Comedy of the Week - Ian Smith Is Stressed

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Comedian Ian Smith is constantly stressed and in this series he is looking for any means to calm the hell down. In this episode Ian explores how being Northern has made him more stressed and attempts a new wellness fad that’s sweeping the fields of England, cow-hugging.A new stand-up series from Edinburgh Comedy Award nominated comedian Ian Smith.Written and Performed by Ian SmithAdditional Material from Rhiannon Shaw, Max Davis and Charlie DinkinAssistant Producer: Ewan McAdamProduced by Benjamin Sutton and Laura ShawA Daddy’s SuperYacht production for BBC Radio 4

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to Ian Smith is stressed, a comedy show all about stress and my misguided attempts at relaxation. I'm the sort of person who takes a chill pill but accidentally orders the suppository version. But the world is a stressful place full of stressful things. The looming threat of nuclear war, unaffordable house prices, and sometimes when you put two headphone cables in the same compartment of your bag they become impossible to separate.

This is my first Radio 4 series, and I've scored a major coup as the BBC have allowed this to be part of the Archer cinematic universe. All I needed to do was agree to occasionally involve cows, and we're in. Because I'm stressed almost all the time. I even find my name stressful. If you Google Ian Smith, the first 20 pages are about

the former white supremacist dictator of Rhodesia. The next 20 are about Ian Duncan Smith who's arguably worse. So I would just like to take this time to stress I am not that Ian Smith or that Ian Smith. I'm Ian Smith open brackets comedian closed brackets according to the Wikipedia page I believe my parents have had a heavy hand in. This week I'll be trying to find out if I'm more stressed out because I'm Northern. All the evidence seems to point towards it. Some of the most stressful places are Northern. I'll pick a couple at random. The North Pole, North Korea, Skunfaw.

The North is definitely a stressful place though. Our savoury dishes are often called puddings. And whenever one of our workplaces shuts down, we are forced to write a musical about it. Down south you guys can focus on getting another job. We're straight in the rehearsal studio. We're trying to learn a song about redundancy. And as part of my exploration into relaxation I'll be trying a new wellness trend that's become popular at a farm in Yorkshire. Hugging a so we're having to go with the Radio

4 definition of the North, which is anywhere above the M25. You join me outside Peterborough train station, anxiously waiting for a taxi to take me to some huggable cows. I'll be honest, I'm not enjoying it so far. I'm anxious about whether the cow can kill to be a train station anxiously waiting for a taxi to take me to some huggable cows. I'll be honest I'm not enjoying it so far. I'm anxious about whether the cow can kill me. I think a cow is very dangerous. Why is that? Weight. Weight and aggression. I think speed I think I've got a cow. Can I say you're definitely wrong about that? Really? Definitely. I think I'm faster than a cow. No way. I'm going to ask him if I can do a 100m sprint But I reckon... Can I just say you're definitely wrong about that? Really? Definitely. I think I'm faster than a cow.

No way. I'm going to ask him if I can do a 100 metre sprint with a cow. So yeah, I don't feel relaxed yet, but I suppose none of this is the cow's fault. Dreading the taxi driver saying, what are you up to today? Thankfully the taxi driver kept shtum and drove us to a dirt path somewhere in Rutland where we were greeted by a sign. A Himsor Eco Farm, Chatter Valley, cow cuddling and hand milking experiences. Don't want to feel an udder. It feels like a finger without any bones in it that milk

is coming out of. Would you be happy with that? Because I'm Northern a lot of people assume that the countryside is my natural ally, but as we made our way up the winding road I was reminded by my producer that when it comes to nature I'm a complete idiot. Something just flew past but it wasn't a pheasant or a pigeon. Radio 4 listeners, it was a pheasant. What's that? It is a...

I don't have my glasses, is that a plant or an animal? Radio 4 listeners, he's looking at a plant but there is also a duck. Oh that's a duck! It's mad here. Then I spotted something that didn't exactly fill me with confidence about getting up close and personal with a livestock. Oh no! Haha!

I don't want to hug that cow. That's the bull, I think. That's the bull? Yeah, well let's have that confirmed before I get straight in with that. Got an Aberdeen home shirt on, he's gonna kill me. It's looking right at us. I hate this. I genuinely...

