Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe's Parenting Hell - S05 EP6: Sara Pascoe

Episode Date: August 5, 2022

Joining us this episode to discuss the highs and lows of parenting (and life) is the brilliant author, presenter, and comedian - Sara Pascoe.Tickets are available now for Sara's fantastic new tour show 'Success Story' Thanks, Rob + Josh.BIG NEWS.... we're writing a book! ⭐ All the stories we can’t tell on the podcast – in depth.⭐ What it’s like to raise a stiff neck and a loose neck – straight from the horse’s mouth (our parents)⭐ And.. the BIGGEST REQUEST WE’VE EVER HAD FOR THE PODCAST… Hearing from our wives, Rose & Lou. They’ve got a chapter each and YOU can submit your burning questions to them... [e-mail]'s it really like to be a parent? And how come no one ever warned Rob or Josh of the sheer mind-bending, world-altering, sleep-depriving, sick-covering, tear-inducing, snot-wiping, bore-inspiring, 4am-relationship-straining brutality of it all? And if they did, why can't they remember it (or remember anything else, for that matter)?And just when they thought it couldn't get any harder, why didn't anyone warn them about the slices of unmatched euphoric joy and pride that occasionally come piercing through, drenching you in unbridled happiness in much the same way a badly burped baby drenches you in milk-sick?Join Josh and Rob as they share the challenges and madness of their parenting journeys with lashings of empathy and extra helpings of laughs. Filled with all the things they never tell you at antenatal classes, Parenting Hell is a beguiling mixture of humour, rumination and conversation for prospective parents, new parents, old parents and never-to-be parents alike.Find out everything you need to know, including how you could win a pair of tickets to the Parenting Hell LIVE tour & an overnight stay in London here: https://www.bit.ly/ParentingHellBookWe're going on tour!! Fancy seeing the podcast live in some of the best venues in the UK?Of course you do, you're not made of stone! Tickets available now on the dates and at the venues below. We can't wait to see you there...ON SALE NOW 14th April 2023 - Manchester AO Arena19th April 2023 - Nottingham20th April 2023 - Cardiff 21st April 2023 - London (The O2)23rd April 2023 - London (Wembley)28th April 2023 - Birmingham Utilita Arena If you want to get in touch with the show here's how:EMAIL: [e-mail]: @parenting_hellINSTAGRAM: @parentinghellA '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 Rob Beckett. And I'm Josh Willicombe. Welcome to Parenting Hell, the show in which Josh and I discuss what it's really like to be a parent, which I would say can be a little tricky. So, to make ourselves, and hopefully you, feel better about the trials and tribulations of modern day parenting, each week we'll be chatting to a famous parent about how they're coping. Or hopefully how they're not coping. And we'll also be hearing from you, the listener, with your tips, advice and, of course, tales of parenting woe.

Because, let's be honest, there are plenty of times when none of us know what we're doing. Hello, you're listening to Parenting Hell with... Can you say Rob Beckett? Rob Beckett. Can you say Josh Whitacombe? Josh Whitacombe. Good boy. Well done, Caleb. Caleb.

Lou wanted to call our kids Caleb if we had a boy. It's a really American name, isn't it? She likes John Steinbeck. Ah, right, yeah. i think that's in there or something i don't know she asked i had to read east of eden once i did half of it it's just too many it's so descriptive about fields don't give a shit mate i know what one looks like have you read it no oh god anyway sorry go on caleb is this a reference to something hi slags i've been listening is that a joke we used to have that i can't remember i think uh i think everyone was being really polite or i don't know but i'm happy to be called a slag i've been listening since the beginning and i've been patiently waiting for my son to be able to say your names it's been two

and a half years now but when we're listening in the car he says your name's on repeat and so that's fun. We are also now pregnant with our second child. Yay. Yay? Oh wait, she said, but sort of. It's normal to be dreading and excited in equal measures, right? Asking for a friend. Yes, it is. This is Caleb, who's 34 months from Bangor, Northern Ireland. Love the podcast. Thanks for all the laughs.

Emma, 372 months. P.S. Please do a live show in belfast not my decision our live shows are wherever they are i don't even know where they are i'm doing belfast i'm on tour in november if you want to go all right mate yeah last few gigs yeah how are you did you watch the european championship final and did your daughters get inspired? No, my daughters didn't get inspired. I did watch. I loved it. I've really enjoyed the tournament. To be fair,

I've been busy this month, so I only watched the quarterfinal, semifinal and final. I didn't do all the group games. Didn't watch the 8-0. Didn't watch the 8-0. Who did they beat? 8-0. 8-0 was great. I can't remember. Some bunch of rubbish. It was John and Arisha. Arisha was the pundit. It was Norway was great. I can't remember some bunch of rubbish. Some bunch of rubbish. It was John Arnaresa.

Arnaresa was the pundit. It was Norway. Norway. Okay, fair enough. But no, I watched it. They were crap. I've really enjoyed it. We absolutely thrashed them.

It was brilliant. Are you saying those women are crap at football? No, I'm not. I'm saying we are so much better than Norway. It was brilliant. John Arnaresa in that break was fucking livid at how shit Norway had defended. And I thought, this this this is good this is

positive the only thing i thought was annoying was they interviewed um susan calman who's scottish about england winning and she was really happy for him i think true equality will be when scottish people go fuck you lionesses yeah you're not inspiring me i'm scottish i'm gonna give a shit if he was pleased the lionesses won, or if he's absolutely furious. It's tough, isn't it, for a bit of nation rivalry, because you want to be supportive about how amazing the women's football's become, but also he's Welsh. Yeah, well, we'll find out if he texts back in the next seven minutes whether he likes it.

Well, I enjoyed it. I thought it was really exciting, the crowd were amazing, and I felt inspired, but no, none of the women in my house watched it. Didn't they? Nope. Did you try and make them watch it yeah i put it on outside i've got an outside telly you know like you have in your garden i got one of them tried to put that on i was even trying to like go we can have the fire pit with some marshmallows not interested they were just watched frozen and then i went into like the back room to watch it because they had frozen on the big telly and then they came in there lou walked in and went

oh were we winning as germany scored and i went no we're drawing out so she left the room again yeah that was that was her and uh and uh the girls now they stripped off naked in front of the telly and started screaming we don't care we don't care watch our show watch our show what they actually said football is rubbish and for boys i was like it's literally women playing and winning oh mate so i live with three misogynists oh i'm sexist sexist bigots and i'm just there but it was it was amazing the goal the first goal was so good yeah i was i was actually chasing a 12 month old round a kitchen at that point which was slightly frustrating oh you missed the goal i missed the goal. I missed the goal.

I saw the second goal, and I saw the German equaliser. My daughter watched. We had her... She had two friends around, and they watched the first four minutes, and then they gave up. It is a long thing, though, isn't it? I think they're a bit young for it.

Yeah, and then they came back to watch the trophy being given out, which they enjoyed. The thing is, what actually is inspiring that next generation is that they've watched that and it's just in their heads that women play in front of 90,000 people on the front page of the paper for sport and football. And it's just a given. And I think as they grow older, it'll become part of their summer.

So like for me, I like watching England women's play and love it. But for me, watching the men's team, I'm slightly more obsessed by it because I grew up with the pain of losing.

