Ollie Horn moved to Fukuoka in September but has already made his mark on the local nightlife, founding Comedy Fukuoka and running his first monthly comedy night in January. Ollie began performing stand-up while studying at Oxford University, using material he had written on his year abroad in Paris to kickstart his comedy career in student bars and as a member of the world famous Oxford Revue. Since then he has gained experience in Paris and across Asia, performing regularly on the stand-up comedy circuit in Hong Kong. While he acknowledges there is still a long way to go to cement Comedy Fukuoka into the regular fabric of Fukuoka life, the first iteration of Comedy Fukuoka – showcasing the talents of Hong Kong comedian Nick Milnes as well as those of five complete beginners – proved a huge success and provides a strong foundation for future shows. Here, Fukuoka Now catches up with Ollie after a sold-out show to talk about life as a comedian and his hopes for the future of standup comedy in Fukuoka.
Hometown: Bristol, UK
In Japan: over 2 years
Identity: Law Student, Entrepreneur, Comedian
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Interviewed on Feb. 5, 2015.
You speak Japanese very well. When did you start learning and why the interest in Japan?
My answer to this question always lets Japanese people down because I want to have an interesting answer like ‘I saw a Japanese block print and I thought I must go and visit the country’ or ‘I’m really into Japanese Pop culture’. But the truth is, I went to a specialist language high school where we had to pick two subjects, and I choose French and Spanish. I really didn’t get on with the Spanish teacher so I changed to Japanese thinking I’d only do it for a year as a way to get out of Spanish. So really, my love for Japan stems from my hate for the Spanish language. That said, I think its very easy to fall in love with the Japanese language, particularly as an English speaker, it’s a task you can never finish, learning all the kanji is.. impossible, but that makes it exciting.
When was the first time you came to Japan and why? How was your experience in relation to what you expected?
I think my first time here was pretty typical of most foreigners who come here for the first time. It appeared to me like this kind of Disneyland-esque place, full of wonder. I did a short homestay with a school in Kobe when I was 17, and I spent two or three weeks trying to follow their normal lessons, followed by a week of sightseeing. I stayed with a lovely, lovely family and although my Japanese was pretty poor at the time – it was my first time in the country, my first time in Asia – everyone was so welcoming.
What was your first memory from that trip, did it inspire you to come back later?
My very first memory in Japan was arriving at the airport without my suitcase, so the first job my host family had was clothing me. It was about 11 o’clock at night and we drove to some out of town shopping centre where I had to buy pants and socks. Of course, everything I bought was too small because I was going by English sizes. By the time we had finished it was really late, but the family decided to make a night of it and drove me up a mountain to show me this lovely nighttime vista over Kobe. So yeah, my first experience of Japan was a bit odd, but memorable nonetheless. I kept an interest in Japan because there’s always something to do; culturally, culinary or, whatever, there’s so much to discover here.
What brought you back this time round.
This time? Well I’d finished my degree in law and was at a stage in my life where I had to decide whether to go on to practice law immediately or not, but I realised I wanted to do more legal research before heading in that direction. It was also now or never for having this experience of Japan; I’m not tied down by anything at home. I chose Kyushu University specifically because they’re known for their international programs, and it seemed like the ideal faculty, combining both a good academic reputation with the livability of Fukuoka.
What got you into comedy and why did you want to become a comedian?
I’ve always loved comedy and I’ve been a bit obsessive over stand up and sitcom since my childhood – I’d much rather watch an old sitcom than a movie. I think I had probably memorised all of Fawlty Towers by the time I was 13 and even now I could probably write out the entire script to The Office (UK). But standup came about while I was on a year abroad in Paris, where I realised stand-up was something I could do – not necessarily something I was actually capable of – but something I could try.
In Paris, there is a fantastic English language standup scene, so I went to a couple of the nights and got chatting to a few of the performers and organisers. It was there I started writing my sets and really got into the scene. When I returned to Oxford for my final year, I fell in with the Oxford Revue and the stand-up night they ran, and did my first few gigs at University events and open mics at college bars. That material went down well, probably because I’d been working on it for about 8 months in Paris and from there I got a lucky break and went on to host the Revue’s live comedy night.
You mentioned it took eight months of working on material for your first set. What formed the basis of that material, and what is your process for writing? Because the idea of just sitting down and trying to be funny..
