Latest / Rich Fulcher's TalkBox / Ed Byrne: Adelaide Fringe 1996, Saving Gold Material & The Future of Standup | TalkBox Ep. 40

Transcript

Ed Byrne: Adelaide Fringe 1996, Saving Gold Material & The Future of Standup | TalkBox Ep. 40 · Rich Fulcher's TalkBox

• 0:01
  Hi, welcome to Rich Vultures Stock Box.
• 0:04
  Today's guest. It really needs no
• 0:06
  introductions. You've seen them all over the
• 0:09
  TV. Mock the week 8 out of 10 Cats.
• 0:11
  Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 0:13
  Ed Byrne. Yeah, yeah, I got him in this
• 0:19
  chair. So check him out and remember to
• 0:22
  press like and subscribe because that's how we get known.
• 0:26
  And then when we get known, you get more stuff like pizza.
• 0:32
  Why do I keep mentioning pizza? Stop it.
• 0:35
  OK, let's go to the cast. Come on.
• 0:55
  Taste the pain. Makeup No.
• 1:04
  Ed Hey, how are you? Good to see you.
• 1:08
  You. Act like you weren't expecting
• 1:09
  me yet. My coffee and my Pano chocolate
• 1:11
  are already. Here just randomly I put it
• 1:14
  there, so welcome. Nice to see you.
• 1:18
  Yeah, good to see you. It's been a while.
• 1:20
  I feel like the only way we any of us meet up is if one of us
• 1:24
  has a podcast. Or a gig or something like that.
• 1:27
  Yeah, yeah. When was the last time you and I
• 1:29
  gigged together? No.
• 1:31
  Long time ago. We were thinking we met in 96
• 1:37
  in. Adelaide, yes, at the at the
• 1:39
  Adelaide Fringe. Yeah, it was.
• 1:41
  It was an amazing time. I'll tell you How I Met you.
• 1:44
  I remember because you weren't there right away.
• 1:48
  No. And you.
• 1:49
  Everybody goes. Myself's coming.
• 1:51
  Myself and Kevin Hayes were in Melbourne.
• 1:54
  The last laugh. And then we came and joined.
• 1:55
  Yeah, and I met you on the beach because then you were like this
• 2:01
  ghostly gothic Victorian figure coming at me.
• 2:05
  A very, very long hair, pale as death.
• 2:08
  I could see through you, yeah. Yeah, I did not fit it in better
• 2:12
  in Adelaide than in Melbourne. I have to say Adelaide is a bit
• 2:15
  more of a goth city. And if there was a music track
• 2:19
  to you coming out of the water, I'd be like, oh, and I go, this
• 2:24
  is Ed. This is what everyone's talking
• 2:26
  about, Really. Yeah.
• 2:28
  Because I my memory is that you guys had all formed your clique
• 2:32
  and then me and Kevin arrived and it was like new people.
• 2:35
  Well, it's hard to join in sometimes, you know.
• 2:38
  But I well, you guys all had your little phrases and in
• 2:43
  jokes, you and Simon Pegg go hey dude, I cut basket weaving class
• 2:48
  for this. I'm like, is that what we're?
• 2:51
  Is that what we're saying? I cut geography?
• 2:54
  No. Am I doing it wrong?
• 2:56
  Yeah, because you always get the bits right away and then it's
• 2:59
  tough. Everybody was doing Phil Kay's
• 3:02
  Mr Magoo in a porno movie. Everybody was doing that.
• 3:06
  What's this? I'm just checking on it.
• 3:08
  And that was yeah. What about?
• 3:10
  I think we were always joking about David Johns.
• 3:14
  Was he? David Johns, was he there?
• 3:15
  That. Yeah, I think so.
• 3:17
  Talking about going out, like, hey, let's all go out and kill
• 3:21
  somebody. And then how like what we were
• 3:24
  pretending like one of the comic comics actually took it
• 3:27
  seriously and actually did kill someone.
• 3:31
  Like, hey guys, I did it. I it's amazing.
• 3:37
  Who was there that year, though? Simon Pegg.
• 3:40
  So Simon Pegg, who's obviously gone out to be, you know,
• 3:42
  Mission Impossible. I don't.
• 3:44
  Like. All that I'm not.
• 3:46
  Well, there was also of Michael Smiley.
• 3:48
  Who's Michael Smiley, who's now in, you know, blue like Luther,
• 3:53
  all that, But it was also your improv partner.
• 3:57
  You were in Modern Problems in Science.
• 3:59
  It, Costello went on to found. Twitter, he was.
• 4:03
  He of Twitter, yeah. Yeah.
• 4:05
  Was he one of the people responsible for then selling it
• 4:07
  to Musk? No, no, no.
• 4:09
  There was another guy after that, right?
• 4:11
  Yeah. Did he, did he make a fortune or
• 4:14
  did he, was he out before the fortunes were made?
• 4:17
  He's got a fortress. Yeah.
• 4:19
  No, I mean, he did quite well. Yeah, but I think he got out
• 4:22
  unscathed. He was, you know, before all the
• 4:25
  Musk stuff, right? Yeah, but that's incredible that
• 4:28
  they and then do you know, do you remember who else was there?
• 4:31
  She was working box office at the festival and was hanging out
• 4:34
  with see your father. Yeah.
• 4:36
  Yeah. Chandelier.
• 4:37
  Yeah, I was telling desperate group.
• 4:40
  Yeah, of people. I was telling what a way to feel
• 4:43
  like utter failures hung out with people like that.
• 4:48
  Well, I was telling somebody on a previous podcast, I made the
• 4:52
  papers in Adelaide because I was riding on the back of Sia's
• 4:58
  moped and I fell off. And there's this little article
• 5:03
  that says comic falls off bicycle or moped.
• 5:08
  And it was like, I don't know where that article is.
• 5:12
  I'd love to see it. Oh wow, Yeah.
• 5:15
  Yeah, that'd be a really nice thing to dig up.
• 5:17
  That was pre Internet days though.
• 5:19
  Yeah, pre Twitter. That was back when Dick Costolo
• 5:22
  was an improviser. But think about it when it's
• 5:25
  like all you had to worry about was your next gig.
• 5:28
  Yeah, yeah, they were. It was.
• 5:31
  They were, that was an awesome festival and then I went back to
• 5:35
  Melbourne for that festival. I was only supposed to be in
• 5:39
  Australia for a month and I ended up staying for 2 1/2
• 5:43
  months because I I was supposed to do 2 weeks at the Last Laugh
• 5:46
  in Collingwood and then come and do 2 weeks at the Adelaide
• 5:49
  Fringe. But in the publicity that I did
• 5:52
  for the last laugh in Collingwood, I, I, I got, there
• 5:55
  was nothing else. Going on.
• 5:57
  Well, I got on the telly and, and people were coming to see.
• 6:00
  So then they, I, I got asked to stay on for the Melbourne
• 6:03
  Festival, which was, yeah, April.
• 6:05
  So yeah, I ended up having gone been there.
• 6:08
  Yeah, 2 1/2 months. That's amazing.
• 6:09
  Happens with a lot of British comics too.
• 6:12
  So they'll. Just stay forever and stay
• 6:14
  forever and so or they. Go and they meet Australian
• 6:21
  women, take them back to the UK and then have kids and then have
• 6:26
  to move to Australia. Exactly.
• 6:28
  That's that's the sort of direction of travel.
• 6:31
  Yeah. Or Arch Barker winds up staying
• 6:35
  there. And Ross Noble.
• 6:37
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
• 6:39
  So what have you been up to since then?
• 6:45
  In the intervening 30 years, Oh my God.
• 6:49
  No, but I remember I saw you again in Los Angeles.
• 6:54
  It was at this pub in Los Angeles called The Cat.
• 6:57
  And fiddle because you had an outdoor area so you could smoke.
• 7:00
  Yes, that was back when I smoked.
• 7:02
  Yes. Do you not smoke anymore?
• 7:04
  No, no, no, no. I What?
• 7:08
  Of all the things to be disappointed about?
• 7:10
  There are so many disappointing things about how things have
• 7:13
  gone in my life. You're disappointed I don't
• 7:15
  smoke anymore. We.
• 7:16
  Just got a new cigarette sponsor.
• 7:22
  No, but I remember you doing this bit about how people hate
• 7:26
  people that don't smoke. They they get drunk and then
• 7:30
  they ask for a. Cigarette.
• 7:32
  It was, Yeah, it was, it was part time smokers because I
• 7:35
  remember, because Dennis Leary and Bill Hicks both had things
• 7:38
  about non-smokers. Yeah.
