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Stewin' the Fat 1: Eddie French
558 Plays9 months ago
In this special 'Stewin' The Fat' episode, Dan talks to Leeds based comedian, actor, musician and host of the 'Punk Rock Elite' podcast, Eddie French.
They discuss Eddie's comedy origin story, experiences running comedy nights in Leeds and crossing paths with current TV comedy stars early in their career, at which point Eddie drops the single best impression of 'Live at the Apollo' star Scott Bennett that there will ever be.
In terms of Stew related chat, they talk about their early memories of Lee & Herring's 'Fist of Fun', Being on the front row of a '90's comedian' performance in Edinburgh (in the company of Mum and Dad) and an awkward encounter with the man himself outside the Stand, when he was handing out flyers for Bridget Christie.
Punk Rock Elite: A Podcast About NOFX is available wherever you get your podcasts, and you can catch Eddie French Live at Leicester Comedy Festival and Glasgow International Comedy Festival
COME AND SEE STEWNIVERSE LIVE:
Leicester
Brighton
SEE DAN'S SHOW:
SEE JOE'S SHOW:
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Across the Stewniverse
00:00:11
Speaker
you
00:00:33
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Across the Stewniverse podcast, the world's only podcast about the comedian Stuart Lee. Today is a bit of a break from our regular scheduled deep dive into Stu's work.
Format Changes and Guest Introduction
00:00:48
Speaker
Basically what I've decided to do is periodically when Joe is either otherwise engaged or unavailable or his schedule won't allow for whatever reason,
00:00:58
Speaker
I'm going to take an opportunity to speak to either a comedian that I really respect, like their work or admire or just one of my comedy pals and talk to them about Stu, talk to them about Stu's influence on their work and their appreciation thereof. In this case, this particular episode, this person represents all of those things
00:01:23
Speaker
someone i consider to be a pal on the circuit but also someone whose work i respect and admire greatly and who i've looked up to since i started bumped into them fairly early on on the lead circuit and i gravitated towards them really because not only were they
00:01:41
Speaker
very friendly and very welcoming and just very good with making me feel at home on the circuit. It's very scary as a new act when you're first starting
Punk Rock and Podcasting
00:01:50
Speaker
out. But also I gravitated towards them because like me, they are a fan of 90s American punk rock. And to that end recently with a fellow comedian, Red Redmond, they have started a podcast about one such band, No Effects.
00:02:09
Speaker
that's called the punk rock elite podcast so we'll get into chatting a little bit about that in the episode as well as all the comedy and stew related stuff but do check out the punk rock elite podcast it's become one of my regular rotation listens so that's enough of my rambling on I reckon so without further ado here's me talking to Eddie French
00:02:36
Speaker
I tend to like to do those, you know, it's quite fashionable these days to just do the kind of starting, you know, in medias res, start in the middle of a conversation. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I don't, I don't sort of do, do the kind of whole intro thing because I'm, well, I'm not very good at it. I do it because, because I'm essentially, you know, in another life, I think I was Mr. Saturday night. I do it much more presentationally, but
00:03:03
Speaker
You were, what was the one I always remember, is it Ben Elton on Friday Night Live or something? I mean, I was thinking I was more like Brucey, but you know. Oh, fair enough. Literally. I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, because Bruce also, he meant it, whereas I think Ben Elton was, was lampooning.
Comedians on Politics and Capitalism
00:03:22
Speaker
It's a very Stuart Lee way to start a podcast. As Stuart has gone on to say himself, Ben Elton has since proved that it didn't mean anything that he said.
00:03:38
Speaker
No, well, he might have done, but again, it's that he did mean that before he owned at least one house and then started going, well, now, come on, you know, that's the that was that was the Margaret Thatcher. That was a great genius move, which was well, the reason a lot of the working class on capitalists is because they don't have capital. So if we let them buy council houses, they will have capital ergo be capitalists and then they'll come over to our side.
00:04:07
Speaker
What, 30 years later, 40 years later, we're reaping the whirlwind of that now.
Guest's Comedy Origins
00:04:13
Speaker
Yes. Stupid old twats looking up, laughing. How dare they? But no, like I said, the reason that the conversation we were having before I started recording is, to me, pertinent, because I wanted to ask you about this, because I was going to go through the whole
00:04:29
Speaker
your origin story, if you like, in terms of how you got into comedy and all that kind of stuff. But I've got it somewhere in the back of my mind, because I've done no research to steal a Stuart Lee line. I've got it in the back of my mind that you started out in bands, like in punk rock scene? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the first project that I did.
00:05:00
Speaker
I moved from Brighton, oh well, I moved from like the South Sussex to Leeds when I was nine. Didn't fit in with anyone particularly. I did some sort of like Amdrami sort of musical theatre stuff when I was about nine and ten. And then moved out of the musical theatre into just sort of
00:05:23
Speaker
I was going to say straight theatre. How straight is theatre? Straight theatre. But then when I was like 12 or 13, my dad was in a band, like they're like a wedding band, a party band, did all like Beatles cover, Stones covers, stuff like that.
00:05:39
Speaker
which in the mid-90s was, you know, that was property. You know, they did really, really well, like locally. They were doing all that. Their singer, Keith Richards, not that one. And they were all from like the village, the village that I grew up in. And his son, same age as me,
00:06:03
Speaker
He formed a band with a guy he went to school with, we went to different schools and he knew that I had access to a bass and so invited me and then joined this band when I was about 13 until we were 18 and we sort of split up when we finished sixth form and the drummer and I went to the same uni
00:06:23
Speaker
we didn't intend to, because we went to different sixth forms, so we didn't know that we'd applied. And then the singer went on to be in Colour of Fire for any fans of early noughties.
00:06:40
Speaker
sort of emo-y, slightly mathy rock. I was going to say the name rings
Explaining Comedy and Identity to Children
00:06:46
Speaker
a bell, but I couldn't, you know. They toured with Placebo a lot. They were on the same, they had the same management as Placebo. In fact, the drummer from Color of Fire is in Placebo now. Oh, right, okay. Their drummer, because it's basically just Stefan and Brian now. Yeah. So their live slash studio drummer is
00:07:06
Speaker
Matt Elan from Color of Fire. He was then in a band called Grammatics as well, but pardon me. So yeah, so I started out doing all of that, but comedy was what I'd already loved. I'm named after a Monty Python sketch, so my parents were big on comedy. There was Sir Edward Ross
00:07:25
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That one's Sir Edward. Can I call you Sir Edward? Yes, Sir Edward's fine. So Ted, no, don't call me Ted. Basically, that was my parents thought it was an incredibly versatile name. So they thought Edward, that'll do. It very much is. It's funny you mentioned. It's funny you mentioned your name, because my daughter's called Edith, and we call her Edie. And we were doing the homework just before I jumped on to talk to you. And she saw me sort of dropping you a quick message.
00:07:55
Speaker
And she's six and she looked at it and she said, that looks like it says Edie. I said, no, it says Eddie. And then she said to me, is that a girl's name or a boy's name?
00:08:06
Speaker
And then you had to get into the concept of non-binary. Exactly. Yeah. So like, you know, then I tried to in my mind, I'm trying to work out how to explain to a six year old the concept. And yeah, I'm going to use the word luckily, because luckily within our family, we have we have a non-binary family member.
00:08:31
Speaker
Oh, okay. But we don't see them very often. And, you know, as a result, my my daughter still relatively confused by the concept. Sure, sure. No, it's all right. I did work in a in a care home for a little while.
Working in Care Homes and Comedy
00:08:47
Speaker
And confused at the other end of the scale. Yeah, exactly. The other at the other age range that was definitely going to be baffled by it. So I was like, I said, literally, it's okay, management. No. Yeah. And whatnot. But don't worry about the rec, because there's 66 residents. And we were early dementia care as well. So I don't need to be explaining this.
00:09:09
Speaker
10 times a day to 66 different people. I'll just be a man. I've been doing a great impression of one for years. I can manage it when I'm on company time. Don't worry about it. It's not so important. Also, I was in my late 30s then, so I'm like, look, I'm not going to be crushed by this. I'm not one of the young people.
00:09:36
Speaker
And also you're an actor Eddie as well, so you're not above pretending as well. Oh, I'm not a man, I just play one on TV. There you go, that's the way. But yeah, so you started out in bands, comedy was kind of like your, I'm going to use the phrase calling and that's purely just because of kind of, you know, you seem quite, you're a natural as far as I'm concerned.
00:10:00
Speaker
It took a long time to become one, but yeah, I don't know.
Influences: Marx Brothers and Chaplin
00:10:03
Speaker
Yeah, I guess so. Um, it was always a thing I wanted to do. Um, uh, it was, yeah, it was always there. And it was, um, I think I saw the Marx brothers when I was like eight years old on the film, obviously I'm not a time traveler. Um, and, and I was just absolutely delighted that there was a human being who was as rude to important people as Bugs Bunny was.
00:10:30
Speaker
And this is it. That's the appeal of some of these couches. Yeah, I was like, he was so rude to that policeman.
00:10:38
Speaker
I didn't know you could do that. That is so exciting. It was like punk rock in a way because it really was like anyone who was important or haughty or rich was treated like an idiot. And they were nice to people who had nothing. And it was really straight, you know, and Charlie Chaplin's got a similar, I mean, he was a straight up anarchist and other things, which we don't need to celebrate, but he was, you know, a real
00:11:08
Speaker
So all of these people who sort of grew up in.
00:11:13
Speaker
sort of pre-war, pre-first world war United States and the wild sort of social inequality compounded by the fact they got successful and then had the, you know, the huge stock market crash in 1930 or whenever it was, you know, and had all of that stuff that, you know.
Alternative Comedy: Speaking Truth to Power
00:11:34
Speaker
It's funny because Second World War came along so we could owe them loads of money forever and that really helped them out. Well, yeah, definitely.
00:11:41
Speaker
I mean, you know, all that that you were saying about, you know, disrespecting authority and all that kind of stuff, it's a very sort of alternative comedy. You know, so it's a key tenet of alternative comedy is that the whole punching up and kind of speaking truth to power and, and, and all that kind of stuff.
Stuart Lee's Work and Cultural References
00:12:02
Speaker
And when you were talking about that, it kind of reminded me of the thing
00:12:05
Speaker
I don't know if you've read Stu's book, how I escaped my certain fate, but there's a bit in one of the chapters about when he went to visit the Pueblo clowns. Did you hear the radio series he did about it? I didn't. I've been looking for it and I think I managed to find something and it just said this is no longer available on whatever player it was.
00:12:28
Speaker
I had a torrent of it. It was a white face black heart or something like that. And it was a two-part documentary about it. It was very, very similar to what he said in the book. So pardon me. So I assume he just...
00:12:45
Speaker
went over his notes and stuck them in there but yeah it was interesting and there was sort of I think there was a bit of an audio recording you could sort of hear the beginning of because there's a bit where sort of everything goes still and quiet and then the clowns like
00:13:02
Speaker
appear over the huts and buildings and sort of swarm like a spawn point in a zombie first-person shooter kind of thing. It sounds like really singular things happen. It reminded me when I was reading it in the book of like the bit in Star Wars, you know, where the
00:13:28
Speaker
Well, God, I can't even remember what they're called now. I'm showing my nerd, lack of nerd credentials. But the, you know, the sand people. Oh, yeah, the Jawas. Is it Jawas? Yeah, those the ones that kind of scream in that funny voice and hold the sticks above their heads and stuff. Yeah, I can't remember the names of people, I think, because yeah, race, racism, spacism. Exactly.
00:13:54
Speaker
Tusken Raiders. Tusken Raiders. That's the one, that's the phrase that I was searching for. That's kind of what the description reminded me of. They appear like in the the cliff tops above the town and then run down into the town. They're moving a single file to cover their tracks. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Hide their numbers. Yeah. But yeah. Did he speak about... Sorry. No, go on. Sorry. I was just gonna say, did he mention Henry Winkler in the book?
00:14:19
Speaker
He might do, it's one of those things where- He said that the only video footage of it, anywhere, belongs to Henry Winkler. Because he went to visit and they recognized him as being happy days. They're like, oh well you are also
00:14:40
Speaker
a sacred clown figure as far as we're concerned. You may take a recording of this, but we have to swear you to never show it to
Meeting Famous Comedians
00:14:49
Speaker
anyone. And as far as we know, Henry Winkler has kept good his word to have his video. It was probably a big on the shoulder camcorder. It may well have deteriorated by now, but... Oh, yeah. No, that tape will have disintegrated by now. The old school VHS loader in the side.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah, that was what I remember from the documentary, the Radio 4 documentary, there's a two-parter on it. I'm going to have to see if I can track that down. Like I say, when I've put variations on the search terms into Google, because I didn't even know what it was called either, but... Try the Internet Archive. Yeah. Right, I might have to give that a go. I found a few things. I'll shoot you a link afterwards. I found a few useful, especially like BBC Radio stuff.
00:15:38
Speaker
from the long ago that they don't bother putting in circulation anymore. Yes, I think, to be honest, I suppose this is why I wanted to get some more context for where you were coming from comedy wise, because I think, and I don't want to speak out of turn, I do think you're a couple of years ahead of me.
00:15:55
Speaker
Age-wise? I think so. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, I made assumptions based on the types of things we've talked about in the past. Oh yeah, no, no, no, I'm 40 years old. You're 40 years old, right. So you're only a couple of years older than me, then I'm 30 years old. 40 years old I was. Yeah.