That very first set I did was essentially about how god awful I was at picking up French girls. I went on my year abroad with high intentions, I was expecting to come back happily wed to Audrey Tautou, but the reality was completely different. I was making my friends back home hysterical with these stories so it was from these experiences that I began writing my first material. Unfortunately, I did then actually manage to get a girlfriend, so I never performed that material in France, because I didn’t want her to hear it! Now, I try and write everything I think of into Evernote on my phone; sometimes its just a word or phrase that I think sounds interesting, just something I discover during my day. Only about one in fifty ideas makes the cut and actually gets turned into something useable though.
Obviously you want to use the same material across different audiences, but how does that work with gigging internationally? Do you tailor your material?
I disagree with the ideas of a lot of other comedians who perform internationally. Eddie Izzard, who has performed in French, German and English, says the same joke will work in any language, but I don’t think that’s true. Maybe its because my material is not as good as his, but I think you have to make substantial changes, based on the country and the audience you expect to come. My performances in Oxford and in Fukuoka are, as you might expect, very different.
What’s the main thing you get out of comedy?
At the level I’m doing this at, its all about meeting people. In every city in Asia I’ve been to there’s always been a small stand-up circuit and these people always have a great story to tell. So what’s really kept me motivated is that there’s going to be a network built around Comedy Fukuoka. Already there’s people from Osaka coming down who I’d otherwise have never had the chance to meet, and audience members have come from across Kyushu. I also love being busy, and comedy is the kind of thing that keeps you thinking. If there are any dull moments, I can use my headspace to think of jokes, it’s really something that keeps me going.
Ollie Horn is a stage name, right?
That’s right – outside of comedy I use my real name, Capehorn, but I adopted a stage name for a number of reasons. I used to have some material about how Capehorn sounds a bit like ‘gay porn’ but I thought it was time to end that chapter of my life. I thought it was important to separate my stage persona from everything else I’m doing. It also makes my name easier to pronounce, if you are introduced incorrectly at a gig, it makes it clear you’re an unknown performer and that can put an audience off. Practically, having a shorter name reads better on a poster too.
You mentioned Eddie Izzard performing in French and German, will you ever perform a set in Japanese?
I would like to set myself that challenge, but I don’t think I’m ready linguistically or comedically. I don’t think I know enough about what makes Japanese people laugh and I haven’t really got into Japanese comedy yet. How I make my Japanese friends laugh in an izakaya is very different to what I could use on stage. It would be great if it was something I could do, but I think it’s something for a little bit further down the line.
Do you have an interest in rakugo? Do you see any future for it overseas?
I’ve tried to watch it but even if I follow along in terms of the language used, I don’t necessarily understand why people laugh when they do. But as a format I think it works worldwide, Ronnie Corbett was famous for taking the seated storyteller approach. You need to be a little bit older, as if you have some wisdom, because as a young person people don’t necessarily listen to what you say. I’d love to try a double act though, if I met the right person, it’d be great to do a manzai type thing.
What other projects are you working on at the moment?
I run an online language start up called LinguaLift which I co-founded about four years ago. Right now we teach five languages: Japanese, Russian, French, Mandarin and Cantonese. We’re moving onto a mobile platform at the moment and we’re planning on launching a kickstarter to get this off the ground. I’m really trying to use Fukuoka for everything it has to offer: Fukuoka is great for startups! We have about 60,000 users, some of whom are here in Fukuoka.
When did the idea first come to you for organising a comedy night?
When I was in Hong Kong and talking about coming to Japan, all the comedians would say ‘oh, I know a guy in Tokyo’ or ‘I know a guy in Osaka’ but the one city that never came up was Fukuoka. When I got here, I took a couple of months to settle in, and checked around to see if that kind of thing was going on and realised no scene existed. But I thought there would probably be an appetite for it – Fukuoka has a large international population – and it started from there. I got talking to the owner of CC Cafe over some drinks at two in the morning and he offered to host it. Once that was confirmed it all happened within about six weeks. I used the Fukuoka Now Classifieds to advertise for performers and about six or seven people got back to me saying they’d be up for doing an open-mic slot. Back in Hong Kong, I got chatting to Nick Milnes (our headliner for the first night), who really encouraged me to go for it. After one of his shows, at about five am, he booked flights over to Fukuoka on his phone and from then I knew it really had a chance.
Osaka and Tokyo as having scenes of their own, but one of the advantages they have is a population many times the size of Fukuoka. Does Fukuoka have a big enough population to sustain this?
