Don’t sleep on Henry Rowley
Scroll through your ‘For You’ page for long enough and you’ll likely come across Henry Rowley (if you’re not already one of his 1.3 million followers), where the Leicester-born comedian posts his distinct sketches, impressions, and parodies, making fun of everything from Harry Potter to the Soho House wait staff. This year, however, Henry is bringing his first solo hour-long comedy show to the Edinburgh Fringe and to the stage in London. We get to know the man behind the internet’s favourite characters it loves to hate.
Words Bryson Edward Howe Photography Christian Trippe
Full look Calvin Klein
When I first meet Henry, he is like a train that’s already in motion. He is bouncing around the studio with the curious energy of a puppy dog and a boyish twinkle in his eyes. His enthusiasm is infectious, always ready to crack a joke or break into an impression without missing a beat, yet seemingly self-aware enough to always be deprecating about where his success comes from: he is a 26-year-old TikToker.
“I think part of being a TikToker is, it is online, so you cannot be too serious or proud of it because then you just fall into that stereotype of the Gen Z proud, entitled wanker.”
“I think it's important to recognise that I just make silly videos that some people like,” Henry laughs, but not with any false modesty. “I think part of being a TikToker is, it is online, so you cannot be too serious or proud of it because then you just you fall you fall into that stereotype of the Gen Z proud, entitled wanker.” It is precisely this stereotype that Henry is most known for making fun of, developing a roster of characters and caricatures – from personifications of ‘posh culture’ within British universities like Oxford and Bristol to the husky-voiced Sloanes and east London creative types – that are often and excruciatingly accurate. Formerly a marketing executive, Henry is aware of how quickly trends online can swing in and out of your favour. “Social media is such a fleeting thing. It has no longevity. I know that in a couple of years, I'll be completely irrelevant. That's part of it. You can't get this ego around it and think because now people like your videos, that those people are going to be interested in you forever, because they're not.”
“Social media is such a fleeting thing. It has no longevity. I know that in a couple of years, I'll be completely irrelevant. That’s part of it.”
Full look Calvin Klein
He finally quit his job last year when he booked two shows at Edinburgh’s Fringe, a play he had been touring, My Neighbours are Kinda Weird, and a stand-up show with fellow internet comedians, ‘Knock Knock’, a transition which finds him at the centre of a hypocrisy that he is the first to point out. “I used to look at all these TikTok people who were doing stand-up and used to be like, what the fuck? Just because you can do funny videos, it doesn't mean you can do stand-up. Stand-up is an art. Stand-up is a craft. How arrogant. And then my agent came to me with this concept asking me, do you wanna do Fringe? And I was like, oh yeah, I'd love to.”
“If something doesn't land online, you can just turn your phone off, put it down and carry on with your day. Whereas if you're on stage and it doesn't land, you're confronted with that immediately. You're completely exposed in stand-up.”
“What I really like about it is, on stage, you get the immediate reaction. When you tell a joke, you're getting that laughter. It's a very personal interaction,” Henry tells me but reveals that on the other side, “you can't hide behind a screen. If something doesn't land online, you can just turn your phone off, put it down and carry on with your day. Whereas if you're on stage and it doesn't land, you're confronted with that immediately. You're completely exposed in stand-up.” Teasing what to expect, he stresses to me that he’s very keen on “not making {his act] become TikTok on stage,” but Henry does admit that he will “have to incorporate some of the famous, favourite characters because people will be there to see it.”
The first video I saw of Henry’s was sent to me by a friend last year, where Henry is relaxing back in his living room with the postured faux nonchalance of a man in Soho House, constantly forgetting his date’s name. I’m ashamed to admit that, while exaggerated, a part of me cringes at how much I relate to this. I’ve seen this man. I’ve been this man. It’s a confession Henry is all too familiar with, one that can be traced back to the first character that catapulted his online success: Minty. “One of my friends, she's quite posh, she knows it's her, but she loves it, she finds it hilarious. It was on her birthday, and she lost her vape and was getting angry, accusing everyone of stealing her vape, like, ‘You've stolen my fucking vape, where's my vape,’ and she was just sat on it. Literally the next day I did a video of it, and I just got a message, ‘Rowley, what the fuck?’” He’s generally combated this by following some advice he read in a book on screenwriting, which he tells me said “if you ever writing about someone specifically and you're making it too close to them, to avoid like a character defamation charge, just give them like a tiny knob or something like that because no one's ever gonna say ‘oh, that's me.’ The characters are very rarely like really appealing, so I think a lot of the time people in their head may be like ‘wait, that's me’ but they don't want to go and shout about it.”
And it’s this self-awareness that Henry weaponises to make his characters so painfully accurate, and relatable, but self-awareness can, clearly in my case, only excuse so much. “When I go again, I have thought about it, and I will be so aware of how I'm acting because I've completely rinsed everyone in Soho House,” Henry laughs. “I'll probably end up closer to that character than anything else, with that forced nonchalance. And I've been thinking, God, how am I going to counteract that? Because the whole thing is this person who's so aware of how they're being because they think everyone's watching them. And the irony is, in doing that, I've become that.” It seems fitting for Henry that the final punchline would be on himself.
Full look Calvin Klein
You can see Henry live at his upcoming stand-up shows in London in April and May.
TEAM CREDITS
Interview Bryson Edward Howe
Photographer Christian Trippe
Grooming Harriet Beidleman
READ NEXT
