Stuart Laws is no ordinary stand-up comic. We might even go as far as dubbing him something of a renaissance chap. Not only does he do his own ‘regular’ shows, he’s directed sets by the likes of James Acaster, Harriet Kemsley and Ivo Graham, made a documentary in 2022 about Edinburgh Fringe debutantes called The Debuts, runs independent production company Turtle Canyon Comedy, wears a blue gilet on stage, and puts on crazed affairs such as the Comedians Beer Mat Flipping Championship. And none of this even touches his Michael Caine stuff: a short clip of Laws playing the aged actor failing badly to deliver the line ‘never’ (‘nevaaaaah!!!) from Batman Begins went positively viral. This led to a full hour of this madness at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe which also featured Nish Kumar as a frustrated Christopher Nolan, Amy Gledhill as a furious Christian Bale, and Chris Cantrill who came on to change a lightbulb. Not knowing quite where to begin, Brian Donaldson kicks off their Zoom chat by noticing an interesting hat in the background.

What’s with the interesting hat in the background? I’m in my Turtle Canyon office now, and that’s a prop on top of a wig prop which is on an I, Robot bust. Remember when DVDs used to be so prestigious that they would release limited edition versions? That is not a movie which deserves that level of prestige. I wore the hat in this morning and I always pop it on there.

You’ve been described as an ‘absurdist lunatic of a comedian’. Do you recognise that in yourself? This was before I had started talking about myself on stage properly and ‘absurdist lunatic’ was absolutely what I was going for. I’ve criticised that impulse in comedy to reveal really personal stuff before you’re ready to do that. There’s an arms race of how vulnerable you can be on stage, inspired by things like Tig Notaro’s half-hour set or Acaster’s Cold Lasagne Hate Myself. Sometimes it hits so perfectly but sometimes it just makes a person rake up this trauma, and every time they’re doing the show without having processed it properly. Anyway, I now do shows about personal stuff.

It became a classic Edinburgh thing when it felt like comedians couldn’t just come up and do an hour of jokes. Maybe comedy got more interesting by having that different storytelling style, but did it just become its own cliché in the end? In 2017 I did a show that was a parody of a Fringe show where it was about the love of my life and her dying but it was also about fridging which is that trope where male characters are given a greater emotional depth by having a woman die. There was already a trend for people to do an hour where they have a little cry at the 40-minute mark sort of thing. It spread out what the artform can be, but it also led to a lot of people desperately going through their life for something to talk about while it pushed others to go the other way and say ‘there’s nothing serious about this, it’s just jokes’ and to be almost patronising about people who do stories.

In 2013, if someone had asked you to be part of a documentary about Edinburgh Fringe debutantes, do you think you would have said yes? I would have said yes because I’m an idiot. I feel so lucky that my early stand-up is not documented online in any way. There’s nothing in it that I’d be cancelled for, but there would be clips that the meaner comics (and I count myself in that occasionally) share to be like ‘have you seen what this person did back ten years ago?’ There’d be shit jokes or whimsy that just sort of peters out in a way that you’re like ‘oh man, what are you playing at?’ In my documentary, I didn’t want to include any stand-up in it because people often make a value judgment on the person based on whether or not they found the comedy funny: that whole ‘so-called comedian’ stuff. I was more interested in how they were doing personally.

I need to bring up the gilet. Do you wear it for style or comfort? Or is it an identity thing? What is it? Where did it come from? I did my debut in 2013, in t-shirt and jeans. In 2014, producer Jason Dawson, who’s now a commissioner at Dave, came along which was one of the very first times that the industry had come to see me. I’d broken my wrist so I had a plaster cast on. Afterwards he was very nice about the show and said that ‘having your arm in a cast made us as an audience think that this guy is not your normal jeans and t-shirt comedian.’ I had a routine about wearing the hunting gilet and the idea of wearing one suddenly struck me suddenly struck me. I went to an outdoor store and saw one that was for ages eight to ten and it somehow fitted me. I thought okay so there’s some Jones that we had in that. I then opened for James Acaster on his tour in the autumn and at the end of it he bought me what is still the gilet I wear.

Have you ever had any feedback from Michael Caine about ‘never’? I occasionally quote-tweet him if he’s posted one of his wilder takes on things with a link to it. The original video is innocent enough and he’d probably have a sense of humour about that, but the live show goes more into his politics in a way that perhaps he would be like ‘these fuckers are taking the piss out of me.’

Did someone suggest that you do this for an hour? Or did you just think: can I do this for an hour? I did a fake post on Twitter about ‘Stuart Laws as Michael Caine saying never at the London Palladium’ which led to lots of people saying they didn’t realise this was an actual thing. I had enough people replying to it that I got excited. I kicked that can down the road but then David Bleese at Monkey Barrel asked if I had any ideas for one of these loose slots they keep open. I just threw it at him and he called my bluff. I was so lucky that Nish Kumar and Amy Gledhill were so up for it straight away. I’m going to do it again at the Machynlleth Comedy Festival with a whole new cast for Nolan and Bale and the camera operator. So this might be a thing I do once or twice a year.

Can you look at a beer mat now without not wanting to flip it? All I want to find is a beer mat I can’t flip. My dad taught me it in working men’s clubs and pubs when I was younger. And it just became a fixation that has stuck with me, so when I couldn’t get anyone interested enough to do it as a web series I had to do it as a live show to plant my IP flag in the sand and be like this is mine. I’m just getting ridiculously good line-ups because it’s a low-pressure, late-night darts vibes, and people are up for it. I’ve had Rosie Jones, Ed Gamble, Phil Wang, Jordan Gray, Helen Bauer, and Ellis James all do it. One day I will break the world record. It currently stands at 74 individual beer mats flipped in a minute. I can get to the mid-60s comfortably but need a very, very long table to get to 75.

Stuart Laws Has To Be Joking? tours until Tuesday 3 June.