Hello and welcome back to Will I Vike It?I'm your host, Craig.And today my guest is Ed Gamester.
Welcome to the show, Ed.Thanks.And thanks for getting my name right.Because not everyone does.Do people get it wrong?Yeah, people say Gamester sometimes.OK.
Or they just say it with this sort of quizzical note in their voice, where they're like, Ed Gamester?And then they go, am I saying it right?And then, yeah.So thanks for nailing it.Fair enough.Thanks for having me.
Ah, pleasure.So we will get into your recent Edinburgh Fringe show later on, which is where we briefly met earlier.
But I thought at first, so I was actually going to initially ask you how you became, that made me laugh because you looked like you were doing a sponsorship.You just did like a
I mean, just spoken about that.Yeah.I like to start every podcast by just telling everyone about the whatever beer we found in the fridge.No, I imagine it was.Sorry.
It was just that side angle.It was just kind of like.
Yeah, I like I've got a side angle going on today, because if I sit straight on the microphone, hides my face, which is I mean, some would say an advantage.
All good.All right.So yeah, I was going to say what I was going to start asking you about was how you became a wrestler.
But then when I was doing a bit of background research, I realized that you've actually got loads of titles from Stuntman, Strongman, Writer.So I figured we'd go back a little bit further, maybe.I just wondered where your career started out.
I mean, what did you initially want to do?
Yeah, good question.No, I wanted to be a wrestler.Oh, no, I wanted to... That's actually not true.When I was six, I think I wanted to be a writer.Did you ever watch Rosie and Jim?
I think I passed me by that one.
It was a TV show about a man called Jim.Oh, no, not called Jim, called John, who lived on a canal boat and wrote storybooks about the adventures of Rosie and Jim, these two ragdolls.
And I decided that I wanted to be John, which was to say I wanted to sail around, sail around, chug around. on a canal boat and write books.So I wanted to do that.
And then when I got a little bit older, I decided that writing was for nerds and I wanted to be a pro wrestler because that was obviously much cooler.
It seems that 30 years later, I've achieved both by some strange twist of fate, which I am sort of only now realizing on this podcast.So well done me.
It's not the origin I was expecting, to be honest, Rosie and Jim.
I'm sure lots of people had formative Rosie and Jim experiences.Yeah, but I think the thing is, I don't think there's a huge difference between the two.
People would think that living on a canal boat and wrestling, very different things, but they're both forms of storytelling.One is using words and one is using like
physicality, but the the end goal is the same, which is to take a story and tell it to other people and live as well.
That's quite what's quite nice about what we're doing now is it's a live version of storytelling, whereas storytelling through the medium of writing can be quite a lonely and soul destroying task because, you know, just you sat there.So.
So yeah, it all started there with like a general desire to tell stories, which is I suppose to say, evoke emotion in other people through your actions or your words, I suppose, would be roughly what that would be.So yeah, I wanted to do that.
And that has taken me down a strange road through from writing things to wrestling to then essentially doing the same thing, but recorded on a camera, which is stunts and acting.It's the same.
It's storytelling and action, but someone's filming you so that people can watch you from far away rather than doing it right there in their face.So yeah, you're right.
There's a lot of disparate sort of strange job titles that have been bestowed upon me, but they're all the same thing, which is storytelling.
So how did you go about becoming a wrestler?I guess we need to pinpoint something, don't we?Yeah.So if we go with wrestling, because that's probably where the focus will be because of your show.So yes.Yeah.So how do you become a wrestler?
Well, you go to wrestling school is the easy answer.I started in my back garden like so many people do.Yeah.I grew up in a a big boarding house where there were a hundred other people.So there was quite a high turnover of mattresses.
So whenever a mattress got thrown out, I'd store it in a shed.And then I'd put the mattresses together to make a backyard wrestling arena.And there I would backyard wrestle.
I did that for a few years as a child, and then I realized that really, if I wanted to do this as a job, I needed to learn how to do it.So I found a wrestling school, and the first one I found, really, I found it because someone flyered me for it.
They gave me a flyer outside of a wrestling event. saying, come and learn wrestling.And I thought that's exactly what I want to do.So that's what I did.That school no longer exists, but I've been to a few others since then.
And if anyone is interested in wrestling and doing wrestling and learning it, there are plenty out there.You just need to make sure you pick a good one, because if you pick a bad one, it's terrible.But there are some great ones.
And I'd highly recommend Greg Burridge in London.If anyone's down that way, he's an excellent coach.
So that's that's the sort of tedious backstory is I just I went to wrestling school and like any sport, I did it as many times as I possibly could afford to.Yeah.
During the week until I got better at it because everyone is terrible at wrestling to begin with.It's a very unnatural thing to do.
So where did your your initial interest in wrestling come from?Were you watching WWF and that kind of thing on the?
Yeah.Yeah.I mean, I can't imagine anyone gets interested in wrestling without watching wrestling on TV.
Yeah, I don't know.Maybe you could have like gone to see a show or something.Oh, no, that's true.
And yeah, no, it's not as cool as that.No, I am.So I watched Cartoon Network when I was a child.Did you watch Cartoon Network or did that one? Yeah.More modern than Rosie and Jim.
And what was strange was that when Cartoon Network went off the air, which was back in the days of satellite TV. Uh, the wrestling then came on, it became TNT.I think it was, was the channel.
And the first thing that happened was they put WCW world championship wrestling on.So you go from watching cow and chicken and it would, the credits would roll.And the next thing you knew it was Goldberg.
Um, and I just thought it was, it was the coolest thing I had ever seen.Um, I still do.Uh, I don't watch much wrestling these days.I find the modern programming to be kind of elongated and tedious.
But back then as a child, and let's be clear, I think wrestling is primarily for children, or at least like as a form is because children believe it.
You know, adults, you have to try and convince you're doing is real, which is silly because everyone knows it isn't.Whereas children believe what you're doing.And so as a child seeing superhuman
uh, warriors smashing each other around, um, for a few hours, um, on Monday evenings was just, I don't know if it was Monday evenings, whenever it was, I can't remember now I was a child.
Anyway, my point is, I think it might have been actually, it was when it was live.I just can't remember if we got it live in the UK.
I know it was, it was live on Monday nights in the States, but I, I can't imagine, or maybe that would make sense because that's why it was on so early. in England because it was live in America.Is that how time works?We're ahead of them.
So then it would be no, because then if it was evening, morning.
Yeah, no, it must have been taped then.It must have been taped.I don't know.I don't know.
I wonder if I wonder if it was like a Saturday night show and it was because there used to be more of a delay getting stuff here.So whether it then went out two days later or something.
I feel like it must have been the weekend because I can't imagine why else I would have been allowed to stay up if I ever was.A lot of the time I had to sneak out, you know, and record the pay-per-views live.But no, it was definitely TV.
I got into WCW through that WWF.I thought it's the coolest thing ever.I should do this for sure.
But it's not one of those careers where there's an obvious progression, you know, you don't go to college or whatever, you really have to make it up on your own.
Certainly back then in the 90s, or the 2000s, people hadn't really even worked out that it wasn't real in the mid 90s.So the idea of trying to get into that in the UK was, yeah, it was challenging.
So once you go to wrestling school and you leave wrestling school, do you join a particular wrestling group show?I don't know how it works.
That's more or less it.I mean, yeah, you don't exactly graduate from wrestling school these days, maybe because I'm sure someone does something a bit more structured.
But back then, wrestling school was just you find someone who is a wrestler and they sort of teach you.And then either way before you're ready, you start just wrestling and it's terrible.
Or they just don't let you wrestle for much, much longer than is ever reasonable for someone who wants to be a wrestler.It's very rare that you kind of get trained up and you're like, now you're actually ready to do this.Let's go.
And much more likely you just get thrown in the deep end or just held back forever.In my case, I was just thrown in at the deep end and often for not very much training, I found myself Yeah, wrestling and shows around London, West London primarily.
And I did that, but I was only 16 or 17.So I couldn't even drive at the time.So I had to get my mom to drive me.And when my mom saw me get beaten up particularly badly, she just stopped driving me to wrestling, which was perfectly fair enough.
