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  • because welcome to unfiltered.

  • It's a pleasure.

  • Thank you very much.

  • Very nice to Thio be here with you.

  • We've met before, but have you interviewed me?

  • But I have never interviewed you before.

  • Way had a lunch and quite strange circumstances Accompanied by the legend That is Curtis Tiger.

  • Yeah, oddly on Nick Revel, Revel the brilliant comedian Way we got on quite well.

  • I hope I feel we did good because you were writing this when we met you.

  • And you were quite you probably don't remember, but you were quite immersed.

  • I think it's almost as if you were poking your head outside the sort of porthole of a submarine for the first time in a while.

  • And it was clear that you were you'd come up with.

  • The idea of doing the memoir is innate Izzet.

  • Remind me.

  • Why that I suppose just cause I thought probably people won't be very interested in, you know what?

  • The details of my birth.

  • And so I thought, Well, this way it'll give me a chance and 80 cents.

  • So So, uh, and it's and it's not strictly chronological that there is a kind of loose chronology to it.

  • But, um, you know, B is for boldness.

  • Jeers for gay.

  • I just thought I just thought, Oh, this allows me to sort of get to the point this way, you know, Onda.

  • Also, to avoid the slight grandiosity of writing an autobiography at such a young age, you can you can kind of pretend it isn't.

  • It's funny.

  • I don't think of myself as young anymore.

  • Well, it's weird, actually.

  • I think a lot of comedians, right?

  • Their autobiographies in their thirties now on Dhe I think I've just about had enough to fill up a book.

  • There's a lot of stuff that could have filled up a second book that I decided not to write.

  • Why?

  • Because I think you can't.

  • You can't write everything.

  • You've got to keep some stuff for yourself.

  • And also the truth is, I, as I found out in releasing this book, is that anything you write is under scrutiny on dhe.

  • Um, there's something that you can't really talk about because they affect other people.

  • Maybe so, you know, I write that my parents got divorced, but I don't write the strict details.

  • You know what is their business?

  • Yeah, it's not mine.

  • It's part of my life, but it's it's, you know that.

  • You know, my family aren't really in the business you comfortable talking about, Did you?

  • Did you find writing about yourself fun?

  • Well, it was weird because obviously, it forced me to think about the aspects of my life in maybe things I hadn't thought about for a while, so I found it in some ways quite hard, actually.

  • Actually, you know what I think?

  • I think what is quite hard to talk about is your career.

  • Because you no one can.

  • You can write about your life on Dhe.

  • You know, things have happened to events that happened to you with a sense of ownership.

  • But once you start talking about your career, you are You know, your words do impact on other people that you worked with who are still out there working on dhe.

  • So you know you're not selling it.

  • You realize that you're saying there's no juicy stories about people that have collaborated with him.

  • There's not a lot of personal stuff which neither of which are true.

  • Yeah, but I think I think I think there is.

  • All right, this is so This is what's happened, right?

  • So So I'll give you a given example.

  • So Ah, you're damned if you do.

  • And you're damned if you do it right.

  • So if you write a book about yourself, So for instance, I just spent a year on Doctor who?

  • Andi had a great experience and I got along with everyone on dhe.

  • It was just It was supposed to be one episode, and it ended up being many, many, many more than that whole series on because the character was so so Yeah, What yet people seem Thio, You know, the character.

  • The character grew and developed thanks to the writing and on there was a good chemistry on screen with the other with the other actors.

  • And so yeah, and so I was there, Right on Dhe.

  • There are people in the show that over here, they call runners in America.

  • They be called PS on DDE.

  • Ah, Lauren on dhe Rian and Chris on their job is to just often too, just to knock on my trailer door and say, Can I get you anything?

  • And I would say, Oh, can I have 11 peanuts in a bottle of dental please.

  • Can I have one of those lawnmowers?

  • You can see it so I'd say something silly and they would laugh, right?

  • Andi that would that would be that.

  • And then very occasionally they'd say, Can I get you something?

  • And I say, Yes.

  • Can I have a kind of coke or a glass of water?

  • You know, I was relatively, I think you would serve is relatively low maintenance on dhe.

  • But the Daily Mail in there in there, in the review of the book, wrote a thing about how I'm kind of hated by the crew because I send them off to get.

  • I think it's funny to send them off to get thes pointless things, which just for my own amusement and that I'm so that they kind of hate me.

  • And I thought, Well, no and clearly joking.

  • And I've told the story.

  • No, no, no, The road.

  • I'm joking.

  • I'm still friends with all those people.

  • Some message each other like I still like.

  • No, there was no this was done for.

  • We were just mucking about like it was theirs clearly, and it's on, and it's very clear in the book that I was just like just being silly, you know, on Dhe.

  • But they wrote a story about how you know how, how I was hated on the set and things like that.

  • So I think I think anything you write will be willfully misinterpreted when you write books.

  • So you have to just be really, really aware.

  • For instance, there is not a bad word about David Williams in this book.

  • There's not a bad word about David Williams.

