THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.137 - NINA CONTI

Episode Date: October 31, 2020

Adam enjoys a rambling conversation with British comedian, ventriloquist, actor and director, Nina Conti.This episode was recorded remotely on September 16th, 2020.Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and to Emma Corsham for additional editing. Podcast artwork by Helen Green https://helengreenillustration.com/RELATED LINKSRICHARD HERRING - THE PROBLEM WITH MEN (RICHARD'S WEBSITE)NINA CONTI'S DOCUMENTARY - HER MASTER'S VOICE (2012, AMAZON PRIME)NINA CONTI IN THERAPY (2017, YOUTUBE)NINA'S WEBSITE (VIDEOS, CURRENT LIVE DATES ETC.)NINA CONTI'S RAUNCHY VENTRILOQUIST TWIN STORY (2019, YOUTUBE)NINA AND MONKEY VISIT THE GYNAECOLOGIST (2014, YOUTUBE)THE ADAM AND JOE SHOW ON WOW PRESENTS PLUS (SIGN UP TO STREAM ALL 4 SERIES)NEW ADAM BUXTON WEBSITEADAM BUXTON'S RAMBLE BOOK (HARDBACK) (WATERSTONES)ADAM BUXTON'S RAMBLE BOOK (AUDIOBOOK) (2020, AUDIBLE) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's disgusting weather outside today. I got a squeaky pair of walking boots. I bought these a while ago and then I put them in the cupboard because they weren't particularly waterproof. That was my recollection. Anyway, I'm now thinking, maybe I misremembered. Maybe actually they're brilliantly waterproof. So I'm going to go out and see how I get on. It's a good story though, isn't it? Did you hear about Adam Buxton's walking boots? He's not sure if they're waterproof.

He put them away in his cupboard years ago now where's dog usually she is ready for action as soon as she hears any boot noise Rosie maybe she's looking out the window thinking I'm not going out on that night

hey hey hey hello hey hey hey hello that is the snuffling sound of a dog what do you think rose come on i added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buxton.

I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here. Urg. It's grim out here in the Norfolk countryside. Grey and rainy and windy. Rosie is facing off with a big cow. There is actually a gap in the fence there. The cow could actually just push through quite easily. It might even be a bull. It's really big and would just squash the absolute living shit out of me and Rosie if it wanted to. But it seems to be content having a little bit of a grass munch.

So let's avoid that field, Rose, and we'll go up this track here instead. Yep, you're getting all the important news today, podcats. Boot situation, which, let me tell you, is currently okay, although I haven't had to wade through any puddles, so I don't know how waterproof these boots are. I can tell you they're quite comfortable. I'm wearing big, thick socks today. It's the first day of big big thick sock weather in 2020.

So my feet are currently cozy. But how cozy are your feet buckles? Everyone's going on about the American elections and the pandemic and the possible second lockdown coming this week. and the pandemic and the possible second lockdown coming this week. But screw all that. How cosy are your feet? Don't worry. They're pretty cosy. I'm amusing myself thinking about my cosy feet.

All right, listen, come on, refocus. Let me tell you a bit about my guest for podcast number 137, who is the British comedian, ventriloquist, actor and director, Nina Conti. It's windy and cold. Nina Fax, performing is in Nina's DNA. That's a good sentence, Buckles. Well done. Her parents are the actors Cara Wilson and Tom Conti. Nina herself was at the RSC.

That's the Royal Shakespeare Company. As well as training with the late Ken Campbell, a legend of British experimental theatre, who was instrumental in encouraging Nina to pursue ventriloquism, as you will hear. In 2008, Nina won the prestigious Barry Award at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for her solo show, Complete and Utter Conti. I mean, these are just selected highlights from her career that I'm giving you. Some of these from Nina's website.

Link in the description of the podcast, along with a few other videos of Nina in action. In 2010, Nina's show Talk to the Hand had sellout seasons in Edinburgh, London, Melbourne, the Sydney Opera House in New York. The documentary film that Nina directed, entitled Her Master's Voice, was released in 2012 and received a prestigious Grierson Documentary Award the following year. Nina's film showed her travelling to Kentucky in the US to visit a kind of retirement home for the ventriloquist dummies of entertainers who have died.

She travelled with her closest puppet companions, Monkey, Granny, and a variety of other puppets left to her after the death in 2008 of her mentor, Ken Campbell. My conversation with Nina was recorded remotely in the middle of September this year, that's 2020, in case you're listening in the future, when Nina was in the process of writing a book, and we began our conversation by exchanging notes on writing books about your real life. I'll be back at the end for a little bit more waffle,

not too much, because I am freezing and wet, except for my feet, which are still cosy. But right now, with Nina Conti, here we go. Ramble Chat, that's half a ramble chat We'll focus first on this, then concentrate Here we go. I was going to ask you what your book was about. Well, it's kind of like an autobiography written in two voices, mine and Monkees. And his is a far more interesting voice to write in and actually seems to have insight from whatever corner of my brain he sits in and has perspective from. It's much better than if I'm going to go and sit in it, you end up with a kind of rubbish diary. So I have to kind of sit and channel him for a minute.

