---
title: "Q&A: Al Murray"
date: "2011-11-02T13:01:46+00:00"
modified: "2011-11-02T13:01:46+00:00"
url: "https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/qa-al-murray/"
post_id: 5483
---

# Q&A: Al Murray

**![Al Murray](https://newhumanist.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/images/Al-Murray-by-Barney-Allen.jpg "The Pub Landlord baits ")Where did the Pub Landlord character come from?**

It was all an accident. I was doing a show in Edinburgh with Harry Hill (who’s a friend and we used to muck about with stuff) and we had no way of linking all the elements together. So the night we opened I said, “How about we say the compere hasn’t turned up, and the barman has offered to fill in?” So on I went and the act just tumbled out. … Divine intervention perhaps, ha ha! Then I set about working really hard at it, gigging as much as possible and that slow-burned into success.

**Do all the Pub Landlord’s fans realise it’s a joke?**

I’ve no idea! To be honest it’s not something I worry about too much. The truth is you can’t control what people make of you.

**How do you decide the Pub Landlord’s views?**

As long as they’re generally reactive, hallucinatory and have their own internal logic they tend to stand up. Something I really like is when he directly contradicts himself. And it had better be funny!

**What are your religious beliefs?**

I’m an atheist, though not a proselytising one. I think if anything it is proselytising that put me off in the first place. I went to a very C of E school, we were dipped in mild English Christianity and I remember the chaplain getting up and making a sermon in which he ran down Darwin, Freud and Einstein in one go – thanks to them we’re apes, who can blame our upbringing and blow our planet up, he said – and I thought, OK, that’s enough of this nonsense. I used to like the singing, but you won’t get me mistaking a nice singalong for the arrival of the Holy Spirit.

**What does the Pub Landlord think of your religious views?**

Well, he doesn’t go to church but he believes firmly in God. Not only that, he believes that God is British (after all, the Bible’s in English). He’d think I was being clever for its own sake.

**The Pub Landlord is very fond of proving the existence of God. What is his best argument?**

His most cogent and coherent argument is based around the notion that jumbo jets can’t possibly fly as they are too heavy, so God must be doing it. It’s a classic argument from disbelief; he can’t be bothered to look into the proper explanation, so comes up with another one that makes him a lot happier.

**You performed at Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People last year. Was it fun baiting atheists?**

It was fun in the midst of all the atheism to say, Nope, you’re all wrong. Interesting to see who was annoyed by it too: personally I think you’re better off in life if you take everything said from a stage with a pinch of salt.

**Why did you march to Protest the Pope in 2010?**

Well, it shouldn’t have been a state visit for a start. And the moral authority he wields is such a blunt instrument, and he plays a lousy tune. The Pub Landlord would have marched on behalf of Henry VIII.

**You recently did a gig in Dubai. How did that go?**

Very well. The audiences were truly multinational and multicultural. I didn’t have to change a thing in terms of content; the one stricture was, we had to guarantee that the beer I was drinking was fake (though the audience were allowed to drink).

**When not being the Pub Landlord, you have found time to present a documentary series about Germany – can we expect more of this kind of thing?**

In a word, yes. We have quite a job picking them as I can’t fake being interested in stuff, and I’m offered projects pretty frequently. Because of my interest in history I find I get offered the history of beer every six months or so.

**See Al Murray’s Pub Landlord Barrel of Fun tour until mid-December. For info and tickets, visit [the Pub Landlord website](http://www.thepublandlord.com/)**