THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.167 - JULIA DAVIS

Episode Date: November 2, 2021

Adam talks with British actor, comedian, writer and director Julia Davis about stinky hotel rooms, dead parents, Julia's early forays into comedy, separating the art from the artist and much else.This episode was recorded face to face on October 26th, 2021 in London.Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for his work on this episodePodcast artwork by Helen GreenRELATED LINKSINTERVIEW WITH JULIA DAVIS BY PAUL FLYNN - 2010 (THE GENTLEWOMAN)INTERVIEW WITH JULIA DAVIS BY HARRIET GIBSONE - 2018 (THE GUARDIAN)HUMAN REMAINS - ROB BRYDON AND JULIA DAVIS CHARACTER IMPROVISATIONS (YOUTUBE)JAM (CHRIS MORRIS SKETCH SHOW) - SPOT REMOVER - 2000 (YOUTUBE)NIGHTY NIGHT - I LOVE MEAT - 2004 (YOUTUBE)IN CONVERSATION WITH JULIA DAVIS AND THE MAKERS OF NIGHTY NIGHT (LIVE EVENT AT THE BFI SOUTHBANK) - 2018 (YOUTUBE)NIGHTY NIGHT SERIES 2 OUTTAKES - (YOUTUBE)MORNING HAS BROKEN PILOT - 2014 (YOUTUBE)No audio on this copy for the 1st minute during the credit sequence.HUNDERBY COMPILATION - 2015 (YOUTUBE)CAMPING EPISODE 1 - 2016 (YOUTUBE)SALLY4EVER - THERAPIST SCENE - 2018 (YOUTUBE) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On goes the first boot. On goes the second. Puffer jacket. Rosie, should you go for a walk? There you are. We haven't had a walk for a couple of days, have we? Come on then, let's go. 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? It's Adam Buxton here, out in the Norfolk countryside, at the very beginning of November 2021. November time, you stupid old bastard. Why don't you just sit down, have a slice of chill cake and take a break. It is shaping up to be kind of an impressive evening. I reckon we're going to get a nice sunset tonight. Earlier today, it was absolutely beautiful. Bright, clear, cold. It's gone very autumnal over the last week. Anyway, look, let me tell you a little bit about my guest for podcast number 167,

because it's a good long conversation, this one, so I don't want to waffle too much at the top. I am talking, as you well know, this week with Julia Davis, the British actor, comedian, writer and director. the British actor, comedian, writer and director. Julia Fax, what have we got here? Julia, currently aged 55, was born in South London and grew up in Guildford before moving with her family to the town of Bath in Somerset. Julia's mother was a secretary and her father was a civil servant.

She studied English and drama at college then got into comedy became famous towards the end of the 1990s now lives in London with two teenage sons that she created with is that the right term? with her partner, friend of the podcast and comedy behemoth in his own right, Julian Barrett.

OK, so let's just go straight to Wikipedia now to help me summarise what is an intimidatingly large, impressive career. Julia is known for writing and starring in the BBC Three comedy Nighty Night, 2004-2005, and the comedies Hunderby, 2012-2015, and Camping, 2016, which she also directed. She's been nominated for BAFTA TV Awards nine times. But let's not get hung up on the awards. She has won and been nominated for many awards awards awards yeah yeah she played dawn sutcliffe in gavin and stacy 2007 and thereafter her film roles include love actually cemetery junction four lions and phantom thread so yeah she's she's done a lot and of course more recently in the podcasting world

there has been Dear Joan and Jericho which she makes with Vicky Pepperdine and many many other projects besides the conversation you're going to hear today was recorded in late October 2021 really not very long ago as you will hear I was able to sit down with Julia in a room it was in fact a hotel room that I was staying in while I was in London doing a few bits and pieces the other day it was lovely to see Julia she's an old friend I hadn't seen her for ages not since before the pandemic I don't think is that right yeah and as well as talking with her about her reticence when it comes to doing interviews and the reasons for that, we also compared notes on losing parents and all that kind of fun stuff and what effect it had on Julia's comedy. It's not a straightforward interview or a comprehensive

career overview. We do touch on a few of the things she's done over the years, but it's more of a friendly conversation between a couple of middle-aged folks prone to introspection, self-doubt and worries that they might be responsible for the strange smell that was in the hotel room. Back at the end, with a bit more waffle and info about a few remaining book tour dates, etc. But right now, with Julia have a Ramble Chat. We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that. Come on, let's tune the vat and have a Ramble Chat. Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat. Yes, yes, yes. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la Julia, can you describe the hotel for people listening?

I think before I describe the hotel, we need to talk about the room, which we've just been discussing. The slightly fishy, the slightly fishy waft of the room, which we hope isn't me. We hope isn't you. You said it could be a genital, but it could be the salad missoirs or it could be the toilet. You said a sort of alleyway

kind of you don't know if that's the the toilet cleaner or did you get the fishy waft as soon as you came in the room but obviously didn't say anything because i didn't know what had happened in here i still can't smell properly after having COVID. Oh. Yeah, so... Oh, God. Yeah, I mean, it's faint, but it's enough to go, something's amiss. Because I went into the toilet before you arrived,

and I did think, like... Did you pass a fish as you... Well, I hadn't done anything. I hadn't even unrobed, disrobed or... Yeah. ...taken anything out. And already I was thinking like, it's kind of a back alley. So you've got some sense of smell. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some things get through. Yeah.

And that got through. And I thought, hmm, am I just not smelling things right? Sometimes the part of the COVID thing is that it slightly knocks everything askew. So smells aren't quite accurate. So nice smells can be unpleasant, etc. I don't think it goes the other way around. But I was thinking like, is this the toilet cleaner they're using? like is this the toilet cleaner they're using or does this toilet in this pretty high-end hotel smell a little bit like a peepee soaked back alley yeah i mean it does sorry about that no i mean it's fine um but you asked the description of the hotel i don't know

how to describe it but it's very it's quite flash isn't it it's quite um despite the troubles we had with the lift and the card and yeah it's got one of the instead of keys they've got these credit card things and you have to use them in the lift as well as in the door and they demagnetize very easily if you put them in your pocket next to your phone or your other credit cards or whatever, sometimes they don't work anymore. So we've just been going up and down to the reception trying to get a new card. But when you come into this place, and this is not normally the kind of hotel that I would stay in if I'm in town. But I just think I thought, oh, yeah, whatever.

I'll splash out this time. And so I paid a little bit more, and it's super chic, the whole place. It's one of these places that has groovy pop art, postmodern art on the walls. And, I mean, this used to be the sort of thing that I lived for, coming and staying at this sort of hotel. But I haven't done it for years.

I think you deserve it. I think especially after what you said without where you were the other day. Yeah. Slightly suicidal. The other day I was in Cardiff doing a show and I always just go for the cheapest option, more or less. And often I luck out and get somewhere that's quite nice. Anyway, this time didn't work out for me. I was in a kind of weird subterranean room with a tiny window.

