The Frank Skinner Show - Frank in Conversation with Adrian Chiles

Episode Date: January 27, 2017

A meeting of minds from the Midlands. Absolute Radio Frank, our celebration of Frank Skinner's 60th Birthday, continues with a special show featuring Frank in conversation with Adrian Chiles.

This is Absolute Radio Frank, celebrating Frank Skinner's 60th birthday. This is Adrian Childs on Absolute Radio Frank, interviewing Frank, which is a great privilege. Did you select me for this, Frank, or was I forced upon you? You were suggested to me, and after some wrangling, I gave in. I was worried that people won't understand two accents like this. But, you know, I think we're available in the West Midlands, so that'll be good. What did you listen to when you were a kid?

What's your first memory of local radio? It must be West Brom related, surely. It was BRMB in Birmingham, obviously. Two Things, Les Ross's breakfast show, which included things like a sort of regular sitcom, which was a western, which used to be on every day. I don't know who did the voices. There was never any credits.

And then the sports stuff was a bloke called Tony Butler, who you may remember. Very well. Who's fabulous. His catchphrase was, OK, OK. Which no one's ever nabbed for themselves, to my knowledge. When you went to the Albion, you stayed to the end.

My granddad used to drag me off early so many times. We were driving away and I heard Tony Butler say goal at the Hawthorns Tony Trethui through he said bad news West Brom conceded Liverpool have scored in the last minute brutal stuff

well I never saw any of those goals because those were in the days when we stood on the terraces and I saw about four West Brom goals a season if I was lucky and they did incredibly they did score more than that in case you're wandering a home. So we're celebrating your

big birthday your first birthday memory is very clear to you isn't it it's unusual. Yeah it was I remember sitting on the bed and saying to my mum I I'm four today. And it's nice to have a first memory that you can put an actual date on. And there might have been earlier memories, but obviously that one is quite significant. So I now move towards a point, of course, where I won't be able to remember them again. But it's funny how things level out in the end, isn't it? There's a sort of ramp at each end of life. As the youngest child, traditionally, you're either spoiled or you're sort of mercilessly put upon and bullied.

Which was it in your case? I was spoiled, definitely. There were seven years between me and my next brother. So I felt a bit like an only child who lived with some other people. But there was two brothers and a sister I had, and when I was a very young kid, the three brothers were in the same rooms. There were two of us in a double bed and one in the single bed. And then the oldest one, Terry, started drinking

and coming in, you know, drunk and being sick and all that sort of stuff. So I got into that sort of lifestyle quite early. I don't think you can get secondary drinking, but I sort of did. Who was it you shared a bread with? Was it Keith or me me and my brother kate shared about and then and then we got bonks which was a big moment so um i think he i had the top bonk here and he uh and he was beneath me keith got a walk-on part in one of your sitcoms didn't he? Keith um my first sitcom

was called uh Blue Heaven and he angled in it if that's if that I don't know if that's a verb they're called anglers do they angle anyway he angled against the sort of uh West Midlands sunset and I remember they said for timing they were going to have to cut it out. And I said, if you cut this out, you'll ruin my life. So they had to keep it in. I don't think I've ever worked with a relative since because you have to make those emotional decisions. Didn't somebody ask him how he knew you? And he said, I used to sleep with him. He did.

He did, yes. Well, he's not the only person who answered that. You get to pick not every song for yourself, but they do give you a certain amount of leeway. Yes, so I get to pick the next one. The next one's pretty easy, because it might be my favourite song of all time.

It's certainly in the top three or four. And I've probably heard it 10,000 times, and it's never even dipped for a second. It's called A Road Runner by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. Absolute radio,vers. Just going back to school days, Frank, ever since I've known you, you had this thirst for learning.

Did that manifest itself at a young age, or is it something you sort of worked your way into as you got older? No, I don't think it did manifest itself at a young age. I wish it had manifested itself earlier on, because at school, I'm one of the few people that you meet who, I love school, but the reason I loved it

is because I just larked around for the whole thing. And I can't decide whether to blame myself for being foolish or whether I feel that the education system let me down and should have spotted that it had a rare gem in its hands but there must have been a teacher who don't know just made you sit up in your seat and gave you some kind of hunger for somewhere before the age of 18 or 16. I don't think I had that one teacher. I'll tell you what I did have. I ended up, I got expelled from school

and then I worked in a factory and then I decided I wanted to do more with my life and I did teacher training badly and I failed the first year. But there were two women on that course who were taught on that course and they were called Marilyn and Marjorie and they said at the end of it look you know you're a terrible teacher you don't want to be doing that but you're in the actual English bits of this, you've got the best marks on the whole course. You should be on an English degree.

