Interview with Krystal Evans

How did you get involved with Mitchell & Webb Are Not Helping? 

My agency sent me an email with the subject line, “Mitchell & Webb sketch show” and I was like, “What is this?!”. I've been a fan of theirs since the 2000s even though I lived in the US. I’ve always been a huge fan of British comedy and I loved that sketch show so much, so my first reaction was just that I was so excited they were doing another sketch show, let alone that I was being given an opportunity to be in it! Just, “Oh, my God, they're bringing that show back, that's incredible.”

I didn’t think I had any chance of actually getting it, but even an invitation to audition was so incredibly exciting. It felt like a major step in in my career, although I did freak out about it.

What was the audition like? 

Because I live in Scotland, they gave me the option to do it over Zoom but I was like, “Oh, no, you betcha I’m coming down in person.” Gareth and Rob were there, and Stevie Martin, because she’d already been cast, and they gave me some scenes like any kind of acting audition. I was more nervous for that than probably anything ever in my entire life. I was freaking out, but it was so lovely and relaxed. We talked a bit about the old sketch show and just chatted in general. Then I had a call-back, and David was also there that time. I thought it went well but really, I had no idea.

My ten-year-old son is a big fan of the sketches, so he was super invested in this as well. When I got the call to say I’d got it, he was jumping up and down and very excited, so that was sweet.

Mitchell & Webb humour does work cross-generationally for that reason, doesn’t it? Some sketches are just silly, others are meta or have pathos. 

Yes, and it’s that classic kind of British comedy which rewards you for watching all of it because they have callbacks to different sketches. The little behind-the-scenes sketches are meta, as you say, and that’s very funny, and sometimes there’s a bit of a serious note. It’s layered, and I think they brought that vibe to the new one as well.

Tell me about the writers’ room. 

Oh, that was so fun. I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. I've been a part of writers’ rooms before, but never multiple ones with the same group of people, and you just develop such a taste and a sense of each other's jokes and each other's comedy, and you start playing off what the other person might bring to it. There were guest writers as well, other comedians that I knew and some that I didn't know, and that always brought an extra flavour to the room.

This is my first major acting role so there was a lot of learning for me, and it was so cool to see behind the scenes of how a Mitchell & Webb sketch show becomes what it is eventually. A writers’ room is such a good way to get the best ideas out of people, in this really relaxed environment where we’re all having tea and coffee and eating snacks and talking about things we find funny.

It was all very respectful, nobody dominated the room or anything, but if one person couldn’t quite get something then another person would jump in with an idea, so I learned loads, seeing the bones of how a sketch show comes to be. Plus, my sides hurt at the end from laughing so hard.

Rob described it as turning up with a bunch of bad ideas, then trying to turn them into something. 

I think he’s being self-deprecating, but I know what he means. Rob, David and our producer Gareth were aware that we newer writers were more nervous than them, and so they did sometimes come out with – and I mean this in the nicest way – a really dumb idea to maybe almost signal to us, “Anything goes”. One way of bringing out the best in people is by telling them, “Listen, there's no bad idea in a writers’ room”, so it was us throwing stuff at the wall.

How did you get on with the other three writer-performers? 

So well. The only comedian I kind of knew beforehand was Lara, we knew each other a tiny bit from the comedy circuit. Obviously Kiell has been on major TV shows so he's very experienced with being on set and everything, but he was very sweet when I was feeling a little intimidated. So were Stevie and Lara.

Because we're all comedians, every second the cameras weren't rolling, we were just trying to make each other laugh. It was such a joyful experience and we’re all good friends now.

Being such a big fan of their comedy, was it nerve-wracking to work with David and Rob at first? 

They were so cool and easy to talk to. I wrote a book this year, and I had massive chats with both of them about that, because they've both written books. Rob wrote a harrowing memoir about his childhood, which is the same genre as my own! He read mine, which is incredible, and David gave me advice on launching it and that kind of stuff. They’re very cool guys, and I'm very honoured to know them.

Tell me a little about the behind-the-scenes sketches where we see you playing yourselves in the writers’ rooms. 

It was so much fun doing those. We all respect Rob and David so much and didn’t want to offend them, but those sketches are a bit like picking on the loser old guys, which was funny. It needs to be addressed because it's an obvious age gap and the newer generation finds different things funny than the older generation, but there are some things that are just universally funny, so it’s finding that balance.

Mitchell & Webb are always about addressing things in a really meta way. The old sketch show was like that as well, so if there’s an elephant in the room, let's talk about it. They were so up for making fun of themselves which is, I suppose, the key to being a comedian: you have to be self-aware.

I mean, there’s one scene where we’re drawing a thought-cloud of words the public associate with David and Rob: David’s main word is the c-word, and Rob’s is ‘death’. It’s very powerful. It’s a huge self-awareness of what the public might think of you.

Do you have a favourite sketch you wrote or performed in? 

I loved doing really silly accents in it. I have acted in the past but I've leaned more into stand-up in recent years, so getting back into acting was really fun. The sweary Aussie drama was brilliant: just going into something so absurd with full force.

I also loved doing the writers’ room ones because it’s a nice break from the absurdity, and also because I remember those behind-the-scenes moments from the old show, so it was nice to be involved in that.

Mitchell & Webb are known for a balance of styles: from the very silly to the meta to the pathos filled. Is that true of this series? 

Yeah, definitely. You need a balance with anything, but particularly sketch. If you go into one of those elements too much, it’ll get tiresome, and exhausting to watch, and boring. You have to have a balance, and they are brilliant at doing that.

You mentioned your son being a fan: Mitchell & Webb do seem to appeal to every generation, don’t they? 

Definitely. Everybody in the UK knows who they are, and I’m very proud that I've gotten my American family and friends into it as well. They’re pretty timeless, the old sketches, which is so hard to do. I don't know if that was a conscious choice back in the day, but they're about subjects like history and things that you can talk about endlessly without it ageing.

Also, you can consume their sketches on your phone, your TV, or your laptop, and it works in any medium. I’m thirty-nine so I’m in the middle of the generations in that sense and, also, I’m biased because I’m in it! But I think any generation could enjoy this.

Why do you think sketch shows fell out of favour in recent years? 

I mean, it's insane that it's dropped off in the UK because you guys are the kings and queens of it. SNL is our big one, of course, and that's been going for fifty years or something, and now it’s coming over here.

Sketch is such a relatable and easy to consume format but it’s also a really smart format. I’m a stand-up and I fully admit that stand-up is not for everybody. Some people love it and connect with it, others really don’t. But sketches connect with so many more people. There are so many amateur sketches online now, and they’re popular, and people are really open to seeing them. You can find everything from just some person filming on their phone, all the way to really high-budget content on Instagram. I don’t know why they haven’t been on television for such a long time because they’re popular on every other platform.

What’s your favourite sketch from the original series? 

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar. As a recurring character, that’s just brilliant. And the camera angles for that sketch are something you don’t even consider until you’ve involved in it, but that makes it so much funnier. My son loves Numberwang. I’ve only shown him the age-appropriate sketches and sometimes I have to explain them a bit, but at his age it’s mainly about the funny voices and costumes.