Maxim: We know you're raring to go with these, so without further ado, let's hear your 'Top Ten Things You Should Never Do At A Dinner Party'
Russell: Ok then, here we go!
1, Light a fart.
2, Run in and shout "Can someone help me deal with this rape?" then say "NOT REALLY!"
3, Murder the family pet
4, Eat everything from the buffet and then make yourself sick, on purpose, into a bucket
5, Toss your keys into the middle of the table then ask "So when do we start fucking?"
6, Draw a cock on the wall in the kitchen. That'd be brilliant. Old school cock, with the dotted lines coming out the end... maybe a pair of boobs too.
7, In the gap of a conversation not even slightly related, announce 'That Nick Griffin... he has got some good points though'.
8, Go to the toilet, leave the door unlocked, lay out a bunch of pictures of Hermione from the second Harry Potter film and 'set yourself up' so to speak, wait for someone to open the door and yell 'GET OUT!'
9, Play footsie with the disabled granny that can't tell on you... just imagine it; 'Urr urrr!' 'Oh look she's trying to say something!'
10, Sticking with the Harry Potter theme, go up to a girl you fancy, do a burp and then shout 'EXPELIONSE!' in her face
Maxim: We get the feeling you have a slight thing for Hermione. We're not in counselling mode at the minute so let's not address that. How's the Lynx campaign coming?
Russell: I was at this really dodgy house yesterday to shoot for Lynx, it just felt like a total orgy house. It was really hard not to spontaenously have an orgy. Proper 80's style... downstairs they had a 'party room' with a glitter ball and a row of vintage red wine. Pretty pimping. Had a pool and everything.
Maxim: Are you sure you weren't there just to have an orgy and this is your way of coming clean about it?
Russell: Oh if only.
Maxim: Clearly we're not going to be going to any house or dinner parties with you... but what's your favourite place to go out drinking?
Russell: Luckily enough I live in Southend-on-Sea, so it's one glorious piss-heads paradise. Behind every skip, there's a romance happening. You won't find a single sambucca that hasn't been lit in the whole high street, like some kind of peace parade.
Maxim: Any good stories from Essex or surrounding areas then? We've ventured out to Romford and Southend before you know.
Russell: There's a good bit of graffiti in Southend that I like to tell people about. This cafe tried to do something posh on the chalk board by writing 'Join us! There'll be coffee, croissants and french toast!' The best part was someone had gone and got some chalk, come back to the sign, crossed out 'French toast' and written 'EGGY BREAD' underneath.
Maxim: Keeping it real. You made mention of it in your previous stand up shows, but have you actually been heckled by old people?
Russell: Yeah. They tend to feel like they have the least to lose type thing, you know, the right old crusty ones right up the back who'd be thinking 'Oh I could be dead tomorrow...' then roaring 'YOU C*NT!' from the back. I still really want to get heckled from a Stannah stair lift though. Just to have them slowly whirring up the stairs, go 'Lego haired wanker!' and whir back down again.
Maxim: That'd be pretty surreal. But not entirely unbelieveable. Do you have any favourite comebacks for hecklers?
Russell: I do try to improvise at the time, based on who they are or what they look like. I do have a couple of standard ones though, so for your typical hard guy it's usually "How about you come back with your remaining chromosomes and heckle me again?". Or when a girl heckles me I say "How can you speak out like that when you're the type of woman who'd rohypnol her own drink?", which tends to do the trick.
Maxim: That's pretty good. You could use that in day to day life.
Russell: Well... I wouldn't use it in Greggs or anything.. "You look like you'd rohypnol your own drink! ...cheese and onion slice please'
Maxim: Point taken. What did you do before you became a money making funnyman?
Russell: I used to work in marketing and P.R. as a copywriter. So for this Wingman Lynx thing I've been doing, I would've written the script, a lower quality version of it anyway. That's what I used to do. Then I went from writing scripts to performing them and sort of drifted into stand-up from that. It was only supposed to be a hobby. I'd never really seen stand-up nor had much of an interest in it, it wasn't even something I particularly enjoyed. Then I just got up one night and did it as a dare, and then started doing it more and more often. When you have a really tense job, it's good to have something to do that completely unrelated. I learnt French for a while, started a masters, tried painting... all these different things and stand-up was just one of those that span out of control.