Look at that! People from the North are statistically more likely to be stressed than people in the South. And a big part of that is obviously tied to money. I saw an article about the North-South divide, and where the North would be if it were considered its own country in terms of GDP and public facilities. And the frustrating thing is, well that article was behind a paywall so I've got no idea what it said. But that's bad from the times isn't it?

How poor's the North? You'll have to be Southern to find out. And I come from a small town in Yorkshire called Gool, the thinking man's Pontefract. And if you don't know where Gool is, it's just a stone's throw away from York if you throw that stone onto a two-hour train journey. And it's not a well-known town, which is best illustrated by the fact that if you Google Gool, Google says, did you mean Google? Google is a weird town. I'll give you some of my favorite examples.

So I went back there recently, I saw a man on a mobility scooter, just driving around. A kid threw an egg at him. Then the man stood up off the mobility scooter, ran after the kid, and punched him in the face. That makes me proud to come from Gull. It's one of the few towns where you get to see benefit fraud live. I saw a man in Gull once he's walking down the street

very confidently wearing three bum bags. Three bum bags at the same time. I can't imagine being in a situation where I've filled one bum bag and I'm not looking down at a pile of my stuff thinking, this is clearly a rucksack situation. Not this man, he's straight in the bum bag cupboard. He's not stopping till he's done. Moving house, 60 bum bags wrapped around him.

He's at the airport, stood at the baggage carousel. Here they come, that's mine and mine and that one and that one. And ghoul, like many small towns, there's always some sort of rumour that someone new in the town is actually on witness protection. People will be like, yeah Janice, that new woman at Gregg, she killed her husband. You won't know though, because they've given her plastic surgery and trained her how to do steak bakes. But my mum and dad, they send me articles from the Ghoul Times just to let me know what's

going on in the town. And one of the headlines they sent me says, Ghoul gets new vending machine. The most embarrassing thing about that story, that vending machine was opened by the mayor. That's humiliating for the town. Someone's had to wrap a ribbon around a vending machine. He's cut it with a big pair of scissors. He had his picture taken with the vending machine.

You're thinking, what's he doing, pose-wise? Like, you can stand next to the vending machine. You can maybe lean up against it, keep it casual. No, no, no. Gulltown Mayor went with a third option, which was to attempt to put his arm around it as if it were a person. I do think it's harder to de-stress up north.

That after lockdown, I wanted to have a relaxing coastal break. So I booked a weekend away in Blackpool. Yeah, some people are already realising the mistake I've made there. I booked a hotel, I was excited, and when I arrived, I was immediately downgraded to a single room,

because the man in the room before me had shit the bed. Now, I wanna talk about this for another minute, and I've already used up my one allocated use of that swear word for the 6.30pm slot on Radio 4. I'm about to say the word poo more than any 35 year old man should. But that's the level of hotel I was staying in here. It's pooed the bed.

How do I know it's pooed the bed? Because the hotel told me! I don't want to know that's happened. Make up a reason! Don't tell me, this is not an honesty situation. I'd have been happier if they said, there's a body in your room. There's a dead body in your room,

we haven't found the killer yet and we think he's still in the hotel. I'd be like, yeah, as long as he didn't soil himself when he died. Now they could see I wasn't happy with the news, so they went very professional very quickly, and they said, don't worry, Mr. Smith, that man has gone now. Like, thank you, but that's got to be the bare minimum we're hoping for here.

That the man who's pooed the bed has not been allowed to stay in my room. I'm not topping and tailing with poo-ya pants. They said, he's gone, the mattress has gone, the bedding's gone. We've replaced them, we've done a deep clean on the room. It looks fantastic, it smells beautiful. But we're not gonna put you in that room because,

and here comes a direct quote, because at the minute, you can still feel it in the room. You can feel it in the room, not physically. It's not there anymore. You can't see it, you can't smell it, but the memory lives on. I live in London now and you get patronised if you have a Northern accent. People just assume you're stupid rather than getting to know you and finding out that way. Even being on Radio 4 it's hard with a Northern accent.