I said, I'm gonna have to drive myself.So I had to learn to drive.And then I carried on just getting being up.And then eventually, Craig, I went to uni in Leeds.So I stopped wrestling to go to uni.And I picked it back up again later in my mid 20s.
Is there any do we skip over that university stage or is there anything you'd like to discuss on that section?
There's not a lot to say about it.I studied philosophy.I did modules in ancient Icelandic because I was very into mythology, very into all the old poetry.And I wanted to understand that.
So I studied some of that on an English course I did alongside philosophy and that kind of was the start of my decline when it comes to, you know, ever getting a real job.
It was never high on my agenda, but then studying, majoring in philosophy really convinced me that being even remotely normal was something I was going to have to write off for the rest of my life.So here we are.
So then you make your way back into wrestling.So how soon after that were you starting to think of Mythos Ragnarok?
Oh, ages.Mythos only came into my mind three years ago.So I started wrestling when I was 16, so that was 21 years ago.So it took at least 10 years of that until
I even really realized that what I was doing was a real thing and wasn't just some insane thing to do at the weekend to make life more interesting.I realized that this was an actual career I could pursue, this was an actual skill that I had.
It took a long time to work that out and By that point, I realized there was no money in it.So I transitioned into stunt work because there's more money getting beaten up on films than there is getting beaten up in wrestling.
So I did that for a while.But it was only, yeah, I'd say about three years ago that the idea to combine them came along.And to an extent, Craig, I have COVID to thank for that because
I am a reasonably busy human, and I don't have a lot of time to follow through on all of the ideas.
And that was an idea that had been bubbling away for some time, but it was only when COVID happened and stopped all the wrestling and all the films and everything else, I genuinely couldn't do anything.
And I thought, right, well, I need to find something I can do at home.And so writing the scripts and the production concepts for Ragnarok sort of came about.
And before Ragnarok, what I did was like immersive theater events in which there was lots of fighting and storytelling.So I was already combining the fighting and the storytelling, but it just had nothing to do with the Norse mythology.
And then it was only later down the line that I thought, well, you know what?It's something I actually know a lot about and I'm quite passionate about is a form of storytelling that is completely ignored culturally anyway.
So this is a really great way for me to tell stories I'm interested in, in a way that no one else is doing.So, yeah.So it's been a long, a long road.It's been 20 something years of this kind of nonsense by now.
I guess as we're talking about mythos, whether it's worth, in case anyone's not aware of it, maybe you could give a quick explanation as to what it is.
Surely by now everyone is aware of mythos.Everyone in the world.World famous.By the amount that I spend on Instagram adverts, Craig, they bloody well should be.Yes.Now mythos is...
The official name of it is Mythos Ragnarok, and it is a storytelling event which tells the myth of Ragnarok, or at least a series of myths smashed together to make one cohesive myth telling the story of Ragnarok, the creation of the cosmos and its eventual destruction in Ragnarok live on stage.
The reason that people are particularly interested in it is that I cast professional wrestlers to play all the gods.
And that means that whenever there are conflicts, which is all the time in Norse mythology, they can actually perform really exciting, unique fight choreography, which no one else in the world.
can do outside of wrestling and also even within wrestling no one else is doing, which is to say having theatrical fights using wrestling rather than putting people into a wrestling ring and then having a referee and pretending they're fighting for real, which is what wrestling is but is not what I'm interested in.
I was, I must admit when, because as I sort of alluded to at the beginning, so I came to your Edinburgh Friends show and I'd seen a couple of short YouTube clips, but I was still unsure exactly what to expect.
And even now, when I try to explain it to people, it's kind of a, I don't know.It's like, it's wrestling.It's Norse mythology.It's, there's quite a lot of humor in there as well, which I think I was surprised by.Oh, that's good.Yeah.
In this day and age, I swear everyone is a business.You don't meet anyone anymore who's just a person.They've got a business, and a side hustle, and a thing.
They've all tentatively studied marketing, and they'll all tell you that you need a USP, and a brand, and a this, and a that, and so on.People constantly tell me that.
They're like, oh, we don't really understand what it is, and you should put more effort into explaining it.To be honest, I don't care. I think it's nice that people don't really know what it is.
And when they come along, it's there's something that's surprising and it's funnier than they expect.It's more violent than they expect.And some people didn't realize there were many fighting it at all.They just came to see some myths.It's loud too.
Yeah, it is.Down the front, slamming into the mat.Like, yeah.
Yeah, some people hate that.I think that's much more interesting.Like I could pitch it, you know, I could make some Gucci Instagram advert that like hits all the frickin buzzwords and then everyone would know more or less what it is.
And they come and they'd be like, yeah, yeah, that's as I expected.Good, good.And I'm not.Come on, I don't care.Also, too lazy.So, yeah, I think.
We're in a kind of the day and age now where you watch a film trailer, you know, all the best bits, right?It's the same thing.I think you go to a show and you don't know what to expect.
You get more out of it.Of course.And, you know, the answer to that is the same as the answer to everything, Craig, which is that it's because they put money before everything else.
They would rather ruin the storyline for you to know that they'll sell more tickets than sell less tickets and know that the people that are there are having a good time. And I would rather keep things back.
It's the same reason I don't post an awful lot about Mythos on social media is I don't want like I know I just said about Instagram adverts.
I want lots of people to know that the show exists, but the actual content I put out, I don't want to give too much of the game away.That's the point.
That's why a lot of the Instagram adverts are kind of wrestling and they're interesting to look at, but they don't.There's no storyline elements.
There's no like extended scenes like you could have seen everything I've ever posted online about the show and still come to the show and have no idea what's going on. or at least what you're about to experience.And I think that's that's nice.
I know that means that when people see it, they're getting the best experience that they can do rather than know that a whole bunch more people are going to come because I've just force fed everyone like exciting content, but content that at the end of the day is going to detract from their experience of the live show.
Same reason I don't record the damn thing and put it online to everyone in America, every single person in America, all 80 million of them.No.How many are there?There's 80 million of us here. A billion, let's say that.A billion people in America.
Every one of them, Craig, wants to see Mythos.And so they're always like, when are you going to put up a video of it for us to watch from afar?Never.It's not a recorded thing.It's meant to be live.
And then they rant about accessibility and so on and so forth. You know, it's not that I don't care, but the amount that I care is so small that that's not about access my show.
If you physically can't get in the building, you know, that's sad, obviously, but I'm not going to I'm not going to move my show into your care home.
I know I've heard in the past from like spoken word artists and stuff where they'll do shows and the same thing.People say, when is it coming out?It's not.You've got to go.
These are the dates you go to the show.If you missed it, you missed it.That's the end of it.
It's not in this day and age.It's not nowadays.They rampage.They're like, this is unfair.I'm working on that day.Why aren't you performing?There are people over here that live one hour from where we're performing.
They're like, but why aren't you coming to my town? Well, because an hour down the road, they're like, yeah, but come on, I can't come to that.I've got work.I'm sorry.When I planned my tour, I wasn't thinking about you specifically.
There's also this, you know, I just get to perform anywhere I like, you know, it's very difficult to get a theater to take a pro wrestling Nordic show.So the fact that I'm there at all, I'm very grateful for.
So when people are like, oh, no, a 19 minute drive, nah, performing the community center. It's insane.
I think I think I'm about 10 hours from Edinburgh and I made it.So come on.
I didn't go just for that, but well, maybe I did.
Oh, yeah.For the podcast, you did.Yeah, we've had some people.We had one guy fly from Australia to see it once, which was cool.And also then quite sad because we then went to Australia and did 60 shows there.So totally a bit bad.
Literally six months later.So, yeah, bless him.
I could tell you a quite funny experience.So I came, as you know, with my daughter.She's only seven.Yeah.And so we get to the theater quite early because we hang we're hanging out in Edinburgh for the day.
And she's like, I want like snacks and a drink for when the show's on.OK, so we just walked into the theater.
Because there's no one there.No, no, there wouldn't.It's not like we have expensive things that people could steal.Why would there be no one there?
I kind of, I mean, obviously misunderstood what kind of theatre it was and was expecting like a bar or something.So like, I don't know, we'll just wander around, see if we can find a bar.Anyway, we ended up walking in on you guys setting up.
