Latest / Rich Fulcher's TalkBox / Alex Farrow: Philosophy, Karl Marx & Why London Is the Best City | Talk Box Ep. 44

Transcript

Alex Farrow: Philosophy, Karl Marx & Why London Is the Best City | Talk Box Ep. 44 · Rich Fulcher's TalkBox

• 0:00
  Hi, this is Rich Fulcher with a Rich Fulcher stock box show.
• 0:03
  And I'm doing the intro. Yeah, nailed it.
• 0:10
  I did it in 50 takes. So listen, our guest today is
• 0:15
  Alex Farrow. He's a comic who hails from
• 0:18
  Oxford, and he has a philosophy degree.
• 0:23
  Oh, you say? But no, he's funny.
• 0:27
  Yeah, he does loads of stuff and we talk a lot about comedy and
• 0:32
  the state of comedy and all sorts of good stuff.
• 0:35
  So have a look. See right over here.
• 0:56
  Hello, Lester. Oh, hey, Hey, man.
• 1:04
  Alex, how are you? Really good, really good.
• 1:06
  Good to see you for the first time in God.
• 1:08
  So long. You look like you biked here.
• 1:11
  I did bike here. Yes I am sodden.
• 1:14
  Absolutely stopping my man. Really.
• 1:16
  Because it was raining. Only because it was raining, no.
• 1:19
  Other reason sweating are you? Sweating.
• 1:21
  I actually I like to think I'm a low sweater.
• 1:26
  Do you ever do a gig and it's very hot and you just get off
• 1:30
  the stage and it's just like. I think I have a low number of
• 1:34
  sweat glands. OK, I actually believe this to
• 1:36
  be true. It's not.
• 1:37
  Not funny, not amusing. I don't sweat a lot either and
• 1:40
  people have told me I've got a problem.
• 1:42
  Oh, really? Yeah, because you should sweat
• 1:45
  when you exercise, right? It's.
• 1:47
  Probably good for you. Yeah, I don't sweat enough.
• 1:50
  This all has a bit of a sort of a you've.
• 1:52
  Got to get looked after. Sort of pizza restaurant with a
• 1:56
  former Prince vibe to it, if that reference makes any sense.
• 1:59
  You live in Oxford. Do you live in Oxford?
• 2:03
  Now. But you gig quite a bit in
• 2:06
  London, yeah? Yeah, best city in the world.
• 2:08
  For gigging. In general, but I think it's
• 2:12
  also an incredible city for comedy.
• 2:14
  Great city. Yeah, amazing.
• 2:15
  It's just got so many different types of comedy venues as well.
• 2:20
  100%, yeah. It's got such a variety of
• 2:23
  different sizes of venue. I think so many of the a lot of
• 2:27
  the best comics in the world are here as well, particularly in
• 2:30
  the in the UK. Are you working for London?
• 2:33
  I think more people should. I have a really unfashionable
• 2:35
  opinion that that the London is good.
• 2:39
  I think if you live here or if you're British, you're supposed
• 2:42
  to be like, no London. Sucks.
• 2:43
  No, it's good. It's good.
• 2:44
  It's really. Good.
• 2:45
  Yeah, but do you want people to come to London or it's like my
• 2:49
  little. Oh, you, you're trying to catch
• 2:50
  me out as reform the UK or something?
• 2:52
  This guy, this guy likes the UK. So tell me, Alex, do you want
• 2:55
  people here? Yeah.
• 2:56
  And how should they get here? I'm all about trapping guests.
• 3:01
  Yeah, no, I think people should come here.
• 3:02
  There's a couple. Yeah, I think people can, yeah.
• 3:08
  Now I've heard. The best and brightest deserve
• 3:10
  to be here. Amongst the comedy community,
• 3:13
  this may not apply to you, but some people, they boast about
• 3:17
  how many gigs they do in one night.
• 3:20
  I think I've heard the record being like 6-6.
• 3:24
  Yeah. What's the most you've ever done
• 3:27
  in 10? Crazy.
• 3:28
  I didn't. In August in Edinburgh, you can
• 3:32
  crack up 6 quite easily. There was this incredible time,
• 3:37
  August 2021, the the Fringe Festival, that wasn't going to
• 3:42
  happen. And so I think I was one of sort
• 3:44
  of 20 comics who took a punt on it and went up.
• 3:48
  And so I did my hour 6 times a day.
• 3:50
  Wait, there were only 20 comics up there?
• 3:53
  That was. An exaggeration, but it was very
• 3:54
  few. Oh, that's great.
• 3:56
  And somebody should have done a documentary about that.
• 3:59
  I mean it, it was a golden time. For to be a comics.
• 4:04
  At the start, yeah. So the audiences were very
• 4:08
  distanced at the beginning and then they just care, relaxed.
• 4:12
  Well I mean some people never cared at any point, but I think
• 4:17
  generally this makes me feel like a million years old.
• 4:19
  QR codes felt very new. Then yeah, yeah.
• 4:22
  And I remember people yet to QR codes to get into my show and
• 4:25
  people would like photograph the QR code rather than scanning it
• 4:29
  or like all sorts of mad stuff. So if you had 100 C audience,
• 4:34
  would everybody be spaced out so it was only like 25?
• 4:38
  South, at the beginning you were running about quarter capacity
• 4:41
  with two metre radio radiuses and then radioing and then Oh
• 4:48
  dear. And then towards the end, I
• 4:51
  think in the final week, I think distancing rules were removed.
• 4:55
  And were there people there making sure that every gig?
• 4:59
  No, no. No, People were at different
• 5:02
  levels of responsibility with that, sort of.
• 5:05
  Thing. It's such a weird time, the fact
• 5:08
  that it's recent history, but it seems so long ago.
• 5:12
  It's, yeah, so close, yet so far away, right?
• 5:15
  And then the next festival was fine, there was no problem.
• 5:19
  Yeah, so all, all distancing removed by that point in. 2022
• 5:24
  yeah. Oh my gosh.
• 5:27
  So what is a typical? So you usually do a couple of
• 5:34
  gigs in London when you come down.
• 5:37
  I always try to, yeah. Best comedy club in London is
• 5:39
  the Angel Comedy Club. I I agree, Angel the Bill
• 5:44
  Murray. Big time.
• 5:45
  Yeah. Yeah, 100%.
• 5:46
  Go everyone. Yeah.
• 5:49
  And then you do one afterwards maybe?
• 5:53
  Like an extra extra gig. Extra gig.
• 5:55
  Well, what's nice about that? Bill Murray on it's Fridays and
• 5:57
  Saturdays, which is you can be gigging easily 3 or 4 times.
• 6:02
  Oh no, we still, we are we still talking about gigs?
• 6:05
  I think so, yes. Yes.
• 6:08
  That's great. So did you.
• 6:10
  So you live in Oxford, but you didn't grow up in Oxford?
• 6:14
  No, I grew up in a town called Newbury in a in a magical place
• 6:19
  called the Vale of White Horse. And that's North.
• 6:25
  It's South South. It's about 30 miles South of
• 6:27
  Oxford. In international terms,
• 6:30
  basically Oxford, but in British terms, where the village over is
• 6:35
  historically your enemy or whatever.
• 6:37
  Yeah, knew we might as well have been, I don't know, a different
• 6:39
  part of the globe. And were you like a kind of a
• 6:42
  comedy nerd when you were growing up?
