THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.19 - BEN SMITH AKA DOC BROWN

Episode Date: May 6, 2016

Adam talks to British comedian, rapper, actor and writer Ben Smith aka Doc Brown about rap, getting into comedy, writing books for young children, Amy Winehouse, and being offensive. Music and jingles by Adam Buxton Thanks to Seamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and to Matt Lamont for additional editing. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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? Adam Buxton here. Thank you very much indeed for joining me once again for

the Adam Buxton podcast, episode number 19 this is. The Adam Buxton Podcast, episode number 19 this is, and it is the beginning of May 2016. And it's actually a very, very pretty evening out here in East Angula. After a few weeks of fairly grim, cold, windociousness. It is lovely. The bluebells are coming out. The cherry blossom is popping from the trees like cherry blossom.

And the problems of the world seem a long way away. Especially for Rosie. Her biggest concern is whether she can find some deer to terrorise. This is her favourite route through the wood because there tend to be quite a few monk jack deer that appear from the undergrowth every now and again.

She goes yipping and yapping after them very excitedly. One day she will be cornered by one of those monk jack deer and get absolutely duffed in. It does happen sometimes to unlucky dogs. Any luck, Rosie? No, I haven't found anything. That's a pretty spectacular view, isn't it, Rosie? Look at that. We've just come to the edge of the woods and we're looking out over a wide expanse of field.

And it's very green and lush the sun is going down and half the field is now bathed in a yellow light the other half is in shade i've got a real gift for describing nature don't i rosie what do you think yes you do thanks uh anyway listen, this week's podcast features a conversation between myself and Ben Bailey Smith, better known by his stage name, Doc Brown. He's an English rapper, comedian, actor, screenwriter and voiceover artist. He played D.S. Joe Hawkins in the TV series Law and Order UK. It's just one of the many things that I failed to talk to Ben about. I mean, these are not comprehensive career-spanning interviews that I do here on this podcast. I think you've probably realised that by now. Occasionally we'll dip in and out of career things,

but sometimes it's fun just to chat, just to be two humans having a chat. Why has my voice gone like that i don't know bringing it down there we go we talked about how ben got into comedy uh we discussed the sad story of amy winehouse who ben knew a little bit worked with her as part of mark Ronson's travelling musical bandwagon back in the day. We talk about the deceptively difficult art of writing books for young children. That's something that Ben has done recently. We talk about that and other classics of the genre. There is rather too long a section, for my taste,

in which Joe Cornish's film Attack the Block is fulsomely praised by Ben who I forgot was actually involved with the production more than I was probably. We also talk about offensiveness in comedy but we began our ramble chat by discussing an area of artistic endeavour in which I am, I think, generally considered to be something of an authority. And that is, of course, rapping and rappers. Which is good because it gives me an excuse to dig out an old jingle, my rapping man jingle, from the old Adam and Edith days, and stick that in as well. So, without further ado-do, here we go! Ramble Chat, let's have a ramble chat

We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that Come on, let's chew the fat And have a ramble chat Put on your conversation coat And find your talking hat 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 What were you saying there about old dirty bastard?

I was just saying a friend of mine interviewed him once and came back from the States only to find the audio mangled. Went to organise another trip out there off his own back because the magazine only to find the audio mangled um went to organize another trip out there off his own back because the magazine wouldn't pay um for his mistake and uh unfortunately odb died before he before he got on the floor oh no a huge loss to hip-hop and i'm gonna go out there and say comedy yeah because i i listened to uh return to the 36 chambers that album has got a whole other layer to it that's almost like a a kind of piece of red fox or like that classic kind of nightclub 70s black yeah underground comedy and it really is there it's there that's good advice for me too then because i never cracked that album when it came out and i tried but i never even got on with the chronic and uh you

know all that too aggressive yes it was i was just too used to pop music yeah you know i i grew up listening to thomas dolby and the thompson twins and Bowie. And it was a certain kind of thing. And I just didn't have the open-mindedness at that point to accommodate something so different. I think I was relatively similar. I was listening mainly to indie, but I did listen to bits of hip-hop, but the kind that you'd expect an indie fan to listen to. So I listened to like De La, all the native tongue stuff, Black Sheep, Tri Triangle Quest The Far Side

probably the hardest I went at that stage of my life was The Beatnuts you know and it was a neighbour of mine Mike in 93

who played me well he made me a little tape of Return to the 36th James the first Wu-Tang album and I literally I put it on

and turned it off within about a minute and a half to me it sounded like mangled screaming like heavy metal played backwards I couldn't compute I had no reference and turned it off within about a minute and a half. To me, it sounded like mangled, screaming, like heavy metal played backwards.

I couldn't compute. I had no reference point for it at all, so it took me a long time as well. How did you break through then? Probably, I mean, so it was in 93, so it was about 15. So I think we were just starting to creep into certain raves you know um ones where they you know back in the 90s where they wouldn't care how old you were um and these tended to be mainly like alternative

raves that play a bit of everything because we were still too scared to go to actual rap clubs i think it was there when i started hearing protect your neck and wu-tang clan ain't nothing to fuck with on big speakers you know and seeing guys like moshing out. And I think that was the turning point. Then I went back and listened again. I thought, actually, no, this is accessible. Yeah. I remember being derided that I used to work at a restaurant called Smolenski's in the Strand.

Yeah, I know. I was a bartender for a long while. And there was a busboy there called Ricky. He's like a little rat rat boy rat boy and boy ricky and he used to take the piss out of me and the stuff i would listen what are you fucking listening to listen to your fucking day lost so you're fucking hippie hop hippie hop yeah he used to call it a little flower power hippie hop and he thought it was ludicrous inauthentic yeah for me it was a great entry

point man because they were sampling all this unusual stuff and sampling artists that i knew about and so it was non i guess it was non-threatening is what it was but then then from there you know i was able to make a transition to eric b and rakim and things like that you go understand the value in that and get something out of it. There you go. There's always been a weird split within hip-hop culture between sort of what's considered like street stuff and sort of crossover stuff, you know.