It's 30 years of narrative. Yes, exactly. But when my daughters are our age, they'll have that narrative of supporting them and by that age, I'll be really into them

because then I start to, now I'm getting into the characters in the team, all the different players and Kelly and there's Kirby and all these different names that start to come in through popular culture. And that's the difference. It's not about, I love football now.

It's about, it just existed in your head the same way as when you think about Wimbledon, it was like Tim Henman, but now you've got Raducanu, haven't you? Yeah. Do you know the worst thing though for our daughters and children rob yeah we won the cricket world cup we won the women's euros we've got to the final of the men's

euros they've been spoiled mate you say women are having it too good no i'm saying our children having it too good our children are being spoiled the next generation so just to make it clear you're not saying women have it easy no I'm not I'm saying cricket fans I'm saying I'm saying cricket fans I'm saying women's football fans

I'm saying men's football fans all these things that we're good at now yeah we were shit when we were kids and we

we had to put up with that these people are going to have skyscraping expectations that aren't going to be met in 20 years. At least we're used to losing, Rob. Yeah, but so what you're saying is we've been sad forever. Yeah, which is better.

They're happy now and then they'll get sad. But at least they've had some happy. Is that worse? It's worse. It's worse to have once been happy. I wouldn't say our generation are very well adjusted when there's men sticking flares up their arse. Yeah.

I'd say that's not a healthy way to approach a final of a football match. I would add though that even if we had won Euro 96, I don't think he would have taken the flower out of his arse. I don't think that was...

I don't think that was... So you're saying... Okay. You still think he would have put that flower up his arse? I was saying it was other societal factors that led that man

to put a flower up his arse. Yeah, that was more of a COVID thing, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. I think you fight back. Two metres distance, whatever. No distance between my arsehole and this flare. But anyway, it was really good.

I really enjoyed watching it. So congratulations to Lionesses. Yeah, I got a photo of my daughter and her friends watching the game and I thought, they'll look at that in 10 years. They won't remember whether they watched it or not. It's job done. Yeah, exactly. So your daughters are going to look amazing. When my daughters are older and they end up you know writing some sort of essay in a

university about women's football or women's sport or something like that they can go i remember watching it when i was six years old and it inspired me i'm like did it fuck you did not give a shit and i remind i've seen the girl that one that's been on the news who's got the little face paint on her cheek and she was singing at the semi-f one that's been on the news who's got the little face paint on her cheek and she was singing at the semi-final they got tickets to the final she was inspired

not you you were dancing around making me look at you yeah and that'll be up my speech at her wedding well Rob shall we get on

with the interview because it is genuinely one of my favourite people in comedy in television in the world etc um delighted to have her on yeah she's very excited she's brilliant sarah pascoe

sarah pascoe what have you are you eating something josh sorry what are you eating um i'm eating yogurt because i got home i just got home from nursery drop-off four minutes ago. I think a yoghurt is one of the worst things you can eat for an audio. Sorry, I'll stop. But I tell you what, this is why we should have put the videos on because it's very funny to watch someone eating a yoghurt. Yeah, let's put your video on and watch... It's in a bowl. It's in a bowl. It's not like a munch bunch or something.

Yeah, but a yoghurt, I don't know, a yoghurt, I think a yoghurt just sounds like your mouth's so full, isn't it? It's really... Also, it's really sort of like a woman in an office who's starving, but she doesn't want carbs. She just has a yoghurt on her desk, and she just sort of gulps it down and carries on with her work. Sorry, I've had a busy morning dropping the kids.

Just let me get this yoghurt down. This is my time. This is my time with my activia. Sarah, this is very close to the bone for Josh because we put a photo up of... Well, yeah, because we put a photo up of me in a vest hoping everyone would take the mickey out of me. But then everyone just said that Josh looked like a middle-aged woman having a slight breakdown.

Yeah, I look like Sam Balding. And he did. Now he's eating yoghurts at his desk. Oh, here we go. You know, I think I look a bit... Oh, my God, my glasses are steaming up now as well. The pressure's too much. How are your glasses steaming up?

How many kids have you got, Sarah? Let's move on. Let's move on. OK. Yeah, so I have got a baby. He's a boy and he's nearly six months old. Oh, six months. And it's my first child and I'm 41.

I had him at 40. I'm an old, old mum with a young baby. No, I wouldn't, I'd say these days, in our industry, Sarah, late 30s is about the mean average, I'd say, isn't it? It's true, isn't it? I've been talking on stage about how I really thought you had to choose

between a career and a baby. And so it was only when I got to about 35 and I got really sort of bored that I was like oh I could do that as well actually I could also have a family well that because that's the thing it's unfair on women have got more of a time pressure on that and also societal pressure of questions all the time where if you're a 35 year old bloke out and about working no one ever mentions it to you but if you're a 35 year old woman it's like so what's the plan something really passive aggressive yeah absolutely when both of my sisters got married and had children before me and they're both younger than me and

at one of my sister's weddings um one of my sister's friends and she was talking to me because she liked date out of 10 cats and she wanted to know if jimmy carr was nice and then the next thing she said was and she just sort of gestured with her arms like the wedding, the children running around the sun going down, my sister in love with her husband, she just gestured with her arm and went all this not for you all this not for you you've got Jimmy Carr and eight

out of ten cats, that's not this solar studio in Elstree is that what you want is it? a lukewarm Nando's before you're witty? Dictionary Corner, adorable tweets. Is that your life, is it? That's obviously sometimes, I think, from an internalising thing of someone that did think,

like you did, you either pick career or family, and they pick family, and there's a slight resentment to someone who's very successful in their career. I think that's the battleground. Yeah yeah oh that's what we read into it but we read in that there's some kind of value judgment rather than just oh you focus in on that or is that what makes you really happy you've made all you've made choices it is tricky because um because we tried to have children for a really long time and then did IVF I found all of those conversations really difficult because I didn't want to make it really I didn't want to lie but I also didn't want to make it really like a downer so yeah I was

quite defensive about the question because it's like if I tell you the truth then I'm telling you some really heavy stuff yeah straight away yeah and that's not what you mean you just you just want like a yes or no answer what's the plan yeah and you're not sometimes in that situation just because you've both gone for like a mini burger canapé and then all of a and you're not sometimes in that situation just because you've both gone for like a mini burger canapé and then all of a sudden you're in a deep dive conversation with this cousin that you've never met before what did you reply to this not for you i think i think i um said something very non-committal and then i've just been angry about it in my head for five years you know i can i keep reliving it. What should I have said?

I don't know. Actually, women can have it all now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's it. It's the assumption that, yeah, just that I'm fine. Yeah, just haven't met the right person. Like, yeah. Yeah, it's odd, isn't it?

How's the first six months been, Sarah? I mean, that's a broad question, isn't it? How is sleep? That's all you care about. Well, the sleep is really bad. And I, like lots of people, just planned to have a nice sleepy baby. Yeah. And it was already bad.

It was really bad no it was bad he didn't sleep for very long he definitely was nowhere near sleeping through but he was sleeping in chunks like so you know two or three hours which actually we thought was terrible until regression when that stopped and then it was every hour or every 45 50 minutes and then it's teething so now sometimes every 20 minutes I tell you, I've got so many problems with this system. I hate evolution. I think this is stupid that you're expected to do good parenting when you're absolutely ravaged with the worst thoughts I've ever thought about myself,

the world. I'm in a very negative headspace. It's so awful. And then I'm supposed to be loving, am I? To the world. I'm responsible, am I, for a world I'm responsible am I for a child where's the space for joy like where's the space for actually enjoying the fact that you've got a small child and they're here I mean we wanted him so much and now he's here and it's yeah it's

horrible I hate teeth actually I hate teeth I think they should just be born with teeth I think it's a stupid system that they're coming after it my mum didn't want me just be born with teeth. I think it's a stupid system that they come in after it. My mum didn't want me to be born with teeth. Look, Rob, I've been thinking how hard teething must have been for you. Was it an awful experience? Imagine. Were your first set of teeth tiny, Rob? The normal size, Rob? Or did you go and be...

