EP.284 - MAXINE PEAKE

Adam talks with English actor and writer Maxine Peake about being filmed by The South Banks Show when she was only 21, why method actors make her sad, why Diane Morgan impressed her so much at drama school, growing up in household of harsh bants, comfort eating and body image anxiety and whether every artist should feel a responsibility to speak out on political issues. DONATE TO MSF https://msf.org.uk/adam-buxton-podcast ADAM AND JOE 30th ANNIVERSARY LIVE WARM UP https://www.seetickets.com/event/the-adam-and-joe-show-30th-anniversary-live-wip-/hackney-round-chapel/3743425 - 8 November 2026 @ Hackney Round Chapel, London. Conversation recorded face-to-face in London on 23 September, 2026 Thanks to Diggory Waite and Claire Broughton at Hattrick and Séamus Murphy Mitchell for production support. Podcast illustration by Helen Green https://helengreenillustration.com/ Visit the ADAM BUXTON PODCAST PATREON PAGE http://www.patreon.com/AdamBuxton for previously unheard interviews, Q&A episodes, Rosie pics and videos and other odd and sods. SEND IN PATREON JINGLES AND QUESTIONS mailto:[email protected] Guest pics, links, jingles, videos and more on ADAM'S WEBSITE https://www.adam-buxton.co.uk/ SUCCESSPOD https://www.audible.co.uk/search?keywords=successpod&k=successpod - 2026 (listen for free with a trial or subscription on Audible) RELATED LINKS MAXINE PEAKE SOUTH BANK SHOW CLIPS https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIfiJpwUTZY (YouTube) TRANSMISSIONS: THE DEFINITIVE STORY OF JOY DIVISION AND NEW ORDER https://www.neworder.com/news-1/transmissions1 - SEASON 1 - (Neworder.com) TRANSMISSIONS: THE DEFINITIVE STORY OF JOY DIVISION AND NEW ORDER https://www.neworder.com/news-1/transmissions-season2 - SEASON 2 - (Neworder.com) FUNNY COW https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP4pM9Flu4s Directed by Adrian Shergold and written by Tony Pitts - 2017 (YouTube) THE PRIEST https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9N1gulWafE by Johnny Marr and Maxine Peake - 2017 (YouTube) JOHN DAVIDSON: 'HOW I DEAL WITH FAME AFTER TOURETTE'S FILM AND BAFTA ROW https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj6g2j1081eo- June 2026 (BBC) 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.

• 0:00Adam Buxton?

  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 Buxton. I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this. That's the plan. Hey, how are you doing, podcasters? It's Adam Buxton. Today, the Norfolk farm track I'm reporting to you from is incredibly damp.

• 0:44Adam Buxton?

  Rosie, my best dog friend, is at home in the warm and dry environment of my wife's office. I am trudging to our gate to leave a note for the delivery guy who keeps refusing to actually deliver stuff to us because he can't be bothered to follow the instructions that I've left about a million times on the stupid website. And it's really raining. It's really raining hard. It's going to be raining, I think, forever now, according to the weather forecast.

• 1:25Adam Buxton?

  And we're supposed to stock up on supplies, I think. So it's all happening. Anyway, how are you doing, podcasters? I hope you're not too bad, despite the weather, you know, et cetera. Oh, man, this track is waterlogged. Here's some squelchy track foley for you. Is that considered valuable, oural real estate in the ASMR world? Squelching? It must be for some people.

• 2:08Adam Buxton?

  I'm doing fine, thanks. Just prepping for the Adam and Joe 30th Anniversary Live Shows next month. And over the weekend, tickets went on sale for another related event, a warm-up show that myself and Joe are doing. And it's happening at the Hackney Round Church. It's a beautiful venue, on the 8th of November. A reminder that the show we are running through basically consists of me and Joe reminiscing

• 2:53Adam Buxton?

  about making the Adam and Joe show at the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s. There will be clips on a big screen from the show, plus rare or never-before-seen behind-the-scenes nuggets and additional bits and pieces. And we will sing a couple of songs as well, I think, with the Adam Buxton Band, no less, i.e. various members of Metronomy. Yes, it might be a little shambolic, but it's going to be fun. I hope you can make it along. There's a link for tickets in the description of today's episode. Right, I'm at the gate.

• 3:38Adam Buxton?

  And I've got a note inside a waterproof plastic sleeve for the delivery guy. Last time he came along, he just sent a photograph of the gate that was closed, as if it was like, why you closed the gate? So what am I supposed to do? Anyway, this time, I've put a note on the gate saying, just, please, could you just leave the package here, please? Thank you, thank you. I'll come and collect it later. I don't mind if it gets wet. Okay, let me tell you a little bit about podcast number 284.

• 4:20Adam Buxton?