• 7:41
  And I thought that's it. So I went another way.
• 7:43
  I went. No, the people I hate are part
• 7:45
  time smokers. The ones who take your
• 7:47
  cigarettes. The ones who go.
• 7:49
  I only smoke down again, I only smoke when I'm stressed.
• 7:51
  And I only smoke your cigarettes.
• 7:53
  Yeah, I never buy any for myself.
• 7:55
  Yeah, and then And then they wouldn't even smoke it properly.
• 7:58
  They'd be blowing it straight out.
• 8:00
  You're not doing it right. And it's like, it'd be like
• 8:03
  buying somebody a drink and then watch it and just slosh it all
• 8:06
  over the place and look. Yeah, yeah.
• 8:08
  Yeah. Where it's sometimes it's like,
• 8:10
  I always get pissed off at this. When you do something like that
• 8:14
  you've been working on like say stand up and somebody that
• 8:19
  doesn't even know what you do, they go, oh, I'd like to try
• 8:22
  that. Like it's just a casual thing.
• 8:25
  Like, oh, I could do that. Yeah, yeah.
• 8:28
  It's like I could be an editor. I'd give that a girl.
• 8:33
  I like that surgery. You just did give me.
• 8:37
  A knife. Let me try that so.
• 8:44
  Yeah, we did with, with. We did with Sean Cullen there as
• 8:47
  well. You were with a group of people
• 8:50
  and I felt like I was intruding on your Oh, I well, I'm sorry if
• 8:54
  I met you there. I had people then, yeah, yeah.
• 8:57
  You had a team. Yeah, I remember doing audition.
• 9:00
  I had to do an audition to play a fucking gang member or
• 9:03
  something like that and the only real line I had was taste the
• 9:07
  pain as I went to hit someone. I was like, why am I?
• 9:10
  We were all. I just remember having that
• 9:12
  night. We can't really.
• 9:13
  I'm just laughing about it. I had this audition the next day
• 9:15
  for something I absolutely 100% would not get.
• 9:18
  What was it, a film? No, it was a sitcom.
• 9:21
  It was a sitcom pilot because it was pilot.
• 9:24
  Season. Yeah, yeah, you don't have those
• 9:27
  anymore. It's just one long.
• 9:29
  Yeah, it was something to do with robots.
• 9:33
  Yeah, it was something to. Do with pain.
• 9:35
  No, they were robots and I was a gang member who hit a robot and
• 9:39
  then we were supposed to be that sort of my iron bar went sort of
• 9:43
  thing, you know, because they were a robot and.
• 9:46
  Tenure Cartoon. Had no pain to taste.
• 9:48
  Probably had no sense of taste or pain.
• 9:51
  So those 3 words, apart from the word the, none of it would have
• 9:56
  meant anything to them. And that show today was
• 9:59
  Seinfeld. To become The Big Bang.
• 10:02
  Theory. So you spent a little bit of
• 10:05
  time in LA. Did you ever live there?
• 10:07
  No, I don't, no. And I think that was the that
• 10:11
  was maybe a mistake, I think because they kind of, I didn't
• 10:14
  even realise, but they would do that thing of going.
• 10:16
  So do you live here now and you go no.
• 10:18
  And without really even realising that in their head has
• 10:21
  gone? Nope.
• 10:22
  I know this guy's not taking it seriously.
• 10:24
  You can't just go over and do hit and runs like I did 5
• 10:27
  appearances on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, four of which
• 10:32
  went really well. That's.
• 10:33
  Great. Yeah.
• 10:34
  But I just never, and all I got out of it, I think was I got
• 10:37
  like a weekend in Vegas and I got a weekend and a week run and
• 10:41
  a couple of times at the cobs in San Francisco, because that's a
• 10:45
  very Irish spot, right? Right.
• 10:47
  So a lot of people like we're phoning up Cobs and going, when
• 10:51
  are you going to get that guy that was on Conan.
• 10:52
  That's great. But that was it.
• 10:55
  That was all that. Yeah.
• 10:56
  But yeah. It's changed a little.
• 10:58
  People are touring all over the place.
• 11:01
  Yeah, now, now if you do a show like that, then it has has
• 11:05
  another life online, yes, whereas it didn't then.
• 11:08
  And what you do something like Conan, it would only get like a
• 11:11
  million viewers in a country of 300 million.
• 11:14
  People I know and Joe Rogan will get more than that.
• 11:17
  Yeah, yeah, you can't. It's not going to build a
• 11:18
  career, you know? What do you think of all the
• 11:21
  online comics that do their, like, crowd work?
• 11:25
  They record it and they put it online, Yeah.
• 11:29
  I think it's well because, you know.
• 11:33
  I've sorry to hear you on this. I've.
• 11:34
  Had discussions about this. Apparently you have to keep
• 11:38
  posting. You just have to, even if it's
• 11:41
  not very good, just every 5. Minutes.
• 11:44
  Well, at least every day and then you and then Instagram
• 11:49
  goes, oh, he's he's he's one of the good algorithm and they just
• 11:53
  then then it then as long. As they're looking at you.
• 11:56
  Yeah, they'll just keep showing. So people are just like a bit.
• 12:00
  It's weird because it's the exact opposite of what we kind
• 12:04
  of had beaten into us by older comedians when we were starting
• 12:07
  out, which was wait, wait until you get really good.
• 12:11
  Don't do TV straight away. Hey, you don't want to go
• 12:13
  straight to TV. You want to wait.
• 12:15
  Oh. My lungs coming up.
• 12:19
  Sorry, let me. Put it back in and there was the
• 12:24
  pressure to, you know, because it was when I was starting, it
• 12:27
  was actually quite a lot of TV. Channel 5 had just started.
• 12:30
  I've been doing a couple of years when Channel 5 started and
• 12:32
  they had to do they had live at the Comedy Store and then there
• 12:35
  was a thing called Comedy Network that Avalon did.
• 12:37
  And they had a chat show with Jack, Jack Doherty.
• 12:39
  Thing yeah, you'd be expected to do bits on that.
• 12:42
  And so there was quite a lot of stuff, a lot of shows, and
• 12:47
  you've very quickly run out of material.
• 12:51
  So there was kind of like, hey, no, wait, hold it back.
• 12:54
  And, you know, then wait. And then do you know the big
• 12:56
  shows? And I think that worked for,
• 12:58
  for, for for some, but now it's the opposite.
• 13:01
  That was like, whatever you do, the first.
• 13:03
  Have you thought of someone? Don't even Polish it in the
• 13:05
  clubs. Yeah, put footage of you with a
• 13:08
  notepad in your hand and working that bit out.
• 13:11
  But that online straight. Away.
• 13:12
  It's counterintuitive, yeah. Like just do it.
• 13:16
  Get on camera. But it's it's funny though,
• 13:19
  because I was just working with Sarah Pasco, the other.
• 13:22
  Day. Like one of the best jokes I've
• 13:28
  seen by anyone in the last year or two is a joke she did that
• 13:32
  she put online, which was the one about she's talking about.
• 13:37
  Yes, men will try being being a parent, being a mother
• 13:40
  particularly and how men they'll do.
• 13:43
  You'll do your best. I understand you're doing your
• 13:45
  bed. There's a certain but the
• 13:46
  division of labour was still always falls perennially on the
• 13:49
  mother. And proof of this is that you
• 13:52
  never hear of a woman having a secret other family.
• 13:57
  And it's, it's a, it's a brilliant observation.
• 14:02
  And, you know, just the idea of, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna leave
• 14:05
  all this and go away here. We're going to wipe more axes.
• 14:09
  And it's a but the only funny, the only way you see that is, is
• 14:13
  online. And she again, she's at, what do
• 14:15
  you call it always be comedy? Yeah, you know, no pad under her
• 14:20
  arm doing that bit, like, and then she put it online and then
• 14:23
  she said, Oh yeah, I didn't even put it in me tour because it
• 14:26
  went so wide online. So that's, you know, that's
• 14:31
  interesting that that's people, you know, people who are at the
• 14:34
  top of their game are doing that.
• 14:35
  And like some of the best jokes are then not making it into
• 14:38
  people's shows because they've already put them online.
• 14:41
  Save the best stuff. I'm a big fan of saving the
• 14:44
  gold. This is.
• 14:46
  A nice thing so much that I don't even do it.
• 14:48
  I don't do it online. I don't do it in my show.
• 14:51
  I will just keep it in my back. I'll know it's.
• 14:53
  Like a billionaire that stole the Mona Lisa, he's just still a
• 14:57
  close. Friend stage doing fine.
