Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe's Parenting Hell - S01 EP62: David Baddiel

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

ROB BECKETT & JOSH WIDDICOMBE'S 'LOCKDOWN PARENTING HELL' - S01 EP62: David Baddiel Joining us in the studio this episode to discuss the highs and lows of parenting (and life) during the lockdown and beyond is the brilliant comedian and writer, David Baddiel. David's latest book 'Future Friend' is out May 2021 and available to pre-order now. Enjoy. Rate and Review. Thanks. xxx If you want to get in touch with the show here's how:EMAIL: [e-mail]: @lockdownparent INSTAGRAM: @lockdown_parentingA 'Keep It Light Media' Production Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, I'm Josh Middicombe. And I'm Rob Beckett. Welcome to Lockdown Parenting Hell. The show in which Rob and I discuss what it's like to be a parent during lockdown, which I would say can be a little tricky. So, in an effort to make some kind of sense of the current situation... And to make me feel better about my increasingly terrible parenting skills... Each episode, we'll be chatting to a famous parent about how well they're coping.

Or hopefully not. And we will be hearing from you, the listener, with your tales of lockdown parenting woe. Because, let's be honest, none of us know what we're doing. because let's be honest, none of us know what we're doing. Hello, and you are listening to Lockdown Parenting Hell with... Ready? Can you say Rob Beckett? Rob Beckett. Rob Beckett.

And Josh Widdicombe. And Josh Widdicombe. Josh Widdicombe. Widdicombe. Well done. Very good. That is three out of my four nephews. Logan's nine, but he was too cool to participate.

Jude, seven. Oscar, five. Toby, three and a half. This was the fifth take and the closest. Fifth take? Who are you, Martin Scorsese? Fifth take. Fifth take. Fair play. Just do do it your auntie's come around

and she wants to do it for a podcast she likes okay so just do it that's that's what that's the message and i'll give those kids you lph fans or not you bloody lph heads my older sister had all four of them before she was 25 that is my my age now, and I do not have any kids yet, but I love your podcast. Lots of people listen to our podcast. That's Maddie. Lots of people listen to our podcast that don't have kids. I know, because they want to feel better about their lives,

and this is a perfect antidote, because it is shit, but also magical, because you have to say that. What's your percentage of shit to magical, Rob? Oh, my God. It's like the early rounds of Britain's Got Talent. There's the odd golden buzzer. There's very much three Xs most days.

You know what I mean? I feel like Simon Cowell. He just sat there rolling his eyes, and all of a sudden he's absolutely buzzing for it when Paul Potts calls Dubo turned up. But I'm at the stage now where they are on my face the whole time.

They're obsessed with just jumping on me and just like, but they're not tiny little babies anymore. They're like three and five. So it hurts. It's like the impact.

And the birthdays are coming up as well and Louie's going to book because they can't have a party, right? We are just going to have a big party in the summer for when we're back to normal, whatever that is, right? So I think we're going to book a princess that comes to the front door and sings at the front door.

Oh, my word. And I don't know if that's – That's got the most awkward situation written all over it. I'm going to say I would hate to stand there. I find it bad enough with carol singers. How long is she singing for? We're getting her to do Bohemian Rhapsody five times and then Stairway to Heaven.

And you can't invite her in? How many princesses are you allowed? She could be in our bubble. It's Rapunzel, so we know she's been self-isolating. She's absolutely fine. She's going to have that awful situation where you come to the door and she's not going to be able to say, oh, that's that bloke from 8 Out of 10 Cats.

Because she's going to be too busy singing Let It Go. I find when you do like the Edinburgh Fringe and you do open mic circuit and then comedy circuit, you meet so many different people from all walks of life that all do all different stuff, right? It's not just sort of like the sort of like mainstream comedy stuff we do it's all kind of wacky stuff and i find i do bump into people i've done gigs with at some point but i can't play to them i was in london dungeons once and one of the wenches i was like especially used to compare down at the

queen's head i swear i know and then she sort of gave me a look as well so it'd be awkward as well if the princess turns up just sort of looks at me and i'm like and they're like why is elsa looking at daddy weird and i was like i think i know her that's always a danger isn't it when you work in the arts because like you know at any point yeah when you're when you're a creative as it were you work in the arts at any point you could be on a doorstep pretending to be elsa and i'm not ruling it out for me i'm not gonna lie rob i uh had that experience when i did the crystal maze experience and my uh maze master or whatever they're called yeah was uh someone that i'd done uh had been in my room before me in

edinburgh oh really i didn't know whether i was allowed to break the fourth wall and go um you're right steve yeah you're right or was i too busy going i'll do a skill please i don't know oh yeah well no actually we're gonna put the crystal back so we get him for the final round. I've been right, actually, mate. Yeah, you're doing Edinburgh next year.

Yeah, quality. Oh, so is it silver or gold tickets I need? Now, this morning, Rob, I thought it'd be nice to do a couple of ask Rob's

because you are, you know, people are calling you now Britain's father. Do you know what I mean? Britain's father. I'll take Britain's father. You're the wisest father in britain this comes from sarah w my one-year-old has taken a dislike to nappy changes once on the mat he rolls

over and crawls away sometimes straight away and sometimes just as soon as the nappy is off that's when he makes his break for freedom crawling away as fast as he can yeah the only thing that works at the moment is opening his clothes drawer for him to stand to hold on to, emptying it one T-shirt at a time while we change him. That's unsustainable, Rob. What tips do you have? Okay, so I like to employ a technique called banter restraint. Banter restraint?

