0:00

Hello, Stu here. Just popping in before the show starts

0:02

to let you know that my comedy special I Need

0:04

You Alive is now available at

0:06

Stuart Goldsmith.com There's a link

0:08

there where you can watch it on a breathtaking array

0:11

of places for the rest of the month including

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the 800 pound gorilla website Amazon Prime

0:16

in the UK and US Xbox, God

0:18

knows how they do that, as well as loads of other links

0:20

to catch it on audio Go to Stuart Goldsmith.com

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and watch this show that I am staggeringly

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proud of and do watch it if you can because

0:28

it's very pretty

0:33

Intro

0:36

Music Hello

0:45

there and welcome to the show I'm Stuart

0:47

Goldsmith and today I am talking with Neil

0:50

Delamere who may be better known

0:52

to you if you're Irish He does have a profile

0:54

over here, but as I discover it's nothing compared

0:57

to how well known he is in

1:00

Ireland in which he is currently planning

1:02

an arena tour And

1:05

he's going to be at the SSE arena in

1:07

Belfast in February 2024 for his show Neil by Mouth

1:10

So look out for that We are going to

1:12

talk in some detail about the type

1:15

of comedy that piques Neil's interest and why

1:17

he thinks Storytelling is the purest

1:19

and most powerful form of entertainment.

1:21

We're going to talk about how he Contrasts

1:24

the writing process of a tour show versus

1:26

an Edinburgh Fringe Hour Including

1:28

the content, the title and the all-important

1:30

ending. All of that is coming up with Neil There

1:33

are 15 minutes, oh no, 10, I think it's

1:35

actually 12 minutes of extra content available

1:37

exclusively to the Insiders Club including

1:40

Neil's tricks of the trades for writing topical

1:43

jokes under pressure as well as some great tips

1:45

on how to trust

1:45

yourself as a Comic and forgive me, there

1:48

is an annoying bit where he says Oh, well, I'll

1:50

teach you a secret here and I fade out and

1:52

do the middle blurb of the The

1:55

episode this is not to annoy you. It's

1:57

simply that that stuff is it's just too

1:59

technical and do valuable to be shared

2:02

on the public show. So if you're a member of the Insiders Club,

2:04

you can brush up your abilities to cope

2:06

with writing topical jokes by

2:09

downloading those little 12-minute extra bits

2:11

with Neil Delamere. But here is the man himself.

2:18

Let's begin,

2:19

Neil Delamere, let's begin properly now by

2:21

meeting and saying hello, because I don't know when we

2:23

last gig together. Oh God, I can't remember when we last gig together.

2:26

I think the last time we spoke was when

2:28

you were on the radio show, you were doing a gig in Dublin

2:30

and you came in to do the radio show.

2:33

Is that the last time I saw you? That's years

2:35

ago. Probably, yeah. You always have to add

2:38

on two years for a pandemic as well. Do you think

2:40

it happened two years ago, it happened five? Yeah,

2:42

right. So

2:45

where are you at at the moment? How's comedy

2:47

treating you? Oh great, I mean I thought

2:49

the pandemic was... If you ever

2:51

think that you're sick of something, an

2:54

enforced break from it will

2:57

make you figure out if you were at the

2:59

same position that you thought you were. So I'm

3:03

great, I'm touring away at the moment. I

3:05

just did the SSE Arena

3:07

in Belfast, the ice hockey arena.

3:11

And I'm getting to the

3:12

end of this current tour in about

3:14

two months, I suppose. I've been out since

3:18

October, November. So it's great. I

3:20

mean, I still love it. That's the things to do. I still love

3:22

it.

3:23

I've been watching a bunch of your

3:25

clips on YouTube that go back

3:27

to like something in the rain kind of 12 years ago. There's

3:30

a bunch of stuff where like I think I guess you were doing

3:32

a lot in the UK. There's kind of the roadshow

3:34

clip is there. There's one of those big

3:36

shows that you do at the Edinburgh Festival

3:38

where some people kind

3:40

of get raptured up into doing TV shows in

3:42

a way that I've never fully understood from the ground

3:45

floor of it. And something

3:47

that struck me with that in mind and

3:49

with your current thing in mind, like I know you

3:51

as a circuit comic. Like we've

3:53

gigged together in the circuit. And I think when

3:55

I came over and did your radio show in Dublin, I

3:58

probably kind of had a sense of like, oh, I'm not. I

4:00

think

4:01

Neil's quite successful. Do you know what

4:03

I mean? In that way that like, you know, if you meet someone, if you're

4:05

in New Zealand and you meet someone in New Zealand,

4:07

you have a chat with them and you suddenly realize, oh, they're the most famous

4:09

comic here and I just haven't noticed. Yeah. Like,

4:12

and you'd play in arenas and stuff like this. As I researched

4:14

you, I kind of went, oh, I think Neil's doing considerably

4:16

better than I'd realized. Which sounds

4:19

like a kind of backhanded compliment to suggest

4:21

that, you know, in terms of like, your profile over

4:23

here isn't maybe as big as it is in Ireland. Is

4:26

that fair to say? You know how

4:28

I tell you how I take that? I think that is

4:30

testament

4:31

to my mother and father for raising me really

4:33

well that I don't introduce myself with a golden

4:35

boss card that says, this is

4:38

how well I'm doing, Stuart. You must know this. No,

4:41

I mean, I never lived in the UK and

4:44

I never moved or anything like that. So, I

4:46

mean, I think that's fair enough to say I would

4:49

play a bigger tour here than I would there. Absolutely.

4:52

So, I mean, you're well within your rights to not be able

4:54

to keep tabs on every single

4:56

person's profile in every single other country.

5:00

Can you cross

5:01

stitch that and I'll put it on my wall because I do feel

5:03

like I've made that my responsibility and

5:05

no one thinks so apart from me and it's killing me. Yes,

5:08

everybody thinks, have you heard it? Goldsmith didn't

5:11

know exactly how many tickets I could sell in mail.

5:13

I mean, it's a bit weird, isn't it? No, I mean,

5:15

I did. Consistently, I've always

5:17

done the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I think I've kind of done

5:20

nine or 10 of those, you know? But I've used

5:22

it to, well,

5:24

I found during

5:26

COVID, here to go back to COVID, but I found during COVID,

5:29

I needed deadlines

5:31

and deadlines were all gone. I don't know if you

5:33

felt the same, but everything was gone and you suddenly

5:36

realized, oh my God, okay, this is what I need. So

5:38

I always used to use the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August, you

5:40

used to have to have a show ready for then and then you

5:42

could tour it out and around. So

5:45

we never lived in the UK, so I

5:47

suppose all my work was here and all my

5:49

TV work was here and all my radio work was

5:51

here. So I think you're fairly accurate

5:53

in your assessment there.

