THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.77 - TIM KEY

Episode Date: June 7, 2018

Adam & British comedian/poet/actor Tim Key enjoy a rambly conversation as they look at some art in London’s Courtauld Gallery.This episode was sponsored by ART FUND, the national fundraising charity for art. Find out more by visiting Artfund.org/BUXTONTIM KEY TOUR DATES: https://www.timkey.co.uk/Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support. Music and jingles by Adam BuxtonThe Supermarket Confrontation jingle features bass from Dan Hawkins: https://www.onlinebassplayer.com/ and instruments from the Soniccouture plug in: http://www.soniccouture.com/en/RELATED LINKS‘DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO PANZA’ by HONORÉ DAUMIER (1869 - 1872)https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02tvn6d/p02tvm60‘LA LOGE’ by PIERRE AUGUSTE RENOIR (1874)https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3671758/Renoir-A-glorious-night-of-intrigue.html‘A BAR AT THE FOLIES-BERGÈRE’ by ÉDOUARD MANET (1882)https://courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/collection/impressionism-post-impressionism/edouard-manet-a-bar-at-the-folies-bergereANDY WARHOL ‘YES’ ’NO’ INTERVIEW (1964)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr8NE7r1szU‘QUEUE’ by ALEKSEI SUNDUKOV (1986)http://en.rusmuseum.ru/collections/painting-of-the-second-half-of-the-xix-century-beginning-of-xxi-century/artworks/ochered/WILLIAM WEGMAN - STOMACH SONG (1970)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bOym_kkvaEWILLIAM WEGMAN - DEODORANT (1972)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrdnlPK9sUQ‘YOUNG WOMAN POWDERING HERSELF’ by GEORGES SEURAT (1888 - 1890)http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/gallery/6007ba8c.html‘ESCAPING CRITICISM’ by PERE BORRELL DEL CASO (1874)http://rijksmuseumamsterdam.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/pere-borrell-del-caso-escaping.htmlTIM KEY DELVES INTO DANIIL KHARMS AND THAT’S ALL (2016)https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b072n5xcTHE INCOMPLETE TIM KEY (AUDIOBOOK)https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Arts-Entertainment/The-Incomplete-Tim-Key-Audiobook/B005FYK89EAnd finally, here’s ‘CHARLYWOOD’http://www.intro.charlywood.com/index.html Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Don't be a fart, see some more art, get yourself a National Art Pass Visit major exhibitions for half the entry fee At places like the Tate, the V&A and National Gallery Paintings, sculptures, installation art Dresses, pots and jewellery and furniture that's old Museums and galleries and historic houses getting completely free to over 240

of them with your National Art Pass Art Pass, Art Pass Art Pass, Art Pass I'd just like to say that you can get a trial version of the Art Pass up until the 30th of June this year 2018 for just £10 you'll get a trial version of the Art Pass up until the 30th of June this year, 2018.

For just £10, you'll get a three-month membership, and you can see if you like it. So, you know, give it a try, I would say. Peace off! Okay. Search National Art Pass or visit artfund.org slash Buxton to find out more about the Art Pass. I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk.

Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here. Just enjoying a country walk out in East Anglia with my dog friend Rosie on a beautiful evening in early June 2018. Thank you very much for joining us for podcast number 77. And this is a bit of a special one. It's sponsored by Art Fund. Do you know about Art Fund, Rosie?

Yeah, of course. It's the national fundraising charity for art. That's right. They believe that art can make you see, think and feel differently. Bit weird. And their National Art Pass is designed to encourage exactly that. What do they do with the funds raised by the Art Pass memberships, though? Ooh, that's a very perspicacious question for a Whippet Poodle Cross, if you don't mind me saying.

I find that very offensive. What's my breed got to do with anything? Sorry, I didn't mean to be offensive. I apologise. The funds, to answer your question, that they make from the Art Pass memberships help Art Fund to support innovative curators and museums you can find out more by visiting artfund.org slash buxton oh great that sounds brilliant i'm gonna do that now all right see you later that's it for the art fund plugs for the time being there is a short mention later on during the conversation but tim pours a little bucket of entertaining scorn on me while I do that and by Tim of course I mean my guest this week British comedian actor and poet

Tim Key I wanted to get Tim on the podcast for a long time I've known him for many years now we've shared live bills on several occasions we both did some bits and pieces on amanda iannucci's show time trumpet back in the mid noughts uh more recently tim read some of his festive poems on a show i did called adam buxton's shed of christmas that was on sky arts in 2014 and i guess you can probably still find it there if you are a Sky subscriber. It's one of Tim's biggest credits. I know he's very proud of it. I'm a big fan of Tim's poems, and I heartily recommend the audiobook of his poetry collection, The Incomplete Tim Key. Play us a clip, Buckles, please. All right, here we go. Poem number 942,42 public reaction a pop star changed her hairstyle

and everyone hated it literally every single person in the country the uk absolutely hated it it was long at the sides and on the top and short at the front and back but to reiterate everyone everyone hated it. In fact, when she came out and did her first song, literally every single person in the O2 arena whistled and threw shit at this pop star. She got them back on side by singing a couple of classics, but then everyone remembered her hair, and ultimately she was lynched and eaten.

Some very moving poetry there from the incomplete Tim Key audiobook. Tim is also a very fine actor, of course, and it's always good to see him pop up in anything, whether it's an episode of Inside Number Nine or something with sketch group Cowards or with regular collaborator and fellow Cowards member Tom Basden. They sometimes do shows under the name Freeze and make short films and plays, and their stuff is always brilliant. You may have also seen Tim as Sidekick Simon in Alan Partridge's Mid-Morning Matters

and in the film Alan Partridge Alpha Papa. Now,ning Matters, and in the film, Alan Partridge, Alpha Papa. Now, when we recorded this conversation a few weeks ago, after hours at London's Courtauld Gallery, keen not to annoy our fellow art goers, Tim had been filming for a new Alan Partridge series, which he says is due out later this year. And we spoke a little bit about that and about some of his other acting

experiences on stage especially a fairly chilling incident of forgetting his lines during a long monologue in the play art appropriately enough and as well as other ludicrous nonsense we talked about some of the art on display at the courthold and if you'd like to see the pieces that we mention in this episode, you could call them up while you're listening by simply following some of the links in the description of this episode. Hope they all work. Doing my best with the technology, but you know. Tim is currently on tour throughout the UK for the rest of this month,

June 2018, with his show Megadate. It's a five-star orama, so check out his website, timkey.co.uk, for more information. I'll be back at the end of the podcast with more Hot Waffle, but right now, 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, 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, Here at the Courtauld Gallery. And outside we can see the Strand. The Strand. That's the Strand. London, obviously. And have you done a play around here? My closest one I've done is the Old Vic. Down on the South Bank? Yeah, about 15 minutes away.

And you've been there twice. Yeah, I've been there twice, yeah. You did Tree. Yep. Written by... Daniel Kitson. Correct. Yep.

And you did... Art. Oh, written by... Mm Kitson. Correct. Yep. And you did... Art. Oh. Written by... Yasmin Reza. Yasmin Reza. Have you got... I've got notes and notes and notes.

So I've got them coming out. Quite big writing on your phone. Yeah, massive, because I can't see. I've got the biggest size screen. Yeah. And then... It's actually quite sad, meeting you close up. I've got a big font.