So I said, I can't get another first year grant. This was in the days when people got everything paid for. And they said, try. So I phoned up my local authority and I basically lied about, I said, well, I'm on a four year course. So I want, I do want another first year grant, but this is only a three year course. so you won't actually be losing any money. And I made that

up, and no one checked anything, so I got the grant. But brilliantly, Marjorie, on the last tour I did in 2015, she came to one of the gigs in Birmingham. And I don't think you were there, but there were several West Brom players there was a crowded dressing room of people who'd come to see me, relatives, mates and I was able to sort of bring Marjorie into that room and say I just wanted to say you don't know who this woman is but she honestly changed my life

because she fought for me to get on that English course and when I was on that English course that's when my brain started expanding I think that's when I realised that learning was at the centre of my universe. Was there one moment where that became apparent? Was there one sort of book or one novel? I often think novels are wasted on teenagers. You know, they're for reading when you're a bit older.

Well, everything's wasted on teenagers, with the possible exception of acne. Everything's wasted on teenagers, with the possible exception of acne. But I think Wordsworth, William Wordsworth, the poet, when I first read that, that completely blew my mind. There's a few poets, Tennyson and Gerard Manley Hopkins. I think it was the poetry that got me. I'd never read, really. The entire extent of my poetry experience was muhammad ali doing you know used to do poems and interviews and stuff and it'd be stuff like um

you know and if you're still alive you'll fall in five and stuff that wasn't it wasn't elaborate work but um i still incredibly i still either read or listen to poetry every day of my life and that's you know what 40 years on without the learning without the engaging your brain and getting it really going with literature could the comedy have happened or did you need that stimulus so it's a difference well the comedy has been an ever-present really since i was a small child so i always um made people laugh at school, at work, in the pub. That was my main passion in life. And I've always been a comedian.

People would say, oh, you became a comedian when you were 30. No, I didn't. I started doing it on stage when I was 30, but I took it as seriously. My need to get laughs was as strong if I was sitting on a bus talking to someone as it is, you know, standing on stage at a big theatre. So that, I would say I was always a comedian. And then there was a slight little moment when I went up to a professional one,

but it's still basically the same process. Absolute Radio Frank. You say you'd always wanted to be funny. No, I never said that. I said I always was funny. How dare you? Dare you rewrite that sentence? So you can remember people finding you funny when you were even six?

Did you ever remember, did you ever sort of, did you ever remember failing to make people laugh when you were six? I think my standards were probably lower then. So I was happy with a smirk. Now anything less than a guffaw. I mean, I have my volume now, what I would call my volume. And I couldn't, if we had graphic equalizers, I couldn't reproduce it.

But when I do a gig, I know instinctively what my volume is. And if I don't get my volume, even if they've been laughing, then I feel I've failed. And what's the sweetest sound? Well, there's different kinds of laughter. There's laughter which melts into applause. I mean, that is Nirvana, isn't it? Well, I don't know. I've never really bought into the applause thing.

Because, you know, politicians get applause. But one doesn't get any laughs and people will applaud at the end but that just means that that's a convention, whereas laughter always undermines people's conventions, sometimes people don't want to laugh and they just have to laugh and that's the real victory

you know it's interesting when people say, you know a comedian what they do is they make people laugh for a living. The use of the word make I find very interesting. It sounds like people don't really want to, but it's almost like tickling. You're forcing them into it. Whenever I spend an extended amount of time with you,

and the first time I did so was when we went on that road trip across America. We went from Las Vegas to Houston. Us two and another friend, friend of mine. And I remember you said something. You made a joke about, we were somewhere on the Mexican border. This is like name dropping, this is like place dropping. But we were somewhere on the Mexican border. And there was a little shop, nondescript shop, and a huge aerial behind it with kind of a round kind of satellite dish type thing.