It was depressing as anything. So this time I thought, OK, I'll splash out. Yeah, it can be very depressing to be away from home and suddenly find yourself in a really grim space. It's very hard to get perspective, isn't it? When you're in that kind of weird place alone, feeling like that's your whole world suddenly. Yeah. Yeah.

And you do just sort of think, what am I doing? What am I doing with my life? Especially if you've just been, so that's when you're doing your book. Yeah. So you've got all that sort of, you're doing your book, it what so you've got all that sort of you're doing your book it's all funny it's fun all those people and then you're going back alone to this this sort of brown underground hellhole and the only thing that saves you from going totally mad is the internet so at least you can connect to the outside world and watch something to cheer you up i watch a lot of reality tv trashy sort of i find that very intriguing and sort of comforting like which shows

i'm always very behind everything in the world as you know in every possible way like i'm not on twitter i'm not on although in in that way but then also in terms of like so basically I started watching The Bachelor the other day the first ever one in Australia and then found out it was from like 2011 or something uh-huh have you ever seen that no I know which one it is though I know what you mean yeah I don't really like reality show do you not not so much uh the only one I ever got into was Bear Grylls Island. Didn't you do one? I got invited on it. But you didn't do it?

No, because COVID happened. I got invited on that. I went for a meeting with the production company. And it all looked as if it was going ahead. There were even dates. But then the dates started getting rescheduled. And then COVID happened. And then it's, I don't even know if they're still would you do an extensive training before going if you were to do it i mean i probably should you know i'm 52

that's one thing i was thinking was like would i survive i think i'd get ill really yeah i think i'd get immediately ill and then what sort of illness uh i just get really run down and tired and then i'd start thinking oh maybe i'm having a heart attack and then i'd start crying yeah do you think you would cry on screen i would cry and then they'd be filming it all yeah and then i'd I'd get annoyed. I'd go like, fuck's sake, don't film me. Seriously, just don't film this. Yeah. Their earpieces would be lighting up going, definitely film this.

I was asked to do a Bear Grylls type thing, which obviously the boys, my boys wanted me to do. But I'm very unfit and I know I couldn't remotely do any of it. But I like watching them. Yeah. I know I am interested remotely do any of it, but I like watching them. Yeah. I know I am interested in that survival stuff. Like when it looked as if I might actually go on this Bear Grylls show on the island. I spent quite a long time looking at YouTube. Yeah.

And watching videos about how to make a shelter. Yeah. And how to start a fire. These sort of things. I was really getting myself in the zone. But I was terrified. Also, the other thing that worried me, this was back a couple of years ago, when me and my wife used to have a routine of basically drinking a load of booze on a Friday night

and just eating a load of chips and yeah going nuts party night and I really loved it yeah it was a part of the week that I really look forward to but I was I felt guilty about it I just sort of thought even that one night a week yeah because it wasn't always one night right it was every night and i thought god if i go on the island i'm not gonna drink any booze or eat any sugar or smoke any cigs for four to five weeks or something yeah at least four weeks you know there's a good chance that i might come out of it the other end and think well i never need to do any of that again or you can have a breakdown or i'll just go absolutely nuts yeah yeah exactly i think that's half of what's scary about those things isn't it it's sort of revealing

those parts of yourself that you're trying to make sure no one ever sees publicly yep yeah that is the thing isn't it well julian what do you think of these margaritas? Oh, you pivoted to the margaritas before I was going to ask my question. Mine's completely gone. Because you were leading me into a great question about things that you don't want people to see. Am I drinking yours as well now? Yeah, have it. We're having margaritas. Seeing as it's, I'm kind of going high-end crazy and living the fantasy here.

Yeah, we've got it all. We've got cocaine, we've got margaritas, we've got... But, Julia, you said something there that made me want to ask you quite a great question. OK. And that thing was that you are worried about people finding out of the thing that you wish to keep from them yes yes i don't want them to know is that though seriously part of the reason you don't like

doing interviews i mean presumably yes i think so i think it's what i was saying to you earlier which is i in real life probably do have quite extreme opinions or say quite extreme things and I so in interviews I always feel I have to really curb myself and therefore I'm quite boring and therefore I just think I won't do it because you know because you watch for me I'll watch people on chat shows who just have all the anecdotes and you know and I just think that's almost a profession in itself to be able to go on and just have some great stories and you know because I remember even Rob Brydon saying to me well don't be yourself you just go on and do some jokes and whatever but that's not I don't I can't tell an anecdote really and I don't

doing a joke isn't really my thing so yeah so you can't be like Tom Hiddleston you can't go on and sit next to Robert De Niro and do a Robert De Niro impression I mean that's incredible to have that confidence to do that I find I think that's true though of more dramatic actors isn't it quite a lot of them I think people who do comedy have a sort of hyper vigilance which is how you know if the audience likes what you're doing or doesn't you're constantly re-gauging does this working this isn't working do they like me they don't like me is that isn't it and and i think obviously those sort of actors are very brilliant, but often don't have a very sort of refined sense of humour

or awareness of their impact when they're doing something like that. Hiddleston is, he just churns them out. Yeah. He just doesn't know when to stop. I read an article from 2010 by Paul Flynn in The Gentlewoman. Ah. The Genital Woman. The Genital Woman, yes.

Which is a magazine, right? Yeah. Yeah. Which is now, I don't know if it exists in physical form. It's still online. And the article is online. It's entitled, Julia Julia Davis Britain's most hilarious woman do you remember this article I don't remember much about the article I remember

it being okay and doing a photo shoot that I didn't hate doing which normally I do yeah it's one of those articles that is accompanied by photographs and yeah people credited on the article are paul flynn the writer alistair mcclellan the photographer and the stylist yes jane how that's how good stylist yeah you've got a exciting article trio you got a stylist yeah and they really yeah you you look great and they put you in nice fancy clothes and you're smoking in every single shot and then the caption of one of the photos is is it about me not smoking in real life yeah julia who doesn't ordinarily smoke is wearing a gorgeous black wool coat over a gray cashmere jumper dress, both by Stella McCartney. Yeah, for someone who doesn't ordinarily smoke,

you are smoking the hell out of some ciggies. Well, I did, of course. I did smoke for many, many years, and then I didn't. Right. But, you know, you like to have a little prop in these situations. But you see, that's just 10 years ago. Well, 11 years ago. And already that just seems like another age. Oh, my God, is that all it is? Yeah. Because that does feel like a horrifically long years ago. Well, 11 years ago. And already that just seems like another age.

Is that all it is? Yeah. Because that does feel like a horrifically long time ago. 2010. God. And the idea of doing a fashion shoot now. Are you sure it's 2010? Yeah.

