Is Hal Cruttenden a Pound Shop Michael McIntyre? Before top comedian Hal gets lawyered up and there’s a big fat writ for defamation on my desk, please let me clarify! That phrase uses Hal’s own words. Not mine! Phew! Just saved my house and a shed load of stress.
In context; Hal is speaking to me about his new show which will tour soon for a mammoth number of nights – 59 shows booked between Sept 2025 and April 2026 – which he premiered to great acclaim at this year’s Edinburgh Festival.
At the time of writing this feature, Hal was nominated for “Best Show” in the Edinburgh Comedy Awards 2025, with 25 performances at the prestigious Pleasance Courtyard, Cabaret Bar. * That run closes on 24th August with some tickets available for the last few shows. *
It’s called: “Can Dish It Out But Can’t Take It”. I ask him where that title came from. “It just made me laugh and sums me up quite well at the moment. I’m seen as someone who is kind of cuddly and nice and sweet, then people see me live. I was thinking the other day, who I am I most like in my audience interaction and I realised it is Dame Edna Everage! Killing with kindness, done with an edge to it.
“I can be surprisingly tough I think. I can be surprisingly nasty, and I can surprise people with some of my topics. On TV I was doing lots of cuddly shows like, ‘The Apprentice You’re Fired!’, and I think I was seen as a kind of Pound Shop Michael McIntyre.
“My material is very, very different to Michael McIntyre. I do a lot on my divorce, I do a fair bit on politics. I think it is your duty as a comic to somehow mention the way the world is at the moment, because I believe it’s extraordinary and it is something we’ve never lived through before, the way politics is turning.”
As well as a top comedian, Hal is also a highly accomplished writer and actor. He has appeared on BBC TV’s “Live at the Apollo” three times and “The Royal Variety” twice. TV also includes “Have I Got News for You”, “Mock The Week”, “Would I Lie to You”, “The Apprentice You’re Fired,” “Bake Off Extra Slice”, “Pointless Celebrities”, “The Weakest Link Celebrity Special”, and “Celebrity Mastermind”. He’s written and starred in his own sitcom, “Hal” on BBC Radio 4 and has four of his stand-up shows on Amazon Prime.
Hal completed six nationwide tours between 2010 and 2023. Having originally trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, Hal’s acting career includes roles on TV and film in “Shackleton”; “Eastenders”; “Kavanagh QC”; “Out of the Blue”; “Touching Evil” and “Bramwell”.
He also appeared in the film “Mrs Dalloway” and plays Winston Churchill in a recent film alongside Simon Callow, which is yet to be released. Theatre work includes “Brexit” and “Making News” at the Edinburgh Festival and “Orwell A Celebration” at Trafalgar Studios, London and at the Edinburgh Festival.
Hal has appeared at Montreal’s “Just For Laughs” Festival three times and travelled across Canada on their “Just For Laughs Comedy” tours. He has performed on two “Just For Laughs Galas”, hosted by Joan Rivers (2008) and Howie Mandel (2012).
Other international appearances include Kilkenny Cat Laughs Festival in Ireland and tours to India, Bermuda, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Norway, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Indonesia, China, Hong Kong and Singapore. For the British Armed Forces he has played gigs in the Falkland Islands, Cyprus and Germany.
So how does Hal feel about us being in the age of “you cannot say that, because it is offensive/it offends me”? “It is so hard this; I am in the middle…I should call my show ‘middle of the road.’ It is a matter of degree; there is no; we should be able to say everything, because if we could say anything, then you’d have people absolutely being able to incite hatred.
“We have an American President who can say anything, but a comic inciting hatred against minority groups of society; we can’t really return to that. Let’s get away from when people are so ostracised from society that they kill themselves. But how do you do that while still doing comedy that can be edgy.
“People want comedy to be edgy, they want it to break taboos, but you have got to find out which taboos are the good ones to break. If you are going to have a go at someone who is not white, or make jokes about women and be derogatory about women… the safest bet is to attack the powerful and to attack yourself.
“But the concept of what is powerful depends on different groups; you have these people who are threatened by Pride flags and you go, well this is celebrating what for years was an oppressed group. Is that really so threatening to you? But in their minds, they think they are the powerful now and they should be able to make jokes about those people.”
“Generally, and I hate to say this, but your audience guides you. You can tell when you’ve got it wrong. I think usually an audience has the morals of the day, but also there’s that thing about going back; there’s jokes I wouldn’t do from seven years ago. You can’t blame people for what was ok 20 years ago, as they were working within the society they were in. It doesn’t mean they were deeply racist…
“I feel sorry for people who get abuse for things they did in their time. It is good it is changing and it is moving forward, but we don’t need to attack people and force them to apologise for things they did that seemed absolutely fine at the time. I don’t understand the hysteria about it.
