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Welcome to Namaste Motherfuckers, the only podcast where the worlds of work, comedy and well-being collide.The podcast where the life-changing stuff happens.
I'm your host Callie Beaton and this episode is called Tomfoolery and today's theme is babies.
Before we get into it though, if you follow me on social media or have had the misfortune of having a conversation with me any time in the last week, you will know that I have finished my book!
It took me about nine months, so it's apt that the theme of this episode is babies.It's out next year but it's available to pre-order now.There is a link in the show notes and it's in my bio on my Instagram and
Basically, if you've gone to any of my social media platforms, it is hard to ignore it.So get pre-ordering, motherfuckers.Right, babies.The birth rate in Japan is so low that adult nappy sales are rapidly overtaking those of babies.
And here are some cute animal baby names.A baby porcupine is called a porcupette.A baby partridge is called a cheeper. and a baby hedgehog is called a hoglet.And baby elephants suck their trunks just as baby humans suck their thumbs.Can you hear me?
I can hear you.You can hear me?Yes, I can hear you.That's my guest today, comedian and new dad, Tom Ward.20th century American psychologist Leo J. Burke said, people who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one.
A foundling hospital in Paris ran a fundraising lottery in 1912.The prize?Real babies.In Iceland, you're not allowed to name your baby Viking.And when babies are too happy, they have to look away so they don't get overwhelmed.
This is called gaze aversion.
I've got a lot of cables here.I look terrible.Is this being filmed?
Tom Ward is an award-winning comedian whose TV appearances include Live at the Apollo, QI, Roast Battle and ITV's stand-up sketch show.
He fronted fundraisers for Channel 4 Digital and has previously presented the Ladbible series in My Personal Space.He has supported on tour Jack Whitehall, Ricky Gervais, Joe Leiser and Jason Manford
and is currently on his own second UK tour with his show Choose Your Delusion.And he's just had a baby with fellow comedian Freya Mallart five months and 20 days ago, to be precise.
Tom and I talked about fatherhood, babies, siblings, Edinburgh, gigging, improv, growing up, drinking, religion, charity shops and being poisoned.But I started by asking him how baby Leon is.
He's five months and 20 days.
I like the fact you're still counting in days.
Yeah, I just yeah, it's everyday counts, isn't it?
Really?Well, it always does.So he and you, I really doff my hat to you both that you did Edinburgh with such a tiny baby.I was like, I can barely do Edinburgh without a baby.
Yeah.How was it?It was hard.It was It's always hard though, isn't it?It's never a pleasure, really.This is the spirit.
I mean, I like the job.I like every other part of the job, really, except for Edinburgh.Edinburgh is kind of... You've got to sort of treat it like work.So, you know, getting ready for the tour, that's how I saw it.
It's funny that you don't like Edinburgh because I've only ever seen you smash it in Edinburgh and you seem to go down quite well in Edinburgh from what I, in terms of certainly audience response, audiences seem to somewhat warm to a bit of Tom Ward.
It seems, I don't know, it's interesting isn't it how you view other people because I've never felt that I smashed Edinburgh.
I've had, I've done five hours there and I would say two of them have been, one of them was a pleasure and one of them was fine, good enough. and the other three just a very varying shades of hell.
And where does this one this year fit into that?
This was in the hell category.Yeah, was it?But there was glimpses there were day trips to heaven.You know what I mean?A comedian friend of mine told me that he always gets more followers and sells more merch after weird gigs or bad gigs.
Because people he thinks because people feel like they've seen something real. I don't mean bad as in like an absolute death, but maybe an odd atmosphere or an odd exchange with an audience member or something where everyone felt extremely tuned in.
Well, I quite like the idea.That sort of takes the heat off a lot, doesn't it?
I remember you saying to me, it would have been about five years ago in Edinburgh, and I'd seen James Acaster have to sort of riff for about 20 minutes because a spider had walked across the stage and somebody was arachnophobic in the front row.
And having seen that show before, I took the kids, I'd seen it already. And I knew it was really now his shows are so neatly structured and every little tiny thing leads to the thing.
And I was thinking, how the hell is he ever going to bring this one home?Just in terms of how he structures the things.But it was so good.And I remember saying to you, we were both cashing up at Just the Tonic.
We're both in that room where you had to hand over your winnings.And I said, you know, I remember you saying, oh, you know, you'd be surprised what you'd manage to do if you were just on the spot on stage and just see what happens when you're kind of
unconscious takes over.I don't think you said it in such a wanky way as that, but that was the gist.
No, and I did really like you saying it.I remembered it and thought, oh, maybe that's true.Maybe the bits where you're just there on stage and just have to respond are the bits that can be brilliant.
Yeah, I think that's good for us.It's not a straightforward pleasure in the moment, but I think it's very good for us.It's like deep diving, isn't it?You've got to sort of take a big breath and trust yourself.
And you've got to turn up, haven't you?There's no there's no thinking about what you're going to get from Tesco on the way home when that's happening.
Yeah, I mean, obviously, you can still kind of do that hack thing, you know, when you're watching an MC and you're like, Oh, you're just using lines here from your filing cabinet for this particular subject.
You can almost see a filing cabinet drawer open and offer up suggestions on that theme.
But you can also tell when, or you can feel a different when someone is kind of there in the moment and there will be some lulls or weirdness or something a bit discordant about it.That feels, I think people get a real kick out of that.
You're very good at doing that.You're very good at letting things happen and holding the sort of awkwardness of it.If something odd happens, you seem to go in feet first rather than try and shut it down.
Depends on, I mean, yeah, not always, but I do try and let it just sit there.But it doesn't always guarantee, you know, a massively good time for everyone.
It sort of sets you, sorry I interrupted you, go ahead.
No, sometimes it's just an odd moment and they're waiting for a joke or something that they're familiar with, you know, how a comedian normally deals with this situation, they expect to kind of poof.
And sometimes it actually takes a lot more effort to not do that, but just to go, all right, I'm not gonna release this, even though that, you know, that would pay off in the short run.
It sort of sets up, not that we're playing characters, but it does sort of set up who you're willing to be on stage though, which is really helpful.
I think if people know that that's something you're willing to do, there's a certain kind of status as the person on the stage with the microphone who's willing to do that.You become a little bit bulletproof for that, I think.
Yeah, they trust you.And I don't know if you find this, but people often assume that you're in control of everything, even a bit that goes wrong.
I remember losing my voice on stage and tears were rolling down my face because I was coughing and people were messaging me saying, was that part of the act?Was that deliberate? What do you think I'm doing up here?Do you know what I mean?
I had that with hiccups once.I could not speak, but I only get hiccups about twice a year and they're dramatic.And I literally was like, they were enormously loud hiccups.I felt like I was going to be sick.
On stage, I could not, I couldn't even, I couldn't get my name out.I couldn't get three words out.About 10 minutes of my stage time was that. And people were pissing themselves.
