#21 - Sademy w/Jayde Adams

British Comedienne Jayde Adams joins us to talk about the “depression” trend in comedy, which she has adequately dubbed “sademy,” which is way less fun that sodomy. We talk about Bo Burnham’s not-so-special, and the brilliance that was Jayde’s special on Amazon Prime entitled “Serious Black Jumper."

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey guys, it's Josh. Itis Tuesday. You're getting this Tuesday,
June twenty second, all new episodeof the Darkest Hour podcast with my guest
this week, Jade Adams. Ifound out about Jade from her special Serious
Black Jumper on Amazon Prime, andit was one of those things where I
was like, let me watch thisand see how bad this special is.

(00:22):
And it was fucking awesome and Iloved it. And I think it's something
that if you listen to this podcasting, you like this podcast or you like
me, you'll enjoy it as well. So I had Jade on the show
to kind of talk about comedy andsome other stuff, and yeah, I
hope you guys enjoyed this episode.I'm finally feeling better after what I believe
to be my third bout with COVIDnineteen, and I love I love that

(00:48):
people are on different ends of thespectrum with this, where they're like,
you either have it and you're stupidand you should get vaccinated, or you
don't have it, you just you'rejust fat and sick, which you know
both of those things, but Idon't know the symptoms. From the one
time I was tested and tested positivethe symptoms are exactly the same. It
starts with a sore throat, thenit feels like a sinus infection, and

(01:11):
then it moves into your digestion similarto a flu, but you lose taste
and smell, and then your bodystops digesting food at one point, which
you know, when you eat alot like I do, that's hell.
And there's not smelling and tasting foodalso is hell. If I had a
gun in my house during the timeI was sick, I would have used

(01:34):
it, you know, but probablyjust because it's the only thing I haven't
had in my mouth while I'm sick. As far as other stuff comes up,
Thank you guys who've tuned into thenew show on Censored dot tv.
There'll be a new episode finally thisweek the third episode will be up and
then yeah, there's some new episodesover on locals Josh Jenny dot locals dot

(01:57):
com. You can support my workover there. New episodes of The wake
Up Call with Gavin McGinnis and CourtneyJesus Christ Danny get it together. I'm
gonna get this right, Courtney Banks. I don't know why it took me
a minute to remember that, butyeah, so new episodes of that show

(02:21):
over there. Check that out andas always, go in the you know
iTunes and Spotify and stuff, giveus a rating, comment and like,
because everyone that doesn't like it does, so if you do like it,
feel free to weigh in as well. And if you don't, you already
have. So that's it. Enjoythis episode with Jade Adams. Guys,
thank you, Hello Darkness, smilefriend, I've come to talk with you

(02:47):
again because a vision softly creepy liftedseats while I was sleeping and the vision
that was planted main stealing. There'stwo ways to see things like in the

(03:12):
world. One is to try tofind a way to laugh at it,
and the other is to just livea miserable existence where you're unhappy about everything.
What the fuck is that Humidi adoptedthe duck? I was wanting it.
Yeah, that seems really dark.Now that was not dark? You
misunderstanding me? Bro, This isgonna get dark for people. No,

(03:34):
God, please, no. Doyou think that anybody that does enjoy dark
comedy that it's indicative of a deeperevil? I'm nak yah, do you
understand? I think that's so funny? I'm na Everyone called the man a
conspiracy theorist, and then now orthat he was insane, and then now
there's like all these articles coming outof like maybe it was a lab league,

(03:59):
may be hydrags, a quar queenis a good you know treatment.
It's just amazing to me how andI'm sure it's that way in the UK,
where it's like if the wrong politicalfigure attaches themselves to an idea,
then the idea becomes null and void, regardless of its merits. Yeah.
Absolutely, there's a as soon asanyone who's on the hit list says anything,

(04:20):
whatever it is they're saying, thenbecomes part of their thing, and
everyone's like, I want to stayaway from that, and I am this.
That's what happens a lot, right, Yeah, and your guys,
your guys Trump is Boris, right, Yeah, we've got Boris. Yeah,
he's pretty similar, i'll be honestwith British and really awkward and just

(04:45):
you know, Trump has this weirdsense of confidence that you have no idea
where he's got it from. It'sfascinating. Boris doesn't need it because of
the of the British sensibility, whichsort of sidesteps over sort of a confident
because we're like, oh, yea'sBritish. We know what we know what
that is. There's a sort oflevel of i'd say a level of praise

(05:06):
that we give someone who's that British. I think as a as a nation,
mainly because they've made so many moviesabout those sorts of people. But
yeah, he's a He's weirdly confidentin an incredibly awkward way, but he
is our Trump. Yes, I'mvery like, I'm I'm quite like,
I don't know. I try andkeep myself sort of out of the out
of the arguments online and stuff.It's not really much. I sometimes I'll

(05:30):
teeter in and stick a foot inand it'll get bitten by some asshole somewhere,
and I'm like, oh, fuckit, I'll just I'll just make
him laugh. Probably the smartest betreally is to sort of abstain right.
And the funny thing is is likethe more I feel like, the more
and more I weigh into it,the more and more I end up hating
everybody on both ends of the argumentbecause everything gets so polarized and then there

(05:53):
becomes this weird thing like for thelongest time in America, like during Trump,
there was sort of this sort ofI guess, this sort of like
punk rock resurgence of conservatism to whereit was really more like the liberalism I
grew up with, which was likepro free speech, you know, pro

(06:14):
sex work, people can put intheir bodies, do whatever they want to
do with their bodies, that typeof thing. And then it didn't take
very long for the conservative right thatI grew up with to come like roaring
back to where like these very popularconservative people in America who were very like
pro free speech, anti censorship andeverything, and they're like, and no
more premarital sex. And you're like, okay, well, what the fuck

(06:38):
you doing. You're going back withthe things that ruined this for everybody in
the first place. And then youknow, and then uh, you know,
and then on the other side ofthe spectrum, you know, where
you're like, yeah, we doneed some uh you know, some police
reform, and then you have peopleon that side they're like abolish the police,
and they're like, no, wouldbe able, Yeah, maybe like

(07:01):
a compromise. I know that soundsinsane, man, I'd be like a
little bit in between those two ideasmight be the right idea. And so
you know, there's particularly I don'teven think it's just America. I think
everywhere in the world. It's justevery it's so extreme that it would a
rational person would have a hard timeidentifying with a team. There's extremes of

(07:21):
everything nowadays, though, there's youknow, even when a movie comes out
and people go the things I've gotmuted on my Twitter account, Like,
as soon as a movie comes outand then everyone likes it, then you've
got to hear this cacophony of peoplegoing, oh my god, this is
the best movie ever. It's goingto change your life, queen, and
then all of these like expressions thatthey didn't come up with themselves, And

(07:43):
I'm like, you're ruining something forme. Like now I can't watch it
without hearing your voices in it,So I have to put them on mute
and the name of the film andanyone else who's in it, just so
can I have my own opinion aboutit once I've watched it. Well,
you you are somebody who you know, You're one of the first people,
well I've had on the show thatsort of like illuminated me to the mute

(08:03):
function on Twitter. It's one ofthose functions I've never really utilized and never
really I probably should have, particularlywhen people were talking about me, but
no, I you mentioned that becausewe were talking about, you know,
comedian specials that get sort of likeover overhyped, and you you were like,

(08:24):
yeah, as soon as one ofthose comes out, I'll put it
on mute on Twitter so that Idon't have to see, you know,
how sort of over congratulatory. Thebusiness is about something an amazing thing,
like we were talking about, likethe bow Burnham special is regardless of what
people thought of it. The thingthat's crazy to me is how many people
are quick to illuminate the nine millionways it's brilliant, and not a single

(08:46):
person I saw on the internet waslike it was really funny, you know.
And I always felt like his earlierwork was super funny. And now
we're sort of in this world withstand up particularly where it's almost like brilliance
and the messaging and the intention ofthe of the of the um sort of

(09:07):
like the motive is more important thanthe than the comedy. I mean.
And I part of the reason youand I ended up following each other and
you get on my radars because I'msomebody who you know, I'm a fan
of stand up a lot longer thanI've been a stand up. I mean
since I was a kid, andso one of my favorite things to do
is just kind of go through thestreaming services and look at all the new

(09:28):
stand ups. And my girlfriend andI was probably like a year ago when
it came out, watched your specialSerious Black Jumper, and you do a
great job of sort of taking downthat new generation of comedy that is like
point based and not laugh based.Well, I would say I didn't start

(09:48):
off going I want to take anythingdown, but it's very different than that
style of stand up, I willsay diplomatically, yeah, but yeah,
I find well, I just wantto I want to be silly and laugh
when I watch comedy. And sometimesthere are some shows where you don't have

(10:11):
that feeling when you're there and theyhave their merit. They obviously do because
people go nuts for it. It'slike we've got a show in this country
in Britain that people are there.They often scoff at when you hear it.
It's called Miranda. And I washanging out with just a little bit
a little clang over in the UK, but I was hanging out with Miranda
Wants and she said something very interestinginteresting to me. She said, you

(10:35):
know, you know, my showis not very popular with a lot of
people, you know, especially inthe industry, but she said, you
can't deny my viewing figures Jade andshe is one of the most successful sort
of British comedies that there have beenin twenty there has been in twenty five
years. And everything has this merit. It has its merit, otherwise it
wouldn't have been popular. But Ithink the categories that we put things in,

(10:56):
and also the adulation and how it'sgot to be this or it's got
to be that there's this black andwhite thing about something like something can just
exist. Like bo Burnham's thing isvery reminiscent of some of the contemporary dance
shows that I went to see whenI was pretending I was contemporary dancer in
Wales that I'll getting up and downoff the floor Josh, I'll be honest,
So I stopped doing that. Notmy male I'm talking is much better.

(11:20):
But when you go and see thoseshows, they don't have you know,
like you know, it's very likethis is at this moment and this
is that moment and then this isthis, and then this is it,
and then you get a vibe forthe whole show. So I'm sort of
used to watching things in that way. But when when it comes out and
and people go crazy for it,they start giving it sort of blanket statements,

(11:41):
so it has no room to beanything either than oh, this is
stand up, and then loads ofstand ups go oh, look at that
there, that's not stand up becauseit hasn't made me laugh for an hour.
But I, um, you knowI I that's the thing that that's
why I put stuff on mute becauseof other people, because people just don't
know how to write basically, andwe've given everyone these tools to be writers,

(12:01):
and they just copy shit other peoplehave said and don't say things from
the heart, and it's bullshit.So I can't look at it. I
can't look it. Seems like sucha healthy relationship, relationship with social media.
I mean, where you know you'resort of like, rather than let
this get me all worked up,I'll just ignore it. Yeah, if
more people did that, I thinkwe'd probably be in a much happier society.

(12:24):
Well, I listened to my insidesand if I am stressed about something,
and I'll I'm like, how longhave I spent online? And if
I'm spending a lot of time onlinebecause I'm advertising something, I've got to
make it beneficial for me, becauseI can't spend all my time having to
do stuff like that and hate it. At the same time, I've got
bitten as well, so like I'veyou know, sort of maybe had a

(12:46):
conversation with someone that's got a littlebit heated and regretted it after that's happened
many times, and I'm also like, I don't I do you know what
happened. I'm in a slightly controversialadvert in the British Isles for the sunk
so the Sun. I'm sure you'veheard of it. It's a bit,
it's got you know, it's it'sit's popular. Let's just say. But

(13:11):
I got offered it. I youknow, I got offered it years ago
and I, you know, wasn'tgoing to be earning that type of money
doing what I was doing. Andit paid for me to go to Edinburgh
Fringe and I obviously got nominated forBest Newcomer in Edinburgh Fringe and have been
able to achieve all the things I'veachieved because I got this injection of cash
from this advert though I did,and I it's sort of set you on
your way. Yeah, yeah,for sure. And I don't have the

(13:35):
bank of mom and dad to dothat sort of stuff, which I know
that's how a lot of comedians.I don't know if it's the same over
in America, but over here itis. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
if you've got money, you canbe a comic. Well you do?
You do kind of see that aroundnot even on a on a grand scale.
It's almost like you don't You reallydon't see I've always I've always looked
at that and been like, where'sthe really rich comedian who's like, I'm

(13:56):
going to just pay for my owntour and do my own specials? Like
you never really see someone invest tothat degree. And maybe it's because that
when they have those means that theydon't necessarily have the complimentary talent to go
along with it. But do youdo see those people around the local scene
in Los Angeles? And I'm surein New York where you're like, Okay,

(14:18):
I've been over your place and yourplace is probably three thousand dollars a
month and you're on Instagram and TikTokall day, and then you're at clubs
every night, like you don't havea job, So somebody is funding this
venture. And the nice thing aboutsomething like only fans is that now we
at least have a little bit oftransparency to how some people who don't have

(14:39):
rich parents are doing. Yeah,don't you know what, there's no judgment
here. If you're on any fan, not at all, it's I will
I will shut you if your parentspaid for your career. But if you're
on any fans getting your pussy,I'm your fan. I agree. I
have way more respect for the chickwho's showing her holes than the chick whose

(15:00):
parents are just like, well,we really believe in Meredith. And her
name is always something like Meredith.She has, she has a name.
She did theater in school, andshe she went to like a very expensive
school not known for theater, butwas like the star of their theater department.
So she went to like I don'tknow, we'll call it like Auburn,

(15:24):
right, which is the big sportsschool in the US. And she's
like, I was the head ofthe theater group at Auburn. And you're
like, well, they that's afootball school, so I'm not really known
for its performing arts. But youOkay, so you spent seventy grand a
semester on tuition that your parents paidfor and now you live in a very
expensive place in La Then you waitressone day a week to make it look

(15:46):
like you're working hard, but youdon't. And do you know what I
sometimes I feel worried that people mightthink that I'm just getting at people who
have money and come for money,but it's not because I actually really enjoy
rich people. Like my favorite peoplein the world are people who in this
country are referred to themselves as upperclass because their loads of fun and they
sort of enjoy their money, whereasthere are some people that sort of just

(16:07):
try and hide their wealth all thetime. I'm not like that at all.
Like I'm doing a bit better now, And I thought my and I
I had my friends picked up ina Bentley for his birthday and taken to
the Soho and taken to Soo forcocktails, because you know, I like
people who are who who are notashamed of themselves. But there's this whole
pretense sometimes with people they're like whojust pretend that that's not a thing and

(16:30):
then and then bring out some sortof really like, you know, some
opinion about something that's happened somewhere,with no mention about what their what their
backstory is or where they've come fromto be able to have these opinions that
they have. That's that's why Ifind it annoying. It's the pretense.
Yeah. Well, and I've alwaysenjoyed any money I've made as well.
I mean, my thing is alwayslike I'll just go earn more. And

(16:52):
partially, you know, that's partiallyproblematic for me throughout my life because then
when someone at some point or circumstanceturns fasted off, then it's like ash,
shit, what am I going todo? But but to me,
it's like, you know, youcan't take it with you. So this
idea of like I'm going to shelterit away and you know I'm gonna my
money, Well, my folks they'veworked really hard to be able to support

(17:18):
me. They've done. The differenceI've got between some other people's parents I
suppose is I didn't grow up withloads of cash around me. But what
I grew up with with parents whojust said yes to like mad ideas,
the ship that I've brought them tothe shows I've made. Those two poor
fucks watch Rot My Life is absolutelydisgusting. But they've just gone there.
They've been supportive. They some ofit they've not unders stood at all,

(17:40):
but they've just tried to just sayyes where they can and well are in
the money when they need to andstuff. But you know, and they've
always had a job and kept jobsas well, so there is a way
of doing it. But I hadto say yes to this advert. And
I once did a stupid thing andI googled my I tweet searched my name.
I shouldn't have done it without thead on it, and I found

(18:03):
this comment thread from another comic andsomeone underneath it had written fuck you Jade
Adams and fuck the Sun. AndI was like, whoa, that's intense.
So I looked at him and thenhe had a few people in common
with me, so I was like, hey, mate, what's going on?
What's up? Because I like,I'm not a horrible person, so
why you're talking to me like this? And we went we went into a
DM and just had a little conversationand I was like, what's up?

(18:25):
What have I done? And hesaid, well, actually, what happens
is that had nothing to do withthe advert. It was all to do
with the fact that in two thousandand eleven, about a month after my
sister had died and a snap bythe way, months after a sibling of
mine had died, I was onTwitter as a waitress, not a comedian,
and I had had a conversation withhim and I was like, I
just got nothing to do with thesun in the first place. And I

(18:48):
think for the first time ever onTwitter, two people who had had an
argument got together in a DM andsolved their problems, and you know,
then we'd followed each other. Yeah, well and there and generally, you
know, if people give you thattime to sort of or space to sort
of you know, elaborate or expoundon your ideas or where you're coming from,

(19:11):
I think most reasonable people can cometo that place. But you know,
it's, uh, it's there's alsodifferent fringes of that. I'd say
ninety percent of the people that jumpinto your comments and stuff on the Internet
are not interested in any of that. And one of the things that I've
noticed that a lot of it isis really just sort of like platform writing,

(19:32):
Like there are people that you know, you become a target because you're
on television or you you know,you're in some ways of celebrity, and
then people think like, well,if I pissed this person off enough,
they will acknowledge me, and thenthat will get me all kinds of cool.
You know, you hear there's allthe time of much more famous comedians

(19:52):
where like somebody was like shitting allover them on a message board somewhere or
in their YouTube comments or something,and then the person's like, like you
did, They'll reach out to themdirectly and they just go, oh,
I love actually love you. Iwas just fucking around and trying to get
you know, to try to getat you, and it was just like,
that's such a weird that's such aweird thing. And you know,

(20:14):
there's really not like I remember whenI was in bands when I was in
my early twenties, and it's likeif I really liked the band that I
performed with, I'd be like,hey, everybody, I just saw this
awesome band, go check them out. And nobody does that with comedians.
They're sort of like there are muchmore people that will like troll comedians they
like or you know, or sortof like it's it's almost like this anti

(20:38):
fandom, do you know what Imean. It's kind of like people are
there's like this whole new, thiswhole new genre of fan that the way
they expressed their their interest in whatyou do is sort of by shitting on
it, and you just kind ofhave to You just kind of have to
realize that and and go along forthe ride. I guess tiktoks like that.

(21:02):
There's lots. Yeah, they're waytoo honest with their comments. I've
got to be honest. They pickthe weirdest little things to be to comment
on as well. Like they'll they'rereally like, if your video of yours
goes nuts, then people will startstudying it and pick little, tiny fractions
of moments that they thought were weird. I've heard Arianna Grande talking on an

(21:22):
interview where she was like, Yeah, my fans just don't like my eyebrows,
so I've been thinking of getting myeyebrows change. They they send me
tweets all the time. I don'tlike your eyebrows, Like that is nuts.
That's like these kids have got waytoo confident with their opinions. When
I was a kid, we weren'tencouraged to talk about how we felt about

(21:42):
things at all. We were likeshut up and put up. That was
basically my childhood. Well look athow the internet basically has Frankenstein Kylie Jenner's
entire body. Everything she's ever beencriticized of, she's gone right out and
replaced financially, and so you know, she literally I call her, amongst

(22:03):
my circle of friends franken Pussy becauseshe is literally a surgically constructed fuck machine,
just based on the comments section,like a she oh, men like
big assis, Let me go getone of those men like big lips,
I'll go get that. They likebig doey eyes. Let me change that,

(22:23):
let me lift my face, letme change my nose. I mean,
she looked like Marla Hooch from aLeague of their own before God,
before the surgeries, and then nowshe looks like Kim Kardashian on steroids.
I mean, I think there aretimes where Kim Kardashian looks at her sister
and goes like, Jesus Christ,you're a better me than I am.

(22:47):
Franken Pussy. Yeah, and thenyou've got and then you've got like somehow,
somehow, Kendall Jenner seems completely imperviousto that. Maybe it's because she
has the uh the confidence booster,of confidence booster of being a supermodel.
Yeah, she's had a lot,she's had a lot of work verges don't

(23:07):
you don't you don't you don't youdon't you don't you don't you don't you
don't you don't you don't you don'tyou don't you don't you don't you don't
you do We? Well, thatwas interesting? Are you did we have
a glitch? There you're muted again? There we go? I can I

(23:29):
mute you? Or maybe I can't? There we go? Now you're back.
Um. Oh, so you weresaying that that Kendall has had work
done as well. Yeah, yeah, loads, it's just she's bought so
that it's it's a body type.So Kendall has a very athletic body,
which means it can cover up whatshe's had done and her and her face.

(23:51):
Stuff she's had on her face isreally like people don't realize quite how
much Kylie Jane has had done toherself. Like it's it's it's she says,
it's literally like just a bit offiller and a bit of botox,
But it really if you look face. Yeah, her before and after would
be like putting me next to youknow. I was like, you know

(24:15):
what my instinct was to say,My instinct just then was to say,
putting you against me? And andI was like, no, literally me
with your beard right now and Itake these glasses off right, it would
be I'm still waiting on my newglasses. Otherwise I'd have them too,
and the comparison would be more fit. There you go. Yeah, what
you don't realize, Josh, isI've actually spent all this time just reconstructing

(24:38):
my face to fit with fit withyou. I want the same number of
Twitter followers you've got, so yeah, I don't think. I don't think
anybody should be aspiring to be morelike me, that's for sure. That's
one of the things I think isfunny is when people talk about They're like,
oh, well, you have thisplatform, U latform, you know

(25:00):
everyone sort of. I've had people, I've had people with like a tenth
of the following that I have,but like, I want to use my
platform, and it's like no onecares about these platforms. Like I did
not elect myself a role model.I don't consider myself a role model.
And anybody who looks at the sizeof my following and puts that on me
is an idiot. It's like,yeah, I'm not I'm not a role

(25:22):
model because you know, people tunein to see the crazy shit that I
say on Twitter. Well, ifyou also talk about the word platform,
what we're talking about, you're talkingabout being on a platform looking down at
a load of people, looking backup for them to for you to tell
them what to do. Like theimage of that that that word is weird
as well. Like you know,I've always said that I don't want to

(25:45):
encourage people to not think for themselves, and I take everything I say is
you know, that's what people arelike, especially with comics as well,
because we speak confidently in ways thatthey wish they could and so they can.
They you know, they're really impressedspecial if they have any sort of
social anxiety to get really impressed byit. But I also sort of want

(26:06):
to hopefully I leave the door openthat if I did something you know,
I don't want. I don't wantsycophantic behavior in any way. You know,
when you can look at into anaudience and just see a see of
yourself like I would never I would, you know that would I mean,
it's nice that people there that Ilike me, but I would like I
would like to make myself reach awider audience and spend the time doing that

(26:30):
rather than have it quickly. Well, the thing I like about the thing
I liked about your show and thatI think I like about sort of the
way UK does the UK does standup or Europe looks a stand up is.
I felt like Your Special was oneof the like one of the ones
that is really like a one,one woman show and it's sort of like
an all encompassing sort of experience withintent and a point of view and and

(26:56):
sort of like an established point ofview. And I feel like a lot
of American comedy sort of lacks thatamount of um focus or even like,
um, what's the word I'm lookingfor? Um A theme? Yeah,
theme to have an it's almost likeyou you hear a concept, so you'll
hear like bands be like all theconcept of this album or this is a

(27:18):
concept album based on this thing.Comedians don't necessarily do that a lot,
And so I feel like, um, you know, I feel like Your
Special, you know, in ain a way which was kind of fun
was. It took maybe the firstsort of ten to fifteen minutes of the
special to really realize what that was, because you know, if you're unfamiliar

(27:41):
with your work, which I waswhen I first watched it, you're sort
of like, wait a minute,is this is this um? Is this
sort of genuine or is this satire? And how exactly are you kind of
coming at this thing? Um?You know from that that you're kind of
addressing because in a way in thebeginning of it, it's like, well,

(28:03):
is this a first person perspective orare you sort of commenting on this
point of view? Which is whatI think made it so brilliant. And
the funny thing is is like,uh, I was shocked that it didn't
get and maybe the press was betterthan the UK, but it's like I
didn't see nearly enough people talking aboutit, and I was shouting from the
rooftops like everyone needs to go watchthe special. It's brilliant, it's funny,

(28:25):
and not only does that, Ithink it does a good job of
sort of addressing a theme in standup, but you kind of get into
more of um sort of like,uh, this this new worship of company
figureheads, this sort of like wejust put people on stage in front of
a screen and overnight they become thesemessiahs. And you saw it. You

(28:47):
saw it with Steve Jobs, yousaw it with um you know the guy
now from We Work and the womanfrom the Bloods. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. So you see how easyit is for somebody to sort of dawn
on this almost and just put onthe ensemble, put on a headset,
microphone, stand in front of ascreen and people will essentially believe anything you

(29:11):
have to say. It all camefrom a desire to want the comedy industry
in the UK to look at me, take me seriously as a stand up
because up until that point there wastoo much flim flam going on in the
shows that I was doing, nottoo much. I've had a lot of
success with the way that i'd sortof put a show together before, but

(29:32):
then I found that what I thoughtI was unique with started becoming not so
unique in comedy. So I waslike, all right, do you know
what, do you know what,guys, I'm going to just leave all
that stuff behind. I Am goingto leave it behind. I'm going to
do something new. And then Ihad like an ex agent say to me
that other people wouldn't take me seriouslyas I didn't take me seriously as a
comic. So I just thought i'dtake the piss out of her, put

(29:53):
a black turt on, eck onand prove because actually, something that was
quite interesting is there were themes ina whole bit in a serious black jumper
that I'd had in my previous show, but you didn't. I'm going to
talk about that. I'm the nextone, actually, but I just put
a different outfit on. And Ijust think, how dumb is that?
Like I'm just saying the same oldshit? What's wrong with me being a

(30:15):
bit fabulous? You let all thesedrag queens be fabulous? How about a
prestodian bird from a prestodium bird inher thirties? How about that it hasn't
not any work done? And Ialmost wonder if do you think that the
sort of the industry's push of likeHannah's special is sort of like why it

(30:36):
was hard for a lot of industrypeople to also want to shine a light
on your special because indirectly, andI don't think there was any intention of
yours to sort of mock that,because they kind of came out very close
to one another. But it's almostlike she sort of fulfilled the prophecy of
what you were talking about in yourshow by basically putting on a serious outfit,

(30:56):
changing sort of the demeanor in whichshe taught about her material and almost
like basically did a special of like, I'm not making fun of myself anymore.
I'm going to start taking myself seriously. And you had been doing your
show in the UK far before herspecial had come out, so it was
almost like you sort of predicted thisshift now coming to comedy and then,

(31:18):
you know whatever, what many peoplecalled the Special of the Year was sort
of exactly what you were making funof. Well, yeah, I mean
I was. I always when I'mwanting to make a point about something,
I always try and find the pointwithin myself rather than sort of punching down
and stuff like I'll always become thething that I'm taking the piss out of.

(31:40):
So the next my next show thatI'm writing is called Men I Can
Save You, and it's going tobe a sort of Tony Robin style.
I don't know at the moment.I'm at the early state that Tony Robin
Style's self help show for guys butactually, what you know, what it's
really about is codependency and I andso I sort of but I will make

(32:01):
myself the sort of figure ahead ofthat of that mocking. But I didn't
purposely go out there to mock anyoneelse. But also at the same time,
I think that sometimes, especially withfemale comics, there's like you can
be this or you can be that, and if you want to achieve these
things, you have to do thisthing. But if you want to like
stay and do that thing, thenyou can just stay there. And I

(32:22):
was sort of pissed off that therewould seem to be two camps for women,
which is like get your tits outor stick on a jumper and try
and try and be a president,Like why why these neither of these roles
fit with me? Like I'm I'mso much more of a woman than someone
who like you know, I saidit at the end of the show.
But because because of the way Iwas, I started getting people contacting me

(32:43):
telling me I should be prime minister. It was ridiculous, Like I had
girls message in me going you shouldbe premised or start running the country.
I was like, do you notunderstand that? I was like by the
point that the show is that youdon't need anyone in charge it. And
I'm not even going to be theperson that's in charge. I like,
I don't I I don't tell theinternet all about my personal habits and my
lifestyle. But this person here shouldnot be running a country, and neither

(33:07):
should anyone else who's listening to thispodcast. The people that should run a
country are people that don't want torun a country, Like stick accountants in
the job and let them deal withthe money. But all these people that
desire that platform will desire that they'repsychopaths. Yeah, I agree. I've
said for a long time. Youknow, politically, I think it should

(33:30):
be done like jury duty. Ithink most of your representative government should be
chosen against their will. Yeah,should have exactly, you know, they
should have to serve that as theircivic duty, like jury duty. And
quite frankly, you know, ifit's if you have someone in that job
who can't wait to get out ofthat job, who's not using that job
to sort of enrich themselves for eternity, the odds of them doing the right

(33:53):
thing because they then have to golive in the world that they create,
is much higher than somebody, Andyou need to look no further than American
politics, where we have some youknow, um representative governmental people figures that
aren't presidents by the way, whowho stay in government for twenty thirty years

(34:14):
and they have seven homes. Andyou know, these people are as famous
as actors who have been on TVfor thirty years. And you know,
it's like, can you really,with any good faith believe that that person
has any not only any connection toreality anymore whatsoever, but that they have
any belief that they're going to haveto then go live in the world they

(34:34):
shape with their with their policies andtheir legislation. I mean, the answer
is no. So I'm with you. I think I think all people in
governments should be drug kicking and screamingto the job every day and they should
have to do it for a coupleof years. And like the military Korea,
Yeah, like you kids don't wantto leave a room and they put
their hands up on the on theon the doors to try And that's that's

(34:55):
basically how the inauguration day should start. Just whoever is just trying to not
leave their house but being dragged outby a board that should basically be it
well, and you bring up somethingreally interesting to me about the way women
are in comedy, because one thingI don't like because you hear women complain
about their role in comedy a lot, and some of it is sort of

(35:17):
a lot of it is justified.Some of it is sort of just bitching
and complaining, which all comics areguilty of, regardless of gender. But
one of the things that really doesbother me is sort of what you'd mentioned
a minute ago, is that therereally is no laying for women just being
silly. And those were always thefemale comedians I loved growing up, like

(35:37):
people like Rivers and Carol Burnett andyou know, you know, even watching
I Love Lucy, it was likethere was this sort of this sort of
idea that maybe women who were funnycould just be sexy by being funny.
And now they're like, you haveto be either sexy or you have to
be serious, and it's like,no, no, I want someone who's

(35:59):
silly and laughable and charming, Likethere is this sort of middle ground.
And I found I found you andyour special to be incredibly charming, and
it was like it was based onthe fact that you were you weren't you
come off as very confident in yourself. But it's not like that. It's
very genuine. It's like this verysort of genuine I am who I am.

(36:21):
These are the things that are funnyabout me, and I want to
share them with you. And that, to me is the core of what
makes a comedian great, as somebodywho is like completely owns who they are
and is now sharing that in ahumorous way with other people. And then
to me, the hope that Iget is that if you execute that well,
then the people in the audience willleave going out. I'm fucked up

(36:43):
a little bit too, but I'mlearning to be cool with it as well.
Instead of someone who's saying, youknow, well, you either have
to be as pretty as me oras smart and intellectual as me, and
then I feel like the audience leavesand goes well, I'm neither of those
things, so I don't really bondor relate to that comedian. There's a
real I also think that there's areal intelligence to being silly as well,
that you know, being able tomake people comfortable and happy and entertained.

(37:07):
There's a real um, there's ayou know, there's a sense of like
especially uh, you know, likeyou know, I think it makes I
think clever people know how to makeother people happy, and and I like
I've done. I did. I'llbe honest with you. I've had serious
moments in show in shows before.I had a show in twenty seventeen that

(37:28):
I'd written about my best mate andit was actually here she's behind the laptop.
Basically, she and I we don'tfall out. We're like, she's
my life partner. I'm a lifepartner. We got engaged this week as
mates, and we're going to haveourselves a wedding. We've just decided neither
both of us are single, andlike we love each other and there's it's
never going to be better. Butanyway, we had the big fallout of

(37:52):
twenty seventeen twenty eighteen and show aboutour our friendship and how you know,
like it was sort of how importantit was to me. There was obviously
there was funny moments about it.Started it off as far As Gump and
did the whole of Forrest Gump,well not the whole, but like ten
minutes of far As Gump as theopening ten minutes. I know all the
words just far picturing it. I'mpicturing it. I know are full movie.

(38:14):
By the way, it's one ofmy favorite I know. I've watched
it so many times. I knowall of the words to all of Farrest
Gump. That was the whole pointof the There was like a point that
I was making about my personality atthe top. But she and I fell
out just before I did the show, and it had a sort of darker
undertone. I'll be honest. Therewere funny bits in it, but add
a darker undertone. So I havedone it before. But I also think

(38:36):
that there's a especially as you getmore and more well known. I think
there's also a nice barrier that youcan have between yourself and the audience if
you're maintaining fun and silliness and youcan make sort of I think you can
make intelligent and more serious points,but you can lighten them all ways,
I think. But I went tosee Douglas Hannah's second show. I went

(38:58):
to see it live in London.Someone offered me a ticket and I was
like that, all right, I'llgo And it was much funnier. Yeah,
what was it? One? Definitelywas it almost felt like a return
sort of to her normal act.Yeah, And what was interesting is the
way the audience are they there's athing about you see it with people who

(39:20):
have like gimmicks or they are characters, and those characters do really well online.
It's like, you know, likehow it is with YouTubers and stuff,
like how they find it really difficultto not do YouTube anymore. But
when you get really really successful,very very quickly with one particular thing,
the drop off an audience retention afteryour big thing, if it's not exactly

(39:43):
like the thing that they saw before, is painful. Yeah. I saw
it happen with Hannah Hard at theFood Network. So when I had my
show on a food network in theUS, Hannah Hart, who did My
Drunk Kitchen on YouTube, had signeda deal to come over to Food Network
work and do a show of herown over there. And to your point,
because it wasn't My Drunk Kitchen,none of the viewership carried over,

(40:07):
and so it was like starting allover with her. And they paid her,
I imagine a good amount of moneyto come over and basically build an
entire show for the network. Andthey thought, we will get this YouTube
star and she'll inject a new audienceand to a degree. They didn't even
let her do the thing that madeher popular, Like they could have reworked

(40:29):
it and changed it a little bitand done something a little different, but
you know, let her be herselfon the network. And that was ultimately
where I butted heads with the network. Was like, I want to be
more me, I want to bemore silly, I want to be more
funny, and you know, Ithink that's what makes the show good.
And then there are also very interestingcharacters of people that were encountering on the

(40:52):
show, and I think we needto show more of that. And you
know, ultimately, a lot ofthat very low micro budget television is so
cookie cutter to prevent the costs fromballooning that it very much stifles the creativity
in it. Yeah. No,I absolutely agree with you. I feel
like it's I just feel like,if this job's worth getting, it's worth

(41:15):
getting on the slow side of things. And also, I just really like
surprising people so they can't second guessme and I don't get stuck in a
box. I like, the worstthing in the world is do you know
what someone once said to me?And it's one of the other reasons I
did serious Black jumper or actually theoriginal name, because with all shows it
starts with a title with me,and that's the difference between them. I

(41:35):
think British and American stand up islike a title so important to me.
It means something about the show,like the whole thing, and I try
and justify the entire, the tirething around this title that I've come up
with eight well months, maybe bornin the wrong country. Because I build,
I try to build my hours thesame exact way where I have I
title it first, and then Itry to make sure that the bits that

(41:57):
I'm developing inside of that are relatedto the premise, basically the premise of
the entire hour, yea. Andso sometimes that that is a little bit
more vague, like in the senseof um, you know, uh using
using a title that's maybe all morea little more all encompassing to where a
lot of things can fit under thatumbrella. But I do, very much

(42:22):
like you say, kind of startwith a title thesis in mind, I
wasn't allowed, Oh go, I'msorry, no, I was gonna say,
and then try to build and tryto sort of aggregate material or collect
material that falls under that sort ofum that umbrella or the sort of thesis
statement. I wasn't allowed my titlewhen I was naming my Amazon Prime special,

(42:45):
I wasn't allowed the original one.The lawyers said no, it was
the original one. So the titlethat I went to you to. So
I did the show, A previewedit over the over the summer before but
twenty nineteen, and that's right,the whole of Edinburgh. It was called
the Ballad of Kylie Jenner's Old Face. So funny as we just talked about

(43:08):
that. Yeah, yeah, soI do you know if I was allowed
to have had my title the goneviral? Of course it would have.
Of course it would have. Youknow what's funny is my my plan.
I'll let the cat out of thebag because I'm sure other artists have done
this. But my plan for thenext thing I do, in terms of

(43:29):
releasing an album or a stand upspecials in the track titles to put the
name just title them all after veryvery famous musicians hit songs. Because I
discovered this, I have on myalbum from twenty twelve, I have a
song called or a track called ofMice and Men where I'm actually referencing the

(43:52):
film and the book. The bookfirst and then the film obviously later,
Let's be honest, it was thefilm first. That's part of the part
of the bit is that I pretendto be very well read, and yet
I'm referencing the film the entire time. You're talking about instead of instead of
Lenny or like John Malkovich. It'sjust so Gary he was over there and

(44:13):
John was over there. Yeah,I refer to Lenny getting shot in the
head by Lieutenant Dan, and Ithink that blows apart. It blows apart
the idea that I've read a bookever in my life. I was just
standing in a creek and Lieutenant Danas a gun to the back of my
head. Yeah. So anyway,there also happens to be a heavy metal

(44:37):
band called Of Mice and Men,and I make a significant portion of money
on streaming every month because that trackis named after a very popular metal bit
and not. And so imagine themoney I would make if all of my
tracks started with the word Beyonce.Um, I would be of I wouldn't

(44:58):
be living in this luxurious apartment yousee behind me, so um Yeah,
it's to me. I'm shocked thatmore people haven't tried to sort of hack
the algorithm. That way, Iwasn't even allowed to say who run the
world? I had to get theaudience to say. At first, there's
a bit in the show where Ido that, I'm not I can't say
yeah, yeah, so I there'sthe stuff. There was loads of staff

(45:20):
that was taken out of the Imean, the other show was very what's
it called litigious? Yeah, itwas very litigious. Yeah. The show
I took to Edinburgh just and alsowe had to go through all of the
photos and take loads of them outthat I'd had before. So I've got
to the live show that I dois very naughty. It's also an hour
and twenty minutes long because that familyjust keep on giving. Certainly, yeah,

(45:46):
certainly. Well, now I haveto ask you, what do you
think of the matriarch of the familyrunning for governor in California? Hang on,
what sorry, the matriarch of theKardashians. Yeah, Caitlin Jenna.
Oh, Caitlyn Jenna, not Chriswill have your guts Regartas for saying Katelyn's
the matriarch, matriarch, do youknow what? I worked out the other

(46:07):
day, And I don't know ifyou believe this as well? So I've
worked out something in the day youand Caitlyn was transitioning and and choosing her
name. Did she want to haveCaitlyn with a kay and went to Chris
and Chris said no, And thenshe had to have a c because if
because that feels very much like whatwould have happened. I believe you're probably
right. I believe she she waslike, no, I won them.

(46:29):
But but I don't know, youknow, because I remember somebody had asked
her that somebody had asked Caitlin like, why not with a cane? He's
like, I want to do shoutingnew baby. You know, it's just
like, well you would go foran entirely different name, maybe something with
the beginning with be that some peopleI've got friends who have transitioned and they
went from what they you know,the name similar, there's a similar edge

(46:50):
to the to the dead name.But I my friend, my friend Chris
Maddocks, a comedian Minneapolis. Hedoes a bit on his album talking about
his sister who transitioned UH and shewent from Lynn to Linus. I'm choful,
you know, I'm sort of asee you know in in in his
UH on his album from two thousand. I think it's two thousand and ten

(47:13):
called point of Entry. He's like, listen, I respect your your choice
to you know, transition, butLinus um Linus is ah, I know
the type of person who's good linessin this country. Yeah. Isn't that
the name of every character in trainSpotting? Pretty much? Yeah? I

(47:38):
was also thinking what mine would be, and then I was like, actually,
it would probably be John. Ithink we lost your audio again,
Jane, I said, mine wouldJosh and yours would be Jade. Yeah,
no, I would I would loveto go by Jake. Something Jade
feel like would make me more exotic? Is it exotic? My name?

(47:59):
I don't know. It is whenyou slap it on a cracker like me.
Have you met somebody like me andthen my name was Jade? You
would be like, where does thatcome from? Are you a ninja?
What is that? Yeah? Imean there are a lot of boys that
I I've seen with my spelling whowere called Jade and they look like they

(48:20):
could chop a head off or twowith the side of their hand. That's
what I think being a ninja is, basically, right. But yeah,
I mean, ultimately, you know, there is this very this sort of
very genre based trend in comedy that'skind of coming now. And we talked

(48:42):
about the fact that, you know, a lot of what we talk about
on this show specifically is sort oflike the sort of the origin stories of
bits or things like that. Butit was interesting you and I spoke about
this trend in in comedy where it'salmost like this glorification of depressed and mental
illness, and like, now we'reinto this world where it's almost like everything

(49:05):
has to have some sort of correlationto a person dealing with their depression or
anxiety or whatever. And you usethe phrase, what was it like sadamy?
Yeah, sa sadom, not comedy, but Sadami, which I also
think would be a great name fora special Well, I do you know

(49:29):
what I come at this conversation fromsomeone who actually, as well as really
wants to make people laugh. Ithink I'm quite good at making people cry
as well, and I've done it. I did it in a show in
twenty sixteen that I took to Edinburgh, So I did it doesn't sound like
a comedy hour, but it wasvery funny from start to finish. Even
the sad bit was funny. ButI did a show about my sister who

(49:52):
I danced with for about fourteen years. Uh and she and that adds a
sort of moment in it that wasa bit like, um, but yeah,
there is a now that that thatmoment seems to be translating through the
entire hour show. Um, andI think people are really enjoying it.
This the Catharsis of Catharsis of tearsat the moment, I think everyone is

(50:17):
the real pandemic going at the moment'smental health issues, which is why everyone's
fucking talking about it. But thething annoys me when I watch she seems
it's like you're not the only personwho like, I don't know. It
just feels like it would be likedoing a special about having a cold.
I don't know it just right,you know, like like here's here's my

(50:37):
show about diabetes. No, actuallydiabetes is still specific, but like everyone
gets cold, you know, here'shere's my show about the headache I once
gotten and got rid of. Yeah, my father used to say when I
was younger, and it's kind ofstuck with me throughout my life. Is
like, yeah, depression is aside effect of waking up every day,

(50:57):
Like if you're not. You knowit, It really to your point is
really does not something that makes youspecial unique in any way. I mean,
if you do not ever experience sadnessor depression, you are a sociopath
and you're probably an insane person anddelusional in many ways. And you know,
but on the flip side of that, if you do feel sad and
depressed, I don't think it meansyou're sick. I think it means you're

(51:21):
alive, and you're probably very healthy. And there are some things you should
look at in the world that makeyou sad, and there are some things
that you should think about. Imean, I'll share a very morbid thing.
We were watching a movie last night, my girlfriend and I or we
were watching a show. We werewatching Dave on Hulu, which is about
the rapper or slash comedian Little Dickie, And we went to lay down to

(51:45):
watch a movie and we both tookwe were both taking ibuprofen. We're both
sick, and I just had thisweird vision in my head of like,
oh my God, Like it waslike I was watching that scene in a
movie, and in a weird way, this thought in my mind of like
what if we'd both just took pillsto kill ourselves and then laid down together
in this very sort of Romeo andJuliet way to commit joint suicide. And

(52:07):
it was just this weird dark thoughtthat came over my head and made me
incredibly sad, and then I immediatelyleft. It was like, why did
that pop in my brain? Likewhat on earth would make me think?
Like? Oh? Yeah? Butbut but in a way, and I'll
be very honest about this, ina way, I like um experiencing things

(52:29):
like that because yeah, because ina way, it sort of makes me
feel like, oh wow, thatand it upset me to think that I
And I think about why did thatupset me? Well, because I care
about this person and I care aboutcontinuing to experience life with this person,
and the idea of that coming toan end is sad to me. So
yeah, I think if you arean introspective or thoughtful or creative person in

(52:52):
any way, those things are goingto graze across your brain at any time,
and you should feel appreciative for it, not feel afflicted by it.
I am give me two sex.I've got five percent battery on this laptop.
Let me plug you in and Iwatch ship. Can we say on
this point now hang on? Yes, yes, absolutely, okay, yeah,

(53:31):
I want all right, Hey therewe go now Hi. So I

(53:57):
was what I was saying was,what's interesting is my best mate who's here.
She's got this book which is allabout sort of human emotions. And
she was telling me that there's sortof there's other people that have said it,
but we're living in a sort ofmono society at the moment where we're
either happy or we're depressed, andthere's no like in between emotions that people
express. So this book is justbasically like a whole book of different emotions

(54:22):
you can have. And one cameup and we, you know, we
get a bit spiritual about it,and we're like, what's our emotion going
to be of the day? Andwe flipped through the book and I had
one which was melancholy. And melancholyis that sort of you know, that
sad place that you can get tothat is part of depression, but it
is something that you can sort ofgo, Oh, I felt melancholy this
evening. I might have had acry, I might have done this,

(54:43):
but today I don't feel melancholy anymore. But the word depression is basically like
it's so long. It's like it'sdepression doesn't just come for an evening,
does it. It doesn't just rockup on the door and go, hey,
depressions here, enjoy me for anevening and I'll be gone in the
morning. It's like, no,I've got to oppression and I'm never going
to get over it. But ifyou use words like melancholy or I mean,

(55:04):
I can't remember all of the wordsthat we've gone she's gone through.
That's what is the book? Whatwhat's your what's your emotions book? Bunnocks,
I can find out, Babs.But yeah, it's a It's really
interesting just because we're again that sameconversation we were having earlier on about a
different subject, but that black andwhite monoculture at the moment, which is

(55:25):
like you can be this or youcan be that. You can be happy,
you can be depressed, you canbe left wing, you can be
right wing, you can be youcan before this, you can be somewhere
on the gender sexual spectrum. Likeit's it is. There's so much of
where we get our self worth todayis built in how we identify what was

(55:45):
that, Babs. It's called thehuman emotions and inciting media of feeling from
anger to wanderness by Tiffany what Smith. There you go, Tiffany what Smith.
Tiffany what Smith. We'll find it. Um, just load. We
lost you again, Jade, I'mback. Um. Yeah, it gives

(56:10):
you really an interesting sort of thesison each other words and an explanation as
well. It's as good as interesting. Um. But yeah again, you
know this is the same point.I'm imagine you've spoken about this sort of
black or white, yes or noworld on many of these podcasts with people.
But as US comedians know, theworld isn't as simple as that.

(56:31):
It's what normally US comedians are thereto do, which is to comment on
a very unconfusing existence. But whatwe've done now has gone No comedians,
you can't say that you can't dothat because it's difficult kind of thing.
I think every artist has an obligationto guide us through that middle in between
place like that that that's sort ofthe interesting unexplored things. I mean,

(56:53):
like the news can kick over therocks on the black and white issues,
right or that's the simplest thing todo is to sort of highlight and a
lot of people have made a lotof money on the Internet just pointing out
the obvious things, but I thinkreally being able to illustrate the nuance between
those two points is the biggest isthe bulk of the human experience is what

(57:15):
happens in between going from here tohere? And what is that part of
the journey and how can you makethat more enjoyable or digestible for people and
or not or talk about how notdigestible it is, you know, depending
on what the what the subject matteris. But I don't know. I
feel like, you know, Igo back and forth as a comedian,

(57:36):
and I think every artist does whereit's like, sometimes I want to make
points and then sometimes I just wantto nuke the whole concept of caring enough
to make a point. Yes,yes, And I think that's a pretty
normal thing for a comedian to gothrough. And I think if you don't
sort of like, you know,there are times are all right a bit
and then then I'll be like,I fucking hate the guy who wrote this

(57:57):
bit, Like you know, Ihate this, you know, the idea
that that this matters to me orthat I would even want to share this,
And then uh, you know,it's kind of like I've always said,
I think every person in this worldis at a constant stain of war
between who they are and who theythink they're supposed to be or who they

(58:17):
want to be. And I think, you know, being a comedian's no
different from me. It's like there'swho I am naturally, and then there's
this idea of who I want tobe, and sometimes that's unfortunately driven by
the wrong things. It's like,well maybe this is you know, as
a professional comedians. I'm sure we'veboth gone through this thing of well,
this is what the business is tellingme I should be, or this is

(58:39):
what people tell me will be themost successful, and this is what people
will tell me is my best chanceat succeeding. And so, you know,
you go back and forth through thoseall of those things, and I
think through that you carve out whoyou really are. And that is a
combination of like your aspirational self andthen your sort of de fault natural self.

(59:01):
I suppose that's probably why I wrotethat show was also as a you
know, not having the sort ofsong aspect and the cabaret aspect of the
performance, which was used to bequite a crutch for me. Because it's
something I can I can always docharm and pizazz and show business in that
way. But sort of stripping itall back and just talking as actually was
a challenge for me. It's I'mnot privately educated, so my communication skills

(59:23):
are working class people in the UKare held back by one thing, which
is that we've not read as manybooks as say other people in dentistry,
probably dentistry as well, which Imean, I'm surprised you don't get mugged
for your teeth in the streets.I know. It's I mean, to
be fair, I was talking aboutthis this evening actually, but yeah,

(59:45):
there's a you know, there's asort of very I've I've got British teeth.
I haven't had them cleaned and polishedyet, but I'll get them.
I'll get them sparkling like yours,yours, Josh like the Yeah, they've
had no work done none. Ohmy god. You I love your brushing
your your teeth, don't you.It's your favorite flossing. You you Americans

(01:00:06):
have given me flossing. We don'tget told to do that when we're growing
up. No, yeah, uh, it's an important piece of the daily
puzzle. From what I'm told.Well, it wasn't something that was definitely
I was told, Now it's goingto make your gums bleed, that was
what I was told. Yeah,and it does, but it generally does
for the right reasons, like you'regetting infection out or whatever. Um,

(01:00:30):
but I think you know, bothof us also, by the way,
very well known for our knowledge onhealth and willness. No, yeah,
sat are smoking a fag. Yeahyeah, I'm really into my health and
me. Maybe that should be thenext conversation that we have. Let's talk
about my health regime. Well,I just I said this. I talked

(01:00:50):
about this on another podcast and it'son my U my next episode of my
show coming up. But um,the the I neglect my health so much
that there's almost always sort of arevolutionary, some sort of like massive declaration
every time I go to a physician. So I went to get an eye

(01:01:12):
exam done about a week ago,and the doctor there told me, because
I have some swelling in my opticnerves, like you probably have a brain
tumor. And I walked out justgoing, yeah, I don't believe you.
Because we're in a glass of storein a strip mall next to a
frozen yogurt shop, but sure,tell me I'm about to die. But
I did kind of walk away withthis sense of like. And then one

(01:01:37):
of my other friends we were talkingabout it, and he goes, well,
you should probably go get it lookedat, because you just don't want
that guy to be right. AndI go, I honestly don't care if
he's right. Like, you know, I do think we have this strange
obsession with staying alive for a verylong time. Risen. Yeah, yeah,
exactly, But I mean, youknow, I I just I don't

(01:02:00):
know. I've I've known two othercomedians that had brain tumors and they both
spent five to ten years fighting them, and they both died anyway. And
they spend all of their money andall of their time trying to stay alive
and get more time. And youknow, I have this sort of very
weird spiritual sense of like, Ithink the amount of time we all get

(01:02:20):
is predetermined, and I think tryingto fight that in any way is is
feudal. Yeah, And you know, and I think I think if I
if I got a diagnosis tomorrow thatI was on my way to being dead,
I would just enjoy the time Ihad left, I don't think I
would fight it. I don't thinkI would, you know, spend twelve

(01:02:44):
hours a day going to hospitals andspecialists in different people and getting cut open
and having stuff cut out and stuffput in me, and you know,
I think I would be at peacewith that diagnosis. And so, in
a weird way, like this verysort of cavalier conversation about he was also
a gay doctor, by the way, which always makes the diagnosis harder to
take, because you can't really tellsomeone they're dying and sound fabulous and have

(01:03:07):
them take you seriously like you mighthave a brain tumor, and I know
this sounds fun, and then itset me down this whole path of like,
well, the concept of a homosexualdoctor is kind of interesting, right,
because in a lot of ways,here's somebody who has a natural predilection
to ignore what biology is telling youto do. So in a way,

(01:03:29):
you should be a rogue maverick inthe health world to say like, well,
you know you should treat this cancer, but also fuck it, right,
I had this sort of weird andso naturally, as a comedian,
I start processing, Okay, what'sfunny about gay what's funny about a gay
doctor? Give me this diagnosis?What's funny about that? And then and
then it got me down this wholepath of this deeper thing of like,

(01:03:50):
man, why do people why dopeople fight or feel this urge to stay
alive? And then I look aroundand I was like, so many of
the people obsessed with health and stayingalive are the people who I feel like
are doing the least with their existence. You know, they're just sort of
clocking in and out every day andand sort of mindlessly going through the motions.
And it's like, what journey areyou prolonging? Like you're a carg

(01:04:12):
in a machine. Well, lifetells you the minute you're born, and
you can start well when you're akid, and you can just start absorbing
information. You're told to live allthe time. You're told, here's this
thing that will help you live abit better. Here's another thing that will
help you live better. This thingwill make you happier, which will help
you. We're constantly told that wecould be trying to live longer our entire

(01:04:39):
lives. That's you know, youhear about people in their nineties dying.
And I spoke about her in theshow. But there I met a woman
who was in her in her nineties, and she had a really difficult existence.
She basically was on her own mostof the day and waiting for a
family to arrive, and then whenshe did, she she would try and

(01:05:00):
get them to listen to the storiesthat she's told over and over again.
And I think that she I was. I was, I was left with
after IM after I left chatting toher at that time, was and how
incredibly lonely she wasn't I don't know, like I would rather have a short
time of fun than a long timeand nothing, you know, I agree,
I agree, And maybe some ofthat is brought on. Like I

(01:05:21):
had an older brother, not mucholder. He was only forty three,
passed away um about a year ago. And what did he dial of.
He basically drank himself to death.He was a long time drinker, heavy
drinker, and battled addiction and stuffthrough his life and then and then ended

(01:05:41):
up with a lot of sort ofdigestive issues as a result of it,
and liver failure and stomach problems andso you know, sort of like succumbed
to um the complications from that heand and in his last year he had
a bunch of surgeries and you knowkind of fought very hard, and you
know, had a lot of likein depth conversations with our mom about you

(01:06:06):
know, only having so much fight, and towards the end after the last
surgery and stuff, was just like, yeah, I don't I don't want
to do it. I don't wantto do that anymore. I don't want
to do any of that. Andso, you know, it's sort of
in a way, it's one ofthose things of like, well, if
he was in pain and he wassuffering and was having these complications and his
quality of life was going down,then I'm happy he's not in pain anymore

(01:06:28):
and not having to deal with that. And I will tell you this,
like, you know, people cansay what they want about someone going through
that experience or having that battle withaddiction, but at least on the bright
side, you know, he's somebodywho always kind of did what he wanted
with his life and got to experiencea lot of things and did a lot
of fun stuff. And you know, and I'm sure there were more things
he would have done and maybe thingshe would have done differently, but you

(01:06:53):
know, we all get the timewe get. And that's what I think
is so funny about super religious peoplebecause a lot of times they're the ones
who spend the most time at thetrying to stay alive longer. And it's
like, wait a minute. Ifyou think there's some sort of super bowl
of being your dick sucked after thislife, then what the fuck are you
hanging onto it for? You knowwhat I mean? Like, if you're
that convinced it heaven is real andit's this amazing place, wouldn't you be

(01:07:15):
trying to fucking check out as quickas possible. Like I don't sleep in
in the hotel when there's an allyou can eat breakfast buffet, I'll tell
you that. Oh yeah, definitely. So I waked. I get the
fuck up and out of bed forthat. So you know, it's it's
just weird to me. And soI don't know. I mean, I

(01:07:36):
just feel like, and this isthe other thing I said when my friend
was like, are you gonna getthat checked out? I go listen,
I'm overweight by about at least onehundred pounds. If I don't do something
to fix that, then what thefuck would I be doing getting any other
sort of health work done? Youknow, obviously there's some heavy lifting that
I need to do if I wereto give a shit about my health before

(01:07:58):
I start digging into the engine,you know what I mean, get this
body work done before you lift upthe hood and start redoing the engine.
It's so hard to go to thedoctors and with any sort of ailment when
you're fat, because they'll go andthe first thing they say to you is
you've got to lose weight. Youknow you're fat, right, and they
go yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah yeah. Every time I stopped going

(01:08:19):
to my asthma nurse because of thisreason, it was always some fat nurse
who was telling me that I wasoverweight, And I was just like,
can we just like focus on myasthma, not focus on something I can't
fix right now? But you justgive me a fucking inhalo and shut the
fuck up before I start roasting youfor your weight as well. Yeah,
is there a is there a pill? Are you going to prescribe me something

(01:08:41):
for that today? Otherwise that's along term fix. Yeah. That's why
I like my doctor is because whenI go in and I go and I'll
just go like, yeah, whatdo you think this is? And she's
like, you're fucking fat, that'swhat it is, and you know,
work on that and that's it.She doesn't try to give me pills,
she doesn't try to put me onmedication, and she's just like, yeah,
you know, exercise more, eatless, that's the that's ninety percent

(01:09:04):
of your problems with any sort ofhealth related things. Um, and just
listen to your body. You'll knowwhen it's fucked up from what you're doing.
So you know, until all all, I was gonna say, well
I would, I would. Iwould go to say that I'll fix something
with myself when it starts proving aproblem. And it's the same with my

(01:09:26):
weight, like I've had asked mesince I was five. So no one
in the world can tell me thatmy asthma has got anything to do with
my weight because I didn't come outfat, um, but me neither.
Actually I had a you know,it's weird. Have you ever traced the
origins of your overweightness? Because Idid? Yeah, Nan, my Nan
gave me apple pie. Oh thatwas it. I wish mine was so

(01:09:47):
pleasant. Mine was actually a bicycleaccident. So I found this out listening
to another podcast about sleep, healthand um, I busted my nose really
badly. I don't know if youcan see it here, but like it
kind of goes like this, andthat kind of looks very nice. It
looks like a good nice, wellthank you. It used to be nicer,

(01:10:08):
but I bashed it really well whenI was like eleven, and I
was super thin before that, likeI was a bean pole. I could
probably find pictures of me where Ilooked like a little anarexic Ron Weasley.
And then the what I found isthat that chain that having my septum deviate
and getting it all fucked affected mybreathing, which in turn can begin metabolic

(01:10:32):
syndrome at a young age. Andso for some reason, at that age,
despite being highly active and playing likea bunch of sports and riding my
bike every day and walking two milesto and from school every day, I
started to gain weight. And ithad to do probably most likely with that
injury to my my airway. AndI've never had it fixed, and so
it just compounds and compounds, andthen you get bigger and you eat more,

(01:10:56):
and then it just continues to kindof snowball. So exercise is what
made me fat. That's the longstory short, Well, I was a
competitive freestyle disco dancer for thirteen yearsof my life, which is kind of
like your cheerleading out there, butlike not in well, kind of like
that actually, but in different outfitsand different types of music, and not

(01:11:16):
in front of any sporting fans.A lot more famous or a little bit
more fabulous. I meant to say, uh, yeah, actually it was.
It was quite fabulous. It was. It's a very sort of weird
experience as a child, but Idid that, and I was always bigger
than all the girls, even nowI was dancing three nun know why like

(01:11:41):
him, I was doing you know, sort of activity stuff, and I've
just you know, there's pictures.I have always been jubbier than And my
mum fed me exactly the same asshe fed my sister, who was really
skinny and an athletic and a verygood freestyle disco dancer, whereas I was
rubbish and used to try behind butshe, you know, we had exactly

(01:12:02):
the same food. But then Igave it all up because it just wasn't
my thing. And there's a lotmore sitting down. When you are funny
enough, when you do stand up, you've got to stand up twenty minutes
of a day and the rest ofthe day you can sit down. So
I was sort of, I'm mybody's a product of whatever job I'm doing
at the time. I think,yeah, I agree, mine is a

(01:12:24):
mine definitely became a product of whatI was doing on Food Network when I
had that show for a couple ofyears. And uh, but it was
it was interesting you brought up doingstand up. I recently did my first
hour long shows. I did myfirst weekend. It was at your phone.
Yeah, sorry, we got hI did my first weekend of full

(01:12:46):
hour shows, and I was like, drenched in sweat. You forget how
much stamina it takes to go upthere and do an hour, hour,
ten and after you haven't done itfor a year and a half. And
I went up, but I rememberthe after the first night, I came
off and I was drenched in sweat. I was just so I was exhausted,
like I was losing my voice.I was like, man, I

(01:13:08):
it's like I haven't been in thegym to do this in a long time,
and I feel like I just wentthrough a twelve round boxing match.
Yeah, getting up and out aftersitting down for three months of last year
was very That was quite troubling,I'll be honest, But all of the
sitting down did fix my knee,which was great. I've been a good

(01:13:30):
I had a knee injury from soI was a lot lighter about five years
ago. And then I was atan event and I was showing off and
I did a scissor kick at theevent and I landed on my left knee
and damaged my ACLU. And thenI was told by the person who was
doing the surgery on me nine monthslater that there is a sixty percent chance

(01:13:50):
of rerupturing. And I already hadexperienced the pain of doing it the first
time, and I was very notwanting to go back to that. And
they said it can rerupture, andbut if it doesn't in a certain amount
of time I think it was fiveyears, then you're pretty much going to
be okay like you were before.So I've basically spent five years just not

(01:14:11):
moving, no scissor kicks, nospinnings. No, I mean, this
does sound like the start of anew show that I'll do eventually where I
get back to dancing. Yeah,you know, like I could come on
like at the beginning of flash dance, and I'll just be like, can
I start again? And I'll dosomething where I get back into it in
that way. Maybe I end upon Dancing with the Stars or Strictly or

(01:14:33):
our version of it, Strictly ComeDancing. But yeah, there's definitely there's
definitely some immobilization. But the differenceis is I don't feel bad about being
someone who isn't who was an athletic. I don't. It doesn't make me
feel bad. I'm very happy.It's just other people that feel bad about

(01:14:54):
it. It's never me. Ilove it well, I mean, you
know, I don't mind. Andbeing overweighted. It was funny when the
COVID thing happened. They were like, being overweight is the number one co
morbidity. And I know I've hadit at least once, and I might
I might be experiencing it for thethird time right now. And you know,
I think that means that I'm thecure. So if you guys want

(01:15:15):
to drive by my house and Iwill spit in your mouth, it will
save you a trip to the vaccinationshop. I am the vaccine. No
one's come out with that theory.Yeah, I am the vaccine. I
would love to see I would loveto see that guy on YouTube. My
blood is the answer. Yeah.I don't know if you guys know this,

(01:15:38):
but I am the vaccine they harvestedmy But you know, where are
those kind of conspiracy guys coming out? That would be great? Yeah,
we've got I think we've probably gotall that to come. We're only at
the initial stages of this. Expertshave been saying this entire time that this
is going to be a ten yearthing that we all get used to as
a humanity. So I think we'vegot a lot a lot more fun things
are coming our way. And theconspirae theorists who have gone nuts are they're

(01:16:01):
they're they're they're coming. I can'twhite. I think it's fun. And
the funny thing is is like forevery ten crazy conspiracies, there's like three
of them that are dead on themoney and turn out to be right.
So, you know, I justI love the h I love the um.
I love this sort of Russian roulettethat it is right of Like,

(01:16:23):
you know, nine of these,nine of these are insane, but one
of them is the one that andoften the one that seems the most crazy
is the one that ends up sortof becoming true. So yeah, it's,
uh, it's weird, it's it'sstrange times for sure, but you
know, I feel like we're headedin the right place. And one of
the things that I'm kind of optimisticabout is I think, um, after

(01:16:45):
this shutdown, audiences and people seemto be way not only more way more
enthusiastic about going to shows and seeingstand up, but they also the people
that do go to shows and seestand up seem to be much more loose
and open minded about what that is. And I think I've gotten away with
some of the most insane material I'veever written in terms of like being edgy

(01:17:05):
or offensive since things have started openingback up a little bit then even before
that, And that's what's funny aboutlike internet outrage, is none of those
people are people that actually go takein the arts and go see shows and
and enjoy live comedy. There arepeople who watch things on Netflix and think
that they're all critics. Well that'sthat's that's been very apparent. What with

(01:17:26):
the way people have reacted to boBurnham special is like you guys have just
never seen stand up and that istrue. Like the people that a lot
of the sycophantic behavior online are peoplethat don't go to live live comedy,
you know, yeah, which iswhy they behave, which is why they
react differently to people that are inaudiences like, which is why you can
get away with a lot more onstage when you're like, I've got I've
got an entire book of stuff thatI've not said online for the last year

(01:17:50):
that I'm going to say on stage, Like, I can't put it on
the internet in that way, butI can do it in front of an
audience because I can. I can, I can control their reaction to it.
But you can't do that online.This is very true. I mean
you and you certainly have much less. I guess my thought on that is,
I don't mind not controlling it online. I think it's actually kind of

(01:18:12):
fun to put it out there andsee what kind of damage it causes,
because for every piece of shrapnel thathits somebody that hates it, it might
hit somebody that gets it and likesit, and then that you still have
the chance of bringing in potentially newfans that way. So I don't know,
I don't mind, I wish,I wish, I don't think I
can't I think that. I thinkthe reaction I get to just being confident

(01:18:35):
from I would say quite weird specificpeople online. I'll say it men when
I do something that they don't like, it's quite vicious the reaction to it.
So I don't know whether I don'tknow if that's a male female thing
at all, but my experience amale thing, and the fans because I
experienced the same thing men online,this generation of men have a real problem

(01:18:57):
with anyone that has any confidence orfemale. I can tell you undeserved self
acceptance in the I don't mean it'sgenuinely undeserved, but what people perceive as
an undeserved level of self acceptance isthe thing that rubs people the most wrong.
And it's so funny. It's like, you know, you'll have people
with you'll see this all the time, and you can sort of diagnose it

(01:19:18):
because of the criticisms. You'll havesomebody with ten followers tell you you don't
have enough followers. You'll have somebodywith a shit job telling you that you
don't make any money. You'll havesomebody with no love in their life telling
you your girlfriend or boyfriend is unattractive. It's an interesting thing of like,
if you are somebody who is regardlessof what you have or don't have,

(01:19:42):
If you are someone who is publiclycontent with what you do have and do
not have, that bothers those thatare not content with what they do and
don't have. And that is reallywhat manifests in trolling, vitriol, hatred.
I mean, they're literally people thatfeel like losers trying to project that
feeling of losing onto you, andthey have whatever rationalizations they have. Well,

(01:20:04):
I make more money than this person. They shouldn't be happier than me.
I have a family. They don't. They shouldn't be happier than me.
I own a home and they rent. They shouldn't be happier than me.
It's interesting how often the people whohave so much less to me in
terms of like real valuable things arethe things I value, which is relationships,
experiences, stories to tell, getso hung up in comparison, you

(01:20:30):
know, And as the famous quoteis, comparison is the thief of joy.
And a lot of these people arejust people who experience no genuine joy
in their life. Like I coulddie tomorrow and be so happy with the
people that I've gotten to meet thestories I've been able to accumulate, the
memories that I have, the experiencesthat I have. All that shit is
way more valuable to me than fuckingdriving a two hundred thousand dollars sports car.

(01:20:55):
Couldn't get the fuck less about that. Yeah, I mean things that
I enjoy are you know. I'vehad a this week. My best mate's
been staying with me for the lastweek and we've both had work to do
and we've just done it in eachother's company, And that, to me,
brings me so much more joy thanany of these things that I think.
You're sort of force people want youto want to do or want to

(01:21:17):
have. Why why don't you Whydon't you want to live like this?
Why don't you try and be likethese people? And I'm just like,
I just just want to be content. I don't you happy? You know,
happy's fleeting. I wouldn't want tobe happy all the time. Those
people are crazy, but like right, yeah, people, they're nuts.

(01:21:38):
But just feeling you know, contentand quiet and peaceful at most of it,
during most of my life is allI can really aim for it in
my existence. It's just peace,which is why I have and taken us
back to our original point of apoint, which is why I put specific
words on Twitter on mute, becauseI just want to feel peace rather and

(01:22:00):
feel angry or you know, evenI'll put things on like people. You
know, sometimes it's going all rightnow, but like in my career that
I've had, there's been downtimes whereI haven't been getting as much work as
I used to get. And sometimesduring those periods, I can't look at
any other comedians. Everyone has togo on a mute. I'm just doing
it so I can find peace duringthe day and look and communicate with people

(01:22:21):
online as well. So that's that'swhy I do it. I think you
also have to just understand that therereally is no sort of meritocracy or rhyme
or reason as to who's getting whatwhen and how right or in some ways
it's very obvious, like you know, I get called a racist for pointing
this out all the time, butlike this is very much not the time

(01:22:43):
to be a white person in entertainment, and it's just the true, the
true, hard facts. I mean, if you go into meetings or development
discussions with people, you know,I've I've had people tell me when I
was pitching shows to networks a coupleof years ago, they were just like,
yeah, we're not doing any straightwhite male stories right now. And
you know, whether that feels goodor not, that's just the reality of

(01:23:03):
that person's point of view on thebusiness and you just have to move on
and just go all right, well, then I'll just figure out how to
do things on my own, andso, you know, I think now
the I think the thing that alot of people are realizing is like we're
in a proof of concept time inthe business where the really the only way
to get anything off the ground istrying to do it yourself and to prove
the concept. And I think you'vedone that with every showy by trialing it

(01:23:26):
first through either Edinburgh Fringe or touringit and then you know, building up
some sort of equity in it thatway and then showing it has value and
then being in a much better positionto kind of leverage yourself. But the
other thing that you also have tothink about too, on the back end
of that is if you are somebodywho sort of fills that quota, oftentimes
you don't end up having any realequity or ownership in your work anyway.

