Speaker 1: If you've got young kids, keeping them entertained is a
Speaker 1: pretty tricky balancing act. Popping on a movie or TV
Speaker 1: show can be a lifesaver, giving them something to focus
Speaker 1: on for a while. But trust me, you can only
Speaker 1: watch bright flashing lights and listen to sickly sweet sing
Speaker 1: along so many times before you feel your brain starts
Speaker 1: to melt. Thankfully, we have a savior two of them.
Speaker 1: In fact, the Listies are one of my daughter's favorite
Speaker 1: comedy acts, and I count myself incredibly lucky because I
Speaker 1: love them too. When Matt Kelly and Richard Higgins, the
Speaker 1: comedic duo that makes up the Listies, say they perform
Speaker 1: comedy for kidults, they really mean it. So what makes
Speaker 1: their work so enjoyable not just for kids, but for
Speaker 1: everyone in the family. How do they think about designing
Speaker 1: a show for the notoriously short attention span of modern kids?
Speaker 1: And we will also dig deep into how a sketch
Speaker 1: goes from idea all the way to performance. My name
Speaker 1: is doctor amanthe Immer. I'm an organizational psychologist and the
Speaker 1: founder of behavioral science consultancy Inventium, and this is how
Speaker 1: I work a show about how to help you do
Speaker 1: your best work. When I met Matt and Richard, I
Speaker 1: started the interview by reading a quote because I think
Speaker 1: it gets right to the heart of what it means
Speaker 1: when they say their comedy is for kidults. It's from
Speaker 1: Frank Woodley of Lena and Woodley Fame, one of Australia's
Speaker 1: greatest comedians. He says, when I saw the listings, it
Speaker 1: affected my thinking because I really related to the comedy
Speaker 1: craft they were exercising. It got me a little bit
Speaker 1: excited to realize that when you are performing for kids,
Speaker 1: it's just as delicate and just as sophistic dedicated. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to know what are the key considerations in
Speaker 1: creating a show for kids.
Speaker 2: Oh that quote is so good, isn't that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Really nicely it just makes me feel well worth fifteen
Speaker 4: dollars we paid him. Matt and I always start from
Speaker 4: the premise, which of what do children know?
Speaker 3: Like what do they know?
Speaker 4: Because the idea of the clown, which is what we
Speaker 4: are effectively, is that the kids can't have one over
Speaker 4: on us. The audience are like, no, you're wrong, They yeah, so,
Speaker 4: but what do kids know? So we have to start
Speaker 4: from that, Like they know animals, they know musical instruments,
Speaker 4: they know their parents' names, they know stuff like that.
Speaker 3: So I think that's that's what we start from.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we've got a whole show that's about going to bed,
Speaker 5: like where Richard's trying to get me to go to bed,
Speaker 5: and that came from that came from just observing like
Speaker 5: this kid in our lives and coming up with every
Speaker 5: strategy that they could to try and stay up for longer.
Speaker 2: And that's it.
Speaker 5: We kind of looked at that moment when that's that's
Speaker 5: something that they would intuitively know and that parents would
Speaker 5: know as well, So we kind of like dig down
Speaker 5: and try and think about common family experiences as well,
Speaker 5: like being trapped in the car, being trapped inside on
Speaker 5: a long day and on.
Speaker 2: A rainy day.
Speaker 4: That's the other thing about Gwen comedy. When you have
Speaker 4: two characters, how do why don't they just if they're
Speaker 4: so annoying to each other, why don't they just leave?
Speaker 4: Like you have to have some premise of keeping them
Speaker 4: in the same place. So they're stuck in a lift,
Speaker 4: they're stuck in the car, it's raining, so they can't leave,
Speaker 4: So that you're always looking for those new and new premise.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing that one of the many things that I
Speaker 1: like about your comedy, even though I'm not the target market,
Speaker 1: although I guess parents kind of.
Speaker 3: Really you're a kid old.
Speaker 1: I'm a kid old, yes, And I say this having
Speaker 1: listened to hundreds of hours of your sketches and songs.
Speaker 1: Thank you to my daughter, Frankie.
Speaker 5: I'm so sorry about all that time.
Speaker 2: And I will just give advice.
Speaker 5: To any of you listeners.
Speaker 2: Just don't like don't it's not worth it.
Speaker 3: It's like a packet of biscuits once you.
Speaker 2: Have wine the whole much in a way.
Speaker 1: But my question is, like, your humor works so well
Speaker 1: for kids but also for adults, And how does that
Speaker 1: work when you're thinking that this has to be funny
Speaker 1: for kids, and so you're thinking about what they know.
Speaker 1: But how do you then weave in I don't know,
Speaker 1: that other element that sits on top of that where
Speaker 1: adults will laugh as well.
Speaker 5: I think that's in the mechanics of the double act,
Speaker 5: isn't it like to really talk technically, Like we used
Speaker 5: to think that our double act was older brother younger brother,
Speaker 5: and then we just had this revelation that actually what
Speaker 5: we're doing is playing out a parent child anxiety. And
Speaker 5: so when Richard's getting mad, he's expressing something that everyone
Speaker 5: is saying, something that every parent in the audience has
Speaker 5: thought about saying, never really got the opportunity to do it.
