Light Issue 83a - ScotsGay Magazine

ScotsGay
INTERVIEW
andrew@scotsgay.co.uk
www.andrewdoyle.co.uk
Photo of Andrew
© Eamon McGoldrick
AndrewDoyle
talksto
PaulSinha
Paul Sinha likes a challenge. You may
have seen his appearance on a recent
episode of the BBC’s weekly nerdfest
Mastermind, in which he answered some
rather tough questions on the sixteenthcentury
Portuguese explorer Ferdinand
Magellan. An odd choice of specialist
subject for a stand-up comedian, it has to be
said. It’s even odder when you consider that
Paul knew absolutely nothing about him
until two months ago. He decided to set
himself the task of researching a topic from
scratch for his Mastermind appearance.
It’s a long story, which Paul recounts
with his customary eloquence. Last year he
took part in a special edition of University
Challenge as one of a team made up of
stand-up comedians. After a valiant halfhour
of cerebral jousting, they failed to
secure a victory. But Paul was hooked. He
decided to enter Mastermind, and coasted
through the audition with ease. Once
accepted, he needed a specialist topic.
“While I was preparing for University
Challenge I came across the name of
Ferdinand Magellan”, he explains. “So I
decided to learn everything I could about
him for Mastermind. It all went reasonably
well, except on the show I answered the first
question incorrectly. It was really easy, too.
Quite embarrassing.”
As a rising star of the UK comedy
circuit, it seems ironic that most of his
television appearances to date have been a
result of his aptitude for trivia, rather than
his ability to make people laugh. But as a
practising GP, he’s already exceeding most
people’s expectations of a typical stand-up
comedian.
Paul is very easy to talk to. We’ve met
in The Albany, a pub just off Great Portland
Street in London. When I arrive, Paul’s
already drinking a latte. He tells me it’s
probably too early for a beer. As a qualified
doctor who likes to ridicule our bingedrinking
culture when performing on stage, I
had half-expected him to be teetotal.
“I consider myself to be part of Britain’s
binge drinking problem”, he tells me,
laughing. “To a lesser extent these days, it
has to be said, but I’ve certainly made a fool
of myself on a number of occasions when
I’ve been under the influence. A lot of my
stand-up is anecdotal, so I like to talk about
this topic from a personal perspective,
especially since it’s one of those things that
affect us all. Although I’m a gay Asian
doctor, what I’ve got in common with
everyone else is that I’m a man trying to go
about his daily life without getting into
scrapes with horrible, nasty, aggressive
people. And I think that’s what seems to
define us now, that were all trying to get
through life and avoid trouble.”
There’s an undeniable universality to
this concept which must have appeal for
comedy audiences who, let’s face it, have
normally had one too many pints
themselves. It’s a sad indictment of British
culture that whenever we choose to spend
an evening out on the town, we run the risk
of being attacked for no comprehensible
reason. Paul is interested in the arbitrary
nature of such incidents, and what it
suggests about our society. It’s quite
ambitious territory for a stand-up comedian
but, like I say, Paul Sinha likes a challenge.
“We need to get far away from the idea
that drinking as much as possible as quickly
as possible is a viable way to have a great
night. Because it isn’t. You end up in a
state where you can’t remember what
happened, so even if there were any magical
moments you wouldn’t be able to appreciate
them.”
So why do you think we do it?
“Fundamentally, most British people aren’t
brave enough to be the people we want to
be when we’re sober”, Paul suggests. “So
when we get drunk we’re looking to achieve
an idealised state of mind. We want to be
able to approach that person we fancy, we
want to be able to stand up to people who
are behaving like twats. In short, we want to
escape from our normal, suppressed,
slightly cowardly state, and move into a
state where we’re witty and entertaining and
forthright.”
Paul is careful to emphasise that he’s
not being self-righteous. “Like I say, I’m
just as bad as everyone else. When I talk
about these things on stage I’m having a go
at myself as much as anything. But we need
to ask ourselves why British people tend
towards violence when they’re intoxicated.
In Iceland they binge drink from Midnight till
about seven in the morning, but they’re all
singing and dancing and as happy as can
be. There must be some deficiency in the
British psyche that’s difficult to pinpoint. I
do think that people who are happily
married, in love, or have children don’t tend
to get violent when they’re drunk. So
perhaps it’s a reflection of an underlying
unhappiness with where you are as a human
being.”
