Tim Key: A Slut Above

Coming fresh from hosting a Q&A with David Walliams at Stoke Newington Town Hall, Tim Key (Charlie Brooker’s poet, Steve Coogan’s sidekick) stumbles into what can best be described as a Dantean circle of hell. Few disasters can befall the unwitting interviewee more awkward than to conduct an interview only to realise that the person firing off questions is not his scheduled Fest interrogator.

"This guy caught my eye and came over; basically I thought it was you,” Key later tells me breathlessly over a lager in a boozer opposite the Town Hall. “He didn’t look too dissimilar to you and he did in fact know me: turns out I’d met him when I was doing a Strongbow advert about six years ago. So, I said ‘Hi, how are you?’ and we just started talking about children’s books. So, I’ve done about the first ten minutes of this interview already.

"Eventually he said, ‘I think you think I’m someone else’. I never got his name, so next time I see him I’ll just confidently go over and say ‘Mate, last time was a nightmare, wasn’t it?'”

Certainly a lot has happened to Tim Key in the six years since that last meeting with his anonymous admirer. He’s worked regularly on the Fringe with Mark Watson, Alex Horne and sketch group Cowards, and gained his first major TV exposure as Charlie Brooker’s resident poet on Newswipe, delivering typically astute comic verse on subjects ranging from Gordon Brown’s glass eye to the greed of contestants on Deal Or No Deal. 

2009 can be viewed as a major turning point for Key. His second solo Fringe show, The Slutcracker, won him the Edinburgh Comedy Award, beating off stern competition from the likes of John Bishop and Russell Kane, while he also appeared in Party, Tom Basden’s superb comic play about mediocre would-be politicos. But little could have prepared him for the epochal oddities of the last 12 months. Having been a massive fan of Steve Coogan and, in particular, Alan Partridge, Key says it was "overwhelming" to be cast alongside the North Norfolk Digital DJ as Sidekick Simon in the excellent online series Mid Morning Matters.

“It’s probably the most surreal job I’ve done, because Partridge is so deeply ingrained in my formative years,” says Key while crossing his arms across a dinosaur-themed shirt, brought back from Borneo by Mark Watson and his wife Emily Watson Howes.

“When I was in sixth form driving around to parties, we’d listen to Knowing Me Knowing You and The Day Today. They hit a sweet spot at a time when I was fleeing the nest and getting drunk and becoming interested in comedy. Being sat in such a confined space with that monster was a lot to take in.”

Equally surreal was being asked to pen 'The Princess And The Frozen Peas' ahead of April’s royal wedding, a cute-crude poem in which the Queen and the "D of E" assess Kate Middleton’s suitability to be part of their monarchic circle by applying a greens-based test straight out of a classic fairy story.

“I didn’t get any reaction from Buck House. Newsnight—or was it Channel 4 News?—somebody asked me what my opinion of the royal wedding was in the build-up. I didn’t have one. Well, I do have a sort-of opinion: I think it’s fine. Carry on, guys. So, there was no fallout from that bitingly satirical poem. I’m sure [the Duchess of Cambridge] does have a swear now and then. I’m pretty sure she’s more or less human, isn’t she?”

Another high-profile wedding Key wasn’t invited to was that of Charlie Brooker and Konnie Huq. But Key is also fine with that, given that his professional relationship with the seemingly grumpy one amounts to the odd nod of the head and a casual exchange of compliments.

Now, though, he has returned to the Fringe with his first full solo show since his award-winning outing in 2009. Following up Slut In The Hut and The Slutcracker is, perhaps inevitably, Masterslut. “It’s the third in a trilogy. It’s branding. It’s disappointing. The plan wasn’t to brand, but that came with the tipping point of the second show.”

Key describes Masterslut as a mix of poetry, comedy, avant-garde moments, a bit of film and possible "physical touching".

The keen of eye will spot certain similarities here with The Slutcracker. “It’s a lazy reworking of my 2009 show,” he jests. “You don’t want to just sit down and think ‘I enjoyed that bit, how can I make that happen again?’"

Key still harbours hopes that the BBC (or anyone for that matter) will allow him to get back with his Cowards buddys (Tom Basden, Stefan Golaszewski and Lloyd Woolf) to write more episodes on top of the three shown on BBC4 two years ago.

“There probably isn’t a future for Cowards, but it’s mortifying to think that,” Key sighs. “We wanted a proper six-episode series, but it feels like a raft that’s slowly floating away from the bank. If we made another three now and put them together, we’d have some episodes where we look really young and in other episodes we’ll be really old. And one of us is dead. It would be a weird sketch show that starts off a bit like The Inbetweeners and ends up like Dad’s Army."