Where creativity meets connection
“It's nice to know that stupidity transcends age,” Comedian Tom Johnson is telling me about the encouragement he’s received from British music icon John Otway. “He's still doing it at 72, so that gives hope to any nutters with ambition. Anyone can do it. You just need a push.”
Sometimes a performer has to trust their instincts and push the boundaries. For Johnson, this seems to involve reviving a play conceived, written, originally performed and then forgotten about at least 40 years ago. It starts to dawn on me that this was probably all before he was born. This kind of creative eccentricity is irresistible. Clearly he’s someone we should pay attention to.
Singer-songwriter and DIY-punk legend John Otway, along with Paul Bradley (Eastenders, Holby City), wrote Verbal Diary back in 1984. A tale of perseverance and being a bit crap, which sat neatly amongst his brand of rock, sweet-natured humour and theatrics, it saw a debut at Edinburgh Fringe. After that were a couple of odd outings, and then it was pretty much forgotten about.
Johnson’s involvement with the work was prompted by supporting Otway at the Estuary Fringe Festival in his hometown of Southend. “I read his autobiography, and there was a little bit about this mysterious play he’d done and glossed over. I'm a comedian. I can put that on. It sounded like a fun thing to do.”
“It’s still quite irreverent and anarchic.”
He tells me that putting the play together turned out a bit more complicated than anticipated. He was already knee deep in organising shows before the script arrived. “I love John dearly... But, when I received the script, I came over in a cold sweat. There were no jokes or stage directions. I asked him if I could rewrite some of it.” Both of the original play’s creators gave their blessing to the changes and Johnson says he’s kept the work’s original spirit alive. “It’s still quite irreverent and anarchic.”
There’s no reality where Otway gets too much love. An archetypal outsider artist, he’s consistently filled grassroots venues since finding fame in the late 1970s with the single Really Free. A blithe spirit and can-do attitude don’t score mainstream success, unfortunately. Most people outside the folk scene or 6Music’s listenership would struggle to pick him out of a crowd. His unabashed authenticity has created a huge fan base and his live shows are celebrated for their mix of music, comedy and storytelling.
Johnson tells me Otway is pretty laid-back. “When I first started the rewrite, I spent a lot of time sending over drafts, saying: ‘Is this okay? Is this okay?’ But he was always telling me everything was fine. The scripts were funny and he trusted me.”
The new version has evolved into something which honours the original Verbal Diary. There were references to phone boxes, faxes, the Miners’ Strike and having Billy Bragg over to contextualise for a modern audience.
“It was a case of dissecting each scene. “I'm 25, but all my cultural reference points are about 40 years out of date. I know what a fax machine is, but other people my age don't. There was a lot of careful rejigging.”
At the heart of it all is a simple story. A normal lad sees his hopes and dreams pulled out from underneath him. Johnson plays Gordon, a protagonist Otway crafted as semi-autographical. “His whole life falls apart. He gets sacked, dumped and evicted on the same day. Essentially, he runs away to this new flat, with two New Year's resolutions… Keep a daily diary making his feelings tangible, and win the affections of his flatmate, Cheryl.” The best laid plans begin to fall apart when his flatmates start to read his diary, and anticipate his every thought. This joyous and comedic underdog story is very much in keeping with Otway’s oeuvre. It’s a story of perseverance and appreciating what you have. And maybe simply accepting that, while there are happy endings, they don’t always land the way you hope.
“You just want to hug him.”
“It's not Chaucer… But it's a fun and chaotic show, with a lot of warmth. It does delve into loneliness and a struggle to fit in. Gordon is a loser. He wants to succeed in what he's doing and make friends, but he's really bad at everything. You just want to hug him.”
The new show was taken to Edinburgh Fringe last year, and won plenty of praise from both critics and audiences. An unavoidable feature of its national tour is an innovative set. Described by the Edinburgh Fringe committee as the best piece of creative design they’ve seen, it takes the form of a giant diary.
“It’s seven feet tall, and opens up. The first page is Gordon’s bedroom, and when he walks through a door in the page, it's his office, which then transforms into a pub, garden, bathroom or lounge. It is impressive. The idea came from Otway, but the real credit goes to Dave Taylor, who built it, and John Bully, who painted it. He also did Camden Lock’s bridge. We'll be lugging that in and out of little fringe theatres that probably weren't designed to have a massive pop-up book!”
This all brings to life the world Gordon shares with Cheryl, his medical student flatmate, and Phil (who seems a little bit dodgy and nobody really knows what he does for a living). There’s also Eric, an egomaniacal and sexually frustrated newspaper editor, and Tristran, who wants to be an artist, but is ultimately a bit crap. Accompanying the onstage action are guitar and fiddle players. “I wouldn't say it's a gig as well as a play, but there is live music. There's so much energy about them, they really bring it alive.” He tells me there are nine Otway songs in the production, which you’re unlikely to hear anywhere else.
When Verbal Diary comes to Brighton’s The Actors Theatre on Fri 11 July, the cast will be joined by experimental composer and local folk legend Nick Pynn. “I've never said it to his face, but Nick is one of my musical heroes. So that's a big tick for me. I bought his Waterproof album when I was at uni. He’s brilliant… a lovely man as well.”
He tells me his parents had him in later life, so he grew up around a lot of older people. “That’s how I learned about the Monty Python gang, the Comic Strip, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd... I just fell in love with all the stupid, weird stuff.” He suggests there’s a lack of that brand of comedy onscreen these days, but there’s still plenty of comedians out in the wild, bringing a touch of strangeness to the live circuit. “There's Spencer Jones, who’s a good prop comedian. I don't know why that stuff isn’t on telly more.”
“A lot of the time, I’ll make opportunities for myself.”
The life of a stand-up is hard, especially on the regional circuit. Aspiring talent will travel hundreds of miles for a 20-minute slot and a pittance. “There are moments you think: ‘Am I doing something wrong?’ It's just the way it is. Perhaps there should be a body somewhere in the government, specifically for the arts, to make them viable. At the moment, it's rough. But people still do it.” With a laugh, he tells me he’s been sacked from every ‘proper’ job he’s had. Performing is the one thing that has stuck.
“I've had to write stuff obviously, so I can go and perform it. A lot of the time, I’ll make opportunities for myself. I don't like to wait around for things.”
Johnson’s inspirations as a writer and performer contradict his 25 years on the planet. There’s some huge love for Spike Milligan and The Young Ones. He tells me his usual stand-up is performed in the style of a cabaret performance which has gone horribly wrong.
“It’s like people who come on stage and put a Rubik's cube down their pants, and it comes out solved because they've got a magic knob …or there are people who rearrange garden gnomes onstage, and have an owl hoist which they lower into a shallow tub of spark plugs. We have an armless dancer who always gets the YMCA dance wrong.” All of this whimsical brilliance seems to align perfectly with his new staging of Verbal Diary, and its gentle self-depreciation and absurdity. “You want to aim really high… and then you always, always fall,” he says with a chuckle.
Tom Johnson brings Verbal Diary to Brighton’s The Actors Theatre on Fri 11 July, The Palace Theatre at Dixon Studio in Southend-On-Sea on Fri 18 July, Camden’s The Etcetera Theatre on Sat 19 July and Carshalton’s The Cryer Arts Theatre on Thurs 30 Oct 2025.
Stuart Rolt
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