Reginald D Hunter: ‘I know I’m gonna piss someone off this time’

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/apr/30/reginald-d-hunter-interview-comedy-uk-tour

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The velvet-voiced US comic Reginald D Hunter recently presented Songs of the South on TV, exploring America’s deep south, where he grew up, and its musical heritage. His last tour wasn’t short of controversy, thanks to his performance at the Professional Footballers’ Association awards in 2013 and a Facebook spat with an audience member who took offence. Now he’s returning to the stage with another uncompromising live show, The Man Who Attempted To Do As Much As Such.

Has filming Songs of the South made you reappraise that part of the world?

It has and it continues to. I feel like I’m still downloading that experience. I haven’t watched it though, I don’t want to see that version of me, I’m not normally so challenged by my circumstances or that introspective. I have to say that when I’m in the south, I don’t spend much time in the heat, but for Songs of the South, I really got acquainted with sunburn. I was going into little stores, asking black people for suncream, they’re looking at me saying “what?!” So I will no longer tease white people about sunburn anymore. Please excuse my insensitivity for that before.

How often do you go back to Georgia?

I go home home about once a year, just got back about 10 days ago from my yearly visit to Georgia. My 96-year-old father is there, and my oldest sister right down to me.

Is it right you say you have two funnier sisters than you?

Oh yes, Cathy and Jackie. I would say I’m the fourth funniest person in the family, but first in confidence. Right now I’m also behind my nephew Chancey, who’s in his 30s and has done a tour of Iraq and Afghanistan, and surviving that has somehow made him funnier. My father used to be funny, but when he turned 94 his timing went a bit. I say to him – don’t use that being nearly 100 years old excuse.

What’s going through you’re mind when you’re about to go back to Georgia?

I’m trying to uncomplicate myself, to actively try to take myself less seriously. That’s something I have to master before I go out there. In the south they like things so literal and direct, I have to leave my more tortured and conflicting self behind in the UK, and resume when I get back. I have to focus on getting on with my friends and family as well as I can.

What can you say about the contents of the new show? You’re often reluctant to reveal much.

Well, I can’t really tell you much about it [laughs]. But I know it’s gonna be different. I’m different. The documentary shook me to the core of my own racisms. I definitely don’t feel the same as I did about a year ago, about anything, and I’m less angry about things like racism, gender politics, capitalism, ex-girlfriends … I used to feel a lot of negative things about ex-girlfriends, now I feel I’ve graduated a lot of young girls from Reginald University and they’ve gone on to bigger and better relationships.

Is this the proverbial mellowing as you get older?

I don’t know about mellower. I’m more interested in coming up with humorous solutions, than making humour from the quagmire of problems there are out there.

When do you feel funniest?

I didn’t feel funny filming Songs of the South. Then when I toured eastern Europe [last year], I didn’t feel funny then, not when you have an interpreter.

Your last tour was controversial [he was criticised for a routine at a Professional Footballers’ Association awards dinner and during his tour was accused of misogyny following a Facebook post he wrote in response to an online review]. Are things more relaxed in the Hunter camp now?

Things are quieter now. Currently my camp is battening down the hatches as they know the storm is coming. Judging by what people got pissed off with last time, I know I’m gonna piss someone off this time. I think because of social media now and because of the feeling for democracy, it makes lot of uninformed and unintelligent people very vocal with their opinions. I’m talking about outragists, people looking for something to be outraged by. They will have plenty to be outraged by.

But win, lose or draw, I’m gonna say what I think. If I say something, then I’ve put thought into it and can back it up. What makes me bold is that I believe I’m man enough to say, I’m wrong and you’re right. I have no fear about admitting I’m wrong.

What’s your appraisal of all that, looking back on it?

Well, the PFA thing, I know it happened to me, but doesn’t feel like it did. No one who had anything to do with the gig said anything to me at the time. The only dismay I heard about was in the newspapers, their recounting of it was entirely different to what I experienced at the time. As far as I can make out, there seems to be an ongoing battle between the sports establishment and the tabloid establishment, and I was war fodder for that day.

What about the Facebook post [in reply to an audience member who accused him of misogyny] – do you have any regrets about that?

I regret my choice of wording of some of the things I said, but I meant everything. I was basically talking about something emotional and intellectual, and in those heightened times, those adjectives sounded like I was gonna do something in the physical. I used violent-sounding words, but I was talking about nothing of her person if you look at the whole sentence.

I was being gotten at for what some of my followers said, but there’s a difference between having followers on Facebook and being a cult leader.

The type of people I’ve had social media fights with, these people are consumerist, they feel that from the privacy of their own home they can say any raggedy thing to you or anyone else. You don’t have to yell at them, you just have to look at them and they become mealy-mouthed. You have to remember that she put a lengthy and unfair troll-like review of my show on my Facebook page. I didn’t just not like her attitude, it also seemed to represent something pervasive and growing, and someone had to say something.

Are you still doing corporate bookings?

Fewer and fewer…

• Reginald D Hunter tours the UK with The Man Who Attempted to Do as Much as Such, from 27 April