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rated PG. Good

1:07

afternoon, good morning, good evening. Whatever you are in the world,

1:09

I'm Russell Tovey. And I'm Robert Diamandt. And this is Torquhart.

1:12

Welcome to Torquhart. How are

1:14

you today, Rob? Today,

1:19

Russell, I am feeling like

1:22

a keen observer. Because

1:24

every time I have met today's guest,

1:26

that's something that struck me about him.

1:28

I feel like he absorbs everything

1:31

that's going on around him in a really

1:33

kind of contemplative way. And I also feel

1:36

like he

1:38

is on the precipice of something

1:40

very exciting because his debut book

1:42

is about to be released. It's

1:44

called Evenings and Weekends. And

1:46

both of us have read it and both of us, I think, cry.

1:48

Didn't you cry when you read it? I cried. Yeah,

1:52

and actually, I think it's a common thing that's happening

1:54

with most people that have read the preview copies.

1:56

Common phenomenon. Yeah, I've even

1:59

seen quotes, actually. saying that people

2:01

are crying when they read it. But we

2:03

were sent two different preview copies quite early

2:05

on actually last year. And

2:08

yeah, it's been a real pleasure to kind

2:10

of sit with this book and really think

2:12

about it. And another thing I feel is

2:15

truthful because I feel like the way that he writes

2:17

is so sort of truthful

2:19

and accurate. And it's

2:21

all kind of different issues which

2:24

come together in this book, whether it be political

2:26

kind of everyday, mundanity,

2:29

kind of social conditions, economic

2:31

conditions that affect people's lives

2:33

in a really real

2:36

way. And I also think it's a really

2:38

beautiful dedication

2:40

to living in a city, in

2:42

a metropolis, and also just about

2:45

our relationships with each other. And I

2:47

think people really need to buy this

2:49

book. It's out in early May. And

2:51

I think at the core as well of

2:53

what our guest does in his writing, it

2:55

comes from a really artistic place. And I

2:57

know the book was even supported by the

2:59

Arts Council. I think the original Grant or

3:02

something that he got was even from the

3:04

Arts Council. So it's interesting to think about

3:06

him as a writer who's really an artist,

3:08

but is using words to make art. And

3:11

we become friends. We've hung out. He

3:14

even came to our fifth year anniversary

3:16

party for talk art, which was just

3:18

some crazy night in central London at

3:20

Toklas. And we ended up in a

3:22

bar very late. So we've even

3:24

had our own kind of community moments, which has been very

3:26

sweet. So we... We've had that around the evening and weekend,

3:28

haven't we? Yeah. And you were reading it on the flight

3:31

somewhere. We flew somewhere. And I remember you reading it. I've

3:33

got a photo of you reading the book with the old

3:35

cover. Yes. So

3:37

we would like to welcome to talk

3:39

art, Osheen

3:42

McKenna. Hi,

3:44

Osheen. Hi.

3:47

Thank you for having me. You're very

3:49

welcome. How are you

3:51

feeling? I mean, you're on the precipice of

3:53

your book being released. What is that emotion?

3:57

Yeah, it's strange, you know, for quite a while.

4:00

While I found it really scary, there

4:02

was a period of times in which

4:04

I felt really nervous about how people

4:06

were going to perceive it, how people

4:08

were going to perceive me. I

4:10

guess I've been with the book for quite a

4:12

long time, so went through different stages of there

4:14

were certainly times when writing it or when I

4:16

finished certain drafts when I felt really excited by

4:19

it. I'm really proud of it

4:21

and really excited for people to read it. But there were

4:23

loads of other times when I'd read it so many times

4:25

that anything good about it

4:27

became totally invisible to me.

4:31

I was really afraid of it being cringe. I

4:33

was like, it's a cringe. Am I cringe? That

4:36

was a big theme of my ruminations

4:38

on it. I've got to quite an

4:40

excited place with it now. I've had lots of really kind

4:43

and generous feedback, which has been

4:45

really fortifying. I

4:48

really love the cover. I feel really

4:50

excited for it to be in bookshops. So

4:53

yeah, I feel good. I feel quite chill, actually.

4:55

I feel at peace with it. That's interesting. You

4:58

said you liked the cover. Was that a whole

5:00

process then? Because they say you shouldn't judge a

5:02

book by its cover, but we should with your

5:04

book. Yeah, the

5:06

cover took a while. We

5:09

went through lots of different iterations of it. Initially,

5:12

we thought about a more photographic image.

5:14

I guess a lot of the content

5:16

in the book, it's kind of got

5:18

an eye on a sort of social

5:20

history, youth culture. We

5:23

tried out lots of different photographic images,

5:25

but couldn't quite find the one that worked

5:29

and went back to the drawing

5:31

board and went with a kind

5:33

of typographic, design-led image, which I

5:36

find very beautiful and very striking,

5:38

designed by Joe Thompson, who's in-house

5:41

art director at Fourth and State. But

5:44

it kind of speaks to, I guess it looks

5:46

a little bit like a rave flyer, but also it looks

5:48

a little bit... It's got a sort

5:50

of semblance of a kind of sociology

5:52

textbook from the 80s, but

5:55

in this very chic

5:57

way. Yeah,

6:00

so it speaks a lot of different threads in

6:02

the book while also being like a very a

6:05

very beautiful striking item I think it gave me

6:07

memories of like Tate as well for some reason

6:09

like Tate Museum back in the day when what's

6:11

his name did the Sun

6:14

installation like What's

6:17

his name Ross? Yeah,

6:19

I love for a license exactly Um,

6:21

and yeah, I don't know it sort of took me back

6:23

to a place in my life. Really when I saw that

6:26

I thought the artwork to the book Yeah,

6:29

that's that's nice. Yeah. Yeah, I mean if it

6:31

feels very evocative for me and I

6:34

mean if it felt very important. I thought

6:36

a lot about Yeah, I

6:39

guess the sort of live visual and sort of

6:41

I guess I broadly speaking kind of like branding identity

6:43

of the book Which feels like a sort of it's

6:46

weird kind of like that coming to that

6:48

place when it's an artist It's quite like

6:50

an intimate and sensitive artistic process for a

6:52

long time But obviously one

6:54

which is gonna gonna meet meet the world

6:56

through a kind of commercial process But being

6:58

published by you know a big commercial

7:01

publisher so I guess it

7:03

goes through this process of becoming a kind of

7:05

you know a commodity also which is Yeah,

7:08

that's quite that's quite a complicated process But it's

7:11

it's that it feels really important that the

7:13

the version of that that exists is something

7:15

that's yeah congruent with the Like

7:17

artistic integrity of the work So

7:20

I feel really pleased with how it's come out Rob

7:22

mentions you got a bursary so

7:24

funding to write this book How does

7:26

that work when you're writing

7:28

a novel and you want to get

7:30

funding? How do you pitch

7:33

that because you obviously haven't got the novel to say

7:35

hey give me the money to write this

7:37

novel So you have to pitch an idea and how

7:39

fully formed does the idea have to be what what

7:41

is that process? And for people listening who want to

7:43

write a novel and they go I want to get

7:45

money to write it Because

7:47

it's really all-consuming I guess when you're into

7:49

it Yeah, yeah, it's

7:51

a good question. So I guess when I

7:54

initially started pitching it to the Arts Council

7:56

I guess that was that

7:58

so I've been making theater work spoken

8:00

word stuff, kind of like performance

8:03

art cabaret work for a

8:05

number of years. You've done four

8:07

pieces, I mean you've written and performed four theatre

8:09

pieces. Yeah so I'd written and performed

8:11

four theatre pieces and I just finished

8:14

touring the last

8:16

one of those which I made which was a show called Admin,

8:18

it was a solo show so just me performing

8:20

it and I wanted

8:23

to write a book for

8:25

lots of different reasons. I felt I

8:27

was getting a little bit bored

8:29

in theatre in terms of scale

8:31

of audiences and diversity of audiences.