  • I have no reason to say about word about him, but they still ran a story saying The Battle of Little Britain, and they wrote, I made it.

  • I think I make a joke in the book about, um, I make some kind of joke about how he's now sold so many Children's books that I'm talking about flying in the book about that he can have his own private jet with a river, a pink private jet with a river to swim up and down it.

  • It's like it's clearly a gag.

  • But again, the Daily Mail wrote something like, Oh, hey, seething with jealousies fueled jealousy is like, No, I'm happy for my friend like stunned the world.

  • And they wrote a thing about, Ah, you know, because they've got no be on like supposedly I was, you know, snubbed orbiter, whatever.

  • And it's like, Well, no, I know I publicly congratulated him when it was when the news came out.

  • I congratulate him again publicly when when he received it, I also wrote him privately because, of course, and that, you know, we had a cordial in to change.

  • So, like on DSO.

  • And so it's a strange thing.

  • So even when you write something positive, you know, you know you're in control of the book, but you're not really in control of of reaction, and you just have to accept that on.

  • But it does.

  • I do think I do think in some ways there would be things you could talk about, that you just basically, you have to not talk about them, not because they're not true.

  • But I think some people shoot your way, live in the clique page, and so context is not really It's not really like sure given often, you know, because actually, even if you have warm feelings for someone, they'll write that you don't, you know, and it's and it's strange and I was sad for David when that story came out, because I thought he's getting an OBE today and that's his day.

  • And yet they've tried to make a story about something else, and I just thought and he must, you know, just like Well, that's kind of a message.

  • No.

  • Well, I said I wrote in to say congratulations, but I mean that no casinos he's been doing is still a shadow.

  • Potentially will not massively, no, no, a massive shadow.

  • But it's just an example off the fact that when you write a book, you have to be a wet like, for instance, I do Q and A's to promote the book.

  • And I'm just very, very aware that there are journalists in the audience of the Q and A's, so any joke you make will be pounced on.

  • So these days being a comedian, you are like a politician.

  • You have to watch absolutely everything you say.

  • Even this conversation may be reported with me as it has me kind of winding.

  • Well, I'm not really winding.

  • I'm just kind of contextualizing the experience of writing the book.

  • The reality is the book is actually very candid But it is easier to write about your life in your career, I found, which I always thought would be the other way around because, um, if I was to say, I thought this show I did wasn't as good as that show I did or something.

  • It would be reported as Mitt by slamming something on.

  • Because because such hyperbole exists, you know, in the way things reported even in the broadsheets, it just makes you have to be.

  • It brings about a kind of blandness on dhe.

  • But the book itself, the book itself, I think, is very candid and very revealing.

  • Um, and, uh, what it is, and I feel it is, you know, I was gonna ask you.

  • You were describing that and?

  • Well, come on.

  • That's far from the worst treatment you've received from the Daily Mail over the years.

  • I was gonna ask you why you let it get to you.

  • But of course, that presumes that there's a choice involved.

  • What you talking about?

  • Specifically?

  • Just just My dad was a newspaper journalist.

  • I was a newspaper journalist in the old phrase about it being tomorrow's fish and chip paper.

  • It's a cliche because it has a certain resonance, and I don't think that's true anymore.

  • I think things, I think, no, I don't think because because of online there's something.

  • But if you know the truth and the people about whom you're talking know the truth and the embellishment of the exaggeration is only really being done by the journalists.

  • It's not a criticism.

  • It's a question.

  • But you could be a bit more relaxed about it.

  • Depends.

  • I think there was.

  • There was a situation recently where there's a line in my book where I explain why I am not going to go into detail about my relationship with my late partner.

  • And I explained, You know, if you read the book, you understand, why do you talk?

  • I do talk about bereavement in the book, but I don't talk about a great deal about him about our relationship, because I feel that there's a new immorality in using his suffering, too, to sell in my book.

  • I just think it's I'm not comfortable with it and I've never done it.

  • I'd never have done that.

  • I went to an awards ceremony to pick up an award.

  • The attitude awards on Dhe.

  • I said a few words from the stage just to thank them for the award.

  • Made a couple of gags on Dhe.

  • The metro newspaper took some lines.

  • They reported it as mats.

  • Award receives award tinged with sadness because, um ah, because his late partner wasn't life and what they did was they took Cem.

  • They took some lines from the book and said, You know, I'm made out Like I'd said those words about Kevin at the ceremony.

  • Andi, which the ceremony was nothing to do with with any of that.

  • There was nothing to do with the book.

  • There was nothing to do with anything.

  • I was just receiving a comedian.

  • What on Dhe.

  • And I was offended by that because it looked like I was using a moment on the red carpet to talk about my late partner to try and gain sympathy.

  • Andi kind of endorsement from the public to say feel sorry for me.

  • Andi, you know, appreciate my journey that I've come through this and now I'm receiving award and it's not but just didn't happen.

  • None of that actually happened.

  • I would not stand on a red carpet and say, Oh, Yeah, I wish she was here because I don't I've never given.