And then someone said to me afterwards, they were like, the hiccuping thing.How long did it take you to do it?And do you ever actually think you're really going to get the hiccups?I was like, I literally didn't speak for 10.
I don't come on stage and not speak as part of my act.
Yeah, I think we I think we work too hard.I think people think that we're fully everything's mapped out.It's all one big plan.It's like no, man.Yeah, often hanging, just hanging by a thread.
Usually hanging by a thread.Because yeah, my impression this year of Edinburgh for you going back to that was, was because you had extra dates added, didn't you?So you must have been selling up a storm.
Well, extra dates is a bit misleading, because I was only doing 19 of the 26 in the first place.So we just added the final week.
Maybe we should all do that or just announce it as if 19.We've always booked the full run and we either confess or we don't.We just go home early, tail between our legs.
That's what the West End do, isn't it?They book a run but they also have the extended run already booked in for later and they can say extended run added. But they already had it.They were going to do it anyway.Yes.
I've heard that some of the some of the big guns, musicians and comedians are doing sort of stadiums and arenas and stuff.There's a bit of that goes on as well.You know, like there's there's a lot more booked than announced.
And everybody knows it's really going to be extra dates, but they just want to release them for demand.And, you know, all of that.
We all love that, don't we?
I mean, you you were in showbiz in a different from a different angle.So, you know, all the tricks.
I wish I knew all the tricks.I know more of the tricks of telly than I do of live, to be honest.I'm glad you've got a Sports Direct mug.
Tom is drinking out of a Sports Direct mug, anyone listening, because you do some very good material about Sports Direct, which people can Google, or I might put a link in the show notes.It's very apt that you have that mug.
Yeah, it's a genuine thing for me.It's not postmodern.It's not ironic.I love a Sports Direct mug.
And they are massive mugs.It's bigger than your head.
Yeah, it's spacious.The tea can go on, you know, I like a cup of tea.I don't want it to end, so.
And actually, when you've got a baby, it's really handy if you can have a massive vat of tea, because you might not have time to make one again till midnight.
That's right.You could be stuck in one position trying to sort of maintain their equilibrium, their delicate state, as you do.
As you do indeed.And did you, I mean lots of people listening will know this, but your partner Freya, who I know and is a brilliant comedian and human in her own right, but so she, the two of you, so a sort of comedy family up in Edinburgh.
I know people go up to Edinburgh with babies, but not usually when both partners are trying to do shows.And Freya was debuting as well, so that's a pretty high pressure.
So I'm guessing life at home was just relaxing, kind of cool, nobody was worrying about anything, getting loads of sleep.
Yeah, exactly as you imagine.We actually paid her mum to come with us.
I saw her mum.I got granny envy.What does Freya's mum get called?
But what's the baby?Is the baby going to call her Heather?
That's a very strange way of asking her name.What does she get called?God, you've been around long enough to do better than that.
What's she been called since she was born?Who is this?What do they get called?
She's called Heather.We call her Granny.
Yeah, well to us through Leon, you know.
Because I've got massive grandparent envy.So I was looking at all your stuff because you do good insta, you two, the pair of you.And I was watching it and thinking, oh, the only person I just wanted to be.I don't want to be you.
I don't want to be Freya.I definitely don't want to be Leon.I just wanted to be Heather.
What appealed to you about Heather?
I just need something to look after.So I've got the dog, Jeff, who's at my feet right now, but he doesn't need a lot.He's kind of like, like dogs aren't quite as high maintenance, are they?So just a sort of human.Some of them are.
You need to get a new dog.Get one of those really annoying dogs.Yeah.Wakes you up five times a night and shits everywhere.
Yeah, like, I think you're referring, I think you're talking about a baby.I don't think dogs do that.But I did... He wants.Do they?No, he doesn't.But I did, it's nice to have something to care for, I think.
So you paid Heather to come up to look after Leon.
That's a hell of an entourage.So you've gone from being a freewheeling, proud singleton, to being a proud man of the house with a mother-in-law and a partner and a baby in tow.It's quite a shift.
I don't feel pride yet.I tell you what I do, I feel proud when I walk down the road with him.I feel like the boss man.I didn't expect that.
When I saw people with kids before, I assumed that they felt kind of broken and a bit sort of soppy, but I feel more of a man now than I did ever before, which is strange, isn't it?
Not strange at all, I don't think.I feel like a boss.
I feel like I could take anyone.
There's something really, yeah, so I remember an ex-boyfriend of mine saying that when he had his kids, he felt really self-conscious and like embarrassed and he would go out with the plan and he'd be like, oh God, everyone's, and I just couldn't relate to it.
Cause I was like, I was like, look at me, I've got my baby.I've got, like, I felt like I had it all.Like I was, had the most important job in the universe.
Yeah, definitely.And you got this like mad thing of like, you know, something pressed pressed up against you all the time.And it's so intimate.It's kind of like a casual intimacy that's occurring all the time.
Walking through the park, you know, just sorry.And walking through the park with them just there, you're looking at stuff together, and, and then they'll just drift off and their heads right against your chest.
And it's all just like, wow, it's a constant. communion with something that sounds very hippie-ish.
But it's so unbelievably intimate to share that with someone, to be physically so close with someone and also experiencing things for the first time with them.
But when you look at other people with babies before you have a kid, I think especially if you're a man, look at other people with their kids and think it's so boring, so mediocre, doesn't it?
Oh God, look at him, look at that sap, he's falling into that trap again, like every other idiot.
There's a lot of funny, there's a lot of funny sort of sketches.Ali Woods did a really funny one recently about yeah, which him and someone else and they were visiting a couple who just had a baby.And it was if you haven't seen it, it was quite apt.
But um, yeah, there's something when you say what is it, I'm only half joking when I say I've got Heather granny envy, because there's something about all those years where there's this physical thing.
that you love so much and that you just get all this lovely physical touch and it's and right up until whatever age when they still give you a hug.I mean, my kids still give me a hug.
But obviously, I'm not carrying my six foot four 27 year old band in a papoose.So things move on, Tom. But there's something about that intimacy, that lovely, it's a very unguarded, lovely thing.And nothing really prepares you for it.
Did you find that when you had him?I remember saying to my kid's dad, when I was in labour, early stages of labour with our first one, and I said, I don't think I'm going to want a kid.I think I'm just too selfish.He was like, you what now?
I said, yeah, I just don't think it's for me.And he was like, well, you know, it's not a reverse button.Like on a paper shredder, but he Yeah, and I just thought maybe I wouldn't, it wouldn't be for me.
But then something does sort of kick in, doesn't it?
Oh, thank God.Yeah.That would be a pretty empty feeling, wouldn't it?For me.Yeah, that's a pretty low low moment.Yeah, something does kick in.I mean, it's incredibly painful as well, all the stress it puts you under and
the kind of strain it puts your relationship under.