Yeah. I wish you'd do that on panel shows. I can't help it. I get away no so basically right i don't think we're like i turn it into a game my instinct always turn it make it fun and then they'll want to do it so yeah when you're trying to change them i would sometimes use my feet like hands so if i'm sat and i've got their like legs like on me i'd sometimes put my feet on their like arms and stuff like that to sort of like tap their arms, which I'm sort of holding their back and arms down. So it's like I'm holding them down. I've never been less able to picture something in my life. Just start again.

The baby's laying down right in front of you. Yeah. On their back, laying down, nappy on, right. And their legs are like, you're sitting there with your legs alongside the baby. So your feet are by its head, right? And the baby's in between your legs, okay? Right, yep, got it. Like you've given birth, that kind of thing, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then what I do is, as I'm doing it,

I get my feet, my toes, and I'm sort of like patting on their arms, right? And you're basically pinning them down. You're restraining them with your feet, okay? And you hold their arms down like that, but you can try and turn it into a game. Right. And even if they don't really like the game and they're struggling a bit, you've got them down long enough to change a nappy.

Yes. Yes. So it's sort of like, you know, I wouldn't, I'm not saying restrainer can hold it like, but I'm saying it's like, I'm just placing them right.

And making it fun while you're doing it. You're saying if you hold them down with your feet, it doesn't count. Yes. Cause I imagine, Oh, he restrained me. What was his feet?

You know, what are you talking about? Rest me what with his feet you know what are you talking about you strange you with his feet what was that to stand up but yeah like i so i used to do that and like you put my feet on their arms and i hold like on their shoulders and stuff like yeah but i'll be tapping them and tickling them with it and so it's like a fun game and yeah but you are actually hold that you're keeping in position whilst you're changing the nappy yes very shrewd very shrewd or put the telly on that's always my second go-to put the telly on and make sure they can see it and then we stay still

okay bobby neary asks rob beckett my question is how do you replace stroke get rid of your kids toys christmas is coming up and my daughter who's four in february has lots of toys she no longer plays with but somehow she always knows when they aren't there we once got rid of a tatty play kitchen she hadn't touched for months and months she was so upset she ended asking santa for a new one my question is what is the best way to get rid of the toys they've lost interest in but will know if they've gone um i well i we sometimes do is like we do charity shop runs and then what we'll do is we'll go right okay we've got too many toys and there's some children that haven't got many toys so why don't we share our toys so why don't you go and pick some toys

that you would like to give to other children to play that you don't play with anymore and i do find sometimes they're quite like they find that quite fun because they're sort of in control of it but i have done that before you just chuck one out we had this doll that i the eye had um like broken so it's a doll with like one eye and the other i was like looking the other way and i basically chucked it out and i chucked it in the garage and like it was just on the side to get rid of and i remember i opened up the garage and the five-year-old was stood there and she went it's my bubba and it was it was nice and it'd been like in the rain it was like and it was like decomposed it was like rotting and she went what's happened to my bubba so what i would say is whatever technique you use once you get it out

of their room just get rid of it i'm a charity shop or bin if it's broke but get rid as soon as possible but are we trying to turn it into a game of pick stuff and then just when they're not looking just chuck a few bits in yeah just distractions a good technique i think but um are we trying to involve them into doing it i think that's a good way well that's kind of to go back to uh the last episodes uh dummy fairy uh situations you make it very clear that the dummy fairy is giving them to smaller girls yes that's good yes although we have got in this situation with my daughter where she was getting she was getting rid of some clothes and she was like i'd like to give them to not like her best

friend but a boy from her class at nursery has just had a baby not not just had a baby east lond London never changes, does it? You can gentrify what you want, mate, but kids will still bang out kids. So he's just had a little sister. She doesn't know that. I wouldn't say she's even in the top five people she mentions, but suddenly she was like, we'll call him Steve. She was like, oh i'd like to give this to steve's little sister

these dresses that for a two-year-old yeah and you're like i don't want to have to go up to steve's parents and go here's a load of dresses for you too for your baby that you just go that you don't want and you're going to be lumbered with as much as we are i don't even know his parents what have you said i just kind of, yeah. But kind of moved it on. Yeah. Or you could just be like, say like, oh, Steve, sister's got loads of dresses. However, should we give these to some other girls and then take it charity? I actually said, are you thick?

I said, are you thick? These aren't for a baby. What? I mean, come on. Yeah. How big do you think babies are, you fucking idiot? You think you're a big girl? Why don't you take one of your dummies

and fuck off with your Elsa? Anyway, if you want to get in touch, this is how. Email us hello at lockdownparenting.co.uk or tweet us at lockdownparents or

Instagram lockdown underscore parenting and you can also send us Instagram, lockdown underscore parenting. And you can also send us stuff, P.O. Box 76748, London E99DW. Now it's time for our guest, David Baddiel, comedian, writer, actor, all sorts, four number one singles, and lovely bloke. Very welcoming, I'd say, in the comedy world. Went to two young butts like me and you Josh he's always been really nice to me I find and me shared a dressing room with him in Edinburgh one year and genuinely was a lovely two weeks. It's a lifelong dream for you isn't it? It was yeah Naked Tuesdays was always it was a great day it was a great day. It was a great day. Thank you, cheers. Here's David Baddiel.

David Baddiel, hello, how are you? I'm all right, Josh Whittaker. I'm very well, how are you? I'm good, I'm fine, yeah. Yeah, Rob Puckett is here as well. Yeah, I'm here. I'm just with your job a little bit, didn't I? I felt I was hosting there for a minute.

