Comedian Andy Parsons: 'We don't need the world to be any worse to have satirical material, we have to live here too'
Life is hard – come and have a laugh about it. That’s the message from comedian Andy Parsons, who is on the road with his new show Please #@!$ Off To Mars. The content is all in the name, he says.
“There’s tricky circumstances all over the world at the moment and maybe the best chance of peace on earth would be having something so scary up in space that it can actually bring all of earth to its senses and bring us all together,” muses Dorset-born Parsons.
“The suggestion would be that Elon Musk can be that person up in space. We’re in a cost of living crisis, everybody is struggling, apart from the very wealthy who keep talking about going to Mars so why don’t they get off their arses and do it?”
Parsons started his career writing non-commissioned for Radio 4’s Weekending and went on to become one of the main writers of the original Spitting Image on ITV.
Having had his own Radio 2 series for six years, he became a regular panellist on Mock The Week and has made numerous TV appearances on the likes of Live At The Apollo, Saturday Live and The Comedy Store.
“I’ve never been short of inspiration,” the 58-year-old says. “There has never been a government so good that satire is dead and we don’t need the world to be any worse to have material.
"This accusation that comedians are always happy when the news is bad is not fair - we have to live in the country as well. But the news is particularly depressing at the moment and our message is life is hard, come and have a laugh about it...If you’re going through a tough patch, being able to find the lighter side of things is very important.”
Having enjoyed acting since his schooldays, Parsons first got into comedy whilst studying at university, finding a lighter side to a law degree he describes as being “somewhere between tedious and interminable”.
“I basically spent all my free time acting and then I found the people doing comedy were a bit more fun that people doing acting, who were a bit more serious.”
It was there he met fellow comedian and double act partner Henry Naylor; the pair were both writers on Spitting Image and had satirical comedy show Parsons and Naylor's Pull-Out Sections on BBC Radio 2.
“You dream about being able to make a living from (comedy),” Parsons reflects. “Various friends decided to keep doing law and are doing very nicely for themselves so it’s always nice doing what you love and being able to make money at it.
"Touring is always pretty fun - it’s a good way to see the country, I have a fairly encyclopaedic knowledge of the UK and you get to travel all over the world. They always say if you want to travel the world, join the forces. But I can travel the world doing comedy without doing any fighting.”
Andy Parsons is at Georgian Theatre Royal in Richmond this evening, Pocklington Arts Centre on November 21 and Alhambra Studio, Bradford on May 16, 2026.