They don't usually let Northerners on the radio. I was on the Now Show doing some topical stand-up and I received multiple complaints. And you might be thinking, what controversial subject were you talking about, Ian? No, I received my complaints because of the way I pronounce the letter H. And I get a sense in the room,

you're not going to be on my side with this bit. I say H, it should be H yeah okay I've learned that now but really who cares it's not like if I said could you do me a favor and pick me something up from WH Smith people would say I've got no idea what you're on about but people were angry. I got a lot of emails, I got a tweet from a woman called Margaret. She wasn't happy. She said,

I was enjoying listening to Radio 4 until Ian Smith came on. Someone needs to teach him how to speak properly. It's A-I-T-C-H, not H-A-I-T-C-H. Has anyone here ever had to have a letter spelt to them before? And the thing that annoyed me most about Margaret's tweet, that woman had not tweeted in five years.

Her last tweet five years ago was, beautiful weather outside. First goldfinch of the season on my bird feeder, bliss. She's put her laptop screen down. She's lived that blissful life for five years. Nothing has bothered her in five years. And not just five years, by the way. Anyone here remember the last five years?

For the worst five years of our collective memories? Nothing's bothered Margaret. Anyone here remember the pandemic? That's gone straight over Margaret's pern. Cost of living crisis, nothing. Tanks going over the Ukrainian borders. She probably rolled her eyes a little bit at the news. I said, H on the radio. And Margaret's gone,

aah! No! Where did I put my 2018 Dell laptop? Opening it up, blowing the dust off the keys. What's my login? No way she remembers her login after five years. She had to stay angry at me for the amount of time it takes for her to reset her own password.

Livid throughout that bit where she's clicking on fire hydrants to prove she's not a robot, I'm a human! A-I-T-C-H-U-M-A-N. LAUGHTER APPLAUSE And what I will say, in defence of Margaret, my set on the Now Show was about HS2, so it came up a lot. I think that's what being Northern gives me at the minute,

a defensiveness. You know, I don't like adhering to Northern stereotypes, even though I often do. I love dandelion and burdock. That is a proper Northern drink. The two ingredients are some of the weirdest ingredients you can have in a drink. Burdock? I don't know what that is. That could be an animal as far as I'm aware.

I could be drinking meat. I've tried Googling it but Google just says, did you mean Barbados? The second ingredient, the dandelion, the rumour at my school was that if a dandelion touched your skin, you would wet yourself. I'm having that in a drink. People would chase you around school,

you're going to wet yourself, you're wetting yourself. I'm like that in a drink. People would chase you around school. You're gonna wet yourself. You're wetting yourself. I'm like, come on sir. You're a teacher. You've got to be more professional than this. I said that at a gig once and a woman in the audience went, no that's not true. It's when you blow dandelions you can tell the time. Oh, okay, you're much more sensible than those kids and I. I just don't feel this blanket pride in being Northern or being from Yorkshire that some people do. I find it weird when someone identifies

so strongly to a place. Like someone once said to me, you must be proud of the Yorkshire Dales. They're beautiful. Like, yeah, I'm sure they are, but I wasn't involved in them. I had to tell that person I'd never been to the Yorkshire Dales, and they went,

you've never been to the Yorkshire Dale, but you're from Yorkshire. Oh, you must go, they're stunning. Green as far as the eye can see. I'm like, yeah, well, where are you from? They said London. I was like, oh, you must be proud of the Shrek experience. You haven't been to the Shrek experience.

Oh, you must go green as far as the eye can see. I'm trying to stay connected to the North while I'm in London and embrace the quirks of being Northern. And I do this by reading about it in the news. There's so many baffling, obscure stories that fill me with a weird sense of pride and I feel like they're an antidote to the relentlessly bleak regular news. So I'd like to invite an actual newsreader onto the stage to give these genuine word-for-word Northern headlines the gravitas they deserve.

Please welcome Marianne Mosheery! Sheeby! Whippetown councillor says I fathered ET baby in space with alien lover. Shop owner tells armed robber he has to wait because I'm having a cup of tea. Woman in tears after spotting spitting image of her dead dog found in bath mat. Yorkshire man's torment as mystery stranger keeps yelling Porridge through his letterbox. Man who ate 124 kebabs in a month says it hurt him physically and psychologically. Woman fuming after she discovers husband has listed her on eBay.

Man accused of horse sex denies carrying Lynx Africa to mask the smell. And finally, New Year's Eve fireworks have been cancelled in Scarborough because of a masturbating walrus. Thank you very much, Marianne. And you can't see this at home, but she was flipping off the audience the whole time. The amount of things I've had cancelled due to a masturbating walrus, they're the bane of my life. We're lucky tonight's recording went ahead and we have one very brave forklift truck driver to thank for that.

