Fringe: Reginald D. Hunter on the 10 things that changed his life

1. Tina Turner

I WAS about six years old and I remember watching her on TV with Ike (Turner) performing Proud Mary. She was dancing with the long wig and moving around.

I think I recorded my first crush then so that was an impactful moment. So, that was that. I’ve always had a warm spot in my heart for Tina Turner (below).

2.  Richard Pryor

THEY say the great ones always ruin a bunch of people who come after them. Richard Pryor ruined two or three generations of black comedians because they were all so busy trying to sound like him.

I just wanted to be able to make people feel the way he made me feel. I wanted to know how to do what he did.

3. Dave Allen

HE was very impactful. I would watch his show, it came on one summer every night and it was Benny Hill and Dave Allen.

I started that summer as a Benny Hill fan but by the end, I was all Dave Allen. Over the course of those few months, I think it was a shift in my maturation.

READ MORE: Edinburgh Fringe: Liam Farrelly on 10 things that changed his life

Another thing that struck me about him was when he sat in that chair, he just looked like Captain Kirk to me and I wanted to be like that.

I didn’t understand all the references to Ireland and England because I was still a boy in the south (of the US), but he still made me understand the story. I wanted to know how to do that.

4. Staying in the wrong flat in Edinburgh

I REMEMBER my third year at the festival, having rented a flat, going there and having trouble with the key. Anyway, I finally got it to work with the lock.

I stayed there for two days when I came to realise I was supposed to be staying in the flat across the hall.

Eventually, I was in this flat looking around and there was a lot of cat hair everywhere. It was cluttered and I was like “I don’t think much of this”.

I called my PR company and I was b******* about it. The girl came over to inspect and said, “I don’t think this is our flat”. We got all my stuff moved over but clearly that other place had a flimsy lock. I put the wrong key in, but it eventually just came open so I just assumed there was something wrong with the key.

I also played Paisley, I was there twice. People kept warning me about Paisley the way people in London warned me about Brixton when I got here.

And when I went to both places, it just seemed like everywhere else. As long as you weren’t f****** with nobody then everything was okay.

5. Meeting Peter O’Toole

THIS was just my second year in stand-up. He’d been an acting hero of mine. He was a bit of an a******.

It was nothing huge, you can relax. I walked out of this studio and he was sitting with a bunch of people smoking cigarettes and holding court.

I walked up behind him and said, “excuse me, Mr O’Toole, you’re a major inspiration, while I’m in this country” and all that. He literally just said “thanks” and turned his back to me and kept talking.

I wasn’t upset at the time either. Just to have his complete attention for 12 seconds was enough. Meeting my heroes has never worked out especially well for me so I can subscribe to that adage.

6. The Fringe

LATE'N'LIVE at the Fringe had an impact on me. When I first got to Edinburgh, established comedians would say it isn’t what it used to be. I started doing it but I find myself now saying, “it’s cool but it’s not what it was when I was doing it regularly”.

It was the excitement of getting up for it. I remember sitting with comedian Andrew Maxwell and he got up on stage. A comedian got on stage and started talking about war and all this.

Andrew leaned over to me and said that you should never attempt political humour from just reading the headlines. But that bear pit that Late’n’Live was, it was understood that the moment you took the stage you had to impress them.

I think one of the best things about Edinburgh in general is it gives you a range of audiences. Every comedian who has done the festival has had to do a show for four people, and you’re deciding whether to do the whole thing or not.

You realise that you won’t graduate to be a grown comic until you go through that. At Late’n’Live, you’re standing in the wings, the comic in front is being booed along with everyone before him so you’ve got to dig deep inside.

7. Living in the UK

I'M living here at the moment, I moved here about 27 years ago. It just sort of gradually happened.

I came here to study acting and kept staying and acting turned into pantomime which turned into stand-up and then that went into travel and television.

But I’m posted down in London now. I like a lot of things about it here, I like not being shot at. Unless you’re drunk, you guys aren’t loud, not compared to Americans anyway.

I also like the fact the food isn’t pumped full of steroids.

8. Studying acting

I STUDIED acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. I was at a point in my life where I was very flexible. We try to shape and plan and anticipate every moment, but I was willing to do whatever felt right.

I kind of miss those days. I remember growing up, the word “opportunistic” didn’t have negative connotations like it does today.

9. Sting

THERE was a period in the late 80s and early 90s where, if I had to be a white man, I would have been Sting.

Not only did his music speak to me, but in his music he had a profound understanding of Western literature.

READ MORE: 10 things that changed my life with comedian Rosie Jones

There was something about it that wasn’t trying to prove or say that I’m smart. It was matter-of-fact smartness and there was an empathy, a pathos in his music. He was able to say things men find difficult to say out loud.

I was with a friend a week ago who didn’t know much about him so I gave her my Sting 101 course.

I met him once and I have never seen a human being be more perfectly still. Like Jedi still. He just did not move at all.

10. Tony Woods

HE was probably my greatest comedic mentor. For a lot of comedians, Tony Woods is the textbook definition of an international comedian.

He started doing it 25-30 years ago, playing America, England, France as a part of his circuit. He once sat me down and asked me what the most important thing about stand-up is and I said “be funny”.

But he said, “no, that’s third on the list” and that the first thing to accept was that you are there to be laughed at.

Your second mission, he told me, was to be interesting. If you pick interesting subject matters, take an interesting approach, then you can go a long time without a punchline.

He taught me so much, and Tony Woods has been a mentor for a lot of comedians.