EP.258 - EMMA SIDI

Adam talks with British comedian, writer and actor, Emma Sidi about why Adam loves Matthew McConaughey and why Emma isn't sure, sensitive Caesareans, Emma's social media parenting strategies, the ethics of character comedy, and life on the road with Alan Partridge. Conversation recorded face-to-face in London on 3 September, 2025 Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for additional editing Podcast illustration by Helen Green https://helengreenillustration.com/ Listen to Adam's album 'Buckle Up' https://adambuxton.lnk.to/BuckleUp Order Adam's book 'I Love You Byeee' https://lnk.to/iloveyoubyeee_ Sign up for the newsletter on Adam's website https://www.adam-buxton.co.uk/ (scroll down on homepage) RELATED LINKS https://www.adam-buxton.co.uk/ (ON ADAM'S WEBSITE) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buckston, I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan.

• 0:31Adam Buxton?

  Hey, how are you doing, podcats? It's Adam Buckston here. It's a windy day out here in Norfolk. Grey clouds are scudding. A few drops of rain coming down on me and my dog friend Rosie, who is here. Present, correct. Oh, some hooting over from the fields. What do you think about that, Rosie? It's a hoot-a-nanny. She's pulled over to the side of the road. She didn't like the hooting. She wants to go back. No, Rosie, come on, sweetie. It's fine, the hoot is fine. I'm here, I'll look after you. Blimey, I'm more worried about the wind.

• 1:13Adam Buxton?

  I think this is building up to be an actual storm, according to the news. This morning was beautiful, now it's gone all inclement. How are you doing, anyway, podcats? Not too bad, I hope. Thanks for joining me for some more top-quality inconsequential waffle with my great guest, who I will tell you about shortly. First of all, I just want to say a very quick thank you to everyone who bought my album, Buckle Up. I think all those pre-orders helped propel it into the higher reaches of the album charts. Someone told me it made number 16, but they did say it's likely to drop out again immediately. But thank you so much if you have bought a copy of the album,

• 1:58Adam Buxton?

  or even if you've just listened to it on a streaming platform. I appreciate it. I did send out one of my very infrequent newsletters, which you can sign up for by going to my website, adam-buxton.co.uk. There's a link in the description. If you scroll down to the bottom of the front page, you'll find somewhere you can sign up for the old newsletter. Blimey, we're gonna get blown away here. Whoa, kay, doggy. We're intrepid, Rosie.

• 2:29Speaker 02

  I don't want to be intrepid. I want to go back to the kitchen sofa.

• 2:34Adam Buxton?

  Kitchen sofa, yes, yes, I know. Well, we will.

• 2:43Adam Buxton?

  Right, it's a couple of minutes later now and haven't really found anywhere more sheltered to record this, so I think we might head back.

• 2:57Adam Buxton?

  We're back in Rosie's favourite place. The kitchen. It's gonna fill up your water bottle, doglegs.

• 3:16Adam Buxton?

  There you go, mate.

• 3:25Adam Buxton?

  Mmm, that was delicious. Do you want some too, Rosie?

• 3:30Adam Buxton?

  Well, look, let's go and sit on the sofa.

• 3:37Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah, this is way better than being out there. I don't know what I was thinking. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, the newsletter. I'm sure you were all riveted. I was saying that I sent out a newsletter on Friday, on the day of the album drop, just to let you all know and give you some great fun links to click and that kind of thing. But I noticed, because you can check how many people have actually opened the newsletter. And I couldn't help noticing that quite a few people had not opened the newsletter. Now, that may be for all sorts of reasons, but there is a possibility, an understandable one perhaps, that it was filed as spam or junk, if you prefer.

• 4:22Adam Buxton?

  So if you had signed up for it and you didn't receive it, then take a look in the old junk box. But right now, from the piece, the beautiful piece of the Buckles Kitchen. Uh, let me tell you about my guest for podcast number two hundred and fifty-eight, the British comedian, writer and actor, Emma Siddey. Siddey facts. Emma was born in nineteen ninety-one to English parents who were living in the United States at the time. But she was brought up and educated near Woking in the English county of Surrey. She studied French and Spanish at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where she developed her talent for character comedy as part of the famous Footlights sketch troupe.

• 5:04Adam Buxton?

  Edinburgh shows and short films followed after leaving college. And by the late twenty teens, Emma was landing character roles on TV shows like W one A, Staff Let's Flats and Liam Williams' twenty seventeen spoof of YouTube celebrity culture, Please Like, which is really great. If you haven't seen it, I think it's still on YouTube, P L S, Like, in which Emma played a Zoella-style social media influencer called Millipede. Tim Key is in that show as well, and Jamie Demetri, lots of funny people pop up in that show. In twenty twenty, drawing on her experiences studying Spanish for seven months in Mexico, Emma wrote and starred in La Princesa de Woking,

• 5:49Adam Buxton?

  a parody of a nineteen eighties Spanish-language telenovela, like a soap, set in contemporary small-town England, which the whole cast performed entirely in Spanish. There's a link in the description. You can see it on YouTube still. It's only short. Since then, Emma has popped up in comedy series like Ghosts, Black Ops and King Gary, as well as playing a central character in the TV comedy drama Starstruck, co-written by and starring her old flatmate and former guest on this podcast, Rose Matafeo. Rose's co-writer on Starstruck was fellow Kiwi Alice Sneddon. Emma played Kate, the best friend of Rose's character Jessie. In Starstruck, Kate ends up marrying Ian,

• 6:34Adam Buxton?

  played by another Stafflet's Flats alumnus Al Roberts, to whom Emma Siddey is married in real life and with whom, as of this year, she has a human child. In 2024, following the correct path for most successful comedians in the UK, Emma was a contestant in the 18th series of Taskmaster. That same year, she toured her show Emma Siddey is Sue Gray, which had begun life a few years before, when special investigator and former civil servant Sue Gray was in the news as the investigator of the Boris Johnson administration's Partygate scandal. Emma's portrayal of Gray was intentionally thoroughly inaccurate.

• 7:18Adam Buxton?

  My conversation with Emma was recorded earlier this month, September 2025. We met at Rose Matafeo's house in North East London, which was a quiet place to record, near where Emma and Al live with their baby son. And as well as talking about Emma's experience of giving birth by cesarean section and her parenting strategies as they currently stand, we talked about the ethics of character comedy and Life on the Road with Alan Partridge. By the way, the new Partridge show that Emma mentioned having seen is called How Are You? It's Alan (Partridge), which is out in October on BBC One. We also talked quite a lot about Matthew McConaughey.

• 8:03Adam Buxton?

  But after some chat about Emma having stayed up all night with the baby, we began by establishing whether we'd actually met before. I'll be back at the end, probably still from the kitchen, with a bit more waffle, but right now with Emma Siddey. Here we go.

• 8:58Adam Buxton?

  You're looking very fresh, may I say. This is the first time we've met.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, ah, we've met very briefly before.

• 9:04Adam Buxton?

  Where did we meet before?

• 9:05Speaker 03

  Ah, this is one of those. It was so brief.

• 9:08Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:09Speaker 03

  It, um, it's a big name drop, this.

• 9:11Adam Buxton?

  Do it.

• 9:12Speaker 03

  Jonathan Ross's Halloween Party.

• 9:14Adam Buxton?

  Oh.

• 9:14Speaker 03

  Isn't that such an iconic event? I can't even believe it's coming out of my mouth.

• 9:17Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 9:18Speaker 03

  So.

• 9:19Adam Buxton?

  I haven't been invited for a few years, so that was, that was back in the day.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  Actually, I was even a plus one. I wasn't even invited then.

• 9:25Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 9:26Speaker 03

  So, very briefly then, I think I was with Rose or something.

• 9:30Adam Buxton?

  Rose Matterfeo.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Rose Matterfeo. But we've never met properly, properly at all, so.

• 9:36Adam Buxton?

  What were you wearing at Jonathan and Jane's Halloween party?

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Oh, god, what's thingy called in, um, Wendy? I was dressed as Wendy from The Shining.

• 9:44Adam Buxton?

  Oh, in, right, not from Peter Pan.

• 9:47Speaker 03

  Not from Peter Pan. I had a bat and the fringe, a fake fringe.

• 9:51Adam Buxton?

  That's a good costume.

• 9:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's actually really good, because I didn't have to buy anything for it. Even the fringe I owned.

• 9:58Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  Um, what were you dressed as? Well, actually, you don't remember, so.

• 10:02Adam Buxton?

  I think, was that the one where Sarah Pascoe and Ashling B and Roisin Connery were dressed as people from The Handmaid's Tale?

• 10:12Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:14Adam Buxton?

  They were dressed as handmaidens.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was that one. And was Alan Carr dressed as a gingerbread man or something?

• 10:20Adam Buxton?

  It's entirely possible.

• 10:22Speaker 03

  God, it's electric even saying these sentences.

• 10:24Adam Buxton?

  And Frank Skinner.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:26Adam Buxton?

  Was dressed as.

• 10:29Adam Buxton?

  Who does Adam Driver play in the Star Wars films?

• 10:32Speaker 03

  Well, that's a really difficult question, isn't it?

• 10:35Adam Buxton?

  Is it someone called Lilo?

• 10:38Speaker 03

  Rex? No, Reno? Rido?

• 10:41Adam Buxton?

  Roly, Rolo? Anyway, I think it.

• 10:44Speaker 03

  Kylo Ren!

• 10:46Adam Buxton?

  Kylo Ren?

• 10:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:48Adam Buxton?

  Anyway, remembering the name is important because Frank's costume was him holding a big, black Lilo.

• 10:55Speaker 03

  What?

• 10:56Adam Buxton?

  Because he was Lilo Ren.

• 11:00Adam Buxton?

  So it was a mashup of.

• 11:01Speaker 03

  Got it.

• 11:02Adam Buxton?

  I'm probably not doing justice to.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  Did he have any Ren elements?

• 11:05Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, there were some, I think he had some superficial elements of the Star Wars character, plus the Lilo.

• 11:11Speaker 03

  You could have a bird, the Ren.

• 11:13Adam Buxton?

  Right, there you go.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Whatever.

• 11:14Adam Buxton?

  But he, I think, spent his whole evening explaining his costume.

• 11:17Speaker 03

  Sure. I guess that's the point of Halloween in a way.

• 11:20Adam Buxton?

  I think I was dressed as a kind of generic alien. I had a cardboard head, like a giant brain, that I'd strapped to myself, and there was little fairy lights on it.

• 11:33Speaker 03

  You actually looked really plain.

• 11:35Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 11:35Speaker 03

  I thi- I think that could have been a different year. Like, that costume sounds amazing, but when I met you.

