John Bishop - Comedian

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talk SEDB. Follow
this and our Wide Ranger podcast now on iHeartRadio. Real Conversation,
Real Connection. It's Real life with John Cowen on News
Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
GOODA, Welcome to real life. I'm John Cowen.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Considering he was in his mid thirties before he even
thought about doing comedy and didn't go full time till
he was forty, the success of my guest tonight is
even more astounding. John Bishop has had sellout tours TV shows,
hosted a Royal variety show, done the Apollo being on
QI eight out of ten cats, and here we have
a comedy show you can name, done DVDs, movies, radio shows.

(00:58):
He's even traveled through time of Doctor Who, and he
was rated as the UK's top earning comedian.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
So welcome John hire you.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
I'm doing well. I'm I'm welcoming you to the show.
I can't yet welcome you to New Zealand, but I'm
glad to hear that you're on your way here.

Speaker 5 (01:16):
I know when it's coming around fast and fast. I
only looked at my diary yesterday and it's.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
Just over two weeks.

Speaker 5 (01:23):
And just over two weeks I fly out and then
it's about three weeks I think before my first show
in dun Eden.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Right, I'll give the dates and times and where people
can track down tickets at the end of the show.
But currently you're in Cardiff, is that right?

Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:39):
Yeah, I did card if you're Rena last night, and
I'm doing it again tonight before going up to Liverpool Arena.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
So it's it's a full on tours.

Speaker 5 (01:49):
And that's why I say that it's coming around fast,
because the dates for your poker tour in often a
year in advance, and then these dates were looming and
then the New Zealand dates were ahead of them, and
it's like Christmas. I suppose you don't think about it
and then all of a sudden you're going through shops
and they're playing the Christmas songs.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
This feels like Blooster to New Zealand.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
I was just looking at the venue that you're going
to play tonight. It's a sellout and it's a five
thousand seat venue. Tomorrow night at Liverpool as a sellout
and it's eleven thousand seat. It must be you still
get a buzz coming out into such a big crowd.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
I love it.

Speaker 5 (02:31):
I love it, and I love it particularly with this
show because the way this tour is developed, it's often
what happens when you do a stand up tour. You
do warm up gigs, but everything changes when you get
into a bigger ena. But you can't practice in a

(02:53):
ten thousand seats at a venue. You practice like in
a two hundred seats of comedy club. And then when
you get to a ten thousand seater venue, the pace
of it changes and something's work better than others, and
often it takes you halfway through a toll or to
get everything tight where it is this this, this show
just felt perfect from the beginning.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
Well by the time you get to New Zealand, it'll
just be fantastic. I'm sure of that. I'm just wondering.
You're hitting to Liverpool back to a home audience. There's
playing to a hometown audience. Does that feel different? Can
you get away with stuff there but you can't get
away with another places? Or do they hold you to
hold your feet to the fire a bit more?

Speaker 5 (03:35):
I'll be I'll be perfectly honest with you, and there
will be people listening to this you from Liverpool.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
The hardest thing about doing Liverpool.

Speaker 5 (03:41):
Is that you know, most people in the audience are
fullier than you, so.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
You've got to be debatable. But I'll take you. I'll
hear what you're saying.

Speaker 5 (03:51):
Yeah, there's that, so everyone's got a good sense to you.
And then there's the other added element that is obviously better.
We've family lived, so as well as trying to look
after the audience, I've got a guest list which is
as long as the wedding. You know, causines and antis
and the logistics of fitting everybody in and when they're

(04:13):
all corning and new's coming on this day. That's like
a separate entity altogether to do in the show.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Right, Well, I'll give you a chance, I guess to
freshen up your liver Padlian accent.

Speaker 4 (04:24):
Yeah, it needs a little bit of work. I think.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
It'd be terrible if you lost it.

Speaker 3 (04:30):
But I'm just impressed how you can go around a
street corner in Great Britain and they're speaking differently. I
was once on a train traveling north and there was
a man coonean opposite me and a liver Puddley and
they reckon. They couldn't understand each other. Would I please
be the translator. You have that experience in your home.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My wife's from Manchester.