You know, you go from being this kind of purely indulgent, you know, little unit, go around doing whatever and having a good time and booking last minute trips to swanky little hotels, if you can, you know, and to basically just living moment to moment, you know, desperate moments of fatigue and handing each other the baby and wanting more sleep and,
You know, when you go back to sleep and want to sleep it off and then you get woken up during that bit, you know, you get woken up in the bit where you're sleeping off the bit you needed to sleep off and it's just like, it drives you mad.
But we're having a nice time now.We've come out of that bit, I think.
Gets easier, it does get easier.
Do you find that, I used to travel a lot when each of my kids were babies, I had a job which took me around the world, so I would get regular trips away and I have to say there was something about, like no one ever knew I was a mum, I was working at MTV, I was like going to, but everybody would be like, oh did you go and catch up on your sleep?
And it was like the, I was in my 20s, it's the opposite, it's like no, I just caught up on my 20s.How are you doing it when you tour and when you're not with him?Are you sort of,
I'm not drinking at the moment, so I haven't drunk for over a year.So like those elements where I'll be out caning it and doing anything else, just like, obviously if you don't drink and you don't do anything, you don't get as messy, do you?
What's prompted the not drinking?
I just got sick of it.I was drinking too much and it was making me ill.And there comes a point where you're feeling rubbish. where it's not even a decision anymore, you know, when people give up stuff.
I think it only works if you want to give up stuff once you're sick of it.Otherwise, it's kind of like mind over matter for ages, and it's just exhausting.
And you can never really trust that you will stay off it because you might forget and you might come to a point where you go, I fancy a drink now, but my body was so like riddled with this kind of toxic feeling.
My organs were hurting and I felt tired and sick and I was like I can't I can't have a drink now and then it takes gets momentum doesn't it after a while.
A new thing, abstinence takes on its own kind of thrill doesn't it after a while you're like yeah I've got this I can do this.
I think my organs were hurting is a good thing to remind ourselves if we're like, why did I, if ever that's the sentence, why did you decide to do this?My organs were hurting.I reckon it's going to always be the mark of a very sound decision.
Yeah, I just find I can't drink, like I just can't do it.Like my body cannot take it in the way it could.Like you have all those years where you're just impervious to the stuff you put into your body.
I used to be able to bounce out of bed like a spring lamb on the back of a massive kind of all night drinking thing.And I just, you know, glass and half a Prosecco, I'm buggered.
Yeah, sort of sits there, doesn't it?Like on the top.
Yeah, it does.Yeah, exactly.Yeah, we've done too much.Our bodies have seen too much.
Did it make you, one of the things, and I know it's a kind of hack thing to say in a way, it's so obvious, but when we have kids, it sort of does make us re-evaluate our own parents, don't you think, and what it was to be a parent.
Suddenly, I feel like almost the moment you become a parent, you're like, oh, this is the other side of the coin.
Yeah, I don't know if that's made me forgive them though. I mean, that's the payoff of that question, isn't it?Yeah, yeah, yeah, I now fully understand my parents.And I still have, yeah, I'm like, okay, yeah, that would have been hard.
And I understand you were just working out as you're going along.And I know you had your own baggage and damage that you were navigating, maybe unaware of your own stuff.Because back in the day, people didn't talk about their stuff, did they?
There was no mental health then.It wasn't a thing.It hadn't been invented.
No, exactly.You just internalized whatever issues you had and put it on your kids.So yeah, it does.I do think about them.Yeah, I've got pictures up of my dad for the first time.Never had any photos of him up until this year.
Has that been since you had Leon that you put the pictures up?Yeah, but now I've got several pictures of my dad.
stuck up you know there was one that was kind of transient and sometimes fell down and now it's up it's pinned up onto the fridge so I see my dad every day he's not alive anymore so I see him holding me as a baby which is really sweet and I really like that and
Yeah, I like, yeah, I like that.I like thinking about that time.He's wearing his ring.He used to take off his wedding ring and play with it and put it on all the different fingers when he was restless.
You can see in the picture he's got it on his forefinger, which is a nice little kind of, yeah, little extra detail. But yeah, I do think about that.I do think about that.And I also think a lot about being a kid more than ever.
I think our parents are the first celebrities, aren't they, in our life.I don't know about you.You can never, you never fully get over your parents.There's always time to talk about them, isn't there?
Have you talked about that on stage?That's a really good concept for something.
It's a good, that would be, that's a really good, yeah.Yeah.
Well, they are.Yeah.Have you got like a brother or a sister?
Yeah, I've got an older brother.You're a middle child, aren't you?You've got an older and a younger.
Good knowledge.Do you ever talk to your older brother about your parents?
I'll tell you what, and I know you went through this because your dad died nearly 20 years ago, didn't he?So you were a young man when you lost your dad.And your dad was only a bit older than me when he died, which is sobering for me anyway.
So you went through this already at a young age, but my dad was very sick this summer. And he's thankfully seems to have made a sort of medical science defined recovery, but he was very ill.
And so my brother and I sort of decamped down to Somerset to be with him.And we were it was such a, it really was a massive silver lining.I'd still say I'd rather my dad hadn't been that ill.
But my brother and I sort of, we literally reverted to being like we were when we were much younger, we're under two years apart in age, and even like I think it was the first or the second night we'd done the sort of hospital vigil.
And I don't know why we did it, but we ended up buying like booze at Marks and Spencer's, like whatever we bought and sat in the graveyard opposite Marks and Spencer's in Yeovil. getting pissed.
Obviously, we're, you know, got a combined age of 100, we could have gone or 110 or whatever, we could have gone to a public house or an eatery, but somehow we ended up getting pissed in a graveyard.
And I just was like, it's funny that we've lived and it was really funny.It was like a really, really like one of those like a bit like the atmosphere you have a wake or when there's a sort of just release in this bloody dark scenario.
So yeah, we talked a lot about our childhood and things we haven't talked about for years.How is that, as I say that, how does that relate to things you felt?
Yeah, I did that with my sister all the time.I talked so much to my brother about it, but my sister was my ally in childhood more than my brother because he was younger.
What's the age gap then?So you're the middle, what are the age gap either way?
My sister's four years older, my brother's seven years younger than me.
Yes, I would be 18, he'd be 11.Do you know what I mean?Yeah, that is a big gap.But we were top mates even then.But yeah, me and my sister can break into a chat about our parents, a drop of a hat.I could be walking for a bus, running for a bus.
My sister can ring me, say something about my mum and I'll be, you know, going into a deep analysis for two minutes.Anyway, I've got to go.See you later.Do you know what I mean?It's never a bad time.I love it.Endlessly interesting.
If they were on the front of the National Enquirer, I'd buy it every week. new photos, new stories.
It's almost like you want the witness to it as well, because you remember some things, because it was so weird, like inevitably, everyone's going to look back at their childhood as it being weird times, because it is inevitably decades ago.
And even my kids will look back now fondly on the 90s, or my daughter's case, the noughties, as if it's like some far gone weird time.
