Tape Face speaks!
INVERNESS has been kept waiting thanks to a certain vote in America.
No, not that one. This was the vote for America’s Got Talent, part of Simon Cowell’s global talent show brand, which has also proved that New Zealand has talent in the shape of comedian Sam Wills.
Wills – better known as The Boy with Tape on His Face – and his modern take on silent comedy was a hit with the celebrity judges right from a first appearance that earned him a standing ovation and made his masking tape covered features familiar in millions of homes across the USA and around the world.
By popular demand, Wills returned week after week, making it to the series final.
His success meant that his planned Inverness show in October had to be moved to next Wednesday, but also means that he has moved from the OneTouch Theatre to the main Empire Theatre auditorium in Eden Court, so what he acknowledges was a deliberate attempt to boost his US profile has also had a positive spin-off in his home base of the UK.
"When I first came to this country, I had to go on the comedy circuit and make my name that way. I realised I didn’t have the time to try and break into America the same way, so AGT seemed a good way of getting my name out there," Wills explained.
"It was definitely a surreal experience. I remember standing backstage and watching what was happening on stage on the monitors. I was only 20 metres away, but it was just like watching any TV show.
"The production values were preposterously higher than anything else I’ve dealt with, probably because so many people watch it. It was definitely worth doing. I’ve had a lot of interest come out of that."
His journey towards international stardom began in the small New Zealand city of Timaru when Wills was 13 and was given the present of a magic set.
From magic, he moved onto learning circus skills as an apprentice to a local clown and then at a circus school in Christchurch.
The Boy with Tape on His Face – Tape Face for short – was born one night after Wills had already developed a largely silent comedy routine, one he had inadvertently sabotaged by speaking. To prevent a repeat, on the spur of the moment he picked up some gaffer tape backstage and taped over his mouth. The show was even more of a success and the tape stuck.
"I’m still pretty lucky because I’m enjoying doing the show and enjoying the character. Because the audience come up on stage, it keeps it fresh every night," he said.
"If anything, Tape Face is me aged nine and I stopped there. It’s very innocent and straightforward. The goal for me is to remind adults about using their imagination.
"When you’re a child you can take anything and make a game of it, but when you are older you start playing with tablets and computers and start losing that ability."
One advantage that Wills has over his more vocal comedy contemporaries is that without any need for translation, his style of comedy is a bit more exportable to non-English speaking nations.
"I’ve toured to some wonderful interesting places," Wills, who had just returned from performing in Hong Kong, agreed.
"I recently did a tour in South Korea. I’ve even done tours for Australians and they seem to understand it! But I’m a bit jealous of stand-up comedians. All they have to do is turn up at night and walk up to the microphone."
Things are a bit more complicated than that for Wills, who makes extensive use of props for his shows.
That is especially true of his current Best of... tour. It is no longer just a case of throwing his kit in the back of a car and heading off. The new tour requires a bit more logistical planning.
"This show has definitely upped the production," he said.
"We’re even taking our own lighting rig."
One essential component he will not know about until he arrives at the theatre is the audience, some of whom will find themselves sharing the stage with Tape Face.
However, Wills, who previously performed at Eden Court as part of the Happyness Comedy Festival, assured potential volunteers they have little to worry about.
"Normally they get one or two simple tasks to perform because I want them to succeed. They complete the task and leave the stage a hero," he said.
"But I have had some strange things happen. One of the routines I’ll be doing on this tour is the Stripper routine. I get someone up on stage and put clothes on them, then they have to take them off to the sound of Tom Jones’s You Can Leave Your Hat On.
"There was one time in Glasgow, a guy got up on stage and then when he’d taken off all the clothes I’d put on him, he started taking off his own clothes! The place went wild! Imagine having all the confidence to do that?"
That is something else that marks him out from his comedy peers – while other comedians frantically search for fresh material for each tour, as Tape Face’s Best of...tour implies, he is quite happy to bring back some old routines.
"I get in trouble when I don’t do a joke," he admitted.
"People ask ‘Why didn’t you do the joke with the oven gloves?’ or ‘Why didn’t you do the Jackson 5 routine?’ If you’ve been to some of my previous tour shows, there are bits you will recognise, but there will also be new stuff."
There might be new stuff, but it comes with a comic sensibility that owes much to the screen clowns of the silent era.
"I’m a big, big Buster Keaton fan. Chaplin was always a bit too sneaky. He always manages to get the girl. I would love to be put on a screen beside Buster Keaton, but if most people start watching a silent movie these days, they switch off after five minutes," Wills said.
"I also get a lot of inspiration from cartoons. Things like the Looney Tunes cartoons and Wile E. Coyote, but I’m also a big fan of The Muppets. They’d have a box and absolutely anything could come out of that box. That’s the feeling that I’m going for. The world that Tape Face belongs to doesn’t have any rules."
• The Boy with Tape on his Face will be at the Empire Theatre, Eden Court at 7.30pm on Wednesday November 23.
