Finally, be aware of burn out. The problem with this is that there’s many forms of ‘burn out’. Whether that’s working too hard, whether that is losing the love of performing, writing, travelling, whether it’s becoming bitter. It’s really hard to lose your mind when you become your own boss, but especially when you do something that looks so fun, but actually has a lot of work behind the scenes.
As a part of our series called “Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Professional Comedian”, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Dave Chawner.
Dave’s a number 1 best-selling author, award-winning stand up, presenter & mental health campaigner.
Dave’s 1st Edinburgh show, Normally Abnormal, sensitively used humour to explore his anorexic past. The show received critical acclaim, had sell-out shows and went on UK tour. As a result, the show was given an award by The UK’s Eating Disorder Charity at The Houses Of Parliament in 2014.
In 2015 Dave was asked to give a TED Talk on the topic of eating disorders. This caught the attention of a publisher and he was asked to write a book based on his experiences. This became Weight Expectations — part memoir, part self-help guide aiming to engage, entertain and educate people about anorexia.
Since then Dave has gone on to do shows about adult circumcision, veganism, philosophy and mental health.
In 2023 he won Pegasus’ Comedy Awards ‘Ongoing Comedian Of The Year’ at The Edinburgh Fringe.
Dave has been a stand-in for BBC’s Mock The Week & Channel 4’s Taskmaster and has appeared on BBC Breakfast, Good Morning Britain, ITV’s Lorraine, Jeremy Vine On 5, Radio 1, Radio 2 & Radio 4. His comedy special ‘Mental’ has recently been uploaded to ‘NextUp’
He has written for National newspapers including The Guardian, The Telegraph and Metro as well as numerous magazines including Cosmopolitan, GQ and Men’s Fitness.
Dave is patron of the award-winning Midlands based eating disorder charity First Steps, a patron of the mental health charity Recovery Assistance Dogs (AKA RAD), and a patron of Oakleaf in Guildford. He is a founding member of The Speaker’s Collective. He is Mental Health First Aid trained & a media ambassador for Mind, The Mental Health Foundation and Beat.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I grew up in The Midlands, and was lucky enough to go to a brilliant state school, which was the most underfunded school in Staffordshire. We knew this, so, as I was a Senior Student (basically ‘Head Boy’…but everyone called me ‘Senior Bumhead’) we struck a deal with the head of sixth form to give us the keys to the school over the summer holidays to ‘decorate’ the common room. There was a subwoofer, sofas, coffee machine, indoor soft cricket area to keep ‘The Jocks’ busy, a playstation to keep ‘the gamers’ happy and a stack of CD’s for Karaoke Friday — it was brilliant!
Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path as a comedian?
Back in school, the captain of the football team came up to me with a VHS and told me to give it a watch. It was Peter Kay Live At The Bolton Albert Halls. I watched it with a couple of mates and couldn’t believe it. When I was at Uni, someone told me there was a comedy club that ran every 2 weeks and invited me along with him and his housemates. I was hooked. I bought more and more people along with me and we saw incredible comedians like Rufus Hound, David O’Doherty, Josie Long, Stewart Francis, Carl Donnelly, an early James Acaster. Eventually I plucked up the courage to give it a go myself.
Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Whenever anything is the ‘most’, ‘best’ or ‘worst’ it puts a lot of pressure on the anecdote. I’m not sure of the most interesting story that has happened, but I do love that my first Edinburgh Fringe show was about how I developed anorexia. I got asked to write a book, Weight Expectations and I met my partner because she is a doctor who wrote her thesis on men with eating disorders, she was presenting her research at a conference where I was the keynote speaking and that’s how we got together!
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
My first gig went amazingly well. Weirdly well. The booker asked me to come back next week because Kerry Godliman was doing an Edinburgh preview and asked me if I would like to ‘warm up’. However, let’s just say that second gig didn’t go so well. It taught me that comedy can be a fickle friend. Sometimes you’re riding high, but don’t get cocky.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
It’s hard to thank people for helping you without it sounding like some schmaltzy Oscar acceptance speech. But the truth of the matter is that it isn’t one person. And I feel nervous to try and narrow it down. Different people help in different ways and I’m very grateful to each one.
You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?
The interesting thing about advice is it’s not always about the person giving it. Different people need different advice. You never know what the other person needs to hear. But, I think it’s safe to say, there’s no ‘one’ career path. There’s no ‘one’ definition of success. In terms of stand up, I always say you only need one thing — that’ the desire to do it. If you have that, eventually, everything else will fall into place.
You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?
Thank you! That’s very kind. Something I’m incredibly excited about is a comedy course I’ve created specially aimed at people with mental health issues to teach stand-up comedy to develop people’s confidence, build their connection with other people to combat loneliness and provide a platform for them to stand up for themselves. This has already been awarded a grant by The British Academy, so boffins at King’s College London, University Of Manchester, University Of Bristol and University of Kent can do some qualitative analysis, which has now been peer-reviewed and has been rolled out on various regional and national NHS Trusts. There’s even more exciting stuff to come, but I can’t share that just yet.
What do you do to get material to write your jokes? What is that creative process like?
It’s constantly changing. If there was an algorithm for writing jokes, Google or Chat GPT would’ve found it now. Maybe other people have a sure-fire, bulletproof way of writing solid gold, but I don’t. I’m always trying to find different ways of writing and am interested in hearing other people’s ideas.
Super. Here is our main question. What are your “Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Professional Comedian” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
Jesus, what a question. I think if you asked 1000 comics this, they would give you 1000 different answers.
I think it’s important to have a ‘side hustle’. Covid showed us all how fickle life can be, especially if you put all your eggs into one basket. I think it’s important to have something outside of comedy for numerous different reasons — whether that’s to generate income, to give you some perspective, or even to give you something more to talk about.
Surround yourself with good people. Stand up can be lonely, and there’s always ‘status angst’. If you can find people you like and like working with it makes the job a little less lonely.
It’s not all glamour! Sorry to be honest, it’s not what people want to hear, but believe me stand up can be far from champagne and caviar. Most nights it’s snakebite and pringles.
Even though it’s seen as a ‘fun’ job, it’s a lot of work. People don’t like talking about this, perhaps because it sounds like you’re complaining about what, for a lot of people, might be a dream job. I am not complaining at all — it’s a really privileged position to be in — but you have to work at it. And, from my meagre experience, the ‘work’ never stops, it just changes.
Finally, be aware of burn out. The problem with this is that there’s many forms of ‘burn out’. Whether that’s working too hard, whether that is losing the love of performing, writing, travelling, whether it’s becoming bitter. It’s really hard to lose your mind when you become your own boss, but especially when you do something that looks so fun, but actually has a lot of work behind the scenes.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Maybe not a ‘life lesson’ but I would say listen to the song ‘Wear Sunscreen’ by Baz Luhrmann. That gives you all the relevant life advice you need…and it’s funny too.
You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Unfortunately, I’m not Gandhi, Jesus or a prophet. I’m just a professional idiot. I wish I had an answer to this question, but I think this question is beyond me.
Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!
Danny Wallace — without doubt. His book ‘Yes Man’ is my favourite book, and it’s absolutely incredible. My lovely partner sent my dog eared copy of his book to his publisher in the hope of getting it signed and he did it! The book has pride of place, slap bang in the centre of our living room.
Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?
I will be honest, social media makes me want to rip my eyes out. I’m not good at it. I was quite active on Twitter (now X) but the whole thing has become a dumpster fire. You can visit my website https://www.davechawner.co.uk/
This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!
Thank you
Dave Chawner: Five Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Professional Comedian was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.