00:16:11
Speaker
He was 28 years old. 28 years old
Impact of the Pandemic on Comedy Careers
00:16:14
Speaker
I was. So I'm 38 this year so not too far in front but in terms of so obviously you've been going comedy wise what 12, 13 years? I think so yeah I think yeah I think I started when I was I started when I was 27 yeah. The rock and roll year of death. I had a few years off not not including the
00:16:38
Speaker
pandemic, which everyone had. In fact, I just got into a place where I thought, right, I can finally get back to work. Because I was doing all right for a little bit. I was, I was progressing the way it was. Everything was going step by step by step by step, doing all this stuff. Had a thing, not important, Wawa, and had to take some time off. And just as I went right, oh, I've stretched, I'm warm up, put me in coach, I'm ready. And all of a sudden, don't leave the house, never do anything again.
00:17:08
Speaker
That was that was quite a crashing disappointment. And so now back back on it now back.
Running a Comedy Night in Leeds
00:17:15
Speaker
back on it and absolutely firing as well because so I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things I know you mentioned before and we may have briefly talked about this when we've run into each other at nights but you used to run the comedy seller in Leeds which is obviously it's definitely Leeds's longest running open mic comedy night yes but is it also West Yorkshire's or Yorkshire's as well I'm sure something like that
00:17:39
Speaker
That's very possible actually. It might be. I can't think of another one. It's passed through many a legendary hand in Leeds. It started pretty much the same time I did I think because Silky started it. Paul Silkywhite started it because at that point Silky was running 20 monthly comedy nights and two festivals. Wow.
00:18:05
Speaker
yeah he had a lot because everywhere he's ever lived he started gigs and then he just maintained them um and then he eventually passed them on to everyone else so now he just has them in this area anyway he uh but he needed a lot of new acts to do the middle spots yeah the open turns and stuff so he thought well i'll
00:18:26
Speaker
set up this thing and it used to be an open mic night one week and then a topical panel show featuring Silky, Sam Gore of IC News and other people called This Just In and it was a sort of yeah it was like a little chatty panel show which I did a couple of times and then Sam moved to Manchester and took it with him but I don't think he ever did anything with it again to be honest but that was pretty fun
00:18:55
Speaker
but yeah i remember being on one of them with me silky sam and joe lyset oh wow i remember thinking i think this joe's gonna do all right and so come to me if you want a hot tip for the next big thing well you know you've you've crossed paths with some of the conversations we've had you've crossed paths with many a sort of current
00:19:18
Speaker
you know, comedian de jour, shall we say. Yeah, they all, they all nodded politely as they ran past me. And yeah, no, no, yeah, it is. It's everyone, everyone gets to wherever they're going in the time they're supposed to. I've had similar conversations. But it has been great because we've had so many cool people do Comedy Cellar at Verve. Yeah.
00:19:39
Speaker
You know, I think three years in a row, Gary Delaney did his preview for Edinburgh there. Yeah. And oh, we've had all sorts of people doing stuff. It's it's been it's been properly exciting. I mean, even now, you know, I yeah, I've been in there for free on a Tuesday night and seen like, you know, people off mock the week and and all that kind of stuff. You know, it still attracts those that caliber of kind of people now. And, you know, as opposed to
00:20:08
Speaker
We used to drive up from London to do previews there. Well, because it's a great room, you know, when it's rocking. And it was easier for them to get, you know, they didn't have to pay. They were like, well, look, I'll be paying slightly less in train fare or fuel than I would be to buy the space to put on my wobbly hour that I'm not sure about. And they were just, yeah, and they always enjoyed it. And we're like, yeah, just throw the bucket round afterwards, get yourself, you know,
00:20:36
Speaker
Yeah, well that's it. How much on the YM or whatever. You know it's brilliant for kind of punters as well because like so the example I always think of is last year I managed to watch, I don't know if you know Johnny Pelham. Yeah. I managed to watch Johnny Pelham's hour sort of in a really sort of notes in hand stage at Verve.
00:20:56
Speaker
I was begging Saul to let me do 10 minutes in the first half but he didn't have any space for me. But then I thought well I'm going to be in Edinburgh anyway when Johnny's there so I'll go see it and see what the changes are as a kind of newer comedian. I'm really interested in how things develop and watching things in a work in progress stage and then seeing what they look like when they're finished.
00:21:23
Speaker
Yeah, it was really cool to kind of see the progression of it and where he'd taken it and what he'd done with it.
00:21:28
Speaker
Red Redmond and I used to do that at the Fringe with Peacock and Gamble's shows. Oh, yeah. Because, yeah, we'd go on the first night and then we'd go again really towards the end to see how bored they'd got with it and how much stuff they were just mucking around with.
Experiences at the Edinburgh Fringe
00:21:44
Speaker
Yeah. And that was that was always fun. I must admit, I've only I've only been to the Fringe. I've not been to the Fringe many times. I think I've only been three times and the few times that I have been, I haven't been able to do, you know, the full month because
00:21:57
Speaker
I made the mistake of starting now or relatively recently when the economics of it don't stack up anymore. They didn't stack up for me. I had to do a Kevin Smith for one of the years where I sold about £600 worth of comics. Yeah. So I was like, oh, this would be cool when I'm doing all my interviews and telling people about how I did it.
00:22:20
Speaker
And I've managed to do that once, so thank you for the conduit for that story. But yeah, it's sort of, you know, you sort of have to find ways of doing it. Well, to be honest, I think so, Sam Campbell, and you know, this is not me, by the way, I just want to caveat this by saying this is not me saying I'm going to take this approach and win the Edinburgh Comedy Award, because that's just not not on my radar. But Sam Campbell kind of proved that
00:22:47
Speaker
on your, what do you call it, on your manifesting board? Yeah, everyone's got a dream board these days, haven't they? Everybody follows the secret. I did notice though that Sam Campbell came along, obviously from Australia, and did like 10 days or something, he did a short run
00:23:08
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And still obviously then got kind of shortlisted and stuff and ended up winning the award. And I suppose, you know, from my point of view, looking at it to kind of like, make it relative to me, you can go there, spend a little bit less money, do a little bit less time and still get something out of it, which since the pandemic, the idea of doing a partial run is no longer considered
00:23:34
Speaker
The worst thing outside of outright plagiarism. It was a people, but I mean, some people would get some boring. It's the thing I thought, oh, maybe, maybe doing comedy will be different to, you know, being in punk bands. It's not boring old men telling you having a day off is for gays or whatever. And you know, you've you've not done the proper fringe then because you had a day off in the middle of your 28 day run or whatever. It's like,
00:24:01
Speaker
Well, the venue is for she to now. So I was booking. I only did a week last year, but I did it through just the tonic and I booked a week. I kind of thought to myself, when's the most likely time you're going to get an audience? And I thought, well, it's in the middle of the fringe because at the start, people haven't started coming up yet. At the end, everyone's kind of gone home and they're bored or whatever. So I'll try to aim for the middle. And I managed to pick the week and book my accommodation for the week where the venue days off.
00:24:33
Speaker
In the middle of a really short run I was kind of they said look you can do it either side of this this day off here because we've got a mandated company day off on like the 16th or something.
00:24:44
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah, just the tonic. The one thing that people forget also is that in the last week of the Fringe, Scottish school children have gone back to school in that final week. So there are no local children. So I do know that a lot of family shows or kids specific shows often just won't do the last week because there aren't enough tourists with kids. Or it becomes a lot more
00:25:15
Speaker
lean i suppose well i mean having having gone up there and done what i've done because i'm planning longer runs at some time in the future potentially a two-week i don't think i'll ever do the four months like i say might get away with two weeks it's only three weeks really yeah three weeks but i used to go up for the full calendar month have a
00:25:33
Speaker
couple of days before and a few days afterwards, because it's nice to be in the city. Edinburgh is a wonderful place. Yeah, it's a great place. And obviously during the fringe, you know, I made a point of when we went up there to have a day or two either side so that I could go see some stuff and just get acclimatized with, with what it's like. But you know, I mean, I've got sort of four children and stuff. So like, exactly. Yeah, it'd be a nightmare.
Balancing Comedy and Family Life
00:25:58
Speaker
Yeah, I do remember, God, it's going to be very name dropping about sounding, but Scott Bennett, another Verve alumnus. The first time he did the Fringe, and to be the first time I saw him, he did 10 minutes at Verve like everyone does. He did his, the routine about his dad at the Carvery, and it was already
00:26:25
Speaker
world-beatingly wonderful. Everyone was just going, fucking hell, this guy. And we knew he was gonna be, there was just no doubt about it. He's just that fucking good. And I'm absolutely delighted that he's doing as well as he is. And surprised he's not doing better, but his time will come. But he had a young family and was up and he was, I met him fliring on the mile somewhere or something.
00:26:54
Speaker
You know, people say it's going to be hard work, but they never tell you how fucking hard it's actually going to be, don't they? They try to. He's like, yeah, but you don't believe him. Right. I'm just going to stop you there, Eddie, because that is the single greatest Scott Bennett impression I've ever heard in my life.
00:27:12
Speaker
Yeah, my impressions, when they're good, they're very good, but when they're good, they're niche. Put it this way, you wouldn't have even had to say who that was. I'm fairly sure you could go on dead ringers with that. Oh, right, maybe. That was very good. I've very nearly shared the stage with Scott Bennett on three occasions. It's one of these where, you know, TV acts are working up new stuff and they'll go and do like,
00:27:41
Speaker
Oh, what's the one called at Nottingham? You know, they open the open mic that said Nottingham, the really good one. Oh, gosh, I can't remember the name of it. But it's God, John's going to be really upset with me as well, because I think he wrote. Oh, right. Okay. But anyway, he was supposed to headline in that one. And when I got there, it was someone else because he'd obviously had to drop out for other reasons. And it's happened on a couple of occasions. I've always
00:28:06
Speaker
I've been so close to sharing the stage with three or four different TV names. And then I get there and it's like someone else because they've had to drop out for one reason. To be honest, you're probably already sharing them with names that are going to be on TV. Eventually, that's just how it goes. Yeah, there are a few people who give me that that feel you described there with Scott Bennett, where you kind of look at him and you're like, OK, so he's the new this person or whatever, you know, he was he was like,
00:28:36
Speaker
He felt like all the really, really great bits about Peter Kay and Lee Evans and those kinds of, not the sort of frantic act-out thing of Liam, but also his act-outs are incredible. Yeah, he's very good at what he does and for me it's the relationship. But he's also obsessed. He's absolutely obsessed.
00:28:59
Speaker
And you can tell, you know what I mean? You can tell. I heard a really great quote from him and I can't remember who it was he was talking
Comparing British and American Comedy
00:29:07
Speaker
to or about, but he was talking to someone who kind of uses props and stuff in their act, which I do a little bit and I'm quite fond of. And he said something which really cut me quite deep because he said, the reason I don't do it is because I write proper jokes.
00:29:23
Speaker
Yes, I imagine he was probably being deliberately. He was gently ribbing a friend by the sounds of things. I sometimes use a guitar in my act, so I've heard it all.
00:29:39
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's it. And to be honest, that, you know, I think as a newer, as a newer comedian, I've got a lot of crutches, you know, like I, I once turned up at one of your nights and did it in a dog costume just cause I was, you did do. Yeah. I remember that. Just, just fucking do it. That's the thing. There's no rule saying you can't do any of that. It's all a perfect valid approach. Whether it's a crutch or not, the audience don't know. They just know what you've just done. So exactly. Exactly. And there's people, I mean,
00:30:10
Speaker
You know, the amount of people who go on stage and expect you to believe that they're astounded at the fact that someone is from Huddersfield. You're from Huddersfield, no way! Loads of people are from Huddersfield, it's not weird. I always feel that there's such an American approach though, because like when you say the name of a town that Americans are from, they go mental.
00:30:31
Speaker
That's why my Netflix my Netflix continue watching question mark thing is just all American stand-up specials with
00:30:42
Speaker
about five minutes in because they've had the sort of the hip-hop intro, sort of with the milling around crowd and the theatre and the backstage. Give it up for this person. We've had the shrieking, exciting walk on stage and all that stuff. What's up, Boston? Oh my God, that's where we are. It's like these people think they're watching the television and they're just surprised, but anyway.
00:31:10
Speaker
Well, I think I- And I may well be missing out on some really good acts. Again, some really strong comics. I could be. I can't say that I'm not. Do you know what? I like a lot of American comics and I might, you know, I'm being biased here, but I like a lot of American comics that live in London.
00:31:27
Speaker
And I think it's because they come over here and they've still got certain sensibilities from their scene and where they've come from. They've got a very polished ethic over there because you want to polish it down so you have your little four or five minutes to go on. Your tight five. Yeah, your tight fives are going to let him in off and not that he's on anymore. But you know, Conan, one of the late nights, you get that on and then
00:31:50
Speaker
And that dates all the way back to Johnny Carson sort of thing, you know, one of those and all of a sudden you get bumped up to headliner because you did really well on this one. And I get it, obviously. And having that approach of making all your stuff whip tight is certainly something which I can't be accused of. But I don't think, I think that's fine if you're doing
00:32:18
Speaker
It's easier if you're doing jokes. If you're doing routines, it's a bit different. Yeah, because one routine could be your entire type 5, or even if you're doing a 10-spot one routine, you know, you look at... I'm looking at someone like D&D really, aren't we?
