Good comedians avoid clichés. Great comedians turn them on their heads.
It’s too early to tell if 31-year-old will be remembered as one of the greats among his generation of stand-ups, but he’s got a solid head start.
“England has a lot of people that look and sound like me,” said Kirshen, who headlines tonight through Sunday. “But here, everything that comes out of my mouth comes across as deceptively charming and clean. I’m like, ‘Wow, are you genuinely not listening to what I’m saying?’ ”
The U.K.-born Kirshen is referring to the differences between American and British audiences, and the tendency to project gentility on people with English accents — something he’s quick to exploit in his set. It’s well-trodden comedic territory, but Kirshen adds a clever, contrarian spin, casting U.K. audiences as the rabble-rousers and Americans as the polite ones.
We caught up with Kirshen over the phone from Los Angeles earlier this week to talk about his surprising background — and why you should listen to his pseudo-science podcast.
Q: In your “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon” and “Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson” sets you bring up the differences between audiences on either side of the pond. Who’s the rowdier of the bunch?
A: Americans are so much more courteous. Strangers call each other sir and ma’am. They’re polite. They’re friendlier. And that goes with comedy audiences. They’re far less likely to heckle, to interrupt and interfere.
Q: Speaking of interference, what’s that squawking in the background?
A: Sorry, that’s my friend’s parrot making that loud noise. I’m engaged in a battle of wills with a parrot called Emmy. It’s as though she hates men in general. Particularly me.
Q: Well, there’s still an attitude among some people that U.K. audiences treat stand-up as more of an art form than they do here.
A: Yes, there are those audiences that treat it that way in the U.K., but there are very much still those gigs that are as low an art form as possible and as pure entertainment as they come — and more so. American audiences are far more willing to watch a show and not interfere.
Q: You studied mathematics at Cambridge, which wouldn’t necessarily seem to lead to stand-up career. What do comedy and math have in common?
A: It’s still a mixture of logical and illogical thinking. There’s still a certain amount of thinking laterally, whether it’s writing a joke or solving a puzzle. But here’s what also happened: I wasn’t a very good math student. I was good in high school, and when I went to university, I stopped doing the work and I got into trouble. I got very behind, but I also discovered that I enjoyed doing stand-up.
Q: Does math ever pop up in your day-to-day?
A: I’m doing a podcast now, like every other person in America, called It’s three comedians with vaguely science-related backgrounds who don’t really know what they’re talking about. is doing sci-fi and tech news, but no one’s really doing it with hard science and comedy. Not that we know what we’re doing.
John Wenzel: 303-954-1642 or jwenzel@denverpost.com
MATT KIRSHEN. Stand-up comedy. Various shows, today-Sunday. Comedy Works on Larimer Square, 1226 15th St. $14-$22.303-595-3637 or
