Nothing on the agenda (From This Is Wiltshire)

Nothing on the agenda

9:18am Thursday 18th March 2010 in

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WHEN Chris Addison comes to Swindon tomorrow it’ll be a toss up between using his sat nav or the force to guide him across the treacherous Magic Roundabout and into the town centre.

Sadly for the comedian, if he succeeds in reaching his destination he won’t get to blow up the Deathstar like a certain Mr Skywalker did.

“I used to have a pretty good knowledge of almost every city centre in the UK from touring around,” said Chris, who is also known for his roles in The Thick of It, In The Loop and Lab Rats.

“But now I rely far too much on my sat nav. The worst bit of it is when you know it’s taking you in the opposite direction to where you need to be, but you think ‘it’s a machine, it can’t be wrong’.

“Those are the times when you need to trust yourself and turn it off, like Luke Skywalker turns off his guidance machine in the last Star Wars film. That’s how he gets to blow up the Deathstar. And I think that applies to us all, everyone has their own Deathstar to destroy.”

This will be Chris’s first tour since 2005 and, unlike previous tours, he doesn’t have a theme.

“I always used to have a theme, but I’ve deliberately avoided it this time round,” he said.

“I wanted to make the show a lot more personal. I’ve never really opened up much on stage, and that is what I’m doing with this show.”

It was after leaving university that Chris fell into doing stand-up. He’d always had ambitions to work in a theatre and during his degree spent his free time honing his skills.

“After I left it became a lot harder to find opportunities and, in all honesty, I’m quite a lazy person,” said the 38-year-old.

“So the easiest thing for me to do, in terms of logistics, was stand-up. You just turn up and all of the rest is done for you.”

With performances alongside Amercian comedy giants such as James Gandolfini under his belt, as well as starring in his own comedy series, it must be hard for the comic to choose a favourite between his acting and stand up.

“I think you always prefer whatever it is you’re not doing at that particular time,” he said.

“But if I had to choose just one, I think I would pick stand-up. When that is going right and the audience are having a great time there is no other feeling like it.”