Speaker 3: And that's doing that for the kid too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and then and then everyone gets a pleasure in
Speaker 5: watching that those tables be turned or and I think
Speaker 5: we think about so I think we do hold the
Speaker 5: parents in our mind as much as we hold the
Speaker 5: kids in our minds when we're thinking about what's funny,
Speaker 5: and I think we are delivered laughs from both because
Speaker 5: of that reason.
Speaker 3: I think there is.
Speaker 4: A cartoon by Leanna Fink, who's a New Yorker cartoonist
Speaker 4: that I love so much, and it's a kid, an
Speaker 4: outline of a kid, and it says child, and inside
Speaker 4: the child there's a blob, a tiny blob, and it
Speaker 4: says adult. And then there's a picture of an adult,
Speaker 4: like an outline of an adult, which is adult, and
Speaker 4: then inside that is a blob that says child. So
Speaker 4: you know, when you say we talk about kids and
Speaker 4: adults as if they are diametrically opposed, but actually, when
Speaker 4: you're an adult, you still have the child in you.
Speaker 4: And when you're a child, you still have the adult
Speaker 4: you're going to be as a seed inside you. And
Speaker 4: that's actually a very funny thing that you can get
Speaker 4: whenever you see an old like a kid who's like five,
Speaker 4: but you can see them as an old lady as well.
Speaker 4: That's the funniest thing, you know, when you see like
Speaker 4: a kid and you're like, oh, look at that little
Speaker 4: Nona walking and it's funny because it's not Anna, but
Speaker 4: at the same time because it's like, well, they will
Speaker 4: be an a one day.
Speaker 1: So yeah, what do you do if you get the feedback,
Speaker 1: let's say from a director for example, that you need
Speaker 1: to inject more humor into a scene.
Speaker 2: Contrast is a thing that we definitely think about.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we think about what's the worst that could happen?
Speaker 5: Is another kind of joke generating thing because basically the
Speaker 5: machine of the lists is just trying to find a
Speaker 5: way for Richard to yell like, how do we reach it?
Speaker 3: Quite? Not quite, because if you look at there are frustrated.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: Tim Ferguson has a book called The Cheeky Monkey that
Speaker 4: he has a workshop that he does around that, which
Speaker 4: we've both done, and he really breaks down a whole
Speaker 4: bunch of tactics that are really good for finding jokes
Speaker 4: in quite a mechanical way.
Speaker 5: So reversal of expectations, confirmations of expectations, benign violence, that kind.
Speaker 3: Of yeah, unexpected display of skill.
Speaker 4: You know, a guy goes out to the you know,
Speaker 4: a guy sweeping on the stage and there's a grand
Speaker 4: piano and then turns to the audience and realize, oh,
Speaker 4: I'm sweeping and there's an audience there, and then starts
Speaker 4: playing Buck's piano concerto. That's going to get a laugh
Speaker 4: because it's unexpected display a skill. How do you get
Speaker 4: Frank has.
Speaker 3: A clown workshop.
Speaker 4: I've done with him too, which is wrongness. How do
Speaker 4: you get things wrong in a fun way? So he
Speaker 4: his example was a rubber glove, so he could make
Speaker 4: that into a chicken. He could flick it in himself
Speaker 4: in the face. He could pretend it's a balloon and
Speaker 4: float away. You know, how can you get things wrong
Speaker 4: in a creative way? And then you've got pun uh
Speaker 4: rhymes like so general wordplay.
Speaker 5: And we one of the things that that we sort
Speaker 5: of so if we if we're looking through like if
Speaker 5: we're drafting, so we had to make some educational content.
Speaker 3: For We didn't have to, we wanted to.
Speaker 2: We really did. Yeah, and it was about teaching kids.
Speaker 3: We were in that we got put in soldier confinement.
Speaker 4: The only way they us we we've got commissioned to
Speaker 4: write some education.
Speaker 3: Way I put it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that was teaching kids about emotional literacy, which is
Speaker 5: a very dry subject. And so the first pass of
Speaker 5: those scripts was like, we just need to like put
Speaker 5: more jokes into into this.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 5: So then what we found was how do we insert
Speaker 5: that into like a more comedic framework, like what is
Speaker 5: what is the sketch, what's the premise of the sketch?
Speaker 2: What have we and wrong?
Speaker 5: And so we we redrafted them and how do we
Speaker 5: add more absurdity? How do we so we do? We
Speaker 5: do look at we do look at the story that
Speaker 5: we're telling, all the information that we have to relay
Speaker 5: or convey, and then yeah, we do we actually do
Speaker 5: mechanically go through and look for.
Speaker 4: There's too many times in this or just had a
Speaker 4: musical bit like yeah, we we haven't had any silent bits.
Speaker 4: Let's try and make this silent like that. That's that
Speaker 4: getting to the variation.
Speaker 2: And it's a thing that I don't.
Speaker 3: Think we ever talked about this in an interview. Now, yes,
Speaker 3: think about this is how the sausage is made, but
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 5: But it is a thing that uh that in those
Speaker 5: Tim fergus and workshops where he's talking about in in
Speaker 5: a writer's room on like a big American sitcom, they'll
Speaker 5: go through and it's three jokes of page, three jokes
Speaker 5: a minute, and I'll circle the jokes in a red pen.
