Chris Rock brings Total Blackout Tour to Arena Birmingham

Lauded by peers and critics alike, Chris is one of our generation’s strongest comedic voices. With a career spanning more than three decades, he has created many pivotal pop culture moments and his star shines bright.

Chris will feature at Arena Birmingham on Thursday.

He made his breakthrough on Saturday Night Live and went on to appear in a string of hit films, including Down to Earth, Head of State, the Madagascar film series, Grown Ups, Top Five and a series of acclaimed comedy specials for HBO. He developed, wrote, and narrated the sitcom Everybody Hates Chris, hosted the 77th Academy Awards in 2005 and the 88th in 2016 and has won four Emmy Awards and three Grammy Awards.

A poll on Comedy Central voted him the fifth greatest stand-up of all time while in the UK he was voted the ninth-greatest stand-up comic on Channel 4’s 100 Greatest Stand-Ups.

Chris got divorced in 2016 after a 20-year marriage and joked that during the legal process, he was the one paying everyone’s bills.

In a stand-up routine, he said he’d taken on TV work to make his alimony payments while realising he was paying his lawyers, her lawyer and even the court reporter: “Everyone woke up today and said, ‘I’m billing Chris Rock.’ Would I ever get married again? Not if it would cure AIDS.

“The great thing about comedy is the low overhead. I don’t have to split the money with a band. I make more money per gig than the drummer in Metallica.”

However, he admitted that the break-up was down to him because he’d been a cheat.

“It’s not fair. I have a mic, she doesn’t. God forbid people are bugging her in the supermarket. That’s not cool. I’m going to have to see her at weddings and graduations.”

He said: “Marriage is so tough, Nelson Mandela got divorced — he got out of jail after 27 years of torture, spent six months with his wife and said, ‘I can’t take this no more.’

“Getting divorced, you have to start over. You get to reset. It’s not a breakdown, but something in your life broke down.”

Chris was born in South Carolina and moved to Brooklyn, New York, with his parents. His grandfather was a preacher whose style helped to influence him. Chris has known tragedy too. His father, a truck driver and newspaper deliveryman, died in 1988 after ulcer surgery while his older half-brother, Charles, passed away in 2006 after a long struggle with alcoholism.

He was bullied as a child, enduring beatings from white students in Brooklyn. Eventually, things became so bad that he dropped out altogether and worked at fast food restaurants instead.

His career, however, has been on a continually upward curve, since he was spotted by Eddie Murphy and given his first break in Beverly Hills Cop II.

He has frequently poked fun at himself during his career. When he hosted his first Academy Awards, he said: “Welcome to the 77th and last Academy Awards.” And later he joked that if the producers had really wanted Denzel Washington but only been able to get him, they should have waited before putting on the show.

His comedy has frequently focused on family, politics, race and class in the USA. Much of his material has its roots in his experiences as a teenager.

When it comes to his film career, Chris’s choices have sometimes been hard to fathom.

“I’m not sure if I chose them willy nilly – well, I guess I chose a couple of them willy-nilly. hich ones?

“Um, Beverly Hills Ninja. Some were willy-nilly, some were [Adam] Sandler called you up and it’s like, ‘Yeah, OK.’

“You get to a point where you say, OK, I’m not going to be Iron Man. So maybe I should be hanging with [Richard] Linklater and [Alexander]Payne. Maybe this is my crew instead of Sandler and Apatow and Stiller. They’re all still my boys, but maybe, artistically, my crew is over here.

“Most comedies aren’t really movies – they’re just vehicles for the funny person that’s starring in them. No one cares where the story’s going, and if it doesn’t work, they’ll just throw in another set piece. But with 2 Days, the jokes come out of the drama. Woody Allen doesn’t make comedies – he makes sad dramas with jokes.”