Punslinger extraordinaire Tim Vine is the latest stand-up comedian to go back to his roots for a one-off comedy performance in Dave’s One Night Stand (Thursday, November 24, 9pm), taking to the stage at Richmond Theatre, close to where the 44-year-old Not Going Out star grew up. We caught up with him for a chat... At school in Surrey, I was the class clown... But most kids are the class clown. The weird ones are the ones who aren’t messing about. I once had a memorable school report... It read: ‘Tim spends too much time acting the fool. He should realise that what you act, you sometimes end up becoming.’ It was strangely prophetic. When I first did my one-liners at a comedy club, everyone just groaned... But you’ve got to front it out. The first one to get a big laugh was: ‘My doctor told me I had hypochondria. I said: 'Oh no, not that as well...'" My first TV performance was on Pebble Mill... I started by standing astride an ironing board, opening and closing it, saying: ‘I can’t get the hang of these deck chairs’. They couldn’t believe I’d brought my own ironing board all the way from home on the train. There was one in every dressing room. I love darts. Incredibly, I once beat Eric Bristow... My darts nickname is ‘The Rain Cloud’ because I chuck it down. The guy who makes my stage props worked for Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer for years... It’s impossible to surprise him. I asked him to make me a broccoli afro. He didn’t bat an eyelid. Another time, I asked him to make a giant model of the word TRUTH... The idea was to drop it and say: ‘I can’t handle the truth!’ But he made TROUBLE by mistake. So now I say: ‘Here comes trouble’ and someone throws it on stage. When we filmed the Downton Abbey spoof Richard Curtis came along... I kept striking these heroic poses, hoping he’d look up and think: ‘I need him for my next film’. I like buying old records with odd pictures on the sleeve... Maybe an obscure country music album with a photo of a guy sitting on a pig.