Maxim: So you don't really have any main influences then?
Russell: Never. I'd never been to see live stand-up before in my life. I always thought Eddie Murphy was just an actor. I had no idea about Raw. Obviously, subsequently I've gone and watched it amongst others, Eddie Izzard, Lee Evans, stuff like that. I'd also been to Jongleurs once when I was drunk with work, but I barely remember it. About a week before I started doing my own stand-up, I googled 'stand-up comedy' and went along to the first club I could find. Didn't know what a punchline was, but that's not stopped me since! I went two or three times to see some live comedy leading up to my own gig, but they were the first times I'd been. It made people think I was being really original, 'He's so brave, leaving all those gaps out like that, he's so post-modern' but really I didn't have a clue what I was doing.
Maxim: Just roll with it! Best moment on stage so far?
Russell: Best moment was doing stand-up at the Hammersmith Apollo, it was just fantastic. It's almost like a reverse running order when they record there. They do two shows back to back, it's a FOUR HOUR recording so the audience is tired, so it's not like a normal gig where the headliner goes on last, at a TV gig, everyone wants to go on first. I was the least known and got put on last. Mr Office-Junior. It had Lenny Henry, Andy Parsons, Ed Byrne, I was terrified. The audience don't realise, and they're expecting people to get more and more famous. When the door opened you literally felt the applause just half, everyone thinking 'Who the fuck is that person?'. For the first couple of minutes, scary, 3,500 people going "WHO ARE YOU?!" and then to feel it turn, and to start ripping it. Especially with an audience that didn't know me and who were absoloutely knackered, it was just amazing to turn that around.
Maxim: Very impressive. We wouldn't wanna try that. Worst moment?
Russell: Most humilating would have to have been when I was in the middle of a gig when I was still quite new, about four and a half years ago, it wasn't going too well. I was on this little stage at the top of a pub, the audience weren't really liking me, then the pub dog just came out of nowhere and sniffed my nuts right when I was having a low moment on stage. You know how big Great Danes are? You don't really wanna touch 'em, so I just had to let this beast have it's way with me. I just died on my arse. You can't really recover from that.
Maxim: Not when the dog steals the show no...
Russell: That's a bad moment.
Maxim: When you appeared on Live at the Apollo!, you drew alot on comparisons between 'us' and 'them', namely the English and the Americans. Do you have any other favourite comparisons?
Russell: Australians. I've been gigging in Australia alot, whereas with the Americans it's easy for us to see the contrast because they're (fakes tongue-in-cheek American accent) big, bold, brash, neurotic, annoying and nobody in the world really likes them... you kind of feel they pay the price for all that confidence. (overly English accent) We're quiet, inward, stony, shy and slightly arrogant... so the Australians are very odd in the sense they have all the big mannerisms of the Americans but they're laid back at the same time. We can't really understand it. (Aussie accent time) They have the ability to say something they're really fucking passionate about and then not give a shit about the thing they just said. (back to normal Russell) Which to us is just amazing, you feel like you could totally go and live there... or at least do a gap year. They go to the theatre in vests and shorts as well. I did this posh gig in Queensland and this guy was sitting in the front row... I could see half his areola hanging out. Just weird to think he has a 'theatre vest'. You can see him at home now "Have you seen my theatre vest Muriel?" "Yeah, it's right next to your funeral shorts."
Maxim: How do you feel about the advertising campaign you're doing with Lynx?
Russell: It's really good fun. I can't wait to see it. As a comedian, I wouldn't do something like this unless I thought it was funny. You have to be really careful with stuff like that, you don't wanna be getting sent scripts, then calling up and asking "How much?". We've been out and about today working with members of the public, just pulling guys off the street and making them do 'Wingmen' moves, doing different charges at women. One of the Wingmen moves I was doing at the shoot was 'How to disable the ugly girl that's getting in the way of the target', to enable your mate to get to the hot girl and pull her instead. In order to do that though I had to pull the ugly girl and snog her... It's called a kamikaze wingman, so you can help your mate get laid and go home with a nice 'my work here is done' kind of feeling.
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Watch the Tutorials at www.facebook.com/lynxeffectuk to see the Lynx Wingman delivering effective anti-irritation, from new Lynx Dry+ Sensitive.
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