00:32:33
Speaker
So one routine can take as long as you want. It can be a single thing, all that stuff. But even from the more TV people, I know Stuart's obviously, he's done stuff with the BBC and all that kind of stuff, but he's not one of the current flavor of the month people. He's doing a lot of things off his own back or the majority of what he does is off his own back. But if I think about someone like James Acaster, who to be fair has started taking that approach now, he doesn't do a lot of telly. No, no. Although he's in the new Ghostbusters film.
00:33:01
Speaker
Sure, no, he's been trying to get into movies and stuff for a while. Because he hates stand-up though. Well, if you look at it, he's doing a tour at the moment, or he's doing a tackler's welcome thing. I went to see it in Birmingham and it is literally all about how stand-up frightens into death.
00:33:18
Speaker
Yes, yes, I understand. Yeah, I'd be interested to see it. I don't know if he'll do a video of it at some point. I might try and make it. I do hope so because it's very good. I'd like to watch it again and just see, you know, again, just to, I took my son to see it. The only one, because obviously he did, he's done four nights in every city on the top, similar to what Stuart does to be for it, to be very sensitive, stay in a place for a little while. But he did four nights in Leeds. More into a venue, but the same numbers as if he was doing somewhere bigger.
00:33:48
Speaker
Yeah, well, it's the Leicester Square theatre approach and it do, you know, 20 nights at the O2 numbers, but across three months at Leicester Square. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so James put on four dates at the Leeds Playhouse and they were gone in 30 seconds. He's got a Kitson thing going on with that. Yeah, but with the added bonus of a wildly successful podcast and having been on TV and
00:34:16
Speaker
Well, yeah, I think I think he's I admire very much how he's only doing the stuff he wants to do. I think that's very, very cool. It's great. Yeah. I always like that. He's just done a Kickstarter. We'll get to Stuart in a second or we must get to show in a second. But he did a Kickstarter for his new podcast series, which is essentially explaining
00:34:39
Speaker
Yeah, expanding the routine of him being an undercover cop and... Yes, I've subscribed and I have not listened to a single one yet. I've listened to two. Just through time, not through anything negative. It's just one of those things. People, I don't know why. I think it's because I sound posh that whenever someone says, have you ever seen this? They go, I haven't seen it. People go, oh, so you think I'm a cunt, do you?
00:35:00
Speaker
No, I just said I haven't seen it. I've just not had it in my eyes or ears, that's all. Anyway. You might have the posh, Eddie, but you do have this ability at the end of certain sentences to throw something out there that is so working class. I was very nearly the son of a cockney.
00:35:21
Speaker
Yeah. Had my grandparents not moved when they did, my dad would have been like his brother born within the sound of Bow Bells. So my dad who speaks similarly to how I do and his brother talking on the phone, it really sounded like a gangster trying to get his lawyer to get him out of jail.
00:35:44
Speaker
Paul. So what are you doing? Can any charging get it out? Well, I'll do what I can, Nick, but I'm afraid some things just aren't possible. My uncle was very cockney. Very cockney. Well, you've definitely got shades of shades of both. Obviously, like you said, the predominant sort of
00:36:02
Speaker
colour that you're using on your palette is that is the well spoken, you know, properly RP type. Yes. But then occasionally, you'll throw out a working class C word. Well, I do. And I also I also, I also tend to drop the T on it as well. And I don't know. You've been in Yorkshire too long.
00:36:23
Speaker
Well, the way because it comes out market trade and they are you can't you know, it's that kind of it. Do you know what it is? It's probably Derek and Clive the the Peter Cook and Dudley more which is a guilty pleasure. I don't feel guilty
Punk Rock Podcast Influence
00:36:38
Speaker
at all. No, I don't think anyone should feel guilty for that. I feel sad for how mangled those two were during it, but it's can't help it. It's very, very funny.
00:36:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's honestly and without it, you know, we wouldn't have a lot of what we get now. So no, no, no, it's, it's, yeah, it's important stuff. Definitely a giant, definitely a giant thing. So just to preface this before we get into the Stu chat, what I'm going to say is, first of all, thank you, because I'm sure you know this, but
00:37:07
Speaker
your punk rock elite podcast about no effects. Yes. It was essentially the chief inspiration for me doing this podcast about Stuart Lee. I'm delighted. Because I looked at it and I kind of thought, oh yeah. So you can just do a podcast about a very niche specific subject.
00:37:30
Speaker
You know, and I know No Effects and Stewart Lee have many, many, many millions of funds. However, you know, to the casual observer, they're not, you know, well known. They're sort of kings of the underground in that they're the most successful underground sort of thing. Although Stewart Lee is probably more establishment than No Effects just because his history with the BBC and stuff like that. Whereas No Effects, and I'm not pissing them against one another, I'm just trying to,
00:37:58
Speaker
I'm preempting arguments. This is what happens when you do a podcast about a punk band. You preempt the arguments, you know, people go, actually, rattle, rattle, rattle. I think I said, I think I said in response to one of your posts about punk rock elite that I genuinely believe that no effects is the stewardly of punk rock. It's kind of like it's that gateway to
00:38:18
Speaker
more obscure stuff. So like, through Stuart Lee, you find out about Ted Chippington. Yeah, you like him, but none of them. They don't like any of the other bands that you like. They like these ones over here. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's like, oh, right. So, oh, cool. That's really, really good. I like this band No Effects. Yeah. Well, we like rich kids on LSD. So go fuck yourself. It's like, oh, okay. And then you go and find them and you go, whoa, what's that? You know, and that's the exciting bit. But you know, it's funny you should mention that because I
00:38:49
Speaker
I basically did doing punk rock elite about no effects. I discovered there's a podcast about rancid. There's a podcast about alkaline trio.
00:39:04
Speaker
There's a podcast about good riddance. And it was actually Unscripted Moments, a podcast about propaganda. I saw a post by them and I thought of propaganda can have one. Surely, surely. And that's a really, really good one. And we've been chatting with the guy who does that and he's a really, really good lad.
00:39:29
Speaker
But I thought, yeah, go on then. And also No Effects turned 40 the same year I did. And then they said they were breaking up, breaking up, they were stopping touring. And so it became a thing. So, yes. It felt appropriate. And I must admit it's become one of my, you know, it's in my rotation of regular lessons now because... Oh, that's lovely to hear. You know, as a, as a kind of lifelong, I say lifelong from teenage years to now No Effects fan, you know.
00:39:55
Speaker
Yeah. If you're into punk rock and you're a teenager in the 90s, no effects will have crossed your radar. There's just no two ways about it. Yeah, 100%. They were one of those bands that were on your stereo, much in the same way that once I kind of... Because in terms of comedy, for me, I was into comedy when I was younger, but it was never like it. I wasn't named after a Python sketch and it was never a thing where it was very clear that I was going to do it. I was always a shy kid and it wasn't...
00:40:20
Speaker
But I came up the traditional route because the only experience of comedy I ever had was, you know, my uncle's Roy Chubby Brown DVDs and Dad's Peter Kay stuff and all that. You know what I mean? And Lee Evans and the kind of TV guys. And then it wasn't until I kind of
00:40:39
Speaker
I can't remember who it was. I think I saw John Richardson.
Classic Comedy Influences
00:40:43
Speaker
And I looked at John Richardson and he's, again, I think he's only a couple of years older than me, but I kind of looked at him and thought he's moaning about a lot of the same stuff I think about and bother me, but in a really funny way. Maybe I can do that, you know? And then I just decided to give it a go. And then much like yourself, when you decided to come back after your break, I decided to give it a go and then a pandemic happened.
00:41:09
Speaker
So it was delayed a little bit. For me with comedy, it was like I said, there was sort of Marx Brothers stuff, a lot of old radio, like not even Radio 4, but like BBC radio stuff like Round the Horn and the Navy Lark and these kind of things. And all the regular sitcoms like Fools and Horses, Dad's Army, Likely Lads.
00:41:31
Speaker
All of this stuff, because my parents really, really liked it. Blackadder. All of this stuff. My folks were a bit too old to like the young ones, so I didn't see that till I was older. But basically, the thing that I, and this actually leads into, the only stand-up really that I'd seen were the ITV's Audience Withs. Do you remember those? Yes, I do. There was an audience with Ken Dodd, with Kenneth Williams, and the two best ones,
00:42:02
Speaker
were Victoria Wood and Billy Connolly. Those two are absolutely stunning, just brilliant. It's because of the calibre of who it's with. Yeah, they're so great. And even the mawkish talking to the audience and you really get a sense of who was famous for that week in 1987 or whatever.
00:42:26
Speaker
But just the bits of stand-up in that were just absolutely stunning. Two of them at their best, and all of Victoria Wood's stand-up stuff was really great. My mum's a huge fan of Victoria Wood. The only celebrity who's passing made my mother cry. And she watched the Kennedy assassination.
00:42:45
Speaker
from the grassy knot. Why does this little girl want to go on holiday to Texas by herself? No reason. But you know, that kind of thing. So it was always a big thing but on
00:43:05
Speaker
And Red Dwarf was a big one that used to be on Friday nights on BBC Two. And BBC Two was where I found all this stuff on Thursday nights on BBC Two at 9pm. Let's see if your schedule was the same as mine. They used to have weird as fuck things in the 90s.
00:43:23
Speaker
They, and one of the things I remember, they used to have stuff like Murder Most Horrid and stuff like that, but one of the things they had was GMD, obviously this is Glam Metal Detectives. Okay, any person who's ever said yes, so that's incredible. Glam Metal Detectives, which is sort of like The Fast Show.
00:43:43
Speaker
sort of not. It was like a comic book, it had lots of different sketches that kept on telling a story throughout and stuff. It seemed like little vignettes, like a sort of grown-up version of, you might not remember this, but I always remember a kids program called Zap.
00:44:05
Speaker
Oh yeah, I remember Zap. And it was kind of like that. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. It was, it was a very, very weird thing. And so that was kind of fun. And that was where I first saw Fist of Fun. Yes. Because that was when that was on and I really, really liked it. And, um, and, and I, I remember it just being incredibly drawn to it, thinking it was really great because there was,
00:44:34
Speaker
It was funny because there was the one which I thought I was frightened I might be and the one that I wanted to be because there was the fat overexcited annoying one and then.
00:44:48
Speaker
the cool one who looked like he might have kissed a girl before. And so to my gosh, how old must I have been? Maybe 13. Yeah. Something like that. I was like, whoa, this is this is something. And it was sort of monotonous and and.
00:45:08
Speaker
And how uninterested Stuart Lee appeared to be in doing it, I thought was really, really funny. Well, it wasn't his bag, was it? He wasn't the driving force behind it. He was a he was a work in stand up at the time. So, you know, I think I think there's always been something and he probably isn't like that anymore. But I get the impression at the time, I imagine he would have been an insufferable too cool for school prick.
Identity and Comedy Style
00:45:32
Speaker
Which, again, I would have been if I thought I could have gotten away with it. I had no confidence in my own ability to be that, so I thought, oh, I don't like those. God, I wish I was one of those. Exactly the same way I reacted whenever I saw a punk rock girl when I was in my teens, like, fuck.
00:45:58
Speaker
My girlfriend and I were watching the new series of Twilight Zone, Jordan Peele's incarnation. And I think episode four or five of the most recent series involves the singer-songwriter Lass.
00:46:12
Speaker
She's got sort of a short, sort of choppy, um, sort of side shave haircut thing. Um, and all this stuff is just sort of straight up. And my girlfriend literally pointed at it and went, oh, look, that's your gender. It was exactly what, what I think I am. So yeah, it was. The thing is though, that the people who, who truly, you know, the people who love you truly, truly know you and they can be withering in just the right way.
00:46:39
Speaker
Oh no, I mean, she was absolutely right as well, I thought it was really funny. She was like, yeah, no, I can, I don't know. I could say that. But I've liked it. Or fucking Chloe from the Life is Strange video games. It's just like, yeah, I know this was made by middle-aged men as some sort of weird avatar of what they think a teenage punk rock lesbian is, but that's also what I think one is. The 13-year-old me thinks that is that, and I've not served the child yet, so. Yeah, exactly.
00:47:09
Speaker
I know full well that in that fist of fun equation, I am the dorky, annoying one. Because it just was what I was at school. I was always the kid, stood behind the slightly cooler, slightly bigger, slightly more muscular, good looking boys, just going, can I be your friend as well? I was trying too hard. I was being very loud and irritating because
00:47:34
Speaker
And it's what makes me cringe about newer acts or less self-aware acts. And cringe often comes from...
00:47:49
Speaker
So be careful what you say is cringe, because cringe often comes from identifying what you don't like about yourself in somebody else. Yeah, it makes you cringe because you know deep down that, yeah. There, but for the grace of self-awareness, go I. Yes, yeah. Basically. And so, you know, and sometimes you'll see it on an example of like a, you know,
00:48:10
Speaker
sometimes you'll see, you'll get recommended. Worst stand-up performances ever compilation. You go, I've got better things to do. I can't believe I've just clicked on it. Oh, well, I'll just click away once I've watched this. Oh, fuck, he's doing badly. And it's, you know, you can't look at what is bad and it's not good. But you see people just sort of like, hey, guys, so you know what's fucked up? Fucking
00:48:33
Speaker
The price of shit, and it's just like people, it's like AI. It understands the shape of it, but the content is...
00:48:42
Speaker
beyond its abilities. Well, it's because the form is so recognisable. It's that what's the deal with, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And funnily enough, I feel like this is changing and you'll probably have a view on this, you know, being part of the circuit as well. But I was at Scratch and Sniff last night and I love Scratch and Sniff. I go there every week. But
00:49:03
Speaker
that there's been a trend just recently of a raft of newer acts coming in who all sound like Paul Smith.