And you said, I mean, that tambourine shop's doing a good job of its signage. And I thought at that moment, I mean, at that moment I began to get slightly worried about you because it felt to me like you're almost tortured by comedy. I mean, you almost can't switch it off. i don't want to switch it off though i mean i'm i'm relentless no i love listening to it i just wonder if you ever get tired of just of of thinking up funny things well um i mean i've gotta say i'm laughing at that because i think you enjoy your own jokes which is nice to say yeah well i'd forgot that joke completely but um of course now we wouldn't be able to see that chance it'd be behind a massive wall um i don't feel i think less so now actually when before i did it professionally

i think i probably couldn't let an opportunity go without trying to be funny you know i would have props in my pocket for in the pub and stuff like that i used to do a thing with um cling film and pretending i'd sneeze that i hadn't got a handkerchief i won't go into too many details i used to do that in the pub i used to take a knot and bolt onto fairground rides and drop it to pretend that something had fallen off the big wheel so i yeah i, it was always there, but I love it. I love it so much. There'll be jokes I do at home, which I just do over. If ever, my partner, Cathy, you know very well,

is a very fussy eater, and if ever we go out for a meal or she's eating at home, and I say, how's that? And she says it's a bit oily, I always say, well, it's only caught to one. And even when it isn't caught to one, I've been saying that now for 10 years. And even when I said it then, it makes me happy. There was just one other one when we got to Galveston.

I don't know whether you remember. Oh, yeah. And it's like a seaside resort, but it had half been blown away. Do you remember? Yes, it was a hurricane. Something or other had its wicked way with it. When we got talking about holidays, he used to go on, he talked about going to Beaudley on holiday.

And he said, I was just a kid, we had a caravan by the river. And he said, Terry went out fishing, but he was a rubbish fisherman. Keith went fishing. Keith went fishing, he said, and Terry just drank. And then just in about 10th of a second you said well said your one brother fish like a drunk and the other one drunk like a fish yeah you'd never thought of that before but it was it's an act of almost insanity to be able to come up with that um well Dennis Leary the American comic I remember he

when he moved to LA everyone he knew was having therapy. And he phoned me up and said, promise me you'll never have therapy of any kind, he said, because I've realized that comedians' brains are wired in a certain way. And if you let someone in there, they're going to put in more orthodox wiring. And you might have a lot less pain in your life, but you'll have a lot less laughs

what do you think of that as a swap i said no no i'll stick with the laughs what's your next track well one of my great um loves is uh velvet underground there's a certain sort of pre-punk new york moshy sound which i love and they epitomise it. I particularly like this track, which is called White Light, White Heat. Absolute Radio, Frank. Talking about music, there is a kind of, you describe it as a fuzzy, muddy sound. I mean, the best example of that is The Fall, where it's just, it's all mud, it seems to me, on occasions, and fuzz. Where did that come from?

Because Elvis isn't like that, and Elvis was your first love. Well, Elvis was like that when he started out. When Elvis was at Sun Records, it's got that moshiness. I think the first music that really, really moved me was 50s rock and roll. And I think I look for the 50s rock and roll in every bit of music I hear to this day. And what it's got, it sounds like some people have got together on a street corner.

And it's got all the rough edges on. And one of the reasons I really struggled was because when I was in my teens and got mega into music, all my mates were listening to Pink Floyd and stuff like that. And I found I couldn't cope with the polished, sort of pure nature of it. I like things that sound a bit like somebody building a shed. What was the first time you remembered that happening? Like little Richard, you could say,

could feel his toe shooting up into his boot when he heard. so when's the first time your toe shot up into your boot well my brother gave me uh an elvis album he gave me a bunch of albums um they were all in the wrong sleeve my brother was not he didn't care for vinyl and that you know that sort of inner sleeve, he thought that was just packaging, so he used to throw that away. So for years I thought it was Elvis' golden records I had, but it wasn't. It was a different album that was in that sleeve. And there was a track on that,

which is actually a little Richard cover called Rip It Up. And when it went into that, I remember thinking, oh yeah, this is the music I'm gonna be liking it was one of I suppose one of my first hairs going up on the back of the neck but I still get you know I can still think of those moments first track on the Anelvis Costello's first album first track on um the Ramones first album a the first time I heard The Smiths. Those moments when you hear someone and think, I'm already in love.

And certainly it happened with The Four. And where were you, just going back to that Rip It Up, where were you, sitting in your house? Was there a record player? There was a Dan Set record player, and it would have been preceded by a lot of... because it was in terrible state. And then this voice came out.

And I know it's, you know, I think people now think Elvis was a bit naff because they think about the jumpsuits and all that. But he, to me, is still what any sort of alternative music, music that your mum and dad doesn't like, music that gets you by, you gets you in the entrails. He still epitomises that for me. So it's visceral. Absolutely.

