We spoke to Elis James, Welsh comedian, radio DJ, writer, actor and football pundit, about his early career, speaking English and his journey to building a career in his first language, Welsh.
You’ve been successful in comedy, TV and the general media for a number of years since your early career started in 2005. We are interested to hear about how language has played a part in that for you.
I started doing stand-up in Cardiff in 2005 and I went full-time in 2008. I wrote the Edinburgh Shows at a time when there was no Welsh language comedy circuit, so this was all done in English. In 2015, S4C, the Welsh Language Channel 4, suddenly realised that there were a lot of budding Welsh speaking comedians and I think they were trying to appeal to a younger audience. They called me up and asked if I wanted to write and perform a show in Welsh on television. I did that in 2015 and now I write one every two years.
Did you start your comedy career in Welsh or English?
You need to find your comedic persona, get good at writing jokes and telling stories. You can only do that by relentlessly driving up and down the country. At the time, there was the occasional Welsh language gig here and there but you are not going to improve by doing the occasional gig. So I learnt my craft in English.
When I was asked to write the Welsh language show, I had been doing stand-up for 10 years, so I knew the mechanics of comedy; I just had to write in my first Language, Welsh. That was a fascinating process because in English my stuff tended to be very autobiographical, but when you speak Welsh at home, go to a Welsh school and live in an area where there is a lot of Welsh spoken, there are an awful lot of autobiographical experiences that I hadn’t used up, because they weren’t relevant to a non-Welsh speaking audience. There is all of this untapped stuff that I hadn’t been able to access because I had been performing in English. The fun thing was I realised that my onstage persona was different in Welsh than it is in English. I enjoyed slightly altering the jokes I had written to reflect this new onstage persona.
You have done stand-up comedy in both Welsh and English – but are there any differences in how you create your material?
The mechanics of preparing a new show is no different to how I used to do it, or how any of my English-speaking friends in the comedy circuit do it. You just do as many work-in-progress gigs as possible, walk on with notes, find your way through it, listen back and tweak and change things based on the audience’s reaction.
In terms of building the material, the show I am currently working on is going to be slightly more ambitious because it is going to deal with the identity of being a bilingual person when your first language is a minority language. I am reading an awful lot of books about minority languages around the world and the parallels are incredible.
Do you think there are cultural references that are different?
Absolutely, all of my lessons at school were in Welsh and I spoke Welsh at home. It is a different culture with different folk stories. There are probably 750,000 Welsh speakers worldwide. When you are dealing with less than 1 million people, the cultural references are more shared out. So comedically, there are different things to play with which is very exciting. One thing I have noticed now that I live in London and have young children – I don’t know any English nursery rhymes so when my girlfriend sings nursery rhymes to my daughter and son, I often haven’t heard them.
From your work in media and content creation you are a clear advocate of the Welsh language – why do you think it’s so important to use Welsh in what you do?
You can’t turn off your first language. I felt quite privileged when I was a teenager that my favourite band was a Welsh-speaking band. There wasn’t a lot of Welsh music. It is exciting doing something of an English standard in Welsh. Especially for teenagers; I think that is important.
You’re bilingual, so fluent in both Welsh and English. Can you tell us about your experience of learning languages while growing up – which language did you learn first?
I can’t remember a time where I couldn’t speak both Welsh and English. I think my parents spoke Welsh to me first. Welsh was the language of the home but my mum was an English teacher so I was read to a lot in English. I do remember as a little kid, like any bilingual kid, mixing words up and using Welsh words when I was speaking to English people.
I speak English on the radio and very rarely a Welsh word will pop into my head first, but never for more than a couple of seconds. I am equally comfortable with both languages. So, if my life had panned out differently, I could have had a career on the Welsh language radio station as happily as I have in English.
Having been to Wales on several occasions I’m often surprised at how little Welsh you tend to hear in places like Cardiff. How important do you think language is to national identity?
If you are a non-Welsh-speaking Welsh person, you have to accept that the language is a huge part of our heritage and identity. I think the football team have done a very good job of reflecting this because there are a lot of Welsh speakers in the squad that got to the semi-finals of the Euros 2016. When we qualified, they all wore t-shirts that said ‘Diolch’, the Welsh word for ‘thank you’. And, the Welsh speakers did online clips on social media in Welsh. The Welsh FA tweet bilingually and it is a reflection that there are so many fans from North Wales who are largely Welsh speaking.
You have two young children, Beti Mair and Steffan – do you speak to them in English or Welsh? Will they be encouraged to be bilingual?
Yes, I would love them to be bilingual. It is difficult because they only speak Welsh to me and my parents. I don’t think my daughter has realised that Welsh is something a lot of people speak yet, because she is too young and has lived in London her whole life. But I will speak Welsh to her and read Welsh stories to her. It will be a very different upbringing to my own because I was surrounded by it.
My daughter goes to a primary school in London and there are a lot of second languages in that school. The one thing I have noticed already is that she is friends with a Spanish girl and the Spanish girl is very proud that she speaks Spanish at home to her parents. I am hoping my daughter is equally as proud of the Welsh that she speaks at home with us.
You clearly love your mother tongue of Welsh but would you say that’s your favourite? If so, why?
I love English because I read a lot of English books, I watch a lot of English language television and I work in English. I really like England and being in London. I am glad that I speak one of the world’s major languages. But, there is something about the medium which you spoke as a child and you are spoken to by your parents and grandparents. Welsh has a completely different place in my heart.
Are there any other languages you wish you could speak?
I wrote a book last year and I wrote a chapter on Welsh and bilingualism. The reason Welsh learning is successful in Wales is you tend to know someone Welsh to practise with. I realised I was cheating a bit because I don’t remember a time where I couldn’t speak Welsh. So I thought I would try and learn French. I am trying my best to learn using apps or a book but I don’t know any French people so it’s actually really difficult. Language is about communicating with people and expressing yourself. I completely accept how difficult it is for people to learn a second or third language as an adult. But I am quite enjoying the challenge.
Can you tell us of a time that you faced a language barrier in your career or personal life? What did you do to manage that barrier?
I did stand-up in Estonia and there were 200 people at the gig. I found it amazing that they all spoke tremendous English as a second language! What I hadn’t realised was so many of my jokes are based on cultural references, which was the one thing they didn’t understand. So it was really weird, seeing what they were laughing at and not laughing at. It’s an interesting challenge, performing in different countries. The comedy circuit is so vast that you can get stuck in a rut performing to people who are just like you. It was comedically challenging to go out of my comfort zone and perform to people who had had different upbringings to me.
We’ve all got our favourite words in different languages. From your Radio X show with John Robins you have your regular ‘Welsh Word of the Week’ feature, and we wondered what your favourite word in Welsh is.
I do like ‘Wnco mwnco’, pronounced ‘Oon-core moon-core’ which means, ‘him over there’.
Our blog readers are very focused on learning and teaching English but if they were to learn one sentence of Welsh, what would you teach them?
‘Deuparth gwaith yw ei ddechrau’ which means ‘starting the work is two thirds of it’. Great advice for procrastinators!
If you’ve enjoyed reading our interview with comedian Elis James, read about other celebrities we’ve interviewed, their journey through learning English and how it has helped their careers.