Touring Fatigue and Future Outlook

Hey rat fans, thanks for downloading my podcast. Um not quite sure what's happening in June, thanks to a medical procedure I have to go through. We've had to uh cancel those Leicester Square Theatre gigs on the first and eighth of july, but hopefully we'll be back for everything else. Uh everything happening the first week of June is fine, including uh the we're doing two shows now at the Roman Theatre in St. Albans. The six PM show is sold out. There's now an additional show at eight thirty PM It's me and Katie Wilkins, a very promising stand-up comedian doing two sets in a Roman theatre with some old jokes for Romans and some new jokes that I've never done before. Richard ing.com slash gigs for links to that would love to see you there. I'm not sure how many stand-up gigs I'll be doing in the next few months, so come along to that one if you can. And of course Rahalastapa is at the Edinburgh Fring e for the first 12 days. Richard ring.com slash Rahalastapa . We're doing 14 shows in 12 days. So there's every chance you can come and see us. Would love for you to support us with that one if you can. Hopefully we'll see us through to the new year and then who knows what's going to happen to Rohelastabar after that. Not me . Not me, I don't know. Okay, RichardHarring.com slash gigs Richard Herring.com slash for Hallistapur if you want to add a little bit of financial support to keep the podcast going go faster stripe dot com slash badges and you get loads of lovely rewards. Thanks for listening. Do tell your friends and so on we love you. Goodbye . This is an ad by BetterHelp. Did I talk too much? I should have handled that better. Why can't I just let it go? Why did I talk about it ? Take a breath. You're not alone. Counseling helps you sort through the noise with qualified professionals. Get matched with a therapist online based on your unique needs and get help with everyday struggles like anxiety or managing tough emotions . 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If you want to pay us back, go to GoFaster Stripe.com slash badges and become a monthly badger. Give us the price of a cup of coffee a month and we can carry on making podcasts. It's as simple as that. Today's guest is my old friend, Al Murray, who I've known for way too long, fantastic guest on the show, always lovely to have him. Sit back, relax, and enjoy another retro rah astapart . Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Leicester Square Theatre. Peace welcome man. He's doing four haluspers in two days. I mean four weeks. It's Richard Harry ! Thank you, rap fans. Hello, my fine friends. Welcome uh to another episode of uh Rich Turing's Leicester Square Theatre podcast. But I was hanging around with the Why Don't You Gang for the Bristol. The Bristol Why Don't You Gang. Like I knew that would. I mean, like there's there's people with white hair who don't know what I'm talking about . Do you remember the why don't you gang? No . Why don't you why don't you just switch off television so I can go and do something less boring instead? Sit now watch TV . Turn it off, it's not I for a long time I just turned the T V off when that came on and thought I was quite clever. Then I watched it. It was quite good. Um anyway they call it Rhalastpa. They call it Wadiya. You might get next week's one. If you're here next week you might you might rem ember . So yeah look I've uh I've been uh I've been in I was in Leicester uh as do people at home will know I've done done done a couple of couple of weeks in Leicester yesterday and um that was fun but it's nice to you know they're they're all king stealing pricks there. So it's g it's good to be good to be away. I I put up with it. It's Richard of York, isn't it it's kill the kill the clues in the name. Um, but uh lots of things have been going on. I wanted to tell you about um the uh the water in Venice has disappeared as as we go to press. Uh that she uh and I think that's due to all the Veneziana pizzas I bought in Pizza Ex press . 25 p it's gone too far, it went too far. That's why they've had to stop doing that deal. The Veneziana pizza was good. There was a discretionary twenty five P donation to the Venice in Peril Fund. You mean I don't think they do it anymore. Uh but on two occasions uh I managed to turn that into a shack and I'm pretty impressed pretty impressive. I don't know why I didn't do it more than tw ice, but I went on two dates uh and on the at Pizza Express because I'm classy and uh I refused to pay the discretionary twenty-five pence on both occasions. The woman I was with was so impressed they uh they had sex full sexual intercourse with me . Not right like in the not in the restaurant. Wait till we got home. Uh went out with one of them for eighteen months. So careful what you wish for. Uh it was Julia Sawala, so be careful what you wish for . I don't think she had sex with me that night actually. Um So sorry about that. But that would if that is a and I'm not a dating man anymore, but that would be if you if they bring it back, try that. You've got to be careful with it 'cause you couldn't just come across looking like an arsehole. You've got to do it going, I don't you know it's discretion. I was just being pedantic about it being discretionary and I did say I hated Venice and wanted it to sink sink into the sea. I think both the women realised I was doing a bit. Don't think they liked me because I hated Venice. Uh I've I've got this news story as well, which I covered on Twitch of Fun a few weeks ago. It will be now by the time this goes out. Um do listen to Twitch of Fun and watch Twitch of Fun. It's a fantastic it's probably their world's best uh topical show with a man and a hundred and twenty hundred and thirty-one-year-old uh ventriloquist dummy. It's on uh twitch.tv. That's the that's where all the the the the big kids are now. Um a flying instructor died in flight after suffering a cardiac arrest. It gets funnier . It's not really a funny story. Uh but uh uh his co-pilot thought he was fooling around. Uh so prior to takeoff, the pair chatted normally while the pilot taxied the craft out to the runway. The pilot uh said uh the instructor's last words were looks good, there is nothing behind you. Oh the irony. Everything was behind him . Shortly after takeover, the instructor's head the instructor's head rolled back. As the two pilots knew each other well, the copilot thought his companion was just pretending to take a nap. Well he completed the circuit, the report said when the plane turned the instructor's slumped over, so his head rested on the co-pilot's shoulder , but again the pilot still thought a joke was being played on him. And so it was only when he landed that he realised the guy was dead. Which is quite a long time to do the joke, and it there's a long it's a long joke and I kind of wish the guy had just gone yeah no he's still he's always always joking or it's only he isn't really dead he's just pretending turn up at the funeral I know what's going on is he's gonna pop out in a minute. I mean I think you know if your friend goes down, just check their pulse. Just just terrible thing. No, it's a it's you're right, it wasn't . Let's crack on. Why don't you just switch up television saying to something? Good to us good. Uh let's meet our guest. He is probably best known for having an honorary doctor of social science. He's that he is an honorary doctor of social s cience from the University of Wolverhampton. That's why we're all here tonight. Talk to him about that. What he knows about social science. Will you please welcome the incredible Al Murray, ladies and gentlemen? Doctor of You're an honorary doctor of social science. I am. And not just that. There was another one as well. You got a couple of honorary degrees, haven't you? I got another one from Luton. Yeah. Pretty good. I can't remember what in it's a good lunch though. It was a nice lunch. Okay. Do they give you a certificate? Um there is a certificate, but I've lost it. Uh uh but so I have got two. You've thanks for reminding me about the the other one. The one at Wolverhampton was really that was really good . 