Absolute Radio Frank. Fascinating, Frank, going back and reading your first book, which I read first time round and loved it. It was before I knew you, before we'd even met. It just strikes strikes what a different person you are in there to what you are now going back and rereading it now now i know you well well i mean it's it's 17 years ago that i wrote that book and i once heard a radio 4 program where they had a bloke on who he studied c anemones that was his job and the interviewer said a very good question how

do you know when they're dead and he said well uh growth if you if you can't measure any growth over a period of time we officially class them as you know they're no longer alive and so if I was the same bloke I was 17 years ago I would officially class myself as dead. I said to Emily Dean I spoke to this morning I said, the thing is, I didn't know Frank then, and she said, well, lucky you. Yes. I don't know if you'd have liked me when I was a

drunkard and stuff. I'm not talking about the drunk years. I'm talking about the time when you were writing that book where you were super successful. You just don't seem, I mean, look, absolutely compelling, but I just think you might be a nicer person now. I think I'm probably, I think I was always a middle-aged man in waiting.

I've always believed, even as a child, I'm not calling being 60 middle-aged, that suggests that I'll lift 120, which, I mean, I'm all for modern medicine, but I don't think that's going to happen. But I sort of have grown into myself a bit, I think, and I feel happier now. At that time, when I was in the tabloids all the time and stuff like that, I think I was a bit more edgy, a bit more tense.

And, I mean, I'm still capable of being unpleasant but um i think then it was it was i always felt um like it was show day i felt that sort of anxiety you get in your shoulders when you know you're going to be on telly in a minute do you think you were conforming to a stereotype which either you'd invented for yourself or had been put upon you you know the lad you know it's it's all it was a bit sort of, I don't know, you're almost like a comedy Liam Gallagher at times. There's a bit of a strut about you, all but with a lot of self-deprecation. Well, I think that's what I was like.

I mean, one thing about my work, it's always been very autobiographical. Even on telly, I always talk about myself and stuff. And so that's who I was then and I think I you know I I was still fresh from Birmingham and then of course I spent some time amongst the chattering classes in the capital and now I've you know I've mellowed somewhat the next uh the next song do you call them songs or tracks when I say say tracks, my daughters laugh at me in derision. I won't laugh at you in derision, whatever you call it.

The next one is the Ramones. The next disc. Next tune. Why the Ramones? Well, you know when people go to things dressed as the people on stage, I don't know if you've ever done that, but you know, if people used to go and see Culture Club

dressed as Boy George and stuff. Or The Jam. The classic wannabe thing. The last time I did that was the Ramones gig at the Birmingham Odeon, and I went in the ripped jeans, you know, white pumps and the biker jacket and all that. And that's how much I loved them.

I still, the first time I heard the Ramones, my world slightly changed forever. And again, it's that thing, it's just raw and it's from the dot. And it sort of breaks down all that falseness and phoniness that you have to put up with in the world. Which track are you going for? It's called California Son, which i love playing that in january but the riff on it is one i've always loved absolute radio frank music obviously

sustains you and obsesses you and everything is there a are there kinds of music we just can't bear if you got to a desert island and there were eight discs there and you looked and thought i'm just not playing them i'd rather i'd just rather die here baking in the sun to no soundtrack than that. I find it difficult to say. Most genres I've had a real try with. In the days when there were more record shops, CD shops, I used to stand and look and think,

I bet there are artists in here who, if I heard them change my life and i'll probably never hear them but um funnily enough i think that the one track that always sends a shiver through me is imagined by john lennon that i know he's regarded as a great classic but i despise it and then there's people who i used to like like police and eurythmics i used to really admire and now i just find them and madness something to do with my drinking years i think which is what they all coincided with um i can't listen well i do this because i i play them for um professional reasons but um all of those i can no longer cope with. It's a worry, isn't it? Because there might be someone I love now.

Not that I loved them, but people I like now that I will despise in years to come. It's something to look forward to. Emily said something to me interesting once about her reading. She said, I'm very disciplined about reading. I force myself to read. I read stuff out of my comfort zone. And is it possible to be like that with music

i've sort of taken that on with music i thought i'm going to force but i'm going to listen to that all the way through twice well i've um i'm deep into um beethoven string quartets at the moment and it doesn't come easy to me but i keep finding bits that i really really like and so there's enough to keep me... It's like the odd little lamppost in a very, very dark street. I've just kind of sensed it would be worth carrying on with it. And I think it's always good to do that. I think any sort of reading or music

that feels a bit like an intellectual workout is good for the soul. Absolute Radio Frank. This is Adrian Charles on Absolute Radio Frank, interviewing the said Frank. The many things you've achieved in your career, just having a radio station given over to yourself, that's a big thing.