You know, when it's getting all girly and diary-ish, I have to go, wait, let him in, and then I let the monkey's voice take over. So a lot of stretches of the writing. It feels like I'm in a hurry to tell someone everything as they're walking away. And I think that person who's walking away is me. I'm just going to get it down before I walk away.

But the monkey's voice is much calmer, I want to write in. So that's the idea of the thing. It's very handy to have that other commentary voice there. Yeah, very. I completed a book, a sort of semi-memoirish book that took me a very long time to write because I found it so hard. And one of the things that I wanted to do was have people comment on what I was writing as I went along. And my wife did it a little bit. So I would read her things or tell her what I was writing about. And then I would transcribe some of her comments

or she would email me. And I included a couple of those. The other good thing about that, of course, is that it puts the word count up, which is nice. But I didn't actually, I didn't get as much of her in there as I wanted. And I also wanted Joe Cornish, my comedy wife, to commentate. And I invited him to. But in the end, he only sent back like three notes, one of which was, maybe you shouldn't tell that story. We look like dicks. And then the main note, the only one that I included was, why do you and Louis Theroux write about me in your books and use the word haughty? Can't you think of a better word? That was Joe saying that that yeah because louis and myself were at school with joe and um we both ended up describing him as haughty and he was haughty about it he thought it was

unimaginative but he really was haughty yeah yeah he was massively haughty how did you deal with the dilemmas of the him aside of looking after everybody whilst writing the stories that you were going to tell? Was it easy? No, I worried about it a lot. I mean, I worried about the whole process. I mean, I think the main thing is that you make yourself the butt of any uncomfortable stories, don't you? And it's not an opportunity to settle scores really is it yeah it's not a vendetta it can't be well i mean i think as you go on the longer you go on the any anger kind of cools and you get over it anyway i found and thought oh don't be such a bitch it's fine you know you understand so probably six different ninas of the future are going to edit all the vendetta out of it have you ever read a really bitter autobiography no but i wouldn't mind i read an autobiography recently by the drummer of talking heads chris france and it's called remain in love it's a lot

about his relationship with tina weymouth who played bass in talking heads and was and still is his wife and he clearly loves her very much and he goes on and on about how much he loves tina and how great looking she is and how much passionate sex they have on a regular basis and oh no yeah and they'll be sometimes he goes into a story about like um's in Barbados or somewhere like that or Antigua. I don't know, some Caribbean island. And he stood there with a friend and he's saying, we saw suddenly we saw this beautiful woman approaching from down the far end of the beach. Wow, she's incredible looking, we said to each other. And so it's this big, long story about they've seen a sexy woman and they're ogling

her and you're thinking, where's this going? And then you realize, oh, I know where it's going. And the punchline is, and then I realized it was Tina, my wife. She's beautiful. My friend likes her too. That's all sort of charming in its own way. I don't mind that. But he really makes his dislike of David Byrne the lead singer of Talking Heads quite plain and just doesn't really miss an opportunity to tell a story that makes him look bad and it really kind of leaves a bad taste in the mouth it seems petty it seems that you haven't moved on how are you handling it then the whole not throwing people under the bus thing well at the moment in this draft is under the bus completely and i'll work out how to get them out of there next time okay

but i don't think i can worry too much on a first draft because it's just too hampering if you're worrying all the time like i do i mean i agonize after every conversation i have shame attacks every day I've got to just not worry about it and imagine no one will see this one I think most of which they won't I'll sort it later the most fun is writing about people who are no longer alive because obviously the stakes are a lot lower in that respect. You can be a bit more honest. So when I was writing about my dad, I was able to say things that I certainly would not have felt comfortable saying when he was alive, probably. And I had to be careful, like thinking, well, you know, I don't want to just totally throw him under the bus and trash him at all. But it is a bit easier when they're dead.

You can be a little more relaxed can't you yeah well you know mine aren't dead so i've got to i've got to be careful with the thing is it cools because i can get sort of worked up and they're nice people fundamentally and i understand them and love them and i'm grateful you know all that is true um but if i get irritated the next day reading it like you say it's unseemly and you think oh give it a rest get over it and write something that we're interested in and it's very hard when you're writing about your own life to ever to the who gives a shit voice is in there all the time it's so hard to get away from that yes even like what you think are your best stories you think yeah but who cares so but anyway i'm not really selling it

right now am i i mean no listen i sympathize completely i went through exactly that crisis of confidence when i was trying to put it together. And I'm sure you'll get through it. And you have to remember that people do care. People who are into your stuff really care. And if you are able to tell that story with any degree of candor and humor and humanity, then other people will discover it, and other people will care as well. At this point, I feel as if I haven't properly said hello. No, we haven't really. So hello.

Hello, Nina. Hello, Adam. Thank you so much for doing this. It's a pleasure. And look at this background on this Zoom conversation we're having. It looks like I'm in a little bleak Eastern European bed sit. It does a bit. Isn't it grim where I'm sitting? It's not a room I usually use. I'm in a little bleak Eastern European bed sit. It does a bit. Isn't it grim where I'm sitting? It's not a room I usually use.

I've got to dress up my background. Nina is in what appears to be a Spartan white room with just a bed, with a grey bed spread up against the wall and no furniture in the room other than that. It's like that Tom Hanks hotel when he cries in big. It's not quite that bad, is it? When he's in New York, yeah. And him and his mate have a good time. And then his mate says, all right, I'm going to go home now.

