We bring you the second part of our interview with Stockholm-based stand-up comedian Al Pitcher, who we met for a great chat to talk about his comedy career and his life in Sweden.
You may have recently seen Al in his laugh-fest of a one-hour SVT special called “Fy Fan Sverige”, which is still available to watch on SVT Play until April 6th. Also check out the first part of our interview, in case you missed it earlier.
Al Pitcher moved to Sweden in 2010 and quickly made himself a name in the Swedish stand-up scene. Already in 2011 he won the Best Male Stand-up prize at the Swedish stand-up gala and he sees it as one of his greatest achievements in his professional life.
“That meant I was chosen by my peers, so that was a real massive pat on the back from Swedish comedians.”
Getting his own TV special last year was of course another great achievement in his career in comedy.
“It played 22:30 on a Friday night here and I was in New Zealand having my breakfast. I was looking at my phone and all these messages were coming through. It was pretty overwhelming. People were loving the show, but I was on the other side of the world. It was like giving birth outside my body…”
But there are more significant things in life, like family:
“My biggest achievement in life has been having children. Well I didn’t have them but I helped make them…”
We were curious about how the Swedish audience is for a comedian doing their show in English. Al says they can be a bit quiet up north. In any case, he tries to be very interactive with his stand-up and he does not like making jokes at the expense of the audience members: “Why would you come and pay a ticket to have that done to you.”
Al wants to make the audience feel good and forget things for a while.
“The times we are living in now… I don’t wanna go up on stage and talk about Trump. I don’t want to talk about politics. You don’t have a conversation nowadays without that word coming out. When people sit down and watch what I do, I want them to be taken away from that world. They’ve come to the show, they’ve probably booked a babysitter, they wanna laugh!”
“There’s no better feeling than saying something that’s in your head and somebody is laughing rocking backwards and forwards. It’s just amazing!”
Video: Karen Pérez Guzmán
Text & Photos: Nina Uddin