That's a beautiful thing. It's great. It's like staging a coup in a Central American republic. You know, the first thing they always seem to get is the radio station. No, it's great it wasn't my idea, I was very, very thrilled

to hear about it When you're choosing your records for the records, I've used an archaic term Yeah, that's fine, I'm happy with that When you're choosing them, at first that must be a great feeling, because you've never done much music radio, had you, before it must be a lovely feeling it's you've never done much music radio, had you, before? It must be a lovely feeling.

It's like your own Desert Island Discs every week. Yeah, well, I try not to celebrate it too much, because I don't know if anyone else here has the same contract. So I get two choices an hour. And one of the reasons I came to Absolute was that I thought that, generally speaking, their playlist is great. There are some stations I just couldn't cope with the playlist. It would drag me down too much.

But to be able to embroider an already beautiful tapestry with my own stuff, it's a novelty and a joy that has not worn off over the seven or eight years. We were just talking just off air a minute ago about the Oasis brothers, if I can call them that, and you said... Jeff and Steve Oasis. Yes, those two. But you were saying about Liam and I, you said,

I knew them in the 90s when we were sort of all quite mega, you know. When you look back on your mega years, I mean, I don't think you're any less mega now than you were then, but what... That's kind of you, but why do you think I've taken over absolute 90s? Because I think that's his crowd. I actually, I went to Dublin earlier in the week

and I went into one of those gift shops to buy, I actually, I went to Dublin earlier in the week and I went into one of those gift shops to buy, I actually bought a sort of penny whistle for my son. And the woman said, I just wanted to say, you know, I love you. The other people in the shop are too young to recognize you. I thought, oh. No, I think it was, you know, I'm loving everything that happens now. And I'm probably working more than ever. And, you know, I'm still on telly a lot, still doing live, love doing the radio, etc, etc.

But I do think the 90s was sort of, that was when I was in, you know, the 3am girls were talking to me and stuff like that. So it's that, I mean, I always say that there was a secret conference of celebrities in the 90s when we got together and said, look, it's too much. The workload is too much for talented people. Let's bring in a whole load of people whose job is just celebrity and let them do some of the dirty work. And that's why they had reality shows and all that. And those people have done a sterling job as our celebrity support staff.

And I used to do all that. I used to... There was a magazine voted me Party Animal of the Year in about 96 or something like that. And you went on a drink for 10 years. No, exactly. But I just went to stuff because the novelty of being invited

to showbiz parties, it took about ten years to wear off. Your next pick is Tempol Tudor. I was always baffled by them as a kid. The name was just strange. I found them a worry on top of the pops. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what they were about.

Can you help me? I think if they toured, a worry on top of the pops. I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what they were about. Can you help me? I think if they toured, a worry, Adrian Charles, would be a very good quote for the poster. Because that's one of the things about them is they were basically medieval night punks, which is a great combo. They wore quite a lot of heraldic clothing and stuff. I mean, I think I established in the first hour,

I love that sort of New York sound. But I love bands who sound English. English bands who sound English. I have a problem when people say to me, oh, Amy Winehouse was so brilliant, and it's really opened her heart. And I thought, if I did a stand-up to her, in which I spoke in an American accent, I'd be booed off stage.

100%. But Tempol Tudor, to me, sounds not only like an English band, but an English band from the 15th century. And I'd say Wunderbar, or Wunderbar, if you like, is probably their piece de resistance. Absolute radio, Frank. The likes of Temple Tudor, where are they now? I love sort of Wikipedia-ing some of these kind of acts,

and it's fascinating what becomes of them. Yeah, you have to be careful with Wikipedia. I remember once I was on a show with Faye Tozer from Steps, and I said, say, you're quite a successful uh trampolining champion she said i'm sick of people saying i've never been on a trampoline in my life um and that was one of her wikipedia at ten ball tuda i went out with the woman uh who um who had a a child um by the um i think it was the guitarist or the bass player in Ten Ball Tudor. That's how much I liked them. I just thought any link would do me.

But no, they were, I think, yeah, I've never had a problem with the one-hit wonder phenomenon for obvious reasons, maybe. But I just think there's a lot of people who have no hits who you hear taking the mickey out of one-hit wonders. And I always think, look in the mirror, mate. No hit wonder. What do you think would have been different about your career

when you were starting out and obviously trying to promote yourself and make a go of comedy if you'd been in the social media era? When now you can't do it without being either brilliant or at least very enthusiastic about Twitter and Facebook. Would you have embraced that, do you think? Well, I think I was very lucky in that when I came along, that wasn't around. Because I think, for a start-up,

there's a phenomenal amount of joke theft. I mean, Emily Dean, who I do the radio show with on Saturday mornings, is always telling me about someone delivering a joke on Twitter that I've done that morning. And I'm delivering it as their own. So I can't, I can't abide. The comedy police of the 90s would have stepped in straight away on that one. I also think that when I started, I was a sort of pioneer, there was about 35 comics I knew who were making a living on our sort of, you know, what they called the alternative circuit. And now there's about 450 in that same thing.