Can you see perfectly well? Well, anything that size, yeah, that's an open goal for me. This is the iPhone 7. That's huge. With the big screen. I mean, at what point does that become an iPad? It's on nodding terms. To me, it looks just normal.

And all you're doing is looking in settings. Can you still not... What are you aiming for? I'm aiming to... Display and brightness. Auto-lock. Never. Never.

I don't want the notes to fade away. Okay. And that's notes on me. Notes and notes and notes. Big letters. Art. Tim Key appeared alongside Paul Ritter and Rufus Sewell in Art by French playwright, actor, novelist and screenwriter Yasmina Reza.

It was at the Old Vic, directed by Marcus Warchus. Matthew Warchus. Matthew Warchus. Matthew Warchus. It might be Warchus. I don't. It might be Walkers. I don't know. Marcus Warchest. Yeah, Marcus Warchest.

How was that? That's a proper play. I'm not saying that Tree is not a proper play. In a way, I am. Did you see it? I didn't see it. Wow. I don't like going to the theatre.

I went to see Tree. Yeah, you did. It was great. Is that known as in the round uh tree was in the round yeah so for people not familiar with the theater that's when the audience is sat in a circle around the action which is going on in the middle yeah which makes it sound like a primary school teacher is reading to her class yeah but it's more advanced a little bit yeah and there was a giant tree for tree yeah which um dominated proceedings and with tree and then with art is the process of learning that thing torturous or is it something that comes after repeated rehearsals well with art i mean

they're very different like tree was a two-hander so probably on balance more stuff to learn i mean art was an absolute nightmare art i see the thing about art the reason i'm a bit hesitant is i really loved it but it was so hard yeah and the lines were i learned a lot of lines like in this the three-hander part of it they were talking a lot but the problem you have with art, if you ever do art, is that there's one speech that my character does which is an absolute beast. I think it's about three pages long of this playbook. I think it probably, if you sort of did it at talking normal speed, it'd be about seven or eight minutes. But you deliver it really fast. There's no four stops. And it's one big stream coming out of this really, really excitable, frustrated, upset guy. Yeah.

And I think it lasts for about five minutes. He just talks. It's a rant. They called it something. The stage manager used to call it the aria. And you do it, and then you finish it, and there's an ovation. You do the rest of the play,

and then you finish the play, and then you wake up the next day thinking about this aria. Oh, really? And then the aria is just this burning sensation in your chest. You're fearful that it will you're fearful that it'll go if in in one of the shows it does go and in one of the shows it did go i mean i was literally at

in the old vic with a full house and i started doing it and i have to say it did go and um it wasn't very nice i think there's about 900 people in there. Did you get a prompt, or did you pick it back up? Yeah, I got a prompt. Yes. I started it again, and then I got another prompt. It was an anxiety dream in real life. Was there a temptation to talk directly to the audience?

I mean, I think eventually I had to. The play had stopped. And I was just this little boy. I mean, I'd been doing my lines fine for about half an hour. And then everything just... I mean, it was like pin drop silence. I don't think I've ever seen...

Have I seen it happen? I don't think so. Have you? I've seen people fluff, but I've never seen things grind seen it happen i don't think so have you i've seen people fluff but i've never seen things grind to a halt this was the the full english breakfast so then i'm just sort of exposed this lasts for quite a long time in my mind and then i think i asked for the next line again and then i turned to the audience and said I'm going to nip off now I think

and start this one again big ovation as in like trying to get behind me yeah and I went off and the other two

actors Paul Ritter and Rufus Sewell who I suppose it's relevant are amazing actors they're good

they're known as being good they're known as being good. They're known. Yeah. Garland did. Yeah. So offstage, because I ring a doorbell to come in, so they take me offstage and they're both like going,

come on, you can do this. And then I pile on again and the same thing happens. Full English. Ask for a prompt. I go out again. Do you feel like crying? I mean, I feel like crying now. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I then did it again. I said to the audience, I'm going to give it one more shot. By which time the audience is getting less vocal By which time the audience is being... in its support.

It's absolutely, they're doubling down. They want me to do it. Oh, they do? Okay. Go out again. So you haven't got to the stage Absolutely, they're doubling down. They want me to do it. Oh, they do? Okay. So you haven't got to the stage yet where they're thinking, this is an expensive ticket.

If I'm in there, I'm thinking that. I think they're also thinking, how much of this ticket price goes to that guy? Is he siphoning off any of this money? He's the stand-in, right? It's difficult for him, but still. The third time I got through it. Oh, man.

And at the end of it, this very appreciative reception to doing that, and then we finished the play. This is the first night of previews. Yeah. Reviewers are there. No, that's the press night. Oh, okay.

The press night was maybe about 10 days later and i kept on doing that speech i slipped up sometimes it made me go out my mind in the daytime i think i literally replaced my internal monologue with that speech yes i'd have like the line learner thing in my ear and I'd just be walking around town muttering this speech. I mean, I was going mad. For about a week, just had this horrific sort of life within my body and my wellbeing.

And then the first time I did it word perfect was the press night. Nice. So you can pull it out the bag when it comes down to it big game player yeah i think it came down to it on the first night as well though and i didn't quite i left a lot of it in the bag how long did you do it for the whole run um it was about 10 weeks i think and the people who've seen it like you know you bump into people yeah years later and people were very nice about it and i remember doing it and being so, like, really,

I was very proud of the show, and the three of us worked very nicely together. And that speech was, maybe it was a useful thing, that it was such a hassle. I mean, I couldn't have been further from being complacent. I remember meeting some people in another play while we were doing it. One of the guys, like, over it was like like we've only got like another month left and I sort of pitch up and do the lines really and I'm just looking at him going I'm not doing that I'm in hell here but it probably means that it was maybe a slightly spicier performance. Yeah. I mean that moment was

definitely there was something good about it and I don't know how much that was partly to do with it was maybe a slightly spicier performance. Yeah. I mean, that moment was definitely, there was something good about it, and I don't know how much that was partly to do with the fact that I was going absolutely out of my mind. You just don't want to let anyone down, and also people have cast me, and Matthew, who directed it, just cast me in the show.

He'd seen me in Tree, I think, and he just put me in it. And He'd seen me in Tree, I think, and he just put me in it. And so I was very aware of stuff like that, and he was always very nice about it. But, I mean, I don't think it was very easy for him to watch that happen. Yeah, that must have been nerve-wracking for all concerned. I think all concerned had a terrible time that night. And I think actually all concerned were really struggling on press night.

We're extremely concerned. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah So here we are in one of the galleries at the Courtauld. Even though it is closing for refurbishment in the autumn of this year, 2018. Oh, sure. It will be back at some point. They're not going to blow it up, if that's what you're thinking. No. The reason we're here after hours is because ArtPass, who sponsor my podcast, sorted it out for us. Oh, really?

Yeah. ArtPass? If you get an ArtPass... What do ArtPass do? Well, that's a good question, Tim. Thanks for asking. The National ArtPass helps people see more art all over the UK in museums and galleries like this one.

With your Art Pass, you can get access to hundreds of... I've never seen you be like this before. Olden houses, galleries, museums. You can get 50% off on some of them. You go on their website, you find out which ones you think look good.