Speaker 3 (04:54):
And it's only what, only thirty miles apart, and yet
there's there's a famous rivalry.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
Oh yeah, yeah, that is a famous rivalry. And I
think you get that. You'll get that. We compete.

Speaker 5 (05:10):
Cities in a lot of places, just as Liverpool through
Liverpool Manchester is so close.

Speaker 4 (05:15):
In the UK.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
I mean again, we forget with the size of New Zealand.
The UK is so small and rivalries are so ridiculous.
You know, you do have you do have rivalries an accents,
I mean Liverpool's accents. There's a motorway, the M sixty seven,
and on one side everyone sounds like me, and then

(05:38):
on the other side there from Saint Alan's and it's
all alow are.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
You duck can and completely different. It's only over one road.

Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah, I know, it's something which I mean, we talk.
We might talk Rubbish and New Zealand, but we sound
much the sign from top of the country to the bato.

Speaker 4 (05:56):
The rugbish is coming from the same place. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Speaking of playing gigs in New Zealand, you'll be celebrating
your sixtieth birthday in the Toy Toy Center and hawks.
You worked that out that you're going to be turning
sixty in New Zealand.

Speaker 4 (06:12):
No, I'm not. Actually I'm going to be saying fifty
nine fifty nine.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
Oh I left, I let to cancel a subscription to Wikipedia.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Well you'll start your sixtieth year.

Speaker 5 (06:22):
It's funny because Wikipedia's got a couple of things wrong.
One is my daisy base and the other thing, whether
it's still on there, it says my middle name is Marcus,
which it's not what I've left her up there in
case somebody's trying to steal my ID.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
It's as classy name.

Speaker 3 (06:41):
If they're going to give you a middle name, Marcus,
it's a great name, Marcus.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
Do yees. So no I am. It's it's interesting.

Speaker 5 (06:49):
I remember watching a travelogue once with Billy Connolly and
he was in I think it might have been Australia
and New Zealand, and he took his birthday off and
he said, I always said my birthday off. I've always
done that, and it's funny the way it's and I thought,
that's what I'm going to do. And then with the
way these dates fell in and we got them all

(07:11):
booked in a little bit because of the time difference,
I missed the fact that I was booked in hawks
By on me bath, so I might tayn up with
birthday hat and my own cake.

Speaker 4 (07:23):
But yeah, I am going to celebrate my birthday down there.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
Well, everybody listening from hawks Bay get along and make
sure that he has a great celebration. Happened the last
birthday in his fifties.

Speaker 4 (07:37):
You know, Yeah, it's.

Speaker 5 (07:38):
Great because I've never been to hawks Bay, so to
be fifty nine on my birthday.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
It's a lovely place.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
I hope you can get on a bike there, because
you're keen on your bikes, aren't you.

Speaker 5 (07:49):
Yeah, Well, what's happening is I arrive I think it's
five days I think, or six days before the first show,
and don't need and I'm flying to Christias and I'm
renting a bike, a motorbike, and I'm going to come
so out with that and have a look at that part.
Last time I was able to do a little bit
of the no off side of the South Island, and

(08:11):
to be honest with you, that's one of the biggest
tractions about coming over.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
He's riding a motorbike around New Zealand. It's beautiful, built
for it.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
You've come to spiking Philly late in life.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
It's one hundred percent of midlife crisis. It was.

Speaker 5 (08:29):
It was basically a motorbike or a stripper, and I
think the motorbike was the cheaper option.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
I did hear a story about you getting a scooter
and riding there across France or something, And you know what.

Speaker 4 (08:44):
It's actually a lovely story.

Speaker 5 (08:46):
My father in law, who got on really really well
with when he died, his wife said that he'd left
me a scooter, which I'm not completely convinced abo, So
I think what happened. He had a house in France
and she went into the garage, saw the scooter and doors.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
How do I get rid of that? I'm going to
tell Johnny he's left it to him.

Speaker 5 (09:06):
Now it's John's problem and so and I at this
point didn't have my motorbike license.

Speaker 4 (09:13):
And because it's in.