Amazing.We literally just went, well, it says the seats are this way.And then we went open the door and you guys are all on the stage setting up.And I was just like, hey, that's cool.You should just go in.
So then, yeah, we went and found drinks and snacks I was wearing.
Yeah, man, that's Edinburgh Fringe for you.Yeah, we were in a theater show, but it was a lecture theater, right?We had to we had to make the place into Valhalla. for the purpose of 70 minutes.Yeah, we managed it.
But yeah, it's not like a normal experience.We're very lucky to have had that venue.People perform there for many, many years in the hopes to be given that venue.So it's quite amazing that we got given it so early into our existence.
I'm super grateful.But yeah, I'd be lying if I said that it was sort of remotely Well managed.I mean, that's not a diss on the front of house people.They were fantastic.But you're there every day and there's millions of people.
It's when they like two or three other shows on the same.Each day as well.
Oh, yeah.There's loads.Yeah.
There's one after us and at least three before us.
Because the way you're you're packed down at the end as well.I was kind of loitering at the end and watching the pack down.And it was very impressive how quickly that.Yeah.
Yeah.Come for the show.Stay for the turnarounds.That's what I say.Tech people do.Tech people don't care about the show, but they'll sit there and go, wow, that is a. That's a swift turnaround.
And it has to be because we have quite a lot to get done and not a lot of time to do it.But it's also a hang up from when I first applied to do fringe festivals and I was just told it was impossible.They're like, no, you can't do it.
You'll never get it set up in time. So there was a lot of pressure on me when I got given my first gig to prove we could do it and prove we could do it twice as fast as everyone thought we could do.
And even when we're coming in on time, you still want to come in under time and have spare time and have people constantly impressed by how good you are, especially because by the end of the run, you're so exhausted that everything moves a bit slower.
So, yeah, it's it's a well-oiled machine these days.Thank you for noticing.
And at the end of the show, you gave a speech, which I would assume you probably did every day.It wasn't just because I was there, which was about how you were trying to get funding for the show.
And well, you probably explain it better than I could.
Well, I've done a speech after every one of the shows we've given, which I think now is 163.It's always slightly different because it depends how I'm feeling.Everyone again, Craig, everyone's a business, right?Everyone wants to give me advice.
Everyone says I should write it like the rest of the script and deliver it like the rest of the script.And it would be as effective as possible and maximize merchandise sales and maximize reach.
And also turned me into, I guess, some, I don't know, corporate mouth for my own company.I like getting to the end of a show and then talking to people for one or two minutes to thank them for coming and explain what it means to me.
And to script back seems insane.There are certain things I know I want to say, which is to thank people and to ask them to buy the fucking merchandise because you have to, right? But I'd rather do that in as genuine a way as I can do.So I don't know.
This is my rambling way of saying I don't know what I said the night you were there, but I do often mention the fact that no one wanted to fund this show.
I think you said you went to the Arts Council.Yeah, that was the.
We're now just nodding each other, which is great for audio.Yeah.Yeah.Sorry.Audio friends.No, I applied for, well, yeah, I applied for Arts Council funding and.
I mean, the Arts Council fund a lot of stuff and do a lot of good work, but they have an agenda, as does everybody.
And I'm sure that the Arts Council, who give money to everyone else, have to beg for their money from someone else, the lottery, I think.
So I'm sure that they have to prove that what they're doing with the money is in the best interests of whoever gives it to them. So it's all one long circle jerk of nonsense in which everyone's just begging everyone else.So I'm not very good at that.
So I didn't really have any interest in ticking the various boxes the Arts Council wanted me to tick in order for them to give me a trifling amount of money that would have probably paid everyone's fuel bills and that's about it. So it didn't.
But there's also no funding for this kind of thing as a sporting context.It's not like an Olympic sport.It's not like a grassroots sports funding.
There's another thing you can apply for, you know, if you're a local football team, you can apply for funding if you need to go abroad or do anything with the team.But wrestling isn't a real sport either.
So I couldn't get any funding from the sports people either.So this was very much a labor of love, something I realized we were going to have to do ourselves. It won't surprise anyone to know that it's not cheap to do this kind of thing.
It's much cheaper if you don't pay anyone, which seems to be how wrestling typically works, which is that they just put a show on and if people don't come, then they're like, oh, sorry, lads, there's no money to pay you and off you trot.
At least that's how it was. when I was younger, and I know that's how it still is in some of the smaller places.But we try and do everything as legitimately as we can.And we try and make sure everyone is paid no matter what and so on.
So there's a lot of risk that goes into these things.And so that was a risk that we just had sort of had to take on ourselves to start with.
You mentioned in your speech that you sold your house and moved into a van.
I hope I didn't say I sold my house because I've never owned a house in the first place.Maybe that came out.
I was so emotional at the time that you heard that.
OK, so you didn't sell a house, but you did move into a van.
There's been no house sales.We did move into a van.Yeah, Mel and I lived in a van for the first year of the existence of things. But no, we certainly didn't sell a house.
I mean, imagine being fortunate enough to have a house in the first place to sell it.
I mean, that's why I was like, wow, that's impressive.
Yeah.That'd be amazing.Yeah.
Because my next question was going to be like, if you had a partner and how they felt about you selling the house.
Oh, I see.Well, I do.And she was with me the whole way, even though there was no. There was no sale, which I now feel a little bit guilty about.I'm sure we would have sold the house if we'd owned one.
I think I may have said we sold everything we owned.I said that sometimes.Maybe I assumed everything we owned.You assumed house.Who knows?Whatever it was, we got rid of as much as we could.
Basically, what I was trying to say was, yeah, we scraped everything we had together. including sacrificing living in an actual house to live in a van, which was something I wanted to do anyway.
So it wasn't, you know, financially, it didn't work out that much cheaper, actually.And so we did that.
I mean, it was good because it was COVID anyway, so we could kind of drive around in a van and people could shut up about staying at home because that was our home.So that was nice. And yeah, we, Mel, that's my partner.
She had a job at the time, but COVID made that difficult.So she got other jobs while we were doing this, but it quickly became apparent that you can't hold down a job and also produce this show.
So she had to leave her jobs just like I had to leave mine or at least stop taking work as a performer to do this. And it's something that we've never talked about.It's something I never had to ask her.She never had to ask me.
There was no like, should we do this?Or like, are you willing to make this sacrifice?It was just something we did.It seemed like the right thing to do.I mean, maybe I'll find out later.Mel will be like, I never wanted to do it.He just did it anyway.
But no, it wasn't.Maybe she can come on for part two and we'll do the other side of the story.She's next door, so she can hear you anyway.She's got great elfin hearing.But yeah, it was lovely.There was never like a...
I feel blessed in that way because I know a lot of creative people, a lot of people who work in the performance industry are basically hamstrung by their partner, whether it's in a loving way because they don't want them to go away in a scared way because they don't want them making the financial sacrifices that are necessary or just in an emotional way where they just don't get the support necessary to do something as difficult and all consuming as trying to make a living out of any artistic pursuit.
or indeed just do whatever your art form is to the best of your ability, right?It will consume and destroy you because essentially that's what being human is.
So having Mel's support and knowing that I could do all this and not be made to feel guilty and feel supported was wonderful, but to have Mel also on the journey with me Um, has been, well, I wouldn't manage to do it if she wasn't with me.
Um, I had to give it up.Um, but also it's one of those things again, dude, I say every time everyone's got advice for you, cause everyone's their own business.And I always say, tell you down, you mustn't work with your partner.
No, that's a road to destruction, but it couldn't have been further from the truth.Like, yeah, we. work takes over most of our life, but that's because we're both passionate about it.Like we don't get paid to do this.
We still haven't ever been paid to do Mythos three years down the line.We're doing it because we love it.And the fact that we're both equally invested into it and our successes are both of our successes and our failures are shared as well.
And that's a shared journey and a shared adventure that I think would be frankly insane if one of us was on it.And it would either the other one's job was to support them when it's difficult and to be kind of like,
cheering them on from the sideline when they're doing well, but to actually be able to share the whole process has been really special and something I feel very fortunate for.
