Who knew TikTokers would be taking to the stage? Henry certainly wasn’t going to…
Except his stand-up tour, Just Literally, begins at Corn Exchange, Exeter on 16th October.
I was thinking it too, so how did that happen?
1.3 million TikTok followers doesn’t seem to bother effortlessly funny Henry Rowley. He was easy to talk to, certain of his convictions and confident in his move to stand up comedy.
1.3 million TikTok followers doesn’t seem to bother effortlessly funny Henry Rowley.
Henry was keen to share how initially, he’d envisaged himself a travel influencer. “I thought, what a job, to get paid to go to the nicest hotels in the world and make a video about it.” So, he’d downloaded TikTok, “tried to put together all these travel videos, just based on random holidays [he’d] been to, Wales or something.”
Crucially, “it did not fly”.
Considering this limited experience tucked under his belt, when Henry’s mate drunkenly suggested he redownload the app, he thought, why not?
Henry’s personas, the characters he’s created, could possess him without a moment’s notice. In our single chat, he impersonated, himself (but posher), his classic posh girl (Minty) and people from Leeds, Leicester and Bristol. If there’s an opportunity to whip out an accent, Henry’s on it.
It was the character of Minty though, which really rocketed his audience numbers. “That one just started taking off, so I did a few more and then it just kept going.”
Ahead of his show in Exeter, I thought I’d see how Henry felt about performing to a crowd full of posh girls. (If Exeter students’ stereotypes have anything to play for):
“I think they quite love it.” He admitted, “Cos it’s like: ‘Ohhh my godddd, that’s sooo meee, stoppp ahahahhah.’” The girls he appears to impersonate, aren’t so outrageous: “the character is sort of worse than reality, Minty is quite horrendous […] but I’m not mocking, it’s sort of everyone’s in on the joke.”
“…but I’m not mocking, it’s sort of everyone’s in on the joke.”
Henry Rowley
Henry made it very clear that his fans, the people who support his career, mean everything to him. “All the people that come to see me, I love, and they’re wonderful people, so I’m never taking the piss out of them, we’re in it together.”
The posh Exeter stereotype plays a fairly large role in Henry’s work. “When I first started doing all of the posh characters on TikTok, one of the unis that was mentioned the most was Exeter […] and Exeter was always a posh girl.” In Henry’s eyes, we’re the poshest of the posh, except for Durham.
I questioned Henry’s blatant stereotyping, he replied, “but it’s accurate stereotyping.”
Henry said he’s met a fair few Mintys in his time, that after a show they’ve spoken to him “and been like: “oh my goddd my names Minty… and you’ve ruined my lifeee” and [he’s] been like “sorry,” in a jokey way.”
Yet, there’s no denying, Henry Rowley is also a posh boy. He said you just have to “embrace it”. It’s part of the joke that he was “the poshest boy in Leicester” and when you end up at Bristol Uni, you can expect any hint of the midlands to quickly disappear from your accent.
“I like the brand of the posh boy, I mean I am, I’m called Henry, I’ve got this floppy brown hair and I speak like this.” He’s not wrong there.
Henry shared how he studied English Literature at university. He spent his days down by the harbour in Bristol, reading. He said, and I agreed, that’s why English is the best degree.
Henry’s intellectual expertise surprised me. He shared his love for Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs, because it “is the most disgusting and vulgar, but incredible and visceral, just everything, book, it’s just got these intense descriptions [which are] quite alarming; I think, it was one of the last books to ever be banned for obscenity, and I can kind of see why, but I think it’s also brilliant from a technical perspective.”
That description of literature, that passion for creativity, is likely what drove Henry towards the world of stand up. It’s all satirical, it’s all intentional.
So, I asked, why the shift to stand up?
“I saw all these TikTokers who were doing stand up and I always said, who do they think they are, stand up is an entirely different crowd. Just because you’re funny online, doesn’t mean you’re gonna be good at stand up, like, God. Idiots. What is wrong with this generation? Now my agent was there like, there’s an opportunity to try stand up and do it at the fringe, do you wanna do it? So, I was like, yeah, fuck it.”
“Just because you’re funny online, doesn’t mean you’re gonna be good at stand up.”
Henry Rowley
Henry was fortunate enough to develop his stand-up skills at Edinburgh fringe, a hub for up-and-coming comedians.
But the shift to stage is never fluid. Henry explained how he’d initially tried out all this new material, “but a lot of people who were coming to the shows were there because they’d seen [him] online and then were getting none of the stuff they’d seen online.”
So, he switched up his approach, “Now it’s like a one-man sketch show.” And it’s setting up to be a highly entertaining evening. The perfect balance of what came before and trying something new.
“With stand-up, you have to really work, really earn the laughs, and you have to make them laugh out loud.”
Henry explained how he prefers stand-up to TikTok: “I’ve always loved performing. For me, just being on a stage, making people laugh jumping about being an idiot and just having fun, it’s the most exciting thing.”
Comparatively, the superficial world of TikTok seems to have started to get to Henry. Because “of the way we’re wired in this day and age, you do get a little serotonin boost from seeing all the likes and comments and followers, and I’m ashamed when I feel like: ‘Oh this feels good.’”
“I’m ashamed of the gratification I get from TikTok.”
Henry Rowley
“I’m ashamed of the gratification I get from TikTok,” Henry admitted, “what does followers and likes mean? Not much.”
But this is why Henry is loving performing. People will come up to him after shows. He loves to know that the time he’s put into making people laugh, getting them “through difficult times […] that’s the most amazing thing.”
“And I think that correlates to the on stage, sensational experience of seeing people laugh.”
I asked if he sometimes gets fed up of the fame, he replied: “I’m chosing to do this.”
“These are the people my career relies on and that’s the reason I do it, to entertain people, and hopefully make them a little bit happier each day,” so if he gets spotted on the street, in his opinion, if you’re rejecting, or being rude to those people, “that’s when your ego starts to get the better of you.”
As for any haters out there, Henry only had this to say: “There’s a lot of people out there who probably hate me and that’s completely fine, it’s comedy.”
“There’s a lot of people out there who probably hate me and that’s completely fine, it’s comedy.”
Henry Rowley
Regardless of the many characters Henry Rowley plays, you can’t help but find the real guy kind, modest and actually quite funny.
So, if you’re in Exeter, and fancy laughing through an evening with Henry Rowley, get yourself over to Corn Exchange on 16th October. Perhaps he’ll even steal my joke about skinny green scarved Exeter girls…
Get your tickets here.
