WEBVTT - Graham Norton 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:04.600 Hi, everyone. Mel Brooks is a hundred and we've a 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:07.840 present for you on Thursday, a new edition of the 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:13.160 podcast we recorded three years ago. Happy Birthday, Meil. He's funny, 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:15.240 he's brilliant, He's one hundred. 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:21.720 Ruthie's Table four brought to you by Sky and Montclair 0:00:22.480 --> 0:00:23.080 cab Drivers. 0:00:23.120 --> 0:00:25.360 When they always say, oh, the worst one I ever 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:28.520 had was they loved telling you the most miserable person, 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:33.159 And I always look, you don't know, you know, you 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:37.480 met them in that window of their life. You don't 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:39.800 know what happened before, you don't know where they were 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:46.680 going now. In fairness, mostly I think they're right when 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:51.239 they say that name, I go, yeah, betcha. 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:55.280 Many years ago, my husband, Richard Rodgers, and I were 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:58.480 leaving Danny Meyer's restaurant my Lino in New York City. 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:03.640 As we passed the table and spotted Graham Norton. We stopped. Graham, 0:01:03.680 --> 0:01:08.520 I said, you're my hero. Without a second's hesitation, he 0:01:08.560 --> 0:01:13.280 looked up and he said, Richard is mine. That small 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:17.760 moment told me everything I needed to know about the broadcaster, author, 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:21.680 and storyteller I've been watching for years to be a 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:24.560 truly great host as Graham is every week on his 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:28.880 television sofa. You have to understand and genuinely like people. 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.080 It's the same for me in the River Cafe. There's 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:35.280 no such thing as a difficult customer. Everybody has a 0:01:35.360 --> 0:01:38.920 story and every table is a world. If life is 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:42.280 about luck, then having Graham here with me today is 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:45.640 part of the luck I have. After all, he is 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:46.360 my hero. 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.360 Oh that's very nice, Thank you very much. That sounds 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:52.040 very rude that I looked up at you. 0:01:53.880 --> 0:02:00.800 Oh yeah, right, I wasn't a hero and you were 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:03.840 growing up in Ireland. Let's start at the beginning, you know, 0:02:03.880 --> 0:02:05.440 tell me about your parents. 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.520 My mom was, I mean, she would have called herself 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:12.440 a housewife. Now they're homemakers. So she did all the 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:16.480 cooking and all the shopping, and a lot of stuff 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.760 was made from scratch, certainly, I think when I was 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:22.960 very little, everything was sort of made from scratch, and 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.880 she did baking, you know, all of that. If the 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.560 oven was on, you couldn't just put one thing in it. 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:34.040 You had to fill it with stuff so you weren't 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:34.800 wasting energy. 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:35.959 Who is your sister. 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:40.080 I had a sister. She was four years older than me, 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:43.880 and it's interesting that that age gap. You know. Now 0:02:44.080 --> 0:02:46.480 it's no age gap at all. And I'm very close 0:02:46.480 --> 0:02:50.280 to my sister, but growing up, she was always slightly 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.600 out of my orbit. Yeah, because you know, she would 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:55.320 be going to a different school when you were. 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:56.240 Twelve she was sixteen. 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:57.160 Yeah, kind of thing. 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:01.119 So what were family meals like? Would you sit down? 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.639 We would sit down and have them sometime. My father 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:07.000 he worked for Guinness. 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:09.239 And what did he do? 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.720 He was he started work in the brewery, and then 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:19.200 he became a service rep, which meant he traveled around 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:23.760 an area kind of fixing the kegs or the coolers, 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:25.360 all that sort of stuff. And then he became a 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.240 sales rep, which I don't really know what that was. 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:31.320 It seemed to be just delivering free beer mats. And 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:34.680 every glass in our house said something about Guinness on it, 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:39.360 Every ashtray had something about Guinness on it. And even 0:03:39.400 --> 0:03:44.880 like with the towels, towels and branding. 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:48.880 Ye did you did he ever cook? Was it a 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:49.640 woman's world? 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.160 It was a woman's world or a man's world where 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:57.240 he didn't cook. He you could make. You could scramble 0:03:57.280 --> 0:03:59.920 an egg or boil an egg, you make toast, thing 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:03.400 like that. If mom was away for any I can't 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.600 remember why she would have been away. He could, we 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:07.920 wouldn't have stopped. 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:10.880 Yeah, and did you ever go in the kitchen a 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:11.800 little bit? 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:14.760 I would help my mom a bit, really when I 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:17.240 started to cook. And this is kind of still my 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:24.679 problem is when I went to America, I I lived 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:26.560 in a hippie commune in San Cisco. 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:27.919 Yeah, we have to discuss this. 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:31.080 And everyone had there was a chore wheel and everyone 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:35.359 had a night to do the thing. So this twenty 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.680 year old from Ireland, which like twenty to me, doesn't 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.880 seem that young. Now, I feel I was about baby. 