‘He drains my bad habits!’ Comedians on why they need an alter ego

For character comics such as Zach Zucker, Bilal Zafar and Jay Bennett, performing as other people is a way to both escape from – and confront – their personal lives

After an eventful 18 months away, Zach Zucker is back on a London stage, and making a mess of it. His hapless standup alter ego, Jack Tucker, dances into this trendy Dalston bar in an intriguingly damp suit, then stumbles, plummets and catapults his pint across the room quite spectacularly.

It’s a perfectly executed bit of business, but few tonight will be thinking: “Now there’s a man to entrust with lots of vital, fragile kit.” And yet that happened, last summer, on his return to Los Angeles. A professional clown helped run one of the highest-profile vaccination centres in the world.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3ANBgBe