Oh, my God. With someone smoking. Yes. That's crazy. Well, to me as well, it's the fact that the boys would have been three years old. When I look back on that, I didn't think I had children yes i forgot at that point what are you have you just done the lizzie and sarah pilot oh yes gosh yeah so what was the deal with that so that was me and jessica hines nay stevenson and we got together and we used to do a thing do you know Resonance FM yeah yeah so you

know a free radio station we used to just get together once a week in Borough I think it was and go and improvise an hour's stuff of us just doing characters and music and it was really good fun that all the tapes got sadly lost in some flood or something but anyway we from that we um developed these characters these posh put upon 60 year old women who were in very desperately unhappy marriages and i can't remember the plot unfortunately but we played them and then these awful teenage girls and yeah we made a pilot called Lizzie and Sarah. And we were going to do a series. We'd written a series, but it didn't get commissioned to go ahead because... Excuse me, I'm just belching from this margarita.

I'll try and keep that away from the fluffy microphone. There you go. Lean in. People love belching. It didn't get taken up because the lady in charge apparently watched it and said in god's name how is this funny this is the darkest thing i've ever seen and so that didn't go ahead which is a bit of a shame because we did have lots more ideas and then i remember being very weirdly being in a strange club one night and then some man coming up to me and saying oh I loved that Lizzie and Sarah yeah it's basically about domestic abuse isn't it and I kind of thought oh yeah I suppose it is and so maybe that's why it didn't take off I hadn't seen it but it was

supposedly a lot grimmer than yeah it was grimmer than usual even grimmer than usual I mean it's weird it was quite an interesting combination though me and jess i liked it because i think what i do can quite often be quite suburban or domestic and she brought in guns and stuff okay so we somehow ended up with a gun and i don't know it just had a different feel to it and i think i did some music which was quite fun as well but it is it's pretty bleak but with some funny bits i think yeah it's a fascinating snapshot this article which i'll post a link to in the description of the podcast and he's got some good little insights paul flynn but he starts off by saying on the scant evidence of two hours conversation, Julia Davis is almost as maddeningly cautious in life as she is unhinged on screen.

And he hones in on that, what he sees as you being very cautious and not wanting to reveal something that you would later regret in this interview. Which is what we were talking about before doing this really yeah and do you but do you still feel that are you not is that not lifting a little bit as you get the margaritas are helping um i mean yeah i just think i'm not one of those people like i think some people in i don't really even think i'm in the public eye but i suppose i am a bit but some people like sharing themselves publicly don't they and they want to be known publicly and they want to share their think I'm in the public eye but I suppose I am a bit but some people like sharing themselves publicly don't they and they want to be known publicly and they want to share their opinions and and I just don't particularly want to do that I because I don't I don't see myself as a

spokesperson for anything I am very sensitive I'm very prone to grotesque introspection and self-doubt you know and i don't really want to be challenged and so i think i would likely throw out some comment and then you know i think if i exactly i think if i was on twitter i'd probably be constantly engaging in things that might lead to arguments or something so or maybe you would be the way that i used to be on twitter which was super cautious yeah and then absolutely mortified if i got even one piece of criticism yeah yeah i want to go around and visit that person and sit down with them and explain well it was like even when you said you know i came to see your brilliant ramble talk you know your talk about your book which was was so, so funny.

And I'm really not just saying that because I'm here, because I was weeping with laughter about the June Whitfield story. Oh, yes. Which I told my boys as well. I had a sexy dream about June Whitfield. Oh, it's so brilliant. I've now completely lost my train of thought. Getting into spats on twitter yes

you're talking about your bike yeah and the man on the train and all that and that would be me like the feeling of persecution wanting to explain myself all of that i mean even walter one of my boys said the other day that he got on a train and he was sitting there and he had one leg slightly up across the next seat to him and this woman was saying to her kids tell that boy to move his leg and then walter sort of went oh sorry and then she said you should know your place wow that's a very old-fashioned phrase and he said sorry again and his friend said why are you saying sorry and you know his friend was going you should just tell her to fuck off and and then I was really torn between going, well, it's nice that you're being polite,

but at the same time, yeah, why is she saying that? And that also reminded me of when I did the first series of Nighty Night where we were filming in this cul-de-sac in Cobham in Surrey. And I mean, possibly I was in some sort of bizarre underwear outfit. I can't quite remember. It might have been the jogging scene where where I'm in you know jogging around to see dawn but anyway this woman came out who lived in one of the houses and she said to her dog we don me right there and of course i said absolutely nothing and um yeah that's a thing isn't it when people vocalize their

inner monologue via their pets yes they do it with children as well don't they yeah yeah yeah Yes. They do it with children as well, don't they? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow, that's making me very angry too. No, fuck you. And your mother too. some people might be listening to this thinking well for someone who doesn't seem to like talking about themselves you certainly do seem to be on a podcast but i pleaded with julia to talk to me i mean i've known you for a few years you fit the criteria for my favorite kind of podcast guest which is that I like what you do but I also like you very much and you're good to talk to and so I

just thought it would be nice to get you on and you were reluctant for all the reasons that we've described but I'm really grateful that you came on and I will try and make it really bland well you of course as well let's be honest you helped me and vicky very much doing our jen and jerica uh when we were doing the book um interviewing us all about that it's called he turns why he turns away yeah and it's one of the you know if you've listened to the podcast it's a fair literary representation of is but you know i feel um and i i can't speak for vicky but i hope she might agree you know when we we were reticent about doing a book because we knew that trying to translate our voices without sounding pretentious, but literally the voices of John, who's very sort of like that and quite nice. And, you know, Derek, who's sort of stern, like trying to get that on paper and hear that is really hard.

I would say, though, that if you are into the podcast, you should get the book because it's all new stuff in there,'t it like oh no it is it totally is and i do you know there's bits i like it's very funny and you've got the insane illustrations the kind of joy of sex illustrations as created by a psychopath and uh some of which were done by your children right yeah but you know it was put it was put in the the genuinely put in the self-help section in some shops and then people complain you know it was like i would say that didn't help as well you know of course people complain why did they do that that must have been someone just having a laugh no they literally because i rather tragically you know the first week it went out was going around to shops going do you have the joan and Jericho book and they were like not heard of it and then sort of no

but we might in this branch over here wherever and I'd go and then it's like oh yeah it's in a self-help bit and someone was very unhappy about it when they you know so I'm sure they were unhappy because it's absolutely filthy I think it's one of those books that is going to have a life of its own, of its own that will creep up on you and surprise you just when you're not expecting it. I mean, was the the podcast was a sort of instant hit, though, wasn't it? I think that connected with people almost immediately. Well, it was one of those delightful things because I think, you know, in the world of comedy,

you can spend a lot of time, you're writing, for me personally anyway, you're slaving away, trying to hone things and whatever. And I know anything I do is never going to be like a big mainstream hit, but you sort of hope it's going to reach people that like what you do or whatever. But that was just like

really fun and had we had no intentions i think that's a good thing where you just do it and just think we literally were like well hope someone listens to it doesn't really matter does it no one's paying for this um and it was also slightly came out of i'd done this pilot called morning is broken which was a breakfast tv thing i don't know if you ever saw and yeah with nick muhammad yeah and playing this scottish present breakfast tv presenter and through many strange events it never it was commissioned and then it got decommissioned and then my parents were both dying at the point. It was all awful. But the outcome was that I felt like I quite enjoyed that Scottish character.