00:49:14
Speaker
I don't mean in the sense that they've got a scales accent. I just literally mean in that they use the word nonsense as a punchline. Now, you know what I mean? It's that kind of thing. He was all over social media for so long. He's permeated. It's the same...
00:49:34
Speaker
It's the same as anything. Stuart Lee said that he had noticed that a lot of open spots were mimicking these 20-year-olds doing this world-weary, well-traveled, man-in-a-sources kind of stuff, and it just doesn't work.
Developing a Unique Comedic Voice
00:49:55
Speaker
No, exactly. Lots of people are doing
00:49:58
Speaker
Russell Howard as well, when Russell Howard was on talent, when all over BBC3 was the Russell Howard channel, people were doing over enthusiastic, whoa, that's so weird, crazy. Because that isn't who they were, Russell Howard can do that because that is how Russell Howard is. That's who he is, it's his persona. He probably started out, and I don't know this for sure, he probably started out,
00:50:22
Speaker
toned down or self-conscious about that. He started as an improv comedian. He was basically emulating Ross Noble. Oh, okay. Well, actually, I do know Russell Howard did come and see a play I was in at the Edinburgh Festival. Oh, wow.
00:50:42
Speaker
because I was still at uni and the university I went to, there was a performing arts degree as well, I was doing music production but media and performing arts were on the same campus. And a mate of mine had written this play for his friends and it was a telethon set in heaven that the devil turns up and
00:51:07
Speaker
Makes a bet saying that if he can corrupt One person he gets all of the souls that they people you know What do you call it donate their souls to heaven and stuff? And so there's the angel Gabriel is Lucifer and they decided to flesh it out of it So me and my mate Ajit stood either side of the stage Wearing these like demonic robes playing metal riffs. Yeah, and that was our bit and There was
00:51:37
Speaker
And this was at the underbelly, upstairs at the underbelly, in about 2002 or 2003. And one of the shows there was called Ebony and Irony, which was Matt Blaze and Russell Howard sharing an hour. And they came to see it one day, and then years later,
00:52:03
Speaker
Well, there's something about Matt Blaise. It was something about Matt Blaise. Matt Blaise has like supported Jim Davidson on tour and stuff and Jim Davidson points at him and goes, look, I can't be a racist. One of them is supporting me and that kind of thing. And I was reading about it on Chortle, which is a dreadful habit. Don't take it up. But I was reading this thing about some outcry and then it had, because it has the links to all of the reviews. Yeah. And it had like Ebony and irony, two stars. And I thought, no, it wasn't that.
00:52:34
Speaker
It was because Chortle had been paid by a load of big acts to remove their negative reviews, even from years ago. And so Russell Howard's one popped up and it was Ebony and irony. And I thought, oh my God, so all right. So Russell Howard saw my play. So that was nice.
00:52:52
Speaker
Do you know what? It's one of those things, despite him being an occasional target, shall we say, of Stewart Lee. I quite like Russell Howard. I always have. I went to see him not so long ago in Leeds. He's probably my favourite of the Russells. And that's purely just because Russell Kane changed his entire image at one point and flipped on a diamond. The other Russell is a bad lad.
00:53:18
Speaker
Russell Kane, bless him, did lie about his age as well. Yeah, well, that's it. And I kind of- I was at the fringe the year that that came out. Yeah. And it's sort of, I think it was that loads of people were like, why? Why did you do that? It just seemed really weird. And
00:53:41
Speaker
Yeah, I don't he's never been my favorite. He's fine. He lives in a world where all working class people are racist and all middle class people eat hummus. And it's these very broad strokes of sort of buzzword stuff that
00:54:03
Speaker
It just falls flat for me. I mean, it's that thing. Whereas I'm fairly certain he'd think I was hilarious. Absolutely. And if not, why not? No, the thing for me was just it came across a bit disingenuous, especially, like I say, after he flipped on a diamond, suddenly went goth. I was just a bit taken aback by it because at first he came out, he was this kind of like,
00:54:25
Speaker
you know the standard comedian with spiky hair in traders and then yes and i don't know if maybe the uh the goth thing meant that he could put some makeup on and cover the roll back the years a little bit possibly so and this is the thing that it all plays into it being a bit disingenuous so you're just not sure and that's the problem is that when you start you start having ungenerous thoughts about him because the doubt has entered and that's probably an unreasonable thing to say but
00:54:56
Speaker
So to get to the questions then, the Stu related questions, again, I'm going to preface this by saying essentially what I've done, because it's you, I've taken your no effects questions. And I've re-engineered them so that we're talking about Stu. That's good. I'll have some idea of the shape of these things anyway. That's fine. Yeah. Well, that's what I kind of thought. So you'll recognize the shape of some of these. So can you remember the first time that you saw Stu at Lee?
00:55:26
Speaker
live, do you mean? Well, in any capacity. In that case, it was fist of fun, like I say, on 9 o'clock on BBC Two on a Thursday or Friday. I can't remember when it was. Okay, so that was Stuart Lee and his guys as the double acts. What about Stuart Lee the stand-up? Well, Stuart Lee the stand-up, I
00:55:45
Speaker
I didn't really know that he did stand up. I just thought he sort of disappeared and I had other things to be getting on with, other stuff came and went. So I loved Fist of Fun and This Morning with Richard, not Judy. But then when it didn't happen, I just thought, it's like lots of things, they just stop. And then when I was at university in my third year, I started going out with this girl.
00:56:10
Speaker
And very shortly after we started going out, she went to London to visit her sister who was living down there. And her sister was a journalist, news reader. And she was in the entertainment business, so she had a finger on the pulse.
00:56:31
Speaker
So she said, oh, I've got you. And because my girlfriend then was doing theatre, you know, performance studies, her sister said, I've got you tickets to this new show in the West End. Right. It's called the Jerry Springer Opera or Jerry Springer, the opera. Yes. And I said, wow, that sounds weird. She said, yeah. So anyway, it came back. She had the big program. It's like a big A4, like shiny magazine. Yeah. And I was looking through it and it said, written by Stuart Lee. And I thought, huh?
00:57:00
Speaker
I wonder if that's Stu.
00:57:05
Speaker
I wonder if that's, I wonder if that's the real sick man. You know, I wonder if that's who, you know, I wonder if that's who it is. Oh, that's interesting. You wonder if that's the guy who just wants the moon on a stick. Exactly. Yeah. I thought, and so all of these catchphrases, um, I was like, Oh, maybe it's Stuart Lee. I am him. Maybe it's Stuart Lee. You know, maybe. And I thought, Oh, that's interesting. And then, um, so then I saw the show that became nineties comedian.
00:57:31
Speaker
right 90s comedian so we've just done that episode joe and i heard it yes yeah so that's that's pretty much my i'm gonna say it's my favorite
00:57:42
Speaker
It holds a huge place in my heart for me because I saw it in the underbelly, the white belly at the top. So probably couldn't fit more than 80 to 100 people in there and a push. It was the stage that I'd been on the previous year. And it looked tiny. It was amazing how we could do a play on it. And he comes on, he draws the circle on the ground.
00:58:11
Speaker
and he stands within that circle for the whole thing. We didn't turn up late. We were in the queue, and it was queuing around. Word had gone out. This was a popular hot ticket. It had sold out. But no one had sat at the front, so me, my mum and dad, and my best mate Gav, we'd gone up
00:58:33
Speaker
My dad's cousin and her husband were both head teachers in Edinburgh, but they lived in Anstra on the coast. So they had a small flat in Leith, which meant we got to stay in this flat outside of term time. So we got to stay there for free, which meant we could get the bus from Leith in and watch like fucking eight shows a day. And it didn't cost us anything to stay there, which was just
00:58:57
Speaker
you know, and then just as I started doing stand up, they both fucking retired and sold the flat. Yeah, oh, no, mate. No. And even if I did have that, I wouldn't tell anyone because no, but you still have it for yourself. Oh, no, I could have it for myself. If I mentioned it, people will be like,
00:59:16
Speaker
I'm aware you're currently developing a solo show, put it that way, which we'll get to in a bit. My mum enjoyed the reference to the cat's feet towel so much that she seemed utterly unfazed by the vomiting into the gaping anus of Christ.
00:59:36
Speaker
And was sort of, and was going along with it. My dad really liked it because I think my dad and Stuart Lee have a similar interest in James Joyce and those kinds of, you know. Yeah. Beckett. Yeah. And all of that, all of those, all of those literary things. So dad was looking at it from this sort of performance art perspective. Gav and I were just enjoying the glorious blast for me of it all and just the rest of it.
01:00:03
Speaker
So the point where he was delivering a lot of it to my mum. Brilliant. And she seemed to be, she was just enjoying waiting for the next mention of the cat's feet towel. I don't want to make my mum sound like a simpleton. She was, she's, like I say, she's really comedy savvy, knows a lot, has seen a lot and all that stuff. No, but he's very clever, though, because what he recognises is that kind of, you know, he says that he's this kind of outsider artist, but Stuart Lee, the operator, Stuart Lee, the kind of person who's playing the character knows that he needs hooks for people.
01:00:34
Speaker
You know, and that's a hook because, you know, I've known people that have had versions of that. You know, my grandmas have both had loads of cats and I've always kind of grown up with this understanding of this thing. So, you know, he knows what he's doing in that sense, even though a lot of what he does pushes towards a more avant-garde sort of, you know, level. He still knows how to reel the casual punters in.
01:01:00
Speaker
Yeah, and then he basically, when he realised he wasn't getting much of a response out of mum apart from, you know, laughter, which isn't enough for Stuart, he wanted her to agree the fuck out of it. But he moved over to the other side of the little aisle where there were these two women in their 20s just looking scandalised at the entire thing. So it was kind of,
01:01:27
Speaker
So yeah, so it was great.
Stuart Lee's Style and Influence
01:01:28
Speaker
So that, which led me to, when we got back, I immediately went on play.com. Don't know if you remember that one. I certainly do. Yeah. Live my life on play.com for a long time. Absolutely. Play.com before it became Rachanhausen or whatever it was. And then, yeah, whatever. Rachusen or something. Yeah, that kind of thing. Rakuten. Went on there and typed in Stuart Lee and it came up with
01:01:52
Speaker
I think it might have been the Jerry Springer opera and stand-up comedian. Yes.
01:01:59
Speaker
Now, I bought stand-up comedian under the misapprehension that it would be what we saw at the fringe. Yes. Because I hadn't done stand-up at this point. I didn't understand the order in which you do stuff, you know, and that kind of thing. So it was the only one and I thought, well, come on, how much? So to say I was slightly disappointed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So slightly disappointed because it wasn't
01:02:23
Speaker
the gaping anus of Christ routine, which is fine. Not everything has to be. And then watching it again, I was like, oh no, this is brilliant as well. I really do like it. Yeah. Well, it's a different rhythm though, isn't it? Because it's clearly cut up routines of things that it's developed over years, whereas that's meant to be a piece in and of itself. Yeah. Now, the standard comedians are best of, essentially.
01:02:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. And, you know, it's one of those things. And again, we'll probably get to this. I say we'll get to this. I'll get to this when we start doing the comedy vehicle stuff, because again, it's a different rhythm for half our TV, because it is a self-contained story. There's little bits of reappropriated material from previous stuff he's done. But then, you know, he's done that all throughout his career. I've got no issue with it. That's fine.
01:03:07
Speaker
The Cat's Feet towel thing was one of his first ever routines. Even now, I've been to see the basic Lee tour that he's doing at the moment. I've probably seen that three times now, I think. I saw a Leicester Square Theatre version of it early doors. Then I saw it in Edinburgh.
01:03:25
Speaker
And then I saw it again in Edinburgh three days later because I had tickets to go see Paul Sinner. But Paul Sinner I think was ill in the middle of his run or something. So he gave up a couple of his slots and Stu jumped into them. Because I had Paul Sinner tickets, they kind of offered us first refusal.
01:03:44
Speaker
I saw it two days ago, but I'll go see it again. And do you know what, funnily enough, it was a lot different as well. The shape of it was the same, but you kind of find out when you see it in such close succession just how much improvisation he does.
01:04:02
Speaker
which is a hell of a lot really. But in what I was going to say is in the basically that I saw, he makes a point of saying this is a routine that I wrote in 1989. And then does this routine about
01:04:19
Speaker
I think it was about Jehovah's Witnesses. If Jesus is the answer, what's the question? He incorporates that routine in and you see him do it with the let himself go stuff and all that. He's got a lot of
01:04:37
Speaker
callbacks across specials and things like that, that he does and, you know, ways to reappropriate stuff. Yeah, it's funny, because he always claims to not remember any of the catchphrases to Fist of Fun or This Morning with Richard, not Judy. He purposely forgets those. Oh, yeah, of course he does. Yeah, because if you've listened to the, do you listen to Herring's podcast?
01:04:56
Speaker
I listened to the Leicester Square Theatre one. Yeah, so I went back recently, again, mainly because I was doing this, I went back and re-listened to the two episodes that he did with Shoe. One of them was from like, you know, 2012 or something like that. Yeah, one of them was in the first, it was like the season finale of the first run of them, wasn't it? Or something like that. Yeah, it was very clear that they still had like a really strong relationship.