And talks about like vintage clothes.Like I love that vintage thing that you know, that you wore when I was five.I'm like, what in 2005?That was vintage.
Yeah, exactly.Yeah, literally.And she sells my, well, some of it I don't know herself, but she's always selling stuff of mine from that sort of period.But it sort of feels weird.And you almost need a witness to it, don't you?
And when you go, did that happen?Or did I dream that?And then the other person goes, no, that happened.
Yeah, me and my sister both thought at one point separately from each other that might be Jesus.And when I took that to her, and she said, Oh, yeah, I had that thought as well.
Did it manifest in the same way for each of you?How did it?
I don't think we did anything with it.No, we went out in the world.We just felt maybe I'm Jesus.Yeah, because we knew he was coming back.And then we're like, Hang on, maybe it's me.
Because your dad was a born again, was a full on born again.I don't know if there are born again Christians who aren't full on.I'm guessing not.It's kind of shit or bust set up, isn't it?You buy into it.So your dad was a was a born again Christian.
When did he get born again?How old were you?
Wow, because that must be some weird, so you must have had a sort of sense of your dad suddenly being a bit different, or was that just the only dad you knew then, the born again dad?
Yeah, I was probably not really online until I was about six, seven anyway, so you're kind of just running around screaming and eating cake, aren't you, until about then.
But yeah, about seven, eight, nine, he started to change.He started to get more fundamentalist.He had homework assignments for me to sort of send me off to go and try and chat to people about Jesus.
Oh, did he?At that young age, you were supposed to.That's a risk on every level, sending a small child to talk to strangers about anything.
I just want to say, yeah, you need more than the protection of a loving Jesus Christ to get through that, I'd have thought.
Absolutely.But the good news is if anything bad did happen, like, you know, someone saying something horrible, My dad said that that was a good thing that I had suffered for Christ, that that meant that my reward would be greater in heaven.
So there was a small silver lining for me to enjoy.
Does that give you some solace with hecklers at the comedy store?You're like, do you know what?
Yeah, no, I don't.That's the thing.I don't have the promise of the afterlife now to reassure me.I just get through it in the moment.
Did it make you believe less?Because I was brought up in quite a religious household.
My parents were just traditional sort of C of E. But the school I went to, there was a very sort of, yeah, kind of born again Christian kind of guy that headed up such pursuits.And he was quite cool as well.
So everybody kind of wanted to be, he was like a cool teacher.So every, and we all used to get like, yeah, they were kind of like cool kind of like, kind of like you'd get hot dogs, and people would find God and stuff and find Jesus.
And it was all kind of like better than being in school.So there was a bit of pressure to be like that, actually, as I grew up.And I do remember sort of, yeah, loads of people having these real big like, Oh, yeah, Jesus is coming to me.I found Jesus.
There was quite a lot of that going on.And I found it looking back at it, I find it really odd that that was something that was so close to me, but it wasn't as close to me as it was to you.
It didn't catch on.Did he say things like, Jesus was my mate?Did he say anything like that?Yeah, he did.
He said, yeah, he did.There was lots of, yeah, I can't remember what. what sort of branch of born again Christianity it was.And I don't know enough about it.But yeah, there was a lot of that.
And there was almost a pressure, like people would find God and feel the will find Jesus or whatever they found, I can't remember.And that it would all be people would feel like warmth.
And suddenly people are and then there'd be people standing out going, Oh, yeah, you know, I've, I felt I felt it.
I did try and believe it.But I just, it just didn't stick.The only thing that stuck was the fear.
What was the fear then, the fear of eternal damnation?
Yeah, just that little thing there, yeah.That was enough really to keep me coming to church and going back to church when I went off the rails.
When I was about 11, 12, I had a glorious few weeks of coming off the rails and swearing for the first time. I was amazing.I felt elated and so naughty.
All the other kids had been swearing for years but I had never sworn and I'd never shown anger because I'd been told that was a sin.So I was all angry and aggy and savage in an argument.I'd give as good as I got. And I was like, oh, this is great.
And it was extra sweet because it was forbidden, taboo, all of it.And then the fear sort of came back.
And it was that fear that you've got to live your life kind of right.Yeah, because God's watching.
And if you're not, he'll judge you on the last, you know, on Judgment Day.
It's like Father Christmas times 100.
And what got you?Because when you live in that, so it's, I know, we're sort of slightly kind of, we're having a slight kind of roll of the eye as we talk about it.
But when you're living in it, and you're the kids, and that's all you know, that's a massively powerful thing.It's much harder than people realise to go, do you know what, this is weird.I don't want I don't want to do this.
No context.Because when you're overwhelmed as a kid, there's nowhere there's no, you can dissociate.And if you can't dissociate, you just panic. And then I would panic and then dissociate.
And then if you dissociate for long enough, you just get depressed, I think.It doesn't go anywhere. So it's like when you're an adult, when you get a panic, you get fear.
You can kind of breathe and you can remind yourself that it's just a moment and that you've been here before.And these are just concepts.These are just thoughts you can pull back, you know, using the experiences you've had.
But when you're a kid, yeah, it just overwhelms you because you don't really have that idea.So it's completely.
How did you, how did you get out of it then?What, what did enable you to, or was it just when you get old enough to leave home?
I think you get old enough to just refuse to go to church.You get to about 13, 14 and it all just becomes...
Untenable for you, you know, my dad would have to beg me and bully me into going every weekend and it's like I think he just got sick of it and just kind of accepted that I would come if I wanted to And then yeah, you get old enough to leave home and then Just take a long time, sir to kind of to D to kind of detox so sits in your system for a long time we did for me anyway, I
Had your sister dissented before you?
So you had a sort of trailblazer in whose footsteps to follow?
Yeah, yeah, she was hardcore.She was, she went to school, she was expelled from school for trying to convert people in her class.
And what did your dad think about that when she was expelled for it?
It's fucked up, isn't it?
It's weird, isn't it?Yeah.
There's gonna be kids all over the country now going, I'm gonna really convert a lot of people before I have to sit my exams.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.But yeah, she obviously had the gift.She had the charisma. You know, it takes a lot to convert people, doesn't it?But having said that, I think when you're a kid, you're just basically trying to get people to say the words.
You don't really understand what you're saying.
You're just like, say this script and then you'll be saved.
Yeah.Well, I wonder if it's like that for some adults as well.I don't know.Because I mean, I had, I've had a couple of reverence on this.I had Richard Coles has come on.And Kate Brotley has come on.
He was in the Communards, wasn't he?
Yeah, he was in the Communards.And he's no longer, he is no longer a reverence.So he sort of, I don't know if it's fair to say, fell out of the church, but he's not a... He's back in the Communards.Yeah, he's back in the Communards.
He's like, fuck all that.No, but he's not, he's not, you know, he doesn't have a parish anymore.He's not a vicar anymore.And Kate Brotley, when she came on, said anyone who just doesn't question it and just says, well, it's true.