And then he's just all on his own. And he can hear people being murdered and gunshots and people shouting at each other. It's such a great scene. That's exactly what being an adult is like, isn't it? Don't you reckon? It's how it feels. Abandoned and ex exiled and how are you doing at the moment have you been presumably you haven't been traveling anywhere the last time i saw you you've just been in america doing sort of scary sounding talent shows i did a talent show yeah with all my dignity I went and did a talent show in front of a jury um I think

how I am now is probably quite good um but it's quite different obviously because our industry just I mean most of my work has been live my dependable income has been live shows. And with that just being gone overnight, you just have to adapt and wonder, OK, so if that never happened again, will I be OK with it? And initially I was really not OK. And I'm not, I wouldn't really be OK with it. But I actually feel quite calm from not working. It's quite nice from not doing the live shows.

But to witter on and completely contradict myself, I just did a gig and I absolutely loved it. So I don't know. It's, both things are true. Will you remind me what the talent show thing was? Because I was talking to you about it at a Christmas party. And then I think we got separated or something. But I wanted to hear it sounded enjoyably uncomfortable. And I wanted to hear more. Yeah, I did it. I went to do it at a point where things were going very well. And I thought, like, I don't know, in America,

I'm not really that known so I managed to establish that this show was only going out in America no one here would know that I had done it and then it turned out to be a much bigger deal than I realized with James Corden hosting and RuPaul and Drew Barrymore Faith Hill were the judges what was my god what was it called? It was called the world's best and um they butter you up a bit saying like this is the you already have to be the best to be in this talent show but that's bullshit because if you really are the best you're still not going to do a talent show anyway so all us best people turned up needy and worried um and it was a really it was a really big deal it was going out after the super bowl and there were going to be just millions of people watching it and um but i turned out not to

be in that first episode so i missed that massive audience and then figures just fell and nobody really watched it in the end but at the time it was very frightening because just standing behind that little curtain i'm gonna do my five minutes of material, whatever it is, just to be sent home in round one would have been so mortifying. I made it to the final and then I lost to a Korean martial arts troupe in the final. Fair enough. Yeah, and a prodigy pianist from India. He was about 11 and he can play anything.

Not the keyboard player from The Prodigy? No. He's too good. Too good for it. And did you come away regretting it or was it quite a good experience? I don't know. I got some semi-finalist money that was quite nice. I mean, it was okay. I think think it was okay I like being in LA I had a nice enough time but it was embarrassing because I like especially in the middle when I was a contestant you do feel really needy you don't get the same kind of green room as everyone else and James Corden who I know enough just to sort of chat to a bit who was hosting it like the the difference the

the complete difference of hierarchy between us in those little interstitial chats when they were having advert breaks I just felt lowly as hell he's like oh you're doing well I was like oh god I mean, you do. I don't know you very well, but you do strike me as someone who is managing a certain amount of awkwardness in social situations. And the temptation is to assume that's why you manage your interactions with your audience via characters and via the puppets. Yeah, I really definitely prefer it. There's far too much storm of vulnerability in my own face. And then I just have that monkey whose face is so solid and unchanging. You can project anything onto it and he can deliver a line with such gravitas. That's just the perfect vehicle for me. As soon as that came along, I thought, oh, thank God he can do it. It's very nice because not only is his exterior a lot steadier than mine,

I feel like the place he speaks from in my own head is sort of deep under all the waves. It's quieter down there too. And I don't know where it is or what it is. Or if you put me in a MRI machine, if you would see a bit like up that's monkey, I don't know how it manages to speak from somewhere a bit lower and calmer. Yeah. But it doesn't exist completely alongside the Nina that you meet in conversation. I think when people hear performers explaining things like that, they sort of think, oh, you're just pretending. You're not that nervous. You can get on stage and do it. So stop pretending that it's you're sort of magically accessing this confident part of you via the monkey. No, no, I don't believe it. You know what I mean?

Well, I mean, I think the what I mean well I mean I think the opposite of what people think I think people are more often telling me we're not telling me but goading me like but you couldn't do it yourself could you all right no I couldn't um but the but you could do it I mean someone's saying you could do it. I mean, someone's saying you could do it. Well, maybe they think that. But, I mean, everybody's a bit braver behind some kind of mask, whether it's the internet or whatever it is. People are more bold. So it's just an extension, really, of that stuff.

I'm checking my account at the memory bank. The memory bank, the memory bank bank we're thanking you for banking on your memories i'd like to take out a happy memory thanks the memory bank the memory bank oh i'm sorry but you're very overdrawn i will repay with interest when i get back up on my happy feet the memory bank the memory bank i very sorry, but we're closing your account. My what? Where am I? The Memory Bank, The Memory Bank.

We're the nice bank. Would you like to bank with us? You got out of university. You went to UAE, which is this part of the world. Oh, yeah. UEA. UEA, yeah. Yeah, not the United Arab Emirates.

That's not where you studied. You went to University of East Anglia in Norwich. And then did you come out of that? I mean, you were studying philosophy, but did you come out of that knowing that you were going to be a performer? I came out of there worried for what I was going to do. I think I did want to try and be a performer. It seemed a bit unoriginal because my parents were actors.

