Rising star Tom explains ‘Canadian-ness’, car-boot sales and English quirks to MARION SAUVEBOIS 

AFTER nearly two decades on our rain-battered shores, Canadian-born Tom Stade has earned his stripes as a bona fide Brit.

The comic ticks all the boxes: impervious to the weather, gaga about our oddest quirks and initiated into our most sacrosanct of rituals, the car-boot sale.

“They don’t have that stuff in Canada; they have garage sales, in a person’s house,” he says, clearly incredulous. “They don’t drive their s**t in a car to the parking garage of an army centre and compete with other people to sell stuff they don’t even want, like it’s a mall. Everybody walking by knows you’ve got to get rid of it. I go every Sunday.”

He chuckles before adding: “I understand Britain more than my own country. I enjoyed the Canadian-ness when I was there but now that I’m here I have no use for it. It’s forced me to adapt and assimilate to the culture. The only thing that’s left of me is my accent.”

The David Attenborough of comedy, he lays his subject bare, sharing wisdom accrued from years of meticulous observation in his ode to Britain, You’re Welcome!

In the show, he playfully explores his escalating Britishness, in the process running the gamut of the wonders of Great Britain from summer festival madness and mysterious charging tents to multiculturalism and the boon that is rail travel. Most of us may be cursing the day Great Western Railway was dreamt up but not Tom Stade, who has found trains to be the end-all of lawbreaking.

“There’s a lot more drink-driving in Canada,” reasons the 45-year-old, who has made Edinburgh his permanent home. “Here you can just sit, have a couple of drinks and write your show rather than worry whether you’re going to fall asleep at the wheel.”

Bestowed with an easy-going nature and an appetite for adventure, Tom approaches life with a carefree and positive attitude; never looking too far ahead. As evidenced by the fact he married his wife within three months of meeting her while on a road trip to Las Vegas. This ‘not thinking too deep’ philosophy was just as well when he decided to entertain the troops overseas and was subjected to a kidnap simulation where he learnt valuable tips about keeping schtum under torture.

“Now I know what to do if I ever get kidnapped and see a little bit of torture,” he says in his distinctive ‘stoned’ drawl. “I just have to stay grey, answer all their questions honestly but not mention anything that they’re not asking for. You never wear a wedding ring or travel with too many IDs in your wallet because they’ll take all that stuff and go on the internet and if you lie to them they’ll know.

“I just wanted to go out there and do it –they’re in a s****y position, whether they think it’s right or wrong no-one likes going to war but for some reason they’re there. To be able to go over there and entertain has been the highlight of my career.”

After a pause and a hearty, “That’s heavy, man,” he returns to what he does best, dither, and moves on to his latest project, MUFF, the crowdfunded online sitcom he co-wrote with fellow comic Daniel Sloss and a coterie of friends with nothing better to do.

A bonkers indictment of the trash that passes off for good television these days, it follows the tribulations of MUFF Productions, whose team forever churns out the same rubbish and essentially embodies the worst in the industry. Tom happily plays the foul-mouthed, cynical and somewhat sociopathic executive to Daniel Sloss’s idealistic intern, soon to get a taste of the real world of prod.

“It’s swearing galore,” sums up Stade with a deep laugh. “There are no lawyers to say you can or can’t do that, we don’t have advertisers to worry about. It’s all on the internet so you can say pretty much whatever you want.

“We were just sitting around, saying, ‘We’re not doing anything, let’s make a sitcom’. It was great to show the attitudes of executives whoever they are and portray them as psychopathic maniacs that can do whatever the hell they want and always be successful. We filmed six episodes in 22 days with only £6,000 – which isn’t as easy as you think. It’s probably one of the things I’ve done I’m the most proud of. But it’s on the internet, so it could get lost, just like that.”

He is undeniably a rising name in comedy, filling larger venues with every tour. But the firmly down-to-earth stand-up is not one to blow his own horn or put on airs.

“I made it the day I did my first gig and I said I wanted to be a comedian,” he says casually.

“That was the pinnacle, after that it was the adventure.”

But the more esteemed stages won’t stop him from joining the crowd as usual for a bit of banter after the show.

“I walk right off stage and with them out the door,” he says as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “I’ve never hunted for fame, believe it or not.

“I’ve only ever wanted to write the next show, whatever comes of that. As soon as you want to become famous, you want to become a somebody. I want to be a nobody, because if you’re nobody you can be anybody.”

Tom Stade will be at the Wyvern Theatre on February 11. To book call 01793 524481 or visit swindon theatres.co.uk.