It's a funny image isn't it? I'm also a big fan of the Porridge story. This is a genuinely stressful situation this man is in. The article includes a Facebook post that he wrote about what is happening to him. He said, I live at Range Court Flats in Booth Town and for the past three weeks, someone is still opening my letterbox flap

in the middle of the night and shouting porridge. Sometimes it's porridge time, Papa Bear. Or once it was, eat it before it goes cold, Papa. And then this bit said in a whisper, it's my special porridge. The more time I spend away from the North, the more I feel connected to it through these bizarre news stories,

because I think they really encapsulate me as a person. This intense level of over-anal analysis on a completely unimportant concern is what it feels like to be stressed all the time. So maybe growing up in a small town has made me stress. Because in the North's defence everyone has a weird relationship with their hometown, especially if your family is still there, because when you go back to visit you regress to childhood. I had a flashback during lockdown to the first time I went around to a friend's house for tea. In the Smith family we have tea at 5pm, very early. At my friend's house they had tea at 7.30pm and I thought I was going to die. 6.30 came round, I felt weak,

I couldn't think straight, my vision had gone blurry. Then the food we ate, the first meal I had that wasn't cooked by my mum and dad was a crazy meal. We had a sausage and baked bean pie. I'd never seen that before, that's northern even for me. They might as well have served up a Whippet Risotto. Now, Greenwich, what are you serving up with a sausage and baked bean pie? What are your sides? What are you serving up with a sausage and baked bean pie? What are your sides? What are you putting with it? Mashed dauphinois. Mashed dauphinois. I think someone might have said it and it might be something you're not expecting.

But first up, baked beans. A sausage and baked bean pie with baked beans and there's something else on the plate and you're probably thinking, don't say it Ian. Yeah, two sausages a sausage and baked bean pie with baked beans and two sausages I went home to my mum and dad, I was like it's feral out there

a big new story in Gould last year which I think perfectly reflects my stress through its over analysis and indecision was about the Salt and Pepper pots. Now they're two huge disused water towers and they're the towns iconic sites they use in all the town branding. They're called the Salt and Pepper pots I imagine because one is a stouter white tower and the other one is a long thin brown tower shaped almost exactly like a pepper

grinder. Those descriptions are very important for what I'm about to tell you. So for the Townspice and Tennery coming up in 2026, Gould Civic Society have decided it would be a good idea to release actual ceramic salt and pepper pot versions of the salt and pepper pot for people to buy. Now you could ridicule that as much as you like that was a universally popular idea in Goal. But the problem starts when Goal Civic Society had a meeting to decide which of the towers should have salt in it and which should have pepper in it. And a quick recap one of them is white and one of

them is brown and shaped like a pepper grinder. Personally, I've got an idea in my head already. White is salt, pepper is pepper grinder. The town council voted and the vote was genuinely split 50-50. They couldn't agree on an answer, so what they had to do, sorry, not had to, what they inexplicably decided on was to organise a town-wide referendum where people could vote whether the white salt pot looking building or the brown pepper grinder shaped building should have salt or peppering.

And when have people from the north ever voted the wrong way in a referendum? They then asked the town's Conservative MP Andrew Percy, who like all MPs has been trained to swerve any question to such a degree that he refused to pick a side. He said, personally, as a lover of that East Yorkshire delicacy chip spice, I prefer to think of them both as chip shake dispensers. I think that's the worst thing a Conservative MP has ever said. Then he gets weirdly defensive about how little an opinion he has by saying, I haven't the foggiest which one is which, I never have.

Never. I never have. I've never even called them the salt and pepper pots. I call them the chip spice towers. He then seems like a lot of politicians I've never even called them the salt and pepper pots. I call them the chip spice towers. He then seems like a lot of politicians to be in such a mad panic about certain issues that he manages to make it about trans people. He says, but in today's world, I don't suppose it matters. They can be whatever they want

and be happy being either a salt seller, a pepper pot or both. We're just delighted to have them in the town. After our encounter with the big bull it was time to meet the top dog. The farmer who confusingly was also called Ian, who wasted no time in putting me at ease about getting in with these big bean bags of meat. Beef bags, if you will. What's the sort of safety protocols?

