Bradley Cooper’s new film, starring Will Arnett as a man who takes up stand-up comedy after his divorce, was inspired by the life of British comic John Bishop.
The movie, titled Is This Thing On?, wrapped production in New York earlier this month. Cooper will also star as the best friend of Arnett’s character, while the ex-wife will be played by Laura Dern. Bishop is an executive producer.
Arnett co-wrote the script with Cooper and screenwriter Mark Chappell. The source of inspiration was confirmed by another of the film’s stars, stand-up comedian Chloe Radcliffe, on Richard Herring’s Leicester Square Theatre Podcast.
“Bradley Cooper is directing a movie starring Will Arnett and Laura Dern. Their relationship goes south, they split up, and Will Arnett discovers stand-up comedy,” explained Radcliffe.
“It is based on the life of John Bishop. I promise you! I think Will and John sat next to each other at a dinner 10 years ago and Will heard his story was like, ‘That rules, I want to do that someday.’ So anyway, that’s the movie that I just wrapped on…”
Radcliffe added that she plays “the stand-up who, like, believes in him.”
Earlier this year, during an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Bishop recounted the story of how he discovered stand-up comedy after separating from his wife Melanie. The couple have since reconciled.
“So, I’d split up with my wife, it was a Monday night. I had the kids all weekend, and on a Monday I was just depressed, so I thought, ‘I’ll do something that you can do on your own.’ And it was either a comedy club or lap dancing,” recalled Bishop.
“I was 34 coming on to 35 and I was just looking for something to do. I walked up to the door thinking it would be a full comedy club, and the guy on the door said to me, ‘It’s £4 to get in, but it’s free if you put your name down.’ ‘For what?’. He said, ‘It’s an open mic night.’ And I genuinely didn’t know what that meant.
“He said, ‘That means you put your name down, and if your name gets called out, you get on stage.’ And because I’d only been to two comedy clubs and it’d always been full, I thought, ‘Well, there’ll be 200 people. They’ll never get to me.’
“And, you know, it was £4. I was going through a divorce. I thought, ‘Well, that’s £4 she’s not getting.’ I put my name down, expecting never to be called out, and I walked in and there was seven people in the place, and five of them had put their name down
“I got called out second. If I’d have been called out third, I might have already left. So I got called out second after a Geordie fella doing chicken impressions.
“Then he called my name, and I walked on stage, I’d never been on a stage. I’d done sales presentations and stuff like that. I remember the lights in my eyes and saying something about the lights being bright, and then I thought, ‘What am I doing here? This is just ridiculous.’ Like, I’d never thought of doing this.
“Then I thought, ‘Well, what’s my choice? I’m going to go home to an empty house, not living with the woman I want to live with, not living with my kids. I’ll just go home to a bottle of wine, and what have I got to lose? There’s only seven people here, and one of them thinks he’s a chicken.’
“So I literally started talking. I said some half joke, and then I had nothing to say, I had no joke, so I just went, ‘I’m getting divorced.’ And I started talking about getting divorced. In comedy clubs, when your time’s up, there’s a red light that flashes, I didn’t even know that. So I remember going, ‘Oh, your light’s broke,’ and I just carried on talking.
“I was meant to do seven minutes but because there was no one there they let me carry on I did about 25 minutes. When I walked off I remember Mick the compere and the fellow who ran the place, Dave Perkin, coming up to me and saying, ‘Where have you been doing your stand-up?’
“I said ‘I’ve never done it in my life’, and he said, ‘Well some of that was really good, some of that was fun. But the bit where you started talking about getting divorced and started crying. Don’t do that again. But come back. We’re here every Monday.”
Bishop has since become one of the UK’s most successful stand-up comedians, and is now 25 years into his comedy career.