Oh, I don't like this side of you at all. You get the card out and then you go in there. You have some money off and a great time. Okay, I'm going to put that away. That's enough plug for Art Plus. Oh, that was plugging, yeah. Do you think you see enough art? Do I go and see enough art?

Not nearly enough. And every time I do, I'm happy I did. You know, because what's the worst that can happen? You don't like the art. You don't like the art. You don't like the art. You leave immediately within 15 minutes. Do you go and see enough art? Hardly any.

So in the middle of the gallery that we're in right now, we have two glass cases full of bits of your mum's best silverware. It looks well expensive. It's been very nicely taken care of. I don't know what it is. It looks well expensive. Oh, here we go taken care of. I don't know what it is. It looks well expensive. Oh, here we go. It does look quite dear, doesn't it?

It's a tureen. It's one of these ones, a, what's it called? A creamer. It's a sauce boat, mate. Pair of sauce boats. Augustin Courtauld. Recipe for sauce with truffles. Take truffles, pair, wash them in water and cut them

small this done put them in a stew pan with thin colors of veal and ham season it with salt and pepper let it stew softly let it be of a good taste and serve it up hot that's patrick lamb that's what he that's his accent royal cookeryery, London, 1710. That's a recipe from 1710. I worked in the Cambridge University Library. Were you at Cambridge University? No, no, I wasn't, no. I was at Sheffield University.

Oh, I'm sorry. It's all right. But I lived near Cambridge, so I worked there in my year out. That's a joke about Sheffield, by the way. Well, you wanted to set the record straight that you like Sheffield. I don't know, yeah. I don't want any trouble. I don't think that was going to go viral, was it?

You never know. Where you took down Sheffield University. I didn't even hear you say it. What did you say? Oh, that's a shame. Yeah. Did you go to university i did for one term i went to warwick university you might want to set that straight you get you get the occasional brain box in warwick so you were not at Cambridge

University, but you were working... I was working in a library there. And they had original manuscripts by Isaac Newton. Whoa! And Charles Darwin. I mean, it's the manuscripts department. That's where those things are. They're kept in this place.

But you can go and read them. Really? Yeah. Unsupervised? No, if you're a scholar. I was supervising. So you'd go in and say... How the hell did they pick you to supervise who looks at the original texts? But you don't seem trustworthy.

I was 18. Even worse. There was a man there who was working there who was called Godfrey. Yeah. He was the guy in charge. So you come in with your baseball cap on and just finished your pint.

Put up my ciggy on the front cover of Darwin. And you say, I think I'm the guy. I think I'm the guy. To lick one of Newton's books. Spit on a really, really old Bible. Wipe the smudge and then say, yeah, look. And then get going. I can.

And they had a recipe book in there that was Isaac Newton's wife's recipe book. All these recipes, how to do these things, all handwritten. And then one page, which was in a different hand. Isaac Newton had written one page and it said how to boil rice. And he'd written it. He clearly had an issue with the way that Mrs. Isaac Newton was boiling the rice. Yeah. So he'd taken the law into his own hands.

Do you remember what his special technique was? I can guess. Probably the same as... Pop it in. No, well, it's not... Bang it in the water. How do you do it? Well, I've got a rice maker.

Oh. How do you do it? I get hot water. Hot or boiling? Hot. Just from the a rice maker. Oh. How do you do it? I get hot water. Hot or boiling? Hot, just up from the tap. Yeah, okay. Put it in the pan about a quarter full of a medium-sized saucepan. I'll take two handfuls of rice, usually Uncle Ben's.

And do you do that with your hand? Are you like in there? Yeah, yeah. And I'll sling it in there and then I'll just stick it on the... we have an argo. Argo, yeah. You didn't need to say that. I think everyone would imagine you have an argo. It's just the amount of argos that everyone's intrigued by. How many argos have you got?

We just got the one. Oh, wow. And so I stick it on there until it is bubbling up and it more or less does absorb all that water. More or less, because that's quite crucial. You either want to do one way or the other. Are you sieving? Yeah, yeah. You're sieving?

Yeah, and then I'll run some cold water over it as well before I eat the rice. Yeah, cool it down. Yeah. And I read somewhere that it's good to just get any kind of residue off the rice. I don't know why. Oh, yeah.

Maybe you lose a bit of starch. Something. Didn't hear you mention salt in any of that. No. No salt. No. Why do you need salt? Oh, make it salty.

Yeah, okay. Make it tasty. Have you been having horrible rice for the last 30 years? I like things bland. Oh, right. Yeah, lose the salt then. I'm Russell Bland. What do you have with it?

Is that it? Just that? Some crisps? No, I have like, this is Friday night special. Oh, right. I have a tuna steak. Yeah. Rice.

With some rice and some broccoli. That's one thing that I would, I think that I can. Recommend. Recommend it. It's great. And it's good for you. It's a super that I would, I think that I can... Recommend. Recommend it. It's great and it's good for you. It's a superfood, but it is tasty. But it needs to be cooked right. And I used to have...

Like a lot of food. Yeah, exactly. Which of the ones that really benefit from being cooked wrong? Custards. Let's turn it around the other way. It's really good. Are there any foods that really don't have to be cooked right and they're still great?

Oh, right. Foods that you really can't make a mess of. Yeah. You do well to spoil soup. Right. But you can do it. You can burn it, can't you? You can burn soup, okay.

Are there any foods that are actively better if you completely fuck them up? I mean, like, sometimes at a barbecue, if, like, someone goes rogue and you end up with some real, real poor old stuff, that can have its charm. Yeah. I'm not above scraping some, like... Charcoal.

Charcoal off something and then squeezing the blood out of it. And then making love to it. No, no. Oh, yeah. Oh! the blood out of it and then making love to it. Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, we must have you over for a barbecue. I just bumped into you at the supermarket. I was backing out of a parking space and I hit your car I'm sorry

I didn't mean to But you're angry now, very angry now And that's making me very angry too No, fuck you And your mother too. Hey, is that... Is that who I think it is? Do you think that it's Don Quixote? Yeah, I do.

Let's have a look. Honoré Dormier, Don Quixote yeah i do let's have a look honore dormier don quixote and sancho panza around 1870 oil on canvas i think that's a real classic i like that one it's very moody mainly browns yeah mainly browns bit of drippy near the bottom do you paint no no i don't do any art do you not no not even drawing doodling on the phone what do you doodle oh i once was doodling away and um did quite a good i think it looked a bit like frank bruno okay man then i tried to sort of build on that and try and draw him again and i couldn't i think that was where i sort of drew the line. Okay. What do you, you can do art. I went to art school.

So, yeah, I think I can. And what did you do? I did sculpture. Yep. Which meant that I did a lot of videos. Yep. Installations, that kind of thing. But there was quite a bit on the foundation course of actual drawing, life drawing.

Oh, okay. Drawing nude people of all types yeah which was quite amazing the first time i did it in what way well just to have a new person right in front of you with no unclothes yeah first time first time yeah yeah yeah and um apart from my mother but that was a totally different different class Yeah. And did you maintain your... Erection. That's not what I wanted to say. You forced me to say it.

But I mean, did you maintain... I mean, I know you're a rock hard, but did you maintain... Don't keep saying maintain. Okay. That's the problem word. Did you keep up your composure? Yeah. I still have some of the early life drawings I did are the best picks I ever drew.

