Comedian Michael Spicer is bringing his viral comedy hit The Room Next Door to the stage at Ashford’s Revelation, writes Marijke Hall

You could say that Michael Spicer was an overnight success when he became a viral sensation back in 2019, but to do so would probably do him a bit of a disservice.

The Aldington comedian had in fact been plugging away for two decades, hoping to catch a break with his comedy writing. It was good, he was slowly getting there with the odd project, but not enough for him to quit his day job.

Then came the advent of social media. He’d do a sketch, it would blow up on Twitter for 24 hours, then disappear.

In 2019 however, all that changed.

While working as a copywriter for a shipping company - “I had to pay the bills,” he says - Spicer came across a clip of Boris Johnson being interviewed by Talk Radio during the Conservative leadership race, which presented him with an idea.

“Boris was doing all these ridiculously thorough interviews where he was covering absolutely everything and then somebody asked him what he liked to do in his spare time and he made up some spurious nonsense about making model buses,” Spicer said.

“The way he was looking off to the side and umming and ahhing all the time it looked like he was expecting answers to be handed to him in his ear.”

“Say something you vase of w*nk, don’t just sit there and say nothing”

— Michael Spicer

That night after work, Spicer put together a short sketch, in which he pretended to be Johnson’s advisor, feeding him interview answers through a headpiece.

In his sketch, rifling through papers and shouting down the mic - “Say something you vase of w*nk, don’t just sit there and say nothing” - he created comedy gold and the video went viral. His social media went mad. The Room Next Door had landed.

“I’ve been on Twitter for 10 years and I got used to a sketch blowing up and nothing would come from it,” he admits. “But I think with this, it’s something to do with this character that people appreciated.

“When another car crash interview appeared, they just instinctively thought of that character and I would get tweets saying ‘could you do The Room Next Door for this person or that’ and that’s when I realised it had legs.”

He created yet more videos off the back of these cringe-worthy interviews, including from Donald Trump (obviously), former health secretary Matt Hancock and Prince Andrew, with him playing the stressed aide, trying to avert a public humiliation by shouting answers down a headpiece.

Spicer says the Prince Andrew interview with BBC Newsnight has been his most successful one to date.

And it’s easy to see why. It is comedy at its finest.

“I didn’t watch the actual interview at first,” he says. “I was doing the washing up, checked my phone, and I had hundreds and hundreds of notifications - ones from Nigella Lawson and Gary Lineker - saying ‘you’ve got to do this one’.

“It was the first one I thought ‘I better do it, people are expecting me to’.

“I watched the whole thing and thought there’s definitely material here.”

Spicer says he thinks the reason the videos have taken off is people are frustrated watching interviews in which politicians are not getting to the heart of the matter or being challenged.

“When they see a man - me - also sitting on his sofa just yelling at politicians and saying ‘stop lying, just answer the question’ it’s quite cathartic. Somebody is calling these people out.”

Since that first Boris video in 2019, Spicer’s The Room Next Door has amassed more 60 million views online, he’s made his American debut on The Late Late Show with James Corden and launched his Radio 4 series entitled Michael Spicer: Before Next Door.

He also wrote a book called The Secret Political Adviser, which was the catalyst for quitting his day job last year.

Over the summer he was working on the second series of BBC 2 sitcom Mandy as a producer after actress, comedian and writer Diane Morgan specifically asked for his help.

And now he’s on tour, with his show The Room Next Tour which is stopping at Revelation in Ashford (@revelationashford) on December 4.

“Some of the sketches in the tour I’ve done before, some of them are new and there’s sort of a mini play element to it in which he (The Room Next Door) talks about his career, starting from the bottom and working his way up to politicians.

“So you see him coaching football managers and pop stars, and then talking about his father and grandfather doing politics of that era. It’s got a little narrative going on.

“I then chop it up with bits from my actual life, talking about things I’ve done in the past which have hoaxed people with my sketches and tweets.

“It’s an autobiographical thing as well, I flip between the two.”

He admits the last year or so has been crazy and while he’s always working on projects to pitch, he enjoys the normality of being a dad, doing the school run like any other parent.

“Thankfully, I’m still able to have that despite this whirlwind,” he adds.

For tickets to see him at Revelation click HERE