• 6:45
  Did you? Not not really like class clown
• 6:49
  and all that sort of stuff, but the consumption of comedic
• 6:53
  output. I mean, I think it's a bit basic
• 6:56
  if that's not too loaded a word to use, but I'd.
• 7:00
  You can use it, yeah. Thanks, Rich.
• 7:03
  You know, I remember seeing all this kind of like rubbish.
• 7:05
  Do you remember? Like things like the Mighty
• 7:07
  Boosh and stuff like that, remember?
• 7:09
  That I knew that was going to happen.
• 7:12
  I did. I did watch that as a student
• 7:15
  familiar with your work, but the things that I was.
• 7:18
  Three years. Old when I.
• 7:20
  First saw it. Or it's like people who have
• 7:22
  their grandkids. I really.
• 7:24
  Just started showing them, yeah. I remember, I remember bumping
• 7:29
  into Noel Fielding when I was a student in Camden in Cocos, and
• 7:35
  we were both trying to get in after they clearly closed the
• 7:38
  doors. Yeah.
• 7:39
  And I was like trying to just be a bit cheeky.
• 7:41
  And he won't remember this obviously did.
• 7:43
  He get you in. Well, so he was with his sort of
• 7:46
  cool Camden friends and clearly convinced them to bring him in.
• 7:51
  I just happened to be there at the same time.
• 7:53
  So we were going through all these doors and then whoever the
• 7:56
  security manager was turn around and be like, oh, and this guy,
• 7:58
  is he with you? And I remember Noel Fielding,
• 8:01
  they looked at me just went no, so I couldn't get into the
• 8:07
  Coco's to see a nice lady. Never mind.
• 8:09
  Did you see him after that? I've been boycotting all Noel
• 8:14
  Fielding's work ever ever since, fortunately.
• 8:17
  You should tell him the next time you see him.
• 8:19
  Well, if he's out in Camden again, that's probably the only
• 8:21
  time I'm going to see him. He will be.
• 8:24
  He will be. That's it.
• 8:27
  So you grew up knowing going into London quite a bit, it was
• 8:32
  pretty much your backyard. Yeah, you'd hop on the train
• 8:35
  first, Great Western, Yeah, to the to the big city.
• 8:38
  And I'd walk around with no money and be like, oh.
• 8:44
  And so you didn't see stand up when you were there usually?
• 8:48
  I very, I didn't go to comedy clubs.
• 8:50
  I mean, I went to as a student when I was 18.
• 8:53
  I went to the Comedy Store and I saw a couple of mixed bills
• 8:58
  there. I thought that was cool.
• 8:59
  What, you didn't When you went to school, you didn't want to
• 9:02
  study any performance art or anything, did you?
• 9:07
  No, I thought you wouldn't be able to make any money that way,
• 9:09
  so I studied philosophy. OK.
• 9:12
  Yeah, I thought I, you know, I mean, the arts is.
• 9:16
  Of money and philosophy. Well, only for well, sort of.
• 9:21
  I mean, I know the joke is and I I shouldn't really make it.
• 9:24
  I mean, the joke is, is you know, where are the the roles
• 9:26
  for philosophers and stuff like that.
• 9:27
  But I think if you can, the transferable skills of that, I
• 9:33
  think I'll truly make you a person able to understand some
• 9:37
  of the hardest things around. Exactly.
• 9:39
  I really do. I think London's great.
• 9:42
  I think people should study the arts.
• 9:43
  I think philosophy is useful. I have these are my counter
• 9:47
  cultural opinions. No, no.
• 9:49
  I mean, I was under a lot of pressure.
• 9:50
  My dad was in the Air Force, so he said you need to get a kind
• 9:54
  of science or degree, computer science.
• 9:58
  So I always had this sort of pressure on myself to do that
• 10:03
  when in fact I would have loved to have it.
• 10:06
  Turns out I eventually went into government.
• 10:09
  Oh. Yeah.
• 10:09
  Yeah, so, but yeah, what? Were you taking the?
• 10:13
  Government, I mean, I studying government, right?
• 10:16
  You studied. But I went through this whole
• 10:18
  process of purging myself of, oh, I've got to do science, and
• 10:24
  I didn't like it, and you know that.
• 10:26
  Whole I mean, I also think it's an incredible like science is
• 10:29
  fantastic. I love combining science with my
• 10:31
  stand up well. I'm not, you know, dissing
• 10:34
  science, but I'm just saying that.
• 10:36
  You got vaccinated? Yeah, Yeah.
• 10:39
  That's right. You do comedy nights.
• 10:41
  Yeah, philosophy. Philosophy themed and science
• 10:44
  themed shows. Yeah, I love it.
• 10:45
  Interesting because there are some comics that do have a Robin
• 10:50
  intz. He's big on both the science and
• 10:53
  he would never describe it as he actually is a bit snobby about
• 10:55
  philosophy. But yeah, he's big into the
• 10:58
  science comedy. Dora yeah, big time.
• 11:00
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if he's not about
• 11:03
  philosophy or not, but Dora's fantastic, yeah.
• 11:06
  I would hope he isn't. It's not about it.
• 11:09
  Robin is. He's probably going to listen to
• 11:10
  this, but I've Robin does lots of it's kind of like academic
• 11:17
  comedy, like nights, and I'm sort of often there with him and
• 11:21
  he's an absolute, like delight. He's great.
• 11:23
  But on the philosophy themed ones, I can tell, I can tell
• 11:26
  that he's not really. It's not a huge.
• 11:29
  Guard. He's going on about Kierkegaard.
• 11:35
  God. Damn it, Yeah, You just got to
• 11:37
  make a big leap with Kierkegaard.
• 11:39
  That's what I say. Just whatever your reservations
• 11:41
  are. So how did it all get started?
• 11:43
  When you know you're a student, you're studying philosophy, and
• 11:46
  then you make that sort of bridge into the comedy.
• 11:50
  Well, I think all stand up when it's done really, really well
• 11:54
  has a philosophical aspect to it.
• 11:56
  Like even the most stupid stuff. So every fool is the Socratic
• 12:00
  fool, right? And so the best thing about the
• 12:04
  stand up philosophy compilation shows that I do at the Bill
• 12:07
  Murray are when you take a comic Angel or when you take a comic
• 12:13
  and you ask them questions about the set they've just done about
• 12:15
  love or power or the toilet or whatever it is, and be like, oh,
• 12:19
  yeah, that's Thomas Hobbes said that.
• 12:22
  And they're like, what? And you're like, yeah.
• 12:23
  And to really breakdown both stand ups and philosophers both
• 12:28
  seek out often the everyday the things that we've seen but not
• 12:32
  analysed properly. You can distil things into
• 12:35
  everyday things that one would study in philosophy, yeah.
• 12:40
  You can do, I mean, I, I know most of the time, you know, we,
• 12:44
  it's not always as lofty as that, but there's, there's
• 12:46
  always something in there. But when you first went up and
• 12:49
  started doing it, yeah, we were thinking, no, you were just
• 12:53
  doing. Well, I was doing it to get out
• 12:55
  of the classroom. I was a school teacher for seven
• 12:57
  years, so which is a deeply absurd thing to be doing and so.
• 13:04
  I mean, I thought. Why I think you there's not it's
• 13:08
  truly mad to have 30 children just like to sit down and
• 13:14
  nobody, nobody talks about this. But they don't necessarily want
• 13:17
  to be doing things, and you, as the teacher have to make them
• 13:20
  do. Things your, your tools.