  • I don't give interviews about him a tool.

  • So I was I was I was upset by that because I think it looked like I was using his suffering to kind of seem more appealing and more deserving of success.

  • And I haven't done that in the book.

  • Doesn't do that either, because the book of knowledge is that we had a relationship and it talks about bereavement because it's something I live with.

  • And it's something peep on many, many, many, many people live with on dhe work through in their lives.

  • And I thought it would not be honest to not talk about that because it's been a big, you know, a big, big part of my life for the past few years.

  • But I would not be so cheap and so crass as to give an interview where I talk about it on.

  • That offended me on his behalf because the impression given was that you had, with the false impression that the false impression there's a line in the book where I explain why I won't talk about him, and they took that line and put it as if I'd given it is an interview and I hadn't.

  • Andi went uncorrected because remains uncorrected.

  • Traces off with lawyers halfway around the world before the truth is going.

  • Yeah, I realize.

  • I realize in the grand scheme of things, most people would read it, not even notice it.

  • But it's you let me use you gonna run a phrase by which just popped into my head while you were talking.

  • You sound you speak like a man who who worries that you lose custody of your own character when the newspapers get hold of Well, that what you've just popped right now listening to you, you're almost describing.

  • I am May I may, I think, deeply, more deeply than perhaps people appreciate for someone who's achieved fame by being silly.

  • You're very deep thinker, and you think deeply about about yourself and your relationship with people in with the world, and then these lazy journeys of which I used to be one.

  • I have to be honest.

  • I was a tabloid journalist who forgot that famous people were human beings and molded quotes toe just get a bigger impact.

  • The story I wouldn't have done this stuff that you've just described it.

  • Everyone has certain standards, but you then have a portrayal in public that you don't recognize as being youand.

  • Actually, although you're worried about sounding as if you're winding, that's that's that's an incredibly bad thing to happen to.

  • So, yeah, the thing I'll say is that there's a difference, right?

  • So the story I'm describing in the daily mail, where they where they said that they deliberately misunderstand something to make me look like a bit of a bus?

  • Yeah, I didn't really care about that because I knew the trick.

  • So that did not haunt.

  • May did not keep me up at night.

  • I was just like, Well, yeah, on Dhe.

  • Anyone who reads the book would know that was just joking.

  • And even some people who read the article would Probably most people are gonna say, I'm sure he didn't send someone out for 11 Smarties, indubitably exactly like it's clearly what on Kevin's leg, I think I think that is it.

  • It's completely different things, and that's completely different, Understand?

  • It's I think it is a line that you know shouldn't as it is if you're every decent human you wouldn't cross that line with somebody you'd respect.

  • Unless you have forgotten that the people that you are humans and that that's something common to modern fame, isn't it is that it doesn't ubiquity to it.

  • Especially when when little Britain was in its heyday, you would have had one of the most recognizable faces in the country and then brings with it a sense of ownership These people think they own you.

  • And the tabloids are sort of feeding that in some ways, they dio, you know, And I respect that.

  • Which is why you know why I'm not gonna see over somebody saying that.

  • I do know.

  • I mean, do you feel about you like you have to choose your battles, you know, on dhe.

  • But I just think there are certain lines you don't cross on dhe.

  • Um, you know, it's Ah, it's, um but it's it is.

  • Part of the job is what happens, you know?

  • Are there any bits about being famous that you currently enjoy?

  • Yeah, I'm sure I do.

  • I go with you anyway.

  • Yes.

  • What is within?

  • So I live.

  • I live most of the year in in California, where some people, sort of.

  • No, I am.

  • You're like, Oh, yeah, that bridesmaid's dude or something like that on because I was in that film for a few minutes and some people know because of Doctor who has.

  • It has a kind of audience, and actually little Britain was quite big there.

  • But it's a different.

  • It's a different type of fame.

  • It's like, Oh, that's going on I'm really the most famous person in the room because even if you go to a diner, there's a chance a big star will be in the corner just because it's where lots of people live.

  • Hey, we're in film and TV on music so much prefer that to London.

  • Well, the reality of my life is that I go about pretty much just living a quiet.

  • It's odd because you go well.

  • I moved to L.

  • A.

  • For normality, which is something that most people would say.

  • Well, that's no, but actually, I live a relatively hermetic existence on my right, and I have two dogs on dhe choices.

  • It's recent.

  • It was it was after after, um, you know, I had that bereavement.

  • I just I just I knew that I needed Thio have something else in my life.

  • So?

  • So something new and something different.

  • Eso it just It made sense to me to go somewhere warm and somewhere private and peaceful, and it works really well for me, it's just my It's just what you know, I pulled back on DDE.

  • That is, You know, some people, some people like to be out every night and those things, and I'm I'm happy not being, but when I'm in London, you know, cause I still I'm still a British citizen on when I'm here.

  • Then I'm a much more sociable being on dhe, my friend, a lot.

  • You know, all my old friends are here, and my family are here.

  • I tend to do a lot of filming here often right there and film here.

  • So for May.

