Tim Key. Photograph: set design & props: Victoria Twyman; grooming: Neusa Neves using skincare from Shiseido Ginza, Tokyo<\/p>\n
No, Tim Key doesn\u2019t know why he\u2019s dressed as a pigeon either. In Mickey 17<\/a>, triple-Oscar-winner Bong Joon-ho<\/a>\u2019s recent sci-fi blockbuster, the comedian plays a man desperate to join a mission to colonise the ice planet Niflheim. The next thing he knows, he\u2019s on the spaceship \u2013 inexplicably trussed up in a luxuriant pigeon suit and acting as the expedition leader\u2019s lackey. Can Key shed any light on this turn of events?<\/p>\n \u201cNo I can\u2019t,\u201d he says, decisively. He enquired about his character\u2019s outfit during his first meeting with Bong. \u201cAnd he laughed and didn\u2019t answer.\u201d On set, Key says he \u201cshuffled over in my costume\u201d and asked again. \u201cAnd he laughed again.\u201d At the premiere, the Parasite<\/a> director gave Key \u201ca big hug, and then I said: \u2018Just going back to this pigeon thing \u2026 \u2019 and he laughed again. I don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to ask him any more.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite not being privy to even the most basic information about his character, Key certainly made Pigeon Man his own. It\u2019s difficult to describe his performance in the film, which stars Robert Pattinson, Toni Collette and Mark Ruffalo, as anything other than very Tim Key-y: it\u2019s the velocity of his sentences, the raising of the eyebrows, the combination of boyish eccentricity, melting desperation and a tendency, when pushed<\/a>, towards bone-dry belligerence. This singular mode is the common denominator in the 48-year-old\u2019s sprawling CV: present in everything from his criminally underrated sketch show Cowards<\/a> to his Edinburgh award-winning live act<\/a> to his pitch-perfect stint as Alan Partridge\u2019s Sidekick Simon.<\/p>\n There is something ineffable about Key\u2019s comedic presence \u2013 even a legend like Steve Coogan has admitted that upon meeting his future co-star he struggled to work out \u201cwhy what he was doing was funny\u201d. While the Partridge gig did give Key a profile boost, this unpinpointable idiosyncrasy has kept him a cult figure, even within British comedy. Now, improbably, it looks as if it might make him a mainstream global star.<\/p>\n I\u2019d just be shaking my head thinking: \u2018The esteemed Hollywood actress is now talking about my poetry show with Tom Basden\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Tim Key. Photograph: David Vintiner\/The Guardian; set design & props: Victoria Twyman; grooming: Neusa Neves using skincare from Shiseido Ginza, Tokyo<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just decorated directors who have become enamoured of Key (Bong recently described a collection of his poetry \u2013 which renders the surreal, the extreme and the utterly mundane in pithy yet jarringly prosaic verse \u2013 as \u201cone of the most amazing things I\u2019ve ever read\u201d). America is cottoning on, too. The US\u2019s embrace of offbeat UK comedy talent has been gathering steam for a while (those in particularly high demand include Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Jamie Demetriou, Richard Gadd, Will Sharpe, Brett Goldstein and Richard Ayoade), but Key\u2019s inordinately wry stylings seemed particularly unlikely to translate. Apparently, not the case. Key spent last autumn in LA filming The Paper, the much-anticipated sequel to the US version of The Office, in which he has a major role. Soon after, his new film The Ballad of Wallis Island premiered at Sundance to a standing ovation (\u201cOne of the more overwhelming things that\u2019s happened to me\u201d) and has since been released across the Atlantic to glowing reviews.<\/p>\n Based on Key and his Cowards colleague Tom Basden\u2019s 2007 Bafta-nominated short, the film sees reclusive lottery winner Charles (Key) pay his favourite musician, indie-folk has-been Herb McGwyer (Basden, who also wrote all the film\u2019s legitimately beautiful songs), to play a gig on a tiny Welsh island. Unbeknown to McGwyer, Charles has also invited his ex-collaborator and old flame Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan) in an attempt to get the band back together. Key admits it\u2019s a \u201cquirk\u201d that this deeply British film was released in the US first, but is \u201csurprised and delighted\u201d at its reception. So am I, considering it shouts out Monster Munch, Mick Hucknall and BBC 6 Music presenter Gideon Coe. Key is still unsure how many of the jokes will land, \u201cbecause there\u2019s no chance an American would laugh at any of those things\u201d. Ultimately, though, the film\u2019s quintessential Britishness \u2013 it also features Olympic levels of emotional constipation \u2013 \u201cfelt like a positive rather than a negative\u201d. With that thought, he begins to doubt himself. \u201cMaybe we\u2019ve accidentally made a film that only works in America.