Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English comedian Josh Widdicombe.
Last updated on November 26, 2024.
Joshua Michael Widdicombe is an English comedian, presenter and actor. He is best known for his appearances on The Last Leg (2012–present), Fighting Talk (2014–2016), Insert Name Here (2016–2019), Mock the Week (2012–2016) and his BBC Three sitcom Josh (2015–2017). He also won the first series of Taskmaster in 2015 and the show's first Champion of Champions special in 2017.
My favourite was 'Fantasy Football League.' I thought it would be the most exciting thing ever to be friends with Frank Skinner and David Baddiel.
I never finished looking at Twitter happier than when I've started looking at Twitter. And it's not because of abuse or anything. Even just refreshing what people are saying about you, I don't think is a healthy way to kind of perceive yourself.
I see myself primarily as a comedian, and my aim on the 'Last Leg' is to be as funny as I can about the news.
I'll never have a house party again. You stand around for ages worried that nobody's coming and the next minute you're queuing for your own toilet while someone you've never met is asking you if you know whose party this is.
I met Rachel Riley from 'Countdown' once.
Pointless' - I think it's probably the greatest daytime TV show that has ever existed.
Successful comedians are just as neurotic as I am.
Sitcom writing is difficult because it's not just about writing jokes - there's a very fine balance between characters, plot, and comedy, that if you get one thing wrong, the whole castle comes falling down.
Looking back at that now I shudder at my naivety: while 'Men Behaving Badly' remains a brilliant sitcom, how did I ever aspire to Gary and Tony's eternal adolescence?
I get annoyed a lot with things.
I don't get hangovers - it's some kind of superhuman ability.
I find writing is the most fun I have in comedy.
I never feel like I should have any time free.
What I've learnt from 'Friends' is don't let the characters get together because then it won't be as good afterwards.
Everyone likes doing impressions of me. I'm easy.
I don't think you can only have people with disability talking about the Paralympics. Clare Balding didn't need to be disabled to cover it.
When I was a kid I didn't watch TV that was targeted specifically at me. I watched 'The Day Today,' 'Shooting Stars,' 'Father Ted.'
The weird thing is I have now met quite a lot of people who are really famous but they are always disappointingly normal and nice. Alan Carr is very nice indeed. Exactly how you would expect him to be, and not that different from how he is on stage.
I wasn't into making classmates laugh - or any of the comedy cliches. I wanted to disappear. I was a nonentity. I wasn't too clever but I wasn't in the bottom group. I wasn't loud but I wasn't quiet. I wasn't a bully and I wasn't bullied.
I was once doing a gig with Tim Vine; he was backstage, and there was one of those long strings of polystyrene coffee cups. He picked up the whole stack of about 20, walked on stage and then said: 'Bloody hell this coffee's hot!' which I think is the funniest thing anyone has ever said.
The thing about stand-up is that you end up meeting your idols.
Stand-up wasn't a calling. It was more like, 'What can I do that isn't going to make me really depressed?'
There are lots of comic bosses and fathers in sitcoms, but the comic landlord remains rare.
I moved to London when I was 21 and I needed a job. I'd just done a year working in Waterstones in Manchester and I was looking for any old job. This advertisement came up for an editorial assistant on Dora the Explorer Magazine. Because I'd been working in the Children's Department in a bookshop for a year I just nailed the interview.
Never have I got on better with my flatmates than when our landlord installed a dodgy deadlock and locked us out of our flat for a full Friday evening.
I've got no pretence that I want to do 'Hamlet' or anything, I know my limitations.
I loved 1990s television: 'The Fast Show,' 'Father Ted,' 'Harry Enfield.' 'Clive Anderson Talks Back.'
I enjoy laughing at other people being funny.
I realise that I'm a bit of a dabbler but it's nice to do stuff that's different.
It's rare in satirical comedy not just to be cynical.
I love my wife and daughters, but there are times you want to put them in the bin.
If one of my friends said they'd written a little role for me in a sitcom, I'd definitely do it and I'd enjoy it. But I have no interest in being a serious actor.
I really didn't think anything would come out of doing stand-up.
When I first went to university, I did a big shop with my dad. We bought loads of stuff but it didn't occur to me that I needed to refrigerate it, so I just put it in my room. I remember thinking, 'What's that smell coming from under the bed?' It was a bag of potatoes. How long does it take for a potato to rot? Months!
There's enough really good actors out of work without me trying to steal any of it.
I think when you start comedy there are some real advantages to being single and in a low-paid job. You have nothing to lose. It's not like I was a well-paid lawyer when I began. I was earning so little I was able to sell myself to it.
I'd redo the 90s as they were a lot of fun.
I don't get starstruck by Hollywood celebrities as I'm not into films.
The way people do an impression of me is they use the phrase, 'Who are these people who do this... ?' Then they do some not-quite-good-enough observational humour, which is the most offensive thing.
I don't like thinking too much about the future - it freaks me out.
Having a child brings with it greater responsibility. It makes you want to work more because you worry for the future.
I'd had a variety of jobs - shop assistant, writer of children's magazines - but had found myself, funnily enough, as quite an uninformed sports journalist so I might have stuck with that, but I would never have been very good at it.
I don't buy into the phrase 'comedy genius.' It's like football; you can have the talent, but 90 per cent is hard work, the other ten per cent is trying to make it all look as natural as possible.
I have never bought into this view that some people have that the job of the comedian is to espouse opinions and change the world - I think the job of a comedian is to be funny.
Having an awful landlord can be a good thing, it can bring you together as a household.
I'm lucky that I don't have any big regrets. Maybe that undercut hairstyle from my youth.
As students, we completely failed with the washing up. You'd constantly have to eat out of the wrong receptacle. You'd end up with a cup of cornflakes or a plate of tea.
I enjoy writing but I wouldn't want to do it all the time because generally you are not writing about things you want to write about.
Write about what you know, that's what I say.
Comedy has got me all these opportunities and I enjoy doing a variety of things. I can't really believe I've got the chance to have my own radio show.
Even in something surreal like 'Father Ted,' everything has to logically follow, everything has to lead one to another. The moment the logic of a situation doesn't work then you might as well not bother because people have signed out.
Always thinking that you're not very good is far better than being cocky.
I shrunk my favourite jeans in my first week of university. I'd never done a wash before.
I'm one of life's pessimists. I'm ready for everything to go wrong at any moment.
I grew up watching 'The Office' and 'Father Ted' and all the British things at that time - 'The Royle Family' - and the American ones like 'Friends,' 'Frasier' and 'The Simpsons.'
Nothing unites a group more than a common enemy, be it the Soviet Union or Nasty Nick from 'Big Brother.'
Woody Allen's 'The Complete Prose' - It's just the best selection of comic writing by one author. You know it's good comedy when you get quite demoralised about yourself.
I'll tell you what 'The Simpsons' is really good at. They'll describe something, you don't see it, and it's funnier when you describe it.
The owner of one club once interrupted my set to inform me that my taxi had arrived. I don't think he meant it to sound as cutting as it did.
Can I do an impression of me? I don't think I can. It would be the most self-confronting thing you could ever do.