• 11:41Adam Buxton?

  I'd probably taken it off by that point.

• 11:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't keep the cardboard head on the whole time.

• 11:46Adam Buxton?

  It was a very impractical costume.

• 11:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I'm sorry, I'm just meeting again properly now. I shouldn't say you looked plain.

• 11:51Adam Buxton?

  No, that's okay. You thought I was a disgrace. But I mean, I think that's why I don't go to those parties, or maybe why I don't get invited very often, because I don't actually like dressing up for a party.

• 12:04Speaker 03

  I absolutely hate it. And I think Halloween is one of the worst nights of the year, because when you're on the tube, just everyone looks awful. Everyone looks beaten up.

• 12:14Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 12:15Speaker 03

  Dripping with blood and bruised, just makes me feel a bit sick and actually very sad for, I don't know. Violence.

• 12:23Adam Buxton?

  It's a tasteless celebration of violence.

• 12:26Speaker 03

  I think it, I honestly think it is.

• 12:29Adam Buxton?

  Which is a real problem in society.

• 12:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:31Adam Buxton?

  And where do you draw the line? Like, you know, there's people genuinely being injured in horrific ways.

• 12:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:36Adam Buxton?

  And suddenly it's okay just to go around and pretend that you've been horrifically injured? I don't think so.

• 12:42Speaker 03

  Well, I think.

• 12:43Adam Buxton?

  This is where the pushback starts.

• 12:45Speaker 03

  For me, you know, I don't wanna be too judgmental because people can have a bit of like carnivalesque fun.

• 12:50Adam Buxton?

  Do it.

• 12:51Speaker 03

  What I don't like is that they actually look rank. Like, you wouldn't normally leave the house like that. Like, if you're dripping with blood, you just kind of.

• 12:58Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  Wipe it away and go, God, I need to sort myself out before going out today.

• 13:03Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, those are always the lamest costumes when they just squirt some.

• 13:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:08Adam Buxton?

  Blood on and they look all grimy. Would you go to the Met Gala?

• 13:13Speaker 03

  Um, well, I'd love to go to the Met Gala.

• 13:16Adam Buxton?

  I can arrange for you to go.

• 13:17Speaker 03

  It would be very difficult to say no, wouldn't it?

• 13:19Adam Buxton?

  I think it would be.

• 13:20Speaker 03

  God, I've gotta turn up.

• 13:21Adam Buxton?

  I mean, that, to me, that's my worst nightmare. I wouldn't like to go.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  I was once on an EasyJet flight, sitting next to an act, oh no, now I've forgotten her name.

• 13:31Adam Buxton?

  Hmm.

• 13:31Speaker 03

  Who's Miss Money Penny?

• 13:32Adam Buxton?

  Oh, Judy Stench?

• 13:34Speaker 03

  No, she's, um, Naomi Harris.

• 13:36Adam Buxton?

  Naomi Harris.

• 13:37Speaker 03

  Okay, so I was once on an EasyJet flight, sitting next to who I thought was Naomi Harris.

• 13:43Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  And I looked across and on her iPad, she wrote something along the lines of, I'm not wearing that to the Met Gala. And that's how I knew, oh, it is Naomi Harris. Who is writing that on their iPad?

• 13:54Adam Buxton?

  Wow.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  And then I said to her, you know, actually, this is mad of me, but I was like, you Naomi Harris.

• 13:59Adam Buxton?

  Did you?

• 14:01Speaker 03

  Well, it's because the air stewardess said to her, hey, you're on our in-flight video. You're on the training video. And she said, no, I'm so sorry, I'm not. And I go, well, we think you are. We all recognise you. It's from the in-flight video. She said, I'm so sorry, I'm not. And they go, well, you've got a doppelganger going around. And they left her alone. But clearly, they just recognised her from being Miss Money Penny.

• 14:22Adam Buxton?

  Oh.

• 14:23Speaker 03

  And I said, look, I actually recognise you. I think you're great. And then we had a great chat. She was lovely.

• 14:28Adam Buxton?

  Good one.

• 14:28Speaker 03

  But she gave me some advice. This was about thirteen years ago. And she said, my advice is, you just need a big break.

• 14:37Adam Buxton?

  I mean, that is good advice.

• 14:39Speaker 03

  Thanks.

• 14:40Adam Buxton?

  It is a form of the ultimate true advice, which is you just need a bit of luck.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:45Adam Buxton?

  But the the rest of that advice in a wider focus is that's why you have to stick with it.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:53Adam Buxton?

  You know what I mean? Because you have to increase your chances of getting the luck.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I suppose that's right. I felt because she went on to say, and for for me, my big break was Danny Boyle. And I was like, this is great advice, but how do I wait? Okay, now hear me.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  How do I get Danny Boyle?

• 15:10Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  But you're so right. That's the more insightful. It's the wider thing of going.

• 15:15Adam Buxton?

  I think so. That's how.

• 15:16Speaker 03

  Keep trucking.

• 15:16Adam Buxton?

  That's your only hope of applying that kind of advice.

• 15:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:20Adam Buxton?

  Because otherwise, yeah, it's just like, my advice is be incredibly beautiful.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's exactly it.

• 15:26Adam Buxton?

  And meet lots of amazing people.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:28Adam Buxton?

  And be very talented.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 15:30Adam Buxton?

  Well, I just finished reading Matthew McConaughey's book.

• 15:33Speaker 03

  Mm.

• 15:34Adam Buxton?

  Green Lights.

• 15:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 15:36Adam Buxton?

  You read Green Lights?

• 15:37Speaker 03

  No, I have a bit of a.

• 15:39Adam Buxton?

  Aversion?

• 15:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:41Adam Buxton?

  Why? Explain.

• 15:42Speaker 03

  To Matthew McConaughey?

• 15:42Adam Buxton?

  Sure, I think maybe a lot of people do, but.

• 15:45Speaker 03

  This is awful. I hope he never hears me say this. I just don't. There's something about it. I don't know. Two on the front foot.

• 15:51Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  Just like, what do you want from me? Do you know what I mean? I can't. What? What is it? How can I say this in a way that is okay?

• 15:59Adam Buxton?

  Is there a an incident or a image you have of him that encapsulates your?

• 16:05Speaker 03

  Um.

• 16:06Adam Buxton?

  Antipathy?

• 16:06Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, all those rom coms.

• 16:09Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 16:09Speaker 03

  I didn't get it. For me, I was like, why is this guy everywhere? And then I in Wolf of Wall Street, when he's just, you know, it's so celebrated, that scene.

• 16:20Adam Buxton?

  Pounding on his chest.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:22Adam Buxton?

  Leo DiCaprio.

• 16:23Speaker 03

  I just know he's loving it. But look, if I met him, I'm sure we'd have a great time and go, oh, look, I love him now.

• 16:30Adam Buxton?

  His chest pounding was something he did before a tape.

• 16:33Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, I know. We all know that. That's it. That, okay, that is what sums it up. That that pinnicling, that we've all improved, mate. It's it's fine.

• 16:45Adam Buxton?

  It was Leo who suggested he do it in the scene.

• 16:48Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 16:49Adam Buxton?

  I think you need to read Green Lights.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  No, I can't do that.

• 16:52Adam Buxton?

  It's really amazing.

• 16:54Speaker 03

  Are you reading it or listening to the audiobook?

• 16:55Adam Buxton?

  Of course I'm listening to the audiobook.

• 16:57Speaker 03

  Fine, so you like him then, so could you like to hear him saying all of it?

• 17:01Adam Buxton?

  I love his voice.

• 17:02Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 17:02Adam Buxton?

  Green lights.

• 17:03Speaker 03

  What's he, what's he?

• 17:05Adam Buxton?

  Because it's all about his philosophy, it's like jam packed with all his kind of hokey philosophy. Which, and I thought of it because talking of, um, you know, people with incredible genes like Naomi Harris.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  Mm.

• 17:18Adam Buxton?

  He is this, you know, exceptionally beautiful man.

• 17:22Speaker 03

  I, alright.

• 17:23Adam Buxton?

  Oh, really?

• 17:24Speaker 03

  Fair enough, no, no. No, I don't, honestly.

• 17:27Adam Buxton?

  Alright, but he, you know, a lot of this book is him talking about how he has bent good fortune to his will and how he has nailed all these breaks. And the subtext right the way through as a listener is, yeah, but that's because you look like Matthew McConaughey.

• 17:43Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 17:44Adam Buxton?

  He was brought up by, he doesn't talk about where they were politically, but they sound like fairly conservative parents, certainly religious and.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  Whereabouts?

• 17:55Adam Buxton?

  In Texas.

• 17:56Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:57Adam Buxton?

  And there was a lot of kind of physical abuse is what you've got to call it.

• 18:01Speaker 03

  Oh, right.

• 18:01Adam Buxton?

  But he insists that it wasn't, he doesn't see it that way. He feels like I was brought up the way that I should have been brought up and, you know, it was tough love kind of thing. And he still loves his parents.

• 18:13Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 18:13Adam Buxton?

  But there's hair raising descriptions of some mad, mad stuff.

• 18:17Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 18:18Adam Buxton?

  Like at the beginning of the book, he's talking about his dad getting back from work and his mum is making dinner and his dad, the big guy, huge guy, and sits down and he's like, where's my dinner? And classic kind of confrontation ensues with the mum saying, there it is, you fat pig.

• 18:41Speaker 03

  I can tell you're listening to the audiobook, it's great.

• 18:44Adam Buxton?

  And then it kicks off. So they have a physical tussle. And this is Matthew and his brother, as as young, like around about ten years old, are in the room. Watching all this happen, according to him.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  Oh god.

• 18:57Adam Buxton?

  And but he says, this is just, you know, this is not unusual. This is the kind of thing that used to happen a lot. So they're having a tussle and then at one point mum grabs a kitchen knife.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  Right.

• 19:10Adam Buxton?

  But she's going over to the phone to call the cops because it's already got physical. And then she grabs a kitchen knife and she is brandishing it. And the dad, to diffuse the situation, grabs a bottle of ketchup and starts squirting it at her. And like sort of slashing her with this ketchup in the air.

• 19:30Speaker 03

  Wow, I'm trying to think, is that, is that funny or violent? Is it just violent?

• 19:35Adam Buxton?

  It's kind of nightmarish. Like if you saw it in a film, it would just be like, it's almost Lynchian.

• 19:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, you go, who, who wrote this?

• 19:43Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, because it's sort of funny, but it's, but the subtext is so upsetting. But that diffuses the, the situation.

• 19:50Speaker 03

  Oh god, actually, I genuinely got chills thinking of the knife, it's like.