• 13:22
  Your tools for making them do things are I'll let you have
• 13:27
  nothing. So if you're like, I will think
• 13:28
  about it like the. Rumours against you?
• 13:31
  In terms, in stand up terms, yeah, I think it's why so many
• 13:35
  teachers become stand ups. You, you develop those those
• 13:38
  room skills. Like if a if a student is
• 13:42
  disobedient, you know, God bless him in many ways they bloody
• 13:45
  should be. But what you can like threaten
• 13:48
  them with attention. You can call their parents, you
• 13:50
  can like give them these warnings.
• 13:52
  They're all ultimately empty. All the all the student needs to
• 13:55
  do is like is is refuse. And you, you have, you have no.
• 14:00
  There's no security. There's there's no, there's no
• 14:02
  ultimate, there's no ultimate power.
• 14:03
  There's you can't. Like it's not like the comedy
• 14:05
  club where you get securities like rent them out.
• 14:08
  So what do you do? Die or die.
• 14:11
  Well, you do the stand up tools, so it's exactly the same when
• 14:13
  you're controlling like a room, it's all smoke and mirrors.
• 14:17
  You have to, you have to get up in their heads, which is so like
• 14:21
  wrong. And you're and you're, you're
• 14:22
  banned from doing it. You're not like if you read a
• 14:25
  sort of a how to teach manual or on your PGCE course, it's like,
• 14:29
  no, you shouldn't in any way make a child feel.
• 14:33
  And of course when you say like this, make a child feel like bad
• 14:36
  about their behaviour, you know it sounds awful, but like, you
• 14:39
  know, you have to. But then you started doing jokes
• 14:42
  in class. Oh yeah, all the time, yeah, big
• 14:44
  time. Because humour is.
• 14:45
  You have to make them like you. You were like Robin Williams and
• 14:49
  Dead poets. Getting them all on the table.
• 14:51
  They're ripping out pages of play, so they're throwing away
• 14:54
  the history textbook is really. Yeah, so.
• 15:00
  Seven years you did that. On, on and off.
• 15:02
  But no stand up while you were doing that?
• 15:05
  Absolutely. You did.
• 15:06
  So yeah, I started a few years in on my week.
• 15:10
  I never thought it'd be like work.
• 15:12
  It was. It was.
• 15:13
  I saw it as the opposite. I was like, I just have to get
• 15:16
  out and. And this is it was sort of a
• 15:18
  release for you? Big time.
• 15:20
  Absolutely, extremely cathartic. Awesome.
• 15:23
  Yeah, really, really, really fun.
• 15:24
  And then you just kept doing it. Then just kept doing it.
• 15:27
  I mean, I dropped out of the classroom.
• 15:30
  I thought I was going to do it for a year.
• 15:31
  I thought I was going to try and be an academic.
• 15:34
  I thought I'd go back to studying philosophy.
• 15:37
  And I just kept on. The geeks just took over.
• 15:40
  It was really, really nice. And then what's really nice
• 15:42
  about teaching work is you can staircase your hours and stuff
• 15:49
  like that. So I was part time for a long
• 15:52
  time until it just stopped making sense to go into the
• 15:56
  classroom. So was there any sort of moment
• 16:00
  where you you had this schism or was it just sort of a gradual
• 16:05
  thing where you just sort of melded into comedy full time it?
• 16:10
  Was it was, Yeah. It was gradual, Yeah.
• 16:12
  Really, really, really gradual. I mean, it took me a long time.
• 16:15
  I mean, sometimes it might even be, it might even be this year,
• 16:20
  you know, I've been working as a full time stand up, whatever
• 16:23
  that means for for years now, since 2021 and every year up
• 16:29
  until maybe this year, I think, well, I suppose this can't go on
• 16:32
  any longer. The idea that I always, it feels
• 16:35
  like I've sort of, I don't know, cheated or tricked my way into
• 16:40
  it. It's a great life.
• 16:41
  It's really, really nice. I feel so grateful.
• 16:42
  I know I always feel like there's AI mean it.
• 16:46
  It hardly ever happens, but I asked comics about it, like
• 16:50
  where they're you know, they're doing a part time job and then
• 16:52
  they finally get a big gig and they say to the boss, fuck yeah.
• 16:58
  And then they. I didn't do that to the
• 17:00
  students, No. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:03
  Fuck you. I miss him.
• 17:06
  I miss that aspect of it. So that was the hardest job I've
• 17:09
  ever done. Like the pros and cons of stand
• 17:13
  up versus teaching. One is the other and the other
• 17:15
  is not. So like the difficult thing
• 17:18
  about having a tough lesson or a tough class.
• 17:20
  Unlike a tough gig, you bombed a gig.
• 17:22
  Not that I've ever bombed a gig, but you bombed a gig.
• 17:25
  You don't have to see those people.
• 17:26
  A tough gig is nothing compared to these kids.
• 17:30
  Because you have to see him again, again and again and
• 17:33
  again. And if it's not working, you
• 17:35
  know you have to make it work. No.
• 17:37
  Has one of these students ever seen your gig?
• 17:40
  Yeah, it's the best thing, actually.
• 17:42
  Really. And that really makes you miss
• 17:43
  like teaching. You'll have somebody at the end
• 17:46
  of a a gig be like, oh, you missed a Faro.
• 17:49
  And he's like, Oh my God, who's this?
• 17:50
  I was long enough ago, now that, you know, some of these,
• 17:54
  particularly these big adults, now, you know, I can't recognise
• 17:58
  them. Well, if they've come to, if
• 18:01
  they've come to my gig, almost almost never.
• 18:04
  But that, yeah, I this is extremely emotional when people
• 18:07
  seek out their old. Teaching.
• 18:08
  Wow, that's got to be great. I, I love it.
• 18:11
  It's really, it's really moving. It makes you miss teaching
• 18:15
  because you you have that bond, you have that bond with, you
• 18:19
  know, you're in, you're in this position of a parent and this
• 18:21
  weird kind of like not a parent, not a like a business partner.
• 18:29
  Like it's like teachers are really unique role in a person's
• 18:32
  life. And for somebody to seek you out
• 18:34
  again and want to see you is really a lot.
• 18:36
  Because when your students graduate when they're 18 and
• 18:39
  they go, you have to let them go.
• 18:42
  You can't be like, Hey, guys, let me know how it's getting on
• 18:44
  and, you know, stay in touch and stuff like that.
• 18:46
  That's not the wrong teacher. You, you have to let them go.
• 18:50
  That's I think that's really right for lots of reasons.
• 18:52
  You really hope that you know they'll after their studies or
• 18:55
  you know that they'll get back in contact and they'll tell you
• 18:58
  how they're doing and stuff. If ever here we go, here's
• 19:00
  stroke to camera. If you've ever thought about
• 19:03
  writing a letter to a teacher who helped you or seeking them
• 19:06
  out and think, Oh no, it's been too long, like do it.
• 19:09
  Absolutely do it. I stay in touch with my politics
• 19:13
  teacher. I'm so glad that I do.
• 19:16
  If any of your teachers become stand ups or clowns or
• 19:21
  puppeteers, go. See them?
• 19:23
  They're. Struggling they're.
• 19:25
  Struggling. They loved because of you.
• 19:27
  You damaged them. OK, so you made this transition
• 19:31
  and you're doing it kind of full time, but you're gigging.
• 19:34
  Yeah. You're gigging, Yeah.
• 19:36
  And then you're doing the festivals.
