Top cartoonist tells secrets at The Riverside, Woodbridge

There doesn’t seem to be much to laugh about in the world today, but we all need something to cheer us, a little light relief, and readers of the ‘Daily Telegraph’ newspaper, and many others too, know just where they can go to get it. 

Tucked into a corner of the front page, in just one column square, the day’s top story is presented as a wry illustration with a caption of a few words - courtesy of the paper’s, and the nation’s, star cartoonist Matt Pritchett. 

‘I don’t ever think what I’m doing is important,’ he says. ‘But I think if you can laugh about something, it does suddenly seem less scary, less ominous.' 

Cartoonist Matt Pritchett keeps the nation laughing - here's you chance to get a copy of his latest book (Image: Seven Dials) And, after more than 30 years in the job, Matt’s take on the world’s key events is now very much a national institution. Each year the cartoons are presented in ‘The Best of Matt’ annual, which is a staple for most Christmas stockings.  

In November, Matt will be visiting The Riverside Woodbridge to talk about how he has interpreted the events of 2024 as cartoons, as well as giving us an insight into his life and career as a whole. 

Matt is now considered a local. He has been visiting Suffolk since childhood when his parents regularly holidayed in Westleton and he has a beautiful home on the Suffolk-Norfolk border. This has featured in interior magazines and his wife Pascale Smets has just opened a homeware store in Norwich.  

Matt spends half the week here and the other half in London.

“I didn’t think I would be able to work anywhere other than the office,” he says of first having to work from home during the pandemic. “But I found that an awful lot of what I did was a waste of time! I thought it was work but I was just gossiping! You can get a lot more done if you’re not wandering around the office.” 

He is very much a creature of habit in his working life, he says. There is a particular routine each day to thinking up and delivering the joke. “I need to be sitting in my normal chair with my normal pen at the same time every day,” he says, and he will begin by reading all the newspapers in the same order. His goal is to find at least six jokes from the day’s news of which he’ll present three or four to the editor to choose the one he considers the funniest.  

There’s a certain amount of pressure on Matt to deliver as he’s reputedly the highest earning cartoonist in the country. So how does that make him feel? 

“I’m by nature very needy,” he says with his customary giggle. “I think if you’re trying to think of jokes every day you want somebody to say, yes, that was funny, yes, we still love you, yes, you’re still employed!” 

Though he says his cartoon characters have, in the past, been modelled on friends of his parents, these days he’s finding his own life is increasingly his inspiration. 

“I think it was when bin collections were being moved from weekly to fortnightly,” he says. “I did a joke of a man lying in bed and his wife was saying, ‘I know you’re excited but the sooner you go to sleep, the sooner it will be bin day’. And that was me!” 

Matt Pritchett will be in conversation at The Riverside Woodbridge on Sunday 17 November at 6pm. Tickets are £17.50 including a signed copy of ’The Best of Matt 2024’ (RRP £9.99) which will be presented on the night. One additional ticket may be purchased for £12 without the book. 

For more visit www.theriverside.co.uk or call 01394 382174