• 19:54Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so, it's a really scary image. And then they start snogging, all covered in ketchup.

• 20:02Speaker 03

  Oh, this is awful, isn't it?

• 20:04Adam Buxton?

  So violent and turned on, that they grab each other and they, and they fall, collapse to the ground and then they have a shag.

• 20:11Speaker 03

  Shut up. This is it. No, this, right. No, no.

• 20:16Adam Buxton?

  The sofa.

• 20:16Speaker 03

  No.

• 20:18Adam Buxton?

  And he's like, that's what it was like, around at my house. And it's not described as like, poor me, imagine me witnessing this kind of horror. It's like, well, that's what mum and dad were like.

• 20:29Speaker 03

  Oh god, this, ah, this is why this man drives me mad. Do, do you really?

• 20:37Speaker 03

  Do you think that happened?

• 20:39Adam Buxton?

  I don't know. If I ever met him, I would ask him. He, there was a possibility that he was gonna be on the podcast, which is why I listened to the book. And then that um possibility evaporated.

• 20:50Speaker 03

  Why did it evaporate?

• 20:51Adam Buxton?

  Well, it was just a a scheduling conflict.

• 20:54Speaker 03

  Fine, fine.

• 20:55Adam Buxton?

  But I, to to be honest with you, I wrote to him, which I very seldom do.

• 20:59Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 21:00Adam Buxton?

  After reading the book, because I just thought I really, really want to ask him about a lot of the stuff in this book.

• 21:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:05Adam Buxton?

  And and it's not all so shocking, right? It's all, a lot of it is is much more wholesome and just straightforwardly entertaining.

• 21:13Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 21:14Adam Buxton?

  Plus, I really genuinely love a couple of his films, like they mean a lot to me. Contact and Interstellar.

• 21:20Speaker 03

  Right. I I haven't seen those ones. Are they both about aliens?

• 21:26Adam Buxton?

  Um.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  Or the stars?

• 21:28Adam Buxton?

  They are about the stars, yeah. It's definitely, Jodie Foster is in Contact, she's amazing.

• 21:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:34Adam Buxton?

  And he is a a a kind of um supporting character, but but but he's good.

• 21:40Speaker 03

  See, I'm more, this says a lot, actually. I'm more Magic Mike.

• 21:43Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, okay.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  And um uh How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days.

• 21:47Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  That's what I'd write to him about.

• 21:48Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, okay.

• 21:49Speaker 03

  And go, sorry, I don't love you, but those films were good.

• 21:52Adam Buxton?

  Well, look, if he ever gets back to me, because it was a very crawly letter that I wrote.

• 21:56Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 21:57Adam Buxton?

  Then come along and.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  We'll read it together.

• 22:00Adam Buxton?

  Sit down with me and Matthew and you can see if you come out of it feeling differently about it.

• 22:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:07Adam Buxton?

  I just thought, here is a guy who is a genuine movie star, like one of the last of the real movie stars, along with someone like Scarlett Johansson or someone like that.

• 22:15Speaker 03

  Billboard.

• 22:16Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 22:17Speaker 03

  Flagship, yeah.

• 22:18Adam Buxton?

  He's larger than life, he's this kind of mad, crazy, alright, I'm right on my, you know, it's like almost bigger in real life than he is on screen.

• 22:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:28Adam Buxton?

  And um I just thought it would be amazing to meet him and kind of.

• 22:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, and to be fair, he's putting it all out there, isn't he?

• 22:35Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 22:35Speaker 03

  Saying something like that in your book. God, I hate you for this. I think I'm gonna read it.

• 22:40Adam Buxton?

  I, it really is pretty entertaining. But right the way through, his part of his philosophy is trying to turn adversity

• 22:48Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 22:48Adam Buxton?

  into a learning experience. He doesn't put it in that way. He he says it's a green light.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  Right, okay, okay.

• 22:53Adam Buxton?

  You might think it's a red light, but then when you look back on it, green light.

• 22:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 22:59Adam Buxton?

  And then every now and again, he'll do a bit of poetry. Sorry, I'm not gonna just talk about Matthew.

• 23:03Speaker 03

  No, no, it's great, it's great.

• 23:06Adam Buxton?

  Like, one of the stories is, and this is, I'm not making light of the McConaughey family.

• 23:10Speaker 03

  No, no, of course not, and I'm not.

• 23:12Adam Buxton?

  The.

• 23:12Speaker 03

  Sorry, that sounds like I was. I'm not either.

• 23:13Adam Buxton?

  Sure, yeah, right, you know, um, his dad died, how do you think his dad died?

• 23:20Speaker 03

  Okay, how old was he?

• 23:21Adam Buxton?

  I'm not sure exactly, but I would say late sixties, early seventies.

• 23:26Speaker 03

  I'm gonna say trespassing.

• 23:30Adam Buxton?

  Why trespassing?

• 23:31Speaker 03

  I can just see, you know, Texas, I can see something weird going on in the tracks in Texas, do you know what I mean? Some train story that, we, they were looking for the tracks, you know, I can just see that.

• 23:42Adam Buxton?

  Stealing lead pipe.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  Yes, stealing copper, oh, sell it, anyway, but I'm wrong, am I?

• 23:49Adam Buxton?

  Uh, yes, he died climaxing while making love to his wife.

• 23:53Speaker 03

  Matthew's mum or different wife?

• 23:56Adam Buxton?

  No, no, Matthew's mum.

• 23:58Speaker 03

  How do we, really?

• 24:00Adam Buxton?

  Yes.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Shut up!

• 24:02Adam Buxton?

  He was probably watching.

• 24:04Speaker 03

  Shut up, man, yeah, watching again, how, so they know that just because his mum was like, oh, I'll tell you the moment?

• 24:10Adam Buxton?

  I think so, yeah, yeah.

• 24:12Speaker 03

  What happened, his head blew off or something?

• 24:14Adam Buxton?

  No, he just, he had a cardiac arrest.

• 24:16Speaker 03

  Oh, I'm sorry.

• 24:17Adam Buxton?

  That's okay. I mean, Matthew McConaughey's not gonna come on this podcast.

• 24:24Adam Buxton?

  I think that's the end of that.

• 24:48Speaker 04

  Green light. I believe that everything we do in life is part of a plan. Green light. Sometimes the plan goes as intended and sometimes it doesn't. That's part of the plan. Green light.

• 25:04Adam Buxton?

  I apologize for only just meeting you and just downloading all my thoughts on Matthew McConaughey.

• 25:11Speaker 03

  No, I really liked it because it did, as you can tell, you know, it touched a nerve for me.

• 25:15Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  So it felt kind of personalised.

• 25:18Adam Buxton?

  Good. Green light.

• 25:20Speaker 03

  Oh my god, I can't do it. Can't do it.

• 25:24Adam Buxton?

  How are you doing at the moment? How is life for you?

• 25:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, life's good. Life's good. I have a baby.

• 25:30Adam Buxton?

  Yes.

• 25:30Speaker 03

  So I think that really dominates life, doesn't it? Because when you have a baby, it is really within the year, like it won't be a baby for forever. And the year of being a baby is actually pretty nuts. So I suppose at the time of speaking, my baby is six months old.

• 25:46Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, we're speaking in September twenty twenty five.

• 25:48Speaker 03

  September twenty twenty five. And yeah, so that feels like that is obviously major, major tenet.

• 25:55Adam Buxton?

  This is your first?

• 25:55Speaker 03

  This is my first. And I have gone back to work as well. I'm sort of doing like a version of part-time work, I guess, or do, you know, saying no to some stuff, able to do some other things. Auditioning and not getting the roles, you know, when you're like, you're being more discerning. So it hurts even more when you don't get something. You're like, what?

• 26:17Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  I thought my discernment meant.

• 26:19Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  Well.

• 26:20Adam Buxton?

  I've got a baby I could be bringing up.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 26:23Adam Buxton?

  Give me that part, you shitbag.

• 26:25Speaker 03

  That's exactly it. So it doesn't make any sense. But yeah, that's been interesting. But yeah, so that's cool. And it's a little baby boy. I didn't know what I was having, a boy or a girl.

• 26:36Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, it's nice to have a surprise.

• 26:37Speaker 03

  It's amazing. It's free. It means, I think, during those first months, you're coming to terms with even that. And actually, I'd watched, I wasn't, I had quite a complicated birth in the end. It was one of those lots of labour, C-section at the end. And it took me a while to kind of get over it, I suppose. Not get over it, I'm still, you know, processing it. But it was, I couldn't really look at the photos and the videos at the time. Because if you have a C-section, they can take lots of photos and that kind of thing.

• 27:04Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 27:04Speaker 03

  The other day. I was like, you know what, I'm really ready to look at that stuff and I think it's gonna really help me and.

• 27:11Adam Buxton?

  Have you all opened up?

• 27:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, of me opened up, of the baby coming out, of all that kind of thing.

• 27:16Adam Buxton?

  Like a scene from The Thing.

• 27:17Speaker 03

  From.

• 27:18Adam Buxton?

  You probably haven't seen.

• 27:19Speaker 03

  I haven't seen The Thing, no.

• 27:23Adam Buxton?

  It's a lot of kind of C-section stuff.

• 27:25Speaker 03

  Oh, I'll check it out. I'll be able to deal with it now. Um, and there was this video that I I hadn't seen at all and. Oh, it's so beautiful, but but obviously flipping intense. So I was gonna say fucking, obviously that's fine as well to say that. It doesn't matter. Fucking intense. This baby is halfway out of me. So they they even said to me, do you want the screen lifted? Down a bit.

• 27:49Adam Buxton?

  So you can see.

• 27:50Speaker 03

  So you can see and I'll be honest.

• 27:51Adam Buxton?

  Partner in the room?

• 27:52Speaker 03

  My partner's in the room, my husband Al is in the room and um. I was like, yeah, yeah, put the screen down. If I'm totally honest, I was out of it. I'd had a long labour, gas and air, all that, you know.

• 28:03Adam Buxton?

  So you're totally pissed up.

• 28:05Speaker 03

  I'm pissed up, exactly, is the best way of saying it. The screen comes down and so you can see this. I guess envelope hole in my stomach, but it doesn't look like my stu-, you know, it looks so disconnected from, I don't know. And this baby is halfway out and his his eyes are sort of half open. And he's he's got these little arms that are like zombie arms. And he's halfway out and they say, now, we know you don't know the sex of the baby and we want you guys to find out first. So all of us, the surgeons and ethisters, everybody, we're all gonna close our eyes in the operating theatre. As we lift this baby out of you. And you see all these medical professionals, you know.