\u201d<\/p>\n Time will soon tell. Key is now back on home turf, his local coffee shop in Kentish Town, north London, ahead of the film\u2019s imminent UK release. It\u2019s a scorching May day and he is dressed for it: T-shirt, shorts, bright stripy socks, colourful trainers. Softly spoken and given to sudden, bashful smiles, he is feeling \u201cself-conscious\u201d about chatting in the silence of the cafe\u2019s informal co-working space, where he sometimes writes himself. On stage, Key\u2019s alter ego is petulant, commanding and bemusingly elliptical. In real life, only the latter remains. Last night, he tells me, he went to see the hit Gareth Southgate play Dear England<\/a>, which he describes as \u201cabsolutely fine\u201d and \u201cnot a problem\u201d \u2013 a verdict that could be glowing, neutral or damning, I honestly have no idea.<\/p>\n Generally, though, Key plays it straight. He certainly doesn\u2019t have the same compulsion to crack jokes as his character Charles, who seems powerless to stop the stream of dubious puns and inane chatter that spools out of him as he tries to smooth things over between Herb and Nell. Yet, alongside this general buffoonery, Key manages to convey Charles\u2019s gradually revealed grief with the utmost subtlety and poignancy, in what I tell him is quite an incredible dramatic performance. \u201cOh wow,\u201d he whispers, drowning the compliment in absurdly intense embarrassment. Seriously, though, he does \u201cthink there\u2019s less difference between comedy acting and [dramatic] acting than you\u2019d think. It\u2019s all about finding the truth.\u201d Having spouted such a luvvie cliche, he puts his head in his hands. \u201cOh my God.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy to get blinded by the new. It\u2019s also easy to take for granted a friend who\u2019s really, really talented<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Tim Key. Photograph: David Vintiner\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Key began his comedy acting career on a strange but indisputably triumphant note. After graduating from the University of Sheffield, he moved back to his home city of Cambridge and successfully auditioned for the Footlights comedy troupe \u2013 without mentioning his lack of student status. His peers \u2013 including Mark Watson, Peep Show\u2019s Sophie Winkleman and his future Cowards comrades \u2013 did eventually find out, but by that point he was indispensable; they ensured he was still able to perform in their 2001 Edinburgh fringe production, which was nominated for the festival\u2019s newcomer award.<\/p>\n In the intervening years, Key has worked steadily: there have been Radio 4 shows<\/a>, the sketch series, a sitcom (2022\u2019s The Witchfinder), a double act called Freeze<\/a> with Basden, various Partridge iterations and myriad TV appearances. But his success has never felt like \u201ca runaway thing\u201d \u2013 at no point has he been \u201cswept away\u201d by a powerful industry tide and found himself \u201cin a long-running sitcom or playing Lewis or something\u201d. This means, at the end of every onscreen project, he still goes back to his solo work: the poetry books<\/a>, the live shows. There are upsides and downsides. \u201cYou never feel like you\u2019ve lost your way creatively; you might have lost your way financially \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Tim Key with Carey Mulligan in The Ballad Of Wallis Island. Photograph: Alistair Heap\/Focus Features<\/p>\n A case in point: Key has spent recent months finishing his new book, LA Baby, a semi-fictionalised, poetry-peppered account of his time spent filming The Paperin Hollywood last year. He looks panicked when I bring up the show \u2013 a mockumentary set at a failing Midwestern newspaper \u2013 and insists The Paper itself is \u201cnot relevant\u201d to the book. So let\u2019s just say LA Baby is a hilarious and often dreamlike chronicle of Key\u2019s mounting insecurities about his inability to fit into his costume, do an American accent and generally act on an unnamed big-budget TV series.