• 19:38
  Yeah. During.
• 19:39
  OK, Yeah. Yeah, my first, what's another
• 19:44
  good thing about teaching is you can do this thing, the Edinburgh
• 19:47
  Fringe Festival. My other unpopular belief is
• 19:50
  that the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is great, that we all
• 19:53
  complain about it. Yeah, I know it needs to be
• 19:55
  improved, but like can we balance that out with how it's
• 19:58
  one of the most incredible? Parts of the It's one of the.
• 20:01
  Best British economy, the UK economy, the scholarship lie.
• 20:03
  I think it's there's no I've been to Melbourne, it's a
• 20:06
  fraction of the size. I don't think you can do
• 20:08
  anything. There's no tighter concentration
• 20:13
  of of live art in the world. It's the best city for a
• 20:17
  festival. Incredible.
• 20:18
  City and I apologise to all, you know, the people who we fill up
• 20:23
  their pavements and stuff like that, our guys.
• 20:26
  But everything becomes the venue.
• 20:28
  That's what I love about it, yeah.
• 20:29
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I like.
• 20:32
  You have a bin. It's a bin.
• 20:34
  Yeah, yeah. I was going to say bin as well
• 20:36
  have but has somebody done a gig in a bin yet?
• 20:38
  I bet. I sure somebody's gigged in a
• 20:41
  bin. I gigged in a horse box.
• 20:42
  I've gigged in a van. Where else?
• 20:44
  I've definitely gigged in the toilet.
• 20:46
  Yeah. Like an outhouse or like a
• 20:50
  toilet? Toilet Like an.
• 20:53
  Outhouse would be better with it.
• 20:55
  The dignity of the outhouse. Yeah, that's a really, listen,
• 20:58
  we all draw a line somewhere that's very dignified.
• 21:00
  And for you rich toilet, is it? Is it beyond the walls of the
• 21:05
  building? Good.
• 21:05
  It's very mediaeval view of like the dignity of labour.
• 21:12
  So yes, it's an amazing experience.
• 21:16
  And so you just kept doing it with no real plan involved.
• 21:22
  It was just like, I love doing comedy and yeah.
• 21:25
  Yeah, some comics are really good.
• 21:30
  They have this, you know, this five year plan.
• 21:32
  Yes, some people are really like I've got it all written down.
• 21:38
  Yeah, thankfully I just did what I liked and for some reason that
• 21:41
  kind of worked so. And you weren't thinking of a
• 21:44
  backup level? If this doesn't work, I'll go
• 21:47
  back to school. Sure.
• 21:49
  Yeah. I mean, that is another nice
• 21:50
  thing about my old career. There's a a shortage of of
• 21:55
  people who want to do it. You can always go.
• 21:57
  You can. Go back in and stuff like that.
• 21:58
  Yeah, yeah. But no, I was not just straight
• 22:04
  ahead. Nice.
• 22:05
  This is where I'm going to have the hardest financial year of my
• 22:07
  life now. Really.
• 22:09
  No, no, no, no, I'm sure. No, I'm just maybe I'm
• 22:11
  superstitious. I always, or maybe it's British
• 22:14
  to be like to try and play things down or.
• 22:17
  Yeah, yeah. But I felt like the last couple
• 22:20
  of years have been a bit difficult.
• 22:24
  Tell me which. I would.
• 22:29
  Things are for you, man. Let's let's reverse this.
• 22:30
  No, no, no. I.
• 22:31
  What I think is like, you know, because there was like this
• 22:34
  whole writers strike thing and the COVID thing, you think, oh,
• 22:40
  it's immediately going to go back to where it was before.
• 22:44
  And it hasn't really, you know, recovered in that way.
• 22:49
  But I do find that people are are gravitating towards live
• 22:53
  gigs. I mean, I think we're still in a
• 22:56
  comedy growth phase. And so it's easy to be
• 22:59
  pessimistic about, you know, when a place is run badly or
• 23:05
  they don't pay or there are, which is important to challenge
• 23:10
  and we're back on. And then there's all sorts of
• 23:11
  other like problems in with comedy, like you mentioned, the
• 23:14
  writers strike, like writers rooms aren't really mapped like
• 23:17
  a thing in the UK. Like people will have writers
• 23:20
  and stuff, but it's closed door secret in a way that they, it
• 23:24
  doesn't seem to quite the same way in the US But so there's all
• 23:29
  these different potential problems, but more and more
• 23:32
  people want to go out and see it.
• 23:35
  I know, which is great. And what about what about online
• 23:38
  stuff? Have you been slow to do that or
• 23:43
  is it something that's just part of what you do as well?
• 23:47
  Because I know some people are like, yeah, I'm a live
• 23:50
  performer. I don't do the.
• 23:52
  I wouldn't, I wouldn't be on social media if it weren't for
• 23:56
  my career comedy, right? But like, you know, I got my
• 23:59
  first million views on Instagram this week and stuff like that.
• 24:03
  So that was a. Nice nice thing it was for a bit
• 24:05
  about Karl Marx as well. So it was.
• 24:07
  Nice, I saw that. Can you?
• 24:08
  See that? No, that's nice, man.
• 24:10
  That's great. Thanks for thanks for liking it.
• 24:12
  About his grave. His grave.
• 24:14
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, he's buried in Highgate,
• 24:18
  right? Yeah.
• 24:20
  Yeah. Wow.
• 24:21
  And they charge money. I don't want to ruin the day,
• 24:26
  deconstructing a bit always removes the humour, but I.
• 24:28
  Don't want to do. That there are at Alex Farah
• 24:32
  comedy on Instagram if you want to see the piece as it was, but
• 24:37
  you actually pay to see the the whole graveyard for.
• 24:39
  Which? The most famous occupant is Karl
• 24:42
  Marx. You know, what is the thing
• 24:45
  about? Are you aware of the 70s
• 24:48
  Highgate vampire, are you? No.
• 24:51
  OK, I think I've got it wrong. But there was vampire sightings.
• 24:56
  Oh, in the gate. Yeah.
• 24:58
  Oh, wow. And nobody knows whether it was
• 25:01
  fake or not, but people claim that it was real.
• 25:04
  Oh God, wow. Could write in if you know
• 25:06
  anything about it. Yeah.
• 25:09
  So, so it's good to go viral because it sells your tickets.
• 25:14
  The way I look at it is it's good to have something where
• 25:18
  people know you so that when you do a show, eventually you'll
• 25:23
  it'll just it's just going to be you.
• 25:26
  They come to see that and cause a lot of times there's a there's
• 25:31
  a a chasm between what they think you do big.
• 25:35
  Time. Yeah.
• 25:37
  And so a lot of the first sort of TikTok boom when some of my
• 25:41
  friends were doing like sort of kind of solo sketch straight
• 25:45
  into the first, it was actually a bit different.
• 25:47
  So they got quite online famous from a different thing to their
• 25:50
  stand up. And so the the bridge of those
• 25:52
  two things was tricky. So you've got that kind of trade
• 25:56
  off. And the other thing as well in,
• 25:57
  you know, this race to, you know, for as many eyes on your
• 26:01
  content as possible, like you need to, to race a race to the
• 26:06
  bottom, but you need such huge exposure because it's global.
• 26:11
  These apps are global. So of all those million views,
• 26:14
  you know, you, you know, I go into the data and you look at
• 26:16
  where they are and it's so it's incredible.
