Gloucestershire &amp; Worcestershire


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<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="667" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/glosworcs/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2025/10/3.griff_-1000x667.jpg" alt="griff rhys jones" class="wp-image-77422" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/glosworcs/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2025/10/3.griff_-1000x667.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/glosworcs/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2025/10/3.griff_-800x533.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/glosworcs/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2025/10/3.griff_-400x267.jpg 400w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/glosworcs/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2025/10/3.griff_.jpg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



<p>National treasure Griff Rhys Jones is back on the road this autumn with the second leg of his sell-out show&nbsp;<em>The Cat’s Pyjamas</em>&nbsp;&#8211; a gloriously madcap evening of stories, silliness and razor-sharp wit.</p>



<p>Nothing&#8217;s off the table; from wild stories and off-script free-wheeling, to turning TikTok trends and crocodile-smuggling into comedy gold.</p>



<p>Jones has spent four decades making Britain laugh on TV and he&#8217;s turning on the giggle taps in Malvern and Cheltenham in November. We caught up with the comedy legend to chat wokeism, nerves and why he’s still having a right old ball on stage.</p>



<p>Over to to you Griff&#8230;</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-hello-what-can-we-expect-from-the-show"><strong>Hello! What can we expect from the show?</strong></h2>



<p>Well, it&#8217;s the fourth show I&#8217;ve done where I tell stories from my life. Trouble is, some of the stories get longer and longer and longer. So I start out with a list of about 20 and end up with about two. If you come to see me early in a tour you tend to get all the stories. If you come late in the tour, a lot have gone by the wayside!</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-s-the-title-the-cat-s-pyjamas-all-about"><strong>What’s the title <em>The Cat’s Pyjamas</em> all about?</strong></h2>



<p>I just like the sound of it. Funnily enough my daughter said &#8216;you can&#8217;t call it that&#8217; and when I asked her why not she said &#8216;because it means you have to be good!&#8217; But I like how it sounds. </p>



<p>Also &#8216;the cat&#8217;s pyjamas&#8217; is a very interesting phrase and I might talk about how it started in the 1920s in New York. Apparently there was a famous society hostess who used to take her cats for a walk along Fifth Avenue and she would wear pyjamas when doing so. But really what I&#8217;m saying at the start of the show is that the audience are the cat&#8217;s pyjamas. I like to start with egregious flattery.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-do-you-still-get-nervous-before-a-performance"><strong>Do you still get nervous before a performance?</strong></h2>



<p>I get nervous in the early stages, it&#8217;s never a walk in the park. It&#8217;s fun if it&#8217;s more of a walk on a tightrope. I get sidetracked by talking about things like what happened to me in the car park on the way to the theatre. I once had a <em>Birdman </em>moment where I went to get a shirt out of the car and I couldn&#8217;t get back into the theatre unless I walked in with the audience. A woman turned to me and said &#8216;I hope you&#8217;re going to be good tonight&#8217; and I replied &#8216;Well, I&#8217;ll do my best!&#8217;</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="1000" height="667" src="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/glosworcs/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2025/10/griff2-1000x667.jpg" alt="griff rhys jones" class="wp-image-77425" srcset="https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/glosworcs/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2025/10/griff2-1000x667.jpg 1000w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/glosworcs/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2025/10/griff2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/glosworcs/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2025/10/griff2-400x267.jpg 400w, https://dev.muddystilettos.co.uk/glosworcs/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2025/10/griff2.jpg 1500w" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" /></figure>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-isn-t-throwing-it-open-to-audience-questions-asking-for-trouble"><strong>Isn’t throwing it open to audience questions asking for trouble?</strong></h2>



<p>Not really because I put up a list of topics for people to ask me about, although I don&#8217;t know if I&#8217;ll stick with it. That&#8217;s in the second half of the show and often it starts with people asking me about <em>Not The Nine O&#8217;Clock News</em>, which was so long ago can&#8217;t I can&#8217;t remember it, let alone answer questions about it. </p>