  • But the combination of the two is what works for May.

  • I would I couldn't just beat live in the middle of nowhere all the time, but I But I wouldn't want to just be in London all the time.

  • You get lonely.

  • I'm very lucky.

  • I have the best friends.

  • I have lovely friends.

  • I've known for years close friends that I was at school with that.

  • I was at college with my family live nearby.

  • So No, no, no, no, not really.

  • No, Leo.

  • Right now, I've got two kids and a wife.

  • Exactly.

  • Got too much to dream of the solitary nous that you enjoy.

  • A long haul.

  • Flights have a bit of a rest, right?

  • When I get you know, I don't really get lonely because I've got I've got five or six really great friends in L.

  • A.

  • So most of our British friends that I've known some, you know my friend Reese recently.

  • See, I've known Reece for 25 years, but he moved out to the U.

  • S.

  • A few years after me.

  • So it's like we have a history, but no.

  • So both over there.

  • And I've got other friends like that.

  • You know, there's another guy to two people who both work in the industry that I was at school with.

  • You both live out there that I see on a burner.

  • Yeah.

  • Talked about fame, right?

  • I did the in the early days of your career.

  • I was surprised by how you know what I like this word.

  • But it was a relatively effortless rise.

  • Bob Mortimer seeing you arranging for other people to see you and then shooting stars that what I couldn't pick up is whether or not you ever wanted to be famous or as opposed to just wanting to make a living, doing, having discovered how much you enjoyed making people laugh there, two quite different things.

  • And yet in your line of work, you can't really achieve one without having to be the other.

  • Not so much in front of the camera.

  • Now, um, I think it's just it's been different a different parts of my life.

  • So when I was talking about in the book when I was six, my hair fell out.

  • And so I got a lot of attention for that kid in the town with no hair and other kids would always pointed out, you know, and because kids say what they're thinking, don't they just say it?

  • They just go.

  • You've got no hair or they laugh at you or they patronizing you, are they?

  • You know, it was very objectified as a child and so on.

  • So I really Cray.

  • I accepted that I had attention, but I really wanted it to be for something other than just how I looked.

  • I thought, Well, this is even a young age, I thought, What's that?

  • This is just weird.

  • This is stupid.

  • Like what?

  • Just like that I had that couldn't be my character.

  • That doesn't make sense.

  • Didn't make sense to me.

  • So that kind of drove me on to sort of utilize this attention on dhe.

  • Make something more positive from it.

  • So I think if you'd asked me when I was 12 13 14 I'd say, Yeah, I want to be famous.

  • But after that I think, you know, I think it was I want to be creative, Andi, I want the validation on the validation in your mind comes through fame, you know?

  • But oddly enough, I was doing the comedy circuit from the age of 18 and I was pretty sure it was brutal.

  • Yeah, but I mean, I chose to do it, and it was brutal, but I mean, it was highs and lows.

  • It was the lowest lows in the big, wide open spots.

  • Did open space turn up literally unknown.

  • Unheralded.

  • Yeah, and try out material on a room you knew nothing about.

  • That's right, Andi Also, I did a strange, very strange act because I Well, I wasn't I didn't feel confident just being me, because there's a kind of honesty to being a stand up.

  • You know, it was the idea of you to stand there with a cigarette in one hand and a pint in the other and wearing a T shirt.

  • And you talk about yourself about your relationships, about your political views.

  • You you know, the idea was it was kind of unfiltered, inauthentic on dhe I just 18.

  • I wasn't out yet.

  • To my friends and family, and I you know, I was just full of angst.

  • I was a teenager on dhe.

  • Makes it an even older thing to do.

  • Yeah, so So, yeah.

  • So what I did was I played this character called Sir Bernard Chumley.

  • Who is this old actor on Dhe?

  • Because I've done a lot of Youth theatre as a kid.

  • I've been in the West End, play at the age of 14 done national youth music, the international youth, it all these kind of voluntary things that you audition for a za kid, and so I kind of knew that those kind of fruity older types that used to kind of hang around young actors like me and so on.

  • So I just felt comfortable in that skin on Dhe.

  • I don't know that I was particularly funny, but I was different.

  • Yes, on DDE that seemed to be enough to kind of propel May.

  • But the interesting thing was that by the age of 21 I did.

  • I was doing shooting starts, you know, with the kebab on then and then.

  • Although that was obviously a bit of a life changing for May, it did kill my stand up because audiences would see me and expect to see me dressed as a baby and doing a George Doors routine, which I didn't really have, you know, because George W.

  • With a tiny little vignette for people not familiar with shooting stars, there was not a 45 minute act.

  • No, it wasn't a character is more like a persona.

  • It was excellent.

  • I just dressed like this, and I just say anything on the stand up act was a little bit Maur textured Andi as it would because you're you're onstage for half an hour or whatever.

  • 20 minutes and So, uh, so, Actually, what happened was then even even venues with Bill Moyers, George Doors Or could use that China sell tickets recognizable.

  • Exactly.