She said, I don't know if it's true.I've got no idea.I know what I believe it's faith.But she said, I don't know.And if somebody is asking me to prove it, or if I've got to categorically say what I believe is correct, I don't know.
And I found that a bit more reassuring.I thought I'd quite like to have a questioning.I'd quite like to have a questioning vicar if I had a vicar at all.
Definitely, definitely.Yeah, we were not encouraged that, we were not encouraged to question.If we questioned that, we were told that was the presence of the devil.
It's a very limiting, it was not intellectually, there was no room to move or to even kind of play the role of stepping out of it and seeing it from how the world saw it.There was so little room for that.
Do you think that's why, because I've heard you talk about the fact you weren't great at school and you weren't a great intellectual, but your material and your capacity for thinking and writing and performing, you clearly are very clever.
So do you think that just shut down that that whole part of you then that you didn't think you were encouraged to go down that sort of curiosity, questioning, challenging, reading around subjects where you was, was it that black and white thinking that that shut you down a bit, do you think?
It definitely shut me down for a while.But when it came when I was, as I said, when I was off, when I was off the rails, the real me came back.I don't I feel like you can't really suppress someone's personality forever, can you?
I mean, unless you incarcerate, but even then, they still express themselves.You see it with people's sexuality under dangerous regimes, they find a way. Or, you know, you see how people find a way to meet up and go underground when there's a war.
In Sarajevo or in Romania in the 80s, there were these groups springing up.Improv groups, sketch groups, beauty pageants, bands, filmmakers, just people were like, nah, fuck you, you're not gonna take that part of me. And it's just irrepressible.
People just, you know, they are who they are.And that the kind of gravitate to your, your purpose in time, if you let yourself, I think some people really repress it.But even then, I've seen like repressed people get less repressed.
It's a sort of hap, you know, it's an energy, isn't it?It's like magnets dragging you towards the thing that really resonates and feels pure.
I think it's a kind of a relief when you realise that as well as a parent, because you realise, I mean, absolutely, you give your kids a lot and it's, you know, what you do has a massive impact on them.
But I look at both of mine, I think all that worrying I had about were they going to pass that exam?Or was that the right primary school?
Or did it matter that the drama teacher said they couldn't act or that they had to do French, not Spanish, or all those things you get in a right paddy about.And I just think my two
were always going to become the two people they've become really, actually.I mean, I hope I helped them a bit along the way, but I think they've just become who they were always going to be.
Yeah, and I think as a parent, if you can just give them less sediments that they have to, you know, work through to get back to who they are.I feel like you are who you are as a kid.
And you're probably a bit of an idiot because you haven't got any social grace yet until your parents kind of drill into you a certain amount of right, you can't do that.Because otherwise, you're a wanker.
And you can't treat people like that, because it's not cool.And that won't work.If you want friends, you won't that won't work.You know what I mean?You kind of learn a few things.But then you learn too much.
And you look and you feel like unless you have to, unless you have lots of self defenses and personality, you know, add ons that you'll be laughed at, or you won't get far or you won't get shagged or anything like that.
So you kind of go the other way. as I did, of like trying too hard to project some other image.And then eventually you kind of have to kind of work through the stuff that isn't real.
But I guess as a parent, the job is not to add too many extra layers so they can get back to who they are quicker.
Yeah, for sure.And also you do, I mean, you definitely, there's no question you do learn from how you were parented.Obviously, we'll just make our own set of mistakes.
Did your dad, did your dad, it's interesting when people are at their sort of deathbed when they're, when they've had those beliefs.
did it and sometimes it's quite revelatory, one way or the other, suddenly, some people are like, I believe, I believe, you know, and other people are like, well, that was, you know, I know your dad, your dad had a brain tumour, didn't he?
So I guess he was quite wasn't quite at his most lucid anyway, by by the end, but did his relationship with his that real kind of binary thinking about religion and Christ, did that change by the end?
It didn't change from what I could see. I don't know what was going on in his head, but he was on legal heroin, so he seemed pretty blissed out to me.
But yeah, I didn't have... Because his brain changed when he had seizures, which changed his brain, and he wasn't able to be conversational for the last few months in a way that was clear.
So there was no kind of chats on the bed about life and about things after a certain point.But there was some lovely... quiet kind of unverbal, nonverbal moments where you could just feel the appreciation and love both ways.
And I feel like you can't really analyze that stuff.You can't really explain it, what was said, but you kind of feel that there's an appreciation that comes through after everything. And sometimes that can be better than closure, verbal closure.
But yeah, I'm glad he had his faith.I'm glad he had his faith.I think it would have helped in that moment.It helped my mum, her faith.
In that moment, you feel like, okay, great, he gets to go off to this amazing place now, where he's rewarded for all the suffering.And he gets to meet his God.And that's a lovely thought to have, isn't it?
Yeah, if you do believe that it must be it must be covered.It is it does.Yeah, it does.As somebody who's got both my parents, you know, I'm 55.Yeah, to go through, I can't quite fathom what that was like to go through that at 24.
And also, having all that time just being present with him, you know, when he's in that advanced stage of a route that's only going to go one way.I can't quite imagine what that's like.
You've had a taste of it, haven't you, with your dad being sick?
Yeah, I've been like a sort of cancer magnet this last year.I've had a lot of people very close to me, but I'm also a lucky cancer magnet because everyone has these awful diagnoses and periods and then they all defy expectation and recover.
So if you do get any hint of a diagnosis, come and see me and I'll provide my healing.
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It must be sort of odd then being a dad.I think you suddenly, I don't know about you, but my biggest fear with my kids, you just think, I just want to be there for them and be able to help them.And you suddenly see it all in a very different way.
I know we all live with the concept of sort of finitude and none of us are going to be here forever.The clock is ticking, but it sort of changes a bit, doesn't it?When you've got this lovely little person you want to always be there for.
Yeah, absolutely.Absolutely.It's so far out and just the way he looks at me and his presence is so like, okay, you know, and it's like, this really is all on us, isn't it?To look after you and keep an eye on you every second of every day.
There's no let up, is there?I know, there isn't.And then you think, has the pillow fallen on his head?You know, is there someone in the bedroom with him that's broken in?
You know, I've watched too many horror movies and then you got a baby monitor and you see a movement, you're like, Oh God, it's happening.You know, it's no let up.
Even when they're right in front of you, you're like, okay, you might just be overwhelmed with love.And that's exhausting as much as worrying about whether they've eaten a toy.
But it's lovely to sit in the park with him and just see how he looks around.You know, it's nice to hang out with someone that's uncynical.
Oh, it's so, and their faces, yeah, the wonder they have about a thing.You're just like, they see like a yellow coffee cup and they're like, oh my God, that is a yellow cup.And I was like, have you seen that yellow cup?