Have you got them on your phone? No. They're hanging up at home. Really? Yeah. They're that good? One of them is like it's drawn by someone else i can't if i tried i could never draw something as good today what was your what was the medium

um just like pencils charcoal i think pastels maybe and i'd like to do it i mean i just have no it's the best to draw the human form and to get it right suddenly every now and again if you do it often enough suddenly you start being able to draw a single line yeah that really beautifully describes a part of the human anatomy it's like when you see cartoonists sometimes and i admire caricaturists yeah you know just sat in leicester square or whatever yeah doing caricatures and you think wow that's that's a superpower albeit a very small superpower. It's quite niche. Yeah, they wouldn't be in... What do they do?

What do they focus on when you... The Infinity War, but... If you get caricatured, what do they... Big nose. Yeah, the nose, yeah. Squinty eyes. Yeah, no eyes, I imagine. No, in real life you've got two eyes.

But for a caricature guy I think I'm making my point lose those and load up on the nose yeah big nose plenty eyes

and then and then really focus on the on your on your ovation yeah really get that down so I recommend

when you know when everything else goes wrong, I will go back to life drawing. Will you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you haven't gone back? Not yet, no. It's difficult when you're married to justify nude people around you. Yeah, and you're justifying enough as it is without doing life drawing. That's right.

We are now stood in front of, you tell us. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, which I suppose must be Renoir. Yes. As we know him. And this is La Loge. Oui. La Loge means the box. It's like a theatre box, you know.

Ah, okay. And it's a very, I would say, sad-looking mademoiselle looking out across the theatre. She's looking right at me. Yes. She's looking just to the right of me. Yeah, she's ignoring you. She follows you around.

She's looking at me. She's mesmerised by my nose. And she's sat next to the sort of Rhett Butler figure, who's quite rudely just sort of peering through his binoculars at what looks like at the ceiling. He's scoping, because it was a big deal to go to the theatre in those days, apparently. Oh, was it? It was a big social engagement. Oh, everyone wanted to be seen.

Everyone wanted to be seen. Everyone wanted to be seen. You wanted to see who else was there. Oh, my God, look over there. It's Ricky Gervais. He sat with Ashley Lee. Colin Montgomery. Yeah. Oh, my God, I can't believe it.

Elon Musk is here with Grimes. This is a famous painting, though. It's good. And we're supposed to be impressed. Nini Lopez, a model known as Fish Face, and Renoir's brother Edmund posed for this painting, evoking a box at a theatre. He uses his opera glasses to scan the audience.

She holds hers in her hand, gaze slightly unfocused, as if she knows she's being looked at. As he described. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Like, that's a famous one, isn't it? She's got this sort of black and pale blue. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Like, that's a famous one, isn't it? Mm. She's got this sort of black and pale blue fur coat on or something.

Isn't that lace? Maybe lace, yeah. And enough pearls. That's like Mr. T level of jewellery she's got. I sort of remember my mother going out dressed a bit like that when I was little. She certainly had a big fur coat. Yeah. And lots of perfume.

Yeah. And did they smoke? It didn't matter if they did or not because when they came back, they smelt of smoke. Yeah, of course. Rancid. Horrible. Clothes in tatters. Blood on their hands.

They'd beaten up some homeless people. Yeah. Where did you live? Where did you grow up? In a little village called Impington. Okay. Where is that? Cambridgeshire.

Cambridgeshire, right. Yeah, hence the library, yeah. Okay. Wow, yeah, that's very evocative, isn't it? Your parents going out. Who would babysit? Well, I mean, Great-Auntie Mew would be the obvious one. Or Granny Brown.

One time I think that sort of, you know how these stupid anecdotes go down and your family history is being absolute crackers. Yeah. I think one of our real A-game anecdotes was the fact that we watched Jaws when we should have been watching Blankety Blank. Whoa. It doesn't sound like a world-beating anecdote. How old were you?

Well, you know, about ten and eight. Too young to see Jaws, maybe. I mean, it's on the cusp. Oh, no, too frightening. Way too frightening. The other day, my wife was away with my daughter. They went to Rome. My daughter loves all things Roman.

And you don't? Greek myths, all that. The option of going on the trip was not offered up. Didn't come up? No. It was suddenly announced that it was going to be an all-female trip to Rome. How many females? Wife, wife-sister, wife-sister's friend.

All female. And daughter. Wow. And are you planning a revenge trip well we dug in back at home the guys yeah we had a guys night what did you do it's me my two sons aged 13 and 15 i was like guys come on get ready who wants a beer none of them wanted a beer was it yeah did you do who wants a beer for the older one yeah i said you can't have a beer? None of them wanted a beer. Was it? Yeah. Did you do who wants a beer? For the older one, yeah. I said, you can't have a beer.

You're too damn big. Wow. And he didn't have a beer? No, he's like, no, I'm all right. Pussy. That's what I said. Did you not pin him down? Sure.

Physically? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had my knee on his throat. I tried to force him to drink it, but he started crying. And then I let him up. Yeah. And I said, all right, then. We're going to watch a movie.

What do you want to watch? I don't know. But no pussy shit. None of your cartoons. No, we're not going to watch fucking Star Wars. I've seen enough fucking Star Wars to last me a lifetime. So what did you make them watch? Was it funny games?

No, it was The Firm with Gary Oldman. The Alan Clark... You already showed your wife. TV movie about football hooliganism. Sure. Which I think was on TV towards the end of the 80s and it was an unflinching portrait of a new kind of breed of sort of not yuppie but like city boys who would on the weekend gang together in firms

and just cause mayhem at football matches and like full-on violence and knife fights and cheek slashing and Gary Oldman men yeah proper. Yeah, proper men. When men were men. And it's Gary Oldman in one of his career-defining roles. Yeah. Really grim. And at one point, I think I thought it would be a little more fun than it was. You know, 1989, how bad could it be? Yeah.

It was pretty bad. The violence was quite full on. yeah it was pretty bad the violence was quite full-on and there was one there's just some nasty domestic violence and disrespect of women yeah and it just ended up asking you the only one enjoying questions i don't know if anyone really enjoyed it we were all impressed by oldman's performance did your son after about 20 minutes say you know what maybe i will have a beer no he said i'm gonna go upstairs that's what he said did he did he say i prefer the female side of our family yeah what's happened to boys night what's happened to the lads did you ruin boys night yeah well it was grim what do you

when you look back on it should we go through grim. When you look back on it, should we go through here? Yeah, yeah. When you look back on it, what do you think you should have done on Boys Night? Well, it's so hard because... Because it sounds like every single step there was a mistake. Yeah, it was disastrous. I was bullish because a few weekends before

we'd watched Alex Garland's film Annihilation. And that was another Boys Night. And that went really well. It's a strange film. You've done a lot of boys' nights, haven't you? Recently, yeah. But I'm glad. I want to do some bonding.

But no, Annihilation bonding night was a success. The firm bonding night, less so. I'm very bad at picking films for Christmas Day when I don't have Christmas Day with Carol and Bill. Yeah. More and par. Carol and Bill. Yeah. So I'm... More on par. More on par.

Yeah. So we, a few years ago, I decided rather than risk, run the risk of watching whatever was served up.

Yeah. Thought I'd take a film. So I took Moon. Mm-hmm. Because someone had said that Moon was good. Oh, you hadn't seen it?