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:43.280 I feel I felt I was a fool. 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.440 What made you go from so you went? You went 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:47.320 to university and then you went straight toge. 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:49.440 I dropped out of university now and I kind of 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:51.360 knew I was ropping out of university, but I didn't 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:55.560 tell anyone. They have these amazing visas for I don't know, 0:04:55.839 --> 0:04:57.640 just for IRIS students. I feel it is just for 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:01.080 IRA students called j One visas where you can go 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.279 and work in America. I got on the bus in 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:06.480 New York and the idea was I was going to 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:08.880 go to LA and I was going to meet a 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:13.760 pen pal in LA, and because I didn't have a map, 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:16.800 I was just followed. I would just get leaflets in 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.960 the bus stations where the lines went east to west, 0:05:20.000 --> 0:05:23.839 not north to south. So who knows what route I took. 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:29.520 But anyway, the rambling bus ticket ran out in San Francisco, see, 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.919 which was so lucky I didn't run out and some 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:37.200 or if I'd got to LA, it would have been 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.440 terrible because I don't know how to drive. I you know, 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:42.520 I knew one person who lived I think out in 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.719 Orange County, which I now realize is not LA. This 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:52.240 was nineteen eighty three. I went, and I went with 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:59.960 two hundred pounds. Now, even then it was a delusion 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:04.400 amount of money to go with, and I thought fifty 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:08.400 pounds a week, so that two hundred pounds would last 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:10.480 me for a month and I'd be able to get 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:12.720 a job in that time. Of course, the money was 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:14.560 gone by the time I got San Francisco. 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:17.320 Oh, that's hence the commune. Or did you know about 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:17.880 the commune? 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.479 I know, I didn't know anything about the commune, but 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.240 I'd met someone in Cork who gave me some phone numbers, 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:26.520 which was so nice of them, and of course I 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:30.760 rang them, and this very nice woman said, oh, maybe 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:33.440 I could find you a room. There's this commune. They 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.440 might they have a hostel room. And so I stayed 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:41.360 in the hostel room, paying nightly, and then we got 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:43.919 on and they said, oh, do you want to live here. 0:06:44.240 --> 0:06:47.000 So it's funny because when I read that you'd gone 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.760 to San Francisco in the eighties to live in a commune, 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:51.880 I thought, he's about twenty years too late. But that's 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.280 okay because maybe. 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:56.520 That you can San Francisco commune is still there. 0:06:56.680 --> 0:06:59.480 Because I always think about the communeist flower power and 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.560 when I was growing up by then, I'm older, lot 0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.760 older than you, but I think that we kind of 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.200 divided into the political people who were fighting the war 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:13.960 in Vietnam and who were very serious and trying to 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:16.760 understand the new Left and what it meant. And then 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:18.520 there were the communes, you know, the people of the 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:22.080 hippies who went to the communes. And so it was 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:24.960 a big deal in the sixties, very gentle, very beautiful 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:27.960 that people would go with a very kind of strong 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:31.920 idea and philosophy. But was that the kind of commune. 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:33.240 Was that really encouraging. 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:34.880 Do you think there's still It was a. 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:37.640 Continuation of that. It was just off the hate Ashbury, 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:39.560 you know the panhandle that was up to Golden Gate 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:44.120 Park and it was just there and they were probably 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.440 forty and I was twenty. So that was really so. 0:07:48.680 --> 0:07:49.840 I had been there for twenty years. 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:56.320 Yeah, and it was I loved it. It was just great. 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:00.520 You know, I was so conservative with a small see 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.560 in that way that young people can be sure because 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.080 you know that's stupid, you know that kind of thing. 0:08:06.160 --> 0:08:08.280 I was a bit like that, and they really kind 0:08:08.280 --> 0:08:12.240 of opened my eyes to different ways of looking at things, 0:08:12.560 --> 0:08:16.000 different ways of being and eating. I went back, I have. 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:19.720 I went back to some anniversary. There are now sort 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:24.280 of hippie retirement communities and it's so sweet because they 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:28.240 get when there's a demonstration and the staff wheeled them 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.840 out to be in the demonstration and they you know, 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:36.280 they tie their placards to wheelchairs and things. It's you know, 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:39.559 it's a life of it's been a life of kind 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:41.720 of activism and campaign I think. 