Latest / Rich Fulcher's TalkBox / Marcus Brigstocke: Parenting, The World Cheese Awards & Norm From Cheers | TalkBox Ep. 43

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Marcus Brigstocke: Parenting, The World Cheese Awards & Norm From Cheers | TalkBox Ep. 43 · Rich Fulcher's TalkBox

• 0:02
  Oh, hi, Rich Fulcher here and welcome to Rich Vultures talk
• 0:06
  box. Today's guest is none other than
• 0:10
  Marcus Bridgestoke. He's like a a comedian who's
• 0:15
  been around for ages on TV. You've seen him on 8 out of 10
• 0:19
  Cats and all the panel shows, and you've seen him improvising
• 0:25
  on stages across the UK. You've seen him writing lots of
• 0:31
  comedy stuff. And he's touring now and I'm
• 0:34
  interviewing. I talked to him.
• 0:36
  He sat in this chair, I swear to God.
• 0:41
  So check it out now, OK? All right, I'll come down.
• 0:46
  My blood pressure's way up. Drink milk.
• 1:07
  Namaste. Right, right.
• 1:11
  Hey dude, nice to see you. How are you doing?
• 1:15
  I'm good. Yeah, I'm good.
• 1:16
  Have. We ever met before?
• 1:18
  No, we've never met. No, but I've seen you.
• 1:21
  But I I get the feeling that I've met you.
• 1:24
  No, we're not. Maybe not.
• 1:26
  We've been in rooms, you know, like.
• 1:30
  We've done. We've done.
• 1:31
  We've done. We've done.
• 1:33
  We've done the across the room, like, yeah, I know you.
• 1:36
  We both do this similar thing and yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:40
  I can't even remember where it was, but the last time I was in
• 1:43
  a room with you, I had AI won't say overwhelming because then it
• 1:47
  would have won, but I had a powerful desire to come and sing
• 1:52
  10 CC. Oh.
• 1:54
  You should have done. That really, that is one of my
• 1:57
  favourite moments ever. You just just just just singing
• 2:02
  that just as is and very nicely, may I say.
• 2:07
  I get requests to do it sometimes, yeah.
• 2:11
  And sometimes yeah, I do it, yeah.
• 2:15
  Sometimes I yeah, I don't because I'm on the toilet.
• 2:20
  Yes, yeah, yeah. Do you know, I once met George
• 2:24
  Went, who played Norm in Cheers, and he got very tired of people
• 2:29
  going Norm because, you know, his name's George.
• 2:34
  And he, he said there was a time when he was on the toilet in an
• 2:38
  airport and the lock was broken and he couldn't quite reach the
• 2:42
  door. He'd like, made it clear there
• 2:44
  was someone in there by making noises and someone pushed the
• 2:46
  door open and instead of honouring the oh shit, I'm so
• 2:50
  sorry, they just went No, really.
• 2:53
  Yeah, while he was, yeah. That is so weird because I've
• 2:56
  heard that same story being told as Dylan Moran did that at
• 3:02
  Kilkenny. Oh really?
• 3:04
  And he was on the toilet and George went walks in no way.
• 3:09
  And he goes Norm. That's so bizarre.
• 3:13
  Yeah, people write in to see where that comes from.
• 3:17
  Well. I I did.
• 3:20
  What's his name? Jack.
• 3:22
  Brilliant. He was free.
• 3:24
  No. Jack.
• 3:25
  Jack. Who was in there?
• 3:25
  D Absolutely. Did you ever watch?
• 3:28
  Absolutely. The Scottish.
• 3:29
  Guy, I fucking love that show so much.
• 3:31
  That's amazing. Jack Docherty.
• 3:32
  Jack Docherty had a chat show and that's.
• 3:35
  Where Channel 5. Yeah, it was really good as well
• 3:37
  and they should have kept it. It was shot in a theatre and it
• 3:40
  was like, yeah, it was really alive.
• 3:43
  And now I met George went. That's when he told me that
• 3:45
  story. But maybe it was the.
• 3:46
  No. Maybe George was right.
• 3:48
  No. Well, who knows all.
• 3:49
  Right. Maybe.
• 3:50
  The other way around. Yes, indeed you.
• 3:52
  Know what I thought because that show was every night they were
• 3:55
  trying to replicate the US, but I I think, and I'm not sure why
• 4:01
  it didn't work. Was it they had trouble getting
• 4:04
  guests every night? They had people like me.
• 4:07
  They had like, and I don't mean that as like.
• 4:09
  There's no false modesty there. Stars, I know what I am.
• 4:12
  They. Had stars.
• 4:13
  They had stars. No, they had like, you know,
• 4:17
  working comics. They had lots of working comics
• 4:20
  and and Graham Norton has working comics too, but next to
• 4:26
  Keanu Reeves and I do. What?
• 4:29
  I think you could get away with that show now because there's so
• 4:33
  many people coming, like there's US people, Norwegians coming in.
• 4:39
  Well, I'm interested that, you know, they're doing SNLUK.
• 4:42
  Yes. And like, I don't know who
• 4:45
  they'll get as the guest stars. I would speak.
• 4:47
  I'm really sad they've only commissioned 6 episodes.
• 4:49
  Well, maybe just, you know, yeah, dip your feet in the
• 4:53
  water. Sure.
• 4:54
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I hope eventually they get
• 4:58
  to a point where it's somebody like, sometimes they'll do like
• 5:01
  somebody just won the Olympics, They'll get them to host the
• 5:05
  show. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 5:06
  So it seems really relevant. That's.
• 5:08
  Still slim pickings in the UK. Oh, we did all right.
• 5:12
  Winter Games, I think. Were you a fan?
• 5:14
  Did you watch? Yeah, I love it, man.
• 5:16
  Yeah, you know what I like? Short track?
• 5:18
  Speed skating. Oh, I genuinely.
• 5:21
  Tell me more Short track. Well, if they compete on a rink,
• 5:26
  as you'd expect, yeah, very, very fast ice gotta be ice or it
• 5:31
  takes ages and they go really, really, really fast.
• 5:36
  And it's it's not violent, but there's a.
• 5:38
  Fall down the line, it's a lot. Of action, yeah, and.
• 5:41
  Don't they touch the ice as they're turning?
• 5:44
  They're so they lean, they lean so far over as they do it, it
• 5:48
  kind of blows my mind. And you only really get a sense
• 5:50
  of how fast they're going. When they fall and hit the
• 5:53
  cushions on the outside, you're like, wow, you were travelling,
• 5:57
  You must have been. So yeah, I love short track.
• 5:59
  What it what gets me is like you train for four years and then
• 6:03
  you can just mess up one turn and that's it.
• 6:07
  Often on the first turn. Yeah, that's it.
• 6:10
  I had to go with it. Yeah, I know.
• 6:12
  Just heartbreaking heartbreak. I had to go at short track.
• 6:16
  You did? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:17
  And it's really painful, physically painful to do, but I
• 6:20
  really liked it. This is actually I, I do a
• 6:24
  segment later on called fill in the blank, OK.
• 6:27
  And one of the questions is actually about the Winter
• 6:30
  Olympics. Great.
• 6:31
  But I'm going to do it now though.
• 6:33
  Great. It's like if you, with the body
• 6:36
  and skills that you have, were to enter any Winter Olympics
• 6:41
  sport right now, which one could you possibly compete in?
• 6:46
  Like, actually compete in, yeah. Maybe you know.
• 6:49
  And and, like, not be a total disgrace, yeah.
• 6:53
  Not like, oh, that's the comedian on the skeleton.
• 6:57
  Well, yeah. Well, maybe like skeleton, maybe
• 7:04
  skeleton like I have done skeleton as well.
• 7:07
  I haven't done it and I'm all together too long for it.
• 7:11
  Way too long and way too heavy. It's it's hard to manoeuvre I
• 7:16
  imagine. It's so painful.
• 7:17
  That's what they don't tell you. So when you like, you go around
• 7:21
  the ice wall and you wait. So you've done it.
• 7:23
  I've done. It Yeah, yeah.
• 7:24
  So you go head first down the thing and you're the sled ends
• 7:28
  there. So you're just holding your head
• 7:30
  and as you go around the big bends, the G force like puts
• 7:33
  your face on the ice. You're in a big helmet so it's
• 7:35
  fine, but it goes like this. What they don't tell you is when
• 7:38
  you come out of the turn, if you're not good at it, you hit
• 7:41
  the ice wall and because your feet are at the back, your feet
• 7:44
  like go bang. Into the.
• 7:46
  Ice Wall. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah it.
• 7:47
  Hurts. But that's probably the one.
• 7:50
  The luge I would never do. What if you get a boner on the
• 7:53
  skeleton from? The vibration.
• 7:56
  It would be so difficult to manage an erection during
• 7:59
  skeleton during the luge. That should be the sport during.
• 8:02
  The luge, it's fine. It's fine.
• 8:05
  And I'm actually surprised we don't see it more particularly
• 8:08
  during the double. The double luge?
• 8:11
  Yeah. One or other or both.
• 8:13
  Especially if it's someone you know you're going out with
• 8:16
  fully. Tumescent.
• 8:17
  That'd be really nice. The double luge is a very
• 8:20
  strange looking event. Yeah, I want you to know, even
• 8:23
  though like we don't know each other well, I would do it with
• 8:27
  you. Thank you.
• 8:29
  Oh my gosh, you heard it here first.
• 8:32
  Just. Saying Seinfeld had a great joke
• 8:35
  about about the luge. He said the luge is the only
• 8:39
  sport you could take part in against your will.
• 8:44
  Is this one of those lovely jokes it just keeps building in
• 8:47
  your head? Like, what would that actually
• 8:48
  take? Yeah, I like that.
• 8:50
  How about you? What would you want to sport?