Speaker 5: And that's a thing that we think about too when
Speaker 5: we're writing scripts. It's like, the joke needs to be circlable.
Speaker 5: It needs to be a joke, not just something that's
Speaker 5: some thinks a bit funny, or it's a.
Speaker 2: Reference which isn't actually a joke.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you see other kids entertainers, what are you
Speaker 1: guys looking for? How are you viewing that? Because I
Speaker 1: imagine it's through a different lens than myself.
Speaker 3: Ah, it's a hard price to steal. Oh yeah, how
Speaker 3: do they what's their recipe for slime? Ah? How did
Speaker 3: they get that to explode? Ah?
Speaker 4: Wow, they're only doing forty five minutes. We do sixty five.
Speaker 4: Perhaps we could make our shows shorter and our life
Speaker 4: would be easier stuff like that. So no, that's just
Speaker 4: I don't know what.
Speaker 5: I don't know how to ask well, I mean, when
Speaker 5: we answer that question honestly, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean, let's go for an honest how much how.
Speaker 2: Much they respect the kids? Like really, when it comes down.
Speaker 5: To it, if they're doing a show that's lobbing jokes
Speaker 5: at the parents and then throwing in some easy fart
Speaker 5: jokes or it's very easy to it's two. There's two
Speaker 5: ways to make kids laugh. Kids will laugh when they
Speaker 5: know that they're expected to laugh, and then there's a
Speaker 5: second laugh which comes from their bones, and we always
Speaker 5: aiming for that second one. And the shows that I
Speaker 5: love are the ones where the performers are interested in
Speaker 5: that second laugh, and they're interested in taking the audience
Speaker 5: that they have in front of them and like tweaking
Speaker 5: their funny or tickling their funny bones in a way
Speaker 5: that will make those people laugh. And so when I
Speaker 5: go and see shows, I'm always looking for new ways
Speaker 5: to do that, and the best, like Frank's excellent at it,
Speaker 5: Like he's just interested in making the human being who
Speaker 5: was sitting there in front of them laugh and not
Speaker 5: taking easy laughs. And that's kind of what I'm looking
Speaker 5: for when I go and see things, and you know,
Speaker 5: creativity and ideas and imagination and all of that stuff
Speaker 5: that I think is really a part of kids theater.
Speaker 4: But also like I always go, oh, we shove got
Speaker 4: to up our costume game. That's a good costume. Look
Speaker 4: at that prop. It looks much better than ours.
Speaker 3: Oh, look at the case they arrived in. Ah, that pack.
Speaker 3: The way they pack that prop into that suitcase is
Speaker 3: really good. Like, I'm just looking for stuff that we think. God,
Speaker 3: I get a bit competitive, you know.
Speaker 1: How do you decide what's appropriate to put in kids entertainment?
Speaker 3: Yeah? What is appropriate?
Speaker 5: Okay, So I think I think I'm more conservative than riches.
Speaker 5: Like there's a bit in our new show where I
Speaker 5: show my bum crack quite a lot where I'm leaning
Speaker 5: just the top of.
Speaker 2: It, just the very top top of it.
Speaker 4: Just the top of his bum crack, like the most
Speaker 4: you would see from like a delivery guy.
Speaker 3: He bends over.
Speaker 5: That, and I was like, there's no like, that's that's
Speaker 5: that's on the line, But well, it is a line.
Speaker 2: You cross the line perpendicular the line no one.
Speaker 4: Wants to see, which because no one wants to follow
Speaker 4: that line because it leads to a place where no
Speaker 4: one wants to go.
Speaker 5: But so I was like, I'm not quite sure this works, Like,
Speaker 5: but what actually does what actually makes it work for us?
Speaker 2: And I think that that.
Speaker 3: Is Richard's outrage at it that if.
Speaker 5: It was just if it was just a you know,
Speaker 5: a forty two year old man showing his bum crack
Speaker 5: to an audience of kids, I probably wouldn't have a
Speaker 5: career because Richard Richard would be in an institution in jail.
Speaker 5: But because Richard Richard's playing out the parent telling off
Speaker 5: the naughty kid, don't do that. Stop doing that. What
Speaker 5: is appropriate can change, and the level of Richard's outrage.
Speaker 2: He can if it if it's too far over the line,
Speaker 2: Richard can really pull it back.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: There's a guy called Bernie Mankoff and he's got this
Speaker 4: lecture about comedy and stuff, and here his whole thing
Speaker 4: about what a joke is is it's a benign violation.
Speaker 4: So you've got to break the rules, but you've got
Speaker 4: to do it in a way that's not horrible, like
Speaker 4: because if you totally break the rules like that, that's
Speaker 4: not a joke. That's punk, you know, Or that's sort
Speaker 4: of full on art too. It's too violating to you know,
Speaker 4: it's not funny, but if it's if it's sort of
Speaker 4: if it breaks the rules, but it's still okay. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I think that's what we're after, is where are those
Speaker 4: benign violations? But it's also to do with our training too.