• 26:18
  And what it's so touching that, you know, people in Portugal and
• 26:21
  India and Australia are looking at my work.
• 26:24
  You know, they're not. Yeah.
• 26:24
  They're not going to come to my show.
• 26:26
  They might, but if they come here, they will.
• 26:29
  Yeah, which is why I learned this with the best cities in the
• 26:32
  world because it is international in that way.
• 26:34
  But the the size of following that you need to sell tickets is
• 26:39
  is kind of astronomical really. I I think so, yeah.
• 26:42
  Well, like say 100 seat, you know theatre, how much do you
• 26:46
  have to have? Why don't I'm pulling anecdotal
• 26:52
  things from my friends out but and then I don't necessarily
• 26:56
  want to talk about my friends businesses too much, but you can
• 26:59
  be. You can have 100,000 followers
• 27:01
  on Instagram but if they're global, you're real about Come
• 27:07
  see my show in Leicester. The percentage of your followers
• 27:11
  that need to be in Leicester for you to sell a hundred seats.
• 27:14
  You know, I don't know how good your mental maths is, but it's,
• 27:17
  it's not. Oh yeah.
• 27:19
  Good. So some people will develop.
• 27:23
  Not all followings are equal in terms of how their ability to
• 27:25
  sell tickets, but. This podcast caters mostly to
• 27:31
  Lester. That is why I am here.
• 27:35
  Hello, Lester. Lester Fringe coming up.
• 27:39
  Oh, it is. Are you doing that?
• 27:41
  No. Oh, OK.
• 27:43
  Sorry, Lester, you're missing out.
• 27:45
  Missing. I had this guy.
• 27:47
  So do you have a tour scheduled anytime?
• 27:51
  I'm always like doing hours all on, all on about.
• 27:55
  So some people I think have a like a set tour.
• 27:58
  They put their on their social media page that I'm doing these
• 28:01
  dates here and and there. So I'm on a like a two year
• 28:05
  cycle. So I did.
• 28:06
  I did my hour last Edinburgh Fringe Festival and I did my
• 28:12
  last version of that last week at Bristol Comedy Festival,
• 28:15
  which is great. Gaff Comedy club.
• 28:16
  Brick club. Now, where you work out a lot of
• 28:20
  your material is in Oxford, yeah.
• 28:23
  Definitely. So is there any fear or danger
• 28:26
  that if I'm getting laughs for the Oxford audience, Yeah, yeah.
• 28:30
  How is this going to go over with Lester?
• 28:34
  Wow, maybe, maybe I don't have a booking in Leicester this month
• 28:37
  for that reason. No, I mean, how do you do that?
• 28:41
  You want you want to mix up your gig diet?
• 28:43
  Yeah, I I always. I was talking about this in a
• 28:46
  green room a few days ago, actually.
• 28:47
  How I? Don't want to repeat things.
• 28:50
  No. Oh, you need most.
• 28:51
  OK then. I was not speaking about this in
• 28:53
  a green room. The.
• 28:54
  Other good good. But you want a mix of types of
• 28:59
  show. So like, if I'm picking the Bill
• 29:02
  Murray, you have a very comedy savvy.
• 29:06
  Who? Will you'll get a few extra
• 29:07
  beats of understanding out of them, whereas like if you and if
• 29:14
  you could reach a level of fame as well.
• 29:15
  I think it's important to sometimes drop into clubs where
• 29:17
  you might not be known. You can have a crowd that is too
• 29:23
  warm. You don't stress test the
• 29:25
  material enough. But then again, I think there's
• 29:27
  also a lot of people who think that you just you just have to
• 29:31
  do every gig that's offered. And in some way you're a lesser
• 29:34
  comic if you choose not to. And there's there's loads of
• 29:36
  different ways to do it. You know, you stag and hen dos
• 29:38
  on a Friday. You know, of course, coming up
• 29:40
  this week and. You've got a stag do.
• 29:44
  Well I know I'm playing a club that's it's always very snagging
• 29:50
  and hen do full so. And you're going to do your.
• 29:53
  I always do my stuff. Yeah.
• 29:54
  I do my do my philosophy stuff Good.
• 29:56
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All, all audiences are capable
• 29:59
  of understanding my stuff. It's it's not elitist in that.
• 30:02
  Way. Can I quote you on that?
• 30:04
  Yeah, OK. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 30:06
  Kenny's going to put the quote on as you're saying, yeah.
• 30:12
  Yeah. And I really believe that
• 30:13
  whether audiences have a taste for it or not, that's the
• 30:14
  challenge. Yeah, Yeah.
• 30:16
  So how you present material? Let's say if I'm doing some
• 30:19
  stuff about Karl Marx, you know, you can say I'm going to do a
• 30:21
  bit about Karl Marx. And an Oxford audience went, oh,
• 30:24
  is he OK? I'd be interested.
• 30:26
  But if you're going to do that in a different club, you'd do it
• 30:29
  about about work. And so you have an observation
• 30:32
  about work and it just happens to be about the unfairness of
• 30:36
  labour exploitation. Being said that, oh.
• 30:41
  Interesting. Yeah, it's a bit about Dilfs,
• 30:46
  but the bit about the bit about Dilfs, it's not really about
• 30:49
  dilfs. It's about but having the money
• 30:52
  to breed. What do you think of the advent
• 30:56
  of a lot of comics are doing their crowd work?
• 31:00
  Yeah, they're not necessarily doing their jokes per SE, but
• 31:04
  just sort of their interactions with the audience.
• 31:07
  I love crowd work. I think it's his own art.
• 31:10
  I don't think it's lesser. I don't think it's greater than
• 31:13
  you. You written stuff.
• 31:15
  So for me, the question isn't about whether somebody's doing
• 31:19
  crowd work or too much or too little.
• 31:21
  It's about respecting the audience in front of you.
• 31:24
  So there is an aspect where people are, there's a paying
• 31:28
  audience in front of them, but the real audience is there
• 31:32
  behind the camera. And I think I think audiences
• 31:36
  are starting to pick up on that. And people you can, it's almost
• 31:39
  like you see the comics brute forcing a combination lock.
• 31:43
  They're just tapping on different audience members to
• 31:45
  find the weirdest one. And then they're like, here's
• 31:47
  the viral moment. So it's not the crowd work is is
• 31:50
  bad. Crowd work's fantastic.
• 31:52
  In fact, I think audience members, normal memories of a
• 31:57
  show, particular compilation show are often the truly live
• 32:00
  moments, which are often crowd work based.
• 32:03
  But I think all audiences rightly dislike when they see a
• 32:07
  comic not playing to them and playing for something else,
• 32:10
  looking for something else. And I think it's kind of a bit
• 32:13
  selfish to be stinky. Well, that's one thing I've
• 32:15
  noticed a lot now. I mean, just doing gigs, it's
• 32:19
  like now, I mean, which I probably should be doing.
• 32:22
  They're setting up the camera. It's all about it's a gig within
• 32:27
  a gig. Yeah.
• 32:28
  In a way, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that is the game and you
• 32:33
  know you want it there as well. But yeah, you, you play the game
• 32:36
  correctly. Yeah, there's you can play any
• 32:39
  game honourably that's out of fashion at the moment and games
• 32:43
  honourably. Honourable games, yeah.
• 32:46
  And so do you have any sort of, are you working towards
• 32:50
  something like a special or anything?
• 32:53
  Yeah, I mean, I, I work up an hour every year.
• 32:56
  My hours are very popular in Edinburgh and stuff like that.