8:34

Even if a show does really well and gets to

8:37

tour, there's not that many people that get to see

8:39

it and also a lot of the work

8:41

that I was really excited by was fiction and

8:43

novels and kind of always had been and

8:45

I was at a stage of my career

8:47

where I felt confident enough

8:50

artistically to make

8:52

that happen but also confident enough professionally to do

8:54

things like apply to the Arts Council and feel

8:56

that I could make a pretty good case for myself. But

8:59

yeah at that stage there wasn't really plot or characters

9:01

as such

9:06

but there were some I had broad

9:08

like thematic kind of ideas and

9:10

I guess part of making the pitch

9:12

to them at that point was also, it's also

9:15

sort of making a pitch for yourself

9:17

so the project itself might not be

9:20

particularly fully fleshed out at that point

9:22

but I was sort of at

9:24

a stage of my own development where

9:26

I could point to different things that

9:28

I've done and try

9:31

to make a case that I was a sort of

9:34

interesting new voice. It's

9:38

interesting thinking about that idea of spoken word as

9:40

well because I think when you were really young

9:42

you thought you might be like an

9:45

artist as like a visual artist and maybe like

9:47

performance artist and I know that there were certain

9:49

people that you really looked up to. Can you

9:51

speak a bit about that performative element because obviously

9:53

that's so different to like having a book in

9:55

your hands like that we're reading. Yeah yeah

9:58

yeah so I guess when I when I started

10:00

out or early enough in my career I

10:02

was very much attached to a kind of

10:04

performance art, live art kind of scene in

10:06

Dublin and a lot of the

10:09

people that I really admired at that time

10:11

were people like David Hoyle, Bourgeois and Maurice

10:14

and some more American

10:17

artists as well, Taylor Mac, Justin

10:20

Vivian Pond, Penny Arcade and

10:22

those were people that I really aspired to

10:25

be like. That was work that really really excited

10:27

me and I sort of tried

10:29

to do that for a number of years

10:31

but slowly with each show that I made

10:33

I paired it back a little bit more

10:36

and I guess the people I mean something

10:39

that a lot of those artists have

10:41

in common is their capacity to improvise

10:44

like some more than others but that was something

10:46

that I could never really do. I mostly work

10:48

have always worked off texts like script scripts and

10:52

I with every show by the

10:54

time that I made my last

10:56

show it was literally just me

10:59

on stage talking into a mic

11:01

sitting down while a sort of

11:03

glitter rain fell behind me for

11:05

the whole show. So it was

11:07

really formally really simple but it

11:09

had come quite a long way from the sort of

11:12

like big sort of bombast of some

11:14

of those artists I wanted to be like but it

11:17

was ultimately like I eventually got to

11:19

a place where I realized I needed to play

11:21

to my strengths in the sense that in

11:24

some ways I'm quite a shy person. I was

11:26

never going to be David Hoyle and I think

11:28

it's good that I admitted that. There's still time.

11:31

If you describe yourself

11:33

as a spoken word artist and you're

11:35

on stage and you're reading text when

11:37

does that become an actor? Have you

11:39

ever thought I'm going to be an

11:41

actor or have you always known this

11:43

umbrella of spoken word is what you

11:45

are in? Yeah

11:47

I mean I guess what always felt like

11:49

it made it different from acting without

11:51

when I'm on stage I'm nearly always some

11:54

version of myself and

11:56

I've worked with people who are like

12:00

On a proper actors Before I trained

12:02

actors. What prop maybe practices that? that's

12:04

a contentious term. A lawyer? What? what?

12:06

For me a proper act on the

12:08

as a medic I guess. yeah haven't

12:10

worked for people who don't training as

12:12

acting under kind. The kinds of different

12:14

things that they can do in terms

12:16

of occupying different roles are is is

12:18

something that's like outside of my my

12:20

toolbox. I just I can do versions

12:22

of myself and and I think young.

12:25

Lions So sometimes that like stretches

12:27

that actual like limits of my

12:29

personality and becomes more. that's as

12:31

you have exaggerated persona I don't

12:33

I don't really think I've got

12:35

it. I mean I'm not is certainly

12:37

not going to training and I think even of

12:40

I I tried to have the training I think

12:42

it's not. I've not got an atrocity for that

12:44

I don't think. and the people that you will

12:46

gravitate towards her life you think is David Hoyle

12:49

he mentioned I'm very clearly that's An and people

12:51

at Penny arcade as well. Like when you think

12:53

of them you immediately think as then that you

12:55

like it is that it's like their souls how

12:57

but that he's radical, lot of a god kind

13:00

of and bombastic as in a very over the

13:02

top characters and I read something that you right

13:04

where it said that you it so as. Interested

13:06

in those kinds of our is who were in

13:09

that? I've got context, but they were somehow in

13:11

the cracks between performance art and saito, which I

13:13

really loved. Thoughts That as a phrase, I thought

13:15

it was great. So what was it? That kind

13:17

of dream? How how did you discover that as

13:20

a kind of awful. Yeah

13:22

I mean I discovered those things through

13:24

media, meeting other people who are into

13:26

that world. I mean off the i

13:28

think a lot of a lot of

13:30

the are today the have discovered in

13:32

my twenties was socially are often actually

13:34

true like having like romantic relationships sometimes

13:36

of people who are a little bit

13:38

older than me and who were more.

13:41

You. Know versed in this or as I

13:43

cultural world around me and. I

13:46

think yeah. I think it's

13:48

hims a while I drew me to those

13:50

people initially is up there. Their work is

13:53

a highly political. But.

13:55

also highly entertaining i have always

13:57

been kind of interested in yeah

13:59

science finding ways to talk

14:01

about politics in a way

14:03

that's pleasurable. I'm

14:05

interested in pleasure in artwork and

14:07

I find watching the

14:10

work of those people is highly pleasurable.

14:13

Well, let's talk about

14:15

the book, The Evening and

14:17

Weekends. It's been described as a

14:19

part multi-generational literary soap opera, part

14:22

state of the nation novel. And

14:25

some people have made comparisons to Sally Rooney.