And with every era of hip-hop, it's always, always been there but just been called slightly different things. So like later in the 90ss it sort of became like the difference between like gangster rap and or street rap and uh backpack rap is what they'd call it the stuff that like maybe skaters would listen to or students to me it's all rap like if it's good then i'll listen if it's got some substance to it i don't really mind like what other people describe it as for me there's a huge difference between certain street rappers. Some have no substance, some have it all. A lot of people like Rick Ross at the moment,

but to me, he's not saying anything other than what you hear on the surface. So I think you just treat it like you treat all musical forms. How much depth does it have? Will you still be listening to it in 20 years' time mean i'm drawn to in whatever genre i'm drawn to characters you know talking about uh rizzo and people like that and you know um in public enemy of course it's flavor flay the clown slick rick kendrick lamar seems like a character now i can't say i know a huge amount about him but i bought that um album last year and thought it was pretty interesting. Very complex individual, kind of in his own genre, that standalone.

There's just no other rappers like him. And the best guys are always like that, I think, in every genre of music. The best guys seem to be within their own sub-genre. Hello, I'm a rapping man. I quit my job to rap. People say I shouldn't have done that because my rap is crap. But I keep on rapping

because that's what I do. Never listen to advice. That's my advice to you. Rapping? Yes. So you started rapping and getting paid for it at a pretty early age, is that right?

Yeah, I guess, but never enough to make a real career out of it. I was one of those kids who always wrote rhymes, but I kept them to myself. I never felt I had the requisite kind of backstory to be a rapper because the kids that I saw becoming rappers, they always had, you know, they told these tough tales. They seem to be from a background. I thought, oh, yeah, that's acceptable. Someone like me can't even though like, because your upbringing was too happy. Yeah. So I thought, you know, oh, well, hold on a minute. I grew up on a council estate,

that should be enough. But then I thought, well, actually, I never had any concept as a kid of being like, broke or unhappy. You know, my house was always one that was just full of creativity and fun and interesting people. And I'm really sorry. Yeah. You know, and constant encouragement from my parents. So I just thought this is you can't tell these stories in rap. No one wants to hear it.

It took me a long time to realize it doesn't matter. As long as you can make interesting music and be an interesting character, it's fine. stories in rap no one wants to hear it it took me a long time to realize it doesn't matter as long as you can make interesting music and and be an interesting character it's it's fine and i learned that the hard way in a way through through battle rap so tell me because i've never quite understood how it works to me it's like wrestling i don't understand to what extent it's real or rigged or how much do you know you're going to say before you get there or how does it work? Well, now it's completely different. Okay, so it's two forms of battling I'm talking about here.

Right now, it's more like boxing. So the bouts are set up months in advance. You will study your opponent, everything you know about him. If you can get in contact with people that hate him or her then even better you find out little secrets whatever whatever you can find out to embarrass them and then on the day you'll do three rounds of maybe a minute each just destroying the other person so it's very organized whereas when i did it it was only one rule you freestyle you make it up um and i wouldn't say that one's necessarily

better than the other i'd say if anything the way it is now is more guaranteed entertainment because these guys have prepared so it's like going to see a stand-up and yeah it's amazing that he's he's just doing the whole thing riffing but actually the quality is more likely to dip quite tragically as opposed to somebody who's written an incredible 20 minutes yeah well that's a big important difference isn't it and there's people who strongly disagree with the idea that you should go and and just tell jokes i'm talking about stand up now but at a certain point i like it if they you sort of think okay that was good nice bit of crowd work can you give me some of the stuff you've slaved over?

There you go. And honed. Something memorable, something that just... I don't mind knowing that I've seen behind the curtain and that this is all an act. If it's a great act, it's a great act. There's certain quotables that you remember from comedians that could have only ever been written,

and that's a beautiful thing. And why shouldn't an audience the following night see that same beauty? Yeah, and for the rap battles, you know Abandon Man? Yeah, of course. Those Irish guys who go and they riff, apparently, off the top of their heads on subjects thrown at them by the audience and stuff.

And it is mind-blowing. It really is. I mean, with Rob, mean i'm rob broderick who is basically a band man he i met him very early on when i started doing stand-up because obviously people were saying oh you know there's this other guy who raps you know so we came across each other and actually i went to a few of he he used to run improv classes as well and i went to to check out his his style and i realized that what he does is he sort of really combines the two worlds because within stand-up improvisational experts will always have a kind of structure

won't they they'll have like a sort of these kind of walls within which they feel they've got enough freedom to to improvise so it is improvisation but at the same time they're in control the whole time so what rob does is he creates these games that he can play they've got the same structure every night but obviously something new is going to come out every night like like for example the what's in your pocket thing that he used to do i mean that blows comedy people's minds audiences i mean whereas in so explain that for someone who hasn't seen okay so what i don't know if he does it anymore but rob used to get people to take objects out of their pockets, and then he'd create a rap on the spot,

encapsulating all of those items somehow and saying a little something about the person that was holding it up. Which, like I say, in comedy terms, you're kind of looked at as the return of the Son of God. Whereas if you were to do that in rap in 2016 it would be considered very hack uh-huh but that's the same reason that i became a big hit in stand-up you know because i was doing shit that i wouldn't dare do in the rap world it might be considered maybe corny but in the stand-up world it's something new it's something fresh and it was

is a different voice it's a valuable lesson to learn isn't it that sometimes the trick to making something work is just finding a new context for it there you go or and i stumbled across that with with my my act i guess which wasn't really an act initially it just became one so you started out sort of quote serious very much so man very much so. I'd sort of given up on trying to make a living from rap around 2006-ish. I'd put out my third CD and it was doing okay. And I was a bit of a personality on the underground scene. But this was sort of before the real explosion of internet content for musicians. I was still struggling from an old school perspective