01:05:23
Speaker
Whereas he did another one in 2018 for, it was like a tomorrow with Richard, not Judy special. And there was a clear free song of something.
01:05:34
Speaker
Yes, as I remember, but I remember they did a couple of reunion shows where they did some of their live bits before. There was one, I think it's Stand Up for AIDS or something like that, or a Comic Relief one, because they walk on to Kill the Poor by the Dead Kennedys.
01:05:56
Speaker
which I imagine was Stu's demand rather than Rich's. Oh, I saw Sean Ryder, I think he'd had a drink of alcohol. Because I don't do drugs, heroin is a drug and all that stuff. And they did some of... No, it's just a little pick me up, get me going.
01:06:16
Speaker
and all that stuff. And, you know, brown rats, of course, they're all brown rats once I finished with them and all of that. And they did some of that stuff, but they did a little bit where they were making fun of the Mac adverts with Mitchel on Web. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And and it looks like Rich is really, really annoyed by them. But then he's like, no, that could have been us, Stu. We could have done that. We could have had all that money, Stu.
01:06:44
Speaker
Well, yeah, because obviously, Stu was very well known for skewering people who he thinks of. Well, Stu, the character, I will say, I know that Stu, the human being, has softened his stance somewhat recently because he recognises, you know. Yeah, but they are not a Simon Munnery Venn diagram. Yeah, that's it. The overlap is extreme. That oval in the middle is fat.
01:07:10
Speaker
He's been, to be honest, surely was very nice the couple of times I met him. Oh, listen, I was on cloud nine when I met him. It was one of those things where it's sort of someone who's informed my reasons for doing stand up and desire to do stand up so strongly that when I met him, I was kind of a bit tongue tied and he was really nice. I met him where after that,
01:07:35
Speaker
If you speak to anyone who was around in the early days of Verve, they will tell you that the first six to 12 months of my stand-up career, I was heavily emulating Stewart Lee. Oh, I'm still trying to beat that out of myself, Eddie. I was quiet, or not quiet, I was sort of
01:07:58
Speaker
I was a lot less me. I was a lot more... I don't think any very few people go into comedy and come out being the comedian they think they're going to be. Yeah. Well, you don't get to choose. You said like Russell Howard was doing Ross Nobley stuff. Yeah. And in fact, that isn't where his strength lies. It's what he likes. It's what he really, really enjoys. You know, it would be like, you know, if
01:08:24
Speaker
If Will Hodgson started trying to do one line as Mitch Hedberg, it's like, one, if Will did want to do that, I'm sure they'd be great. But two, do you really want to see Will do that? No, I want to see Will do what Will does. Exactly. And that's the thing, is that I'm not like Stuart Lee in so many ways. Yeah. But the reason for that is if you look at any of the best and most strong comics that are out there,
01:08:52
Speaker
For example, Emo Phillips could only be Emo Phillips. Do you know what I mean? Stuart Lee could only be Stuart Lee. Mitch Hedberg could only be Mitch Hedberg. They drop into doing what they do and I'm going to use the royal we would drop into doing what we do just by virtue of where the strengths are. Have you seen Richard Pryor's early stuff where he's got the- He's quite Bill Cosby one.
01:09:15
Speaker
Yeah, he's got the nice, neat hair. Well, yeah, I mean, if you're talking about successful African-American comedians, then Cosby had the formula down. Formula, it's a bad word to use. But yeah, and he's got his hair all nice and neat. And then the next thing you know, he comes back, he's wearing street clothes rather than a suit. He's, you know, his afros growing out. He's speaking like he normally speaks. But even when, but the thing is, the strength of Pryor is that even when he was doing
01:09:45
Speaker
clean stuff it was still pretty good yeah it wasn't bad it didn't feel wrong you could have gone oh fair enough but um but yeah then when he was a you know then i think there's a certain amount of peace you've got to make with yourself before you can do stand up well yeah because and it's like you know that i became better at it when i understood what non-binary was and that i was it because there was a part of me that wasn't
01:10:13
Speaker
trying to suppress something or trying to hide something or what have you. It was all that kind of thing. I've used this example before, but when did Against Me make their best album? Straight after Laura Jane Grace said, I am a woman. Then the album after that, not that the albums before that were bad, but when that
01:10:36
Speaker
when that guard was dropped. Incredible stuff. You're free of the thing that, you know, when you're inhibiting yourself from a personal point of view. You're going to inhibit yourself from a creative point of view. Funnily, one of your lines about being non-binary lives rent-free in my head, as the kids would say.
01:10:59
Speaker
Sure. I don't want to say what it is because I don't like to burn people's gear, but... You're fine. It's not like I don't really do one line of stuff, so it'll be part of a larger routine. No, that's fair enough. It's more just in your intro. I think I've heard you say it a couple of times where you refer to yourself. And to be honest, it doesn't really apply at the moment. No, probably not. But you used to refer to yourself as being like an emo dance player.
01:11:26
Speaker
Oh, an emo dust professional. Yes, that's I've not got I've not got makeup on at the moment. I've not got any goop in my hair and I'm not wearing it. I do like that line. And it's really, really, and it works really, really well. But the only drawback is that I do have to be wearing a shirt with with a pattern on the yoke. Yeah, that's that the shirts do a lot of heavy lifting on that one. It's a lovely disarming line. I remember we did a gig together.
01:11:55
Speaker
the one that we did in Huddersfield, I can't remember the name of the pub, but I don't know if you remember we... Oh god! Was that the one where I was being called a puff for about two hours before the show started? Yeah, what was it? There was an old guy sat at the bar and you were writing in your notepad to, you know, obviously go over your set or whatever. Yeah, I was just compiling what I was going to talk about, yeah. The guy kept looking over at us and I was like, in the back of my mind I'm thinking,
01:12:20
Speaker
he's going to come over and he's going to say something about the fact that Eddie's wearing eyeliner or something like that. I could just see him burning a hole in your skull with his eyes. I don't think he'd seen anything like it before. No, that's it. Absolutely mangled. I got on the bus. It was about 7pm and he was absolutely arseholeed as well. He was. I ended up with him on the bus afterwards. Oh, no. In fact, it was me and Joe. Me and Joe, Coco do co-hosts. This was me, usually.
01:12:49
Speaker
we ended up on the bus with him afterwards. And he just said his first line to me when we sat down on the bus, he went, what was that fucking gay bloke staring at? And I was like, staring at the aggressive guy looking at me, I said, well, to be I said, I didn't want to get again, I didn't want to get into the whole non binary thing with him. But I just kind of said, look, it's not worth it. I said, I said, he was staring at his notepad, you were staring at him.
01:13:13
Speaker
Yeah. That is what happened here. You know, essentially is what was going on. But the best part of mine was that you got up there and you did your thing. And that first line, the emo darts professional even disarmed him. Oh, really? I don't know. Oh, he'd gone? No, no, because he
01:13:32
Speaker
He was at the bus stop when we got there, but he left after, between you being on and me being on. But yeah, disarmed even him, so you melted the defenses of even the most staunch bigot. So yeah, next question then, right? Favourite Stuart Lee, and I will give you an option of three, joke, routine or full special.
01:14:01
Speaker
That's really, really tricky. Would you like me to pick? No, no, no, it's okay. I mean, I could probably answer all of them. I think 90s comedian has a very special place in my heart because I saw it in a tiny room as ideal a space as you could ask for it really.
01:14:22
Speaker
Um, and it was so surprising cause I didn't really have any idea of what it was going to be like. I didn't really know anything about him outside of his work with Herring. Yeah. So that was, it was just like, whoa. And also it was a bit like, shit, stand up can be this. This is really interesting. Yeah. I.
01:14:48
Speaker
I really like the routine where, not necessarily the massively long story, but the bit where he's impersonating Richard Hammond. And because he does this sort of little scampery run and it's just sublimely childish. What I've noticed, I'm really glad you said that.
01:15:15
Speaker
because what I've noticed is obviously I've watched, Stuart Lee's like my comfort blanket is the thing I put on when I want some noise in the room and it's just, and a lot of the time I watch it these days and I watch it on more of a critical level and intellectual level wanky thing to say, but rather than a, you know, because I've seen it a billion times, the surprise has gone, but the things that still catch me and make me laugh are the things like that where he dips into like a performative thing.
01:15:43
Speaker
There's one, we're going to do 41st Best next. And there's a bit on 41st Best where he's talking about Russell Brand. And he does look at the thing. Oh, the bad racism. Yeah, where he emulates Russell Brand. Oh, yeah. Making a statement about racism. He'll pass it.
01:16:03
Speaker
by going, ooh. Yeah, he does, which is clearly a Frank Spencer impression. And that's the bit that I. Yeah, it's so good. But it's things like that and the Hammond stuff, because the gypsies that gets me every time. Imagine a blind child. Yeah, lesbians blah, blah. Yeah. It's that sort of stuff that gets me.
01:16:29
Speaker
Yeah, also the bit about his shiny red shoes with the buckles watching behind his ears. I drink my milk. And there's something so childish and...
01:16:46
Speaker
He's really just trying to prod him. I think it's very provocative and that makes me laugh a lot. Yeah, but it's brilliant. And the way he ties the routine together, you know, sort of single joke. He can write jokes, Eddie. He just chooses not to. He can do, yeah. He can do. I just, I think, I think the line... Because basically what he did with 90s, and I think it is, I wanted to write a joke, Joe Pascuali couldn't steal. Yes. And for that to be the reveal, it's like,
01:17:17
Speaker
And it's only just occurred to me, it's like the aristocrats. He's basically come up with, because he could do that whole thing, what's your act? Well, what I do is I drink all of this ginger wine and then Christ appears to me and then, you know, and could virtually do the entire thing.
01:17:38
Speaker
changing the tenses ever so slightly, you know, what do you call that? I call it the aristocrats, you know, and it would be the same shaggy dog story, sort of underwhelming punchline that makes it so... Well, I don't think it's any coincidence that, you know, again, in the book, he writes a lot about seeing Paul Provenza's documentary about the aristocrats, you know, so it was obviously a clearly massive influence on him at that time. But
01:18:06
Speaker
Yeah, I must admit, obviously, you've listened to the previous episode, I was saying to Joe about the Joe Pascuali routine as kind of like a standalone thing. Even within the confines of a show, it works as a 10-minute bit, which he continually says he doesn't do, but he does.
01:18:24
Speaker
It just happens to be part of the whole. Yeah, I mean, I think this is so wanky, but basically, right, I listened to Let's Go Goodbye Blue Monday by Goodbye Blue Monday on my walk earlier, right? Yeah. And that might not mean much to anyone. But the reason I bring it up is the penultimate song on my album is 14 Minutes Long. Yes. And it's called Harry Carry and it's brilliant.
01:18:50
Speaker
And it's not dissimilar to the decline by No Effects in the sense that they are very long songs by punk bands, but they function more like a symphony in that they have movements and they have motifs that come back and weave throughout. And they're both brilliantly written pieces of music. They're also fucking bangers. And I think that Stuart Lee
01:19:16
Speaker
because of his work in sort of opera and classical, and his interest in music like that, or his interest in how music like that works, maybe not so much as actual, that kind of music. And because he thinks like a musician, he talks about jazz being more influential than certain things. He's very into specific types of rock music. I remember there was an interview he did with the NME or something like that, or with something that said,
01:19:46
Speaker
The only band I like that you've probably heard of is REM. This was way back in the 90s. And that's probably one of the reasons that Richard Herring thinks music is stupid. And I can absolutely see why you might do if a person in your life who likes music the most is that guy. I get it. So I think that he does structure these things like a symphony and therefore motifs come back from earlier pieces and they weave throughout.
01:20:17
Speaker
And i'm the repair repetition you know i mean people talk about repetition all that's not good is just no ideas you heard by taverns fifth. The same thing over and over again.
01:20:29
Speaker
But it's done by someone who knows exactly what they're doing and are fucking great at it. Repetition by a dullard is boring. Repetition by someone who knows how to repeat is... Repetition by someone who knows just the right amount of tension to build before breaking it and all that kind of stuff. And that will vary room to room, whereas unfortunately they didn't have different versions of the score.
01:20:55
Speaker
to give out just in case they're not tense enough, give them another round of da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da
01:21:11
Speaker
it all has to be put to a grid and you end up with the music's supposed to work in dramatic opposition to the words and all that kind of stuff whereas... It becomes something that has to be replicable. Yes. Eight times a week. Yeah, that's it.
01:21:31
Speaker
And that's because, yeah, well, exactly, twice Wednesdays, twice Sundays, twice Wednesdays, twice Saturday, Sundays off.
01:21:46
Speaker
And they've got to, because the overheads are so much, they've got to fit in more performances than there are days in the week. And it doesn't work for someone who comes to jazz from punk rock, where those kind of restraints, and also the way he talks about, and I don't think it's something that people have paid enough attention to. People have paid a lot of attention to him.
01:22:09
Speaker
taking long pauses repeating things and all that kind of stuff not so much these days but certainly when i was starting out a lot of people were doing that kind of thing yeah they're not responding or they're doing it
01:22:20
Speaker
They're doing what they think they can hear him do, which is go, oh, someone over there laughing a bit louder than someone over there.
Handling Audience Interactions
01:22:29
Speaker
And instead of just pointing things out, it's how one does it. It's also the reason that you're doing it. Yeah, of course. And that's the bit that they're missing. That's what I was just going to say. The bit that they're missing is not knowing why he's making the choices he's making. What is the function of these choices? Not just the choices. It's not just an effort to
01:22:49
Speaker
Because there are times where it is a response to a thing in the room, and there are times where it's, yeah, it's responding to something in the room, but it's deliberately chosen to be done at that point. Because, you know, he's kind of gone on record as saying that he can almost engineer things to happen in the room now when he needs them to.