It's difficult when you host this as a pair and the first person introduces themselves so go hello to the person and then you sort of try and make the point i normally just go haha yeah you're right david as if like whatever you said so that it reminds the listeners that i'm there but at the pro you are you you introduced me yourself so i thought it was awkward yeah i mean a little sense that josh was while we weren't here well it's not news to the podcast josh does not like a big intro he announces a guest as if like he's bumped into in a coffee shop oh david oh david nice to see you well you getting in rob it's like a player trying to get an early

touch on the ball just to kind of settle their nerves can i ask a technical question is it always josh who starts do you always pick off no we sort of mix it up we're not there's no egos involved there really there's been no clash of egos i mean you've you worked in a double act for a number of years and would you find there was arguments over who did what yeah really in the first one i mean i've been in two newman and badil originally called badil and newman so that lays it out for you In the first one, I mean, I've been in two. Yeah. Newman and Baddiel, originally called Baddiel and Newman, so that lays it out for you. There were a lot of arguments.

In fact, Frank Skinner tells the story. Frank Skinner, my second double-act partner, for the first time he saw me and Rob together, we'd just got the copy for our first video of VHS, right, which was called Baddiel and Newman live at Shaftesbury Theatre, right? And he was with me and Rob, and Rob was crossing out Baddiel and Newman and rewriting it Newman and Baddiel

without his copy for the video. So he knew then that that relationship didn't have long. And he got in there, to be honest. Frank saw his opening and he got in there. It was much better generally with him but it's a it's a complicated relationship you're not actually a double act though are you just work together on this yeah no we don't sort of do double act stuff but we'll see how it goes you never know josh we could you know yeah we're coming back alphabetically i'm in serious trouble

becky becky and widdickham unplanned something like that that's something done before is it well you're very welcome to it as long as i still get the royalties idea which uh uh david lidderman david who used to be in television probably still is he once described uh unplanned as a format as the bottled water of television yeah because really yeah we just sit on sofa and say shit well when you say you had that idea i think every comedian's had that idea but you were the ones that managed to get away with it somehow i know it doesn't make any sense but uh fucking great laugh for six years it was and i think when it originally started it was on monday tuesday wednesdays Emmental.

Like Emmerdale. Yeah, like Emmerdale, yeah. But less funny. So, David, for our listeners that aren't aware of your family set-up, which are less creepy listeners, what is your family? Me, Moana Banks, who is also a performer and a writer. She is the voice of Mummy Pig. She doesn't really like me saying that because I think, you know, she's done lots of other stuff in her career.

You know that thing, you all have it as well, like best known for, right? Quite often you think like, well, yeah, like me, Three Lions, right? Yeah, but what about all the other stuff, right? You're slightly pissed off, even though it was your really successful thing, right? With her, it's Mummy Pig.

And then we have two children. We have Dollyy who is now 19 and ezra who is uh now 16 just turned 16 oh wow and have you been locked down as a four or is dolly away or no she's still she's here um she it's a long story but she's a musical theater school he was going to go to musical theater school in Manchester and with a certain amount of foresight, I said, although no foreskin, I said to her, I think it's going to be a bit, probably not that great going a long way away

to go to college. Because if I read this right, lots of cities are going to completely shut down. And if that happens in London, it'll be slightly less shit for you, I think, than if you're on your own in Manchester in a new place, blah, blah, blah. So she stayed in London and she goes to college.

She goes to a place called London Studio Centre to do musical theatre. She's a brilliant singer. You ended the show, the Fame show in Edinburgh, with footage of her singing your song by Elton John. What's that like? I found that incredibly moving and I didn't know her. But that's your daughter. I would say Josh and me, if anyone doesn't know,

which is everyone apart from me and Josh, we shared a dressing room in Edinburgh in 2013 and I was doing Fame Not The Musical, which was a show that I did, a storytelling show, about essentially most of the shit and ridiculous stuff that's happened to me as a result of being, you know, a bit more visible than other people. And I ended with a nice thing, which was this video I've got of Dolly when she was 10 singing your song in a sort of little talent show,

not X Factor, not talent. But she used to go to a little drama group and they put on a talent show and she sung your song and it was moving anyway just i've never really told this story in that most of the other kids they were a little bit older than her and she went on last in this little talent show and i and they were all very professional right and i could tell when dolly went on because she's 10 she had pigtails she was really looking young you're just thinking ah ah she'll be sweet and then she knocked you out of the park yes i'm so proud and in the in you probably didn't see that show rob but what's funny about it is i talk about how i'm filming it and i'm crying so much that the filming is totally shit. And then when you see it, it's the most waving rubbish

that I've ever seen. But then, yeah, her voice is brilliant. Actually, I put it on my Desert Island disc as well. I put Dolly's version of your song on my disc, which, by the way, when I asked Dean Venger on Desert Island disc the other day, he chose Elton John's Your Song, along with a lot of very Route 1 stuff. I don't know if you listened to it.

No, I haven't listened to it. I'm waiting for Arsenal to start winning again. I can't hear people talking about Bergkamp and Henry at the moment. We've not had a shot on goal for about four weeks. I'll tell you what he didn't win at, is choosing obscure songs for Desert Island Discs, because literally, it's my way, it's... The first hour on magic in the morning

and it's your song well john and i said at the time i said this would be much better to be your version dolly who 19 now obviously so she can appreciate the irony of all that i wouldn't have been brilliant if arsene wenger had said you know this version by david good deal elton he does ideal danding now he does these things in a stupid way now elton so my daughter anyway yeah i was very very very moved by dolly's version of your song i'm glad you were moved by it too mine's just started uh primary school and it's when you really do notice them because they're away five days a week and they start their own friendships you can't have a say in or be involved in and stuff like that and how have you found it as they've got older like that sort of loss of

control as it is really well i think we need to talk about all this is my son and actually i was going to mention a story which you reminded me about which is uh when my kids were at primary school uh they put on a version of uh bugsy malone i think uh on as the christmas show and there's a talula is it does a very sad song in that uh and it was a little girl mopping up i believe and she did a solo it was really beautiful actually you know when that happens professionally or particularly maybe at a school, there's a moment of silence just before everyone applauds and I'm just going to cry and whatever.