(01:23:49):
And so it's like, you know, I kind of had to shift my
mentality to like, well, youknow, yes, I'm not the person
who's the right color or the rightgen or the right sexual orientation getting those
offers right now. But the peoplethat are getting those offers based on those
things are also probably not very wellrespected, highly regarded, or given any

(01:24:12):
real ownership in what they get askedto do either. So you know,
it's one of those things of like, uh, I think we're definitely in
a period in comedy and entertainment whereif you want to own things and you
want to feel good about them,you have to completely do them yourself.
And if other people become interested inmaking it bigger, or putting money into
it or helping it grow, thenthat that has to be done on the

(01:24:34):
merits of what you do first,and everything else comes second. That I
work on a podcast called Laughable withtwo straight white guys, and there is
something you can do with them.I refuse to have anyone to say that,
you know, that's the reason whythey're not getting something. I believe

(01:24:55):
that if you've got an idea thatsort of hits and it's good enough,
and you've you've thought about the that'sthe other thing. It's denying what's going
on in the climate of comedy aswell, because at the moment, yes,
straight white guys might not be gettingany work, but also like,
what type of work is getting pushedforward, what do people want to hear
from, what do audiences want tospeak about at the moment, And if
you're not doing those things, you'renot going to have the same connection because

(01:25:17):
unfortunately, the audience a kind ofthe people that are in charge. So
how do you put your personality inyour stand up, in your comedy in
a way that would be palatable foran audience that wants a certain type of
work or a certain type comedy fromyou. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
But I think in the States we'rein this sort of war between what the
industry believes the audience wants, which, again, as we talked about,

(01:25:41):
a lot of it is based offof what they see online versus what is
really a consumer right, And soyou know, it's it's interesting. You'll
see somebody get a show and everyonefeels good about this TV show, and
the show does very well critically,and then nobody's watching it. And it's
because the people that sit in aroom on the other side of the table,
who are going, well, thisis what people want to see,

(01:26:03):
are not really polling the right theactual audience. They're polling data and analytics,
and they're looking at work trending wordsand phrases, and they're trying to
take a shot at the largest target, which ultimately that target may have no
interest in what they're doing in thefirst place. And so there is going

(01:26:23):
to be this sort of this sortof like hashing out in the business of
coming to a real understanding of whatis a comedy audience and what are people
really going to respond to versus peoplethat are just trying to trick the algorithm.
And I think right now a lotof people in the industry side of
our business are trying to manipulate thealgorithm and saying, Okay, all the

(01:26:45):
data says this is what people want, so we'll give them that. And
then I think they're going to findout, well, you can't just throw
a black person on TV. Theyhave to be interesting, they have to
have a point of view, theyhave to be entertaining, they have to
be funny. And I think thatwas always the case with anybody you put
on television. But I think they'relearning that now with some of the failures
that they're having by trying to kindof cherry pick the algorithm of like,

(01:27:08):
oh, well, trans issues arein or gay issues are in, so
if we just picked the right gaytrans person and put them on television,
we'll get all the ratings. Andit's like, yeah, but that it
can't just be that. They alsohave to have charisma. They also have
to be you know, it's interesting. And so I think there's there's going
to be some failure in the businesstrying to kind of game the system and

(01:27:30):
realizing that, you know, there'sno substitute for someone who is genuinely watchable.
The structure of the structure of theindustry needs to diversify before anything else
is referenced on the front, becausewhat you end up doing is just having
a load of white people just holdingup diverse people to bring themselves along for

(01:27:51):
the ride. And I did atalk the other day. I sort of
had to hold a ceremony for theGlasgow School of our and there was a
lad on there who he's an artistand he's a black artist in a wheelchair
and he said it on he saidit on that which is that I sort
of asked that really rubbish interview question, which is, what do you think

(01:28:12):
needs to change in m with diversityin your in the art world, and
he's he basically said, it's notabout us as artists. It's about the
structural stuff, like if things aregoing to be different, and it has
to be structurally because at the momentwe're just fighting a losing battle because that
I don't know how I'm saying itall, say it all in the wrong

(01:28:34):
way. Basically, it just hasto be the thing that comedians aren't responsible
for. It needs to be furtherback than that um and the problem at
the moment is it has to beIt's like it's sort of put the public
are putting it on us to doto make the changes and stuff, but
we're just trying to pay our rent. The issues about this stuff go further

(01:28:57):
back, but they're all hidden becausethey're not public figures. It's a it's
just another point of view about thatsubject that I thought was interesting from the
talk that I was part of.Well, yeah, and a bit in
the big part of that is thatis, to your point, it's concealed
from the public, and so alot of that behind the scenes stuff.
That's why I really loved what MICHAELA. Cole did in highlighting. You know,

(01:29:17):
Netflix was sort of lauded for givingher a show, and the show
was perceived as very successful and veryfunny, and then behind the scenes they
gave her a shit deal, offeredher no equity or ownership in her show,
and basically treated her like an indenturedservant in making something that was critically
lauded as a very brilliant piece ofwork in her show, Chewing Gum.

(01:29:40):
And So I don't know how michaelasthought of in the UK amongst the comedy
world, but I will tell youthat, yeah, and I thought that
was a very illuminating thing to say. You know, don't be so quick
to like give these awards to peoplelike Netflix or some of these streaming companies
who are sort of, you know, they're sort of like cherry picking diversity

(01:30:01):
to illuminate themselves and to look likethey're on the right side of history.
But when they're not giving people actuallyownership or equity in what they're making,
you know, maybe maybe pulled thetrophy back a little bit and recognize that
diversity in the name of fucking overthe artists is not a win in the
eyes of the artists, right.And so if the idea is like,

(01:30:25):
not only is diversity something that thealgorithm tells us they want, but we
can fuck more, you know,people of color over and more of these
sort of diverse candidates over because they'renew to the dance and haven't been at
the table for very long. Thenthat's an evil thing that should be you
know, illuminated and kicked out ofthe business as well. And so it
can't be so quick to say thatthat's always necessarily done for the right reasons,

(01:30:50):
is my point, either, Andso you have to be careful about
that being exploited too, which Ithink is a trend that's probably happening more
than just in the case with Michaella Cole. But you know, she
highlighted that and then went over toHBO and made a very good show,
and you know, and I thinkin a lot of ways, I don't

(01:31:11):
know if you did you watch hershow on HBO. Yeah, yeah,
I may destroy you. Yes.So I wanted to ask your opinion on
this because in a way, Ifeel like it was critically overlooked for a
similar reason of the things we talkedabout was great about your special is.
I think her show, and thisis just my take on it. I
think her show highlighted a bit ofwhat's wrong with victim culture, where we

(01:31:38):
sort of like where a lot oftimes people who have been victimized are placed
on a pedestal and really take nomoment of self reflection or self involvement in
what happened to them. And Ithink what I walked away from her show
feeling was a great sense of like, oh my god, here's a woman
who's dealing with the demons of whather personal responsibility is in this traumatic thing

(01:32:00):
that happened to her, and goingthrough the real human nuances, like we
say, between the black and whitepoints of this subject matter and saying there
are moments where I feel guilty,there are moments where I feel responsible,
there are moments where I feel likeit was my fault that I warranted it.
There are moments where I feel thisperson is a villain, and there
are moments where I feel like thisperson didn't do anything wrong. And I

(01:32:23):
felt like as brilliant as that showwas, it was critically ignored because it
sort of disputed the narrative that insexual assault situations, the narrative is black
and white, that there are victimsand there are perpetrators and that's it,
and that's the end of the story. And I felt like her show illuminated

(01:32:44):
that there's a real spectrum of whatgoes on in there, both for the
victim and the person involved, andthat it's not always what it seems.
And I feel like that was sucha controversial take on such a serious subject
matter that as well as well doneas that show was critically, it was
sort of like, we'll put itover here and kind of hide it because
we're not ready to deal with thatyet. Did you feel like that at

(01:33:05):
all? Well? We it wasa tremendously successful over here in the UK.
I went crazy and as she hassince won BAFTAs and all sorts of
stuff with it. So it's done. That's good, it's done incredibly well.
However, you know, like Idon't want to compare women together,
but you look at the sort ofglobal success of Fleabag for example, right,

(01:33:29):
which is kind of like a woman, you know, the sort of
idea of like I'm just weaponizing mysexuality, right, Yeah, I failed
woman narrative, failed female narratives.There's lots of them, you know,
like we're giving all sorts of women, all different types of stories, rather
than the ones that have always beenwritten. But with the sort of success

(01:33:50):
of fleabag I suppose it gave youthat sort of Hollywood ending that I think
that audience has craved so much.Whereas Michaela's show did leave you on a
comfortable feeling, it didn't sort ofsatisfy that or ingratiate itself into into those
sort of shows that get those youknow, like, it didn't leave you

(01:34:11):
on a on a moment where youwere a sort of either in inconsolable tears
or sort of really really happy.It sort of left you in an uncomfortable
feeling, which you know, Iwould say that was a very arty of
her. I don't want to sounda fucking idiot, but no, yeah,
I thought it was incredible. Itwas intelligent. It was It was
an intelligent point, well made,but unsatisfying finish. I suppose for people

(01:34:33):
who you know, really enjoyed Fleabacksnogging the priest and him holding her hand
and implying that he loved her,which is what we all wanted for that
character, and she kind of gaveit to us at the end of it.
Um, but Michaelis wasn't so kindto the audience, which I think
was important. We also wasn't verykind of women. I mean, particularly
the episode I loved the most waswhen she sort of becomes this sort of

(01:34:56):
activist influencer in response to her newfoundsort of fame. She's been anointed this
person who now speaks on behalf ofwomen victims, and then is completely overlooking
of the fact that she put hergay friend in a very compromising situation and
had done so many times, andquite frankly, was just as guilty of
the same sort of gaslighting, shittybehavior that she was sort of at war

(01:35:19):
with men on the internet over.And so you know, again, I
thought, I thought it was reallyreally great because I thought it was the
first time a woman ever publicly ina show, you know, showed that
she was sort of oblivious, obliviousto some of the some of her own

(01:35:39):
behavior, and then also not innocent, not entirely innocent in the entire thing
as well. And then I lovethat it left you as a viewer sitting
there going, God, do Ilike this person or do not like this
person? Because you know, itwas sort of left unsettled in that way.

(01:36:00):
It was sort of like, Idon't really know what happened and um
and I don't necessarily there's really therewas no one. There was sort of
no one specific to obviously blame.At the end of that show, you
could kind of go either way withit. So I also love art that
allows the viewer to sort of definitivelydecide for themselves rather than to just have
that is scram down their throat.Yeah, that's fine art, isn't it.

(01:36:24):
I mean, I don't my bestmates of fine artists. That's the
only experience I've got with it.But what I've learned from where She's taken
me is that that's that's how youinterpret fine artists. What you don't sort
of force feeding ideology onto someone fromfrom your image. You let them come
to it yourself, which is whatI loved about I May Destroy You.
I thought it was incredibly clever umand deserved all the all of the success

(01:36:50):
that it got. It had lotsover here. Did it not have the
same reaction with with HBO over inAmerica? No, I mean, it's
kind of like a handful of peopleI think Seth Rogan called it out and
said it was a very brilliant show. But you know, I think part
of the reason why it kind ofgot skimmed over here in America's because no

(01:37:12):
one is willing to discuss why itwas brilliant the way I just did,
or we just did, for fearof retribution, for fear of saying,
like, well, what do youmean you know women should be introspectively or
introspective about their experiences with a rapist. What are you saying women are to
blame for their own rapes? Imean, people love to tell you what
you're saying on the internet in America, and so I think a lot of
critical people or influential people that wouldweigh in on how brilliant that show is

(01:37:39):
didn't necessarily do so for fear of, you know, saying the wrong things
and sort of being held to thefire over it. Well, I mean,
that's the culture that we're living innow. We do hold people over
the fire when they fuck up.So of course everyone's absolutely scared as fuck
to be a fuck up. Soit's a culture eating itself, I suppose.

(01:37:59):
But I don't have a like Itry and do stuff to I don't
want to hurt people's feelings or anything. And but I'm not. I never
claim to be a perfect individual.That's probably why I get away with some
stuff that I get away with,because I don't claim to be anything other
than the person I am. Idon't tend to virtue signal either. I
don't do any of that sort ofstuff. I'm like you, I wait,

(01:38:19):
people can meet me and then they'llfind out whether they like me or
not. Like, I don't needto sort of put that sort of stuff
out there. But I can't rememberwhy I was saying this. Why was
I saying this? Well, youwere saying you don't necessarily put out opinions
or things online that will potentially paintyou into a corner, right Oh yeah,

(01:38:41):
yeah, yeah exactly. And Iyeah, I think that people are,
you know, sort of terrified ofthey're just terrified of people finding them
out. That's what I always thinkwhen people are getting angry online. I'm
like, oh, you're you're you'rescared. You're scared people will see you
or see the person that you justlike within yourself. That's why you're shouting
at me right now. This isn'tsomething I've done. Yeah, And I

(01:39:01):
think that's a pretty healthy relationship tohave with the Internet is and something by
the way, some of it istake it or leave it, like I'll
have you know, there are peoplethat will troll something I do all day,
like or there'll be in a commentthreat or whatever about a topic and
they'll be like thirty negative comments andthen they might say one thing that's really
fucking funny to me, and I'lllike it because I'll take what I want

(01:39:26):
from it, right Like, ifthere's something that's a value or that's silly
or funny, I'm definitely going toenjoy that, right So it is this
kind of weird, you know.I still think it's a very new thing
that people are learning how to dealwith of Like how do you be a
person who's had success on the Internetof any kind and how do you deal
with what comes at you because ofthat? But I think you go one

(01:39:47):
of two ways with it. Ithink some people buckle it under the pressure,
and they're constantly trying to slalom,to use a skiing term, between
what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable, and they're always trying to be on
the right side. And then Ithink there are people like myself will get
to a point where there's like,fuck it, man, I'm gonna say
what I think when I think it, and I'm going to try to create

(01:40:10):
an environment where there just are noconsequences for me being honest about myself.
And then I hope that if Iever have what people call a brand,
I hope that brand is just mebeing me, and I hope that people
like it, so, you know, and if not, they know where
they can go. Exactly. It'spretty simple. But I'm a happy guy.