Now that the topic of conversation has
turned to family life, I take the opportunity to
quiz Paul on his background. He tells me
that, like himself, his parents are in the
medical profession; his father is a doctor
and his mother is a nurse. They came to
England in 1968 from their birthplace of
Calcutta, “the cultural centre of India”, as
Paul describes it. Together, they provided
Paul with what he describes as a “very
uneventful existence in the middle of
suburbia”. By his own admission, this
background was hardly ripe for comedy.
“I had a very dull, uneventful, middleclass,
public school educated background,
with the inevitable path to medical school. A
lot of comics travel back to their childhood
to look for the inner pain or conflict, but
there really wasn’t any for me.” He laughs,
and adds: “I had to find that as an adult”.
Paul tells me that his parents raised him
in the Hindu tradition, and I want to know
whether he still identifies as such. “Yeah, I
suppose”, he says after a moment’s thought.
“I was raised as a Hindu, but it was all about
the social ceremony of a few religious
festivals and little else. It’s a cultural thing,
rather than a strict adherence to a set of
religious laws, much like Christians who
only ever celebrate Christmas and Easter.”
“Hinduism is not a label that I think
about that much because I’m not a religious
person. If I had to classify myself I’d say
I’m an atheist who is perfectly prepared to
believe he might be wrong. I definitely don’t
believe in a biblical God. I believe we don’t
have all the answers, and I believe we don’t
know why we’re here, and I believe there
could be something very odd going on in
the universe that we don’t know about, but
the idea of a biblical God is complete
nonsense in my opinion. How can you
account for a super-being who created this
incredibly complex world only to be
obsessed by relatively minor details? The
being who created a duck-billed platypus is
not going to be concerned about the gender
of the person I’m sleeping with.”
Paul has clearly given this issue a great
deal of thought. And well he might. As we
all know, much of the opposition to LGBT
rights in the UK today is a result of the
ignorance inherent in organised religion.
Paul tells me that he finds it difficult to
understand how anyone can look at our
society and think that gays are the problem.
“It’s funny if you think about it,” he says.
“It’s not gays who are setting off bombs, it’s
not gays who are causing wars, it’s not gays
who are stabbing people in city centres on a
Saturday night, and yet somehow certain
people can look at everything that’s going on
in the world and reach the baffling
conclusion that it all started with the
introduction of gay civil partnerships. It’s
difficult to fathom.”
That said, Paul is quick to point out how
much progress has been made. “I’m of a
generation that remembers when it was all
so much worse for gay people. And I get
very frustrated with those who take it for
granted. Whenever I hear someone
slagging off Peter Tatchell, I think to myself,
‘you have no idea the degree to which he
was out there fighting for your rights when it
was extremely unfashionable to do so’. And
there’s a whole generation of gay people
who just don’t appreciate how much hard
work was put in on their behalf by the likes
of Tatchell. They think that life is just one
big ketamine party, and I find that very
frustrating. But then, I grew up in the
eighties when it was definitely not cool to be
gay. The tabloids were just out to destroy
us, and they went about it with the most
hateful language.”
“One of the good things about this
Labour government was how
uncompromising they’ve been when it
comes to pushing through pro-gay
legislation. And what’s happened is that all
the debates seem to have been won. If you
speak out against gay civil partnerships now
people think you’re a bit of a freak, because
it’s pretty obvious to everyone who has eyes
that gay civil partnerships are exactly that –
civil. They’re a very civilising thing.
Likewise, up until recently it was a
mainstream viewpoint that gays shouldn’t
join the Army. But if you say that these days
you look like an idiot, because there have
been gays in the Army for a while now and
there hasn’t been a single problem. As I
say, the debates have been won. The only
people left are the religious because they
have to believe in their book. They’ve got no
other option. But the rational debates have
definitely been won. I’m very much of a
view that religion has no place in Western
government.”
Although Paul’s stand-up does
incorporate such socio-political concerns,
it’s essentially his undeniable ability to make
people laugh that makes him so popular.
Many ScotsGay readers will have seen
Paul’s performances before, as he has
played at a number of Scottish venues over
the years. Earlier this year he performed a
solo show in Perth, and he’s become a
recognised feature on the Edinburgh Fringe.
After a highly successful performance at The
Stand in Glasgow earlier this year, he’ll be
returning to the venue for a second time for
Glasgay! on Sunday 5th October. He tells
me that he’s very fond of the venue, and he
has good reason.
