Darren Harriott: ‘This actually feels like a proper tour’

Very much a rising star on the stand-up circuit and on TV, comedian Darren Harriott has announced a UK tour for 2023 titled Roadman.

Darren, 34, was a contestant on this year's Dancing on Ice – he was the fifth contestant to be eliminated – and reveals that he’s just been resting since the series finished. On the day we spoke, he was working on material for the upcoming tour, which starts in September.

Does the West Midlands-born comic, praised as “passionate, witty and bursting with streetwise confidence” by the Evening Standard, have a particular way of writing?

“No, not really,” comes the reply, “with previous shows it was more just taking what was around and making it funny, but this time I’m actually forcing myself, trying to be a bit more regimented and sitting behind a desk and trying to write some stuff and being in a silent room. What I’m saying is it’s torture!

“It is a very lengthy process – you’re constantly working on the show.”

Darren has wanted to be a comedian from about the age of 14, after watching Live at the Apollo and particularly enjoying Omid Djalili and Lee Mack. He was also a fan of Dave Chappelle, Frankie Boyle, Russell Howard, Jack Dee, and Sean Lock.

“The plan is hopefully to stop touring this show by next year and there’ll still be bits that’ll be getting changed and edited. It’s very rare you ever complete a show,” he continues.

“It’s every comedian’s worst nightmare, when they record some sort of a special and once they’ve finished the special, they’re like, ‘Oh no, I’ve thought of another joke for that!’ You’re just constantly working.”

Roadman is Darren’s fourth tour but he notes that the other three were “relatively small”, adding: “This one we’re going to go big with it; the plan is to go to Australia next year and what-not.

“The other three tours felt like sort of mini-tours, this actually feels like a proper tour – the sort of tour I’ve always wanted.”

The new show sees Darren drawing from his upbringing. His father took his own life in prison while Darren was still a child and then he joined a local gang, ‘Terror Klan Killerz’, as a teenager, reflecting his desire at the time to be a ‘gangsta’.

“Yeah, there’s some little bits of me talking about it, but it’s more from a fun and positive point of view,” he explains.

“I’ve talked about being in a gang before, in previous shows, and there’s little mentions of it here, but I just like the title ‘Roadman’ because I’m really not at all, but I am a man who’s going on the road, so I wanted it to have a bit of a double meaning.”

Darren attended college but hated it and felt stuck and somewhat lost, until fate seemed to offer a lifeline.

“I saw a flyer for a comedy night and I was like, ‘Ah, what’s this all about?’” he recalls. “Then from 18, I’ve just been doing shows. It’s been quite hit-and-miss, especially in the early days.

“I mean when you’re 18 doing stand-up comedy, who is that dedicated?! I wasn’t dedicated to barely anything at that point, let alone doing stand-up, so I was very sort of hit-and-miss, on-and-off, and then in my 20s I really knuckled down.”

While at college, Darren, who moved to London in 2014 with no money, supported himself by working as a bouncer at the Hammersmith Apollo, where Live at the Apollo is filmed. This made for an interesting conversation when he first appeared on the show.

“I used to work there and then I got Live at the Apollo in 2017 and I stopped turning up for shifts,” he says. “I wasn’t sure if I was actually going to do the show or not, even though I’d signed a contract and all that, but I didn’t want to tell my boss, ‘That’s it, I’m out!’ just in case I needed it.

“So I ended up performing at the venue and my supervisor was like, ‘Well you’re supposed to be in’. I remember after I finished, the next day my P45 came through – they fired me! I think they realised I wasn’t coming back.”

Also in 2017, Darren was nominated for the Best Newcomer award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He went on to be the first black British male ever to be nominated for the Best Show award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2019.

He has come a long way from being wrongly arrested as a schoolboy in Birmingham to becoming the face of the West Midlands Tourist Board to mark the city hosting the Commonwealth Games in 2022.

As well as his stand-up gigs and regular television work, Darren has also had two series of Black Label on BBC Radio 4, which covered his time as a teenager in gangs. Podcasts include Shame Is Delicious, which he co-hosts with Eshaan Akbar.

Darren Harriott will be appearing at Cambridge Junction (J2) on Wednesday, September 20. Tickets, priced £21.50, are available from junction.co.uk. For more on Darren, go to darrenharriott.com.