Words: Chris Baraniuk
Photography: John Stewardson
For Andy Ward, 23, messing around on student radio was the perfect breeding-ground for his slap-dash brand of absurdist comedy.
“I’m over in the middle bit, by Burger King,” I shout down my mobile to Andy, mere metres away in Paddington station. We spot each other and, since neither of us is city savvy, slip in to a nearby Korean restaurant to avoid the bustle.
“I’ve just left Keele Uni,” he begins. “During my whole time there I was involved with student radio in some form or another. We were nonsensical. We did idiotic features every week, like a whole series based on rhymes and puns. Play your Picards Right was a gameshow that we made up as we went along – nothing to do with Star Trek,” he adds helpfully.
“We were nominated for a Student Radio Award for Best Interview after a show we did with The Hoosiers,” Andy goes on. “We didn’t want to do a conventional interview, so we brought ‘wacky’ gifts along – Vimto, champagne flutes, Space Invaders, that sort of thing. We thought they’d like it, but we ended up spilling Vimto all over them. They’ve stopped doing student radio interviews now. Who knows if that was our fault?”
It’s the irreverent style of his shows that helped garner popularity amongst fellow students, particularly his Garth Marenghi and Mighty Boosh influenced Ghost Stories series, which began as a one-off airtime filler.
“We got loads of texts and feedback from people saying we should do more,” he explains. “So we did. My Dad used to play us this tape of monologue ghost stories at Christmas, and I think the inspiration came from that – I really liked working with a single narrating voice. Not even any sound effects. With the monologue, you can really get a sense of how to drive the comedy forward.”
His sample reels don’t hide the fact that producing them was side-splittingly good fun. He hasn’t wasted time on editing out background laughter or wobbly lines. In fact, he says, that’s all part of the plan: “It was all deliberately amateurish. It helps the fun come across. We knew we couldn’t act or do voices properly, so felt it was better not to try too hard.”
But could that style be accommodated by professional radio? “Definitely. I think people really appreciate things that don’t try too hard to iron out the imperfections, like when actors in sitcoms can’t help laughing at each other’s jokes. But you do have to be careful with absurd comedy: it’s a bad idea to string random words together and hope that people will find it funny.”
As we’re finishing up I ask Andy how he would describe himself. He looks exasperated. “I have no idea. I always cringe at questions like that on job forms. I just can’t take anything that seriously. I need someone to give me a comedy job, or I won’t survive in the real world. Put that in capital letters. Save me from starvation.”