<\/p>\n Last September, Key arrived in LA for the first time, feeling \u201cpetrified\u201d, stressed by the city\u2019s ongoing heatwave and failure to cater for pedestrians (\u201cI love walking around\u201d). Living alone, he initially had no social circle and was only required on set half the week. The writing started as a \u201cvery enjoyable form of therapy\u201d in the face of loneliness, clammy discombobulation and homesickness (the last one manifests in the book in imagined sightings of BBC news presenter Nicholas Witchell and an extended fantasy about an Only Fools and Horses cuckoo clock). It was a period that echoed his experience of the pandemic, when he started writing \u201cto stay afloat\u201d during months by himself in his north London flat: his anthology He Used Thought As a Wife covers Key\u2019s time chugging beer, craving hugs and losing touch with reality during the first lockdown, interspersed with grotesque vignettes sending up governmental incompetence.<\/p>\n Mercifully, his isolation in LA was far more short-lived: by the end of the three-month stint, he was filming more frequently, had befriended his castmates and connected with one or two English expat comedians he knew from back home \u201cwho generously introduced me to their circle of friends. By the end of it, I had quite a nice little group.\u201d<\/p>\n I can imagine myself on the outskirts of comedy trying to make friends with Alex Horne. I\u2019ve definitely got it in me to fanboy<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In The Ballad of Wallis Island, Key embodies another cartoonishly lonely character: Charles\u2019s heartbreakingly solitary existence is best summed up in the image of him aggressively playing a solo game of swingball. Does Key consider isolation a recurring theme in his work? He seems doubtful. \u201cI hadn\u2019t noticed that. I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t think those two things are linked. Maybe they are.\u201d Does he find loneliness a creatively fertile state? \u201cDunno. Maybe. I think that\u2019s more for you to say.\u201d He doesn\u2019t seem overly keen on analysing the prospect (or perhaps he\u2019s just not a fan of introspecting in the company of journalists, which would be fair enough), yet it\u2019s clear he does funnel his psyche into his work: he would be \u201cinterested\u201d he says, to to re-read He Used Thought As a Wife, which he wrote during lockdown, \u201cbecause I probably was going out of my mind, and it would be interesting to go back into it\u201d.<\/p>\n Charles, on the other hand, isn\u2019t especially autobiographical. For a start, he\u2019s an obsessive fan \u2013 a compulsion Key doesn\u2019t share: he never had any comedy heroes, let alone musical ones. That said, in a different life he can imagine himself \u201con the outskirts of comedy trying to make friends with [Taskmaster co-host] Alex Horne\u201d. Also, he did get starstruck bumping into ex-England cricket captain Mike Atherton. \u201cSo I\u2019ve definitely got it in me to fanboy.\u201d<\/p>\n Another person Key seems slightly starstruck by is his co-star Mulligan. He and Basden co-wrote the film during lockdown, and the Oscar nominee topped the list of dream Nells. Key happened to have her personal email address; a few years prior she\u2019d asked him to host a fundraiser she was organising. He\u2019d actually declined \u2013 MCing a big event being something he\u2019d \u201cfind really, really hard to do\u201d. Still, he took a punt. Mulligan was unexpectedly keen; it turned out she was a longtime admirer of Key and Basden\u2019s work \u2013 specifically, the pair\u2019s Radio 4 series, Tim Key\u2019s Poetry Programme. \u201cIt\u2019s a deep cut,\u201d he nods, mystified. During their US press tour, Mulligan would sometimes reference the show. \u201cAnd I\u2019d just be shaking my head thinking: \u2018This is insane: the esteemed Hollywood actress is now talking about my poetry show with Tom Basden.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Mulligan may be the headline name, but The Ballad of Wallis Island\u2019s real charm patently stems from Key and Basden\u2019s decades-honed dynamic. This is perhaps why its wholesome parting message \u2013 meaning over money, kindness over ego, the true and the good over the shallow and the starry \u2013 packs such a punch. For Key, the achievement of having made the film is inextricably bound up with that bond. The first time he was asked in an interview to pick his favourite scene, he chose one with Mulligan. The second time, one with Basden. But \u201cI found it really difficult to say it \u2013 I got really emotional. It\u2019s easy to get blinded by the new and the fun. It\u2019s also easy to get complacent and take for granted a friend who\u2019s really, really talented. Not everyone has that.\u201d<\/p>\n For all the lavish, baffling blockbusters, A-list co-stars and LA stints, making The Ballad of Wallis Island is proof of his longstanding good fortune \u2013 and a reminder \u201cthat the other, more famous people aren\u2019t better than this person you had all along\u201d.<\/p>\n The Ballad of Wallis Island is in UK cinemas on 30 May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tim Key. 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