to try and sell records. And I had a side job working for Mark Ronson. We'd been touring around on and off. How did you hook up with him? It was from a night that I used to run in the West End out of my friend's record shop, which was called Deal Real, just in Carnaby Street. And we used to have a live night on Fridays,

just get artists that we knew to come down and perform for free. It'd just be a big blowout. We used to have a great laugh down there. And Mark was a sort of budding hip hop DJ at the time and he passed through. And we just got to know each other from that. Then he was learning the guitar

and he wanted to put this band together and do these covers. This is after he had like a sort of rap album rap-ish album out called here comes the fuzz uh-huh so what 2005 this is 2005 yeah and he put the band together and it was just sort of a collective of of different people and i he brought me on board as the rapper and i used to like introduce the band as well and just be a general i was kind of like i was just like a bez really it was like a hip-hop bez um clown man yeah clown man uh but you know it was it was great and uh we had some amazing moments but anyway eventually i i was removed from that that outfit and i just really couldn't face going

back to to like the underground rap thing i was just getting a bit bored of it all i had a young baby at the time and i was really struggling for money and stuff and i was really wondering what to do with my life to be honest and i was looking looking at normal jobs um i don't i think i applied to become a spokesman for kick it out like an anti-racism charity for football. That presumably is not a big payday, though, is it? I don't think so. I don't remember seeing anything amazing about the wages.

But I thought, oh, you know, you're a performer. You could talk about football and racism. These things are close to your heart. You could make a life like that. And I sort of just got to the idea, okay, now it's time to be a man. I've got a kid, sensible job. Forget all this showbiz luck and getting ready for the interview for that job i got a call from a guy i don't know

if you know him actually his name is danny robbins um writer and i'd known i'd met him through he used to have a show on radio one uh back when i was doing music and And he was saying, you know, now he wrote comedy and he'd written this sitcom for Lenny Henry for Radio 4, all black cast. And Danny, for those who don't know him, is like a white guy. And he was feeling a little nervous about, you know, some of the dialogue and whatnot. And he called me up as his sort of requisite black friend

and said, would you take a look at some of the you know the colloquialisms you know maybe you could help me out um i can get the bbc to pay you 200 quid so i met him in nando's camden town and uh went through the script you know i saw a couple of things that was like yeah i mean i literally i didn't know why i was there but i just thought 200 quid why why not? Sure. And, you know, there was a couple of little moments. I think it was one little moment where he put like, Bombaclart or like Bloodclart or something like that.

I was like, when's this going out? And he said, it's like half six, Radio 4, Thursdays. I was like, okay, you can't say that. He's like, why not? I was like, well, it's just like, I mean, in Jamaica, it's like ridiculously rude like blood club for example that's like

calling someone a used sanitary towel it's like really slow down and he was like oh I thought it was just you know an exclamation

like ooh you know I've chucked my hand in the car door I never knew it was really offensive it's like one of those things like twat

me and Joe used to say twat on the radio in America you can't be going around saying twat no and you can't say twat yeah up north in the UK twat is really bad twat. Yeah. Me and Joe used to say twat on the radio. In America, you can't be going around saying twat. No, and you can't say twat. Yeah. Especially up north in the UK, twat is really bad.

Twat's harder. Yeah. So, you know, it was little things like that. And then, you know, other things where I just thought, oh, I think it'd be funnier if he reacted like this or said that.

Yeah. And then that was it really. He got my 200 pound. And then the next thing I know, the producer called me and he said, Lenny wants to meet you and he liked the changes you made so I meet Lenny Henry and he's like

oh you don't understand how important it is to have like a black writer, there's no black people behind the scenes, the BBC and media and I'm stood there thinking okay I'm not a writer first and foremost like I'm nobody and they decide to have me on for the whole series

as a kind of like a script consultant. So suddenly I was working in comedy and it was at the end of that series. I mean, you know how the game goes. It's like working in one job in this business becomes almost like a little mini audition for another job depending on who you're working with. Because everybody moves on at the end.

Everybody moves on to their separate jobs. And if they like something that you did, they might give you a call. And that's exactly what happened. The producer got me writing gags all of a sudden for other Radio 4 shows. And this is the end of 2007 now. And it was during that process I'd started writing little songs as well, silly little jingles and songs for some of the shows. So this producer says, I don't understand why you don't perform comedy.

You can write these funny songs. You can write gags. You should be performing comedy. And I was still in such rapper mode in those days. I was like, no, I'm not a joke, bruv. I'm a serious guy. You know, that's not my bag.

And he said, look, come down to this, this night and, and just tell your story. I'm thinking, really? So I go down and I just went out there.

It's so typical of my first year of doing comedy. I just went out there and it was so weird. I don't, I, there was no laughter yeah but i didn't feel like i died because i didn't understand the concept of dying i just went up there and talked and i came off and so the producer said to me you know what i'll tell you what it was really interesting and if it was a talk it would have been brilliant but why don't

you come back next month and like actually think of some some gags you can you can do that you can write gags i know you can so that's what i did i came back and i prepared a little thing about how incongruous it was for a rapper to work at radio 4 and that got a few little chuckles but again i sort of ran out of stuff to say so i called upon an old hack rap thing you know i said uh you know give me your names give me like words or phrases or places that you come from and i'll do a rap about it yeah so people shout out their names places little stories about themselves and i did a rap and it brought the house down all of a sudden and i was like oh all right and i walked off stage and uh two guys that worked at the pub said we do like a sort of late night comedy thing once a month here.

You should come and do that rap thing. We'll give you 50 quid. So I was like, all right. And that was it. That's how it started. And it was so ramshackle my first year. Just never really fully preparing. And some gigs, I would, like I say, take the roof off and literally the next one, abject death.