• 28:48Speaker 03

  Pretty impressive people go, right, we can close our eyes for a minute. Oh, God, I'm getting chills talking about it. And so they all close their eyes and lift out this thing, because he is a thing. I mean, you said the thing, but it is.

• 29:01Adam Buxton?

  Well, it's more like Alien, actually.

• 29:02Speaker 03

  Oh, God. Yes, I've heard of some of that happens in Alien.

• 29:05Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 29:06Speaker 03

  Lift him up and then those little D and balls are there. And, yeah, my my husband goes, it's a boy. And I go, my beautiful boy. Again, I don't remember, I don't really remember. Realising it was boy for a few minutes later. But yeah, isn't that cool? That thing of going, we're all gonna close our eyes, so you get to be the first people to see this.

• 29:28Adam Buxton?

  If that's protocol now, maybe someone got angry with them and said like, how dare you find out the sex of my child before I do? I'm suing you.

• 29:39Speaker 03

  We would never have thought, imagine demanding that of your surgeon.

• 29:43Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 29:43Speaker 03

  Excuse me, while I'm open, could you just shut your eyes for a minute? Um, but yeah, I think they're called gentle Caesarians and UCLH does a version of the gentle Caesarian, which is where they close their eyes and gently show you your baby.

• 29:59Adam Buxton?

  Gently cut you open.

• 30:00Speaker 03

  So pretty cool, really.

• 30:02Adam Buxton?

  That's amazing.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's amazing. So feeling all good. And the little baby is just so fricking cute.

• 30:08Adam Buxton?

  Oh, good. I'm glad.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it's a lot, obviously. That goes without saying.

• 30:13Adam Buxton?

  It's a sort of fun madness that time, isn't it?

• 30:16Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. My dad said this, it was really helpful. He was like, oh, you're going into the most exciting time of your life.

• 30:24Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 30:24Speaker 03

  And I hadn't thought of that. You kind of think of uni or something being like that.

• 30:27Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 30:28Speaker 03

  And I think there's a lot in that.

• 30:29Adam Buxton?

  Cause it's very different to everything else. I mean, obviously it's only fun if if you're lucky and everything's gone relatively well.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 30:37Adam Buxton?

  But um, you're so physically altered by the lack of sleep and all that sort of stuff that your brain works in a different way. And also, you know, you just are reeling from the weirdness of having created this thing.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'll never understand that.

• 30:54Adam Buxton?

  And it loves you.

• 30:56Speaker 03

  Also, this this shouldn't be TMI, because humans are humans. We conceived in our house.

• 31:03Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  Fine, in our bed. Oh, God, that does feel like TMI.

• 31:07Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 31:07Speaker 03

  God. Anyway, now that baby, you know, hangs out in the bed.

• 31:11Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 31:12Speaker 03

  So often I just look at him in that bed going, Jesus Christ, do you know what I mean? You just think, that's, that's too much. I wish it had been on holiday. It would give me some kind of separation of, wow, that magical place where you can do that. Just did it in, I won't say the borough, a borough in London. Oh, gives me the ick, not the ick, the creeps.

• 31:32Adam Buxton?

  Well, at least there wasn't like a video or anything.

• 31:35Speaker 03

  How do you, how do you know that? No, there isn't a video.

• 31:38Adam Buxton?

  McConaughey's probably got a video.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, he will do.

• 31:42Adam Buxton?

  Of his, um, but, oh, good. Well, I'm glad it's sort of gone.

• 31:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:47Adam Buxton?

  Relatively well.

• 31:48Speaker 03

  It has, it definitely has. Yeah.

• 31:50Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, good. And has it given you lots of great ideas for shows?

• 31:56Speaker 03

  Great question. And my answer to that is no.

• 31:59Adam Buxton?

  Because I don't think anyone's done one.

• 32:01Speaker 03

  About, you're so right. It's such a, such a gap in the market.

• 32:07Adam Buxton?

  Funny material there.

• 32:08Speaker 03

  Actually, there's this amazing thing that the Royal Court have set up called First Words, which is like a sort of N C T group, but for writers. So it's for anyone who's got a baby under the age of one who calls or thinks of themselves as a writer in some way. It's a really refreshing group as well because like there was the other day, there was this woman who's like a herbologist who was like, I just love herbs. Don't really know about kids, but anyway, I'm getting on with it. And you're like, wow, that is so. It was so nice to have a herbologist just be like, I don't really know what I'm doing. Do you know what I mean?

• 32:43Adam Buxton?

  I love herbs. I don't really like kids, but talk to me about herbs.

• 32:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. And she was like, obviously I love this baby.

• 32:50Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 32:51Speaker 03

  But god damn, I love herbs.

• 32:52Adam Buxton?

  Is the baby's name?

• 32:55Speaker 03

  Basil?

• 32:56Adam Buxton?

  Or.

• 32:57Speaker 03

  Dargan.

• 32:59Adam Buxton?

  I was just thinking Herbie.

• 33:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, Herbie.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  I should have, I should have asked that, put my hand up and said, I've got a question. It's your baby called Herbie.

• 33:12Adam Buxton?

  And is it only people who are having a nice experience of parenthood that go to that sort of thing?

• 33:18Speaker 03

  Well, this is what I'm saying. I found the writers one. So a lot of these N C T groups, you know, it's. It's a lot of full mat leave stuff where, I mean, people are amazing, but there's a lot of focus on the babies. Of course there is. And the writers one was a bit more of a focus on maybe the existentialism of it all and the sort of. Artie jobs that you feel like you could be doing at the same time, but you've kind of left behind. Then there were some writers for like Sky News. You know, they're loving it because they feel traumatized by the news.

• 33:51Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah, that's interesting.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  Mixed with. Uh they also seemed quite frustrated to not be, you know, news reading or whatever.

• 33:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  Don't want to speak for these people as well, but this was just my kind of perception of it. Then there was someone else who'd done a short film recently and said that when it wrapped, she experienced extreme grief. Which I really understand. I thought it was really honest, you know, she's there with this baby in a carrier. Going, oh god, now I've got to get fully back to just baby.

• 34:23Speaker 05

  Right, okay, yeah, yeah.

• 34:24Speaker 03

  While this film is done. So it's funny to call it extreme grief, but you know, I really appreciated her saying that and I think it's kind of good to be honest about how it makes you feel. I think, and you know, I'll be there ranting and raving as well about.

• 34:38Speaker 05

  That's the way I used to feel when my wife would ask me to help out around the house.

• 34:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, extreme grief.

• 34:48Speaker 03

  I think there's a few things with uh.

• 34:50Speaker 05

  I'm doing comedy. Do you know how hard that is? I have to pace around in my room for hours on end uninterrupted, otherwise no comedy will come out.

• 35:02Speaker 03

  But that's sort of, to have an N C T group that allows you to say crazy.

• 35:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:09Speaker 03

  Not really okay, stuff like that is really, really healthy. I think it's a really great place.

• 35:14Speaker 05

  That's good. Yeah, as long as people don't judge you, I guess.

• 35:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know. And it sounds like now that I'm judging the other people, but I want to make it clear that I was also there. Sort of almost crying, talking about doing a sitcom script.

• 35:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:27Speaker 03

  Um but yeah, sorry, I think what I was saying with that was that they, at some point, because there's a sort of playwright who leads it, um and yeah, she's amazing and does such a great job of kind of getting everyone to like talk about stuff and, you know, focus it as well. But she was asking, you know, how this might affect work or the work you make and does it affect you being a mother that you kind of want to write about that sort of stuff? And I realised listening to it that I don't feel like that at all. But I think that's because I'm like so new to the job, like it almost hasn't settled in. It's almost like I've just become a gymnast.

• 36:01Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 36:02Speaker 03

  And people are like, what's it like on the beam? And I'm like, oh, fuck, I haven't even done that bit yet. I don't know. I just do pommel holes. I don't know. I'm just just trying to think of.

• 36:11Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, it's only been six months.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, and and it's so.

• 36:14Adam Buxton?

  You're still the person that you were before, kind of.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally.

• 36:18Adam Buxton?

  What sort of environment did you grow up in? If you don't mind me asking, are you still friends with your parents? Are they still around?

• 36:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I am. It's funny having a baby that makes you think relentlessly about your relationship with your parents and your own childhood, doesn't it? Um, yeah, they're great. They're great to be fair. They drive me crazy as well as they're totally great. I had a wonderful childhood. I also had quite an extreme thing happened when I was nine and they dealt so well with that, which was my dad had an extreme head injury.

• 36:47Adam Buxton?

  Oh, no.

• 36:48Speaker 03

  And went to rehab for two years and then actually came out basically fine, just.

• 36:54Adam Buxton?

  He was in an accident.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  He was in a big kind of beating you up in London accident.

• 36:58Adam Buxton?

  No way.

• 37:00Speaker 03

  And that's why I know they did such an amazing job, because that time for my mum must have been, I mean, obviously. Brutal for my dad, but for my mum, just keeping that all afloat. I think that must have been really, really hard and I don't look at that time as being traumatic.

• 37:17Adam Buxton?

  How old were you?

• 37:18Speaker 03

  I was nine and I had two years, a seven year old brother and a four year old brother. So, yeah, mad, awful.

• 37:26Adam Buxton?

  Were you very frightened? Did you understand what had happened?

• 37:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think I initially found it really funny in that same way that. When I I was also nine, I think, when the Twin Towers collapsed.

• 37:37Adam Buxton?

  Were you laughing it up?

• 37:38Speaker 03

  I found that hilarious. I think some of those things, you know, when you're told about them.

• 37:43Adam Buxton?

  It's too mad to get your head around.

• 37:44Speaker 03

  Been in a major head trauma related accident. You go, oh, classic, me old dad anyway. You know, Simpsons on kind of thing. So, yeah, I found it really, really funny. And then as time went on. I think it was, it was really weird, because when we'd visit him in rehab, he was like a different person, at least for that first year. And stuff like, you have to do stuff in rehab, like. Painting cartoon characters to kind of get your motor skills back.

• 38:11Adam Buxton?

  So he was there full time?

• 38:13Speaker 03

  He was, I think, I can't remember how long the full time was. But I'd say a year and then kind of living there for the second year, but would come home a lot.

• 38:20Adam Buxton?

  Was his speech badly affected as well?

• 38:22Speaker 03

  Initially, and then then was actually fine, just slower to remember stuff. But it was like, it was like a personality change initially. And again, you know, it's gone back to, you know, pretty much normal.

• 38:34Adam Buxton?

  Really?

• 38:34Speaker 03

  Think, yeah, by the grace of God.