(01:40:30):
I mean, I you know,I am very I'm very much at
peace with where I'm at in lifeand with the work that I do and
the things that I make, andyou know, it's it's exciting looking to
the future to just continue to makethe stuff that I like to make,
and certain comedies great, right,Yeah, I'll do it for two people.

(01:40:53):
I'll do it for two thousand people. Yeah. I've never cared.
I've never cared. I big theaudience are. I've always entertained. Boy,
don't give a shot. I mean, people were in the room,
could be my family, could bejust my sister, could be just my
best mate. An audience is anaudience, including I rarely have the curtains,
clothes, or the blinds shut inmy flat. I'm doing all sorts

(01:41:14):
in this flat, Like I've evengot a on the side of my flat
is just one big, huge windowas well. Massive exhibitionist. Yeah,
you want to talk about a funnyexhibitionist story before we get out of here.
I one night I had showered andcome out of the shower and my
girlfriend was like, can you gograb something for me out of the kitchen.

(01:41:35):
I think I was grabbing or adrink or something. And I walked
to the kitchen and I did notrealize that our blinds were open. We
have a blinds over our Um wesee if I can show you here in
my kitchens to the right, soyeah, you can see we have blinds
there. And then yeah, inour apartment building, you're like my very
nineteen seventies Los Angeles kitchen. Ilove it. Your fridge is so fancy.

(01:42:00):
Yeah, our fridge is fancy.And then the rest of our kitchen
is very old. And then yousee all my what we would refer to.
There's an old show called Abigail's Party. It's exactly like her kitchen.
You'd serve up a pineapple ed jogand that sort of that kitchen mate.
Yes, I would, yeah,so the was I gonna say that.
The blinds were open, and itwas evening, So it's a I live

(01:42:25):
in like an eight plex, andso there are four apartments on my side,
four apartments on the other side,and it's an indoor outdoor, so
it's everything outside is outdoor. That'swhy there's sunlight coming in. But you
can see into the kitchen window,the kitchen window. The apartment across the
way is directly across from my kitchenwindow. So I had walked into the
kitchen fully nude to whatever out ofthe kitchen shades were open, the common

(01:42:50):
area lights are on, and mytwo young Asian female neighbors were at their
sink like making dinner and literally justlock dies with me and my naked body.
Oh wow instantly, and I justlike dove into this chair to try
to get out of the purview ofthe window. And I screamed like ah,

(01:43:14):
and my girlfriend comes running and shegoes, what's wrong, And I
go, I think they saw menaked. And she looks out the window
and they're fucking dying and she shegoes, they definitely saw you naked,
So now I have to avoid thesewomen's eyes when I go to the mailbox
every day. If they happened tobe coming and going, I have to
look away. And you know,I would say, take more clothes off

(01:43:38):
and walk cry more naked, andthen I give them something to look at
if they've already seen it. Nowyou might as well just go whole hog.
Yeah, well, you know,or half hog, depending on how
hot or cool it is in thebedroom or in the apartment at the time.
Because after getting out of the showerand having the ac on high,
I could tell you there was nowhole hog about the story. What'sing.

(01:43:58):
We looked like we were serving orderves, another seventies delicacy that you could
put in your lovely kitchen along witha pineapple hedgehog. Yeah, it was
definitely that's that's probably what it lookedlike, a pineapple hedgehog buried in the

(01:44:19):
Jane. It's been it's been lovelyhaving you on the show today, and
thanks for having men you have comingup that you want to promote for people
to come check out anything anything Ihave, um, just my new podcast,
which is doing very well. We'veonly just we're on like episode eighteen
or something, but it's been doingreally well. It's called Laughable for for

(01:44:43):
people in the States if you wantto listen to anything that I'm doing.
And also my serious Blood Jump perAmazon Prime special is available in America.
I have a lot of stuff comingout in the British Isles, which I
post about on my on my Twitterfairly regularly. So um yeah, I've
got bits and pieces coming up,but I'm excited about writing my new show.
My new Amazon Prime special is Ikeep calling it. Here's the Laughable

(01:45:08):
podcast. Everybody can go check out. That's the podcast page. It's a
topical it's about it's topical news forpeople that don't like topical news. We
don't focus on anythings like Brexit orTrump or any sort of a visive topics.
It's all funny stuff that's good.I feel like I feel like there's
no shortage of podcasts talking about thatshit. Yeah, that's why we did

(01:45:31):
it, which has proven quite successfulas well and has spun There seems to
be other people that have taken thison board and decided to do their own
version, but they can't be ours. So well. I will definitely tell
people and continue to tell people tocheck out Serious Black Jumper on Amazon Prime
because it's just an enjoyable show,you know. I remember watching it being

(01:45:55):
like, I haven't enjoyed a standup special, just enjoyed one for a
long time. Thanks Josh. That'sdefinitely one of my favorites that I've watched
in the last year. I can'tthink of anything I saw in the last
year that I would say I likedmore. So, Oh, Josh,
you are so lovely. Thank you. It's the truth. I'm not just
kissing ass. But I do believemost people should have access to it here

(01:46:20):
in Amazon because if they don't haveAmazon, they probably starved to death in
the last year the grocery store.There's also talking of food, I like
you have been. I've fronted twofood shows and there's another one on Netflix
available in America called Crazy Delicious,whichever, which tripped me the fuck out

(01:46:43):
and I don't even do I don'teven do hallucinogens. But I remember watching
them being like, if I werehigh, this would fuck me up beyond
belief. That was so birthright.The entire filming was it terrifying? Just
like what did you start looking aroundthe set and going like, what is
food? Is all of this food. It's literally all of it is food.

(01:47:03):
Yeah, there were a very fewthings that you couldn't eat, but
we won't be doing a second series. And one of the reasons where we're
not doing the second series and Idon't think, well, how do you
make an edible set COVID secure.We've sort of really been fucked in the

(01:47:24):
ass with the whole COVID thing andthen getting three chefs from different points of
places in the world and then ahost from England. It just wasn't happening.
But um, yeah it was.It was. It was an amazing
experience. But you know, Igot to they said not to eat stuff
whilst we weren't filming, but itdidn't happen, that's all. Yeah,

(01:47:44):
you couldn't put me the host ofIf I hosted a show like that with
you, Jay, they'd be like, cut, where is the chairs?
I would have a chair leg stickingout of my mouth. I would start
eating things that weren't food. Whyare you eating the camera man? Stop
away from him, listen you Yeah, and god knows I would be all

(01:48:05):
kinds of taken advantage. He toldme there was cream in it. That's
why I put it in my mouthnow that I remember, the audition was
exactly the same way. Yeah,I'm sure Harvey Weinstein was devastated. He
didn't think of that. Oh mygod, we could have just made the

(01:48:27):
whole set food and then told everybodyeverything. Yes, it's just a cream
filled prop enjoy. Oh, it'sa shame we made that show last year.
It would have been much more usefulabout five years ago. I'd probably
what if I would, if Iwould, I would, I would have
I would, I would, IfI would, I would, if I
would, I would, If Iwould, I would, if I would,

(01:48:48):
if I would, if I would, if I would? Hello,
there we go. We lost itagain. That's a very fun It's a
very max head effect when that happens, which is great. What happens?
Uh, it freezes and then thelast word you say repeats like thirty times.

(01:49:09):
Yeah, it's like it's it's it'slike your racerhead. It's terrifying.
Oh that's cool. Uh, thereyou go. That's better. Yeah.
And I have to wrap up onmy end because they're pressure washing my building,
probably so that we can all seeeach other's genitals from the kitchens better.
Uh, you know, you don'twant dust on the windows when when

(01:49:30):
you're trying to peep at your neighbors. I was wondering what that noise was.
Now I know, yeah, yeah, can you hear it? Yeah,
it's no, No, it's no. It's somebody's warming the sibian up
from my other job in the otherroom. Daddy's got his Daddy's got to
get his sex work rent money in. Have you have you considered anything like

(01:49:50):
that? So this is a funny, this is a weird question, but
I'll just share from my perspective first. So when I did my food show,
all kinds of sex cre came outof the woodwork, and I found
out gay men love me. Andnot only that, but I started getting
all kinds of offers of like I'llsend you two hundred dollars to like take
off your clothes and eat something forme. Now I was like, well,

(01:50:11):
this could be a very lucrative insurancestrategy. So I did create an
only Fans I've put nothing on itnow, but I haven't only fans bookmarked
in the event that I thought ofsomething clever or funny to do in that
regard of sort of mocking or spoofingthe whole world of sort of food centric
sex work, and I do thinkit would be funny to do it as

(01:50:32):
a man or to do something,but I've kind of bookmarked it and then
when the when the clever idea strikes, have had to do it in an
interesting or funny way, I'll probablydo something with it. But did you
have any stuff like that with yourfood show where people started jumping into the
dms like, uh, you know, Jje, which parts of you are
made of cake? No? Well, if I've got all my dms like

(01:50:57):
tightly shuts, I don't go inand I don't look at in places,
and I have like you can't messageme unless it's through an email that I
supply on my website and that goesthrough agent anyway, just because I have
put my barriers up, but somethings do get through. I have actually
in the past been asked, nowdo you know the actor reci Fans.

(01:51:18):
He's a Welsh atter. He playedum Lizards an event used to Live Whale
where he's from. And I wasat an event and there used to be
this sort of well band called GoldieLooking Chain from Wales who are sort of
like a hip hop Welsh hip hopband. There's loads of them, and

(01:51:39):
I used to be one of theirbacking dancers, backup dancers with a few
other girls who were called the Goldielooking Ladies, And we were doing a
gig once and I was absolutely annihilatingit, like because I can dance,
as I've told you, so asa nihilish you show a little bit of
their prowess in your special well,I mean you've got some moves. I
do a little a little chafferier inthere. I don't too much. I

(01:52:00):
didn't have a woman coming in todab my brow either, so I I
didn't want to have like beads ofsweat going down my face. And I
had a jumper on as well,and I'm fat. What was I telling
you? Tell me again about therezy Fans story. Oh? Yeah them
one stage, I'm smashing it.I did a caterpillar when you bring yourself

(01:52:20):
up and down, and I damaged. I fell on my face and I
had to be sort of patched upby one of the lads who was called
Maget, and he had to patchup my chin. But before all of
that happened, I get this littleperson who comes down from upstairs and then
comes all the way down to thestage and says, excuse me, Jade,
I need to ask you something.And I was like okay, and

(01:52:41):
he's like him, I'm a Reesefans person assistant. And he's upstairs and
he's asked if you want to comeup and join him, and I was
like, oh, okay, cool, yeah, yeah, wicked, I'll
come up or I'll be there ina minute. And then he goes m
he goes Also, he's requested,if you walk on him in stilettos?

(01:53:02):
Really, yes, yes, it'squite love nice and so did did you?
Are you allowed to say whether ornot you did fulfill No? I
didn't do that. No, Isaid no, but I was very charming
and said no, if he wantsme to, I said, if he
wants me to walk on him,installs he can walk himself down here and
get under my feet. So itwasn't the request that bothered you. It

(01:53:26):
was the stairs and the summoning.Oh, I don't walk. I don't
walk upstairs to walk on a man. You come to me, I'm not
summoned. I'm not summoned. Oh, Jade Adams, thank you so much
for coming on the show, anduh and enjoy the rest of your week
and you thanks for having me,Josh, you allege yeah, closing my

(01:54:02):
too scared to look down my clientor I had blunting distance between I and
I and the room. I getto the time to be live, I

(01:54:30):
don't know. I can't USU livefor long. You should ask somebody,
because I've got nothing to lose.Tonight I misplaced my life to night.
She started my friends away tonight.I'm not saying the right things. I

(01:54:51):
got blood the right way. That'sjust not mean. I listened to my
music too loud and watch to dStamp