  • And so And then I'd walk on this, this other character and people would be yelling What?

  • The scores, George Doors.

  • While I was doing this other thing and I didn't really know what to do with it.

  • Yeah, yeah, and I just It just became a harder thing to do.

  • And I I didn't really have a George Doors act that I felt I could do on or particularly want to outside of that show.

  • Like I love doing it in the show.

  • How did that happen?

  • How did you go?

  • Most of the questions I ask you today are answered in the book, but we're here to do We're here to do t walk.

  • The tightrope between the two shot that's on the page isn't just tell us how you moved from What did Bob Mortimer see that brought George doors to life when you were essentially portraying a sort of fest bian roue from from the pages of Central Casting?

  • Well, he'd have to ask him.

  • He told me at the time that I was the angriest man he'd ever seen.

  • You know what?

  • You don't know how people e.

  • Yeah.

  • I was angry.

  • I was angry.

  • I was when I was 18.

  • 18 year olds are angry.

  • All of them.

  • Well, I was on Donna.

  • Hi.

  • Yeah, well, uh, no, I was angry because I I don't know.

  • I felt like, you know, like I had life hadn't given me a fair crack of the whip Me.

  • Now I fell Only lost my hair when I was six and my parents are divorced and my dad had been in prison, and I just I saw it like, what's you know, what's this?

  • You ever I was overweight and pale.

  • You wouldn't notice.

  • Trust, actually.

  • Yeah.

  • Looks like it may on dhe.

  • Uh, they were also very hard by a trip that your schoolmates took that you were supposed to go on just around that age.

  • Yeah, I was I was I was unceremoniously kind of told.

  • Well, we were gonna go away with you, but we're not.

  • Now that's really shitty.

  • Yeah, but as a write in the book, that actually what happened?

  • Waas.

  • You know, I don't say in the book.

  • I don't say that.

  • I was lovely know in the book.

  • I mean, I may well have deserved that.

  • I don't know.

  • I think I think I think I probably didn't actually, and thinking about it.

  • But But what actually happened was not going on this inter railing trip and, uh, meant that I went to the National Youth Theatre on Met David Williams when I was 16.

  • So so, you know, thanks to them, really, it's the way I could look at it.

  • But there was There was a lot to be angry about.

  • Two years later, when you were gonna go to university.

  • What was the plan?

  • Drama school.

  • I was going T o.

  • Yeah.

  • I was going to you to university and then took a year out to do stand up comedy on.

  • By the time I went to university, I'd already you know, Bob Mortimer spotted me after five weeks.

  • I was 18 and said, I want to, you know, help you get work.

  • I wantto do something.

  • What did you think?

  • Did you trust it?

  • Yes, there is a trustworthy, is it?

  • It's a remarkable There was nothing any other than he just like what I did, but it was incredibly magic.

  • One glances, and it was a magic one moment he was incredibly supportive on aside from the he just happened to be a gig that I was out.

  • I've been going for five weeks and he was in the audience on Guy was the biggest become Bob, that fan on the planet and my heart was beating, you know, knowing he was there on DDE.

  • You know, uh, Andi, he was incredibly, took me under his wing basically and was really supportive and introduced me to powerful people on.

  • I still had to go on stage and make people laugh, you know, when it came to it and in some ways expectations would've been higher on me.

  • But the confidence it gave me, you know, it's a validation.

  • The validation was insane.

  • I mean, it's like being, you know, saying the book, it's like being, you know, being the biggest Paul McCartney and John Lennon found and becoming their Ringo quite literally.

  • But it was a fairy tale.

  • It was an absolute fairy tale, but I was living this double life because I was also working in a shop for Chelsea football club and you can see I am an arsenal.

  • But there's some of the funniest bits in it.

  • Sort of smuggled Arsenal fan into the and it was a family connection that you in there.

  • Well, I was, So I kind of grew up very pretty.

  • Observant Jewish on Dhe.

  • I was a youth leader at the synagogue, one of the ones, you know, But my drink is there called on, would help run the youth clubs.

  • And I wasn't the youth leader when I would I would help out.

  • It's a kind of voluntary thing to do on DDE, one of the couple of the kids that their mom and dad said, I put an advert in the synagogue magazine m ET uh, saying I would like to baby sit just to earn some money.

  • You know what I was doing?

  • My levels on dhe, um, on DK Live.

  • Pohlad, who's owned the franchise for the Chelsea shop.

  • I would baby sit his kids, and then he was telling me that you had this this taken over the franchise for the jealousy shop, and I was looking.

  • I said to my mom, I'd like to do stand up comedy in my year off.

  • I'd like to do that.

  • My mom said, Well, that's fine, But you're still gonna have to bring some money into the house because, you know, my mom had, like, two, sometimes three jobs.

  • So s.

  • So I said to Clyde Fuller, would you hire me at your for your shop?

  • And he said, You're a little bit young And I said, Well, you trust me with your kids, trust me in your shop.

  • And he went actually, yeah, that's a good point.

  • And so I was assistant manager off the club shop at Chelsea Football Club, but I was a huge Arsenal fan.