01:23:07
Speaker
I saw milder comedians, the one with the Top Gear stuff on it. I saw milder comedian in York or Harrogate, Harrogate I think. And he'd just got to right at the end of the Richard Hammond routine and we never got the punchline because someone shouted
01:23:28
Speaker
Stuart, are you just jealous because you're not been asked to be on it? And he went, well, what's happened there is someone shouted out and I couldn't hear it. So what? Well, no. And people were like, no, no, just get on with it. And stuff. He's like, well, no, he's ruined the routine now. I'm not going to finish it. But I might as well find out what it was. And, and he said, are you just jealous because you've not been asked to be on it? And he goes,
01:23:54
Speaker
What about me makes you think I'd want to be on Top Gear? You can dislike something on its own merits rather than it being a result of jealousy. And it sort of pulled it back a bit, but it meant it was about eight months, maybe a year before I got the DVD and found out what the actual end of the routine was.
01:24:15
Speaker
similar thing happened to me in Edinburgh when I went to see basically and I won't I won't burn any of the any of the stuff but he He gave up on the final routine because the room was being Twat says he put it but right, um, you know, he went into a thing of saying what that routine normally does is XYZ, but it won't tonight, you know because that thing happened and then he you know, he
01:24:40
Speaker
I've lived a little sort of coder to the whole thing and then fucked off. And it was really funny to kind of see, because I'd seen it at Leicester Square Theatre, so I knew what the routine was supposed to do. And it was just dead funny seeing how he reacts to something just... I've heard him say occasionally he will just fuck a gig into the ground just to see what happens. Yeah, yeah. Because something could come out of it.
01:25:04
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I also think people who are not good enough to do that try that far too often as well. I've only ever done it once in my life. I say in my life, like I've been doing stand up all my life. I've only ever done it once since I've been doing stand up. I was at a gig in home first. Oh, yes. And when I say gig, what I mean is, and the person who runs it's lovely.
01:25:28
Speaker
But the audience did not care to be there and didn't really know what they'd come to, as Stuart would say. And I was in the middle of my routine. And my stuff was kind of at that point, I was honing it for the split show I was doing in Edinburgh. So it was a half hour with a sort of narrative beginning, middle, and end. And if you take one bit out, the thing doesn't really work because it's all callbacks. And a guy came in about 10 minutes into my set
01:25:57
Speaker
And I was doing a bit where I talk about some things, some unkind things that people had said about me. And the guy just shouted out, why would people say those things? They're really mean.
01:26:12
Speaker
And I was like, oh, yeah, well, that's, you know, that's kind of what I'm getting at. You've missed the start of this routine. You're not, you're not really understanding what I'm saying. Oh, someone said I was an ugly fuck. Yeah, exactly. And I was illustrating it with a big, a big sort of blown up copy of my passport photo. And the guy said, why have you got the picture? And I got like, again, you've missed the start of the routine. Um, and then after a little while you just kept,
01:26:40
Speaker
like jumping in and I just I thought you know what no I'm gonna make it about you now and I just chatted to him until my time was finished and just kept trying to like not put him down because again I'm not a massive fan of that myself but
01:26:56
Speaker
just see what I could get out of him. You decided not to misunderstand what Paul Smith does and just call him a nonce for 20 minutes. No, it wasn't. An idiot smashes heckler. What's that, mate? You're a nonce. Yeah, no, it wasn't quite that. But no, that's the only time I've ever purposely thrown a gig, but I've heard him say that he will do it on occasion. I haven't thrown one.
01:27:21
Speaker
but the most childish and petulant thing I ever did at the gig was in Telford. And the audience were not, this was a long time ago, the audience were not going for what I was doing. But actually what had happened was we'd started half an hour early because Spain were playing Man U in a European tournament of football.
01:27:41
Speaker
So that was happening and so we were waiting and basically what they did was they turned off the tele, put the microphone in front of the now turned off tele and when comedy started, Compare went on, the Compare was brand new, thought he was incredible.
01:27:58
Speaker
Wasn't wasn't just introduced me. I was the first actor on introduced me as my really good friend. We'd met half an hour before it was the crowd didn't care. They were discussing the football. They would talk. They were doing their own post-match thing. It was, you know, the fact that it was insane. It shouldn't have been going on, you know, whatever. Obviously, I walked on stage and started doing my acts. It was getting nothing.
01:28:26
Speaker
less than nothing, so I said, alright fine, just tell me the names of some local towns you don't like and I'll make fun of them.
01:28:35
Speaker
Like, that's what you like, isn't it? That's what you like. That's what you like, isn't it? That's not what they want. That's what they want. That's what you want. Yeah, that was my attitude. Then they started shouting names. Oh, OK, this is turning up. OK, good. I thought this is going to be shit. All right, brilliant. Blarville. I'm like, Blarville. All right, this is someone from Blarville. Oh, I don't got electricity because I'm a town shit. Fucking rapturous applause. I'm like, what the fuck is going on? I looked over to the pool table, which was doubling as the green room.
01:29:04
Speaker
the back of the room, all the other comics are stood there just going, no, we can't do that. They were just like, oh, no. So I did like that five times, walked off one good night and they went, hey. And I said, I did that through pigheadedness, petty might. I'm sorry, I'm going on a tangent, but yeah. So I've not thrown it, but I tried to.
01:29:27
Speaker
just happened to tap
Adapting Comedy to Different Audiences
01:29:28
Speaker
into something that I actually really liked. Yeah you've found a different gear and again I think that's the reason that he does that but I'm pretty sure anyone who does comedy for any length of time beyond you know maybe a couple of gigs will end up at some point with experiences like that.
01:29:45
Speaker
oh of course yeah and you have to because they can happen at any time not everyone likes what you do and i think the quicker you realize that the better you are and also the worst thing is is that when that happens when you've got 10 minutes maximum yeah that's you you know you live or die by it when you
01:30:03
Speaker
When you've been going for a bit and you've got maybe 40, 50, maybe an hour of club material that you can dip into and go, oh, maybe I'll try this tonight, then you can go, right, I'm going to have bought this bit about when I bought a suit and I'm going to do this bit about when I went to Lanzarote or whatever. You can go, this lot probably won't be interested in that. I'll do this instead. It doesn't always work. You do, after a little while, get to know what works in certain places. I gigged in Newcastle for the first time recently.
01:30:31
Speaker
And I just didn't appreciate what it was going to be like. And literally, I was, there was a place in the venue that was literally called Ketamine Corner. And although, you know, the compare kept going to the lads in the corner. He's like, how are we doing over in Ketamine Corner sort of thing. And which gig was that? Long live comedy? No, it was it was a little gig called laugh like it's the end of the world.
01:30:56
Speaker
Okay, I've not even heard of that one. Yeah, they stopped for a little while. Fully enough, the gig that I did was the last one before they took a little, yeah, before the world ended. But apparently the world's come back because they've started gigging again. But yeah, so they didn't go for any of my stuff. I chose that evening in Newcastle for some reason, because I'm working up stuff for my solo show as well that I'm going to do in Leicester.
01:31:19
Speaker
I was working up sort of little 10-minute bits here and there, and I chose that evening to do a seven-minute poem about the time a cat tried to kill me with his arse, which is what my show's about. Yeah, in Newcastle, let's just say they weren't going for it. And there was sort of a lot of pregnant pauses in that poem, and a lady from the back just shouted, get the fuck on with it.
01:31:45
Speaker
Wow. And, you know, like you say, when I had a sort of very defined plan, once you're into a seven minute poem, you can't just abandon it.
01:31:54
Speaker
No, no, that would be cowardice. I've always had pretty warm experiences in Newcastle, but I haven't done that gig. Actually, no, I did do the hyena club before that. It wasn't an unworm experience. Put it this way, they gave me lots of warm applause, but only when I said Sunderland was full of paedophiles and referenced everyone being on cocaine. That was the only
Connections with Famous Comedians
01:32:20
Speaker
That was the only time they liked me. I was doing okay at this, I was doing the middle spot at the hyena, I think it was the hyena, yeah, for a weekend. And I decided that I was going to do my music set, so I had my guitar with me.
01:32:38
Speaker
and I was doing okay, but then someone, there's this woman who'd been piping up all night. The compo is Lee Kyle, who's great. He managed to keep her quiet, but for only a few moments till she forgot she was supposed to be quiet, so he was doing okay in his bed as soon as the other person was on stage, that was it, came over. But I said, and I spoke to her, I said, okay, right, I'm gonna do a joke now, okay.
01:33:06
Speaker
But I need you to be very quiet in it because everyone else here is not as clever as you, so they'll miss it if you talk over it. And like the rest of the audience is laughing because she's so, she's totally unaware that it was a bit cruel, but she didn't, whatever. I'm like, I just need something. It was a very clubby kind of thing.
01:33:24
Speaker
And then i started talking and she spoke and someone went there she goes and i started playing dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah dah on the guitar yeah and that was the best response i got for the whole thing so like you know what i'm gonna wrap this one up a little really like the magic of like.
01:33:41
Speaker
you know, an art lib, they can kind of, you know, they seem to tune out sometimes when they're well aware that you're in material, but. I think there are certain towns who like back chat, who like, you know, snipey little comments that are always taken fairly well. Like you can be quite like Liverpool have got that kind of thing, Glasgow, a bit like that, you know, various places can be.
01:34:08
Speaker
And that's, but it depends. They can tell if you're doing it maliciously or if you're doing it for the bounce and, you know. Yeah. I'm sure you've got more questions. No, no, it's fine. Listen, this is the kind of chat I live for, regardless. Oh, fair enough. I was worried about your metrics. No one knows who the hell I am. And here I am telling them what's what. Well, you know, we all we all have our stories. You've got a few. So I like to listen to them.
01:34:37
Speaker
So you might know what's coming based on the fact that I've co-opted your questions, but favourite memory connected to Stuart Lee?
01:34:49
Speaker
Obviously, watching 90s Comedian with my parents in that room, that was very, very special. There was one moment where I met Stuart Lee outside Simon Munnery's show at the Fringe one year. He was firing for his then wife, Bridgette Christie's show. Oh, yeah. That year it was Housewife Surrealist.
01:35:17
Speaker
So I'm a bit sort of behind the curve on Bridget's stuff because I sort of discovered her quite late. I found the video of her on YouTube dressed in an ant costume. It was after an ant and it was... Was it before a bic for her? It was before a bic for her, it was before War Donkey. Right. So yeah, I think it was supposed to be... Basically, Housewife Surrealist was a very angry political one. Yeah.
01:35:47
Speaker
But she'd wanted it to be a surreal, like she, like her first shows, she was like dressed as Charles the second. Yes, yeah. And stuff like that. And she wanted it to be more like that. But some, some social and political stuff had happened that she couldn't ignore and was doing that. Yeah. So I'd gone to see it and she was great. And Stuart Lee was outside Simon Munnery's show, fliering for Bridget's show. It's like Russian dolls, this.
01:36:13
Speaker
Yeah. And I walked out, I was one of the last ones to leave the stand, the main stand in Glasgow, the one that under the ground, under the ground, you know, the one down the steps. Basement one, that's what I was trying to say. And he, and he offers me this flyer and said, I won't do because I saw it the other day and it was really, really good. Oh, good. Yeah, yeah, I'm glad. And then we fell into this thing that happens at the fringe where
01:36:43
Speaker
because we'd sort of, I'd stopped moving. And a conversation had kind of, I'd said a thing, he'd said a thing. We both felt like a conversation was happening. And all I could think to say was, so how's your fringe this year? And he's like, yeah, yeah, good, actually. Yeah, yeah, how's yours? Like, yeah, yeah, no, bad, bad, bad, yeah, I'll do this pretty good. Oh yeah, yeah, good, good, good, yeah. Are you over? I'm over this one. Oh yeah, great, great, anyway. It's okay, it's okay, yeah, anyway, see you. And we walked off and it was like,
01:37:10
Speaker
Do we know each other? And both of us must have been thinking, well, he must have been thinking, oh, that's really embarrassing. I can't remember who that was. I'm thinking, he hasn't gotten a clue who I am. So that was kind of funny. It's that one way thing of the minor celebrity though, isn't it? You've got a pre-existing relationship with them that they didn't have any part in. It's the parasocial problem. But there was also, it wasn't
01:37:34
Speaker
I'll include this one because it was really, really good. I went to see, it was at the Fringe again, there was a shelter. Lots of comedians do benefit for shelter, the homeless charity. Robin Ince was comparing it.
01:37:49
Speaker
Daniel kitson was one of the surprise guests so there were loads of virgins reaching for their phones so they could bootleg it and share it amongst all the other virgins. I won't be listening to this it's about someone far too mainstream so we can say what we like. Just long was on it was a real who's who of that era of.
01:38:11
Speaker
of lefty cut, like I think Daniel Kitson, there was a cut out of the shelter logo, which is a little house. It was like a dog kennel size, one of those. And he's like, Oh, I noticed you've just left this one inside when a fucking tramp could be sleeping in it. But no, it stays dressing now. So fucking brilliant. And then he, and then he kicked it to pieces and went, there you go. I have that you homeless bastard. And it was, it was kind of funny, but it was, I think comedy vehicle, the first series had come out, but the, um,
01:38:41
Speaker
Yes, the bit about his granddad and the crisps. Robin Ince came out with a bag of crisps and said, it's really nice to do a benefit gig. One of the few that Stuart Lee isn't doing, because you can actually get some snacks. And he started eating it and the audience went, oh, crisps, because he steals the crisps. And then Robin started going, no, what you should have done, you should have eaten this crisp more slowly. You didn't work, Robin, you didn't.
