Award-winning comic Dan Antopolski heads for Ludlow (From Hereford Times)

Award-winning comic Dan Antopolski heads for Ludlow

2:50pm Thursday 16th February 2012 in Leisure

IT takes a special ear to hear the similarity between the names of Ellie Goulding and Elliot Gould, but comedian Dan Antopolski as John Keller segues the coincidence into a theory about Ellie being the reincarnation of Elliot Gould. “But Elliot Gould is still alive,” points out the doctor interviewing him. “Is he though?” asks John.

The film is one of three featuring John Keller, a conspiracy theorist with more than a small suggestion of one-time Hereford United player David Icke, though in Keller’s case, there’s not a master race of reptiles - in the reality he inhabits, ducks rule the world.

“The stuff I wrote for these films was virtually indistinguishable from the things he says. Highly articulate, the majority of what he says is credible and that mesmerises you into thinking - briefly - that he’s making sense.”

Dan, winner of last year’s funniest Joke of the fringe*, has been a stand-up comedian for the past 17 years, the only career he’s ever known. “I started because friends of mine were doing it. I went along to see my friend and he was good, but others weren’t and I realised you don’t have to be good, you just have to show up and I caught the bug quickly.”

And having caught the bug and worked incredibly hard: “I had a good beginning and was quite rabid about getting stage time. The show got off to a good start and then you drift along and you’ve become a professional and don’t have to do anything else to live.”

Gigging wherever he could, begging promoters for five-minute spots, his efforts were rewarded with a BBC New Comedy Award within a year and there was no need for a backstop career.

One critic in Edinburgh described Dan’s show, somewhat dismissively, as ‘disposable comedy’, but, counters Dan, “I’m not setting myself up as a demagogue. If my comedy has any meaning, it’s in the playfulness. The business of comedy is about wrongfooting expectations, and on a good day, people will take away something that feels not insubstantial.

“I would not presume to go into the political arena - I don’t have enough of a handle on it.”

What Dan does have a handle on in spades, though, is a cracking way with words. With a degree in linguistics, perhaps it’s unsurprising that for him the words and word associations come first - “I start with the nugget of an idea that’s usually word based” - and then build a situation around it.

As well as touring his current show, Turn of the Century, which comes to Ludlow Assembly Rooms on Friday, March 2, Dan is working with fellow standups Tom Craine and Nat Luurtsem on a new sketch project called Jigsaw, which will feature on a forthcoming BBC3 show, Live at the Electric, hosted by Russell Kane.

Dan Antopolski brings his Turn of the Century tour to Ludlow Assembly Rooms on Friday, March 2. To book, call the box office on 01584 878141 or go to ludlowassemblyrooms.co.uk *Hedgehogs. Why can’t they just share the hedge?”