• 8:52
  You know what I wouldn't do? Well, but I'd like to try a
• 8:57
  cross country type thing. Yeah.
• 9:00
  I mean, I'd probably be last, but yeah, I have done it.
• 9:03
  Last is OK, It's a workout, but I would like to go to a ski
• 9:08
  lodge that just does cross country and get in super shape.
• 9:13
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 9:15
  Right. Yes.
• 9:17
  Operate ski. Do a little.
• 9:19
  Operate Ski Pop. Out for a little afternoon.
• 9:22
  Yeah, yeah. Nice man.
• 9:25
  Yeah, yeah, I can see it. And also, I mean, what I say
• 9:29
  like last in the Olympics is still in the Olympics.
• 9:32
  You know, Maria von Trump and her family opened up a cross
• 9:38
  country ski lounge in Vermont. Nice.
• 9:43
  That's what I heard. I'd go so they.
• 9:47
  'D be singing. Yeah, there would mandatory
• 9:50
  singing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:52
  Don't get up. We're singing one more.
• 9:55
  Yeah. 8 of eyes. 8 of eyes. What a beautiful song that is.
• 10:02
  It's really I genuinely, I find it at the end of that film if I
• 10:06
  don't know if anyone's made it to the end.
• 10:07
  It's so, so long. But it's beautiful when he tries
• 10:11
  to sing it and his voice just starts to crack and out they
• 10:15
  step and they fill it in for him.
• 10:17
  Beautiful. I wonder if he really sang that.
• 10:21
  Oh yeah, good thought. Yeah, I.
• 10:24
  Hope it was him. Feel like in those days, and I
• 10:26
  was going to say in those days they did.
• 10:28
  But they didn't, did they? Because Audrey Hepburn was re
• 10:31
  dubbed on My Fair Lady and the story goes no one told her.
• 10:36
  Oh, really? Yeah, news flash here.
• 10:41
  It is. We don't know.
• 10:42
  We don't know. Also the boy who played Oliver
• 10:46
  in Oliver Twist. Didn't sing.
• 10:48
  No, didn't sing the producer's bastard.
• 10:51
  Producer's daughter sings Oliver's parts.
• 10:55
  And actually, to be fair, when you when you hear where is love,
• 11:00
  you're like, that's not a boy. Bastard.
• 11:03
  Yeah, the swines. Yeah, Julie Andrews should have
• 11:06
  got that part in. Yeah, should have got My Fair
• 11:09
  Lady. Hey, I only figured out
• 11:12
  recently. I only figured out recently that
• 11:16
  My Fair Lady is in and of itself, word play.
• 11:21
  It's how she would say Mayfair lady.
• 11:24
  No. Well, don't you think like no
• 11:27
  one's confirmed this to me? My Fair Lady, yeah.
• 11:29
  I'm a my fair like, especially in the accent she does, yeah.
• 11:33
  'Cause the original was, it was big million.
• 11:36
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, Big Million, yeah, 'cause My Fair Lady's
• 11:40
  quite a strange title for it. Yeah, when you think about it,
• 11:43
  yeah, unless it's that, if it's Mayfair Lady, but she would say
• 11:46
  My Fair Lady, it makes sense, right?
• 11:49
  Yes, again, you heard it here first.
• 11:51
  Well done, we've got 2 news flashes already.
• 11:55
  Listen, if we keep this locked into winter sports and musicals.
• 12:01
  We're on something. I'm in.
• 12:02
  My element this is what? I've been missing from my
• 12:05
  podcast is someone that's on top of things, Yeah.
• 12:09
  The two main things the winter sports and the musicals.
• 12:12
  Now, Speaking of on top of things, you've been doing a tour
• 12:16
  for the last year. Yeah.
• 12:19
  Wow. It's.
• 12:20
  A good tool. What's that?
• 12:21
  When you sat down and said you were going to do it, was it for
• 12:25
  a year or did you keep adding? No, no, I, I kept adding partly
• 12:29
  because, you know, I'm a dad to a four year old.
• 12:32
  I got 2 adult kids too, but I dad to a four year old.
• 12:35
  Thanks, man. And so I didn't want to lock it
• 12:39
  in. Yeah, it's it's crazy.
• 12:41
  Like he's fun. He's so fun, but wow, wow, he's
• 12:46
  exhausting you. Take him on stage.
• 12:49
  Never, never. He's actually seen because my
• 12:53
  wife Rachel is a stand up too, and he's seen us both do stand
• 12:56
  up at festivals. And he was so uninterested.
• 12:59
  I thought this must be strange for him.
• 13:01
  Yeah, to see like we're in a microphone, we're being
• 13:04
  amplified and there's hundreds of people all laughing at us.
• 13:07
  And he was so not interested. Well.
• 13:09
  Unless you're like a giant rabbit or something, yeah, I
• 13:12
  don't think. He's, Oh, you've seen the show?
• 13:14
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:15
  But. But it's good, man.
• 13:17
  I, I really, I write when I tour.
• 13:21
  I write to a brief now instead of going here's all the funny
• 13:24
  thoughts I had. I go, here's a subject I'm
• 13:28
  interested in, and then I write to that brief.
• 13:32
  See now that I would think is hard.
• 13:35
  Well, I think it in a way it is, but there are two things to it.
• 13:39
  One, I've been a standard for a really long time.
• 13:41
  So if I just wait until enough funny things have occurred to
• 13:44
  me, it could be years between right, right, right.
• 13:47
  And two, and this is I guess more important, is like my shows
• 13:51
  are not a Ted Talk, but I do like to come off stage feeling
• 13:54
  like, no, I, I said the thing I meant.
• 13:56
  People have learned things I. I said, I said what I meant like
• 13:59
  this show is about men and it's about the perceived.
• 14:04
  And I guess no, it's not perceived the absolute lostness
• 14:07
  of men like which is flaly men this.
• 14:12
  Is like head on the topic that people are talking about now?
• 14:16
  Yeah, yeah, because, because the the progressive answer to men
• 14:22
  being lost is only just making it's voice heard.
• 14:25
  Now having realised that the, you know, the the Menonists, the
• 14:30
  Andrew Tates and all those guys were really quick to go.
• 14:33
  Our people are lonely. Cool, cool.
• 14:36
  We know what to do with that and there's money to be made from
• 14:39
  it. So the Menonists stepped up,
• 14:41
  filled the gap, destroyed loads of people's lives, I thought.
• 14:45
  You said Mennonites, the Mennonites.
• 14:47
  The Mennonites are lost. Drink milk.
• 14:53
  You heard it here first. Yeah.
• 14:56
  So the kind of the the slow progressive response.
• 14:59
  There are they are slower. Way slower, but it's that thing,
• 15:04
  isn't it? You know a lie has gone twice
• 15:06
  around the world before the truth has had time to put his
• 15:08
  boots on. And the slow response is the
• 15:10
  one. It takes time.
• 15:13
  So how? Are you as a man?
• 15:15
  You seem fine. I think I'm OK, yeah.
• 15:18
  But whether I'm showing my kids what it's like to be a man, I
• 15:25
  think I'm OK. Yeah.
• 15:27
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 15:30
  I mean, that's it, isn't it? Like.
• 15:32
  Because I heard one thing recently, like a lot of boys
• 15:39
  especially are living with their parents quite a long time.
• 15:44
  So I'm settling into, you know, having their room there.
• 15:49
  Well, you know what the? Walker.
• 15:53
  My eldest son, my 23 year old, just moved out like 2 weeks ago.
• 15:58
  That's pretty young. Yeah, it's really young.
• 16:00
  It's really. Young, he's moved in with a
• 16:02
  flatmate and it's all it's all good, good for him.
• 16:04
  I'm really proud of him because that's not easy.
• 16:07
  Like my daughter, who's younger, has already moved out, but the
• 16:12
  pathway for her was different and that it has been a tougher
• 16:16
  Rd for him. So I'm really proud of him
• 16:18
  because it was a really gutsy thing to do.
• 16:20
  And I've been away a lot since he moved out.
• 16:22
  And then I was home the other day.
• 16:24
  And his alarm clock is a gorilla's tune.
• 16:27
  And usually I hear it and then I go upstairs and I go, are you
• 16:32
  up? He doesn't need me to because he
• 16:34
  knows what he's doing. But I like it.
• 16:36
  I like dadding. Yeah, Yeah.
• 16:38
  And. Dadding, yeah.
• 16:40
  Dadding's great. And then I, I got up and there
• 16:44
  was no gorillas. I I was so sad.
• 16:46
  Thank God there's a four year old there to fill that gap, to
• 16:50
  be my emotional support rock, you know?
• 16:53
  But yeah, how old are yours? 13 and 11.
• 16:57
  OK, so you should expect them to still be living at home.
• 17:00
  I should. You should.
• 17:01
  Yeah, you should. I check every morning.
• 17:04
  Yeah. They still here.
• 17:05
  Good for you guys in the bed. Good for you.
• 17:08
  Welcome. Yeah.
• 17:09
  Yeah, but it's so different from.
• 17:13
  I mean, I don't know about your upbringing, but I know that you
• 17:18
  did lots of things when you were younger.
• 17:21
  Yeah. Would you do the same?
• 17:23
  Would you tell your kid like because you, you worked on an
• 17:27
  oil rig? I did.
• 17:29
  I did. Would you tell you?
• 17:30
  Was a podium dancer not on the rig?
• 17:33
  True story, but overlapping like so I worked on the rig and in my
• 17:37
  time away from the rig I was a podium dancer.
• 17:40
  Seriously, I was living the life of Alex the welder from
• 17:44
  Flashdance. There is your book right there.
• 17:48
  You'd think, right? Oh.
• 17:49
  My God, where were you doing the podium dancing?
• 17:52
  So it started at Ministry of Sound.
• 17:57
  Oh my God, so the. Story.
