Comedian Ian Stone: ‘I’m holding on by my fingernails’

Comedian Ian Stone’s new touring show is titled Keeping It Together, and the man himself is keeping it together, but only just.

Yes, he has all his own hair and teeth and keeps a tight control over his between-meal snacking but there are plenty of other things on his mind.

Ian, 61, a “masterful exponent of self-mocking Jewish humour”, according to The Times, says: “I suppose my feeling was it’s about doing the admin, it’s about doing the maintenance – all the things that we aren’t doing, or we’re not doing as well as we should be doing.

“So I talk about my own personal things – the fact that you have to look after yourself, you have to look after your mental health and your physical health, and you have to look after your feet! All those things…

“Hair needs to be trimmed… and I was saying how the fact that women – men are not very good at this stuff – have to engage with their bodies once a month.

“Men! I’ve got a mate and I said to him ‘What is that rash on your back?’ He said ‘I don’t know’. I said ‘How long have you had it?’ He said ‘40 years’!

“I thought ‘This is very typical of a bloke’, and I’m like ‘Does it hurt?’ He goes ‘Yeah, yeah, but it doesn’t matter’. You think ‘Yeah, it does, you should maybe get that checked out’.

“So it’s doing the maintenance on a micro level, which is a personal level, and then on the macro level – in terms of a country.

“There shouldn’t be so much sewage flowing into our rivers, our school concrete should be better than it is, our railways… that, so then it enables me to talk about the world, basically.

“And then you can certainly see the Middle East has not being doing the maintenance, and so really that’s what it’s about – it’s a plea for the details.”

So how is Ian at keeping things together? “Me? I’m holding on by my fingernails, to be honest with you!” he replies. “Well, I’m doing the best I can really, I’m trying to stay on top of things.

“I mean even things like relationships, the conversations that you have to have: Have you made the doctor’s appointment? Have you got milk? Have we got cat food?

“Then you can have fun once all that stuff is out the way, and I don’t think people are minding the details enough – so that’s what it’s about.”

Ian, who was back at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer, has been ranked as “one of the top 10 comedians in the UK” by The Independent and The Guardian has described him as “seriously funny”.

His show at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe, Ian Stone Will Make It Better, played to packed houses and won a Spirit of The Fringe award.

Keeping It Together also touches on politics (our interview took place before the General Election but I’m sure Ian will still find plenty to talk about!).

“Well politics is important,” he says, “and by the way the details in politics… I mean last night, [Rishi] Sunak was going on about £2,000 of labour costs and everything, and then this morning all my Twitter feed is just full of stuff saying ‘Well that’s not actually independently verified by the civil service’.

“Those details are important: £350m on the side of a bus – look what it’s done, so I think it’s about that as well. And then in America on top of that – and that one’s a biggie.”

Ian, who says he has received “tremendous amounts of abuse for being Jewish over the years – as we all have”, is also a broadcaster and author and presents The Football’s On on TNT Sports.

He hosts the Handbrake Off podcast, where he talks about his favourite team, Arsenal FC, and as an author, he wrote the book To Be Someone, part autobiography, part social history and part love letter to Paul Weller and The Jam.

The friendly comic has also had guest columns published in Men’s Fitness and a monthly column in, unsurprisingly, The Arsenal Magazine.

Asked for a final comment, Ian, a fan of fellow stand-ups Ania Magliano, Maria Shehata and Ivo Graham, among many others, replies simply: “Up the Arsenal!”

Ian Stone will be bringing his Keeping It Together tour to the Cambridge Junction (J3) on Saturday, 23 November.

Tickets, priced £18, are available from junction.co.uk. For more on Ian, go to ianstonecomedian.co.uk.