I can supply you with some safety boots, just in case any of the ladies stand on your feet. When you've got 650 kilos of cows standing on your feet, it hurts. Yeah. How do you think cow cuddling helps people relax? As soon as you're near them, right, because they've got a big energy bubble, How do you think cow cuddling helps people relax? As soon as you're near them, right? Because they've got a big energy bubble and as soon as you sit down next to them you're inside that energy bubble

and you can't help but feel grounded and relaxed and peaceful. And time just goes like that. So let's go then. Let's go. Ian too led us into the beef bubble where we learnt that these chilled out cows still had a pecking order. And I thought pecking orders were just for chickens.

Nah, I'll probably edit that bit out. We have a hierarchy. So this is Kamala. Yeah. She's 15 years old. She's got a couple of nicknames she's had for a few years. Gangster Granny and Grumpy Granny. She's an elderly lady at 15 but she

keeps going, bless her. So second in command, she'd make a really good poker player because she really doesn't give anything away. So you generally don't find out how friendly she is till you get to her. What should I do if they want me to move, get up and move? Because I think I'm the lowest on the hierarchy. I think I feel a little bit of anticipation, but I think once I'm, and I rarely say this, once I'm nestled in with a cow, I think it will feel very nice. So why don't I come introduce you to Poppy Ren here. And introduced to Poppy I was. Ian Point 2 led me into the enclosure where I got up close and personal with a cow. And while other Ian was explaining how to successfully approach cows, we managed to capture some genuine farmland noises.

So if you approach a cow head on, it's like you've got a disagreement. That's immediately going to put them on the defensive. Yeah. Take that the archers, it doesn't get more real than the sound of a cow defecating next to you, it's what you pay your licence fee for. I was ready to go in for the hug. I do feel, I do feel immediately quite relaxed. I think this is, I'm going to have to come back every week. I've never felt this calm in all my life. I was calm. I must have seemed like the sort of laid back person you could tell your secrets to, because Farmeyan started to get confessional. I think I'm a cow addict. I'm absolutely addicted to their energy. I find it very hard

to drag myself away from them at the end of the day. Very hard. It's about understanding that they're all individual living entities just like we are. You know, one of the reasons I introduced you to them all and I told you a little bit about them is so you can understand just like we are all individuals, we've all got different things that we do, we've got different characteristics and stuff. It's exactly the same, exactly the same. As far as I'm concerned, cows are people now. Would the feeling last? Who can say?

But on the way home, we ignored Five Guys and went straight to Nando's, because you can't hug a chicken. So maybe I'm not more stressed because I'm Northern, but maybe growing up in a town which holds a referendum over which building looks most like a seasoning dispenser has influenced my already rampant overthinking. But if you are looking to de-stress, I'd definitely recommend giving a cow a hug with a capital H. LAUGHTER

CHEERING Yeah. APPLAUSE I'll be checking out your tweets, Margaret. LAUGHTER But please, make sure the cows you're hugging I'll be checking out your tweets Margaret. But please make sure the cows you're hugging are regulation, huggable cows, otherwise it will make you more stressed. So my search continues.

See you next week. You've been listening to Ian Smith is stressed, written and performed by Ian Smith with additional material from Rhiannon Shaw and Max Davis. The news was read by Marianne Moschiri. The producers were Benjamin Sutton and Laura Shaw. It was a Daddy Superyacht production for BBC Radio 4. Thanks for listening to the Comedy of the Week podcast from BBC Radio 4. If you want more check out the Friday Night Comedy podcast featuring the news quiz and dead ringers. Hello, I'm Greg Jenner. I'm the host of You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy show that takes history seriously. And we are back for series eight, starting with a live episode recorded

at the Hay Literary Festival all about the history of the medieval printed book in England. Our comedian there is Robin Ince. And then we'll be moving on to the life of Mary Anning, the famous paleontologist of the 19th century, with Sarah Pascoe. Then it's off to Germany in the 1920s for an episode on LGBTQ life in Weimar, Germany, with Jordan Gray. And then we'll hop on a ship all the way back to Bronze Age Crete to learn about the ancient Minoans with Josie Long.

Plus loads more. So if that sounds like fun, listen and subscribe to Your Dead to Me on BBC Sounds.