There's that moment of silence. And my son, who was about four, wasn't quite at that school yet, I don't think, or maybe he'd just started, was sitting on my lap, I think, and he went, is that a person? sitting on my lap i think and he went is that a person it was a very weird heckle my son right in terms of like what you've just said about the development is i've tweeted the other day and it got a lot of likes and retweets and clearly was relatable that my daughter uh is

totally recognizable from the person that she was as a child and how old are your children five and three and you're three okay so this is bad news children that you really really love and they're really sweet and whatever trouble they are you really really love and they're really sweet, whatever trouble they are, you really love them and they're incredibly fantastic, they will not exist at some point. I mean, they will. But I remember Jonathan Roth saying to me of his son, oh, that little boy, do you remember Harvey when he was a little boy, really sweet?

He doesn't exist anymore. I remember thinking how awful. Fucking hell, it's true, right? I tweeted that my daughter, it's not quite true of my daughter. My daughter, there's a continuum right it's sort of recognizable the incredibly sweet little girl that she was to the young woman she is now my son is like a different fucking species i mean really it's incredible it's like gone he's like killed him essentially and as he grew old, I should have known it, I guess, from like that moment.

I remember when he was about six, right, he'd been walking behind me on the way to school and he poked something. I just thought it was like nothing, like his finger or whatever, into my trousers. And then I was at a meeting later on and I thought, I can't sit properly. And I pushed it into my pants and there was a sushi fish,

like a soy sauce sushi fish in my pants. And it pounded on the ground and just pounded down my pants, right? So cut to about two years ago in Cornwall. We were parking the car in a very crowded car park on the beach, a lot of people there. And our car stereo had broken down, right? And so we were using a portable stereo for music in the car at that point, right?

So we get out of the car, and it's still on. I didn't realize it. I'm just holding it with all the other shit and all the kids getting out of the car. I've got towels and shit. I didn't realize it was still on. And Ezra's behind, and by now, of course, he's got a phone, and he knows how to work the phone

and sync it up, and he's got a phone and he knows how to work the phone and sync it up and he's a c*** right so I get out and that starts playing it really loudly this incredibly Jewish music right and I could see all the people look around card market look around and clearly think, oh, look, there's David Cotejo. You must not have music like that with him all the time. Please don't let him do that dance. Because Ezra had just fucking done that through Spotify. And I was so embarrassed, but at some level so proud. I thought, that is a brilliant joke.

But he is like that. He trolls me all the time now. Did it change overnight? It feels like it did. I mean, it can't have done. But it feels like it did. I mean, he's very, very funny, my son. He's genuinely very funny.

And there are some occasions when he was really young where I thought, wait a minute, that's a callback. I did something for this podcast, a callback. I did something for this podcast, which was to look at all the things I've tweeted about my son. And there's

a fuck of a lot of them. And a lot of them are awful. Like, for example, he asked me the other day whether there's an audiobook of Mein Kampf. The other day. That's a tough VO gig, isn't it? You've got the voice for it. What do you mean?

I've got into trouble for some of the things. Like, for example, we were watching Eurovision. You said, Ukraine is just a BTEC Russia. I got into trouble for that, for putting that on Twitter. That could easily be one of your lines, Rob. People tell me BTECs are very important, very good qualifications. And on Jonathan Ross's show, on his talk show, I told a joke of Ezra's,

which was we were sitting down and the advert came on for Red Bull, saying Red Bull gives you wings, and Ezra said, and diabetes. And I got so much stick for that on Twitter. And then I realized what people were upset about, and this was when he was like nine, right? So much stick for that on Twitter. And then I realized what people were upset about. And this was when he was like nine, right? People were upset, correctly, I'm sure, about the fact that diabetes is like type 2 diabetes is the one where you drink and eat a lot of bad things.

You get type 2 diabetes, not type 1 diabetes. Well, it's not your fault, essentially. It's not your fault. Yeah, the one that Ed Gamble has. Yeah. It's not his fault. It his fault condition it doesn't come from diet and lifestyle right yeah right so and i said on i should put it in my show i said so basically what these people like thousands of them were complaining about was that my nine-year-old

son hadn't said red bull gives you wings and type two diabetes. It kills the joke. It kills the joke. It kills the joke. And he's nine for that. But he's, I mean, he has done a lot of stuff. But an example of the other, the flip side of it, is how difficult he is. So, because he's not difficult, but he's just, he loves being negative.

And that's what happens to teenage boys. They just want to shit on your dreams. Take a bit, right? So, for example, his school, about a year and a half ago, had a trip to Auschwitz. They had a trip to Auschwitz. The whole year we're going to go. And I thought, obviously, with our heritage,

that would be a good thing for him to do. And, you know, bleak and awful, but also very important or whatever. So I thing for him to do and you know bleak and awful but also very important or whatever so i say to him one breakfast you know ezra i think you should go on this trip that'd be good and he's like nah i'm like no really look at me take it seriously i really think a lot of our relatives died there might be a good thing for you to do and he goes none of my friends are going i go okay i really think it's important for you to go. And he says, no, really, I can't be bothered. And I found myself saying the actual word Ezra. I don't have to force you to go to Auschwitz.

