From Driverless Cars To Signalgate: Russell Howard's 2025 US Adventure

Forbes

01-04-2025

Russell Howard in action.
Wrapping up a hugely successful 12-date US tour, British comedian Russell Howard can't quite believe the month he has experienced when it comes to experiences and the news cycle. No stranger to America, Americans, or American culture, it has felt different this time for several reasons.
"I was just catching up with JD Vance's trip to Greenland," he explains as we chat over Zoom from the dressing room of the McDonald Theatre in Eugene, Oregon. "As a comedian, it's so fascinating because it feels like everything is connected. Everybody is either watching or aware of the news, and it's all blending in. Adolescence on Netflix, kids on smartphones, JD Vance, it's somehow all conflating in one way. As a comic, it's fantastic because you try to make sense of it, write jokes, and get the show growing. It feels like you're in a constant state of becoming."
"Even the leaked Signal app messages and the very fact that people were using emojis in them fascinated me, like the fist bump emoji. Everything is so cringeworthy with JD Vance. A reverse documentary about his youth to see why we got here would be fascinating."
Howard, who easily fills theaters and rooms in the US, packs some of the biggest venues in his native UK and considers his tours here a "constant fact-finding mission." His largest show on home turf to date has been to a crowd of 22,000 people.
"Being in America for a couple of weeks and gigging in so many different parts, from Orange County to Austin to LA, is incredible because there are so many different Americas. I like that because it just feels like you don't know what the gigs are going to be like from one day to the next."
It has been just under a year since Howard, who has a strong social media following, including 3.7 million users on Facebook, over 1.6 million on TikTok, and 783,000 on Instagram, became a father. This time, he brought his wife and young son on the road. Parenthood and touring life are rich seams for him when it comes to gags.
"We were in Arizona. My wife and her friend had a tarot reading, and there was talk of reading my son's aura, but the queue was too long," he recalls. "Again, it's this snapshot of America that we're just pushing my son around, wandering around like Texas, Phoenix, then going down to Solana Beach, and then going to San Juan Capistrano, and just seeing all these different versions of America, and there's a lot of tarot. There's a lot of lot of cannabis, there's a lot of mindfulness, and a lot of fried snacks."
"We were in San Francisco, and there is such a blizzard of things on that pier. There are sea lions, but you can also get a full body health scan next to a place where you can get chowder in bread. It's so overwhelming. Who is going to Pier 39 in San Francisco and absent-mindedly thinks, 'Do you know what? I'll have a full body scan.' There's such a neverending insanity to this country that, as an English person wandering around, you're constantly gawping at it."
"Even seeing a driverless car, you're like, 'What? Why?' Every time we see a driverless car, we all stare at it like the first time we saw a microwave in the 80s. Do you remember when we were kids, and there was always one kid at school who had been to America? They came back with new trainers, like Reebok Pumps with the basketball in and these stories of America. That feels like what's happening now. I'll be telling all my family in the UK that America has driverless cars, and they're like, 'There's no way.'"
Howard, who is taking a beat before heading off on a European tour, finds his son's impact on his life to be 'interesting and so fertile" as he effortlessly works his experience of fatherhood so far into his show. The stand-up finds him to be a helpful sanity anchor in wild reality.
"My life has changed 360 degrees. We suddenly have this little boy in our life, and as opposed to me being the baby on tour, there is an actual baby on tour, and he's the most important thing," he reveals. "There are so many funny things that happen, and there are so many hopefully connecting things as well, whether you're a parent or not a parent. In this time of flux and manic news, I have this baby who is almost one year old, and he's constantly growing alongside the backdrop of the madness of the last year."
"I noticed something funny about my son, and it's the fact that he has clothes with pockets. It struck me as so funny that from a very early age, maybe two months old, kids have pockets, and it's just so silly and cute. Why do they need pockets? I'm also talking about how many guns there are in America and trying to blend it all together. I'm on a tour bus with my wife, my son, my tour manager, my support act, and my wife's friend. We're this troop traveling around, so obviously, that's going to become part of the show. It would be very different if I was on my own."
British comedian Russell Howard.
One of Howard's stops this time was the world-famous Hollywood Improv. The iconic 170-capacity Main Room was the most intimate but also one of the most meaningful shows. It was a bucket list moment for the comedian, who has sold over 2 million tickets worldwide and has over 1 billion social media views.
"There are so many rooms in this country that are steeped in history, and as a comedian and a fan of comedy, to walk in and see old pictures of Robin Williams and Richard Pryor, Bill Burr, Dave Chappelle and Joan Rivers, and David Letterman is incredible," he enthuses. "There are pictures everywhere, so it's like being in a museum, and then the room is so perfectly laid out. Everyone is focused, and it's just beautiful. I enjoyed it because you could see the whites of everyone's eyes and the servers bouncing around and serving people. It's so different to gigs in the UK, but it was brilliant."
"Any room where you have those old black and white photos and smell the history is incredible. Then you're in the dressing room and think, 'What debauchery and chaos has gone down here? I'm there with my little notebook and a Diet Coke, and you can feel the room just sighing in disappointment because it has seen such madness. All of this makes you better as a comedian. If you're doing an arena in one country, a theater in another, and then an intimate comedy club, it's a really good stress test for the material. If it works in a room of 150, it will work in front of 15,000. I'm such a whore for giggles that I don't mind the size of the room as long as it's full. That's the only thing."
We're in another golden age of comedy, something Howard partially attributes to the popularity of podcasts hosted by comedians. He has several of his own, including Five Brilliant Things. However, he believes live shows remain the best way to create community and share the experience.
"That feeling of being in a big group and laughing together is the best," he says. "Once you've experienced that as an audience member, it's incredible because you feel like you're with like-minded people. When the world's in a state of flux, being in a dark room laughing with strangers is an incredibly safe place to be. As a comedian, it's incredible because you can feel that the audience wants it. You do not have to convince them to be there. They're so happy that they are there."
"There's such an energy in American crowds, even at that gig in The Improv; it's such a cool little gig, but you get a standing ovation when you leave. In England, you would get a standing ovation, but you would have to work so fucking hard for it. I don't know what it is about America, but audiences have less shame in admitting that they like you. If you're English, it doesn't matter how big you get because there's always that sense of the crowd being like, 'I'm really happy to be here, but I don't want him to know that,' whereas it goes the other way here."
Even as he prepares to round out his time in the States, Howard is already hoping to return next year.
"It would be really amazing. I think the tour bus and the wife and the son doing all of America is pretty difficult, but I'll definitely do bursts. I'll probably do a week in the East, a week in the middle, and a week in the West and do those," he muses. "I'm going to do a UK tour next year, so I want to put it in to see where we are. It's so much fun. I've been doing it for so many years, and it has become a labor of love coming here."
"It's slowly growing, and there's no real need for me to come here. I've got no reason other than I must," Russell Howard concludes. "As a comedian, not doing gigs in America when you can feels like a massive waste. When you're here, the experiences are so visceral. To genuinely perform in a venue where there are metal detectors before you go in is so insane, even for you as the performer. They check to see whether I've got a gun. How self-hating would I be as a comedian to bring a gun into my own show? Again, this enriches you as a performer because you see so many different slices of the world. It just makes you better."