And I think Vicky had come on in terms of the series as a new character. So we just thought, well, let's do something. And that was what happened. What's the name of the real Scottish presenter? Lorraine Kelly. Lorraine Kelly. Lorraine Kelly. So it's a similar voice, right? Yeah.

I mean, I think I can't deny there's some sort of influence from Lorraine Kelly there. Yeah. But obviously the joke being that it's kind of insanely inappropriate stuff that it would be funny to hear coming out of Lorraine Kelly's mouth. Yes. Yeah. And for those people who might not have heard it,'s a sort of yes it's kind of like an agony aunt thing and they're reading letters from people about their sexual problems did you ever listen to lbc the sexual and marital phone in i don't think i did oh we used to listen to that in the 80s yeah like dirty boys because they would talk very explicitly about sex. Anna Rayburn and the Capital Doctor.

I do remember Anna Rayburn, not on that, but in general. Was she ever on? I don't know why I remember, but as a kid I remember. Yeah, yeah. She used to do that on Capital Radio, that was. And they would just very matter-of-factly discussed these extremely explicit sex problems and it was quite great and she's quite stern wasn't she sort of quite attractive woman wasn't she sort of yeah had uh there was something of the kate bush face kate bush face i was thinking of who's the lady

from the 60s who was the thinking man's crumpet joan bakewell oh yeah yeah little bit joan bakewell yeah and that when i say thinking man's crumpet that's not my phrase that was the phrase yeah that yeah i remember that it's so weird that isn't it the thinking man's crumpet what does that mean yeah well she was with haroldinter for years, wasn't she? Yeah, that's right. Is that right? That is right.

I think so. Yeah. She was that thinking man's crumple. Yeah. I was wondering, though, because I read another interview with you in 2018. I've read, like, it's funny reading, because, you know, we're friends. Yeah. But we don't i mean i ask you stuff about things you've done now and then but i didn't have an encyclopedic knowledge

of your career and it's funny looking at it from a sort of interviewer's perspective yeah i'm thinking oh my god you have done a lot and you have sort of not stopped doing things and you've worked with so many people and done so many bits and pieces and plowed on it is interesting getting that different that career perspective reading interviews with you and there was one from 2018 when you must have been talking about sally forever and you were talking about the fact that since you've done camping your parents had died and the Joan and Jerrica thing had happened in that period and I remember seeing you after your folks died and you looked frazzled and I felt bad for you my dad had died my mother had not at that

point but because there was lots of children around there never seemed to be the right moment to sit down and talk to you properly about it yeah and also I'm never sure if it's appropriate like I'm never sure what the right thing to do is as a grown-up are you supposed to just tough this stuff out I know and I think for me it's I sometimes feel like even you know all these years later well I don't know how many years it is but sometimes I think I don't know if I've processed that at all do you know what I mean like I feel for me because they both got cancer at the same time my dad died quite quickly and then my mum more slowly but it was all around the same time it was so shocking and trying to you know be with them both and have kids and do all that it was sort of like you just go into this mode of just dealing with something that's you know and i think i'm good at that but then what i'm not good at is registering what that's doing to me like what do i really feel

and ages later strange things make you really upset and you know and also you think about death a lot more oh god yeah and it's uh and it's different to what you expected it would be like yeah thinking about it that yeah yeah you know what i mean like you absolutely don't think about that You have a sort of abstract idea of death when you're young. Yeah. And you think, oh, I don't fancy that very much. But it's so distant. Also, did you ever, I used to have dreams about my parents dying.

Uh-huh. So I think they're sort of preparing you for it. Because you wake up and go, oh, thank God it's not true. Right. And then it actually does happen. And I do remember when my dad, who I was closest to, you know, when he did die, I remember just thinking,

almost feeling like, you never told me that would, you know, that you were just going to vanish. Because I think that's what it felt like, is that thing of even though you're, you know, if they have an illness that is slowly happening or whatever like cancer but you don't I don't know you just go it's just the idea that at the very end they're there and then they're just gone and that's so weird and shocking isn't it it's so sort of

I don't know it's a very childish part of me that just thought, well, I didn't think you were going to do that. Yeah. Did you find that everything afterwards, when they were both gone, feels slightly unreal? Yeah. Okay, well, now I know what's going to happen. And now I've just got to go through the motions of doing my job and looking after my children and and being friends with people and living my life but it's kind of over yeah i'm not saying that that's true i don't think it is yeah and i think it's something that you probably come out of yeah i'm hoping yeah but definitely i just feel it's

more than just the obsession with death yeah it's like which i hadn't been before just a feeling of well also just the thing you get older and then you because i i can't remember speaking to you the other day but something about someone being about 80 something and i was going i don't understand how they're not thinking every minute of the day i'm gonna die really soon like how do you but of course some people are the reverse of that aren't they they're like i've got to make the most of it whatever but um you know i would like to be that but i don't know if i will be because it's like when people have some terrible disease you get some people who go i just had an epiphany from this experience and i learned everything and occasionally you read about someone who goes i I learn absolutely nothing. And I quite like it when someone says that

because I suppose because I always feel this pressure that I should be having incredible revelations all the time. And I don't think I do. Did you find though after you'd lost your folks and you'd been through all that, how did you feel about comedy on the other side of that I mean if you were doing Joan and Jerrica that suggests that you were happy to go pretty hard into something extreme rather than perhaps becoming more sensitive or cautious or softer yes I mean

I would say though you know I know my comedy isn't sensitive or soft or anything, but I probably am. So I think that the comedy I do and Vicky as well, you know, like I think Vicky and I shared quite extreme mothers, you know, which I think would result in those comedic sensibilities. So I think I mean, we used to get hysterical when we were doing it because it was so ludicrous and rude and whatever but so i think it was i think my way of dealing with a lot of those really distressing things is getting hysterical because you know laughing and crying that's pretty close isn't it really you know it's but that said i mean i think that's i think that's quite good i think that's quite good I think that's quite a good therapeutic way to to deal with things but I do think I have difficulty

dealing with things seriously you know like because a lot of people said to me why don't you get some bereavement counselling or whatever I mean I don't know if you've done that I just didn't I've tried different therapy I find it quite hard and I always tend to turn away from that and want to sort of channel things in a different direction when you did get therapy though were you able to be honest with your therapist I think I'm very honest and I'm also so serious that I and I find that quite horrifying because I think when you do comedy I don't think of myself as a comedian and so I do think if I meet people that you know that didn't know me and go you know they expect you to be funny and if you're not they're really quite shocked and annoyed you know but at the same time my favorite thing in