But, you know, he lives for memes. Irony, an incredibly high level of irony, being, like, scornful about me, and that video games and FIFA and stuff like that. Does he respect your career? No. I mean, secretly, but I think no. I would certainly, he loves saying today.

I know a lot of people are working from home, but if you've got a family, it's often a good idea to think, oh, I'm going to go and write somewhere else yeah so i'm thinking about doing that so i went and saw a flat today and i'm afraid to have to tell you my friends that i'm i mean i had a mask on but nonetheless i'm there with the very young estate agent and he says oh so you're going to come and live here i said no i'm going to use it just for writing he went oh what are you a writer and i went well yeah i'm a writer and comedian went oh right all right and i told this to Ezra and he just said, yeah, what you wanted was a 50 year old bloke who likes football. And I thought, right. Yeah.

I know. He could have been nicer. He could have said that's his fault for being ignorant or whatever. Not, yeah, young people don't know who you are, Dad. But, but young people do know who you are because you've sold 1.5 million children's books. Yeah, here's one. Actually, we're not on the telly, on the internet. So your new children's book, Future Friend. Yes.

So how many have you written? Is that five? He's written 1.5 million. He's sold one each. It's a good way to get into the million books sold very well um i've written seven uh children's books uh and one actually one and a novella so seven and a half children's books and then why did you go was it partly to impress your children or entertain your children or when it came from ezra, the idea for the first one.

I mean, actually, I was having a row, not a row, but a thing today. I think the Guardian are about to do a... You talk about Ezra like Tyler Durden in Fight Club. It's like it's just your split personality living with you. I don't know if he really exists. Yeah, no, I was having a constant row on twitter and sometimes elsewhere i think the gardener doing a piece about how uh comedians and celebrities should not write children's books right because it causes uh it means that um you know probably

true at some level not that they shouldn't but that it does create problems for those people who want to write children's books who haven't got like a pre-established name or brand whatever anyway i my point being that i didn't particularly think oh i want a bit of that david walliams action my son gave me an idea is what happened when he was eight he said to me dad why doesn't harry potter run away from the dursleys uh obviously the horrible muggle family that he has to live with when he's not at hogwarts why doesn't he run away from them and try and find some better parents and i could have said to him the literary answer to that which is well i think it's because jk rowling wants to suggest that hogwarts is very magical

and so he creates a very uh negative humdrum life for him when he's not a Hogwarts. I didn't say that. I said, cause too long. I said, that's giving me an idea. And the idea was a world in which children can choose their own parents. And that led to my first children's book, which is called the parent agency about kid called Barry,

who is annoyed with his parents all the time, wishes for better parents, goes through his bedroom wall into a world run by kids in which parents basically have to audition to get children. That's a great idea. And he tries out five different types of parents. And yeah, so I wrote that. And what you just said, Josh, about it being a good idea,

the reason I said that was not just being self-aggrandizing, but the reason that I wrote it is that when I had the idea, because of what Ezra said, I thought that sounds like a really good idea for a children's book. So much so I thought someone else must've done it, but they haven't. And you know, when you have a good idea, that's often how it feels. Like it feels so classic. Someone else must've done it. Um, and it did do really well. And at that point I thought now I do want a bit that Williams actually do you have to do like events with kids and stuff where you read to kids in schools and what's that like it's actually really I don't obviously haven't done it for a while but it's really all right um you know one of the things

about comedians writing children's books I don't know if you have any ideas for it, but I have a belief, quite a strong belief, that children or that comedians are what all adults are, but they've got licence to be it more, i.e. children. I don't believe that anyone is actually 54, except possibly Michael Gove. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. No one in their heart feels that age.

Everyone feels about 12 or whatever. And so when I do stuff with kids, I sort of tell them that, actually. I sort of tell them, and they're quite surprised. Here's a secret about being adults, is that all these people, these teachers, they actually feel the same age as you, but they have to wing it. They have to pretend they've grown up. As a comedian, life is basically just one big summer holiday

where you float about a bit without ever having to do anything that serious. Cause you don't know, if you go do well in business, you have a team of people and you've got to do, sort their holiday dates out and do redundancies and all that. But ultimately you just float around a bit and just turn up and be yourself and go home.

It's just like going around your mates for tea, but it's on telly. The most famous sketch of my ever watch is me and Rob Newman playing two old history professors as if they were five-year-olds, right? Speaking to each other. But simply, we watch The American Office as a family now. One of the things about being in a family that you'll also learn is that when the kids are young, they will basically just watch anything

we can do. And actually, I really got into watching things like X Factor at that time because I'd never watched before because kids liked it and it was really nice watching stuff together as a family. Now, it's really hard to find anything that they will be prepared to watch with us, but we are watching The American Office, which I've never watched before, right? And The American Office is an object lesson in what Rob's just said,

which is basically, here's a very grown-up situation an office everyone just behaves like children yeah actually michael scott the sort of david brent character is like a five-year-old really yeah the body of a 50-year-old man and a lot of comedy is that really it's throwing off the charade of adulthood yeah that's what it is yeah it's yeah and saying what you want to say but normally because of your office or your work and structures in the power of the company you can't you can't but because you've got that freedom on stage to go i'm just a bloke talking yes i haven't got anything just going to come back at me yeah exactly and my books are quite like that i think that's part of the reason they've been a success is i i never when i started

writing children's books i never thought now i have to talk down to kids comically i'm still going to try and make as funny as possible i just won't talk about sex and i won't swear although there is normally a bit of swearing in my book i won't swear properly but the comedy i will try and make you know basically as real and as funny as anything else I might do. And that's because I think kids are, like, particularly now, like, you know, it's a modern thing. When I was young, we didn't have proper comedy as children, right? There was nothing. There was the magic roundabout.