There was something I was going to ask you later on, or a similar question, but being as we're on this kind of topic anyway, is there an end goal?Because you're saying like at the moment you don't earn any money from it.I don't know
Money is one of those things, right?I mean, we could all probably do better if we didn't have to live with it, but we've all got bills to pay.So what would your end goal be with?I don't know.What would it be?
I don't know, really.I'm not even sure there can be an end goal for a for a pursuit like this.I know that I'd like to do more of it.I've got other shows that are written on Viking ones or on Norse ones that pertain to other mythologies.
I'd like to make them.I'd like to make more fight theater.I'd like to bring more people into wrestling and into stunts, be a conduit for people like that. But the thing is, you have to love the process, right?Otherwise, we wouldn't be doing it.
So the end goal is to be able to keep doing this.And if one of the things that's necessary for that is that it needs to make some money so we can keep a roof over our head in order to keep doing it, then that makes sense.
But the money can't be the end goal.The end goal is to have a situation in which we can keep doing this for as long as is possible and to the best of our ability.I think that's probably the same for lots of artists.
I'm sure people that genuinely love painting that their end goal isn't to be like a famous painter or
to earn a million pounds from painting, it's to be able to paint until they die, which involves having a roof over your head and involves having patron or support or people buying it.
But those, for some reason, I think people have become confused and have misinterpreted those necessary elements to performing what you want to do as being the end goal in them. for the fourth time.
It's it's people being businesses, people treating their life like it's a business.And like, you know, they have targets to hit and everything needs to be monetized and income streams need to be split and all this kind of stuff.
And you're like, well, yeah, or I quite just I'd like to just do my art.Really, that's the end goal.And the money is is helping me do that rather than the other way around.You know what I mean?
There's so many people out there shaking their heads and be like, this guy's an idiot.How are you? How are you meant to do everything if you don't monetize?
That's why I say it's a difficult thing, isn't it?Because we all need money to survive.
Yeah, but of course it's difficult.Yeah.Life is difficult.It's meant to be difficult, right?
I don't know.Meant to be?
Yeah.It is?Is it meant to be?I think if it's not, you might be doing something wrong, you know?I feel like the struggle is half the purpose. But that, you know, that's everyone's different, right?That's how I'm set up as a person.
I like to throw myself against things rather than lots of people, I think, quite like an easy life.And that I'm sure is also nice.
I just feel like, you know, when, when, when you're kind of thrust into the universe without asking to be, you just kind of appear.I think, feel like some wheels have kind of been set in motion already.And you're like, oh, okay, well, fuck you.
Like with existence, you're like, oh yeah, I didn't ask to be here.Now I'm going to make you rue this.I'm going to make you exist through this every day until I get snubbed out.
Existence is going to know that I'm here and that involves a necessary degree of suffering.That's right. Yeah, I don't know if anyone else feels that way, but that's how it seems to me.
So my next question was going to go back to the show itself and how you would cast something like this, because it's obviously a very niche
show, and I'm sure there's a limited amount of people who can do what this particular show requires, because you need to be able to wrestle, right?
Do you just call upon friends, people that you know from the wrestling world?Like, do you just do a casting call, like a TV series?
Yeah, well, good point.To start with, it was friends.Well, First things first, you're right.There are very few people who can do this.You need to be a trained wrestler.
You can't just be a stunt person or an actor who's get all right with being punched in the face.It's it's much, much too physical.You can learn for sure.
You could learn to wrestle for the purposes of the show, but you can't come into it with no wrestling and just expect to get power on a daily basis and walk away.It's not like that.
Like any art form, you actually have to try, which, again, people don't like that, do they? Oh, don't tell me you need to try.Anyway, so yeah, to start with, yeah, limited pool of people.
But the major obstacle was no one believed it would happen because people say they're going to do things and then just don't.
And so from the outset, even if I could have cast anyone in the world, no one would have come to the casting because it just sounded like a nonsense thing that wouldn't work or wouldn't happen.So to start with, I had to just use people I knew.
Unfortunately, I happen to know lots of wrestlers and lots of excellent stunt performers, and I put together a cast that I was really proud of and I'm still proud of.
And the people that ended the Edinburgh Fringe Run this year were most of the same people who started the Edinburgh Fringe Run three years ago.They did the very first show that I ever did.
They stuck with it and they've developed with the show, which is amazing.But as time has gone on and as people know about the show, I get lots of applications from people to be involved in the show. which to start with seemed insane.
I was like, oh, you're applying.Why do I need to apply?But now I'm like, oh, no, there's so many of them.I really do need people to apply.And thus far, I've taken zero applications because it's much easier, I think, and much safer to
even if I don't know someone personally, is to hire people who other people in the show know and have worked with.Because it's not just about finding the perfect person for the role.
There are people that look better for every single one of these roles out there.There's certainly people that could play my characters better than I can, I expect.But the.
I know I quite like you as Loki.I mean, that was.
Oh, is that one you saw?I couldn't remember which one you saw.
I think it was the first the first rendition of your cast, right?Yeah.Before it was changed up.Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Oh, I was trying to remember what speech I gave them during my Loki days because ending the show as Loki is a different a different ride to ending the show as Odin.You're in a very different emotional state.
And so different things come out.Yeah.No, thank you.But I'm one of four.There are three other Lokis.I really like my one, obviously.That's why I do it that way.But there are there are others who are also excellent.Otherwise, I wouldn't cast them.
But yeah, so we're all replaceable is what I'm saying, myself included.But it's more about the dynamic that you have off stage, because we're only on stage for a couple of hours, even in the theaters.
We have to travel together and you have to live together when you're at fringes and you have to get on well, and you have to look after each other.And wrestling is a very scary and dangerous and intimate thing to do.
And living together with a bunch of people you don't know that well is, again, a very intimidating thing to do.
And I'd rather have a cast that wasn't exactly ideal for the roles, but they got on brilliantly and had a great energy because at the end of the day.
that energy and that positivity and that love of performing is going to be what translates into the audience's energy.That's what people will pick up on.
If the casting is perfect and the wrestling is perfect, but the people themselves don't necessarily want to be there or aren't as invested as much or aren't getting on as well backstage. I don't think it reads the same way.
And I don't think that's true of all theater.I don't think that's true of all performing.I'm sure that a lot of actors can hate one another and have fantastic onstage chemistry.
I'm talking as someone who's trying to create theater from the ground up with a group of people who are being paid, but are also, you know, to a large extent, volunteering their time to be there.That dynamic is more important.
So yeah, man, all the casting has been done where I'm like, hey, whoever's playing Thor isn't available.Who do we know amongst us who would be a good Thor?
And then then I asked them to send me some tapes and I look at the tapes and I send them on to the producers to make sure they're happy.And and then the pool of people grows.It's grown from 12 to 40 or something.So, yeah, they're doing all right.
And I think, am I right in thinking you don't worry about like gender and stuff with the roles as well?So you've swapped over.I think didn't you have a lady playing Odin at one point or something?
No, early on, when I first wrote the show, I first came up with the idea of the show.Again, people were not particularly convinced it would happen.
And so in the casting process, I was much more open to the idea of like, well, I don't know what this show looks like yet.
If Odin was played by a woman, if Thor was played by a woman, or to just gender swap anyone, I didn't know if that would affect the story at all.
And I'm not necessarily saying that Odin would be a woman in the show, but if the actor playing Odin was a woman, would that Would that matter?I wasn't really sure.So I originally cast all kinds of people.
But then they just decided that they'd rather do something else.So they didn't do it.I recast it.And that's why I ended up being Odin, because the person who I had asked to do Odin just decided they didn't want to do it anymore.
So I ended up doing it.Same reason I ended up doing Loki was because the person I cast to do Loki did wanted to do something else.So dropped out.And so I had to do it. So yeah Again, it's not so much like gender.
It wouldn't have even back then wouldn't have been gender swapping like mythological characters so much as finding the right actor to do the job.
And if the actor's genitals didn't happen to match the genitals of the mythological character, I don't know that would matter enormously.It may have done and it may have been a catastrophe.But yeah, that may have been where that came from.
I'm sure I've spoken at some point about about that.I hope you didn't think that Howard was a woman when you saw it. I was going to say, very good acting.Phenomenal acting.Yeah.Yeah.She was amazing.Yeah.
