What do you do when your 21-year marriage breaks down and you find yourself single in your 50s? For comic Hal Cruttenden, the answer was simple – write a new stand-up show.
“I used to always joke that I'd have a really good show if Dawn and I divorced. Then she went and left me. Maybe she was doing it for my career,” laughs the 53-year-old London, who brings his show, It’s Best You Heard It From Me, to Belfast this weekend.
“The best and most powerful jokes come from the saddest things in life. We have an instinct that when things go bad in our lives we need to find the ridiculous. It's why we laugh at wakes and funerals.”
Cruttenden recognizes the show is “not a jolly romp through getting divorced” and he does include some serious reflective moments too.
“A separation is a massive crisis in your life and it brings to the fore quite a lot of issues about the person you've become. When you've been in a relationship for almost 22 years, you've sort of lost your true self and often define yourself through your partner. It's quite interesting to find yourself again.”
You could say writing It’s Best You Heard It From Me was a form of therapy for Cruttenden.
“Comedy has always been a bit like therapy for me. Terrible, cheap, rubbish therapy.
“Seriously though, in that first year after we split up, stand-up became this avenue that allowed me to express things and come to terms with the situation.”
One of the best reviewed shows at last summer’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Cruttenden can be excused for being a tad nervous about performing It’s Best You Heard It From Me in the north of Ireland, as his soon-to--be ex-wife, illustrator Dawn, hails from Derry.
Will his former in-laws be in the audience heckling?
“They might come. I haven't seen them for a while, but it’s all quite amicable – well as amicable as any divorce can be.
“I've been very careful not to make it a show that's only about me going through a divorce and launching an attack on her, as audiences would go: “Oh, this guy is a mess”,” he adds.
A TV regular, Cruttenden’s credits include Live at the Apollo, Have I Got News For You and various shows with Celebrity in the title.
His stand-up shows are renowned for his unique brand of observational humour, and with It's Best You Heard It From Me he promises “a show that will make you laugh at things you never thought were funny”.
“I sort of go off on tangents about everything. There's stuff about my kids, my pets, nuclear energy and, of course, a little bit of politics.
“I've got a good Northern Ireland joke, though I'm going to be playing a game with myself as to whether or not I'm daring enough to do it or not,” he chuckles.
The show is not just for divorced and single people. “Most people in my audience are still happily married people. I try to change that throughout the show," warns Cruttenden.
Comedians often use their personal lives for material. I ask if his jibes about Dawn over the years contributed to the grounds for divorce?
“I suppose after 20 odd years she did get fed up with that,” he admits. “Family is the biggest thing in my life, so you've always new material about them. Now I'm moving on more from making fun of her to making fun of the kids and they really enjoy it.
“I put a tweet out recently about psychotherapy, and my youngest daughter said if she ever has to go to therapy she will buy her therapist tickets to my show and tell them that's half her problem. She’s absolutely right.”
Looking out for their mental wellbeing, Cruttenden, in defence, says he always warns his daughters, who are currently at university studying fine art, before he shares any new material about them on stage.
Cruttenden trained in acting at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and had minor roles in dramas such as Shackleton, EastEnders and Touching Evil before he even contemplated a career in comedy.
“I literally was nearly 27 when I started thinking about it. I was trying to make a living as an actor and getting odd jobs, whilst also doing traffic and travel reports for the BBC.
“Somebody who worked there was doing a stand-up comedy workshop and suggested I join, because we used to always mess about together. It wouldn't have crossed my mind otherwise. It was the bravest and most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.”
Since his opening comedy gig, at a restaurant in London’s Notting Hill, Cruttenden has been hooked. “Acting was my first love but my biggest love is comedy,” he enthuses.
Cruttenden describes being middle aged and single as equally “liberating” and “terrifying”.
Inevitably, I had to ask if he was dating again.
“It's quite weird getting back into doing what you haven't done since your 20s. I describe it as ‘dating turned upside down’.
“In my 20s I was a little bit boring and I'd make up that my life was a little more tragic and a bit more messed up. In your 50s, everybody's messed up and interesting, and everyone pretends they're very sorted, secure and normal.”
With the evolution of the internet and mobile phone, dating has evolved beyond recognition in the past three decades. When Cruttenden was last free and single, people used landlines to communicate, had to strategically plan to be physically near someone for a considerable period to know them socially, and when you did bag a successful first date, you planned ahead for future dates there and then.
“It’s a whole new world. I never had any experience of worrying about what someone thinks of you through texting or messaging,” adds Cruttenden, who admits he has dabbled in online dating.
“It’s hilarious. There is a whole world out there of middle-aged people wanting to date. I’ve been out with people. I’ve even dated a comedian. That was quite hard - she's now doing jokes about me.”
Plenty of material for a new show then?
“I will do a new show in 2024. Probably, with the way my luck is going, it will be about still being single.”
Hal Cruttenden will bring It’s Best You Hear It From Me to The Limelight, Belfast, on Sunday May 14. Tickets from Ticketmaster.ie and Halcruttenden.com.