It wasn't funny. Now my son and my daughter have grown up watching The Simpsons, have grown up watching the best comedy show of all time. And as a result, by the time they were six, they were much more sophisticated comically. They knew what comedy was. They knew what irony was. They knew a good joke from a shit joke.

And that's been a great thing as a parenting experience, but also I feel I've channeled that into the kids' books by refusing to make them condescendingly funny. Yeah. When the kids were a lot younger, would you work in a lot of that stage like because you still work a lot now but like like especially i think that i don't know when they were born but like around especially like with the the three lines in 96 and stuff it must have been non-stop work and you was doing like arena tours and like you was on telly monday tuesday wednesday and stuff was was that happening

when they were little and was that hard to manage oh yeah i mean well actually i stopped doing live stuff when they were born um i mean not completely but touring so i've been touring throughout the 90s and i tour every year virtually up until about 97 either with rob newman or whatever it might be edinburgh or blah blah blah And then I was tired anyway. So I was knackered. I also wanted to write other things and do other things, but then I had kids and I just stopped doing that. But I'm still on the telly.

Like, unplanned is, so that's 2000 to 2006 or something. Plus there was also a fantasy football series then. Euro 2004 fantasy football series. Sometimes telly, though, is more time demanding than live because live you're around all morning and most of the day and then you can drop off at school and then you jump in a car at 3, 4 in the afternoon and then you're back late that night normally with comedy. But how was it with the telly and stuff like that?

I think it wasn't always great, actually. I mean, I remember doing that Euro 2004 series, that fantasy football Euro 2004 series. I actually had to go and live because we filmed it at Wandsworth and that was on every night virtually or every time there was a big game and it was live. So I had to go and live in a hotel in Wandsworth. And my son was born – well, he wasn't born until November 2004,

but my – you know, she had – my i had a young child dolly and was about to give birth to another one and i think now what the fuck was i thinking of yeah not there all the time um and you know she was very good about it but i uh i think that i don't know how you find it but i think that it's quite hard when you're basically doing something that's very driven like comedy and you think like i want to do all the things i want to do and it's quite hard to say no especially when it's telly or whatever it's quite hard to say oh i i'm not going to do this because i have to spend more time with my children i mean you're both in that i totally agree now you know and it's probably quite to turn

stuff down i don't know yeah no it's 100 true because you you sort of it's that kind of thing where you think right well you know stuff's all going well but you need to make sure that money's coming in and then and like if you say no to a series you might not get offered it the next time it's offered and then stuff slowly starts to drift away and it's people are only sort of like hot as it were for a certain amount of time. And for you in that point, you must have thought, no, I've got to do this because I need to, you know, be on telly, get the money coming.

Because you didn't know. You can't guarantee that you're going to go on to write seven books and sell 1.5 million books and all the other stuff. And, you know, us looking at you, you go, well, it's David Baddiel. It'll be fine forever. But whoever it is, in your own mind, you do just think, well, what if it stops tomorrow?

And that is a terrible balance to try and make because you think all right well i'll be at home with the kids but then that's no good if in 10 years time we've got to sell the house because the money that i'm earning now is not the money i will earn then it's just like and that's like for most people with like trying to get promotions and pushing for that promotion in a proper job as it were yeah it's that balance and stuff but how do you feel when you look back now do you think you sort of did the best you could in that situation? Oh, you see, before this started, Rob said, I won't be asking you any difficult questions.

And that is literally one of the most difficult questions I've ever been asked. Did I get it right with, like, my career and parenting? What a big question. Well, they seem all right. They don't seem too fucked up, of them they seem perfectly happy but to be to be very cliched indeed but it comes back to what i was saying earlier about ezra and what you said about did that happen overnight is it goes by very quickly or it feels like it has when they are older uh and so that thing of like oh did i spend as much time for my own sake from really selfishly like

enjoying them being young kids maybe like some of the time i didn't i mean no it wasn't i mean to be honest with you much fucking better than my dad you know my dad who wasn't on telly in any way went out to work every day came back really late didn't have much interest in us, basically. When he did, he was normally a bit irritable, a bit angry that we were around. And, you know, apart from playing football with us on a Sunday or whatever, you know, I think he only liked us when we got older. You know, and I think a lot of older dads,

from like when my generation of dads were a bit like that, you know, a bloke brought up in the 40s and 50s like my dad the idea that part of the stuff of life the really important stuff of life was to spend time with your kids when they were young fuck that i think i feel that you know i wish i'd squeezed as much juice out of that as possible i didn't with ezra do you think he could end up doing what you do do you think he could end up doing what you do? Do you think he could be a comedian or a writer? And how would you feel about that?

I would be fine with it because I know he's really funny. I don't think he wants to do that. I think he would feel weirdly self-conscious about that, about the expectation and the sort of, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. You'd expect him to do that because Morwenna, of course, is in comedy as well. So he doesn't really do this anymore. oh, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, you'd expect him to do that because Morwenna, of course, is in comedy as well. Yeah. He doesn't really do this anymore, but for a while,

Ezra would, out of nothing, just stand up when we were just sitting around watching telly and start pretending to be a shit stand-up. Are you sure you didn't have Last Leg on? He would hold the stick and he would have a catchphrase not really it's like which was thanks for coming out thanks he would actually he would sing the quacks don't echo uh the max show sky one do you know that yeah so he would sing the theme tune of that, run on, say thanks for coming out a lot, and then try and busk a set. And he would do that for two years.