• 14:59
  I'm going, but if I wanted to I could storm this gig.
• 15:03
  I've got some amazing material in my back pocket and you guys
• 15:05
  aren't even ready for it. This thanks for a great segue
• 15:09
  because where is your secret family?
• 15:13
  My actual family are my. Secret family.
• 15:17
  But here's something that I didn't become aware of until I
• 15:22
  came back here. I came back during COVID and
• 15:25
  it's like all these works in progress.
• 15:28
  They didn't used to be a thing now.
• 15:30
  Not as much. You'd you'd very rarely see it,
• 15:33
  and you generally only see it from really, really big names.
• 15:35
  Yeah, the concept of work in progress.
• 15:37
  Harry Hill work in progress. Yeah.
• 15:40
  I don't know why I did. That I don't know or and most of
• 15:42
  the time it would be big names would just show up unannounced
• 15:46
  at comedy clubs. But I think also do you know
• 15:49
  what it is? And I'm doing it.
• 15:52
  I finally I did this with my last show for the first time
• 15:56
  with a. Notebook.
• 15:57
  Well, no, it's just, but previous shows, whenever I've
• 16:01
  been working it up, you just show up and announced the comedy
• 16:03
  clubs and the show would always just be anyway.
• 16:05
  Would be an hour, hour and a half of just jokes.
• 16:08
  And so you try out and you have 10 minutes here and then you
• 16:11
  build it up to 20 and then, you know, you then you then you
• 16:13
  headline clubs where you're doing 40 minutes and you just
• 16:16
  build up the show that way. Yeah.
• 16:17
  Umm, the last show I did was very much couldn't really be
• 16:22
  built up in comedy clubs because it was a show with a story.
• 16:25
  It was a kind of a dark theme. It was talking about death and
• 16:27
  grief and things. So very early on I had to do
• 16:32
  that thing of coming to places like this and, and advertising.
• 16:34
  I was work in progress. Right here.
• 16:37
  Not places like this. Places like Oh yeah, yeah.
• 16:40
  So the Museum of Comedy, Yeah. And Soho Theatre, I'm pointing
• 16:44
  in different directions. Once I get inside the building,
• 16:46
  I have no idea what direction is and anything is.
• 16:49
  But anyway, but, and I think that's The thing, is that today
• 16:54
  people's shows tend not to just be an hour of jokes.
• 16:59
  Yeah, they tend to be some confessional story that doesn't
• 17:04
  necessarily work or can't necessarily be built up piece by
• 17:09
  piece in a comedy. Club crowbar that into a set.
• 17:12
  Yeah, so. It's kind of has to the only way
• 17:14
  to do it is to sort of advertise as working bro, we go right.
• 17:17
  This is the story of, of the, the time my father left us to
• 17:20
  fend for ourselves and I burnt the house down and, you know,
• 17:23
  and, and, and it's, it's, it's, it's just isn't, it doesn't work
• 17:27
  to build it up minute by minute in a comedy club.
• 17:29
  So I think that's part of the reason you see a lot more work
• 17:32
  in progress. Yes and plus it's so hard with
• 17:37
  everything to just go to a like especially Someone Like You
• 17:42
  who's well known to say, look, I'm just trying something out
• 17:47
  donate my your level of expectation.
• 17:49
  Yeah, now it's just become work in progress means.
• 17:54
  I'm allowed to be. A bit shit, yes.
• 17:56
  Well. It is you kind of go, it's this
• 18:00
  for a fiver or the polished version for £30.
• 18:03
  What what you know. And I think but as well, some
• 18:05
  people like to see how the sausage is made.
• 18:09
  People who are really into comedy are quite interested in
• 18:11
  it. So don't think that's, you know,
• 18:14
  it has its own value. But what's funny is, is the
• 18:20
  amount of people who then do like a tour around the Highlands
• 18:23
  and Islands of Scotland. Like I did that as a kind of
• 18:26
  work in me. I did a show years ago called
• 18:28
  Warming Up in the Cold, which was just rather than doing the
• 18:32
  Edinburgh Fringe with the way that my year went, it was I was
• 18:35
  doing it at the. End like Shetland Islands.
• 18:38
  Yeah, the Shetlands went a storn away, went to umm, Sky, you
• 18:43
  know, and then a bunch of places.
• 18:44
  Yeah, yeah. But what's funny, I went to,
• 18:47
  what do you call it, Tober Mori on on Mull.
• 18:51
  But what's funny is you think they're all going to be excited,
• 18:55
  the guy from Mock the Week and they're like, you know, Bill
• 18:59
  Bailey was here last week. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:01
  Ross Noble was here the week before that.
• 19:03
  It's it's everybody's doing it so that you're nothing special.
• 19:07
  So you still have to really bring it.
• 19:09
  I. Know the next thing is going to
• 19:11
  be someplace like Antarctica. Yeah, well, I think Ross has
• 19:15
  already been there. Ross Noble's been here, God damn
• 19:19
  it. It's like when the you know the
• 19:22
  explorers used to chase each other to the South and the.
• 19:25
  Flag is already there. Damn that noble.
• 19:29
  And then next it'll be space. You'll be doing gigs on Mars and
• 19:33
  stuff. No atmosphere.
• 19:40
  We'll put in the lab track there.
• 19:42
  Yeah. Now you don't have a tour yet.
• 19:46
  I For some reason I thought you were going.
• 19:48
  No, I February. No, no, no, no, no.
• 19:54
  You're not doing any gigs. I mean, I'm gigging, but I'm
• 19:58
  working up the next tour. Then my actual tour will be
• 20:02
  starting next year, January next year.
• 20:04
  I'll be just touring in 2027. Now, what's your process like?
• 20:07
  Do you go? I'm going to do, it's going to
• 20:10
  be about this. That's the theme.
• 20:13
  Are you a theme guy now? Are you?
• 20:15
  Like I generally like to have a theme, but the theme is usually
• 20:18
  just dictated first of all, by whatever I happen to have
• 20:22
  written that, you know, in the first sort of couple of months
• 20:26
  of trying to write the show. I go, I seem to have a lot of
• 20:29
  stuff about not neither being working class nor middle class
• 20:33
  that will be the theme of the show, right?
• 20:35
  And or there's a lot of stuff about ageing.
• 20:37
  So that I'll make that the theme of the show or, or whatever it
• 20:40
  is. But you'll find that whatever
• 20:42
  your theme is that you're forced to come up with because you have
• 20:46
  to have your poster ready a year before the thing goes on sale,
• 20:52
  you know, then you just bend whatever routine you think of,
• 20:56
  anything you think of that's funny, You, you, you.
• 20:58
  You can just bend that to yeah, yeah.
• 21:00
  Fit the theme. Or, you know, the theme is the
• 21:02
  theme. But then you digress into
• 21:03
  various other things along the way.
• 21:06
  And are you a guy that goes 8:00?
• 21:10
  I'm going to write for two hours?
• 21:12
  No, no, no, not. What kind of guy are you A.
• 21:17
  Lazy one. No, it's just somebody will come
• 21:20
  to me and then I'll just stick it in the notes on me phone and
• 21:23
  then I'll try and expand that next time I'm doing a gig and
• 21:27
  I'll just toss it in. I don't want to sit down and
• 21:30
  write it. Very rarely will I have a joke
• 21:32
  where I just can't get it right whilst on stage and I'll
• 21:36
  actually, actually go. You know, I ain't just said
• 21:38
  there's been a few over the years where I'm going.
• 21:40
  It's just it's not coming in the moment.
• 21:42
  I haven't. The idea I felt talks about all
• 21:45
  the time. I'm I'm working on this joke.
• 21:47
  Yeah, like I'll have an idea, but I won't.
• 21:51
  It won't come to me until I'm on stage in front of an audience
• 21:54
  exactly how to say it. But there's been a couple where
• 21:57
  it's just it's still not coming and knowing and I've had to just
• 22:00
  sit down and write it out word for word and then recite it.
• 22:04
  It's very rare that happens. But there's been a couple over
• 22:06
  the years that we're that have been like that, that have been
• 22:09
  quite wordy. And whatever I'm trying to say
• 22:11
  is quite specific. One of them was to do with years
• 22:16
  ago my son wanted. Name Dropper.
• 22:22
  He got made fun of because he had girls shoes and it was he,
• 22:26
  you know, he, he was only four. He was Dorothy in the Wizard of
• 22:30
  Oz. What he wanted these trainers
• 22:32
  and they were pink and glittery and all that.