Comedy will be difficult to sustain here, but the way I plan to do it is by having one high quality show each month, instead of oversaturating Fukuoka with weekly shows. I’m all for letting new people try it, and I won’t say no to anyone who does, but I’ll couple these with experienced comedians who I know will be crowd pleasers.
How do you think the first night went, and what are your hopes for next time?
Of course there were some teething troubles, but I was very happy overall. I was delighted with the diversity of performers. I’ve done shows before with 12 performers where not one was female, so the fact that two out of our five performers were female was great. The fact we had people with English as their second language performing I thought was remarkable. I think the open-micers did a spectacular job considering none of them had done this before. Nick I was sure was going to be a crowd-pleaser, he’s so experienced, it’s hard for him to not have some jokes that will hit. The audience in general were very receptive, I just feel sorry for the one or two Japanese people in the audience who didn’t have a great night because they didn’t get the jokes!
You let five beginners perform, a risk for a first show, what was the idea behind that?
I didn’t really want the show to be just me performing for 30 minutes. That’s not sustainable and I’m nowhere near funny enough. I knew if Comedy Fukuoka was going to be sustainable and not just a one off I had to find local people who were interested. The reason there were so many? Because there were so many who wanted to do it. We had three or four rehearsals before the night where the other comics helped each other write their sets and both me and Nick offered some feedback. So it wasn’t really a risk, they had all made me laugh, so I knew other people would find them funny too.
Do you always see beginners as an essential part of the show. If Comedy Fukuoka goes on for another year and you have a confident roster, will you still invite beginners?
Absolutely! I really don’t want this to turn into a fixed troupe. This is only really fun when you have new people coming through. New people also bring their friends, making it a more interesting, receptive crowd. I encourage anyone who’s even thinking about doing it to at least come to a show to see if it’s for them.
Ollie and January’s Headliner, Nick Milnes
For those thinking about performing. If you could go back to your first ever set and give yourself a piece of advice, what would it be?
I regret that with the first ever set I did, I took away stuff that I found funny that I didn’t think other people would find funny and put in stuff that I thought other people might find funny, but I didn’t find funny. You have to be self assured and stick to your guns, if you think something is funny than in all likelihood someone else does too. The stuff you believe in also always comes across as more genuine.
Why do you think a regular comedy night has never been done in Fukuoka before?
I don’t think it’s surprising that it hasn’t been done before, regular nights in Asia in general are a recent phenomenon, within the last decade. But it takes someone with a little bit of performing experience and a little bit of producing know-how to bring it together. The other big change is the introduction of low cost airlines, which have made it possible for comedians to perform across Asia on a much lower budget.
What are your ambitions for Comedy Fukuoka?
I don’t know whether I’ll be living in Fukuoka for the rest of my life, but I’d like to get it to the point where if I left and then came back, there’d still be a show for me to enjoy. I also hope it brings people to Fukuoka who wouldn’t have otherwise thought of coming here, and that’s especially true of other comedians. Fukuoka’s a great place for a weekend visitor, it has all of Japan’s treasures in a very accessible, self-contained city; the beautiful Dazaifu, impressive museums and galleries and a nightlife comparable to any other major city.
Who can we expect to top the bill in months to come?
February will showcase three comedians from Osaka. In March, we have people from Seoul. April a Japanese comedian, May, another from Hong Kong. I’m going to perform Singapore next month and hope to meet some people there who’ll agree to headline over the summer.
Favourite comedian?
Stewart Lee
What are your thoughts on Japanese TV
I associate Japanese TV with pain because I only watch it when I’m in the gym.
What are your thoughts on Japanese comedians?
My ambition is to understand them and laugh
Favourite Joke?
Any jokes that children tell
Favourite country to perform comedy in?
I would have to say the UK, particularly Oxford.
An Englishman, a Japanese woman and a Canadian man walk into a ramen shop… Finish the joke.
Lucky her.
One-liners or story telling?
I’d love to be better at one-liners, but they’re too difficult to write.
English swear words or Japanese swear words.
Oh, English swear words of course.
Favourite scene from Fawlty Towers
Oh well it’s got to be the moosehead scene.
Any embarrassing stories from Japan?
Probably my first experience with a squat toilet. I’d rather not give all the details, but it meant that I had to cut a karaoke night out short, and some stealthy trouser washing.
Check out 5 minutes with Ollie Horn below:
Interview by Oscar Boyd