And it's like when you see old footballers, you know, you see some of the greats and they don't look that great. I think it's good to be around in the formative years is definitely an advantage. I know you'd always been trying to make people laugh, but you were 30 before you went on stage at a paid gig. Do you think it's a bit like, you know, we criticise politicians for never having had a proper job before and don't know anything about life.

Do you think that was to your advantage? I mean, you'd worked in a factory, you'd teach a training, et cetera, you'd done in a factory, you'd, you know, you'd teach a training, et cetera, you'd have a degree. You'd done other things. Yeah, I think that what you realise is that you've been researching being a stand-up comedian for 30 years, but you never knew it. And I think that's true of most creatives. You know, if you're going to be a novelist or a playwright,

it's all grist to the mill. You know, it's all that works. And there are people who you know jack kerouac the american writer basically apart from one road book wrote about his childhood you know ad infinitum out reworking it reworking it reworking it so it's great for that you realize that your life has basically been sausage meat and now you've suddenly got a sausage-making machine and you can start banging them out. Absolute Radio Frank. Rereading your first book, I have to tell you,

it doesn't speak well of me, but I felt real, real proper envy at one bit, where you spoke of your birth certificates, where the words Western Bromwich appear on it sort of three times, don't they? It's not on mine. Mine's just Birmingham. Yeah, mine says, born in the town of West Bromwich,

in the borough of West Bromwich, in the district of West Bromwich, I think. There was no, there was no escape. We both support the same football team, but I forgot about the story about your dad. Like, West Brom, in a way, brought him to Birmingham in the first place. He met your mum. Well, this was, I mean, he played for a club called Spennymore United in County Durham,

and they got drawn against West Brom in the third round of the Cup. They were a non-league team. And he came down, certainly he came down with the squad. I'm never sure if he actually played. But while he was down here, they lost 7-1, with the squad. I'm never sure if he actually played. But while he was down here, they lost 7-1, by the way.

Those were the days. And while he was down, he went to a pub that night and two blokes said, do you want to come to a party? We're having a party. And the way he told it was he thought they were both lowlifes. So when they asked him his name, he said Len. His name was actually John, but he didn't want to give them his real name because they looked so dubious.

And then he went, but they turned out to be my mum's brothers, and so he ended up meeting my mum and marrying her as a result of having been at the Albion. That's what brought him down to the West Midlands. So he never went back? I think he went back briefly and then came back down again. But he still happily told my mother the story about the fact that her brothers were such lowlifes

that he wouldn't give them their real name. It was insensitive of him, I thought. So, yeah, I mean, it could be said that without West Bromwich Albion, I would never have been born. And what kind of class were they from? I mean, you call yourself, you're a proper working class background. My dad was very, very working class. I mean, his dad, they both was a miner,

and my dad had worked in the mines in County Durham. And they were classy. I mean, you know, pigeons and whippets and, you know, cigarettes and flat caps. They were absolutely the sort of people you can only really picture in black and white. Now, it seems so long ago. And my mum also, you know, would tell stories about, you know, my granny literally, you know, boiling up the bones to make soup. And that was it, you know, for that day and stuff.

So they, I mean, they knew poverty like I never knew. We were just basically living in a council house, outdoor toilet, you know, working class folk. Is it true that your mum said that you first met your dad's parents that were both smoking pipes? That can't be true. No, that is true. I have actually seen a picture of my granny smoking a nice little clay pipe.

Yeah, it was a different world. I mean, you know, it was a long time ago, obviously, as we're establishing this fabulous anniversary channel. And your mum saw him coming in a dream, didn't she? She actually won, I think it was uh she won five shillings in a newspaper saying that she'd seen this man being brought down from heaven by angels and then three years uh later uh she met him and it was the same bloke and that incredibly um was my dad who was like a real wild drunk troublemaker of a guy

who'd been born down by angels, incredibly. Perhaps Benny Moore is heaven. Well, I just think he was thrown out of everywhere else. He was probably thrown out of there as well. But we get to the fall. A band, in your honour, I've really tried to get my head round, and I just can't really?

oh yeah I can't get through it well that's no way is it to approach music I heard this particular track I was in my car one night I used to do a lot of late night driving when I was in the early days of comedy

and I was listening to John Peel I think it was, and he played Spoiled Victorian Child. And weirdly, I thought, I love that. These are one of those bands. The hair went on the back of my neck, and I thought, I'm just going to listen to them. And then I never got round to it for about five years.

