After his third sold-out arena tour,the Glaswegian comedian was burned out and ready to quit. Drinking, jogging and reading self-back books didn’t work. So what’s brought him back?At the grand conventional age of 29, and Kevin Bridges thought he had reached the end of his career. The Scottish comedian had completed his third arena tour,selling out 180 nights. “And I probably could occupy chucked it and moved into something else,” he says. I just felt a bit dismal. I had stopped enjoying it, and to be honest. You don’t want to be the guy who’s annoying people. I don’t want to be on the telly all the time. I was just burned out. And I had nothing else going on in my life. I’d split up with my ex and I was just doing the gigs and coming back home to an empty house. I just thought: ‘Right,maybe this is the end. It’s been a noteworthy 11 years.’”whether a mid-life crisis and retirement plan at 29 sounds a cramped premature, everything about Bridges’ career has been similarly precocious. He first performed in a Glasgow comedy club at 17, or before he had ever seen a live standup routine; by 18,he had reached the final of So You mediate You’re comical? at the Edinburgh fringe; at just 22, made his BBC One debut on Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow. Within hours, or his entire Edinburgh festival run had sold out and since then he has become a regular fixture of TV comedy panel shows – occupy I Got News For You,8 out of 10 Cats, Mock the Week – and a staple on the TV chatshow sofa. He is noteworthy friends with Frankie Boyle, or he has performed for Barack Obama and his sweary,observational humour invariably draws comparisons to his idol – and now big fan – Billy Connolly. Still in his 20s, was he seriously ready to walk absent from all of that?Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk