Comedy can be found everywhere, you just need to look hard enough. It could be in something you see in the street, a picture on the internet or it could be found in a burger van. Former burger van owner Angelos Epithemiou is rapidly becoming one of the hottest commodities in comedy after being found by “Shooting Stars” host Bob Mortimer.
“I used to [work in a burger van] and I was very good at it,” said Angelos. “In fact I was so good at it they given me an award for it. Mortimer come on and presented the award to me. Then he got chatting to me and I got chatting to him, and he said ‘will you come on my show?’.
“Now I’ve seen this bloody show, and I thought ‘what a load of rubbish’, it’s babyish and they’re a pair of chancers. So when he asked me I said ‘no’, then he asked me again I said ‘no I’m not doing it’ and then he asked me again and I said ‘oh all right, I will’. He twisted my arm. So that’s how I got on this show.”
Angelos replaced George Dawes on “Shooting Stars” as the scorekeeper. But he’s not overly excited by the role. “It takes up a lot of my bloody time, they’re a pair of idiots, they make me look like an idiot on there. It’s an hour and a half of my life I won’t get back every week.
“It’s tricky, I don’t know anything about numbers and yet I have to do the scores. You’d have thought they’d have sorted that about but they haven’t.”
He says that despite the fame of working on “Shooting Stars”, he definitely prefers working on his burger van. However, he can’t as it has been blown up by, what Angelos calls “mysterious forces”.
Following the success of Angelos’ performances on “Shooting Stars”, he was booked to do a special Christmas tour in December last year. Such was the demand of the tour, however, many more dates were added for early this year.
“I didn’t expect it to be so popular, I only wanted to do one date. Then they said ‘no you can’t, you’ve got to do more’. I was thinking ‘how am I gonna watch all the tele I gotta watch if I gotta do all these blinkin’ dates?’. Then they just added more and more and more, I thought ‘this is ridiculous’. I’d rather be at home with my feet up eating ice cream, but I can’t now I’ve got to go out and do these shows.”
The show, entitled “Angelos Epithemiou and Friends” will be visiting Lincoln’s Engine Shed later this month. But what sort of show can you expect from such an unconventional comedian?
“You can expect me to do my dance, you can expect me to do my joke, you can expect me to do my impression and I pad that out over an hour and a half. Then there’s a quiz as well, and the winner of the quiz gets to do a backstage tour with me. So I think that should excite people, get ’em in.”
Once the tour finishes in March, Angelos reveals he’s going to take a well earned break. “I’ll probably just put the kettle on. Go down to Londis, get a few odd and sods, the food that’s only just gone off, ’cause it’s cheaper. Then I’ll come back, eat some food, watch a bit of ‘Crimewatch’ and we’ll see what happens after that.”
He has also been announced to host this year’s NME Awards. A duty which, in the past, has been given to the likes of Russell Brand, Mark Watson and Lauren Laverne. However, Angelos admits “I don’t even know what it is. I’m just gonna turn up there, say what they want me to say and go home. I don’t know any of the bands what will be there. ELO, are they still going? I’d like to see them win something, but I don’t know if they will. I suspect they’ll be overlooked again.”
With so much going on in Angelos’ life at the minute, it’ll be hard for the fame not to go to his head. But he takes it all in his stride, as he says “I’m a much better person now. I get better opportunities as well, to do things.
“The other day this bloke came up to me in the street and said; ‘Angelos, would you mind opening my supermarket?’. I said ‘Of course I wouldn’t mind, that’s a lovely thing to ask, thank you’. Then he just fling the keys at me and said to open it up at four o’clock tomorrow morning to let the bakers in because he’s going on holiday. So I said ‘Oh all right, I’ll do that’.”
Despite the tour and the NME Awards, Angelos is still best known for “Shooting Stars” and revealing what’s in his bag. Which today contained “a bit of meat, a fried egg and a gun.” A gun which Angelos pointed out was a toy, and “it’s just in case anyone gets funny.”
Angelos Epithemiou is performing at the Engine Shed on Thursday, 24th February. Tickets are priced at £16.50 plus booking fees. Doors open at 18:30, the show starts at 19:30. For more information visit the Engine Shed website.