Phill fits the bill for music hall revival with political edge

He has the patter, he has the voice and given a good wardrobe department he could easily pass for an Edwardian master of ceremonies. He also looks like he could be pretty handy with a gavel.

So it should probably come as no surprise that when Leeds-based Red Ladder Theatre Company were looking for a big name to star in their Musical Hall revival, Jupitus was the man they wrote to. To their surprise, he called back.

“Generally if I can’t think of a good reason not to do something, then I do it,” says Jupitus, who will play George Lightfeather, one of a troubled cast of Music Hall stars. “There were a lot of good reasons to do this, not least that it’s going to be at the City Varieties, a venue which I loved from my stand-up days.”

Set in 1912, Big Society! A Music Hall Comedy has been written by Chumbawamba’s Boff Whalley. He’s just finished the second draft of the show and while Jupitus hasn’t yet seen the script, at the launch last week he insisted he feels he is in safe hands. The feeling is reciprocated. Having taken over from Michael Ball as Edna in Hairspray! and having recently completed a tour of the Monty Python musical Spamalot!, Jupitus has quietly carved out something of a niche for himself.

“The one ambition I have never really fulfilled is to be in a band,” he says. “A few years ago an agent called me in to see if I was suitable for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Woman in White. I know, I did wonder whether there had been some kind of clerical error, but apparently not.

“I still don’t feel I can put myself forward for a part, because I know I’ll end up saying, ‘Look, I don’t think I’m quite right, you really should go with somebody else’, but if someone comes to me, well that’s different.”

Modesty is perhaps not what you’d expect from Jupitus. He has, after all, achieved longevity in a notoriously fickle business. Later this year he will film another series of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, about to enter its 16th year, and having helped launch BBC 6 Music he has also become a trusted voice on the airwaves.

“There are some people who’ll tell you that you can’t be funny after 30 and you’re definitely finished by the time you’re 40,” says the 49-year-old. “It’s nonsense. The only rule I have is that if I stop enjoying something, I stop doing it. A few years ago, when Simon Amstell became host, I nearly gave up Never Mind the Buzzcocks. It was nothing against him, he’s a great comedian, but the tone just became quite spiteful and I thought, ‘Really, is that where we are going with this?’ As it turned out, Simon left before I could and Noel Fielding came on board which just made it an absolute joy again.”

However, having enjoyed the security of a regular gig for the last decade and a half, Jupitus admits his thoughts have recently turned back to stand-up. The chance to perform in a show where audience participation is actively encouraged is another reason he agreed to do Big Society!

“I like the uncertainty and unpredictability of it all,” he says. “You look at some comedians now and their big ambition is to secure an arena tour. I don’t buy into it. I think you need to at least be able to see the audience’s faces.

“Sometimes your career, if you can call it that, takes you in a direction you never expected and I am thinking about trying to claw my way back to my roots of stand-up comedy.

“It’s hard because I do wonder whether anyone cares what I have to say, but as Eddie Izzard always says, it’s not about the material, it’s about you. I’m a decade older and it feels like the right thing to do, so who knows.”

While set in a gin-soaked music hall, if Red Ladder’s back catalogue is anything to go by the show, which opens in January, will also have a few things to say about the current political climate. As does Jupitus. “The theatre director Ken Campbell once said he would get rid of all arts funding,” he says. “He believed that the more people had to struggle, the better work they produced. I think he had a point. If you haven’t got money, it does really make you think about what you are doing and why you are doing it. I’ve been fortunate enough to perform in some big West End musicals where everything is choreographed to within an inch of it’s life.

“It was great training ground, but doing something like Big Society! has much more in common with where I started out, just getting on stage and seeing what happens.”

With Red Ladder and Whalley involved, Big Society may be his biggest adventure yet.