ACE Space will be having them not only dancing but rolling in the aisles on Friday, March 9, when comedy singer-songwriter BEN CHAMPION brings along some other funny friends for an evening of musical comedy.
Having spent the last 10 years locked in a dimly-lit studio writing music and silly songs for cartoons and children’s television, last year Champion started writing comedy songs for grown-ups, and performing them at acoustic nights (including ACE Space’s monthly Unplugged events) and comedy clubs. CATRIONA REEVES found out more from the man himself.
Catriona Reeves: So Ben, are you from round these parts?
Ben Champion: I grew up in South London, went to Cambridge University, then spent my bohemian middle 20s playing in bands and living on a boat in Richmond. I eventually settled down and had children, and decided to leave London for the usual, slightly boring, reasons: house, garden etc. I now live in Newbury and have a studio in New Greenham Park.
CR: Tell us a bit about the composing that you've done in the past.
BC: I started out writing music for low budget films which led to some TV work, and in 2003 I was asked to write some bits for series five of Absolutely Fabulous.
By that time I was already involved with animators and looking at doing more children’s and cartoon work, having scored a Channel 4 Christmas special called Little Wolf’s Book of Badness.
I went on to write music for the 2007 remake of Pinky and Perky, as well as writing songs for CBeebies and several other children’s channels. My current shows are Alphablocks on CBeebies, Olive The Ostrich on Nick Jr., and The Hive on CITV and Disney Junior. I have the best job in the world, basically.
CR: What made you decide to move into the world of comedy and liv performance, and how has it been going?
BC: Well, two things happened: one was that I realised I was good at it. The other was that I got tired of being in my studio working on my own. I needed to get out more, essentially.
It’s been going really well. I’ve been playing my material locally at Unplugged and at other acoustic nights. I’ve entered a couple of new act competitions and got through to the quarter finals of one (Laughing Horse New Act of the Year).
CR: Is this something you'd like to do more of in the future, or are you keeping your hand in with the composing as well?
BC: During the day I write silly songs for children, and in the evening I write and play silly songs for adults, so I don’t see the two things as mutually exclusive. I am treating the musical comedy as a parallel career and would love to be able to do more, with a view to taking a show to the Edinburgh Fringe either this year or next.
But I’m under no illusions as to how hard it is to earn a living in comedy, so I’m going to be doing both for a while I should think.
CR: What are your songs about? Which one goes down a storm?
BC: My songs are about all kinds of different things. Ideas jump out at me that have comic potential. For example, I was chatting to a journalist friend a while back who had just been to Holland to interview a minister in the church who was a self-confessed atheist. I thought maybe the Church of England might benefit from a similarly enlightened policy, so I wrote a song called Atheist Priest.
I’ve also written a break-up song about the perils of the auto-correct function on my smartphone - and another about a sunburnt cowboy.
I like my songs to have a strong central idea and a high proportion of actual jokes - if I can make it a half-decent song as well, that’s the icing on the cake.
CR: Do you have any musical comedy heroes?
BC: In the last ten years, I’d have to cite Flight of the Conchords, Mitch Benn and Tim Minchin of course.
Going back further I’d say Victoria Wood, Tom Lehrer, Jake Thackeray, and even Cole Porter and Noel Coward. I love clever, funny lyrics allied with great song-writing and musical ability.
CR: What can people expect from the other acts you're bringing with you? Are they your personal selection?
BC: Yes, all three are acts that I’ve seen over the last year on the circuit, and bring different things to the evening.
Natt Tapley plays an angry Tory MP character called Sir Ian Bowler and will do a couple of songs as well. Ant Dewson is a very funny song-writer who I met at a comedy night in December - he’s a bit ruder than me, but his songs are packed with jokes. Horse and Louis are a great double act who do songs and music-based sketches, and were finalists in the Musical Comedy Awards back in 2010. I first saw them in Edinburgh last August and think they will make a great headline act.
CR:. I am currently pencilled in to review Stewart Lee in Basingstoke the night you're playing ACE Space. Can you persuade me to come to see you instead?
BC: Hahaha good one. Well, you could spend a couple of hours listening to a cynic whispering his way through a studious analysis of what comedy is, while omitting anything that resembles an actual joke...
Or you could come to my gig for a couple of hours of real entertainment, and get the chance to be the first person to review my material. You never know, in a couple of years you may even be able to say you discovered me.
Plus, then you wont have to go to Basingstoke.
CR: Anything else you would like to share with the good readers of the Newbury Weekly News?
BC: Can’t think of anything right now. Other than does anyone know a good plumber? My boiler’s been playing up.
- First published in the Newbury Weekly News on Thursday, March 1, 2012
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