01:39:03
Speaker
You know, and Robin Ince's impression of Stewart Lee is fucking sublime. Oh, it's incredible, yeah. And he just had this Stewart Lee-esque conversation with himself as Stewart Lee, and if anything, it was more like watching Stewart Lee than anything I'd ever seen. And so that was, I like that one a lot.
01:39:23
Speaker
I do like Robin Innes a lot. I went to see his show Melons at the Fringe just now. It's a really tiny, tiny venue underneath. What's the other stand venue called? The big one where they all do it now? Oh, Embassy Rooms.
01:39:40
Speaker
The one up at the top of the town. Not ambassador, no. I can't remember the name of it, but the big one. It's assembly rooms. It's something like, it's nearly assembly rooms, yeah. And I went to see a show. Tiny room in the basement. And afterwards, I just wanted to kind of just say hello and stuff, because I've always really liked him and liked his stuff. And he did the Stuart Lee impression there when I was talking to him.
01:40:09
Speaker
because he was sort of asking, he's like, oh, how did you find out about the show and stuff? And I says, oh, well, I'm a fan of Stewart Lee and stuff. And then I started checking out all of his collaborators and whatnot. And then he just dropped into seamlessly this like impression of Stewart Lee telling me that it was always nice to meet a fan of Stewart Lee.
01:40:29
Speaker
It was really weird. There's also a brilliant story which Robin told on a podcast, which you might not be aware of. There was some sort of comics party in London and Robin and Stuart went, they were there. And Barry Cryer, Lord love him, Barry Cryer, rest in peace, Miss You Big Man, he was there.
01:40:55
Speaker
And he went, Robin, how are you? He goes, I'm good, Barry. Thank you. Oh, Stuart's here as well. And he just looked at him and just went, hmm, and walked off. And Stuart was really upset. He was like, oh no, I think I've upset Barry. And so, you know, half an hour goes by or whatever. And he goes over, he goes, he waits, sees Barry's talking to someone, he waits for him to sort of split off and do a lap of the room.
01:41:21
Speaker
And Robin was with him, he said, yeah, Barry, I'm really sorry. I think I've upset you. And Barry Craig goes, you know what you've done. He goes, what? I really don't. He goes, you stole my vomiting into the gaping anus of Christ routine.
01:41:38
Speaker
Yes. And apparently the relief on Stewart Lee's face was just something absolutely beyond. He was just like, Oh God, that was a Oh, thank you, darling. My girlfriend's just brought me a cup of tea. Excellent work. Excellent. Oh my God. So my girlfriend has
01:41:56
Speaker
found a source of of winter, which is what we call the spiced Ribena. It's like mold Ribena basically. And it's still in Sainsbury's apparently. So we thought it was going to be she got it over Christmas. And so I've just been presented with a big mug of hot Ribena. I'm not even else. That's definitely something that's on my list. That's tickling my taste buds right now. That's Oh, no, it's, it's absolutely wild, mate. You'll love it. You'll not exceptional.
01:42:27
Speaker
Now, given we've just spent ages talking about Robin Ince, this next question, because obviously, Stuart Lee isn't a band. So I can't ask you what your favourite member of Stuart Lee is. Because that's all I want to give a different question. I don't know him that well. Yeah, exactly. Not that close. No, no. But so I sort of in my head have this concept of what I've started calling the extended Stooniverse.
01:42:56
Speaker
Yes, yes. Because he has a list of very, you know, sort of quite well known frequent collaborators, your Monteries, your Robinins, your Josie Longs, all people that have kind of popped up throughout his history and collaborated with him here and there. Who is your favourite member of the extended Stuniverse? And is it Robinins?
01:43:16
Speaker
I mean, Robin's, Robin's definitely a contender for that. I love Robin. I really have done for a very long time. Yeah, I think I'm going to exclude Richard Herring, because I think that's the most obvious. That's like a direct
01:43:37
Speaker
partnership, whereas sort of the scene, the movement, the group that he's most closely associated with, I think Robin or someone who's maybe a bit more peripheral, equally so, would be Michael Legg.
01:43:57
Speaker
Oh brilliant, so that's not a name that I expected. I really like Michael Legg, but I didn't. Because Michael Legg also is what links Stuart Lee and The Trap. And The Trap are probably no longer going technically, but they are my favourite sketch group.
01:44:17
Speaker
Possibly ever yeah probably ever and they are there another group. I discovered at the fringe The year before I saw Stewart Lee they did a series of plays called bad play They've got a podcast you can still access in fact you can get the whole thing on go faster stripe for a tenor It's 20 episodes they average about two hours long each
01:44:40
Speaker
And it's mad chat and sketches that are just so beautifully niche and preposterous. It's just gorgeous. But they are my favorite thing. And so Michael Legg
01:44:56
Speaker
Bridges the gap because he's been he works with them and members of them on various other projects and stuff and so yes I'm gonna say Michael leg because he is brilliant and And more people should go and check out his stuff
01:45:11
Speaker
Yeah, he is. I really like my colour, I must admit. Robin is definitely up there, and Josie Long is excellent, and I don't think I dislike any of his frequent collaborators. Well, no, that's it. It's like the thing is that he's got very good taste in other comedians, if you like.
01:45:29
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. Well, you know, the red button bits from the comedy vehicle comedy vehicle were Andrew, Andrew O'Neill. My friend Andrew O'Neill was on there various other people, you know, and really good to access those individuals. And I was gutted. I had tickets to go see Andrew O'Neill at the wardrobe in Leeds because I think Andrew O'Neill was doing
01:45:56
Speaker
two shows it's called the tall but i think it was like london and lee's right oh yeah yeah and uh what's what's the latest show called it gomorrah is it gomorrah no it's gaboora gaboora that's that i think it's like
01:46:11
Speaker
I can't remember which language it is. It might be Hebrew or something like that, but I think it means power. I'm not sure. But it's one of the occult-y ones. Yes. Well, I'd take it to see that. And I was ill, so I couldn't. I was absolutely gutted. But again, I found out about Andrew O'Neill via Stuart Lee.
01:46:34
Speaker
Andrew is wonderful and you can see most of Andrew's stuff on YouTube, most of their friend's shows. Oh cool. They've put up there and they're revamping their history of heavy metal which is excellent. I think have they got, I'm sure they have because I've been browsing the Go Faster Stripe catalogue recently. Have they got something on Go Faster Stripe as well possibly?
01:46:53
Speaker
I'm not sure. I don't know. I'll have to have a look. If you're thinking about my non binary alt punk friends, then Will Hodgson's got a few on there. Well, I'm in the...
01:47:08
Speaker
Go on, sorry. I was just going to say, most of the Go Faster Stripe stuff is, because that was the, that was, that was where 90s comedian was, that he couldn't find it. Yeah, that's how I kind of got linked up with Go Faster Stripe. And then when I went in there, I realized there was loads of stuff from people I already liked anyway. And then I got to find out about... I've got a stack of the, because they come in the CD sleeve, like the card, the DVD cases. I got P Green Boat, the, the owl on the Pussycat version that he did. And
01:47:38
Speaker
I think what would Judas do? I've got what
Edinburgh Fringe and Audience Dynamics
01:47:42
Speaker
Judas do but I've got it on the download because I think obviously the current incarnation of it I don't think does the DVDs anymore but
01:47:51
Speaker
No, no, I think I love the fact that Go Faster Stripes started doing downloads. I was like, oh, that's brilliant. I love all that. Yeah, well, I mean, the other day I was, because I'm in there, you know, they're equivalent of like a record club, you pay them at 10 or a month or whatever, and they just send you stuff. Amazing. And the last thing that they sent me was Simon Monnery's sort of swan song, if you like, of Alan Parkery, Urban Warrior.
01:48:17
Speaker
Oh, cool. I saw Monterey as a hot contender for the Stuniverse thing as well, but he did. I went to a... It was at the Banshee Labyrinth in the cinema room. Every year they sort of reserve nights for charity events. Yeah. And it was for an earthquake or a flood or something. There was some humanitarian crisis. Yeah.
01:48:45
Speaker
Andy Zoltzmann was comparing the actor Kevin Elden playing the poet's character. Paul something? I can't remember. But the actor Kevin Elden was doing a bit and Simon Munnery did Alan Parker, Urban Warrior. And I was front row and it was absolutely brilliant.
01:49:12
Speaker
I felt like I just sort of managed to grab the ass end of when those people were accessible in small rooms. Yeah, I was going to say, because then, you know, obviously, by the time, because like I said, you know, just to kind of reincorporate what we were saying earlier, I was quite late to all of this. Obviously, you got to see, you know, 90s comedian when it was happening.
01:49:40
Speaker
Yeah. You know, I was quite late to all this stuff. But then once I once I kind of got a hold of it, I couldn't consume it quick enough. But so by the time I got to seeing a lot of these people, they kind of graduated to less accessible rooms. And, you know, with the exception of Stu, who makes a point of knocking around at the end of a gig and selling DVDs out of the bucket.
01:50:03
Speaker
you know, everyone else to a degree, you know, your Josie Longs and your Simon Monteries and, you know, maybe not Robinins because he did knock about but whoever. They sort of, they're at that thing where they get off stage and they're separate to the people if you like, you know. I've always known Robin to be very sociable afterwards, but I think
01:50:24
Speaker
But that just depends on who it is. But also, I think Robin is someone who knows a huge number of his audience. Yes. The people who give him up to 50 pounds a year through tickets or whatever he's selling, whatever, you know, if he comes out with a new book or whatever. These are people who give him that much money a year.
01:50:49
Speaker
and possibly in person because he'll have his books with him and they'll make a point of buying it at the gig that they're going to see. Last time I saw Robin, I don't know him particularly well, but we've met a few times and chatted and stuff. And it was at the old woolen in Farsley. And it was one of his book tours. It was when he was just talking about books and
01:51:16
Speaker
and all of these kind of things, and my girlfriend and I went to see him. So it wasn't strictly a comedy one, but it was, you know, it was in collaboration with the local bookshop, but they'd sold too many tickets, so they needed to move it to a proper venue and all that kind of thing. Yeah. But he, like, everyone, 60, 70% of the people going up there were like, hi, Robin. He's like, oh, how are you? And all this stuff, you know. So I don't think Stuart Lee can do that.
01:51:47
Speaker
Well, no, because he was too many people. I think he's been on record as kind of saying that he occasionally struggles in a place like Edinburgh, because in Edinburgh, he's that guy. He could probably walk around Leeds, for example, and maybe not bump into someone.
01:52:08
Speaker
Oh, I mean, yeah, he could go to most major cities and just during the daytime go and look around the shops without anyone really getting in his way, especially if he had a hat on. But in Edinburgh during the fringes, he's got no chance. No, no. Which, with obvious reason, I think if you get to the point where someone likes you enough to devote a podcast to you,
01:52:33
Speaker
You know that you've got fans Yeah, and and I think and just to sort of circularly round it I think I Think that thing is is that I mean, I know you've only at the time of recording you've released two episodes. Yes and You know, I I like we said I do a similarly niche or similar level of niche Yeah about a different thing
01:53:02
Speaker
And Red and I have been very surprised at the uptake because we didn't really know what we expected because there are people who say they're fans of something but may not have engaged with any of its new content or anything like that for a very long time. Yeah.
01:53:25
Speaker
And the same can be true of Stuart Lee. Someone might have, you know, really loved 90s comedian or just loved Fist of Fun and gone, yeah, that was good, wasn't it? Oh, yeah. Wonder what he's up to now. Yeah. Or still, or, you know, oh, he loved Richard, not Judy and still occasionally, you know, text their friend, egg, I said egg or something, you know, it's just a little short, you know, I mean, um,
01:53:51
Speaker
I only need to say to one of my best mates, Gab, I only need to say, of course. And then that suggests I'm going to have sex with whatever we were just talking about. It's that ingrained. And it is that sort of thing. But obviously, you move on. So Stuart Lee reminds me of a particular period of my life. Yeah.
01:54:18
Speaker
and some of the best bits of that period of my life and and how much I I sort of Like it, you know, I I like Those kind of things so it's Yes, and so maybe I'm not I mean I have seen everything I haven't seen him live in a long time My I should I should mention this my mate gaffod has mentioned when he started Going out with the woman whom to whom he is now married. Yeah
01:54:47
Speaker
One of the first things he did was he saw Stuart Lee was playing. He was like, oh, brilliant. Got tickets.
01:54:58
Speaker
She is not a Stuart Lee fan. My girlfriend doesn't like no effects. So Red's fiance, recent fiance, she doesn't like no effects either. She's a big fan of Frank Turner though, so that episode was interesting.
01:55:19
Speaker
And so we still share that so gab was really enjoying i can't remember which tour it was bad and she just walked out there going i do not understand why that room full of people was laughing.
01:55:31
Speaker
I do not get it. I never want to see that man perform again. And since then, a few times, Stewart Lee has announced the tour. She has bought tickets for Gav, two tickets, specifically on the grounds that she is not the person who has the other ticket. That's amazing.