life is chatting to people and friends and and having a laugh about different things you know so doing therapy I'm the exact opposite i'm as absolutely extremely serious and dure and depressing and and that that feels really uncomfortable well what were your parents like though i mean did they steer you away from that kind of introspection oh my god yeah absolutely it was just complete that would be considered absolute indulgence and and also i think a fear that they were going to be blamed in some way in within that therapy just not at all the world that they came from when were they born i mean i don't know precisely sometime in the 30s yeah okay so similar age to my parents yeah yeah it's that

generation isn't it and you really can generalize i think about a lot of people who were born around then because society followed rules in a more general way then i think yeah i don't think you can generalize about people so much today but there's a good chance that people who were born around then, pre-war or whatever, were going to think like, no, you don't talk about your feelings because no good can come of it. Because if you open that door, then everything's just going to splurge out. You're going to embarrass yourself. It's like, come you got life's tough yeah you got to get it together yeah and it was all about you we're gonna the best thing i can do for my children who i genuinely love like that's the thing i never thought my parents didn't love

me at all i know they did but their idea of the best thing to do for me was packing me off to boarding school and giving me a little shock like this is what it's like when things don't go your way how much do you think i'm turning the interview around you know but how much do you think that going to boarding school impacted your life and relationships yeah it's really hard to tell because this is the other dangerous thing right is that you can retrofit all sorts of explanations yeah if you dig into this stuff and yeah well maybe that caused this and maybe i'm like this because of that yeah i mean yeah it's all making sense now but certain things i mean it really is hard not to join the dots i think that the experience of being suddenly separated from my parents and from my mum and finding my it was my worst nightmare that suddenly had come true because I thought they were great. Didn't want to go to boarding school.

Suddenly, there you are. And thereafter, I feel like I was desperate to connect with people and just like have very close relationships wherever possible yeah not just be friends but like super friends yes and if i was in love with someone it was absolutely yeah had to be like we are a unit yeah which is not workable and yeah um very off-putting for a lot of people you know what I mean yeah about you I mean well no it's interesting because I obviously I didn't go to boarding school but I think because I had you know without going into too much detail a sort of difficult mother and therefore a neurotic relationship and what they would call an insecure attachment or something along those lines

that I was very insecure and so my thing was I always wanted a best friend and all my school reports were like she really lacks confidence she's hiding behind so and so and I always always wanted someone to kind of hide behind or be but also like you say like I still think the same like always want connections with people. And so I think in a weird way, like coming to London and finding comedy and, you know, all the people that I suddenly found, like Chris Morris and all that world and Big Train and blah, blah, blah. For me, that was like suddenly going, oh, my God, this is like finally I don't feel quite as weird and out on a limb. The fantasy is to be with someone who knows what you're like and knows the shittiest parts of you but doesn't mind. Yeah, just gets everything about you.

Yeah, gets everything about you, knows where you're coming from, is never going to suddenly be appalled when they find out something about you that they didn't realise. Yeah. Yeah, and I think I get that a bit from say you know improvising like when me and vicky do stuff or joan and jerica it's sort of like it's this kind of language where you just know you don't have to explain anything and you know when to be quiet and you know when to respond and it's's a kind of, that feels like a really nice connection that you can't really sort of fake, you know.

One of the things that Paul Flynn says. Good old Paul. I mean, he's really come up trumps, hasn't he? Back in 2010. I don't know what the ethics of this are, like raiding someone else's article. I think it's fine. Anyway, I'm giving him credit

um he quotes you as saying i didn't have any friends in school i think it just took me absolutely ages to find a way of being and then he says julia says that things became okay quotes when i got to about 16 and started dyeing my hair and taking drugs and then he continues altering her state i've rarely heard a more compelling if troubling predisposition toward the art of acting well what i would say is some of that's true saying i didn't have any friends at school i think i did have friends at school but i had a sort of best friend outside school, actually, and we would play dressing up every weekend. This was a real friend or an imaginary friend?

This was a real friend. She's real. She's still my best friend. She's still from... Yeah, since we were nine. Yeah. But that was an area that was good, a friendship that was good, you know. But interestingly, around playing dressing up, which I wanted to carry on up until I was like 14 and she

had a boyfriend by that point and I was still sort of you know playing with dolls and stuff so but yeah I think probably when I was 16 I started to I accidentally my hair's naturally dark brown um and I used to henna it like Kate Bursch we mentioned earlier and I tried to henna it, like Kate Bursch, who we mentioned earlier. And I tried to bleach it. I didn't know what happened when you bleached it. I don't know if you've ever bleached your hair. No. It's quite extreme.

So I had sort of very patchy sort of clumps. And it was kind of orangey. And so I cut it as well to try and make it look a bit better. And then it was a bit David Bowie. And then I thought, actually actually this is quite good and so I think I then began to almost identify as a bit weirder I certainly was trying to find an identity and and then I just yeah I just think I started to hang out with people who were more funny and strange and that kind of made me feel much more comfortable and were you doing uh would you do funny voices yeah which i did had done from very young but i just think my family wasn't

really like that particularly right so mar and pa weren't going around the house doing i mean my mummy used to actually say she had no sense of humor i mean literally and she don't think she did my dad did he did laugh a lot you know he we watched faulty towers monty python all those things but it wasn't i wouldn't say that humor was the sort you know some families are always like mucking around and laughing and i'm always watching people on goggle box and envying their family life. I know what you mean. You know, and that was not what it was. Yeah. My dad used to, just the word comedy, he used to repeat with dripping distaste.

Comedy. Like the whole concept. What a load of shit. Yeah, yeah. What a waste of time. Well, it's like my dad would have talked about most music as moronic. Yeah, same as mine. Yeah.

Is that real melody? Have you seen my phone charger? I left it right there. Did you see it? Have you got it? Where's my charger gone? Where's my phone charger? The battery's about to die.

It was on the table. Round and round in their heads go the chord progressions The empty lyrics And the impoverished fragments of tune And boom goes the brain box At the start of every bar At the start of every bar

Boom goes the brain box. And so then you start getting, you get your improv troupe together right oh that was a lot later okay i went off to university did that for a couple of years i was doing sort of drama stuff right then got ill how did you get ill well i got ill with it was something between glandular fever me i'm not really sure it was a sort of unknown viral neurological shutdown yes and felt very physical but you know obviously i endlessly analyzed whether it was some sort of mental breakdown i don't know anyway it meant i didn't finish my degree i was back with my parents, going slightly crazy. All these dreams I'd had at that point of being an actor were out the window

because my confidence just went. So then I started getting jobs in a supermarket, different things. I worked as a nanny for literally about a week and a half. Worked in a pub, worked in a finance office i mean just endless things and finally i went to join this local theater group called theurgia and it was a serious drama group in bath and they were doing a show about greek a greek show with masks and i met this woman called jane who's eight years my senior and we were finding this serious thing very very funny and cut long story short we just sort of left this thing and decided to set up a double act became the sisters of percy we did a um you know we did

a thing in back in those days you had to get your equity card, so you have to do about six shows, which we literally did to a few people in theatres around Glastonbury and Bath and whatever. And then from that, we both joined an improvised group, which included many people, but included Rob Brydon and Ruth Jones. And they just happened to be in that part of the world? Well, yeah, I mean, I didn't...