But I hadn't come up with a better idea by then. But that was a tricky year. I did a mini pupillage with a law firm, but so much reading, I couldn't imagine taking home all those files. Yeah, I guess I did know I wanted to be a performer, but certainly didn't know about ventriloquism. I was barely aware of its existence. became an actor for a while is that right yeah I had a sort of chip on my shoulder because my dad got me an agent and then you know rubbing up against actors who've fought hard for what they've done and I've just waltzed in and got an

agent at ICM and I haven't done anything and then I went up for lots of auditions and really didn't convince anyone that I was right for any roles and so I then decided to go a different path completely and sort out Ken Campbell because it felt like that was he was a more kind of underground character and very different from my dad's world. And it just seemed like I needed a different color. And so I'd go that way. How did you become aware of Ken Campbell? I think it's because I was studying philosophy and I was reading reviews.

I remember reading a review in the paper of his show, which blended philosophy and comedy and stuff. And I thought, oh, gosh, that sounds really interesting. So I went to see one of his live shows and I thought he was great. And then I had a friend who was working with him. Alan Cox was putting on his 24-hour play again, which had been done in the 70s with Jim Broadbent and everyone. It had been quite a scene.

So they decided to do that again. And I turned up to the rehearsals of that without a part and just sort of talked my way in. It was very clear to me that I wanted to do something different and he seemed radical enough you know rehearsals were kind of all through the night finishing at 5am he would be sitting there with his dogs and his cigar and everyone hanging around him like a kind of cult it was quite a scene to be a part of and very different from i don't know going up for adverts with the icm agent or whatever it was i was doing i just thought this is much more there's something definitely

that i need from this that i should hang around and get you've painted a picture there that makes me think of ken as a kind of colonel kurtz Apocalypse Now, the Colonel Kurtz of the experimental theatre world. Well, he was. I mean, he was very Kurtz. He wasn't very nice. He was frightening, unapproachable, and like razor sharp. And he had that ability of dressing somebody down to the core of their nature and their

faults with just such a an easy turn of phrase that it was just amazing to be around him and watch him devastate people it was also quite amusing but very frightening you didn't want it to be your turn you probably couldn't be that kind of personality nowadays i suppose could you? No he'd be in all sorts of trouble now yeah talk about an abuse of power he made someone wear a bucket on their head you know things like that or a box or something all sorts you know and naked scenes that people were scared of doing you know like he'd get them naked and get them used to it. It was like very brutal tactics. Yeah, but the object of the exercise and the purpose of the tactics was not just to humiliate people or get some sort of pervy thrill.

It was to enable people to access a kind of vulnerability that would bring an authenticity to what they were doing, presumably. Yeah, it was to liberate people and get them out of themselves or get them to celebrate the things that they're embarrassed of, you know, that sort of thing. Yeah, it was to turn people on their head. And he was very liberating. He definitely, for me, pushed me way further than I would have gone

in a kind of normal theatre route. Were you suspicious initially, though though did you sort of think i think if i'd encountered someone like that and i occasionally did when i was at art school i was always quite suspicious and i my natural instinct was to back off and to sort of think i don't i don't know if that's for me i'd rather people were polite yeah uh i was yeah i had um approach avoidance about it i wanted to stay safe oh and away from him but another part of me just went straight into the eye of the storm to get as close to him as i could be maybe i thought it'd be more still if i was really close it might be quiet in there.

But it wasn't. It was a very, very full-on relationship to have in my, I don't know, mid-20s or something. Yeah, I went right in there with Ken Campbell. And I don't really know how I had the courage. Just something told me it was the right thing to do. Because I was very bland I was very bland and very meek kind of person so I think that's why I needed to get up close to something

much more volcanic and he obviously saw something in you though how soon after you got to know him did you start a relationship with him? Romantic relationship? Quite a while. Lonnie still makes me giggle like an idiot to think, yeah, I did have that. I was in his kind of vicinity for about a year or more before in his theatre group. It took a while to get the courage. I mean, I did manage to kind of become his favourite because he would shout at people but he didn't shout at me you know I remember walking past me when we're all eating lunch once saying you know I do lose my temper but I do have my favorites and sort of giving me a smile and thinking oh thank god oh thank god that's another

relationship though which would probably be I guess it's getting more unusual in the modern age though because there was such a large gap between you age-wise he was nearly 60 or something when you were 26 yeah i think for a lot of people i was speaking to someone on this podcast mona chalabi and she is quite a bit younger than i am and we were talking about relationships where there's a big age gap my mum was quite a bit younger than my dad come to think of it right anyway she was saying that she she was quite disapproving and i think her disapproval came from a sort of fairly modern sense of there being an imbalance of power dynamics. Yeah.