Speaker 5 (09:14):
The EU and now a lot of your UK based
people or people from the UK will understand that it's
not as easy to move things between Europe.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
So that the scooter was over in France.

Speaker 5 (09:27):
Yeah, so it was in France, so I couldn't bring
it back to England. I would have to import it.
But we've got a place else in New Yorker. So
I thought the best idea is to ride to New Yorker.

Speaker 4 (09:37):
So that's what I did.

Speaker 5 (09:38):
I spent four days riding a scooter from from Brittany
to New Yorker. But I was honestly, I had no
motorcycle gear. I hadn't done my motorcycle test. I was
just dressed like I was nipping out for a baguette.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
So yeah, yeah, well I would have thought it would
have turned you off completely, but uh, you're not totally
new to life on two wheels. And I hope Wikipedia
was right about this, because I couldn't believe it when
I read it that you actually ride a bicycle from

(10:16):
Sydney to Liverpool. Yeah, and in some way was to
avoid getting married.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
Yeah, yeah it was. I I was going out with
this girl, and.

Speaker 5 (10:30):
What happens often when you're going out with somebody that
becomes like and ambush because one of their friends get engaged,
then another one gets engaged, and everybody's looking at you
saying that you're going to get engaged, and I just
said so, I just panicked and said, no, I've decided
to ride the bicycle back from Sydney to Liverpool, which
was stupid. I didn't even have a bicycle at that point.

(10:52):
I got the bicycle two weeks before I went and
then I spent ten months doing the bike ride back
to Liverpool. And then when I got back I asked
her to marry me because after ten months on the bike.

Speaker 6 (11:04):
To be honest, I'd have asked you to marry me.
But it must have been an amazing journey. If you've
just joined us.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
My guest tonight is John Bishop, and we'll be talking
more about his life and what we can expect from
him when he comes to New Zealand. This is real
life on Newstalks ed.

Speaker 1 (11:25):
B back with you in just a minute, intelligent interviews
with interesting people. It's real life on news Talk SEDB.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Me, welcome back to real life.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
I'm John Cown talking to John Bishop, who's picked that
music for us.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
What are we listening to there? John?

Speaker 5 (12:03):
That was simple minds Don't You Forget About Me? Which
is a significance song with my life hell so.

Speaker 4 (12:12):
Well.

Speaker 5 (12:13):
Anyone who comes to the show will will see this
because in the show, tell tell the story. In the
second half, Volks how I got into comedy and or
the steps to doing that, And one of the steps
was meeting this girl who I eventually married. And and
when you're in that early stages of a relationship against John,
you will understand this. This is a generational thing with

(12:35):
in that early stages of of going out with each other.
I was going to spend the summer away, working away,
and before I left, she gave me a mixed tape.
So a tape of songs with anyone on the on
the thirty five will not understand the concept of how
much effort goes into that. People now just think you
can do a playlist on the bus.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
It's that I've flted that you put me in the
same generational here. I got an Edison Wex drum anyway,
so anyway I got, I.

Speaker 5 (13:07):
Got a mixed tape of the scale and then that
song was the first song on it. And then when
I did, they did there's a show on on a
radio four over a BBC Radio forwards apparently, I think
it's the longest running radio show in the world. Island
Songs to be on the Desert Island. And at the
end they asked you for one song and I picked

(13:27):
that song. So it's a little bit of an anthem
in my life because it was one of the steps
that made me think, okay, she might be the girl.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
All right, Okay, so that plugged into your romantic life.
And if I know the story, three kids later, and
things are going really and things the things that moving
too hectically too fast, too much are going down, and
things aren't going too well on the relationship.

Speaker 5 (13:55):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we split up after we've been married
for it was it was seven years at that point,
and and you know, like anybody going through that, that
was a horrible thing. But sometimes I had a bad things,
good things emerge. And it was via that that I
ended up starting to do stand up comedy. You know,

(14:16):
I wouldn't have started doing stand up comedy if that
thing could have happened. I only did it because I
was I was on my own one Monday night and
I wandered into a comedy club. Yeah, and then and
then the whole series of events unfolded, right, If.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
I understand it was to save to save the entrance fee,
you decided to put your name down to speak.