He would do that regularly. He stopped doing that now, and I slightly miss it. I think it's inevitable where his career's heading, David. How across what you've done is he? Has he read all the books? Has he gone back and watched the fantasy football videos like or would that be his idea of a hell i think again he would find it a bit weird and he i absolutely has not read most of the books no but then again i think

he's only read two books in his life well the audio book of Mein Kampf. That counts. The original German. Yeah. And what about your daughter, Dolly? Does she ask for any advice or tips on performing? Obviously, because she wants to be a performer and she's studying it. It'll be very different to you.

But what annoying for her, you have had a number one single. Yeah, that is annoying. She's more of a dancer than she is well she is a great singer but what she's studying is musical theater with a sort of with a emphasis on dance and uh it would be an extraordinary thing if i were to give dolly any help with singing and even more extraordinary if I was getting up with fucking dancing. I mean, I used to play music. I'd play the piano and she would sing. And actually, can

neither of you sing? No, I'm useless. Terrible. Really? Terrible. I'm afraid I imagine that Rob could sing because I sort of think of Rob as an old style, you know, proper... Oh, don't get me wrong i will sing but can i is a different question i reckon i could bang out my way good enough to close the show somewhere pontins cruise ship palladium wherever they'll let me i'll give it a go and try my best

but i i i can't sing even though i've had uh uh four number ones well four of the same song can't sing even though i've had uh uh four number ones well four of the same song uh well it's like your book writing yeah exactly yeah that's how we managed to have four number ones by insisting on the same song going to number one again and again you know it's this is a true story uh q magazine when it first came out the music magazine instead of three lions it seemed like a nice thing at first i remember reading it thinking this seems quite nice instead of three lines you know you're something get caught by that like you're reading something about yourself and you think oh yeah and it gets you know that's gonna oh fuck you know so it's like that because it said in the future people will think of three

lions in a very nice way in fact they'll think of it as better than it was in the future it said folk memory would have erased the memory of David Baddiel's singing just as it has erased the memory of corpse robbers during the Blitz. Incredible insult, isn't it? It's an unbelievable tale of insult. God, that's horrific.

Horrific. I think when I was a kid, I was in bands when I was a kid, and I would have loved to have been able to sing, and I've come to a conclusion that I really can't and I think that Dolly having a really good voice I've always found that kind of slightly healing I don't know if that's a thing with your children is there are things that you can't do yeah in your life but you'd love to be able to do your children can do them I wonder if that's part of the joy of it like if one of your sons

is an incredible footballer right I mean you'd be proud anyway but if it was something that you secretly like I very much did would want to have been and then your son does it like that must be something amazing I enjoy having daughters because I was one of the things I was paranoid of

before having kids was I was really worried that I was going to have a boy and I gave him all the negative parts of me and none of the good and it's just poor little wreck of this loud unfunny some would say that is what the case is with me but like I was very concerned about that but for some reason because it's having girls it does put that sort of separation in it between them a little bit where you can't it's not a direct mirror image of yourself coming back so I was in a way slightly relieved about having girls because it does put a direct mirror image of yourself coming back. So I was, in a way, slightly relieved about having girls because it does put a little bit of separation of them being, you know,

giving them your sort of negative traits. Yeah, no, that's true. And actually it's kind of clichéd of me to go on about, oh, my son's like this and my daughter's like that. It's true. Yeah. It's true. My son is an absolute cliché of a teenage boy at some level.

He's really funny and really great, but he's also, you know, fucking negative and ironic and sarcastic and all that kind of stuff. And she's a kind of like really lovely flower of a girl. Cliche, but it is the case. But what I was saying was that definitely when I've played piano or guitar and Dolly has sung, and I've done it in front of people a couple of times and on stage at little events or whatever, I get a sort of level of pride that is fucking ridiculous.

Yeah, I bet. It's ridiculous, the level of pride. I wouldn't have known that you could be so proud. I really identify, actually, with those parents on Britain's Got Talent. You know, there's an 11-year-old Britain's Got Talent and they cut to the parents with Ant and Dec. And you might think if you haven't got kids, oh, look at them, you know, overwhelmed in a silly way.

But I totally relate to it whenever I've seen my daughter on stage. It's amazing. Of the people we've spoken to, your emotions, you've always been someone who kind of wears your emotions on your sleeve like and you're very a very open person yeah and it's amazing to speak to someone who's kind of so open about their relationships with their the different relationships with their two children you you talk like someone that is just so privileged to have spent time with them yeah do you know what i mean and just how much you love them that comes across it's taken me quite a long time because i am very open and i'm a bit on transmit and

mawena is unbelievably empathetic and everything she you know she's very private person very different from me and that's and everything she says she worries about how other people might take it and what they might think and she's you know, how the effect it might have on them. And it's taken me years to understand what I say. It's taken me years to get that. And children have helped with that. So again, this is typical of my over-honesty, but I used to be patron of something called Calm,

which is a very, very good charity. It mainly runs a website and a line a call center uh that's not the right word helpline yes call centers with uh for men uh young men who get depressed because as i'm sure you know young men are the major issue uh the more there are more numbers of young men who commit suicide and get depressed and whatever, and men often don't talk about it. So it was about that, right? And I was the patron of that for seven years, as it was just starting out as a charity. And people would ask me every so often,

why are you patron of Calm? Is that something that means a lot to you or whatever? And because I have an honesty gene, I would always say the same thing. I would say, well, sort of, but really what happened was, on my first day of primary school, Jane, who was the person who was the co-chair of the charity or whatever, started the charity, she came up to me and said, would you like to be patron of this charity?

