Joe Thomas Talks The Inbetweeners, Charity & Stand Up

18 November 2009

2Comments | Comment on this Article

Joe Thomas is probably best known for his role as Simon Cooper - the unlucky in love schoolboy from hit E4 show, The Inbetweeners. But aside from his acting, Joe is an ambassador for The National Young Volunteer Service … I caught up with him to find out about the vinspired National Award 2009, The Inbetweeners Movie and stand up comedy.

Hey Joe, how are you?

I’m good thanks… how are you?

I’m okay, ready to go home and sleep! It’s so dark and cold and miserable today!

Haha! Are you in a cave, or a basement or a dark building?

No, but you know, we’ve got all these lights on the ceilings but none of them work…

Oh, are they those posh ones that look good but are a nightmare to replace?

Yes, exactly! I have to stand on the desk and everything… anyway, it’s been a while since we saw you on our screens, what have you been getting up to?

I’ve been writing a sitcom with my writing partner Simon Bird who plays Will in the Inbetweeners, I am just starting to do a few little bits of stand-up because I used to do comedy before I began - oh hold on I do do comedy - I used to do live comedy before I began is what I mean! it’s very, very early days though, but it is quite exciting.

My mum always told me to go for funny men over good looking ones…

Yes! They will be funny for their whole life you see whereas some people might become funny as they get older, but only because they look weird. As long as the funny people don’t go mental then you’ll be okay. Although if they go mental, then they’ll probably still be funny.

Anyway, I think I’ve gone back to my roots - without wanting to sound pretentious - I just want to go back to live comedy which is always what I set out to do. I got into the Inbetweeners from a live comedy show I was doing, so it’s great rediscovering all that.

I heard you and your Inbetweeners co-star Emily have gotten involved with the vinspired national awards, what exactly are they?

Well they were actually new to me too until I asked my dad (who works in a sixth form college) and he knew a lot about them and they looked like a good idea and obviously I trust his judgement.

Basically vinspired is an organisation which connects young people with charities and projects which they can get involved in based on the skills they have to offer. On the vinspired website you can type in your interests, and then the site will connect you with a charity where you can get involved in something you’d be interested in.

I think it’s good because it’s less daunting, it’s not like you have to turn up at a soup kitchen and say ‘I want to help’ you just say what you are interested in and they will pair you up with something which you should enjoy.

It has connections to loads and loads of organisations.

What a great idea!

It is a really good idea, it’s like a social networking site really - which are bit at the moment - so always a winner.

What kind of things have the short listed people been doing?