5:54

I've started to do

5:56

little bits and pieces more

5:58

in the last few years in the UK,

5:59

because

6:01

well because now suddenly

6:03

remote is fine you know this thing that

6:05

you used to fly over and do fighting talk a

6:07

lot I've done fight and talk for a few years

6:09

it's on five live if people know it and you

6:12

know you used to get up on the day and fly over and

6:14

now you can do from your bedroom so things have changed a little

6:16

bit but em what appeals

6:18

to me about I have a very good

6:20

quality of life where I am I can

6:22

drive I'm back from nearly every single

6:25

gig and that's kind of important to me

6:27

and you know you know when you do

6:29

if you do say Melbourne or you do

6:32

the Kilkenny festival or or Montreal

6:34

and you chat to the you chat particularly

6:36

the American or the Australian

6:39

acts and you realize when they say they're on tour they're

6:41

on tour they're you know like

6:43

that's three nights away four nights away two

6:45

weeks away and I never really I just thought

6:48

no that's

6:49

no I didn't join the circus I

6:51

want to be comedian so you

6:54

know there's a level of touring that you can do in Ireland

6:56

and in England actually that you know you're back

6:58

most nights and you've a real life

7:00

yeah yeah I think I mean and obviously

7:03

that's I guess you're in your 40s are

7:05

you yeah I'm in mid 40s and those

7:07

things become so much more important compared

7:09

to who I was when I was 25 or 30

7:12

thinking oh all you need to do is burn more

7:14

brightly than everyone else yeah you just need

7:16

to commit to it harder and just ditch the

7:18

rest of your life harder than anyone else and

7:20

then hey presto and then surprise

7:22

surprise you get a bit older and you're like there is

7:24

more to life than my service or

7:26

you go I haven't spoken to my friends in

7:30

I've missed all of

7:30

their birthdays and all of my random

7:33

godchildren that I'm godfather to I'm godfather

7:36

to three children you go I've missed x y

7:38

and z because I was doing comedy so you get

7:40

to a certain point you go mmm

7:42

you know you rebalance things a

7:44

friend of my job Kalira used to say this brilliant thing but

7:47

when he started doing comedy and it was like I used to

7:49

think if I do this ten minutes here then I'll get 15 minutes

7:51

there and then if I do those 15 minutes I might

7:54

I might be able to close that club there and then if I close

7:56

that club and now he thinks if I go on

7:58

first I can be in the car for

7:59

Friday night 80s on today FM

8:03

by nine o'clock and you think

8:05

yeah it

8:06

is odd that kind of that journeyman

8:09

kind of attitude towards comedy because I think

8:11

when we're starting out we go I'm not gonna be like that

8:13

we might see people like that having chats about

8:15

a roads in the green room and we think

8:18

that's you know that's not for me

8:20

and then inescapably there is an element

8:22

of comfort that you want from

8:24

your life because you can't go some people

8:26

do I guess there are some people out there who just go

8:28

hard every night for the love of the

8:31

thing itself yeah and I think

8:33

of the you know I'm not to name names but I

8:35

think there are people out there who we both know who

8:37

are kind of they're so in

8:39

love with the thing itself the

8:42

moment itself of the connection

8:44

with an audience or whatever it is then you joke they've just

8:46

been working on what have you that they will go to the ends

8:48

of the earth for next to no money and you see people

8:50

who you go although I guess they've had their time

8:52

in the Sun and they're not putting out to pasture they're

8:55

doing it on their own terms but they're still

8:57

float they're people who maybe I used to watch on TV as

8:59

a teenager and they didn't

9:01

explode they kind of hit a line

9:03

plateaued and then kind of

9:05

tailed off yeah and you sort of go

9:08

I wonder if I'll be I wonder if I love

9:10

it so much

9:11

or are so financially compelled perhaps

9:13

in some cases that I will flog myself

9:15

through the sorts of gigs that a young me would have been the open

9:18

mic at yeah I think it

9:20

all comes down to I think a lot of that comes out how

9:22

much you write because the the the

9:25

other side of that is you see lads

9:27

and you always saw them you saw them and you hoped

9:30

you never became one that do 20

9:32

minutes and they're dead behind the eyes because they

9:35

don't write new stuff you know

9:37

so you can go to a gig and you

9:39

can be at any level of this and you can have checked out

9:42

so it doesn't matter whether you're doing arenas or a massive

9:45

tour or you're doing the same 20 minutes in

9:47

the middle spot of a jungle

9:49

or somewhere I mean you can still have checked out that's

9:52

a really funny expression I feel I get

9:54

a sense that I'm going to use that because

9:58

I do do you mean it's a little kind of the

9:59

dead behind the eyes. But to

10:02

clock someone and go, they've checked out. Or

10:04

they've checked out of this gig. I'm sure there

10:06

have been gigs I've done where I hadn't realised it, but

10:08

looking back, I checked out of that room. That's

10:12

really interesting. So in terms of writing

10:14

then, you said it's about whether

10:16

you keep writing. And something I was really impressed by

10:19

is

10:20

the...

10:22

what is it? Let me try and drill into it, try

10:24

and be really specific. Your stand-up that I've

10:26

seen 12 years ago, when I've seen when I've worked

10:28

with you live, when I've seen some of your recent stuff from you, the

10:31

more recent stuff that's on YouTube. It's

10:33

so dense. It's so full.

10:35

Do you know what I mean? It's full of character. It's

10:37

full of expression. And you're one of those... and

10:39

I've said this on the podcast very recently, probably

10:42

more than once. I've just come up with another analogy.

10:44

But you're like a juggle combo person. You know, in Mortal

10:47

Kombat, you get someone up against them all, you punch them.

10:49

And as long as you keep punching, they don't fall down.

10:51

Do you know what I mean? You just get all these

10:52

free hits. I think if you're like that,

10:54

with your stand-up, it's just like, there's that and

10:56

a daft idea and an act out and a little joke

10:58

and a pun on the way and another act out and a thing and

11:00

then back to the story. Do you know what I mean? It's really

11:03

full. And it seems like from having seen

11:05

all these kind of little clips

11:06

from, you know, over the last however long,

11:09

it seems like you established that rate

11:12

and then fucking maintained it in a way that I think

11:14

is very impressive.

11:15

Wow. I mean, God, it's almost like you've

11:17

done a million of these podcasts and know exactly what

11:19

you're talking about. I never

11:21

thought of it like that before. But that's exactly

11:24

what I tried to do. I don't know who I

11:26

saw a million years ago, but I

11:28

saw somebody talking

11:31

about stand-up and talking about

11:33

the difference between a great comic

11:35

and a good comic was about kind of that momentum,

11:37

I suppose, and just getting someone and

11:40

just wave after wave after wave

11:42

after wave after wave. And I

11:44

kind of thought, oh, I like that. I really want

11:47

to do that sort of stuff. I did Montreal.

11:50

I used to, Ed Byrne did a show

11:52

called Ed Burns just for laughs from Montreal. And then

11:55

he moved on to do a gala. And then I was

11:57

asked to do his show. So basically you would just.

11:59

present from Montreal and you

12:02

would interview comics and then you go and it was

12:04

for RT TV and you would go

12:06

and see their sets and what I noticed

12:08

about the American guys and the North American

12:10

guys broadly speaking there is

12:13

you could see them on the

12:14

two or three nights in a row and

12:17

the intonations were the same where they

12:19

took a breath

12:20

was the same everything was the same and

12:22

it was so perfectly timed and you know you know you've

12:25

been to Montreal those five minutes slots at the gala

12:27

or what it's all about and I just thought

12:29

that's amazing and that's a puncturing

12:31

of tension sometimes that creates

12:34

this huge laugh which someone like

12:36

Andrew Maxwell is brilliant at a Reg D Hunter

12:38

is brilliant at but I thought what

12:40

I want to do is I want to do there's room

12:42

for that but what I'd like to do for the majority of the show

12:45

is just hit them and keep hitting them until

12:47

they

12:48

can no longer breathe properly because that's what they'll

12:50

remember Jason Byrne

12:52

if you see Jason Byrne get someone

12:54

no usually it's an improv stream but my god

12:57

he's had been in a situation where I can't physically

13:00

breathe you know diaphragm and intercostal

13:02

muscles are no longer talking to each other and the way

13:04

they show it and you're just trying to suck down

13:06

air and that's that's

13:09

the pinnacle of what I think it should be

13:11

for most of the show

13:13

for sure so the question is

13:15

why why does that particular

13:18

type particularly

13:20

particularly interest

13:22

you

13:23

which is not to disagree with that at

13:25

all it's a broad church as we know there

13:27

are people I like I think I

13:29

came into it my heroes rule the people like you Simon

13:31

Munnery who go here is the

13:34

perfect joke that makes your brain feel

13:36

like it's melting because you've never seen something

13:39

yeah in that way before two or three or

13:41

four concepts just kachunk

13:43

and like oh Christ so it's like a little nuclear

13:45

reactor I love that that's my kind of predilection

13:48

I know exactly what you mean that could the punch-drunk kind

13:50

of audience member Jason Byrne or someone

13:53

like Russell

13:53

Howard is another or Russell Kane yeah

13:55

it's like it's an onslaught he's like a machine gun

13:58

yeah and but what what do you think

13:59

it satisfies in you and

14:02

in what you want out of your relationship

14:04

with a particular room that has drawn

14:06

you to that kind of thing. Maybe I don't want them to

14:09

stop to investigate anything too closely. Do

14:12

you know? I mean, that's

14:15

very candid. Your

14:17

stuff isn't necessarily, the stuff that I've seen isn't necessarily

14:20

deep, long lasting, this changes

14:23

the way I think about the world stuff. No,

14:25

I've no interest in that to be honest. Well, this is

14:27

so let's get into that then. So maybe

14:29

the desire to avoid scrutiny perhaps

14:32

in inventing comedy. I am joking on

14:34

that. I mean, it's like when

14:36

you were chatting up a girl when you were 15, like the equivalent

14:38

I suppose is just give her 47 compliments

14:41

so she doesn't think of any particular one.

14:43

No, I've always found it the most satisfying

14:46

to watch. I think when

14:48

I was watching stand up, I mean, we're all influenced

14:50

by the people at the start, aren't we, I suppose. So

14:53

the people I saw, like my first ever comedy geek

14:55

was in, that I was in the audience of, was

14:58

on the sitting on the floor of Dublin City University

15:00

and Deirdre O'Kane was the support

15:02

act and Dara O'Briain was the main

15:04

act. Now, like Dara in terms

15:07

of telling a story and in terms of how

15:09

physical a comic he is and

15:11

in terms of hit rate and ideas, I

15:14

think is similar to those, that style

15:16

that we've mentioned. I suppose

15:20

just in terms of maybe it's

15:22

a culture idea,

15:24

culture is somebody from rural Ireland that we

15:26

like value for money. I think maybe

15:29

it's as simple as like, that's the most

15:31

laughs in an hour, isn't it? I mean, I love,

15:34

I love watching. I love, I

15:36

mean, I love comedy and I love watching different people

15:38

do different things. And that's the broad church that

15:40

you spoke about. I mean, Jimmy Carr's one liners are

15:42

completely different to Ross Noble's improvisation.

15:46

But I suppose I

15:47

think the, I think the, I

15:50

don't think I'd like to watch an hour and a half of one

15:52

liners or, or, you know, because I just

15:54

think it's, it's

15:56

not as satisfying rhythmically or something, you

15:58

know?

15:59

there talk to me

16:01

about rhythm then do you what kind of decisions

16:03

are you making when you structure

16:06

a show you know an hour a longer

16:09

tour show or a 20 or a garlissette

16:11

or whatever well what

16:13

extent does rhythm kind of come into it

16:15

because there is like you know we said punch drunk and this

16:18

analogy that I imposed of the kind of the fighter

16:20

yeah multiple punches that combative thing

16:22

and it's not I don't think you have a combative style

16:25

at all but it is it's like you're tickling

16:27

them that's a more that's a happy way of talking about

16:29

you're tickling them and they go oh stop stop

16:31

and you're like I'm not gonna stop I'm not gonna stop yeah

16:33

I love you know what I love watching

16:36

I love watching someone who takes one idea and

16:39

just rings it dry I watched

16:41

and

16:42

Andy Field the other day talking about

16:45

he did this thing about I'm not gonna give it away because I

16:47

won't do justice but the line it's

16:49

essentially about your mother sucks

16:52

Cox in hell the line from the exorcist

16:55

and he deconstructs us and he just

16:57

keeps hammering the

16:59

logic of this and I absolutely

17:02

love that I always thought

17:04

your best ever Edinburgh show you know

17:07

when you have a set list on a speaker whatever I

17:09

always thought by the time you got to it

17:11

being brilliant it would only say about

17:13

six things

17:15

because each thing would be seven or

17:17

eight minutes rather

17:19

than you line up you know you know when

17:21

you start your your tour shows you might have 20

17:24

lines because each each bit hasn't

17:26

expanded enough and I also

17:29

think it's the thing that people remember

17:31

I think people might remember one great joke but a

17:34

lot of the time people will remember our routine

17:36

so maybe we're getting to that maybe it's that it's

17:39

routines at that people

17:41

that

17:42

you love and people love rather

17:44

than one or two individual jokes

17:46

you know what I mean and there's also yeah

17:48

I don't disagree I think there's also there's

17:51

also one of the things you remember what's that there's like

17:54

there's some sort of

17:55

what's

17:58

the phrase it's the sort of thing an advertising agent

17:59

would have printed on their wall. It's something like

18:02

people will always remember how you made them feel. They

18:04

might not remember what you said, but they'll remember

18:07

how you made them feel. And

18:09

I

18:10

think one of the things like, I'll

18:12

remember a particular joke or a particular routine,

18:15

but I'll also remember just kind of the vibe

18:17

I have about someone, the experience

18:19

I had in that hour, where I won't

18:21

necessarily be able to name a joke. And I'll just be like,

18:24

oh God, you just, oh, you've just got

18:26

to be in the thing because it's so mad. Or,

18:29

you know, because you're so, you know, you can't,

18:31

you've got, like you said, you can't breathe. Like I

18:33

saw, I saw you in Edinburgh.

18:35

I'd say five or six years ago. And

18:39

I just remember that I saw you. And what

18:41

I can remember, but that was the bee thing. So

18:44

you did an impression of a bee and I think he had

18:46

a Spanish or like a Latin

18:49

accent, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've

18:51

totally forgotten that bit. Yeah, but how long is that bit?

18:54

Like that's a, that's a bit that's a considerable

18:57

time. So I think that's probably

18:59

what people remember as well. You know,

19:01

I did a gig on Saturday and a woman

19:03

requested a bit. I don't, people don't

19:06

normally get requests, but at the end she put up her hand and said, well, you do

19:08

X, Y and Z bit night. I must, I think

19:10

I must've just put it up online. It was the thing about

19:12

Viking babies or something. Yes, yes, yes. But it's

19:14

a bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang,

19:16

bang. Here's the concept and hit it over and over and over

19:18

and over and over and over and over again.

19:20

And there's a certain join that, apart

19:22

from the rhythm of it, there's a certain join that where they go, fuck,

19:25

he must've stopped. Like they're in it and they're

19:27

like, surely it's over. Surely

19:30

it's over. And you keep going and they're like, oh my God, it's

19:32

not over yet, you know? So how do

19:34

you, how do you find all of those moments? Because

19:36

that's absolutely, I think of the person, I think for

19:39

tags is always Matt Kirshin. Oh, great.

19:41

And you just go a tag and a tag and a tag and a tag and a tag,

19:43

which is like, and often the best tags,

19:45

I think, aren't simply the,

19:47

the, you know,

19:50

another rephrasing of the idea so much

19:52

as a fresh perspective, how

19:54

would a fresh character react? And then, you know, you

19:56

can just build entire things that, you

19:58

know, I mean, I don't know. Has anyone done that?

20:00

Has anyone done like a show that's tags? You

20:02

mean you get one premise at the beginning? Everything

20:05

else could be defined as a tag. That would be fascinating. But

20:07

so how are you in your writing

20:09

to what extent are you tagging

20:12

stuff? Because you're just gigging frequently

20:14

enough that you're

20:16

completely inhabiting the material, you

20:18

know it backwards, and so you can just another idea

20:21

can spill out of you naturally every time and

20:23

then 100 gigs later, it turns out that bit's

20:25

got six tags on the end of it. Yeah, that's exactly

20:27

it really. In terms of kind of structuring

20:30

shows that you asked about,

20:33

I think, listen, when you do

20:35

a tour show, you don't need structure in

20:39

terms of

20:41

in terms of the narrative. Yeah,

20:43

you certainly don't need narrative. But you so

20:46

the structure you need is you need to put your best stuff at

20:48

the end because that's the bit they'll remember. And then you need

20:50

to put, you know, you're you know, this is if

20:53

you're being seen material, what's that phrase? Oh, we

20:55

put the B stuff at the start and the A stuff

20:57

in the middle and the C stuff at the end or whatever. All

21:00

that stuff. I do think you put your one

21:02

of your best things at the end. So they remember that and then you

21:05

put something good at the beginning. So you they

21:07

get to trust you and all the rest. But in terms

21:09

of if you were going to see a show

21:11

and to a

21:13

committee you like on tour around

21:15

the UK, around Ireland, and it's not

21:18

it's not advertised designing. All

21:21

you need to do is make them laugh for as long

21:23

as you can for 75 minutes or 80 minutes. Like

21:25

it just I genuinely don't think

21:28

it's it's comparable to an Edinburgh Fringe

21:30

show where you're trying to create some

21:32

sort of maybe a wider point

21:34

or maybe a story that you really want to tell. You

21:37

know, like I noticed years ago I did

21:39

this show and

21:40

the premise of the show was I had lived

21:42

away in Dublin as long as I'd lived

21:44

at home in the Midlands. And I was thinking,

21:47

I wonder what I was like when I was 15 or 16 and I had a school's

21:50

video quiz.

21:53

Right. So I was

21:55

on TV as like in school's quiz and

21:57

I was 15 or 16 and I got the video. and

22:01

I met up with all the lads on both

22:04

teams and we reconstructed it 15

22:06

years later with the same host, we green-screened

22:08

it and all that sort of stuff, right? Beautiful. And

22:11

when I did Vicar Street in Dublin and I

22:14

started to explain what the show was about, I realised that none

22:17

of the audience knew that that's what the show was going

22:19

to be about. Maybe four or five percent.

22:22

And all the interviews I'd done and all the press I'd done to

22:24

talk about it, they didn't know that. So

22:26

I realised that

22:28

I think people go and see, for

22:31

theatre people go and see what and

22:33

for comedy people go and see who. So

22:36

they will go and see the

22:38

importance of being earnest because it's what it is.

22:41

It's Oscar Wilde in the middle of Nottingham

22:43

Playhouse, whatever. But they'll go and see Stuart

22:46

Goldsmith, do whatever Stuart Goldsmith does. It's

22:50

rare that they look at what your show blurb

22:52

is when you're on tour outside of Edinburgh

22:55

and go because of that.

22:57

That's a really good point. And

22:59

also a heartbreaking realisation about PR. And

23:02

how many

23:04

people actually end up buying a ticket because

23:06

they heard it.

23:06

Oh yeah, and I knew exactly because I

23:09

used to play in the theme tune to the old quiz and

23:11

you'd see 95% of people going, oh,

23:13

this is what this is. But they had no idea that

23:15

that's what the show was about.

23:17

No idea. Do

23:18

you just on the subject of the what

23:20

and you've done themed shows in the past. Did

23:23

you do a show that was themed around Meals on Wheels?

23:26

Yeah, my dad. Yeah, that was you know, people

23:28

go, you know, how do you write your show? You

23:30

know, you name the Edinburgh Fringe Festival show and

23:32

I always name it. A lot of the time I'll

23:34

name it something silly around my name because it

23:36

doesn't exist yet. It's like me saying to you,

23:39

you have to pick a name for your child while

23:41

you're,

23:42

you know, your

23:43

child in the first trimester.

23:46

You don't know if it's a boy or a girl. You don't know anything about the child.

23:48

But this is the name you're going to have to call the child. And

23:50

that's it no matter, no matter what happens. If

23:52

it's Derek and that's it. So

23:55

I used to call it like

23:56

Fresh Prince of Delamere was my favorite one, I

23:58

think. That was a good title.

24:01

And Creme de la Mer is a sensation.

24:03

That really rolls up its It

24:07

does. But the one where I thought,

24:10

oh, this is a full show is me and my dad. My

24:12

dad's now 87.

24:14

And he was delivering Meals and Wheels until

24:16

he was well into his 70s. And he went, this is

24:18

the last one. I'm not going to do it anymore. I'm getting a bit.

24:21

It's a bit too much for me. And I went, oh,

24:23

this is, I mean, usually you look back at

24:25

these moments and they're defining moments

24:29

afterwards. But some like sometimes you realize you're you're

24:32

this is it now, you know. So we did this little journey

24:34

around my hometown and I went, this is definitely an Edinburgh

24:36

show, you know. So I called that Poch Cassidy and the Sundance

24:38

pensioner. I think that one was called. And

24:41

I brought him to the shows and he

24:43

he was he loved. He absolutely loved it.

24:46

I brought him to the show. I go. Sorry. Go

24:48

on. No, I brought him to Vicar Street and there

24:50

was a bit. So I used to have a joke about this. And

24:53

the joke was something like, like, see,

24:55

he smokes a pipe, right? Even though it burns

24:57

holes in his clothes like right. And

25:00

I remember chatting to him and the joke was something

25:02

like you'd be chatting to him and then you turn around and

25:04

suddenly this like it's an 80 year

25:06

old and fishnet tights and something like

25:08

that image. And I said to him, it'd be really

25:11

funny if we put you in fishnet tights. Would

25:13

you do it? And he was like, yeah. So

25:15

so there's a picture of my dad in fish in

25:18

fishnet tights. And I used to show it at the end. And

25:20

the reaction that got was off.

25:23

It was it was disheartening because it was better

25:26

than any joke that I'd written in the whole

25:28

thing. And then I brought him to the show at the

25:31

show in Vicar Street and he got a standing ovation

25:33

and he's a bit of an old ham. You know, he loved

25:35

the attention of that. It was

25:37

just sweet moments, you know.

25:39

When you were on

25:41

that, when you were thinking, oh, this is the moment this is going

25:43

to be a show. What's the process

25:45

from that point? Do you start thinking, right, I've

25:47

got to remember, I've got to participate in this

25:50

and be honest about it. And I've got to

25:52

remember it and presumably record

25:55

like your notes or take notes about it or something.