And I thought, fuck, I'm going to be coming here every day for the next seven years. If I say no, I'm going to feel bad every day. Fuck yes, I got it. yeah getting asked to do something but on the hop is an idea it's awful david yeah and as someone who's honest i don't think you in many ways you're the one person that probably won't need this, but we like to ask in every interview if you have any issue with your partner's approach to parenting that you've never had the guts to bring up, but as a kind of amnesty, knowing that they might hear this, this would be a way to communicate. Well, I think she's an absolutely brilliant parent. But?

Well, Moena is a Catholic. One of the things about Catholics, which I've discovered, and I know a lot, like obviously Frank Skinner is a Catholic, I'm not close to many of them, is that they have a, I think because of original sin, that they have a total sense that the worst thing is going to happen. That something terrible is going to happen. Something terrible is going to happen, and they're going to be judged and sent to hell or whatever.

And so basically our entire time parenting has been spent with me saying to them all, I don't think they're going to die. I think they can go over there, and probably a building isn't going to fall on their heads. I can't promise you that things will be all right if they just go over there and probably a building isn't going to fall on their heads. I can't promise you. I think it's going to be all right if they just go over there for a bit. He is wonderfully protective and concerned about the children all the time, but there is an element of, oh, you know,

God will smite them down at any point. And I, I must do all I can to make that not happen. I would say. David, we've talked about the books, but before we go, I should say we didn't actually mention that his future friend is the new book yeah which is a time traveling uh book seven uh would you say nine to thirteen year olds that's what it's been typed as well yeah about actually i think seven year old i've got lots of seven year old readers so yeah yeah it depends kind of a kind of a sevenold, a thick 14-year-old. Yeah, yeah.

It depends on your kid. Make them cool. I like to say it's for all the family. Yes, of course. I've got a million and a half different ones to sell. David, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much. No, I really enjoyed it, lads.

It was really, really enjoyable. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you so much i really enjoyed it lads it's really really enjoyable oh thank you so much david baddiel there josh widdicombe absolutely love david baddiel you do don't you you've got i love david as well but i feel like you really love david baddiel i david and frank are the reason i do comedy like i i used to watch those fantasy football videos so much that like the video tape would warp and it would like sound, the cheering would sound wrong. Or they're having a bad gig.

You can't tell them that. Yeah, it might be one of the live ones, early days. Now, I loved Badil and Skinner Unplanned as well. I actually preferred that to, because I'm a little bit younger than you. I don't want to bring that up. But those Unplanned ones on ITV, I used to watch them all the time. I loved it. I used to get somebody from the audience and write up what happened yeah

so good so good great great podcast well he's really it's so good to have people so honest and that i think david is one of the most honest people in comedy like say it tell it as it is i'd love to be like that oh would it be a nightmare i don't know i don't know i don't know yeah you're clearly an open book though you talk about a lot of stuff don't you i don't know rob there's a lot going there's a lot of dark stuff going on there i don't know well it's hard to know isn't it because i think you know it's really interesting because we're so uh at a similar stage as he was really with like young kids and working a lot and on the telly and stuff and he's you know david's still on the telly loads but he sort of picks and chooses now he writes a book he'll appear on last leg but he won't really dedicate like a full like six months of series of

stuff i find he's a bit more pick you can pick and choose what he does and i think you know it's hard to know now and i feel like i'm in the same boat and i'm sure a lot of the listeners because i know sometimes it gets a bit comedy comedy but that's inevitable because we were three comedians talking but there's no difference to how we feel than someone else our age of young kids are working at for a bank or they're working at estate agents or they're you know they're running a building site or that all the little jobs they've got with those pressures and going do i hammer it now so that their future's sorted or do i I ease off? It's about finding that balance. It is weird because you go, oh, I can really ease off in my 50s.

And you go, yeah, but then I'll have missed the best bit. Yeah, exactly. My children will have gone when I'm in my 50s. Like, you want to experience it now. Do you know what I mean? You want to. But then I say that. Anyway, the thing I'm saying, Rob, is that's me done on the last night.

But the thing is, though, Josh, I say that, but then literally an hour ago, I was like, just go to fucking bed. Fuck off. Fucking little arseholes. You're up at six. Scream them a name. I told you it would be quiet.

And then I had these chats. And I'm like, oh, yeah, man. It'd be so good. I've just got to really save this moment. But then an hour ago, I was like, fucking hell. I can't deal with it anymore. So you can't lie to yourself about it. No. But yeah, I think about it but yeah it's i

think it's just it's a tricky balance and hopefully through this it'd be ironic though if like when we get older and our kids go yeah i think you spent too much time doing that parenting podcast rather than parenting and they'll be able to add up all the hours because that'll all be listed we have done 60 like 60 hours in six months but um we're trying our best if you're listening to this kids i'm trying my best i don't know what i'm doing but you know i think i'm doing all right i i think it'd be amazing i'm not saying my children would never listen to this podcast but to have listened to it so thoroughly that they're listening to the outro to david baddiel is quite the year is

the year is 30 22 they're reading future kid as of now and going it's not like this is it um thank you to david uh all his books 1.5 million of them are available um we will be back on tuesday yeah because it's the new way isn't it this was friday this was a fridayette i'm just so confused about when we're doing stuff now but um should we uh speak to everyone on tuesday tuesday see them bye