I spoke to viral star Paul Black ahead of his show at the SEC Armadillo

Black is talking to me ahead of his latest show at Glasgow’s SEC Armadillo - where he previously performed in 2022. He will take his show All Sorts back to the venue on Friday, November 22. The show comes on the back of a fourth consecutive sold out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

All Sorts comes also follows on from his first hour of pure stand up, Nostalgia - “I kind of wanted to do that just to see if I could and not rely on anything else,” - however, this show sees Black incorporate sketch work back into his shows, something he said he discovered he enjoyed more.

“It's like stand up, sketch, stand up, sketch, which is a bit of a pain in the arse because it involves a lot of costume changes,” he jokes. “And I'm extra sweaty this time because it's more moving, but it's been a lot of fun.”

The show sees Black collaborate with brother Mark Black and fellow comedian Alana Malone, something that he says has made the process of writing the show more enjoyable.

“Having all three of us rehearse this stuff, we can come up with an entirely new character or a new idea, and it's just so much fun. It makes the process so much more fun,” He says. “I've had a lot of fun working together with Mark and Alana this year on this show. And I think people really like what they bring here and how it enhances the overall show.”

Mark is also a comedian who has found success in the online world, but according to Paul it was not a foregone conclusion that the pair would find a career in comedy.

“I don't think anyone expected us to go into comedy, and we never really did anything like that when we were younger. The first thing we did was the Stop Filming Me Courtney video, which was literally just us sitting,” he says. “I suppose we always would have a laugh, but everyone in my family's funny, so I think we just grew up in that environment.”

Black is one of the undoubted stars of the current crop of Scottish comedy - one of those who has harnessed his comedic ability and flourished in the online world.

“I worked in creative industries and worked in TV and film, and I always knew that I could maybe write funny things through Twitter. That made me think I’ve got some sort of skill for it, and how might that play out,” he explains. Black began posting videos on Twitter, now X, in 2017 and quickly made a name for himself as one of the country’s top content creators on the platform.

According to Black, he always wanted to make films, and found that comedy sketches may have been a medium through which he could meet that creative desire - especially considering budget constraints.

“I kind of realised that making comedy sketches with no money is fine as long as they're funny, but making a film without any money, if it looks s****, it is s****,” he says. “I think the comedy people care about the production value for comedy, in the sense that as long as it makes them laugh. So I think that helped me. When I had a few viral videos, I kind of just thought, let's go for it.”

Black was one of the earlier adopters of the sketch comedy video on social media, but now he says he believes there is a much more widespread uptake of comedic content being posted on social media.

“Now everybody makes video content, not just people that are trying to make a career out of it. Every sort of niche has somebody that's making content for it. Even people that would never dream of putting a video of themselves on the internet, now they are just doing a vlog about their day. It's so normalised,” Black says - whilst he is keen to highlight the positivity in that more openness to embrace the medium, he does joke that this oversaturation makes him “less special.”

Black is one of the breakout stars of the social media comedy revolution in Scotland - but there is still doubt there when asked whether there was a time he felt that he tipped over into being a success.

“I think that I'm still almost waiting for that point, because I feel like it could end at any time. I always feel like, ‘how much longer can I do this?’ It was never my plan to be a stand up,” he explains. When I posit that perhaps his fear comes from his start on social media and the nature of how virality can often be a fleeting 15 minutes of fame, he agrees - although given his longevity we agree on it being more of a “half hour of fame”.

But Black says his end goal is to have a fully fledged series of his own, but acknowledges how difficult it is to break into that realm - despite his success with shows such as 2019’s Pity Party which was broadcast on the BBC.

“It's just very hard to get things over the line. I've had a few things that have been on TV, but like, never past a one off, it’s always a special or a pilot, which I'm very grateful for, obviously,” he says. “But, I mean it feels like, I think I've just made this up in my head, until I have a sitcom series, I've not achieved what I need to achieve yet.”

Although he does admit that he is unlikely to be satisfied even by reaching that lofty goal - “if that happens, I'll be like, ‘Well, no, I need 10 series now’, and nothing will ever be good enough,” he laughs.