Well, they were both in Wales. I'm not quite sure why they ended up in Bath. But, yeah, you'd have this sort of troupe of about 20 people and you'd have four people per show. You'd do a two-hour show and earn £25, which I remember thinking was incredible. So how old are you when you're doing that 25 26 okay so getting on a bit yeah yeah yeah very old old lady and that what's that then that is the 90s yes i couldn't tell you exactly where 95 95, 96? Right. Yeah. By the end of the 90s, you've got your, everything seems to, like from my reading, everything seems to just explode all at once.

You get your Radio 4 show commissioned. Well, yeah, what it was was, so also in our improvised group was Toby Longworth. Yeah. An actor, very good comedy actor. And his girlfriend at the time was a radio producer called Liz Anstey and I believe I may have this wrong but I think she was making a show called Five Squeezy Pieces and she put me together with Arabella Weir, Mira Sayal and Arabella was sort of saying come and stay with me and I can introduce you to Graham

Linehan and Arthur Matthews and all these people and I'd made these various like cassette tapes and videotapes of stuff so a videotape I'd made of weird characters got to Steve Coogan and then he from that asked me to join this tour he was doing which also had Simon Pegg and we were called the sort of I don't know what we were called I just remember us being referred to as the sort of extra bits so that when he was getting changed we would do some characters or also do some stuff with him so I remember doing a lady called Wendy Banachek with Alan partridge and she was a dry stone wall lady what's a dry stone wall lady well i don't know she was just i remember simon pegg described her

hair as based on a cloud and i just he just interviewed me i don't know i can't remember that much about the show but we did lots of bits and pieces and the tour that was meant to be a few months extended to a year but what i can't remember is whether we did big train after that i think we did and then because brass i was jam and all that around that was all around the same time 97 98 i was only in one episode of brass i the pedophile special oh yeah which was later on that was 2000 maybe yeah wow that's exciting though i mean did it feel intense doing the steve coogan tour because alan partridge was already big by then yeah i mean i was i was obsessed with alan partridge and i also remember like the first time i saw chris morris i didn't know who he was i think he was he was in the big train auditions and what you were were you also a fan

of his stuff though of the yes and then and then we did blue jam the radio thing right and then the tv thing which was just jam yeah yeah yeah i just never remember the exact dates of that yes period of time but you hadn't done 99 by that point though oh no no the first thing i did as a kind of you know stepping out of all of their amazing stuff was me and rob bryden did human remains right yeah and that went down very well sort of didn't it i think it was a bit of a kind of culty kind of thing i do remember reading a review and that was obviously my first experience of reading and it was quite horrible because it's because rob had just made marion and jeff do you remember that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then our first episode was called An English Squeak, where I played a horrible posh lady. And he was, I can't remember our names, Peter and Felicity. That was it. And I was in love with this dead guy, my ex-fiance called Jeffrey. And there was some really weird review sort of saying, why is Rob Brydon bothering with this woman? And why couldn't they come up with another name other than Jeff? Like a really weirdly sort of slagging off thing.

And I thought, I don't like it. I think I wrote that. That's cool, though, that you fell in with all that lot. So lucky. Yeah, that seems like the last point at which that was the old version of the way things used to be i mean i guess every decade now it seems that you get an absolute seismic shift and everything changes 2001 obviously 9 11 everything felt that it had changed but it hadn't really culturally changed changed all that much and by and 2010 things were still quite a lot the same but now it feels 10 years later that everything's good yeah yeah and things are unrecognizable to the point where

i find it now quite hard to watch things that were made pre certainly pre-2000s, because they seem so of their own time. Do you find that? Sort of. I know what you mean. It's because you can't help watching and not having that judgment in there. But I also have a weird thing, the same as people, I mean, I don't know if this is a bit controversial,

but, you know, Michael Jackson, Roman Polanski, whatever. I personally feel I can... Separate the art from the artist. Yeah. Yep. That's not necessarily the same as what you're talking about with a culture we're in, which is a whole different thing. No, but I think it is part of that. I think people nowadays, people younger than us, I think, find that a lot more difficult.

Yes. Yeah. And don't really necessarily see the value in it. Yeah. They're like, well, why would I want to separate the art from the artist? You know, there's no meaningful division there. But of course, I think there is and that I mean it's something that's always dogged you in interviews with people wanting to figure out like who's the person that makes this dark weird stuff yeah and are you dark

and yeah and I think as well you know there's definitely a sense in which people are particularly surprised because you're a woman. And for a long time, I really don't think that's the case now. I think things have changed in the last few years to the extent that it's not such a novelty anymore. And certainly you were a trailblazer in that sense. But you know what I mean? It's that thing of like, wow, this is, are you going particularly extreme because you're a woman? And there was definitely a sense like, well, men making this kind of material

would not be questioned in the same sort of way. Yeah, it's weird though, isn't it? Because it's like, what men did make that kind of material? I don't know. I'm not saying they didn't. I don't know. Do you know what I mean? I don't even know what it is. I think that's the point. For me, it's always been, I just write stuff in a really unconscious way and I don't think,

ooh, this is really dark. Ooh, this is really offensive. I really want to just cause a reaction. It's literally writing whatever comes to my head and if it's making me laugh or whatever, you know. I think like if you're a stand-up or something you want to put your views across and be a spokesperson or discuss i don't know but i don't that's not what i do at all so i think that's why i've always found it difficult in interviews to sort of analyze what i do or talk about it or you know and think i actually

come across as quite thick in a way because i don't really know what i'm doing i just you know it's just i'll just think about oh that's quite interesting i just think of one situation and then it will just expand from there i don't sort of don't sort of think of all the implications of what it is. Yeah. And then is it strange, though, to see other people who obviously are following in the tradition of what you do but tweaking it so that it is less... Well, I'm thinking of shows like Catastrophe and Fleabag

that are making more concessions to the kind of things that would shock people. And they're building into their characters elements that aren't totally repellent. Well, yeah, that's the interesting thing, isn't it? Because, you know, I don't know how those people wrote those shows. Like, I don't know if they're consciously thinking, oh oh I better make them a bit more likable or I sort of do I do sometimes think why am I writing such relentlessly and that's a word that's used relentlessly horrible irredeemable people and sometimes I think I don't know how to write nice stuff without it sounding unreal or like a really crappy TV programme.