25:58

You know, that just talked to me a little bit about. that kind

26:00

of because that's that's such a kind of um uh

26:02

what's the phrase like a uh a hot house or

26:04

something it's like here's the thing oh this i better pay

26:07

attention right now this is a thing and the show's

26:09

going to be based on it yeah so just as an example

26:11

of your process within that how

26:14

much would you need to how

26:16

many notes would you need to come out of that experience

26:19

with that you'd think oh that might be a bit

26:21

and i could talk about this and i maybe you could talk about

26:23

that perspective how much stuff do you need

26:26

before you then go away and create the show i

26:28

think that one is quite um

26:29

is there's

26:32

difficulties to those things and there's and

26:34

there's um there's

26:37

things that help you write a show i suppose

26:39

so what you have is you have your structure um

26:42

but the structure is sometimes a present isn't it like

26:44

you know you look i do like the idea

26:46

of a journey so you are going around

26:48

and there are literal points and all the rest but but

26:50

then you're certainly hamstrung by because the

26:52

audience knows what what's going to happen on the

26:55

day and um you

26:57

can't like you like if

26:59

you're strictly telling the truth then if

27:01

nothing hilarious happens at the end what do you what

27:03

do you do do you know so there's

27:05

even even in

27:08

true shows i said in a vortic commons

27:10

you have to figure out how much truth to tell

27:12

really um and is it acceptable

27:15

as long as it's emotionally true to

27:18

not be absolutely massively

27:21

and then he said this and then he said that that to

27:23

be true

27:24

so that's that's a decision that you do kind

27:26

of have to make i think um

27:28

i mean i took notes on the day

27:30

that's the first time i've ever ever actually been in

27:32

a situation and i thought this is definitely

27:34

going to so a lot of older people got cold wheels

27:36

on wheels that day because i was sitting in the car with a phone

27:40

say something funny dad say something funny

27:42

um and i

27:45

suppose that's that's the only one

27:48

i like it that that can

27:50

be difficult because i i did that with the

27:52

other show as well i did that with the show that i mentioned about the

27:54

blackboard it's called was called blackboard jungle the

27:57

quiz show you you

27:59

can sometimes set yourself up and then you

28:02

are inhibited by the framework if you know what I mean.

28:04

I'm sure you've had the same. Was that the case with that

28:06

one? No,

28:11

yes and no. The end of that show, it

28:13

was, my dad

28:15

was, we were trying to get home very quickly because

28:18

he had put a bet on a horse. So

28:21

we were tearing through wheels and wheels, like we were

28:23

flinging them from the car, like flinging

28:25

them. It was like, it was

28:28

like, that thrown rice from

28:30

the back of a UN truck. That's

28:32

what it was like. And I

28:34

was kind of thinking, you know, what had happened,

28:36

I won't give away what happened in the end, but like you are going,

28:39

well, the horse wins and the horse doesn't win. You know what I mean?

28:41

So, and so sometimes you get

28:43

stuck

28:44

in that and you're looking at the

28:46

show structure from above and you go, okay,

28:49

well then, I mean the horse wins, the horse doesn't

28:51

win. And then you walk, you go for a walk with

28:53

your dog and you come back and you go, well, why

28:55

does the show have to end there? The

28:57

show could end two days later. The show

28:59

could end five years later or the show could

29:01

end, you know, sometimes when you, you know, when you watch films

29:03

and

29:04

say this whole film is a prison break and the person

29:06

gets out of the prison and you go, yay,

29:09

that's the point that should end. I hate when it ends.

29:12

And then they go, and Stuart was then

29:14

hit by a car on the A5 and the way home.

29:17

So it's all about where you end something, isn't it? You

29:21

know, you like to think you got out of the prison and then

29:23

I only want to see that line at the end of the film if it

29:25

says, and he lived happily ever after. I

29:28

don't want to see, you know, and then he died of a heart attack to two

29:30

days later anyway. Like that's pointless. So

29:33

sometimes I find, okay, I

29:35

find when I'm writing a show or even if I'm writing something

29:38

for a kind of topical panel show, use

29:41

two lenses, either zoom in

29:44

or zoom out.

29:46

So say

29:49

that you think, okay, my

29:51

father's running home and we're both running

29:53

home and he, I wanted to remember

29:55

this day, not only for it's the last day he delivers

29:57

the mills and wheels, but maybe if he puts a load of money

29:59

and this horsely weens with it's a great day. And then

30:02

you're kind of hamstrung with, well, OK, well, I know what

30:04

happened. Does the horse win? Does the horse not win? OK.

30:07

So you either zoom in on that and go, give

30:09

me all the 10 things that could happen. Jockey

30:12

could fall off. It could be the wrong jockey. And you

30:14

zoom in in granular detail. Or

30:16

you come out of it all together and

30:19

zoom out. And you maybe

30:21

talk about what the horse race means, or maybe talk

30:23

about that horse race versus other horse

30:25

races or whatever. So it's the same

30:28

thing when we do topical shows.

30:30

So when we do a topical show, and

30:32

you have to write about. So we used to do

30:35

one with Dara Breen in Ireland seven

30:37

or eight years called The Panel, me and Maxwell

30:39

and Colin Murphy and Ed Burnham

30:42

and various others. And we used to have

30:44

to do the budget every year, because

30:47

we were on air. And the budget is either

30:49

you zoom in and find

30:52

out the weirdest, most technical

30:55

thing that will only affect two or three people. And

30:58

if you can't get anything out of that, you

31:00

zoom back out and you go, broadly speaking,

31:03

what's it going to do? Houses are more expensive.

31:05

OK, well, if houses are more expensive, let's

31:08

exaggerate that to a point of, well, that

31:10

will mean x, y, and z. And we'll be all be living in treehouses.

31:13

And what are we going to be using for temporary accommodation?

31:16

And I saw a jockey living in a monopoly

31:19

house. You know what I mean? So

31:21

you use both approaches. Change the lens

31:23

if you're stuck.

31:25

That's great advice. That's great advice. Do

31:28

you find it easy

31:30

now, having written comedy for so

31:32

long, topical shows, panel shows,

31:35

your own shows? Are you now at a

31:37

stage where, like, do you ever find

31:39

yourself looking at a blank piece of paper scratching your

31:42

head? Yeah, yeah. Start of every

31:44

tour. And my wife, I

31:47

always walk around the house going, I just can't

31:50

finish this space. And she goes, I'm

31:52

recording you this year. She said it to me, I'm going

31:54

to record you because you say the same things at

31:56

the same time every single year.

32:00

There's a few tricks of the trade for

32:03

topical shows. So here's one

32:05

that you will know but maybe people don't

32:07

know.

32:12

I'm so sorry. I know, I know.

32:14

How annoying is that? But nonetheless,

32:17

if you would like to hear those little tricks

32:19

and titbits for writing topical jokes, and

32:22

they are worth taking away from you, the

32:24

casual listener, I'm so sorry. If you do

32:26

have access to the extras feed, then

32:29

you will be able to find those out. We'll be back with more from

32:31

Neil in just a second. But if you would like

32:33

to join the Insiders Club for ad-free episodes,

32:36

extra content from every show that has it, and

32:38

all the rest of that stuff, as well as access to the Slack

32:41

workspace, which I am trying

32:42

to be a little bit more active in these days. And there's certainly

32:44

people in there have recently started their

32:46

own writing feedback channel. So if

32:48

you're an insider, you can get along there and enjoy that. If

32:51

you have lost access to that, if you're previously

32:53

an insider, you have been for a while, just get in touch

32:56

and I will re...

32:58

...regive, that's a word, re-give

33:00

you access to the Insiders

33:02

Club Slack channel. But how can you

33:04

become a member? I hear you asking. You

33:06

simply join up for a minimum two pound a month

33:08

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33:11

slash insiders. You can donate as much as

33:13

you like per month. Everyone gets the same

33:15

stuff and you can do that

33:17

there. Now, in terms of Neil's

33:19

work, you can find him on TikTok and Twitter at Neil

33:22

Delamere, on Instagram at Neil Delamere

33:24

Comedy. And you can find me at ComComPod

33:26

on Twitter and at Stuart Goldsmith Comedy.

33:29

You see Neil and I, similarly imaginative

33:31

men on TikTok and

33:33

Instagram. And you can go to Stuart Goldsmith.com

33:36

to find out more about the Edinburgh

33:38

show, the Edinburgh previews that I'm doing of Spoilers,

33:40

my climate comedy show in which I

33:42

definitely and I can say this definitely now because I have done

33:44

so recently, make the climate

33:47

crisis and the ensuing anxiety

33:50

funny. So come along and see some of that.

33:52

See a preview. All of those links at Stuart Goldsmith.com.

33:55

Just click where it says comedy and it'll give you a

33:58

rundown of where all the previews are. or

34:00

a button that will do. It's all carefully nested.

34:02

I'm just obsessed with Linktree, it's so clever.

34:05

All the stuff you need to know about the podcast is currently

34:07

at comedianscomedian.com and go to neildellemere.com

34:10

to find out more about Neil by mouth and

34:12

this big arena show that Neil's doing in

34:14

Belfast. So, with all of

34:16

that in mind, let's get back to Neil Dellemere.

34:20

Hey babe, what you got there? This is a cheque from Carvana.

34:23

I just sold my car to them. I went online and Carvana

34:25

gave me an offer right away. Then they just picked up the

34:27

car and gave me this.

34:28

That's a big cheque. Well,

34:30

obviously you could put this towards your next car or

34:32

we could finally get that jacuzzi or I

34:35

could start taking tuba lessons or I could quit

34:37

my job and write my memoir.

34:38

Or I can put it towards my next car with

34:40

Carvana. Sorry, your cheque, not

34:42

mine. Sell your car to Carvana. Visit

34:45

carvana.com or download the app

34:47

to get a real offer in seconds.

34:59

You alluded to it there about the kind of the,

35:02

not the conversational, the storytelling nature

35:04

of maybe Irish

35:06

comedy, do you know what I mean? Without wanting to paint too broad

35:09

a brush stroke.

