Interview: Eric Rushton

Eric Rushton is living his dream of being a comedian. And he's not sure he likes it.

"It's funny, I'm going through a crisis at the moment about whether comedy is definitely making me happy” the 28-year-old admits. “I don't think I would be as happy without it. But is that a worry? Is my identity solely wrapped around this one thing? Am I using the dopamine, with everybody thinking 'you're a legend' for 20 minutes, rather than actually dealing with the insecurities I have?”

A little bit awkward, a little deadpan, with a low-energy style that saw some initially confuse him with a character comic, Rushton's act has been described by fellow stand-up Jamie Sutherland as “monetising his social freak”. At last year's Fringe, his producer, who has experience of working with neurodivergent comedians, respectfully asked if he'd ever sought a diagnosis. The standout, bleakly hilarious routine of his show Not That Deep, where he talked about having to write three good jokes a day or he'd kill himself, felt considerably nearer the knuckle when an acquaintance took their own life during the festival.

Rushton had started his run with the “massive confidence boost” of having just been named the inaugural winner of The Channel 4 Sean Lock Comedy Award, recognising that he embodied the alternative comedic spirit of the late, playfully inventive comic. It also secured him development with Steve Coogan's production company Baby Cow, writing a sitcom based on his experience of having seven siblings. But, incredibly, when he came to self-produce and film Not That Deep as a special, it proved notable for him having to eject his older brother from the front row for being too disruptive.

His 2022 debut, I Had A Dream And You Were All In It, recalled his father's death. But it also showcased a romantic streak “that's a running theme throughout my life”. For all that he favours wearing bright tracksuit tops on stage, for the contrast of this “nerdy, beta persona going all Stormzy or into beast mode”, there remains an endearing, loveable vulnerability to the Midlander that's acutely showcased in the 2015 documentary Eric Rushton Won't Die Alone, shot while he was a painfully shy student at Warwick University. Conflating his comedy career with “looking for 'The One'”, the film captures his earliest stand-up and follows him preparing for his very first date, encouraged and enabled by his friends in the university's comedy society, including Arnold T. Rice, who still shoots his work, and a young Kat Sadler, creator of the acclaimed sitcom Such Brave Girls, whose path into television he hopes to emulate.

“That was my way of trying to fit in” Rushton recalls. “I'd always wanted to do comedy as a kid but was too scared, I was never a drama kid at school. I thought I'd maybe like to write scripts one day. But this comedy society, I threw myself into it and forced myself to do stand-up. My first year away from home, coming from a big family, it was nice to find another family who took me under their wing.

“I was really self-conscious about my appearance at 18, which still lingers, so it's mad that we filmed my first date. Was I distracting myself from living normally, making 'content' to deflect? It took the pressure off because we were making a silly video. It didn't matter if it was embarrassing and she didn't want to see me again.”

His latest show, Real One, finds Rushton further confronting adult life and his dreams, recalling how he was fired as a maths teacher, supposedly at the same school he once dodged expulsion from for his sweet selling racket. Sacked for “potentially threatening behaviour”, for aggressively pursuing the thief of his £2.99 decaffeinated Lidl coffee, it's his "most personal" show he reckons, about how the bullied boy begat the troubled young man.

So what would a successful Fringe be for him?

“Finding 'The One'. Someone from Hollywood putting me in a Marvel film. I'd love to skyrocket to huge, external success and validation.

“Or,” he smiles, “just a mediocre run that comes with the realisation that happiness comes from within.”