TV Presenter and Comedian Matt Bell
His early career involved everything from hanging out of a helicopter filming stunts, to helping In the Night Garden character Iggle Piggle get his mechanical head on. It’s safe to say that the road to television presenting has been an interesting one for Matt Bell.
As a graduate, he admits he was hugely fortunate to land a ‘really cool job’ as a cameraman, which led to the aforementioned-helicopter hanging. But I don’t really want to hear about that. I want to hear about Iggle Piggle.
‘It was ridiculous’ Matt laughs. ‘On the first day, the director came over and said ‘Alright guys, you’re our new dressers. You need to get Iggle Piggle and his mechanical trousers on in five minutes. Seriously. Get moving.’’
‘So I spent the next few months dressing a giant dude with a mechanical head and trousers.’
Moving on from the very serious matter of Iggle Piggle’s trousers, Matt worked in various production and direction roles, before Sky boss Stuart Murphy gave him his presenting break.
‘He’s been a bit of a mentor for me’ Matt explains. ‘He gave me a series called The Hotel Inspector Uncovered where I got to say ‘ooh isn’t it dirty’ a lot’.
I am disappointed to hear that he never once found any cockroaches. Not one? ‘No cockroaches. Only a lot of very questionable curly hairs in showers’.
Moving swiftly on, I want to know what he thinks it is that separates the great presenters from the average. ‘People often compare it to acting, but the thing with presenting is that you’re not being someone else – it’s your job to communicate the whole message of the show through a version of yourself. That’s why people like Davina and Dermot are so good at what they do. They manage to just be really lovely versions of themselves on camera.’
Ah – Davina. Matt is currently working with her on Sky’s Got to Dance and would be the first to admit that his position is an enviable one. ‘I feel immensely privileged to be able to get up there on stage with Davina McCall.’
So is it true that she’s just as lovely off-camera? ‘Davina? I’ve never met a more selfish, bigoted person in my life… no no, she’s amazing. She’s exactly as you’d imagine, except off-camera the occasional swear word creeps out! She has this encyclopaedic knowledge of everyone’s names as well. She really does have time for everybody and she really cares about what she does.’
He pinpoints Got to Dance as his career highlight so far.
‘Emotions rise, if someone fails an audition there are tears. I suppose it’s easy to watch on TV and assume they’re crocodile tears for the cameras, but when you’re there it does feel very real. They’ve put in so much hard work and hours of grafting to get that far.’
I ask whether it’s hard to not point and laugh at some of the really shit people who audition in the early stages. Matt is diplomatic.
‘When you’re there in person you have got some emotional investment – my heart goes out to them sometimes. But occasionally if they’re on stage and just really terrible then you have to have a giggle.’
But it isn’t just presenting that Matt has his eye on. As part of comedy sketch group The Jelly Moustache he has written, filmed and performed a series of shows which have run on Shorts TV. So is comedy the long term plan?
He admits that a combination of a recession-hit industry and the fact that comedy can be such a subjective art make it a challenging career prospect. But it’s obvious from his enthusiasm that this is his real passion, and that he’s prepared to put in the hard graft. ‘My dream is to write and perform a narrative comedy – I really love presenting but comedy has always been the long term goal.’
He’s also been involved in a project called Tramps of Prey, which he developed with writing partner Rob Hoey. ‘The Jelly Moustache is a more conventional sketch show, so Tramps of Prey is an opportunity for us to do something a bit more surreal. It’s green-screen comedy with a dark, irreverent edge.’
British comedy seems to be in a constant state of evolution, so I’m interested to hear Matt’s views on where it’s headed next. ‘I think it’s changing all the time’ he agrees. ‘TV stand up was dead for a while, and then Michael McIntyre and Jack Dee brought it back – now it’s one of the biggest things on television.’
‘In many ways The Office killed comedy in Britain; it was just so good, it was impossible to follow. Then Gavin and Stacey came along and made it even harder, because it crosses that bridge between comedy and drama. Then of course, for a while, because of the recession, no one was taking risks. But I hope we’re coming out of that now.’
Any current favourites in the comedy world? ‘The Trip, with Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan – I think it’s brilliant, it could be a new direction for British comedy. They’re masters at work’.
When it comes to London loyalties, Matt is a bona fide north Londoner, currently holding court in the wilds of Alexandra Palace. Perfect London Sunday? ‘I think I’d go and have a really good meal, eat alfresco and just sit and people-watch and do some writing. Then once I feel like I’ve been productive, maybe go and see a film.’
He admits he wouldn’t mind a taste of Shoreditch/Hoxton living ‘just for a year or so to see what it’s all about’. If he does venture east, he should probably make sure he’s near a tube as he’s the first to admit he’s ‘never got to grips with buses’. My insistence that buses aren’t nearly as complicated as he’s making out falls on mainly on deaf ears. ‘Seriously. I’ve lived here four years and I could get lost on my own road. When I first got to London I was taking the tube from Covent Garden to Leicester Square’.
As he strides back to the world of television post-interview, I have no doubt that we’ll be seeing a lot more of both Matt the presenter and Matt the comedian lighting up the small screen in 2011. I just hope he can find his way to the studio…
You may also like
About Post Author