• 22:34
  And you know, and we thought, well, he's four.
• 22:36
  Well, Harriman, he went, he goes to kindergarten, he was gonna
• 22:39
  play school and some kid goes their girls shoes and then he
• 22:42
  doesn't want to wear his shoes anymore.
• 22:44
  And it broke my heart. And the sort of the, the, the,
• 22:47
  the, the sort of punch line of it was like, it's very invasive
• 22:50
  because it's what somebody else has put their hang ups about
• 22:53
  gender identity via their child. They've put that on my child
• 22:57
  like some because obviously what's happened, that kid
• 22:59
  probably wanted those same shoes and it was told by their
• 23:01
  parents. Now you can't have them, their
• 23:02
  girls shoes. So he's then said that to my
• 23:04
  kids. And it's like, it's that's my
• 23:06
  kid, that's my kid that somebody else has put their hang ups
• 23:08
  about gender identity and gender politics on.
• 23:10
  And that's not he's my kid. He should have my hang ups about
• 23:13
  gender identity and gender politics.
• 23:15
  I know what I'm thinking. Pink is for girls and blue is
• 23:18
  for boys. I want to, I want to paralyse
• 23:20
  with fear about the difference between chivalry and sexism.
• 23:25
  That's what I want to be worried about.
• 23:26
  You know, I want to, I want to paralyse with her at the end of
• 23:29
  every day going, if I pay for the meal, I'm going to look like
• 23:32
  I'm a chauvinist. But if I split it, I'm going to
• 23:34
  look like I'm tight. That's the shit I want my child
• 23:37
  going through. But it was very worthy and it
• 23:39
  wasn't coming out on stage. And I just felt I had to just
• 23:42
  sit down and, you know, but most, mostly my process is have
• 23:49
  a vaguely funny idea, work it out on stage until I hit
• 23:55
  something, you know, and then and then go right.
• 23:57
  And then try and make it stuck. But then once it's there, yeah,
• 24:01
  I'm, I'm my actual tour is relatively scripted.
• 24:05
  It's the same every night. It's like once, once I get the
• 24:08
  jokes how I want them, don't see how I use them.
• 24:11
  Yeah, don't see it two nights, but don't see it two nights in a
• 24:14
  row. See the 1st first show of the
• 24:17
  tour and the final show of the tour and notice the difference.
• 24:21
  But but yeah. Now, are you one of these guys?
• 24:24
  If we're at a party, say we're talking and you know, as per
• 24:29
  usual, I'll say something really funny or something, and then
• 24:33
  you'll go hang on just a minute and then you'll go, and then
• 24:37
  we'll go. What's he writing about?
• 24:39
  Are you? I'm not stealing.
• 24:40
  I'm not stealing other people's beds.
• 24:41
  No. If we were together and you say
• 24:43
  something funny. And then you think of something.
• 24:45
  Yeah. No, I I my straight away.
• 24:48
  My question to me would be, are you doing that?
• 24:50
  Are you do that? That's no.
• 24:52
  You do that as a bit. You should do that as a bit like
• 24:54
  that would be what I would. No, you can have it.
• 24:57
  No, I didn't ask for it though. Excuse me?
• 24:59
  It made me seem like I asked for that bit.
• 25:03
  Because that's a trick I've seen people.
• 25:05
  People will do that and they'll end up with them because people
• 25:09
  will often steal as a stuff off comedians will take stuff from
• 25:12
  their non comedian friends. So a non comedian friend will
• 25:15
  say something funny. I have that and the person won't
• 25:19
  admit. Well, actually, I saw that on
• 25:21
  Twitter, you know, so you'll you'll you know, you'll take
• 25:25
  that from your non comedian friend thinking that they've
• 25:27
  just come up with some really funny, but that they've actually
• 25:29
  just absorbed from someone else. And then you will get on stage
• 25:31
  and have stolen it. Oh no, like I'm sure that's what
• 25:34
  happened. You remember there was that
• 25:35
  thing with James Corden doing Ricky Gervais's bit about
• 25:40
  Twitter on his chat show, you know, and you know, that's
• 25:43
  exactly how that happened. It will have been somebody else
• 25:46
  would have Corden's mates or one of Corden's writers mates will
• 25:49
  have seen Ricky Gervais passed it off as their own observation.
• 25:52
  The professional writer will have gone.
• 25:53
  Oh, come on, I'm gonna have that.
• 25:55
  They want to impress James Corden, Yeah.
• 25:59
  Oh, you've got to be very careful with, with, with, with,
• 26:01
  with stealing from your friends, I think.
• 26:03
  You may I say, though, I I don't think I've ever discussed this
• 26:07
  with you, but you've probably gotten this so much.
• 26:10
  You're a bit on ironic, Alanis Morissette.
• 26:13
  Again, that's 30 years ago. One of.
• 26:15
  These few things, though, that I mean, you, you've got to feel
• 26:20
  good about this because it piped into some kind of a zeitgeist
• 26:25
  where anybody that hears that song now, they'll say something
• 26:29
  like, you know, it's not really a yeah, be based on what you
• 26:33
  did. I think it had a butterfly
• 26:35
  effect. I wasn't the only person to make
• 26:37
  that observation. No, I know.
• 26:39
  There were other people who also said it, but I did have the
• 26:41
  longest, most cohesive routine, I suppose.
• 26:44
  But what the reason for that was I had that album like I really
• 26:51
  liked the song Hand in Pocket. Oh, so good and so good.
• 26:56
  So I bought that album when we were listening to and I had an
• 26:59
  argument with Brendan Burns, Australian comedian.
• 27:04
  Which is not hard to do not. Hard to do at all about that
• 27:10
  song because he was saying it is ironic.
• 27:12
  A good, it's not. And so and I was saying all this
• 27:14
  stuff that that became the routine and it was funny, but
• 27:20
  the song hadn't been released as a single.
• 27:22
  And you're not going to go on stage and talk about an album
• 27:24
  track right by this newish artist because no one, no one
• 27:30
  will have the frame of reference so.
• 27:31
  You can visit it to release. It yeah, that's what it was I
• 27:34
  photo, but I'm so so then when the song came out like I had
• 27:39
  this ready made routine the day it was really oh great, now I
• 27:42
  can do this bit. So it looked really on the, you
• 27:47
  know, on the on the button, like I have the back finger on the
• 27:50
  pulse. You did.
• 27:51
  It's almost like on the level of, you know, that joke about
• 27:57
  the plane crashed and there was a black box.
• 27:59
  Why did they make? The whole plane out of the
• 28:01
  black. Box.
• 28:01
  Exactly. It's almost like one of those
• 28:04
  types of things. Because I've seen people again,
• 28:07
  I saw somebody on social media do a joke about, you know, if
• 28:09
  you're a comedian in the in the naughties, you could make a
• 28:12
  whole career out of just making fun out of Alanis Morissette not
• 28:16
  being ironic. I'm like, what are we?
• 28:19
  First of all, it was the 90s, not the naughties.
• 28:22
  But I guess people may be doing it in the naughty.
• 28:25
  But yeah, it's it's it's it's almost lore.
• 28:29
  But it's it's, it's one of those things where it, I guess it's
• 28:33
  been around so long and now it would be hack.
• 28:36
  But I was there before I I literally wrote the routine
• 28:39
  before the song was even released.
• 28:41
  But have you ever gotten, have you ever been on stage and
• 28:43
  somebody yells something like, it's a greatest hit?
• 28:47
  It's like. I've never.
• 28:48
  I've never. The last time I did that routine
• 28:50
  was to put it on a DVD, so that's how long ago that was.
• 28:53
  Because DVDs don't even exist anymore.
• 28:57
  You have to just for posterity. No, but I mean, why don't people
• 29:00
  do that? Like people hear the same songs
• 29:03
  from a group over and over again and they'll yell out, but if you
• 29:08
  do a joke that they've heard on it, like a Netflix special, it's
• 29:13
  like, I've heard this. Well, yeah, that's that's always
• 29:16
  been, but that's because much like watching a horror movie,
• 29:20
  it's just not as much fun the second time around.
• 29:23
  You know it's that is a song gets better the more you hear it
• 29:28
  oftentimes. Because of the emotions.
• 29:31
  Yeah, but just sometimes you just, the more you know a song,
• 29:35
  the more you enjoy it. Yeah, you know, you, you.
• 29:38
  Yes, you can get sick of a song, but you know, I find until I
• 29:41
  really know how to air guitar along with the solo, I don't
• 29:45
  really. The song's not in my heart yet I
• 29:47
  love. Why is it I love this joke?
