Comedian Tom Houghton gets Deep in latest stand-up show
A regular visitor to Cambridge and something of a Cambridge Independent favourite, likeable comedian Tom Houghton will soon be back in town with his latest show, Deep.
And it turns out that ‘deep’ isn’t just being used to describe his pensive state of mind, as the man who previously asked, “Do you ski?” is now turning everything upside down and asking, “Do you scuba?”
“Last year, I went through what I would say was a second gap year, which is code for mid-life crisis!,” laughs Tom, 40, on the subject of Deep, speaking to the Cambridge Independent from his home in Borough Market.
“Basically I found myself at home a lot, living on my own, and lots of my friends are married with kids now and I’ve got a lot of free time.
“And I found myself sort of procrastinating in my room a lot, and overthinking and feeling a bit lonely - and obviously there’s a loneliness epidemic going through the world, apparently.
“So I was like, ‘Right, rather than stew in my thoughts, what’s something I’ve always wanted to do?’
“I was like, ‘I’ve always wanted to scuba dive’ so I took a month off.
“I saved my money and I went over to Indonesia on my second gap year, both to find myself and ask myself the deep, meaningful questions about life, while also going scuba diving.
“And my plan was to get to 30 metres, which is the deepest you can get on an advanced certificate.
“So I was asking myself the deep questions about life while also literally going deep, and then coming back and having my findings.”
Tom, who is very active on social media - he now has more than half a million followers across various platforms - went to Gili Air, a remote island off the coast of Bali, and spent two weeks there diving every day.
“I got my advanced certificate within two weeks,” he says, “which includes doing night dives and deep dives and all sorts of other pressing things.”
He continues: “You realise diving’s all about breathing and the pressure you go under as you go deeper, and it’s very meditative actually; it’s all about relaxing and being in tune with your body.
“Then in the night time, I’d have moments of solo travelling as well where I could chill out and reflect…
“So the whole thing was such a great experience - and without giving too much of the show away, I think one of the things I realised about feeling quite lonely at home is I think quite often we suffer in our own heads more than we do in reality.
“And a lot of the time we’re led to therapy and self-reflection and trying to think our way out of problems, and you end up just stewing in your bedroom and going mad in your own brain, whereas I think the answer is to go out and do stuff.
“My message isn’t ‘If you’re feeling lonely, go scuba diving’ - I realise that not everyone can do that…
“I think walking, talking, going out and trying to meet people, trying to do any sort of local activity - action is the cure for loneliness.”
Tom, the star of Netflix reality series The Circle and host of the Bad Manors and Very British Problems podcasts, previously lived at the Tower of London, where his father, the ex-Chief of Defence Staff, was appointed constable upon his retirement.
Tom’s father, Nick Houghton, is now a Field Marshal - “the first one to have been appointed in 12 years,” notes Tom.
Tom reveals that there is material in Deep about his time living at the Tower - things he couldn’t say while he was still living there.
“So if people wanted some more Tower of London information from me,” he concludes, “then there is a very good story about me flooding the Tower of London and Historic Royal Palaces having to come round and me getting in lots of trouble…”
The hardworking comic supported Milton Jones at the Cambridge Corn Exchange last October and brought his previous comedy hour, It’s Not Ideal, to the Cambridge Junction in February 2024.
See him perform Deep, once again at the Junction’s J2, on Thursday, 6 November. Tickets, priced £23.50 (£20 concessions), are available from junction.co.uk. For more on Tom, go to honourabletom.com.