Ahead of this year’s Fringe, Thor Stenhaug chats to Pepper&Salt about his work-in-progress, It’s So Hard to Speak Without Saying Anything Stupid, as well as providing further insight into his new podcast, Bold Shout, with Jake Abela.
What can audiences expect from your show this year?
This year will be more like a work-in – progress but I still think it will be as fun as it was last year. It’s weird because like I’ve written so many of my best jokes this year so I’m really excited to see that and I think it’ll be so funny. I’m really excited for it. And this year I’ve picked the room because it has air-con, so that’ll be fun. That is one thing that is amazing with the Fringe because this is like the biggest art festival in the world and hardly any rooms have air-con. You just go into a room and they’re like, “We’ve got a fan.” And this fan is not helping at all. This is just like blowing hot air round the room but yeah, I hope that will be good.
What have you decided to call your show?
It’s very much a work in progress. It’s called It’s So Hard To Speak Without Saying Anything Stupid, and that might be the title. I kind of wrote that and I thought, “I’ll change it,” but I think I might just stick with it. I kind of like it and I also think it summarises me a lot, cause so much of my life is regrets of having said something. I very rarely regret not having said something. I have so much many more regrets about saying stuff like, “Ugh, why did I say that?” Because I do speak so much more than I probably should. I think that’s what it’s going to be called this year. I always thought I’d change it, but I do kind of like the title. Because I know what my show is going to be called next year when I debut, so I don’t want to use that title.
What do you think of the term, ‘Tik Tok comedian’?
I think there’s two sides to it. My initial reaction when people say ‘Tik Tok comedian’ feels like it’s coming from an older comedian who is annoyed that things are changing, and these younger people are coming through Tik Tok. That’s my first reaction to it. I understand where it’s coming from, because sometimes you get these people who maybe do sketches on Tik Tok and that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to do well in a club. I mean it really doesn’t mean that they’ll do well in a club. I don’t have a massive online following, but I do have an online following, and I have definitely had like some comedians be a bit negative like, “Oh is that all you spent time on?” and this and that. And it’s like no, because at the end of the day, I gig almost every day and I can’t just be bombing onstage like, “Guys, have you looked at my Tik Tok?” That doesn’t help. But I obviously understand like sometimes you gig with people who have so many Tik Tok followers or Instagram followers and are just so shit. That can happen. But also, at the end of the day, I just love it, I think it’s so cool, because you don’t have to be that good in clubs if you have this big following because you can just go on tour, and that’s kind of what we’re all aiming for anyway. I love doing club comedy and I always want to be a club comedian as well as going on tour, but if you have this big Tik Tok following, you’ve kind of found your followers, the people who want to see you. It’s a different medium and I think it’s good because back in the day being on TV was such a big thing but it was so it was kind of like a few people selecting who gets to be on TV and if you were in with some of those people, you’d be on TV, but loads of really funny people never got the chance to be on TV, right? It’s kind of the same but now, it’s not like a few people deciding that, now it’s literally anyone can just put out content and then the people just decide. In that sense, it’s not really ageist or racist or anything like that, I just think it’s such a good tool. If anything, it makes it more even and fair for everyone.
What inspired your new podcast?
This has been a thing in the making for so long, I’m so excited it’s finally out. I have a very good friend of mine called Jack Abela, he’s a comedian as well, we met doing comedy. And we have so much fun doing that podcast, we look forward to it. We have such a fun time chatting and we’re like, “Oh maybe we can do something with this.” And for us, it was a lot of people telling us, “You guys should record this, this is so funny, you’ve got such good chemistry.” It was definitely the chemistry that made us do it. And I love doing it, we both love doing it. We’re like little kids playing around and he is the producer of it, so for me that’s kind of nice, that I don’t have to worry about that. It’s really fun.
Where did the idea come from to do a podcast about hot takes?
Bold Shout but it’s like a hot take. People come in with a hot take. That was Jack’s idea. We were a little but worried at first because we kept telling it to people like, “People can come on with a bold shout, like a hot take that we might not agree with,” and everyone was like, “This just sounds like you guys are going to bring in like really right-wing people who are just like saying something racist or misogynistic,” and we were like , “No, no, no it’s not meant to be like that.” It started with Jack saying to me that he thought that the Star Wars movies – that we both really like – he thought they only got better as you go on. So, he meant that the newest Star Wars films were the best ones and that the first ones were the worst ones. And I was like, “That’s insane! As if you can think that!” And that was kind of like the first Bold Shout and we were like “Oh I’ve got loads of these and you’ve got loads of these, why don’t we get guests on.” It is a really good conversation starter and sometimes people say something and you’re like, “Yeah, I’ve actually never thought of it like that.” Which I also think is very good in a society, to have openness to everyone.
What would you say is your hottest take?
I don’t even know what it is. You’ll just have to listen to the podcast.
By Katerina Partolina Schwartz
Photo Credit: Rebecca Need-Menear
Pepper & Salt 
Leave a comment