'Cause history is a social science now. Oh okay. It's been uh like sort of told it's not history anymore. It's been like digested by social science. And yeah, what the there was a very nice guy at Wolverhampton who basically wanted to have lun lunch with me . So that's how that happened. But you have to dress up in all the kit, so you have to borrow the kit and you have to wear the waterboard and I did do a speech that went for fuck all because basically it it was they're all you know young people and at Wolverhampton them it's mainly sciences so I come on and go uh don't do as you're told and all that and um Oh really? Went for nothing. And then the and the Luton the the guy said the great thing about the UCD University is it's really near the airport. So we're good So we we do very well with foreign students. And he said and he said what will happen when this ends is they're all going to fly back to the Middle East. Sort of lazy foreign students who go, I want to go to the univers ity nearest. I hadn't I was in Luton. Yeah, but if you want to loot if you're in Luton, yeah you really want to need well it is near the airport. Yeah. I mean these it's a chicken and egg, that one. But I mean if you're gonna go to Lut anyway, the point is You'll wanna go. You wanna leave you wanna leave. Weirdly, at the first time in my life, I got lost in Luton last night on my way back from Leicester. Really? And I ended up in Luton Airport. I don't know how I did it. I took a wrong turning and I thought, fuck, I'm gonna have to pay six pounds for the drop off thing, but I managed to I managed to find a way round without doing it's 'cause you're doing four fees in two days and your body's telling you to go on holiday. Where am I? Where am I? What's going on? I don't recognise anything I'm at Luton Airport. It was uh yeah. It's a terrible place, Luton. You know Russell T. Davis was the presenter on Why Don't You? I didn't know that. I think no Gideon from Six Music was, wasn't he? Gideon Co. Gideon Co. Yeah. Yeah, but that was Russell. I think Russell Stevens' first gig was a pr was presenting But on late on late Why don't you? Oh really? Late l So basically the equivalent of like Sylvester McCoy Why Don't You Yeah. I thought you meant like why don't you after Dark ? That's a different program . Had a finger. That's what we call your lip. That would get that would get some people kids watching TV if that'd get made. Yeah, no, I didn't don't remember Russell T. Davidson. Would you have liked to have been in the the Why Don't You Gang? No . Did you think that's they were like crazy. They were wild people and I was very square when I was when I was a boy. I was no never. There was a boy at our school who ended up being like doing stuff on BBC that you know the in BBC Bristol did a lot of the nature programmes and was a boy in our school who ended up being like the kid that got onto those nature programmes. And I was really jealous. Yeah I didn't I didn't like nature but I was I thought how'd you get on Well maybe he didn't. Maybe he maybe he was faking it too. Maybe. That's show business. Yeah. Where is he now though then? Well that's the big question. Yeah. I'm here. Yeah. What's his name? I can't remember. That's t that's terrible, isn't it? Chris Packham. It was David Attenborough . He hasn't aged well . Very good. Well look let's all we were backstage, let's talk about what we're talking about backstage, which is very exciting, which is um the spitting image live show that you've co written and been in been involved in beyond you seem to be No, I'm not a I'm not no, I'm uh um I'm you know like all these things, I'm I'm cut into a mythical back end if we if we if we get into into the West End and if we're there for a long time and at some point we'll th it'll tip and we'll suddenly we'll suddenly we'll be rich. Which is how they entice you into doing things in the theatre. But we it's basically it's myself, Matt Ford and Sean Fole y, who um uh you know uh did the play What I wrote. Yeah, amazing. Um who's an amazing, brilliant, brilliant comedy director, and who just did um uh Upstart Crow in the with David Mitchell, which they they'd done for three weeks before the pandemic and then and then had to put it on hold and then they revived it uh in in the in the autumn last year. And um we the three of us have written this thing. I mean we've written four th three and a half things. Yes. Um because we got we got kind of caught outflanked by events at one point. Um although I mean th the more I think about it, we started writing it in March last year. We'd have had to rewrite the ending five times i i i in the intervening anyway. Yeah. And we'd have had to change who the well maybe not had to change who the lead character was, but but we'd have had to change the thrust of it as we went. And So you you'd based around Boris Johnson's The Fer the first show was called The Liar King. Yes. And and and it was the story of Boris Johnson , you know, how he becomes world king. 'Cause he wanted to when he was a kid. Right . According to his sister, you know, he w he declared when he was five, I I shall become world king. So the the plot was the plot was basically um and obviously quite a lot changed since we wrote this, but the original plot was Boris um realiz es time's up, so goes to see the Queen, throws her down a well, having because there's a wishing well in Buckingham Palace, magical wishing well in Buckingham Palace, having got it to sign the bottom of a piece of paper, and which of course said, you know, he says before I go, an autograph, please. Yes. And it says I I appoint Boris World King, right? Throws it down a well, becomes World King. While he's on his way there, because we're gonna have two Boris puppets, so there was gonna be him in a black suit, and then another one in a white suit, who was his conscience, who he'd given the slip when he was four, right ? We were gonna have a scenario with these two little boy Boris hav ising a fight with naughty Boris wedgieing the other one and anyway. And we had this whole thing and it ended with it ended with Boris Boris kills Pepper Pig by accident. And so because the thing is about this, you can have anyone you want in it. Just make a make a puppet. Right. And and and any resemblance to persons living or dead is the point. And uh and and it ended with basically him in the tower waiting to go to the gallows and um his conscience turns up and Boris tricks his conscience into going to the gallows for him . And he's world king at the end, and then the Queen came back from the dead, although so it's quite a different story now There we retained elements of that 'cause because the puppet of him is amazing and Matt's impression of him is so so good that you c and also he's still he's still, you know, literally lurking in the background in politics at the moment. We couldn't leave him out. So he's still in it, but it's it's a very di it's a radically different story. Yeah, so you've gone for more like a celebrity . It's Marvel film. It's idiots assemble. Yeah. Um Vladimir Putin says I I see what it is now, it's a shit Marvel film, Idiots Assemble, at one point. Because wait, basically what we've done is we have uh a fake cross arch built in so uh like in a uh a traditional theatre with boxes either side. So Harry and Meghan are watching in the box that side and Putin and G are watching in a box that side. And they kind of they end up getting involved, obviously. But the story is uh it starts on the morning of King Charles's coronation. He's meeting with his most trusted advisor, who's Paddington Bear , who is actually called Jesus Fernando Compostela and and there's cocaine in the marmalade sandwiches. say what you want, right? It's really it's the the freedom of it is really, really interesting. Yeah. So you can put words into Harry's mouth, you could put words into Megan's mouth, into the king's mouth, you know, y it's a it's a really interesting toy box. Yeah. But the plot is so basically the the the fabric of society is wearing thin, and there's a piece of fabric that the royal family have to look after. Who can possibly um help us with this impossible mission? And then this Tom Cruise puppet, of course, falls down in red lights from the you know, and then we go and we go from there and he assembles a posse of heroes. Um they have to fight the world's most evil men and James Gordon. And uh these are the beats of the story, and they're tricked they're tricked into they're tricked in they're deported to Rwanda and and and uh um and there's a sort of Sueella Braverman that's like an exorcist doll creature who's possessed by the idea of deporting people. So but but but we were we were what what is really amazing about it is you could you you know we we we're we're we're really trying to engage with the energy of the old programme. And I understand why people don't know what it is anymore. I get I get it. So we've got an opportunity to kind of refresh it. We're not doing it's not like the telly, 'cause there's no rinse repeat, there's no y y y you can compare it to the TV pro And and it's but we're also trying to do it's supposed to be like an eighteenth century cartoon pamphlet grotesque. Yes, okay. You know, wi with with with with you know the the the freedom they had. Yes, sure to write really, really rude things about the powers that be that you see in eighteenth century pamphleteering. Roger Law who created Spitting Image was very much in the he was he self consciously in that tradition.. Yeah And so we've really tried to do that. And