35:11

There is a kind of, there is either

35:15

a trope, let's call it a trope, depending

35:17

on how Irish tourist bored you are. It's

35:20

either a lyrical thing passed down from generations

35:22

or it's just a sort of an observation that, yeah,

35:25

you guys like to chat. Do you know

35:27

what I mean? And I think particularly with some of

35:29

your storytelling stuff, I think of some of the clips I've seen

35:31

online that are less like,

35:33

you know, the Viking, okay, what if kids had hangovers?

35:36

What if babies had hangovers? Bang. And as you say, great,

35:38

the planets have aligned. Punchline, punchline,

35:40

punchline, punchline. Lovely bit to write, I'm

35:43

sure. Lovely bit to perform, lovely bit to hear. But

35:45

the stuff that is more, you tell a story

35:47

about someone's

35:50

towing your car. I don't remember the details.

35:53

I listened to it a week ago. And you know, you

35:55

realize that you'd left the handbrake on and then there's

35:57

characters in the story and there are places. There

36:00

are characters with accents very specific

36:02

to places in Ireland I've never been, but I

36:05

can kind of retrofit what the

36:07

stereotype of that character must be like

36:09

from the description. It is again, like I said

36:11

at the very beginning, it's so full. It

36:14

is so full of jokes and

36:16

plot. And so it's storytelling,

36:19

but it's completely inhabited. Just talk

36:21

to me a little bit about that. I don't know quite what the question

36:23

is, but when you're writing something like that,

36:25

or when you're creating or performing something like that. I remember

36:27

the day I got stuck on a beach and I blocked access

36:29

to the entire beach in Dublin and it was the

36:31

first sunny day and it was like, it serves

36:34

half a million people in the north of the Dublin and

36:36

I have never been more embarrassed in my life.

36:38

I considered leaving the car. I

36:40

just really did. As we go Neil, I'm going

36:42

to fact check this for those elements of truth

36:45

and whether it's the truth, the situation.

36:46

Was it literally the

36:49

first sunny day? Pretty much. Pretty

36:51

much. Okay, right. Okay.

36:54

Yeah. I didn't ring the met up immediately afterwards.

36:56

Listen, I need to get to the emotional truth of this story. No, no,

36:58

no, for sure. But no, no, no. I really,

37:01

I came home. In a fun kind of a way. I'm interested

37:03

to know those. I don't have a

37:05

position on it. There's no moral question for me. It's just

37:07

like how much of this is like an artistic

37:09

license ometer. Which

37:12

bits have we artificially

37:15

increased the jeopardy

37:16

on? Because already that's one of

37:18

those Irish things that the kind of the tall tales

37:21

thing where you go, oh, this was, you

37:23

know, it was every time in the retelling it becomes,

37:25

it was the first sunny day we'd had for 10 years.

37:28

Here's the worrying thing. Maybe I don't know anymore.

37:31

Imagine, imagine if you don't know, if

37:33

you just think maybe it wasn't sunny, maybe

37:35

my comedy brain just went, this is more jeopardy.

37:38

Well, that would be worrying for you, but

37:40

manna from heaven for this podcast.

37:42

I don't know. Maybe it wasn't a beach at all.

37:46

What I remember about the days, I did genuinely

37:49

get stuck. I was absolutely mortified. Everybody

37:52

in that, in the characters in the

37:54

story all happened. But I remember mainly

37:56

about us getting home and my wife looked

37:58

at me and she went. what happened?

38:02

You look both upset and delighted.

38:07

I said what you mean? She goes and she knows me so

38:09

well she goes something bad happened but

38:11

you're going to get ten minutes out of it aren't you? And

38:13

I went yes and I told her the story and

38:15

she now knows like I kind of feel sorry for

38:17

mere mortals because when something

38:20

happens and it's terrible they just

38:22

have something that's terrible whereas we have

38:24

something that's terrible and ten minutes

38:26

of material but when

38:28

you're writing something like that I suppose

38:29

again

38:31

you're you're you're they're

38:34

rarely enough do you get handed this

38:36

is just story go home and write this story so

38:39

a lot of time you're you know you're in a green room where

38:41

you're chatting to your friends and you tell them something that happened and

38:43

then they go oh that that should

38:45

that should be a bit I suppose

38:48

I've always liked stories because I mean

38:50

they're the purest form of entertainment

38:53

really aren't they? I mean they

38:55

are long before we were

38:57

doing kind of puns around

38:59

the campfire we were telling each other stories and

39:02

I also think they're extremely powerful

39:04

in a show because particularly

39:07

in a kind of an Edinburgh show where you might want to make a broader

39:09

point people will hang on to hear

39:11

the end of story in a way they won't hang

39:14

on for anything else so it's an extremely

39:17

extremely powerful tool

39:19

I

39:19

think the reason Irish

39:22

comics like stories I actually think this is a function

39:24

of the numbers I think because there are

39:26

fewer people here you're talking about one one

39:29

tenth of the population of the UK I think

39:31

we a lot of the time we get pushed into the

39:33

mainstream if you know what I mean

39:35

you know like if you if you say there's say

39:38

there's 2,000 comedians in England I'm

39:40

gonna just pick England right with

39:43

that you know you'll have

39:45

room for ten people to be off the wall

39:47

Sam Simmons Australian and

39:50

then surreal comic sort of guy

39:53

you know but you need 2,000 people

39:55

to have those outliers

39:57

I think when you might have when you only

39:59

have a

39:59

maybe a hundred people say

40:01

for every 2000

40:04

people you will get somebody who's a really surreal comic

40:07

if you never get a 2000 comics you'll never get a surreal

40:09

person do you know what

40:11

I mean? Yeah So like Paul Curry is great

40:13

from Belfast and he's completely out there but

40:16

he's the first star I've seen in

40:18

Ireland doing that sort of thing

40:21

in the same way if I just pick the hundred comics

40:23

around say Bristol you might not get

40:25

one as well you know so some of it

40:28

is a love of language some of it is a love of storytelling

40:30

and some of it is a dint of numbers

40:33

When you have a story like that

40:35

you know like getting your car stuck and blocking

40:37

access and everything when you go like oh this is this

40:40

is great terrible for a normal human being

40:42

brilliant for a comic yeah do you ever

40:44

find that it's difficult

40:46

to find the end to that

40:48

story if you're like here's this is like

40:50

this is a thing I've encountered in the past a thing will

40:52

happen yeah I can make the middle of it really

40:55

funny but the end needs to be funnier

40:57

than the middle and I'm like oh christ what could happen

40:59

so that you know it's like that zoom in or zoom out like

41:01

yeah what would be the most like

41:04

are you kind of are you sort of

41:06

getting kind of surgically into

41:09

the guts of the story going right if we've

41:11

established XYZ then the

41:13

resolution has to be something

41:15

that resolves those oh yeah to like

41:18

to artificially create an end to a story because

41:20

the middle is great but actually what happened was oh well

41:22

you know I mean we've all got stories where this crazy thing

41:24

happened oh and then it all got sorted out and actually

41:26

wasn't a very satisfying ending or the story

41:29

ends earlier that's one of the hardest things

41:31

to do when you you write say say a six

41:33

minute story we'll say right and you go oh

41:36

the

41:36

audience always applause that this line

41:39

that happens after four minutes and you do it you do it

41:41

you do it you do it and you do it and eventually you

41:43

said to yourself this is a four minute story

41:45

this is the six minute story

41:48

you have to I was once in a petrol station

41:50

there was a big long story and it was a couple

41:53

of young lads who were who were they

41:58

got in front of a taxi driver right

41:59

And I think the

42:02

two young lads, I know them kind of around the way,

42:04

and they've had their issues with addiction. And

42:07

the taxi driver was really annoyed, because it was,

42:09

you know those, what do

42:10

you call them?

42:12

The

42:14

screen in the passenger station, and you're chatting under the screen,

42:16

and it's 2 o'clock in the morning, and they're ordering

42:19

apples. And it drove the taxi driver

42:21

absolutely spare. And I was watching

42:23

this whole thing. And the story lasted maybe about six

42:26

minutes, but about three or four minutes into

42:28

the story, there's an amazing thing

42:30

that one of the young lads said. The taxi driver shouted at the

42:32

young lad and said, it's absolutely ridiculous that you're buying

42:34

an apple in the petrol station, right? And

42:37

it holds everybody up. And the young lad looked

42:39

at him and said, apples are petrol if

42:41

you only

42:42

have a horse.

42:43

Right? It

42:45

was amazing. And that

42:47

used to come in at three minutes into the story

42:50

or 2 thirds of the way through or whatever. And

42:52

it just had to slightly just

42:54

be moves, you know? And a

42:58

couple of things happened after that. I slightly

43:00

fudged the timing, but it was such a delightful,

43:03

ready-made line that sometimes you're, I

43:05

think, you're allowed to have some degree of poetic

43:07

license. A lot

43:09

of the time

43:10

when you're telling a story, I think, like

43:13

that beach story, for example, if there

43:15

is, there's a point

43:17

at which if you

43:19

go too far and you're clearly

43:21

lying,

43:22

genuinely lying, not exaggerating,

43:24

not maybe changing a timeline, genuinely

43:27

lying, the audience knows and they

43:29

opt out. They'll laugh and you'll see them just

43:31

opt out. So if you don't have a real

43:33

resolution, you either end earlier or

43:36

you go from what happened

43:39

to what could happen

43:41

or, and you tell them that. You

43:44

go, so you tell them what you got stuck

43:46

on a beach and that there's no resolution to it.

43:48

That it happened to be a resolution in this case, but there's no resolution

43:51

to it. You go, hold on,

43:52

imagine if I did, what happened? What would

43:54

be if I did X, Y and Z? You

43:57

go from real- into

44:01

the spectrum of imagination. And

44:03

then you're allowed to do whatever you want, because you've

44:05

said it's imaginations.

44:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. This is really,

44:09

this is turning into quite the masterclass

44:12

on storytelling. Well, Eddie

44:14

is outside about when she

44:16

was writing

44:18

something and she wanted to be surreal,

44:22

she couldn't go to surreal straight away.