Speaker 4: Matt and I both did used to work with a
Speaker 4: woman called Lynn Ellis who came out of the sort
Speaker 4: of British panto tradition. And so whenever you're like, oh,
Speaker 4: we're going to then you see Matt's underpants, the British
Speaker 4: panto mode would be go, oh yeah, but the underpants
Speaker 4: needed like a big skid mark, like a big brown
Speaker 4: skid mark. And so Lynn the director would be out
Speaker 4: in the car park with a with a tin of
Speaker 4: brown paint like painting this big, make it big, make
Speaker 4: it bigger a And then she come back with a
Speaker 4: yellow spray caner.
Speaker 3: Make it it's like said some we as well pooh
Speaker 3: and wich.
Speaker 4: And then you know the undy she would use it
Speaker 4: would be massive, like old man undies. And then she'd
Speaker 4: be like, oh yeah, so we don't just see them,
Speaker 4: we should then throw them into the audience and by
Speaker 4: that point, I was like, oh, this is breaking too
Speaker 4: many rules, this is too naughty, But.
Speaker 3: Actually she's right, it was.
Speaker 4: It's still everyone knows it's not real pooh, it's not real.
Speaker 4: We and they're not really Matt's undy. So it's a
Speaker 4: violation of the rules, but it's a benign violation, and
Speaker 4: you know, an audience will tell you at the moment
Speaker 4: they think it's not benign.
Speaker 5: But then there are sort of other things that are inappropriate,
Speaker 5: like we don't we're not we don't really violent in
Speaker 5: the bullying, like no hit each other. No, we don't
Speaker 5: fetishize tech on stage, we don't have like Matts not.
Speaker 3: Obsessed with chocolates or that.
Speaker 5: Kind of stuff. There's sort of the few things along
Speaker 5: the way that we've discovered where we're like, we're not
Speaker 5: really interested in presenting.
Speaker 3: No, it's amazing.
Speaker 4: It is amazing to see other clowning traditions, like we
Speaker 4: did shows in Korea and the slapstick there is really
Speaker 4: like quite full on and it is very funny. I
Speaker 4: find it very funny, but it's it's sort of not
Speaker 4: to our taste.
Speaker 3: I think it's a bit as a group.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you also see it with like the Three Stooges,
Speaker 4: you know, where they do that thing where they pull
Speaker 4: each other's nose, they pull their ears and slap. It's
Speaker 4: so full on to watch now with our twenty twenty
Speaker 4: two eyes and go, wow.
Speaker 3: They were very, really violent. I think that man just
Speaker 3: looks like he should leave this trio. He's in a
Speaker 3: bad relationship.
Speaker 1: I want to ask about attention, because I mean, it's
Speaker 1: hard enough holding adults attention for sixty minutes, which is
Speaker 1: about the length of one of your show. Is what
Speaker 1: principles are you applying to hold young people's attention for
Speaker 1: that long.
Speaker 4: I think it's like a five minute rule, really, isn't it?
Speaker 4: So the show should change substantially every five minutes? And
Speaker 4: I think that that when I think that's true of
Speaker 4: like you say, like of adult shows too, right, even
Speaker 4: if it's just a person telling a story, that story
Speaker 4: should change.
Speaker 3: Pace or volume or or flavor.
Speaker 4: Every so often to keep your interest because otherwise, you know,
Speaker 4: when I see shows that don't do that, I start getting.
Speaker 3: Angry, quietly angry.
Speaker 4: But I think we have a five minute rule, unconscious rule,
Speaker 4: isn't it, Because if something and then if something's three,
Speaker 4: then the next thing can be seven, but really nothing
Speaker 4: should be longer than ten.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we sort of change it's I think again. We
Speaker 5: learned from Lynn, who Rich was talking about with Underpants before.
Speaker 5: Her whole approach to kids shows was just let genre
Speaker 5: help you. Like just genre sets everyone kids see so
Speaker 5: many different types of movies. So if you're going to
Speaker 5: do something, what if we did this bit of science fiction?
Speaker 5: So what does that mean? What does the music sound like?
Speaker 5: What are your costumes?
Speaker 2: That kind of stuff.
Speaker 5: But then she would go, Okay, so this bit's in
Speaker 5: the style of a Western. And so what we learned
Speaker 5: from her was that like changing the game can arrest interest.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: We will be back with the list. He is soon
Speaker 1: talking about how working with a coach helped them get
Speaker 1: better at managing conflict when it inevitably arises. If you're
Speaker 1: looking for more tips to improve the way that you work,
Speaker 1: I write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool
Speaker 1: things that I've discovered that helped me work better, ranging
Speaker 1: from software and gadgets that I'm loving through to interesting
Speaker 1: research findings. You can sign up for that at Howiwork
Speaker 1: dot co. That's how I Work dot co. You guys
Speaker 1: are business partners as well as performing everything together. How
Speaker 1: do you go about, like, when you disagree on something,
Speaker 1: do you have a method for I guess getting to
Speaker 1: a resolution?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we do now.