  • Andi Yeah, would wear my Arsenal top underneath and on and on.

  • Then I would do my stand up comedy in the evenings.

  • And so I was very tired, was working long hours in the shop and then traveling all over.

  • I don't drive.

  • I'll be getting buses here.

  • Trains.

  • They're getting lifts here and on doing stand ups.

  • It was a bit of a double life because I do this fantastic gig, you know, and everyone will be cheering.

  • And then the next morning I'd be, you know, kind of loading these kits or I do a terrible gig.

  • And the next morning I'd still be loading the kits, you know, on Dhe.

  • So So, yeah, it was a strange, strange existence.

  • But then, by the time I got to university, my head had already been turned.

  • And Avalon, you were a big, huge comedy management company, still are.

  • And they looked after new member deals, and they looked after Frank Skinner on dhe, Harry Hill on Glee and Herring and Jenny Eclair and big, big comedians.

  • They were talking to me about possibly managing May, which I didn't do in the end.

  • But I did gigs that they promoted on Dhe Victor year and David's agent I CM, which was a pure state friend.

  • David over after youth to you.

  • Yeah.

  • Yeah.

  • So we'd stayed friends and yeah, because we've met.

  • And yet we just stayed in touch.

  • We were friends, and that's out.

  • Our relationship was built on friendship, you know?

  • So so s so Then I had to, you know, Addison Cresswell tried to sign me up again, Managed, you know, Jack Dee and were later Michael McIntyre and Lee Evans.

  • And, you know, he showed an interest and it was a little bit of, you know, that going on, people knew I wasa Onda.

  • Lot of it was down to Bob.

  • Mortimer is incredible support, you know, He just believed in me.

  • Even when I didn't believe in myself and even when sometimes gigs would go down the pan, he'd say, Well, you know, sometimes me and Vic, you know No one laughs.

  • We went to Canada.

  • They did the just for laughs.

  • They sung Lucky carpet, which was one of their songs.

  • They said they died.

  • A death they said, doesn't matter.

  • You know, we do what we do, and I remember Bob saying It's better to be, you know, one person's favorite comedian than 100 people's third or fourth favorite, he said.

  • If you're somebody's favorite comedian, then you've made it, you know, on Dhe just gave me some quotes from my poster.

  • You know, things like that and it was just gave me a kind of a little bit of free song, a little bit of authority, and the other person who really was really kind to me again when I'd only only been going about a year or less, was Harry Hill I was on the bill with him, once or twice, and then he said, You know, are you playing all these other clubs?

  • And I said, Why?

  • It's hard to get him to return my call or, you know, they're very bigger clubs and I can play.

  • And he said, Well, I'm gonna give you, you know, eight phone numbers here and you call them and you tell them that I gave you the number and I recommend you.

  • And so again, you know, there was a really there was It was it was it was, you know, there was a lot of kindness as well.

  • I mean, talent notwithstanding, a bit of luck as well.

  • Absolutely.

  • I mean, I would say to anybody if anybody says, you know what you need to make it.

  • I so well, if I can, you know, some people would say I've made other people would say I wouldn't haven't.

  • But if I've made it on some level, I would say you need talent.

  • You need to work really, really, really hard.

  • And yours, Any luck And those are the three things and two of those three might be enough, you know?

  • Yes, talent hard work and luck quitting.

  • Yeah, well, whatever.

  • But like the other night, I was on a plane and I'm writing something new the moment developing a new TV show.

  • Andi, thank you.

  • And, you know, I looked around and it was flying through the night and every single person was asleep, and I wrote the entire journey.

  • And sometimes it's It's, um it's about your staying in and writing.

  • Like when I was writing that book, I was also doing Doctor, who I wrote on Christmas Day.

  • I wrote books in there.

  • It's not like it's fine, you know, I got the best job in the world.

  • So this is this is not me complaining, but I'm saying you have to put the hours and you have to put the hours in.

  • Even when you're a big deal, you have to put the hours in, and actually, that's something as much as anybody.

  • I learned that from David.

  • He's just he's more so than you.

  • I mean, at the time, the remember in early interviews, the the impression given was that he had cracked the whip a bit with you when you needed Yeah, yeah, you know, because I was doing stand up so I'd be like, maybe we could just start, like, do in the afternoon, and we can do, you know, three hours and I go to a gig.

  • And I was like, you know, because comedians on the circuit, you know, they're slogging around the circuit right on there might be doing to gigs a night in the rushing around and all that.

  • So they have this kind of adrenaline thing.

  • But actually the comedians on the circuit I worked with the culture waas.

  • You know, if you had a set, that was 20 minutes and it worked.

  • That's your set?

  • Yes.

  • What you did, people weren't There was no YouTube.

  • Nobody's filming you and putting you up.

  • You know, you could do it again and again and again, you could do it again and again.

  • There was a thing.

  • If you did a few minutes on television, you might need to replace it.

  • But then sometimes you do three minutes on television and then cut them from your set.

