KIELL SMITH BYNOE TALKS KOOL STORY BRO, GHOSTS AND THE ART OF IMPROVISATION

Kiell Smith Bynoe is an actor, comedian and writer whose work spans television, stage and live comedy.

Best known for roles in Ghosts and Stath Lets Flats, Smith Bynoe has become one of British comedy’s most familiar faces while steadily building a reputation as one of the country’s leading improvisers.

As his hit live show Kool Story Bro embarks on a nationwide tour and anticipation grows for the forthcoming Ghosts film, Smith Bynoe reflects on the thrill of creating comedy in the moment, the audiences who continue to embrace the unexpected, and the projects shaping the next chapter of his career.

Please introduce yourself …
Kielle Smith-Bynoe, Pisces, half Jamaican, half Bajan, and rep my ends, E6 Newham.

Describe your life in one word or a sentence …
Gotta have a laugh ain’t yah.


Tell us about your latest comedy tour Kool Story Bro, and what makes it different from a traditional stand-up set?
It’s completely 100 per cent improvised. There’s nothing pre-planned or prepared. We come out onto the stage with nothing, and then we make it all up on the spot with the help of the audience. You don’t see a lot of people doing that. When I speak to other stand-up comedians about it, they are terrified. It also makes it quite difficult to book guests because people think they have to improvise, but the guests literally talk to the audience, and we improvise based on that. I have seen and done short-form improv with audience interaction, but not in this way. It’s a huge risk that’s paid off.

Following sold-out runs in Edinburgh and London, and after building such a strong audience response through Kool Story Bro, what’s the best and most challenging about being on the road?
The best parts of life on the road are getting to see the country, travelling with some of the funniest people I know. Spending all day just laughing, then getting to do a show at the end of it, then people queuing up to tell you how good your show was. You can’t really beat that feeling. The cons are that you completely forget you’ve got a life outside of that. A lot of things pile up, so once you finish a tour, you’re like, ‘oh, I haven’t responded to that email from three weeks ago‘, so there’s a lot of catching up to do. It’s worth it, but finding the balance is difficult.

What’s great about improv is that no two performances are ever the same. What excites you most about walking on stage without fully knowing where the show is about to go?
I think the feeling of something happening in the room that has never happened before and will never happen again is really exciting for me, the performers and the audience. That’s why crowd work has become such a viral sensation. People know everything happening has happened in that moment and will never happen again.

What’s the most ridiculous or unexpected audience confession you’ve had so far?
How PG are we keeping this? One of the stories was a woman who met a fireman in a club. She left with him to have some “quiet time” in the car park and they got locked in his car and had to call the emergency services to get them out. The thing about this show is that somehow we manage to get some confessions that people would never tell otherwise, but they feel comfortable telling you all those stories in a room packed full of strangers. Maybe because the outcome is like therapy for them and it’s cheaper than therapy. I mean, it’s only about £24 for a ticket.
We get all sorts: a guy in Southend, a teacher who went to an interview at the school and he wore the only suitable trousers he had. Sat down and ripped them up both sides. He had to go to the textiles teacher and ask her to sew them up whilst he stood in the cupboard because he had no trousers on. So there’s a lot of confessions going on.

Chemistry is obviously such a huge part of improv. How do you, Emma Sidi and Lola-Rose Maxwell work together on stage, and what is it about your dynamic that makes the show click with audiences?
I think it’s a certain type of performer that makes a good improviser. It’s about instinct; it’s about listening. But it’s also about knowing other people’s strengths, which can be difficult when people have to drop out, and we have to get someone to fill in. It might be someone we’re not that familiar with. So we try to keep a small pool of maybe 12 improvisers. But sometimes you have to get someone new in last minute. So you don’t always know their strengths or their weaknesses.
The thing about Emma, Lola and myself is that we’ve been doing it together for a while. We met on a show called ‘They Seem Nice‘ around 2021. Graham Dixon, Nick Sampson, and Robert Gilbert are included in that as well. There are just people that you can count on in this. Who will get it and never talk away from it.

