George Egg is a man of many talents as his new genre-busting show Anarchist Cook will attest. George will be performing at the Cryer in Sutton March 12 and the Norden Arts Centre in Maidenhead March 13. William Gadsby Peet has a chinwag with the multi-talented man about comedy, food, magic and mad max inspired street performances.
George Egg has lived a very cool life, there is no denying that. His route in to stand up comedy involved street performances and the infamous chainsaw juggling insanity of a certain French circus ... oh, and crepes! His latest show, Anarchist Cook, has been receiving rave reviews up and down the country including two sold out stints throughout both the Edinburgh and Brighton Fringe Festivals.
Anarchist Cook won the coveted Spirit of the Fringe award for 2015 and was a nominee for best comedy at the Brighton Fringe. The Telegraph summed up the eggsperience (had to happen at some point) nicely: "At a festival where being different is the norm, it is refreshing to encounter a performer who really is unique." Mr Egg has certainly had a unique journey in to stand up comedy.
"I kind of drifted in to comedy by doing street entertainment. I used to work up in Covent Garden and I loved watching the street performers, I couldn't help but want to do what they did. I got a job with Archaos, which was this mad French circus that toured the UK during the early 90's. I was a chef/crepé cooker extrodonairé at the show and I was hugely inspired by all the insane acts they put on. I thought to myself; I'm definitely going to have a go at this. I learnt how to juggle and I had a small repertoire of magic tricks because I'd always been interested in magic. I put it all together with some comedy and started doing a street show down in Greenwich by the Cutty Sark. I put that on for about 6 months and then migrated my way down to Covent Garden and worked there for a good few years."
I doubt there is another comedian alive who can answer the question 'How did you get in to stand up comedy?' with 'French crepes'. George's show developed from there, heading more towards indoor performance.
"I paid my way through university down in Brighton by street performing at Covent Garden every weekend. The show used to have a bit of magic, juggling, fire-eating and comedy all thrown in together. Through that I started getting gigs indoors at comedy clubs, so I started to naturally drift towards more of a theatrical indoor show. I've never really had a normal job and I do think all the zany experiences of my formative years has helped shape my comedy."
"The Archaos circus really was insane, it was a circus without any sort of animals and a lot of the performance was based around insane, Blade Runneresque, stunts like chainsaw juggling or stunt driving a car with another car welded on top of it. I absolutely loved the chaos and my first street performances were a kind of crazy Mad Max influenced mess. I obviously had to adapt things for indoor audiences and tone it down a little, but I certainly hope there's still a strong anarchist influence in my work; hence the show name Anarchist Cook."
It's unsurprising given Egg's route in to comedy (not a sentence you hear too often) that he cites Eddie Izzard and Vic Reeves as two of his major influences.
"I'll always love that surreal, absurd and just generally very silly style of comedy. Taken at face value my latest show is literally an illustrative lecture telling people how they can use an iron, kettle, trouser press, mini bar, hair dryer, towel rail and tea making facilities to cook gourmet meals in a hotel room. Obviously it's all hugely tongue in cheek and there's a lot of stand up comedy about food and the stranger experiences I've had during my career as a culinary ninja in hotel rooms."
"I remember one time, I really wanted to make moules mariniér in my room and had to get a little bit drunk before hand because even I thought it was too bloody silly. Long story short, I successfully managed to whip up a lovely dish of creamy mussels using the sink and kettle. That was the only time I needed some Dutch courage though, normally I'm very sensible with my cookery. Well as sensible as it's possible to be, cooking mussels in a sink."
All of this incredibly niche, culinary experience means that George's show has a wonderful finalè for his Anarchist Cook audience.
"My favourite thing about this show is that when you walk in to the theatre your given a fork, then at the end I take all the food out that I've made, which is a proper full 3 course meal, and you get to have a bit of a taste of it, if you want. It's a real multi sensory experience – taste, smell, touch, sight, sound and most importantly, your sense of humour. There you go that's a great line for the show, make sure you keep that in."
George's passion for culinary quirkiness hasn't been satisfied with his current show, he has big plans for the future of comedy cuisine.
"I have an idea in the pipeline, that I've already done a trial run of, which is a large show called 'The Mess'. It's a sort of variety show that I host with guests, that's all about food. The first show we did in November had Harry Hill doing an entirely original 20 minute routine, where he cooked a recipe on stage which was so brilliantly silly. Tim Hayward, whose a great chef and cookbook writer, made a sandwich from some old 18th century recipe live on stage."
"Simon Evans, who does a program on Radio 4 called Simon goes to market, did a stand up set all about food commodities. We even had Jay Rayner, the Observer food critic, do 5 minutes that was a bit of an excerpt from his own show. So that's what I'm working on right now, because I think it could just run and run. A sort of comedy/interesting show where the link is food, what more could you want? The comedy and foodie worlds combined!"
In case you were wondering, his real second name isn't Egg, that would be a little too fortuitous for a man who makes his living off of comedy cookery.
"It's my stage name and has been for 20 odd years, I'm not going to tell you what my name really is, but I do have a couple of nice stories about it. I've been using the stage name for ever and so obviously my family is known as the egg's. For a while, we briefly lived opposite a family whose second name was Bacon and our kids used to play together, which always made me laugh."
"I'm also going to New Zealand, for the New Zealand comedy festival in May and I've got family out there that I've never met before. They're quite a distant branch of the family tree and their second name is lay, which is quite funny obviously because of lay and egg. Well not that funny actually ... Let me end on a joke"
"Someone told me Bovril makes a very nice drink, but they didn’t tell me you’re supposed to dilute it! That was an expensive round."
The mighty Mr Egg will be performing this weekend at the Cryer in Sutton March 12 and the Norden Arts Centre in Maidenhead March 13. If you can't make that, then you can check out the rest of his tour dates here.
Hungry for more food Anarchy? Check out our interview with the inimitable Jay Rayner
Watch the anarchist cook in action below