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marvelousmatt · 5 years

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Toast star Matt Berry: 'Nobody wants to hear about my psychic wound'

Stuart Jeffries

The comedy actor with the fruity voice has ditched the electric sex pants and taken up sleuthing – in a filthy Victorian version of The Sweeney. And he’s planning another Toast

When Matt Berry was a little boy growing up in Bedford, his parents left an organ in his bedroom one night. Not a severed ear or a still-beating heart, but the kind with a keyboard. “They never said anything,” says Berry. “There was no explanation, no lessons, just me and the organ.”

In short order, he had mastered the keyboard, then the guitar, and soon his big goal as a teenager was to emulate multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield. “I read that he was 17 when he made Tubular Bells. I thought, ‘I’m 14 – better get a move on.’ That’s what led me to buy a secondhand bass guitar and a four-track recorder.”

This isn’t what I expected at all, the revelations of a self-taught polymath. I’d hoped to conduct this interview from two open-top sightseeing buses. Berry would be on one and I’d shout questions through a megaphone from the other. This would have been a reprise of the bus-off between his most famous creation, the eponymous thespian lothario from TV comedy Toast of London, and that character’s turtle-necked nemesis, Ray Purchase. “Everyone in London knows your wife’s a prostitute,” shouted Toast . “You take that back, Toast,” retorted Purchase.

Instead, we’re reclining on a leather sofa in a Soho club. Berry is sipping Diet Coke. Again, this is intolerable. The 45-year-old should be importuning waitresses, channelling the role of Douglas Renholm, the lecherous boss he played in The IT Crowd, running about shouting: “God damn these electric sex pants!” Or he could even be drinking the bar dry, like his latest TV incarnation: mutton-chopped, one-eyebrowed, foul-mouthed Victorian detective, Rabbit.

But, no, Berry’s detailing his teenage recording techniques in a hushed voice. He is amiable but, and there’s no easy way to say this, shy and sartorially uninteresting. Yet I’m grateful for the organ story since it gives a rare insight into Berry’s past. He scarcely mentions his upbringing or private life in interviews. “I’m a clown,” he says. “That’s what everybody wants me to be. Nobody wants to hear about my ‘psychic wound’. Nobody wants me to be their life coach.”

What nonsense. Matt Berry Was My Life Coach – what a movie that would be. But he has a point. If we knew the dreary truth about Berry, that would ruin the fantasy. We want to imagine him as Toast, flatsharing with a similarly bitter thesp. As for psychic wounds, well, we inch closer to one when Berry tells me about his first day at Nottingham Trent University. It was there he studied contemporary art and dreamed of becoming a painter.

“A lecturer stood up and said, ‘Here are six paintings. Which is the odd one out?’ Then he pointed to one and said, ‘It’s this one. Because it’s the last painting I ever did.’ I admired him for saying that. It was an epiphany for me. I realised I didn’t want to make the mistake of getting a proper job. I wanted to do art for ever.”

It didn’t quite work out that way. After graduating, he made for London and slipped into miserable positions in telesales before landing a job at the London Dungeon. He was paid £178 a week to play a judge in the morning and Jack the Ripper in the afternoon. “It wasn’t Rada, but you learned how to get the story right and not to fluff your lines.”

Then, in around 1999, he met Noel Fielding. Like Berry, the Bake-Off host and funnyman has art chops and no formal training in acting. They clicked and Fielding invited Berry to perform some songs at Islington’s Hen and Chickens pub. “I was doing serial-killer confessionals in song: ‘This is where they bodies are buried!’ I thought they were funny.”

On the same bill were Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness, who persuaded Berry to star in their parody of 80s horror TV, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. Full of dodgy acting, choppy editing and flawed storylines, all of them deliberate, the show aired on Channel 4 in 2004, giving us the first taste of the rich, fruity voice that has become Berry’s trademark.

Since then, he hasn’t stopped. He paints, acts and has released six studio albums, even writing – with Ayoade – a satirical rock opera called AD/BC. Music, he says, is the most important outlet for his creativity. “I dream about music, never comedy.” How? “Well, I dream of guitars – different kinds of guitar.”