14:27

So if you love Sally Rooney, normal

14:30

people obviously, you might connect

14:32

to this book through that

14:34

energy. But the story, it's

14:37

set over a heat-waved weekend in

14:39

June in 2019. And there's a

14:41

group of friends and families and

14:43

the summer solstice, it involves

14:46

a beached whale and all

14:48

of these characters interconnecting and

14:50

there's queerness in there and

14:53

there's love, loss and desire

14:55

and loneliness within a relationship

14:57

and people that are unfulfilled.

15:00

But it's incredibly moving and funny and I

15:02

want to play Ed. I think I'm too

15:04

old for Phil, but I just want to

15:06

put it out there because I'm sure you

15:09

already sold the rights, film and

15:11

TV. I want to be Ed. This

15:14

story is just amazing. And I

15:16

mean, what has it been like

15:19

getting these responses and which of

15:21

the characters is you? I mean,

15:24

it's been so, so nice getting these

15:26

responses. I guess when

15:28

I was writing the book, a lot of what

15:30

I wanted to do was write something that could

15:34

work in both sort of

15:36

critical and commercial contexts. So I was

15:38

interested in writing something that was like

15:41

a serious social novel

15:43

really, which was kind

15:45

of rigorously engaged in thinking about what

15:47

it sort of feels like to live

15:50

in the political and economic structures that

15:52

we live in today, but to do

15:54

so in a way which was a

15:56

really funny, like really pleasurable to read,

15:58

which basically was like, like quite serious

16:00

about giving readers like a good time as well,

16:03

like I wanted to make people laugh, I wanted

16:05

to move people and to

16:07

see people reading it in that

16:09

way is usually gratifying.

16:12

And I guess it always felt like,

16:15

well when I was writing it I didn't really know

16:17

if I could do it, like for actually for a

16:19

lot of the time when I was writing it, it

16:21

really didn't work and it only started working like very

16:23

near to the end of the process and

16:26

it always felt like a big gamble in the

16:29

sense that I put loads and loads of

16:31

time into it and there was always this fear

16:33

that I will have, I mean

16:36

what seems at the time to have wasted loads of

16:39

important time in my life. So

16:42

it's usually relieving that that's

16:44

not been the case and that it's coming

16:46

out and that people like it. In

16:49

terms of characters, I wouldn't

16:52

say that any of

16:54

them straightforwardly map onto an

16:56

actually existing person but in many

17:00

ways I share a lot

17:03

of personality traits with Phil,

17:05

personality traits, demographic information

17:10

and some biographical

17:13

events. But in

17:15

lots of ways I'm a little bit like all

17:17

of the characters in different ways. I

17:19

guess one of the challenges that I found when I

17:22

was writing it was that some

17:24

of the characters are straightforwardly like me

17:26

in terms of demographic information, some of

17:28

them are different for me in terms

17:30

of age and gender and

17:33

one of the ways into writing about

17:35

people whose lives have been quite different

17:37

from mine was to imagine ways that

17:40

they've been the same or imagine commonalities in

17:42

our experience and work from there. So

17:44

it's actually ended up that basically

17:46

every character in the book is a

17:48

little bit of me, some more than

17:51

others. Do you feel

17:53

like it could be tales of

17:55

the city, Armistice Maupin style, this could be

17:57

the start of? whole,

18:01

you know, journey that goes on for the

18:03

next decade. Yeah, I

18:05

like that idea. It's hard to know, you know, I'm

18:07

writing a new one at the moment, and

18:10

it doesn't revisit the

18:12

same characters. But maybe, yeah,

18:14

maybe it maybe it could. It's yeah,

18:16

it's hard to say it's it felt like the story was

18:18

quite complete in it. And I guess

18:21

that something that something that like,

18:23

I like the way that this story,

18:25

it's not straightforwardly happy,

18:27

but it is it's got a sort

18:29

of like optimism for the character. Yeah,

18:32

yeah, there's hope in it. And

18:34

I like that that

18:36

hope can remain at the end of the book.

18:38

Whereas, like, of course,

18:40

in the rest of the life of those

18:42

characters, there's going to be lots of kind

18:45

of trials and tribulations. And maybe that hope

18:47

won't have been well placed. Ultimately, I like

18:51

being able to leave them in a hopeful place at the

18:53

end of the book and let that be it for

18:55

them. Why June 2019? Is

18:57

that literally when you started writing the

18:59

book? Or is there something specific about

19:02

that date? I started

19:04

writing the book a little bit before that, but

19:06

probably probably March 2019 is when I when I

19:08

started writing it. Why then? I mean,

19:11

partly it is because that's Yeah, when I

19:13

around the time that I started writing it,

19:15

so some of the kind of plot elements

19:18

that I was gathering at that time felt

19:20

that they suited it. There

19:22

were a few other things. So that was so

19:24

I moved to London in 2017. So I've been

19:26

living here a couple of years

19:29

at that point. But 2019 was

19:31

the year when things really started to click

19:33

for me. Socially, I was

19:35

I was in a really good, really exciting time in my

19:37

life. I was living in a

19:40

sort of warehouse commune, which is like

19:42

the one described in the book. And

19:45

that was a really I mean, yeah, it was a really

19:48

amazing time in my life for me. There were 11 other people

19:50

who lived there, many of whom are

19:52

still my best friends now. And

19:55

I was learning a lot about myself. I felt

19:57

that London was really opening up to me in

19:59

a way that it felt quite hard at the beginning.

20:01

I felt I was, you know, I was running into

20:03

people at the street and the street, I was getting

20:05

invited to parties and I

20:09

was interested in documenting that time with

20:11

a lot of love and affection but

20:14

particularly in the sense that I felt

20:16

like that time was always on the

20:18

verge of ending. I think for

20:21

a couple of reasons, partly because so

20:23

our tendency in that warehouse which was, you know,

20:25

the central part of my life was

20:27

very precarious, illegal in fact,

20:30

we didn't have any formal contract and, you

20:32

know, could have been evicted at a moment's

20:34

notice which ultimately did go on to happen.

20:38

And then it was also a sort of time in which, you

20:40

know, I mean I guess this has been the case for

20:43

a number of years but there's this sense of apocalypse

20:46

in the air, whether that's

20:48

sort of like real or perceived, there's

20:50

this sense that things could

20:52

go very wrong like ecologically, politically and

20:55

that was something that I felt very conscious of at

20:57

that time, that I was in the

20:59

middle of this really special time in my life

21:02

and that could always be on

21:04

the verge of ending. And

21:06

that gave it a sense of urgency, there was a sense

21:08

of urgency in documenting it with a lot of care and

21:10

love and that's

21:14

sort of what I tried to do with the book

21:16

and I guess the other sort of element of it

21:18

is that a big part of the book is to

21:21

do a sense of possibility in a person's

21:23

life, so a sense that you

21:25

can look towards the future and you can see yourself

21:27

in it. And for lots

21:30

of people I think that's quite difficult for like

21:32

economic reasons, for political reasons it's hard to

21:34

see yourself in the future. I was

21:37

interested in thinking about what it feels like when that

21:39

is possible and when it's not and

21:41

particularly with this book it's got

21:43

a relationship to that particular political

21:45

moment in 2019 leading up

21:48

to the general election which happened at the end

21:50

of that year and the last year of Jeremy

21:52

Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party which

21:54

obviously people Perceive or think

21:57

about in lots of different ways now, but certainly

21:59

at that time. I'm and it's still

22:01

think it's true proposed like a

22:03

much as a much more radical

22:06

shift in policy Tanner who has

22:08

been part of any mainstream political

22:10

programs in this country for many

22:13

generations and. That

22:15

is expanded censor political possibilities I think

22:17

did provide the opportunity for a lot

22:19

of people to look towards the future

22:21

and see themselves in it and I

22:24

was interest and thinking about had outsells

22:26

politically but had that my interact with

22:28

the emotional experience that was going on

22:30

for me at that time. Also. Saw.