No, and I don't think they specifically said Moon was good for watching with your parents on Christmas Day afternoon. Yeah. But said that Moon was good. Oh, you hadn't seen it? No, and I don't think they specifically said Moon was good for watching with your parents on Christmas Day afternoon. Yeah. But that's what I did. And it's quite a... Have you seen it?

Yeah. Quite a slow film. The following year I took... Did they get anything out of it? It's a good film, though. I don't think they got... I would say, probably, if I were to ask them what they thought about Moon,

I don't think either of them would remember Moon. Okay. Or remember that Christmas particularly, or remember me. Yeah. There'd be a lot of explaining to do. The year after I took The Social Network. Oh, yeah. Great film.

That must have gone down quite well. Must it? After about 15 minutes, my mum asked if it was in French. They'd speak so quick. That's the problem. And then the time after that, always on vetted films, never seen any of these films, I'd sit Bronson. Bronson?

What the hell were you doing? Why did you think that was a good idea? Even the cover of that one gives you a pretty hefty clue. That it's not Christmas Day with Ma and Pai time. But I can well imagine you doing Bronson on one of your lads' nights out. I think Bronson could be...

That's a good point. I might do, yeah. No, I totally misjudged the lads' night out recently. The most recent one... Oh, hang on. Or one of the most recent, we watched The Sting. I mean, I almost... Perfect. But it's my dad's favourite film.

It feels like such a tap-in to just... It feels like I need to be trying to get a film where everyone enjoys it, but it's a new film. Okay. That's everyone's dream, right? And very few of us ever manage

to make that dream a reality. But it does happen in a person's lifetime. I've had it happen a couple of times. Yeah. And this is when my pa was alive. Yeah. And he was hard to please, very hard to please. He pretty much hated everything and everyone.

But one of the few successes I had was with, funnily enough, The Firm, but starring Tom Cruise. Oh, sure. And Gene Triplehorn and Gene Hackman. Yep. It's the Grisham. It's the Grisham,man yep it's the grisham it's the grisham right it's the grisham he's a hot shot lawyer turns out that he's in the employ of the mob yeah tries to extricate himself it's quite long yeah but it's solid yeah and and that was the

film that was the film that brought everyone together. That and we did make it through Shawshank Redemption years before. But it's one of those phrases you don't really want to hear, we did make it through. I mean, it's terrific, right? You want to coast through. It's well-loved, but I think it's so well-loved that people forget there's quite a brutal and... It's not graphic, but it's a very upsetting rape scene

halfway through in the bowels of the prison, as it were. It's a pretty unforgiving environment, that prison. It is, isn't it? I mean, it is a great film. Yeah, I think I could maybe give that a whirl this Christmas. What are you going to do about the rape? Oh, God. Distract them.

Honestly, it would be better than the French stuff that was happening. I think my mum would take it in her stride. I leave the house and do a poo-poo in my pants. Shake out the poo-poo, shake out the poo-poo, shake out the poo-poo in my trance-like pants. Shake out the poo-poo, shake out the poo-poo, shake out the poo-poo in my pants. Running down the road, poo-poo in my pants. Running down the road, there's a poo-poo in my pants. Running down the road, got the poo-poo inside my pants. Running down the road, there's a poo-poo in my pants.

Poo-poo in my pants. Sunset dance with a poo-poo in my pants. We are now in a room here at the Courtauld, which is, I think every single one is smash hit, isn't it? Well, along there it goes banger, banger, banger, banger. Here we go. This is one of the most famous paintings. I wouldn't know who this was by. In the world. That hasn't

even got glass on it i am inches from this is why we're supervised when you're using phrases like we're inches from yeah it looks like you're tempted to give it a quick scratch i would love to just lick it but i'm not going to because you just can't It's just a respect thing, isn't it? So this is Edouard Manet. You might be able to lick the description. I'll smell it. It smells of success. It's a funny way of spelling it, isn't it? E-D-O-U-A-R-D.

That's fun. No, I don't mind it. Edouard Manet, a bar at the folie berger and this was painted between sometime between 1881 to 82 oil on canvas and this is a famous picture because apart from anything else it's very striking the bar lady in the foreground front and center is staring right. Actually, no, she's sort of staring just off camera, as it were. Again, very sad.

She looks melancholy. Long shift. And there's a mirror behind her, so she's leaning on the marble top of the bar with some bottles of champagne and there's some fruit in front of that. Is that a mirror? It is supposed to be a mirror behind her. But of course, her reflection is way off.

Like there's another... Oh, that's her reflection. That calm... Are you telling me that's her reflection? Supposedly. So it's weird. I mean, you would think that actually it's just there's another bar behind her

and that's just another... Oh, Adam, it's crap. Girl serving, you would think that actually it's just there's another bar behind her and that's just another... Oh, Adam, it's crap. Girl serving. Why has he put her there? I mean, he's not mastered the way reflections work at all. I wouldn't have connected that person with that person. No. To get something that wrong.

I mean, obviously his story is saying it's deliberate. But still, it coasts a 9 out of ten it's a great picture despite the i think so up with the reflection it's a very evocative it really is though isn't it makes you want to get out there that presumably has been reproduced many many millions of times as a poster that you think that's the kind of thing that you might hang in your student bedroom at some point. Did you have posters when you were a student? Yeah, I did, yeah. What kind of posters did you have?

Okay, I had a poster of Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock. Yep. Did you have those fellows in New York eating their lunch on a girder suspended miles above Manhattan. You be patient. Sorry. The next picture was a... Spice Girl? Oh, yeah. Which one? Let me guess.

Mel B. No. Baby. No. The Ginger. Yeah. Oh, good one. In her Union Jack dress.

No. This is like the Andy Warhol interview. Have you seen that interview? I think it was 1964 or something, and the interviewer is asking him about pop art. Yeah. She's saying, do you think that the public don't have enough respect for pop art?

And he's responding to every single question by saying, yes, no, no no have you not seen that interview it's quite funny there's a great one that's that went sort of viral on twitter the other day about a footballer from the 80s did you read that no it says stuff like what's the best game you played in i don't know was he doing was he doing it deliberately? No, no, no. What do you want to do when you finish playing football? Don't know.

What's your favourite food? Meat pie. Hang on, is this my son? That's just a bit of bants, Natty, if you're listening. But there was a little bit of something in your eyes when you said it. Love. They deadened for a moment. Back to your posters.

Posters, so far we've got Hallowell's up, Lloyd's up. Porsche, did you have a picture of a Porsche? No, that's before your time. No, it was Ginger. Yeah, but you didn't have any pictures of cars. No, no. Porsche, sorry, fucking hell, I'm way behind i wasn't gonna pick you up on that god you're just thinking oh dear granddad christ um yeah god dear granddad doesn't

remember the spice girls dad doesn't remember how jokes work um what other ones did i have i don't think i had the men on the girder no no i don't think so scratching i've got that now actually a friend of mine gave it to me for my birthday I have. I don't think I had the men on the girder. No? No, I don't think so. Tennis player scratching arse? I've got that now, actually. A friend of mine gave it to me for my birthday. I've got arse scratch, girl. Monkey on toilet? No, not monkey on toilet. Are you an art fan? Do you have a favourite artist?

