In Profile: Stephen K Amos

It is nearly that time of year again. Cue one large upside-down purple cow, scores of jugglers and acrobats risking life and limb on Edinburgh’s cobbles, and crowds of a size that I know no word for. The Fringe Festival is here, bringing all that it brings, but with a gap the size and shape of Stephen K Amos.

“It’s quite weird,” he admits, “I’ve got withdrawal symptoms already.” This is hardly surprising when you consider that his first Fringe appearance was in 1997 (he thinks), and that this will be the first time he hasn’t brought his own show up since 2002. He just can’t stay away though; he will be around for three days to do a radio show, and is bringing The Best Medicine to the comparatively petite Funny in Falkirk this weekend. 

As a performer, Amos is accustomed to filling out big venues and taking large festivals like Edinburgh, Melbourne, and Sydney by storm, so the relatively small festivals he has been frequenting – Bristol, Dublin, and Amsterdam to name three – must be quite a change of pace. “It’s nice doing a more intimate festival,” away from the constant presence of reviewers and the overwhelming number of shows to see, the atmosphere is different, “You can be a bit more free. I hope that all the people who don’t make it out to Edinburgh for the festival will support this live event.”

The past couple of years have seen big changes and opportunities for Amos, most notably his 2010 TV show, curiously named The Stephen K Amos Show. “I was trying something a bit different with the sketches and stuff. It was a very interesting learning curve.” For a performer who delights so much in audience interaction, this was a big step away from his comfort zone, “You can’t really compare a live comedy experience with a TV version. When I get the opportunity to do something else I’d like to hone in on chatting to people and bringing out some live unscripted moments.”

Those live, unscripted moments are just what he is known for, and are what made his best ever Edinburgh Festival experience when, at the Gilded Balloon, the fire alarm cut off his show just twenty minutes in. “I, like the Pied Piper, led my audience out into Bristo Square”, before the cow turned up, “and continued the show – no microphone – while the whole venue evacuated.” The crowd grew and grew, and comics spotted leaving other venues were roped in to performing five minute sets to the over-flowing square. “It was spontaneous, it was spirit of the moment. We could have all just left the venue and gone our separate ways. That is what the Fringe is all about.”