'Me & my audience are dying together'- Seann Walsh on his new show coming to Chorley next month
Take a look at our exclusive chat with top comedian Seann Walsh ahead of his gig in Lancashire next month
Award-winning comedian Seann Walsh kicked off his brand-new show ‘THIS IS TORTURE’ last week and it will tour across the UK through to October 2026, including a stop here in Lancashire.
The 40-year-old star of stage and screen arrives at Chorley Theatre on Sunday, March 8 - with the show already being sold out.
Before his arrival in Chorley, and even before his first tour date, Seann sat down for chat with our showbiz reporter where he spoke all about the show and what audiences can expect...
How are you feeling about embarking on your new tour?
“I'm very much looking forward to it. It's been a while since I've been out on the road. And yeah, this one, I've been kind of working on it, I suppose, for a couple of years so, yeah, just bursting to get out there on the road now.”
Can you describe the show?
“Well, the show is called ‘This is Torture’, which obviously isn't the most positive of titles, but people that you know, people that know what I do, they'll they won't be expecting anything positive anyway. So I think basically, you know how, you know people have therapy, and at the end of them complaining about their lives, they pay the therapist. Well, what I've done is I've flipped that, and I get strangers to come to a show and listen to me complain they pay me for that. I thoroughly recommend it that way round.
So it’s more of a therapy session for yourself you mean?
“That's what I mean. I get to kind of offload all of my problems onto the audience and luckily, fortunately for me, over the last 20 years, they find my problems or the way I view the world funny. So I'm very lucky.”
You mentioned it's been a while since your last tour so why did 2026 feel like the right time for your next one?
“Just had two kids and have a dog, so it's time to get out of there! I've timed this perfectly. The missus is not very happy with me but I think she'll be relieved that I'm out the house, to be honest.”
It might be related, but I was going to ask, why is the show called ‘This is Torture’?
“The show's called ‘This is Torture’ because that's the thing that I mumble the most underneath my breath. It's sort of become a catchphrase in my life, and I think that basically, the show is sort of all of those moments that you have in your in your life, your day to day life, where at the time you're not enjoying it, and at the time you're very angry, or at the time you're very agitated, but you get to look back at and laugh at in the way that British people do. The way that we say to one another… ‘We'll laugh at this one day’- that's kind of what my show is.
“My show is getting on stage and me and the audience laughing at what once was a very frustrating situation to be in, for example... I've got, like, 10 minutes where I rant about the way that McDonald's operates now, and see like Costa and Starbucks, they all seem to operate where you go in and there's a touchscreen machine, and the touch really never works, and they're trying to come up with a way of getting around the queue but the fact is, you still have to queue for the touchscreen machine anyway,... It’s my frustrations with modern life, where technology is meant to be benefiting us, but seemingly just ends up making life a lot worse.”
If the show is your excuse to get away from that busy household of yours, can we expect parenthood as well to come up as a topic often?
“Yes, parenthood will be absolutely. You know, it's strange, isn't it, when you've been nearly going for twenty years, your audience kind of grow up with you. So it's that strange thing, of like the people that used to come to my show, they are now now having kids at the same time as me and so me and my audience are dying together. It's very nice.”
And then, if this is your sixth major tour, besides being a dad, what has changed about your comedy, perhaps, from the first show many years ago to now?
“Oh, I can tell you, I know exactly what it is… I'm a lot more knackered at the end of the shows now, and I need to drink a lot more water, and I need to lie down immediately, and I need to have a massive lie in the next day, whereas before I would finish the show, and I would go out, and I would probably get much more hammered than was suitable, but then I would be able to do a show the next day. It's unthinkable now. I mean, I can barely do a show the next day if I've had too many carbohydrates the evening before. So, you know, yeah, I can't believe how I used to do it when I was in my 20s.”
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Why should people buy tickets to come see your tour?
“God, it's such a difficult question. I mean, how do you answer that? I don't know. I've been going long enough, I finally learned how to do it! [Laughs] No, I can't. I'm too embarrassed to almost answer that. I think all I can go off is, you know, my audiences, they tend to have a great time, and the feedback is always wonderful. And when I release my stand up specials on the internet, the numbers are fantastic, and everyone seems to have a good time. That's, yeah, I don't, I have no idea other than that.”