• 17:59
  The stories are weird. Around anymore.
• 18:02
  No, Well, I think that I don't know.
• 18:04
  As a label it's still there. I don't know if the club's even
• 18:06
  there. But when Ministry opened was
• 18:08
  when I was really into dance music, I had I had more than
• 18:13
  halved my body weight the year before I'd gone from from.
• 18:17
  Dancing 20. 4 stone to 11 stone in under a year.
• 18:21
  Yeah. And so dancing felt great.
• 18:24
  I was like, this is amazing. Like my body's this brand new
• 18:28
  thing. So I just went out dancing and I
• 18:30
  loved it. And then I was, I went to
• 18:32
  ministry every weekend, sometimes Friday and Saturday
• 18:36
  because they had there was no liquor licence, right.
• 18:39
  So no one was drinking. Yeah, everyone but me was on
• 18:41
  drugs. I was already sober.
• 18:42
  So I couldn't. But I just went and just danced
• 18:46
  and danced and danced. And then one night the like the
• 18:49
  head of their the kind of dance crews that they put on there
• 18:53
  this. Guy's crazy, you're going to
• 18:55
  hire him. That's exactly.
• 18:57
  Yeah. They were like, he came up to me
• 18:58
  and he went like, oh, do you want to?
• 19:01
  Because I wasn't, I wasn't even that good of a dancer, but my
• 19:05
  God, I was exuberant. Yeah.
• 19:06
  Yeah. And the whole thing for me,
• 19:08
  having lost all of that weight so quickly, was about filling
• 19:12
  space. It was all about just like it
• 19:15
  was. So everything was about joy and
• 19:18
  just. What was your big?
• 19:20
  What was your big move? It was I could dance, I could
• 19:25
  dance very fast. So at that time, like voguing
• 19:29
  had come from voguing had been popularised by Madonna, but had
• 19:32
  come out of the gay scene and and then had like moved itself
• 19:38
  across. So there were a lot of like very
• 19:40
  big, just big arms moves that you would then combine with your
• 19:45
  body moving very, very fast. And it felt, they just felt
• 19:49
  good, man. Yes, play some music.
• 19:52
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know?
• 19:54
  Years later, I did that show. I did what?
• 19:57
  I lied to you. Oh, I love that.
• 19:59
  Yeah, it's such a great show, but they managed to like hand
• 20:03
  clap, force me into getting up and dancing, and now I have some
• 20:07
  regrets about things I've done on the screen.
• 20:09
  That's a really big one. No, but here's the thing though,
• 20:13
  if you want to them to fall for. Yes.
• 20:19
  Don't you do a a deliberately bad?
• 20:21
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Should have done, should have
• 20:23
  done. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 20:25
  But it was fun and yeah, so I worked.
• 20:27
  I was on the rig for like I do 3-4 weeks on the rig and then a
• 20:31
  week or two off. And in the time off I was
• 20:33
  dancing and the rig was wild. So what I'm trying to say is
• 20:38
  full circle is if your son said hey, I'd like to, instead of
• 20:42
  going to school right now, I'd like to try working on an oil
• 20:46
  rig. I'd be like, go for it, man, OK,
• 20:49
  do that thing. But his, you know, like his
• 20:53
  generation, anything that they suggest that's outside, like I'm
• 20:59
  nearly at the point where if he went, I would really like to be
• 21:02
  in the military. I'm like, listen, as long as
• 21:04
  you're outside and with other people, I'm here for it.
• 21:06
  Walking. Around yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 21:07
  because. They, it's, they would, it's
• 21:10
  not. I mean, listen, he does great.
• 21:11
  He does all sorts of cool and interesting and fun things, but
• 21:14
  their generation, they were Generation 1.
• 21:17
  We just gave them phones when they were ten.
• 21:19
  Yeah, yeah. We didn't know it was if they
• 21:21
  were the first lot. We went.
• 21:22
  Look, every single thing is on here.
• 21:25
  Best of luck. The.
• 21:25
  Experiment, yeah. Yeah, and, and, you know, like
• 21:29
  they're screwed. They're really screwed.
• 21:31
  I like it when they socialise. You're going over to a friends.
• 21:36
  That's great, yes. Yes, that's awesome.
• 21:39
  You talk to someone, you talk to a stranger in a van.
• 21:43
  That's great. That's so great.
• 21:45
  That is you, candy. Get in the van, see where you
• 21:50
  might end up sometimes not knowing where you're going.
• 21:53
  Is part of the journey, is part of the.
• 21:55
  Thing we didn't know where we were going.
• 21:57
  No, when we were young, often we didn't even have a have a plan.
• 22:01
  Yeah, we would go out and just out.
• 22:03
  Would you go out and play and then just or a day?
• 22:07
  And and our parents and, and statistically we were at greater
• 22:13
  risk than they are now. Like the chances of abduction
• 22:16
  and such were still relatively very low, but they're way higher
• 22:20
  than they are now. Crazy guy down the street, but.
• 22:23
  That thing, right? Did you get on your bike and
• 22:25
  just go? Yes.
• 22:26
  Yeah. That was good.
• 22:28
  That was really good. But we.
• 22:30
  Didn't know any better. No, Yeah, yeah.
• 22:33
  I mean, it was wonderful. We would.
• 22:36
  Me and various friends would just get on the bike and
• 22:38
  disappear. Would.
• 22:39
  You think that's part of the the thing now with kids or is?
• 22:44
  It would be great. Manning.
• 22:46
  Yeah, I mean, in Japan they have this thing right where from the
• 22:50
  age of four or five, they all walk to school unaccompanied.
• 22:55
  Well, they have that TV show, right?
• 22:57
  Yeah, Yeah. That's.
• 22:58
  Fascinating, right? They send a toddler out with a
• 23:01
  shopping list and remotely film them and see what they come back
• 23:05
  with. Now they've, I think they've
• 23:07
  heightened it a bit. They give them like a scalpel
• 23:09
  and they have to do surgery or something.
• 23:12
  Yeah, Japan. What a countryman.
• 23:15
  What? A country?
• 23:16
  What a country. Yeah, fair play to them.
• 23:19
  What are you up to? Japan.
• 23:21
  What are you up to? I don't know.
• 23:23
  I've been. Have you been?
• 23:24
  No, I want to go. That's the furthest from home
• 23:27
  I've ever found. I.
• 23:27
  Want to bring the kids? Yeah.
• 23:29
  Fascinating. They can't.
• 23:31
  I, I think I'm right in saying there's no gambling, right?
• 23:35
  They're not allowed to to gamble, at least in public.
• 23:38
  I'm sure there's gambling, but in the arcades they have this.
• 23:42
  It's like a kind of slot machine.
• 23:44
  Petinka. Tipping ball bearings into it.
• 23:47
  Yeah, yeah. And they you'd buy like a bucket
• 23:50
  of ball bearings and then tip them in the machine and then
• 23:53
  either more ball bearings come out or les ball bearings come
• 23:57
  out. Jinko parlours.
• 23:59
  Yeah, yeah. What are they?
• 24:01
  I've no idea. I watched for hours going.
• 24:05
  I think that guy has more ball bearings.
• 24:07
  He's really good at getting more ball bearings than the other
• 24:10
  guy. The other guys like none, maybe
• 24:13
  1. So how did you get make the
• 24:15
  transition from doing oil rigging dancing to to comedy?
• 24:22
  I, I mean, yeah, well, I wanted to go to drama school, so I had
• 24:30
  the oil rig and the dancing and all of that was of partly a
• 24:34
  function of I had no qualifications at all.
• 24:37
  Like I left school with nothing, Everything fell apart and I had
• 24:42
  like 1 plan and it was drama school because there was one
• 24:46
  thing I'd been at least moderately good at and it was
• 24:49
  performing. And so I was like, the only
• 24:52
  thing I knew was go to drama school, train, go be an I
• 24:55
  didn't. Know what to do?
• 24:56
  I had. No clue.
• 24:57
  So I tried to go to drama school and I didn't.
• 24:59
  They were like, no, thank you. These everyone else has prepared
• 25:03
  this properly. You've just walked in here like
• 25:05
  normal posh people expecting the door would be held.
• 25:08
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, right.
• 25:09
  So I had no plan. And my best friend, I was really
• 25:13
  sad and he took me out for lunch and he said you should do
• 25:15
  comedy, you're funny. And I was like, I don't know, I
• 25:18
  don't know, you can just do comedy.
• 25:20
  And that man is he. Did it.
• 25:22
  He booked my first Mitchell. That's David Mitchell.
• 25:25
  And he held the door open for me.
• 25:26
  And that was like, no, he he genuinely, a day later he phoned
• 25:31
  me and he said I've booked you a gig, it's next week.
• 25:33
  That's great. Yeah.
• 25:34
  And he came with me and like, where did you do your first
• 25:39
  well? I sort of didn't do it during
• 25:42
  school, right? And then I went to Chicago,
• 25:45
  right, Because that's where they had all the improv and sketch
• 25:48
  comedy. So that's where I started.
• 25:51
  And then, you know, stand up came later.
• 25:54
  But yeah. Did you do Second City?
• 25:56
  Yes. Amazing.
• 25:58
  Yeah. You know, I tried to open.
• 26:00
  I'm so glad it didn't work out. I tried to open a branch of
• 26:03
  Second City in London. You did, yeah.
• 26:05
  Because I was so like. That's amazing.
• 26:08
  I. Was so, and in fact, you know,
• 26:10
  there were tonnes of, of equivalent things, you know what
• 26:14
  happens at, at the Bill Murray and the FA and all the rest of
• 26:17
  it. There are tonnes of people doing
• 26:19
  like better versions of it. But because I, there wasn't
• 26:23
  anything like that, I was like, well, then we need that.