Yeah.And it's so lovely.It takes them somewhere.Do you remember being a kid and how much you loved your favorite toy, like my truck?Yeah.I loved my truck and I was obsessed with it.
Yeah.And that's all you need.That's your drug.It's not hurting your organs at that stage.It's your favorite drug.It's just a Tonka truck.
Yeah, exactly.Just transports you somewhere else.
Yeah, they are.I definitely think that parenting is either too much or too little.I think it is too much when they're little, like it's amazing, but it's absolutely relentless.And no one could say they wouldn't like a bit of respite.
And then there gets to a point really quickly where it's too little and you're just not getting to parents enough.It really is a kind of, it's a story of two halves, I think.
Yeah.And you feel like you're in that bit now.
The two little definitely.Yeah.I mean, I've just had two weeks.I had last week I was in Prague with my son, chronicling animals around animal places in the Czech Republic.And this week my daughter's with me in Amsterdam.
But I don't normally, you know, they both live really far away from me and, you know, they've got their own lives and yeah, I don't get to parent.
Could you get yourself a really needy lover?I've done that.
The sort of deconstructed man who can just mother him.
I've got a return question.Could you find me anyone who's not?
Okay, so you want to, all right, so you miss being a mum, but you're not enough to turn it into.
So you want to parent a partner, no.
But it is, yeah, no, it is, I've just, the last chapter of my book was about empty nest, and it just sort of reflecting on it all and where it, and it is also, you know, it's definitely among the best times of my life I'm having at the moment, for sure.
And that's connected to the space and the freedom and the time again, that's amazing, you know, so it's not all bad.But that idea of that, I wrote in the book about this, this dream I had that was so vivid.
And it was my daughter when she was about six.And I just dreamt that we were just doing a normal thing.
She was sitting on some steps that she started to sit on, wearing exactly the little outfit that was her favorite outfit, her hair like she used to have it.And I woke up and I just felt like that little tiny person.
I must be able to reach out and touch her.It felt so real.It was a very undramatic dream, apart from she was just there again.And a book I'm reading at the moment, it talks about the kind of like the Russian dolls, you know, like as your child grows.
You're like, where is that little tiny, you know, because I see her now at 24, living in Madrid, living her best life.Where are all those little versions of you?
Very weird.Yeah.Yeah.That must have felt strange when you woke up.
Yeah, exactly.And then, yeah, well, I won't say what she had been doing that night, but it wasn't sitting in a corduroy dress with welly boots on a step in Cornwall.
Your tour, I want to just mention your tour before I ask you the questions I ask everyone.So this show, Choose Your Delusion, is it one of the ones that, what's the kind of, yeah, what's the vibe?
Well, I'm enjoying the show a lot.It's more personal.Talk a little bit about being a kid and being a dad.And then all the other stuff that I normally chat about.And it is, it's more, yeah.People have been lovely about it.Lovely.
It's a bit, it's less clubby than normal.
A friend of mine saw it at Leicester Square.I think I messaged you afterwards.And she absolutely, she would just say it's the best thing I've seen in years.I absolutely, she's still talking about it.
In fact, I spoke to her earlier and I said, I was, I think she thinks it's like I'm saying, I'm interviewing, you know, Michelle Obama.She was like, well, you've got Tom, what time are you, do you need to be preparing now?
She was like, really like, she's got, yeah, she's absolutely cool.
So she got through to you.She knew you got some key info on my youth, which I'm very impressed by.
She absolutely loved the show.She said it was absolutely brilliant.
Yeah, it feels good.It feels good.I'm just trying not to, you know, I'm trying to sit in the stuff, you know, a bit of emotion in there.Because I've always wanted to get personal and
I don't know, if you find this, you get a bit more opinionated as you go on in comedy.Because at first, you've always had a very strong kind of attitude on stage and off stage.But at first, I was quite sort of odd.And I was odd, so it wasn't an act.
But now it's a bit more like, all right, here's some feelings.Here's some thoughts.Here's how I feel about certain elements of the culture.And it can be quite divisive sometimes.So you've got to sort of tread that line.
But yeah, the feedback's been amazing.Very positive.
You've always, I always felt like with you, like the, I always got a really strong sense of you, even though you didn't ever go, it wasn't ever a sort of, well, here I am, and this is the emotional reveal, and here's the point of it all.
But I sort of felt, because that wasn't there, I always felt I did get a very clear sense of you.And that came out in the gaps.I always thought, I always do think that actually.
I do like that.That's a nice analysis.I do like the gray area.I think that's, that's where it's most interesting.I don't really trust emotionally overt signposting, I find it a bit naff.It's not really how it is, is it?
Someone like Richard Gadd, he kind of, you know, he's, you know, what's going on.If you've seen one of his hours, you're like, oof. You kind of get the flavor of how he's feeling without having to tell you.
And I think that's always made way more interesting.You get a sense of something without it being said.
Show, don't tell, that's what they say, don't they?The other thing I noticed, I watched your live at the Apollo, again, just before we spoke.
I always want to have a sort of very, I know it wasn't a couple of years ago now, I know, but I always just want to have what someone does top of mind when I speak to them.
And I sort of noticed, I have noticed you do it before, but I noticed two things.One is obviously musically, you do loads of musical stuff that's really good.You're all very good at sort of doing it and inhabiting it.
There's a lot of range in what you do musically, but also physically.You are a really, really good physical comedian and not everybody can and is.You're very sort of free with it all on stage.
It really struck me, especially on that big old live at the Apollo stage, where there's an element of just kind of stepping into that because it's such a big moment for all of us.
Yeah, it's huge and it matters, you know, and we know they're going to edit it.So we look good, but we sort of want it to go well.I don't want to be one of those people who had a shit gig and then they had to sort it out in the edit.Not on that one.
Yeah, because 4000 people know what happened.
4000 people do and the whole industry because the ones that go badly wrong spread around like wildfire, don't they?So I know you're a student.But yeah, you did seem really sort of loose and you always do.You do seem very loose physically on stage.
Yeah, I love a big stage because you can move around.I love, you know, the physical, yeah, if you can move, if it's a big stage, even better, because then it kind of almost invites that side of it.
And it's just anything that can break it up for me is good.You know, music, moving around, voices, anything so it's not just, you know, me going.And another thing, do you know what I mean?I don't want there to be a rhythm that's
that I can almost predict.You know, when you watch a comedian, they've got a rhythm and it's like, oh God, aren't you bored?It's nice, it's good, you know, you can enjoy it, but then you see that they've got a rhythm and it's like, come on.
Someone like Larry Dean is very good for that.He kind of moves around and he's physically brilliant and he can do voices and I just think he's the go-to guy for that.I think he's underrated even though he's rated even though he's highly rated.
Yeah, I think he's brilliant.I think he's definitely a comedian's comedian.I think any of us who gig with him, you're like he's an absolute.