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:43.840 It made a different. I mean the communes and communes, 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:46.320 you know, there are somes that are very radical and 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:50.120 very and bringing up children altogether and in a way, 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:51.360 you know, but different ways. 0:08:57.360 --> 0:08:59.800 When I was in my commune, there was a lady 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:02.600 and she had a little daughter who lived in the commune, 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:07.160 and of course she was rebelling against the kid them. 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:11.680 Yeah so she the kid, yea, the little kid loved 0:09:11.800 --> 0:09:15.920 Barbie dolls. She she wanted to get the Barbie dream House, 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:18.760 the Dune Buggy. You know, she was obsessed by kind 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:22.680 of bubblecum TV programs. And you know, you could see 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:25.600 the parents going, what's gone wrong here? 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.199 Yeah? I would say that about my kids who grew 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.600 up in an architects house of you know, white walls, 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:33.480 and you know that they were going to when they 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:35.280 grew up, they were gonna have a wallpaper, you know, 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.360 they were going to have decoration or kind of lots 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:40.880 of stuff. So when you when you were in a commune, 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:43.720 you were sharing, aren't you? And you had responsibilities and 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:45.160 did you say there was a kind of chart of 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:46.320 who had to do what when? 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:47.199 Yeah? 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:49.040 So what was your tell me about your. 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:51.040 Well, you know different things, you know, you have to 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:53.439 There'd be a night you did washing up, there'd be 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:55.920 a night you did something else. But then there was 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.840 the dreaded night when you had to cook, okay, and 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.640 you're cooking for kind of you know, twelve sixteen people. 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:03.320 Everyone has to say who's going to be in so 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:10.760 and and it's And I had no idea what I 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:13.000 was doing. You know, I couldn't cook for myself, so 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:17.080 you didn't never mind sixteen people. And then what was 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:21.560 weird was when I went back for this reunion whatever, 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:26.520 the forty and fifty reunion, a woman who I remembered, 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.040 she came up to me and went, oh, we still 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:33.880 cook your soup. We still make your soup. And I think, 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.840 what the hell I mean, I don't. I didn't remember 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:38.920 it at all. I think basically I would just make 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:43.760 stock and chop up the potatoes very small, and they'd 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.280 cook in the stock protaty bit of onion, bit of 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:47.480 garden girl. 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:50.040 Like, maybe some other vegetables, maybe some carrots, or. 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:52.720 I wouldn't have sullied it with a colorful vegetable. There 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:54.959 might have been a leak. Leak, okay, there might have 0:10:55.000 --> 0:10:55.400 been a leak. 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:56.280 And what else did you do? 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.200 I worked in restaurants. I started. That was the first 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:00.360 time I worked in restaurants. 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:01.400 Okay, tell me about that. 0:11:02.120 --> 0:11:05.640 It was a I think it was like a franchise restaurant, 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:08.839 but I never saw another one. It was called Vi 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.080 de France, and it was a kind of fast food 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.240 French cafe on one side with all these kind of 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:19.680 filled croissans with you know, jam and stuff fillings in them, 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:21.240 and then on the other side there was kind of 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:24.360 a little French restaurant. It's funny. I have no recollection 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:26.240 of the kitchen. I'm not sure there was a kitchen. 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:26.719 Maybe not. 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:27.840 I think maybe it was all. 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:29.040 Sality that just got delivered. 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:32.679 I can't remember there was soup. I remember the there 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:36.959 was soup because the soup again must have been delivered 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:40.120 because often we would tell people what the soup was, 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:42.720 and that was not what the soup was, and we'd 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.240 only discovered later. But no one would have sent it 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:48.679 back or complained, because it turned out they just wanted soup. 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:58.120 They didn't care what it was. It was there any 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:00.440 point you thought of staying in San Francisco. 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:03.160 No, No, I knew I had to come home. I 0:12:03.240 --> 0:12:06.880 knew my life couldn't start properly till I got back 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:10.880 to where I understood how life worked, you know. 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:12.120 But that wasn't Ireland. 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.040 Well, I went back to Ireland initially, and then I 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:17.480 wanted to be an actor, so I applied to drama 0:12:17.480 --> 0:12:20.240 schools in London and got into Central. 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:25.200 Did that acting ambition happen in San Francisco when you 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:27.600 were a kid, or did it something you always knew? 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:29.959 It was something I always wanted to do. But growing 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:32.760 up in Ireland, I felt like I couldn't well look 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:34.720 and I didn't know how you did it. How could 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:37.440 I possibly go from sitting in a house in London 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:42.439 to being in a fact that just seemed impossible. And 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:44.360 it was one of the great things about the Hippie 0:12:44.360 --> 0:12:49.280 commune was the hippies were very it's possible. Yeah, you know, 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.920 dreams are meant to be pursued to a certain point. 