ROB AUTON is returning to Reading once again as part of the tour of his brand new show, The Crowd Show.
Combining comedy, theatre, and spoken word, Auton will bring together the threads of his eclectic stylings and influences together for the latest of his live shows.
He says that The Crowd Show is: “Probably the most meta, and the most ‘present’ I’ve been, as it were.
“It’s about crowds, which I was going to take up to Edinburgh Festival in 2020– obviously the pandemic happened and I couldn’t do that.”
He also feels that this latest work may be some of his funniest: “not to blow my own trumpet,
“But it’s different because I think I’ve worked on it more than any others, since I had longer to write it.
“There’s been a lot more putting things in, taking things out– the trial and error of creating the show.”
Counter-intuitively, the higher level of perfecting the work has also led to the show being more topical, too.
“The process has been a lot longer, but I think also it’s taken in current events more than any of my other shows.
“Even though I don’t talk about the pandemic in the show, it is very much a response to something that happened.
“It made me think about people in my life, togetherness, and the privilege it is to get to be in front of a crowd, so when that was taken away from me the love that I have for it came to the foreground.”
When it comes to producing a show, Auton says he takes inspiration from Bruce Springsteen: “and he’s always talking about the value of work.
“And how that makes us feel to make things, to sit yourself down and put yourself to work, because it’s galvanising.”
Auton took notice of Springsteen’s advice: “I printed out the script– well, my printer is broken, so I’ll go to the print shop, print off 18 sides or so, and it will cost me like four quid each time.
“Then I’d come back and copy out the words onto an A4 pad, which made me think about the words that I’d written.
“Having to write them out is a bit of a pain so if there was something that didn’t work, it raises its head quite quickly.
“If it feels like it’s not worth copying, I just scrap it.”
He said also that there is something about how this process leads to a more analytical approach: “You might find that something you’ve written has got value, but you look at the specific words.
“It makes you think three or four times about the choice of words, and I get a real kick out of that, as words are the most important things in my shows, and probably are for a lot of stand-ups and performers.”
He also enjoys performance, “or more the art of it– no one can tell me whether it’s right or wrong.
“Sometimes I’m made to feel like what I’ve done is right, and sometimes I’m made to feel like it’s wrong, whereas really it’s just in a completely grey area.
“Sometimes people like it, sometimes people don’t, but long as I’ve put myself through that process, the writing and the ideas have come from the same place.”
As well as Springsteen, Auton also invokes Leonard Cohen: “He’s got a thing where he says that if he knew where his good songs came from, he’d go there all the time.”
The process can be draining, he warns, while not always physically: “that is the way that I’m getting my ideas across, and I love it because it’s hard to do.
“I mean it’s not hard to get on the train, but I mean there’s not much safety net there, so it takes courage.
“If I’m prepared to take that risk, I should be able to do what I want to do – I think that’s what art is.”
When it comes to his art, Auton admits that live performance is one of the more fleeting media to work in compared to more permanent or physical works such as painting or music.
Some of his performances have been recorded, but it is his podcast which makes up most of his recorded work.
He says that the podcast gives him flexibility and freedom, which can be more difficult in live performance.
“I just want to be able to do what I want, which is to be able to answer the call of my ideas, and a podcast can just be.
“It can be a short story one day, it can be a longer story, could be a poem or a song or something like that.
“With live stuff, people go out with expectations because it’s billed as comedy.
He contends that his output can vary by performance, naturally: “What makes it really exciting is that I might turn up to a place feeling like I’m not sure about the gig or the material.
“But adrenaline pulls you through and people in the room seem to latch onto something, and then there’s that energy in the room.
“Different little fireworks of stuff can go off, an audience can be like that sometimes– I think it’s that energy that I’m after.”
He says that this is the magic of live performance: “You’ve gotta surf it, and I do feel like I have got to respond to it.
“Ken Dodd would say you’re a composer, and the audience is your orchestra, but I’m not quite that; he’s been doing three-hour shows for about sixty years.”
“But if I got to his age and could do it, I’d love to be able to do my shows in the morning like he does– that’s what I’m working towards.”
Auton will be performing at South Street Arts Centre as part of his tour, and he says that he is fond of the venue.
“I’ve done South Street a few times, and I do love it there, but even though I’ve had it some times where you look forward to those shows especially,
“But then I think it’s important to go into a gig with a kind of a neutral thing, almost like driving, you can’t get excited about it because you might take your eye off the wheel.
“You’ve got to take it seriously and try to do a good job.”
Even, he admits, if comedy in particular can be somewhat overlooked.
“I want to make people laugh, of course, but I want to be able to do other things– comedy is great, and it’s an art form.
“Austin Powers and Ace Ventura aren’t taking home best film or an Oscar, because there needs to be a mix, and more often than not people come up to me and say that I made them cry rather than laugh.
“Maybe that’s because they weren’t expecting it, but I want to make people feel things.
“People remember how you made them feel, and you can make people think about their own lives — they don’t wanna think about mine.”
He also says that he wants to create things which have a lasting relevance: “I don’t want to make shows that age badly.
“I know that I could do my show about the colour yellow in fifty years, and it would still make sense.
“That’s where it becomes something else, like an abstract painting will always be abstract, that’s kind of what I want to be able to do.
“For people to be able take things away from it no matter where they are, or when.”
While he admits that this might be ambitious, he says that it’s exactly as it should be.
“I’ve got big ideas for what I want to do and I think you have got to be ambitious, because I’ve got to love my work more than I love anyone else’s work,
“With that, I’m aware that all this is completely temporary, so my brain, whether it’s working at the moment, allows me, thankfully– to write ideas that some people at shows like
“It’s working enough for me to be able to get booked and do gigs and do decent venues–who knows when that will stop.”
He says that he’s still trying to find something that will be able to last after he’s gone, but for the time being he is more than satisfied just to hear from audience members.
“Someone walking down the street or cooking some pasta and thinking about a line in my shower that they heard, that’s enough of a legacy for me at the moment.
“Or if they come up and say that they enjoyed the show even that their mate went and thought it’s great, that’s enough for me.”
His podcast, The Rob Auton Show, is available to stream via most podcast providers.
Rob Auton’s latest live show, The Crowd Show, is touring the UK, including a show at South Street Arts Centre on Thursday, November 3.
For tickets, visit: whatsonreading.com.
