TGt Meets... Sam & Tom

Ahead of their performance at Komedia on Sunday 29th July, we've been speaking to comedy duo Sam & Tom about life as comics what you can expect from their show!

What can the Komedia audience expect from your show?

They can expect a lucrative business opportunity, a chance to join us as our crowd on a permanent basis, abandoning their lives and families to join us on the road to Edinburgh. The long, unforgiving road to Edinburgh. Failing that, they can at least expect a funny show about capitalism’s exploitation of the worker, containing exactly one school hymn and a roughly 10% chance of pretending to be an insect for a couple of minutes near the end.

How did you discover you could tell a good story/joke?

In the split second before the school bullies’ mighty fists impacted upon our feathery, delicate skulls, we uttered as one, “What do you call a blind dinosaur?” Well, we need hardly tell you the rest. Suffice to say, one punchline later, everyone around us was rolling on the floor laughing, the tension defused. Teachers wept with joy. A booming voice called down from Heaven, “Well done, boys!” Lasting peace had finally descended on the troubled school. Arms around the shoulders of our former assailants, we dusted ourselves down, and strolled into our final A Level exam.

Where did the inspiration from your show come from?

Over the last decade, the jobs market has really caught up with the comedy world in terms of its financial viability as a career for people new to the industry – at last, our professional struggles are relatable. We also wanted to do something stiller and more claustrophobic than last year’s body-swapping nightmare show – nothing stiller and more claustrophobic than the stuffy office jobs we’ve both worked over the years for little money. What could be more amusing than a five-month internship spent attempting to sell cheeseboards over the phone to companies who didn’t want them?

What do you miss about home when you’re working away?

Tom misses his beautiful wife and children. Sam misses them also.

Do you think your comedy routines have changed much over the years?

There was a time when we would do a straight sketch show, barely talking to the audience, acting out scenes in front of them. Was still great, but why neglect your crowd like that when you can bring your whole show out to them, get them involved and give them a proper live experience? So now we do that instead, which is handy because it means it’s far more their responsibility whether they have a good time.

Who were your comedy idols while growing up?

We bonded over a shared love of Douglas Adams and other BBC classics. Tom was big on archive TV sketch shows his brothers had shown him on VHS, Sam on radio comedy he had found under his own initiative. Sam earned his comedy inspiration, Tom needs to check his privilege.

When you’re not on stage how do you like to spend your free time?

The majority of comedy-free time is spent fixing printers in our day jobs, but away from that, Sam binges on vinyl records, his current record standing at eating ten in one hour. Tom tends to plan out his leisure time by making a comprehensive list of things to do, often going into such detail that the act of writing it consumes the majority of his day and he goes back to sleep having enjoyed nothing.

What would you say have been your career highlights?

It would have to be either winning the respect of our peers through years of hard work, or the gig where Sam tested out a new bit of material called The World’s Fastest Sam, which culminated in him colliding with a metal chair and accidentally hobbling himself for the next three months.

What advice would you give to someone looking to pursue a career as a comedian?

Make sure you grow up knowing someone destined to be a broadsheet journalist – every July there’ll be an article that comes out in the press about how a bunch of people you’ve never heard of are going to save the sketch show, who will then never be heard of again, and one year, that could be you!

What’s next for you after Edinburgh previews?

The Edinburgh Fringe itself is four days after our preview. Following that depends on how well we do there. EITHER... we’ll carry on as before, armed with whatever marginal increase in acclaim and recognition we’ll have gained, better to pursue our live solo debuts next year, our next live show the year after, and the Filmed Thing we’ve been talking about. OR... we will absolutely smash Edinburgh, take over the BBC, create a long-running TV show that literally no one complains about on Twitter, and elevate the British public’s definition of ‘humour’. One of those options, nothing in between.

Sam & Tom are at Komedia on 29th July. For further information or to get tickets click here.