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[title]Ed Gamble is hungry. The stand-up comedian, writer and co-host of the award-winning hit podcast Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster will soon make his red carpet debut at the 2023 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and in-between rousing audiences with his witty repartee, he can’t wait to sink his teeth into the culinary capital of Australia.
“I can’t wait for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival because I’ve heard such incredible things about it from my friends,” the comedian tells me from his house in London.
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m so excited to see the [Melbourne Comedy Festival] shows, but I’ve heard so much about the food scene, so now I’m just as excited for that.”
As well as indulging in a fair ration of Lune Croissants, Hector’s Deli sandwiches and Market Lane coffees, the podcaster and comedian is here to bring us his new quick-witted show, Electric. Performing at Melbourne’s Athenaeum Theatre every night for almost a fortnight from April 11-23, he will need all the sugar-coated and caffeine-laden sustenance he can get his hands on.
Born in southwest London in Hammersmith, Gamble found his funny bone through a fixation with all things sitcoms and stand-up. The comedian went on to study philosophy at Durham University, where he met fellow comedians Nish Kumar and Tom Neenan and spent most of his time “writing terrible sketches and performing”.
In 2014, he debuted a solo at Edinburgh Fringe and then became a familiar face after winning Taskmaster in 2019 and appearing in a series of shows in the UK, including Mock the Week, Live at the Apollo, Would I Lie To You, The Russell Howard Hour and QI. In 2019, he released a stand-up special Blood Sugar with Amazon Prime about being diabetic, loving heavy metal and his dad’s retirement.
The buck does not stop there. Nowadays, he is a judge on Great British Menu, is a regular host on Radio X, but it is his smash-hit food podcast with James Acaster, Off Menu – a show which invites guests into a hypothetical restaurant to conjure up their dream starter, main course, side dish, drink and dessert – that has really cemented Gamble as one of Britain’s national treasures.
For the unfamiliar, in Off Menu, James Acaster plays the imaginary genie, town-crier of “POPPADOMS OR BREAD”, and his deadpan confessional comedy, random tangents and vehement hatred of cheese is a perfect pairing for Gamble, who tries to keep it all on course.
They’ve had everyone from 2023 Oscar nominee Paul Mescal and Stranger Things’ Joseph Quinn to Stanley Tucci, Louis Theroux and Miriam Margoyles on the show, but really, it feels like having insider access to a rollicking conversation between two best friends. It can be tear-jerkingly funny, and with hundreds of episodes to listen to, it continues to be a feast for the ears.
“Off Menu has been absolutely huge for us,” Gamble reflects. “I love doing it because it’s just like sitting in a room with a couple of mates talking about food."
"We started it [Off Menu] purely because we thought it would be a laugh, and I think that’s often the best way to start, and that’s clearly what shines through."
“We’ve now done around 170 episodes, and I genuinely love every one. The recent episode with Paul Mescal (who was announced as an Oscar nominee a day later for Aftersun – divine timing or what?) and Kathy Burke was great, but we’ve also got to interview some absolute heroes, like Bob Mortimer. And then a personal highlight for me has to be interviewing Corey Taylor from Slipknot.”
It’s time to turn the tables – what would Ed Gamble’s starter, main, dessert and drink of choice be?
“If you love food, which we do, it almost puts you in a state of panic when someone asks you your favourite meal,” he remarks. “But I would pick these chargrilled oysters with garlic pecorino butter that my friend Tom does, and then I would pick a really nice beef brisket for my main. For a side dish, some chicken jalfrezi and to drink, a really good riesling. And then for dessert, I’d say a cheese board because James isn’t here, and he can’t get angry at me.”
Gamble will be in welcome company in Melbourne, where cheese boards seem to be a party pre-requisite. “That’s a lot of pressure to get invited to a party when I’m there though,” he chuckles. (Reader, take this as your official command to invite comedian Ed Gamble along to your parties so he can see first-hand what a bunch of turopholies we all are.)
Already circuited around the UK, Electric was reviewed as a show about Gamble being a lovely boy “who wants to be a bad boy” and how his polite middle-class background and “Coldplay face” has scuppered plans to cultivate an edgier image. Think less Johnny Rotten, more James Blunt.
This time around, he attests there will be no singular theme for Electric. ”It will broadly be around things that have happened to me in the last couple of years, like having to cancel my wedding three times due to Covid,” he explains.
“I try and sway away from having a big overarching theme to my shows; it’s always just about me."
"You’re probably not going to learn anything from my show; you’ll probably just end up being stupider afterwards.”
After some idiot-inducing comedy? Get tickets to see Ed Gamble’s Electric tour, running from April 11-23, on the Ticketmaster website.
Want to find comedy all year round? Check out Melbourne's best regular comedy nights.