we've done we've tried one of the things we've definitely done, so I don't know if people know so the Thrapany Opera, which is the which is the um uh Bert Old Brecht Kurt Vile musical from the thirties in uh uh about uh well Which is about uh magistrates and thief takers in London and how the politicians are cheat by jowl with the crooks and the crooks are in with what f f fills in for the police. And in that play, they have all these people with names, so you know who they all are if you know what's going on in London. Yeah. And then they take popular songs of the time and they change the words and he turns it into this sort of folk tale, and at the end the audience decide what happens. So we've kind of drawn on a bit of that kind of uh uh Geor gian uh satirical tradition as well. Because that's where that's where on stage and in pamphlets people started being really, really openly rude about the powers that be. And and and we we want wanna we want that. We want we want to tap into that. We want to be part of that feeling. And so the show's got that in it. So if you wanna see the Royal Family singing Bohemian Rhapsody about about um uh Prince Andrew's Piccadillos and Buy a ticket. Yeah. Well no you know it is I mean it's I know it sounds all pretentious that but that's that is what we're trying to really trying to tap into. Sure, but no, it's ext it is extraordinary to go back. I mean I suppose the the original T V show felt like that, didn't it? It felt like this is sort of groundbreaking, this is much ruder than we're used to people at that point people hadn't you know, putting the voice of the Queen Mother and doing her as whatever they did her as a uh was it Cockney or Northern, I can't remember what it was. Yeah, she was a cockckneyney., Yeah. Co then it was you know, people were shocked and offended. I know, it's amaz and it is amazing . When you look at Elvis and people go, he's gonna destroy Western civilization. And it's a blood going, Oh, you know, like it's dead and then punk rock, oh my god, you know, like it's so shocking. Like the the the idea that they uh and and of course the satire boom in the early sixties. Yeah. You know, no one had no one I mean apparently no one had ever done an impression of a Prime Minister before on television. You know, Peter Cook's impression of Harold Macmillan would like scared the horses. It is interesting when you look at those moments where supposedly things are massively shocking. But we what we we've tried to you want that energy and you can do it in a theater. Yeah, well there's free it is the freedom still of live performance dis regardless of what comedians say about everything. You can't do anything anymore. Um you can still within the theatre. Co dould an awful lot of things that you couldn't do thirty years ago. Sure. Even twenty years ago. Um uh uh d m taboos have uh never ever not been shifting. Yeah. You know, whatever. I mean you're you'll find your way through. Yeah. Um and and we do have a we have I mean the th the you know, the fact that Tom Cruise is our lead uh in the story means we've got to do all sorts of things about him. And um you know we've we haven't been sued yet . So it might be good. There's plenty of time for that, yeah. Uh do you think it is would be cheating on your partner if you had sex with the splitting image puppet? No. Have you considered uh renting out the Suwala Brahva Man puppet on an hour on an hour by hour basis? Now you've bring it up. It might be a way of covering some of your costs . Well I mean I mean they're hi they're life size, right? Some of them are. She's one of the she's one of the smaller ones. The Carrie the Carrie Johnson puppet has um Okay, that might be a good show. There's a well I like the I read somewhere about the show notes you're getting are kind of quite surreal. Basically you know, sums up how how t how tonight went. Um and uh the f let me where are they from? Jasmine and and tonight tonight's show report, Saturday twenty f this is this is so this is Saturday 's show report. Right? And it it contains, you know, perform date, performance number twenty seven, audience house count five hundred and ninety seven. And then you get who's in attendance, who did what? Technical notes. So and so watched tonight's show. Technical note two. The exploding cabinet Pyro Q1 misfired. The cabinet collapsed as desired. We've had a recurring problem with that. Maintenance right so this is the one. Today's notes as follows. Puppets, mild lesions on Rishi's neck . Boris's teeth are coming loose. Fixed by Be O'Shea, who's one of the puppeteers doing the show. Maggie's whip wig is slipping. Can can Keir's Superman stuffy be looked at? Puppet mate puppet maintenance tracker available here, and there's a link for the public maintenance. Um and and and this is this is basically and then you get um you know a captivated audience with raucous responses throughout with many standing at the curtain call, which is you know what obviously what you're after. But the first night the opening night, um we've got a bit where they're um where our heroes are in a uh in a boat 'cause they've been deported and they've escaped and they're coming back across the channel and Nigel Farage um pisses on them from the White Cliffs of Dover . Right. And it said on the first night, um Nigel f I I'll find it for you 'cause it's really, really funny. Um here are tonight's show notes. Thank you, Jasmine. Right, so here we go. Um as the pub was tracking out stage, the spade disconnected Okay fine. Fly Q eight was down was slowed down. Delay to act two when we confirmed the wardrobe set was complete. Um six. So note five, the fish head dropped off the body as it entered today, retrieved by Bertie Hans during the Stan Tall Little Man. Note six there was a touch too much water from the urinating Farage on stage causing a few slips during Stan Tall Little Man, which is a song, which is a song Stormsey sings to uh um to Tom Cruise. And then the opening night, hole in Queen's Chin, Ian is missing a thimble and top thimble is coming loose. So Ian McKellen's on orator. Suela head is coming loose from body. Split split in Megan Two's nose. King Charles Dowholder needs reattaching. So that's the opening night. The ally stuff they all basically all fell apart in the opening night. And this there's been this amazing uh effort to to run the repairs on them. But they are the the show notes are they're you know you get these you get these uh extraordinary messages.ole H inen Que's chin on the show too. I mean and on it goes. I mean it makes the show sound pretty spectacular. People you know, there's there's It's a cast of a hundred and six puppets in it, right? How many puppeteers twelve. And and you do get you do get the odd thing where it goes, you know, i ice pack needed for so and so at the end of that scene. Because the the the the you know, they're big and they're quite the the ones that have come off the T V show are heavier than the ones the they made some new ones for the stage. But they're quite heavy, and so they kind of get five minutes out of a puppeteer. It's quite demanding as a as a as a piece of theatre. But it's I mean it I I've seen it I think a half dozen times now, and it and it's it it's amazing. And what's also going on is more more and detail go it goes in as the puppeteers like get more into it and are finding extra little bits of business. We've got the thing there's a a thing called the circle of jerks, which is when the Tory party all come in. Like in the style of the Lion King. So we've got this twelve foot tall Reese Moggs praying mantis and pretty patels of bat and what's her name? Theresa Coffee's a slug with a cigar and the smoke comes out of our ass as well. It's really funny. But basically we've got we've got all that and and um the business I've seen you know each time I go back to see there's more business built into that. If you've got all the puppeteers on stage together, working the business together. It gets it's like it's like it's like it's a cartoon and someone's filled in all the detail. Yeah. It's really amazing. So you're kinda hoping nothing really happens in the world. Well if it's nothing changes if the if the Tory government fell tomorrow. I mean Well that's all right. Yeah. We could we could we could we could be more than all right, but yeah. Well yeah . I mean obviously we'd really love to bring the government down, but just not yet. We want it to go into the West End for at least eighteen months and then bring the government down. No, if the if the government comes down next week with, you know, do they mind to rewrite it? But no, we said we had to deal with Sturgeon about Sturgeon's uh retirement or his resignation ten days ago and that was I was on holiday, I was in Teneri fe, but you know WhatsApp is the great leveler. And it pops up immediately. What we're gonna do? So we all everyone's pitching lines on the group, and then Jess Robinson does uh Sturgeon. She was on a holiday in the lake district, so she drove down from the lakes to Birmingham with her mum and a dog in the car. Did the new lines, they rehearsed it with the puppeteer, stuck it in, and that evening, there it was her going, that's it, I wasn't on top of the lines we had her doing anyway. Yeah. So the whole all the all the words are . It's all a track. Yeah. Yeah. Because otherwise the the which is how they used to make the program. So that they'd record it and then they'd the puppeteers would do it to the track. 