Speaker 4: Yes, we have been working a lot with what's her
Speaker 4: last name, Erskine, Shona Erskine, who is like she works
Speaker 4: with like performers but also athletes and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: I saw her speak at an artist's wellbeing thing in
Speaker 4: Perth a long time ago, and I was like, I
Speaker 4: really want to work with you. And so we've had
Speaker 4: a bunch of sessions.
Speaker 3: With her about really talking about, like.
Speaker 4: You know, how to make decisions as two people, because
Speaker 4: three people can make a decision much easier than two,
Speaker 4: because two people we can just get to loger.
Speaker 1: One can be out voted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when you're fifty to fifty, how can you do that?
Speaker 5: And we have over the last couple of years started
Speaker 5: to introduce that third voice in as well, in order
Speaker 5: to be able to like what's shown as kind of
Speaker 5: given us is a language in order to be able
Speaker 5: to kind of talk about talk about conflict, why we
Speaker 5: went into that conflict space, what the conflict was actually about,
Speaker 5: and then some methods to sort of shortcut those stages
Speaker 5: of conflict to go like we can just jump over
Speaker 5: that hurdle and get straight into what we're actually talking about,
Speaker 5: which is, you know, Richard wants to write a new
Speaker 5: bit and I want to bend or break an old bit,
Speaker 5: and like just little conflicts like.
Speaker 4: That languages from her about that what creativity is. You're
Speaker 4: often what's the third one? This three, isn't it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Bending, breaking or blending.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's that's the only three. There's only three
Speaker 4: ways to have an idea, which is to blend, to
Speaker 4: break an existing one or bend, break, blend, blend, yeah, which.
Speaker 3: Is really so we we have a lot.
Speaker 4: Of We've also realized that we're very visual in the
Speaker 4: way that we have ideas.
Speaker 3: So often when.
Speaker 4: We think we're disagreeing, we're agreeing, but we're expressing ourselves
Speaker 4: from other side. So we use a lot of visual aids.
Speaker 4: It sounds weird, but it actually works so well. And
Speaker 4: it's the one thing that was really bad during COVID
Speaker 4: is when you've got two people and a sheet of
Speaker 4: paper in front of you and a pen just and
Speaker 4: you just sort of like draw an ideogram of like
Speaker 4: or picture of like whatever you're where you're at It
Speaker 4: can often, really, it can often. Really, it just helps
Speaker 4: so much because then you're not talking. I'm not trying
Speaker 4: to create an idea in Matt, and he's not trying
Speaker 4: to create an idea in me.
Speaker 3: We have a third thing. We've created that third thing.
Speaker 3: I think that's really good.
Speaker 5: And you know, picture paints a thousand words, it's very
Speaker 5: easy to understand something.
Speaker 3: We have a lot of different modes though.
Speaker 4: Matt is very dyslexic and very visual, and I'm really
Speaker 4: into words. I like to read and write, and I
Speaker 4: really like the script. Matt doesn't really care about script
Speaker 4: so much.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and.
Speaker 5: We from just kind of having those different modes, we've
Speaker 5: also learned that and you can tell we are talk
Speaker 5: over the top of each other a lot. And so
Speaker 5: what we've learned from Shiner as well, I think is
Speaker 5: a really which is a really important thing, is that
Speaker 5: it's just a really simple trick, which is if somebody's
Speaker 5: talking and they're talking out their idea, you just write
Speaker 5: on a piece of paper your idea and don't let
Speaker 5: them have their time, and then you can look at
Speaker 5: that thing on the piece of paper at the end
Speaker 5: of this discussion. And if it's still worth bringing up.
Speaker 5: Then it goes in. Then it goes in in for discussion,
Speaker 5: but not letting the other person finish their idea, because
Speaker 5: even if you can see that that it's maybe not
Speaker 5: appropriate for this thing that we're doing, it is still
Speaker 5: an idea that somebody is giving birth to, and to
Speaker 5: shut it off that, especially as creative humans, quite an
Speaker 5: emotional reaction to that. And we do. And we found
Speaker 5: that the more we kind of cut each other off
Speaker 5: in that process, the more that kind of bucket of
Speaker 5: frustration sort of builds up. So, yeah, that's something that
Speaker 5: we try and keep open.
Speaker 3: That's when we're working.
Speaker 4: But the most important thing I've ever learned about collaboration
Speaker 4: is that you don't have to agree on everything. You
Speaker 4: only have to agree on enough.
Speaker 2: That's it, and not everything is not.
Speaker 5: Every idea that you have is for that collaboration as well,
Speaker 5: which is another thing that we learned from shown it.
Speaker 5: She's like, there's you know, a Venn diagram of things
Speaker 5: that you're both interested in and.
Speaker 3: Being very the list is where they cross over.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and the clearer you are on those things, the
Speaker 5: faster the creative project moves forward.
Speaker 1: I like the idea of what you're saying. With visualizing
Speaker 1: the the thing, I imagine it also makes it less
Speaker 1: personal because then it's like this object, this written object
Speaker 1: in front of you, as opposed to criticizing the person
Speaker 1: that's come up with the idea. Does that have that impact?
Speaker 4: You have to really also work out where their joy
Speaker 4: comes from the person you're working with.
Speaker 3: I think too, like.
