INTERVIEW: David Mills

Just a Quickie With David Mills

TGUK – Darling! You have been very busy lately! What’s been filling your diary recently?

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DM – Well it’s feast or famine in the comedy business. There are so many performers – each of us scratching and clawing our way into the spotlight. If you take a break for even a weekend someone is liable to steal your spot.

This Autumn has been pretty packed. I co-host the comedy, chat show Scott Capurro’s Position at Soho Theatre. We brought that back in October and also took it to Belfast. Then I did six nights at Leicester Square Theatre opening for the brilliant Margaret Cho. Meanwhile I’ve been popping up all over the place: Late Night with Joanne Good on BBC London; Alive at the RVT with Myra Dubois; comedy nights all over London; and naked parties in some of London’s finest railway arches. I’m busy but I want to be busier!

TGUK – How did you start out in the business? It’s pretty competitive, one imagines you sharpened your talons and set off…

DM – I come from a very funny family. Funny in a sort of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? way. All sharp comments and cutting asides. As siblings we never beat each other up, just threw withering put-downs across the dinner table. Hilarious, right? Anyway it toughened me up and got me started. I started doing cabaret before stand-up and that was also a useful education. But I’ve been in this racket for a long time and I’ve done it all – acting, cabaret, comedy, hosting. To be honest – I can’t even remember how I started.

TGUK – So I (along with the rest of London’s gay population) am positively thrilled about your upcoming one night show “David Mills is SMART CASUAL”. What can we expect?

DM – It’s essentially my 2012 Edinburgh Fringe show – but revised and reloaded with lots of new material. It’s a sort of 2012 ‘Year in Review’. A final ‘f**k you’ to 2012 and why not? I mean, sure it was a great year but we gotta keep moving. Jubilee, Olympics, Paralympics, US Elections – put a fork in it. I cover that plus look forward to the new year. I’m already on to Eurovision 2013.

Best of all, the hilarious Mae Martin is doing 20 minutes at the top of the show. She’s adorable / hilarious. If you don’t know her already, you’re going to love her.

TGUK – Your show is called “Smart Casual” which isn’t surprising as you seem to be continually dressed as if you’ve walked out of a Mad Men episode. Is always looking dapper and fabulously chic something you do to differentiate yourself from the “fashion crowd” that populates Bethnal Green?

DM – Is that the ‘fashion crowd’ walking down Bethnal Green Road? Really? I guess ‘homeless chic’ is really in this season. When it comes to my look, it’s all part of the overall performance package. You see this all the time in the cabaret world. Style and content are much more closely linked in cabaret than in stand-up. In fact it’s one of the reasons cabaret is so popular. I’m always amazed at comics who seem so able to craft brilliant jokes but so unable to pull a look together. I try to do both.

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TGUK – What’s been the highlight of your career so far? I saw you performing with Margaret Cho, that must have been rather exciting.

DM- Opening for Margaret Cho was an unforgettable experience. Frankly I’m still high. She’s a master comedian and it was so great to watch her work up close. She also gave me some great advice – simple but totally spot on. And performing for Margaret’s audience was such a thrill – smart, clued-up, comedy savvy – audiences like that are rare so it was definitely a treat.

I’m sure it sounds cheesy but some of my most memorable moments onstage have been in smaller clubs. Of course playing for 400 people at the Leicester Square Theatre was amazing but I can remember in January playing for ten people in a basement off Hackney Road. They were so much fun and for whatever reason it just really flew. In my mind I would return to that performance for inspiration for about six months. I’ve had loads of career highlights, most of them totally unexpected moments that explode into something unforgettable.

TGUK – Finally, any plans for the future? Where will we be seeing the fabulous David Mills next?

DM – It’s all about the future. 2013 kicks off with shows at the St. James Theatre (10/01) and the RVT (17, 24, 31/01). I’ve drafted in pianist Jenny Carr for a new ‘stand-up cabaret’ mix. The 2013 show is called DAVID MILLS: THE GOSPEL TRUTH and you can see it every last Monday of the month March – July at the Leicester Square Theatre and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. Expect to hear more. I’m in San Francisco and LA in Feb, Glasgow in March, Brighton in April.

Of course this is assuming I don’t get cast as the new JR Ewing now that Larry Hagman has left us or Rooster in some West End revival of Annie. Stranger things have happened — Will Young is in Cabaret after all. Anything is possible.