'Cause just you couldn't where would you put them in the orchestra pit, how would it work? And also you'd then be paying for impressionists night and day, yeah. And that would be really expensive. But the but the but yeah, so it's to attract but you can you know you can get someone to record lines on a phone now. I mean that's the other thing is is the technology has leveled a big part of that um kind of playing field. So so if you need an if you need an insert, I can do I got I got a home studio and I'm doing some of the voices and 40 has as well and in fact anyone who does voiceover basically has stuff at home now since the pandemic. So so you know actually running repairs are quite easy to do. I mean our big problem would be if if SUNAC quit tomorrow and then a Tory came in who we don't have a puppet of they take about four weeks to turn around. Okay. Because it's car you know, you get a caricatureist in, you pick the caricature you like the best, they're they're then sculpted, they're turned into a that has to uh there's a mold, it has to dry, the puppet has to dry, then they have to be painted, they have to you know and it's actually it's a sort of four week process. So we'd probably tomorrow 'cause we've got a scene where where it said, you know, this is where the big beasts of the Tory party gather to choose a leader every few weeks, right? So we'd so we'd probably have someone with a paper bag with a smiley face to come and go, hello, it's me, you know, talk whoever. If it's not Raab I mean, anyway, the the it's something we're not gonna worry about. It's interesting. I mean it's sort of interesting you had to write it th three or four times even in the first place to But devising a thing that is kind of is ki I mean the Royal Family fortunately have a thing in place for when one of them uh dies, which is that they're replaced by their so when when the Queen uh died, we were able to put Charles in her place. That was no that was that was fortunately no biggie. But but um it's it's Gail Murray claims the Queen's death was no biggie . Daily Mail Yeah but come on come on come on everyone it was gonna happen at some point and no one seemed prepared for it. It was amazing. I was in the theatre that night and they went sh that afternoon when it was obviously what happened. They go shit, what do we do? We haven't got a protocol. They think she's how long has this been I mean I know how long? Is it's the death of the queen being coming. But it was a weird moment. Anyway. But but but we've kind I think what we've done is we've kind of built a thing that where you could you you know, it's like a vessel and you could pa change the sails, yeah, but not have to change the whole thing. That's the idea . Sure. But it might not work out like that. It sounds amazing. It reminds me a bit uh of the Oxford View nineteen eighteen. Worst show on the fringe. It was eighty-eight or eighty nine. Yeah. 'Cause that was a big concept show about the world ending. The world ending, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Didn't the worst . You know who directed that? I can't remember. No, I can't remember who he was. It wasn't me, it was the other one. No. No, you had not You had nothing to do with that show, did you? No. No. No. You'd been burned the year before. It's had a terrible, terrible time. So awful. I remember what like watching that thinking this is a bit mean. Anyway. There we go. I'm still dealing with it. I'm still trying to get through it On BBC iPlayer. Gareth. 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The sameMonday.com with built-in AI, scaling your work from day one. The same day.com with an easy and intuitive setup. Go to Monday.com and try it for free . Hey look, I would I re I was reminded I don't think we talked about this uh before this is your including Edinburgh and the book club version the thing we did for Fane which went up in the book club. is This your seventh appearance. Is it? Yeah. Uh kind of my fifth or you did like three in Edinburgh, I think, in the original run. I did that three year in Edinburgh and then we did talk about your last book on that as one of the early book clubs. But it's five years since you've last been here. Here doing this one. You see, but that I thought it was three years ago, but that's that's so that's pandemic time. Twenty eighteen, so it's five five years, which seems insane. And is that was the only Hollister purr? Thank you. That I didn't stay for the whole th No, yeah, you bugged it off. I told some boring anecdote. I think you went on for a long time. I don't think we put it out actually. But I didn't stay to the end. That's the only time that's happened. So uh well so that we'll let's see if we can we'll see what happens. Let's see if we can top that. Next half an hour or three hours, depending how long this goes on. Uh but you had your own chat show and like you had amazing guests as the pub landlord. Yeah. I was watching something today. I mean you had a I just happened to across the one which was you had Philip Schofield with Silla Black and uh Des O'Connor. I know. As th all three of them together. I'm not saying everyone who comes into contact with you dies, Albert is But it was there it was it was quite funny because I remember s uh Scylla Black was sort of She was very grand. She was very grand, but then there were some rude jokes and she couldn't believe it and then she was talking about Des O'Connor being in the being in the hotel where Des O'Connor had conceived his last child and uh made it sound like she was in the room. But yeah, she was sort of shocked but enjoying it. But what what other what were your favourite people you 'cause you must have done a lot of Buzz Aldrin on and that was that he was amazing . And um I remember doing the warm-up and and and and it was this thing I would do the warm-up for the show, so to keep the whole thing sort of on tone. But uh uh or a lot of it, and then the and then Gordon Southern used to fill in the rest, uh who's brilliant. He's absolutely brilliant. And uh but we have Buzz Aldrin on, so I came on and said uh we've got a real treat for you tonight, ladies and we've got we've got Buzzle and Buzz Aldrin didn't know what on earth he'd walked into. 'Cause you basically you pay Busaldrin. Yeah. Right? That's how it works. If you want to meet the second man on the moon, you give him money. It's as simple as that. Right he was in town for something else, so we gave him some money and he came on the show. Yeah. And uh and you could see him like thinking, What the hell is going on here? What is this? So I go on and went, we got lazy and we've got a very special guest for you, Buzz Aldrin, and he only went to the fuck ing moon and the place went wild, right? And he and and apparently in the agreement goes, I think I'm gonna be okay with this show 'cause he you know, he doesn't know if people are gonna say to him, or he didn't I mean it's a long time ago this now., You you know d did even go, mate? Right. But what was really funny, one of my my daughters are here tonight, mate, older daughters, Scarlet Scarlett and Willow. And Scarlett used to come to those recordings fairly regularly. And Bus is wife. And Busses just remarried and and that's fantastic news and everything 'cause he's eighty-nine or something and hope hope for everybody and that I hope he doesn't ruin it by having a couple of children and and for himself. And um and his wife at the time had had an awful lot of plastic surgery. Right. Like a tremendous amount of plastic surgery. Right. And I remember Scarlett saying to me, Dad, and she must have been six or seven at the time, or may maybebe e eightight and she said dad I look at Buzz Buzz's wife and she makes me think of space So he was great . Um but that was amazing meeting him. Truly incredible to meet him. Yeah. Um and we did all these stupid jokes. We had a thing with like a like a drink on a piece of string like it was zero gravity and you could see and think what the fuck is this Who is this idiot? Right which is exactly what w also what we were kinda going for. Sure. Like who is this idiot? Like 'Cause we uh a and and then then Donny Osmond was on the show who was brilliant and um I'd I'd I'd walk over hot coals for Donny