But it didn't freak you out no because i didn't acknowledge it as death until i don't know months later months later i'd entered um a competition called so you think you're funny yeah and i got all the way to the final still using that same approach not fully preparing anything so um in the build-up to going up to edinburgh to do the final of that that competition in 2008 i um i was doing lots of little gigs wherever i could underneath pubs little backwaters anywhere and it was the heat of the summer is july it's really really hot and i'd spent the last three months wearing a cardigan to all of my gigs for one reason there's one night I was in quite a tough room and I was wearing a cardigan not for any reason other

than I was just wearing that cardigan and I got up and I was always thinking to myself I don't have a strong opener you know I got up there and again I'm sort of I'm in an RN I thought first let me tell him I'm a rapper get that out of the the way. I think that's important. I need to tell them that. And I got up there and I said, oh, hey, I'm Doc. I'm a rapper. And straight away I could see people sort of wincing a little bit. So I went, not anymore. I wear cardigans now.

But literally, just an aside like that, and it got a big laugh. And I thought, oh, maybe the funny thing is the fact that i'm i'm retired i'm a retired rapper and it sort of begun there and i was it gave me so much confidence the laugh on that cardigan aside that i did the same thing the next night wore a cardigan and said not anymore i wear cardigans now and then that became my opener for like three months yeah to the point where i was in this pub you, trying to be spontaneous with this line that I've been saying for three months. And it's boiling hot. We're in like a darkened room.

People are like, you know, fanning themselves. And I go, Hey, I'm Doc. I'm a rapper. Not anymore.

And someone goes, mate, why are you wearing a cardigan? Why are you wearing a cardigan why are you wearing a card it's boiling and i thought yeah i've really got i've got to drop this bit it's ridiculous or just find another uh cooler item of clothing that you can wear um in all seasons yeah that says old man that still says old guy hey there are moments in everybody's life some are big

and some are small moments I have done a selection of the big moments from my mind now I'm going to share them with you all moments big moments moments big moments moments big moments I'm going to ask you now a question.

This is a new feature on the podcast. Oh, right, okay. My biggest moments. And you can interpret that in any way you like. Okay. But I'm going to ask you for a few of your biggest moments throughout the podcast. We'll see how it goes.

This might be a feature that only lasts for this episode. So tell me about a moment, and i warned you about this this morning even though i should have warned you about it a few days no no it's fine i think i i don't think you want a few days on this kind of stuff because then it starts getting a bit too you overthink it you overthink it man and it all feels a bit try hard i like that's my that's my mo um so oh yeah big moments one of your biggest moments one of the really memorable ones that sort of ties into the the story I was telling you about the sort of transition from rap was uh during the Ronson days it was that because we'd done some small gigs um but it was one where I walked out at a best of all and it was you know I don't

know how many tens of thousands of people in there. It was huge. Was that the Isle of Wight one? Yeah. Just massive, you know. And I've been in those crowds so many times. I love festivals. And you know sometimes you just turn back, jump up and turn back and just look at the mass of people and imagine what it must be

like on stage. And that was a huge moment in my life, just stepping out. I was with Lily Allen and amy amy winehouse we did a couple of songs you were part of a kind of it was like a collective yeah it was mark ronson me winehouse uh santo gold uh-huh you know santo gold um the haggis horns brilliant like scottish horn section obviously and uh daniel merriweather australian singer so it's like a sort of real collective and um you know we all did different numbers um which ended up being on the version album which he started recording about halfway through when we started touring together but it's just that one moment you know stepping on i

remember lily's mic wasn't working properly and there was a few little technical difficulties. But still, like everything you said, 40,000 people just went, the adrenaline that I felt lasted for a couple of days. I've never experienced that before. Yeah. And I think that's why everything else after that felt a bit of a come down, you know. So what were you doing on that particular show then? Were you sort of rapping with Lily?

Yeah, it was a little range. A bit of backing singing, a bit of rapping. I'd introduce the band and then the other thing was a rap with Lily on a cover of the Kaiser Chiefs song, Oh My God. Oh yeah, yeah. And occasionally I'd do a little rap for Amy on Valerie. Oh, really?

Some of the first times it was performed. Yeah. And so would you guys all, I know, very strange. Did you see that documentary about Amy? Of course. Of course, I'm credited as a researcher. Are you really? I stayed behind a long time to see my name.

That was the most important thing in the film. Sure. You're an Oscar winning researcher. Dude, I never thought of it like that. Yes, mate mate i'm putting that on the website on my twitter handle immediately you might have to pause for me to do it that was a heartbreaking oh dude it was a bit like watching a horror film yes if i'm honest i mean i got contacted um by the director a couple of years before the the movie came out i mean the process

of putting the footage together doing doing the interviews, getting everything signed off, it takes forever. I mean, he's been working on it since Senna, you know. And he met with me. Initially, I was very, very sceptical about talking to him. I hadn't properly made the Senna connection, I don't think. Right. Because it was a friend of a friend, basically, who said,

I know this guy, he's making this movie about Amy. And I was just like, not really interested. I mean, that band I was in, we lost two members, you know. And there's a lot of heartbreak and a lot of personal feelings and all sorts of stuff. People because of drugs? Yeah. I mean, we lost Jason Ray from the Haggis Horns,

who was married to Corinne Bailey Ray, who was just like Amy, just one of the loveliest people you'll ever meet. And it's just so heartbreaking when a young person... I dealt with my dad's death around the same time, which was upsetting, of course. You know, it's your own dad. But at the same time, he'd had such a great in it. He was 81, you know, it he was 81 you know and he

was ready as well just totally different going to a young person's funeral is like a next level of just horror really so yeah you know it still felt a little bit raw and also i didn't want to say anything out of turn uh i didn't know who else had turned it down or agreed so i was a bit standoffish and then when i made the center connection and realized how sensitive this guy was, you know, I agreed to sit down and talk with him. And I told him what I just told you. And he said, don't worry, everybody said the same thing.

