Marcus Brigstocke: ‘What I’ve given up and why I feel so much better’

Comedian Marcus Brigstocke has been wondering what is the point of men these days. He thinks men might still serve some useful function. But what is it?

In a world where he doesn’t need to fix his car, ‘testosterone-fuelled’ is considered an insult, and he is rarely called on to lift heavy objects, he has been left pondering the future for modern man.

“The last time I felt really needed as a man was when I was at school and a PE teacher said, ‘I need two big, strong boys to help move the mats’,” says Marcus.

Other typically manly pursuits seem to elude him. “I've got Astroturf. What am I supposed to do with that?” he says.

“I’d better buy a pretend lawnmower so I have some purpose. I'm thinking of getting a plastic strimmer, just so I'll have something to do on weekends.”

But now he fears this lack of purpose and direction is leading men to take up some extreme belief systems.

“Men are facing a big problem and causing a big problem,” he says.

“A lot of men are directionless at the moment and purposeless. And a lot are turning to authoritarian figures, and the younger ones have decided that the grotty misogynist Andrew Tate is a helpful solution to all of their woes. And Andrew Tate helpfully points at all you lady types and goes, it's them, they did it. They've ruined everything. And obviously it's b******s and it's dangerous, and so that’s what the show is about.

“It’s about what's good about being a man, like being a manly man; the notion that the word testosterone has become an insult. If you say ‘I was in a testosterone-fuelled pub’, I know what that means, and I use it myself. But I also think, hang on a minute, that's the predominant hormone in my body. That's not an insult. But it's a shorthand, for a mode of loud, boorish, usually selfish behaviour that doesn't make other people important enough in, in my view. But also it's coursing around my body, and makes me a part of who I am.”

In his new show, Vitruvian Mango, Marcus tackles the problem of what it means to be a man, revealing why he has given up porn and and insisted he and his wife stayed within walking distance of his best mate when they moved house.

“Annoyingly, I think it's important to say that Andrew Tate is a really good communicator,” he says. “We may not like it, but he is winning. Teachers will tell you, loads and loads of really young men who have unfettered access to the internet have him as their screensaver. And I think that's terrifying. It's a bit like saying about Trump, oh he's he's a clown and he's hopeless and he's a criminal and all of these things; that's all true, but it doesn't stop him winning the presidency, and at the moment, it isn't stopping Tate from getting through to lots and lots and lots of young men. So I'll talk about the issues surrounding that without dwelling very long on him because I think that people who don't know much about Andrew Tate would do perfectly well simply to not know about him.”

Instead of spending too long on Tate, Marcus looks at other malign influences that could be sending men down the wrong path, including the ubiquity of online porn and its influence on men and relationships.

“Lots and lots of young men have completely free access that nobody knows about, 24 hours a day, to the most extreme stuff that exists.” says Marcus.

“I suspect it isn't the extremes that are the problem. I think it's just volume. It's on everybody's phones. And I mean, I joke about it on stage, but when my son was 12, I asked him to help me set up the parental lock on his phone, because I didn't know how to do it.

“People don’t really talk about the financial success of the porn industry, but it's worth billions and billions of dollars. Someone's watching it, and it's not me. I stopped entirely. I drew a line eight years ago, and went, That's it. I’m never, ever looking at porn again. And that has made a huge difference in my life; brought back a lot of clarity, allowed me to feel contented and happy.

“I had to reconcile myself with the reality of the people on the other side of the screen: who is making your porn? How are they? If they were someone you loved, would you be OK with that? Or would you be a bit worried about them? It may be a really proactive choice for them. And they say, I make adult entertainment. I'm fine with that. Make lots of money. Good. But it was a really important game changer for me, and brought a lot of contentment to my life to recognise that was a really toxic thing that existed in my life. I just feel so much, so much better without it. But I think for young men it's changed how they see women, definitely.”

He’s at pains to explain he isn’t moralising about people watching porn and insists women do it too, but that the extent of his porn viewing was gradually taking over his life before he decided to quit.

“It wasn't something that I'd sort of go off and do for half an hour and move on. It was a thing that just sat on my phone, and when I was bored it had very little to do with sex; it fires a lot of dopamine into the human brain, and that starts to make you feel contented, without even turning you on physically,” he says

“It was just a thing in the background, a bit like social media is for a lot of us. You know the thing where, if you’re with another person, and they get up to go in the kitchen, make a cup of tea or go to loo, do you find your phone is in your hand the moment they are gone and you're just sort of checking emails, checking social media, checking one app or the other?

“It has changed the world we exist in. And for me, a lot of the time eight years ago, that was porn or porn adjacent sort of stuff, like stimulating material. I just was like, ‘I can't go on like this’. I was depressed.”