Osmond. He was a fantastic bloke 'cause he I'd met him a couple of times before and he was always like, he's always like, Al Murray, what are you doing? How's it going? I hear everything's great for you. Like you it's like you don't have to do that. You don't have to be like that, Donnie. It's fine, right? And we had this whole joke about how he was a merman, not a Mormon . And I deliberately spilled water on it to see if he'd sprout it And it's gonna you know, it's such a sweet man. And we did this we did this thing where um we had this d my my the Publano 'cause we had Gary on Time Gentleman Please. Yeah. Who was the dog in the in the in the in the sitcom? And then we for for the talk show, he had a I had a stuffed dog called Ramrod . Um who was this black, really scruffy dog that had been sketched on a whiteboard, and the prop guy went away and came back with this dog on a trolley . Um exactly from a thing drawn on a whiteboard, like uh uh but black as well. So the director's going, why is it black? You fucking idiots. I can't film that. But the really great thing about it is when you press the button, when you press the button on the lead, his eyes lit up red and so the whole thing he was invented to say to Donnie Osmond look I used to have a dog called Ramrod and when I sung puppy love to him his eyes would light up. But he's dead. But fortunately I stuffed him and myself, you know, that was a long weekend, all this sort of stuff and then I go and get him, plug him on the thing, and start and and and said, you Could sing puppy love to my dead stuffed dog ? It's so funny this . And he did. He got down on one knee and they called it puppy love. And obviously halfway through press the button his eyes left. I mean we entertained ourselves mainly on that track. And uh ITV didn't feel that way about it. Um it was really really, it was an amazing, amazing thing to amazing thing to read. Have you put all of the because you've got your own YouTube channel where I know you've put time gentlemen please up there? There was a this was on the other side. This running joke as well that um whatever the band were that we had on, I'd they'd play their new one and I'd go, that was alright, but you're not as good as Queen Come back at the end with a Queen cover, yeah. And we had them in a set that was meant to look like a pub to ilet. And and so they would. So Madness did there's Madness doing uh Madness did a version of Killer Queen and uh uh the wombats did Brian Ferry did Fat Bottom Girls. And uh not Brian Ferry, B ur uh you know, what's his name? The the Canadian singer. Brian Adams. Brian Adams did Fat Bottom Girl. Well so would have I. So do I. Well that was the idea we and and what was really so we've run in I think for the for YouTube and all that we we've kind of run into like one of those really annoying problems. Cause it was a re it was a really because the thing is, when when we put the programs to go, they're saying, oh, if you if you have a band on and they do their new one at at the end, they'll t people will turn over. Because it's always that thing. They do it do a song and they run the credits. I said they'll turn over. So I said, well the way to do it then is we do this their song halfway through when there's still some program left, but with the offer of what if at the end of the show, you know, backstreet boys do behavior . Yeah. And that and and that's what we did. And and then in the end Queen got word of it . So they came on the end of the first series. So I got sing with Queen the end of the first series. Which is totally mental. And uh I was going I was going through a rough I was getting divorced at the time. There's a r or things were going wrong at home, and it was a really rough time. And I remember sitting there like thinking, Oh, I don't know what uh fuck me, I've got to this is all like doing my head in the pressure of it all, and also going home is really difficult. And one of the crew sat down next to me and said, 'I bet this is your wildest dream to sing with Queen.' I said, 'No, of course not. And no one never no one dreams they'll ever sing with Queen. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Fucking ridiculous. And then and then we had them back, and then at the end of the second series, we had them on again when they and they had Paul Rogers from Free singing with them. So they used to do All Right Now. Yeah. And uh we went to a break. They did their new one that they'd done with him. And and you know, and I and we came out of the break and I went we came out of the break with them finishing Bohemian Rhapsody and I said, Well, you won't believe what's happened during the adverts lady, Jim, but Queen just played Bohemian Rhapsody. By the way, I'm a bit sick of Queen now, but said it to Queen's face. Bit sick of Queen now. Junoni free, right? So they so they did all right now at the end of the programme. We had look we had so much fun with that. It was an amazing thing to have done. Yeah it was good. Well look there is some of it online so go and have a look at his it is only and I suppose there's a there's a tr uh it's very hard interviewing a character but it does seem to work the other way around where the character where a character does the interview 'cause that's obviously Mrs. Merton was a five year old. I mean and and Dame Edna and w when we when we when we I mean basically when we when we put it together we pitched it as publan or day meadow experience. Yeah. Right. Um uh and we're gonna be we're gonna I'll be rude to people's faces and they might not know I remember the first two or three, the guests you could see them going, what the fuck is going on? Because you do you do the standard research chat where the research would bring up and go, and you know, uh it says here you really like pottery. And the the star would go, yeah, I'm I like a bit of pottery and then they'd expect to be asked about it. And then we would write these rehears we would write these interviews that were like basically thirty jokes I'm gonna fire at them, thirty you know, and then and then if they go for that or follow it up with this and follow-up questions like a like a sort of political interview, really, rather than a but all of it jokes. And we'd uh and I remember I remember Jason the look on Jason Donovan's first face during the first episode . What the fucking hell of a let myself in for? But he was a sport in the end and it and it came down to that thing as well if people if people like joined in and had fun with it, they they they looked great . You know, uh uh rather than c sort if they're if they're Louis Walsh he he he he he'd obviously he'd not uh you know, they must have all been sent clips. He'd obviously not watched it. And uh he kept correcting me I cause we used to have a thing where I'd make deliberate mistakes. Right? Like I'd half read the notes. Yeah. And because I it was it was when it was we're talking about I think we're to 'cause it was sort of round it was not long after Little Britain time, or round Little Britain time. And I kept calling them Dave Lucas and Matt Williams and he would correct me . And it 's like no I'm getting it getting it wrong on purpose, mate. But in general, but I mean people were it it was really good fun to do and it was there was something really there was something really amazing about you'd have people on who who'd been like really PR trained yeah and you would if you didn't they they they they they wouldn't know what to Yeah. No, it's worth it's well worth looking up. Uh I do remember from the time, but it was it was nice to see it again. Uh let's talk about you look this you're doing so many things. I mean you're back on tour as well, but you're um uh you've written a a proper history book so like last time I talked to you about your your funny history book which it still has some history in it yeah and some very good history in it that which was called a hundred what was it called a hundred The twentieth century and all that. Uh which is is great. But this is a this is like n no joke. Well you know some it's some lines in it. But uh it's about World War Two, uh called Command, how the Allies Learn to Win the Second World War. Yeah. Uh which is it's tricky. You get it as an audio book, which is what I always recommend because uh you can listen to it as you drive your car around or run around the the block. Um but uh when you read it yourself, yep. Which is always good. Uh cheaper. So tell us tell us what tell us what the what what you wanted to achieve with this and what the book is. Basically of officers on the British and American and uh Commonwealth side and and uh um I have this podcast with James Holland, who's a real Second World War author, and we cute we coined an acronym which is Duke, Dominions UK Empire, which is who's fighting on the British side during the Second World War. So