And he just made me some guarantees. And it was enough for me. I really felt he was a genuine soul. And I still do. Plus he had, he developed a close relationship with nick who was a her original manager who's just a top top guy and i thought if if shamansky says it's okay then it's it's okay and sure enough it was i think the one thing you could take from that film without any shadow of a doubt is that the film is on her side you know like you watch that

film and for her dad to specifically get angry or people at island specifically angry i think sort of says more about them than anybody else because i think what the film's doing is saying we're all a little bit at fault we all made a joke about her or we all did none of us really acknowledge the seriousness of it yeah how do you think things could have been done differently there then um because you feel one of the one of the sad feelings you get watching it is that it's just there's no way you can derail her almost she's determined it feels like to but you know and unfortunately she's surrounded by all these people who seem unable or unwilling to derail her for whatever reason but do you think anyone really could have helped someone like that i think it was tricky

i mean you you know from being an artist that no matter what level of artist you are you have these huge insecurities and huge mood swings if you add to that like the level of of fame that amy had the levels of pressure. And then you piled drugs on top of that. Yeah, we could have all been an Amy Winehouse, you know. And there's very little that people could really do when you consider her closest friends at a point were shut out, not necessarily directly by her. I think by the end it was even physically difficult

to get close to her. Yeah, yeah. That bit of footage where she wins the Grammy. Oh, my God. And it's hard to describe the look on her face, isn't it? Because it's sort of shock and excitement. I don't know, but it's almost eerie because you sort of think it almost looks as if she knows she's doomed at that point.

Yeah, it's really, really odd that really, really odd. And it's something that you've seen before as well with with certain people that strange. I mean, there's that strange photo of Tupac staring out of the car window about an hour or so before he gets shot in vegas and there's a look on his face that just it's just he's had enough yeah yeah all the drama that's been following him around you know i actually did a thing for radio 4 presented a documentary about a particular period in 1981 where a lot of crazy shit happened. And one of the people I interviewed was the last guy to interview John Lennon

at the Dakota. And he had a similar moment with John the day before he was killed, you know, where he actually implored John to maybe up the security because he'd seen Mark Chapman hanging around, being weird. There'd been other threats. And John sort of laughed it off in a way that this interviewer felt a little bit like he's just, you know, he's tired of all the bullshit. He just wants to live his life, but he can't.

It's a deal that you kind of make with the devil when you get as huge as that based off of your talent. And I can see similarities with Tupac, with Lennon, with Winehouse. Yes. And I don't think there's any coincidence that we rarely see their likes again, at least for long periods. So, yeah, that was a big moment. It turned sombre at the end there.

Sorry. Well, that's okay. That's part of life. That's what makes this podcast so amazing. So we can accommodate the light and the dark. Thank you. This is an advert for Squarespace. Every time I visit your website, I see success. Yes, success. The way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes it

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on your face with Squarespace. Yes. You've written a children's book. I have. There it is. Look, you can see it. I am bare.

We're actually sat in my manshed at the end of my garden. Yeah, this is nice. So all my stuff is here. There's some memorabilia knocking about. And so this is your first children's book, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm really hyped about it.

Like, I'm really proud of it. Because you've got children, right? Yeah. And, you know, as you know from being a dad, you do a lot of accidental research into children's books. You read a lot of bullshit. Because you read a lot of shit. Oh, mate. There's so much.

Don't get me wrong. There are some classics out there. We're all aware of what they are. Let's not concentrate on the bad ones. I wanted to ask you about some of the books that you loved when you were growing oh yeah and some of the ones that you have been really because when you find when you are a parent and you are reading to your children at night when a good one comes along oh it's joyous you try and coax it into their hands every night because sometimes they latch on to ones that are torture

to read and you just i mean have you ever hidden one or thrown one away? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the ones that are sort of super promotional, they're just like spin-offs from movies, cartoons, just so lazily written or just covered in glitter. Yeah. Just out, out.

And they don't miss them, but you've got to sneak them away. You do, yeah. The worst invention for parents is the see-through recyclable bags. The amount of times I've been caught out throwing some shit away that my kids do not want or need, but they see it, and then it's like, how could you, mate? You've got to wait till they're at school, and then you do the charity shop run.

Have the clear out. No, there are some absolute stone cold classics that I was so confident in from my childhood. I was so confident that I went to my mum's house and dug them out of the attic and brought them back and tested them on the kids. So is it your mum that read to you when you were little? My mum and my dad read to me quite a lot.

My dad used to sing me a song. I always remember that. He used to sing me a song i always remember that he used to sing young at heart uh-huh yeah and when he got up to this is the best part the frank sinatra yeah he's not the blue belt one 100 the sinatra dad dad i'm really tired please let'd get his fiddle out quite quite yeah no i used to love that little sinatra rendition yeah but when i went back to my mum's uh i dug out not now bernard oh that's good possibly my favorite picture book of all time good and did it ever freak you out not now bernard it always made me laugh which makes me worry a little bit about myself because reading back reading it back to my kids do a

pracey for someone who's not familiar with not now bernard well this is it reading it back to my kids i realized not now bernard by david mckee is actually a story about parental abuse it's about neglect uh a boy who's ignored thoroughly by his parents he says at the beginning to his mom mom there's a monster in the garden she says not now bernard so he tells his dad you know she's doing the washing up tells his dad dad's trying to read the paper not now bernard so he's ignored on page one and two so page three he goes to confront the monster on his own because his parents won't help monster just eats him so he's dead page three there's a homicide right kid's dead and then the monster goes in the house to the mom and she's like she breaks a vase she's like oh not now bernard so he goes and bites the

dad's leg he's like ah not now bernard and they just carry on with their day eventually the mom brings him like a tv dinner plonks him in front of the TV and throughout this day you see how they would have treated their son with disdain, with no respect of his character who he is. You know, they treat the monster the same way and in the end the mum

puts the monster to bed. And the monster actually says for the first time, he says something he says, but I'm a monster. And she just says not now burn and switches off the light black and it's like it's so powerful it's so funny dark it's everything like that to me is the number one kids book of all time like picture books i know that's controversial people always say where the wild things are or tiger yeah they're all classics don't get me wrong but for me not now bernard is the most sort of grown-up children's i don't know it's it's funny to a like a four-year-old yeah

