Comedian Russell Kane, 47, has confessed he’d sooner talk about his sex life than make jokes about Prince Andrew in an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk. Russell made the remarks in an interview about losing his virginity, a topic that he has been discussing as part of the Boots Taboo Talk podcast.
Asked if he ever felt uncomfortable speaking about a topic that was so personal, Russell confirmed: “No, not for me.
“The more taboo or rude or filthy or awkward the subject, the more obviously it’s home territory for a comedian.
“The only time a comedian is nervous is after speaking about Brexit or Prince Andrew or the BBC or something like that,” he continued. “Then you’ll see a comedian sweating.
“But if you’ve been asked onto a podcast to talk about your sex life, there’s a queue of comedians around the block happy to talk all about that.”
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Quizzed on why he thinks comedians find sex easier to talk about than more divisive issues, Russell explained: “It’s easier to be funny about that, because there’s more tension to be released around the embarrassment.
“So it’s a bit of a home gig for a comic. Just saying the word ‘arse’ out loud is funny.
“Let alone saying it with any sort of depth or meaning and emotion around it. So yeah, I think anything like that…
“The way comedy works is that there’s tension between what you expect is going to happen and then what actually happens,” he continued.
“I mean, the show I’m doing at the moment – the most successful show I’ve ever toured – and 45 minutes of it is about Covid, about masks, about restrictions.
“You know, there’s always laughter to be released in serious areas. And it’s even more important, I think, with men because it’s quite hard to get men talking about serious things like their sex lives and their insecurities and when they lost their virginity.
“And they feel more comfortable when there’s a sort of humour around it to get the topic going.”
Asked what he wished he had known at the time he lost his virginity, Russell explained: “It wasn’t so much what I wish I’d known as it was sort of that I wish I could go back in time.