I mean, how do I know? I was a year. A year, I was a baby. No, but I had these massive ones from the age of about six, which wasn't ideal because they called me tombstone teeth. But anyway, we're back to how awful Sarah's life is. Well, it's just, and I know you've been through it and I know all of your listeners would have been through variations of it.

And it is that thing, the cliched thing of, you can't imagine how tired this is because it's so much more than tiredness. It's, you're already exhausted because people you do you get tired from like one bad night's sleep or one long day and then a short night but but when it's cumulative I found it to be like a kind of weird mania because you have to be awake and you have to do things and be responsible actually you're just flooded with adrenaline yeah so so you actually you don't sleep very well you don't like people said things like oh sleep in the baby sleep that have like as in that have daytime naps but i'm absolutely wired but the

minute he goes to sleep it's like very quickly sterilizing bottles and quickly doing everything around the flat that he's doing and um and so you realize that actually you don't get any rest at all that period when they're like sleep when the baby sleeps and you're like but that is my time that is that is the only time i have and you're expecting me to write that off as well do you know what i mean that it's part of it i just want to have a cup of tea or something i just want to sit with my bloody yoga yeah there's this bit we're really struggling with this bit so when he first goes down to sleep as in for the big sleep as in he's going to be asleep all night now even though he wakes up through it he's gone down like seven o'clock you have this part of you that goes now i should go

to bed if i want to have anything more than five hours broken sleep i should go to bed now but then you don't ever have an evening so what you do is you stay up you talk to each other you make some food you watch some tv and then it's 11 o'clock and you go i hate myself i hate myself yeah like why have i wasted this period of time you've got to have that period of time though also otherwise you'd never speak to each other like just checking are you all right quick thumbs up yeah okay yeah yeah yeah coping i'm coping um i've i've also had to take the baby away with me for work i'm doing documentaries and so i've had to take the baby away with me for work. I'm doing documentaries. And so I've had to take, sorry, is that my washing machine? Being really loud.

It's a little beeping, but... Oh, good, okay. So I had to take him, I've just come back from Denmark. I had to take him to Denmark for 10 days while filming and take a nanny with me. Oh, wow, God. What it meant was that my husband was here by himself and all I wanted was to hear what sleep was like. nanny with me oh god what it meant was that steam was my husband was here by himself and i i really

all i wanted was to hear what sleep was like yeah so i just said just please just tell me just tell me it's amazing tell me how relaxed you are tell me how amazing and he said it was awful because number one the first few nights he didn't sleep properly at all he just woke up by himself he kept thinking a pillow was the baby and then when he started to sleep he said he was just said it was like even more tiring. You just wake up really broken because you're so overdue any rest. But it wasn't what I wanted for him, which was like a 10-day spa. Well, because you want to get back and he's like, yeah, I'm rested.

Give me the baby. Go and sleep. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It's not that simple. You don't just catch up. No, I found since I've, basically since becoming a dad,

I've really struggled to sleep in hotel rooms. And people are like, oh, you're lucky you get to sleep in a hotel. That's great. And there's something about it. It's almost like there's too much pressure or it's too divorced from where your kind of comfortable space is. Do you know what I mean? It's like you feel weird that you're away from your family or something. I think there is pressure.

When you are on your own in a house or in a hotel, you're like, right, I must sleep now. If I don't get 12 hours sleep and feel the best I've ever felt in my entire life, it's been a waste, which is a pressure you cannot live up to. Yeah, there's too much pressure, isn't it? Too much pressure. I used to be able to sleep in cars on the way to things and go, OK, we've got an hour.

As a passenger, yeah? And now I can't do that. Yeah. OK. Just checking. How was Denmark? So, for me, it was just the worst of both worlds because it meant I didn't see my baby all day and then I had to have him by myself all night.

And there were two nights where he, because of sort of a mixture of tummy problems and teething problems, he didn't go to sleep. He was waking a lot. So did you take a babysitter with you or a family member? I took a nanny. I had to, actually. I had to employ a nanny.

We went to Greece first. I employed a nanny. And then I employed her again for Denmark because she was so fantastic. And so I didn't have to worry about the baby, but I did, yeah, I felt very odd not seeing him. I didn't like working long days. It's not nice coming home when your baby's already gone to bed and you haven't seen them, you haven't been there.

And then, yeah, just doing the wake-ups and then leaving again early in the morning. It was the worst of all of the worlds. So what's the sleep schedule at the moment? If you put him down at seven, what's going on, Sarah? So he always wakes up immediately. So basically he's got this thing sometimes he's so tired he won't eat even though you know he's hungry and also he's got a thing apparently it's more common with boy babies where he likes to eat all of his day's food at night where in the day there's so much stuff going on

he's really distracted but then he has to have about 40 minutes when you put him down and then he wakes up absolutely raging that you haven't fed him. Now he's relaxed. He's realised he's starving. So he has a first feed. And then from that one, sometimes he'll sleep for three hours or four hours. So that would be your chance if you were to go. That's your chance to sleep, yeah.

And that's your choice. It's a bit of life. Eight till midnight would be amazing but yeah eight eight till 11 that's his big sleep and then from then it's every 90 minutes or maybe two hours and then he's awake from four or five then he's just up and he's very smiley which is annoying because you're just looking at the most beautiful thing you've ever seen in the world. This little baby is so excited. The minute you open your eyes, it's like, yay, you're here.

What are we doing? And this is killing me. The day starts now. And so what we're doing is take it in turns to do sort of the, okay, the day started with him. And then we have passive aggressiveaggressive conversations about how one or other of us was too loud while the other person was trying to sleep yeah what time are you allowed to stay in bed till when the other one's up

oh we both feel too guilty but i never pass seven and usually what we're doing is in our sleep going sorry sorry i'm sorry i'm just so tired i'm sorry oh man i think you might have a lot of common with my mum because i used to wake up at 4 30 every day for about three years in the baby's defense it's just like it's so bright it's so bright and that's it if he sees it even a chink of daylight that's it it's daytime then right oh really have you got blackout curtains yeah so we we've got all that. We live in the dark, like moles, but still there'll be like a little, tiny little chink of light coming through or a light will be on something,

like a little red, and he will just, oh, hello, I've seen it. Oh, God. We took him to Australia when he was 13 months old. No, 13 weeks old, we took him to Australia. And on the plane, there were just little lights everywhere. And he just, he was whizz old, he was going to Australia. And on the plane, there were just little lights everywhere.

And he was whizzing his head around, just trying to look at as many of them as possible to prove, no, I'm awake, it's daytime, stuff's happening. Oh, because your partner's Australian, isn't he? So was that when you went back to show the baby off, essentially? Exactly. Because he's Australian, but also Greek. And so he says that his family had been asking him about having a kid since he was 18 years old.