44:25

She'd have to start in the

44:27

real world.

44:28

So she'd say, you

44:31

know, she wanted to talk about giraffes or something

44:33

like this. She would start talking

44:35

about giraffes or about the

44:37

supermarket

44:38

and then suddenly giraffes would come into it. I think

44:40

that was a really interesting way of

44:43

doing it. Yes, ground it in reality

44:45

first and then let it become

44:47

surreal rather than starting with giraffes.

44:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. I

44:52

never did that deliberately, but maybe that's

44:54

just come into my head, you know?

44:56

What,

44:58

when you see other, this is just another

45:00

way of kind of hitting the idea of the story stuff, to

45:03

wring all of the storytelling juice out of Neil Denner.

45:07

When you see people who are not

45:10

that great, comics who are not that great at storytelling,

45:12

attempt it,

45:13

what are they getting wrong? What

45:18

common mistakes do you see in people

45:20

who have more to learn about storytelling,

45:23

let's say? I don't know. You're setting me up

45:25

near some sort of master storyteller,

45:27

so I wouldn't necessarily

45:30

criticize them. But I suppose if I watch

45:32

a story that I am bored by,

45:39

sometimes I watch things. So

45:42

for example, that story that you're

45:44

talking about at the beach in Dublin,

45:46

that happened in Dublin and that loses

45:48

a little bit when I tell it in the UK because they're

45:50

not familiar with the characters. They're not familiar

45:53

with that specific Irish accent, they're not specific

45:55

Irish accents. So sometimes I think

45:59

that maybe that is...

45:59

a mistake you know that if you're

46:02

telling a story and inhabiting characters remember

46:04

that if you are telling the story to a different

46:06

audience that doesn't know the characters you might lose something there

46:08

you know. Now that usually works in

46:11

one direction because we as

46:13

Maxwell said about the UK and Ireland that it's

46:16

like a valve that only goes one way we get all your TV

46:19

we get all your radio we get all your culture

46:21

essentially you are not familiar you

46:23

have to retrofit those characters

46:25

and guess whereas yes I know

46:28

what an East End accent

46:29

sounds like I know what a Bristol accent sounds like

46:32

I know what a Glaswegian

46:35

accent you know what I mean so sometimes

46:37

you lose a little bit going one direction over there

46:39

you see I suppose

46:40

and what do people get wrong telling

46:42

stories I think maybe they just a

46:45

story is great but it still needs jokes

46:48

it still needs the you know the great thing about

46:50

stories it's it is a

46:52

place for visual imagery and I never

46:54

realized I loved visual imagery as much as I

46:57

do until Eleanor Ternan said to me

46:59

she goes she's I described something and and

47:01

and

47:04

it gives me more pleasure nearly than anything else

47:07

and I have a favorite line in the current show and

47:09

Tim McGarry who you've interviewed on this show

47:11

yeah lovely who's a lovely man who presents our

47:13

show he came up to me afterwards and said my favorite line

47:15

in the whole show so you've seen an hour and 20 minutes at the

47:18

the SSE venue

47:20

and we both did the same favorite line

47:23

and it was

47:25

I don't know why he likes it as much

47:27

as I do but and it was just it was I'll

47:29

tell you what the line was the line it

47:31

was about I got a massage from a woman who had

47:34

the most muscular hands I've ever seen right

47:36

and she was like a seriously strong

47:38

strong woman and then

47:40

I just described her as she could play the piano through

47:42

the lid

47:43

and my

47:46

gar I love it and I don't know why I

47:48

love it and it's such a ridiculous thing to say about

47:50

one of your own jokes a quarter tool

47:53

but you you have favorite lines in your shows

47:55

of course but McGarry had the same favorite

47:57

line which I think is I think is

47:59

That's so lovely. What I love

48:02

about that line is she could have played the piano through the lid.

48:04

It sounds like it's 200 years old.

48:07

Yeah. I don't mean it sounds old.

48:09

I mean it sounds timeless. Yeah. It's like, oh

48:12

you know, it's almost like you

48:14

could see that crop up in some literature from

48:16

hundreds of years ago. Yeah, or Groucho Marx or

48:18

something. Yeah, exactly. I love having

48:20

Robbed it now. No, no worries. No,

48:23

but it's like the idea, like I love it. Like

48:25

it doesn't make sense, but it does make sense.

48:28

But it's like she would have needed to have

48:29

smashed the like she's fingers are so strong.

48:32

They'd have smashed the lid. And it's the it's

48:34

the kind of the tension between the

48:36

delicacy of playing a piano and having

48:39

to smash through a lid every single note.

48:41

It's beautiful. That's a lovely, that's a lovely piece

48:43

of writing. I think sometimes people just don't

48:46

use a story for all the things they can give you.

48:48

Like a story is a framework. So

48:51

you can have character, you can have, like you say,

48:53

you can have a silly poem, you can have sound

48:55

effects, you can have physicality.

48:58

Physicality, I think a lot of the time

49:00

is under raises. Dara O'Briane

49:03

is much more physical than you think people

49:05

that talk about Dara being a cerebral

49:07

comic and he really is. Watch

49:09

him next time he's on a stage. He acts

49:12

and mimes and embodies

49:15

things. Now he doesn't do accents. He never has done accents.

49:17

We used to joke about that. He

49:20

can't do them and anytime he tries, they're

49:22

awful. And so people

49:24

sometimes think, oh, he, you know, he's

49:26

a kind of straight line merchant, but he's

49:29

actually much more physical than you

49:31

would give him credit for. And that's

49:34

something that people don't necessarily use.

49:36

I always think you should use everything. Use

49:39

everything in the service of your audience, shall we say.

49:45

There is a thing that's happening with my comedy

49:47

practice at the moment where I have, let's

49:50

practice saying this out loud. I've kind of become

49:52

a bit obsessed about the climate crisis and

49:54

it's in my new show. And I'm wondering

49:57

whether it's something that I'm going

49:59

to be talking about. for the rest of my career

50:01

or for the next five years. I'm trying not to be prescriptive

50:04

about it but I sort of feel like I can't

50:06

be bothered telling jokes about anything else because

50:08

I'm really feeling very

50:10

focused

50:12

on this one particular topic. Because

50:15

of that I've started to feel

50:17

like just give me a different

50:19

perspective on something. I'm like what's the alternative

50:21

Stu and is it just I'm just aiming this at me. What's

50:23

the alternative? Do I just keep thinking

50:25

of a new thing?

50:27

Do I just write my next show about some

50:29

other stuff that's happened to me. Do you know what I

50:31

mean? It's given me this weird perspective

50:33

on like oh is that my

50:36

job now? How many more hours am I going to

50:38

write in my life and are they

50:40

going to if they're not going to be about the

50:42

climate crisis for example if they're not going to be about thing

50:44

we might say thing that I feel passionately

50:47

about whether that's you know whatever anyone's particular

50:49

drum is that they beat are they just

50:51

going to be the latest lot of stuff

50:54

that's happened in my life and what do I do another 10

50:56

of those or 20 of those and then die. Do

50:59

you know what I mean? I'm just

51:02

it's one of those kind of midlife kind of moments of

51:04

going what is yeah like what

51:06

am I saying what's the point of this is it a case to

51:08

try and turn this into some sort of functional question. I'm

51:11

wondering whether it's a case that you think

51:14

well next year on tour or next time I

51:16

go on tour the stuff has to be different

51:18

so that the people come back and so

51:21

that I'm amusing myself and

51:23

interested enough to talk about it because you can't flog

51:25

the same thing forever. Some

51:27

people let's not say flog some people fine

51:29

too and refine the same thing for a long

51:32

time that's fine. A bit of honing.

51:35

But

51:36

in terms of like

51:37

I don't know quite what the question is like in terms

51:40

of when does this end? When

51:42

does this end? It's like the question

51:44

when does this end? When does this

51:47

end? No like where does

51:49

it end for you? Where are you planning are you

51:51

sort of is there a part of you thinking well this is great

51:53

because when I'm 90 I can do my little old man jokes

51:55

if I want to. No you know what I mean like I can

51:58

yeah basically. When

52:00

does it end? It ends

52:02

when you get bored. It

52:04

ends when you start phoning it in. Audiences are unbelievably

52:07

intuitive and we should be extremely

52:09

grateful for anybody who will spend whatever

52:12

amount of money they will spend and

52:14

time in our company. When I started

52:16

out doing stand up I don't know about you but after

52:19

a couple of years sometimes you might be a

52:21

little bit self destructive even on stage.

52:24

You kind of get a little bit bored or you're

52:27

finding your way or whatever and sometimes you can take the audience

52:29

for granted. I don't think we should ever do that.

52:32

So

52:32

it's imperative that we don't get bored. Yeah

52:35

I know what you're asking because you're asking will I just

52:37

keep doing the same stuff over and over again until

52:39

this ends. Well it

52:41

depends. It depends on if you think every

52:43

show is going to be your best show.

52:46

If the next show is going to be your best show

52:49

that's a massive imperative. So

52:51

I don't know about you but do you look but I look back

52:53

at shows and I go that 10 minutes was

52:55

brilliant

52:56

of that 2004 show and that 10

52:59

minutes of the 2006 show was the

53:01

best stuff I've ever written. If I could just write a

53:03

full show that was consistent

53:05

with the 10 minutes of those ones. And

53:08

I think every single comic is like this. So

53:10

until you get to that where it

53:12

doesn't dip in quality from the

53:14

start to the end. Now I say dip in quality

53:17

only you know that. The

53:19

audience doesn't know that and the audience could maybe

53:21

take what you would consider a dip to

53:23

be respite from the barrage

53:26

of jokes that you've given them. But

53:28

I do think you should probably have another

53:31

thing going in the background. So for example

53:33

yes I'm going to write a show next year and it's going

53:36

to be hopefully similar to the shows I've written before.

