Johnny Vegas on art, the power of a good broth and his dad's secret to a great fry-up

“I must be honest, sat with a plate like this, it’s really hard to slag Thatcher off,” says Johnny Vegas, staring down a tomahawk and lobster at Tender in Manchester.

From his working class roots in St Helens, he says this really wasn’t the type of food he grew up with. But food, nonethelss, has always been a marker in his life.

“If I eat out, honestly, I’m not afraid of eating anywhere,” he says. “I’ve had street food in Vietnam that was far better than the five-star we were staying in. There was one woman, she turned up and the restaurant was on the back of a moped. She made this broth and I say to this day, it’s one of the best things. It was a dollar and we’d crave it.

“We never ate out when we were younger. We were so poor as kids. But you’ve got to get over the kind of working-class admission that you enjoy good food.

“My dad enjoyed good food. My dad loved cooking. He’d do a miniature fry-up. He’d carve into the tomato, put it in warm water so he could peel off the skin. Everything he’d done in the pan, he put the tomato in with it, mashed it up, took the heart out of it, so it was more like a sauce. Then that went over your fry-up. It’s a technique – when I get tomato with the fry-up and it’s just a tomato cut in half grilled… I’m not furious, I just start a small fire round the back where the bins are.”

There’s humour in the telling, but the affection is clear. Vegas is just as sharp when it comes to the way people behave around food and drink. “I always said to my children, you can always tell a lot about how a person’s going to be by how they treat either a barman or a waiter. It speaks volumes.”

In recent years, it’s art that has claimed him most. Before he took to the stage, he’d graduated from art school, studying ceramics at Middlesex University in London. “Outside of family, outside of the obvious, I’ve given everything to entertainment. I gave a lot to stand-up. Now it feels like the swan song that’s permanent comes from the heart after years of TV where everything’s done by committee. It’s like you get your life back.

“[Renowned sculptor] Emma Rogers, she instilled this faith in me. I rang her and I went, ‘I’m an artist.’ And she went, ‘I’ve been waiting so long to hear you say that.’ I am an artist. Creatively, everything in life has built to this point.”

Vegas admits he has always needed to push back against conformity, able to differentiate himself from his on-stage/on-screen persona and ‘Michael’. “Johnny didn’t want to witness the storm. Johnny wanted to be the eye of the storm. Wanted to be the storm. But Michael – that’s me – I’m a natural observer.

“I can’t stop evolving. I want the homestead, I want to settle, but I can’t. Johnny couldn’t keep his mouth shut with things he didn’t respect. It’s that thing of going, shouldn’t we be shaking things up? Isn’t that our job?”

Of everything he’s done on screen, Ideal, the cult sitcom made by Steve Coogan and Henry Normal’s Baby Cow production company, remains his proudest achievement. It’s set to return in stage form at The Lowry in Salford next month, with Johnny reprising his role as the shiftless weed dealer Moz.

“It was commissioned and then our commission editor left. We had new heads of channel constantly coming in. They always want a clean slate. [They] couldn’t get rid of it because it just kept growing, but it was only word of mouth. We were unwanted and yet undeniably good.

“I think it’s the thing I’m proudest of, in terms of TV comedy. We just did it and it worked. And no matter how mad the script was, you’d go, ‘Is this funny?’ and the answer was, ‘Don’t ask if it’s funny. Do it.’

Created and penned by Graham Duff, it landed in 2005, among the shows which established the newly-minted channel BBC3. It ran for an impressive 54 episodes.

“I get immensely defensive when people go, ‘What’s the big deal?’ It’s the best show that should have been massive and it was just mismanaged. My fondness for it has grown as time’s gone on because you’re going, it was original.

“If people haven’t seen the TV show, don’t be put off by the fact it’s about a drug dealer. Very little of it is actually about drugs. It’s really about people and relationships and subculture and power struggles – and just what it’s like to be a vulnerable human.”

Despite a career which never seems to have had troughs among the peaks – not to mention ‘serious’ drama roles for the BBC like the 2005 production of Bleak House, and even kids TV like The Rubbish World of Dave Spud – he’s perhaps as surprised as anyone that he’s done the stuff he has.

“I’m like a rescue dog. I’m just glad to be here. That’s enough.”

Johnny will be appearing in Ideal at The Lowry from 8 – 13 September. Grab tickets here…