• 26:27
  And so I like I made phone calls and like I say, thank God it
• 26:30
  didn't work out because I can, you know, like like I could just
• 26:35
  go on stage now and just start a thing and we'll see.
• 26:38
  No script more script or a stand up show or if I can dance it.
• 26:42
  I don't whatever, you know, but I can't run a business.
• 26:47
  Yeah, it is. Going to end up running a
• 26:49
  business. The thing that struck me about
• 26:51
  it was it's like a structured school, yeah, of improv, whereas
• 26:58
  it seems like they don't have the the equivalent for drama
• 27:02
  here as they do for comedy. Comedy's like, yeah, get up on
• 27:06
  stage, but it's hard sometimes. Yeah, at least it is for me.
• 27:11
  Because if you have like a thing like school, because we're used
• 27:16
  to school and then you get on this stage and then you perform
• 27:20
  and do this, that it makes it easier to transition 100% yeah.
• 27:26
  I. Mean we're we're lucky now in
• 27:28
  the UK like the free association yeah and other organisations are
• 27:33
  doing amazing work like making it possible for people to learn
• 27:38
  some craft and and get really good like the standard of
• 27:42
  improvises like people who I don't know and then you see them
• 27:46
  in. Skills.
• 27:47
  Oh my. God, they have so many, so much
• 27:49
  skill. Exactly.
• 27:50
  I'm glad you said skill, not talent.
• 27:51
  I'm so uninterested in talent. Yeah.
• 27:53
  Yeah. What?
• 27:54
  A What A Forget what A. Lie that ran that's run for
• 27:57
  years. Obviously they're so talented.
• 28:00
  Talent's not worth shit. Loads of people are talented.
• 28:02
  Yes, skills. Skills being skills.
• 28:06
  You heard it here. Yeah, Yeah, so but yeah, so he,
• 28:10
  my friend booked my first gig for me and all we all I had
• 28:14
  seen, I'd seen a lot of stand up on TV because I bought the VHSS
• 28:20
  and just watched again and again and again.
• 28:23
  Robin Williams live at the Met was the one like.
• 28:27
  They went nuts there. Was a time in my life when I
• 28:29
  could just say the whole of Robin Williams live at the I
• 28:34
  just knew it. I'd watched it that many times.
• 28:36
  But I used to go to the Comedy Store and watch the players,
• 28:40
  Yes. And I'd seen that and I was
• 28:42
  like, this is magical. And then I did a gig and that
• 28:45
  was that. So the transition was like, it
• 28:48
  was really quick and really sudden.
• 28:50
  And do you know what? Honestly, it's such a kind of
• 28:52
  cliche, but while I was still on stage at the very end of that
• 28:57
  seven minute set, I was like, Yep, this is it.
• 29:00
  Really. This is what I'm for.
• 29:01
  Your mind, I knew I. Just knew.
• 29:04
  Absolutely, that's great. None of which is to say I was
• 29:07
  good at it. I did 7 minutes, of which the
• 29:10
  first five were dog shit, but the last two minutes where I ran
• 29:15
  out of the stuff that I'd prepared that I was on.
• 29:18
  That's when the gold comes. And then I was like, oh, and I
• 29:22
  started to feel something like, yeah, it's hard to say what, but
• 29:28
  I felt something. And I just was like, this is it?
• 29:32
  It came out in you, yeah. From the first gig and then I
• 29:36
  was booked, I was hungry. Like I could not gig enough.
• 29:42
  I went to like everyone who went to Bristol Uni.
• 29:45
  I meant to go to Cambridge. I was aiming for Cambridge,
• 29:49
  missed it by miles, went to Bristol and expected to find a.
• 29:52
  Lot of people went to Bristol, Yeah, yeah.
• 29:54
  Good, good people. Matt Lucas had been.
• 29:56
  Simon Pegg, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 29:58
  And Chris Morris, although Chris had not, he'd done a biology
• 30:03
  degree, I think anyway. But when I went to Bristol, they
• 30:06
  said to me, and I said it was in a comedy.
• 30:08
  They were like, OK, but you're not going to do like half your
• 30:11
  degree and then quit, are you? And I went, no.
• 30:13
  And they went because we've just had this guy, Matt Lucas, and he
• 30:17
  came and he did half his degree and then he left and I went,
• 30:19
  yeah, but he's Matt Lucas. Like that's not going to happen.
• 30:22
  I did half my degree and then quit.
• 30:25
  I got, listen, I got ATV show. What can I tell?
• 30:27
  You. How did you tell them?
• 30:29
  I let them know in increments by not showing up.
• 30:33
  They know it under the door. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:35
  And then I was, I was sad to leave.
• 30:37
  And I stayed in Bristol for what would have been my third year
• 30:41
  because I was working with, do you know, Danny Robbins and Dan
• 30:44
  Tetzel. You may have, you'd have seen
• 30:47
  them around. Like, they're both phenomenal.
• 30:50
  And I owe them like such a massive debt of gratitude
• 30:54
  because I'm not a great writer. I've had moments I've done, I've
• 30:59
  written some stuff I'm really proud of.
• 31:00
  But compared to them, compared, no, but compared to them,
• 31:04
  really. And so most of what we made,
• 31:09
  like I made it. They were funny, really funny.
• 31:13
  I made it very funny on stage. I just was like on stage.
• 31:17
  I just something. I felt I knew exactly what I was
• 31:20
  doing. But they could write and
• 31:22
  perform, you know? So we made a lot of stuff
• 31:25
  together and by the time I finished what would have been my
• 31:28
  third year then I was just flying maybe.
• 31:30
  An honorary degree down the road.
• 31:33
  Why down the road? Why not now?
• 31:36
  Why? Not now.
• 31:36
  Now. 'S the time come.
• 31:38
  On people, I would. Love an honorary degree please.
• 31:41
  If you're out there and you're involved with Bristol alums.
• 31:46
  Yeah. When did you come to the UK
• 31:48
  then? I started doing so I was in
• 31:52
  Second City touring, yeah. And then I started doing
• 31:56
  Edinburgh. Cool.
• 31:57
  And then we got. We did the simple.
• 31:59
  Show Who was your gang in Edinburgh?
• 32:04
  What was our group? Yeah.
• 32:06
  Was that like a second city group or?
• 32:08
  No, it was like we were in this theatre called the Annoyance
• 32:12
  Theatre. And so we improvised a
• 32:15
  university lecture, and we get a weird scientific hypothesis.
• 32:21
  Like, you know, the Earth is shaped like a giant burrito.
• 32:24
  We'd have to teach as, and they would give you a discipline.
• 32:28
  Like they'd say gynaecology, and we'd say something else.
• 32:34
  But yeah, so we do it for an hour and it got really popular.
• 32:38
  And we've got a manager here, and I just wound up staying
• 32:42
  here, Right? And then we toured all over the
• 32:45
  place. And then finally we broke up.
• 32:47
  And then I just, you know, got my own yeah yeah thing here.
• 32:51
  Funny enough I did a show. I wish I could remember what it
• 32:54
  was called now. So there was what was the stand
• 32:58
  up show where you got a prompt? Oh yeah.
• 33:03
  Paul Provenza, Paul. Provenza did it, yeah, but they
• 33:06
  did another one. Setlist.
• 33:08
  Setlist was that one, but they did another one which was really
• 33:11
  cool, very similar to the thing you did.
• 33:13
  I mean, I would say a straight RIP off actually, where you were
• 33:16
  introduced as a kind of lecturer and you had a slideshow and they
• 33:25
  would give you a topic and you would just, yeah, you'd just
• 33:28
  start to improvise and you go now, now, as this demonstrates.
• 33:32
  And you would have to try and like just keep it going, man.
• 33:35
  That's. Very fun.
• 33:37
  You can. Feel so alive when you're doing
• 33:39
  stuff like that if. Sometimes we do a class and, you
• 33:42
  know, we'd all be over them, all over the map, but it would be
• 33:45
  funny. But then sometimes it all came
• 33:47
  together and then it was just like a magical event.
• 33:51
  Yeah. Well, my wife Rachel does
• 33:53
  ostentatious, so they do in full period costume, an improvised
• 33:59
  Jane Austen. Oh, that's great.
• 34:01
  They get a title and nothing else.
• 34:03
  They just said they go Jane Austen wrote wrote six books,
• 34:07
  Pride and Prejudice and the others, but actually she wrote
• 34:10
  hundreds and we're going to perform on for you tonight.
• 34:12
  Then they get the title and they do the whole thing in costumes.
• 34:16
  They know they're shit. But and I've improvised with
• 34:19
  most of the people in that group and I'm married to one of them
• 34:22
  and I still go and see that show and I'm like, how are you doing
• 34:27
  that? Like, it's very funny, always
• 34:31
  very funny, but also a compelling narrative and
• 34:34
  sometimes even a moving ending where you're like, yeah, that's
• 34:38
  so. Like I would pay to see that.
• 34:40
  It's amazing. They underscore it with they
• 34:43
  have a violin or chalice. Yeah, it's like.
• 34:47
  Telling you. I've never liked magic like
• 34:50
  proper magic, you know, Like magician magic.
• 34:52
  Well. That's ridiculous.
• 34:54
  Sure, but I really like that because that is a conjuring act.
• 34:59
  It is magic like. Anything other, it's literally
• 35:01
  this thing didn't exist and now it does, yeah.
• 35:04
  And I'm so enchanted by it. And then it's all gone.
• 35:08
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 35:10
  So that when you do a good, when you do a fun improv show, it's
• 35:14
  like you've just done a sporting event.
• 35:16
  Yeah. So everybody wants to celebrate.
• 35:19
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you can't.
• 35:19
  Go to sleep. It's.
• 35:21
  Great. And all the stories when you're
• 35:23
  like, this great thing happened and you try and tell someone,
• 35:26
  they're always like, oh, that sounds great.
• 35:28
  That's great because. You had because it's this one
• 35:31
  time thing. You have to be.