53:38

That's what the audience wants. It's what I want to do. But

53:40

I also want to write another show that keeps

53:43

another part of my brain ticking away. I'd

53:46

like to write a show that's a heist show.

53:48

I love heist films. I love

53:51

heist films. I knew

53:53

you'd like heist films. I bet you like prison

53:55

break films as well.

53:59

something I need lots of things to happen yeah

54:02

I want to open a load of loops and then I want all

54:04

of those loops to be closed yes come on heists

54:07

and time travel this is this is

54:08

I said to my wife why do I like ice rooms

54:10

and she goes I think it's something about the planning you like and I was like

54:13

there's a lot of planning in a wedding I do

54:15

I've no interest in a wedding

54:17

film but just I want to

54:19

write a live show and I want to plot

54:22

a show in that plot

54:24

driven way that we talk about ice

54:27

ice films so

54:29

I think you need to continually

54:31

challenge yourself I mean you're like

54:33

in two or three years you might find something else that engages

54:35

with you in the same way that the climate

54:37

engages with you now you

54:40

know and Eleanor Tiernan we were talking

54:42

about something recently Eleanor Grey comedian said

54:44

to me that when she writes a joke she tries

54:46

to stay with the feeling

54:48

that the joke engenders in her or the feeling

54:51

that the topic engenders in her which

54:53

I thought was a very interesting way of doing it I never

54:55

considered it

54:56

that way

54:58

and if and if if climate change

55:00

is the thing that is creating these feelings

55:02

in you well then you know that

55:05

those feelings that

55:07

that's generating surely they'll lead to kind

55:10

of strong premises for jokes strong

55:12

feelings within jokes passion within jokes that

55:14

will transmit itself across on the show yes yes

55:17

I think so that's what I'm finding so far

55:19

let's talk about your podcast Neil

55:21

yeah why would you why would you tell me that yeah

55:24

it's called why would you tell me that so it's with the guy

55:26

called Dave Moore who presents a massive

55:28

radio show here and he basically

55:31

it saved our marriages

55:35

basically

55:41

he and I don't covers like normal human beings

55:43

he come up and go to me did

55:45

you know that the fastest man-made object that was

55:47

ever made was a cap

55:50

on

55:50

a on a mine shafted

55:53

Arizona something was blown up in a nuclear

55:56

explosion and I'll go tell me more

55:58

rather than take your medication

55:59

And it's the same. So basically,

56:02

we try and find the most interesting people we possibly

56:05

can in the second half of the show. And

56:07

then we talk about random trivia

56:09

in the first half related to that. So we

56:12

had a woman on who was a professor

56:14

of zoology and a professor of genetics.

56:16

And bats don't get old was

56:19

the premise. And she fully

56:21

is trying to map

56:22

the 1,400 genomes of all the

56:26

bats in the world. They don't get old. And they book

56:28

the trends of mammals generally.

56:30

So a rat is two. A

56:33

rabbit lives at three. Mice lives at two or three.

56:35

You know, the old, small. And usually,

56:37

the bigger the mammal, the older they live.

56:40

Whereas a bat can live

56:42

to 40 or 50 or 60. And

56:45

they don't get cancer.

56:46

And yet, they're repositories of diseases.

56:49

And if they can figure out how they replicate

56:53

their cells and how they age,

56:55

then basically, that's the secret

56:57

of

56:58

youth. It's the foundation of

57:00

youth for us as well. She firmly believes this. And

57:04

so we get people like that on in the second half. And

57:07

we kind of talk around us in

57:09

the first half. So it's a way to

57:11

indulge our geeky interests

57:14

in the world. And it could be anything. We

57:17

had Susie Dent talking about word order. And

57:19

she was amazing. Oh, is

57:21

that like you describe

57:24

it as a big, red, angry

57:26

dragon? No. And it has to be in that order. Oh, no.

57:28

So there's no order in English in that. There's

57:30

order, I think, in German in that, Dave was saying. No,

57:34

there's rules in English that we don't even know that

57:36

we use that we use. So you always say

57:38

zigzag, wishy, washy, dilly, dally.

57:40

You never say dally, dilly, zag, zig,

57:42

washy, wishy.

57:46

It's called abla, re-duplication. And

57:48

she explained the history of

57:50

certain words. And we had

57:53

a woman on who was an anthropologist for a group of

57:56

people in China called the Mosua, who live in a matrilineal

57:58

society. So.

57:59

You take your mother's surname. There's no

58:02

institutionalized marriage traditionally. It's called walking

58:04

marriages. And the power goes through the female

58:07

line. And the health outcomes are much better

58:09

for everybody involved. Surprise,

58:11

surprise in a collaborative

58:13

listening environment. So Scott,

58:15

why would you tell me that? And it's not topical, so people

58:18

can go back and listen to all the episodes. Yeah,

58:20

it's what I've listened to. I've listened to it. And what

58:22

I what I really like about it actually is like

58:24

you really lean into riffing on the stuff. Whenever

58:27

I'd be whenever I'd be kind of if

58:29

I were

58:29

to attempt to do that podcast, I'd just get

58:32

really absorbed in it and I forget to riff. Yeah.

58:34

I just feel like that's fascinating. You're like being on

58:36

a panel game and trying to win. Oh,

58:39

yeah, I've done that. I just be like, tell me this stuff.

58:41

Tell me I want to learn about it. And I'm at the

58:43

end, I go, oh, yeah, I'm supposed to do jokes about all

58:45

that. But you're very you know what I mean? You've got that kind

58:47

of that multi attack,

58:49

that machine gun quality. So really, really fun podcast.

58:51

I really enjoyed that. That's good, because I've certainly done what you

58:54

said there. Like, you know, you're like if

58:56

a quiz I did Mastermind and like I'm

58:58

not funny. I'm asked to make it all. I want to win

58:59

an estimate. Have

59:02

you ever missed a big break by a whisker?

59:06

No, I don't think so. I mean, how do you know? You're

59:08

not an actor. You know, but you know, no, no, no, no, no,

59:10

no. I once there was a

59:13

guy called Eugene O'Brien

59:15

wrote a very good drama about

59:17

my hometown. He's from my hometown. And

59:20

Innes was a character my age from

59:22

my hometown. And I went to play

59:24

that as an audition and I didn't

59:27

get the part as as essentially myself. So

59:29

I I don't think acting is

59:31

necessarily the place for me.

59:33

What's your favorite line

59:35

of another comics? What's your favorite?

59:37

What what what joke? Here's another way of asking what joke

59:40

of someone else's do you find yourself

59:42

thinking of every time you do a particular thing?

59:45

Oh, God.

59:48

Tommy Tierney used to have a line about this.

59:50

This is just the first I talked into my head about

59:53

perfect description. And he was talking about satin

59:55

knickers on his wife. And he said he

59:57

described him as looking like flat coke.

59:59

And I just thought that

1:00:02

was beautiful. Oh

1:00:05

my god. Yeah.

1:00:06

Oh my god. That's another, that's another

1:00:09

level. If you had, if you had one

1:00:11

quality which got you where you are today,

1:00:13

besides your ability to be funny,

1:00:15

what would it be? Um,

1:00:19

I was fairly disciplined at the start, I think. Yeah,

1:00:22

I was disciplined. It was, I got,

1:00:24

I got a shot, a pan of the shows and I wrote my whole

1:00:26

off. Yeah. I

1:00:28

wrote. For the benefit of the listener. That's

1:00:32

an Irish expression that magnol immediately

1:00:35

become clear. Yeah, you write to

1:00:37

such an extent that your aim is to detach from

1:00:39

your body and that demonstrates the commitment

1:00:41

to the craft. If your rectum is on the floor

1:00:43

and your fingertips are bleeding as you put the

1:00:46

quill back into the ink box, you have succeeded.

1:00:49

How do you cope with failure?

1:00:52

How do you cope with

1:00:53

bad gigs? Um. Pictures

1:00:56

that don't go anywhere. I do like the Milliken

1:00:58

rule. You know the Milliken rule? Oh yeah, yeah.

1:01:00

Yeah, well we've had that. That was episode seven. What's

1:01:03

the Delamere rule? The Delamere

1:01:05

rule is, um,

1:01:08

folk memory is

1:01:10

the Delamere rule. So

1:01:13

nobody remembers anything, Stuart.

1:01:15

Nobody remembers anything.

1:01:18

And what's,

1:01:20

if you die, God

1:01:22

forbid, if you die in a couple of years, people

1:01:24

only

1:01:25

can remember three things to put beside your name and

1:01:27

they'll go comedian, podcaster,

1:01:31

something else. You know, so

1:01:33

no matter,

1:01:34

like you, you die, you die

1:01:36

on television. Go and die

1:01:38

on television. No one will remember it in six months.

1:01:41

You know? And that's, um,

1:01:43

that's one of those things. Like I did that at Strictly

1:01:46

Come Dancing in Ireland.

1:01:47

And it was absolutely great crack, I have to say.

1:01:50

But before I did it, I said to my wife, do you think I

1:01:52

should do this? And she goes, I think you'll actually enjoy this.

1:01:54

I think it might be better at this than you think. And

1:01:57

even if it doesn't go well.

1:01:59

just be nice.

1:02:01

That's the only way you can lose on something

1:02:03

like this is if you

1:02:05

get annoyed or anything like that. And she says, well, I

1:02:07

don't get annoyed generally. She goes, exactly. So I

1:02:09

did it. And she goes

1:02:11

before I did it, she says to me, she goes, who

1:02:13

won last year?

1:02:14

I said, I don't know. She goes, can you name anybody in

1:02:16

it from two years ago? And I said, no,

1:02:19

that's the key. Nobody remembers

1:02:21

anything. Last question, Neil.

1:02:23

Are you happy?

1:02:24

Yes.