Speaker 4: We off, we have these continuums on our wall and
Speaker 4: these magnets in between them, and one of them is
Speaker 4: creative like blank page delivery. So the continuum is between
Speaker 4: hitting send on an email where you've composed a manuscript
Speaker 4: and you hit send, and then the other one is
Speaker 4: like the blank page before you've even started. And what
Speaker 4: we realized is that Matt has a lot of joy
Speaker 4: from going it could be anything this blank page. Wow, ah,
Speaker 4: I feel so free. I'm having so many ideas. I
Speaker 4: love it. I hate that, and I'm like, ah, I
Speaker 4: want to be as close to hitting send as possible.
Speaker 4: I want to have as many restrictions as possible. And
Speaker 4: that's where I get my creativity. You know, I have
Speaker 4: a thing which I don't think is that healthy, but
Speaker 4: it's a line from Duke Ellington which is, don't give
Speaker 4: me time, give me a deadline, which I love. Matt
Speaker 4: doesn't like that so much, but I think it's important
Speaker 4: to realize that in order to collaborate.
Speaker 5: And then have an understand that in every every creative project,
Speaker 5: there is a time where that will where one of
Speaker 5: those being on that continuum you are at this end
Speaker 5: or at the other end, and then actually like formalizing
Speaker 5: the agreement of right there, we are not exploded. We
Speaker 5: are not We're in we're harnessing this idea. Now we're
Speaker 5: not exploding it anymore. So we've moved into the harness phase,
Speaker 5: which is we're not adding new ideas to it unless
Speaker 5: they're solving a problem that gets us closer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how hard is it to make that call?
Speaker 2: That's awful.
Speaker 5: I hate it.
Speaker 4: And yeah, but that's because that's making a decision. Matt
Speaker 4: doesn't like doing that. Whereas if you say, walk out
Speaker 4: your room and you say, hey, have an idea, and
Speaker 4: when you come back, Matt will have had an idea.
Speaker 4: If you say to me, have an idea and close
Speaker 4: the door, I'll go mad in that room. If you say,
Speaker 4: have an idea about an elephant on holiday with a
Speaker 4: blue hat, on, I'm like cool, I can now have
Speaker 4: an ideas like, oh, does it have to be a
Speaker 4: blue hat?
Speaker 3: What about if it's a horse.
Speaker 4: I had an idea about a monkey at work and
Speaker 4: he's wearing a yellow.
Speaker 5: Hat, and I like to delay the decision as long
Speaker 5: as possible.
Speaker 4: Then I've got this other idea about the about the
Speaker 4: blue elephant, but he's not on holiday.
Speaker 5: But I think I think that yeah, and I will
Speaker 5: also then in the rohearsal room, go, oh, do you
Speaker 5: remember four weeks ago we had that idea where that goes?
Speaker 2: Now, like I.
Speaker 5: Sort of hold that I can hold all of those
Speaker 5: things that we've thrown away along the way and bring
Speaker 5: them in at the last minute and go what about that?
Speaker 5: And then occasionally it it pays off being able to go, oh,
Speaker 5: hang on, yeah, like we had that thing and now
Speaker 5: we've got wacky I'm waving inflatable tube guys in the show, and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now I want to unpack one of your sketches.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I'm Batman.
Speaker 4: That okay, Christian. When I say action, I just want
Speaker 4: you to look down the barrel of the camera and
Speaker 4: say the last line of the film, which is I'm Batman.
Speaker 2: Okay, I can do that, all.
Speaker 4: Right, and then we'll all be finished. Yep, cool, okay, cool, brilliant, Okay, okay,
Speaker 4: lights please sound rolling camera action, Christian.
Speaker 2: I'm Batman cart Cool. That's good.
Speaker 4: Just we'll do it one more time. Okay, can't you
Speaker 4: remember your lines? I'm Batman, yep, cool, keep rolling please
Speaker 4: cool action. I'm Batman cart what Christian? The line is
Speaker 4: just listen carefully, I'm Batman. Okay, he's a man, but
Speaker 4: he's also a bat Batman.
Speaker 3: Sure all right, because.
Speaker 4: At the moment you're saying batman.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, sorry, okay, okay, rolling.
Speaker 4: Action.
Speaker 2: I'm batman cart I think that's good.
Speaker 4: No, it's not good because you're saying batman Batman's yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's what you're saying batman. And the line is batman.
Speaker 3: Man, say batman Batman. Now say batman Batman.
Speaker 4: There's a different there's a different keep it rolling camera,
Speaker 4: yep action.
Speaker 3: I'm bat Man. I got confused. Sorry, we'll do it again.
Speaker 2: I'm okay, I'm batman man.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, what is it card? Look you had it there.
Speaker 3: You said I'm batman, but then they changed my mind.
Speaker 3: Then you said man.
Speaker 4: Okay, sorry, we might can we do any No, it.
Speaker 3: Was too close together. Okay, I'm gonna have to do
Speaker 3: it again. Just just just take a breath. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Now, I know that when you say a woman or
Speaker 4: night watchman or you know, Anchorman or all these things,
Speaker 4: you say men man like onwardsman yep, But now we're
Speaker 4: saying Batman because we want to emphasize the man man
Speaker 4: the Batman.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay, okay, man, Okay, I'm Batman.