• 33:00
  Eventually I'll do this sort of kind of super cut of all my
• 33:05
  material. That would be great.
• 33:06
  Put that out somewhere but probably on YouTube I'd imagine.
• 33:09
  But. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of
• 33:12
  people are putting online stuff right.
• 33:16
  YouTube specials, yeah, it's the way forward.
• 33:21
  Rich do that got. To do it, my man.
• 33:25
  We've all got to do it. I mean, we say we've all got to
• 33:29
  do it. Like, you know, I, you know,
• 33:32
  want to get bigger and better and, you know, more creative and
• 33:35
  stuff like that. I've made a I've made a living
• 33:37
  with by not doing that for four years.
• 33:42
  And I think that's something really nice about the UK that to
• 33:45
  contrast with American comics I've talked to you can make a
• 33:47
  living just about as a, as a job in comic in the UK.
• 33:53
  And that's because comics in the UK, something about the
• 33:56
  geography of it that you don't need to drive 400 miles to do
• 34:00
  your next gig. If you drive 400 miles in the
• 34:02
  UK, you're in France, you know, just about and then but the
• 34:06
  other thing about it is like I'm told certainly by US comics, the
• 34:10
  headline that gets paid in the US and there are, you know, all
• 34:13
  those stereotypes about, you know, socialist Europe or
• 34:15
  whatever. There's gentle pressure on
• 34:18
  promoters in the UK to to not do that, to spread the profit that
• 34:24
  they make to non profiteer. And I, it makes me like a proud.
• 34:29
  That's good, yeah. What about other countries?
• 34:32
  Are there other? Countries.
• 34:33
  Where do you say other countries?
• 34:34
  Tell me about other countries. No, no.
• 34:36
  Where where you would like to kind of try your stuff out.
• 34:40
  I've kicked a few times in Germany.
• 34:42
  That's really fun. You know, I was always brought
• 34:46
  up with this ridiculous stereotype.
• 34:48
  The Germans weren't funny. They.
• 34:49
  Don't have senses of humour? I remember doing my first gig in
• 34:53
  Germany and it was in Dusseldorf and the promoter in English and
• 34:57
  the promoter, there was so a lot of the audience here, you know,
• 35:00
  that their English is good, but it'll be a second language to
• 35:02
  just do, just do normal stuff, right, But just a bit slower.
• 35:05
  I was opening this gig was really nervous and, you know, I
• 35:07
  did it really super slow. I had a good no, you know,
• 35:11
  hopefully not patronising, but nice.
• 35:12
  Just just a slightly different tempo.
• 35:14
  I picked a different material. I checked all my references.
• 35:16
  Do they know who Craig David is? Yeah, I know.
• 35:18
  He was big here too. Really did all that.
• 35:20
  Then every single other comic did their act full pace, no
• 35:23
  change and crushed. So I'm.
• 35:26
  I must have all these lovely Germans must have been like.
• 35:30
  Oh, so slow. This guy is not so sharp up
• 35:34
  here. Yeah.
• 35:37
  So I mean, that's the, you know, that's the great embarrassment
• 35:40
  of being a British is when you travel to Europe and you see the
• 35:44
  don't. Slow down.
• 35:45
  Don't slow down, speed up if anything.
• 35:47
  Well, there's so many expats too, in every country, yeah.
• 35:52
  Yeah, and I don't know for sure. They're underserved by culture,
• 35:57
  presumably. What about the USI think you
• 36:00
  would do well in the US? Yeah.
• 36:02
  I I've never had the visa to work in the US, so I have never
• 36:09
  worked in the US. Let me talk to some people.
• 36:12
  Talk to me after the show, right, Kenny?
• 36:16
  Yeah. No, he doesn't know.
• 36:18
  I did some open mics in New York a little while ago.
• 36:21
  I was really impressed. I think what is from my small
• 36:24
  experience of that scene, comics are extremely hard working.
• 36:28
  You know those two minutes sets that you get given and like, you
• 36:31
  know, you're dropping into open mics at like 3:00 PM on a
• 36:36
  Wednesday. There's forty other comics
• 36:38
  there. You just get up and, you know,
• 36:40
  grind, grind, grind. I think people that want to do
• 36:44
  it. Well, yeah, And they work really
• 36:47
  hard. They're very individualistic
• 36:48
  about it. I remember there was no
• 36:50
  audience, any of these open mics that was doing it, you know, in
• 36:53
  the afternoon, obviously. Why would there be?
• 36:55
  And so all these comics would just do their material and in
• 36:57
  front of, you know, their peers, not really listening.
• 37:00
  I was like, wouldn't it be better just all sit down and
• 37:03
  just punch up each other's material?
• 37:04
  Yeah. This idea went down like an
• 37:07
  absolute lead balloon. What do you mean, like, work on
• 37:10
  each other's material? Like, Yeah.
• 37:11
  You know, like, I really like that bit.
• 37:12
  I saw you do it. I laughed a lot.
• 37:13
  I mean, I was the only person laughing in this room because
• 37:15
  every other comic was, like, doing this.
• 37:17
  Why not? There's no audience here.
• 37:18
  Why don't we just all get some pints in?
• 37:20
  Yeah. Talk about each other's
• 37:21
  material. Make some more punch lines.
• 37:24
  These lovely Americans looked at me.
• 37:26
  Yeah, Well, yeah. Like I was insane.
• 37:28
  Like I feel that you might be looking at me as well, but.
• 37:30
  No, no, it's just another way of approaching the whole thing.
• 37:35
  I was I did some stand up when I was in LA and it the the the
• 37:42
  vibe I got mostly was half were jobbing stand ups that could
• 37:48
  tour and stuff and the other were more I want to get noticed.
• 37:53
  I want to get some sort of foothold into getting TV and
• 37:57
  film. Work, definitely.
• 38:00
  I mean, it's a different like model, isn't it, where you know,
• 38:04
  you just you work as low As for as low as fee as possible,
• 38:08
  hoping that at some point you're just lifted out of that.
• 38:10
  It seems like true fame. It's, you know, I, I respect it
• 38:13
  and stuff like that. It doesn't need to be like that.
• 38:16
  It does not. We don't need to, yeah, we don't
• 38:18
  need to suffer like that. What do you think about these
• 38:21
  gigs now where like, say there's a somebody wants to do stand up
• 38:26
  in their backyard, they'll fire comics and stuff.
• 38:30
  Fun. I mean like whatever man, like
• 38:32
  you know, you get all these, you know, people do it in people
• 38:35
  sitting rooms and wherever, whenever.
• 38:37
  That's what's great about the art, right?
• 38:40
  That you don't need much. What you do need is kind of
• 38:43
  important. I'm sure we've both done into
• 38:45
  shows. A voice.
• 38:46
  You need a voice. Do you know what I worked down
• 38:48
  the pandemic? You need walls.
• 38:50
  Yeah. Yeah, people, look at you
• 38:52
  insane. What do you mean that you need
• 38:53
  walls? I remember doing Yellowstone,
• 38:57
  Yellowstone, Yellowstone, Yellowstone.
• 39:00
  People naturally space out when they're outside.
• 39:04
  And so if you're doing a like a show outside, people will after
• 39:09
  this birthday party in Wantage. And I remember it started off
• 39:13
  well and people naturally just sort of started moving away.
• 39:16
  Uh huh. But by an hour, it's time they
• 39:19
  people crested a little hill like you.