And finally, I got a Greatest Hits album, and I thought, you know what, I was right. These are the best band in the world. and even the lead singer wouldn't like that because he thinks they should be called a group that a band has to have trombones in it but anyway yes this is the fall with that very track Spoilt Victorian Child. Absolute Radio Frank. What do you think your parents wanted for you? I think that my mum didn't have those sort of big ideas. I think she'd just grown up in a world where ambition was not appropriate. My dad advised me very early on to go into showbiz if I possibly could. Get on the bandwagon is what he used to say possibly could. Get on the bandwagon, is what he used to say. Once you're on the bandwagon, he said, look at some of them people on the team.

He said, look at that Aspel. Got nothing. No talent. He said, but he's on the bandwagon. Did he ever think Geordie Accent, your dad? He had, I couldn't really spot it, but all my mates used to take the mickey out of the fact that he's, you know, there's someone from when the boat comes in living in my house but uh so he was very impractical I think he had aspirations my dad even though he just you know worked in factories and things but it's almost exotic is he don't you

there weren't many Geordies in Birmingham at that time there was plenty of Scots about it it comes south looking for work I don't I don't I don't recall meeting a Geordie anywhere until I went to college or something. No, well, like I say, he got here by fairly exceptional circumstances, a mixture of football and love, which has powered both of us through the years as well. So, yeah, that's a very good point, actually. Some of his relatives followed him down i remember i had an uncle jimmy came over it looked very much like my son actually

same color hair and eyes and they uncle jimmy came around and they had a row and they went outside for a fight which was quite a difficult moment two brothers and. And Jimmy took his coat off and threw it down and a car went over it. And he said, well, that's good on me coat. And my dad said, think yourself lucky you weren't wearing it. And they just collapsed in laughter and then just went

down the pub. That was the end of that argument. And when you look at Boz, what do you want for him? Boz, I should say, is my four and a half year old, in case you don't know. What do I want for him? Buzz, I should say, is my four-and-a-half-year-old, in case you don't know. What do I want for him? I want him to be a top-order stand-up comedian. I really would like him to be a stand-up comedian.

I'll do what I can to push him in that direction. He's got that gene somehow, hasn't he? He's already funnier than a lot of people making a living out of it. I mean, to me, he endlessly says things that completely crack me up. I know people say that about kids, but they

don't have his timing. And is there anything you'd have him, you wouldn't want him to do with his life? Because whatever you wouldn't want him to do with his life? I mean, when he, you know, when he, because whatever you don't want him to do, he will do. I mean, kids, kids just do. You don't want him to drink, he'll drink loads.

Yeah, well, I mean, there are dark things, obviously. There's lots of dangers and temptations for, you know, kids nowadays. But I think I would just like to be around long enough to get to the point where he doesn't want me to be around anymore, which, as you know, that happens with kids. And then I can either die quietly or I can finally return to my study and read Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Absolute Radio Frank. Reading a lot about your dad, again, your first book, you see he was quite a funny guy but quite an angry drunk. Yeah. He had that shot in his lock. He could be volatile. I mean, he was fabulously entertaining and he's the man who got me into, like, singing and telling jokes

and watching football and boxing and stuff like that. So he's an amazing influence on me. But he was a lot harder than me. He was built, you know, like a barrel. So I couldn't have adopted that side of his personality without getting regularly knocked out. So what were you like with a load of drink inside you? Again, you'd stopped drinking 20 years before I met you.

Well, you know, I like to think I was great. And then after I packed up, people i met you well i you know i like to think i was great and then after i packed up people who i thought were you know extremely heavy drinkers told me that if they were approaching the bar and they could see me in there when they arrived and they knew i was on one as they'd say like you know a three or four day bender they used to just turn around and go out because they couldn't cope with it and I was shocked by that because I thought I was endlessly entertaining as a drunken but I suppose every drunken does so why do you suppose that was? did you become acid tongued or just sort of garrulous?