22:33

The catch of Maggie in it swung

22:35

obsessed with is an aspiring artist but

22:38

she feels completely shut out by art

22:40

world. I found the as a sustained

22:42

nj because learning more about you you

22:44

as we may still he says want

22:46

to be an artist from an early

22:48

age but your experience was very welcoming

22:51

into the art world through queer artists

22:53

he had an aspiring our teacher to

22:55

be will have a to talk about

22:57

your education the now an early age

22:59

you were introduced to these clear out

23:02

his were not only. Was you seeing

23:04

the queer experience and all be. We're

23:06

seeing celebrated persons who were queer in

23:08

the public arena which is something that

23:11

we all need to see and God

23:13

love each. As a sick talk about

23:15

that bit more. Yes

23:17

sir! So. I. Guess my

23:19

at my as it I said it was. Who.

23:22

Is a mixed bag in many ways. So

23:24

I guess when I when I was in

23:26

second class and primary school which is not

23:28

true with a prison the thought is and

23:30

you case goes bedside seven eight, four times

23:32

am I had a teacher then. Miss.

23:34

Mcnamara who see.

23:37

I'm not. It's hard to say what was kind

23:40

of going on for her in the sense of

23:42

the see when you're a child you don't really

23:44

imagine like what's motivating another also acts in this

23:46

way. but she was. She became very sore as

23:48

invested in. given

23:50

the kids like opportunity to access culture i

23:53

suppose so i'm in primary school we normally

23:55

would have gone on the have one can

23:57

a school outing a year to you know

24:00

a farm or the zoo or something like that. She

24:02

brought us on all these additional

24:04

outings to museums, National Gallery in

24:07

Dublin, National History Museum, all these

24:09

kinds of places, which

24:11

was my first time being in art galleries.

24:14

And I remember, yeah, I remember at that

24:16

age feeling very, very happy there,

24:18

very happy in that art gallery.

24:21

I'm not sure precisely what it was. I mean, I

24:23

guess that, I mean, you know, it certainly would have

24:25

found the paintings impressive. I

24:28

feel like as a child to see, you know,

24:30

people rendering these things in paint, particularly, so

24:32

there's like a really famous, like, Caravaggio painting

24:34

in the National Gallery in Dublin, which is

24:36

like, it's most famous painting that everyone goes

24:39

to see. And it's, the painting

24:41

is the taking of the Christ. And in

24:43

that painting, there's, I mean, there's lots of things

24:45

going on in that painting. But one of the

24:47

things is somebody's wearing a suit of armour and

24:49

the armour looks really shiny as if it's a

24:51

photograph, which is kind of mind-boggling to a child

24:53

so that you can render that in paint. But

24:57

beyond that, she took us on that trip

24:59

to the statue of Oscar Wilde, which is

25:01

in Marion Square in Dublin, around the corner

25:03

from the National Gallery. And

25:06

that was sort of hugely exciting to

25:08

me in the sense that Oscar

25:10

Wilde was, it was the first time that I'd heard of someone

25:13

being gay and also loved

25:16

and celebrated. And

25:18

I think up until that point, I'd only

25:20

ever heard of them, you know, being kind

25:22

of, you know, laughable or disgusting. And

25:25

this was, yeah, I mean, it was a huge

25:27

deal to see and hear

25:29

that. And from

25:31

that time, that really, I

25:33

think I saw being a writer or an

25:36

artist as a way to be

25:38

gay and still be loved because

25:41

that was the only example that I'd seen of

25:43

that in adult life. So

25:47

kind of from that age, I decided that that's what

25:50

I wanted to do. And

25:52

so I guess that was one usually sort

25:55

of encouraging. Incredible. I

25:57

mean, that's so rare, that the fact that...

26:00

this teacher gave you agency, not only

26:02

in your creativity, but in your, you

26:04

know, in your true self at

26:07

like seven or eight. That's just amazing

26:09

gift that she probably has

26:11

no idea, or maybe she does have an

26:13

idea. Maybe people have told her, but you

26:15

know, that she instilled that in you at

26:17

that age. That's incredible. Cause we had

26:20

a guest on the other day, Grace Campbell, who when

26:22

she was at school, her teacher, and she liked our,

26:24

and the teacher basically said, if you take our, I

26:26

will not mark you because I think you are, you

26:28

have no skill at all. And it stayed with us.

26:31

So for many years she was being creative, but in

26:33

the back of her head, she was going, I'm not,

26:35

I'm not really an artist. I'm not an actor. I'm

26:37

not a writer. I'm not creative. So I shouldn't be

26:39

here. Everyone's going to laugh at me. And now her

26:42

life is creativity. And you just think, what

26:44

Mrs. McNamara needs a big shout out

26:46

because it's changed, it's changed your life.

26:48

You know, you know, I've been pretty beautiful about

26:50

that as well as this idea that like all

26:53

kinds of kids, like everyone's different. And you obviously

26:55

picked up on the things that you saw yourself

26:57

in, if that makes sense. But like other kids

26:59

in your group might have seen themselves in different

27:01

objects or different paintings or different sculptures. It's a

27:03

suit of armour. The thing I, yeah, but the

27:05

thing I love about art is that you can

27:08

find yourself, you can work out who you are

27:10

and define yourself by, by these other

27:12

objects or artworks. And it's just so

27:15

important. That's why I swear that's why

27:17

governments try and shut down art all

27:19

the time. Because it's like, you know, it's

27:21

empowering people really. Because people agency. Yeah, exactly.

27:24

Yeah. I think I'm really interested also

27:27

in the, in you, you said

27:29

that your interests in art are

27:31

through like a lens of class and sexuality.

27:33

So sexuality, we were just talking about them,

27:35

but also this class. And I think you've

27:37

said that class art is a class signifier.

27:40

And I'd love to like talk about that more

27:42

because that's really interesting

27:44

to me. And I completely get that. That

27:47

art is a class signifier

27:49

because so many people are not

27:51

included in the conversation and

27:53

so many people don't have access to it. And so

27:55

many people are told art isn't

27:57

for you and it's only a certain class.