• 38:36Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 38:37Speaker 03

  The thing I really remember was him doing a painting of Dumbo the elephant. And it was, to be fair to him, really high quality. It was just fantastic.

• 38:46Adam Buxton?

  You're smashing it, Dad.

• 38:47Speaker 03

  Smashing it, but, you know, what the hell? And he shows it to you, he goes, look what I've done, kids. And we were like, wow, Daddy, that's amazing. And you're like, ugh.

• 38:59Adam Buxton?

  This is the wrong way.

• 39:00Speaker 03

  This is the wrong way round. It's weird. But obviously that was great that he was getting those motor skills back. But kind of like I said, that's like a weird memory as opposed to a trauma memory. And I think that's got to be, thanks to my parents.

• 39:16Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, so you obviously weren't a kind of anxious warrior. Otherwise, that kind of experience would have really thrown you for a loop.

• 39:23Speaker 03

  I think so. I don't think I'm very neurotic and that is, yeah. But I did realise quite early was going out with my current boyfriend, um, current boyfriend, current husband. I realised quite early on that if he wouldn't text me back at midnight, I'd sort of be like, oh, no, he's had a head injury. That became quite a quick assumption. But again, just being like, well, I'll find out in the morning and then we'll just do two years of rehab and work it out. So, yeah, not too bad.

• 39:50Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, he'll do some drawings of Disney characters, maybe I can encourage him to do some abstract expressionism.

• 39:57Speaker 03

  Totally. I'll help him outline Pinocchio and fill in the, you know.

• 40:02Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 40:02Speaker 03

  Fill in the colours. So, yeah, so overall, very, very good suburbia, Woking. So, yeah, I had a, I had a really nice time growing up.

• 40:11Adam Buxton?

  Born in the United States.

• 40:13Speaker 03

  I was born in the United States.

• 40:15Adam Buxton?

  Whereabouts?

• 40:16Speaker 03

  New York City.

• 40:17Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:18Speaker 03

  Manhattan.

• 40:18Adam Buxton?

  Wow.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  And then I went to Germany from the ages of three to five. That was also because of that. And then Woking. New York, Dusseldorf, Woking.

• 40:27Adam Buxton?

  Nice.

• 40:27Speaker 03

  Need it on a T-shirt.

• 40:29Adam Buxton?

  Do you have any memories of those places?

• 40:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, lots of memories of Dusseldorf. And I could speak German, so I have memories of having these conversations in German. So that's weird, but then I didn't stay fluent, but I learnt it again later.

• 40:44Adam Buxton?

  Do some German, go on, do it now.

• 40:45Speaker 03

  Also, kann ein bisschen Deutsch. Aber ich habe so viel vergessen. It's quite good, actually, that, isn't it? It's nice. It's like German newsreader tone, I think is so nice.

• 40:56Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 40:57Speaker 03

  Heute gibt es viele Probleme und, you know, you're like, oh, that's actually lovely, I think.

• 41:03Adam Buxton?

  Well, it is.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  It's not so harsh.

• 41:05Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, because obviously a lot of people's associations with the German language are not positive. Certainly for my parents' generation.

• 41:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's it, isn't it?

• 41:15Adam Buxton?

  And they always used to go on about, oh, it's such an ugly language, it's so guttural. But actually, the way you you were doing it was good.

• 41:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, thank you very much.

• 41:23Adam Buxton?

  And also I do like, you know, I love bands like Kraftwerk.

• 41:27Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 41:28Adam Buxton?

  I love a lot of those, Can and Noy and.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  I got, I was really into German Skar as a teenager.

• 41:33Adam Buxton?

  Really?

• 41:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's quite beautiful. Yeah, it's a lot, a lot of quite existential themes in German Skar.

• 41:40Adam Buxton?

  Skar.

• 41:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:42Adam Buxton?

  But you also speak good Spanish. Did you study Spanish?

• 41:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I think actually Dusseldorf is the reason behind this. I was always into languages, so then I went to uni and studied languages, French and Spanish. Spanish from scratch and I realised amongst my year of doing languages, almost everybody was either born bilingual. You know, had a bilingual parent or had a weird stint living in a different country. And I think that is the sort of unfairness of it, that if you get that time in a different country, your brain as a little child is just alter, it is just spongier to absorbing languages, I think. It became such an obvious thing that everyone had in common.

• 42:27Speaker 03

  And so, yeah, so I did French and German throughout school and then I dropped German and took up Spanish.

• 42:33Adam Buxton?

  Is that something that you and Al will do, do you think? Move to a different country for a while while your child is young?

• 42:39Speaker 03

  Well, I think we're too selfish. I don't know, like, we're in London. I can't. I don't know what I'd do in a different country. Do you know what I mean? But maybe we should.

• 42:48Adam Buxton?

  I think you should. Green light. That would be. Imagine all the experiences you'd have.

• 42:54Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 42:55Adam Buxton?

  Saying that about children being able to absorb languages much easier when they're young is so true. And that is a superpower to have another language in your locker.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  God, but where the hell do we go? You really think we should go to?

• 43:07Adam Buxton?

  But you can speak Spanish. Why don't you do a Susie Izzard and go and perform comedy in Europe? And and do, like you did a whole special in Spanish.

• 43:19Speaker 03

  I can't be bothered. I feel it is such effort doing that. It is such effort. Cause on my year abroad, I was in Mexico and I did a flipping hour of comedy monologues and it was excruciating. I just can't go back there, Adam. I can't do it. I I hear you, but I don't think I've got the energy.

• 43:40Adam Buxton?

  What about just talking to the child in Spanish?

• 43:43Speaker 03

  Yes, I do do a bit of that anyway.

• 43:45Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 43:45Speaker 03

  Cause it's funny. Cause I've realised now he's six months, I can get him out of a tantrum by putting on a headscarf and speaking in a different language. Like it like I sort of kind of pretend to be like a babushka.

• 44:01Adam Buxton?

  Sure.

• 44:02Speaker 03

  Basically. And we'll say in Spanish or something like he shouldn't cry.

• 44:06Adam Buxton?

  Can you give me some babushka?

• 44:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Well, first I might be like, I do start in English to not freak him out to.

• 44:12Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 44:12Speaker 03

  Hello, little baby. It's not good. Hello, little baby. But I'm wearing this headscarf. Por favor, no llores, bebesito, por favor. Like that.

• 44:22Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 44:23Speaker 03

  And it literally snaps him out. And then and then at the end I go bong, bong, bong, and he laughs.

• 44:29Adam Buxton?

  What's the bong, bong, bong?

• 44:30Speaker 03

  It's ju- it's just like a punchline and he can feel it's a punchline as well.

• 44:33Adam Buxton?

  It's classic stuff.

• 44:34Speaker 03

  It gets him every time. And I also sometimes wave this, um, there's these classes called baby sensory and you pay them loads of money and they just wave uh, fabric in their face, basically.

• 44:44Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:45Speaker 03

  So I often go, welcome to baby sensory. This is five pounds fifty. Bong, bong, bong. And he always laughs. So so that's that's been great. And it's a good way of bringing in language to

• 44:57Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 44:57Speaker 03

  to a baby's life, I suppose.

• 44:59Adam Buxton?

  Uh, that was quite spooky because my mum was Chilean. So

• 45:02Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 45:03Adam Buxton?

  I had my youngest memories are of her talking to me in Spanish, but then she stopped when she moved to the UK.

• 45:09Speaker 03

  Well, when did she move to the UK then?

• 45:11Adam Buxton?

  Um, well, actually, she she had moved to the UK and and started speaking Spanish to us. But then, I've told this story so many times, but then, but then. Was told by all the friends of her and my dad that, oh, no, you're gonna confuse them.

• 45:28Speaker 03

  Well, you know what? This is, you you probably know this, but this is the thing about bilingual kids, that if you raise a child totally bilingual. Their development is slower.

• 45:38Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 45:38Speaker 03

  Until the age of about seven, and then they suddenly shoot up past every other kid.

• 45:44Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 45:44Speaker 03

  And they're the genius kids. But you do have to, as the parent, I think this is really genuinely very difficult. Put up for four, five, six, these ages of the kid being like, wait, what? Literally talking in the wrong language all the time and being really slow at learning spelling and grammar and just. Actually been totally out of kilter because they've got too much going on.

• 46:04Adam Buxton?

  Yes.

• 46:05Speaker 03

  Then they get to seven, you've got yourself a flipping kid and a half.

• 46:09Adam Buxton?

  It's all, it's all a series of gambles bringing up children, isn't it? Because it's like. You're taking the gamble that they won't be residually screwed up by the experience of being. Slower than their classmates and things like that, and that they won't absorb some sense of insecurity or. Insufficiency, and you're hoping that it'll all be resolved a bit later on. I mean. I'd say take the gamble. Children are fairly resilient.

• 46:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think take the gamble, but the problem is I'm not actually native. I'm not a native speaker. So I think I'd rather just interest him. I'd rather get him curious in. Other sounds, other cultures, other ways of saying things.

• 46:50Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 46:50Speaker 03

  Rather than necessarily being like. Hello, I'm your mom and we're randomly gonna speak Spanish for the next eighteen bloody years. I just think that would affect me, that would affect my mental health in drastic ways.

• 47:03Adam Buxton?

  Or just do the accent.

• 47:06Speaker 03

  No, when he was big with me, we'd be like this, okay.

• 47:11Adam Buxton?

  That would be quite funny if he grew up just with an accent.

• 47:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, whatever he speaks.

• 47:16Adam Buxton?

  He can't actually speak Spanish.

• 47:17Speaker 03

  He's, hi dad, hey mom, how the hell you doing, you good, you okay? No, it wouldn't work. Would you, did your mom call you, you know, Adam Bookston?

• 47:26Adam Buxton?

  Adamcito.

• 47:27Speaker 03

  Adamcito, Bookstoncito.

• 47:29Adam Buxton?

  And there was little bits of vocab, like I had a blanket that I used to kind of sniff every night.

• 47:37Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 47:37Adam Buxton?

  And that was mi almohada.

• 47:39Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:40Adam Buxton?

  And so there was things like that, you know.

• 47:43Speaker 03

  It's actually gorgeous Chilean Spanish.

• 47:45Adam Buxton?

  Hmm.

• 47:45Speaker 03

  It's really like, sorry, sorry to any Chileans listening, but it's got this like rinky dinkness to it. Do you know what I mean? Like, I went on my honeymoon in Chile and in the pharmacy, it's like, like it's got this, this sort of smallness to it. Do you know what I mean?

• 48:02Adam Buxton?

  I think I do, a kind of musical.

• 48:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So it'd be like, por favor, um, quiero para setemor, ah, para setemorcito.

