 or www.unitytheatreliverpool.co.uk
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