• 35:32
  That's why I don't think it never transcends to TV.
• 35:37
  They've always tried to do improv on TV, but you're missing
• 35:41
  that element of you are on a a high wire.
• 35:45
  Yeah. And then?
• 35:46
  Did you see what's his name? Is it Ben Schwartz?
• 35:48
  Is that his name in the improviser?
• 35:51
  Like he's done some stuff. He's great.
• 35:53
  Like a a film stage version where it feels like you can see,
• 35:59
  like you can definitely see it's being improvised and I think
• 36:02
  that's some of the best on screen improv I've seen.
• 36:05
  Yeah, you've got to know. You've got to know that it's
• 36:09
  being made-up. Yes, it's that it's key.
• 36:12
  And somehow that's really hard to convey in a trustworthy way,
• 36:17
  especially. Now with I, you know, did.
• 36:19
  You ever do or see? Thank God you're here.
• 36:23
  Thank God you're here, man. That was fun.
• 36:26
  It only ran on TV here, maybe one or two series, but here's
• 36:29
  what they do, right? You show up and you don't know
• 36:33
  what's going to happen. Oh yes, yes, and then they put.
• 36:35
  A costume on you, They open a door and the first line of the
• 36:39
  other performers is, thank God, you're here.
• 36:42
  And then you're just in a scene and they have a skeleton script
• 36:45
  so they know where it's going and you're just playing along.
• 36:49
  And again, I'm like, how is this?
• 36:52
  How is this my job? This is the most fun.
• 36:54
  It's great. Oh.
• 36:55
  Man love it so. You, you were doing stand up in
• 37:00
  school. At uni, yeah, lots.
• 37:04
  And then you got ATV gig, so you were simultaneously on TV doing
• 37:09
  stand up. So we were so lucky, Dan Tetzel,
• 37:12
  Danny Robbins and me. Our sketch show was called Club
• 37:15
  Seals and we there was a bunch of us and then there was just
• 37:19
  the three of us and we were doing fun and interesting stuff.
• 37:22
  But the BBC at that time were commissioning 10 minute comedy
• 37:27
  shows. Do it again.
• 37:31
  Do it again. Come on, you.
• 37:34
  Know Rob Brydon did Marion and Jeff right and Rob was, you
• 37:38
  know, like he was already very brilliant and stuff, but he had
• 37:41
  the space. No, he wasn't, but he did like
• 37:45
  these 10 minute things. This guy sitting in his car, I.
• 37:49
  Remember that and. And it and it's beautiful and
• 37:51
  like, I really love Rob as a comic performer.
• 37:54
  I don't know if you saw human remains.
• 37:56
  Human remains. That's one of the best things
• 37:58
  I've ever seen. Yeah.
• 37:59
  It's beautiful. Yeah.
• 38:01
  And so he did that, and we did a show called We Are History,
• 38:04
  which is spoof history documentaries.
• 38:06
  And I was a historian called Doctor David Oxley.
• 38:10
  And we would do a mixture of like history presenting, but
• 38:14
  also like before, there was lots of like fake camera trickery
• 38:20
  stuff. But we would show up somewhere
• 38:23
  and say a group of local enthusiasts believe this is the
• 38:27
  site of Bodosia's last stand against the Romans.
• 38:29
  And we would love to re enact that right in this Asda in
• 38:33
  Bedminster. And this, this was the pilot
• 38:36
  episode. And they genuinely went well.
• 38:38
  You have to check with Libby on Delhi, but I'm sure that's fine.
• 38:42
  And we just like, and we did it in the supermarket.
• 38:45
  It was amazing. We painted, there were shoppers
• 38:47
  in there and we painted their faces.
• 38:48
  Cutting the meat it. Was incredible.
• 38:51
  So yes, we did this series called We Are History, and then
• 38:54
  we did a couple of those. So that was the show.
• 38:56
  It was only 10 minutes, but I say only you need.
• 39:00
  It was all we need. And it was also all we could do.
• 39:03
  It was all we could manage. Yeah.
• 39:05
  And then the audience got this. Great thing and they were really
• 39:09
  great. You need.
• 39:10
  To do that again, yeah. It was so good.
• 39:12
  What's delightful is I now know a few like proper historians, TV
• 39:18
  historians, and there's one in particular who said to me, like
• 39:23
  she occasionally when she's presenting, she'll stop and go,
• 39:27
  stop, stop, stop. We can't.
• 39:28
  This is 2. We are history.
• 39:30
  We're being too. We are history.
• 39:32
  And that's that's what I mean about crediting Dan and Danny
• 39:35
  like they were the ones they could do that.
• 39:38
  You influenced historians. They could, they could see that
• 39:41
  stuff and they could write it and and, you know, away it is.
• 39:45
  Yeah, it was great man. Good times.
• 39:47
  So you did, you did those shorts and then you you just started
• 39:54
  getting more TV stuff. Yeah.
• 39:56
  Loads. I mean, I was also getting some
• 40:00
  work on TV as a stand up. Yeah, you know, like the stand
• 40:03
  up show. And I won a yeah, I won a
• 40:06
  competition in Edinburgh which they filmed and and put out and
• 40:09
  stuff like that. So yeah, I was on in a couple of
• 40:12
  capacities both as an actor and as a stand up, which, you know,
• 40:17
  there was no plan because I mean, who could plan?
• 40:19
  But. That's the way to do it.
• 40:21
  Yeah, exactly you. Just got to sort like I didn't.
• 40:24
  Everyone goes, oh, how did you fashion your English?
• 40:28
  Kind of, yeah. It's like I was just over here.
• 40:31
  I heard Edinburgh was fun, so I came one time.
• 40:33
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 40:35
  And then I met and then. Yeah.
• 40:37
  And that's how it was. I mean, my mum, I had a period
• 40:40
  where where I lost sight of the balance between work and living.
• 40:45
  I was working too often. And she found this thing in a
• 40:49
  junk shop somewhere. And it just says, well, yes.
• 40:52
  And she bought it for me. She's a piece of art, just says,
• 40:54
  oh, well, yes. And she went, I saw this and I
• 40:56
  assume this is you on the phone to everyone.
• 40:59
  And it was, I still have it up on the wall.
• 41:02
  It's true. Because the answer always was
• 41:05
  like, do you want to do this thing?
• 41:06
  And I go, well, yes. And you know, no regrets, but I
• 41:12
  did just say yes to everyone. It's the.
• 41:14
  Improviser in you right? Yes.
• 41:16
  And yes, and well, yes, OK, absolutely.
• 41:20
  So when you're touring now, is there any particular thing that
• 41:26
  you like to do ritual like, because you used to tour quite a
• 41:30
  bit, yeah. Yeah, yeah, tonnes is.
• 41:32
  How has that changed? Well, I've changed it.
• 41:34
  I mean, I I can tell you a a serious answer.
• 41:38
  You can tell it's serious because I'm holding onto myself.
• 41:40
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. For years and years I have for
• 41:42
  some reason on the road, said no to everybody who wanted to meet
• 41:46
  up, Friends who'd come to the show.
• 41:48
  I'd be on the road and they'd go, oh, we come to the show you
• 41:51
  want. To drink afterwards, do you?
• 41:53
  Want to have a bite or dah dah, dah, and I'd always go oh, oh,
• 41:57
  I'd love to. I'm actually going straight off
• 42:00
  or I'd really love to, but I'll be I won't get there till right
• 42:03
  before the show and I don't know what I was doing other than I
• 42:07
  think I thought I had something to protect.
• 42:09
  Yes. And now not only do I say yes, I
• 42:14
  track people down and I'm like, I'm going to be within 50 miles
• 42:17
  of where you live. I'm coming to see you.
• 42:20
  And weirdly, for the first time in 25 years of touring, I feel
• 42:25
  fine. I feel really good.
• 42:26
  I'm not lonely. I'm not sad.
• 42:28
  My mind is not. I'm not at the, I'm in the like
• 42:32
  the last month and 1/2 of a tour that's lasted for a year.
• 42:36
  And I feel as good as I did when it started because I'm not
• 42:40
  alone. And when I am alone few days in
• 42:42
  a row, I make sure I go for long walks.
• 42:45
  I make sure you know, I go. I don't sit in a hotel room.
• 42:50
  I go out and I and I start conversations with people and
• 42:53
  see what happens. Because if you do repetitive
• 42:56
  things, you kind of burn yourself out.
• 42:58
  Yeah, man. Oh, another hotel.
• 43:00
  Yeah. Another rider with an angular
• 43:03
  cheese. Yes.
• 43:04
  Exactly. And I've always been like, I
• 43:06
  think what I thought was that the, the, the touring version of
• 43:10
  me was quite an ugly version, like a bit selfish, a bit full
• 43:16
  of like the adrenaline of the show and that I couldn't or
• 43:20
  shouldn't be around other people, You know, like stand up
• 43:24
  is is not uniquely selfish, but it's a very selfish thing to do.
• 43:31
  And there, and there is a mindset to it for sure.
• 43:33
  But also that's for the stage. And it's only taken me 25 years
• 43:37
  to figure this out, No? No, it is a thing.
• 43:39
  It is not many, not everybody can do it.
• 43:43
  I. Also do gratitude list before I
• 43:45
  go on stage. So I do gratitude list.
• 43:48
  I, I, I pray. I guess there's a way, a thing
• 43:51
  you could say like I don't really believe in a God who can
• 43:56
  hear me when I pray, but I do pray before I go on stage.
• 44:01
  And the form the prayer takes is a kind of gratitude list.
• 44:04
  And the gratitude list is I kind of look upwards.
• 44:07
  So I guess I'm just borrowing from whatever conceptions have
• 44:11
  gone out given. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:15
  Oh, Matt, who are on telly. And the gratitude list is this
• 44:21
  thing of just like these people have come out, some have paid
• 44:26
  for a babysitter, you know, and they've come out just to see me.