and it's meaningful to a 36 year old as a parent i mean it is it's shocking because it's one of the anxieties you have as a parent that you know you do just shut your children down sometimes because how many times are you looking at your computer or your phone more than you're looking in your kids eyes they're trying to show you some shit they did like a little drawing okay the drawing is terrible but you know they they just want a little bit of your time and then with technology it's so easy to palm them off on there you go take the ipad shut up and they're happy to check it out yeah and you think all right good i've got some peace now but then oh it feels bad i'm terrified of the future i mean that's the main thing about being a parent isn't it i'm just terrified of the future i don't sleep properly even though now i can because my kids are big i still don't sleep

properly because i'm just always a little bit anxious. Yeah. I think I have a certain amount of faith in the human race's capacity for adjusting and adapting. I feel like we've gone through very revolutionary times in the last 20 years. I'm telling you, the digital revolution is possibly more profound than the industrial revolution. I think in the way that it's changed the way we communicate with each other the way we treat each other our expectations of each other i think it's deeper than the industrial i genuinely do industrial revolution made the way we live our everyday lives profoundly different no question and and easier and that's the but that that for me is where the similarities end between the two look at dating for example you you could do a full-on like csi level of investigation

into a potential partner before even meeting them yeah down to the dna everything i mean it's insane yeah and i like i'm not saying that's a good or a bad thing i'm just saying it's nuts and that's the nature anyone really does that though i don't know but you've got the option yeah would you get a dna test you know like you can get you can go and get tested and just see if you're likely to drop dead in 20 years i don't that kind of stuff i don't want to know i don't want to know i'd rather just i mean you could say i suppose from the people who are offering these tests they would say well you have the opportunity to get treatment for certain conditions ahead of time which might help you we're already living way too long you know i remember my dad saying

the last 10 years have just been shit you You know, they've just been really shit. It's hard, yeah. He was like, I don't want to live for another 20 years. Yeah. I guess you need to be able to manoeuvre yourself into a situation where there are certain things you like that make you happy that you can carry on doing however old you are.

You've just got to be mindful that your whole happiness is not based on snowboarding. Because you're going to be unlikely to. Because your knees are going to be the first thing to pack in. Let's return to children's books for a little while. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let's return to children's books for a little while. And what are the ones now that you have particularly enjoyed reading to your daughters? There's some new guys out there that are absolutely superb.

I mean, Emily Gravett, she writes children's picture books on a whole other level. She illustrates as well, but sort of kind of interactive without being naff. Um, and then John Klassen, he's got a book called, I want my hat back, which has sort of done that weird thing that every now and again,

a children's picture book does, which is cross over and become like a book that adults just talk about because it's funny and it's kind of dark. It's just about this sort of very deadpan looking bear on the search for his hat. It's got that sort of tradition of children's books, the journey, go around, ask a different animal. Ah, yes. But the dialogue is sort of Woody Allen-esque.

It's really funnily written. So it takes those traditions turns them on it's on their head and there then there is a there is a murder towards the end so there's like a big twist and uh i wouldn't want to ruin it but it's a it's a fantastic book there's loads of great books on the market and just to see mine anywhere close to them so what's your what i don't know you i haven't read your book yet well make sure you take a copy i'd love to take a copy and just about a bear who's a prick really yeah um i got quite frustrated by those children's books that like suddenly become moralistic without really earning it so i just wanted to create a character who sort of does he get away with stuff maybe he does

maybe that you decide if if what he's doing is right or wrong but it's a slow process it takes like nearly two years to get a picture book out whoa it's really slow like my kids don't even care anymore you know they're too old yeah when i wrote it i was like oh it's gonna be great having little kids and they're gonna love like having a little picture book they've both moved on they've moved on they're reading charlotte bronte um well like i'm looking forward to uh introducing that to my daughter having a little picture book. They've both moved on. They've moved on. They're reading Charlotte Bronte. Well, I'm looking forward to introducing that to my daughter. We're reading the Northern Lights trilogy at the moment.

Great. That's really good. What happened with the movie? It just kind of flopped. Yeah, well, I'll tell you that. Did it flop? It massively flopped. It was a flop, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah.

And it's a shame because obviously they expected it to be this huge franchise which would roll on. Is it one of those unfilmable things? Is that what it is i mean it's partly yeah it's it would be very hard to to do a really great job and to compress all that stuff and all those characters and the temptation to lean on crappy cg would be very strong yeah because the whole one of the conceits of the whole universe is that everyone has an expression of their soul in physical form. A demon.

They call them demons. D-A-E-M-O-N. And you've got your hands out there like as if you're holding like a glass ball. No, it's like that would be your demon. It would be like a little bunny or whatever. Oh, right. So some people have. It's like on your shoulder.

It follows you around and it can talk and you chat to it and it's your pal for your whole life. And it's the opposite sex to what you were born. So if you were born female, then you have a little male demon. He doesn't deal with transgender demons, but maybe that's in a separate book. But there was lots of good things about that Golden Compass film and they certainly tried, but it just didn't work out for whatever reason. And they abandoned the whole thing.

At some point, someone will try it again, and you'll get some in a re-to type director who might have a new spin on it. It feels like that's what it needs. Don't you ever think, like, the films that are remade are always the ones that just don't need a remake. And i can always think of films i think somebody needs to do this again yeah you know like they're busy remaking you know the italian job or get carter or something like that yes and i like i think of films like dark day was it called dark days on with angela bassett the one about dreams not strange days strange Strange Days. Do you remember Strange Days?

Yeah, Catherine Bigelow. Catherine Bigelow. That film there has got a brilliant premise, right? Absolutely brilliant. There's this guy that deals in dreams. In memories. It's so of its time that they're on like, what was that? Mini discs.

Mini discs. They're on mini discs. You know? And I just thought if someone like, you someone like your man Nolan, Chris Nolan, somebody could make a really great film out of this now. I know. And instead they just go ahead and make films that they nailed the first time around. Yeah, they're absolutely nailed.

