The man who gained a global following by being nice to total strangers is about to make your day.
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.Imagine visiting your local supermarket. Let’s say you’re in search of bin liners or a tin of something-or-other. That’s when you see him, the suave man in the iridescent silk smoking jacket standing at the entrance to the store, hands clasped behind his back. As you get closer you notice his pencil-thin moustache, his cravat and the kind of two-tone leather shoes favoured by Hollywood stars in the 1930s.
Hawke is the alter ego of Milo McCabe, a 48-year-old English comedian. He’s been developing the character for more than a decade and insists the dapper chap’s appearance and cheerful demeanour are the result of his upbringing. The way McCabe tells it, Hawke was homeschooled by his well-bred mother and didn’t step outside the family home until he was in his mid-30s. As a result, he’s at odds with his times; a deeply retro fellow who seeks a connection with strangers through compliments.
That invisibility may not last, of course. Troy Hawke is hot … and not just in Edinburgh. More than 1.1 million followers devour the videos McCabe posts online and his live shows are selling out.Success has not come easily. For the longest time, it seemed it might never come at all. McCabe was 27 when he performed his first stand-up gig and early characters like Nobbo Johnson, an Aussie Rules player turned art critic, displayed little of Hawke’s magnetic charm.
His reward was clicks - lots of them. His social media following rocketed each time he pulled on the smoking jacket and stood next to a set of automatic doors. Nowadays, his popularity and online heft means he’s sought by big brands who get him to greet people on their dime. McCabe studied psychology at the University of Liverpool, where he acquired a passion for all things Scouse. After that, he enrolled in a four-year masters degree in a form of psychoanalytic theory called Transactional Analysis. He quit after his second year, unable to refuse the siren’s call of stand-up and the offer of playing drums in a band fronted by Tim Booth from the British indie titans James.
He frequently talks about “masking”, a term psychotherapists use to describe the way some people consciously or unconsciously hide parts of themselves to fit in. “I’ve always heavily masked my entire life in every situation,” he says at one point. “That’s why characters like Troy are such a good fit for me. They’re a mask.”
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