• 29:51
  Here comes the setup. This is the setup.
• 29:53
  Oh. There's very few jokes I can
• 29:56
  routines I can listen to, you know, repeatedly.
• 30:00
  I think you can do it if you're going with somebody else who
• 30:02
  hasn't seen it. I think that's the, you know, if
• 30:06
  that, that feel when you're looking at it through their
• 30:08
  eyes. Yeah, yeah.
• 30:09
  Then then it's, uh, then it bears repeating.
• 30:13
  But yeah. But I don't feel hard done by.
• 30:16
  But then it's, it is funny when you do a show and people come up
• 30:19
  afterwards and go, I was really hoping you're going to do the
• 30:21
  bit about getting a cat. You've seen this for the handful
• 30:27
  of people who want to see a particular routine.
• 30:29
  Again, the majority of people do not want.
• 30:31
  You know what that is that guy had probably been saying on the
• 30:35
  way to the gig, he's got this. Yeah.
• 30:39
  Yeah. Now, you mentioned auditioning
• 30:42
  earlier. I've been waiting for an Ed
• 30:46
  Byrne focused show, you know, like lead balloon, something
• 30:51
  like that. Have you ever thought of like
• 30:53
  doing some kind of vehicle like that?
• 30:55
  A. Few people have suggested to me.
• 30:58
  Lenny Henry of all people said it to me.
• 31:00
  Why don't you do one of those? I told Lenny to.
• 31:03
  Do that, he says no but you should do 1 and I don't
• 31:06
  understand why. So I'm a friend of mine.
• 31:09
  I actually did write a, a pilot and is waiting for me to rewrite
• 31:16
  and send it back to him. And I still haven't done it.
• 31:19
  Oh, yeah. I'm, I have, I, there is
• 31:22
  something else I'm trying to write at the moment that I don't
• 31:25
  want to jinx by talking about. OK, OK.
• 31:27
  But I I've spent a year writing it so far and I've done 19
• 31:30
  pages. Because I'm waiting.
• 31:32
  That's the work ethic I have. I'm waiting for it to happen,
• 31:36
  but you know the best, the ones where they work the best, where
• 31:40
  if you're the main focus seems to be where you're almost a
• 31:45
  straight person. I I it's funny.
• 31:49
  I remember talking to Jack D after he did lead balloon.
• 31:51
  Yeah. And So what I really liked about
• 31:53
  the show is that you've given him my career.
• 31:58
  You know, I don't think Jack D has to spend quite as much time
• 32:01
  in kitchens at corporates as I do.
• 32:06
  Lord, umm, OK, so let's look forward to that.
• 32:12
  Yeah, but don't hold your breath.
• 32:16
  What else are we looking forward to besides the tour?
• 32:19
  Is it mostly for you? I'm.
• 32:21
  Trying what to call the tour. Yeah, I think I'm going to call
• 32:24
  the tour no dramas because the last tour was kind of, as I say,
• 32:28
  was sort of a heavy 1, and I wanted to take signal to people
• 32:31
  that this one isn't going to be a heavy one.
• 32:32
  This is going to be a bit more lighthearted.
• 32:34
  It's too bad Obamas not president because you could go
• 32:38
  no drama Obama. Yeah, I don't know that that
• 32:41
  would have worked here anyway. He was never president here.
• 32:46
  Right again, damn it. I, I, I always thought a great
• 32:51
  name for a show I have a tendency to go to obscure, like
• 32:54
  the last show I did was called Tragedy Plus Time, because that
• 32:57
  reference, a reference I thought everybody had, which was the,
• 33:01
  the, the, the thing that comedy equals tragedy plus time.
• 33:04
  I didn't realise how few people had actually were familiar with
• 33:07
  that phrase. Really.
• 33:08
  Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was just
• 33:10
  one everybody knew. Who said that?
• 33:12
  It's attributed to Mark Twain, but it was actually more likely
• 33:15
  to be. Stephen Fry.
• 33:17
  No, it was an American. Eito Menken.
• 33:23
  It was. Emily Dickinson it.
• 33:25
  Was more recent, No. Like in the 60s or 70s?
• 33:28
  Really. Yeah.
• 33:29
  Yeah. It's not that.
• 33:30
  It's not that old. I remember Alan Alda's character
• 33:33
  in a Woody Allen movie says it. He's playing a director.
• 33:37
  I think it's Hannah and her sisters or something.
• 33:39
  And it's supposed to indicate him being pretentious because
• 33:42
  he's saying it as if he invented this.
• 33:44
  Yeah, He's an interview. I guess it's tragedy plus time
• 33:47
  comedy, you know, So it was definitely around by the 80s.
• 33:52
  Steve Allen. Steve.
• 33:54
  Steve. Allen.
• 33:55
  I believe it was him who coined the phrase.
• 33:57
  The first host of The Tonight Show, right?
• 34:00
  Yeah, there we go. I think it was him.
• 34:02
  Yeah, But Mark Twain is one of those people.
• 34:05
  He's like Tommy Cooper. Whenever somebody has a one
• 34:09
  liner, I don't know where he came from, they say they
• 34:10
  attributed to Tommy Cooper and. He's the receptacle, yeah.
• 34:15
  Kind of like Oscar Wilde. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:18
  Or Einstein. Yeah.
• 34:19
  He gets that. He gets a lot of that.
• 34:23
  Sounds a bit wise, but yeah, Mark Twain he gets, he gets a
• 34:27
  lot of quotes attributed to him. So.
• 34:30
  So anyway, I call that that and I thought that was one, but I
• 34:33
  was surprised at how many times I had to find I found myself
• 34:35
  having to explain that term. I also thought it would be a
• 34:40
  great name for a comedy show or or an album would be a long
• 34:46
  enough lever and a firm place to stand.
• 34:48
  That's good because that's from Archimedes and the live the
• 34:55
  lever principle that he he is supposed to have said, we all
• 34:58
  know, give me a long enough lever and a firm place to stand
• 35:01
  and I could move the world. So I just thought as a notion of
• 35:06
  as a pretendious idea of I'm trying to write comedy that's
• 35:08
  going to move the world. Give the show title a long
• 35:12
  enough lever and a firm place to stand.
• 35:14
  Or maybe just a long enough lever if the If the lever is
• 35:18
  long enough, no. It wouldn't have to be fairly
• 35:23
  thick and strong. Yeah, OK.
• 35:25
  Give me a long enough, thick enough and strong.
• 35:29
  There you go. But the the point is that if, if
• 35:32
  a lever is long enough, yeah, you, you can move any weight,
• 35:37
  right? Is the idea right?
• 35:38
  You know, is that something that's immovable?
• 35:39
  If you have the lever principle, you know it's all it's still if
• 35:45
  you look at like Newtonian. So is that still?
• 35:48
  Is that title still? No, clearly not.
• 35:50
  I mean, just imagine me doing local radio.
• 35:54
  Would you be going on BBC Radio Drop here and having to have
• 35:57
  this conversation? 5 minutes right there.
• 35:59
  You've already got a chunk of 5 minutes.
• 36:02
  This is suddenly people are going like, have I, are they
• 36:05
  broadcasting the Open University is?
• 36:10
  This Radio 4 OK, so you need a title, but it's still for you.
• 36:16
  It's still stand up is your this is your heart and soul.
• 36:21
  Yeah, well, I've, I have no choice.
• 36:26
  Attempts to, to to to segue and and and and go into other things
• 36:31
  have all been stymied by lack of opportunity or lack of talent,
• 36:35
  Right. So it's it's really got to be.
• 36:37
  But this is what I found is a lot of people are saying I'm
• 36:42
  trying stand up now because there aren't enough things
• 36:46
  happening. So they go live.
• 36:49
  Live performance is the way to go.
• 36:51
  Yeah. So I'm gonna get a stand up.
• 36:53
  Does that bother you or? I, I are you, I don't know if
• 36:58
  it, I won't go so far as to say it.
• 37:00
  It bothers me, but it's like everybody is out live now every.
• 37:05
  So it's harder to get a venue these days.
• 37:09
  Like it's the venues that you used to do.
• 37:11
  Half of them are falling down because they were built with,
• 37:14
  you know, bubbly concrete apparently.
• 37:16
  No levers. And there's no standard levers
• 37:19
  to keep the keep the roofs up. Umm, And you're like, it used to
• 37:24
  be the these theatres. All it would have is stand up
• 37:28
  comedy and the occasional touring theatre production or
• 37:31
  something and a bunch of tribute acts.
• 37:33
  And now it's a chef. Cooking live.