28:00

that are given this rarefied

28:02

treat as something. And that'd be really

28:04

fascinating to get your opinion on that.

28:08

Yeah, I think it's so complicated that. Because

28:10

I guess there's, I

28:13

think that sometimes there's quite a sort of like,

28:16

like, understandings, or the way people talk about

28:18

art and class, there's a kind of, there's

28:21

a kind of crassness to it sometimes, I

28:23

think, in the sense that there's this perception

28:25

that visual art

28:27

is for the middle class

28:29

and whatever popular television

28:31

is for working class people. In

28:34

a way that, yeah, I find that

28:36

really sort of like frustrating and dispiriting,

28:41

in the sense that I

28:43

do think people are sort of encouraged to

28:45

think that art isn't for them. That, I

28:48

think that comes down to really like practical stuff

28:50

too, like people feel like they might not know

28:52

what to do in the gallery. Like, I certainly

28:54

used to think like when I went to galleries

28:56

with friends, I was like, oh, am

28:59

I standing in front of the thing for a

29:01

long enough time? Am I like making the right

29:03

facial expression so it looks like I'm engaging with

29:05

the art? Was that kind

29:07

of feeling of self-consciousness, that I

29:09

wasn't correctly engaging with it, was completely

29:11

inhibiting to any actual like... Of

29:13

being observed within the art gallery space,

29:16

that people are watching you watch the

29:18

art, and judging you. It's

29:21

a real phenomenon that people feel. Yeah,

29:23

yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah,

29:26

I think it's complicated. I guess, so

29:28

when I was sort of a teenager

29:30

and increasingly becoming

29:32

more interested in art, it

29:35

was something that kind of marked me out

29:37

from my parents. And

29:40

over time, like it's sort of... Like

29:43

as I started moving in more like

29:45

art circles, moving in, like

29:47

it's hard to put a word on it, but

29:50

what you might call like more like cosmopolitan circles,

29:53

like it made me very different

29:55

from them, use different words spoken

29:57

a different way, add different reference

29:59

points. And

30:01

so I suppose that

30:03

in terms of my interest in art, that

30:06

has kind of signified like a

30:08

shift in class, like of moving

30:11

in more sort of like, you

30:13

know, moving in more like middle class, like

30:15

in fact like wealthy circles sometimes, which

30:19

has like coincided

30:22

with an increased participation in

30:25

the art world. So

30:28

yeah, I feel complicated about it. Like

30:31

to me growing up, like art always kind of

30:34

presented this like way out, like kind

30:36

of like I was saying with Oscar Wilde's story,

30:38

I presented this way into being a sort

30:41

of like queer adult who still got

30:43

the possibility of being like loved. But

30:47

it also meant like

30:49

moving me like quite far away from my background,

30:53

from my like broader family

30:55

in a way that is also

30:58

like painful and complicated. And

31:01

yeah, it's not a straightforward story. Mom

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32:00

ends May 31st, 2024. Separate Paramount Plus registration requires

32:02

terms and conditions apply, if rated PG." Well,

32:07

you create distance with one of the characters

32:09

and with a mother and son

32:12

that is shown

32:14

because of his interest in art and

32:16

that she assumes that he thinks

32:20

he knows more than her suddenly or

32:22

he does know more than her or he's kind of trying

32:25

to be something that's not her and she

32:27

takes it really personally and that's

32:29

a really interesting device and I think is that sort

32:31

of how you're saying about your own family because I

32:33

also know that story when you went you used 16

32:35

and you went to the Tate Modern and you convinced

32:37

your family to come with you and you were really excited

32:39

and none of them wanted to go and you sort of

32:42

had to drag them along. Yeah,

32:44

exactly. I mean,

32:46

it's such a painful dynamic. I feel like that

32:48

thing where when we

32:51

went to the Tate Modern was our first time in

32:53

London, I really wanted to go

32:55

and nobody else did but my family sort of

32:58

agreed to come and again,

33:00

I felt really, really good there in the

33:02

Tate Modern and in London more broadly at

33:04

that age, that was another kind of key

33:06

moment where I could really look towards future

33:09

and see myself in it. I felt

33:11

like this is the kind of

33:13

place that I want to

33:16

live and want to be but

33:20

my parents definitely were

33:24

quite like the rights of about some of

33:26

the artwork. They certainly felt it wasn't for

33:29

them and I mean,

33:32

there was something disappointing in some ways for that for

33:34

me because I was in the middle of feeling this

33:36

like really exciting optimism for my

33:38

own future like through places like this and

33:42

they were so clearly sort of rejecting it but

33:44

at the same time, I think I did also

33:46

like take some pleasure in being like, oh, well,

33:48

I'm someone who understands the

33:50

difficult art and I think... What

33:53

was it you're looking at? Was there something in the turbine hall at that

33:55

stage? It was quite... Yeah, yeah. So

33:57

it was... Doris... Salsados.

34:01

The crack. The crack, yeah. Shibboleth, how

34:03

do you say it? Yeah. And you

34:06

can still see the crack

34:09

now. If you stand on the on like

34:11

the the gangway bridge and look down going

34:13

towards the main entrance you can see the

34:15

scarring of the crack. Yeah because they filled

34:17

it in with concrete after. I always remember

34:19

seeing that work and just being really, I

34:21

don't know, it was a profound one because

34:23

it was like how have they done this?

34:25

It's an optical illusion, why would they do

34:27

that? The symbolism of it is

34:29

like a crack in the ground,

34:32

you know, of this institution

34:34

and it says a hell of a lot.

34:36

Yeah. So what did your

34:38

family think that was a load of old

34:40

crap or were they like, you just convinced

34:42

them? They did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they

34:44

did. In terms of

34:47

convincing them, like I think like at the

34:49

Azar age I didn't really

34:51

have the kind of literacy and

34:53

vocabulary to say why I thought

34:55

it was good. But I mean

34:57

I think even now if I kind of explained

34:59

why I thought it was really

35:02

exciting artwork with the vocabulary

35:04

I have at my disposal now, I still

35:07

think it maybe wouldn't be convincing

35:09

to them. Which is interesting, yeah.

35:11

I mean I guess there are a lot of people

35:13

who've got a sort of kind

35:17

of hostility towards

35:19

contemporary art. I

35:21

guess hostility

35:23

towards art that isn't, yeah,

35:26

just being chapel. Yeah, like figurative

35:29

painting. Yeah, or like landscapes or

35:32

yeah, things you immediately recognise but it's also

35:34

a skill level isn't it? It's like that's

35:36

properly painted. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

35:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a proper

35:40

artist, proper actor, everything's like that.

35:42

If it's proper then it's okay,

35:44

yeah. Like getting it. Yeah, yeah,

35:46

it's strange. I'm not sure like,

35:49

I'm not sure the way around it, you know, but I guess, I

35:51

mean I guess a figurative painting

35:53

is because it's like

35:55

painting something which is like you can

35:57

literally like see and understand. what

36:00

it is, it feels more straightforward to

36:02

form a response to it. But

36:05

if it's something, you know, more

36:07

whatever, more abstract, more experimental, it can be

36:09

more difficult to form a response. And I

36:11

think I can feel like a sort of

36:13

vulnerable place if you're looking at something and

36:15

feel that you don't get it. I'm

36:18

particularly feeling that you might be judged for

36:20

not getting it. Like, I think it's quite

36:22

it's a defensive position to say, oh, that's

36:24

ridiculous. Whatever, we're called, could have done it.