The beard, the bald head, the breast reductions.However, Howard, I'll stop talking.Yeah.
So because you've also played around with some of the characters because obviously you've had to limit the cast and stuff.So you've had to kind of rework the mythology itself.
But do you think that that would I was wondering whether that makes it more authentic because these things were probably meant to be performed originally rather than just read from a book.
So does that changing things up a little bit, do you think that adds to the authenticity of it?
I suppose you have to ask authentic to what I think.Yes, I think it's an oral tradition.You can change, you know, the names of the gods, their role, which family they belong to, their, you know, their allegiances, their character traits.
You know, they're pretty contradictory and ever changing within the recorded myths that we have, let alone whatever stories people were telling about them orally that we'll never know.
So yeah, I think that what we're doing is actually a really legitimate way of telling these stories.And the changes that I've made, I think, I'm not going to say they improve the mythology.
That'd be an insane thing to say on a public platform, but I think they're really... That's what I heard.
Cut that out. No, keep it in there.Let them come for me.I love it.No, I think that my version of it is really, it's a very loving, very well considered version.There's no just randomly swapping people out for no reason or making so-and-so
into something else just because it's more catchy.It's not.It's not marvelization of the myths.It's, for example, in the mythology, you know, this fray in this frayer, you know, the two siblings.And I didn't have enough actors to cast everyone.
So I cast Freya's brother as being bald.And I did that because not just because I don't have enough actors, but I thought, hey, actually, if you combine Freya and Freya's traits into one person,
That's why Freya has the magical sword and everything else.That's now one person.Make her twin brother into Baldr.
And when you look at Baldr's character traits in the mythology, he's got like a Vanir vibe going on anyway, in the things that he's meant to be the god of, or not god of, but you know, associated with.
A very Vanir traits, you know, fertility and sunlight and this kind of stuff. I thought it sounds to me more like Baldr is a Vanir who, like Freya, gets sent to the Aesir in this exchange of hostages.
And that Baldr then becomes Odin's adopted son rather than his blood son, like Thor is, which allows a whole different interplay of characters and a whole different understanding of their relationship.
And in our version or my version of the myths, Odin is very manipulative and part of that manipulation, I think you see through the way that he treats his adopted children as objects.He doesn't even really think of them as people.
He thinks of Freya as representing this magical sword that he can use.He thinks as Balder, he doesn't really value Balder until he becomes invincible, and then he becomes a tool that Odin can use.
And then another example of the change in the mythology is that obviously conventionally,
Baldur can only be harmed by mistletoe because of some convoluted process of talking to everything that there is and then just not talking to mistletoe, which is fine.But I didn't on a theatrical level.
I didn't want to try and explain that because there's no getting around.This is a theater show for modern audiences who don't necessarily buy into that so easily as explaining that
Much of what makes the Norse gods into gods is their possessions and their magical artifacts.They have magical hammers and spears and capes and things, you know, they themselves don't often have magical powers.Well, Benning.
So in Baldur's case, rather than it just being like everyone swore not to harm him and now he can't be harmed.And you're like, well, how does that work?If a new person is born to the They swear like this.I have questions.
So in our case, it was easier that he would eat one of the apples of Iduna, which is, you know, the magical apples the gods eat to retain their immortality or their youth or whatever.
So it was a nice way of including another mythological reference to an apple in a way that kind of made sense.Like how's Balder? invincible.Oh, he eats magical apples.That's how he can't be harmed.Yeah.So, you know what?
The reason I'm giving these details away is because I want people to understand that.Yeah, I've changed the myth.I've mixed things up, but there's reasons behind all of that.
And it's made a version of the story that I think is really easy to engage with and importantly, can be put on a stage within an hour and a half rather than told, you know, of hours and hours of, you know, poetic ramblings.
I was going to ask a question, but then I think I already know the answer based on other things you've said was how you how you whether you'd worry about.
people's reactions to you changing these details, because some people are they look at these things from a religious perspective, so they're quite precious about them.So do you worry about offending them or are you not bothered?
I don't worry about what anyone thinks of me or my show.I don't particularly worry about offending people either.I don't.It's not that I would ever set out to offend anybody.I certainly wouldn't want to.
But I know that I know what I've created and why. And so I know that the intention behind it is good.And if anyone was offended and wanted to talk to me about it, I know that I could have a very calm and understanding conversation with them about it.
It would never be that I haven't considered it.But I completely take your point that to some people, these stories are important on a spiritual level.
I suppose I've got a degree of confidence these days from having performed the show for tens of thousands of people.And I stand outside every show I do and talk to everybody. And all the conversations I have are positive.
Lots of people who have a spiritual background in these stories are delighted by the portrayals of their token gods.
Some people who work magic and draw on different deities from within the pantheon with their magic are really happy about how their particular deities have been represented. and how we've captured them.
Lots of people with PhDs or people who lecture at university on the subject of Norse mythology are delighted by my interpretation of it.And that's to say they feel like it does justice to it.That's not me trying to claim any credit.
It's just, all I've done is tell the same stories, but tweak some of the details, right?This isn't, I don't want to claim too much credit for it.
So I have a confidence born from that these days that I know people to whom these stories matter as much as they do to me. or more than they do to me, are very happy and confident with what I've done.
Now, it could also be that hundreds of people hate it and are very offended and storm off afterwards and don't want to talk to me.I fully accept that as well.But yeah, it's certainly, to answer your question, I don't worry about it.
I never worry about it. I don't think you can.I don't think when you're genuinely immersed in an artistic pursuit, I think the more time you worry about what other people think about it, the shittier it's going to be.
I think it's integral to at least my process that I just make the thing.And then when the thing is done, if people have a problem with it, they can come and talk to me about it.And if it needs changing, by all means, I'll change it.
But I'm certainly a seek forgiveness rather than permission kind of a person. And also, these stories are super important to me.
I wouldn't be doing this for this long, for this degree of discomfort, if I didn't feel that what I'm doing is keeping these stories alive in a very meaningful way that I think has otherwise been largely neglected.
So I feel, I don't know what the right word is, I feel quite raw about it where I feel like I'm actually telling the stories and I'm doing them in a way I think does justice to them.
If someone else isn't doing that and thinks it should be done differently then they're very welcome to also do it but if they're not then maybe
you know, check yourself, I think, whenever you come to question somebody else's artistic choices would be.Yeah.But Craig, thus far, everyone seems to be quite happy with it.So maybe I'll.You got me.
You got me thinking about, like, who goes to a show like this as well.So are you getting. Are you getting mostly people that already know the myths or I guess it's probably a mix, right?
But but I wonder whether you get wrestling fans that don't know the myths at all, as I think you've sort of mentioned earlier.You might sometimes get.So this is almost someone's first view of the myths.
I think, well, I know actually from the market research I've had to do that it's an interest, a passing interest in the mythology that the stories that brings people in. in general.
The public tend to come because it's new and interesting and different.That's why it goes down well at the fringe festivals and why it's harder to sell it elsewhere where people aren't looking for something new.
But when people do buy tickets to theatre shows, it tends to be because they're interested in the mythology and they're interested in the stories more so than interested in the wrestling.
There's a decent crossover between people who are interested in wrestling and mythology.I've learned from doing this.That doesn't surprise me.They're both very similar.Like I consider wrestling to just be modern mythology.
Like the storylines are very similar.The characterizations are very similar.We just have Stone Cold Steve Austin instead of Thor.You know, that's more or less how it goes, right?Turns out it destroys everything.
And you're like, I don't think you're a good guy, actually.And he's like, does it matter?And you're like, no, it doesn't.I still love you. So there's a lot of crossover between those, which I'm very fortunate for.
But yeah, it's certainly more of an interest in the myths and the wrestling that brings people in.And it's always lovely to be somebody's first experience of wrestling. And again, I say this quite a lot, it's performed by wrestlers.
So there are slams and such forth.It's not pro wrestling.
Pro wrestling is a whole different art form involving lots of improvisation and all kinds of skills that we don't have to employ as much in our show because a lot of it is pre-decided and choreographed.But yeah. Yeah, so that's who comes.
