Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks ATB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Comedian Alan Davis is known for his no One and
beloved I should say no One in beloved for his natural,
relatable storytelling style and skills on all sorts of different
formats TV, on the page and on stage. And while
he's always been a bit of a staple of British
television shows like QI and Jonathan Creek, it's been more
(00:36):
than a decade since Ellen last did a stand up
comedy tour, that is until now, and while New Zealand
didn't make the first cut of tour dates, Ellen has
decided that actually he just cannot stay away from our shores.
He is going to bring his show down Under and
he's with us this morning. Held a good morning Hello.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
How are you doing.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I'm very very well, Thank you, delighted to be speaking
with you, longtime fan. I feel like I grew up
with the sounds of Jonathan Creek, just kind of emanating
throughout my household and moved from then on to QI
and various other things. So it is a great please
to be speaking with you.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Thank you. Could be worse, could be worse than Jonathan Creek.
You know the theme tune Mate, the San songs, Dance Macabroo,
the kind of a version of it. It's such a
brilliant theme tune, and people I know have often said
to me, oh God, as soon as the music starts,
you know. But I did once catch myself humming the
theme tune as I was walking down the street and
(01:37):
wandering into the shop, and I had to kind of
stop myself, realizing that people were turning heads, probably thinking, oh,
look at this idiot just advertising his presence.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
He thinks it's his theme music rather than the theme
music for the show itself.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
It's the star of his own life, and he is
Jonathan Creek. But yeah, there are worse things you could
have emanating through your health.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
It's not not only a great song, it's a great
don't you think it is a great name for a
piece like would Dance my Car would be as good
if it wasn't called Dance my carbra I don't know.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Well, yeah, it needs an animated video.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It's ten years Ellen since your last tour. I know
you were you're a busy man, but well, why was
now the right time to get back on stage and
tour with a special.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Well, I'm glad to report it has turned out to
be the right time, because the show's been going pretty well.
It'd been so long that it was feeling beginning to
feel like a gamble. I don't really know. I wrote
a book a few years ago. We had a third
child in twenty fifteen, there was a pandemic. There were
a few things that combined, but I think really I
(02:53):
spent some time unpacking stuff from my childhood doing a
writing about it, and that process took a while and
changed a lot of how I viewed myself and what
I wanted to do and what I wanted to say.
And this recent show, Think Ahead, it is kind of
(03:17):
created around the same time as I was writing another
volume of memoir called White Male Stand Up, which is
about dealing with issues from my childhood in my career
and in my adult life or not dealing with them,
and so some of it draws on some of that stuff.
So though it's maybe difficult material, but I feel I'm
(03:37):
able to access it and created the show All stand
All my stand up shows have created conjunction with audiences
working on material in that way, and I've got to
a place now where I think the show is really
quite It's a bit richer and deeper and better than
stuff I've done before, and it's quite relatable, and so
(03:57):
I'm really sort of proud of it. I've always been
pleased to make people laugh, but I haven't really previously
looked at my material thinking, oh, I'm really proud of
that task in hutch routine, you know. But now I
feel like I'm in a better place to you know,
have something to say and have and have a reason
to be up there.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
So do you feel that you are as well as
as well as entertaining audiences and making people laugh, do
you feel like there is a kind of deeper driving
purpose behind the show and that you have something to say,
there is a message you want to give.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah, I think so. I mean the goal is still
ultimately is to make people laugh as much as I
possibly can, and I think about as my job as
a comedian. I don't just want to be engaging. I
want to be hilarious, and that's why I set out
to do. And you know, there are there are some
good bits. It is nice. After the show, I quite
(04:56):
often take the chance to sign a few books and
meet some of the audiencing people are saying, oh, and
the stuff you're talking about, by the way, when a
thing happened to me or something happened to a friend
of mine, or it's you know, it's good that this
stuff can be aired and you know, let's not you know,
(05:16):
carry the shame forever kind of thing. So the feedback's
really good, feedbacks, really positive both on content and on
laugh strike. So it's kind of right.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Just to be totally clear, and I'm not going to
ask you to go into all of the details now,
but you're right, really, you know, I think really movingly
about it. Your experiences in your memoir about your experiences
of childhood abuse, and it's the same content that you
are touching on at times during your during your special.
(05:48):
But how do you think about that kind of narrative weave.
Is there is there a risk, for one of a
better word, when you're talking about that kind of material publicly,
that it's very hard to get the audience back in
a laughing frame of mind.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Well, that's the test. There's sort of challenge for me.
And you know, when I say to the audience, when
I'd talked to them about having my father arrested for
historical sexual abuse, I said, I've never talked about this
on stage before because I was always afraid of exactly
this silence, because there's always you can guarantee a pin
(06:25):
drop silence at that which comes as a total revelation
to the majority of the people in the room. And
then I talked to them about perhaps feeling less like
an audience and more like they're in a hostage situation.
But not to fear, not here to make you uncomfortable.
I'm here to just to We're going to spend a
(06:46):
bit of time on this area. The response has been
really good. People just engaged, and people my experience of
comedy aunts. And then these people aren't idiots, you know.
These people have got lives of their own, experiences of
their own. Either they've been through things themselves, or they
have friends who have or partners or spouse There's this
(07:07):
stuff's in the world, and just the same as parenting is,
or illness or I lean heavily on this and the
second half of the show reptile dysfunction. These are all
the issues of that of our time.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
Yeah, I was taken aback a little bit by your
dates of your tour, right, So I noticed something in
the tour dates this year, Ellen, and that you are
touring Australia over the summer and then you've got a
little bit of a break and you're coming back to
New Zealand in the middle of next year. And I
did think it was a curious coincident that your dates
(07:41):
in Australia seemed to coincide rather neatly. I thought, with
the Ashes, are you a cricket are you a cricket fan?