36:26

Like those kinds of things that people say.

36:30

But also people

36:33

have got different tastes. Some people just

36:35

do really, maybe just really don't

36:37

like it. That's fine also.

36:40

Yeah, it's complicated. I

36:43

was really touched just then when you

36:45

said that you felt like when you were in London,

36:47

it was almost like calling to you. It's like the

36:49

city gave you a giant hug or something and that

36:51

you felt like it was a

36:54

place that you wanted. It was almost like you

36:56

had a yearning to go there. And I was

36:58

interested in the book, this idea of the city

37:00

in London and, you know, obviously there's a heat

37:02

wave, but this idea of it as a character

37:04

and the soul of the city, but also how

37:07

art and culture, I think, sort

37:09

of helps to create that soul. Do

37:11

you know what I mean? Like different

37:13

cities have different things going on that,

37:15

especially London, there's like musicals, there's theatre,

37:17

there's poetry readings, there's just all this

37:19

kind of depth of culture. You never

37:21

get here by culture, don't you? Especially

37:23

as a tourist, you do like you

37:25

would navigate London by going as you did

37:27

at 16 by going to the Tate Modern, then you would

37:29

go to the West End. Culture helps

37:31

people find their way around the

37:33

city. Yeah, I was really

37:36

interested in it as a character basically, because I

37:38

know you've got all the actual human beings, but

37:40

it felt to me like the city was its

37:42

own kind of protagonist or character within the book.

37:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No,

37:47

totally. I mean, I guess one

37:49

of the things that I find really most

37:51

exciting about London and which I wanted to

37:53

capture in the book was the sense that

37:56

anything could happen, like particularly on a hot day

37:58

in the middle of the city. it

38:01

feels like there's this massive sense

38:03

of possibility that if you just

38:05

turn the street corner, you're going to

38:07

find something really, really cool. And

38:09

that thing could potentially change

38:12

your entire life or just give you

38:14

a fabulous time

38:16

on this particular day. And I

38:18

think part of that is to do

38:21

with the access to art

38:23

and culture, because there are so

38:25

many incredibly cool things. And

38:28

it is possible to stumble upon

38:30

something very cool. But it's

38:32

also I think also that feeling that is

38:34

quite elusive, like the promise of the really

38:36

cool thing that's going to change your life

38:39

is like it often doesn't make

38:41

good on that promise. In fact, it

38:43

probably nearly never does. It's quite a

38:46

high demand. But I'm really

38:48

interested in that feeling though of being in London

38:50

on a hot day and feeling that something huge

38:52

could happen. And I find that

38:54

quite a pleasurable feeling in itself in the

38:57

sense that it kind of suspended in this

38:59

longing for this elusive thing. And

39:01

I was interested in capturing that in the book. Do

39:05

you know a lot of artists? Do you hang out

39:07

with a lot of artists or do you hang out with a lot of

39:09

writers? I hang out with much

39:11

more artists than writers. I don't

39:13

know what you do about writers. When I lived in Dublin, I

39:16

knew a lot more writers than

39:18

poets. But when I moved here, the

39:20

kind of scene that I landed in was primarily

39:22

a visual arts scene to an

39:24

extent, a sort of academic scene, a political

39:27

scene. But yeah, a lot more

39:30

of my friends are artists. And I

39:33

feel probably a lot of my

39:36

approach to writing is informed a

39:38

little bit by

39:40

what sometimes can look like a visual arts approach,

39:43

particularly in terms of, I

39:45

guess, when I start writing, I

39:49

work in quite a kind of collage-based

39:51

way. So I don't start from character

39:53

or plot. I would

39:55

start with a set of aesthetic

39:58

and thematic concerns. and

40:00

a broader set of like reference

40:03

points which sometimes

40:05

are other novels but often are

40:07

like other artworks, songs. What

40:10

artworks would you have had them sort

40:12

of post pasted up like artworks around

40:14

you? Like mood board? Like

40:17

on my computer, yeah, but I don't know physical

40:19

mood board, but it is like a very like

40:23

mood board process. Like

40:25

for quite a while at the beginning, like just

40:27

like gathering all of these things and like emotional

40:29

textures too, like which actually is that I think

40:31

part of how part of the

40:33

big influence that like art has on my

40:35

writing is that so much art creates

40:38

like a visual or a

40:40

visceral emotional texture which is

40:43

often something that I try to capture in my writing.

40:45

Like when I start writing something, the aim

40:48

is often kind of like I wanted to

40:50

like feel like this rather than this is

40:52

the story and this is the characters. Who

40:56

are your artists mates you hang out with? So

40:59

I've got a good friend called Avril

41:02

Karoon who she is, I guess

41:05

is a cross-disciplinary artist, but she works

41:07

a lot with found

41:11

material. Her practice

41:14

is like particularly engaged with or

41:17

has been particularly engaged with over the past couple

41:19

of years, housing, private rental housing

41:21

in particular. So she for her, she did

41:23

an MFA in Goldsmith

41:26

and for her degree show, she created

41:29

these luxury cheeses

41:32

used or made with black

41:34

mold from private rental

41:36

accommodation. And

41:39

she's gone on to make kind

41:41

of installation work also using like

41:43

cheese. Cheese, cheese. Cheese, yeah. So

41:46

it was edible cheese? No, it

41:48

would make you very sick I

41:50

think, but it did display highly

41:53

poisonous. Yes, yeah. But

41:55

displayed as kind of like a

41:58

luxury cheese might. be

42:00

displayed in a high-end shop.

42:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's

42:05

quite a fab. She

42:07

sounds great. What are your

42:09

references on this computer move

42:11

board? Have you got image photographs by Wolfgang Tillman,

42:14

for example, I feel would be really... Well, you

42:16

saw his work, didn't you, at the Pompa Took?

42:18

Because I heard this story of The Kiss, which

42:20

is a picture taken in the Cock nightclub back

42:23

in the day when it still existed in that

42:25

location where it was taken. But that

42:27

got me thinking a lot about this visceral

42:29

thing you're talking about, because that picture in

42:32

particular of The Kiss is such an iconic

42:34

image, isn't it? Yeah,

42:36

yeah, yeah. Yeah, so hugely

42:38

powerful and visceral. And

42:40

yeah, I mean, I saw that in

42:43

the Pompa Took recently. They had a sort

42:45

of like a queer exhibition

42:47

of like lots of different queer work over the

42:49

course of the past, I'm not sure, century maybe.

