Chris Ramsey: "Offermation is the junk mail of life"

When he was first learning to roller blade, Chris Ramsey had a purple helmet with ‘Jammer’ written on the front. People used to call him ‘Rammer Jammer’. He didn’t like it. And that, friends, is a little piece of offermation for you.

‘Offermation’ is probably not a word you’ve come across before. Ramsey admits it isn’t a word even he actually uses in conversation. Luckily, he is more than happy clue me in. “It means unwanted or unrequested information, like a tweet or a status update. Kind of like the junk mail of life” explains the self-confessed Twitter addict.

“I thought that a lot of the way we communicate in this day and age is pointless and unnecessary, and most of the time we’re not really saying anything to each other.” Inspired by the gulf between modern and traditional means and styles of communication, Ramsey’s show has at its heart the annual Christmas round-robin letters from family members he never even knew existed, “It was the purest form of offermation I’d ever come across.”

The show, only his second ever Fringe offering, earned Ramsey the Fosters Edinburgh Comedy Award nomination he calls "my favourite thing. I sometimes go up and give the nomination trophy a little kiss” (offermation). It is interesting to speak to a comedian in his position; famous, successful, and ‘in with the in crowd’, but not yet too far removed from what you might call ‘normality’. Since his appearance on Never Mind the Buzzcocks - “It was like ‘fucking hell, I’m here now, I’m inside my telly when I was younger” – he counts the likes of the musician Example among his friends. “But,” he is quick to add, “there is no way of saying that without sounding like a total dick.”

After the success of ‘Offermation’ at 2011’s Fringe, I wondered how Ramsey felt about the show now on the eve of his UK tour, “I’m excited but I’m nervous too. There’s a double-edged sword with touring. You think, ‘This is brilliant, this is a room of people just here to see me’, but on the flip side you think ‘They’re just here to see me, I’m the only person that can let them down here’. I’m a worrier though.”

For those that saw the show in summer, it has evolved to be “meatier, a bit longer,” and with expanded stronger bits and binned weaker bits. And the final teaser? “Since August, there is another round robin letter.” I ask if there is story he’d like to make up to mix in with the piles of offermation growing about him online?

“I’ve got it covered,” he tells me, “any time someone asks me how I got into comedy, I’m going to tell them an outrageous lie. Each time a different ridiculous story. I hope my PR isn’t listening, it might make him a bit upset.”