THE ARMSTRONG AND MILLER SHOW

LIVE!

It’s been a long wait – they have spent the last few years in the studio making an inordinate number of outstanding, Bafta Award-winning TV programmes - but it’s been well worth it: Alexander Armstrong and Ben Miller are finally hitting the road again with a brilliant new live show. And they are bubbling with excitement about the prospect.  

The Armstrong and Miller Show Live will be coming to a venue near you very soon. But you’d better book early to avoid disappointment – tickets are already selling like cakes fresh from a baking oven.

Marvellous actors, Alexander and Ben also possess a wonderful, natural chemistry. A pair operating at the very top of their game, they are widely acclaimed as the best double act currently at work in British comedy.  

But don’t just take my word for it. They have also been wowing awards juries – as their recent Bafta for Best Comedy Programme underlines. In addition, Alexander and Ben have bowled over the critics. Reviewers have been queuing up to lavish praise on the duo. The Daily Telegraph, for example, called them, “The new kings of sketch comedy,” while The Sunday Times commented that, “The Armstrong & Miller Show is one of the best sketch-comedy series since The Fast Show.” The review in The Stage, meanwhile, was short and sweet: “Hurrah for Armstrong and Miller!” As Brabbins and Fyffe might put it: Hear, hear!

Taking a break from rehearsals, Alexander and Ben repair to a sushi restaurant with me. You’ll no doubt be delighted to hear that they are just as entertaining and engaging in person as they are on screen. They are rare examples of comedians who are as funny off stage as on it. 

The pair begin by explaining to me just how much they are looking forward to touring once again. “I’m so excited about the live show!” beams Ben, between bites of sushi. “We’ve built up such a great rapport with our fans, and we are so keen to perform live for them again.”

Putting down his chopsticks for a moment, Alexander takes up the theme. “Doing a live show is such a joy,” he enthuses. “You know the pleasure you get from introducing people to one of your favourite films? You want to enjoy them enjoying it. We have the same sensation performing live – we can’t wait to introduce audiences to the next sketch. It’s a whole new group of people coming together to see something we’ve lovingly put together. In terms of celebrating what you love, there’s simply nothing like it!”

The duo, who met as students at Cambridge University in the early 1990s, are splendidly intuitive performers. Dazzling improvisers, they are able to work superbly off the cuff. Ben says that he and Alexander revel in the interplay with the audience in the live arena. “You can reveal yourself on stage in a way that you can’t on TV.

“If you drop a character on TV, it’s death. Each character has to be ruthlessly, faultlessly played. But live, you can hint at what’s going on behind. You can let the audience in a bit and go off the script. You can play everything with a twinkle.” Which the pair do with memorable results. 

The live show, which is directed by the highly-regarded Sean Foley (The Play What I Wrote), is specially designed for the theatre – it is not merely a rehash of lauded TV sketches. Alexander and Ben have worked hard to re-configure their best-loved characters for the stage. Long-established and enormously popular figures such as The World War Two Pilots, who jive-talk like modern teens, Brabbins and Fyffe, the filthy alter egos of Flanders and Swann, and Tony and Dimitri, the hapless football manager and his Russian oligarch boss, as well as new favourites such as the out-of-place vampires and the inappropriately dowdy women who work in a sexy lingerie shop, are all, according to Alexander, “Reinvented for the theatre”.

Ben, 44, chips in with an example. “Jilted Jim [the hilariously bitter man who was ditched by his wife on his wedding day] comes out on stage on his own and starts talking to the audience. He gets a couple up on stage and does a version of Mr & Mrs with them.

“He puts the wife in the silent booth and interviews her husband. Jim tells him, ‘go through her Facebook account and find out all the blokes she’s talked to. Get shot of her now. You can’t trust women. They’re all out to get you!’” 

The Armstrong and Miller Show Live also boasts many spectacular theatrical effects in a custom-built set that will be transported from venue to venue. Alexander comments that, “We wanted to recreate the atmosphere of a Victorian toy theatre. It should feel like an updated classic show.”

Ben picks up the baton. “We wanted to have the same show wherever we played. Some places don’t a proscenium arch, so we’ll simply bring the theatre with us! We loved Little Britain Live. Like that show, we want to use the latest technology to fantastic effect on stage.”

Ben and Alexander’s TV show commands an extremely eclectic audience; the breadth of their fan base is a testament to the universality of their humour. The Armstrong and Miller Show Live affords the double act the opportunity to tap into that wide spectrum of fans. Ben observes that, “We love the fact that fans say to us, ‘my teenage son and my 80-year-old grandmother adore your show’. That’s thrilling.

“The BBC did research, and it emerged that lots of families watch our show together. That’s such glorious territory. And that’s also the reason I got into comedy; those things that both you and your parents can enjoy are great because they bring you all together.”     

The live show, which also features lots of terrific new musical numbers, offers Alexander and Ben more of a chance to appear on stage as themselves, too. Ben muses that, “on TV, there is no opportunity to come on as ourselves because we want to pack the show with characters. But a live show is about the experience of meeting us and exploring our relationship.”

40-year-old Alexander goes on to examine just why his partnership with Ben has lasted so well – they have worked together for almost twenty years now. “The longer you endure as a double act, the stronger you become. It may be a cliché, but a double act is just like a marriage. Your powers get stronger as you get older.

“There is also an implicit mutual admiration because no relationship gets put under greater strain than a double act. You have to trust one another’s judgement absolutely. We each have to be able to say to the other, ‘I think I prefer that’, and the other has to be able to find that not annoying!”

Alexander adds that, “in a normal friendship, if someone says something funny, the conventional response is laughter. But in a double-act friendship, your commercially obliged response is, ‘will that work on BBC1?’ It’s counter-social. You’re forever applying heightened and totally unfriendly levels of scrutiny to each other’s humour!”

But, they both emphasise, their friendship always comes before their comedy – another reason why their partnership has remained so strong for two decades. The closeness of their bond is evident. “I sometimes find myself unable to put things into words,” Alexander sighs. “Ibsen talked about, ‘the man who comes up against the bony limits of his forehead’. I feel like that sometimes! But Ben can always find the right words. If I had twelve hats, I’d take them all off to Ben!”   

Ben agrees completely that their double act is more than the sum of its parts. “One of the things we’ve learnt over the years is that while it’s fun doing solo things, what we really enjoy is the stuff we do together. I think we spark off each other really well.” 

And that’s why the pair are relishing the prospect of performing live once more to their loyal followers. “I love our fans – I’ve never met one I didn’t like!” smiles Alexander. 

“Exactly,” Ben chimes in. “The audience always tell us what’s funny. As Lenny Bruce so rightly said, ‘the audience is a genius.’ I remember very clearly a show we did in Brighton several years ago where everything changed. We relaxed the fourth wall and started letting the audience drive things. You listen to the audience, have fun with them and let yourself be guided by them. It’s a hell of a ride!”

Alexander closes by underscoring how thrilled he is to be touring once more. “I’m so looking forward to connecting with the audience again,” he concludes. “Hand on heart, this tour is the most exciting thing we’ve ever done. I feel like Pele the day before the World Cup Final or Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. Wow, I just can’t wait!”