It's people who think this is going to be weird and interesting and people who have heard of the myths and think this might be a good night out.
Excellent.So I've reached the end of my questions.
I don't know whether there's anything you feel that I should have covered or I've missed.I usually like to ask.
I would never dream of telling you what you should do, sir.No, I'll be honest, I didn't really think about I didn't think about what we talk about.I sort of assumed we talk more about or as much about, you know, your stuff.
Um, uh, on the, on the, on the food side of things, on the foraging side of things, on, uh, on the... We can if you like, but I tend to talk more about the guests because people hear from me all the time.
Yeah, I guess the listening would get pretty, pretty repetitive if you answered the same questions all the time.So I realize that now.Um, so I didn't, I hadn't really expected to talk as much about Mythos.Um, but, and it's been lovely to, to do that.
So thank you for allowing me to. And I don't think there's anything anything outstanding about the show that you that I think people would appreciate knowing or about me.I mean, we're touring.
If you're in the Netherlands, come see us in the Netherlands.We're going to be there from the 26th of September to the 7th of October all over the country.
So, yeah, you you you I don't think you can be in the Netherlands and be more than an hour away from a myth or show.I think something like that. So yeah, do come see us.
And also, yeah, feel free to email me angry complaints about the atrocious things that I say.Don't aim them at Craig.It's not his fault.He didn't know.Thanks, man.Thanks for asking interesting questions as well.
I talk about Mythos a lot and people often, you know, does it hurt?Do you know? Yeah, I guess I appreciate you not asking.
Right.You know, I've got experience for wrestlers.You're the third wrestler on this podcast.
Which is weird for a reenactment podcast.That's quite weird, right?
You've got like, what, 60?
I've had Sarah and Eric Rowe.
Ah, of course.Yeah.I mean, they were the first people to get into mine, actually.Oh, so do you count them as two?
They came on separately.Oh, they did.
OK, because I spoke to them together.No, no, I didn't.That's a total lie.I watched them do a podcast together.I sort of assumed they did them together.That's cool.
Now I have to go back to Nordic mythology.
That was just before they did mine.
Oh, so they were using it as a warm up.
Yes.Well, they wanted to be different.So they did kind of say the easiest way to do that is to do two separate podcasts.And I got them to talk more about their hobbies.So I got him to talk mostly about the reenactment.
She talked a lot about bow hunting and that kind of stuff and farming and raising her own cows.And she said, that's not great, man.
I want to listen to those.I want to listen to those episodes.
So there's a plug for anyone that wants more wrestling as well.
I think after this, no one's going to want any more wrestling talk.I've talked a lot about wrestling.I think they probably had enough wrestling talk forever.
Well, I've got those questions that I ask every guest.Yes.Which aren't about wrestling.I suppose they could be.Depends how you answer them.Well, you never know.Yeah.So should we do those?
Get on with your evening.
Yeah, no.Hit me with the hit me with the finishes.
So the first one is if you had an unlimited budget, what would be your dream project?
Oh yeah.Yeah.I remember this one.Um, so I think.
What I would love is to have, you've probably noticed this by now, Craig, I'm becoming quite cantankerous the longer that this project goes on, where I'm just constantly annoyed by everyone talking about money and businesses and marketing and trying to turn what's meant to be an artistic pursuit into a business.
And so if I had unlimited money, that's what I do.I do away with that by being like, I already have the money.So I could make the business side of it work without having to pretend to care about it.Yeah, exactly.Exactly.Mandatory viewings.
Oh yeah, yeah, of course.Everyone has to see it.Yeah, it would be mandated.You're not allowed to vote unless you've seen Mythos in the last six months.I built my own facility, you know, I built my own theater with accompanying training school.
Because that's what I want to do anyway, like trying to do theater in this country is ridiculous.The rates that people charge you to do theater is ridiculous.
The whole thing is ridiculous because it's a racket essentially run by one small group of people to try and rinse money of everyone else is how it seems.
So if I had my own space that would allow me to put the quality of the product and the quality of the training first without having to constantly worry about whether we're going to lose £40,000 this month because like.
Whatever the marketing hasn't worked or whatever it may be, that'd be great to just focus on the artwork.So if I had unlimited budget, that would be the project I'd do.
I have a version of my show that deals with some subject matter from the Greek myths, which I would love to do.But that's the Greek gods are so different from the Norse gods.I want to treat it very differently and make sure that
those gods exist on an independent plane to the humanity, and that I think involves a lot of money and theatrical budget.So that would be a lovely project I'd like to do if money wasn't an object.
But certainly if I could just do one thing, if someone would just pay for it for me, it would be to set up a theater where we can perform and where we can train other people to perform.
And then, you know, long after I'm dead, there'd be somewhere there where people can just do this without constantly worrying about whether they've made the appropriate number of Instagram posts this month to pay for the training bills or whatever it might be.
Yeah, that'd be great. That'd be great.And then you get people from all backgrounds, right?It's storytelling.It needs that.You can't just have only people that could afford to go to acting school or take night classes or whatever it is.
You know, you can't hold anyone back.If they're going to do it, they're going to do it.But it would be nice to feel like it was a more even playing field.People could just crack on.So, yeah, that'd be the dream, man.
Have you answered these questions yourself before? I not.Oh, what would yours be?What would if you had unlimited budget?
I honestly haven't considered my answers.And.Which were to like 65 episodes or something now, but I have a plan is that the final ever episode will be me being interviewed answering these questions.So that's why I'm going to hold off.Yeah, OK, fair.
I'm thinking I might make it to maybe a hundred and then stop.
Cause there's a lot of work.So we'll see how it goes.So I might, I might hit a hundred or even just do it as a 100 episode special, but yeah.
I think that's a great idea to have like an end goal number in mind.Cause you can always just carry on.If you've got an end goal, then you can, you can plug on.That's great.
Yeah.I mean, as this isn't my, my job, as it were.
It's, it's not even a side hustle.I mean, it costs me money.So there probably will come a point where it stops.
Is your, is your job though?Is the writing, is that the main job?
No, no.My main job is a painter and decorator.
Yeah, so the food thing is like the side hustle, which wasn't meant to be.It was a hobby.I did reenactment as a hobby, led to me writing some recipes that led to books, and that led to me teaching.I teach butchery, deer butchery and cookery.
But that's all just a weekend gig.
Yes, there's a lot of side hustles going on here.The main hustle is the painting decorating.The side hustle is the reenactment.And then the side hustle is the writing and the food.
I'd say the reenactment is a hobby rather than a hustle.
I'd say the writing and the teaching is the hustle.
And then this is the side hustle from the writing, the teaching.
Again, I mean, I mean, how do you define a hustle?But I think side hustle, you make money, right?
It's a hustle or it's a bustle, isn't it?Can it be one of the two?If it's not a bustle, it's another hobby.It's a bustle then.
So, yeah, that's what I would do with an unlimited budget.I would probably keep doing this.I don't know.
No, don't answer if you're going to do this on a special.
It just there's lots of ideas that float around in my head and wherever they ever see the light of day is.
Yeah.Even just a small like the unlimited budget is one thing, but with what you're doing here, even just. having it permanently set up, you know, so you don't have to mess around.
I see your microphone is held on by a gorilla thing called onto the beam.There you go.That's how you know it's a hustle or a bustle.It's got to be one of those.
If someone's if someone's attaching things onto other things using gorilla stands, there's some bustling or hustling going on, which is funny because normally you wouldn't see that.
But because my camera angle has changed, you can see it.
See, unlimited budget would take care of that, wouldn't it?
When I have to do auditions and stuff, the main pain in the ass is having to take an hour out of my day to set up all the shit, to put the light and the thing and the camera and then it falls down and then it's not the right height.
If we just walk into a room, rip out an audition, hit send and go back to whatever I was doing, I'd do way more and they'd be way better.So, yes, again, not an unlimited budget thing, but it would help, wouldn't it?Yes.
Here's me going off on all these things that would be helped with money after I've just done a whole podcast.So telling people that don't focus on the art and people like you need both.Damn it.You kind of do.Depends what the art is.
I'm sure if you just scratch things onto the floor, you can do that for free. There's a homeless guy who lives sometimes under our stairs.He does that all the time.He just writes on the walls.Poetry.He lives under your stairs.
