Stand-up comic strip for Viz creator Simon

Jan 25 2009 by Coreena Ford, Sunday Sun

THEY’RE funny, they’re brash, and now they’re coming to life.

Yes, Biffa Bacon and Sid the Sexist are leaping off the comic strip and on to the stage.

Viz creator Simon Donald kept people smiling for years when he was editor of the famous comic.

And he’s now gone a step further by creating real-life comedy characters which he plays in his new stand-up set.

Simon — who quit the legendary laughter organ in 2003 — revealed how he is revelling in a mammoth tour of the UK. He said: “It’s going down brilliantly. The fabulous thing for me is that punters are really keen to book me. I was doing OK before on the local scene, but now I’m getting gigs nationally.”

Simon, of Jesmond, Newcastle, first tried his hand at stand-up comedy back in 2006. But he put his new career on hold last year when his brother Steve — who co-founded Viz with Simon and their brother Chris — was diagnosed with cancer.

He acted as Steve’s full-time carer, with support from Macmillan nurses and other medical help, but Steve tragically lost his battle with cancer last November.

Simon said: “The comedy and everything else was put on the back burner when Steve was ill. I lived with him and effectively became his carer.

“I spent a lot of time with him and, although it was very tragic, it was time in which I got much closer to him.”

Following Steve’s death, Simon has decided to relaunch his comedy career, and he’s planned a series of dates in Newcastle, Carlisle, Manchester, Wigan and London, having already played several on Tyneside, and in Southend in Essex and Huddersfield, South Yorkshire.

He said: “I’m really just establishing the act. When I first did stand-up comedy three years ago, I used to talk about Viz characters and how they were based on real-life people we witnessed, like the mother punching her son on the Metro who became Biffa Bacon.

“But I’ve always been good at impressions and putting on voices, so rather than going on stage and talking about characters, I’m actually going on stage as them . . . and it’s been massively popular.

“My long-term ambition is to put them on YouTube and to go to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year, and for my friend and fellow comedy writer Alex Collier and I to put together a proper sketch show.

“It could make a fabulous TV show, with Alex doing lots of bits of animation and me doing sketches with the characters.”

Of his new characters, Simon said: “Bingo from Benton is basically a drunken lout, Domonic Farquar is a student and Barry S**thouse is a market research guy. Barry was indirectly inspired by my brother Steve because we both talked about how much we loathed and despised researchers.

“It was the first job Steve had to do when he was starting out in the film industry too, and we had long conversations on their absolute worthlessness.

“I go on stage and say, ‘I’m just going to take up five minutes of your time’, and then go into this long mission statement about how we’ve been interviewing young children to find out what’s important to them. He went down an absolute storm at recent gigs.

“My third character lives in Jesmond, shops in Tescos and wears shorts and one of those floppy Norwegian hats, and is constantly on his mobile phone. He’ll appeal to anyone who doesn’t like loudmouths.”

For more details on Simon’s tour, join his group, Bingo from Benton and Friends, on Facebook.

Page 2: Meet Simon's new characters...