  This one features a lovely, rambling conversation with English actor and writer Maxine Peake. Maxine, Max. Maxine was born in Bolton, Greater Manchester, in 1974 to a mother and father who were, respectively, a care worker and a truck driver. But after her parents separated when Maxine was just nine, she lived with her mother and later with her grandfather to complete her studies at high school. When she was 21, Maxine's struggles to secure sponsorship to attend the prestigious acting school RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she had finally earned a place

• 5:02Adam Buxton?

  after multiple auditions, were featured in a 1996 episode of Melvin Bragg's TV arts programme, The South Bank Show. That was the theme for The South Bank Show, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, played by his brother Julian, although that version was played by a Buxton. The South Bank Show also filmed a follow-up to Maxine's story in 1998, showing how her

• 5:46Adam Buxton?

  studies at RADA had progressed. By that time, Maxine had landed the part of Twinkle in the sitcom Dinner Ladies, created by her comedy hero, Victoria Wood. A few of the memorable roles that Maxine played in the next couple of decades include Veronica Ball in Channel 4's Shameless between 2004 and 2007, barrister, I was going to say barista, no, she was a barrister, Martha Costello in the BBC legal drama Silk between 2011 and 2014, and there was Moore's murderer Myra Hindley in the 2006 drama, See No Evil.

• 6:26Adam Buxton?

  That was great intonation that I did there, didn't I, listeners? A disapproving lilt on Myra Hindley, just to indicate that I am anti-Myra Hindley. This is a good peek behind my acting technique. More recently, Maxine played former IRA member Dolores Price in Patrick Radden Keefe's account of the troubles in Northern Ireland, Say Nothing, an amazing book that I talked in-depth with Patrick about on this podcast back in 2021, episode 168, if you're interested.

• 7:07Adam Buxton?

  Maxine's writing credits include the 2014 play Beryl, about the record-breaking cyclist Beryl Burton, 2017's The Last Testament of Lilian Biloka, about the Hull women who campaigned for safety reforms in the fishing industry, 2018's Queens of the Coal Age, about the women who occupied a Lancashire colliery in 1993, and 2022's Betty, a sort of musical, co-written with Sariol Davies, about the first female Speaker of the House of Commons, Betty Boothroyd. On film, Maxine played a female stand-up in the male-dominated northern comedy circuit of the 1970s and 80s in the 2017 feature Funny Cow.

• 7:51Adam Buxton?

  She was one of the stars of Mike Lee's 2018 historical drama Peterloo. And in 2025, Maxine portrayed Dottie Akenback in the BAFTA award-winning I Swear, the film about John Davidson and his life with Tourette's Syndrome. And I talked to Maxine about that film, which I really enjoyed, and about what a remarkable person Dottie Akenback was and is, in my conversation, which you're about to hear, which was recorded face-to-face in London in late September this year, 2026. And we also talked about her part in the Apple TV thriller Last Scene, co-starring Patrick Bramall of Colin from Accounts fame.

• 8:36Adam Buxton?

  And shortly you will hear me wondering if he used to be a stand-up comedian. No, he's just a good, honest, Australian actor and writer. We talked about growing up in the kind of household where the bants can sometimes be harsh. We compared notes on comfort eating and body image anxiety. Maxine also explained why her patience can sometimes be tested by method actors and why she was so impressed with the young Diane Morgan at a drama school audition. This is the second episode in a row where Diane gets a mention, and I'm very happy to say that she will be appearing on this podcast in person in a few weeks' time, along

• 9:20Adam Buxton?

  with her dog, Bob. Politics and activism have always been important to Maxine, and I asked her whether she feels that all artists with a platform have a duty to speak out on political issues. But we began by talking about the fact that our recording was taking place with no cameras. I mean, there was my phone, which I used to take a picture of us for my website at the end, as I usually do. But apart from that, we were just a couple of humans waffling away with only the sound of our voices being recorded. Back at the end to say goodbye, but right now, with Maxine Peake. Here we go.

• 10:46Adam Buxton?

  We're not being filmed, Maxine.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  So nice.

• 10:49Adam Buxton?

  It's so nice. I hate filmed podcasts.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Well, everybody, everything now is filmed off. It's not filmed. You've got to do a video for something.

• 10:59Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  You've got to. Yeah.

• 11:02Adam Buxton?

  Do you feel differently though? Like, is there a difference for you as a performer, as a guest on these things between something that is and isn't filmed? Like if you're having a conversation like this?

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, unless the filming's right there, I sort of forget that it's been filmed. But even today, they said, would you like somebody to come and do your hair and makeup? Because I've just done a brilliantly neat around the podcast this morning. And they said, because you're being filmed. I was like, does it matter? I'm doing a podcast. Do I have to have my hair and makeup done? But I thought, oh, that's the whole thing now, isn't it? Because you're putting your image. It's just me chatting.

• 11:38Adam Buxton?

  I mean, you're good. You're lucky because you, I don't know how much makeup you have on. It doesn't look like much. You just look like a naturally fresh faced person with a great face.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 11:49Adam Buxton?

  So you are winning, but not all of us are in that position. And I have seen.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  You're all right.