Not my stairs, personally.We live in a... Yeah, the homeless guy lives under my stairs.We live in a... What's it called?Apartment.One of many smaller Why am I trying to explain what an apartment is?You know what it is.
And if he, if, if the homeless dude, um, gets in through the main front door, he kind of hunkers down under the, kind of get settled in there.Um, it seems fine.
I mean, I have no problem with it, but yeah, he writes on all the walls, which is, you know, you just get a notebook, dude.Come on.I'll drop him one off. I don't think you do it.I think he likes writing on the walls.
Anyway, I'm sorry you were asking me a question.
Yes.So second question.Is do you think you could survive on a Viking age diet?
Oh, yeah, I saw that one and was like, I don't know what that is.And I felt bad.You're not the first.Yeah.Well, I wouldn't be after 65.Yeah.I'm going to assume it's primarily fish, salted fish.
I always like to let people hang on this.
Don't help.Yeah.Yeah, go.Deer.Nuts.Ferns.
The hoofs of various animals.
It will depend largely on where you live and kind of a little bit on status, but it's a bit more vegetarian than a lot of people expect.Most of the meat and fish are going to be dried, salted, preserved in some way.That makes sense.Yeah.
Fresh meat is kind of something you're going to do more in the wintertime.
A lot more seasonal as well. We can get ingredients all year round, whereas you'd be limited to when they were available.
We could before Brexit.God, I've made it political.Yeah.Okay.Interesting.I think I'd survive okay on that. Yeah, as I mentioned before, I eat much, much less than people would expect.
I think because I do a physical thing and there's like a degree of being like strong and muscular that's associated with what I do.People assume that I have some diet or eat like 10 times a day or something.
And I just I eat once or twice and sometimes forget.Mel brings me sandwiches from time to time to sustain me.So I think there's no special wrestler diet. I'm sure there are many, but I don't believe in any of them.
Again, I'm just too lazy and I don't care.I've never found it necessary to be anything particularly specific to maintain either a physique or the physical capacity to do what I do.
I mean, I'm not particularly big, you know, I'm much smaller than people expect.I'm sure if you're six foot five and 120 kilos of muscle, you really do need to get it in you.But if you're just a normal sized person, I guess no need just.
Just eat when you're hungry.This is terrible advice, but what was I saying?Oh, yeah.So I think I'd be OK.I think I'd be OK eating, eating. a Viking age diet, if it's primarily vegetables and nuts and vegetarian bits with I mean, I suppose I would.
Oh, I was going to.Yeah.The next question is if I'd miss something, right?
You'd miss on a Viking age diet.Well, I mean, again, depends on your knowledge, I guess, for whether you know.Yeah.
Well, they wouldn't have had like penguin bars, right? Don't think so.No, we're not found any anyway.Yeah, that's the thing.
That's that's the answer to all archaeological things or Viking culture things like, well, they their hair was good because we found combs, but we haven't found any penguin bars.So we can't say for sure they didn't have them.Yeah, cool.
Cool theory, man. Yeah, I guess I guess it would have to be sugar.I'm probably quite a sugar driven human.So, you know, processed sugars, I'd probably miss.But that's just an addiction, right?That's not I suppose.
What if I hadn't had them for a couple of weeks?I'd probably be fine.Yeah.Or I just killed myself one or the other.So, yeah, I mean, what a tedious answer.I'm sorry.Everyone must say chocolate, right?
comes up quite a bit.Sometimes things like tomatoes or chili.Tomatoes comes up a lot.Yeah.
Coffee.No, no.Now that's a good one.I hadn't thought about that.Hard liquor as well.Distilled spirits.I miss that.Tomatoes.Whoever said that.Fire them.Was that Sarah?Was that Sarah Rowe?
I can't remember what they said.This was a while back now.
They wouldn't care.They do it by choice.
Whoever said tomatoes is wrong.I can't do it now.I don't even like them in this day and age.Oh, no.Yes, I'd miss I'd miss coffee.Now, you're right, man.Coffee.Yeah.
I think sugar is probably I'd have to, like, go back and listen.But I think sugar is probably one of the biggest one that's been around.I think coffee. I don't think hard liquor has been mentioned many times.
Oh, OK.That makes me feel slightly more interesting, but it has to be sugar, right?It has to.Surely that must be the biggest difference in our modern diet.Potatoes has come up before.Oh, yeah, I can see that. The thing is, again, I like a potato.
Would I miss one?No.You told me today.Sorry.So you can never have potatoes again.I'm not, I would say, okay.All right.I'll just, I'll eat something else.I guess.
Yeah.I can't imagine.I think two people have given my favorite answer.Convenience.
Oh, outside the box. It's a good answer.It is a good answer, isn't it?And let's be honest, it's the truth.That would be the one thing that you really... Yeah.Yep.
And takeaways come up, I think as well, which again, convenience, I guess.
So I guess I we're much too for to for we're much too poor for takeaway these days.But convenience.Oh, my God.Yeah.I would happily invest all my money to never have to shop or cook or think about it ever again.If food just appeared before me.
There you go.There's my better answer to my unlimited budget.I would just have. A chef who just cooks good food all the time and brings it to me and I never ever have to think about it ever again.Or, Craig, a pill.
Just a pill with all the nutrients in it.No, see, you'd say that because you're interested in these things. It's the same when I think people like the taste though, the flavors, like, does that not give you, it's gone.You eat it and then it's gone.
The flavors.It'd be wasted.I'd love it at the time, but then I think the same though, when people talk about, you know, fitness training. people used to say, I wish, you know, someone could just do it for me.
You know, I wish that you had like an avatar that would run and get really fit and then I'd be fit.And that's the same with me.I'm like, but I really like it.Don't you like it?Don't you like running around and like lifting and throwing things?
And people are like, no, not at all.I'd like it.And I think I'm the other way around.I'm like, I'd if I could just eat one pill in the morning and then I could just like go out there and throw rocks around.Oh, yeah.Dream.Yeah.People are different.
How dare them? How dare they?So speaking of weird things, what's the weirdest thing in your kitchen?
Oh, this was the hardest one of the questions.I went through my kitchen and I looked at it all and it just... It's normal.It's just kitchen stuff.Yeah.Get that a lot.Of course, damn it.
I mean, we tend to leave things in the kitchen that don't belong in the kitchen a fair amount.Well, again, because food isn't really that big of a thing for me, I don't really think about it.
So I'll just, you know, put my shoes in on the side because I forget they're there or my laptop or. You know, books, if I'm reading a book, they'll just be there.It is.It's just going to be on the hub for the next few days.
So I don't think there's anything.There's not like a specifically weird thing in the kitchen.It's just at any moment, anything from the house could be in there because I would have taken it in and forgotten or put it in the fridge.
I do that quite a bit when I'm working.I'll just put my my tablet in the fridge because I'm not paying attention.So there could be anything in there.We could go down right now and see what's what's cooking.
No wonder you don't like food.Yeah.
Yeah.The ingredients list is sort of wacky.Yeah.
So I'll explain to you after we finish the podcast where that question came from.Cool.It's a strange question, but I kind of like it.Yeah, I think it's cool.I just so boring.What's the worst food or drink you've ever eaten?
Um, Oh God.I know I said at the beginning that you shouldn't edit this.It should just be like a raw, whatever comes out, comes out, but this could take some time.I, this is live.It's live.No, I'm here now.I know you're here now.
I mean the audience, you know, do you, how much floundering around do you really want them to listen to before?Like man's podcast is just 90% floundering.That way it is.I, this is like I said, man, like,
Once I finished eating a thing, I forget that it existed.So trying to remember- I can't remember what I ate today, let alone in the past.But you're right.If it was something particularly bad, you think it would have stuck in my head.
And I've been to some pretty weird places in my time.Something must have been really awful.
There's never been anything you've spat out or that you just wouldn't eat again.It's just down the hatch and finished.
There must be something.I'm now just going through places I've been in the hope that it jogs a memory of something insane I might have eaten there.I think in China, I ate some stuff that was awful and I had to spit out.
