NOT many people can say they’ve got one over on real-life pantomime villains Donald Trump, Sir Philip Green, Kanye West and Sepp Blatter.
But in the world of the UK’s premier prankster Simon Brodkin, it’s all in a day’s work.
The funnyman reflects on his most notorious stunts in his new stand-up show — where for the first time he appears as himself, not one of his many alter egos including cheeky “chav” Lee Nelson or preened footballer Jason Bent.
And the overriding message from all his stitch-ups is that he feels absolutely no guilt.
In an exclusive interview with The Sun, Simon says: “The people who have been pranked are powerful people or organisations who frankly should be able to take what goes along with that level of responsibility or that sort of level of power.
“Do I feel guilty? I’ve got to say no to that one.”
He adds: “But I don’t do any of these stunts to be mean. I’d never want any of the people I’ve targeted to feel threatened.”
The chirpy Londoner, 42, rarely speaks out of character and says the majority of interviewers he meets seek assurance that he’s not pranking them too. Myself included.
His stitch-ups take months to plan and a successful execution can result in global mass media coverage.
Simon’s most headline-grabbing stunts include dropping swastika- inscribed golf balls at the feet of Donald Trump at his Turnberry golf club in Ayrshire in 2016, throwing cash at corrupt Fifa boss Blatter in 2015 and storming the stage at Kanye’s Glastonbury set the same year, plus handing Prime Minister Theresa May a P45 at the 2017 Tory conference before telling her that her rival Boris Johnson put him up to it.
PUBLICLY HUMILIATED
But what happens away from the cameras after the stunts have been carried out? Has he ever been roughed up by the heavies who protect the incredibly powerful figures he has just publicly humiliated?
Simon says: “With the Trump one, it was a bit of a lottery who would get to me first as there were so many different law enforcements there, but thankfully it was the Scottish police.
“What would you rather be — waterboarded by the FBI or interrogated by the Scottish police?
“They grabbed me, took me away and bundled me into a van.
“I was crapping myself for a little while and this big, burly officer yanked open the door and said in the most Scottish of accents, ‘Yous, mate, are very f***ing funny.’ And they treated me great.
“Another one gave me a sip of his Irn-Bru out of love. Then another asked if he could get my signature. They were super-nice and persuaded the Trumpets not to press charges.”
And what happened after he showered Fifa president Blatter with dollar bills during a news conference at Fifa HQ in Switzerland in the guise of his footballer character Bent?
Blatter temporarily suspended the conference and Simon says: “We both left the room like naughty kids in class, like one kid punched another.
“He said to me, ‘You should be ashamed of yourself.’ I replied, ‘If either one of us should be ashamed here, it’s not me.’
“I was then taken to a cell but the police knew I wasn’t a threat. They’re used to proper criminals and they’re looking at me, going, ‘Is this really what I trained for? For this little f***er?’
“They started to make jokes and loosened my handcuffs. Later they’d be knocking on my cell door, saying it was all over the internet.”
He may have got off lightly that time, but after humiliating Trump, he was subjected to sickening abuse on social media. It included anti-Semitic vitriol sparked by white supremacist David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, outing Simon’s Jewish heritage to Trump supporters.
He recalls: “They were spouting, ‘Burn the Jew’, ‘Gas the Jew’. When you look at them in their robes you laugh but they have killed people in their time.
“They’re not people you want to be messing with.”
He adds: “I don’t think anything I do warrants getting shot and killed but it does come with the territory. I go into places I shouldn’t be going and doing things I shouldn’t be doing so when I am in the handcuffs I’m not thinking, ‘Oh my god, this is a miscarriage of justice’.
“It’s when the real world, real people and real things collide with a comedy moment. That’s what a stunt is. But it’s like a joke.
'SMOKING WEED'
“Some people are going to think it’s the funniest thing ever and others will say they don’t get it. But I don’t want people to feel sorry for me.”
Simon has always been a wind-up merchant, even when he was growing up in the privileged part of North London, Hampstead Garden Suburb.
His parents were both solicitors of German and Russian descent who ran their own family law firm, his mum specialising in conveyancing while his dad concentrated on legal aid immigration.
It meant that Simon and his older brother could attend a local all-boys fee-paying school. Speaking about the area, Simon says: “It was so middle-class you ask a kid what four times four is and they’ll say, ‘Range Rover’.”
At school he recalls other pupils campaigning for him to be removed from their form group because he was so disruptive in class.
He says: “I was always naughty at school, I got into lots of trouble. I once got suspended for smoking weed, even though it wasn’t in school. In hindsight it’s a great injustice.
“We were smoking at a party, word got round, and someone’s parent reported us to the school.”
Despite his wayward behaviour he managed to get a place at Manchester University studying medicine. Following a series of resits he qualified, and began work as a junior doctor, but quit after just a year.
He says: “I did a bit of A&E, a bit of medicine, bit of surgery, a bit of general practice. It wasn’t fun, it was bloody hard work.
“I was living in these Eastern European-style dormitories, with paint peeling off.
“You are living in the hospital with barely any interaction with people, as other doctors you bumped into had just come off after a huge shift and just wanted to go to bed.”
Simon moved back to London, determined to make a career in comedy, and hand-delivered DVDs of his work to agents and production companies across London.
He got an instant response from Channel 4, which recommended an agent who secured a part in his first comedy, From Baghdad To Balham.
It was about an Iraqi doctor who escaped Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship to come to London but couldn’t practise medicine, forcing him to busk on the Tube.
He then started writing with Harry Hill, who persuaded him to work with his agent, sparking another career boost.
Simon, who is married with two children aged ten and seven, then developed his character Lee Nelson, in both a stand-up act and his own BBC3 TV show.
Lee sparked Simon’s first major stunt when a real-life policeman chased him down London’s Oxford Street after he stole his own DVD from HMV,
But after making a name in comedy through his characters, he now wants to show the world what the real Simon Brodkin is like.
He says: “The stunts started to become less about a particular character and more about me. So it felt like the time was right to get on stage as me and do proper stand-up, which led to my Edinburgh show at the Fringe.”
And despite his reputation he assures me it’s not a wind-up, adding: “I promise it’s not a stunt — I’m not going round theatres stunting people en masse.”
- Simon is on a 47-date nationwide tour, 100% Simon Brodkin, starting at Leicester Square Theatre, London on November 15. For details see simonbrodkin.com.
Source: Read Full Article