Avid Merrion character grumbles

It's easy to forget that Craig David isn't just a comedy character created by Bo Selecta; he's also a comedy character in his own right. The Times goes to see him today:

“I eat chocolate, I am very excessive. I am crazy for clean sneakers. I try to keep everything clean.” Indeed, there’s not a thumbprint or a speck of dust. “I have a tendency to buy large quantities of chocolate so I can watch everyone else eating it. I was fat as a kid because I just kept eating. Then music replaced the eating. Now, if I eat a whole bowl of Eclairs I know I have to burn it off.”

This is part of a relaunch of David - unfortunately hanging on that bloody awful reworking of Bowie's Lets Dance which only reminds you of Samantha Mumba's Ashes To Ashes pastiche. David is trying to bury the image of the "Craig David" character on the comedy show.

Unfortunately, he can't keep from going on about it:

“During that period I was thinking, ‘I’m a caricature of myself. I’ve got my beard shaved in a certain way and putting on my beanie cap. Should I change because of it?’ ”

He didn’t want to look like he was bothered so he stayed the same, not really knowing where or how to go as he now felt he was no longer an artist but a caricature. “I thought, ‘We’ll ride it. But now you are putting me in a position where I don’t know where else to go.’ Inside it was absolutely pissing me off and hurtful beyond belief. There were times when I thought I just want to knock this guy out. And then I met him and did his show.” He had been advised that that would look cool. He knew that it wasn’t right.

“After the show I said, ‘You’re an idiot.’ No one really heard me because it was just me and him in the hallway. ‘All the laughs are on me so don’t stand there telling me I’m sorry and continuing to do your thing.’ He was all sheepish. I did the show to look PC. I didn’t want people to think, ‘Craig’s reacting to it,’ because then they would think, ‘How can we get up Craig’s nose even more?’ So I did it, but I wasn’t happy about it.”

We know that Craig seems to have confused "looking politically correct" with "showing I can laugh at myself", but let's let that slide. The tragedy here, of course, is that David seems to have fixated on Merrion making him a laughing stock, when - of course - he did that all by himself. Perhaps David ought to just ignore it.

But then, if he didn't have a "real-life version of that bloke in the big rubber face" angle upon which interviews with him can be hung, who would even bother to turn up to talk to him?