Ray Bradshaw: Taking comedy to Deaf Com 1
Many comedians naturally explore their USPs (unique selling points) when it comes to devising a show. Scottish comic Ray Bradshaw’s is that he is a CODA (child of deaf adults) – as in the award-winning 2021 film of the same name.
That said, Ray, 34, who brings his latest show Deaf Com 1 to Cambridge in March, didn’t actually talk about his parents being deaf for the first five or six years of his comedy career, as he didn’t want it to be seen as a “gimmick”.
He brought that aspect of his life into his material once he’d honed his craft and worked out how to make it funny.
Deaf Com 1 follows Ray’s groundbreaking 2018 effort Deaf Comedy Fam. It covers his recent foray into fatherhood, teaching his young son sign language and a disastrous trip to Bahrain.
Chatting to Ray, I recalled watching him support John Bishop at the Corn Exchange in early 2022. “Which one were you, the one in December or the one in January/February?” he asked. “January/February,” I replied.
“That was the better one – that’s good!” laughs Ray, whose shows are performed in both BSL (British sign language) and English, with Deaf Comedy Fam becoming the first ever live comedy experience for more than 800 deaf audience members.
“I went out with someone who went to uni in Cambridge so it’s weird being back, but Cambridge is one of my favourite places to nearly get run down by a student on a bike – it’s just nice to be there.
“She was my first proper serious girlfriend and went to St Catz [St Catharine’s College]. So I spent a lot of time down there but until I came with John I’d never done a gig in Cambridge. This is my first ever solo show there. It’s going to be fun. A lot of memories... and it’s the first place I ever did a Nando’s, so big moments in my life.”
Ray spent 2021 and 2022 touring the UK as John Bishop’s hand-picked support act, having previously toured with Frankie Boyle in 2019. Ray was the first comedian to win a Scottish Culture Award and is a regular host of Scotland’s most popular radio show, Off the Ball.
He has performed sell-out solo festival shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, Adelaide Fringe, and at Melbourne International Comedy Festival. The successful stand-up notes that since 2017, any new show he’s done has always been performed in sign language and English.
“It’s just because there’s such a big deaf audience out there that just don’t get the option to go to shows, or they only really get the option to go to some shows because hardly any tour show is sign language-interpreted,” he says.
“So it’s my new show, chatting about family life and kind of everything that’s happened since Covid onwards, and being lucky enough to go out and tour with John and all the other stuff. The first shows have gone really well so I can’t wait for the next few.”
The ‘disastrous trip to Bahrain’ happened when Ray was travelling for a gig. Without elaborating too much, he notes: “Every situation I got into on that trip just became more and more ridiculous. It felt like I was the human equivalent of Mr Bean for about 36 hours – that is probably the best way to explain it.”
Ray, who feels that being a comic is “the best job in the world”, received positive reviews for Deaf Comedy Fam, and the piece went on to win the Innovation Award at the Adelaide Fringe 2018 and be nominated for Best Comedy at Perth Fringe.
It was the world’s first comedy show performed in both sign language and English and allowed hundreds of deaf people to enjoy live comedy for the first time.
“In UK geography, there’s lots of deaf people in certain areas,” explains Ray, “and it will tend to be based on schooling a lot of the time. So for example Bedford has lots – there’s certain wee pockets – and sign language is kind of sexy now, whether it’s Rose Ayling-Ellis on Strictly, or John Bishop learning sign language, and the film CODA, which won the Oscar.
“More and more people are learning sign language, more and more people are aware of it, suddenly we’re getting lots of people who are learning sign language coming to shows, or lots of people who, similar to me, have grown up with their parents and it’s the first time they’ve ever seen their life represented on stage.
“The most enjoyable part for me is seeing people in the audience that look like my family, because when I was growing up we didn’t go to the theatre and we rarely went to the cinema because it just wasn’t accessible.
“When we did go, Mum and Dad – if it wasn’t a caption performance, which were also quite rare back in the day – just had to sit and try and lip-read along, which is not the easiest. So seeing people that look like me and that representation in the audience is one of the best things about doing it.”
Ray Bradshaw will be appearing at the Junction’s J2 on Tuesday, March 21. Tickets, priced £15.50-£18 are available from junction.co.uk. For more on Ray, go to raybradshaw.com.
