George Rigden’s journey back to the stage hasn’t been an easy one. After public backlash saw him cut from a major TV role and shut out of his hometown comedy scene, he’s returned sharper, sober and unflinchingly honest with a show that tackles cancellation, accountability and redemption head-on. George is a week into his Melbourne International Comedy Festival run, we caught up with him to talk second chances, sobriety and finding the funny in starting over.
Welcome to Australia! What are you loving about our country? Literally every. Single. Thing. Seriously – my sister has been living out here for nearly a decade, and now I’m here it’s so easy to see why she’s barely come back to England since moving down under. We recently visited Wilson’s Prom and hot damn, it’s a shame you’re not allowed to live there permanently. I touched an actual wombat! Felt like meeting the pope. So yeah – the ridiculous scenery & wildlife. Makes England look even worse by comparison. And meat pies. Obviously. If I ever get married, I want a stack of them in lieu of a wedding cake.
And how does our comedy scene differs to the UKs? Honestly? And I might be thrown into the Thames for saying this if I ever return to Blighty – but the standard out here is a lot higher. I find most stand up & comedy in general these days back home unwatchable, outside of a tiny handful of exceptions, but there’s a rich inventiveness and originality to the comedy out here compared to back home. People aren’t afraid to be funny here and I love it.
Your show is about getting cancelled, tell us how this affected your career? Oh, massively – it was hell. Warranted, but absolute hell. I was cast in, filmed 3 days on and then was removed from a role in a pretty major Disney plus sitcom because of the negative press about me back home. That was probably the most painful experience, but in an immediate sense – being unable and unwelcome to perform comedy in my own home town. That hurt and still does, in truth – but again; I accept that as a karmic price for behaving like a selfish nutcase for several years. Whatever trauma any of us are carrying? There are consequences to our actions, even if we tell ourselves there aren’t.
How does the show address being cancelled and the redemption? It addresses them head on and without fear – something which felt like an impossibility when I was still drinking, but thanks to AA (and a lesser extent – chatGPT), I’ve been able to slowly turn my life around. I want to get across that no matter how doomed anyone may feel, there’s always a way to make things right. Like – if I can, literally anybody can. But it takes humility. A lot of humility – and I address that pretty intensely.
You’re known for your crowd work, can you share with us a favourite moment? Oh there are so many – if I had to pick just one though, at a gig in Lausanne, Switzerland, I was doing my classic shtick of roasting the unsuspecting front row. I picked on one young man, asked his name – it was Caesar. My response? A simple thumbs down. That took the roof off the place (metaphorically).
You play guitar, sing, and you’re funny and recently sober! Have you found this has affected your comedy and kind of comedy? Enormously so – being sober became a forgotten territory for me, especially when performing. I used to incorporate the drinking into the act, especially in the states where they have table service at comedy clubs. I’d frequently bully someone in the front row to order me a double Jameson on the rocks while the waiter was taking their order, which worked on average 9 times out of 10. I told myself the booze made me funnier, but really it was more a case of being able to perform while hammered. I’m far quicker on my feet without it, but it took a long time to feel comfortable onstage again when I sobered up. I still get very nervous, even over a decade in.
You’ve been in TV commercials in the UK, do you ever get recognised on the street for this? I thought I did once – when one campaign I did for William Hill (the betting company) was on heavy rotation, I was waiting for a train when someone approached me and asked ‘excuse me; are you George Rigden?’ Assuming they recognised me from the advert I said ‘yes! Would you like a selfie?!’ To which they replied ‘no, I think we went to school together – you’ve gained a LOT of weight since then.’ Humbling.
Anything you’d like to tell us about your show that might not be expected? Well now, that would be spoiling it! But for anyone on the fence about seeing a show from a comic who’s owning their past bad behaviour & addressing their own cancellation, I will say this – it’s a lot funnier than it sounds.
Anything else? Yeah, keep an open mind if you can – I’ve struggled for a while with people judging me in advance of meeting or seeing me because of the negative press out there about me. I suppose that’s fair enough, I’d probably have been the same if the shoe were on the other foot, but something I’ve learned from being in recovery and AA is that life is chaos and we’re all trying our best, even if it doesn’t look that way from the outside. That got a bit heavy, didn’t it?
Catch George Rigden at Melbourne International Comedy Festival at The Motley Wherehaus and Limerick Arms every Thursday – Sunday until 19th April. Grab your tickets here.