You know what I mean? It's something to do with that. I don't know. Both those shows are quite interesting, aren't they? They were both brilliant shows, Catastrophe and Fleabag, and so much more accessible than what i do but you know if you think of fleabag and that technique she uses of making eye contact with the camera and breaking the fourth wall that way it's very cleverly done so that it's not crass but it is a way of connecting with the audience isn't it and just getting them on your side and inviting them in yeah and it's hard to imagine you doing something

like that because you're you have a childish glee in just not doing that yes i think i have a perverse thing of not wanting to be liked in that scenario as opposed to real life or something i don't know this is what i mean about analyzing it it's like yeah yeah i don't know i think i think it's like an area where i can just go i think fuck that i don't have to try and bloody be good or you know sometimes people would go oh it's saying the things that people really think. I don't know if that's true without going into too much about my mum again. But she did say some incredibly strange things and quite rude things at times that were that have gone in that are sort of. Yeah, it all goes in, doesn't it?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I remember you saying that she hated comedy, but she liked catastrophe. Mm. Mm. Yeah, and that did annoy me, because, you know, it's got some quite rude bits in it, hasn't it? Yeah. And I was like, you know, because my stuff,

she literally didn't even comment on it. I mean, it didn't exist, as far as she was concerned so then it wasn't like i knew that she liked not mrs brown's voice another one about a much softer thing than that really gentle comedy yeah you know she liked that kind of thing and that's fine i could see that was far away from what i did but catastrophe although not the same I was like all right so you're happy with that yeah yeah but not what I do yeah that stuff sticks with you doesn't it what I do have is I sometimes do wish that I could write something more mainstream right okay like me and rich vulture once said let's just as if we could always have done it we were like okay let's just stop with all this nonsense and write an amazing middle of the road hollywood

hit and we sat down like as a feature yeah feature film like we as if we just thought are you just have there's a just a sort of basic you know what kind of films were you thinking of like a romantic comedy you know i don't know if i could think of an exact one so it's going to be it's not going to be notting hill that flavor but it's but it's about as good as it gets yeah yeah yeah and you know we came up with some ideas and just within two pages could not not only couldn't come up with a cohesive plot but we're just like couldn't make it not weird yeah what if she shits on him yeah yeah yeah so yeah i don't know how people find you know one of my favorite films is bridesmaids

that's good isn't it whenever that comes on mean, I've watched it so many times as also Step Brothers. Step Brothers is a weird one, which I didn't enjoy when I first saw it. But whenever it's on, it always seems to be the bit at the event where John C. Ryan is playing drums. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the end and the sort of singing, the operatic singing. Yeah. Yeah. Have you met those people, Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig?

I sadly have not. I've met John C. Reilly. I've been on his boat. Well, not his boat. A boat. Will Ferrell I've sadly never met. And Kristen Wiig I've never met. I did audition for a film of hers.

The Barb and Star film. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But she actually ended up playing that part as well as the other part okay selfishly so you know but if you're going to lose out to anyone it's good that it's her yeah she is amazing isn't she god yeah that i'm always banging on about it, but that scene on the plane when she's pissed. Yeah. It's like, it's just directly connected to my humorous cortex. Yeah. I can't not laugh watching that. I know.

Every single bit of that film, it's all the set pieces. I love her mum in it as well, who I think has sadly passed away, the woman who plays her mum. Oh, yeah. Do you remember when she goes round to her house and talking about moving back in and the mum's going on about her dad

who's gone off with some woman years before talking about her beaver? It's just really funny. Yeah, I absolutely love her. Everyone's on top form in that. Have you seen As Good As It Gets recently? Not recently. I know it's Diane Keaton and Jack McQuiffin. No's on top form in that. Have you seen As Good As It Gets recently? Not recently. I know it's Diane Keaton and Jack McQuiffin.

No, that's the other one. Oh. That's the other one with a very similar title. Oh. That came after As Good As It Gets. Well, then what am I thinking of? You're thinking of... Hang on, let's Google this.

It's another movie that i could never remember the title and i in my mind i just always called it not nearly as good as it gets something's got to give you're thinking of oh so tell me as good as it gets as good as it gets is him as jack nicholson jack nicholson he's got obsessive compulsive disorder and he lived next to does he eat some fish at some point he eats some crab yeah and there's a see this is the problem these are the kind of things i remember and it's a woman and it's not ellen barkin but it's helen hunt yes who's brilliant in it yeah you don't see so much of these days no uh she's's very good. Who directed it? Because it came out in 1997.

James L. Brooks. So you're in good hands. We watched it the other night, me and my daughter. And so my 13-year-old daughter, 17-year-old son, who it's hard to find movies for, especially stuff that I grew up with that they're going to enjoy. We've been watching loads of old James Bond movies movies like thunderball right have you seen that lately no where's sean connery wears tiny like a a onesie romper thing which is like a pale blue

toweling completely showing his penis and balls um and then he gets stuck on some sort of machine that's meant to be a torture thing where he's face down and it goes really fast. It looks like he's shagging like really, really fast. It's just so weirdly funny and I'm sure it wasn't meant to be. It's so funny watching it. And then he, obviously we know that James Bond in that era tried to get off with everyone at all points

but what I didn't remember was that he would just snog the woman in a really quite aggressive dry way that's what women used to like julia aggressive and dry it was so weird to see it but as good as it gets did well at castle buckles um it. Jack Nicholson is really funny in it. But the most jarring thing is that he is so much older than Helen Hunt and yet they have a romantic relationship. So at first, like the first half an hour or 45 minutes of the movie

is Jack Nicholson just being beyond appalling and saying all these totally racist, sexist things, because that's what his character's like. He's got OCD. And I think I may be misunderstanding, but I think part of it expresses himself in this almost torretic propensity for saying appalling things. And Helen Hunt is this person who sort of,

she's a waitress and she puts up with some of these things that he's saying because she's just a nice understanding person, but she doesn't take any shit anyway. So everyone, you know, we're all watching it. Everyone's digging it. And then suddenly you get a kind of romantic spark starts developing. Then my children got a bit worried and my son said whoa whoa whoa no no I thought they were just gonna be bros I don't are they gonna get it together no that's that's weird no and my daughter was like yeah he's like a lot older than her interesting and I said we just accepted that in the sense yeah my dad i never thought

about the fact that my dad was 60 years older than your mom 15 i mean almost it could have been yeah 15 years old that's a lot yeah that is a whole generation apart it sort of depends at which point there must be points in a relationship like that that are okay, and then it becomes weirder. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? So I'm imagining if she was 30 and he was 45, that's not too bad. That's right, right, right. 40 and 55.

But when you're heading up, well, way earlier, I don't know what age they met. I think she was pretty young. She was in her 20s. She was 10. Yeah, he was 25. that was a bit weird 70s rock star style yeah but yes it must i think i guess there's a part there's a section in the middle where you don't really think about it the older you get it's it's more and more meaningless there must be a moment when i guess the first time you see one

of his saggy old nuts pop out of his shorts when he's sitting on a camping stool that must be you must think like oh that wouldn't happen if he was 15 years but also again still and i think it is still that that is a considered a bit more okay for a man because if it was a woman and a bit of saggy old labia popping out the side of her pants you know like are we saying we're saying that's not okay that's not is that a thing for women it could be. I wouldn't mind.