• 44:31
  And I just try and like not in a, not to freak me out, fuel the
• 44:35
  ego, but just to go like, thank you so much for this.
• 44:39
  This is amazing. And I, I then go on stage with
• 44:46
  a, with a big, very joyful heart, really joyful.
• 44:49
  And and that's very helpful with what I do because a lot of what
• 44:51
  I do on stage, a lot of what I want to talk about, it's pretty
• 44:54
  serious. Yeah.
• 44:55
  You know that big joyful hearts. Just helpful, right?
• 44:59
  Yeah. Same with.
• 44:59
  Yeah. It's kind of the same with
• 45:01
  improv, I mean, or even more so. You get to park everything,
• 45:06
  leave it behind and play. Yes.
• 45:08
  I mean, how many adults get to just play?
• 45:11
  Yeah. But it's also about no matter
• 45:13
  what's what you're doing, you know, with kids or whatever,
• 45:17
  you've just got to blank your mind.
• 45:20
  Yeah. And just have fun.
• 45:21
  Yes, exactly. Exactly.
• 45:24
  It's difficult, but I mean, you've come to the you've come
• 45:27
  to that place, yeah. But it's really, it's such a
• 45:31
  treat, isn't it? I mean, I just, OK, do you know
• 45:34
  what? When it's not a treat, it bumps
• 45:37
  the trick so hard against against my expectations of it
• 45:41
  that I feel really thrown. If I'm in an improv show or even
• 45:45
  like occasionally a tour show, that's not that.
• 45:49
  I haven't kind of like hooked in and we're away, you know, then I
• 45:52
  feel so thrown. And so it's really strange, but.
• 45:55
  That comes with experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:00
  Now, so you have lots of different interests now and
• 46:07
  when? Because you have some kind of a
• 46:09
  relationship with cheese. I really do.
• 46:12
  How did that all get started? Well, it's you.
• 46:15
  Know blurred. I I wish I knew blood.
• 46:18
  Well, I yeah, it was Alex James. Yeah.
• 46:21
  I mean, he makes good cheese, you know, he does.
• 46:22
  It started off as like, yeah, sure, fine.
• 46:25
  But they have really good cheese.
• 46:26
  It's really good. So, well, what happened?
• 46:30
  It all relates back to I half my body weight in under a year,
• 46:34
  right. 24 stone to 11 stone. That happened mostly when I
• 46:38
  stopped eating sugar, so I haven't eaten sugar for 30
• 46:41
  something years. Are you shitting me?
• 46:43
  I like I have some things that have some sugar in, like I eat
• 46:47
  ketchup has a lot of sugar. But you.
• 46:50
  Really. You know, like I don't.
• 46:51
  I no longer drink ketchup. Or soft drinks.
• 46:55
  I don't drink any like and I don't do like Diet Coke or
• 46:59
  anything like that either. I just find it easier.
• 47:01
  To live around. No, no.
• 47:03
  So misunderstood. That was a great advert, wasn't
• 47:07
  it? You remember that, Doctor
• 47:08
  Pepper? So I misunderstood.
• 47:10
  What a lovely claim for it. Anyway, so I stopped eating
• 47:13
  sugar. So then I didn't have any
• 47:15
  desserts. I never would go out and I'd
• 47:18
  never, ever, ever have a dessert.
• 47:19
  And I would, therefore, if I wanted to join in, I'd just have
• 47:23
  cheese. And I was pretty ambivalent.
• 47:24
  About cheese Cheese was your dessert.
• 47:26
  Cheese was. My dessert.
• 47:27
  And then you start to notice that most restaurants, even
• 47:31
  really good ones, serve terrible cheese.
• 47:35
  Cheese straight from the fridge, Cheese that they cut in advance
• 47:38
  so it's dried out and curled up, Cheese.
• 47:41
  They have no knowledge of its provenance or where it's from.
• 47:45
  Mostly chefs don't care about cheese because cheese is a thing
• 47:48
  they buy and serve. But.
• 47:49
  Just keep it there's. Nothing there like cuts.
• 47:52
  Whatever man. And then you go and you have
• 47:55
  cheese somewhere special where the cheese board is full of
• 47:59
  stories and a proper someone goes, well, this is this.
• 48:05
  And this we have at the moment because it's in season.
• 48:07
  This is only made here. And this is our local cheese.
• 48:11
  Exactly. And you suddenly go, oh, this
• 48:13
  story's here. And anything with a story is
• 48:16
  better. Anything with a story is better,
• 48:19
  right? And and so I started to like,
• 48:22
  know what those stories are. And then you're suddenly in a
• 48:25
  world of, oh, there's something to learn here.
• 48:28
  And then I said appreciate it. And then I went and got
• 48:30
  qualified and now I'm a judge at the World Cheese Awards.
• 48:33
  How? How do you get qualified?
• 48:36
  Oh. Rich, it's the best job ever.
• 48:38
  Really. Yeah.
• 48:39
  It's it's you get to eat cheese. Yeah, sometimes they get paid to
• 48:43
  eat cheese. I get cheese for free all the
• 48:46
  time because of what I now do because they.
• 48:48
  Say wine enthusiasts are secret Alcoholics.
• 48:52
  Yeah, well, I'm so. What does that make you?
• 48:54
  Yeah. For sure a Kurd nerd.
• 48:58
  So I went off, I went, there's the Academy of Cheese and I went
• 49:01
  and did my training with them. So I've I've all I have is
• 49:05
  enough for me to judge at the World Cheese Awards.
• 49:08
  I'm only a level 1. You can go up to level 4 now.
• 49:10
  Level 5. The training involved.
• 49:12
  So it's there. And it's there.
• 49:14
  Music. Music montage in the training,
• 49:17
  Yeah. There is and it's big, it's
• 49:18
  powerful. Can he do it?
• 49:24
  Can he finish this huge piece of Brie?
• 49:27
  I did do a cheese and jazz pairing event that was great.
• 49:31
  It was really fun. So the, the training is
• 49:34
  basically familiarising yourself with makes of cheese types.
• 49:40
  And therefore then the expectation about, well, this
• 49:43
  type of cheese should look and smell and taste like this.
• 49:47
  And so you, you get to know the difference between good and bad,
• 49:50
  understanding the basics of like, why is cheese cheese?
• 49:56
  Why isn't, why isn't it just milk?
• 49:58
  Or why is this milk that's gone off nice and this milk has gone
• 50:03
  off not nice? So would they ever go Which one
• 50:05
  of these is cheese and not cheese?
• 50:07
  Well, they would, they wouldn't go what's not cheese, but they'd
• 50:10
  go there's a brick like what is. Yeah, exactly.
• 50:13
  That's definitely, that's definitely made of soil.
• 50:18
  But they would, you know, they'd expect you to know the
• 50:21
  difference between the types of mould that make a different
• 50:25
  cheese. So Penicillium Rock 40 is, is
• 50:28
  the blue, but that's the basis of all blue cheese.
• 50:33
  And then Penicillium Camembert, which is Camembert, that's the
• 50:37
  basis of the exterior mould ripened cheeses.
• 50:41
  And then there's loads of like different funky bacteria that
• 50:45
  make different cheeses what they are.
• 50:47
  But a lot of it's like about how the proteins knit together and
• 50:51
  why one cheese will have a really delightful texture and
• 50:55
  something else like that's fine. I think this is how COVID got
• 50:59
  started. That's right, that's right.
• 51:00
  Just people fucking around. What is the biggest thing error
• 51:06
  that the layman makes about cheese?
• 51:10
  There's something that you, when you started the Academy, you go,
• 51:14
  Oh my God, my whole world is opening up.
• 51:18
  I'd say, I'd say that like, the biggest mistake January that
• 51:23
  people make is the fridge, right?
• 51:26
  Don't eat cheese straight from the fridge.
• 51:28
  And the reason is let it breathe.
• 51:31
  Yeah, let it breathe. But also crucially, let the oils
• 51:34
  in the cheese reach room temperature.
• 51:37
  Otherwise, you put a cold piece of cheese in your mouth, right?
• 51:42
  The cheese is melting on your tongue.
• 51:44
  And actually the oils and the fats will melt really slowly and
• 51:48
  you end up with the cheese kind of broken rather than in its
• 51:52
  form, like in its component part.
• 51:54
  So let cheese reach. Yeah, Yeah.
• 51:59
  The cheese maker is literally gone.
• 52:01
  There's a guy, right, So Jamie Montgomery, who makes
• 52:03
  Montgomery's cheddar. He's a great guy.
• 52:07
  Like, he's a great guy. And the reason I said he's a
• 52:09
  great guy is he really, really cares about his animals.
• 52:11
  Vegans would be like, well, don't treat them like that then.
• 52:14
  But I'm not there. He really?
• 52:16
  Cares about his. Animals.
• 52:17
  No, no, no. I tried.
• 52:19
  I can't do it. Yeah, but he has.
• 52:22
  So he has the starter cultures for Montgomery's cheddar.
• 52:26
  He has a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
• 52:29
  starter culture. Different starter for each of
• 52:31
  the days. The reason they have 5 different
• 52:33
  ones is because the starter cultures can get compromised and
• 52:36
  you don't want to lose the ability to make cheese.
• 52:39
  Now you could give me a Montgomery's cheddar and I might
• 52:43
  on my best day be able to go. I'm pretty sure that's
• 52:46
  Montgomery's. And a Wednesday it.
• 52:48
  Tastes like this. Jamie Montgomery can go.
• 52:52
  That's a Wednesday. Really.
• 52:54
  From the starter culture, that's literally just the culture.
• 52:57
  I was just beginning the process of those proteins knitting
• 53:01
  together. So there are people whose
• 53:03
  knowledge of cheese is so far beyond mine. 4th utter from the
• 53:07
  left. Yeah, yeah.