  • And then people had seen the TV show go.

  • Oh, I missed.

  • You should have done that.

  • But generally you had been in the dressing room at the Comedy store, which I played a few times not many times because my act was a bit too strange.

  • But I played it a few times on DDE and somebody would walk in and they go.

  • I'm doing a new joke tonight and we don't kind of gather around the goal.

  • What's the joke?

  • And then they tell you the joke and people.

  • It's kind of discuss it and somebody say, Or maybe you could change that and do this and then we don't listen in to see how the new job went, and it would be a big deal.

  • But when I started working with David on Dhe, I stopped doing the stand up circuit because I realized it was just too much to do both on.

  • Actually, I found it more enriching and fulfilling the kind of work I was doing with David.

  • Plus because George Doors have got big.

  • It was hard.

  • It just gigs became just tougher to Dio because of different expectations from the audience.

  • David and I would start 10 and we go to a 4 35 and actually, you know, he was quite strict, and we chat for 10 minutes at the beginning of the day.

  • But it's like now we need to get to work on Dhe and then But we'd right, you know, 15 20 minutes a week or more of usable stuff.

  • And then I thought, Oh my God.

  • So this whole thing about adding in a new joke every month this is this is there's a different way of doing this.

  • You could be much more prolific, A much more inventive, completely different mediums they are different means I was amazed when I first are going to completely probably around about this time.

  • And it was It was a comedy store in Leicester Square.

  • I was amazed when I went back two weeks later.

  • It's all the same actor in the same.

  • That's right.

  • Yeah, I couldn't actually quite believe it.

  • Yeah, but I will say in fairness, promoters would Yeah, and I'd see I'd see you know, because I used to go and watch comedy with the time before I was doing.

  • Let's go to Edinburgh on your own and go to Edinburgh Festival.

  • Yeah, and all of that.

  • And I just go in London and watch gigs all the time and really immerse myself in it on dhe ID.

  • Go.

  • Oh, I've already seen her because I knew that I knew what I was gonna get.

  • But there were some people, and I will say Mark Thomas.

  • He was like the king of the circuit and is still one of the greatest for sure, one of the greatest comics we've got.

  • He was a marvel, and you'd see him on a Monday, and then you'd see him on a Thursday, new set, right on.

  • Funny.

  • Yeah.

  • And topical, insightful on dhe and just kind of brilliant because he's so politically engaged eyes constantly thinking and being constantly thinking.

  • And And he had interesting things to say that transcended just jokes.

  • But they were still funny ideas.

  • They were funny.

  • He was He was brilliant.

  • On dhe.

  • There were a few people that were a bit more prolific, but it was more just the culture of the circuit.

  • You were our men playing jungle er's on dhe.

  • It went down all right.

  • And John was was the big chain, and I didn't really enjoy it, so I needed it once and they said, Well, you should come back, and actually, I just didn't I didn't really enjoy it.

  • Felt very core pro nine.

  • Just thought I think I could do this, but I think the reality is that it's always gonna you know, I'm always gonna have toe to work really hard in this room.

  • This is never gonna be an audience.

  • That's what The monster here, what time you get a lot of stuff?

  • Yeah, And I thought, Yeah, because there's an interesting thing.

  • Sometimes you play gigs that were free, right?

  • You'd still get paid, but the gigs were free.

  • Like student gates, universities, they be sponsored, Somebody would be picking up the check, you know, a Newcastle Brown ale or something like that.

  • But actually, what happens is when an audience doesn't pay anything, they don't have any investment in the evening.

  • And those gigs are actually quite hard to do.

  • Is a comedian because you'd think, Oh, they'll be grateful that they didn't have to pay.

  • But actually, they might just sit and talk.

  • And similarly, when an audience pays too much, they might also feel that they don't actually have to listen.

  • They've almost paid for the right to do what they want in that room.

  • Andi, that often happens for comedians.

  • When they're doing Christmas parties around this time of year, that becomes their quite tough Gigs also cause a lot of our cars involved, and you charge a lot for Christmas parties and it's a kind of, you know, the power balance is different.

  • It's different.

  • And so and that was one of the things that jungles, which was it was quite corporate audience.

  • It was a lot of kind of office parties, and they paid.

  • They paid quite a lot of money to go, and you got paid a bit more money to do the gigs.

  • You know, it was it was a great big trader.

  • Yeah, but I just thought my kind of act is I could go there and I could storm or I could go there.

  • I could die, I could, or I could change my act and do a different set.

  • That's my jungle is said, But I just thought actually, other people will flourish more in this environment.

  • Andi, I liken gig in other places, but the thing I remember them saying to me is, Don't change your set.

  • It worked right?

  • So they just wanted me to just do more like a production line like a kind of Yeah, I'm not being critical of them.

  • I mean, they knew what worked for them.

  • Creative look.

  • Equation.

  • Yes, and no, I'm not singling them out because ultimately, in these venues where you're playing, you're there so that they can sell food and drink.

  • That is why is there so you can't start getting too full of yourself?

