Rhod Gilbert interview

Much-loved Welsh comedian Rhod Gilbert is back on tour for the first time since receiving cancer treatment and has two nights lined up at the Liverpool Empire.

The Carmarthen-born star, who has described his new show as ‘pretty dark’, opens up to YM Liverpool about his recent health battle, emotional appearance on The Great Celebrity Bake Off and why he owes his stand-up career to a very persistent girlfriend

Words | Lawrence Saunders

First of all, how are you? You announced the brilliant news last October that you’d had your first clear cancer scan.

I’m alright! I mean, I’ve got lots of ongoing issues around my mouth and throat but broadly, I’m wonderful! If you’ve had radiotherapy for head and neck cancer, as I have, your salivary glands don’t really work anymore so I get a dry mouth and a sore throat a lot. My teeth are a real worry too. But I can live with it! I’ve just moved from a monthly checkup to one every two months. Other than that my life is now fairly back to a new normal.

Your treatment took place at the Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff – a specialist facility you had been a patron of for 10 years before your diagnosis. What motivated you to start supporting the hospital?

Some things you’re a patron of and you’re not that involved whereas for this place I’ve led treks all over the world. I’ve done one [trek] every two years for the last 10 years. I also do stand-up comedy nights and host quizzes. When I started working with them I just knew the hospital had a great reputation, and thought it would be a nice thing to be part of, to promote and raise funds for. I had no idea I would end up a patient there myself.

I was literally in Cuba on one of the fundraising treks when the lump popped up in my neck. So I caught cancer on a fundraising walk for a cancer centre! In 2022 I found myself in the weird position of having chemotherapy and radiotherapy in a place with pictures of me on the wall! But this is all good stuff for my new stand-up show which is about my cancer story, but made funny!

How was the writing process for the show? Did you sit down and think, ‘Right, I’ve got to write a funny set about having cancer’, or was it more natural than that?

For a long time, I was very ill and apart from going in for treatment every day, I didn’t really move. But I would jot down things that were happening – not necessarily amusing things, just anything that occurred to me. As soon as I began to get a bit better, I started to turn it into stand-up and it just flowed. It’s the fastest show I’ve ever written. I’ve never written an hour and a half of material this quickly. I guess I’ve never had this much to talk about. So much funny stuff happened [during my treatment].

How did you first get into stand-up comedy? Was it something you’d been interested in from an early age?

There was no comedy club in my town growing up. I was 27 years old and living in London when my girlfriend at the time took me to my first comedy night. I thought it was incredible but it never occurred to me that I could do something like that. But this girlfriend who I was with just kept on at me to try it. I used to say to her ‘Don’t be daft. I can’t even go into a coffee shop on my own!’. For eight years she kept trying to persuade me and in the end, I went ‘Alright, I’ll bloody try it’. I owe my stand-up career to that girl. She changed my life. Most of my life I owe to other people picking me up and pushing me out there, because I wouldn’t have done anything.

In university, I tried to drop out after three months because I hadn’t been to any lectures and I hadn’t met anyone. I’d been stuck in my room on my own and hadn’t even said hello to the guy next door. So the university intervened when I tried to drop out and they put me with a mentor. They introduced me to this other kid, who was Welsh as well, and he was a bit more confident. He took me under his wing and we’re still great mates. Without him, and without the university intervening, I would have dropped out.

You have written and presented three very personal documentaries. Most recently, last year’s A Pain in the Neck for Channel 4. When did you decide you wanted to do more than stand-up and strictly comedy shows?

I had a show on the BBC called Work Experience which ran for nine series. It wasn’t a documentary, it was more ‘factual entertainment’, but there was a documentary element to it. It seemed like a natural extension of that was to start doing documentaries about issues that were quite personal to me and could maybe be useful to other people. So social anxiety and fertility, they felt like things I had something to talk about and raise awareness about.

Was it quite an emotional appearance competing in this year’s Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer after what you’ve been through? Especially as it was one of the first shows you did after finishing your treatment.

It was and I don’t know if they will keep it in the edit but I choked up a few times when they did the interview part of the show. I’m very aware that the cancer I had, I wouldn’t have survived it a few years ago. The only reason I’ve survived is because of the research and the treatments that have improved, which all comes back to funding. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for things like Stand Up To Cancer raising money for cancer treatments. I had great fun doing the show anyway but it was also quite emotional, yeah.

Rhod Gilbert & The Giant Grapefruit comes to the Liverpool Empire on the 17 & 18 May. Do you enjoy playing in our city?

Yes! It’s famously a city that enjoys comedy and has a good sense of humour. This show is pretty dark but I don’t think Liverpudlians shy away from dark humour so I’m sure it’ll be okay!

Aside from the tour, are there any other projects you are working on that you can tell us about?

I’m hoping that Growing Pains, which is a series I love doing for Comedy Central, will be coming back this year. It’s such a great show. It’s just me talking to comedians, musicians, actors and whoever, about their teenage years – the music, fashions, their love life, issues they had and things they got up to. I’m hoping that we get to record it soon and it comes out before the end of the year.

Rhod Gilbert & The Giant Grapefruit comes to the Liverpool Empire on 17 & 18 May

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