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Manage at well? I think that was very fortunate. I mean,
what a happy accident is that?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Is that part of the plan.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
I'm going to take in a couple of days, a
couple of I've got a day of the j booked.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Oh how special for the boxing day.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
For the twenty eighth.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
I think it is, oh wow.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
But I tried to go to the Ashes in Melbourne
years ago and I booked tickets for day four and
England had been done buy an innings in three days,
and so this time I booked for day three. I'm
hoping for some cricket.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
How do you feel about bears ball because we feel
a sort of in New Zealand, we feel a connection
to the English style of game at the moment and
that obviously, Brendan Mcallum as the coach. Tim Southy, New
Zealand Great, is also offering his assistance. There are various
other New Zealanders, all sort of plotted throughout the team's
coaching organization. How do you feel about Bears ball and principle?
Speaker 3 (08:57):
Well, I find it fascinating really. I remember hearing Andy
Murray talk about playing tennis, and he said when he
was young, if you just get the ball and play,
when you wait for the other guy to make a mistake,
usually you win. You make less mistakes than the other player.
Usually you win, and then you get into the top
hundred or the top fifty, and the other guy doesn't
(09:19):
make any mistakes. And if you want to beat him,
you've got to go for your shots. You've got to play,
you've got to show what you've got and who's the
better player actually, And that's why I feel, you know,
Ben Stokes is leading a team that has a bit
of that about them. Okay, I'm going to hit you
as hard as I can. Often be afraid, and it's
(09:42):
about getting on the front foot and being aggressive. And
it's when it goes wrong when you lose your wicket,
when you've gone after a ball and lost your wicket cheap,
but you can only be out once. Cricket remains the same.
Don't get out. It's a very important part of it.
But the principle behind it about getting on the front foot,
(10:03):
scoring quickly, being aggressive, fill in stadiums. It's getting people watching,
and you know, I love watching them. Stokes of course
is it's a superstar of sport, not just cricket. And
I really really hope he's fit because he, you know,
he breaks quite often. It's like a kind of a
(10:26):
Formula one car. Everything's so fragile, it's so highly tuned.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Apart.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah it's not. This is not a land Rover. This
is a high performance machine. But yeah, I'm looking forward
to the ashes and and I like the color. I
like the way he just sits on the back and
with his feet up in his shades on. There's something
very self assured about him. I think when they look
at him, they must think, well, he doesn't seem bothered.
(10:54):
Maybe we're doing.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yeah, he certainly has a swagger about him. There's no
doubting that. Hey, why do you think why do you
think panel shows are so beloved and successful in the UK,
but barely exists in the US.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Well, I think the origin of a lot of them
in the UK is radio. BBC Light Entertainment Radio Department
is the origin for a lot of panel shows.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
That's a good point. Whether it's The Goons or my
Word or something like that.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
Well, less the Goons because they were on their feet
doing silly voices. But there's a long tradition and some
panel shows started there and stay there. You know, there's
a show that David Mitchell has called The Unbelievable Truth.
You just sit around a panel and you give us
the talk and you've got to smuggle things that are
true amongst a blizzard of lies. It's a really good format.
(11:49):
It's never transferred to TV. They've done about twenty series
of it. Everyone goes on it, everyone loves doing it,
and a on Radio four and BBC Radio. We have
this and I'm sure you could get to it somewhere
on the internet. You've got all this resource and so
transferring those kinds of formats onto television four or five
(12:10):
people sat behind the table as if they were recording
a radio show. I don't think they have that in
the States. They don't have the radio that we have.
The BBC is often under attack because it's subsidized. Really,
it doesn't have to compete in the marketplace, and in
the other broadcasters, the newspapers. They hate that, they would
(12:33):
rather it wasn't there. But for those of us who
listen or to it or work for it, they'll, oh,
please God, preserve it because think of what you lose,
you know, and shows like QI are a good example
of that because they it originates. You know, John Lloyd
had created it was a BBC radio producer. He created
(12:56):
a show called The News Quiz, which is a radio
panel show, quiz show based on the news. It's been
running for fifty years. Yeah, he created it in his twenties.
And without the BBC, there's no News Quiz, there's no qi's,
there's a lot of nothing.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah. Well, so, I mean I think that's I think
it's a great point. And I can only imagine that
after your years on QI, you were the most valued
member and any pub quiz team. Now are you.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
I'm useless. I'm useless because I can't retain anything. And
if I watch QI, which I don't often because obviously
I've got a wife and children, and how could I
do it to them. But if it comes on, I
can't remember any of the recordings. I saink oh, I
don't remember that person being on. And then the conversation
will start and someone will say something, and I'll sit
(13:49):
on myself at home and think of something that I
would say at that point, and then the me on
screen actually says it. So my brain is quite limited
on this sort of I'm a bit like a rat
that only goes down certain alleyways in your garden. I'm
just I've become so tightly predictable to the scriptwriters and
the people who do the questions. They could trip me
(14:10):
up with that. The first thing they do is get
up in the morning and write five things that that
idiot will get wrong, and then they could take the
day off.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Well, look, we are we are delighted that you're coming
to New Zealand next year. We really are. Congratulations on
Think Ahead and the success that you've had with the
show so far, and we look forward to seeing you
very soon.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Oh I can't wait. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
That is Alan Davis. Tickets to Allen's tour and more
information is available at Live Nation dot co dot enz.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
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