So he was very much sort of, you know, taking it to his grandparents to go, there you go. There's the baby. There's the baby. Yeah, that's it. I get off my back. So, yeah, we took him to meet all of his great grandparents and his grandparents. It was really exciting. But yeah, I was, I was misinformed about flying with a baby. Lots of people said to me they sleep the whole way, and that was not true. Who have you been speaking to? I think it was after I'd already booked the flight,

so people didn't want to stress me out. Oh, OK. Because I was going to go anyway. That was the worst 24 hours of life. I think it required more than the baby. And you know you've then got to come back as well, right? So you're in this situation. But at least on the way back, I knew what I was going into.

On the way there, stupidly, you know, I bought this business class ticket, a face mask to do. I was high. I was ridiculous. And then I had no idea what it was going to be like flying with a baby. And then I took my bag to get something practical. I saw these books and this eye mask. I was like, you idiot. What it was going to be like flying with a baby. And then I took my bag to get something practical. I saw these books and this eye mask.

I was like, you idiot. What the shit was going to happen? I honestly thought you put them in that little cot and then they just slept the whole way. So was you just stood up holding a baby, looking at a bed that you paid a load of money for? Yeah, babies make business class economy again. Like you're just, it's, I was standing up the whole journey,

jiggling him and with a blanket over his head, like he was a a parrot just trying to get him to go to sleep oh my god he's brutal oh god i wish i hadn't opened by asking about sleep i feel like i've really uh i really picked on the uh the kind of negative there i guess that's what all parents are interested in because yeah yeah that's that's the thing that's going to be most traumatic if you've got a healthy baby. Yeah. It's like 95% of the battle, isn't it? The problem here is, I mean, we've spoken to people before about the lack of sleep and how difficult it is.

Tom Parry episode was great where he was sort of staying up all night with his baby and stuff like that. But Tom Parry is a lovely man but fun, quite silly. I think people look at you, Sarah, as a very sort of intelligent and together person. So it's even more harrowing to hear it from you than from someone like Tom Parry. You can kind of go, that's probably Tom Parry's fault.

Yeah, he's a bit quirky. You know what he's like. From you, it's like, oh, dear. Yeah, Tom Parry's probably just getting the baby really excited, like doing sketches and taking his T-shirt off. It's probably just getting the baby really excited like doing sketches and taking his t-shirt off it's probably yeah his own fault um and i i the one bit of hope i have is when other people say it doesn't last and you go yeah it doesn't last and you kind of set all these stones like maybe once we're on solid food or maybe you know eight months and

then i listened to your episode with tom crane and he was talking about his much older child still not sleeping and i was like oh no oh god for some people it doesn't end i think i i think six months like at six months we were having an absolute shocker because my son was born in may and then in when i had covid before christmas that's when we were doing sleep training so that was seven months and and that was I was at a really low ebb at that point if this is helpful yes yeah no of course of course is it a higher but the moment choking down yogurt three minutes before I'm buzzing I'm buzzing on muller light But, yeah, so it does... I was astonished how it can get sorted.

Do you know what I mean? It's just that thing of, like, it does feel endless. And I always thought it was the day that the tiredness would be tough in. But I actually think it's all right pushing through the day. It's when the night arrives and you're like, oh, God, I'm being woke. It's the middle of the night is the problem i get so when i'm doing gigs and i'm getting i'm on the way home at sort of half 10 11 sometimes we had one in leicester the other day with tiffany so we were coming back at sort of half 11 12 i get really nervous because i'm

actually scared because i know that the maximum time in bed is going to be six hours and it's like how much of that's going to be sleep and I start and I get I actually just get fearful like oh no and it's the bits it's the bits that's like two till three it's getting woken up or being sometimes you'll be up for like 90 minutes if in the middle yeah and that's the bit that feels like no this is too hard this is would you close all this down, actually. I remember feeling like, if I think about the Euros last year, I remember just every night feeling like depressed that it was now night time and this was happening. But anyway.

Can I say, if anyone's expecting a baby listening to this, it does get better. Again. Sorry. I'm get better. Yeah. Sorry. I'm so sorry. Yes. Yeah, and now all babies are like it. And also, there is so much fun around it.

This is what I mean. The secondary smiles, we're fine. And you're right, the days are fantastic. Do you mean that? No, I do mean that. I do mean that. I'm joking. I think it's being honest about the tiredness,

but then also, yeah, you survive it and you're amazed what you can survive. That's true. Yeah. Because I've noticed the lack of Steen, your partner of Tuesday Comedians Football. He used to be a regular fixture, but in the last six months, I've not seen him.

When he has played, I think his performance has dipped. That's not me. That's not me telling him he can't play football anymore. No, no, I'm not saying that. But I'm saying if you're exhausted. No, because I get really defensive. He plays cricket on Saturdays and they said to him, oh, now you've had a baby, you have to get like points in the week

so that your wife gives you a Saturday off. And I thought, isn't that awful? The idea that you have to sort of win permission to do things that you absolutely love. No, comedians football, he kept getting injured, Rob. Oh, was it? He couldn't exercise for weeks while he was recovering, so I think that's why.

Shall we go ask him? Steve, why don't you go to comedians football anymore? I can't make you Rob Beckett cry when I score goals. Did you hear he says that Rob Beckett kept crying when he scored goals? Yeah. Thanks for not going, mate. I'm having such a

better time how are you feeling you're going out on tour in November three months time November yeah

and how are you planning on doing that with the baby well compared to filming because I've got Sewing Bee for two months

before that in Leeds and I've pissed on these and i've got three documentaries that i've just been doing at the moment so compared to that the fact that a tour show will be you know 90 minutes at an interval two hours that feels so reasonable and that's after bedtime so actually whether whether i've near to london and i've left him at home or i've taken him to a hotel with child care it's a time of the day where I don't have to feel bad about not being with him I am really looking forward to actually it's your three-hour window you're using your three-hour window to do stand-up yeah that's it that's it that's exactly what it is and so that stand-up fits in to so many other parts

of life because there's actually so little working hours and you can write you know you can write in the back of an uber you can write notes on know, you can write in the back of an Uber, you can write notes on your phone, you can write comedy around all of the other things. I was listening to your episode with Esther Minito and her talking about sort of walking with the pram, practicing her stuff. And I loved that. I think that's what's so accessible about stand up. You don't need a desk, do you? You don't need equipment. Like you don't need an easel or clay or anything you

can just do it even at a time where you have the least time in the world um so are you going to be like you're going to take him on tour then like say you're in i don't know say you're in york on the 24th of november and then you're going to sheffield on the 25th yeah so what you'd stay in a hotel with him in the hotel and then you just just kind of pop out, do the gig and go back. Yeah, I think that's what I'm planning. But that might be... Catherine, when I announced my tour, Catherine Ryan wrote underneath my post,

like, oh, biggest ever tour, very excited. She just wrote, don't do it. That's what you need. Yeah, really encouraging. Because she was currently on tour with her young baby and because it was so hard. So this is the thing. This is what I'm now living.

I'm living a diary that I agreed to things with a hypothetical baby. And now I'm living with the actual baby, realising, oh, this is absolutely impossible. You're in cloud cuckoo land. We were on the flight to Australia. I realised why people had the reactions they did. And I kept saying to people, no, it's much easier when they're younger no it's

easier because they're not toddling around this is the this is the best time to do it and you have no experience so you're just making decisions based on nothing the amount of things i passed off as knowledge before i had a child two parents the amount of facts I told parents when I didn't have a child. Sleep when they sleep. That's the main one, isn't it? I'll just sleep when they sleep. Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to sleep for seven minutes now.