• 53:10
  Hang on a minute. That's Daisy.
• 53:12
  That's Daisy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Daisy the
• 53:15
  pantomime cow. But I mean just like like improv
• 53:19
  I suppose from doing. You like to throw yourself into
• 53:23
  things, so. Much, so much.
• 53:25
  But I think it's that's really a function of that gig my best
• 53:29
  friend set up for me, right, of just walking in that first time
• 53:32
  and going well, this is unbelievably great.
• 53:35
  Like my life is charmed. It is charmed.
• 53:38
  I have the most amazing wife, 3 amazing kids and a job that I
• 53:42
  love. And then on top of that I'm a
• 53:44
  judge at the World Cheese Awards.
• 53:46
  I have a show on Jazz FM because I love jazz.
• 53:49
  And I was just tweeting about it one night and someone from Jazz
• 53:52
  FM went, I assume it was tweeting about something else,
• 53:55
  but I was wearing a Miles Davis top and he went oh, nice
• 53:58
  sweatshirt. And I went thanks in terms that
• 54:00
  he worked at Jazz FM and now I have a series.
• 54:03
  No, yes, all the stuff that I love.
• 54:06
  Skidley do what? That's it, man.
• 54:08
  Yeah, yeah. But.
• 54:09
  You're doing what you love. That's doing what?
• 54:12
  And that's the thing that almost takes a while for adults, yes,
• 54:17
  To get yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I've known people that
• 54:21
  they go, I really love doing this.
• 54:24
  But, you know, I held off on that because it it, I'm not
• 54:29
  working hard enough. Yeah.
• 54:31
  Yeah. You know what I mean?
• 54:32
  Yeah. Absolutely and.
• 54:33
  Then they go, and then I started to pick up the violin again and.
• 54:37
  And now look, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do those, I mean, I absolutely
• 54:40
  think do those things. And also, you know, I absolutely
• 54:44
  love what I do for a job. And the bulk of it is getting
• 54:51
  myself to and from the next gig and booking somewhere to stay
• 54:57
  and getting the invoice. You do all that?
• 54:59
  I do it all. Yeah.
• 55:00
  And I don't book the gigs. My agents book the gigs for me,
• 55:04
  but I do everything else. And so, you know, like, it's
• 55:08
  not. I just don't want to like, that
• 55:11
  thing of like, you should follow your dreams is so dangerous.
• 55:15
  And it makes people who are not feel shitty about themselves.
• 55:18
  And I don't think anybody ever should.
• 55:20
  But the dream for me is like, I do a lot in order for these
• 55:24
  moments to happen. And the moment is being on stage
• 55:27
  or the moment is the world. Jesus, you're.
• 55:29
  Not kidding yourself. No, there is work involved.
• 55:32
  There's work, yeah. And like anything else, the work
• 55:35
  is a bit of graft, right? Sometimes.
• 55:37
  Oh, yeah. Sometimes it's graft.
• 55:39
  Like this is way more fun than getting here, I'm glad to say
• 55:44
  not every podcast that's true. Sometimes the journey, the.
• 55:46
  Journey is the destination that's.
• 55:49
  Right man, right. Unless it's the Northern Line.
• 55:51
  Oh yeah, yeah. And that's how you that's.
• 55:55
  How I got here? Yeah.
• 55:57
  No, no, no. Listen, don't be sorry.
• 55:58
  It's fine. It's fine.
• 56:00
  You know what I was I was finishing a book is a really
• 56:03
  good book. I just finished called Buckeye.
• 56:06
  And are you a reader? Do you read?
• 56:07
  Yes. Yeah, I don't read much.
• 56:09
  I used to read a little and. Now I read I.
• 56:12
  Read much less since we had our phones.
• 56:15
  So if I read a book and I like it and I finish it, I'm so proud
• 56:20
  of myself. And I was on the tube the other
• 56:22
  day finishing this really great book called Buckeye.
• 56:24
  I wish I could remember the writers name and someone I know
• 56:28
  saw me. They saw me reading on the tube
• 56:30
  and I was so pleased. I was like, literally everyone
• 56:33
  else is on their phone. That's like doing this and I I
• 56:36
  was like they. Took a picture the last.
• 56:37
  Chapter or two of my book and I was like, I'm so pleased that
• 56:40
  someone I know witnessed me reading a book because out of
• 56:45
  1000 journeys, 999 of them are on my phone.
• 56:50
  And he was there for the one. The book was upside down and and
• 56:54
  it had something scandalous tucked in the pages.
• 56:57
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wish I read more.
• 56:59
  Well done. Well, you, you've got time on on
• 57:03
  tour. On the tour, Yeah.
• 57:04
  Yeah. Yeah, but that's the time.
• 57:06
  That's the time when I should read loads.
• 57:08
  You'd think I'd read loads then. That's the time when I read the
• 57:10
  least. I fall into the indulgence this,
• 57:13
  the dopamine. You're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 57:16
  You're far from home. I'm lonely.
• 57:18
  These fucking things, man. They made everything.
• 57:21
  Not your notes. I mean, the phone, you know,
• 57:23
  like, oh, the phone. The phones are killing us.
• 57:28
  How did we hand that much power to these tech Bros?
• 57:32
  Well, there's going to be a backlash.
• 57:34
  It's already I. Hope so man.
• 57:35
  You know what we should have done with them?
• 57:37
  We should have kept bullying them.
• 57:39
  You know, when nerds, when we bullied nerds, and I don't
• 57:42
  really like bullying, but I now look at the likes of Zuckerberg
• 57:46
  and go, no, we should not have taken our boot off your neck.
• 57:50
  Yes, you should have been bullied.
• 57:51
  Bullying. Keep you heard it here first,
• 57:55
  guys. We should have bullied the tech
• 57:57
  nerds Elon Musk has no business being.
• 57:59
  Used this in your ACT, yeah. Just we should have bullied them
• 58:02
  more. So we.
• 58:04
  Should have crushed their confidence.
• 58:06
  They should not be the confident towers of.
• 58:09
  Rush Month. Evil.
• 58:10
  Yeah. Our first trillionaire.
• 58:13
  Yeah, And like, literally the worst.
• 58:17
  The worst, Just the worst. He's the worst.
• 58:20
  I'm really into this guy. Scott Galloway.
• 58:22
  He's really, Yeah. Yeah.
• 58:23
  I like Scott Galloway a lot and I actually like how close he
• 58:27
  sits to. I don't know if that's OK.
• 58:31
  He's. Antiphone, yeah.
• 58:33
  He's really antiphone. Jonathan Haid's book The Anxious
• 58:36
  Generation is great, but Scott Galloway talks a lot about, he's
• 58:41
  written this book called Notes on Being a Man, which I read
• 58:44
  prepping for this tour show, you know, and he talks a lot about,
• 58:48
  like, what does protection look like?
• 58:50
  One of the instincts of a man, right?
• 58:52
  Not in a sexist way, but it's like, yeah, it's a kind of,
• 58:56
  that's right, Yeah. Or if I met him and he talks a
• 59:00
  lot about that and how Elon Musk fails at the most basic function
• 59:04
  of being a man, that with all of that money and all of that
• 59:07
  power, his instinct is never to lift anybody up.
• 59:12
  It's always to use that to squash people down and.
• 59:15
  That's the sign of a hurt young boy.
• 59:18
  Maybe he was bullied too much. Lashing out.
• 59:20
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, his father, Elon
• 59:23
  Musk's father, is a seriously bad guy.
• 59:26
  South African, Yeah. Sure, I mean, they made all
• 59:28
  their money in apartheid South Africa, you know.
• 59:30
  What are the chances of it being a good guy, huh?
• 59:33
  Pretty slim. Well, on that note, we've got
• 59:37
  this segment, fill in the blank. Great that I want to go with,
• 59:44
  right? There's five questions.
• 59:45
  Don't feel like they have to be funny.
• 59:48
  The blanks. Let's be honest.
• 59:49
  OK #1 the show I watched this week that I'm too embarrassed to
• 59:55
  tell anyone is blank. Maybe you're not embarrassed by
• 1:00:05
  it. No, I I must be.
• 1:00:07
  Oh, Robot Wars. OK, I.
• 1:00:09
  Went back and watched a bunch of robot wars but actually I'm not
• 1:00:12
  embarrassed by it at all. Good, really good Robot wars.
• 1:00:17
  Since I last watched it has had a massive upgrade.
• 1:00:20
  The robot the. Robots are better They're.
• 1:00:22
  No longer like little skidly doos around the floor, right?
• 1:00:26
  Like some of them are bigger than a person.
• 1:00:29
  They're that bigger. Than a person and they one of
• 1:00:32
  them was just like wheels with a rotating thing and any other
• 1:00:36
  robot that came near it. The rotating thing just smacked
• 1:00:40
  it out of the arena. I loved it.
• 1:00:43
  Oh my God. So watch it now, yeah?
• 1:00:45
  Watch it now, it's pretty great, yeah.
• 1:00:47
  Because a lot of them earlier were like made out of cereal
• 1:00:51
  boxes and yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:53
  Good answer. Answer 2.
• 1:00:54
  I don't normally get excited, but blank almost always gets me
• 1:00:59
  excited. Well, short track speed skating.
• 1:01:04
  Yeah, yeah, for. Sure, I don't normally get
• 1:01:09
  excited, but what makes me really, really excited?
• 1:01:13
  A branch of Uniqlo, you know, I always feel a little surgeon
• 1:01:18
  because shopping at my age is and my body shape is like, it's
• 1:01:25
  not super fun. It's always a no.
• 1:01:28
  It's always a bit like, oh, I hope this goes OK.
• 1:01:32
  If I see a branch of Uniqlo, I just always feel quite hopeful.