Speaker 4: You can do it.
Speaker 2: Okay, I can do it.
Speaker 3: Ready, take your time. Action.
Speaker 5: I'm Batman, cat I'm Batman, I'm Batman.
Speaker 4: I'm Batman.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm playing.
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to give you some options. I'm bat Sorry.
Speaker 4: The thing is, he's not James Brown.
Speaker 3: Yeah he could be James Brown.
Speaker 4: No he's not, because we've just made three movies where
Speaker 4: he's not James Brown.
Speaker 2: I just think that that would be a very brave choice.
Speaker 3: I know you do.
Speaker 4: And this is the last shot, and everyone's very tired. Sorry,
Speaker 4: so just think about it. Just say, I'm Batman, you're Batman,
Speaker 4: you're a Batman. No, I'm not Batman.
Speaker 1: I'm not Batman.
Speaker 3: I'm not bad.
Speaker 4: You're doing you know what the line is I do.
Speaker 4: You're Batman? What, I'm just okay, action.
Speaker 3: You're Batman. No, it's not your I'm okay, he's Batman.
Speaker 3: No it's not he's he's you're Batman.
Speaker 2: Who's Batman? You are I'm Batman? Oh, I'm Batman.
Speaker 4: We got it.
Speaker 1: Can't so tell me how how did the idea for
Speaker 1: that sketch come about?
Speaker 3: I can't remember. End of podcast.
Speaker 2: I was at a party with a friend and.
Speaker 5: We were explaining to this this guy that John Batman
Speaker 5: was oh was It was me and Andy Burford and
Speaker 5: we were explaining to this guy that John Batman was
Speaker 5: one of the colonizers of the land that we're on.
Speaker 3: And uh uh.
Speaker 5: For some reason, Andy just kept pronouncing Batman, Batman, Batman,
Speaker 5: and I was like, it is John Batman, yeah, but
Speaker 5: he kept calling him Batman.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's what it is. Batman.
Speaker 2: No, Batman, No, his name's not. And that's exactly how
Speaker 2: it happened. Like it's exactly how it happened.
Speaker 5: And then the movie was coming out at the same
Speaker 5: at the same time, and I said to Rich, Okay,
Speaker 5: so the premise of this sketch is.
Speaker 3: I don't know how to say Batman and that.
Speaker 5: Recording is an improvisation of the first take the sketch.
Speaker 3: Wow is it? Wow?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: It really is, so it's edited.
Speaker 4: That's the first thing we recorded. Yeah, it's the first
Speaker 4: first track. It's the first like audio sketch we ever recorded.
Speaker 4: The first take of the first thing we ever recorded
Speaker 4: was that one. Yeah, it's the most popular thing we've
Speaker 4: ever done.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Basically, what is the work that goes into everything that
Speaker 1: happens up to the first take?
Speaker 4: Right, We've changed the way we work a little bit
Speaker 4: since then. I think it's about what's the problem and
Speaker 4: how do we create more problems? And how does one
Speaker 4: person try and solve the problem in a funny way?
Speaker 5: Yeah? And how does some And my job is always
Speaker 5: to keep the problem going as long as I can, yes,
Speaker 5: and then reject all of Rich's suggestions.
Speaker 4: The fun thing about it and the mode for us
Speaker 4: is who's on first? You know that very famous screed
Speaker 4: by Abbot and Costello. That is our mode, which I don't,
Speaker 4: be honest, don't even find that funny, But I enjoy
Speaker 4: the artistry of creating this like hermetically sealed joke. And
Speaker 4: you're not adding any new information really, and the person
Speaker 4: who's seen. And the funny the thing is actually what
Speaker 4: is it is funny when the guy I come remember
Speaker 4: with out Costello and he's like, I'm gonna smack.
Speaker 2: You in the mouth if he's.
Speaker 4: The funny thing is how his frustration builds and builds
Speaker 4: and builds.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and again it's a benign thing. It's a weird
Speaker 5: thing for someone person to be getting really upset at
Speaker 5: another person about And we translated that sketch to stage
Speaker 5: and then we from there. We kind of we had
Speaker 5: to hit a We had to reshape it so that
Speaker 5: it had more of a more of a shape to it.
Speaker 5: So I needed to build more and we needed to
Speaker 5: We needed to Richard. We need for rich to get
Speaker 5: really really mad and then just have this moment where
Speaker 5: he gathered himself.
Speaker 3: You just say I'm Batman and then we'll all be finished.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then Matt Sack I am trying to like that
Speaker 4: I think is key for me. And we've realized this
Speaker 4: is Matt is not trying to conf.
Speaker 5: I'm always trying to help.
Speaker 2: He's trying to help and that.
Speaker 6: But he's just too stupid to be able to help.
Speaker 6: And the question, the deeper question for me is Why
Speaker 6: does this character rich? Why does he stay with this
Speaker 6: guy like he's so frustrated.