I've read a book about how to get them to sleep. I'll be fine. You should have just read that book. That was the problem you had, mate. Do you know what I thought? I read all this evolutionary stuff about babies crying for no reason and this and the other. And I really thought if you did contact parenting,

it wouldn't happen. Like, if they were really – I kept thinking it's because people are really horrible parents and the baby's, like, crying out, going, please reassure me. So I thought, I'll just hold my baby all the time and then he'll just be sleepy, and that is not true. That isn't science. No.

Well, no, I think that that was evolutionary that was safer when the the other option was the bottom like the floor of a cave yeah but now you've got a nice cozy car yeah exactly exactly and also it just isn't that simple it just isn't that simple because actually by being there all the time for your baby your baby just has to double check all the time still there he's still there our baby a lot of the times he's waking up is because he wants me to turn him over to make him more comfortable. Like it's so like, he's a little king

or that thing where like the dummy's falling out and he's like, oh, get my dummy. Oh yeah, that is the dummy replacement. Is he still in your room? Yeah. Because the dummy replacement when they're in a different room, it's just like

oh you see i've just got to walk into that room put a dummy in her mouth and then go back get in bed and then think am i going to get back to sleep do you know what we used to do we used to just leave loads of dummies around the baby like six you know and then they could just grab at them. The cart is just full of dummies. It's like one of those kind of machines with the grabbers where there's all the toys on the floor. It's got them. Yeah, there's so many that really, if they just roll over and start sucking,

they'll suck one in. That's how many dummies there are. Oh, that's good. That's good. Yeah, because he does that. He sort of, he loses it and he will try and sort of like bang his head around and try and get it back in himself.

So maybe that's what I'll do just like lay loads around well how many books did you read in preparation because you've written loads of books that are really well researched and of course like they're funny books but can be quite heavy in some of the content so how much research were you doing well i did read some books but they were sort of books about motherhood rather than sort of science facty books. And we didn't do NCT classes. Actually, I got really rebellious about the whole thing. I decided I would just instinctively become a parent and I didn't want to be told what to do.

And I didn't want to have a group of peers. Like, I didn't want to have loads of people who had babies the same age. I didn't want to know anyone in my neighbourhood. You're such a comedian. Yeah. Even having a baby has got got me right your thing yeah i'm doing this new thing called having a kid yeah you guys don't know no but i didn't think it was new i just didn't want to be told stuff and then be like oh that's the right way that's the wrong way i thought let me find out but then just before we had him we

did have this panic of like we don't know how to do anything and then we had a couple of zooms you can do sort of like one-on-ones where they take you through things and they go do you know about this do you know about that you're like no didn't know they couldn't drink water didn't know that you couldn't do things like that didn't know you're not supposed to put loads of blankets and toys in their cots and things like that oh I luckily told us um lucky you told us all this important information and even now that we're at the weaning stage and I said to Steve if you've done any research about what we're supposed to be doing with solid food and he's like no have you and i was like no and it's like a one of us needs to read up on this i i read one book before like a kind of guidebook beforehand yeah and i don't think i took and i

it made me have a level of self-confidence that was hugely misplaced. And I don't think I took anything that actually happened. All of my knowledge was accrued from desperately texting people that had kids. Yeah. On a day-to-day basis. I think that's the thing. If you flood your brain with stuff you don't need to know about, you don't need to know about weaning when you're like five months pregnant. You know, wait until they're hungry for solid food.

But I didn't read anything the only thing i watched one ted talk which i found quite interesting oh yeah which was basically any kids that are natural at something say they're like naturally really sporty if you go oh my god you're brilliant you're you're such a natural you're so talented you're so great those people don't those kids don't really grow up and become that successful in it because they associate their success with a predetermined genetic ability rather than hard work where what you should say is you should reinforce oh you've done so you work so hard in that race that you you weren't you know winning at the beginning but

then you really worked hard and then you you know then you didn't become a top level sportsman rob um because because i saw my my huge genetic ability as well exactly yeah because when you look at you you're a genetic freak like cristiano ronaldo you've got everything you need to succeed in any sport you know i mean you're like denise lewis just any sport you can do but because you didn't think it was you and it was just your body that's the thing i think your body's held you back john because when i look at you i'm just like how can you concentrate the jokes when that that chest is there staring at you those arms josh you don't have to put up with this he did ask me to be fair to be fair it's only what my internal monologue's doing 24-7.

Sarah, I was going to ask, well, you've got a dog as well, but you had your dog before the baby. Yes. Is the dog jealous? How's the dog getting on? What's the set-up? I felt so sorry for the dog because he's not... Also, he was so babied.

I just loved him so much, and I do still love him. It babied. I just loved him so much. And I do still love him. It's not, it hasn't changed. I loved him so much. And then this big thing happened and this baby needs all of your attention. And now in all of these happy videos where like the baby's laughing for the first time,

my husband's thrown him in the air. I just always, just always just sort of slide the phone over to where the dog is rolling his eyes on the carpet. They come back to our joy. So yeah, it was really hard at the beginning because he didn't understand that the baby couldn't play with him so he was doing things like go in the garden and bring in this like disgusting mucky squeaky ball and drop it on the baby's head like like throw it for me and um obviously it's not very hygienic and i just

felt really bad for him but now the baby started stroking him and so yeah and so actually it's really sweet that they'll sort of cuddle up but the dog doesn't understand that you can't like pour him on the head and stuff so he still has to keep an eye on him but they're going to be really good friends and I really was that cliche of someone who had all of these maternal feelings and didn't yet have a child because my life feels so balanced now that all my maternal feelings are not towards my boyfriend or my dog they're like towards an actual baby this is much better I do feel guilt yeah and I so we we tend to sort of walk in by himself now we don't take the baby on walks it's like just me and you time yeah just just me and you how you doing checking in throwing in some sticks giving him some attention and also whenever we've just

started to get in child care and um he's so excited when someone comes to the house that's not us he's like finally some attention and then they just want to hang out with the baby and he's like oh fuck this and this again well yeah when the baby gets a bit older they he'll get so much attention from like them as toddlers yeah so we've got a dog and we got the dog after the kids so the kids were like three and five when we first got him and they went away with mom with their mom and it was just me and the dog and the dog was like what it's just you this there's not there's not three other people cuddling me stroking me i was like yeah mate i can't i can't be four people and then he was a bit fed up because he didn't have as much attention that he was getting so he'll be getting loads of attention when your boy gets a bit older

so i need to find a way to get your dog to tell my dog hang on in there it doesn't last forever it gets better yeah and we can sort it out let's meet up at a park and hopefully they'll do that in a dog sort of communication way yeah can i ask you about ivf sarah oh yes i'd love to talk about ivf actually um it was a thing where i'd always had in my head that 40 was my cutoff. And I really did think, oh, it's kind of fate that decides, especially because until COVID, I always had stuff in my diary that would have been really inconvenient if I'd got pregnant. So I had this way of thinking where I was like,

okay, I'm sad that this hasn't happened for us, but actually I've got all of this work booked up. And then with with Covid my diary obviously completely emptied just in two phone calls it's like suddenly an empty year and my husband who it was very important to him to want he really really wanted biological children he said can we give it like another two years and just you know properly try like properly go and see doctors and find out what's up and and, hopefully solve a problem. And that felt to me really emotionally risky because that's really, that's really wanting something. It's really trying and it's really being, you know,