0:12:55.679 --> 0:13:00.320 Commune like that better than no, And so I I 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:02.280 kind of went, well, I'm going to pursue this dream 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:07.200 till it hits a dead end. I was at drama school, 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:09.440 but I was working in a restaurant, So. 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:11.760 Oh, you're working restaurant here as well when you came back, 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:14.000 Which what was that like? 0:13:14.520 --> 0:13:17.040 Well, I worked in one called Smith's. Do you remember 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:21.600 Christina Smithstina Smith in co of Garden and Rose very well? 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.199 I think Rose she did before. She was she there 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:26.240 when you were there. She came in a circle. 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:28.360 She came in as a consultant. 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:32.480 Okay, I remember that because. 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:38.240 We had an Irish chef called Chef O'Shea, who was 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:42.439 one of those very shouty chefs, very terrifying, but actually 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:45.800 I think a lovely man because occasionally you'd see him 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.240 smile and crack a joke or something would make him 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:50.120 laugh and you kind of think, oh, actually, you're a 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:55.600 nice guy. So he was the chef. I don't know 0:13:55.600 --> 0:14:01.760 where they found him. I feel regional hotel probably. I 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:06.920 remember one day the special. The special which we served 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:12.000 people was white fish of some kind in a white 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:18.000 sauce and that was served with potato and rice on 0:14:18.040 --> 0:14:18.640 a white plate. 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:20.840 Whoa, this sounds like hospital food. 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:24.480 So I think roses brought in. 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:27.040 Did you ever go to Greece or Italy? I did 0:14:27.080 --> 0:14:30.040 a little bit, but not much economic. 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:34.920 That was totally economic. Yeah. And also it's that weird 0:14:35.000 --> 0:14:39.520 thing when you're waiting for a gig, you never want 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:42.560 to be away. So you know, when I was waiting 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:43.920 for an acting gig, I don't want to be away. 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:46.240 And then when I started doing stand up, you know, 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:48.760 you just if there was a gig, you did it, 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:54.000 and the thought of not being in town sanity. 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.000 Yeah, the stand up and the acting was that in 0:14:57.080 --> 0:14:59.480 drama school you got an agent. Isn't that a big 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:00.480 deal when you have an agent? 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:04.680 Yeah, certainly it's the aim everyone the ideas you leave 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:08.000 drama school with an agent and I. So I did that. 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:11.560 Then nothing happened. I mean crickets. I got a couple 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:15.320 of jobs, but really nothing. And then I still wanted 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.760 to kind of show off. So I started writing little 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:23.680 comedy skits for myself and I did it in there's 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:26.560 a gallery space above the Eagle Pub in. 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:27.760 Fir Yeah, I know that pub. 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:33.120 So I I said, I'm going to do a show up, 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:37.240 but sort of you know, am I really? But then 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:40.600 Mike Belbourne, who ran the Eagle with David, he started 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.240 telling people it's happened like Graham's doing this. So suddenly 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:46.760 I was forced to make it happen. 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.560 That's that's a lot to do that on your own. 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:50.840 I always look at stand up. 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:51.440 We did. 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:56.280 We did an interview with Pete Davidson, you know, and 0:15:56.560 --> 0:16:01.400 he was describing being doing stand up and American shopping centers, 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:03.880 you know, going in the early days of going into 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.200 these just small little theaters of bars where you would 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:09.880 stand on the stage and people would either fall asleep 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:12.120 or go and get something to eat. Doing stand up 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:15.680 to me, seems such a solitary endeavor. 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:20.160 It is, and it's a kind of a shock after 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.400 being at drama school, after being with people, working with people. 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:29.040 But there is something sort of nice about being in 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:33.120 control of your own destiny. I mean, certainly as a performer, 0:16:33.200 --> 0:16:34.680 what's really nice is that you can pick up the 0:16:34.680 --> 0:16:37.520 phone and get a gig. You're not constantly sitting there 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:44.160 waiting for the thing to happen. And also, I've talked 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:46.640 to some comics who feel like this and some that don't. 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:50.280 But there's a thing about dying on stage. As a comic, 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:55.640 I find it so much harder to watch someone die 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.480 on stage than to die on stage. 0:16:58.680 --> 0:16:59.400 Tell me about that. 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.640 To watch a comic, I think. I think watching a 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:06.920 comic not get laught is one of the most excruciating 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.280 things in the world. I just find I can't. I 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:16.200 just can't. Whereas when it's happened to me, there's a 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.040 kind of an odd out of body experience, is it. 