Speaker 4: This is something I got actually from talking to Frank
Speaker 4: Woodley about clowns and about double acts, and it's like
Speaker 4: he thinks that the power of the double act and
Speaker 4: the reason why there's a straight guy funny guy, and
Speaker 4: that's endured through you know, you have it from the
Speaker 4: Greek comedy all the way through is that you're seeing
Speaker 4: the internal what's normally internal externalized. So we all have
Speaker 4: these debates with ourselves. We have a part of us
Speaker 4: that really wants a sandwich, and a part of us
Speaker 4: and knows we shouldn't eat bread, and then but we
Speaker 4: really want to, and why can't I have the bread?
Speaker 3: Now you're not allowed to have the bread. I told you,
Speaker 3: you know you'll you'll get gas if we have the bread.
Speaker 4: We have those debates and then seeing them outside is
Speaker 4: just sort of so I don't know, almost therapeutic for
Speaker 4: someone to see. And and it also allows us to
Speaker 4: see that horrible frustration we experience in traffic or whatever.
Speaker 3: You know, Oh my god, I'm going to call you
Speaker 3: if you cut my ass.
Speaker 4: But then if you do it on stage, you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: I did want to kill him, you know.
Speaker 3: Oh, Matt is really frustrating. Yeah, so I don't know
Speaker 3: if that.
Speaker 4: I think what's funny with what is that in the
Speaker 4: preparation that's not in the preparation.
Speaker 3: This is the philosophy of why of why why we
Speaker 3: think double? How do we prepare it? It's about finding
Speaker 3: the problems.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And and also with that, I think one of
Speaker 5: the reasons why that sketch it works is that Batman
Speaker 5: is so serious. It's such a pose and super mask like.
Speaker 3: But he doesn't know how to say it, but he.
Speaker 2: Doesn't even know.
Speaker 5: But also that it's I'm I'm just casually doing it
Speaker 5: like and then in an instant turn. And so I
Speaker 5: think it's that contrast. And when we put it on stage.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you physically turn to the audience and go, I'm Batman. Yeah.
Speaker 5: But the line before that on stage is I go
Speaker 5: look at my look at our swishy my cape is
Speaker 5: that's right, swishy my cape. It's the rich goes Matt,
Speaker 5: you're Batman, and I go, sorry.
Speaker 3: Look at us, swishy my CAPI is. So that is funny.
Speaker 3: I forgot about that.
Speaker 5: And that's the thing that we've kind of It's also
Speaker 5: another thing that we picked up from from the workshops
Speaker 5: that we did with Tim Ferguson was like playing contrast
Speaker 5: as well, like upping, so simple, upping the contrast as
Speaker 5: much as you can. What's the biggest distance we can
Speaker 5: get between Matt and Batman? Uh?
Speaker 3: And yeah, something Batman would never say.
Speaker 5: Never say that, but it's a perfectly normal thing for
Speaker 5: me to say on stage.
Speaker 4: And to be fair, Batman's cake is very swishy, so
Speaker 4: it's not wrong.
Speaker 3: Also, kids know Batman and they know they know Batman.
Speaker 5: But I think I think the reason I love that
Speaker 5: is it's just like a man is so serious. The
Speaker 5: movies are like three hours long and it's all about like.
Speaker 3: Well, I like the one where he used to do
Speaker 3: the tuc yeah, the old Batman.
Speaker 1: For people that want to consume more of the list is,
Speaker 1: what is the best way for people to do that?
Speaker 4: Oh, you could go to our website www. Dot the
Speaker 4: lists dot com or www dot the Listies dot net
Speaker 4: dot org, dot e d U dot au, forward slash
Speaker 4: slash pound sign tilled.
Speaker 5: We've also we've also got all of our albums are
Speaker 5: on Spotify and we've got yeah.
Speaker 4: Two, We've got that books out and you can see
Speaker 4: our TV show on iView And did I mention the podcast?
Speaker 5: There's a podcast. It's called The Listies Make You loll.
Speaker 1: Rich and Matt. It has been an absolute delight. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm so familiar with your voices through the many,
Speaker 1: many times I listen to you every week in the
Speaker 1: car with my daughter Frankie. So thank you so much
Speaker 1: for sharing what goes on behind the scene.
Speaker 5: It's actually a really amazing thing to get to be
Speaker 5: able to talk about it, isn't it Rich Like.
Speaker 3: It sure is? Yeah, No, it's been a pleasure. Thank
Speaker 3: you very much for having us.
Speaker 1: One of the things that has stuck with me since
Speaker 1: doing this interview is how the list is thought about
Speaker 1: keeping kids' attentions, because really adults are not all that different.
Speaker 1: I mean, keeping people captivated during a zoom meeting that
Speaker 1: you're running can be quite challenging. So what might your
Speaker 1: equivalent of a genre change or a major prop change
Speaker 1: fee when you're trying to hold people's attention, especially when
Speaker 1: doing things in the virtual world where there are so
Speaker 1: many other things competing for everybody's attention. How I Work
Speaker 1: is produced by Inventing, with production support from dead Set Studios.
Speaker 1: The producer for this episode was Liam Riordan, and thank
Speaker 1: you tomt Nimba, who does the audio mix for every
Speaker 1: episode and makes everything sound so much better than it
Speaker 1: would have otherwise.
Speaker 2: See you next time.