42:53

But on

42:55

the same day, I took quite a big walk around

42:57

Paris and went to see Oscar Wilde's

42:59

grave in the cemetery in the

43:02

east of the city. And

43:04

yeah, there was something that I found

43:06

very moving about like seeing

43:08

that artwork on that day. And then

43:11

got to see Oscar Wilde's grave, which is sort

43:13

of covered in these like lipstick marks that people

43:15

leave in tribute. And feeling

43:17

very moved to see that, to think

43:19

about the significance of him

43:21

to me when I was a child. But Wolfgang

43:24

Tillman definitely was on the mood board. I

43:26

would say actually a lot of photographic work.

43:28

So Nan Goldin's Ballad of Sexual Dependency, another

43:30

really big one. Yeah,

43:33

yeah, yeah. I mean, I

43:35

guess her kind of her

43:37

interest in social history, I

43:39

guess, the way she documents the social history

43:41

in this really, you know, beautiful,

43:44

moving, sometimes funny, like

43:46

incredibly powerful way was something that

43:48

I was interested in playing with

43:50

in this book. I

43:52

think probably for this book, the other big kind of

43:55

visual art influence was actually Mark

43:57

Lackey, particularly a Thea Ruchi man.

44:00

made me hardcore, that film

44:02

was again like the sense

44:04

of social history and that also

44:06

the sense of like youth culture, people having a

44:08

good time, but particularly the sense of like euphoria,

44:12

like I'm interested in, the

44:14

feeling of euphoria with

44:16

something that I was really interested in capturing in

44:19

this book, which I think is quite

44:21

a challenging thing to, it's like hard to capture

44:23

in writing. Like I feel like often it's something

44:25

that can be better captured through

44:28

visual art or music and

44:31

that sort of like really sublime

44:33

feeling of like, you know,

44:35

transcendence on the dance floor is something that,

44:38

yeah, I think you can't really capture it in

44:40

writing, but I'm interested in what happens and the

44:42

likes driving toward it. So

44:45

Oscar Wilde was a big hero of yours then,

44:47

so like you saw him as a kid, he's

44:49

been a constant for you, you was in Paris

44:51

recently, you found his grave, so that was like,

44:53

you know, a pilgrimage to him. What is it

44:55

about Oscar Wilde, you

44:58

know, the fundamentals of him that have stayed with you for

45:00

so long, do you think? I

45:03

think it's not so much about his, I

45:05

mean, I admire his writing

45:07

very much. I'd say in

45:09

terms of his influence on my like the

45:11

form, the formal or like the matic content

45:13

of my work, I'd say it's

45:16

not necessarily that much, but it's

45:18

more what he sort of meant

45:20

symbolically as a child, this idea

45:22

of being a loved

45:24

gay person and I think particularly

45:26

in the context of

45:28

Ireland, he massively celebrated Sigur in

45:31

Ireland and that was the only

45:33

visibility I

45:35

had of that when I was a child. Why

45:38

was he celebrating Ireland? Because

45:41

he was from there, born there. Oh,

45:44

I didn't know that, it was born in Ireland. Yeah,

45:48

yeah, he was, yeah. So part

45:50

of why I think he

45:52

was also celebrated, I mean, obviously celebrated for being, you

45:54

know, a famous accomplished

45:56

Irish person, but also I

45:58

think because he was imprisoned

46:01

by the British judicial

46:03

system, it was kind of also

46:05

perceived as like

46:07

an additional example of

46:11

British violence, whatever,

46:14

which I think, I mean that

46:16

obviously speaks to a kind of Irish

46:18

sensibility, it confirms something that a

46:20

lot of people already believe there. So I think people were

46:24

particularly amenable to him for those reasons as

46:26

well, I think. I'm

46:30

so used to seeing Stephen Fry planned, did he have

46:32

an Irish accent to begin with? I

46:35

think probably not, yeah I think probably not. So he

46:37

was sort of like Anglo-Irish

46:39

so he would have been of a sort of

46:41

English lineage and would

46:45

have moved in very

46:47

elite circles. That's what Francis

46:49

Bacon was, he described himself

46:51

as Anglo-Irish. Yeah, yeah. So

46:54

in the intro, when I described you as a keen

46:56

observer, do you think that was a fair appraisal? Yeah, yeah.

47:01

I think, yes, I would say so. In lots of ways

47:03

I'm quite a shy

47:05

person and I've

47:08

been since I was, I mean forever, I've always been

47:10

a very shy person since I was a small child

47:13

and that means

47:15

I've spent a lot of

47:17

time being quiet in social settings, quiet

47:21

generally. I mean I think

47:23

when I was a kid I definitely

47:25

felt a lot of sort of anguish around that, particularly

47:28

when I was in primary school. I really

47:31

very much wanted to have

47:33

friends but whatever the quality is

47:35

that makes people kind of able

47:37

to instigate and maintain

47:39

conversations with other people. I didn't

47:42

have it but I

47:44

think as time

47:46

has gone on I found

47:48

ways to develop that somewhat.

47:52

But also I've come to realize that actually

47:54

those periods of feeling very lonely

47:58

in lots of ways. were

48:00

also opportunities to develop

48:03

my skills of observation. You

48:05

know, like quite a lot of, at

48:07

a certain moment of emotional cost in the sense

48:10

of like, those were, you know, it

48:12

was quite sad and difficult to feel that way.

48:15

But, you know, I'm

48:17

happy to have emerged into adulthood with

48:20

a keen eye for social and emotional

48:22

detail. Do you think Sharnice has

48:25

made you a better artist and a better writer? Yeah,

48:28

I mean, it's definitely

48:30

a really big part of it. I mean,

48:32

I write for lots of reasons, but I think

48:34

part of the really big impulse in it for

48:36

me is like a desire to

48:39

feel seen and

48:41

understood. I

48:44

think like I've spent quite

48:46

a long time feeling, yeah,

48:49

I mean, like not really feeling understood because I

48:51

don't make myself understood or I don't have the

48:54

means to make myself understood in

48:56

a lot of social contexts. Like

48:58

throughout my life, and still now really, often

49:02

leave kind of parties and feel

49:04

the sense of kind of despondency

49:07

at having not really been

49:09

able to say what I mean or

49:11

feeling that there was some kind

49:14

of important part of me that I really would

49:16

have liked to be seen by those around me.

49:18

And I wasn't able to make that happen. And

49:21

like often in those moments, I sort of think,

49:23

well, you know, maybe they'll read

49:25

the book and then they'll like understand those

49:27

things about me. So

49:30

I think really it is the

49:32

place that I write from is

49:34

from a, you know, this deficit

49:36

of feeling kind of understood

49:38

in other parts of my life and making up

49:41

for it through writing, which is quite like a

49:43

long winded way to

49:46

make yourself understood, but

49:49

using the tools I have to work with. So

49:51

maybe it's okay. I think

49:54

a lot of writers try to

49:56

cultivate shyness, a lot of novelists

49:58

when they become successful. but I

50:00

think you have it naturally. And

50:03

I think you have a beautiful energy. And

50:06

I think your shyness is very endearing. Thank you,

50:08

that's nice. So we're going

50:11

to get into one of the questions now.