• 48:09Adam Buxton?

  Yes.

• 48:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, do you know what I mean?

• 48:11Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you did it very well then. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:14Speaker 03

  Oh, I love it. I love it, love it, love it.

• 48:16Adam Buxton?

  Like robot language.

• 48:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:20Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 48:21Speaker 03

  Do you speak Spanish?

• 48:22Adam Buxton?

  No, not really. I mean, I do think that, you know, I can get by.

• 48:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, that's great.

• 48:27Adam Buxton?

  In a conversation, but I would love to live in Spain or somewhere like that.

• 48:31Speaker 03

  The horrible thing about languages, the horrible unbearable truth is that if you speak another language and not completely natively, you're just good at it or you're almost fluent or whatever, you live eternally with guilt that it's not as good as it can be. It's like having been a bodybuilder as a teenager and your muscles are always wasting away. And you just feel all the time embarrassed about the level you're at. But it's so sad because you should feel good about it.

• 49:01Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 49:01Speaker 03

  But I'm pretty sure this is a thing, it just.

• 49:04Adam Buxton?

  I think I could get over that.

• 49:05Speaker 03

  Colombian neighbours and the guilt I feel every day.

• 49:08Adam Buxton?

  Oh, really? Why? Because you think they're judging you?

• 49:10Speaker 03

  I just feel so embarrassed when, because they always speak to me in Spanish and say, how's Thomas doing? And I'll basically say the equivalent of Thomas is pretty good. Wow, crazy, day day, bye. You know, you're like, oh, God, oh, God. That was awful. That was awful.

• 49:25Adam Buxton?

  Because that's not the way anyone thinks. Like, if a foreign person is speaking to you and they're trying to do English, even if the English is like pretty ropey.

• 49:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:34Adam Buxton?

  You're just impressed. You're like, yeah, go for it, you know.

• 49:36Speaker 03

  That's probably true. Is that completely true?

• 49:40Adam Buxton?

  Not everyone is as great as I am.

• 49:41Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 49:43Adam Buxton?

  Some people can be intolerant and go, you know, like, you can't speak English properly, but but they're dicks. And the thing is that like someone making an effort to speak another language, you're just, as far as I can tell, and I think most people.

• 49:56Speaker 03

  True, yeah.

• 49:57Adam Buxton?

  You give them a break. You're not like, your English is crap.

• 50:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly, yeah.

• 50:02Adam Buxton?

  You know, you're like, yeah, I know what you mean.

• 50:04Speaker 03

  Especially when they're doing a pretty good job.

• 50:06Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 50:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:07Adam Buxton?

  And especially if you wouldn't even be able to say a single word in their language.

• 50:12Speaker 03

  Totally, totally. No, you're right. You're right. Just got to give ourselves a break and be like, you know, keep trucking.

• 50:18Adam Buxton?

  What are you gonna do about social media?

• 50:19Speaker 03

  What do you mean?

• 50:20Adam Buxton?

  With your kids.

• 50:21Speaker 03

  Oh, actually, I have a really clear answer.

• 50:23Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:24Speaker 03

  I actually spoke to my husband. I sort of woke up, you know, almost like woke up like someone coming out of their coffin from the dead going, Christ, we need to talk about social media and the baby. Right, this is what I'm thinking, okay? Firstly, we're not allowed to go on social media in front of the baby.

• 50:40Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  We can go on WhatsApp, can go on text, that's just part of life, not sure what to do about that. But not making something like Instagram look normal. That's us. Right, the second thing is, he will not be allowed to go on social media till he's sixteen. Then, when he's sixteen, he can opt in. Those are just the rules, and I'm not gonna bend on it. The second thing is, I have already bought a desktop computer. There will be no laptops in the house for this baby, no iPads. If you want to go on the internet, that is completely fine. It's in the living room and it's on a desk.

• 51:18Adam Buxton?

  And there's CCTV recording everything you're doing.

• 51:21Speaker 03

  There's no CCTV.

• 51:24Speaker 03

  But if you disobey me, I will come down on you like a ton of bricks. So look, I'm obviously sounding too harsh. I was, that's something I should have mentioned about my childhood. My dad was actually pretty strict. He would often say, I'm gonna come down on you like a ton of bricks.

• 51:38Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:38Speaker 03

  Mean it, really. So, yeah, uh, look, we'll see. This might not all work out at all. But I want to be quite strict about it, actually. I think it's a serious, huge, massive problem. I, I think I wanna find the balance between keeping him safe and him being too much like Marcus from About a Boy. You know, like, I'm already dressing him in a way that I don't think is fair on him. So I've just gotta, yeah, try and balance it, but I really, I actually do mean it when I say I think I'm gonna try and be pretty strict. Do you think? Were you strict?

• 52:13Adam Buxton?

  No.

• 52:14Speaker 03

  Oh, god.

• 52:15Adam Buxton?

  I wasn't.

• 52:15Speaker 03

  I shouldn't be strict, should I?

• 52:16Adam Buxton?

  Of cour-, I think you should be strict. I think your parents, from my reading, were possibly a little bit like mine in that they were fairly conservative.

• 52:25Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah.

• 52:27Adam Buxton?

  My parents were superficially strict, but they just didn't have the will to stick with it, really. So we ended up getting away with murder.

• 52:35Speaker 03

  Well, kind of me-, you know, it made me quite a good liar, so that is the problem as well. It doesn't actually sort it out. They were saying the other day, god, you were so great as a teenager. You just weren't no issues at all. And I remember being like, god, I'm so great at lying. You know, not to be like I was this bad kid, but I had some pretty fun times.

• 52:55Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 52:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:57Adam Buxton?

  I think I was the same. It wasn't lying, so like, I wouldn't lie, I don't think.

• 53:00Speaker 03

  No.

• 53:01Adam Buxton?

  But I was, well, once I was described in a school report as sly and underhand.

• 53:06Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 53:08Speaker 03

  That's great. Your teacher saw that.

• 53:10Adam Buxton?

  And I was like, oh, yeah, that's true, isn't it?

• 53:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:13Adam Buxton?

  I had that skill.

• 53:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:14Adam Buxton?

  Of just being able to keep things from my parents.

• 53:17Speaker 03

  I've forgotten how this was put, but my German teacher once sort of accused me in quite an emotional way of taking the piss.

• 53:23Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 53:24Speaker 03

  You know, and that was fair enough. I feel really bad about that, actually. But, yeah, and, and when I was a teenager, there's only so many times you're sleeping over at Charlotte's house. Do you know what I mean? It's just a lot of using those excuses to get away with the stuff. But at least that stuff was in person, not on, I don't know, Instagram.

• 53:44Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:45Speaker 03

  Meeting up with, I don't, I don't even know what I'm talking about. I wish all the kids luck.

• 53:50Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think the answer is just to keep chatting, have those family suppers.

• 53:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, are your kids okay? Do they seem all right?

• 53:58Adam Buxton?

  Think so, but I mean, I don't know.

• 54:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:01Adam Buxton?

  Because they're probably very sly and underhand.

• 54:03Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah, and good for them, you know?

• 54:06Adam Buxton?

  They are, they're great. I mean, we didn't send them away to a boarding school, which is one big difference.

• 54:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, you idiots, you should have.

• 54:13Adam Buxton?

  Um, yeah, we would have had way more free time, but um.

• 54:17Speaker 03

  I can't, that is just.

• 54:19Adam Buxton?

  So I do think that the relationship we have with them is perhaps a little closer. It's quite different to the one I had with my parents.

• 54:26Speaker 03

  Oh, you went to a boarding school?

• 54:27Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, I did.

• 54:28Speaker 03

  Right, right, right, yeah, yeah.

• 54:29Adam Buxton?

  Uh, there was some good things about it, but I do think my relationship with my parents suffered.

• 54:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I bet.

• 54:34Adam Buxton?

  And it was never, I feel like I have a closer relationship with my children. I saw an interview that you did with The Telegraph.

• 55:18Speaker 03

  Yes, I shouldn't speak to The Telegraph, should I?

• 55:21Adam Buxton?

  I mean, the thing is about The Telegraph, I think they take comedy quite seriously, like they're quite good at.

• 55:27Speaker 03

  True, yeah.

• 55:28Adam Buxton?

  They write about it quite well.

• 55:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, completely.

• 55:30Adam Buxton?

  In your interview, they obviously, you know, Telegraph, Times, et cetera. They love any kind of woke, uh, identity politics, they're, they're so. They know their readers are so wound up by all that stuff, so they really love to chat about it.

• 55:48Speaker 03

  Moth to a flame, that's an idiom I do know.

• 55:50Adam Buxton?

  Okay, I mean, you know, hold my hand up.

• 55:54Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 55:54Adam Buxton?

  I'm kind of the same sometimes as well. I find all that culture war stuff sort of interesting, but. You were saying, they were asking you like, well, what's the deal with doing character based comedy? Is that okay? Just appropriating characters?

• 56:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:10Adam Buxton?

  Do you get into trouble with that? And I was like, oh, I've never heard anyone being worried about that before.

• 56:15Speaker 03

  God, yeah.

• 56:16Adam Buxton?

  Is that a thing to be worried about?

• 56:17Speaker 03

  You know what? My honest answer to that, I think it is a very legitimate thing to be worried about. I think eh the more this conversation on identity and eh, you know, as an actor, what you can portray and what you can't, according to who you are, or your experience, or your ethnicity or something. I I think there is definitely something in the conversation. It is a really important thing to think about and maybe important to worry about. I'm not actually sure what I said in that interview, but my view on it is you just have to be, you have to be thoughtful. And that actually should apply to comedy full stop, shouldn't it? Like, you know, if you're writing,

• 56:59Speaker 03

  let's say a new show and you've got a joke that you know is cheap or off colour, that's gonna go out. And actually, character just needs to be the same. And I think you need to consider where you're coming from and what the joke of the character actually is. Basically, if you're punching down, really.

• 57:16Adam Buxton?

  Hmm.

• 57:16Speaker 03

  And I think if you are punching down, which there was comedy that was punching down.

• 57:21Adam Buxton?

  I've always had a problem with the punching down system though.

• 57:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, right.

• 57:25Adam Buxton?

  Because there's so many ways that it cannot, there's so many different forms of power dynamics that exist, right?

• 57:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally.

• 57:32Adam Buxton?

  Not just about identity, but can also be about so many different forms of status.

• 57:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:39Adam Buxton?

  Um.

