Led by truculent frontman Morrissey and guitarist Johnny Marr, the band helped create the template for a generation of indie bands.
Now the Portsmouth stand-up has lifted the opening line of their 1986 single Ask for his new show: Shyness is Nice?
He will be performing it at The Fox in Southsea on June 15, with fellow local comic Joe Wells who will be previewing his new show I Am Autistic.
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Portsmouth stand-up comic Matt Roseblade
As Matt explains: ‘In my formative years I spent a lot of time listening to The Smiths, but being a miserable teenager, I focused too much on the misery of Morrissey rather than the delightful joy of Johnny Marr and his music.
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‘As I’ve got older – and as Morrissey has got older, we’ve taken different paths,’ in recent years the singer has endorsed the far-right party For Britain and aired numerous controversial opinions, ‘and I’ve found myself closer to Johnny Marr.’
And it was actually a 2013 gig by the latter at The Wedgewood Rooms which ended up being the catalyst for Matt trying his hand at stand-up.
‘I enjoyed it so much,’ he recalls, ‘that I came home and wrote a review of it and I showed it to some people. They said: “That’s really funny”, and I thought: “Yeah, I can do funny”.
‘So I started writing a blog and I shared that with some people. More people said it was funny and it got to the point where I was being mobbed – I’m exaggerating, but I work in IT – by mums at my kids’ school. They said it was really funny and I should go on stage.
‘Armed with that validation, I thought I should try stand-up.
‘I lied my way on to the bill at The Fat Fox, and they said: “Oh, you’re not terrible – you can come back”. And when I did come back they twisted my arm and made me take over running the night.’
It is a role Matt still holds – putting on the monthly Comedy at The Fat Fox nights.
And now? ‘250 gigs all over the place later, I find that I’m a different person.
‘When I was a younger man I was terribly, terribly shy. I come from a long line of shy people. I was a very shy kid and it didn’t really help me.
‘The follow up line to “shyness is nice”, is that: “and shyness can stop you from doing all the things in life that you’d like to”.
‘So being a stand-up, essentially through humiliating myself, …….