Ed Gamble interview on TV and his new show

Ed Gamble: From podcast star to Pointless host as the new Richard

Ed Gamble is the celebrated comedian who you might know from shows like Mock the Week and Taskmaster. The stand-up comedian and judge on Great British Menu has been named a co-host of the hit teatime TV quiz show.

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There are two sides to Ed Gamble — or that’s what he would like people to think. There’s the highly strung, shouty comedian Ed Gamble, who strides on stage to earsplitting thrash metal, rants about Guide Dogs for the Blind, has 14 tattoos and hosts the Kerrang! awards. And there’s the well-spoken, shiny-haired presenter Ed Gamble, who probes guests politely on his hit podcast Off Menu, judges high-concept gourmet food on Great British Menu and has just been named as a successor to Richard Osman on Pointless.

In fact, Gamble, who is 36, knows very well that comedy lies in the meeting of these two things. In his stand-up, he describes himself as having a “Coldplay face” and looking like “a slightly cool.

Ed Gamble on his Electric tour and meeting the Stranger Things star whose career has ‘gone mad’
Since February, Ed’s Electric tour has been all over the UK and, due to popular demand, it has now been extended, now concluding in November. He will also take the show to the Edinburgh Fringe in August.

Speaking about whether he changes Electric up over the tour, he said: I try and mix it up every night and keep it fresh. I’ve got the set show, and I’m going to talk about the stuff in the show, but also, you’ve got to roll with what’s happening on the night, as well. There’s nothing worse than going to a show and seeing the performer completely dead behind the eyes, so I like to keep it exciting for myself as well.”

Electric is Ed’s sixth national tour, and follows Blizzard, which launched at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe, and his Amazon Prime special Blood Sugar, released in 2019.

When asked if he ever gets hecklers, the comedian told him: “It’s rarer than you’d think. And I try to not get angry… if you say something back quickly and have fun with it, it shuts them up quickly. If they keep going, that’s when it turns into an issue.”

On how he deals with that situation, the comic joked: “I strip naked from the waist down, and I run at them.”

When asked Ed if he always knew he was funny, the stand-up admitted: “I was always a cheeky boy, a little cheeky boy at school. And I wanted to be an actor really, that was my dream thing to do when I was about eight, and then I realised that I couldn’t act, but I was quite good at making people laugh, so that’s what I persevered with.”

As well as being a stand-up, Ed also co-hosts the Off Menu podcast with James Acaster. The pod was nominated for the 2019 British Podcast Awards in the Best Entertainment category.

On Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn, Ed said. “His career’s just gone mad because of Stranger Things. It was really interesting meeting him because you can see in his eyes that he’s just on this wild ride. His career’s suddenly gone mad, and then we’re screaming ‘papadums or bread’ in his face!”

Ed also hosts Taskmaster: The Podcast, and won series nine of the massively popular TV show. On being victorious in his series, he said: “It’s the silliest show possible, and you can’t actually be good at it. No matter how much I crow about winning that show, it’s so random how people do on it.”

In May it was announced that Ed will be one of six co-hosts joining Alexander Armstrong on Pointless to replace Richard Osman.

“They’re getting a few people in to guest host Pointless, since Richard has decided that he wants to pursue his little writing career, of having multi-billion-selling books,” he explained.

“I’ve not filmed it yet, so it could be an absolute disaster,” he added. “They are huge shoes to fill.”