“I think The Stand is run in a very good
way. They’re very specific about the sort of
comics they book and they won’t
compromise on that. It’s one of the reasons
why I look forward to playing there so
much. I think it’s really useful that Glasgow
has a large Jongleurs club to cater for
people in large groups; hen parties, birthday
parties, that kind of thing. People who want
a more “civilised” night generally go to The
Stand. I think that’s why it works really well.
They don’t have to provide a service to large
groups of drunks.”
Of course, there’s a tongue-in-cheek
quality to Paul’s tone when he says this.
Like most successful comics he does play
Jongleurs regularly, and is happy to do so.
“There are two sides to my comedic
persona. There are the self-indulgent onehour
monologues that I take to the
Edinburgh Festival, and then there are the
more condensed twenty minute sets that I
perform at Jongleurs. It’s a very different
type of experience. And that’s not to say
that one is necessarily better than the other.
The good thing about Jongleurs is that you
can be playing to three or four hundred
people in one night, something you can very
rarely do when you’re a solo comedian. The
bad side is that it’s difficult to relax, because
you know that you’re only one mistimed
joke away from the audience losing their
interest or turning on you. It’s much more
of a bear-pit atmosphere. A lot of people
might think that doing an hour solo show is
much more stressful than doing a twenty
minute set in Jongleurs, but that’s not the
case. People who come to see your solo
show are much more patient, and more
relaxed; there’s a greater sense of positivity
in the room. As an audience, they tend to
have different expectations.”
And what about gay audiences? “I
think it is a different type of atmosphere in
gay venues. For instance, I’ve always
written a lot of jokes about sport, because
I’m a huge sports fan, and these jokes tend
not to go down so well in front of
predominately gay audiences. Similarly, I
tell jokes about gay culture and gay
subculture that won’t have as much
resonance if you’re straight. To be honest
I’ve never particularly gone out of my way to
appeal to one type of audience or another. I
try to be as universal as possible.”
“The show I’m bringing up to Glasgay!
is not particularly gay, although of course
my anecdotes are told from a gay
perspective. As I’m sure you’re aware, I’m
not part of the long tradition of camp
comedy or double entendres, or celebrity
gossip. That’s not really what I do. My
shows consist of fairly traditional,
autobiographical, storytelling stand-up.
I ask Paul whether he thinks that this is
part of his appeal, that he is resisting the
stereotype. “Well I’m not deliberately
resisting the stereotype. I’m just being
myself. It just so happens that I don’t look
after myself, I have two gym memberships
but I never go to the gym, and I’m obsessed
with sport to the extent that I stay up till four
in the morning watching live streams of
Andy Murray playing tennis at foreign
tournaments. The only stereotype I really
fulfil is having a relentless appetite for men,
and I’m more than happy about that.”
“What I always say is that I might seem
very unusual in my interests and attitudes,
but I’m not. It’s just that people who are like
me tend not to draw attention to themselves.
There are, in fact, a huge number gay sports
enthusiasts, gay football fans, gay indie
music fans, whatever, but they tend to be at
home rather than out on the scene. So I’m
not unusual, I’m just unusual in terms of the
gay entertainment circuit.”
This strikes me as something of an
understatement. Paul’s other career as a
doctor already marks him out as an unusual
candidate for stand-up. Harry Hill is another
obvious example, but their styles are so
wildly different that they don’t invite
comparison. I ask Paul about how it feels to
have two such incongruent professions.
Isn’t it rather like leading a double life?
“Of course, they’re very different jobs”,
he tells me, leaning back in his chair. “They
both involve telling lies to strangers, they
both involve convincing people, and they
both involve a certain degree of
performance skills. But other than that
they’re totally dissimilar. I don’t mix the two
at all. I’m not one of these people who try
to make jokes at work, far from it. I have a
far more serious persona as a doctor.”
I can see immediately how this would
be the case. Paul comes across as a highly
intelligent and thoughtful person, but with
the kind of caustic objectivity that is so
essential for comedic success. He’s also a
real grafter, a quality evinced not only by his
ability to maintain two jobs, but also by the
fact that he was working the London
comedy circuit when he was still
undertaking medical training. “Back then, I
was working 100-hour weeks as a hospital
doctor, if the truth be told I wasn’t taking
this comedy lark very seriously at all. It was
just an interesting hobby at that point,
nothing more than that. Now I’ve got to the
point where I’m working less and less in the
medical world. The day may come when I
give it up altogether.”
If his burgeoning success on the
comedy circuit is anything to go by, that day
cannot be very far away.
Paul Sinha
- King of the World!
The Stand Glasgow
Sunday 5th October
at 8.30pm
12 ScotsGay ScotsGay 13