• 37:36
  Yeah, Yeah. Really.
• 37:38
  We're doing live cookery shows now?
• 37:40
  Uh, so it's, it's everything that used to be on TV is now
• 37:43
  touring. Umm.
• 37:44
  But the venues are bigger now for Sandals than ever before.
• 37:49
  Yeah, yeah. It's just hard to get into them.
• 37:51
  I I do think it's funny. There was a phase there where
• 37:54
  podcasters were complaining about celebrities doing podcasts
• 38:00
  and I. Oh, like real.
• 38:01
  Real people who started off podcasting with into the podcast
• 38:04
  sort of movement and made podcasting make and now we're
• 38:07
  being squeezed out by celebrities doing podcasts.
• 38:09
  And I lost any sympathy for that when I was supposed to be doing
• 38:14
  the Brighton Dome at the Brighton Comedy Festival and I
• 38:16
  had to play the smaller room instead of the big room because
• 38:18
  the big room had a live podcast in it.
• 38:21
  And like, yeah, you're not it's. Another.
• 38:23
  Viewing, If you're you, you can't complain about celebrities
• 38:25
  taking a podcasting space if podcasters are going to take up
• 38:28
  live spaces, yeah. Live podcasts are having big
• 38:31
  venues now. Yeah, and you know, fair play to
• 38:35
  them, but don't then moan about other people then wanting to do
• 38:38
  podcasts. We're doing the O2 in March.
• 38:45
  Yeah. It's it's weird how things have
• 38:49
  changed like even faster than I could imagine in the last couple
• 38:54
  of years post COVID. Yeah, and everybody's out on on
• 39:01
  on tour and, and, and book tours now make more money than books.
• 39:05
  Like people just going on stage and reading from their books.
• 39:08
  Yes, it's like. What about books?
• 39:11
  For you, I did it like I didn't think with Mary Margulies at the
• 39:14
  at the Norwich Playhouse. Hmm.
• 39:16
  And I think it was like 1500 seats completely sold out.
• 39:20
  Me talking to Miriam about her book and this is one of a whole
• 39:23
  tour she was doing around the country.
• 39:25
  And you know, it's like that's, that's it.
• 39:28
  Handy way to go. You know what's big, too are
• 39:31
  these book fairs and festivals. Like there's one every year for
• 39:36
  Agatha Christie, right? It's huge.
• 39:39
  People come from all over. She's she's still selling.
• 39:44
  She still sells. That's great.
• 39:46
  And other Agatha Christie Tribunex Get on stage.
• 39:49
  Yeah. And then there was one and his
• 39:54
  name. No. 10 little No do the no do
• 39:59
  the new version of 10 little. But our books still sell and
• 40:05
  everything. Die art fans, yeah.
• 40:09
  Maybe I should write a book? I think you should.
• 40:12
  I can write a book. If you wrote a book, what would
• 40:15
  you write about? Oh.
• 40:16
  I think I'd probably write some. Sort of memoir.
• 40:18
  You know, no. About Adelaide.
• 40:20
  Yeah, just about Adelaide. 2 weeks in Adelaide.
• 40:24
  My dim Dyson memories of 1996. No, yeah, I'd prob.
• 40:31
  I think I, if I was to write a book.
• 40:32
  If I was, it would probably be like a young adult thing, you
• 40:36
  know? Yeah, yeah, that sort of.
• 40:39
  And then you could get feedback from your kids.
• 40:42
  Yeah, and it would be an excuse for them to talk to me.
• 40:45
  Yeah. Is it that age now?
• 40:48
  No, they're good. They're actually good.
• 40:50
  And I am trying to, I am genuinely trying to write this
• 40:52
  sort of sitcom. And, and I've been talking to
• 40:56
  the kids about it and they were they, they think it sounds
• 40:58
  really good. And then I picked them up from
• 41:00
  from school and they were like, did you write any sitcom today,
• 41:03
  dad? And I'm like, no.
• 41:05
  And you, you understand how disappointing you've got to be
• 41:07
  to disappoint a 15 year old. Like the look of disapproval I'm
• 41:10
  getting from is my greatest motivating energy is that I
• 41:14
  can't go and pick them up from. School I went to the golf yeah,
• 41:17
  I'm sorry I'm. Sorry, it was, it was it was
• 41:20
  very much an admin day today, Dad, you know, I did Rich
• 41:25
  Vultures podcast. Today.
• 41:27
  Oh, OK, that's OK. Yeah, well.
• 41:30
  Because my elder son has seen the Bush and loved it.
• 41:34
  Oh nice. He was pretty.
• 41:36
  He's pretty impressed that I'm here with you today.
• 41:38
  This is what's disheartening sometimes as you get an older
• 41:43
  person going. My grandson is really into the
• 41:48
  Bush now. Like, oh God.
• 41:51
  Yeah, it's, it's funny. I was talking to Phil Jupiter's
• 41:55
  and and he was somebody, he had his first one of these because
• 42:05
  you know how you, you'll, you'll, you'll, you're young and
• 42:08
  you do stuff and people will say, oh, my son, my son loves
• 42:11
  you. Yeah, you know, and then you'll
• 42:12
  just, and then you'll be meeting people who go, oh man, I love
• 42:15
  that thing that you're on. And then and then you start to,
• 42:18
  and I'm already in that thing of people going, oh, my dad loves
• 42:21
  you. Well, Phil went back to
• 42:24
  university, uh, to do fine art in, uh, in Dundee and he, he got
• 42:29
  his first. My nan really loves you.
• 42:32
  Oh. Nice, nice.
• 42:34
  That's a, that's a, that's a whole new feeling of being old.
• 42:40
  My dad used to listen to you on the wireless.
• 42:44
  Yeah, you get, sometimes you'll get somebody that goes, my Nan
• 42:47
  loves you. I don't know who you are, but
• 42:50
  yeah. Can I just get a picture?
• 42:52
  OK, I don't even get that anymore.
• 42:54
  I used to get that a lot. I ended up doing a routine about
• 42:57
  it because I used to get a lot of people coming up in bars
• 43:03
  going. Apparently you're on the TV.
• 43:06
  I've never heard of you. And I always thought it was the
• 43:10
  the weirdest thing to cross a room to tell somebody.
• 43:14
  And it used to have to be a lot. It doesn't happen to me.
• 43:18
  So. And it's not, I think people
• 43:20
  aren't even going, oh, that's that guy.
• 43:23
  But it's not. People are that people are
• 43:25
  angry. If, if, if other people are
• 43:28
  saying, oh, that's that guy who's on that thing?
• 43:31
  People are, I don't know. And then they feel like you must
• 43:33
  not exist. They think, but they think
• 43:35
  you're standing there going, everybody knows who I am.
• 43:37
  That's what they see. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 43:39
  You're that's what you're doing. Yeah.
• 43:40
  I better go and tell them. I don't know.
• 43:43
  Some people here don't know who he is.
• 43:44
  Like there is that literally that mentality of I don't know
• 43:47
  who you are. And I'd always say, OK, do you
• 43:52
  know who that guy is? No.
• 43:54
  Well, well, you better go and tell him.
• 43:58
  Sometimes it depends where you are because like I wouldn't get
• 44:02
  recognised that much in Los Angeles, but I'd go to an
• 44:05
  amoeba. You know that that record store
• 44:08
  amoeba. No.
• 44:10
  Or a comic book store, right? Yeah, I'd always get because
• 44:14
  that those kinds of viewers. That's where the snuff box fans
• 44:17
  hang out. But.
• 44:19
  One time I was in front of like I think it was a target.
• 44:24
  You've had that hair there the whole time.
• 44:26
  And I've been, I really felt like, I mean, really your
• 44:28
  producer. Should have caught that out.
• 44:30
  Kenny, OK, but he goes, I don't know how he phrases.
• 44:34
  He said something like, are you still doing stuff?
• 44:37
  And I got so upset. I I really snapped at him.
• 44:41
  It's like, yeah, I'm doing. And then I just started saying
• 44:45
  some lame things like I did an open mic at the and it's like,
• 44:51
  Oh my God, this is what it's resulted.
• 44:53
  Yeah, Marc Maron has a nice bit about when you meet somebody and
• 44:57
  one guy knows who you are and the other one doesn't, and he's
• 45:00
  one guy's quoting your CV to the other guy and you feel like
• 45:04
  joining again, you know? You know, you know from GLOW,
• 45:07
  and it's like, I don't know, you almost feel like you're joining
• 45:10
  it. Why can you not know?