that includes New Zealand, Australia, Canada, South Africa, India the British Empire basically. Um but you know, with the qualifications of Dominion and all that. Anyway, so so it's Duke generals and a couple of American generals. And but and the the story the story of the Second World War I think is interesting or one of the stories of the Second World War War is interesting because the the West, the Allies , get off to a really horrendous, appalling start. The kind that the kind that you when you look at it could have just finished them off completely. And somehow figure out recover from from the the you know the d Dunkirk I I'm you know, my grandfather was killed in the fighting outside Dunkirk. I don't like when it's presented as a miracle. It it's as big a disaster as any army uh uh reverse as any army has ever suffered in military history. It's it only topped by Singapore really. It's an absolute total calamity and the reasons are the reasons are get sort of elided around, but of it's pretty clear what went wrong and why. And yet the most amazing thing is four years later, um, you know, the the Normandy invasion happens and the British are like are back the Duke forces are back with the Americans and it's like they've it's it's it's like they're complete a completely different uh setup. Yes. And that is amazing. That that alone uh uh in In the story of the Second World War is incredible. And there's all the things that make that happen. So what I wanted to do was use 10 people to tell 10 points in the history of the Second World War but also talk about what . So but I and I've got famous people in it and then people who no one no one has ever heard of. So I've got Monty in it and Patton, because you can't avoid them. But I've tried to write about them from a different angle to their normal the way they're normally written about. And then people no one has ever heard of, like Peter White, Alastair Pearson and uh uh white the White is the last chapter in the book and he was a he was a South Africa he was born in South Africa, he went to Surrey, he was an artist, son of an artist, uh a pacifist, a Christian, really not interested in in the the war at all. He was sort of t I think fourteen when it started. So in nineteen thirty nine, you know no realistic expectation perhaps that you'd still you'd have to do anything about it. Um and then by nineteen forty-four he has to be a he has to join the army, he has to be an officer, and he ends up leading men and and he wrote an amazing biography and he was also a brilliant artist, so the writing's really evocative. So he really tells you what the responsibility of being 19, 20 years old, having a platoon, sort of thirty guys and trying to look after them, trying not to get them killed, and trying to make sure they all keep keep it together. Yeah. And you keep it together because they need you to to be together as a person. And and um so he ends the book, but I start off with um Monty who, you know, is the most famous British general and much maligned, but I don't want to write about I didn't write about the well known bits of him, I wrote about before he was famous. Yes. You know, like like an Angus Deaton clip show. Um Well it's you know, it may and I'm I you know I know you are super interested in war and the mechanics of war and the hardware of war, which I've never never really fascinated before. But it won having to having reading it and s and thinking about the you know, I mean just ten examples, but you realise that how many times this must have gone over and over again, but how difficult uh and how much preparation was just even a simple assault on a place you'd need to combine all the different types of force they've all got to arrive at the same time. The the equipment is a very it's completely boggling. And if you're you know, if you're a so I start with Montgomery who's a who's a divisional commander at the start of the Second World War, and he's had this really terrible uh he he had a he had a good first world war, if you can have such a thing, where he was injured at right at the right moment so he could then go into being a staff officer and learn how everything worked. So he wasn't just killed, right? Um and and he learns how everything works and then between the wars he's that boring bloke who just wants to talk about work. When they're when they're in the mess and everyone wants to play polo and everyone and the British Army goes through this real thing after the first world war where they just want to go back to proper soldiering rather than fighting. And proper soldiering is a bit of polo, bit of parading, maybe a bit of police work, like nothing nothing serious, like the first world war. And and he b he gains this real reputation for being a b like basically a a total professional and no one's interested. And become the second world war, he's divisional commander, so he's in charge of and that that means he's in charge of kind of fifteen thousand people. It's not the top level, it's somewhere down the machine, but the division is like the biggest unit size, sort of uh um self-sufficient unit size in in the British Army at the time. And he's brilliant at it. He's just he's just he's he's absolutely brilliant at it. But he gets in trouble um during the first phase of the Second World War, when I mean as you sure I'm sure you all know, the war breaks out in September thirty nine, but then nothing the British don't do anything until May nineteen forty, until they're forced to by the Germans attacking France. And he's a divisional commander during the Phony War period, or the Boer War, or the Sitzkrieg, as it's named . And he really cares about his men. He's unusual. He really, really cares about his guys. Not because he cares about them, but because he wants them as efficient as possible as soldiers. So if that means he's got to fake liking them or care about their he alth. He's i I mean he's been described by another writer as he's a basically a psychopath. He's like it's like because he loves it. He loves fighting. He loves the he loves war. But he's actually really, really good at looking after his guys. And he gets in in the in the winter of nineteen thirty-nine, he writes a memo, a divisional memo. So he writes to all his officers saying, Right, we're in France, and he's been in France before, twenty years, twenty-five years previously with the First Wldor War, and they have a massive problem in the First World War with it with what they called VD at the time, sexually transmitted infections, STIs. A massive problem. To the point where the First World War is characterized as the trench foot war . The British Army um hospitalizes 40 I think it no, it's 75,000 people with trench foot during the First World War. Sounds like a lot of people. It's an organization with three and a half million people in it. It's a lot of people, but it's but they hospitalize how many people do they hospitalized for VD during the first world war ? It's four hundred and fifty thousand . And it and the problem then goes home, so guys go home having caught the clap, take it home to their wives, um and take it home to the prostitutes at home, and so there's an epidemic in the UK as well, to the point where they're removing uh doctors from France, from Flanders, to go home to the UK to deal with the V D epidemic. And it causes a moral panic and it falls down the old lines as the people who say we shouldn't talk about this at all because sex is naughty and wrong and morally undermines us. And then the other people who say we need to talk about this and we need to give out condoms and we need to do health checks if we're gonna have any uh uh any uh influence over the course of events. And the lobby A also think that women should be held responsible for this problem. Of course. Of course. And lobby B think that the men should be held responsible for it. But the strangest people are on the different side. So Emily Pankhurst is very much on the on the moral outrage side. Which is really interesting. Um uh and then the sort of the sort of you know, classist eugenicist side of opinion in Britain at the time thinks that, you know, uh this is a sign of moral decrepitude in the working classes and V D V D will will sort things out for it. It's really mad. So anyway, so come the Second World War. Monty's thinking, well, I don't want that happen again. So he writes to his men, and it's a funny memo. He writes this memo in sort of and he's and he's funny. He's he's he's got this very dry bone dry wit, but he basically says, I understand the men and I know what they're like and I understand what young men are like, particularly when they're facing the prospect of possible death. Um and if they want to take their pleasure with a young lady in a turnip field, then so be it. He actually uses that expression. He says, should they seek horizontal