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:23.119 I mean, it's not pleasant, don't get me wrong, and 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.480 and you know, there's a bit of hope. You kind 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:27.439 of think, oh, maybe I can turn this around, and 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:30.560 I'll try this, and you might get a little chuckle 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:33.000 on something, or you talk to some of the audience 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.600 and that goes well, and you think, oh, maybe maybe, 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:38.960 and then no, no, it's flatlining again. 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.359 Sir Jessica Parker said to me, you know, I asked 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:46.240 her about doing comedy and a play, and she said, sometimes, 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:49.320 I think, Ruthie, did they all call each other before 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:52.000 they came to the play and agree not to laugh? 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:55.879 You know, because it's almost as if that audience has 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:59.080 decided not to laugh, whereas the night before the same play, 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:02.240 the same in a river cafe. I can tell I 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:04.000 used to be able to come home one night and say, 0:18:04.040 --> 0:18:06.320 that was a great night. You know, everybody had the 0:18:06.320 --> 0:18:08.480 sea bass and people liked it, and they took the 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:10.960 same thing pretty much with the same thing, and it 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:13.680 was like because and. 0:18:13.640 --> 0:18:18.880 I think that's what keeps all these sorts of jobs 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:23.560 constantly interesting, is that there is an alchemy. There is 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:29.800 there's something. There's always a weird named extra ingredient that 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.439 none of us know what it is. So some nights 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:37.320 that kitchen will sing and the dining room is just 0:18:37.560 --> 0:18:40.920 everyone is just having the loveliest night. And it might 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.360 be the weather. But it's not as simple as that. 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:46.800 And it's the same, you know, on the chat show, 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:50.200 we often have the same ingredients. You know, we'll often 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.639 have the same guess no, they'll be in a different combination. 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:59.720 But a guest who was brilliantly funny. Yeah, before we're 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:02.280 thinking great, they're all, oh, that's oh, we don't need 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:07.240 to worry about them nothing. And whether that's the audience, 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:08.680 whether it's them, whether it's. 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:12.600 The combination with argument on the way to the theater, 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:15.359 like got lost. I always think what happened to the 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:16.160 person before? 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:19.800 I always say that to cab drivers when they always say, oh, 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:22.680 the worst one I ever had was they loved telling 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.359 you the most miserable person. And I always like, you 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:31.120 don't know, you know, you met them in that window 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:34.600 of their life. You don't know what happened before. You 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:38.480 don't know where they were going now. In fairness, mostly 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:39.840 I think they're right, But. 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:46.200 When they say that name, I yeah, do you have 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:49.400 kind of not techniques, but do you have ways of 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:54.360 you know, navigating the difficult person or the do you. 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:56.640 I mean, I think one of the one of the 0:19:56.640 --> 0:20:00.840 things that makes the chat show on TV easy is 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.800 that I'm not interviewing people one on one interesting because 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:10.320 I think, then this is everything you know, it's all you, 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.719 it's all me, and if one of us just drops 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:19.440 the ball, then kind of Whereas on the talk show, 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:24.000 I've got other people, so you know, if if it 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:26.679 is like getting blood out of a stone, I'll just 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:29.840 go to the next stone and let's see what I 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:33.040 can get out of them. And that I think helps. 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.560 And also I think the other thing helps is because 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:39.560 they're not just talking to me. You know. I think 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:42.080 a lot of those stars, all those big stars, like. 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:45.600 You are. 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:48.639 But I think if you're sat next to you know, 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:52.720 Dame Helen Mirror, you don't want to be a dick, 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:57.360 so you will tell your interesting story, but for her, 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:00.720 not for me. But I don't care why they're telling it, 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:01.679 as long as they're telling it. 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:04.240 I have a friend whose mother said that within some 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.600 thirty or forty five seconds of somebody coming into the house, 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:11.040 no matter somebody to fix a dishwasher, you know, the 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:14.919 Princess of Greece or a relative who's just arrived, they 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:17.480 should have a drink in their hand, because it means 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:20.960 you're stopping whatever you're doing and focusing on them. And 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:23.280 I think it's a good you know that that kind 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:27.200 of and you give people, have you give people something? 0:21:27.240 --> 0:21:29.280 Don't you give them a drink? And I think that's 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:31.760 kind of again offering something to somebody. 0:21:32.000 --> 0:21:34.480 I just think it is. I think it's signals. Yeah, 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.920 it signals to the audience that we think we might 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:40.800 be going to have a nice time. Yeah. 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:43.359 Did that take an effort on your Did you have 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:46.960 to convince anybody to give people something to drink? We saw? 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:49.800