Matthew Osborn is bringing a scalpel to suburbia

MATTHEW OSBORN grew up in the well-heeled surroundings of Sussex on the southeast coast of England, where lie the bones of 500,000-year-old hominids and Hastings. Not much going on in those parts, he says, with the exception of bubbling bourgeoisie tension.

“It’s quite pleasant, but it’s very sterile and sanitised. The whole of the south-east of England is like a theme park, really. People live behind a curtain. Everything’s pretence; behind that veneer is a chaos of humanity. It’s paper-thin. The slightest thing could make it collapse at any point, whence barbarianism will ensue. When there are sales going on people start going nuts, fighting one another. Whenever IKEA has a sale, there are riots.”

Osborn left Sussex at 18 and has been working around the London circuit as a full-time stand-up comic since his 20s, having been propelled on his way by a win at Edinburgh’s prestigious So You Think You’re Funny? competition in 2002.