Earlier this year, Berry starred as Michael Squeamish, a know-nothing TV hack, in a mockumentary called The Road to Brexit, co-written with longtime collaborator Arthur Mathews. “I thought it was funny, a breathing space from the madness.” Did researching it change the way you vote? He laughs, by way of an answer. “I don’t want to say.” Why? “Because I don’t want to be anybody’s life coach.” Again with the life coach.

And now there’s Year of the Rabbit, a Channel 4 show starting next week in which Berry plays a liver-ruining detective battling Victorian London’s parade of nonces, ponces, top-hatted tossers, pre-pubescent narks and post-menopausal booze slingers. Rabbit (his sister is called Weasel, his brother Leopard) is a swearing virtuoso. Legend has it, I tell Berry, that sellers at London’s Billingsgate market could swear 20 minutes straight without repetition. We have lost that art: now swearing is reduced to Gordon Ramsay effing and jeffing on autopilot on Kitchen Nightmares.

“That verbal creativity is what I like about Rabbit” says Berry. “There’s a lot of my dad in the role. He has that dry deprecatory wit. If I was going to do something stupid, he’d say, ‘Oh, going to do that, are you?’ I wanted to capture that British deflationary way of speaking.”

Rabbit is assisted by rookie Wilbur Strauss, a Cambridge criminology graduate played by Freddie Fox, and his adoptive daughter Mabel Wisbech, portrayed by the droll Susan Wokoma, who is striving to break Victorian policing’s glass ceiling. Together this threesome fight a losing battle against crime. “It’s the Victorian Sweeney,” says Berry. How would he know? Berry for many years didn’t have a TV. “Well, I was too young to watch The Sweeney when it was first on, but I caught up with it fairly recently. I’ve become quite obsessed.”

Berry wants Year of the Rabbit to echo Only Fools and Horses, John Sullivan’s classic London sitcom, in one respect. “It has a working-class warmth that you don’t often see convincingly elsewhere. I got it from my dad and my grandmother – that warmth and fondness coming through in sarcasm.

“In Year of the Rabbit, I wanted to get the rookie-cop-and-old-hand cliche done and dusted fast. We’ve seen that a million times. What I wanted to get to was the sense of the three of them looking out for each other – even as they rip the crap out of each other.”

One lovely moment has Rabbit explaining his beat. “This city is a rat eating its own babies, babies made of shit, and once it eats its own shit babies, it shits them out again, and then it noshes them, and that goes on and on until the sun turns cold and the sea goes back into the sky.” Which is of course exactly the sort of briefing Met boss Cressida Dick wishes she could make.

Year of the Rabbit could be the unexpected comedy delight of 2019. Equally welcome news is the fact that Berry is planning a fourth series of Toast of London. He’s just not sure when he’ll have time to write it. For three and a half months a year, he’s now contracted to live and work in the US, filming What We Do In the Shadows, the comedy horror series about four vampires rooming together in New York.

Why play Toast again? “Because he’s the anti-me. I wrote him because I met so many actors who are utterly vicious about other actors – always frustrated, bitter and cynical. I’m not. I’m doing all the things I ever wanted. More than I ever imagined. I never dreamed of being a comedian. I never imagined I’d be a clown. There aren’t enough hours in the day. But otherwise I’m living the life I wanted.”

What about doing voices for ads? Surely they’ve made you rich but not creatively fulfilled? He laughs. “I’m amazed I still get the work.” Why? “I thought I’d satirised the job into oblivion as Toast. But that only made them want me more. Weird.”

• Year of the Rabbit begins on Channel 4 on 10 June.

#Matt Berry #year of the rabbit #toast of london

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fabulizemag · 6 years

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Here Is A List Of Rappers Who Would Be Good Comic Book Villains

New Post has been published on http://fabulizemag.com/2018/04/here-is-a-list-of-rappers-who-would-be-good-comic-book-villains/

Here Is A List Of Rappers Who Would Be Good Comic Book Villains

With Krondon aka Tobias Whale killing it as one of the best black villains that have hit television in a long time, it made me think about others rappers who would be great villains as well. Most rappers already have created their unforgettable persona and have even made themselves the bad guy in the hip-hop world. So it wouldn’t be too far-fetched for them to collect a check to boss people around, scare folks and even kill people who get in their way. But not all villains are created equal, right? Here is a short list of rappers who I think, if given the chance they would make some bad ass comic book villains. Some don’t even need practice.

