Geoff Norcott is lean, talkative, lightly bearded and intense. Britain’s first ‘openly Conservative’ comedian has benefited enormously from the Brexit vote and he’s popular with television producers who need a right-wing voice to balance out the left-leaning bias of most TV output. ‘It’s funny meeting TV types,’ he tells me. ‘They say, “We really want to hear alternative viewpoints.” And I’m thinking, “By alternative you mean majority,”’
Norcott, 41, was raised on a south London estate. ‘Both my parents were quite political. My dad was a trade unionist who got quite high up in the NEC [Labour’s national executive committee] and my mum ran as a Lib Dem councillor. So I completed the holy trinity.’
As a child he disapproved of ill-disciplined neighbours. ‘I was quite judgey about the kids that didn’t go to school and weren’t trying to better themselves. I remember one day particularly I came home from school and my mum was still in her dressing-gown, and I said, “For God’s sake! Get dressed! Achieve something with your day”, although she was a hardworking woman.’ He still has ‘a real issue’ with dressing-gowns worn during daylight hours. ‘Get up. Do something useful.’
For 15 years he played the club circuit without mentioning politics. ‘Then I wanted to do something in comedy that I hadn’t heard anyone else do. My wife said, “Well, you’re a Tory, that’s a bit weird, isn’t it.”’ It began to pay off after David Cameron’s surprise election victory in 2015. ‘People were angry. And it became the jeopardy element: can you force people who instinctively think you’re a terrible person to laugh at your jokes? There’s something quite addictive about reluctant laughter.’
He began performing in his mid-twenties while working as a sales executive.
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