I suppose I, you know, I did they get very repetitive don't they drunks and I'd just be troublesome I used to get thrown out of pubs. I remember I sang Last Train to San Bernardino, I think it was called, and accompanied by the large ashtray banged on the bar and that shattered into a thousand pieces

and then I got thrown out and then I had a fight with a bloke. I say I had a fight, I basically got knocked over by somebody outside. And life could be like that. Me and my dad went drinking once. I was meeting a woman at midday, and he said, come and have a pint with me first.

And I woke up on the floor of our house at four o'clock. You know, we'd both been thrown out the pub. So I don't know how it happened, but me and my dad, you know, I picked up his motto. And when he spoke about drink, he used to say none or enough. And I found none to be too difficult to cope with. It always strikes me when I think, you know, I've never drunk like that, but I sort of drink a lot.

Just, what a waste of time it is sometimes. And all the time you've saved by not drinking. It takes a lot of time to build up to it, to think about it, to plan it, to do it, and then to recover from it. People never mention this, but one of the big blows when you stop drinking, one of the things that's really hard to cope with, it's like 24-hour days have suddenly become 34-hour days. And we all think that's great, but suddenly there's a big chunk of extra time. chunk of extra time and that I think ultimately is why I started doing comedy because I just felt like it's you know some strange lunar eclipse and the days had got longer and I had to fill

them with something but also you used it still learning all the time improving things at the time I might choose I'll just go for a couple of pints. You know, you'll go to the opera or you'll go to a gallery or you'll see some obscure film or something. Well, that is true. I mean, I went to the opera this week with my friend Baroness Bakewell to see The Rosen Cavalier, which is four and a half hours long. Not happy with that. On the way there, I listened to an audio book about the history of Rome. So I find it exciting. I find, I love, you know, I love football and that kind

of, you know, that stuff that's easier, if you like. But I like the feeling of, you know, those, they're called Van de Graaffaf generators when you get like a spark going. I can feel that between my ears on moments like that and that's the best feeling ever. Craftwork. So there's a German theme going on here. Even Tempol Tudor, quintessentially English, had a German title to this one.

I've always loved Germany, I must say. I feel part of me has some sort of allegiance. I love the whole, I think it's still okay to call it Krautrock. That's what it's officially called. You know, I like that stuff. And when I first heard Kraftwerk, I couldn't believe it was so different. You know, there was something like a six-minute single in the charts, which was Autobahn, with people sounding very german and um

and sounding like they were from the 22nd century this is uh probably the most well-known track called the model um which um has got one of my best lines ever where it says she's a model and she's looking good i'd like to take her home it's understood uh and it's it's fab model and she's looking good. I'd like to take her home. It's understood. And it's fabulously exotic. It's a world I would like to spend some time in, the craft work world. Absolute Radio, Frank. Does being 60 worry you?

Being 50, as I'm exactly 10 years behind you almost, is worrying me to death. Well, I love free stuff in all its manifestations, and it's one of my big thrills. It's never worn off. Someone sent me a spork to the radio show the other week, and, you know, a cross between a spoon and a fork. I was thrilled. But my bus pass came this week, my 60 plus bus pass.

And even though I knew free travel was the headline flashing in my mind, mortality was the slightly smaller writing just under it. So it's all right. Being 30 was tougher because when I was 30, I was unemployed and I had a drink problem. And my best mate's girlfriend, I remember, said to me, so what's it like being 30 and on the scrap heap? So I don't feel I'm on the scrap heap now, so there is that. But I but to die and go we know not where,

to lie in cold obstruction and to rot. So what drives you now, now none of those things are going to happen to you? What drives me is I still really care. I still, if someone said to me, I mean this happens, people say, oh could you come and do a ten minute thing, blah, blah, blah. You know, it's just a, I still want to do it absolutely to the best of my abilities. And if I don't, if I feel I've let myself down, I will feel that in my shoulders for about three days. And I really, I love this job in all its manifestations. And I think I have a

moral obligation to do it as well as I can do it. I was born eight miles down the road from you, a proper white middle-class boy in a very middle-class neighbourhood in Hagley. Would you have been different if you'd have been, had that, I was quite a relatively wealthy upbringing I had, when you were proper kind of working class? Well, my dad used to say that if he won the pools we'd we'd get a small holding in hagley so you were living on mount olympus as far as we were concerned i think i

probably would have been different um yeah i think it was yeah it's it's weird you know things that feel like tough or not that pleasant in your life, when you look back on them, can be beneficial things. And I think if you've been, this is a cruel way of putting it, but if you've been a loser, there's a part of you that remains a loser. And if you've been poor, there's part of you that's always poor no matter how much money you get. And I can still feel that in my joints, and I think it's good that I still

feel that.