Life With Damien Warren-Smith: ‘Gary’s my alter ego. He’s me if I had zero inhibitions. He’s my Sasha Fierce’

Damien Warren-Smith, aka Garry Starr, on his Scottish roots, his alter ego and the Monty Python sketch he wished he’d created.

I was born in Inverness but sadly left Scotland when I was less than a year old. My Dad worked for BBC Radio Scotland, but my Mum was from the northern beaches of Sydney and was adamant that she couldn’t raise two boys when it’s this dark in the winter. So we moved to the Australian bush and I grew up in a regional town called Cooma.

I was too young to remember my first year in Scotland, but I’ve been back several times for holidays since and it’s amazing. I was born in Raigmore hospital in Inverness and my parents were actually living in the clocktower in Belladrum estate where they now hold a summer music festival – so now everybody knows about it. We went back when I was a teenager to visit our friends the Fergusons who owned the Belladrum estate which was then sold to the Tartan Heart festival, and a tree fell on me. A big rotten tree. And for the first since my birth, I got rushed back to Raigmore hospital where my life in Scotland began. 

Interestingly I did an ancestry test, and while my Mum is Australian, and my Dad is English, my ancestry traces back to James Stewart, the first Earl of Moray and half-brother to Mary Queen of Scots, and it turns out that I’m 60% Scottish. (and weirdly 7% Southern Bantu people in Africa). 

I’d love to go back in time to my Mum and Dad’s wedding in a tiny white church on the banks of Loch Lomond, on a beautiful sunny day. My Dad died when I was quite young so I don’t have many memories of him, but I would really love to go and visit that place as it looked so perfect. I love the loch, I love it all around there. 

It’s hard to look past Edinburgh as my favourite place. I just love it, particularly during festival time. I go up to Scotland quite a bit now. I often work with Catherine Wheels Theatre company based in Musselburgh and have also toured around Scotland with them. I’ve done a short film in Edinburgh too. Any reason I can find to come back.

I wouldn’t say I was a rebel at school, but I was always getting into trouble because I couldn’t sit still and couldn’t listen. And school is not designed for people that cannot sit still and cannot listen… I questioned EVERYTHING. Still to this day in answer to “You should do this” my immediate response is always “well what about this?” Which is why I finally realised I could only ever work for myself. 

Growing up I always thought I wanted to be a sportsperson, but it was clear to everyone else in my life that I was destined to be a performer. They could see that I wasn’t very good at sports… I loved wearing all the kit and putting on the costumes – which right there should have been a clear indication that costumes were far more exciting for me than the sport. It was not until I finished high school that I started taking drama classes. I didn’t look back from there. 

I’m really glad I had the courage to walk away from acting and just make my own work. It got to the point where I was making a living from acting, which took a while to get to that point, and then I completely started from scratch and did my own thing. 

After I finished clown school, I formed a clown troupe with five other clowns and started touring around. I was the MC and my name was Garry Starr – I was the high-status figure, the boss clown. We toured for years and then I ended up living in Berlin. I’d been to clown school but had never performed as a solo clown, ever. A friend invited me to do a comedy slot and I said I don’t do solo but he urged me. So I turned up to this gig as Garry Starr and then did the whole show on my own, but pretending to be every character from the troupe. It was so stupid that the audience loved it. That was back in 2016 and it lit a fire in me. I spent the next 12 months doing the Berlin cabaret circuit as Garry but trying to do every type of art.This high energy, low status combo seemed to really strike a chord. I previewed my first show ‘Garry Starr performs everything’ at the end of 2017 in London. And every now and then the German accent pops out in one of my scenes.

Gary’s my alter ego. He’s me if I had zero inhibitions. He’s my Sasha Fierce, like when Beyonce performs as Sasha Fierce. A completely uninhibited version of myself. I think of him more as an alter ego than a character – when I’m in the flow with Garry there’s never a feeling of breaking out or becoming Damien. 

Know what it is that you’re good at, and know what it is that brings you joy. Forget about all the other noise and just follow that. It’s so easy to get distracted with social media and it’s so easy to lose sight of what it is you really want to be doing. Think to yourself this is what I’m good at, this is what I love to do, it doesn’t matter about anything else. If people see that in you – people begin to think to themselves, why aren’t I doing that? Why aren’t I chasing the joy?

I think Rowan Atkinson is incredible, he’s my hero. But I really love the Black Night sketch from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I bloody love that character, I wish I’d made that. He’s just completely stupid, which is what I aim for – absolute stupidity.

Damien Warren-Smith will be performing as Garry Starr at Udderbelly, Underbelly George Square | 9:30pm | 30 July – 25 August 2025.

Read more from the Life With series here.

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