Rufus Hound looks back: ‘By the time I started to do standup, I realised I’d been training for it my entire life’

The actor and comedian on using humour as his cheat code, his internal monologue and the teacher to whom he owes everything Born in Essex in 1979, Rufus Hound is a comedian, actor and broadcaster. He left his job in PR in 2000 to work full-time as a comedian, first in standup and then on TV. A panel show regular, including Mock the Week and Celebrity Juice, he has also built a substantial stage career, with roles in West End productions such as Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Wind in the Willows and One Man, Two Guvnors. He stars in The Mesmerist at Watford Palace theatre from 2-21 March. I was six, and on holiday. My dad was an accountant who benefited, briefly, from the jobs boom of the 1970s. Suddenly, getting on a plane was an option for our family. We spent our summers in Corsica, going on boat trips. A few years ago, I would have said that boy was wide-eyed and innocent. Now I’ve done a bit of therapy, I know he was consumed by anxiety and desperate for attention. Continue reading...