He's the daddy.He's brilliant.He's the way he
talks about being gay, just like halfway through his set, he says, my boyfriend, he's gay, I'm not, you know, yeah, that's just throw it away, rather than coming out and making the obvious, the obvious, you know, he's willing to be interesting enough to sit back on stuff.
Well, and he's got the talent and without blowing too much smoke up your arse, you do as well.You're definitely one of the acts.And I saw you before I was a stand up and you must have been fairly new to it.
And I saw you at Angel a couple of times just by kind of coincidence you were on the bill.And you always had something.And at the time I was working with comedians who were coming up and through, you know, and TV land.
So when you set your hair like that.
Yeah, I was like, I want to look like him. I want to be like him.And I think we're almost the same, aren't we?Most people get us muddled up.
Yeah, constantly.Yeah.I get texts from Dave Grohl all the time.Kelly!
Help!It's got out of hand, the baby!
Anyone who doesn't know the reference, we will put a link to our QI episode because we did appear next to each other on QI.
I'd almost forgotten that we had, someone had said to me, yeah, that we had you, lots of people kept demanding your presence on the podcast, Tom, I think probably up there with as many as we, I kept getting messages going and then there must have been a repeat of that episode and lots of people like, why is Tom not being on your,
You're great together.I was like, right, well, let's give you a full hour of us together.
That was great.I was lucky to have you on my team.It was on my desk.We were a team.Everyone knew we were.
You were insulting me, calling me a virgin for two hours.
I never watch them back, do you?I've never ever watched anything I've done back.
I don't, I can't bear watching anything.I can't even bear listening to anything.I listen to, it's funny, I've relearned classical piano in the last couple of years.
Yeah, I was listening to you talk about that.
Yeah, and I've done a couple of sort of actual recitaly things, where I've had to sort of really practice a lot to get good enough to do them.And I do listen, I will listen back to myself playing the piano.
It's weird, maybe it just feels a step removed.
Yeah, it's not in your voice, is it?Yeah, that must be it.Yeah, I find my mannerisms a bit.I also find, you know, you talk about age quite a lot.I've always noticed this.And like, we've all got our things like, I see my face, I'm like, Jesus.
You know, that feeling of like, in your head, you're just the hottest slice of cake in the world.And then you see a video or an angle of your face, you're like,
I think I've got the kind of I think I think because I was such an unfortunate looking child.I think I've spent my whole life thinking I'm an unfortunate looking person.
If ever I look less than unfortunate and more than unfortunate, I'm like that's amazing.So my expectation is very, very low.
I don't look like absolute shit.I'm like, oh, yeah, get me.
Yeah, that's a good bar.It's a good bar to have.
Yeah, very low bar. So what would you pick then, Tom, as your namaste motherfucking life-changing moment?
Oh, I think it's got to be one of those where the moment sets you off on a new direction, hasn't it?I would say there's two major ones.I was friends with a guy and he was like a junkie but he was like the coolest funniest, smartest guy.
And we were friends for about six weeks.And he was always kind of seducing women and getting off, you know, getting high and doing crack.And I was like, and he was a florist and he was cool and he dressed well.
And he was like, I told him that I'd tried to get a job at a charity shop.And he said, well, go back in and say hello.
You know, go back in, Tom.Just go in there. Don't, you know, don't let them forget you.
And I went in and then I got the job having this assumed that they didn't want me.And then the next five years of my life was working for that charity.
And then everything that happened because of it, you know, the friends I made, the girlfriends I had, the bands I formed, the trips I went on.
Where I lived I lived in the charity shop for a while and you know, I moved around It was just such an incredible time and all because he said to me go in go in again You know, he kind of encouraged me not to fear rejection in that moment So that would probably be the first one.
The second one would be Meeting someone just by coincidence who was a flatmate of new friends and he just started stand-up Trying up a mic and he said you should do it So I went with him to watch him do stand up.
And then a week later, I had the courage to give it a go.But I may never have done it without someone saying, oh, you should do it.You should give it a go.And yeah, it's pretty life changing moments.
What was the charity shop?
Ah, not just any old charity shop.
On Fulham, was it the Fulham Road?
North End Road, North End Road.Yeah.So the Scuzzy end of Fulham.And it was just absolutely amazing managing a charity shop when I was 22 and the customers and the donations and the whole ride of trying to turn a shop around.
It was really not doing well and I turned it around and so many interesting people came through the door and famous people came through.
you know, musicians from the 80s and fallen aristocrats and like a guy came in with a gun in his belt, was trying on t-shirts, you could see his gun hanging out and his tattoos.
It's like a Tarantino movie there.
It was amazing, it was just everyday.Yeah it is, it really is.I'm fairly sure someone gave me some poisonous fruit as revenge because I was always arguing with people when they tried to steal and I just, the gloves were off.
If someone tried to steal I'd just shout at them and say whatever.
Stealing from a charity shop is a low.
It's a low moment, yeah.I remember someone walking out with about 15 videos just clasped together like an accordion.And I was like, just called him a prick and said, can I have these back, please?And then we just had an exchange.
And then he wanted to have the last word, but I wanted to have the last word. So we were taking it in turns to have the last word.And then in the end, he's like, he kind of basically just said, let me have the last word.You know, so I just.
Breaking the fourth wall.
Yeah.So we both understood that he'd been caught, but he needed to have the last word.
Did he have the last word in return, the stolen goods?
I took them out of his hands, yeah.
You had the last word, but you had the videos.
Yeah.So that was our deal.
It's a good exchange of power.
We've got to find a way to feel like a man, you know, in the desperate moments. But yeah, no, that was incredible.
What was the poison fruit then?Did he come back?
Someone came in, a greengrocer came in and gave me some pomegranates.
I was in hospital for 24 hours.Vomiting and shitting and trying to convert the nurses to Christianity because that all came back up.
Did it?In your hallucinogenic pomegranate moments?
Yeah, my desperate panic.I thought I'm dying.I better save them quickly before I go.
The last bloody thing an NHS nurse needs is some bloody kid telling them to find God.
Yeah.So yeah.The comedy is probably the biggest one, but the charity shot was the first big one in my life, I'd say.
And how old were you when you did your first gig?
So you've done it, not quite man and boy, but you found it.I think that's a good age to find it.You know, you're young enough, you've got it all to pray for, but you're old enough, you've got something to say.
Yeah. Yeah, it's proper crossroads territory, isn't it?It is, yeah.You haven't got yourself tied down to anything.You're not locked into a career or you haven't got people dependent on you financially.
I'm just thinking at 29, I did.I was locked into a career and I had two people financially dependent on me.
Yeah, that probably kept you in it for longer.
It absolutely did.Yeah.So I thought the ship had sailed because I was like, I picked my lane and my lane is having a proper job in Delhi and supporting my children.You know, that's not that I didn't enjoy it, you know.
either of those things, but I did think I had to, that's what I've chosen to do.
Yeah.And you were saying that, and I was reading that Joan Rivers had given you the courage to, to change path.