Speaker 5 (14:40):
Yeah, yeah, well, what it was it was I'd only
ever been to two comedy clubs in my whole life.
And I was literally on my own in the middle
of Manchester looking for something to do. And I just thought, well,
you can go into a comedy club. Someone else will laugh,
it will be full of other people. You can sit
at the bar on your own. It's fine. And when

(15:01):
it came to the door, the guy said it's four
pounds to get in unless you put your name down.
And I put my name down for what And he said,
it's an open mic night. I didn't even know what
that meant. And he said, well, it just means that
if your name gets called out, you get on the stage,
but you don't have to pay four pounds.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
And I was getting divorced. I thought, well that's four pounds,
she's not getting put my name down.

Speaker 5 (15:23):
And then and then you know, I got called that
was and went on stage and I just found this,
this this place that I just love being.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
It changed everything.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
I'm just amazed at the way that you solve problems.
M I want to avoid getting engaged. I'm going to
ride a bicycle for ten months across the world. Okay,
I want to avoid pay four pounds. Okay, I'll get
up on the stage and do a comedy routine that
I've never thought about. I mean, I'm just amazed at
how your brain works.

Speaker 5 (15:56):
No ever said that to me. Yeah, but when I
look back at my life, and yeah, you're probably right.
We're just in the in the process of I wanted
to do a barbecue last summer, and there I just
I didn't. I didn't have a little barbecue set. So
I've ended up building a whole outdoor kitchen with a
big fire pair. And that waves exactly like you. She's going,

(16:19):
that's typical way when you just do the simple thing
instead of the big thing.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
Yeah, Okay, I've got a scooter. Okay, I'll just ride
it halfway across Europe. Yeah, it's normal, isn't it. I'm
fascinated that that's how you got into comedy, and twenty
five years later you're such the biggest name. But one
of the most fascinating things about getting into comedy is
you did it because your relationship was coming to an end,

(16:46):
and in a way, it fired your relationship up again.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (16:51):
Yeah, because when I did it, I didn't tell anyone
to bouce it. And through a whole series of events,
you know, we've been a passed. We were a pass
for two years before we got back together. And the
only way that the reason that we got back together
is no and I did stand up comedy. She came

(17:12):
to a comedy club with people that she was working.

Speaker 4 (17:14):
On a new job, none of who knew who I was.

Speaker 5 (17:19):
And I'd had the phone call to say what I
fill in someone had dropped out. So I walk on stage,
start telling jokes about say it. And she sat in
the audience with people who didn't know who I was,
and you know, it's.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
We've spoke about it.

Speaker 5 (17:37):
It was a completely surreal experience for there because she
couldn't even say around to awake colleagues and go, oh
my god, that's my ex husband because I'm on stage
and they didn't even know my name because I had
not met them, and so and so and in the
end we we I was on stage and I saw

(17:58):
it in the audience. And remember, anyone going through a
divorce will know how difficult it is at that final
stage is when you're trying to sort all the details out.
I remember standing on stage thing and well, that's going
to cost me another twenty grand.

Speaker 4 (18:10):
In the divorce. And then and then she came over
to me at the end and then we got talk
on one thing.

Speaker 5 (18:18):
Let to know that, and in many respects, that's the
points of this tour why I wanted to celebrate it,
because this whole thing of stand up comedy was the
thing that somehow managed to get us back together.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
You sort of talk about comedy almost healing you, and
I think it heals other people too. That's the idea
of humor, being able to put things that I had
sometimes in a funny way. It gets things across. Do
you sometimes ever try and I know it sounds worthy,
but trying to get good messages across in your comedy
as well as just entertain people.

Speaker 5 (18:52):
I think it's a very interesting thing because, to be
honest with you, when I got into it and got
into entertainment and entertainment television, I always felt in the
face part of my career, I always felt, well, you know,
this is all fun and it's okay, but I'd like
people to sort of take his say this a little bit.