50:13

This has been wonderful. First

50:16

question we ask every guest is if you could do an

50:18

art heist, you could have any artwork in the world for

50:20

yourself, what would it be and why? I was

50:23

thinking about this and a lot of

50:25

the artworks that I most love and

50:27

that mean the most to me are ones which

50:30

exist digitally, which

50:32

are either films or

50:35

film photographs. And

50:37

also a lot of them are stuff that's

50:39

got a sort of social value. And

50:43

I've kind of thought I don't really want to take

50:45

them out of the institutions where

50:48

other people can benefit from them more. But

50:50

then I thought about it and

50:52

in terms of something that I'd actually like to

50:55

display in my house, it's

50:58

quite obvious choice, but you know, you

51:00

have the Martin Power image of the

51:04

woman serving the ice cream. I really love that.

51:10

And that is something that I feel I would

51:14

like to display in my house. Where

51:16

did you first see that? Have you seen it

51:18

actually in the flesh or have you just seen it online? Yeah,

51:20

I think, I'm not sure

51:22

where it still is, but was it in the Tate at one point?

51:26

It would have been the National Portrait Gallery you

51:28

might have seen it. Yeah, I can't remember. So

51:30

it was a big exhibition there a few years

51:32

back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll

51:35

get you that. Great. So

51:37

say thanks. Sure. The other

51:39

question we ask every guest is what is your favourite colour? I

51:42

would say pink. Pink is my favourite

51:44

colour. I don't actually wear

51:46

it. I don't wear any pink. But

51:49

when I was a kid, I loved

51:51

pink very much, but I wasn't allowed to wear

51:53

it. But my mum did,

51:55

she like dyed my vest pink so

51:57

I could wear a pink eye. under

52:01

my sort of like boy clothes.

52:04

Oh my god, that's so

52:06

beautiful. You've had so many great like

52:08

women at a young age empowering you,

52:10

giving you agency. Yeah I'm very lucky.

52:13

But I feel

52:15

like in honor of my

52:18

childhood self, I'm staying true to

52:20

pink. Oh

52:23

my god that's so sweet. There's a kids book in

52:25

that. You should write a short book about it. A

52:27

collective kind of armor isn't it?

52:29

So nice. Oh my god. I think

52:32

we feel really emotional. Okay,

52:34

what is the best advice you've ever

52:36

received when it comes to your arts,

52:38

whether that be your writing or your

52:40

performance art? And are

52:43

you still a performance artist? You still have spoken word artist?

52:45

I haven't done it in a long

52:47

time but I would quite like to. Yeah there's a certain

52:49

kind of kick I get out of it that I

52:51

don't quite get from writing fiction.

52:54

But yeah TBC. But

52:57

in terms of advice, yeah I was more on

53:00

this over today and I think it's

53:02

changed a little bit. So I think the piece of advice

53:04

which I got quite early in my career and

53:07

which did carry me quite a long way was

53:11

from somebody who told me it was to

53:13

do with I guess taking yourself seriously before

53:16

other people are taking you seriously.

53:18

And she basically said to, because

53:21

I was like working full time and lots

53:23

of different jobs and continued

53:25

to do so quite recently, but

53:28

she said in terms of one

53:30

day having a financially viable

53:32

career as an artist or a

53:35

writer, you've got to treat it like

53:37

you're getting paid for it and you're going

53:39

to get fired even before that's the

53:41

case. And

53:43

I took that really seriously and was very diligent

53:46

in getting up every day early before work, staying

53:48

up late after work to write as if I

53:50

was going to get fired if I didn't do

53:52

it. And that really took

53:54

me quite a long way and

53:57

did make my career possible.

54:00

But at the same time, I've kind of found

54:02

the limits of it recently as well in the

54:04

sense that I can basically write full-time now. But

54:09

I still kind of try to fill up all

54:11

of my time with work in a way that

54:13

is sometimes actually a little bit counterproductive. And

54:16

a more recent bit of advice, which kind

54:18

of counterbalances the old version, is also that

54:21

it's really important that it's fun

54:23

and playful and that

54:26

if you kind of show up

54:28

to your desk every day really stressed because you're

54:30

going to get fired if you don't do it,

54:32

that's actually quite prohibitive to the

54:34

kind of playful, gentleness that you

54:36

need to be creative. So I'm

54:38

trying to hold that now as

54:40

well, that it needs to be

54:42

fun. Okay,

54:46

have fun but also feel like you're

54:48

going to get fired. Yes, exactly. Great.

54:51

So your book's coming out with Fourth

54:53

Estate Publishers. Fourth Estate Books, they're called.

54:55

On a 9th of May. And

54:58

it's been published in the States as well?

55:00

Yeah, so it's out in the States on

55:02

Mariner Books on July 2nd. And

55:06

once it comes out in May

55:08

in the UK and Ireland, I take

55:10

it, are you on like a

55:12

big book tour? Like you're doing loads of junkets, you're doing

55:14

readings and stuff, what have you got lined up? Yeah,

55:17

so there's quite a few things happening

55:19

in the UK in May. So I'm

55:22

doing quite a few events in London.

55:24

So in Waterstones, Hunter Fager Square on

55:26

May 9th, Birdie Fisher in Hackney gave

55:28

the word and

55:31

I think some others. And then yeah, others around the UK.

55:33

So I'm doing something in Bath, Marigay.

55:38

Yeah, I can't remember, there's a bunch but it

55:40

can be, yeah, info can be found on my Instagram. Brilliant.

55:44

Well, that's excellent. Well, this has been

55:46

amazing talking to you, Aisheen. Thank you so

55:48

much for your book, your novel

55:50

and for giving us your time today.

55:53

And I hope that everybody listening will buy

55:55

your book because it's bloody brilliant.

55:59

It's great. incredibly moving and compelling and

56:01

funny and I just

56:03

want to hang out with all

56:06

those people. So thank

56:08

you. Yeah, thanks so much. It was lovely to

56:10

chat. It is definitely

56:12

a bit where you feel like you could have actually

56:15

been there. It's almost like it mixes up with

56:17

your memory and then you kind of feel like

56:19

it was your life. I think maybe because it's such recent

56:21

history as well, if you know what I mean. Like it's

56:23

set in a year where we actually

56:25

did live. So

56:28

for everyone listening,

56:30

you can pre-order or buy the book

56:32

now and 4th of state evening and

56:34

weekends. And are you on Instagram? Yes,

56:37

it's ush, so OIS underscore

56:39

MCK. Great.

56:43

We will link to that as well. You should

56:45

get a rush, a rush of followers now. For

56:47

listening and hope to see you very soon. Thanks

56:50

so much. Good luck. Bye.

56:52

Thanks for listening to Talk Art with

56:55

Robert Diamond and Russell Toby. Follow us

56:57

on Instagram at Talk Art where you

56:59

can view images of all artworks discussed

57:01

in today's episode with music by Jack

57:03

Northover. Subscribe to Talk Art

57:06

at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast or wherever

57:08

it is that you get your podcasts.

57:10

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