Comedy

James Sherwood leads a double life. On the one hand, he’s a professional choral singer with a busy Sunday schedule (two church services with a rehearsal before each) and other gigs (mostly weddings and funerals) scattered through the week. It was hectic leading up to Christmas: ‘I was out there harking the herald on pretty much a daily basis in December.’ But by night, he’s a comedian. He’s happy with this unusual combination: ‘Stand-up and choral singing work well together. Until people start opening comedy clubs on Sunday mornings, it’s unlikely there’ll be a clash.’

He’s been seriously into singing since his schooldays. His first appearance as a stand-up came in January 2002: ‘I’d recently given up a glittering career in public relations to do something less boring instead. At that point I was trying anything creative – I tried out as a bar pianist, I auditioned for the King’s Singers, I wrote a film.’ A friend sent Sherwood details of the Daily Telegraph stand-up competition: ‘So I entered it. I was surprised they offered me an actual gig, by return of post, without carrying out any kinds of basic checks – whether I might be in any way amusing, for example.’ Feature continues

Sherwood remembers gripping the microphone stand very tightly on that first night: ‘Apparently it made me look nonchalant. I did all my jokes in the right order and I got laughs where I thought I might.’ Not long after, he won a heat of the ITV talent show ‘Take the Mike’: ‘That reassured me I was good enough to carry on doing it for a bit. Then I lost in the semi-final, which taught me that I wasn’t that good yet.’ In 2004 he was runner-up in the BBC New Comedy Awards: ‘It gives you some self-belief. I think I’ve been lucky to have had a good blend of encouragement and kicks up the arse.’

He’s written for several radio shows and for Private Eye. ‘One big change was when I got a job writing topical one-liners for commercial radio DJs. That meant I started each day by writing six jokes about what was in the news. It filtered through into my stand-up and, after a bit, my set had gone entirely topical.’

Out on the club circuit, Sherwood says, he’s ‘in that vast echelon of jobbing acts – choose a night at random, and I could be headlining, or the unpaid try-out spot, or anything in between’. Last August, though, he took a giant stride forward by performing his first full-length show at the Edinburgh Fringe. He brings it to the Etcetera Theatre for a couple of nights from Tuesday. It’s called ‘I Know What You Did Last Sunday’. It’s about religion. ‘But it’s nothing to do with fundamentalism, terrorism or geopolitics. My show is about the Church of England, jumble sales, trestle tables, that kind of thing.’

Sherwood’s father is a Church of England priest. ‘Religion is a central part of my life,’ Sherwood explains. ‘Most of my work as a choral singer is for the church. But I don’t personally have a religious faith.’ His intention with the show was to get his teeth into religion and pick apart the bits that didn’t make sense. At the same time, Sherwood realised, he had to provide the audience with background information about himself and to provide something that would be entertaining for both Christians and heathens.

‘People are very suspicious of religion,’ he adds. ‘Those who hate religion seem to think that anyone who hates religion less than they do is a closet God-botherer. It confuses them that, as a non-Christian, I don’t hate the Church. But it paid my dad’s salary for 20 years and it’s still my principal employer. That doesn’t mean I have to think they’ve got it right. I don’t. But it does mean my attitude towards it is affectionate.’

Sherwood says that doing the show has triggered discussions that have led him to a clearer understanding of how people might choose to be Christians. The mutual understanding, he reckons, cuts both ways. ‘I can generally spot practising Christians in the audience. They tend to enjoy the mocking of the Church of England’s idiosyncratic ways. Then they go a bit quieter when I get more critical.’

Sherwood’s parents went to see the show in Edinburgh. He’s pleased to say they enjoyed it. His father summarised his feelings in just four words: ‘Bad theology, good comedy!’ Sherwood thinks that’s probably the right way round.

‘I Know What You Did Last Sunday’ is at the Etcetera Theatre on Tue and Wed 10.