But the thing is, I have no idea what it is, what it was, because I couldn't read the menu.That's how I ended up in that situation. Well, yeah, it was like two in the morning.It was a layover flight.We'd already been lost for a while.
And the and the and the restaurant was still open miraculously, but not for very much longer.So I just ordered whatever I just pointed at the things because they just have pictures of the food.You kind of just point at them.
I'm sure you could say the names if you speak the language.Obviously, I don't.And it turned up and it was just awful. I can't tell you what it was or indeed make this story at all interesting or good.
So I'm assuming the next question is going to be difficult, too, because it's the most memorable meal you've ever had.
Yeah.Yeah.There was a theme to these questions, obviously primarily being food, but also the secondary theme was remembering things.And anyone who knows me will tell you there's one thing Ed is really bad at.
It's remembering anything at all about the past. Um, most memorable thing I've eaten.So I do remember eating some like, I want to say weird stuff, but stuff that you only get an opportunity to eat in certain places, uh, like to Iceland.
And it's not often that you get to eat, you know, puffin or reindeer or things, at least not around here. So that was at least interesting.
I remember eating those things because I remember it felt like a bit more of an experience, you know, to know that some adorable puffin somewhere had been turned into mincemeat for my pleasure.That's, you know, it wasn't mincemeat.
It was a small sliver of it.It was very underwhelming.But, you know, you remember that more than all the adorable lambs, sadly.Yeah.I've not tried puffin.
When I went to Iceland and had whale, Oh yeah.Like in the sushi form.Yeah.How was that?Tasted like fishy beef.The best way to describe it.
Would you say it's worth it?Not financially.I mean, you know, morally.
It was a long time ago, but yeah, would I do it now?Probably not.
I've never, I don't think I've had whale. I think that's what I would remember, because it's, you know, one of those, you see it on the menu and you're like, Oh my God, am I going to do it?Will God judge me?Yes, he will.Yeah, he will.Yeah, he will.
Yeah.Well, that's interesting.
I've been trying to make up for it with him ever since.
Yeah, I don't know if you can with God, although you can, right?That's the depending on which God, right?Well, yeah, our conventional one is fine.You just atone.And I think he's fine from then on.
So isn't it?I think you have to confess.You just say, yeah, whatever.Yeah, I ate the way.
Yeah.All right.Imagine that.Imagine you had a confession and being like, I ate some whale.Yeah.How do you feel about it?Yeah, that's the best I've got, I think. is eating slightly exotic meats in places.Yeah, man, I'm sorry.
Yeah, I'm again a person to ask food questions to as someone who isn't even eaten today.
So the last question, again, probably going to be a bit difficult for you is when you die, your relatives are preparing your grave goods.What food and drink you take instead of feasting? I'm not on pills by the sounds of it.
Yeah, just like nutrient paste that I can.Hey, look, Odin himself said that at feasts, you know, you don't want to eat too much.You want to keep your wits about you.You want to be spying on other people and making dastardly plans, right?
So I feel like I'm coming from a solid place here.What am I taking with me?I think cheesecake. It's a good answer.Thanks, man.It's incredibly calorific, but it's primarily fats and proteins as well.I'd say primarily is British sugar in it.
I always feel like it's got loads of everything in it.You know, there's a lot of fats that are sugars. And it's just so easy to eat.You can just this is what I used to do.So I used to for a while compete in Strongman.Right.
And you have to eat if you do Strongman just because you need the calories.And as we've established, I hate eating and think to find it very tedious.
So I found the easiest thing to do is to get two pizzas, put them on top of each other, eat them, and then eat a whole cheesecake.And that would be enough calories to just cheese. for a few days.So I would just do that.You find ways.
I'd pour butter and cream into everything.Lots of butter, lots of cream, lots of pizza, lots of cheesecake.And with these five magical items, I could sustain myself.
I mean, that's almost my dream diet, I think. I love a bit of pizza.
You've written all these food books and all the posts you make of the food that you make look delightful and you're a pizza person.
Like traditional pizza or modern pizza?
Just out behind me here outside this wall is a handmade clay pizza oven.
Whoa, that's not a surprise you like pizza then.
That's the answer to all food questions.Yeah.Everyone likes good food.
There's a couple of people that have taken pizza to Valhalla.Oh, really?In this question?I believe Daniel Farrand took pizza.
Yeah, that sounds like Dan.
Pretty sure it was a ham and pineapple pizza.
That also sounds like a Dan thing.He'd want to make it controversial.
Now that I think about it, I think Jonas did as well.
Oh, they're being cahoots then.
They both take pizza and a cheesecake.
Yeah.But it's got, the thing is with those two, especially with Dan, it's got nothing to do with the pizza.He's just wants to go to Valhalla with a food substance.He knows he's going to split the room and immediately be controversial.
He knows that lots of people, they'd be like, you can't put pineapple on a pizza.And then boom, immediately Dan Farrand is just. amongst the political leanings of Valhalla straight away by his food choice.You see, that's same with Jonas.
They're crafty.Cheesecake.That's a good, honest answer.What's he going to do with the cheesecake?You can eat it.Maybe offer some cheesecake around the table to try and gain curry favor.But otherwise, cheesecake is a working man's food.
Have you got a drink to go with that?Oh, come on, Craig.I thought I did well.We're nearly there.Yes, I've got a drink to go with it.Everyone expects me to say rum.
I did a lot of stuff about rum years ago, and now everyone thinks I love rum, but I don't.I like it.It's fine.
But then do you get enjoyment from drinking if you don't get enjoyment from food?
I do.Well, yeah, I get enjoyment from intoxication.That's certainly true.But not the actual drinking.But the drinking is.Yeah.No, I do, man.I do.And I enjoy the flavors of it.So clearly the food issue with me isn't a flavors thing.
It's the lack of convenience.It's the inconvenience of the finding it and the buying it and the preparing it and the eating it and the cleaning it. Whereas with a drink, you just go, and then you drink it, and you're like, what a great experience.
That was easy.Just not all that homebrew that's behind me.Oh, yeah.Okay.No, so you like the process.
Yeah.Well, yeah. That's true.I've got about 60 bottles of beer to bottle this weekend.
I thought you were going to say drink.
No, it's a whole different way.60 bottles.Yeah.Actually, probably no, it'd be more than that.It'll be closer to 100 bottles.
If you drink, you'd be in Valhalla very quickly.Yes.Providing you were flailing around wildly fighting someone, an imaginary person.I would take, I think, like a a peaty whiskey with me.The kind of drink that you just You couldn't make yourself.
You could try, but it would be bad.You know, it's something that's been crafted, like people have mastered this recipe over 300 years or whatever.
Because I feel like in Valhalla, I could probably work out how to brew my own kind of crappy beer if I wanted to.But if you're going to actually only bring one thing.
Yeah, I think good, swilling, peaty whiskey, the kind of one that, you know, makes you hate the people you love, makes you love the people you hate.Proper whiskey, fighting whiskey.
That was a good, well thought out answer, you see, like everyone takes mead and no, we can make that.
Yeah, exactly.Why would you take something that's already there?Take mead to Valhalla where it's literally flowing out the teats of a goat. as if modern media is going to live up to that.
That's just such a random image, isn't it?
It is, isn't it?That's why myths are great.
So.Anything you want to plug before we go?
No, no, no.We've spoken at length about Mythos.Netherlands is the current tour, isn't it?Yeah, we're in the Netherlands.Then we're going to be in Austria next year.We're going to do some European stuff.
We'll do a show over the winter in England somewhere or in Scotland.So, yeah, if you're listening, please check out Mythos online.You know, you could slip slap into Google.
We have an Instagram, which is a good way of finding out where we're going to be.That's about it. And then me, you can find me.I'm much more active on my own.
Actually, I'm not very active on anything, but I'm more active on my account simply because, you know, I can post about things that aren't Mythos, not that I often do.
So yeah, please check those out because we're working really hard to do something really special and unique.So it would mean a lot to me.
Thank you very much for coming on the show this evening.
No, it's been fun.Thanks for having me.And thanks for talking to me for so long.I appreciate.Yeah.Once I get going, it's difficult to shut me up.
All right.Well, thank you, everyone, for watching and listening.And I'll see you all next time.Goodbye.Bye.