Do you know what, though?It was no more that it was Joan Rivers than your story of someone telling you.All that mattered was somebody, in her case, yeah, somebody who did it and knew it.
But it was actually much more the fact that it was an 81-year-old woman telling me at 45 I wasn't old and that I wasn't too old.That was the relevant bit.
But it's nice it was Joan Rivers.Although if ever you want to have a sort of celebrity yarn, pick a celebrity who's dead and say what you like, because no one's going to argue.
Yeah, sometimes you just need a second opinion.
Yeah, just someone to say to you.Yeah.And maybe I don't know how you feel, you know, because it's a similar moment.Like, I sort of, I feel like, oh, I'd never done stand up if she hadn't said that.
But by then, I sort of think actually, I keep remembering things.
I think whenever I'd read that book about that, and I had suddenly thought that and had that conversation with that other person and thought, Oh, I wonder if so I wonder if it would have just lain dormant a bit longer, and we'd have still done it.
It may have taken a different path.It may have taken a less confident first stride, or you might have felt a little less secure in the first few days or something.But yeah, I know what you mean.
I had a file with little bits and pieces in it, and I didn't know what they were, but I had thought about it.But I think it takes a substantial moment to go, actually, here we are.Here's an opportunity.
Yeah, it does.But you sometimes realise that when I had Grayson Perry on the podcast, and he does sort of not stand up, but he does shows that spoken word now and have jokes in them.
So it's the nearest he would get to something that feels a bit like stand up.And I was asking him how he sort of finds it.And he just finished a show.
And he said he really misses the bits between the shows, because he doesn't have anywhere for all that stuff that he's like, I have all these thoughts and all that stuff.
And I read and I was like, I was thinking, Oh, yeah, we just forget that we just have a receptacle for that. We're always writing stuff and we always know that stuff can have an outing.
It might not have more than a couple of outings if it's shit, but it'll get an outing if we want it to.
Definitely.We're lucky.We're very lucky.Therapy, constant therapy, even just the frivolous stuff doesn't all have to be important.It's all therapy, isn't it?Being able to say whatever.
Well, it's really it's really rare that you actually can you've got the microphone, you know, so someone might not book you again, but it's hard for them to stop you on the night.Yeah, I read yesterday the open mic.Exactly.
I read yesterday that this was in regard to addiction.And it said that addicts are often described as egomaniacs with inferiority complexes.And I thought, well, yeah, and comedians is quite apt for us as well.
Yeah, you were talking about that with Alastair McGowan, weren't you, about the sort of narcissism and the reversing backwards, what was it you said?
Reversing backwards into the limelight or something.
Oh yeah, I love that saying.Yeah, my friend Charlotte's favorite saying.Those people that are like, oh no, I couldn't possibly, no, no, I don't, no, don't get me a cup of tea, no, no, no.
And then you sit down, they're like, oh, I'd murder a cup of tea, but I don't want to be any trouble.They're like, do you know what, be no trouble, just say yes.
And you first get offered the cup of tea.
Don't ever wrong me over tea.What's your favourite joke?
I'm still working on mine.
It's a mug that you can give your baby a bath in.What is your favourite joke, Tom?
Um, it's quite hard on that, isn't it?I really like the Bill Hicks bit where he basically says that the American presidency is you're just a puppet for some shadowy figures that no one ever sees.
And on the first day when you're sworn in as president, you go into a room. and one of the shadowy figures lowers a screen and shows you an angle of the Kennedy assassination that no one's ever seen before.
Then the screen goes back up and they say, any questions?And I just love that, the menace of it.And the way he just gets his point across and it's such a huge thing to suggest.But that was what he was so good at.Entertaining, but seismic.
taking on the big topics.We may be able to find that to put a link to.
I also like the Michael McIntyre tights bit just on the other end of the spectrum.
That is at the other end of the spectrum.And it's, I don't think anyone's ever picked Michael McIntyre before.He's much maligned, isn't he?
I love that bit.Yeah.Women put on tights.Yes.So good.It's so good.The physicality, the whole bit is amazing.
Yeah, it is.Talking of physical comedy.Yeah, it is.And if you could give one bit of life advice, apart from taking advice from junkies that will get you a job and change your life, which was very good advice, kids.Befriend a junkie.
Do everything they tell you.Any other life advice you'd give to anybody listening?
I would say get rid of your smartphone. if you can.Or try and find a way to not let it in your life if you can.Bin off your family and friends if they're rubbish until further notice.
They can be reintroduced at various points, but sometimes you need to shove them away for a bit if they're holding you back.I read this amazing line in Osho, the guru and he's like,
you see kids who don't want to become successful because they don't want to betray their fathers.It's like, wow.
You know, you can spend your whole life martyring yourself to a sort of, you know, to a mid level or never quite being anything because you don't want your father to think you've abandoned him or your mum, you know, you never go fully in because you feel like you've always got to come back and be, you know, the place where they are with their regrets.
I would say what would I say for the list?I've got one here.Choose your terms.Just choose your terms.Find your terms.What are your terms?Go for them.And, you know, investigate your damage.
If you've got damage, if you think something's up and you've got a feeling that you could be better in a certain area, go after it.Read about it.Do workshops.Meditate.Just go after it.Get in there.Don't let it sit there because it won't change.
We've put links to the remaining dates on Tom's tour and some of his clips in the show notes, so please do take a moment to take a look.
Please also remember to rate, review, recommend, hit subscribe, tell everyone you know about the podcast and to pre-order my book.Links to all of that are in the show notes as well.And that is it for this week.Thank you so much for listening.
We will be back in your feed next Thursday as always. when I will be talking to comedian, author, and viral sensation, Olaf Falafel.
And where the holes landed, it just said, tits, tits, bingo, tits.
Namaste, motherfuckers, was written and presented by me, Callie Beaton, and produced by Mike Hanson for Pod People Productions with music by Jake Yap.I'm Callie Beaton.Until next time, motherfuckers.
Hi, I'm Sam Baker, and welcome to The Shift, the podcast that aims to tell the no-holds-barred truth about being a woman post-40.
Anyone that's worried about turning 40, I say, hurry up and get here.This is where the party is.This is the good place.
Created and hosted by me, journalist and author, Sam Baker.I started The Shift because I was so tired of the absence of older women's voices.
Three little injections around my eyes and suddenly I was like, oh, I just got the last year back.Not trying to look 30.I just want to look 42.
Where had all the women over 40 gone?You know, nobody ever gets addicted to kale.
You get addicted to things that kill you.
So I created The Shift to make a space to talk about everything from life, love, sex, to careers, confidence, mental health, menopause.I mean, seriously, if you want to walk about in your pajamas for the rest of your life, we're invisible.
Each episode I speak to an inspiring woman about her shift, the second half of our lives.
I feel very strong and think I genuinely don't care what anybody thinks of me and that does come with age.
Join me every Tuesday wherever you listen to your podcasts.
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