• 45:12
  That and then you're trying harder and harder.
• 45:14
  I find the most awkward time to get recognised is somewhere is
• 45:19
  the tube because you're sitting there in a blue and the majority
• 45:23
  of people don't know who you are.
• 45:24
  And then one person recognises you and then they and they say
• 45:27
  something and, and you, you can feel it because people, when
• 45:31
  people are having conversation and they're like sitting away.
• 45:35
  Everyone can hear it, yeah. I have you on the thing and
• 45:38
  you're. Arguing for a better film.
• 45:39
  You know, and then people are looking and then that person
• 45:41
  gets off and then you just there with a whole lot of people who
• 45:44
  don't know you. But I've seen somebody else know
• 45:46
  you and they're like, what's your deal?
• 45:50
  What's your deal? I had a guy come up to me when I
• 45:52
  was on holiday and two or three people had asked to have their
• 45:55
  photograph taken with me. And then this young guy comes up
• 45:59
  and goes, why aren't people asking to have their photograph
• 46:02
  taken with you? I go, oh, well, I'm sometimes
• 46:05
  I'm on the TV. Oh, can I have my photograph
• 46:07
  taken? With you.
• 46:08
  Why you don't? Because you're on that box.
• 46:11
  You're on that little box. You've never seen me.
• 46:14
  Yeah. Yeah, but he's thinking, well,
• 46:16
  maybe my mother will know who you are.
• 46:19
  And maybe that will make me more important, yeah.
• 46:23
  Yeah, it's anyway it's, it's not something that it's been.
• 46:27
  It's let's just say it's become less and less of a bother of
• 46:31
  late. But what do your kids think when
• 46:33
  you go out and you get? Well, again, I used to have a
• 46:36
  bit about that because they, they, they told me get
• 46:40
  recognised a few times. And then like literally we would
• 46:43
  go into, when they were young, when they were sort of four and
• 46:46
  five, we'd go into like a service station and they'd
• 46:49
  bounce up to the one behind the counter, go, you know, it burned
• 46:52
  for the TV. That's our dad.
• 46:53
  And they were like, fuck you talking about.
• 46:57
  It's just, have you been kidnapped?
• 46:58
  Is this a signal? Yeah.
• 47:01
  So I had to knock that one on on the head.
• 47:04
  Somebody's been at Burns, Somebody's been at Burns.
• 47:08
  Mr Ed Burns, please report to the emergency exit.
• 47:11
  Umm, so they they're they're, I think they're now more impressed
• 47:16
  by my proximity to people they personally like.
• 47:19
  So, as I say, having watched the Bouche, they like the fact that
• 47:24
  have you watched the daily so, Well, you know, I've worked with
• 47:27
  them, you know, they're that that.
• 47:30
  Yeah, they're not. Minor immune, like if I get
• 47:33
  recognised, they'll sit, they'll come home to their mom and
• 47:35
  they'll go. I go tell them what happened.
• 47:40
  It's like, Oh yeah, somebody saw, they don't care.
• 47:44
  Yeah, yeah, no, they, they, they, they, they, they like it
• 47:48
  now and again. If, if, if somebody so, yeah, I
• 47:52
  can't my, my younger, some particular will notice this and
• 47:55
  go that man just saw you. That man just recognised you.
• 47:57
  That man, just because, because it's it is something I don't, I
• 48:00
  don't realise I'll be walking down the street.
• 48:02
  But if my wife is sort of walking behind me or the kids or
• 48:05
  whatever like that, they'll see that, you know?
• 48:09
  Daddy, So I'm a man in a trench coat.
• 48:13
  So they they get a kick out of us, to be honest with you, they
• 48:15
  do. Now at this show, does have a
• 48:19
  format. Oh, there is one.
• 48:22
  Let's get to that then, 45 minutes in.
• 48:26
  It's called fill in the blank. Now I've tailored it just to
• 48:30
  every guest. So I ask you 5 questions.
• 48:34
  Fill in the blank. You don't have to be funny.
• 48:36
  Oh good, it's just a just a question.
• 48:40
  OK, question #1 the last time I fell down was blank.
• 48:49
  Like about 3 weeks ago in my I have a gym in my and in the
• 48:56
  house and it's a mess so I was. Putting your clothes on.
• 49:00
  That I was putting wardrobes in there to put because it's a gym,
• 49:04
  but also a place where I store a lot of outdoors equipment and my
• 49:08
  wife didn't want to go into the gym because it has sleeping bags
• 49:11
  hanging on the wall and stuff like that.
• 49:13
  So I put it all behind wardrobe. But everything was an absolute
• 49:16
  mess and I and I tripped and fell over some equipment while I
• 49:20
  was trying to move a wardrobe door.
• 49:22
  So that. Yeah.
• 49:23
  But nobody saw it. Nobody saw it, and I could have
• 49:25
  gotten away with it had you not just asked about it.
• 49:28
  Yeah. Blank is a movie I've been
• 49:31
  meaning to see for at least 10 years.
• 49:36
  You know those movies that you're like, yeah, I gotta see
• 49:39
  that movie. Why have I not seen that movie?
• 49:43
  Yeah. Kill List, which is we were
• 49:47
  talking about. Yeah.
• 49:49
  And it's Michael Smiley is in it.
• 49:50
  Yes. Yeah.
• 49:51
  And I, because I met, I think I met the producer of it.
• 49:56
  I hosted the Empire Awards. That must have been nearly 15
• 49:59
  years ago. That was, you had seen it And I,
• 50:02
  I said I was going to watch it. I watched the other one that
• 50:05
  they ultimately used one. Sightseers, Yes.
• 50:08
  You know, the one about the caravanners.
• 50:09
  Yeah. So there was the same production
• 50:10
  company as that. And I did watch Sightseers but I
• 50:13
  kept saying I was going to watch Kill List and I still haven't.
• 50:16
  Right. So yeah, I hope they don't see
• 50:18
  this. Yeah, I doubt it.
• 50:21
  I was. Trying to think.
• 50:22
  I was trying to think. Me.
• 50:25
  Oh, I haven't seen that Grizzly man.
• 50:29
  Movie Oh yeah that's good yeah yeah, I enjoyed that for.
• 50:32
  Some reason I don't because I hear it's at the end.
• 50:35
  It's pretty. You know what I'm watching at
• 50:37
  the moment. What?
• 50:39
  Broadchurch. Yeah.
• 50:41
  That's how on the button I am. I let that one go, but I
• 50:44
  literally just watched the first.
• 50:46
  Good, isn't it? It's very good, yeah.
• 50:48
  And what's the main is just the amount of talent that's in it
• 50:50
  that went on to bigger and better things.
• 50:53
  It was like the Adelaide Fringe 1996.
• 50:56
  Elon Musk is in it the. Great Dictator.
• 51:01
  It's some silent no. There's some films I have
• 51:06
  resigned to the fact that I'll never watch, like I've never
• 51:08
  watched Citizen Kane from beginning to end.
• 51:10
  What? Well, you know that I.
• 51:12
  Own it on DVD and I got about 20 minutes and I'm like, this is
• 51:15
  doing nothing for. The only reason I watched it is
• 51:18
  because I took a film class. Yeah, I watched so many movies
• 51:22
  that now I laud over other people like.
• 51:25
  But it's. You haven't seen the original.
• 51:28
  Because it launched all those like the spinning newspaper that
• 51:31
  it invented that right, which became, but, well, I mean, I'll,
• 51:35
  I can applaud it. I can be aware of what I can be
• 51:39
  aware of what it did without actually having to.
• 51:41
  It's good. Though through it.
• 51:43
  It is good. Yeah, but I I know what happens
• 51:45
  in the end. I know what Rosebud is.
• 51:47
  You do? Yeah.
• 51:48
  I mean, that's part of the reason I didn't watch
• 51:50
  Broadchurch for so long. It's because Graham Norton gave
• 51:53
  away the ending when he was interviewing Olivia Coleman on
• 51:55
  his show. So.
• 51:57
  He gave it away, yeah. I mean, it was like a month
• 52:00
  after it had been out, but you know.
• 52:02
  But yeah, I'm not watching that then.
• 52:04
  Another good one is the wire. Yeah.
• 52:07
  No, I have seen that. Yeah, I always love the
• 52:10
  reference in the American office where Steve Corollas goes all
• 52:14
  the wire. Brilliant.
• 52:16
  Cannot understand a word. Agree, if I see someone ordering
• 52:23
  blank at a restaurant I have to reevaluate what I think about
• 52:28
  that person. Anything savoury that has fruit
• 52:34
  on it. What like.