After a lifetime of being in recovery for other addictions, Marcus recognised that porn had now become a problem too. In his late teens he had treatment for compulsive overeating after reaching 24 stone. He lost 12 stone in six months and also tackled his drink and drug problems. He has been in recovery ever since and knew the way to get over his porn addiction required the same kind of work.

“I've had problems with addiction through my whole life that very nearly killed me. I had a very dangerous eating disorder when I was young. The issue was with food, but you don't stop eating, right? You have to work out a way of being OK around food and that changes for me a lot of the time, but I do all right. I'm sober from drugs and alcohol and have been for more than 30 years, which has just been necessary for me. But they're quite easy. You stop drinking, you stop taking drugs. Porn had been this sort of quiet thing.

“I wouldn't say to anybody who enjoys looking at porn that you must stop. What I can say with absolute certainty for me, it made me feel very unhappy, and the more unhappy and isolated I felt, the more I was inclined to do and stopping has been a brain clearing, terrifying revelation to me. And when I say it's been eight years, I mean, if I'm scrolling on social media and, as the algorithm makes happen, someone in their bikini shows up in my timeline, I just skip past it. It’s just the same for me as not drinking. It’s just something I don't do. Being in recovery has helped give me clarity to look around and think it'll be better for me not to sort of dip a toe in this.”

The other thing that has brought happiness into his life is developing male friendships.

“Actively maintaining male friendships is really important. I would argue that women, broadly speaking, are better at friendships with other women than men are at friendships with other men. I have my best mate who I go walking with two mornings a week, weather dependent, and most of what we do is list things that we like. So we just go through goth bands from the 80s and go, ‘Bauhaus were good, yeah, sure, but they were no Gene Loves Jezebel’, and that's a very mannish thing to do.

“But in amongst those conversations, we also talk about all the things that matter to us, the worries we have about our health as we get older, about our families, about our work. We're both in the creative industries, and it gets harder as you get older, instead of getting easier, you know. So we drip feed in the important emotional stuff. And I'm so grateful for that particular friendship.

“When we moved house, I said to Rachel, it's really important that we consider that my friend and I can still walk to see each other, rather than have to get public transport to see each other. And it sounds silly, but actually identifying as a man in my 50s, I know that thing might just be one of the most important things in my life and maintaining that is hugely important. Luckily, we wanted to stay in Balham anyway.”

The show will talk about all stages of manhood, drawing on the experiences of Marcus's father, who is in his 80s, through to his grown-up son, who is 22 and his toddler son, who is three. His biggest concerns are for his eldest son and the risks of social cancellation that generation faces from their own peers.

“I don't worry for my elder son that he'll be sort of caught up in ‘meninism’ (like Andrew Tate), but the fear amongst his generation of young men about making a mistake is very profound. We talk about cancellation, but Ricky Gervais doesn't get cancelled. Dave Chappelle doesn't get cancelled. The people who do are individuals within their friendship group, young people, they cancel each other for wrong think, wrong speak, wrong action and - I know they don’t use WhatsApp but I’m in my 50s - a separate WhatsApp group emerges that they're not in where their transgression is discussed and they're excluded, and it's harsh.

“So I think his generation is very scared of making mistakes. And I think the pandemic played a big part in that as well - at exactly the moment when they might have been out in making the important mistakes that we all made without it being socially ruinous, they missed a lot of that, and yet he manages to be a smashing, smart, clever, interested, kind, curious young man.”

Personally he doesn’t feel part of that social landscape, or the more traditional views of his father’s generation.

Marcus says: “I watched the Barbie movie and what happens in Barbie's world, when the patriarchy gets involved, is everything gets trashed. And I didn't feel triggered by the film, but I think I did feel challenged by it, probably helpfully. So up to that end, I sort of look at the patriarchal stuff, and I think, well, I don't see very much of myself in that. I'm in there. But then I look at the emotionally open function of modern man and, I would argue, the over-sharing of my eldest son's generation. You know, ‘How do you do? I'm anxious and my name is…’ like symptoms first, followed by who else you might be. I don't really see myself in either of those camps.

“So then the name of the show was going to be Vitruvian Man, the Da Vinci painting, which was supposed to be the ideal man, the ideal image of man. But I reckon Vitruvian Mango fits me better, because I am a man, but I'm sort of softer and a bit sweeter, seasonally available and, at my best, perfumed.”

Tickets are on sale now for Marcus Brigstocke’s Vitruvian Mango at the Cambridge Junction on 20 June.

Visit junction.co.uk/events/marcus-brigstocke-vitruvian-mango/.