I'm always hoping for that moment. Yeah. No, but you know what I mean? It isn't. It still doesn't seem to be okay. I don't think it's okay to see a saggy old pair of nuts pop out it was never not shocking when i when it used to happen i and it happened a couple of times with me and when my dad got to a certain age and i think i even have a video still is this because you didn't i remember is it those kind of shorts that had like a netting inside but no proper pants

yeah yeah i think it was that yeah it was out in france and it was hot and and he sat on a on a low camping stool with his legs wide apart sipping a sipping some chilled rose and i was videoing this picnic scene and then i kind of zoomed in i was like hello who's that hopping out there oh lord i've still got this footage of him with his saggy old and they're just sort of looking around and enjoying the view and me not knowing if i should say i mean what do you say boys boys are out the barracks or whatever that alan potter how are you feeling at this moment do you feel feel violated? I feel like I need a wee. Okay, have a wee.

No, but should I do that? I should wait at the engine, though, when we're finished. Well, it depends how desperate you are. Are you uncomfortable? Also, you might record it. I mean, I probably would record it. I think the margaritas help. I don't feel violated.

I mean, I might later. Well, I didn't put, like, a bathrobe on and ask for a foot massage you did suggest that in an email because I thought it was sorry I worried about as soon as I'd sent the email I thought that you said it was in a hotel room

because I thought it was a bit strange that we were going to be recording in a hotel room it feels quite personal to go into someone else's hotel room. I know what you mean. I mean, if I didn't know you better. Especially if it smells of fish. Wait, this is an advert for Squarespace.

Every time I visit your website, I see success. Yes, success. for Squarespace. and pics and I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace. Just visit squarespace.com slash Buxton for a free trial. 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. With Squarespace Yes Continue Sorry Joy, I thought you were in a silent Hey, welcome back, podcats

Julia Davis there, talking to me, and I'm so grateful to her for making the time, coming along, joining me in my stinky hotel room. It was good fun, nice to see her. few voice messages afterwards because well I think you probably got a sense from that conversation that as I said in the intro Julia like me is prone to a certain amount of self-doubt and she was worried that the conversation was a bit too serious. And she wished she'd been a bit sillier. And she prefers being in character doing those kinds of things. All of which I totally understand. But I really like talking to her. And even though I have that same thought a lot.

Like, oh God, I've just done another interview and I talked about my dead parents again and, you know, waffled on about my middle aged anxieties. And why can't I be like, you know, Dave Schumker and Graham Clark on Stop Podcasting Yourself? It's my favorite Canadian podcast. You tune into that every week and they just talk to comedians and they keep it light. But, you know, they're still intelligent and they're funny and they just make jokes and make each other laugh. And I think, why can't I just do that? But I can't I just do that but I can't I'm at that point in my life where I'm thinking about all this stuff and um you know these aren't straight

interviews if I was sitting down and doing a more straightforward interview then sure I probably wouldn't bang on about my various anxieties to quite the same extent. I'd probably find a way to crowbar one or two in there, of course. But anyway, I guess what I'm saying is that I appreciate some people would probably prefer it if it was always a bit more Bantz heavy, this podcast. But I guess I'm not Jimmy Bantz. Or even Tommy Bantz. Anyway, maybe I can convince Julia to come back on the podcast sometime.

And the mission will be to only be stupid. No serious conversations allowed. Still, I really enjoyed talking with Julia and I'm really grateful to her for doing it and for letting me persuade her. Hope you enjoyed it. Tomorrow I'm heading up to Aberdeen for a book tour show. I think that one is sold out.

Then I've got a day off in Aberdeen. And then on Thursday I go up to Inverness to do a show at the Eden Court Theatre. Yup, it's Inverness time. Guess what? There's still plenty of seats. The stalls are looking a lot busier than they were a few months back. But if you want to go and hang out in the balcony area, what is that, the circle of the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness, at the Circle of the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness on Thursday the 4th of November this week then you're in luck because currently there's only about two people up there

Liverpool and Manchester next week sold out and then the last few book tour dates are in Ireland towards the end of the month Belfast, 20th of November that is sold out Dublin, Vicar Street on the 22nd, that's the very last date I can't tell from their website whether it's sold out or not I think all the seats are sold out I think maybe there's standing room there i don't know

how attractive a proposition that is um cork opera house on sunday november the 21st not sold out that might be doing even worse than inverness i think there's only about five people in Cork that want to see A. Buckles reading from Ramble Book. So do come along. You'll be able to stretch out. It would be nice to see you. What else? Went to see Dune this week with my daughter. It was sort of exactly what I was expecting, having spoken to a couple of people who'd seen it, read a couple of reviews, and seen the previous films of Denis Villeneuve, I just started off loving it. Look at the clothes. Oh, look at the spaceships.

Oh, look at beautiful Timothee Chalamet and his angular face and his great hair. Oh, great space guns and impressive fight sequences. And then about two hours in, I started thinking I wouldn't mind it being a bit more exciting. Just tiny bit like or or weirder you know what I mean I found myself thinking oh yeah I remember this scene from David Lynch's version and actually even though overall David Lynch's version was a mess there were quite a few moments in there where he really nailed something strange and spectacular and creepy the baron harkonnen stuff syringing the baron's pustules and the baron pulling out the heart plug of one of his slave boys and then drinking him like a milkshake. All that sort of stuff.

There wasn't anything like that in the new version. I found myself thinking, you know, I wouldn't mind if Sting turned up in his pants at this point. Thank you very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his production support and hard work on this episode thank you to Becca Tashinsky for her additional production support thanks to Helen Green, she does the artwork for this podcast

thank you to everyone at ACAST for all the help they provide but thanks very much indeed most of all to you listeners, podcats, quartermasters. Once again, you made it through an entire episode, and now here you are, just about to be given an audio hug. Some people don't like the audio hug. I got a message from someone saying, uh, love the podcast, tend to turn off before the hug and the screaming which is

in my opinion one of my crowning musical achievements if you haven't switched off come here What's creepy about that? Nothing. Until next time we meet, take care. I love you. Bye! Bye. សូវាប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់� I think what happens is that when I do an interview, I go right back into sort of five-year-old at school mode where I think I'm being asked questions and I've got to give all the nice good answers to the teacher and not get into trouble and all that.

and not get into trouble and all that. And, you know, I think it makes for many cul-de-sac style anecdotes where I'll sort of go, yeah, I like watching reality TV. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I don't know. I just completely compare to sort of people who come on who do comedy and it's just very, very funny. I think I'm just funnier in character or with other people,

not necessarily as a generator alone in that way. Well, not alone because you were there. But do you know what I mean? Anyway, I'm rambling away. I shall send this off to you. But please don't think I'm criticising the podcast, because it's brilliant. I'm just criticising myself, which was inevitable. That sound wasn't a fart, by the way.

It was just Nick kicking some trainers around on the floor. Okay. That's my morning exercise. I don't go for a run. I just kick the trainers around. That's the kind of joke that could have been on the show. Okay. Bye-bye.