Did you feel any of that at the time or were people saying things like that to you? Well, everybody was raising their eyebrows for sure. And I was raising my own. and I was raising my own. But, yeah, I guess I didn't have to do that. I mean, I did seek it out, though. I mean, I did seek it out. But it's very, you could call it an abuse of power, whatever. I mean, it's really tricky because I can only speak for for my own story here and I don't want to cast an opinion about similar stories at all or even

call them similar because I'm talking about me and Ken Campbell and like you say you know I was like I say I mean I was quite bland looking for some guidance and I found him fascinating and a genius and I sort of decided I was in love with his mind and bodies don't matter and you know lucky to be on the planet at the same time and let's just go let's just go there let's go all the way you know let's be brave I mean it's not even brave is it god knows I don't know I I also have rationalized it like really not a big deal if I look back from today's standpoint I can go yeah that's a bit off that wouldn't that wouldn't wash now but it's so different back then and I was so different I can't I don't know seem ashamed to bring that frame to it yeah it would be a terrible thing to kind of lose that part of my

history as well but you know by looking at it as a trauma yeah yeah yeah not to say it wasn't traumatic though it was deeply traumatic but it's my life what the fuck can i do about it you know i'm okay about it but relationships are always traumatic i don't care if there's total balance of power there's always going to be some imbalance in there somewhere i mean deeply traumatizing for him probably far more traumatizing for him when i said oh i don't you know i'm leaving now awful devastated i don't know who's who's more damaged by it or both equally i I think. Your parents never sat you down and said, now look, young lady. No.

What, like, calm down? I don't know. I remember I went out with someone for a while who was about 10 years older than I was, and I was, but I was younger than you. So you're 26. You know, at 26, I think you can pretty much figure things out. Yeah.

But I was only just 18, and I started going out with someone who was 10 years older than I was. And my parents were quite alarmed by that. I think they just felt like at 18, you should still be hanging out with people your own age and being stupid and an 18-year-old. You shouldn't be suddenly in the world of someone in their late 20s you know you can come to that when you come to it sort of thing yeah yeah well i mean i could definitely kept it a secret from my dad and because i think he definitely would have been a bit upset as it was he was sort of grateful because ken campbell ended up steering me towards my whole career so he wrote him a letter latterly and said you know thank you for everything you've done for nina but

i kept that secret from him my mom on the other hand is an absolute flagrant uh horn dog and she's just excitable with any story you know oh, tell me, oh, you know, oh, wonderful. Oh, he's old. Is he? Oh, good. Tell me more. She's she's just an absolute enthusiast. So, yeah, she wasn't going to sit me down. Yeah, well, my dad would have, but he didn't know. So no one sat me down and i just went straight into the eye of the storm yeah and uh you know found a treasure chest and escaped yeah it was a treasure chest

and was it ken that suggested you get into ventriloquism in the first place yeah you know it was years after that relationship which wasn't't a very long relationship, I have to say, because it was formative. And then I ended up making a film about it. It seems like, you know, the biggest, longest thing. It was very short, really, a couple of months only. Oh, right. OK. Yeah. So years later, I was at the RSC, you know, dressed up and standing in the background and not saying much. And I really missed him and his theater company everything he did so I I wrote to him to kind of ask him what's what's

happening and he was into ventriloquism by that stage and he said we won't do this so um and he sent me a puppet arrived at the stage door and a teach yourself ventriloquism kit. So it was just an accident. I mean, he did go for it with a little bit. He did say, you're like a clown who doesn't want to wear the nose. So this will be perfect for you. So that was good that he saw that it would appeal to me, but it didn't initially. And he was trying to teach a whole of London ventriloquism.

It just wasn't sticking. And I don't know how did you interpret that comment that you were like a clown who didn't want to wear the nose not sure I'm not sure because I still let it a little bit I because I do like wearing the nose I mean I wasn't someone who wants to be like who knows how to be funny by themselves without a character it's it was true it's very true and he was very right so it was suddenly i was holding the right kind of pen like the left-handed pen or whatever it's like oh right this will work and did you find it quite easy did you pick it up there's a moment in the film which i want to ask you about her master's

voice which you directed and which came out in 2012 and it is just great it's such a great film and there's a moment in the film where there's an amazing demonstration of bifurcating which well explain what the word is bifurcation i think it's when your lips do one thing but you say something else so it's not like a delay like people do that sort of joke like a delayed film where you you speak and then there's a gap i don't know what that is it's more like you're simultaneously using your lips to make the shapes to say one sentence but you're actually behind your lips at the back of the throat, you're saying something completely different.

So it's quite spooky when it's done well. Right. Very spooky when it's done well. Yeah, yeah. What's the technique to it? You've got to plan the sentence you're going to say, and then you've got to get your lips ready to say a different sentence. So everything in ventriloquism is obviously not using the lips,

and you've formed substitute lips using the back of your tongue and your soft palate and that's where you're making the sounds in theory you should definitely be able to do it if you're a ventriloquist you should definitely be able to say something with your lips but say something else with the back of your throat but you have that problem of your brain thinking the thing with your face that you're saying and disassociating that is the real challenge. And how do you start then when you're doing ventriloquism? Do you start by just trying to make random abstract noises from different parts of your face and mouth and throat? Or how does it work? Well, you've got 20 of the 26 letters of the alphabet you can

say without moving your lips no trouble at all they're not they're not useful for those but b p v m i can't i've forgotten them now i think it's hard as well you just have substitutes so b is mostly a g sound but you're thinking b whilst you're saying g and then over time something happens in the back of your throat and it just gets better at it yeah parrots are a great uh a great source of inspiration because they've only got those little beaky tongues and no lips and they can do everything why i don't know what they have a valve i mean so it's just how you control the air passing through that tongue and the soft palate you kind of have to when you say guh if you if you do like a lazy guh and you let the air build up a bit before you let the guh sound out, it transforms it into a buh, a laboured guh. I mean, you're very good. I was watching it. You said that your ventriloquism skills have slipped a bit, but I was watching a video of you from you from what it was posted last year and it was