• 57:39Speaker 03

  And and that's actually what I mean as well. I think it would be lazy to even see, well, when I say punching down, I mean just between the classes. Or man to woman or something like that. It's it's, ah, there's just so many subtleties in it, I think. And you can see when you watch any character comedy that you think is any good. It's it's because the person has thought about it. They've constructed something that feels truly three D, that feels very real, that is made with love, that has all the grey shades and doesn't have a kind of black and white thing that could get you in a place of either in trouble or feeling like you're in trouble, that you shouldn't really be doing this. So I don't know if that is an answer to it, but basically I think it's a, I think it is a real issue to think about.

• 58:25Speaker 03

  Mixed with it can be done.

• 58:26Adam Buxton?

  I mean, I basically just in a more circuitous way, asked you exactly the same question that the Telegraph did. While blaming them for asking you a cheap question like that.

• 58:36Speaker 03

  No, I it's it's good. I think also though, because my husband is also a comedian and also kind of is more a comedy actor. We talk about this stuff all the time. It's kind of really on the forefront of our our minds, just kind of. But you know, you wanna make sure you're doing an ethical job, I think.

• 58:58Adam Buxton?

  Because with my Telegraph hat on, do you like my Telegraph hat?

• 59:01Speaker 03

  It's lovely.

• 59:01Adam Buxton?

  Thank you. I guess you sort of think, well, that's a dead end then for any kind of acting, like what accents can you do the accent of someone from a different class?

• 59:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:13Adam Buxton?

  Can you, if it's all gonna boil down to sort of power relations.

• 59:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:18Adam Buxton?

  And be measured in that way.

• 59:19Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 59:20Adam Buxton?

  Then there's not that much you can really do. I I think fundamentally it's got to come from somewhere that isn't just a a place of contempt, I suppose.

• 59:32Speaker 03

  That's it, that's it, exactly. It's got to come from truth and love and studying something, not just pulling it out of your ass. And

• 59:43Adam Buxton?

  Although.

• 59:43Speaker 03

  Although, how about this?

• 59:48Adam Buxton?

  Been pulled out of someone's ass.

• 59:50Speaker 03

  I guess you you can pull it out of your ass. What am I trying to say? I think I think understanding why it's funny. It is also subtle though, isn't it? Like I saw the new Alan Partridge show yesterday at the screening and there's so many moments that you'd say, oh, well, that's really edgy. But it, they've thought about it. They've picked the right stuff. They've. It's like a comedy sieve and you've got to push all your stuff through the sieve. And and refine it and and no, I I had wrote this joke recently about periods and when I I sort of realised, oh my god, that's like. I've actually written a really misogynistic joke there. And you just you either take it out or you refine it or you put it in a different way and you go, ah, this is what I wanna say.

• 1:00:36Speaker 03

  It's kind of about. I don't wanna say it's about being clever, but it is a bit, isn't it? It's about kind of focusing.

• 1:00:42Adam Buxton?

  Thinking a little bit further.

• 1:00:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, thinking about detail, thinking about what stuff means, what, you know, what are the implications of what you're saying? And if you're thinking about the implications, both for the laugh and what it means about the person you're portraying. Then I think it's gonna be okay.

• 1:00:56Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:57Speaker 03

  And also we can make mistakes, maybe.

• 1:00:59Adam Buxton?

  Sure, yes, that's the thing. I think I think it's like. I wish people would think the best of other people rather than immediately assuming like you. Fucking bigot, you know what I mean? You're like, well, what else have they done? And what con- is this part of a pattern of? Bigoted stuff that they're doing, or is this they've just slipped up?

• 1:01:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you know what? It's actually making me think, because also some people can be offended by stuff and that is. Uh, you know, they're entitled to feel offended, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't be doing the thing full stop. Had quite an interesting experience years ago now. I had this thing in my show, I think this was twenty sixteen. And I think it could be said that I might not do this anymore, but it was a character who was talking about her. You know, like drug addiction, basically. But then she just goes through cowpaw, paracetamol, whatever. It's a right kind of a cheap little bit like that. And this woman spoke to me afterwards and was like, that was really, really disgusting.

• 1:01:58Adam Buxton?

  Oh, why?

• 1:01:59Speaker 03

  And because, you know, it was making light of drug addiction.

• 1:02:03Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 1:02:03Speaker 03

  Um. Uh, you know, I think it was a really, my stupid joke. I it was in like a character as well, but it's like. It goes from cowpaw to like Vicks Vapourer and I maybe go through forty different things like that.

• 1:02:16Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:17Speaker 03

  So it's really silly and whatever. But when she spoke to me at the end, I was like, well, to be fair. She's got a point and also what, you know, who knows what her experience is with the whole thing? Am I gonna keep doing that bit? Yeah, to be honest.

• 1:02:32Adam Buxton?

  I mean, the thing is. How many other people, you know, that's sad that she felt that. And that she was worried by that. But at the same time, how many other people are gonna watch that bit? And think that you are genuinely making some commentary on what it's really like to be addicted to.

• 1:02:51Speaker 03

  Do you know what I mean? Calpol, come on. So, yeah, I do, I do feel like I lis-, I heard her out as well and was like, oh, well, thank you for speaking to me. I'm definitely gonna think about it. And I think I did think about it and I came to the conclusion that I was gonna continue.

• 1:03:07Adam Buxton?

  Yes.

• 1:03:08Speaker 03

  Um, but like I said, who, who knows, maybe I, I wouldn't do a. It, I don't know. I think it's just always got to be a moving, comedy's got to be a moving thing.

• 1:03:16Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:17Speaker 03

  But, um, yeah, I just don't want us to be too scared by it.

• 1:03:20Adam Buxton?

  Are you, have you done stuff in America?

• 1:03:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I have actually.

• 1:03:24Adam Buxton?

  Have you, have you been doing things recently?

• 1:03:26Speaker 03

  I think I last performed on stage in America two years ago or something. Um, yeah, I've done the kind of, I'd almost say the equivalent kind of places that I gig at in London in America.

• 1:03:39Adam Buxton?

  Are you someone who considers success in America to be the kind of pinnacle of entertainment business success?

• 1:03:47Speaker 03

  Hmm, that, my answer to that question is twofold. Yes, in terms of, I think, I would describe other people's success like that. Like, it's almost like Olivia Colman's, you can say she's so successful now because she's known in America or she won an Oscar. I think in terms of myself, that country terrifies me. And I love living in North London. And I slightly feel like I've got, oh, no, I hate to say, I hate to say this because it's, it will sound fake. But I do slightly secretly feel like I've got everything I've ever wanted.

• 1:04:25Adam Buxton?

  Fake.

• 1:04:26Speaker 03

  Fake.

• 1:04:27Adam Buxton?

  Bullshit.

• 1:04:28Speaker 03

  Bullshit, nasty little.

• 1:04:30Adam Buxton?

  Lucky you.

• 1:04:31Speaker 03

  Bitch. Phony bitch.

• 1:04:34Adam Buxton?

  Social media, that's my social media voice in my head always.

• 1:04:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:38Adam Buxton?

  Responding to things like that.

• 1:04:39Speaker 03

  I think.

• 1:04:39Adam Buxton?

  No, that's nice. That's nice to feel like you can appreciate that.

• 1:04:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just, I really like my job. I love my job. And I think, uh, the tricky thing is when you're not working, you always want the next opportunity. So of course that could be anything, you know, if, if it was an American opportunity, it wouldn't be like. Oh, but I don't need that, you know, I want to work, I want to keep on working and making stuff and whatever. But, uh.

• 1:05:02Adam Buxton?

  If they did like an American version of Stafflet's Flats.

• 1:05:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:07Adam Buxton?

  That was obviously gonna be a pile of shit.

• 1:05:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:10Adam Buxton?

  Would you just go along and do it anyway?

• 1:05:11Speaker 03

  Gleam rents apartments.

• 1:05:13Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:13Speaker 03

  Would I go and do it?

• 1:05:14Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, just because it's like a job in America.

• 1:05:17Speaker 03

  Oh god, that's a great question. It depen- yeah, I suppose it would depend, it would depend what my bank account looks like, I suppose. And so in thi- yeah. Yeah.

• 1:05:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a really hard one though. I don't know, depends on the thing, but yeah, probably, why not? I think I'm really up for experiences. I love um doing stuff for the, to see what it's like.

• 1:05:41Adam Buxton?

  Hmm.

• 1:05:41Speaker 03

  Like when I went on tour with Alan Partridge, when I went on the Alan Partridge Stadium Tour, I super did that on purpose.

• 1:05:50Adam Buxton?

  When was it that you did that?

• 1:05:51Speaker 03

  That was three years ago now, I think. So what's that, twenty twenty two? I completely did that because I was like, what, I'm gonna be on a tour bus with Coogan, some dancers, and be performing at like the Newcastle Arena.

• 1:06:07Adam Buxton?

  And then you found out that Steve only travels in a private Rolls Royce.

• 1:06:10Speaker 03

  No, but.

• 1:06:10Adam Buxton?

  Behind the bus.

• 1:06:11Speaker 03

  He often was in the bus. It was so funny. It honestly, it was hilarious. He was in the bus thirty percent of the time.

• 1:06:19Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:20Speaker 03

  I couldn't believe it. It was ridiculous.

• 1:06:22Adam Buxton?

  Being funny?

• 1:06:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'd say showboating.

• 1:06:25Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:26Speaker 03

  With, you know, showboating and sometimes being very funny, but you can wind him up as well, you know, you can sort of, like, it was a lot of winding up Steve in a bus.

• 1:06:35Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:35Speaker 03

  And then, you know, yeah, him complaining about like Jackie Chan's earnings.

• 1:06:42Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 1:06:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was great. I can't even remember, like two random ass characters. Some woman that he interviews in the first half, then a kind of drunken member of the audience in the second half. I really loved it, but I think there was some, we ran out of time, I think, with some of the, what those characters were doing, basically is what I'm saying. But as an experience, it was exactly what I'd hoped it would be, which was nuts.

• 1:07:08Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:08Speaker 03

  It was great. And, and those, I think when you get to do a job that's weird, surely just that thing of going, okay, what will this be like to experience as opposed to where will this get me?

• 1:07:20Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. What are your memories then of that tour?

• 1:07:23Speaker 03

  One of my favourite moments was in the bottom was, so the bus was a tour bus like Spice World, right? Oh yeah. So literally a fricking tour bus. So you've got all these bunk beds up top with this um kind of movie theatre in it. Wow. Yeah, and we've got eight, eight or nine dancers. And then me, the kind of assistant producer, the tour manager and Steve sometimes. And downstairs, you've got these little booths on the tour bus and this kind of kitchen area. The kitchen is like stocked with all different, you know, whatever, drink and non-alcoholic booze, loads of proper booze, whatever. And so um we're on one of these journeys. What you'd do as well, you'd finish at a stadium. So let's say Glasgow.

