Leader of the band

I’m quite looking forward to Edinburgh this year. I’m not doing my own show and I’m not taking my family up. Before, I’ve been devoted to the family first. It’s the first time for a few years where I haven’t been trying to do loads of stuff, and the first time in three years without having a child up there. So it could be a good one.

This is the third year we’ve been doing the Horne Section. It just seems to have worked. It’s been fun, and we’ve managed to progress each year to a different place. We’re going to be in the Grand this year; it’s a nice big stage and there's lots of room to be a bit more ambitious with it. We can have the Soweto Gospel Choir if we want to. I don’t know if we do yet, but we could do if we wanted to.

The Horne Section essentially came from the fact that myself and the drummer and the trumpeter have been friends since we were little boys. They became musicians, I became a comedian and we always said we wanted to do something together. We thought it’d be a laugh – and it is.

The fact that we’re friends is key, because we're just mucking about. And it really helps me that they’re good at what they do. I think it’s just quite a potent cocktail of having good musicians mucking around with good comedians – and I’m not putting myself in that ‘good comedians’ category. I mean, we’ve always persuaded good people to do it with us.

I was a pretty good French Horn player. I got to grade three, and I could have gone further. I had talent. I could have gone all the way. No, I was awful. I really wanted to be a musician but I couldn’t. I didn’t have the talent. I was in an orchestra and I had to mime quite often.

I really remember our first rehearsal session. The musicians had written a song for me to sing and I was so nervous about singing in front of them, let alone an audience. And they were nervous at suggesting any jokes because they thought I was the comedian and they didn’t trust their own comedic instincts. But we've come a long way. I can suggest something musical and they can suggest something comedic – and we are both brave enough to say “no, that’s awful” quite often.

I completely take it for granted that I can ask the musicians to do anything and they’ll do it. They'll do any piece of music or any style. If there were things they couldn’t do, or if it were a bit clunky, it would fall apart.

We’ve abandoned the word “jazz” this year. The word jazz is interesting – it can mean some pretty awful examples of dull stuff. We wanted the Horne Section to be more upbeat, more blues than jazz, so we’ve gone for the word “shindig” now. “Shindig” is a better portrayal of what the show is, I think.  

I’m still no front man. I appreciate the front men of bands a lot more. You are the one person not holding an instrument, and you’re on show and you have to do things like move your body, which I really can’t do. But I’m a lot less self conscious than I was, which has helped. And I’m not afraid to sing a song quite tenderly, despite having an awful voice. I wouldn’t have done that three years ago.

This year, Tim Key and I are doing a one-off show. It's going to be fun but a bit chaotic. It’s not a secret, it’s just not written yet. I think it’s actually sold out, which is to do with the power of Key, not me. It’s called Horne and Key and.... It’s a chatshow and we’re going to interview ten comedians in an hour and treat them very badly. That’s the plan. It’s kinda the only premise. We’re going to show them very little respect.

Tim Key and I started together. We met in ’98, so we met before we were comedians. It's the best way to make friends with other comedians. We’ve got quite similar tastes, so we like to get together and slag off other acts, as all comedians do.

I think “eclectic” is being quite generous to my range of interests. It’s just more that I will do anything. I think if I had a choice of what to do, I’d do funny documentaries where I could pick any subject, follow it through for an hour and see where it takes me. Unfortunately, TV channels are less willing to take that risk.

If I hadn’t become a comedian I’d probably have been a lowly local journalist. I was a local journalist before. I worked for the West Sussex Gazette where I was called the people’s correspondent, which meant I had to do golden weddings and death notices. I was pretty happy doing that except I kept trying to crowbar in jokes – which became less and less appropriate the more tragic the story.

I was in the Footlights with Mark Watson, and it was fairly obvious that he was going to be big. Below me there was Tom Basden and Stefan Golaszewski. I wasn’t really on the same page as them. I was quite inferior because they are proper writers whereas I’m just a stand up. So I was definitely just muddling through, and am still trying to cling on to coattails of people like Mark. That’s the other key to it. Just make friends with these people. Become indispensable.