COMIC, writer, actor and podcaster William Thompson is one of Northern Ireland’s hottest entertainment prospects.
However, despite his success, he sees himself very differently. “I wouldn’t say I’m famous,” he tells me, “but I’m well known enough that I might get an extra sausage in the chippy for nothing.”
I think you’re selling yourself short, I say. “I don’t even get the sausage, I was actually building myself up,” he quips.
Kicking off his career almost a decade ago Thompson has been making audiences chuckle, giggle and guffaw since his first open mic night at the Pavilion in south Belfast when he was 17.
“It was something I always wanted to do and people always say, ‘How could you do that as a teenager?’ but I had far more confidence back then,” he confesses.
“If I had to start now, I wouldn’t be nearly as arrogant. As a 17-year-old you think you’re brilliant whereas now if I had to get on stage for the first time, I don’t think you could make me.”
Now thanks to the self-assured teenage swagger, the east Belfast comedian has gone on to perform on some of our biggest stages, including the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, to where he is returning in December with his brand-new show Scumbag Millionaire.
His previous stand-up routine, The Hand You’re Dealt, focused on topics such as growing up in NI, mastering dating and most notably, life with cerebral palsy, which has become a theme of his comedy.
“The new show is very, very different,” Thompson explains.
“I know it’s the thing I’m known for, but I felt I was doing too much stuff about my disability, and I was kind of bored of talking about it. And if I’m bored the audience will be bored as well.
“So, I needed to talk about something different, something a bit more interesting.”
Very much staying true to its title, Scumbag Millionaire “essentially questions what would happen if you gave a scumbag a lot of money,” laughs Thompson.
“At the age of 18 I received my inheritance and I come from a working-class background where you never really had money, so it’s very much about me being incredibly irresponsible with it.
“It sort of ties into the cost of living crisis and the economic turmoil we find ourselves in now and how I chose a really bad time to go nuts with money.”
Despite the fact Thompson is bored of talking about his cerebral palsy he believes his disability has played a major role in helping him establish himself within the comedy world.
“It’s niche – no-one else has that point of view and it allows you to talk about things that no-one else is really talking about or has the ability to talk about,” he says.
“It’s the one job in the world where I’m like, ‘Thank God I have this’, because it makes you unique and it also means I can get away with a little bit more.”
However, he has found himself in situations where he’s had to convince people he does in fact have a disability.
“Every time I’m out I have people coming up to me on the street, going ‘Do you actually have it or is it just something you make up on stage?’ and I’m like, ‘If I made that up, that’s mental’.
“I don’t mind explaining it - it’s just when they start asking me to prove it and I don’t really know what they expect me to do.”
Thompson has also developed a reputation for his unfathomable anecdotes about his childhood. One story about a police raid has proven to be particularly popular - but has left many questioning whether his tales are fact or fiction.
“A lot of comedy is embellished storytelling which is completely fine if you’re a comic that does that - I’m not against it but it’s just never been my style,” he says.
“I’ve always enjoyed taking a story that’s completely true and finding what’s funny in it rather than going, ‘It’d be funny if that had happened’. I don’t really do the hypothetical thing – which is not me slagging it, but it’s just not my style.”
However, Thompson is planning to use his new show as an opportunity to shake things up as he tells me he has approached it an entirely different way to his previous routines.
“What I would normally do and what my process has been for the last 10 years is, I go on stage with an idea, and I’ll talk for 10 minutes and eventually the rhythm and the joke itself will come out of me being under that pressure,” he says.
“I’ve never been great at sitting down and writing so normally my process is just to talk a lot – which is insane, I don’t recommend it - but a lot of comics would do it that way.
“But for this show, because it’s one big story I’m applying almost a scriptwriters’ approach – which could backfire because I’ve never done it this way before.”
“This show will be a lot more concise, and a lot more thought out and written – it could be terrible and if it is I’ll never do it again,” says a slightly apprehensive sounding Thompson.
He admits, however, that he is looking forward to the challenge of changing tactics.
“I’ve never done it this way before - it’s more of a challenge which gets me quite creatively excited because when you’re bored of something the audience can tell you’re bored but when you’re excited it adds something,” he says.
“It’s a unique show, I don’t think a stand up here has told a story like this and it will be very funny.”