  • No, let's back up a little bit.

  • Because George doors, 21 years old you are.

  • And then the next big thing was little Britain.

  • Yeah.

  • So that collaboration with David, how did that come about?

  • How did that added the Friendship Segway into collaboration and the kind of the complications of being a double act that that in some Well, we we met in the National Youth Theatre on more parts we play.

  • Hey, Well, I was in a course, because when you go when you do a kind of a first year first, of course I don't.

  • Krishnan Guru Murthy Last week were you there at the same time?

  • I don't find it.

  • Just as it was the most seminal summer of my life.

  • It changed everything for me because the m I t with, probably for similar reasons.

  • Background being completely challenge because I was at an all boys monastic boarding school.

  • And suddenly I'm in the middle of Manchester middle of Manchester in a hall of residence full of girls.

  • But I didn't realize that he'd he done it totally on DDE.

  • The course is what you do the first time because I was supposed to go and do the course in London.

  • I wonder if we'd have been in the same and I didn't because the fella who around Manchester, you think is that if you come to manages, I'll give you a cracking party base hotel, go to long, does what you did.

  • But I went.

  • I went to Manchester, got a decent point.

  • The plane went back 33 years running.

  • It was famous.

  • The Spur, based on on Howard, something novel played Hold'em Unholy Art ing store.

  • Did you have a great time to make the time of my life on because you were in a public school but not a boarding school?

  • Yeah, that's that is just one of the chapters, but they're for May toe the horizon broadening experience of that kind of thing, which young people today don't have access to in quite the same way it was.

  • It was absolutely imperative.

  • So I understand how you and David could have forged a friendship there that felt definitely, definitely different and special.

  • Yeah, and we kind of bonded because we both grew up within touching distance of the center of London, but not quite being, you know, he was in Constant Zzyzx.

  • Metroland, isn't it?

  • In a way, I was at the very top of the Jubilee line and he'd been to a grammar school.

  • I've been to have a dash Is But I was on a free place, you know?

  • So I could hear everyone at Hap's talking about their skiing trips, and they're on their holidays to Florida.

  • Everything the way I never had that My dad, when I started a private school, my dad paid my fees, but it was a struggle.

  • I now realize we've been to more come for All right, all right, in Lancaster.

  • And all these kids have been to Barbados kits Bill.

  • So don't tell me he said, Pronounce it.

  • Maury can be Really it's really exotic.

  • You guys that was rented.

  • You, Maury can be Well, I I have the Jackal.

  • I went to Romania.

  • I really don't know when I went to remain here.

  • You're an outside around an insider, you know, or an outsider.

  • Actually, both of you felt like outsiders.

  • We just a little bit.

  • I think his school he'd been so singled out because he was considered me.

  • Then you would say, if Emine it is a word I used too much feminine or or he was just he was.

  • David went on and that I was just Yeah, and I didn't.

  • I had friends.

  • I have friends at school, but I don't know, David have friends at school, but we were both just searching for something, and I think we both knew that we weren't gonna be.

  • You know, people from my school became doctors and lawyers and, you know, went toe Oxford or Cambridge often.

  • And that was the thing on dhe on.

  • I think David knew that that probably wasn't for him either.

  • Andi, we met the National Youth Theatre on DDE.

  • I kind of idolized him.

  • I mean, he's kind of tall, are older, funnier, and I'd watch him from the wings with the next year.

  • We did it together.

  • No, no, never.

  • No, I just never did.

  • I never did.

  • Uh, no.

  • Which probably good rope.

  • Of course.

  • If I had fronted him, it might have been a bit a key.

  • I'm weird on dhe.

  • No, there was never I think people used to think we were a couple, but there was never I never felt that towards him.

  • I admired him.

  • I respected him.

  • I thought he was brilliant.

  • I kind of did everything other than fancy him.

  • Um, s O the friendship stayed in place while you were off pursuing the standup which led into shooting.

  • Yeah, he was doing Children's television.

  • He was writing for Ant and Dec or PJ and Duncan, I think.

  • Yeah, and he was doing kids TV on stuff like that on, but we're just friends, and we would just see a lot of each other.

  • We go to the cinema in the theatre on.

  • Also, he had a girlfriend, but there was something queer about him.

  • You know, Andi, I use that in a slightly law in the contemporary use of that word.

  • Not that not the derogatory use that were, you know, in a kind of a kind of a shameless, unapologetic otherness about him, and he would wear men's skirts and he would paint his fingernails black.

  • And he put a hair clip in his hair and I'd go out with him and his girlfriend and so on.

  • People would and he'd sit on the tube.

  • And I, uh, people wouldn't know what to think.

  • When we first did that, my heart would sing like, what?

  • What do you look like?

  • But then, actually, after a while, I thought, This is glorious.

  • You know?

  • It's funny, friend, and he doesn't care what people think.

  • And so that makes that a particular big deal to you.

  • Yeah, he liberated me.

  • Liberated May, you know, on dhe.

  • We didn't talk a great deal about my being gay, but he would just intr

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