hurt and disappointed when things don't work out or the pregnancies don't stay and all of those kinds of things. But I'm so glad I did it. I'm glad i did it in that way you know when you just something scares you and so actually to confront it is so brave anyway and then some of the problems that we have with our fertility were very easily solved um and and then the other side so we had the kind which is ixi which is where they select the healthiest um sperm and the healthiest egg and they put them together and you get sort of blastocysts and then and then you know we've known our baby since he was five days old because when he when they put the blastocyst back in you watch it on an ultrasound it's like a shooting star it's

you can sort of watch it going in this little dot going into your uterus and so and then yeah seven weeks I knew I was pregnant at three weeks i found out i was um found out from my fitbit because i was um doing you know those will briggs gigs the outdoor ones i was in the one in bristol and um i sort of ran to get my train home and when i looked at my fitbit it said i've been in fat burning mode for 75 minutes and i thought i know it's a big gig but i don't why i don't know when my heart is going so fast and then the fat burning it didn't stop my my heart rate the whole way home was then the fat burning, it didn't stop. My heart rate the whole way home was over 100.

So I Googled, is my Fitbit broken? And it said, could you be pregnant? Oh, wow. Yeah, because straight away your body starts producing more blood. And actually, Josh, I saw you and I'd just done my embryo transfer because I did the last leg. Someone dropped out. I won't say who. And what happened was someone dropped out.

I last minute came to do last leg. And you'd give me like this fridge full of champagne for this other guest at a point where I absolutely knew I couldn't drink. And I'd sort of said, Oh, I won't drink it. And you know what? My mum was watching and I mimed drinking some champagne. So I got off my mum's like, what the hell are you doing? Drinking champagne on the last leg? Oh, what was that? A prop on the show?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Next to my seat. I think it was like they were making out like it was a music festival. And so they'd like got me this like drink, but it wasn't. It was obviously for this other guest who would only drink champagne. Yeah, so you did the proper nine months no drinking

because most people find out a little bit later on, don't they? So they might've had a drink and not realised they were pregnant. Well, because it's IVF, it's actually months before. Months before of healthiness. There's all these things that affect your success rate. so like you have to lose a little bit of weight that tends to be better um you're not drinking caffeine's not great you have to be all of the vitamins and the and you can get really obsessive with it because everything you

think if this is the difference between this and that and then you're like no bubble baths no perfumes you're not allowed to have massages there's some of the stuff is really ridiculous or even like getting a little bit warm but you're not allowed to do things that get you warm i just couldn't go without bubble bath i don't think yeah i just don't think i could do a life without a bubble bath sarah i don't know how you did you does that mean that when you're not drinking beforehand you've got that horrible thing where people must think you're pregnant already. Yeah, a defence. And that's why, again, you get a little bit prickly or defensive.

Actually, I just got, actually it was COVID, but I've got a bit antisocial. Like I had my 40th birthday and the next day I was doing like my injection, which is sort of the shot that releases your eggs. And one of my friends said to me, oh, you'll be going down the pub with doing this and that. And I just didn't know what to do with my face, but absolutely no interest.

That's not my life at the moment. Yeah. Old alcoholic Pascoe's in the cupboard for a bit. Lock her up for a bit. Yeah, she's not here anymore. Yeah, so like constant questions and things like that. Cause it, yeah, it does. Yeah.

People always go, oh, not drinking. and it's coming from a good place but you don't you don't know what other people are sort of dealing with at that time do you or if you do decide to tell people then you can't sort of take it back i had a couple of jobs where i was injecting um so you know like we're filming you have to do you don't have to do ivf injections at certain times every day and often i think my evening one was six o'clock, which meant I would be just about to do a panel show. And, you know, when you've got sort of a runner in your room sort of trying to hurry you along and you're thinking, and I would just say, oh, OK, I've just got to take some medicine.

And they'd go, OK. And they'd still be standing in the doorway. And then eventually I'd think, I've just got to do an injection in front of them now because I don't know how to say, can you leave? Because they think I mean, I'm taking a paracetamol or something. So I end up just doing injections in front of people and then going, I'm doing fertility treatment.

And then it was really awkward. Oh, my God. It's just a bit of heroin to get me through the show. Is that all right? I'm old school. That's what I should have said, Rob. I should have said, can you leave while I do my heroin? Or just go, oh, can you leave?

Because I've got a tablet I have to put up my arse. Because there's less questions about a tablet up your arse. If it's fertility, you have to go into stuff. So maybe just, I've got to put a tablet up my arse. So do you want to leave? If there were going to be rumours about me, I would prefer it to be, I think she's doing fertility treatment. I don't think she can get pregnant.

I wonder what she's got that means a tablet up the arse. It does open up more questions in private for the runners. There'll be a lot of runners Googling the moment they left the dressing room. Of course it would. That's not a good disease, whatever that is.

So when you know you're pregnant at three weeks, what's the kind of chances that that's gonna yeah take if that is that the right word yeah well well i was very stressed because actually i had a miscarriage just before we started ivf rob the really weird thing about talking to you now about having a baby is that you remember we had to do that really weird zoom audition oh yes that was the day of my miscarriage i came, Sarah. I know, it was so awful, and I was so in shock. But basically, I'd been in hospital, had the scan,

I said, yeah, we can't see anything. And then I had this option. Josh, this was so weird. It was like a film audition with Rob Beckett. Where we were supposed to be romantic. Yes, romantic with each other. And I thought, if I cancel this, they're just going to ask, number one, I don't know how to even begin to say to my agent

what's happened. And then also they're going to put it in for a day or two days and I don't think I'm going to be, like, fine then. So I thought, I'll just do it. I'll just push through it. Well, I don't know if it's a good or bad thing, Sarah, but you were brilliant in it. Oh, bless you.

But I don't know if that's good or bad, that you can just put the wall up and plough on. Do you know what I mean? In that odd way, I just thought, nothing else is, just get through this. Nothing's going to make this worse or better. So just, yeah. Exactly that.

And so that's what happened. The ironic thing was we paid for IVF. You have to start after your period. We're waiting for my period. It didn't come. I found out I was pregnant after five years of trying. I know. And so I just thought that thing where I thought it's fate it's magic like this what a

wonderful story i'll say to my child um we tried for five years and then just after we paid eight grand for ivf you were like here i am like and then so i just i i honestly had didn't have a narrative in my brain of like but also lots of people lose their first pregnancy or also you're almost 40 and the chances and all of those things so I was so devastated and then we started IVF and then we got pregnant so actually I spent my whole of my pregnancy incredibly anxious and especially knowing from three weeks so at seven weeks you get a sort of what's called a viability scan and I was um again I was filming I was doing a job called the island which was double records the whole week feeling nauseous knowing I was pregnant again, I was filming, I was doing a job called The Island, which was double records the whole week, feeling nauseous, knowing I was pregnant, but not knowing if it was going to be okay.

And so, yeah, I remember lots of times being okay at work, that brilliant thing, because our work is really involving, you have a switch where you just have to cope with it. You're laughing at Johnny Vegas's jokes and sort of talking about stupid things. And then this sort of crash that would come after us where I'd just be like, oh, God, I hope everything's OK. And I hope I didn't get too warm or wear anything smelly. Oh, God.