I like David Shrigley. I went to an exhibition of him when I was on tour. I mean, that was extraordinary. Don't get me wrong, I like all this stuff. But it's quite funny when you're in an actual exhibition and there are people around you laughing. It was really impressive. In its own way, quite moving. You have a room roughly this size

with all of his stuff put up properly and people just, with with friends reading it out and wetting themselves and then i also like there's i think my favorite painting is called the queue and it's a russian painting which is really which is just a long queue and it starts sort of here big and then because of things to do with perspective it just sort of goes into the distance modern it feels modern yeah it feels like it feels like it's like in the 1960s maybe or 70s okay that's that's the way it looks so do you like your art to be funny oh it's definitely not a prerequisite no clearly you don't have less respect for it if it is funny

because some people in the fine art world cock a snook at anything funny. They think, no, that doesn't belong here. And if it's going to start being funny, then it's not art. Yeah, not everyone embraces things outside of the realm of comedy. Do you know the artist William Wegman? No, I don't think so. He takes photographs of his Weimaraner dogs, beautiful dogs.

And he, I mean, I suppose that they are controversial. I haven't read about them recently, but I suppose there are some people who would object to dogs being dressed up and posed in amusing ways. Even though he clearly dotes on these dogs, he adores them very deeply. And I would imagine that he would never coerce them in any way i suppose the argument would be that people think that he's exploiting them yes i think some people would think that he was exploiting the dog i guess the argument would run that yeah that he's not getting the consent of the dogs right even though the dogs are presumably rewarded with love and treats tacit consent is probably there it's you could they're not fighting

it i mean there are people who say the same sort of things about art that features young children you know and people using their own children in their work yeah some people object to that i've had a few people raise their eyebrows about some of the videos i did when my daughter was very young oh yeah but they're joyous. Yeah, exactly. Celebrations. Yeah, I think so. And also, she's totally unrecognizable now. So it's not like she's going to be embarrassed by it. People aren't going to be going, hey, you're the funny girl in the thing.

And what does she think about the fact that she was in those videos? Oh, I think she likes it. Yeah. So far. Yeah. She's still young. You know, she may change her mind when she... Is allowed to watch them

hates me yeah i was gonna say william wegman though the guy with the weimer and the dogs he started out as a video artist in the late 60s early 70s and he was doing very grainy black and white very early bits of video work and he has a piece called Stomach Song where he films just his torso sat on a chair, and he folds over his tummy. He's not a big guy, but if you lean forward, there'll be a fold in your tummy, and he will start sort of making it speak, as it were. His mouth is off camera.

He had another piece where it was just a close-up shot of his armpit, and he would be spraying antiperspirant onto his armpit and sort of eulogising about it as if in a commercial. He just sprays and sprays and sprays until residue starts building up on his armpit and starts dripping down in big gobs of gunk. He does sound like a comedian. He just carries on spraying.

Yeah, it's properly funny stuff. But when was he doing it? What, 70, 71? But he was proclaiming himself an artist rather than a comedian. He was part of the art world, the way he worked. Yeah, and the pace of it and the presentation is all within the world of art rather than comedy.

Because then you get other people like Andy Kauf kaufman where the lines are blurred yeah but he's primarily a comedian so he's at a disadvantage i think because you watch a lot of his stuff and you think it's not that funny yeah you know what i mean and then you get comedians saying oh i'm really influenced by andy kaufman and you think well you've nailed the not that funny part but um you just need to go that bit further yeah perspective no reproduction no silence no a dog shit uh yes how's it going on Alan Partridge all All done? No, I'm in again tomorrow and then Thursday and then I think that's it. And how's it going is, I think it's very good. I think. It's difficult to know. Have you reinvented the format or are you in the studio again with Partridge?

No, this is a new format. This is a sort of pastiche of The One Show. Oh, nice. Well, I mean, not pastiche, but it's that world. It's The One Show. And Alan has found himself going to some events, hosting it. And is Sidekick Simon on camera or behind the scenes? Sidekick Simon is... He's in the studio.

He's in charge of social media. When do we get to see this? It feels like by the end of the year might be not out of the question. Uh-huh. Do you get to improvise on a show like that or is that i mean you've got very good writers on there who's writing it steve coogan and rob and neil gibbons yeah who are brilliant and so they wrote more or less everything since it came back mid-morning matters the autobiographies the film the specials you know scissor dial yeah which is amazing yeah they're amazing so improvising wise i think a lot of people think it is improvised

but it's not and uh it could sort of say that's like humble brag but it's not i'm not saying that it sort of it feels so loose it's just that there's this lack of kind of lack of being completely on top of things plus certainly in my case that kind of weird intimidation that i get from alan partridge yeah not from steve cougar you still get that a bit do you i get i definitely get like a yeah i definitely get a sort of slight starstruck thing from steve have you ever met richard madeley no everyone i know who's met richard madeley says it's partridge and it's like being in the room with partridge and uh i think he's definitely a touchstone i think they definitely know yeah i think uh, yeah, yeah,

I would get that. I mean, cause that is one of the legendary comedy characters. Yeah. It's weird. So I can't, I kind of, obviously you've met tons of people and I don't know whether you get starstruck.

Do you get starstruck? Yeah. Who by? I got very starstruck with Brian Eno. Right. Okay. I found it difficult to keep my shit together. I find it more difficult whether it's someone outside of, you know, our realm.

Right, right. It makes it sound like you're quite blasé, but I mean, you should be, really. I mean, why would you be Starstruck? They're just people. Yeah. But definitely Coogan sits somewhere slightly different, in a way. Yeah. I think because it was such a sort of direct hit of, you know, watching all of his stuff and loving all of that and all of that lot. It was sort of that coupled with the fact that when I did meet him or when I started working with him, he was dressed as Alan Partridge.

I think that that and all of the interactions we have or 90 of them he's dressed as alan partridge and so it's kind of i mean i like you know i like him and i get on well with him and he's very nice and very generous and um nice to work with but there is definitely this slight thing where i still look at him and think i mean this is this is ridiculous. I'm working with Alan Partridge. That character is very self-contained and spot on. And it's a very well-maintained machine. And it's unusually, I can't think of another example. And it's partly to do with Rob and Neil Gibbons,

but it's got better and better. And now it's like... Which I never really agree with but I can't I mean I do actually I do agree with that because that's not to say

that it used to be a load of shit no no but I do think it's better now that he's older I find the stuff where I'm not in it

is like much easier to so I can I can sort of be quite objective when it comes to the the specials and the autobiographies which I think are amazing. They're really funny.

I mean I do find it more difficult with Midwally Matters where you just like where people are very very nice about it and you sort of go oh but I mean in I'm Alan Partridge a lot of that was okay. Oh god it's brilliant. There's quite a lot of quite good Lin stuff happening.

Amazing Lin stuff. Yeah. There's loads of michael stuff i mean there's loads of yeah there's that there's a lot of stuff going on definitely um but yeah so doing this one is very interesting because also in in mid-morning matters i'm in it all the time because it's sort of tiny and in this one it's in a studio and because of the nature of how we shoot it there are bits where i am off camera but able to watch steve working and that's that's pretty good it's got an interesting way of working where he'll do it again and again and again and it's sort of i guess it is sort of gradually working its way out. But there are moments where he'll do it and you'll just sort of go, A, that's the one they'll use, and B, that is, you know, bona fide genius. He's very good at what he does.