• 52:37
  Like I mean a Hawaiian pine pizza is would be the classic.
• 52:41
  Oh, right, right. But I, I, I can't stand when
• 52:46
  when people insist on putting fruit into what I consider a
• 52:49
  savoury dish. I mean, I don't even
• 52:52
  particularly like sort of applesauce on the pork.
• 52:55
  So I know that I'm weird for that one.
• 52:57
  No, no, but. My wife insists.
• 53:00
  I think it's probably the greatest bone of contention in
• 53:01
  our house is that my wife can't make a salad without putting
• 53:04
  fucking rude Mandarin segments into.
• 53:07
  It or no no no pomegranate seeds.
• 53:10
  That makes it an outdoor salad. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:14
  Really. Fruit makes it an outdoor salad.
• 53:17
  Bring it. Outside.
• 53:20
  Yeah, it's umm. Wow.
• 53:22
  But no, Mike, it's not so much what meal somebody orders, but I
• 53:27
  have lately been finding myself in restaurants with people who
• 53:32
  do not know how to order a fucking meal.
• 53:36
  And it incenses me, right? You know, we're all sitting
• 53:39
  there, We're all saying, I know I'm gonna have that, I'm gonna
• 53:41
  have that, and I will, I know exactly.
• 53:44
  And then the waiter comes up and it's busy and you've been trying
• 53:47
  to get the waiter and they're, you know, they've been.
• 53:49
  And then they climb is limited and they'll tell exactly the
• 53:52
  time. And then they start going, yeah,
• 53:56
  the salad. Does that come out?
• 53:58
  What the fuck is wrong? With you right way.
• 54:01
  You, it's a list of food and you and you.
• 54:04
  Have you not done this before? You pick the thing you want and
• 54:07
  you tell them and. They're grab time.
• 54:09
  Loads and it's the people who just have 0 restaurant etiquette
• 54:15
  and then start asking all these questions and then and then, you
• 54:19
  know, getting appropriate. So the Creme brulee is that does
• 54:21
  that come like is that cold or is it does it has it been
• 54:24
  freshly? It's freshly done.
• 54:27
  Yeah, I'm still going to have the brownie.
• 54:30
  Why did you ask them? Sometimes I lose my verbal
• 54:34
  skills and I just become this pointer.
• 54:37
  Like I'll have water right here and it's like 4.
• 54:45
  I've lost my temper blank times in the last month.
• 54:49
  Oh, I mean I I too many to count because I will just lose it I.
• 54:55
  Think over 10. Easily, but I lose my temper at
• 55:00
  inanimate objects. I would've lost my temper.
• 55:02
  I fell over that shit in the gym.
• 55:04
  I would've lost my temper like 10 times in one day just trying
• 55:07
  to put together some IKEA furniture and not being able to
• 55:09
  find stuff. I'm the thing I will get most
• 55:12
  annoyed and most often is myself because I'll I'll I keep putting
• 55:16
  things down and not knowing where I put them and that's just
• 55:19
  AI hate that. So yeah, I've I've got.
• 55:22
  My glasses. Yeah, and man, I absolutely lost
• 55:26
  it at my friends. Just the other night.
• 55:27
  We had some friends over and we were playing a game, you know, a
• 55:31
  game called Imposter. Yeah, you know where Then the
• 55:34
  phone tells you which one you are.
• 55:37
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 55:38
  They there was eight of us, seven of us, and they just kept
• 55:44
  fucking it up and they're like, OK, have you you passed it on
• 55:47
  now? Did you have you pressed next
• 55:49
  player? OK, they'll pass that.
• 55:50
  And then somebody would come right and supposed to go this
• 55:52
  test player 5 and I'm player 7. I'm like, how can we still not
• 55:56
  get this right? You people are fucking morons.
• 55:59
  Don't have your agent put you on traders?
• 56:02
  Oh yeah, I go. I I.
• 56:03
  Would you? I'd be terrible.
• 56:06
  Would you be a good trader? I don't think I would.
• 56:10
  You know what I would think if that I think I'd be a very
• 56:13
  convincing liar. But in the back of my head I'd
• 56:14
  always be thinking. But there are people out there
• 56:16
  watching this who know I'm lying.
• 56:18
  And that's where you know, lying to you who doesn't know whether
• 56:22
  I'm lying or not. That's fine.
• 56:24
  Knowing that there are people at home watching me do that lie,
• 56:26
  knowing that's where I'll get in my head.
• 56:29
  Well, it all depends, I guess, whether you think during the
• 56:33
  whole thing that you're on TV, if you think it's just a normal
• 56:39
  thing. Yeah, well, I don't know.
• 56:41
  You have to. It's.
• 56:42
  I mean, I've true, I do when I'm on TV, I do sometimes forget
• 56:46
  about it and I should just play the game.
• 56:49
  Yeah. If I'm on something like Richard
• 56:50
  Osmond's House of Games or back in the day, called my bluff.
• 56:54
  Oh, yeah. Things like that.
• 56:55
  I do very quickly. Go fuck the TVI want to win this
• 56:59
  game, which actually makes me a really bad cast.
• 57:02
  Yeah. Things like that.
• 57:04
  Last question, I'm assuming that I'm scared of bears but blanks
• 57:11
  are even scarier and this has to be funny I mean.
• 57:26
  I'm actually, I'm scared of heights, but I think you're
• 57:30
  supposed to be. Have you ever done that VR where
• 57:34
  you're like on a ledge or something?
• 57:37
  They never, they're never very I I don't get dizzy on those
• 57:41
  because they just tend to be kind of you're just a very aware
• 57:45
  of the that. Weight of the thing.
• 57:47
  On your Yeah, you say? That Alex Honnold guy.
• 57:52
  Oh, type a skyscraper. Shit like that gives me the
• 57:54
  willies just watching it. Yeah, I, I.
• 58:00
  Bet there's conspiracy theorists though who think that it's only
• 58:03
  like 2 feet tall or something. No, I get things like that Do
• 58:10
  give me the the willies. Yeah.
• 58:12
  Yeah. And I can't.
• 58:14
  I get, I get that thing as well. You know, if you're on a balcony
• 58:17
  and you look down like you don't think I might just throw myself
• 58:21
  off this. Yeah.
• 58:22
  Yeah. You're not not suicidal
• 58:23
  aviation, but it's just like there is nothing really.
• 58:26
  This barrier might stop me accidentally falling over, but
• 58:28
  there's nothing stopping me from just deciding to throw myself
• 58:31
  off this. Like Christopher Walken and
• 58:33
  Annie Hall, I guess like all I. Think about something that I
• 58:37
  think about just driving it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 58:40
  I've got to get back to Earth now.
• 58:44
  That's it. Well this is the last section is
• 58:47
  anything you want to plug. No, my old show, that show that
• 58:51
  I did that was very well received.
• 58:52
  The Tragedy Plus Time, the thing that turned out to have a more
• 58:55
  obscure title than I thought it did, is available to stream for
• 58:58
  money on my website. You have to pay for it, though.
• 59:03
  I'm leaving it there until it at least makes back what I paid to
• 59:07
  make it and so it could be there for a very time.
• 59:13
  On your website. Yeah, edgar.com.
• 59:15
  All right. Great.
• 59:17
  Well, thanks for coming. No at all.
• 59:19
  It was great to see you again. Yeah, I hope we see each other
• 59:23
  sooner. Brandon yeah, let's make it.
• 59:25
  Let's not make it another 20 years.
• 59:27
  I'll be dead. Well, at least can I get do I
• 59:32
  get invited to your funeral? Can we make sure that happens?
• 59:34
  OK, there we go. It's a date.
• 59:36
  As long as you film it. Wow, that was great.
• 59:41
  I can't believe I did it. I sat here for an hour.
• 59:46
  So we do have questions as well. There's somebody asking a
• 59:52
  question. His name is Patrick Clark.
• 59:57
  Whence comes your affinity for British comedy and culture?
• 1:00:01
  Like, did you grow up with Fawlty Towers or Young Ones?
• 1:00:05
  Well, to be honest, in the States they showed those shows
• 1:00:09
  on PBS. And I mostly was a Fawlty Towers
• 1:00:14
  guys. I did watch some young ones,
• 1:00:16
  Fawlty Towers in Monty Python. OK, Patrick, so that answers
• 1:00:21
  your question. If you have any more, please
• 1:00:24
  feel free to write them in. And that's all for now, but
• 1:00:27
  we'll have more in the future. Shut up, Rich.
• 1:00:47
  Rich vultures talk box.