“I have not been offended by hardly anything, and there are people who get offended at an awful lot of things, aren’t there? I don’t know where we draw the line. Some people look out for being offended; they said something that has trigged me and a sad memory, and I am at a comedy show and I am not meant to ever be disturbed by anything that is said. I think you probably are, and there is good comedy that does make you think about that stuff from the past.
“My dad died very young and suddenly, at only 50, and I remember people came round the house and we were crying, but also hysterical with laughter over things. There is a way of laughter being very healing and actually, the best jokes are about the darkest subjects, because that’s where it is needed the most. But people then think, oh that’s not respectful enough to my situation, but you go, well you were laughing at the other joke about a dark subject.
“It is a real minefield, but it has always been there. People have been going on about political correctness since the late 80s when I was at University, and I think people will always find ways to go where we can’t say anything now, or I am too offended now.”
I mention the fairly recent coverage of when Peter Kay had someone ejected from his show, and when there have also been episodes of violence against comedians from audience members, and ask if Hal has ever had to have someone removed from his show, and/or been threatened or attacked for his on-stage act.
“People have been ejected from my show, yes, but I don’t tend to order it; the audience make it happen. I think it is good and it is bold that comics say remove this person. I’m not in arena venues, so I don’t have lots of security staff where you feel so safe to do that.
“I had many more of those instances when I was less experienced as a comic. I don’t know whether I was more annoying 20 years ago or crowds were more violent. I think potentially crowds were more violent then. Certainly a night out in London in the week up to Christmas when firms have their office parties.
“I have been threatened about eight or nine times I’d say. I’ve had someone try to head butt me, people try to punch me, I’ve had people had to be held back from coming on to the stage. It’s usually people so drunk they don’t understand what’s going on.
“Now I’d get irate because I am in my 50s, but I had nothing for 10 years and then a guy came at me when I was warming up for my last big tour, angry about something I said about divorce. He thought I was having a go at him and I really wasn’t, and his friends had to hold him back and in that situation, I walk off.
“It was a little gig [warm up for the tour], it wasn’t a big arena or stadium and I said,’ Oh I don’t stay for this’ and I walked off. He got removed and I came back on. For me there was a strong feeling of, I don’t put up with this. I don’t come to work to get punched in the face, and nothing I say deserves being punched in the face for. That threat is pathetic and to get so drunk to do that for what a comedian says. ”
Hal also recounts the bizarre incident where a male audience member lots his rag in the middle of Hals’ show because of a joke about Boris Johnson! “I had a brand new show in 2022, I was doing a live streaming broadcast for ‘Next Up’, which is a live comedy broadcast channel , and I thought I was going to be punched on stage. I had made fun of Boris Johnson and I had one of the most right wing men in the audience, who suddenly got up and started shouting and screaming, and he did end up walking out.
“I said this next bit might annoy you if you are a massive Boris Johnson fan, and this guy went crazy and his wife walked out in embarrassment, and then he screamed at the audience and walked out.
“There was a little part of my brain going, if he punches me, I’ll go viral. The one time my show was live on the internet and I really thought I was going to get knocked out. A little part of me was going, how ambitious are you? Would you take a punch in the face and whatever damage that would entail, so it would go viral and your show will just take off?” NOTE: Hal didn’t give me his answer!
He did recall the time Australian comedian Jim Jeffries ironically had one of the biggest boosts of his career, when he was punched in the face in the Comedy Store in 2007 during his show, and the video footage of that assault made it on to Youtube and went viral.
I saw Eddie and that was it…
Jim is one of the comics Hal admires, and he thinks Dara O’Brien is “bloody great”. Ed Byrne’s last tour show was one of the best things Hal says he has ever seen. And his tip for a future comedy star is young comic Finlay Christie, “who I bloody love” and who shares the same agent as Hal.
Who is his main influence who lit the flame inside a young Hal Dominic Bart Cruttenden to inspire him to want to be a comedian as a job? “I made a decision incredibly late to be a comedian for a job. But I was 14 or 15 and watched ‘An Audience With Billy Connolly’ on TV and that is when I first loved stand up.
“I had no clue I’d be a stand up until I was about 26 and I saw Eddie Izzard on a video and I thought, if a man can be that middle class and camp and do comedy, then I can do that too. He was doing something so new and he was so honest about who he was, I just loved that. Until then I thought comedy was all tough guys telling tough jokes and I didn’t think that could be me.
“But then, at 26, 27, I thought, if you could be honest that’s your weapon; to be more honest than anyone else in this audience, to be more open and more knowing about who you are and what you are, and not give a damn; that is what most inspired me I’d say.”
