Russell Howard has admitted he doesn’t like to watch his own TV shows because he is too embarrassed by his own facial expressions.
The stand-up comedian’s programmes include the new Russell Howard’s Stand-Up Central as well as Russell Howard’s Good News and Mock The Week, but he revealed he hates sitting down to view them.
He said: “I do watch my gigs back when we’re editing them, and then once it’s done, I kind of leave it. So maybe when I’m 60-odd it’ll be quite fun to dust them off and have a look at them.
Russell Howard (Joel Ryan/Invision)
“It’s really weird flicking through the channels and it’s you, you’re like, ‘B****y hell’. I would worry about myself if I went, ‘Oh great!’. You know when you listen to the way you sound, like when somebody plays you a message? Imagine that but seeing every gurn and facial tick, you think, ‘Christ, is that what I look like?’. So I’d rather not do that.”
The 35-year-old also said he got a bit nervous about selfies: “People are normally really embarrassed to ask you, I get exactly like that too. I remember meeting the singer David Gray when I was 14 and being too nervous to say hello. If I saw him now, I would absolutely get my phone out.
“My brother is so much more confident than me; he was about 12 at the time, he shook his hand and told this grown man, ‘David, you’re a cracking musician, well done’.
Russell Howard with Mock The Week co-stars Andy Parsons, Hugh Dennis and Dara O’Briain (Angst Productions/BBC)
“The strangest place I was asked for a selfie was probably at a waterpark in Benidorm. I had a photo of me taken in my trunks, which was pretty weird. I don’t mind, it’s quite nice because people come up and say really kind things, and then say, ‘Oh can I have a photo?’. I would hate ever to become the person who didn’t acknowledge that, and said ‘I don’t do photos’.”
Russell continued that he found fans filming him while he performed a bit strange.
Russell Howard (Ian West/PA)
He said: “I guess some people do record bits of my gigs on their phone. I don’t really check it, I’m not really fussed. I think it’s a sort of generational thing. I wouldn’t do that, because I’d rather be here [in the] now, but it’s really interesting where a lot of people want to say, ‘I’m at this thing, wish you were here, it’s great’, and you think, ‘Well you’re not really here, just put your phone down for a bit and BE here’.
“I would always turn my phone off when I’m at a gig or the cinema, I’d rather concentrate than try and capture a grainy image. I think it’s better when it lives in the memory.”
Russell Howard's Stand-Up Central begins on Comedy Central on Wednesday 29 April at 10.00pm.
