20 Questions: Will Adamsdale – 'Doing plays was one of the only ways to meet girls'

1. Where did you grow up?
I grew up in various army towns then London then Washington, D.C. Then boarding schools with bits of London in between. I think boarding school makes you grow up very quickly but also means you sort of never quite grow up (maybe that's why my shows are like nursery school shows actually; lots of home made props and cardboard).

2. What made you want to be a writer/performer?
A couple of things; I was the emperor in The Emperor’s New Clothes at prep school (still am really). Doing plays was one of the only ways to meet girls. Well, sort of stand near them. After exhausting all the other forms of further education open to me drama was all that was left. Writing/performing is a home to big kids who can't do anything else.

3. If you hadn't, what else might you have done professionally?
Maybe a painter? I wasn't ideal in an office scenario… Really it was this or the off-chance that a just war involving conscription showed up so I could remain institutionalised.

4. First big break?
Apart from my work as The Emperor… making the show Faster at the BAC with Filter Theatre 12ish years ago (and it going on to tour and run at the Lyric Hamnersmith) was a break in that it made me realise you didn't HAVE to wait for work to come to you, you could try to make the work. And getting lots of interest for my show Jackson's Way proved a break after that.

5. Career high point to date?
I don't know. It's all interesting, even the low points are high points. That said, getting in a muddle with whether to kiss a casting director on both cheeks and ending up sort of head butting her was a low point.

6. Any regrets?
No, not really.

7. What was the first thing you saw on stage that had a big impact on you?
Peter Pan with Ron moody.

8. And the last?
I helped organise a cabaret night at Shoreditch Town Hall two weeks ago and just seeing the acts coming on and really relishing holding the stage and doing their thing was inspiring. There was a wicked clown called Spencer Jones the Herbert, a magical jazz singer called Christine Tobin, a crazy performance artist called Nigel Barrett and the stand up Liam Williams. They were all enjoying themselves so the audience was too. Nigel got the audience to feed him honey with spoons taped to bamboo canes. That had an impact. Probably the most exciting thing I've seen in the last year or two was an assembly at the primary school my wife teaches at. Thirty six year-olds and they've got ten minutes to do all the songs and dancing and acting (about food) that they'd practised but now it's the big night (well, 9am actually). And they nailed it.

9. Who are your idols?
Richard Brautigan, Bill Evans, Woody Allen, Werner Herzog, detective Philip Marlowe, Bob Dylan. Yep, they’re the main guys. Ed Gaughan is my main idol.

10. What's the best advice you've ever been given?
I remember an American comic saying "comedy ain't easy" as we watched an act really die horribly on stage (we were standing at the bar smugly). Maybe it was just the timing of it or the fact that it was said in an American accent but that stayed with me. A relative once told me you should put your shirt on before your trousers.

11. What's your new show Borders about?
It's about trying to write a show about borders. Coming up against the borders of your abilities in a sense…

12. What's your favourite kind of border?
The margin down the side of an A4 piece of paper. I tend to stay left of it.

13. Do you have any pre-show rituals?
Yeah lots. So many that they often stress me out and confuse me.

14. It premiered at Edinburgh – was there added pressure being a former Comedy Award winner?
Maybe a bit, but that was a while back.

15. What do you hope people take away from the show?
A questioning of borders (while still retaining a strict allegiance to the green cross code).

16. What's your favourite post-show hang out?
Proximity is the main criteria. I don't need a five star review from a pub, just five pints (on a weekend).

17. How do you unwind?
I started swimming a bit. I like drawing a lot, for cards. I'm not a good unwinder. My wife calls me a coiled spring. Ten pints (total, over a weekend) can help.

18. If you could swap places with anyone for a day, who would it be?
How do we know this technology's safe?

19. Favourite theatre joke/anecdote?
I never remember things like that! But any time in rehearsals for a play when some sort of difficult prop appears I sort of get the giggles cos I know several weeks later a scene will occur where an actor – me, often – loses his/her shit with that prop (actually it's often a difficult door) in a sort of dad-on-holiday-fixing-the-car-way. It's not funny, but it is; a grown man impotently raging against an inanimate object.

20. What's next?
I'm having a kid.

Borders is at The Invisible Dot near King's Cross from 17 to 22 November – more info here