Because it is hot. There's people watching you. There's cameras on you. Your brain's probably going, can they tell? Am I sweating? Am I getting hot? Does it look bad? There was one bit where one of their tasks,

they wanted us all to, like, jump as far as we could. And I was several weeks pregnant with this, like what felt to be very fragile pregnancy thinking, I'm not going to jump. And then on the show, it looked like I was just being like a prima donna. But I was just thinking, I don't know if I'm allowed to jump. I don't know if jumping is dangerous or anything like that. Do you know what? Because Tom Allen was the host of that, wasn't he? Yes, yeah. I know it's so difficult though. He said he was really annoyed about the jumping. Do you know what? Because Tom Allen was the host of that, wasn't he? Yes, yeah.

It's so difficult, though, because you don't want to tell... He said he was really annoyed about the jumping. Oh, no. But I'm just saying, though, if I was on that show, and Tom's a good friend of mine, he'd be exactly the same, it's so difficult because you don't want to have to tell your agent or tell everyone or whatever. But I think if I was on that show as well in Tom's position or even just a guest on it, if you had said to me,

I can't do that, I'm seven weeks pregnant, I would make sure that I would not not Sarah wouldn't be doing that jump and I'll go and speak to the boss whoever it is in charge and have a quiet word of them on your behalf so whether that whether you want that or not if that makes it more difficult or not but I think for you if anyone else listening if you are on a set with me and that's going on pull me to one side and tell me and I'll make sure that's not happening because it's not fair to have to do that and it might be difficult to do it yourself but if there's someone there you know and trust that can just go no sir's not doing that and i'll make sure that doesn't happen you're so sweet to say that rob i think quite often when people are actually in the stressful or emotional time we get through it and then we look back and go oh of

course i could have spoken to that person because you're absolutely right some tom allen if i'd gone to his dressing room and go just by the way i'm not trying to give you anything heavy but this is a situation this is why i'm nervous about this you're absolutely right he would have made sure that you weren't doing anything you weren't comfortable with in a in a quiet way but you don't want to make anyone else's life more difficult because you know he's already hosting all that kind of thing and sometimes you made sure that you didn't get the full fee though there'll be some of those gb news comics going well i thought we're all equal i can jump but yeah i know i hope that didn't come across as patronizing but i know it didn't i think it's good for us to have conversations like this because then you realize oh yeah other people

aren't gonna overreact or and they understand that it's still private business. You can be a sort of silent ally for someone. I'm sure Josh is the same. If I'm at work or in comedy at work or TV or comedy. No, don't come to me. Maybe not. He will panic. But come to me and I'll make sure you're not doing

anything you don't want to do. I'd love to go to Josh's dressing room and he'd be like, yoghurt? And I'd be like, let's... Actually, it's alright. Let's just leave it let's just have a yogurt on the topic of yogurt yes is your baby going to be a vegan no no not unless he wants to one day yeah i don't i really think number one i just really want to make sure he's and i know that people can have a vegan diet and be very well um yeah what's it well, have all the right vitamins and nutrients and things like that. I think for me, and this isn't me, no judgment on any other parent, and it's the same with the dog, it's a personal choice.

And also my husband eats meat, so it's not like it's a vegan household or anything like that. So I think I will explain to him where meat comes from but not a very traumatic early age when he's watching pepper pig or something i will wait yeah also as well if you force anything on a child they won't they'll kick back against it let them rebel yeah exactly yeah you just have to make sure everyone has all the information and yeah it'd be horrible i wouldn't i wouldn't be vegan or vegetarian if my parents had made me be. I've always been vegetarian,

but that's because I have absolutely no rebellion within me. I'm desperate to please. Oh, really? Josh, you might have a midlife crisis, you know. You might get to 45. I think he's going to blow. Something's going to happen. I don't think my body could take it.

I think my body would... I don't know how my body would react if I had a sausage sandwich. Or to meet. No, that won't be your midlife crisis. It'll be something else. Oh, you just mean generally? What do you reckon it'll be, Sarah? What do you reckon his midlife crisis will be?

We're taking bets now. Is that how this is working? I think you're going to buy a strip club or a casino in another country, like Vegas or something. You're going to buy a Vegas casino and strip club. And reinvent himself when kids go to uni. You're going to put on a weird Italian accent and say you're part of the mafia.

And you're going to smoke cigars. Oh, I think I could get into smoking cigars. No, your chest. You'll be on your asthma pump 24-7. You don't inhale, Rob. Do you know what I think you'll end up doing, Josh? You'll get to about 45, 50 and your kids are a bit older

and you've got a bit of spare time and you'll hire out some studio space and try and record an album. Oh, no. Do you know what? That's a terrible fear. It's not a million miles from the house. I think you might get really into plastic surgery

and start having loads of fillers. You'll start a band of all the other comedians that are frustrated musicians. You'll have Al Murray on drums, Brickstock will be singing, you'll be on guitar. Oh, no. This is so feasible. You'll be in latitude with your trilby on.

Oh God. And I'll be I'll be coming on to this podcast trying to promote the dates. It is a good night out. You won't see any stand up. A lot of people

have been disappointed so far on the tour. You might sell more tickets. Yeah. He's promised not to do stand-on. What will they be called? Like Josh and the Gigglers? Josh and the Chuckles?

Oh, God. It's too close to the truth. Or it'll be something like, it was called It Was All a Blur, and it was all like old Blur covers. Oh, yes. Josh Winnicombe, It Was All a Blur, and you've got a couple of like soppy love songs about Rose and the kids. And then the rest is just like, woohoo.

You're just doing covers. The problem is I can't play guitar and sing at the same time. I just haven't got the ability. I'll do the Phil Daniels bit for part life. You would? Yeah, I'll do that bit for you. You know, the Cockney accent bit. And then you can do the rest of it.

You're a good singer, Sarah. Sarah can sing. I've seen Sarah sing. She's unbelievable. In my new show, Rob, I've got a big bit about when I went on your show, All Together Now, actually. Oh, yeah? Is it a good or bad story?

Well, it's a bad... No, it's a funny story. It's a funny story. It's a funny story. Because All Together Now, when you describe it to people, it sounds like I'm making it up. Because some people haven't seen it, Robin. So I'm saying 100 judges all in squares

and in the middle is Jerry Halliwell from the Spice Girls and they think I'm describing an anxiety dream. They don't believe it. It really happened and Gemma Collins was there. They don't believe me. Chris Camaro did well, didn't he? Very well. Yeah, it doesn't seem real, that.

It doesn't. Because Jerry Halliwell used to try and take the mickey out of me a lot on it. Kamara did well, didn't he? Very well. Yeah, it doesn't seem real, that. It doesn't. Because I had a bit... Geri Halliwell used to try and take the mickey out of me a lot on it. She went to me, one of the records, I did a joke, and she got a bit of a laugh. She went, I didn't think that was funny. I was like, OK. And then she went, who writes your jokes?

I went, the same people that write your songs. Rob, she told me I wasn't very good at singing. Oh, did she? Is that what she said? I'm't very good at singing. Oh, no. She said I was pitchy. She was quite harsh, actually, Josh. That's why I'm quite harsh. It was supposed to be a fun Christmas special and then they absolutely went for me.