It never makes sense to me. I always think about you and Joe and how much you used to take the piss out of out of movies and these these situations and stuff and it always reminds me of something that joe said because there's actually there's a story behind this story it's the story of how i met you and the story of how i met joe separately i was working on attack the block i wrote some some songs for joe that's right for the for the film so i got invited to the premiere, which was like, to me, so exciting. I'd never been to a premiere before. In fact, or since, actually.

You know, me and my wife were there. We were hyped, you know, ready to stay to the very end to see my credit and the whole thing. But, you know, Joe did the requisite thing of coming on stage with the cast, you know, and little, just a quick announcement beforehand.

And he said something that's always stayed with me. He said, you know, me and Adam, we used to take the piss out of films all the time. And he said, now I'm going to have to rethink that because i've realized how hard it is to make a shit film let alone a good film you know just the process of putting a shit movie together takes hundreds of people hours and uh that's always kind of stuck with me i kind of

respected the filmmaking process a lot more since then. And what amazes me about Attack the Block is you, in amongst all that bluster, the action and the comedy, the horror, you can still feel the essence of that very personal story for Joe being mugged in the place where he grew up unexpectedly and wanting to know the story behind that rather than just the shock of being mugged. That little personal anecdote, you can still feel that all the way through the movie. And I think it's really, really hard to get across your original message from your original screenplay, no matter what it is in a big movie situation, because after a while,

everything gets more and more bastardized because of time or money or other chefs, you know? Yeah, yeah. And I always admire Joe for that, I think. I boycotted the film because I found it very racist. So I would never see it. I'm joking, of course. Speaking of racism, though,

one of the things that I saw of yours early on was on Russell Howard's Good News. Right. And you did a bit called Everybody's Racist. Yeah. A rap. I said it, why do you think nobody ever give you any credit? Why you last on the list of your doctor's patients? Chronological or is your surgery racist? What type of dog shits on the pavement in front of your house? Alsatian, racist. Say you're typing in a search engine, trying to write haters with a Z at the end,

and your computer goes, did you mean haters? That's how you know Google's racist. How come every time an igloo's made, it's always white? Hmm? Eskimos, racist. Can you talk me through how that routine came about? Huh? If you remember. Yes.

Yeah, so one thing that always made me chuckle was being around some of my friends who would you know just smoke weed just play video games but always be really vocal when it came to why they weren't working you know why they didn't have a job or why they weren't getting ahead in life and it was because of racism or like some kind of government-based conspiracy and it it always made me laugh, because I'd be looking at them sat there, smoking a huge zoot, playing FIFA. You know what I'm thinking? Maybe it's a bit of both.

Who knows? Maybe it's a bit of you, a bit of them. I'm just going to throw it out there. We'd debate about it and laugh about it. And I just thought it was a real issue that I could make a really preachy serious rap song about or I could make a serious point in a really stupid way which I much much preferred preferred doing so some people get that and some people don't and it's fine you know but what it what it's really about

is exactly that you know so I'm kind of rapping from the perspective of a collective of people that I know who will blame everything on somebody else rather than themselves. But had you experienced racism up to that point? Oh yeah, of course. But did that make you feel differently about writing that? And were you worried about writing something jokey about a serious subject like that? Not at all, not at all. I was never panicked because I always thought if I'm ever challenged, I've got so much to say about this from so many different sides.

You know, if anybody found it offensive for one reason or another, I can totally back it up. That's never, ever been thrown at me for that, to be honest, which I'm glad about. And I think sometimes, you know,

when something's non-offensive by how much everybody, a diverse group of people, I think sometimes you know when something's non-offensive by how much everybody a diverse group of people enjoy it you know other times you know how offensive something is from within because you don't do the bit because you see someone in the crowd who you think might be offended by it that's how you know it probably is offensive you got a whole joke about disabled people and suddenly there's five people in wheelchairs in the front row and you don't do the bit it might not be a great bit because if it was a great bit you could say it and the guys in the wheelchairs will probably enjoy it more than anybody in the room you know and there's prejudice

in that even in that isn't there to to withdraw your disabled bit because there's disabled people in they would be the first to say what do, dude, what we can't take a joke. Well, that's prejudice in itself to say that you're not going to do the bit. Cause we're here. You know, what was the last thing that you were offended by? Do you remember?

Do you get offended? Do you feel like I'm offended? Yeah. It's a weird one, isn't it? Cause you know, if, if,

if you class yourself as a comedian or somebody who, uh, you know, takes the piss yourself as a comedian or somebody who uh you know takes the piss as part of their profession yeah it does feel a bit rich to to get offended by stuff yeah because i think generally you don't i get irritated right you don't you don't think that's offensive i just think it's weird when people start characterizing something as offensive it's like things are usually just lame you know know, people often ask me, are you offended by the fact that this white comedian is using the N-word? Well, I don't know. Let me see the context.

I don't want to see what you've written down or, you know, taken a clip from on YouTube. Bring me to his show or her show. Let me see the whole show. Let me see it in context, full context with the rest of the act. And I will tell you if I think it's lazy or totally fine, you know. And I think you've got to have that context. And do you get, because you work with Ricky Gervais quite a bit. Yeah, who, you know, splits.

And he's right. He's someone who treads the line in a lot of ways. He checks stuff with me, you know. I mean, he did that joke that joke about Lenny Henry in Extras, which was really... I mean, I didn't like that joke. I've worked with both men, you know, and... And for those who didn't see it,

there was a moment where he was talking to some people and they were talking about black comedians. He was like, come on, name a funny black comedian. And he says, like, Chris Rock. And he looks at a picture of Lenny Henry on the wall. Yeah, and he's like come on name a funny black comedian and he says he looks at a picture of lenny henry on the on the wall yeah and he's like eddie murphy and he says british right right and it stumps him and they look he looks around the room and there's a poster of lenny henry and he still can't think of anybody that's the gag yeah um it was funny but it's because it's so close to the bone.