01:55:49
Speaker
It's usually been me, so the last couple of times I've been to see Stuart Lee was because of God's wife. I had a similar experience. I was trying to, you know, because I wanted to share this with my wife. You want to share the things that you enjoy with the people that you love. And so I wanted to be able to share it with us. I showed her the Joe Pascuali routine on YouTube, and she quite liked it. You know, she understood what was going on.
01:56:15
Speaker
And then, so I said, look, I'm probably going to buy tickets to see Stuart's next tour. Shall we go? And she watched the job squarely routine. She enjoyed it. So we were going to do that. And then it was right around the time that the queen died. And the only reason I remember that is because it got rescheduled a few times. But then they showed Snowflake tornado on BBC.
01:56:38
Speaker
Yes. So we were late in bed, 11 o'clock at night or whatever and I was watching Snowflake and she was sort of idly, halfly, you know, consuming it. And I was just, I was wetting myself with laughter. It's the first time I'd seen Snowflake and I was absolutely wetting myself and she just kept looking at me going, I don't get it. And then when it finished, she just went, I don't want to go to that with you. Yeah. So I'm like, right, okay.
01:57:06
Speaker
In fact, that deserves an honourable mention. What's that? That deserves an honourable mention. The bit of saying the unsayable is absolute. It's making me laugh just thinking about it. That's just strong. Also the fact that he's dressed a bit like Ted Bovis from Heidi High.
01:57:30
Speaker
I don't know if he did that on purpose, but... I think that's the reference point he used when he described it to... I think he does, doesn't he? I think he was on Rob Brydon's podcast or something and he described it as like a Ted Burvis jacket. Now, Stuart, I just want to make this quite a bit about me, so I'm going to tell you what I enjoyed about it and let you agree with me at the end. How does that sound? You've listened to it.
01:57:54
Speaker
I don't know but that is my, I've softened on Rob Brydon but I went off him completely because I saw him on an episode of QI and every time a nice little bouncing back and forth run of jokes about a certain subject was going, he'd intercept and then crash it into a, slow it right down and he'd also do that thing where
01:58:18
Speaker
And the thing is, whenever you get it out, and then he'd just look at the audience immediately and go, no, not like that. And they hadn't made any suggestion that they were thinking he meant get out his penis. It was just all of the work. And I think he was probably quite...
01:58:33
Speaker
it looks like it was nerves and he was like acting and stuff and now he's a bit more relaxed and quite perfect. He still name drops like fuck but you know whatever. Of course he does yeah but to be fair in the in the Stuart Lee episode that he did with him he did say something about this is quite a lovey reference or something and he makes reference to the fact that he talks about actors a lot and all that kind of stuff. No he does but he is one and so he does know a lot of them. I don't mind name dropping too much but it
01:59:01
Speaker
When you're already annoyed with someone and they start name dropping, your tolerance for it drops quite a lot. I only like it when people, you know, if someone would name drop Sue Pollard or something, I'd be like, that's brilliant. I love that. It's when they're sort of name dropping like big names, you're like, come on, mate.
01:59:17
Speaker
Yeah, if they go for the easy reference point, you're like, okay. That thing is a bit of advice. If any aspiring comics or new comics, no one wants to hear about when you did well, but we do want to hear about with the last time you died. Oh, yeah.
01:59:32
Speaker
There you go. That's going to make you more friends than anything. I don't mind watching my friends. Oh, go on. Everyone will sit down. They'll be like, what? Come on. I was going to leave, but fuck it, say. I don't mind watching my friends really do well at a gig, but I much prefer to watch them struggle. It's just there's something primal about it. And because I've been there myself, it's... I don't know. It depends on the gig and it depends on the friend. But no, it's just that someone who comes in bragging about how they smashed it, it's just like, mate, come on.
02:00:01
Speaker
Because we're British, we don't like winners. I don't like liars. Fair enough. That's my problem. So just to wrap things up then, final question before we do your plugs. What do you think Stu's legacy is? Should have known.
02:00:27
Speaker
apart from 10 years worth of shit up and spot comics trying to be him. Well, that's the problem. I think, um, positive, I think his positive legacy will be showing that you can, you can do things your way that are not to your own careers detriment. Yeah. And I wouldn't be surprised if people like James Acaster,
02:00:55
Speaker
who is like, not doing that, not doing this, don't want to do that, don't want to do this. I'm going to do this instead. All right, I'm going to, you know, and who has basically gone, oh, fame isn't what I enjoyed. I enjoyed performing. I enjoy creating things. I enjoy doing this stuff. So I only really need to make it as viable as my own existence requires. Yeah.
02:01:20
Speaker
And i do believe you know i think you know if you a lesson that took me so long to learn even though. It was being taught to me by the man whose comedy i was consuming.
02:01:34
Speaker
Rapidly, ravenously, saying if you just do what you want to do, make the thing that you want there to be. If you can't see, you know, there wasn't a podcast. I listen to podcasts a lot. I love No Effects. There's no podcast about No Effects.
02:01:51
Speaker
And it didn't even occur to me to make one until they announced that they were stopping touring and becoming a semi-active, studio-only band. And I was like, what? But we've got no effects, doesn't it?
02:02:06
Speaker
And, and I think that that comes from the sort of the, the punk rock and sort of anarcho punk background thing, like, you know, loose connection to napalm death and all that kind of thing. And the grassroots stuff and the, and just being
02:02:25
Speaker
willing to fail until you find out what it is that you're actually trying to do. The only thing that will let you know whether you've done something or not is to have done it. And failure is just one outcome. It's not a permanent state. Exactly. And do you know what, to tie a little ribbon around that based on what you've just said there,
02:02:50
Speaker
um at least when it comes to this podcast um and its existence you are my stewartly because you know i looked at the punk rockerly podcast and thought oh yeah you can do a podcast about a niche thing just because you like it and then occasionally you know after a little while someone someone else will say oh yeah i like that as well um and they'll start to listen to it and as you guys have proved um
02:03:19
Speaker
you know, that there's an audience for niche, or at least there's an audience for people being passionate about niche. So,
Podcasting as a Creative Outlet
02:03:28
Speaker
you know, in that very sort of soppy sense, you are the Stuart Lee in this scenario. Well, that's an incredibly flattering comparison. You showed me that a thing could exist. And that's going to be on posters from now on. That's it.
02:03:48
Speaker
Um, so, uh, yeah, just a round off then let's let everybody know. But I think that is true. And if, and if anyone is listening and thinks that it would be nice if this existed, just fucking do it. You know, um, I've got a, I've got a sketch, a sketch podcast. I have not added an episode two in a year, but it's just sat there, but pick scraped. Yeah. And, and I love all of that, those episodes and I'm just waiting. And I thought,
02:04:15
Speaker
To be honest, punk rock elite was getting more traction and seemed to be taking up more time. And I thought, well, it's still their pick scrapes and I can add to it whenever I want. So it'll be an occasional thing. It's just a place for ideas that I can't turn into stand up routines or some stand up routines that I'm trying, that I'm going to retire that I can put into sketch form.
02:04:37
Speaker
And so I've just got them there. And they might as well be there for people to listen to if they want to. If you're no longer doing the charity shop one, I'd love to see that as a sketch. I'll hear that as a sketch, should I say. Good for getting that bit, yeah. But what I like is the trap of stops. They put out their last episode of their most recent podcast, Potom, P-O-T-O-M. And it was like when the last Terry Pratchett novel was published, I put off
02:05:07
Speaker
Consuming it because then there would never be any more yeah and i want to sound to fucking maudlin a mortgage about it but it was it was something that was super important to me and they went on twenty and i'm like there's nearly forty hours of.
02:05:22
Speaker
just of my shit right here. This is, you know, the key and peel characters. That is my shit. You know, I'm like that excited by it. And I thought, well, if they're not making a sketch thing that speaks directly to me, I'll do. I know me. I can speak to me.
02:05:39
Speaker
Why didn't I do that in the first place? I'm a fucking imbecile. It's that thing of waiting for permission and you don't need to. You don't have to. No, you don't have to. Like I said, I haven't so much waited for permission as just waited for someone to show me the way and you guys did that. So let's tell people what you're up to and what you're about, what you've got going on. So I've got your solo show, Eddie French as a poser.
Upcoming Shows and Closing Remarks
02:06:09
Speaker
Yes. Is that a working title? Is it just called Poser? In one of them it's called Is A Poser and I don't know why I did that but yeah it's a place called Poser but I thought Eddie French Is A Poser. Yeah, Poser is the name of the show. But it's not less. It's the same show. When can people see that Lester?
02:06:27
Speaker
Well, in Leicester it is on the 24th, Saturday the 24th, at 20 past 6. Oh, that's the same day? Where there? Yes, it is. And that's at the LCB Depot.
02:06:44
Speaker
The courtyard room earlier that day. I'm on the Jokes on us early show which is like a I'm just doing eight minutes. There is a little package show That's about 3 p.m. I think right. Okay, but if you want to see me before then I'm not doing pose of I am doing the Leicester Comedy Festival on the Friday the 16th you do the circuit breakers thing know the comedy arcade podcast and
02:07:12
Speaker
Oh, yeah, with Vicks Leighton, I saw that one. With Vicks Leighton, yes. I really like Vicks's stuff. I wanted to go see her show Antihero at the Fringe, but we were on at the same time. So I couldn't do it. But I did a gig, again, working up stuff for the thing that I'm doing at the moment. I did the one, is it all jokes aside in Leeds? Oh, yeah, yeah. And Vicks was on. And I'd never met her before, but I'd sort of followed her on Twitter and seen some other stuff.
02:07:41
Speaker
But I went on and did loads of new material, bombed really hard. And then she came on being brilliant. And I was like, Oh, that was my introduction to someone who I quite respect and look up to.
02:07:56
Speaker
people can tell when someone's doing new stuff and you know it's better to be seen taking a risk than doing tried and test people who do their tried and tested already polished stuff on open mic nights I'm like what benefit is that unless you're shaking the rust off maybe but equally that's the thing that I yeah I've started to a project with so uh that's a Peter Pizzeria pizza area pizzeria pizza pizzeria at 9 30 that's like a panel podcast thing that's fun
02:08:23
Speaker
Yep. I'm then going to be in Glasgow. Is that in March? Sunday the 24th of March. Brilliant. At Van Winkle West End, 3pm. That one's a fiver in. The other ones pay what you want. Nice. So this one's a fiver in which I'm concerned about. And then I'm doing Brighton on the 18th of May. Oh brilliant. 3.30 at the temple.
02:08:52
Speaker
part of the Brighton Fringe. Nice. So you're going to a lot of the places we are, so we're doing Leicester, we're doing Brighton. Yeah. I was born in Brighton and I've only ever done one gig there, so that was at a vegan festival. We did Brighton last year, it was really, really good. It's not like Edinburgh, but it's very, very good. And then just to finish off, Pug Rock Elite, I'm assuming people can find this anywhere they get podcasts, including Apple, which we can't seem to get on.
02:09:21
Speaker
Can you not? No, because I don't have an Apple product. Basically, when I try and set it up, it just puts me around in circles. I've got an Apple ID, but it just sends me around in circles. I'm trying to sort it out, but their customer service is the worst in the world. And yes, I hope they hear this.
02:09:36
Speaker
Fair enough. I can't remember how I got mine on there. Anyway. But yes, Punk Rock Elite Podcast is a podcast about No Effects. We do interviews with people who are in the music industry, with comedians who are fans of No Effects, with members of No Effects, technically touring members, Karina Denike of Dancehall Crashers and various other things.
02:10:02
Speaker
Frank Turner, who has appeared on Split Records with them, has appeared on it too. And we've got an extra punk-rock elite project this year, which is not a podcast, it is something else. Nice. Which we cannot announce yet. I'll tell you when we stop recording, but it is going to be very, very exciting if you are a fan of No Effects.
02:10:32
Speaker
Oh generally we finished all the no effects albums now so we're going to be moving into broadly speaking nineties for once of a less odious term skate punk nice so your bad religion you penny wise you're just that fat it off.
02:10:50
Speaker
era fat records and epitaph stuff from the nineties because we are old and cringe. So if you are old and cringe, come and be old and cringe with us. Um, while we talk about the first propaganda album or something like that, we'll very much look forward to that. Uh, right. Well, considering that I want to hear about your new project and my baby girl needs to go to bed. Um, I'm going to say thank you very much, Eddie French, um, and everyone else. I will speak to you in the outro.
02:11:22
Speaker
So that was Eddie. Thank you to them for coming on and chatting to me about Stu and comedy in general. Eddie is someone who I've looked up to on the circuit being that they're a local act to me since I started really. Like they mentioned they used to run for a comedy seller in Leeds and I did a lot of my first gigs there, still do, and bumped into them quite a lot on the circuit and they were always good.
02:11:50
Speaker
With the advice and the encouragement which is always nice when you're a new actor and you are shitting yourself But yeah, please do check out the punk rock elite podcast. Like I say, it's become one of my regular lessons especially if you're a fan of punk rock or no effects, but Really just if you're a fan of Eddie like I am
02:12:12
Speaker
do give that a listen and also as they said their solo show poser already french is a poser is coming to the last comedy festival in february same day as us 24th and the glasgow international comedy festival in march i think also the 24th
02:12:33
Speaker
possibly it's been a while since I edited the episode together so I've kind of forgotten but no thank you very much to Eddie and thank you to everyone else for listening and please do join us next time when Joe and I will be taking a look at 41st best stand-up ever see you then