Ross Lee
by Joanna Orland
Ross Lee is a unique character. This should come as no surprise as his career is based on playing rather distinctive characters, whether it be whilst pranking people on his BBC3 hidden camera show Pranker, or in one of his more personal shows such as his upcoming musical Horace Fingernips.
In spite of suffering recent hardships such as his girlfriend leaving him for a millionaire she met online, giving up alcohol, parting ways with his agent, and struggling to find work, Ross is a personality to be reckoned with. He’s thriving on with his upcoming musical that he is writing with Harry Deansway, and you can see it in its early days live at this year’s Camden Crawl as it takes centre stage at The Jazz Café venue on May 6th.
You may be wondering what a character comedian is doing writing a musical! Ross is no stranger when it comes to such things. First of all, it’s a horror musical. Horror seems to be his niche. From a young age, Ross would get ahold of VHS video cameras to make low budget horror films and create odd characters to preserve on film.
And the musical aspect? Well, from talking to Ross, it’s clear he is The Rocky Horror (Picture) Show’s number one fan. He seems to know the musical inside out, and it doesn’t stop there. Also a fan of such offbeat musicals as Little Shop Of Horrors, and my personal favourite, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Ross seems to have an education on the musical genre that no years of studying on a course could ever bring.
You may or may not be able to tell that I am doing my best to avoid transcribing this interview. From telling Johnny Depp to fuck off to re-enacting Silence of the Lambs, Ross Lee is full of interesting stories both on and off the record. There is no way I can do these anecdotes justice. If you’d like to get to know the man himself a bit better, may I suggest listening to the audio interview above? It’s your best bet.
But before I leave you to it, can you guess the answer to our usual question? What is the one word that Ross Lee would use to sum up “Ross Lee”? Well, his answer was “divine”. His co-writer Harry Deansway disagreed and piped in with the more accurate “unique”.
