I am a bit scared of Ken Cheng. I don’t think I’m the only one in Cambridge comedy who feels that way. But Ken is not scary. Ken is an absolutely lovely person, who happens to be brilliantly and intimidatingly funny. He is currently touring his show Best Dad Ever, a version of his show which he performed at the Fringe. He was on the BBC New Talent Hotlist in 2017, in 2018 he was nominated for the Amused Moose Best show of the Fringe, and he won Dave’s best joke of the fringe in 2017, which always deserves a mention, although I get the impression it’s beginning to haunt Ken a bit. I don’t know about you, but I find that a tad intimidating.

"Ken has been what us cool kids call ‘blowing up’ recently."

Following him on twitter has been a real treat and I can only recommend you do the same but has only added to the intimidation. Ken has been what us cool kids call ‘blowing up’ recently. He has been popping up all over our TVs and radios in funny, or in the case of his radio 4 program, not as funny shows. When I asked him about this he divulges a bit of how surreal it has been, “Only 3 years ago I was still living in Cambridge and hadn’t fully decided to pursue comedy as a career. It’s such a daunting thing. It’s very competitive and there’s a lot of uncertainty. But I do deep down have a lot of passion for it.”

Ken started his comedy career in Cambridge, being a Footlights regular despite having dropped out in his first year. Many of us are familiar with Ken’s past as a poker player/Matho drop out, but he is that Cambridge comedy success story a lot of us involved in the comedy scene look at with deep envy.

I pointed out to him that from experience I feel in doing comedy here we can be a little protected, he agreed and added, “In the real world there’s an element that you have to play it safer with your comedy - you can’t experiment in the same way as you could in Cambridge - but also in general, you just have to be better in every aspect: more confident, tighter jokes, sharper delivery.” But for those aspiring comedians who find this all a bit scary, Ken offers some advice to essentially make the best of what we have while we’re still here, “It’s easy to forget how great the comedy scene actually is and take it for granted, but don’t. Find ways to retain your passion for it, and don’t ever stop creating. That’s the key to success.”

Ken is clearly passionate about comedy, and all of that passion can be seen in Best Dad Ever. This show is a personal show, quite different from his previous show Chinese Comedian, which he describes as, “just regular stand-up material.” This show takes on a much more narrative based style about his upbringing, which seems to have proven to be rich with material. As Ken put it, “Certainly growing up in the UK as a child of Chinese immigrants has meant I have a different perspective, but it’s also about uncovering a lot of secrets about my own family.”

As a Chinese comedian (not the show, the person), Ken has seen the change in Recently we have seen the Cambridge Footlights making big changes, largely due to a lack of access for BAME students. Ken had a big role in the first Footlights BME smoker as the casting director. While he praises the steps that have been taken, Ken points out that there are layers to access which don’t stop at a BME smoker: “I think the things that Footlights are doing for BAME access are great, and the political mindset towards it is generally positive, but the situation has a lot of complications, especially given what Cambridge is. You can’t change that Cambridge has a class problem, and theatre inherently comes with a lot of class problems. Put them together and you have a much bigger wider issue that ended up being most focussed on under the frame of race. The stuff done for access has been great at addressing race, like the BME smoker, I worked on the first one and I fully support them, but at the same time, do we just do them forever? Is that the solution?”

While here he points out a seemingly inevitable flaw in steps like BAME only shows and smokers, he does make clear that things are not as great in the wider world: “ everyone over the age of say, 30, 35, are still sort of new to this kind of politics so they may not understand the nuances or just flat out reject it, so you do encounter occasional instances of tone-deafness.” Yet this hasn’t stopped him gaining success, and it is clear this is partly due to a change in the ‘invisible hand of the comedy market’. As Ken put it, “there is a real move to encourage people from different voices and backgrounds to do comedy, and there is also a massive clamour for that. You can see that coming from every angle, industry and audiences alike. From a practical sense, audiences are bored of people from the same places with the same kind of viewpoints, and we’re now seeing an emergence of a lot of great diverse acts. So I’m pretty optimistic in that regard.”

Personally, I think Ken should be optimistic because I think he’s going to be in comedy for a long time. You can go and see his show Best Dad Ever, on the 30th of January at the Cambridge Junction. Go and see him now so that in 20 years, as you’re watching Mock the Week on Dave you can boast to your girlfriend (who is bored of you already), that you saw him in his first tour. You have to think ahead about these things.