1:02:25

And it's because I love

1:02:27

stand up, but also because I have balance

1:02:30

and that's really important. And you have

1:02:32

to figure out what gives you the balance and

1:02:34

you you particularly if you're traveling

1:02:37

back and forth, say to the UK or or

1:02:39

or traveling up and down the length of Ireland

1:02:42

or the UK. Ask yourself,

1:02:44

is that gig worth

1:02:46

not going for run on the beach or playing with your dog?

1:02:48

And if it is, go for it. And if it's not, don't balance

1:02:51

is the key.

1:02:57

So that's Neil. He really sort

1:03:00

of understands it from the inside, doesn't he?

1:03:02

As well, he might after such a long and illustrious

1:03:04

career, but a real pleasure chatting to

1:03:06

Neil. One of those one of those episodes where

1:03:08

I just really get stuck into

1:03:11

you can hear how much I've enjoyed going. Oh,

1:03:13

look, content, tricks, explanations,

1:03:16

technique, all of that kind of stuff. So lots

1:03:18

of chunky stuff there. I hope you enjoyed that. Next

1:03:21

week, who have we got? I haven't made a decision

1:03:23

yet, but I've got four cracking episodes for

1:03:25

you in the can with Johnny Pelham, Lee, Kyle, Jeff,

1:03:27

Sean, Jan Marco, Sarese and

1:03:30

plenty more recordings happening as

1:03:32

we speak. So that's that. Now

1:03:34

I'm on holiday this week and I sort of thought about taking

1:03:36

a week off, but is that bad form

1:03:38

to clearly yawn whilst you're talking and sort of

1:03:41

talk on an Inwards Breath? You wouldn't catch, well,

1:03:43

you catch every podcast and do that, I suppose. I'm probably

1:03:46

late to the party on the Inward Breath yawning chat. I

1:03:48

was going to say I don't have time to do a post-amble,

1:03:51

but I'll do you a short one because

1:03:53

then I'm going to take the bootrops swimming.

1:03:56

Not that matters to you, but I thought I'd run

1:03:57

out of time and looking at it now I can I can crash.

1:03:59

in a shorty. So thank

1:04:02

you to everybody, thanks to Charlotte Wakely, thanks

1:04:04

to Susie Lewis, thank you to

1:04:06

producer Nathan, the music was by Rob Smoughton,

1:04:09

the title, if you remember. That's almost a com-com

1:04:11

quiz question. Get in touch at com-com-pod

1:04:13

on Twitter if you can remember who

1:04:16

came up with the title The Comedian's

1:04:18

Comedian, who told me in 2011-12 that

1:04:20

I should call

1:04:23

this show The Comedian's Comedian podcast.

1:04:26

Tell me via

1:04:27

at com-com-pod on Twitter and

1:04:30

you can have a pound next time we

1:04:32

see each other. If you're the first person,

1:04:34

that's absolutely crucial. The first person

1:04:37

to tell me on Twitter wins

1:04:39

a pound next time we see each other. Now

1:04:41

that is a cash prize, is that even legal?

1:04:44

I want to talk to ACAST. Right, oh and I

1:04:46

tell you what you should look out for as well, as I was I

1:04:48

guess did recently on Mike Fenton Stevens

1:04:51

podcast, time capsule. You

1:04:53

will know Mike Fenton Stevens if you have ever seen

1:04:55

anything on British TV, he's been in literally

1:04:57

everything for years and years and years and it was a joy

1:04:59

so I'll have him on com-com before too long as well.

1:05:02

I'm very excited about Edinburgh, I'll

1:05:05

be shouting out who I'm excited about in

1:05:07

due course but I'll post amble at you

1:05:09

on another matter in just a sec. Goodbye

1:05:11

for now.

1:05:20

So here's something that's

1:05:23

nothing, here's nothing worth

1:05:25

talking about. What did I say? I said I

1:05:28

was listening

1:05:28

back to the the Leicester preview

1:05:30

of the award-winning show

1:05:32

and what

1:05:35

did I say? I

1:05:37

said something, I was getting there,

1:05:39

I needed, I was quite pleased with this as a little

1:05:41

piece of silly improv. I invoked

1:05:44

the fact that I'd forgotten what I was talking about and

1:05:46

rather than just wing it and flash past it

1:05:48

I was having so much fun and I trusted the audience

1:05:50

so much that I would

1:05:52

just stand there for five seconds in silence and

1:05:54

try and remember what the next thing was I was going to say

1:05:57

and then someone muttered something to their friend and I said...

1:05:59

snapped at them something along the lines of

1:06:02

don't talk amongst yourselves. And then

1:06:05

something rather lovely tumbled out, I said, it's

1:06:07

your own time I'm wasting. And I was quite

1:06:09

proud of that. I'm going to back myself and say that is a nicely,

1:06:13

it's tonally very goldsmith, I think. And

1:06:15

I came up with that

1:06:17

on the spur of the moment. The point of this is not

1:06:19

simply for me to crow about a thing I

1:06:21

said once. God, my wife has to put up with half of that.

1:06:23

You did you say a funny thing? Yeah, tell me

1:06:25

all about it. Well done you. Yes, you're

1:06:27

funny. Absolutely awful, porn.

1:06:31

But poor woman

1:06:33

kind of takes away her agency, doesn't she? What I

1:06:35

mean is, thank you wonderful wife

1:06:38

for continuing to put up with me, even

1:06:40

though we now know a lot of it is

1:06:42

a condition.

1:06:44

Come on, come on, stick to it.

1:06:46

I was saying that because

1:06:48

it is your time I'm wasting now. And the time

1:06:51

that I worked, oh my God, that was like a three minute

1:06:54

tangent to point out that I once

1:06:56

described what I'm doing now in wasting your

1:06:58

time. In a funny way at the spur of the moment.

1:07:01

You're all my wife now.

1:07:04

Here's what I wanted to talk about. Do you? I

1:07:07

mean, with that build up, could be literally anything,

1:07:09

but it's just this. I want to

1:07:11

do,

1:07:11

me and my wife want to make certain small

1:07:14

improvements to our house. Things like painting

1:07:16

a wall. And I've had to, God, every

1:07:18

time one of these things happens,

1:07:20

we've got a tall radiator. God, it's great, it's the

1:07:22

best thing in the room. It's a tall radiator. It's just

1:07:25

so classy. But it's only got

1:07:27

a 15 mil gap behind it. This

1:07:29

will become less specific in a minute. And

1:07:31

so you can't, it's too small for a mini roller.

1:07:34

And you can get a long-necked paintbrush

1:07:37

for, is it called cutting in? Which

1:07:39

may be me behind a radiator. But

1:07:41

it's like little bits, little detail stuff. My

1:07:44

point is not, hey, how should I do this DIY

1:07:46

job? My point is, it's cost

1:07:49

me 40 minutes of thinking time now at

1:07:51

2.30pm on a Wednesday. Because I

1:07:54

can't let it lie. I can't, what's the

1:07:56

best way of doing this? I should take the radiator

1:07:58

off its hinges. Let's Google that.

1:07:59

I definitely shouldn't, having done a small amount of Googling

1:08:02

and the rules are no electrics or plumbing. Um,

1:08:04

I, what about, oh you can tip it forwards, then

1:08:07

I'll Google you can tip a radiator forwards, then I'll

1:08:09

Google can you do that with a long one, but hang on, what's

1:08:11

a long one called? Oh, it's called a vertical one. Can

1:08:13

you tip a vertical? I mean, when chat

1:08:15

GPT comes to save us, hopefully this is the sort

1:08:17

of thing you'd put into chat GPT and it

1:08:20

would look at it and it would say ring jack the plumber. I

1:08:22

rang jack the plumber and it's 80 quid to take

1:08:24

the radiator off its hinges while

1:08:26

I paint it and then while I paint the wall and then come

1:08:29

back again and put it back on,

1:08:31

which is fair. I mean, that's two call outs, isn't

1:08:33

it? It's only going to take him two minutes

1:08:34

and it's definitely relying on the expertise

1:08:37

of a professional rather than getting involved with

1:08:39

water or electricity, which you must never do.

1:08:42

If I remember, I will post on the

1:08:44

comcom Instagram, on my Instagram, it's Stuart

1:08:46

Goss with Comedy, I will post the incredible

1:08:49

picture of the phenomenally near

1:08:51

miss I had when drilling through the external wall

1:08:53

of my house to plug in some sort of outdoor

1:08:56

festoon. Permanently, I

1:08:58

drilled through having measured it several times,

1:09:00

tested it, pasted it back and forward. I

1:09:02

drilled through and the bit of the drill came to a stop

1:09:05

probably four mil from the end of the main

1:09:07

water pipe. I can't believe I did

1:09:09

that. So the rule is no electricity,

1:09:12

no water. And more importantly,

1:09:14

the wider point that

1:09:17

I'm trying to extract from this guff is

1:09:19

that

1:09:22

if you even consider, this is just

1:09:24

ADHD, hell, isn't it? Well, not

1:09:26

hell, purgatory. It's heaven. I've

1:09:28

quite enjoyed myself. But my point is that

1:09:32

even if,

1:09:33

like just the thought of, oh,

1:09:35

I've noticed

1:09:36

that later on I'd like to do some

1:09:39

of the painting and how will I resolve the

1:09:41

radiator thing, just let me down a 40 minute

1:09:44

rabbit hole, none of which need it done. But

1:09:46

then there is this, it did need

1:09:48

done at some point, so maybe it was all right in

1:09:50

the end.

1:09:52

Oh God, this is a new low, isn't it? Oh,

1:09:56

the depressing thing is I've been

1:09:58

listening to the Alan Partridge.

1:09:59

Oast House podcast, supposed podcast.

1:10:02

Series 2 is delicious,

1:10:05

it's so good. I'm on the episode where

1:10:07

he goes pot-holing and him and his new best mate are

1:10:09

talking about their bucket lists. God

1:10:12

only crashed a car, it was so funny. But

1:10:15

that sheds all of this.

1:10:18

Post-amble wiffle in a horrible

1:10:20

light. A truly horrible

1:10:23

light.