British comedian Al Murray said people think he is a ‘fat, bald b******’ because of the character but insists he is not a slaphead and prefers ‘to be more shaggy’
Comic Al Murray admits there’s one thing he hates when playing the Pub Landlord – having to go bald. The comedian said people think he is a “fat, bald b******” because of the character.
But Al, 58, insists he is not a slaphead and prefers “to be more shaggy”. The funnyman has to shave off his locks every time he plays the gobby Brit landlord on stage or screen.
And The Pub Landlord will resume touring this autumn. He said: “It’s the only thing the act has imposed on my life and I really resent it.” He also reckons the Mickey-taking style of the Little Englander is still going over plenty of punters’ heads 20 years on. “There’s always people who don’t get it,” he said.
“There’s the ‘Well done for sticking it to the French, mate’ and there’s the ‘You really shouldn’t say that because you’re encouraging the worst people imaginable’.
“Those are the two wrong ends of the stick and that hasn’t changed, but that’s the extent of it. We’re told everyone is at loggerheads but a state of crisis is a better headline than actually things are roughly OK.”
Meanwhile, Al will be hosting the We Have Ways Fest, a World War Two festival, in Buckinghamshire next month. The event features, Spitfires, tanks along with live music.
The comic and military historian James Holland have a WWII podcast called We Have Ways of Making You Talk. Al said: “Last year on the Saturday we had 5,000 people on site including 1,000 contributors.
“I still can’t believe it. I wander round the site in a daze because we’ve conjured up this extraordinary feeling.”
The comic was left fuming last year after a survey found Brits want to call time on waiting at the bar to be served. A YouGov poll found 40%, mostly Gen Z, prefer to stand in line for a beer, with just 39% preferring to spread out along the bar. But Al was clearly unimpressed, posting on X: “RESIST, RESIST”.