• 1:08:08Speaker 03

  You rap at Glasgow and then for some reason, I think this is how all tours work, but it's bizarre. So once you rap in Glasgow, you know, Steve takes off, Alan Partridge, you all get in your normal clothes. You jump on the bus and you drive all night to Bournemouth. Isn't that a weird way of doing stuff? And I think it's to just save money on hotels. So you just drive for twelve hours. And there was this one night where Steve was like really sitting in the downstairs kind of area. And the assistant producer was talking about how he used to be a bodybuilder. And was something like the most successful teenage bodybuilder on the Isle of Sheppes. Uh huh. Like twenty years ago. Yeah.

• 1:08:51Speaker 03

  And Steve starts scrolling his phone like mental. And he's, he's literally going crazy on his phone. I was like, Steve, what are you doing? And he goes, I've got to find something more masculine than that. What? And he takes ages, he takes ten minutes. And eventually Steve showed me a video of himself jumping off a cliff.

• 1:09:12Speaker 03

  Into the sea. He goes, how about that? I was like, I think the teenage bodybuilder in the Isle of Sheppes is like a lot better than that. And he stormed off. Oh my god, I loved it. Um, and then a a moment I loved also from the tour, so the dancers who were wicked, actually, I've never really, have you worked with dancers before?

• 1:09:32Adam Buxton?

  No.

• 1:09:32Speaker 03

  Their thing is they absorb choreography like they are genies in bottles. They're just unbelievable. It's incredible to watch. But they're not super invested in comedy, so they kind of thought that Alan Partridge was Steve.

• 1:09:46Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 1:09:46Speaker 03

  They couldn't, you know.

• 1:09:48Adam Buxton?

  Well, that's an easy mistake to make.

• 1:09:49Speaker 03

  It is an easy, yeah, and they they the whole time were just like, this show kind of sucks ass. It doesn't make any sense. And then we did our first night in Belfast to like, I think it was eight thousand people and they all laughed when they should laugh. And the dancers were freaked out by it because they actually had never realised they were in a comedy show.

• 1:10:07Adam Buxton?

  They thought he was a real third rate washed up TV presenter.

• 1:10:10Speaker 03

  And they were like, this guy sucks, bless him. Obviously, if he's got money to book dancers, we'll do it. But really, we feel sorry for the bloke. It's miserable. Then when he's wearing the wig and the dress, they're like, okay. And I think I was still trying, I was like, trying to explain to them like, it's like this comedy character he does. But again, it's just different worlds. It's like them saying to me, oh, we're about to do a flip and a chasse. And I'm like, I don't know what you mean. So anyway, so Belfast freaks them out. And then they're like, wait, what is going on here? And that's when I was like, I've been trying to tell you, he's like a comedian. This isn't like a real thing. And we went into the movie theatre bit of the sort of upper deck of the tour bus. And Alpha Papa was on one of the like Netflix things.

• 1:10:55Adam Buxton?

  My wife's favourite film.

• 1:10:56Speaker 03

  Right. It's brilliant, hilarious movie. And we turn it on and it was, it was just like they were kind of freaked out by it, like almost it gave them the ick and they had to turn it off after ten minutes.

• 1:11:10Adam Buxton?

  For those unfamiliar, this is the Alan Partridge movie.

• 1:11:13Speaker 03

  The Alan Partridge movie. And then suddenly this guy that they're doing the show, he's suddenly this character in the movie.

• 1:11:20Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:21Speaker 03

  And they they really just, they were like, we can't even stomach that. What the hell is going on? And now we're stuck on this bus, driving from Glasgow to Bournemouth. How do we escape this fucking shit? And they they turned on Fifty Shades of Grey and kind of never talked about it again.

• 1:11:45Speaker 05

  This is an ad for Squarespace. Okay, we'll return to the AI apocalypse in just a wee wee moment, but first I wanted to talk about Squarespace. Do you know about Squarespace, Steve? Uh, yes, Monty. I think I might even be a little bit more tuned into modern tech, websites, et cetera, than you. I don't know, just guessing. Oh, Steve, I love this dynamic. I'm old and conservative and you're young and progressive and that's what makes the Newswind podcast such great listening. But yes, you're right. I must admit, I didn't know much about Squarespace. But because my new grumble book, Hell in a Handcart, is out this month. And I look forward to getting enraged by that. So I should hope.

• 1:12:20Speaker 05

  Anyway, the publishers, Bluestar and Dogwhistle, made a beautiful website for the book using Squarespace. I know, I got the newsletter that you sent out using Squarespace and the website does look great. Videos of you airing your views, members' areas for your mad fans. You've even got a merch store, I see. That's right. The Union Jack top hat is a big seller. But they constructed it all so fast with Squarespace. They did most of it over one lunchtime, Steve. Well, you wouldn't want to spend much longer on it, would you? Shut up, Steve. But here's the thing. Anyone listening to this can start a free trial right now at squarespace.com/buxton and see how easy and versatile Squarespace is. And when they're ready to launch a new website or domain, they can save 10% off their first purchase by using the offer code BUXTON at checkout. Right, well, maybe I'll visit squarespace.com/buxton and start a new website just to refute all the nonsense in your new book. Oh, don't do that, Steve.

• 1:13:05Speaker 05

  I will. Oh, shut up, Steve. Uh, shut up. Now, back to more depressing matters on Newswind.

• 1:13:13Speaker 04

  Continue.

• 1:13:24Adam Buxton?

  Hey, welcome back, podcast. That was Emma Sidde talking to me there. It was really good to meet Emma. I really enjoyed talking to her and I'm very grateful to her for giving up her time and also to Rose Matafeo for providing a venue for our chat. Thank you, Rose. I didn't actually see her that day. But I really liked your house. It was just right. Thank you. Well, I'm not going to wang on too much today, but I did just want to mention that I've put up some jingles from the podcast on my website, adam-buxton.co.uk.

• 1:13:57Adam Buxton?

  And what you do is you go up to the top and I think one of the headings is podcast and there's a dropdown menu and it says jingles and you go there and you will find a selection of some of my favourite jingles from this podcast from over the years. The podcast is 10 years old now, do you realise? I'm not big into anniversaries. Just ask my wife. Um, so I'm not going on about the milestone, but um, people every now and again say, oh, I wish I could find some of your jingles and just listen to them individually. So I hope you will find some of your favourite jingles have now been archived on my blog

• 1:14:41Adam Buxton?

  for your listening pleasure. All right, that's it for this week. Thanks again for checking out the album if you have. Don't forget to look at some of those live dates coming up. There's the Mannington Book Bash where I'm going to be talking about my own book and interviewing Nigel Planer. And then there's those dates in October, Wimbledon Literature Festival with Samira Ahmed, the Adam Buxton Band playing at the Art Centre in Norwich for a couple of nights and also a big show at the Royal Festival Hall towards the end of October. You'll find details on my website in the events section. Thanks very much once again to Emma City. Thanks to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for all his invaluable production

• 1:15:26Adam Buxton?

  support. Thanks to everyone at Acast for liaising with my sponsors. Thanks to Helen Green. She does the artwork for the podcast. But thanks most of all to you for coming back. How about a creepy sofa hug? Come here, hee hee. Good to see you. Hope you enjoyed hanging out in the kitchen for a change.

• 1:15:47Speaker 02

  I certainly did.

• 1:15:49Adam Buxton?

  Until the next time we meet, please go carefully and for what it's worth, I love you. Now, are we going to go for the full shout in the house? There's only the boys here today, so let's do it.

• 1:16:13Speaker 06

  My god, scared the shit out of me.

• 1:16:15Adam Buxton?

  Sorry, I was doing the bye for the podcast.

• 1:16:18Speaker 06

  Yeah. Oh, I thought we were robbed.

• 1:16:21Adam Buxton?

  I'm very sorry that I scared you, Natty.

• 1:16:24Speaker 06

  That's fine, it was just a shock.

• 1:16:26Adam Buxton?

  By the way, this is Nat, who is the star of Pizza Time.

• 1:16:31Speaker 06

  Hello.

• 1:16:31Adam Buxton?

  Is that appropriate to say, the star? Well, it was written about you. How do you feel about that invasion of your privacy? Humiliating, something that you feel has created a wedge between us?

• 1:16:43Speaker 06

  No, I think it's, I think it's completely untrue.

• 1:16:46Adam Buxton?

  Untrue?

• 1:16:47Speaker 06

  Well, exaggerated, over exaggerated.

• 1:16:49Adam Buxton?

  What, that you only ate pizza for a long period of your teenage years?

• 1:16:54Speaker 06

  I mean, every teenager has his pizza. I had, I had the teenager amount of pizza.

• 1:16:59Adam Buxton?

  No.

• 1:16:59Speaker 06

  And I never took beer that was not mine.

• 1:17:02Adam Buxton?

  Yes, you did, you did.

• 1:17:04Speaker 06

  Communal beer, maybe, but.

• 1:17:05Adam Buxton?

  Communal beer. Who else drank beer at that point? It was just me.

• 1:17:10Speaker 06

  Maybe you then, that's the problem. Maybe it's you drinking that beer and then you're just forgetting that you drank it.

• 1:17:14Adam Buxton?

  The point was, as the lyric states, it was my beer. You're stealing all my beer. It was my, mine, me, mine, mine, mine, mine. And it was like, you were too young to be having all the beer anyway.

• 1:17:28Speaker 06

  How old was I?

• 1:17:29Adam Buxton?

  I don't know.

• 1:17:30Speaker 06

  Eighteen?

• 1:17:32Adam Buxton?

  Were you eighteen, maybe?

• 1:17:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, drinking age, yeah.

• 1:17:35Adam Buxton?

  Wow, it was mine.

• 1:17:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, I, I apologize.

• 1:17:39Adam Buxton?

  No, that's okay. You don't need to apologize. I got a song out of it.

• 1:17:42Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's pretty good. And I don't do it anymore, so you got a song and I no longer do it, so.

• 1:17:47Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:47Speaker 06

  Pretty good.

• 1:17:48Adam Buxton?

  And it's a classic song.

• 1:17:49Speaker 06

  Right, charts.

• 1:17:51Adam Buxton?

  I mean, maybe not charts, although the album has been in the charts, so.

• 1:17:55Speaker 06

  Times, yeah.

• 1:17:56Adam Buxton?

  Technically, it's a, a chart hit.

• 1:17:58Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:17:59Adam Buxton?

  Anyway, thank you.

• 1:18:01Speaker 06

  That's okay, anytime.