refreshment? This is what we need to do. And he tells the officers to find a brothel that's approved, to run health checks, to get the men to admit it, to you know, all this sort of thing. And that memo goes out, and the head chaplain of the British Expeditionary Force and the head Roman chap chap Catholic chaplain call for his head and try to get him fired because of this memo, because of the language in it. Yeah. Which I find absol utely amazing. Right. Because they're just not serious. They're not serious about the war. They're not serious about what they've embarked on. They're they're more interested in the their daft moral positions in a war, which is after all an insane moral position. Right? So they're all j and and and if they'd fired him, he really was the the best divisional commander, then becomes the army commander, then becomes the you know, the the guy who runs D Day. If they'd fired him, they'd have had to find someone else. And they and bec as I said they're an organization that doesn't like talent isn't interested in professional professional people who would have done it and that question's unanswered. And so I start there and then we work our way through different things. And it's sort of I mean it makes you think both uh how awfully would have been to you know how lucky we've been to live in a time where so far up to now I mean I think you and I 'm too mates all you and I are safe from conscription I think is the way you can go back to talk about a fitness to go how fit you've got to be to fight a war you've got. I'll be all right. We can do downhill attack. But also to also yeah, this but also just like you know, SDIs being so un you know, treatable but only in horrible ways, but like syphilis was it's syphilis we're talking about as well. So it's which is which in the nineteenth century is basically straight aids. Yes. And is is uh the the the moral panic that grips the whole of the whole of, you know the whole of the world in the in the nineteenth century about what syphilis is and how it relates to madness and how it relates to genius and how you know how it di you catch it and then it disappears and it might resurface and asylums are full of people with syphilis in the 19th century. So they all know they'll you know when they talk about VD, they're they're they they're not talking about thrush. You know, that the they're talking about something really, really serious. But also people even in spite of that, people still went and had sex with prostitutes. So like knowing that you could get this uh terrible, terrible disease and you know and I know our generation went through it as well and you know, with with AIDS and so you know and HIV so it's y you can't stop people you won't stop people And it's also really hard to stop young young men who you're who could die next yeah they're not worried about looking mad when they're eighty when they're not thinking they're gonna get it. And the army's other big problem was is uh V D was regarded as a self inflicted injury. Um Well 'cause 'cause it is, right? Unless you'd fucked a German. W ell well that that becomes a that becomes a problem later. a self inflicted injury. So uh but also so so you wouldn't re you wouldn't turn yourself in. No. So the V D rates and the I've got there's all these numbers in the book, the V D rates are report the men reporting how ill they are if they're sick. There's obviously so there's a whole load of people who just thought I'll I'll style it out I'll tell them I've got tonsillitis. Get the get the antibiotics that way. Yeah, it's fascinating. You are funny around the subject as well, as well as it being quite a serious subject. But it it's very impressive because it is it is like a it's a proper history book and it must be nice to you know and it's been accepted I think by historians . I think because you've done a lot of work, you know, I think even in within your stand up when you when you do something like how Britain's all won every war. You've there's a lot of scholarship in in that routine. Entirely expect to be told to stay in my lane and all that. You're not allowed to be interested in more than one thing. If you've done one thing in public, you're you're you're supposed to stick to it, aren't you? Um and this is a this is very much a I mean I was able to write this because of the pandemic. If I'd been on my normal timetable, it would have taken like much, much longer to put together and to find the find the time to to find the time to find the stuff to to base the book on. Yeah. How are you finding to unlike I did, you know I, I'm fucked. did a gig in Leicester yesterday and drove up drove myself. But it's only two hours each way. Yeah. Absolutely fucked today. How and it's because I'm 50. I mean it's it's partly having guys. You're older than me, right? I'm a little bit older. I'm a little bit I'm year old. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. I remember reading about I can't remember who it was, but some old school comedian was about fifty five and said, I'm giving up 'cause the d the driving's too much and and now I'm there I'm kinda thinking I'd quite like to go back on tour, but you know, if I get this tired after one gig. Yeah, but I I mean I have a guy You have a guy driving. He drives. And he's even older than me. Is he? Yeah. I still think even if you just drifty. It's still quite exhausting being driven by you know that the travelling is is hard, right? But you've learned to just sleep, haven't you? I can't I'm not I'm not very good at sleeping. I'm quite good at that, yeah. A little bit. I mean I'm gonna get better 'cause I'm so I do sleep a bit in cars now 'cause I'm too tired, but I but I usually find it quite difficult to say. You finding okay the the touring example Yeah the touring was all right but the the big the big changes I was at home for the longest I've ever been at home. Yeah. With the pandemic. Right? And it and it it it has m I'm you know I always think people who use the expression work life balance are f fucking wankers, right? Shut up. It's all it's all life, right? But but um I have I've I I what we did the first half of the year, and it really worked very well, is it two or three a week, right? Yeah. And no longer. And then there was a bit in the middle of the year and then the and the uh then at the end of the year where I was away away four or five days. And I really I I I used to not I used to just pff who cares? I used to be like I'd not give a shit about that. Yeah. Like just shrug it off. Brilliant, Manchester tomorrow, we'll go for lunch there. Like all that, right? And I my I I found it in the autumn it really actually started to sort of get me down because I'd been at home so much. Yeah, uh well I feel the same as well. And it and and and I I don't know, maybe next year if I go w if and when I go out next year, uh uh that will have worn off. But maybe not. It may be it may be that the it may be but it also I also think it's also possibly a function you know, I'm not I'm not young anymore. Like like you know what I mean? If I was thirty five, I'd like yeah, sure that bash through it all. But yeah you get a bit older and you get a bit more tired and your knee your knee gets hot for no reason going upstairs and did the was the lockdown particularly hard? I mean you know I think like you and I both I I feel it a lot less now, but w you know, I I my wife would notice if I hadn't gigged for a bit, like before lockdown, that I'd get a bit antsy and she'd she'd always say the minute I went out and did a gig I was I was much nicer to Well I I th right at the start I was about to go on tour and I think um Steve's here, who's our agent. So we could talk about this. Can't can I, Steve? Great. So um so we were about to go out and we'd had a problem at um Watford Coliseum where their roof had fallen in the previous autumn. Okay. So we'd had to postpone the gig. So we postponed it to like March. Yep. And we couldn't get a straight answer out of them whether the roof was still falling in or not and all that. And and it look and a pandemic was like obviously coming. And the amazing thing about that is we had some gigs booked in the Far East. And the promoters go, don't worry about it, it'll be fine. You can still you can still come out to Thailand. Don't worry, it'll be right. Hong Kong, yeah, no problem. Right? Really okay. Um uh in April April, you know, like after this little run of gigs. Anyway, we we couldn't get a straight answer out of what for Coliseum. So it was all this like, do we have to we're gonna have to make a decision? What do we do? And I was slight I was secretly thinking, God 'd be brilliant not to have to go out. It'd be brilliant, be at home for a bit. So I so when it first started, I basically said to myself, It's all right, you've had a good run. You things have gone well. There's still