excellent and there's absolutely no gottle of gear going on oh that's good but i think the way i was taught by ken was i never mind getting your b right before you go on stage no one cares you know it's much more fun if your puppet's funny and you're saying good things like that's the least important thing about ventriloquism is your b sound you know yeah don't stay practicing in front of the mirror until you say just get out there and start going people would gladly enjoy the guzz from a funny puppet anyway it doesn't matter at all and then how quickly did you start sort of playing around with the form? Because you've become sort of well known for doing things that I hadn't seen other ventriloquists doing. I suppose the most notable of those would be putting the puppet away at certain points, putting monkey back in the bag and then just withdrawing your arm and then carrying on as if monkey is naked and the puppet is just your arm. And it's a sort of deconstruction of the whole thing that's very intriguing and unsettling.

And then the other innovation, correct me if I'm wrong, is when you strap on the big remote control mouth onto members of the audience that you get up on stage. Yeah. So how quickly did those creep in? The mask that I put on audience members' faces, I didn't design that. Those have been around and ventriloquists have used them. And Ron Lucas was the first ventriloquist to use those. And he did a very funny act with them.

But I think what excited me most about them was that you could create a an act live just using the people in the room and a few scant details of their lives and just improvise a whole show all with members of the audience so I'm responsible for taking it to that next level although it started quite carefully I had a stooge in the audience and I'd get that you know I'd pay someone to come every night and to do it and then one night the stooge couldn't come. So I got somebody real and God, it was a lot funnier with someone real. And then I thought, oh, I'll chance another real one tomorrow. And then it was much funnier. And then I thought, oh, this is way the best way to go.

I'll just use only audience and we'll just make it all up. And so that's what the, that's what the shows I've been doing ever since have been because they continue to surprise me. And it feels like, oh, I've been doing ever since have been because they continue to surprise me. And it feels like, oh, I've managed to break through to a format that I can just keep doing for years because it's different every time. That's the thing I miss the most now with this bloody pandemic is that you can't do such close shows where the audience just experiences one unique night

and then as they file out they've all had a shared experience that was bespoke to them and all that that's that feels like a real sadness you can't really you can't do that on zoom yes and then with the naked monkey when did that start happening did you because that that was a really great flourish of kind of deconstructionist meta ventriloquism that i hadn't seen before yeah well i had um when i started out it was i was like called a special act and a lot of the stand-ups would suggest that i had it easy because i had a puppet like i was cheating or something because I had a funny puppet you've got a prop yeah I've got a prop and um that lingers to this day like I'm

cheating it really does I only I kind of believe that deep down that I'm cheating still because there's like a purist thing about stand-up that you think, it's just, you know, it's very adept. And so at the time, Daniel Kitson, I was getting a lot with Daniel Kitson when I first started out, and it was kind of a response to him. He said, what you do is a very good example of what I don't like. You should just get up there and say the thing. And I kind of went away thinking god damn it how am i gonna i'm gonna show it's me or that i am saying the thing so i think

that i that deconstructive was actually i think that was in response to to kitson saying that seems came up with it the same week when he says you should just say the thing just talk to them you know right okay get get behind the mic and talk to them all this extra fuss you know that you're doing with the puppet you could just go up and talk to them but i think for all these years i've been doing it i realize that there is something different about what I do from just going up and talking I mean I really feel like that monkey has access to a subconscious thing I mean god I'm I'm in I have a therapist I've had a therapist now for about three years and sometimes she has to ask me what would monkey say if she can sort of tell I'm lying or I'm blocking something or I'm not really. She says, you know, what would Monkey say?

And I'm like, oh, my God, you're right. I'm lying. This is nonsense. Yes, I can hear Monkey's voice and he's telling you that I did it on purpose. I didn't even say, you know. Yeah. So it does seem like there's a good access to a subconscious level of thoughts that that tool has brought about. I don't know what came first.

Can't have just been there all along and then I just picked monkey up and suddenly it spoke. But maybe. I don't know. There's a bit in the film, Her Master's Voice, where there's a bit of audio of Ken Campbell talking to you, or in fact talking to you being the monkey. He quotes Friedrich Schiller, 18th century German poet and philosopher. And he says, Schiller said, there's a watcher at the gate of the mind,

and it's the watcher that stops you being creative because creation and insanity are almost the same thing and that's a great way of looking at it and what you do with the monkey is you're kind of trying to shut down the watcher at the gate or you're trying to sort of externalize it somehow yeah an unaccountable force that isn't me. Yeah. Who can sneak past the gatekeeper of the mind. Yeah, that's when it's working at its best, is when you achieve that.

There's another moment. I mean, it's such a great... Were you happy with the movie when it came out? I mean, it seemed to do very well. Yes, I was very happy because I made it with my own money very cheaply and then managed to sell it to the BBC after I'd made it, which was, yeah, a business model I've been wanting to replicate ever since.

