'I Like To Explore Cultural Boundaries'

He’s dapper, refined, always elegantly dressed – but Stephen K Amos reports from his recent stand-up tour of the UK that punters in his front rows are not always similarly impeccably mannered.

“Somebody was rustling in the darkness trying to find the opening of a popcorn bag – let’s face it, how difficult can that be – and then starting the munching,” he says of a recent gig. “And all I was thinking was ‘Who can eat and laugh?’ It’s a mean feat. It’s text book, isn’t it? I mean you’re not at the back, you’re not at the cinema. I’m gliding back and forth along the stage, trying to engage the audience and all I can hear is ‘munch munch munch’. As heckles go, that’s pretty fabulous really.”

Heckles are few and far between these days for the much-loved English comic who’s no stranger to Australian shores. Amos prides himself in his ability to chat to an audience and designs his shows so people can be forthcoming with their thoughts and feel comfortable sharing them.

“People who come to my shows are people who’ve seen me before and trust my sensibilities, so being able to say something about myself that disarms an audience – and make them feel they can say whatever they want to me – is great, because what happens in the room makes every show feel unique and different and in the moment.”

After his run around Australia, the comedy veteran is branching out onto mainland Europe. Amos is tapping into the burgeoning love of comedy among the natives of countries such as Germany and Sweden. 

“Comedy is really taking off around the world now. It might be a release from all the oppression and negativity that we’re all surrounded by. Even TV programs transmitted in English are broadcast all over the world, so people might have an idea who (I am). Even though English is not the first language in mainland Europe, it is quite widespread and understood.”

The idea of comedy as a war against negativity is paramount to Amos. While he started out with the goal of just being funny, his goal every time he takes the stage has evolved into something deeper.

“In the past I was just about doing jokes – jokes, jokes, jokes, jazz hands, lovely, lovely, aren’t I a clever one. Then I moved on to trying to talk about things that mattered to me, be it religion, be it sexuality, be it the fact that we live in a world where there’s so much conflict based on religion and culture. And if I, as a black English man with Nigerian heritage, can communicate and translate my thought process to a Frenchman or a New Zealander, and we have the same kind of ideology, then that can be a great thing. I like to explore those boundaries.”