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Nearly 20 years ago, a couple of friends started making cassette compilations for their social group, with little bits of comedy thrown in for good measure between songs. Gradually, the ‘bits of comedy’ began to take over, but the name of the near-forgotten musical playback medium remained – and Cassetteboy was born.

Releasing their first album, The Parker Tapes, in 2002, the duo then teamed up with DJ Rubbish in 2003, beginning a partnership akin to Lennon and McCartney – but for topical musical comedy – releasing Inside A Whale’s Cock Vol 1 and continuing to gig and perform at festivals incognito, dressed as chimps, politicians or soap characters. It was in 2008 that they realised there was a future in cutting videos as well as tapes, and taught themselves some Final Cut techniques to apply to clips of then-prime minister Gordon Brown. Their next attempt – with Nigella Lawson as subject – gained thousands of views in just a few days before being removed for copyright infringement.

The next video was The Bloody Apprentice, which is still Cassetteboy’s biggest hit with over five million views, and since then they have skewed MasterChef, The One Show, Jamie Oliver, Barack Obama, James Bond and TOWIE. They now return their attentions to live comedy, with their promise to crash a show into a club, and dance on the wreckage. We spoke to Mike from Cassetteboy about what the hell any of it all means, and how they aim to get people dancing at a comedy show.

Your shows are notoriously difficult to explain to people, so with that in mind, can you please explain your show to everyone. Thanks. 
“I’m glad it’s hard to explain, because that means it’s not like any other night out. That said, you can sum it up in two words – comedy disco. We play party tunes and pop music, mixed in with people off the telly like Alan Sugar. There are funny pictures on the screens, and Cassetteboy wear some really stupid outfits. DJ Rubbish is on the mic, instigating silly dancing and giving out sweets to anyone who’s really going for it. We want people to dance their socks off and laugh their arses off. After each show we spend an hour picking up socks and arses.”

You recently did a gig at Liverpool's Leaf; how was that? 
“It was really good. Leaf is a nice venue, and the Liverpool crowd were definitely up for it. Basically they laid down a challenge to the people of Manchester, and we’re looking forward to seeing who can have it the most.”

When did you start the live performances? 
“One of our first gigs was at the 333 Club in London in 1999 or 2000. We literally just played a cassette tape for 30 minutes while we stood there, both dressed as Pat Butcher from EastEnders.”

It always seems to be the quite trashy, popular shows that you skew; why not do one on Game of Thrones or House of Cards so at least then you could watch quite a lot of good TV as well? 
“Harry Hill said that the best programmes to feature in TV Burp were those made on the cheap and in a hurry, and I think the same is true of Cassetteboy. Dramas are much harder to cut up than other genres, as the cast and the locations are so varied. With something like The Apprentice or MasterChef you’ve got hours of the same people talking in the same room, which is ideal.”

Do you get many requests? 
“People do suggest suitable shows quite often, but we generally don’t end up doing them. Our videos take a long time, so when we do find the time to make a new one we generally already have an idea of our own that we’d like to try. We might try Bake Off at some point, but my gut feeling is that it would be quite difficult, as there are two hosts and two judges – that’s a much more complicated dynamic than Alan Sugar shouting at people over a desk. We have done ‘Paul Hollywood’s Bread’ show – let’s just say once we’d finished with him, it wasn’t dough he was kneading (it was his penis).”

What do you do in down time to get away from TV? Ice fishing? Big game hunting? Paragliding? 
“Mainly I sit in silence, staring at the wall, trying not to think about Jeremy Kyle, Jamie Oliver or Alan Sugar.”