It was a nice freeing way to do it. I was delighted, yeah. Where can people see it now? I think it's on Amazon now and it's's on prime yeah there's many many really memorable and and quite sort of uh jarringly strange and honest moments in the whole thing where you're where you're dancing around with the whole artificiality of what you do and making a film and being a ventriloquist and saying honest things via these puppets. And I mean, there's one moment that sticks out. I hope this isn't too much of a spoiler, but towards the end of the film, you kill the monkey because you begin the film by saying,

I feel as if maybe I'm reaching the end of this ventriloquism caper that we're on, you know, and maybe I won't be doing too much more ventriloquism. So you go out to Kentucky to this big sort of ventriloquist festival slash museum slash I don't know, what is it? Yes, a convention and museum puppets of dead ventriloquists. Yeah, there you go. And you go and contribute one of the puppets that Ken bequeathed you that you pick up at the beginning of the film. And you go and travel to Kentucky. But you also take Monkey.

But at the end of the film, you kill Monkey. You get Monkey run over by a car. And you're in a car park of a motel. Yeah. And you deliberately drop the Monkey in front of the car. And this is all sort of staged, right? It's not accidental. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, monkey wants me to experience what a life would be like without him. Right. And so you'd arranged with the people in the car that they would run over monkey. Yeah, drop me under the car. Yeah. Could you just run over my monkey yes just managed to grab someone and say can you would you mind just driving your car over this monkey it's a it's a sort of elderly couple and when they do run over the monkey you really lose your shit and you start screaming and crying and you look genuinely distressed and by that point in the film

it feels as if you probably were genuinely distressed were you uh-huh i don't know i think it's acting actually i mean i would be distressed that's not to say i wouldn't be distressed but i wasn't you know no i mean i was acting as sort of channeling some distress for the sake of it. I'm very glad it seemed convincing. But yeah, I mean, when I first started out with Monkey and I'd only just got a handle on it and thought, oh, I can do gigs and I can make my own money and this is the freedom I've been looking for. I got a gig in Austria and I lost him on the plane

and he didn't turn up in Austria and I was there to do this gig and I couldn't do the gig and I was bereft and I did cry in the airport in Austria because I didn't know where I would find another one. They were like discontinued and I thought we'd gone forever and, you know,

I don't know, eBay must have existed but it didn't occur to me that I would find one on eBay back then. We're talking 2000 or something. So yeah I was I'm very capable of crying at the thought of losing monkey completely you know if you took all of them away I've got several burnt them all yeah I'd be upset my note when I watched it that I wrote down here was this this is a vivid, unsettling portrait of madness. It is design, I have to say. I mean, I very much flirt with that idea of myself being mad and layered and all that stuff.

I do, I use that. I use that a bit much to the point where people then who are, you know, therapists or whatever, or just people who think they can help me will come and sort of say, are you okay? Or, you know, I watched your film or I watched your show and it looks like you're really struggling. You know, I think, no, it's design. I'm using that and I'm really celebrating that. I am actually okay.

But you can't say that without seeming like you're not but certainly the stuff i've put out on stage is all design it's not like oh dear she's really lost it especially my in therapy tapes online god people really think those are real and i'm glad of it i think i'm quite glad that people think they're real what are you doing in those for people that haven't seen them? They're improvised therapy sessions with Adam Megiddo, who's a very good improviser, playing the therapist. And so I turn up with Monkey for therapy,

saying I've got this sidekick that's in control of my life and I can't live life and help. And so we improvised all these sessions. And they sort of feel near the knuckle. They feel like what my life would be like if I was really only with a monkey all the time. People in the comments section, they're very, this is sick, this shouldn't be comedy. This is, you know, she needs help.

You know, there's all that. There's so many of those comments. And I read them and think oh i've got to put that person straight i'm fine and then think no no actually it's probably what you were aiming for is that gray area so just leave it out there also it might well be that you're in denial and you are very ill i am. I mean, I don't know who isn't. I don't seem to be more ill than everyone else. There you go.

That is a very good point. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 one final question before we wrap things up okay i hope you don't mind me asking about your dad okay he is an actor i always admired and one of the reasons I really liked him was that he was in a film with David Bowie called Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, which came out in 1983, directed by Nagisa Oshima. That was a big formative experience for me because I'd known about Bowie for a couple of years. experience for me because I'd known about Bowie for a couple of years but 1983 was when me and my sister were just obsessed by him and we had posters all over our walls and we went to see that movie and he just looked so gorgeous in it was that let's dance that era yes exactly exactly let's dance had come out earlier that year and I guess when was that movie shot then? End of 82 or? It must have been about, yeah, yeah, 82. I think you're right.

And yes, Bowie had bleach blonde hair and he was looking very beautiful. And do you remember much about that time? Did you go and visit your dad on set even? I did. I did. And I did meet David Bowie and I was obsessed I mean I was obsessed and I probably nine or eight and I thought I would marry him you know I thought I've met him I've met the man I'll marry I was eight David Bowie and uh wow that's very young to be into Bowie oh yeah but I mean it's very easy to be into Bowie he was very exciting person I had already kind of I think my parents were

they were going to be going to film this thing and David Bowie's in it and you should find out who David Bowie is you know played me the music and then I met him. And yeah, it was an obsession that went on for ages. And then I used to be like at school, I would be jealous if anyone listened to David Bowie albums and tell them they couldn't, you know, like he was mine. It was really weird. Yeah.