KRS-One

I mean he thinks he’s the greatest rapper already and is always ready to battle. He doesn’t care about the community like he claims he does unless they follow his totalitarian views of blackness. He also doesn’t mind black people being harmed for the culture. He would make the perfect street villain that wants to run his community without actually making progress.

Diddy

Diddy, Puffy, P-Diddy, Puff Daddy – all those aliases are perfect for making a villain. He would be like Lex Luthor sans the mastermind. He would be the richest person in the city and would buy all the local politicians and community leaders to turn a cheek to his shenanigans and low-tier world domination plans. He would ruin careers and profit from everyone he knows.

Missy Elliot

Missy would be a genie. Now whether she would be a good genie or bad genie would be up to the user who finds her. No matter what path she chooses she would have dope theme music and wear fly, shiny outfits. Her hair would also be laid. Her lamp would be filled with marijuana smoke.

DMX

Nigga! Before Mahershala Ali was Cottonmouth, there was DMX. DMX would whoop your ass and your favorite superhero ass. DMX is the villain we all want but don’t deserve. He is so good of an actor he’s getting movie scripts in jail right now. He would be the hitman of a villain whose loyalty is paid-for-hire only.

Killer Mike

Killer Mike would be the fake intellectual villain that only attacks women. I could see Misty Knight or Jessica Jones beating his ass for trying to argue with them over his bullshit word salads while wearing his plastic non-prescription glasses. He would be the villain that partners with bigger bad guys to make himself more valuable but would get killed for being a goofy.

Black Thought

Black Thought would be the wordsmith. He probably wouldn’t talk much until it was absolutely necessary. Whatever he says would become a reality. Like literally. He would speak your death into existence with 16 bars. He would be like some mystique ass warlock. He would be unfuckwittable.

Busta Rhymes

Busta would be super animated. He would run up on you and your crew with clown masks on and they would be rock colorful outfits. Their guns would look like super soaker guns but would probably be filled with poison. He would be in the back of the strip club doing all types of illegal activity while doing coke. He would be like the Joker but not as psychotic.

Queen Latifah

The Queen would be a BOSS, She wouldn’t have special powers but she would be well connected and make people disappear with one phone call. She would eliminate you, especially if you disrespect her. Killer Mike would be DOA. She would be the first black, mafia recognized leader. Politicians would fear her and gangsters would respect her.

Erykah Badu

Badu would be a witch. She would be able to channel the souls of her former lovers and use their powers to control others. She would hypnotize people who stared at her too long and her herbal teas would be conjuring recipes to either cure or kill. She would be hexing hoes.

LL Cool J

We all remember In Too Deep right? So bet, LL, could be a street-level boss. He would probably hire DMX if things got too hot and he didn’t want to get too much blood on his hands. He wouldn’t have as much money as Diddy but he would be more respected in the streets. He’d also be the one to off Killer Mike.

Kanye West

Outside of being vocal about supporting #45 and already looking like a Golden Lord, Kanye would be a villain driven by his temper tantrums and narcissism. He would convince the community he is fighting for them but he would never help them and he would actively support politicians and public figures that want them to die. He would provide quality entertainment to fool the public but the Queen would discover his weakness for white women that want to look like exotics and she’ll make him cry in public.

CeeLo

CeeLo would be a robot from outta space. He’s not human. His spaceship looks like a cross between the Yellow Submarine and P-Funk Mothership. He would wear bizarre outfits and stroke his cat just like Doctor Claw. He would be like Mojo Jojo with a lighter, raspy voice looking for people to conquer with his tunes and loud, abrasive outfits.

Snoop Dogg

Snoop like the Queen would be a mafia-like villain. He should be on the next season of The Punisher. He would control all the marijuana on the coast and everyone would need to go through him. He’d probably have to off Kanye for being so goofy and loud but he’d be cool with DMX and LL Cool J. Depending on the situation, he might even be cool with Latifah. Snoop would be nasty with guns but that wouldn’t be his first option but you wouldn’t want to press your luck with him either.

So what do you think of the list? Who would you add? Let us know.

Peace!

#comics #hip hop #my superheroes are black #rappers #villains

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