Like many of today's comic rising stars, he's been a regular on the Edinburgh Fringe for a good few years now, and has the awards to show for it:A Time Out Award for Best Live Comedy 2001 and the 2000 Perrier Award Nominee, to name a few. And there's his part in the ITV comedy show The Sketch Show, produced by comedy gods Steve Coogan and Henry Normal. Mack has been doing comedy for a while, as well as the odd TV appearance. In 2002 he made his Music Hall debut during his first nationwide stand-up tour - and now he's back. His comedy will appeal to those with a taste for the silly in the Eric Morecambe mould, although his clutch of awards would indicate he's a little more sophisticated than mere 'silly' would suggest. BBC Southampton's Stephen Stafford caught up with Mack at the start of the 2002 tour and asked him a question or two. Here's what he had to say for himself: How did you get started in stand-up?
I used to go down to a local comedy club in Surbiton and they had a section in the middle called 'The Gong Show', when a man came out dressed as a gimp with a big gong and you'd get up and do a few minutes and if you were rubbish everyone would shout: "Gong him!", and you'd have to go. It used to be painful watching these people so I thought: "I'm a bit of a masochist, I'll do it - I tried it and that's how it started. Can you remember the first gag you told?
I kept the set list as a little souvenir up until a few months ago and then I lost it. But they were terrible, oh God, they were awful! I didn't have any jokes, I just took jokes that people had told me, pub jokes, and tried to elaborate on them There's a really old joke, the punchline is: "I'm a prawn again Christian". I was going to have a suitcase full of fish, and I was hoping to tell the joke using the fish, but I never got to it 'cos they gonged me off! It obviously didn't put you off, what has been the highlight of your career since then?
I had spent five years trying to pluck up the courage to do it - I first went to the Comedy Store in 1990 and Steve Coogan and Eddie Izzard were there. It was just brilliant and from that day I said I was going to do it, but it took six years before I finally got up at that first gig.
I remember walking on and thinking during the first few seconds "this isn't that bad". The highlight has probably been winning 'So You Think You're Funny' at Edinburgh when I was a new act. Vic and Bob were were the judges and Eddie Izzard was the host, and I just thought it was great being on with this guy who I'd seen six years earlier at the Comedy Store - just bizarre. I won and got loads of money - just great! You're just embarking on your first tour - how daunting a prospect is it?
It was daunting, but I've been doing the TV thing for the past two years, so it's good to have some freedom. With TV you've always got a committee of people go through - set designers, lighting, directors but all of a sudden you're on tour and you think of something in the afternoon and you can use it in the show that night. What can we expect?
It's me trying to wing an hour like I always do, chatting to the audience. With a bit of the best jokes I've told over the past five years and some new ones. It's a mixed bag of me falling over and blowing raspberries when I can't think of anything funny to do! You've won and been nominated for various awards - how important is it to win awards in the comedy circuit?
I don't think it matters, it matters a tiny little bit, but not much. At the end of the day the amount of times you go to Edinburgh and there's a real buzz about one comedian and not a buzz about somebody else, and then 6 months later the one there wasn't the buzz about is doing a TV show. But it helps a bit - I won't lie, I like having them on the mantelpiece and shining and buffing them! How did the Sketch Show come about?
I was doing a show at Edinburgh and Steve Coogan came to see it. I remember looking through the curtain, seeing him and thinking:"Oh my God, it's Coogan". We did the show and he liked it and his company got together with my management and said let's get some other people involved and make a sketch show Why do you think it's been so successful?
It's weird, you know when you get so involved in something you forget what it's about I was watching it the other day and I was thinking: "This is particularly stupid", I'd forgotten who stupid it was. It's not about anything, it's the most unpolitical show. We just think its funny. Sketch shows are always a bit of a mixed bag, I suppose we're doing old fashioned sketches, with gags at the end. We're not actors, we're all stand up comedians so we're not really acting. In all the sketches we call each other by our real names. I hate seeing a sketch on TV when for no reason, someone's in a wig or doing an accent - I just think why? Just be yourself. I thought it was amazing when we got nominated for the BAFTA we were along side Chris Morris' paedohilia Brass Eye - I was laughing about that for days. A deep weighty controversial show and you've got us hitting each other in the face and falling over at the end of sketches! Will there be another series?
Yeah, the first one is being repeated at the moment and we've just finished the second one a few weeks ago. It's being shown in January. How do you write your material? - Do you hide away for weeks on end or are you a bit more laid back?
The best jokes are the ones you don't write, you just think of them. You can have this idea which you think will never work, but it'll stay in your brain and then a year later, it resurfaces. It happened the other night at a show when someone asked me a question, 'cos I encourage a lot of questions, you start telling this joke which had been half formulated and it works. It's a combination, sometimes you have to sit in front of a blank screen for five days and think of nothing - it's soul destroying. What do you do when you get short of ideas? Drink! I just sit there. You can spend 30 seconds writing a big routine, or spend ages writing just 30 seconds of material. You just have to put up with it. Did you notice a difference in the reaction of audiences before and after you were on TV?
It is interesting doing the tour now when the idea is they are coming to see me. I used to think that if they come to see you, that would be easier as they're your fans and they like what you do. But that's not the case, you've got loads to prove still. I thought you could go out and start chatting and they'd say: 'Oh you're great' but they don't, they say: "Come on, we've paid 10 quid, now do your job". Do you have set put-downs for hecklers?
I used to but I don't bother now. I'm naive, when people shout at me I don't see it as abuse, it's only afterwards when I'm driving home that I see it as abusive. I think that they're loving it and they're joining in, having a laugh and being complimentary! Do you enjoy life on the road?
I like it a bit, but not for too long. I like being at the theatres and going to various places - it's just every day packing your suitcase, you never know where everything is. We've been deliberately staying in really unusual accommodation to make it more interesting. We stayed in a windmill in East Anglia, and then in Wales, we're staying in an old Blair Witch-style creepy cottage in the middle of nowhere. What do you like doing when you're not touring, performing or writing?
I'm 34 now so I'm very boring and doing my house up. I've just bought an old juke box and I'm trying to find old 45s at the moment - it's quite hard to find the ones with the big hole in them. And I play a bit of footy to keep fit. What sort of music are you putting on the jukebox?
It's a 1950s jukebox so I figured it's wrong to put anything other than 1950's rock and roll numbers in. The only one post-1970 is the Sex Pistols' Something Else, as it's an old rock and roll number, but the rest are all - Frankie Valli and that lot! And what's your favourite website?
I'm hooked on E-bay - its a compulsion. I love seeing what people are selling. I got an old Eric Morcambe video the other day. It's just so easy to find anything. Interview by Stephen Stafford, BBC Southampton | 