And he came to my birthday party and a couple of things like that. Oh my God. Yeah. How old were you? birthday party and a couple of things like that. Oh, my God. Yeah. How old were you? I guess nine or ten or something. He came to your ninth birthday party? I think so, yeah. Or my tenth.

I don't know. But my parents must have wangled this. I mean, how? I don't know. They were quite good friends, I think. That is amazing. During the filming. But they're very different.

Did he sing, Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. That's not a very good impression of him singing happy birthday. I mean, if I could remember anything he said, I can't remember anything he said because it was just a fog of love whenever I was near him. And he would, I do remember him saying, you like my shoes.

I like your shoes. And I was so confused looking down at my very boring little shoes thinking oh wow he likes these i don't know just making conversation i remember a woman coming over to him in a restaurant and kissing him like full on the mouth and then she went away and he kind of went hey and she turned around he said i didn't quite catch that and then he winked at her i remember witnessing that age and i go oh my god so cool oh man old school sexy interaction with strangers yeah really, really old school. I mean, it was kind of, yeah. What a weird piece of behaviour. Anyway, I'm very lucky to have met him,

but it's a very early memory and I didn't get to meet him again kind of later when I would have understood it more. Yeah. It's just a child memory of this, like, golden human. Where were they shooting? Where was the location for that movie? They were shooting in Rarotong tonga an island in south china seas somewhere yeah the whole thing's a bit like a dream i can't

kind of i can't locate it amongst my other memories it doesn't connect with anything it's just all palm trees and david bowie and this is crazy there was one night where we went to a cinema that had goats and chickens and everything running around and it was crazy there was one night where we went to a cinema that had goats and chickens and everything running around and it was very like a farm kind of cinema and I was ill and I was ill and we had to stop the car on the way home and he was there and I had to throw up in front of him it was embarrassing spoiled my spoiled my plan to become his wife. Aged nine. Yeah, I lost my cool. Embarrassing.

The last time I saw you, you said that I asked you about it before and you said that you threw up on his shoes. Yeah, well, they were near enough. On his dancing shoes. On his dancing shoes. Oh, God. David Bowie's feet. Wait, this is an advert for Squarespace.

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And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code BUXTON to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. Hey, welcome back, podcats. I was talking with Nina Conti before the break there, and I'm very grateful indeed to Nina for giving up her time to chat with me there's a link in the description to various bits and pieces of Nina related stuff I'm not going to go on too much today because it is currently I would say grody weather-wise you'll be relieved to hear that my walking boots are doing all right, still cozy. So how are you doing, podcats?

Not too bad, I hope. I'm looking forward to a good result that everyone can get behind in the American election. I'm sure that's all going to go very smoothly. And no doubt we'll start seeing some positive news about the pandemic very shortly. What do you think, Rose? I did a poo on the landing this morning. Did you find it? Yes. Yeah. Thank you so much for that. That was great. Now, before I go today, here is a great rhyme, mnemonic, whatever you want to call it for you.

Remember, remember, the 5th of November, Richard Herring's book, The Problem with Men, is being published. He sent me a copy, and I loved it. One of the reasons I loved it is because it's not very long. And so I read it quite quickly. And that's my favourite kind of book. But it is very funny funny as you would expect. I'll read you the blurb on Richard's website. For the past decade Richard Herring has been answering sexist trolls on International Women's Day when they ask when is International Men's Day? In the mistaken belief there isn't one. If only the

trolls, should I say trolls or trolls, I'm going to say trolls, had learned to use Google, they would realise that there is an International Men's Day. It's on November the 19th. In The Problem with Men, Richard expands on his Twitter discussions and tackles some of the big questions surrounding the problems of toxic masculinity for women, but also for men, including should men fear feminism? Is society sexist against men? Could you win a point against Serena Williams?

Spoiler, the answer to all of these is no. With Richard's signature humour and insight, The Problem with Men is a book for anyone striving for an equal society all year round. I agree. Also, it's funny, and even if you are a slightly thin-skinned and defensive male man. And hey, look, we've all been there. I think you'll enjoy this. It's not a book designed to wind you up. Instead, I think it's more designed to just help everyone relax. That's the way I read it. I relaxed and I laughed. So anyway, I recommend The Problem With Men. There's an audiobook version as well, released on the 5th of November. I'll put a link to Richard's website where you can find out more

and buy a copy in the description of this podcast. All right, listen, podcats. Rosie has buggered off home because she's not enjoying the weather out here. And I sympathise. I'm going to head back. Thank you very much indeed, once again, to Nina Conti for making time to talk to me. Thanks very much to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for production support, to Emma Corsham for additional editing.

Thanks to Helen Green, who does the artwork for the podcast. Thanks to ACAST for their continued help and support. Thanks most especially to you for listening and continuing to be encouraging about the podcast and open-minded, forgiving, all the stuff. I appreciate it. Until next time, we share the same. Out of space.

I wish you all the best. I gift you a hug. And I want you to know, for what it's worth, well, I love you. Bye! Bye. And subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a plant with a thumbs up.

Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a plant with a thumbs up. Please like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Bye. Thank you.