Yeah. Underrated. Guilt, shame, conflict, blame, life, life. It's not fair. Please do not touch. I know. Crikey. I literally was touching it.

We are now standing in front of a painting by Georges Seurat. And this is a bit of pointillism, isn't it? Young woman powdering herself, 1888 to 1890. This painting is a striking demonstration of Seurat's technique. Pontilism, yes. The modulation of light and shadow is achieved with the use of small dots of pure colour

juxtaposed in varying concentrations and intensity. Nowadays, you can get an app for that. Can you? Yep. And it'll do probably a better job than that. I mean, that's because I think... He's copped out. Not having seen the app, I don't think I've seen much of this sort of stuff floating

around. I find that quite impressive. That is good. When you get close up to it and you can see every single dot, you are close enough to be fair to you to lick it. It's quite thrilling, don't you think think to see a thing like that so close up that was painted all those years ago yeah this is a this is a highlight

um what do you think about the the way they're hung they've got metal rods towards the top of the walls and then chains um i like that i really like. It's not how I do it. How do you do it? Blue tech? No, no, no. No, no, no. I do like framing stuff. My parents used to get so angry about the blue tech situation.

Did they? Yep. Is that how it was referred to? The blue tech situation? Yeah. The BTS. But what were they championing? It must be the least offensive of the ways of doing it it's fine

as long as you remove it afterwards very carefully bit by bit adam yeah but i would yank it off like a button but you take some plaster with it sure and that was the root of the BTS. Ah, right. How are you doing it? I'm doing it with drilling, roll plug, screw, and then hang it on there with hopefully the wire provided. Do you buy original art? I've got one bit of art in my flat, which is a man in a suit, and his suit is sort of drenched, and it feels like the water

is flooding the room that he's in and I saw it at an exhibition outside the gallery that was like their sort of poster boy for their exhibition was this and I think I then went and bought the poster of that and framed it

and I really really like it but that's the only one i have proper frame job uh i don't know whether that one was it might have been i think i framed some stuff properly after that yeah and then me and my friend we quite enjoy going framing yeah yeah and i went away a couple of years ago to southeast asia and i bought back some quite nice stuff to frame when you were working on uh gap year gap. Gap year, right. I'm quite pleased with the stuff I bought there. Like, I bought, like, a really nice Chinese poster

for cigarettes and cigarette smoking, the idea of smoking cigarettes. And I think it must have been, like, from the 50s, the classic stuff of just buying that for 50p in some market somewhere and then later framing it for more than that. But it looks really, really nice. I mean, that is literally cultural appropriation.

It was a very nice bit of cultural appropriation. I did some cultural appropriation in Japan when we were there filming. Sure, sure. Exactly the same thing. You go to a market on a Sunday, and to your Western eyes, everything just looks so charmingly otherworldly. Of course. I mean, their starting point is just, it's looks so charmingly otherworldly. Of course. I mean, their starting point is just, it's an open goal for them.

Yeah. With you and I walking around these respective markets. Because even the letters you're in, they're all beautiful. Exactly. Whereas if you're in an English market, if you just looked at a word, and it was like the word the, that wouldn wouldn't like so you were not he wouldn't start sort of shaking slightly and thinking well I like the one with the yeah I don't think I would be that interested in sort of going on the internet and buying a cigarette poster

for Rothmans no set. Set in England. Not even one of the classic silk cut ads? Actually, even as I was saying it, I thought maybe, I bet there are some really good ads like that. I used to tear those out of magazines and put those on my wall. Right.

You know, this is aged 12 and I would have these silk cut fag adverts just all over my... Were you smoking? No. No, I had no intention of smoking at that point. But I just remember thinking, wow, these are so mysterious. Yeah.

And for younger listeners, this was a time when cigarette advertisers had to be a little bit wily because the government was thinking about discouraging people from smoking. So you couldn't be absolutely direct the way that you were in the 50s. So what did you have to do then? You had to just sort of say, put a cigarette sort of fairly near your mouth. No, you couldn't show a picture. It couldn't be just a picture of someone having a ciggy and going, a ciggy is brilliant, you should have one too.

Right. It was, which they were in which that's what it was in the 50s but silk cut Benson hedges people like that they would sort of hide the ciggy packet somehow in the image so I remember one of them was appeared to be a photograph of the pyramids in Egypt but when you looked closer one of them was a pack of B&H on its side. They would look like alluring, just nice bits of photography. Were they posters? No, it would be like the back of the Sunday Times magazine or something.

And then what, BTS? Yeah, BTS. BTS. I saw a picture the other day. I'll show it to you. So this is a picture that I saw online by Pere Borrell del Caso, a Spanish painter. And this is from 1874, and it's called Escaping Criticism. Oh, yeah, that's really good.

And it's a trompe l'oeil. He specialized in paintings that fool the eye. The painting is of a young boy, very naturalistic painting, but the boy is climbing out of the picture frame. I mean, 1874. It's really nice. That's 1874? Yeah.

That's crazy, isn't it? Yeah, it's funny that that's not a more famous painting, really. Yeah. I think it is quite famous, but I'd never seen it that's my one that's the queue oh that's good isn't it it's modern life isn't it sim yeah just standing in a queue what's at the end of the queue well exactly and i suppose in this sort of more sort of Soviet vibe. That's what you studied at college, right? Russian things? I studied Russian, yeah.

Just? In thicky, thicky Sheffield. That's not what I would call it. You studied Russian. So what was that like? What aspect of Russian? The language, the culture, the history, everything. The literature.

Right. Do they go in and say, right, we're going to begin with the language because you're going to be at sea without No, they just hit you from all sides. Okay. So they go language, history, literature, press on. Yeah. But I did it from scratch. So I hadn't done it before. Okay. So I was the main thicky thicky inicky Thickiesville. And it's quite difficult. I'm sure. That's notoriously difficult language. It's quite difficult grammar and tough words.

But then, because of that maybe, more of a depth to the art. The literature, the poetry. Do you think that's related? Maybe. Like if you have to work really hard at a language, are you not being able to express more profound things? Oh, right. Or is that a load of bullshit? I think it might be, is it? Feels like it could be, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I think you're probably right. How did it feel as you were saying it? Felt like bullshit. It sounded like bullshit. When you were doing your Russian studies, was that where you first came across Daniel Kams? Or Daniel, do you say? Daniel, I think you'd probably go for...

D-A-N-I-I-L. That can't be the pronunciation. Daniel. Yeah, that's it. You've got to run it together. I think he's... It's pronounced D the pronunciation. Daniel. Yeah, that's it. You've got to run it together. Yeah. I think he's... It's pronounced D-A-N-I-I-L. It's pronounced as it's written. Yeah.

D-A-N-I-I-L. I think you're best off saying Daniel Harms. Daniel Harms. If you really want to make any headway with him. I didn't know that you were so into him until I heard a radio program you did for Radio 4.

Right. A couple of years ago. Oh, I'm really into him. I love him. How do you explain him to people who don't know him? Well, I reckon that your best bet actually

is probably to find one of his tiny things because they're only like ten seconds long. Hit me. One second. Okay, so this is, I don't know. I don't know whether this is the best translation

or anything like that. But this is a thing he wrote called, I think, The Tale of the Plummeting Old Woman. Excessive curiosity made one old woman fall out of a window, plummet to the ground, and break into pieces. Another old woman poked her head out of a window to look at the one who had broken into

pieces but excessive curiosity made her to fall out of the window plummet to the ground and break into pieces then a third old woman fell out of a window then a fourth and a fifth then a sixth old woman fell out i felt i'd had enough of watching them and went off to the Meltzev market where I heard that a blind man had been given a knitted shawl. I mean... When did he write that? 1937. And were those things that he was writing and passing around or was he performing them? He was sort of performing them. Was he?