some people who like you. Uh uh you get to pick and choose a bit and you don't need the laughter anymore. You don't need the approval of strangers. You're not like you were when you started. You're c you're c a whole person, you're complete. It's okay . But it's no longer what fuels you and then in that first summer, they when they started la wying gigs in pub gardens, mem um Math Brown rang me and said, Oh I'm doing a thing down in Hampton Wick or something. Uh pub garden, uh you know, it's a hundred people at tables. Do you want to do it? And I'm like, oh, I don't know. I, you know, I've I'm kind of okay. I don't really need the laughter. And he said, Oh fuck's sake, come down. I said, but I haven't got any stuff. He said, Oh, don't worry, you you don't need to worry about that. You'll be all right. So I go down , and and we're all the we're all up in the room where the club normally is, and we came down the fire escape and onto the, you know, and everyone on those trestle tables and all that. And I did about I did about forty minutes and I was as high as a kite, right? After the people laugh, you know, people laughing. And I realised I'd just been I'd just been like lying to myself. Like it's like it's a craven attempt to rationalise everything. And then I'm straight away, you got another one, you know. And and and then I and then I really got into doing um stuff on Zoom, like figured out a way to do it. Um and uh James Gill's Club Always Be Comedy, we did a thing on we did a pub quiz every Monday night and I'd sit in my office and he'd write he'd prepare it all and then we'd we'd do it and we'd have got a hundred and twenty people and I'd I've had I'd have 40 people regular people with you know with their kitchens and their living rooms and their you know lounges and all that and and it was brilliant. Yeah. And it actually it actually meant I was all right. Yeah . Because in the end, you know, we the the you know, I 'cause I was d I don't like the idea that we're all like um suicidal comedians. But but and we're as I think we're as representative of a cross-section of people as any as any other. Yeah. But we do all really like it when people love our jokes. There's something missing in the heart. Yeah, yeah. Um, but I think also you're similar to me in the I think you you know, you in real life you you describe yourself as quite conformist and as a child you were very conformist of rule obeying, which I was. I was very scared of doing anything naughty or wrong. And yet on stage and you have a a whole armour of the persona around you I mean the character around you and I mine's a a bit more like me but still uh sort of extended version of myself. We can be much more than a good I remember seeing a comedian in like nineteen eighty eight, I think, um, who was trading under the name Cecil Massey. Oh yes, I did do a character. Which is Rich did his character, who's an old like an old man, which was quite a thing to try and pull off when you were twenty one. Oh I'm all really old. Like And you used to say all sorts of like it was and you could see that I could see how liberating it was. Yeah. That that and also that what you're openly saying is we're here to play together, we're here to play and and you know, in a weird way, this is a safe space where we can say terrible things and we know we don't mean them. We have agreed that we don't mean any of this and and that that would that that is sort of I mean you know, this is the pr the endless argument about doing a character and where does the truth truly lie and all that shit that I get thrown at me. But yeah, I mean I like I r absolutely love. I love and I because I was, I was a very, very conformist child, and there's still a big streak of me that wants the the that's I feel like that's the sort of magnetic north I'm always being pulled back to. Yeah. And that I need to I really need to resist. Um it's a it's a peculiar, it's a peculiar it's a peculiar mindset and it and it's try, you know, I think maybe the the in all comedy I've done that that that that sort of push and pull is where the energy for it has come from. Yeah, maybe, yeah. I d I mean I don't know, 'cause in the end you you we're starting to dissect the frog here, but um uh uh which is quite Well you never want to look at why things work and why things don't like with the I you know this podcast I kind of every now and ago think Am I doing it right? Do I need to go back and think about how I used to do it? And then I think, no, I'm just whatever it is, I'll do whatever it is and see how it goes you know, is it changing? Is it changing the wrong way, is the right way? And the minute you start doing that you'll fuck yourself up. Oh no, you're really in trouble. You've just got to go, okay, I trust my instincts and and if it is different than it was ten years ago, which fucking hell I hope it is. Well exactly. Exactly, exactly. You know, when people say has the you know, how has the pub landlord changed? Well I mean I was t thirty years younger when I started doing it. Yeah, yeah. So it's changed enormously. Although the I think the sort of the the thing in the middle of the the you know is the same. Yeah. Well the aim is the same, but of course you I can't i i I have to I have to change it too or I'll go mad. I mean it's the other the other big part of it. The other option is to not do him anymore. But is that is that an option for you? No, because a because because if I would if I were to do me as stand up, I'd literally wouldn't where to start . Because I because the because after all, but but all the all of the conventions of stand up are uh that you're not telling the truth. Yeah. That you're you you've compressed stories, you've exaggerated them. I mean I often sometimes I'll I'll see stand-ups you you know put put someone special on and I'd be talking about my brother said this my mum did that and you think fucking hell you know make some stuff up I've created a whole world in a mindset you lazy bastard literally going around to your mum's house hoping she says something stupid. Or you know, going to going to a tourist attraction in the hope that it's shit. So you can get squeezed five minutes out of the lemon, right? And think, Well I've invented a b explanation of how the city of London works, lazy pricks. Chris Ramsey's a really good friend of mine, because I worked with him uh uh uh you know ten, twelve years ago. He's a brilliant, he's lov aely, lovely bloke. But I remember him ringing me up and going, You won't believe what's fucking happened. And he'd been arrested in a hotel in a case of mistaken identity. And you think, well, there's your show. You f You lucky fucker. And I I also I'd I'd r I would I would rather I would rather make stuff up. Yeah. You know. That's my that's my inclination. And I think uh uh and stand up also because of those conventions offers you that um opportunity anyway. Why not make stu why not make stuff up? Yeah, definitely. I mean it's interesting. It doesn't have to be about yourself. And you never did, did you? So the other act you did was the murder noises, which was was a sort of character of just well and and a sort of special act as well. Yeah, yeah, basically. Yeah. But uh yeah, that's interesting. You never I mean you did sketches and I'm I the thing is is the thing is is I 'cause I I mean I think it's an interesting way to live where you talk about your life all the time. It's a really interesting way to live because because you know, if you if if do do you sit your parents down and say, I'm gonna do that joke about the time at Sunday lunch, Mum asked me what anal sex was. And your parents go, What? Did that happen? Or did you make that you know you know what I mean? I don't have to bother with any of that. I just my mother has to come and see a show where I I remember the to they came to the show where I used the C word 35 times. My dad sort of came and said he'd enjoyed it. Anyway but you know what I mean and I I I I I think I think one of the big I think one of the big mistakes people make about stand up is they're prescriptive about what it ought to contain. And the brilliant thing about it is it's it is a blank page. It's a blank stage, it's a blank page. Put what you want on it. You don't have to talk about you don't have to talk about yourself . You don't have to tell the truth. Truth is , but. not But not the truth. Right. You you you know what I mean. And and I and I think I think I think that can get lost sight of when you know 'cause what you get in the kind of critical establishment is is sort of phases of ideas of what what comedy ought to be and what it ought to contain . And I kind of think, yeah, fine of all right. It's gonna be funny though, right? It's the boring my boring starting point. You know, th the any p any prescriptive description of what it ought to be will probably fail. Yes.