<p>And if you play a really big theatre you have difficulty actually hearing the questions and you have to clamber down off the stage to find out what the question is. But I do put up a list which I scribble out in the dressing room before I go on and it&#8217;s a list of things that are currently on my mind.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-is-there-a-question-you-definitely-don-t-want-to-be-asked"><strong>Is there a question you definitely don’t want to be asked?</strong></h2>



<p>Probably! But what I usually do is sort of sidestep it by saying &#8216;I can&#8217;t answer that question&#8217;. One time I got into talking about Africa with the intention of moving on to killer bees. I got so bogged down in the story of the railways in Africa. When I looked at my watch I realised I&#8217;d taken the entire second half of the show just trying to explain colonialism. I&#8217;d been wondering why I hadn&#8217;t been getting as many laughs as usual.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-is-comedy-harder-in-the-current-woke-climate"><strong>Is comedy harder in the current woke climate?</strong></h2>



<p>I get asked that a lot and the honest answer is I don&#8217;t know because I don&#8217;t play the comedy scene. I don&#8217;t go to Edinburgh and all that stuff. So I honestly have no idea. It&#8217;s never affected me in any way whatsoever. </p>



<p>I do tell quite a lot of jokes but all the stories are about unfortunate and terrible things that have happened to me, so I&#8217;m not really causing offence to anybody else.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-is-social-media-your-thing"><strong>Is social media your thing?</strong></h2>



<p>My take on social media is that I like Instagram and I get cross with people who put up anything other than a picture. I don&#8217;t see the point of going on Instagram as a substitute for X with some wisdom that you wish to confer on us with words. I go to Instagram to see interesting pictures and that&#8217;s what I put on there myself.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-what-s-the-weirdest-venue-you-ve-ever-played"><strong>What’s the weirdest venue you’ve ever played?</strong></h2>



<p>Mel and I did <em>Live Aid,</em> which was a pretty bizarre sort of experience. It was like walking out on the deck of an aircraft carrier it was so huge. It was a genuinely weird experience because you made a joke and then you had to wait because the people near the beginning would laugh, then the laughter would travel all the way to the very back. </p>



<p>It felt like a huge Mexican wave of laughter. I kept thinking about what [promoter] Harvey Goldsmith told us before we went on. He grabbed me by the lapels and said &#8216;Keep it f*****g short&#8217; so I was standing there thinking &#8216;This is taking too long&#8217;.</p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-any-more-travel-shows-in-the-pipeline"><strong>Any more travel shows in the pipeline?</strong></h2>



<p>I&#8217;m hoping to do one on Vietnam at some stage. I did one on Canada for Channel Four and the Canadians were so nice that I didn&#8217;t end up with any funny stories. It was a great series and it got great reviews, fantastic ratings and things like that. That just shows you, doesn&#8217;t it? Well, I don&#8217;t know what it shows you except perhaps that the smoother the operation, the more aplomb you pull it off with and the fewer things that go wrong, the less material you have for a comedy tour later.</p>



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<p><strong><em>The Cat’s&nbsp;Pyjamas is on at Malvern Theatre on 2 Nov, and Cheltenham Town Hall on 26 November.</em></strong></p>



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<h2 class="wp-block-heading" id="h-want-more-try-these"><strong>Want more? Try these:</strong></h2>



<ul>
<li><a href="https://glosworcs.muddystilettos.co.uk/people-life-2/muddy-meets-bbc-saturday-kitchens-chef-presenter-matt-tebbutt/">Muddy meets Saturday Kitchen&#8217;s Matt Tebbutt</a></li>



<li><a href="https://glosworcs.muddystilettos.co.uk/life/people/gbbos-candice-brown-worcestershire/">Muddy meets: GBBO winner Candice Brown</a></li>



<li><a href="https://glosworcs.muddystilettos.co.uk/life/people/master-of-petals-bbcs-jonathan-moseley-worcestershire/">Muddy meets: BBC floral grandmaster Jonathan Moseley</a></li>
</ul>


Griff Rhys Jones chats gaffes, travel shows & TikTok trends

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