It's somebody from our, I like, I look at all comedians and I think no matter if I don't find you funny at all, I see you as part of my sort of community in a way. Like I've, I've sometimes seen standups sort of have a go, you know, a bigger standup as part of their routine.

And I just think, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't do that. Maybe we'll have a laugh about that comic, you know, in the pub or whatever. But I don't think you can work it into your set. So I think pick your targets, basically. And maybe that one was a little below the belt. But then at the same time, I have to say I laughed.

So yeah, I can't really say shit. I can't really get on my high horse about it. But no, working with Ricky is interesting because that is what he does. He polarises his opinion on a professional level. Like as many people love him as loathe him, which is interesting. Whereas the rest of us are probably more likely

to just try and make everybody love us, please. Finally, before we wrap things up, how about hitting me with another My Biggest Moment. Here's the My Biggest Moment jingle. Hey! There are moments in everybody's life some are big and some are small moments big moments i thought about this and i i thought

this has to be in there because it's kind of life and death my my younger brother saved my life in akra of all places where's that in ghana it's the capital of Ghana. I was out there for a family event that had all gone hideously wrong. And so much so that I decided to leave Ghana and come back to England early to pay for a whole new plane ticket. That's how drastically bad this event had gone. I can't really get into detail of why it went so badly.

Just family drama family drama and uh i uh decided to have this red snapper that i'd seen where i was staying that looked delicious before i got on this early plane so i sat down with my uncle my brother-in-law and my little brother and it was absolutely delicious this grilled red snapper took a big bite of it and um a huge bone got lodged in my throat and i just couldn't i just couldn't cough it up i couldn't swallow it i knew i was struggling you know almost immediately i was i was panicky i couldn't speak tapping my uncle he tried to do the heimlich on me don't know what he's doing he's trying to do the heimlich on me and not working um staff was sort of like coming out people are starting to freak out a little bit how old were you this was about i think this was 2008 so i just started

doing comedy yeah yeah not not that long ago and um you know i'm out of my chair now i'm on my hands and knees my brother-in-law starts thumping my back just like whacking me and um i could see my hands they were turning the gray oh man yeah and then my vision started blurring oh and everything started turning white and i was like like, oh my God. I'm going to die. I'm actually going to die. Because I wanted that red snapper. Because of a fish in Ghana.

And I'm not even having a good time. I'm not dying having a good time. This is it. I can't believe this is where it ends. I actually had those thoughts. I never thought that would happen. Was it terrifying? Oh my God, it was terrifying.

I didn't have any of that your life flashes before your eyes thing. I just thought, oh, I'm not going to see my kids, my wife again. The other thing that I became acutely aware of was my brother-in-law punching me in the back. I was thinking, I'm dying here. But that's still really annoying. That's really annoying and it's not helping. And then all of a sudden, my brother hauled me up,

my younger brother, and he just shoved his fingers down my throat and I vomited. And the propulsion pushed the bone up and out of my throat and I was fine. Oh, man. But yeah, he essentially saved my life so I don't I guess I

I owe him a lot I have to do anything I think is that how it goes I don't know yeah that's grim

my third my third moment is much quicker I can sneak it in at the end if you want sneak one in it was actually

going to see The Force Awakens and it's not so much because like I'm a huge Star Wars geek but there was just this moment

sat there I had my wife my two kids there and It's not so much because I'm a huge Star Wars geek, but there was just this moment. Sat there. I had my wife, my two kids there. And there was a moment about 10 minutes in. I think it was when you get that first sense of that fallen Imperial starship. Yeah, and there's a... What's the name of the main character? Ray? Is it Ray? Something like that.

Ray flying around looking for scraps. Scavenging. Scavenging. Scavenging. And I just looked across, you know, we all looked across at each other a couple of times

during that scene just like, oh, this is going to be good. And it was just, it was just a moment where I felt complete and total happiness.

Yeah. For a real sort of fleeting moment, I just felt this is everything, you know? Star Wars, my family, we're all just over the moon. The reason it struck me so hard is because I never give happiness a chance. I always, like, instead of just enjoying the moment,

I think about the next moment, or I overanalyze the moment instead of just enjoying and being in it, you know? And there's a constant search for happiness. I'm constantly thinking, oh, maybe the grass is greener. Maybe I shouldn't be a family man. Maybe I should just, like, walk out and change my name and go and live in Mexico and see what happens, you know?

Or just all this stupid stuff. I can never just look at my situation and think, dude, this is amazing. Like, this is incredible in comparison with a lot of other lives you could have lived. This is amazing. This is incredible. In comparison with a lot of other lives you could have lived, this is amazing. Just enjoy it. And that moment, I really felt that.

It took J.J. Abrams. J.J. Abrams. To give you a philosophical epiphany. God, that film was good. God, that film was good. There we go. Ben Bailey-Smith. Thank you very much indeed to Ben for talking to me.

I really enjoyed that. And speaking of Star Wars, I went out and invested in the Blu-ray of The Force Awakens the other day at Sainsbury's. And I got the light side edition. You get a choice of a cardboard cover that is mainly black or a cardboard cover that is mainly white. And I went for the white one because I thought, I'm going to stay away from the dark side.

Because, well, I just, you know, I'm just old, I'm getting old. At a certain point, you know, like when you're young, the dark side's great, isn't it? Once you're approaching 50, you think, no, I'll tell you what, let's keep the dark side at bay for as long as possible. Anyway, it was fun. It was actually, I enjoyed myself more than I did at the cinema Seeing it for the first time I watched it with my daughter Hope and with my wife

My wife, she had not seen The Force Awakens And found it greatly entertaining And then after that I forced my wife to watch Special Correspondence Ricky Gervais' film on Netflix. And now my wife has left me. I'm joking. I haven't seen it yet. I'm sure it's terrific. Thanks very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for production support and to Matt Lamont for editing help. Thank you for downloading this podcast. Until the next time we're together, I want you to take extra good care out there.

All right? I love you. Bye!