Do you know what it was? I thought you were brilliant and you've got a brilliant voice. The song, though, what song was it you sang again? It was quite like... What that show needed to do well on it was catchy, like, Sweet Caroline-type songs. Of course, but that's the thing, Rob. The TV programme chose what song I sang,

so when they started saying, what a bad song choice, what you can't do is go, well, blame your producers. I wanted to sing Anastasia. In your tour blurb, you also said you ruined Hugh Grant's birthday. Yeah. I was booked for his birthday party as a trick on him. What?

So he doesn't like his birthday. So every year, his friends organise a party that he's not going to enjoy. And they do stuff he doesn't like. So he's not going to enjoy and um they so they they do stuff he doesn't like so like he's a bit of a hypochondriac so they did it in this um venue that was full of like jars of pickled tumors and um there was one year they were like oh he doesn't like feminism so we'll book a woman in a no more page three t-shirt to lecture him for 45 minutes at his party and that's what that's what i did did you know it was a setup for him did i explain that yeah well when they first emailed me they made out that they

were a fan they said oh we've got this celebrity who's a fan of yours we just wanted to know what your fee was for the party and then i and they found out it was hugh grime i was really excited and then they told me the truth and i was also i was the 14th female comedian they'd asked everyone else said no and they found out that it was a trick. But I was like, I'll say yes for the money and the story. Yeah, that's an anecdote, isn't it? It is an anecdote. And it was so strange because it was a party,

so no one was sitting down, apart from Hugh Grant. They made him sit on a chair in front of me, and then everyone else was just at his party, sort of standing there. But that was early in your career, Sarah? No, it wasn't that early. It was about five years ago. And then the next year, I got invited to his party, sort of standing there. Was that early in your career, Sarah? No, it wasn't that early. It was about five years ago. And then the next year I got invited to his party as a guest.

And I thought, oh, wow. And they said, you don't have to do any of your talking. You can just come and... And I was excited. And when they opened the door, they said, the theme of the party is people Hugh thinks are mad. Oh, my God. They'd only invited people he doesn't really like.

Oh, my word. It was the best party I've ever been to. Brilliant. The last question, Josh. Do you want to ask it? Yes. So we always end with the same question, which is based on Matthew Crosby

passing on a message to his wife who listened to the podcast. Is there anything that your husband does, parenting-wise, that annoys you that you haven't brought up face to face but were he to listen to this podcast oh gosh oh god this is this this takes this takes sort of passive aggression to a new level doesn't it it always ends the interview on a weird note yeah i think what's awful about me guys is that i have not kept any of my criticisms of his parenting to myself. So there's nothing he doesn't already know about that.

No, you don't do it like that. The first four months, we were kind of like living in the dark, scurrying around, you know, no day or night, just sort of trying to, all I was ever doing was whispering, if you do it like that, you're going to wake him up. If you do it like that, that's going to happen.

Oh, no, no, not like that. That're going to wake him up. If you do it like that, that's going to happen. Oh, no, no, not like that. That's it all the time. Horrible, horrible. He's very laid back, Steen, isn't he? That's the thing, is he is very laid back. Yeah, he doesn't track back and defend after scoring goals. Doesn't he?

No. Oh, okay. Well, then naturally, Rob, I'm really glad that you've got something. You've finally said to him that. Yeah. There we go. That's the message for Steve. No, that's the message for Steve. So he doesn't want to track back and defend.

Oh, I've only messaged. He gets called a big green bastard at football because he's massive and he always wears that green Australia shirt. Does he? Okay, I'm going to start calling him a big green bastard around the house then. Yeah. Just so he doesn't miss you guys. Yeah, fair enough.

Sports friends. Yeah, that's what I'll do. No, he's absolutely brilliant. He's everything you'd want to co-parent with, really hands-on and funny and makes you laugh in those ridiculous times. Oh, my God, the other day, you know you have like a shush app, like a shh, and it goes shh all the time

and kind of calms the baby. Yeah. I was so sort of stressed trying to calm the baby, and he just started dancing to the shushing app like as if it was techno. And I was so tired. It was just like the funniest thing that ever happened to me. So he does brilliant stuff like that.

And that's why I don't tell him. Oh, OK. Maybe that's a new thing we can do. The brilliant things that they do that we don't tell them. Yeah. We'll do positive and negatives. Because you don't find the time to give someone a compliment, do you, when you're in the middle of

looking after a baby so that's a nice that's a nice way to end look Sarah's sorted out our format Josh yeah there we go perfect thanks so much Sarah

thank you so much I'm going to run through your tour like I'm Steve Wright success story yeah it's called success story Hayes Dunstable

St Albans Norwich Bexhill Folkestone Tunbridge Wales York Sheffield

Crewe Crawley Coventry Lincoln Break for Christmas Reading Buxton Middlesbrough

Nottingham Leicester Glasgow Aberdeen Stoke Ipswich Bath London

Portsmouth Yeovil Guildford Cambridge Dartford Leeds and Leeds both in the same night Northampton

Brighton Oxford Newcastle Hull Manchester Birmingham Dublin Cork Belfast Aberystwyth Chel Cheltenham, Cardiff, Bournemouth,

Colchester, Milton Keynes, Liverpool, Harrogate and ending in Basingstoke. Lovely. You missed one Dorkin gig. Dorkin, sorry. Did you follow that through? Yeah, 17th of... Were you singing along? No, I just... Basically, I was nodding and then when you skipped the 17th of November,

Dorkin, I was like, that's a shame, but the 17th of November dorking I was like that's a shame but he's done well but I thought I'd just bring it up again why are you doing Leeds twice in a night different venues

no it's a small venue we lost I lost my venue in Leeds so we put in two in a smaller one for the same night oh I see I see

yeah fair enough just greedy for Leeds City Variety Music Hall is an amazing venue it's lovely really lovely yeah

have a fun tour, Sarah. Thank you so much. Come back when you're sleeping and we'll play you clips of this and go, can you remember what this was like? Well, yeah, I think we need to do that because it does get better. It always gets better. Yeah, it does. You need to hear it getting better from the person you thought it was really bad.

Yeah, and I want to apologise if anyone is sort of getting ready, getting excited about their baby and have been too negative. There's lots of good, lots of good. Lots of good. At some point within six months, your husband may dance to the Shush app in a techno way and that 13 seconds of laughter will live with you forever. That'll keep you going.

It'll be enough. Yeah. Thanks, Sarah. That was brilliant. Thank you so much. Thanks, Sarah. That was great. Thanks so much for doing it

thank you bye Sarah Pascoe you know what I'm doing during this outro Rob you've just done a yoghurt haven't you I've just taken a bite of yoghurt that yoghurt's been there

for an hour I know but what am I meant to do it keeps is it warm yoghurt what flavour it's coconut yoghurt coconut

just anything in it or just coconut yeah I've got flaked almonds, chia seeds and flaxseed. What's a chia seed? I don't know, Rose put it in. Did she make your yoghurt? Well, she's doing it for herself. She makes your yoghurt?

She didn't make my yoghurt. Where's my yoghurt, Rose? I've got to go and record. Where's my yoghurt? I'm going to carryurt, Rose? I've got to go and record. Where's my yoghurt? I'm going to carry up my yoghurt, get some flax seeds on there, Rose. That was really good, that. Yeah, I love Sarah. She's brilliant.

Closing in on national treasure status. Go and see Sarah Patel on tour. Buy her books. She's absolutely lovely. And if you see Steen in the street, tell him to come back to football. We're low on numbers. See you later. Bye.