• 39:21
  You just everything had kind of dissolved.
• 39:24
  You need even an outdoor gig. You need little things to to
• 39:27
  break a 4th wall. You need at least three.
• 39:29
  Is that for sound purposes or? Just it's been it's for we
• 39:34
  talked about Barry Ferns all the way in.
• 39:36
  He's a bit of a genius in all sorts of ways, right?
• 39:38
  And so when he was doing his hero hero of the UK comedy
• 39:42
  circuit, CK's content, Barry Ferns Big Love, he to quote him
• 39:48
  on lots of this stuff, he had this incredible gig for years
• 39:50
  and years and years on the top of Arthur's.
• 39:51
  Scene I did that. Yeah, and you it was he still
• 39:54
  bringing up the door when you did it?
• 39:55
  Yes, you go through the door, through the.
• 39:58
  Door. So it's a gig on top of a
• 39:59
  mountain. Mountain stronger.
• 40:01
  Big old hill. Big old Scottish hill.
• 40:03
  Beautiful. Out of breath.
• 40:05
  Out of breath and we got there and he brought up this door.
• 40:09
  Just because when you're seeing somebody perform, it's good to
• 40:13
  make the commitment. Yes, you need to have committed
• 40:15
  to see that and by going through the door, something
• 40:18
  psychological happens that you'll sit and you'll listen
• 40:21
  just a touch like longer. I've done gigs and bars where
• 40:25
  it's all kind of open and people can come in and come out with
• 40:28
  music. Festival's the worst for this,
• 40:29
  where it's got that drop in drop out.
• 40:31
  Aspects. The turns.
• 40:32
  The turns man, you know. What's going on?
• 40:35
  Yeah. What's this?
• 40:37
  Hey, James, James, what's going on?
• 40:39
  Hey, what is he funny? What's good?
• 40:42
  He just in and out. Have you got bits?
• 40:44
  You know all that jokes as. He told.
• 40:46
  Yeah. Nothing makes you feel more like
• 40:48
  a pair of flaps, and people come in and out of them all the time.
• 40:51
  Yeah, it's really, Yeah. It's not good because there's
• 40:54
  not that same kind of commitment.
• 40:56
  And what Barry had managed to achieve at the top of that hill
• 40:59
  was his sense of investing in in the show, the sense that you've
• 41:02
  come to a room and a space. Stand ups are good at creating
• 41:07
  space. So what's great about stand up
• 41:10
  is the things that make it stand up are invisible.
• 41:13
  So a great stand up room could be somebody's backyard.
• 41:15
  An awful stand up room is sometimes a theatre.
• 41:18
  Sometimes it's the worst. It's true.
• 41:19
  Can't be the? Best of Theatre.
• 41:21
  Dude, The Flaming Lips. Let's.
• 41:23
  Go Yeah, man. Yeah.
• 41:26
  I don't know if you've seen this show per SE, but there is a
• 41:30
  format to it. I specifically asked whether
• 41:33
  there would be any format. Just like things I.
• 41:35
  Used to prepare for but I whatever the whatever you're
• 41:37
  about to spring. You don't need to prepare.
• 41:39
  I'm ready. I'm ready.
• 41:40
  It's. Called fill in the blanks.
• 41:42
  It's not blankety blank. Got it.
• 41:44
  But I will give you a sentence with a blank.
• 41:47
  You have to fill it in right? You don't have to be funny.
• 41:50
  Got it. So there are 5 questions.
• 41:54
  When I'm in a hurry, I always forget to blank breathe.
• 41:59
  Really. Yeah.
• 42:00
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 42:02
  Yeah. You mean like when you're
• 42:03
  running and stuff? And yeah.
• 42:05
  Oh. Yeah, and absolutely yeah.
• 42:06
  When I'm. I'm little, you said it's OK not
• 42:10
  to be funny. If you're ever in a hurry,
• 42:12
  you'll be stressed. And the reason that you're
• 42:13
  stressed is you're not breathing.
• 42:14
  Oh, so you always try to remember to breathe.
• 42:19
  Yeah, I. Feel better now?
• 42:22
  My blank and my blank always get in the way of doing the perfect
• 42:28
  gig. Oh, got it, my ego.
• 42:35
  Right. And my super ego.
• 42:38
  Oh, OK. So this is this is.
• 42:43
  You need to be more I'd. I think so, yeah.
• 42:46
  So when you're in flow as a as a performer or like an artist or a
• 42:54
  sportsman, whatever, you're not overthinking.
• 42:59
  And so we always talk about, I think people are kind of
• 43:01
  familiar with talking about ego. Your ego gets in the way.
• 43:03
  And so often I think for me and lots of the stand ups, you want
• 43:08
  to be kind of cool. Actually, the funniest thing is
• 43:10
  to not be cool and just let yourself be a bit you.
• 43:12
  Need to be take. Some risks and stuff like that
• 43:15
  and then the fancy word that but use that I'm sure lots of people
• 43:21
  have heard of. To be fair that the Super ego is
• 43:23
  the thing that like cheques in on your ego but you get stuck in
• 43:28
  it. You get stuck as an overthinker.
• 43:31
  Don't think just do being flow. I find that's true with writing
• 43:34
  as well, because it's when you're not thinking about
• 43:39
  something, you just keep writing without that editor going.
• 43:42
  Let me go over that first sentence again and make sure
• 43:45
  it's the best. When you're in flow, and this is
• 43:49
  what I'd say to anybody who's like a very new comic, you will
• 43:52
  never be as creative as you are when you just begin.
• 43:55
  And so you just have to get it all out, record it all, write it
• 43:59
  all down because you don't have the editor and you don't have
• 44:02
  that type 5 that's always been working for you.
• 44:06
  And so you've got everything's open to you and you don't know
• 44:08
  what you should and shouldn't do.
• 44:10
  And so you you're never more creative because of that lack.
• 44:12
  Of it's like you're a traveller and it's your first day in
• 44:16
  China, it'll never be as experiential.
• 44:21
  I mean, OK, I get it. Yeah.
• 44:25
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Goes for all sorts of things,
• 44:28
  actually. Don't always bring the editor.
• 44:31
  Sometimes just do. Get the editor out of here and
• 44:36
  the guardrails, whatever else. I'm able to time travel OK, but
• 44:42
  only in. England, and this is a separate
• 44:44
  question. I have a second, but it's a
• 44:47
  separate question. Question #4 Fill in these.
• 44:49
  Blanks. I'm just saying statement.
• 44:51
  Which just happens to be able to time travel.
• 44:53
  Everybody, this is relating to you.
• 44:54
  I'm saying you're I'm able to time travel, but only in
• 44:58
  England. I would live in the year blank.
• 45:02
  Oh fun, when would I live in? I really want to think about
• 45:06
  this. Oh, that's really fun.
• 45:07
  Never think. We'll just sit in silence for a
• 45:10
  bit. I oh, it's.
• 45:17
  Good, you could narrow it down the three.
• 45:20
  No, no, no, no, no. Well, I mean, I think we're
• 45:23
  living in the best time there's ever been.
• 45:26
  And so the temptation is to obviously, you know, I'd go back
• 45:29
  to, like, a battle of the, you know, the Norman Conquest.
• 45:33
  You know, I'd see what really happened or something like that.
• 45:36
  But, I mean, they would actually be bleak to exist in that time.
• 45:39
  Yeah. And so you've not specified
• 45:41
  whether I can come back or not? I know you can come back.
