Interview: Josh Howie - comedian

Published on Tuesday 3 August 2010 15:29

IT IS a sunny afternoon in Arnos Grove, North London. Josh Howie is manhandling a baby stroller out of a car.

• Josh Howie with his gran, Angela, the inspiration for his show. Picture: Complimentary

He looks gently harassed. Which is quite good for Josh, a man whose general demeanour tends to make Woody Allen look like Matthew McConaughey. As he opens the front door he goes from nought to frantic in a single yelp.

"I knew I couldn't leave you two alone together," he cries, leaping forward to the staircase where a slim white-haired lady is pursuing a chubby baby up to the first landing.

"She's not supposed to go up the stairs," says Josh over his shoulder as he leaps to grab the baby and guide the Grandma down to the hall. At this point I have no idea whether he is referring to the baby or the old lady. As it happens the baby is a "he" (Mordecai) and Josh is referring to his Grandma - "call me Angela" - immaculate in snow white coiffure, magenta manicure and "I'm not ready for the home yet" eyes.

Howie has had the kind of life which suits a person either to comedy or long-term drug use - whether prescription or recreational. Or both. Luckily for us, Josh has chosen comedy. His first Edinburgh Fringe hour took us through his early life with reference to Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, double circumcision, training as a rabbi in Israel, the Holocaust as a way of getting women into bed, and doing what a boy should never do in a hot tub with his mother. On the face of it, his new show, which brings us to the past four years of his life, spent living with his Grandma, sounded less potentially packed with event. But having passed an afternoon with the oddest comedy couple since The Odd Couple, I can't wait to see it.

Angela is not obviously thrilled about Josh's career choice. She was delighted when he was at Rabbi school and her face clouds as he reminds her he was "flung out". "Oh yes, so you were," she remembers, "rather badly". She has seen his stand-up on TV but still quietly wishes he had a "real job".

Over the time that I spend at home with them, Mordecai hurtles round the room, teeters on the step down from house and carpet to patio and stone slab, attempts to eat pebbles, shells and a wide variety of plastic fruit, hammers a large conch on a glass table top, toys with the inner workings of Grandma's stairlift and writhes like a baby seal for freedom each time Dad scoops him out of the path of some new potential baby disaster (which is about once every 3.46 minutes, not that I was counting) and Josh remains totally calm, barely stopping the conversation to go toddler trouble-shooting.

On the other hand, when Angela offers me a cup of tea, Josh leaps to his feet with a cry of "I'll get it Grandma!" explaining, as he disappears to the kitchen, the likelihood that Angela will have "one of her attacks" while the beverage is brewing.

Angela emits a tiny sigh and turns her eyes to the ceiling, before turning them back to me. "I can't believe how much he doesn't take after his mother," murmurs Grandma.

Mother is Lynne Franks, doyenne of PRs, reputedly the model for Edina in Absolutely Fabulous and a woman whose attitude to parenting was posited upon the notion that, as her mother was such a grand child-raiser, she might as well be a grandchild raiser too. So Josh spent a lot of what are generally referred to as his "formative years" in this house, where Angela has lived for 62 years. The front room is a crammed picture gallery of many of those years and the people who have filled them (including, points out Josh, in mildly exasperated tones, a digital frame with a photo stuck in it, covering the screen). Here, Angela comes of an evening to sit and be with the family. Here, for once, none of them talks back.

Talking of "back", four years ago Josh came back to live here, along with, initially, his vast collection of comic books, still piled high in the attic room, then Monique, his girlfriend (now his wife) and finally Mordi.

Small wonder, one might think, that Angela has developed a heart condition and that Josh has, more than once, arrived home to find the street lit by flashing blue lights and ambulance men at the door. Now, however, it seems Josh has been more scarred by the health scares than Angela.

She is a formidable woman who was one of the first to get a driving licence and ran a butcher's shop at the end of the road with her late husband. It was she, Josh says, who introduced him to "the whole Jewish thing". In return, many years later, he introduced her to marijuana. As it happened she was much less impressed with it than Josh was with Judaism. Angela was also a healer, Josh reveals. "When we were small, every time we had a fall or something we went to Grandma. Sometimes I used to think it would be nice just to have a bit of Elastoplast. But we got Grandma's hands." And they worked, it seems.

But sharing your home with your grandson, his new wife and their baby must surely test any relationship, I ponder aloud.

"We agreed not to have any stand-up fights, didn't we, Grandma?" Grandma is silent. Josh proffers tea. "Er, I suppose that cuts both ways," he mutters. "Thank you" says Angela nodding. "You've cleaned the mugs!" says Josh, clutching at compliments. Angela sighs and looks at me. "When they moved in they thought I wasn't … particular enough"

I ask how it feels to know that Edinburgh will soon be rocking with laughter at tales of the tannin stains on her tea mugs. She looks puzzled. "That's what the show's about Grandma … you!" says Josh. "That's why it's called Gran Slam. I'll be away for a month doing it in Edinburgh." "Oh," says Angela, looking sad, for a moment. "Oh well, that's life." And the show is, emphasises Howie, from life, enormous with tiny incident: Angela trying to change channels on the TV with a mobile phone, the endless saga of the stairlift - used only under protest by Angela, hijacked by the pregnant Monique and then (according to Grandma) broken while being used to carry furniture and books when the Howies moved out - and Angela (according to Josh) keeping the baby awake at night.

But staying with Grandma allowed Josh to continue his comedy career and save up enough to buy a flat - well that and borrowing 10,000 from her. They explain that it is just his share of her will. "So we have an interest in keeping her alive for another seven years or I have to pay tax on it," says Josh. And, to be fair, Angela doesn't look remotely perturbed. "Anything that will help make Josh a millionaire," she says, fondly. I hope Josh gives her her money's worth.

• Josh Howie: Gran Slam is at the Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, today until 29 August, as part of the Edinburgh Fringe...