CHART-TOPPING Off Menu podcaster, Great British Menu judge, Taskmaster champion and The Traitors: Uncloaked and Taskmaster podcast host Ed Gamble is back on the road in his extended UK and Irish stand-up comedy tour, Hot Diggity Dog.
Next stop on a second leg running from September 26 to January 20 2025 will be the Grand Opera House, York, tomorrow night (9/10/2024), having played there in February 2022 on his Electric travels.
The Hit Diggity Dog tour now adds up to the south-west Londoner’s longest-ever itinerary at 38. Not without irony for a comedy turn who confesses: “A lot of the show is about – and I don’t know how the audience feels about this – how I would rather be at home with my wife [producer Charlie Jamison], after all those years spent becoming a comedian who travels the road.
“I got married in 2021, and there’s a lot of stuff about my honeymoon in 2022 in the show, after all the Covid restrictions got lifted [having forced three postponements of his wedding].
“Look, when I’m on the road, I complain I’m not at home, but then when I’m at home, I complain I’m not on the road. It’s addictive to get a response on stage night after night, when you don’t know how things will go down, or whether it will be different from one part of the country to another, though it’s rare that a joke that goes down well one night is met with silence the next, but it’s always a highwire act.
“On a tour, the main story beats and the big punchlines stay the same, but I can never resist chatting to ther audience, reacting to the vibe each night.”
In a nod to the title of Hot Diggity Dog, the tour publicity proclaims “Ed Gamble has minced a load of meat (thoughts), piped it into a casing (show) and it’s coming to a bun (venue) near you. There will be all your classic Gamble ranting, raving and spluttering but he’s doing fine mentally. Promise.”
So much so, he says: “I’m absolutely delighted to do so many dates and that so many people want to see it. I just do as many shows as I can because when you start out, you write a show for the Edinburgh Fringe, then just do Edinburgh and maybe ten more shows after that. But with Hot Diggity Dog, I’m now hoping to do international dates next year.”
Hot Diggity Dog, Ed? Explain yourself. “I’m told it’s a Mickey Mouse thing [The Hot Dog Song, with its lyric “Hot Dog, Hot Dog, Hot Diggety Dog”], but it’s pretty difficult because you always have to come up with a tour title well before you do the tour, and by the time you do the shows, the title probably should have changed!” he admits.
“I only said ‘Hot Diggity Dog’ once in the show and now I don’t even mention it – but it was good for the promotional picture!” Except in London, where Ed found himself caught up in “Cucumbergate”.
His show poster of a hot dog fell foul of Transport for London’s ban on junk food advertising on the London Underground, whereupon the Off Menu co-presenter replaced the off-menu item with a similarly shaped but healthier cucumber.
Ed has been busier than ever, having brought his Off Menu podcast with co-host James Acaster to the stage, written his first book, the memoir Glutton: The Multi-Course Life Of A Very Greedy Boy (published by Penguin Books last October]; hosted BBC Two’s The Traitors: Uncloaked podcast and been crowned series nine champion of Taskmaster (Dave/Channel 4).
Add to that list featuring on the second Champions of Champions episode of Taskmaster in 2022; hosting the Taskmaster podcast; competing in The Great Celebrity Bake Off for Stand Up To Cancer and earlier appearing in more than 30 episodes of the satirical panel show Mock The Week between 2015 to 2021.
On top of all that, he has been a judge on BBC Two’s Great British Menu, co-hosts a Sunday morning show on Radio X with Matthew Crosby and has served as one of six rotating guest-hosts for Pointless on BBC One.
“It’s good that comedians get picked up to do other stuff, being trusted to do it, because I love to keep a variety of things going on that feed into the live shows,” says Ed.
What’s next? “The Traitors will be back and I’ll be back doing The Traitors: Uncloaked podcast on BBC Two; Off Menu rumbles on and I’ll be recording a Taskmaster podcast every week for the current series that started last month,” he says. “Then there’s filming for Great British Menu series 20, for broadcast next year.”
Any last words on tomorrow’s show in York, Ed? “Just come and see it. We’ve been having a lot of fun on tour. We have a laugh, and the shows have been going great,” he says. “We’d love to have as many people there as possible.”
Ed Gamble: Hot Diggity Dog, Grand Opera House, York, October 9, 7.30pm. Box office: atgtickets.com/york. Also playing: St George’s Hall, Bradford, October 19, 7.30pm. Box office: bradford-theatres.co.uk. Age guidance: 14 upwards.
Did you know?
ED Gamble began his comedy career performing with the Durham Revue while studying Philosophy at Durham University, where he met fellow comedians Nish Kumar, Nick Mohammed and Tom Neenan. He came to prominence playing Georgie Carlton in two series of Almost Royal (BBC America/E4/Netflix) and co-wrote series three and four of Greg Davies’s sitcom Man Down (Channel 4), as well as appearing in two episodes.