Well, they had this sort of weird kind of collective where poets and other people who had stuff to read out would read some stuff out. I think the state wasn't totally fine with him because he was quite subversive. Typical of the state. The bloody state. Fucking state. Yeah. Why can't they just be a bit more... Well, this was his point.

Open-minded. No, they were very narrow minded with very narrow so he decided he'd resort to writing children's stories and sneaking in weirdness and occasionally he'd sneak in these things where a lot of his stuff like there's someone just suddenly dying people dying in a really weird way someone just walking along and then someone just bonk him on the edge but then he himself was sort of disappeared wasn't he i think what happened was they bombed his house or something, or his house exploded,

and then his wife and best friend went in and grabbed all of his notepads and salvaged them. Oh. Yes, and then, so his stuff was mainly printed, like, way afterwards. And then these two chaps have grabbed everything, all of his notepads, and they've put together a book of everything,

like stuff that he'd written, but also to-do lists, love letters, reviews, and that's the really amazing thing. What's that called? That's called I'm a Phenomenon Completely Out of the Ordinary. Yeah, that's amazing. The guys who did that are very clever. So you were enthusiastic about him

before you started writing your own strange poems? Well, I can't quite work that out. And I sort of tiptoed around it a bit when I made this radio documentary, because that was my one slight reservation about making that documentary was, I don't know how much I'm influenced by this guy. Right. Too much Doc Joy. Maybe I'll just slightly open up. Too much dot join. Maybe I'll just slightly open up.

I'd be basically signing my own death warrant in the industry or in this world where you just go, oh, right. So his stuff is that guy. And it's, I mean, we're very, there's definitely crossover. There definitely is. I don't think I did find him at university. I think I found him quite a lot after. I think I'd started writing poems which actually were anyway quite different from that i mean you haven't even said that my

stuff is like that but you sort of it's sort of assumed that that's some of it has that feel yeah but um yeah there's that yeah there is definitely some crossover i mean no one really knows about him that much and he is i think really really extraordinary i did a character oh i saw that about 2005 i pavel i pavel yeah east european kind of artist and i couldn't you know i it was supposed to be he was an animator but he also wrote poems it was just a kind of catch-all yeah that'd be like the thing i want to write about Holmes, I guess. Right. But unfortunately, you hadn't been exposed to him. No, no. It was very unfocused, like a lot of my work.

There was a nice bit about a paintbrush in that. Yes. It takes so long to wash black paint out from a great big brush, but it's important to be thorough. This is not a job big brush. But it's important to be thorough. This is not a job to rush. You don't want any black blobs to nestle at the bristle root. Or one day later in your life, when you paint a shelf or maybe a door and you're not using black no more, those blobs will come back out again and make you want to shoot yourself because your shelf is smeared with gray

then you will regret the day you put that fucking brush away it wasn't that bad it was i think it's a different show i think it was one of alex's shows so what was this? Was yours a carrot? A carrot? Wait. Continue. Yes. Hey, welcome back, podcats. Tim Key there. Always good to see Tim. Thank you very much indeed to him for his time.

We had a good evening, actually. First of all, wandering around, being glib about the art, and then went off to have a couple of drinkies and catch up. It was great. I hope he'll come back on the podcast sometime in the future. A few great Tim Key related links in the description of this podcast, along with other bits and pieces that we spoke about. Those William Wegman videos, for example.

Tim's favourite painting, Q. You can find a link to that. And the other paintings that we spoke about. Hope those work for you. Thanks once again to the folks at the Courtauld You can find a link to that and the other paintings that we spoke about. Hope those work for you. Thanks once again to the folks at the Courtauld for being so welcoming and friendly and letting us wander around there after hours. It's such a cool place. I do recommend it, although, as I say, you know,

I think they're closing for refurbishments later in the year, but not until August or September, I think. Go and have a look. You can retrace our steps. Listen to the podcast while you're wandering around. Thanks as well to Art Fund for setting up this episode and for getting us into the Courtauld. Really appreciate it.

A reminder that Art Fund, just in case you haven't got the message yet, is the national fundraising charity for art. And you can check out the Art Pass, the National Art Pass, by going to artfund.org slash Buxton. And on there you will find, on their website, a list of all the places that are covered by the art pass all over the UK so I do recommend going on there and seeing what's available and what interests you and enriching your life with art

oh it's a beautiful evening just in the last couple of weeks everything's gone really overgrown and shaggy let's listen to these nettles shaggy i don't like to avoid an obvious joke i don't know if you know that about me but listen i should get back to the thank yous because i did promise one to andy charwood. And he's in a band, and they're called Charliewood. Although the band's name is spelt differently to his name. The band's name is spelt C-H-A-R-L-Y-W-O-D. And there's also a link to their website in the description of the podcast.

And the reason I mention them is that Andy got in touch to offer his services as an audio Jedi on the podcast. Every now and again, people kindly get in touch to offer me help with various bits and pieces. And Andy did so just at the right moment because I was fretting about the last episode, the Charlie Brooker episode 76. Some of you will remember that it sounded unusually roomy. And that's because there was a problem with one of the mics.

There was a little clicking on it and it was quite annoying. And we tried fiddling around with bits of audio correction software but actually ended up sounding more annoying but anyway Andy had a go at actually trying to fix it and in the end I just went with my backup recording but I did say that as a thank you I would give him and his band a plug but thanks Andy for getting in touch and all the best with charlie wood a couple of other thank yous before i say goodbye thanks to dan hawkins for providing online bass for my jingle the supermarket confrontation jingle in this podcast it's popped up previously regular listeners will recognize but without lyrics this time because it was a special art episode

and you may have noticed there was some new jingles in here which i put in specially i thought i would add some lyrics it was always originally intended to have lyrics about a supermarket confrontation but um previously i stripped them off this time i added them back i'm full of boring stories this week but Dan Hawkins kindly got in touch and said if you ever need bass for any of your jingles let me know because I'm an online bassist the link to Dan's web page he's brilliant by the way I really recommend him sent him a track and he sent back five different bass lines. And I just picked my favorite and they were all very good. And he did it very quickly as well.

The link is, again, in the description to this podcast, along with a link for Sonic Couture plugins. I used a Sonic Couture plugin on that jingle as well to create the vibraphone sound. So thanks to them. And thanks finally to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his always invaluable production support. Thanks so much, Seamus.

The final, final thank you, as ever. The final thank you, thank you. That's enough of that. Goes to you for listening right to the end. Your special. I'll be away over the summer, but I'll be back with regular episodes in the autumn. Probably late September, early October, that kind of thing.

In the meantime, don't forget to have fun with the free Adam Buxton app. You never know, there might be some special bonus content added to that over the summer period as well. But that really is it now. Should we have a hug? Have a great summer. All right. Look after yourself. Don't do anything I wouldn't do, which leaves you with... Take care. I love you. Bye! Bye. ស្រូវាប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ប់ Thank you.