• 45:45
  You can come back. If I were doing a day trip, I'd
• 45:48
  go somewhere. I didn't say a day you have to
• 45:50
  spend a month. There.
• 45:51
  A month there. Yeah.
• 45:52
  Yeah. Well, actually, if you're
• 45:53
  sending a month somewhere, then the stuff starts getting a bit
• 45:56
  dangerous. Actually, I've got to not look
• 45:58
  at all those battles I've read about.
• 45:59
  Yeah. You know, I've got to feed
• 46:01
  myself for a month. Well, my life smell too.
• 46:04
  I'm going to smell. Then you've got to think about
• 46:06
  disease exposure as well. I mean, if I'm going somewhere
• 46:10
  for a month, I can't go back that far without extreme danger
• 46:14
  to myself. You can't bring vitamin C with
• 46:17
  you. Vitamin C, So none of Nelson's
• 46:19
  ships or anything like that? Jeez.
• 46:24
  Wow, well I'd probably go back to some point in the 20th
• 46:28
  century then. Unfortunately quite boring.
• 46:30
  Like a World War 2. Thing.
• 46:31
  Oh, no, no, no. No, no.
• 46:33
  No, wait, I'd tell we there would be any of the world wars,
• 46:36
  100% if you die, we won't. We know so much about them.
• 46:39
  So there's an absolutely there'll be very little forms of
• 46:42
  discovery there. I'd like to go back further.
• 46:44
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely not.
• 46:49
  Then pre or post. OK, I'm.
• 46:51
  Probably not pre even as well our antibiotics.
• 46:53
  So I want I want antibiotics. I'm spending a month there.
• 46:56
  What sort of coward am I? Well, this is great.
• 46:58
  Question that you've real. Here this.
• 47:01
  Is revealed so much about you? Yeah.
• 47:04
  How risk averse am I that I've not spoken about?
• 47:06
  Would I see The Beatles like if you've it's like a beat, No.
• 47:09
  Is there antibiotics? If you happen to die from
• 47:12
  anything, you go right back to the present.
• 47:15
  As you are now, No, I, I reload, yeah, you reload then all bets
• 47:18
  are off there. Yeah, Yeah.
• 47:19
  Oh, if I've got reloading powers, Yeah.
• 47:21
  Oh, I'm, oh, I'm on the hill with Harold Hadrada.
• 47:26
  OK, I'm. I'm slashing people up.
• 47:28
  I'm getting. I mean, you've given me this
• 47:30
  extra power to to now engage in in war without any.
• 47:35
  Consequences. Yeah, man, get, you know, fuck
• 47:38
  around and find out. That's a whole great other power
• 47:40
  that you've added in. Yeah, that changes everything
• 47:42
  all. Right.
• 47:44
  Interesting. If I weren't a comedian or my
• 47:48
  second favourite thing, I'd be a blank.
• 47:54
  If I wasn't a comedian and if I wasn't a teacher, because
• 47:58
  although it was the hardest thing I ever did, it did bring
• 48:00
  me great joy, I would be very unemployed.
• 48:04
  But those are the two things that I'm capable of.
• 48:07
  I thought maybe there was a third like.
• 48:09
  Well, if I had the privilege of. A chief beast.
• 48:11
  Oh, it was something I'd write. I'd write.
• 48:13
  I'd write philosophy. OK, excellent.
• 48:17
  There are too many blanks. That's what I say.
• 48:21
  Puff, puff from the pipe. Right, there are too many comics
• 48:27
  who won't back themselves and won't push back on exploitative
• 48:33
  practises of their employers. So when there are places that
• 48:36
  don't pay or producers who profiteer, for example, yeah,
• 48:43
  there's so much of that about it doesn't have to be that way.
• 48:46
  OK, puff, puff. Puff puff.
• 48:50
  Sorry about the puff puff. I realised.
• 48:51
  I realised the puff puff was more was more important.
• 48:54
  The last part was plug time but. Well, the thing I'm going to
• 48:57
  plug then is this, and this will be the final thing that people
• 49:02
  should remember. Lots of comics are going to
• 49:04
  watch this. Loads of comedians watch and
• 49:06
  follow my stuff. Great.
• 49:08
  I love it. You need to clean your
• 49:10
  microphones. When we're all I'll, when we're
• 49:14
  losing our voices, it's not because we've been shouting all
• 49:16
  the time. We've actually only been talking
• 49:18
  for 20 minutes a day. Your voice is going because
• 49:21
  microphones are disgusting and they're full of bacteria.
• 49:24
  Now, I'm not a germaphobe, but if I've had something next to my
• 49:27
  mouth for 20 minutes every day and I can smell it, you have
• 49:31
  never cleaned your microphone. You run a small show or
• 49:35
  sometimes a big theatre and you've never cleaned your
• 49:37
  microphone. And we're all I'll from it.
• 49:39
  And we don't have any sick pay. We're all sick and we're all
• 49:43
  I'll. What we need to do is get a
• 49:45
  little bit of hand sanitizer, give it a little wash sometimes.
• 49:48
  Not in between the axe. Just once, just once every so
• 49:52
  often, clean your microphones. Oh, that's what I've heard.
• 49:56
  Microphones. We don't, we don't need to do
• 49:57
  this. It's been here all the time,
• 50:00
  people. Everybody uses.
• 50:01
  It's sort of like in the house. The remote is the thing that's.
• 50:05
  Like our phones are very grubby, but we're not like putting other
• 50:08
  people, we're not licking other people's phones.
• 50:10
  Sometimes the sound quality on a microphone's so bad you put it
• 50:13
  next to your chin there. And we and we all get, we all
• 50:16
  get ill. And we all have this myth where
• 50:19
  we're like, oh, you know, you lose your voice because we just
• 50:21
  did. We did so much talking.
• 50:22
  We talked for a living. Not like a teacher.
• 50:24
  Yeah, I would teach. I would talk all day every day
• 50:27
  as a teacher. I would basically never lose my
• 50:29
  voice. I will lose my voice and I'll
• 50:31
  get sick all the time as I stand up.
• 50:34
  And I think we're afraid of sounding like pathetic or
• 50:37
  something like that. It's rubbish.
• 50:38
  We lose money, we get ill. Just clean the microphones,
• 50:41
  Clean the mic, Clean your dirty microphone.
• 50:43
  It's nasty. It's not right.
• 50:45
  Clean the microphones. Well, on that note Alex, do you
• 50:50
  have any gigs you want to promote or any?
• 50:53
  The Angel Comedy Club and Bill Murray.
• 50:55
  That's great. They pay well, they're good,
• 50:58
  it's great people. Barry Ferns is a hero.
• 51:00
  It's my best and most favourite gig to play, other than the one
• 51:03
  that I run every Saturday in Oxford.
• 51:05
  Jericho Comedy. Jericho comedy.
• 51:07
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 51:08
  All right, Alex, good luck to you.
• 51:09
  Thank you. Pleasure woman.
• 51:11
  You're the man Awesome sauce. Thank you for watching and thank
• 51:16
  you Patreon supporters for doing what you do.
• 51:20
  All of the members and staff, the nursing staff that helped me
• 51:25
  get through the day with bourbon.
• 51:27
  Anyway, have a good time, enjoy yourselves, and don't forget
• 51:35
  comments and questions are welcome.
• 51:37
  OK? And we'll see you in the next
• 51:40
  episode, right? Don't burn anything.
• 51:58
  Rich vultures talk box.