Hal Cruttenden started stand-up comedy in his late 20s, which was also the last time he was single… That was until his wife left him for another man in 2021.
He’s now 55, alone – occasionally dating – but most of all, thriving.
The Live At The Apollo and Royal Variety show comic wrote his last Edinburgh Fringe show about his divorce. Four years later, he’s written another one, Can Dish It Out But Can’t Take It… also about his divorce.
‘Men are crap at dealing with divorce,’ Hal tells Metro over Zoom ahead of his Fringe run, in his bubbly yet frank disposition. ‘It’s taken me four years to still be processing things.’
Hal talks fondly of his daughters, now 21 and 23, who assure him it’s the same story throughout generations: even at university, they report friends mourning relationships immediately, while the bloke seems like he’s okay – and then has ‘some sort of breakdown six months later’.
‘I still think women are so much better at analysing the reality of a breakup,’ Hal says.
‘In my age group, women are much more likely to leave, like in 70% of cases. But it’s not like they’re the cause of the divorce. They are usually the ones that go: “This has got to end now.”
‘Men tend to go, “But it’s okay, isn’t it..? It’s okay that we’ve not really got a very good marriage. I’ll just muddle through.”‘
In short? ‘I think men, they’re just emotionally very lazy, and I have been as well,’ Hal admits.
Hal also reckons the average middle-class man who’s had a happy childhood is much less equipped than their female contemporaries for things going wrong.
‘Men are just spoilt babies,’ Hal chuckles. ‘Women deal with so much from youth.’
Genuinely exasperated, Hal continues: ‘They are now dealing with the most powerful man in the world Donald Trump getting elected while being a known sex predator – that’s still a world they have to live in.
‘Men don’t live with that sort of unfairness. I’ve watched my own daughters navigate the same world of being shouted at in their school uniform that my sisters had in the 80s.
‘Women seem to be much more prepared for the unfairness of life, for the shocks of life. Whereas men like I am, in truth, are just little boys that never had that much bad stuff happen to them, and thought life was going to be wonderful.’
Imitating a phrase presumably absorbed from his daughters, Hal adds: ‘God, I’m so right on it’s disgusting.’
He’s on to something there. But back to divorce.
If, like grief, divorce requires wading through stages of recovery, Hal is proud to say he’s in the acceptance phase. But he’s not fully recovered.
‘It’s taken me a long time to realise that I was very affected by my divorce,’ he says, explaining how the anger phase was useful in his comedy. (His ex-wife asked if he would talk about the divorce on stage. His answer? Obviously…’)
‘There’s a real power to the jokes that are based in pain,’ Hal says, adding: ‘British people particularly like hearing about those worse off than them.’
But while Hal’s last Edinburgh show – It’s Best You Hear It From Me – was a knee-jerk reaction to the split, this one is more honest.
‘There are things I reveal that I don’t in the first show, like that I was left for someone else,’ he says.
‘I have a joke that it’s better to be left for someone than for no one, because if you’re left for no one, that means you’re literally worse than nothing.’
While self-depreciation is his shtick, Hal can’t help but voice wisdom and a bit of sop after every prod at his own ego.
‘You have all these divorced men who become real misogynists about women being unfair,’ he says. ‘Well, one woman knocked me over, but loads of women lifted me up. I’ve got two daughters and two older sisters, and there’s been a lot of support.’
After Hal’s wife left, he thought it was going to be terrible. But he also perhaps naively assumed he’d find someone else quickly.
But while 20-year-olds are willing and pliant to mould to another’s life and build one together, in his 50s, Hal admits he’s a tricky customer: his life is more lived, so there are more things to align that generally don’t.
‘I think everything has to be absolutely right for me for it to work,’ he says.
After four years of dating, talking and falling head over heels for the wrong people – though it was ‘astonishing’ to find that women actually do still want to have sex with him – Hal has decided enough is enough.
‘I have got quite a bit stronger just by being by myself,’ he says. ‘I was looking to be saved. It’s quite nice to have that revelation that no one’s going to save me. I’ve got to grow up about this.’
This frightening but liberating new chapter will be Hal’s next show. While he warns the contents will be ‘more misery about being alone’, Hal is grateful of his situation.
‘I almost wouldn’t have missed it for the world,’ he says, with his eyes as much as his words.
‘It’s been so extraordinary to experience my 50s like this, and it put a rocket under my life. Life is now more interesting – even if more painful and uncertain.’
Hal Cruttenden: Can Dish It Out But Can’t Take It is on at 9.30 until August 24 at the Pleasance Courtyard Cabaret Bar. Tickets here.
Got a story?
If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.