• 1:01:36
  I'm like, I'm like, I think I'm going to be OK.
• 1:01:39
  Uniqlo, I think I'm going to be all.
• 1:01:41
  Right. They have they have quite simple
• 1:01:44
  block things, you know, OK, I feel like I can go into unit
• 1:01:49
  low, make a purchase and not worry that when I get home my
• 1:01:52
  wife will go. What were you?
• 1:01:55
  Thinking no, it's a safe thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:01:58
  We'll try to get them as a sponsor.
• 1:02:00
  Yeah yeah. 3 blank is where I go most when I'm not at home.
• 1:02:07
  On my phone with regret. Right.
• 1:02:10
  Yeah, right. Yeah.
• 1:02:12
  Enough said. Yeah, yeah, if I had to.
• 1:02:16
  Oh, this is the Winter Olympics question If it's not, but if
• 1:02:19
  it's not skeleton, what would be the next event?
• 1:02:22
  You would. Oh.
• 1:02:23
  Well, border cross, like border cross.
• 1:02:28
  I would love to do so. The snowboarding one with bank
• 1:02:32
  turns, jumps and all of that, yeah, like super exciting, very
• 1:02:39
  dangerous. Are you a snowboarder?
• 1:02:41
  Yeah, and a skier obsessed with it.
• 1:02:45
  Like I set up a festival in the Alps, a Comedy Festival in the
• 1:02:50
  Alps, so I could go snowboarding for free every year.
• 1:02:54
  The fact that the festival then cost me.
• 1:02:56
  All the money I have. With Andrew Maxwell, the
• 1:02:58
  Altitude Festival. I know, Andrew.
• 1:03:00
  Rich it is like, it's insanely fun.
• 1:03:05
  A bunch of comics go out and spend the day skiing and
• 1:03:09
  snowboarding and sledging and pissing around on the mountain.
• 1:03:14
  And then we come down and we do an afternoon Apreski show, which
• 1:03:18
  is maybe an improv show or whatever it is.
• 1:03:21
  It's something fun. Then a big gala stand up show
• 1:03:25
  and then a late night show every night for five nights to the
• 1:03:28
  same audience. So, and they come, a lot of
• 1:03:31
  those people come to three shows a day, five nights in a row.
• 1:03:36
  Well, just to see if you've broken any limbs or.
• 1:03:38
  Just to say and limbs have been broken.
• 1:03:41
  So it's that like the Altitude Festival is, it is the funnest
• 1:03:46
  thing ever. It's nuts.
• 1:03:47
  And I've seen, I've seen so much great comedy there.
• 1:03:50
  Like Tim Vine was out last year and Tim's always been great.
• 1:03:54
  Everyone knows. Of course he's amazing, but.
• 1:03:56
  My son was there. He was 22 at the time, like my,
• 1:04:01
  my grown up boy. And there were kids younger than
• 1:04:03
  him in their teens. Then there's a bunch of comics
• 1:04:06
  in their like, 20s. You know the cool comics?
• 1:04:09
  Yeah, they're cool. Then there's a bunch of mostly
• 1:04:12
  men my age. And then there's people in the
• 1:04:13
  audience who are older than that.
• 1:04:15
  Every single 1 from 70 something down to people in their early
• 1:04:18
  teens couldn't breathe for laughing at Tim Vine.
• 1:04:22
  Oh, because the man is just pure joy.
• 1:04:25
  And then the next night. One after the other.
• 1:04:27
  Oh. My God.
• 1:04:28
  And then just when you reaching the point where you're like,
• 1:04:32
  then he does a weird song. The weirdest songs people
• 1:04:35
  forget, I think, what a surrealist is.
• 1:04:37
  And then we had Jason Byrne as well, and I used to work with
• 1:04:40
  Jason a lot. Oh.
• 1:04:40
  Yeah, he's amazing. And I was like, yeah, yeah, I
• 1:04:42
  know what Jason does. Oh my God, he's brilliant.
• 1:04:45
  We got Al Murray this year, and I saw Al, one of the early
• 1:04:49
  iterations of the festival. He did the pub landlord in
• 1:04:54
  French. No.
• 1:04:56
  So the pub landlord, he was going.
• 1:04:57
  To do off, yeah. Amazing.
• 1:04:58
  He was going to do like Pierre, the cafe owner, the French
• 1:05:01
  version of the pub landlord. And then he said actually, I
• 1:05:04
  think the pub landlord having to deliver in French because we're
• 1:05:08
  in France. It was in France and it's now in
• 1:05:10
  Austria. I think that's more fun and like
• 1:05:13
  seeing him work, man. What is he?
• 1:05:15
  Eddie Izzard? Yeah.
• 1:05:17
  Amazing. And he skis.
• 1:05:20
  Yeah, yeah. Oh wow, yeah, that's so funny.
• 1:05:23
  Last, out of all the stand ups, Blank would do the best job of
• 1:05:29
  being Prime Minister. Absolutely no stand up should
• 1:05:36
  ever be a Prime Minister. I don't know.
• 1:05:38
  Zelensky's done a good job of it, right?
• 1:05:40
  Yes. You know he's, you know he's the
• 1:05:43
  voice of Paddington. No, he's the voice of.
• 1:05:46
  Paddington in Ukraine when they when they, when they took
• 1:05:49
  Paddington to Ukraine before he was PM, he he voiced it, but.
• 1:05:54
  They say he's a comedian, but was he a stand up I.
• 1:05:57
  Believe he was a stand up but mostly a comic actor who would
• 1:06:01
  be a good I don't know, I mean Matt Forde maybe?
• 1:06:09
  OK. Would be good, yeah, he's.
• 1:06:11
  Immersed in the political. He's very immersed in it.
• 1:06:14
  And look, I mean, I like him because because I've become a
• 1:06:19
  centrist as I've got older and people don't understand.
• 1:06:24
  They think that centrism is cowardly and it's not.
• 1:06:28
  What it is, is warm. It's warm.
• 1:06:30
  It's so. Warm in here.
• 1:06:32
  It's so warm. My view politically now is let's
• 1:06:37
  just see if this all blows over. OK, OK, I.
• 1:06:40
  Used to be so I used to be so full of piston vinegar and like
• 1:06:44
  radical ideas and now I'm like that's fine.
• 1:06:49
  All change takes time and all change that doesn't take time
• 1:06:53
  makes a mess of error you. Become aware of time.
• 1:06:56
  Yeah, I still have, I still have the same, I still have exactly
• 1:07:01
  the same conviction with regard to we should seek as a society
• 1:07:06
  to improve the lives of those who suffer.
• 1:07:08
  That is what we should do. But the means by which I think
• 1:07:11
  that's brought about my view of that has changed dramatically to
• 1:07:17
  with regret, we will have to do that bit by bit.
• 1:07:20
  I think you've answered your question.
• 1:07:23
  You should be Prime Minister. The reason I shouldn't?
• 1:07:26
  Is I went to boarding school and there's enough broken, broken
• 1:07:30
  men in Westminster. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just broken
• 1:07:34
  people who broke the link between them and and grown-ups
• 1:07:37
  when they were children and had to had to stiff up a lip it out.
• 1:07:43
  None of us should ever be in politics.
• 1:07:45
  I consider it. Given that I'm privately
• 1:07:47
  educated and went to university and didn't finish my degree, I
• 1:07:50
  consider it one of the greatest gifts I've ever given.
• 1:07:55
  Is not being an MP right? I think it's an act of great
• 1:08:00
  sacrifice on my part. Thank you, Sir, that I've.
• 1:08:03
  Not inflicted yet another twat like me on this country.
• 1:08:09
  Yeah, as on a final note, it's plug time.
• 1:08:13
  Oh yeah, Yeah, Vitruvian. Mango is is my tour based on Da
• 1:08:17
  Vinci's Vitruvian Man, the ideal man.
• 1:08:19
  You see two of them right here. And so that's him.
• 1:08:23
  That's him. The two sets of arms.
• 1:08:25
  Da Vinci was only going to do one set, but of course, the
• 1:08:28
  model was Italian. And they will gesticulate.
• 1:08:30
  Bang. That's the kind of joke you can
• 1:08:32
  expect. Yeah.
• 1:08:33
  So Vitruvian Mango is my tour show.
• 1:08:36
  Where? Can we find dates and tickets
• 1:08:39
  and? Online, online, online, I off I
• 1:08:42
  off the curb have all of my, all of my dates for the tour show
• 1:08:47
  and then like, you know, improvising and stuff.
• 1:08:50
  I'd love to improvise with you one day, man.
• 1:08:51
  It'll be really fun. Let's do it on that.
• 1:08:55
  I really like that. Yeah.
• 1:08:56
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 1:08:57
  Coming. Yeah, we'll.
• 1:08:59
  Sing songs. Thanks for having me, Rich.
• 1:09:01
  You're the man. You're the man.
• 1:09:03
  So nice. Wow, that was Marcus, and he
• 1:09:07
  likes cheese. I want to eat some cheese too.
• 1:09:11
  After listening to all that, how do I become a cheese expert?
• 1:09:16
  So listen, if you like stuff like this about cheese and other
• 1:09:22
  things about comedy and anything else we talk about on the pod
• 1:09:28
  press, like and subscribe, OK. And we do have a question I'd
• 1:09:33
  like to answer from one of our guests.
• 1:09:37
  It's from Reems Bump. There's some graffiti on the
• 1:09:41
  local bus stop. It reads talk box.
• 1:09:44
  The word is on the street. All the kids are down with it.
• 1:09:49
  It's a real underground movement.
• 1:09:51
  Whisper it to a friend, talk box, but keep a low profile.
• 1:10:00
  Oh, that's not really a question.
• 1:10:03
  It's just basically talk box is out there now, so get down with
• 1:10:08
  it kids, OK? Rich vultures talk box.