(19:13):
So I've done this serious acting and so on, and
I've not really done comedy acting. I've done really serious
dramas because that's more worthy. And then it's a friend
of mine and I'm friends with him, James Corden, and
we were he was doing his Late Late show in

(19:33):
America and my mother in law died, who lived with
us at the time, my wife's mother, and we were
obviously both devastated, both loved and she was a great woman.
She died, and we were watching the television and James
come on and done something silly on the Late Late

(19:53):
Show where they do a crosswalk musical or something something daft.
It was his daft sketch, but we both laughed at
the same time, and that was the first time we
both laughed since my mother in law had died at
the same time with the same thing.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
And I suddenly.

Speaker 5 (20:07):
Realized that's the value of entertainment, going into a room
where a stranger and it makes you laugh. Well, everything
else in the world is chaos, everything else is dark
and gloom.

Speaker 4 (20:18):
That's the light.

Speaker 5 (20:19):
And I think sometimes that's enough if you don't need
another message. Apart from that, it's okay, it's okay to laugh.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
Well, John, you've done a lot of therapy for a
lot of people through your humor. If you humor works,
you've done some other good stuff too. I mean again,
your body was paid to pay the price went from
Paris to London. I think it was was that recycling
one hundred and eighty five miles and then riding across
the Channel and then running.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Ninety miles. But it raised a better do, didn't It
was four million yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 (20:54):
Yeah, yeah, over four million quid. That was for a
sport leaf a few years ago. And yeah, it was
a big challenge. And it's one of the things sometimes
when when I asked people in the UK, one of
the standout things in order to make sure the shape
to show now what they expected, that was one of
the things that come out and listen, it's grassifying sometimes
if you get a job to put you in a

(21:15):
position to try and do other things, I think it's
it's it's a massive bones yeah yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
And does it work well with your family? I saw
a nice thing where you wanted to make your mom happy.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
You made her happy with some of the stuff you've done.

Speaker 5 (21:34):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I was, you know, I was
able to get my mom and dad and my house
and we've done nice things. But the best my mom
passed away a couple of years ago, and my mom
my dad had looked after my mom for a bit,
so we started to get my dad out a little
bit more and take them to Liverpool matches. And the
best thing in this this showbiz life that I've been

(21:57):
able to do is my dad now has a table
at anfield, so he goes to every Liverpool home game.

Speaker 4 (22:04):
The tables in his name.

Speaker 5 (22:06):
I got a car that picks him up, take him,
drops him off so that it's long enough war for
him to have a cigarette before he goes in. He
watches the match. At the end of the match, they
bring him a decanter with his name engraved on it,
so we had a little candy before he goes back
downstairs there's another cigarette and gets in the car. And
I'll be honest with you, John, I've played the Royal

(22:27):
Albus all, I've played the biggest venues in the UK.
I've had an incredible, credible time. But that's the best
thing that I've been able to do.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
That's fantastic. And he's also seen you play for Liverpool.

Speaker 4 (22:39):
Hey, I seen me on that pitch. I wouldn't say
I played. I run around in a Liverpool kid. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
I bet you grinned though, and I bet he was
grinning too.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
Oh, it's great, Hey, we've got another song that you've
picked and I think it's something that it means something
to you, what plays a part in your life.

Speaker 5 (23:01):
Yeah, I spent a lot of time doing the Refessival
over in the UK. It's one of the things that
you developed it in fact meeting Ree starby over there
Big New Zealand, the Comedian, because people from all over
the world come over and I fell in love with
this group, the Proclaimers. So now when I do a
sound check, I sing this song which disappoints everybody, particularly

(23:23):
the sound monk.

Speaker 4 (23:23):
I'm the worst singer ever.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
If you wanted to catch John while he's out here,
he's playing in the Dunedin Town Hall November eighteenth, christ
Church on the twentieth, and November, Auckland on the twenty second,
Wellington on the twenty third, pame on twenty fifth, As
Birthday the twenty sixth and November at Hawks Bay, Hamilton
twenty seventh and November. Tickets on sale at BOEM Presents,

(23:47):
Bohm Presents dot com. John has been fantastic talking to
you and I wish you all the best and your
travels for the rest of your tour. Looking forward to
seeing you when you get here.

Speaker 4 (23:57):
Lovely thanks you, Sime John.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
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