“There’s something really cathartic about laughing at something a bit tragic,” says Daniel Foxx. “It’s that old idea: tragedy plus time equals comedy.”
To his half a million social media followers, Foxx might be best known for his hilariously observed send-ups of Britain’s hyper-posh set – the sort of people who might call after their children, “Jasper and Boadicea” in John Lewis. After all, what began as his notes app filled with “ridiculous names” overheard around London has evolved into a distinctive comic universe spanning viral sketches, a satirical children’s book and sell-out live shows.
But his latest tour, How lovely, turns the lens inwards, putting that “tragedy plus time equals comedy” equation to the test. “I went through a really big break-up last year, from a long-term relationship – the biggest relationship of my life,” he says. “And the show is in many ways about that; about all the frustrations that lead up to a relationship ending – and about then being spat out the other end, and having to date again in a dating world that looks very different.”
Crucially, it is all reflected on with humour. “I always want my comedy to feel warm and friendly, if a bit gossipy,” he says. “I’m also very aware that when you’re going into something personal, there is always somebody else’s side to the story. I’m trying to walk a fine line, in that sense. In my work-in-progress shows, I sometimes came off stage thinking ‘was I too much of a bitch during that?’ It’s very trial and error.”
But the benefit of the deeply personal is that this is what audiences seem to resonate with most. “I’ve had so many people coming up to me saying, ‘I’m going through a divorce’, and ‘I’ve just broken up with my partner, and I relate so hard’. There’s something very satisfying in that.”
That sense of connection is also what drew Foxx into stand-up in the first place. He grew up in “the middle of nowhere” in rural Hampshire, raised by a family who loved comedy and would pass long car journeys with cassette tapes of French and Saunders, Jasper Carrott, Billy Connolly. At university in London, he found himself MC-ing a talent show, which gave him his first taste for stand-up (and the idea he may actually be able to do it).
He began studying the sets of his favourite comics and trying out his own on the open mic circuit. “I got paid £15 for my first gig,” he says. “It was in a pub next to this bagel place in Brick Lane, and I couldn’t believe the fact I could pick up dinner on the way home, paid for entirely by jokes.”
While he found his feet, gigs didn’t always go so well… “I’ve bombed so hard,” he says. “Once, my entire family and some old friends I hadn’t seen in a long time were in the audience, and it was just crickets. It was horrible beyond words.” Another time, it was going so badly that a woman in the front row called out “Keep going honey”. “That was like a nail in the coffin,” he says.
As heckles go… “Not horrible, no,” he laughs. “But people trying to join in a positive way is almost the worst kind, because you can’t roast them. Yet it’s really distracting. ”
A turning point for Foxx’s career came during the Covid years when he couldn’t do live gigs, so poured all his humour into social media and went viral in the process. What surprised him about doing parodies of posh people is that posh people themselves seem to enjoy it.
“There are still so many who get in touch saying, ‘Oh my God, this is me and all my friends’,” he says. “The most negative thing I get, really, is the occasional comment correcting something – like, ‘Range Rover Vogue? That must be the nanny’s car’. Or, ‘They were flying first class instead of private – are they poor?’ Which is always hilarious.”
Foxx thinks it is all mostly taken in such good humour because “it’s not done hatefully”. “I mean, I went to a state school, but I sort of walk that line in that I know and am often around these kinds of people,” he says. “Give me a million pounds and I will become one of them.”
Alongside stand-up and sketches, Foxx co-hosts the podcast Welcome to Hell with fellow comedian Dane Buckley, in which listeners anonymously send in their deepest, darkest confessions. “They are wild,” he says. “Affairs, revenge plots, you name it. We’ve not had a murder yet, but it’s probably coming.”
Famous guests – thus far everyone from Katherine Ryan to Josh Widdicombe – also appear on the show to reveal their own most scandalous titbits, which Foxx says is a great way of getting to the heart of who someone really is. “There are loads of podcasts where it’s like, tell us something funny about you, tell us what you’re grateful for,” he says.
“When you become friends with someone, it’s not from surface-level chat,” he adds. “It’s when someone tells you the darker or more tragic stuff – that’s what’s most relatable. And there is definitely something in having a laugh about it together.”
Tickets for the ‘How Lovely’ tour are available at DanielFoxx.co.uk. ‘Welcome to Hell’ is available on most major podcast providers
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