His one burning ambition is to write and star in a TV sit’ com, as he tells me: “I have had a sit’ com that was on the radio; but I am dying to write a TV sit’ com. It is about middle-aged people who are a bit lost. The inspiration for it is about my life, sort of the crisis of people in their 40s and 50s. They are the only people watching TV, so I am hoping TV companies realise that and say, we should definitely commission this and get this made.”
So three years after his divorce from Dawn Coulter, a Northern Irish artist who was his wife of 22 years [2000 to 2022] and the mother of his two daughters, is 55-year-old Enfield-based Hal still on the dating apps/sites? Has he had any bad experiences on dates? Had it given him any new material?
“I’ve had a really lovely experience and I’ve really liked lots of women I have dated, but it’s just not been right. But I am taking a break for the moment because I broke my own heart; I was with someone I really adored and it just wasn’t right.
“I thought, I just can’t move this forward and I am not at all sure about my feelings. I am not sure if I am so damaged and heartbroken by my divorce it’s taking me years to trust people again, or just finding out who I am. I think men make a lot of mistakes and don’t process grief as well, and don’t process the breakup.
“One woman I dated started down the conspiracies trail and loved Donald Trump, and when I reacted, she said can’t we just not talk politics. I said no, no, no, no, no….” He admits he maybe did get a little material from his dating experiences, but he establishes he doesn’t do anything horrible about anyone he has dated. “I will only have myself as the butt of the joke.” Hal then remembers one stand-out story from a date, but: “It’s too rude, so I’m not going to tell you it.”
Pillow talk!
So what kind of date are you, Hal? “Apparently I am still a good funny date. I’m not one of these comics who is not funny off stage. The main difference why I’ve found it has been quite easy for me when I talk to women, is loads of men are really bad at talking and I’m a comedian, so I’m really good at talking, even if I’m not being funny.
“There are a lot of men who just run out of conversation; I’ve heard that from a lot from women. I was never the cool guy who had lots of girlfriends in my 20s, and I am not that cool guy now, but it is easy for me.”
His two daughters, 23 and 24, can inadvertently give him inspiration for new material. When he said he was ready to start dating again after divorce from their mother, he joked that he may even consider starting a new family. His youngest offspring responded: “I don’t think you are ready to be a dad!”
“Yes, they give me quite a lot of material my daughters, especially my youngest who is hilarious. She said another thing once, we were talking about therapy and I said oh, therapy is really good to go to, lots of people go to therapy. She said if I went to therapy, I’d buy a ticket to one of your shows, give it to my therapist and go, watch that, that’s half of it!”
I often ask comedians, songwriters and authors where is the most unusual place they have had an idea and had to then record a voice-note or write down that joke or idea. Hal’s answer is a wee bit eyebrow-raising! “In bed with a woman and I think I’ve gone, ‘hold on a second as I’ve had an idea…’ and that didn’t go down well.
“You do have times where you are maybe at a party and chatting to people, and you sneak your phone out to put down an idea into your phone when you have just thought of something. Maybe we become more boring socially us comics…”
Finishing off the chat, I conjure up a scenario where Hal is on a long flight sat next to a stranger who does not know who he is, and they ask what he does for a living, and when he says I am a comedian, they ask what kind of comedy he does. What does he tell them?
“I say, I do comedy that is observational, but incredibly self obsessed. It’s mainly about my life, my opinions; basically I find a way for people to give me permission to talk endlessly about myself and express myself, and because there’s jokes there, I can get away with it.”
On the 22nd of this month (August) at the Gilded Balloon in Edinburgh, Hall will be joined by Ronni Ancona for their podcast live, “Hal and Ronni in Pieces”. They already recorded the podcast which will be out in September, and so far guests include Sally Phillips, Jo Brand, Omid Djalili, Geoff Norcott, Shappi Khorsandi, Alistair McGowan, Sadie Frost and Charlie Higson.
“It’s sort of a self help podcast with a twist; because it is about us trying to learn from our guests how to be calmer in the showbiz world. Ronni and I are massive neurotics and it is really interesting that there are some people who literally don’t get nervous, whereas Ronni and I are still a bundle of neuroses.”
The day after I spoke to Hal on the ‘phone at his North London home, he was due to appear as a guest on the TV show Sunday Brunch and I had assumed it would be a pre-recorded show. “No. I have got to be up early, do it live and not say fuck. That’s my fear of live TV: Saying fuck!” I can report, he resisted the urge. Now if he really did want to go viral, that would have done it!
- Hal Cruttenden’s new show “Can Dish It Out But Can’t Take It” will tour with 59 shows from 5th September 2025 to 18th April 2026 – some shows already sold out and many with “selling fast” alerts.
Interview by Simon Redley
Hal photos by Steve Ullathorne
Hal & Ronni Ancona photo by Lucas Tucknott