You’ve spent years building a reputation as one of the funniest improvisers in British comedy. Do you think improv gets the respect it deserves compared to more traditional stand-up?
It hasn’t, but I think it’s starting to. Improv is becoming a bit more mainstream. Not fully, but a little bit. With the help of shows like Showstopper! The Improvised Musical, Austentatious: An Improvised Jane Austen Novel and David Elms Describes a Room. Those shows are getting more widespread attention. All of it really counts and makes all the difference to the improv scene. I’m really hoping that the more I do this show, the less people say that they’ve never been to an improv show.

You grew up in East London, and a lot of your humour feels rooted in recognisable British personalities and social situations. How much of your comedy comes from people you grew up around?
I’d say 95% of it. I went to St Elms, a popular boys’ school in Forest Gate, where we had a lot of big personalities, and big names who went on to do great things like Tim Campbell, who won The Apprentice, Jermain Defoe (footballer) and Tinchy Stryder (rapper). A school full of talent, but it is a boys’ school at the end of the day, and it’s in Newham; it’s not a posh school. And I guess to gain respect and make it through, you had to use humour.
I also grew up with three uncles who were always cussing, taking the mick, and playing pranks on each other. And at my nan’s house, I was just surrounded by my nan and grandad’s friends who were big personalities coming in and out of their home. So I gained a lot of humour from mimicking people. I used to mimic teachers – their accents and people I’d seen on TV. So yeah, it’s all to do with my childhood. I don’t think I’ve been funny in an original way for about 15 years.

Ghosts has become one of the UK’s most loved comedy series, and now it’s heading to the big screen. How does it feel revisiting Mike for such a huge new chapter?
It’s fantastic that we’re able to do this. It’s been a staple of British culture and British TV for the last six years. I was in Birmingham when we were on tour, and someone stopped me in the street and said that they grew up on Ghosts. I was thinking, ‘how can you grow up on it?‘ But when I think about it, if I meet a 19-year-old, they were 12 when Ghosts started. We started filming in 2018, and it came out in 2019; it’s been seven years that Ghosts has been on our screens. It seemed mad to me when I heard it. I think the natural next step was to make a film, and I hope that people see it worldwide.

The success of Ghosts in both the UK and US feels like a strong example of how distinctly British storytelling can still travel globally without losing its identity. How surreal has it been to see something so rooted in British humour resonate internationally in the same way shows like The Office and Shameless have done?
I think it’s about time. Luckily for me, two shows that I have been involved with have been really well received overseas. Ghosts and Stath Lets Flats, and I think in the UK we did a disservice to ourselves thinking that other people wouldn’t get our humour. It’s not true. Evident, as you said with The Office, with Shameless, it can be done. We won’t talk about the American Inbetweeners. But people can enjoy shows for what they are. Obviously, there is a US version of Ghosts, but I’ve met a lot of Americans who say they prefer the UK version because it’s so deep-rooted in British humour, history and characters we all recognise.

From Stath Lets Flats to Taskmaster to The Great British Sewing Bee, you’ve become one of those personalities people instantly feel comfortable watching. Do you feel that affection from audiences in real life?
Yeah, I do. I have people come up to me after shows asking for pictures, telling me that the show changed their life, or got them out of a dark place or just their favourite. People show me tattoos of quotes from the shows or from characters. It’s really moving to see and be a part of something like that. Stath was my favourite TV regular role, and if it wasn’t for Stath, I would have never even got the chance to be in the room for Ghosts. They really changed my life. And Taskmaster, of course, it’s worldwide; it’s global. People will comment on Instagram and online saying “we love you in Brazil”; “we love you in Japan“. I never would have expected this when I said I wanted to be an actor. So it means a lot, and hopefully I can also create my own thing that does the same thing or has the same effect.

What’s the biggest difference between making people laugh on television versus making them laugh live on stage every night?
Live on stage I can hear it. That feeling is always great. You can film something, then see it four months later, watch it back and go, ‘actually, I should have done it like that‘. Whereas on stage you try something, particularly with a play than with improv, but if you do something and you try a line in a certain way, you can go, okay, that didn’t work like that tonight, but I’ll try it differently tomorrow.
With improv it’s very different because you have just got to trust your instincts and go for it. But I think the feeling of hearing an audience respond to you in the moment is unmatched.

Many comedians move towards creating and producing their own projects; are you following the same path?
100%. I had a chance to do that with Red Flag; it was my favourite thing. I’m still really proud of it. I hope that there’s a future for it and I really want to do more. It’s very difficult, even when you’ve got your foot through the door, and you’ve won awards like Red Flag has, you’ve still got more hurdles to get over. Like trying to get it to series, which hasn’t happened for us yet. But with that or the many other projects I have in development, I’m really hoping something happens soon.

GETTING TO KNOW YOU…

If not this, then what? A rapper.

What’s made you sad, mad, and glad this week? I’m gonna go Mad first. I just started thinking about Nando’s sweet potato mash and how that’s gone forever. Nothing’s been the same since. Sad: I’m actually going away next week, and I believe that when I go away I should be able to stunt on people with the weather, but now there’s this heatwave no one’s going to care that I’m on holiday. So that element of jealousy won’t exist. I’m sad about that. I’m glad Arsenal have won the Premiership. Also, there’s this rhetoric about ‘we’ve never heard you talk about Arsenal before‘ and it’s like, just because you never heard me in the last four years doesn’t mean that when I was in year 5 in my JVC kit every day being teased by Man United fans, I didnt go home and cross my arms and shake my lip in front of the TV.

What are you watching? I’m catching up on SNL UK.

What are you reading? Twitter.

The last play you saw? One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.

The last live music event you attended? Lilly Allen at the Palladium.

What’s currently on your playlist? I’ve been replaying Brandy’s Never Say Never. Also, Iceman Drake’s new album. He dropped three albums. Iceman’s been on repeat; Maid of Honor, I will never listen to again. My favourite song is Angel In Disguise from the Never Say Never album.

Which podcast are you listening to? I’m not really a podcast guy.

What’s on your bucket list? I need and deserve a floating breakfast. So Bali or Thailand, wherever they do it fancy. I want my breakfast floating.

Where’s your happy place? My office at the back of my garden.

Celebrate someone else … Aliyah Odoffin. I go to acting class with her, and everything I see her do is the best thing I’ve ever seen. I think she’s incredible. I didn’t see her in All My Sons, but she’s always in something, so I’ll get to see her soon. But I also see her pretty much every week in class, and it’s a real pleasure to be in an intimate setting with 16 people max and watch quite a lot of actors do some of the best work I’ve ever seen. But Aliyah especially.

Celebrate yourself … I started my improv show three years ago this August, and we’ve just done the first leg of our second UK tour, and I’ve sold out some venues and had some great audiences in places I didn’t even know they would know my name. That makes me proud, especially when at the end of the show, I’m at the merch table, and I’m talking to people and they come and say, ‘thank you for Ghosts. Thank you for Taskmaster. You’re our favourite contestant‘. Things like that really make it all worthwhile.

What’s next? I’m chilling for the summer, relaxing, then we go again in autumn. We’ve been booked for three nights at Edinburgh Fringe in the Grand, which will be our biggest venue in Edinburgh so far. That’s a 750-seater. We then go on the second leg of our UK tour in October, and we’re doing two dates at Soho Theatre in Walthamstow, which is a 960-seater, so some big venues. Really looking forward to that.

Where can we find you? Klay flamze

Where can we watch you at work? Ghosts on BBC. And I’m currently on a UK tour.

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