• 11:55Adam Buxton?

  I have seen filmed podcasts where friends of mine, and indeed myself, have appeared looking a little dishevelled. And you get roasted in the comments underneath. They're like, wow, he looks so much older than I thought. And all that stuff. It's like, because it's all in HD as well.

• 12:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I suppose. Yeah, I say in that till it comes out and then I get roasted in the comments.

• 12:18Adam Buxton?

  Do you ever read the comments?

• 12:20Speaker 01

  All the time.

• 12:21Adam Buxton?

  Do you?

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Oh, I love it. I love a bit of self harm.

• 12:26Adam Buxton?

  What a nutcase. I can't believe that you do that. Is that true? Do you actually read?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Sometimes. I mean, I've got better at not, just because my husband used to say, have you been on Twitter? And I go, why? Because all of a sudden the mood is now in your boots. And I go, so I came off that. What I usually like is if, especially like I'm from Bolton, so if the Bolton Evening News ever put anything about me in, is reading the comments under there because they're so vitriolic and actually quite funny in the cruelty. There's one guy who, everything I do always comments, yeah, but she's the same in everything she does, which really makes me laugh, even if it's a different accent, different hair. But I think I can't wait for him to pop up again and just go, yeah, but she's the same in everything she does.

• 13:11Adam Buxton?

  He's probably a mega fan. I mean, he's seen all your stuff, right? He knows that you're the same in all of it.

• 13:18Adam Buxton?

  He loves you. That's the thing is sometimes the people that really follow what you do are the harshest critics.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:24Adam Buxton?

  Because they're like, I know you. I know what's going on in your squirmy mind.

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Well, it's like a member of families.

• 13:29Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, exactly. They know which buttons to push.

• 13:35Adam Buxton?

  So you are here ostensibly because you're talking about last scene, right? You're doing sort of.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Can do, you know, whatever. But yeah, I've got a show out at the moment.

• 13:46Adam Buxton?

  Usually if I'm in this situation and someone like happens to have a show out or whatever, I mean, I will try and watch it. And sometimes it's like, okay, here we go. I have to watch this. But actually, before I even knew, I think that we were going to be speaking, I wanted to watch this. Uh, this is last scene, Australian drama about a police dispatcher called Ian Ridley, whose daughter Maggie disappeared years ago. I'm quoting from the blurb. He receives a call believing it's her and embarks on a relentless quest to find her and reunite his family, disregarding consequences. And it is, um, Patrick Bramall, who is the guy from Colin from Accounts. That's, that's how I know him.

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:29Adam Buxton?

  Is he a massive star in Australia then?

• 14:32Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, yeah. I, I think.

• 14:34Adam Buxton?

  Was he a stand up?

• 14:36Speaker 01

  I, mm, no, I never had that conversation with him. But I don't think so. I don't know. I could be wrong. But yeah, you can never totally tell those things because most of the things I mean, they're so sort of low key, aren't they? You can't, you know what I mean? Very like, but yeah, I didn't realise how big it, I mean, of course Colin from Accounts. But obviously he's got a body of, a huge body of work before that as well.

• 14:56Adam Buxton?

  I mean, he's a really good actor. He's a good crier.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  He's a good crier.

• 15:00Adam Buxton?

  Is he doing that crying for real? Do you know?

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Well, I, I think so because.

• 15:04Adam Buxton?

  Or are they squirting stuff in his eyes? I mean, how much can we say? I guess one of the great things, I love the show, by the way. I'm waiting for episode four to drop this Wednesday. It's really, really exciting and it really moves very fast, the story that is. And you and your husband, played by Brendan Cowell.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:27Adam Buxton?

  Very fearsome.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Very, yeah, isn't it? Very.

• 15:30Adam Buxton?

  He looks not totally different to me. He's like a sort of angry, thick set beardy guy.

• 15:40Adam Buxton?

  And, uh, and they're, they're religious, right? They are, they, they, they sort of want to separate themselves from the modern world.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Yes. So they're sort of slightly off grid in this, that looks like a sort of idyll. Very beautiful sort of handcrafted house that they live in. Um, yes. And there is, they, yeah, they, they are. Yeah, disciples.

• 16:05Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. Not that all religious people want to separate themselves from the modern world.

• 16:08Speaker 01

  No, no, absolutely not. But these two specifically, I've taken the teachings and, you know, made it appropriate to how they want to live their life.

• 16:18Adam Buxton?

  And your character, we don't know. I mean, there's going to be stuff that is revealed about how all these people got to the point that they are.

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:26Adam Buxton?

  But your character is having a kind of breakdown or she's clearly very fragile. Something bad has happened to her.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  I take my work very seriously. Um, yeah, she's not in a great, a great place. Uh, through to, I think she's starting to, you know, it's all starting to unravel the enormity of what's happened, what they've been part of. She feels she's at a point where lots of, the, the world's slightly colliding, the outside world and the sort of cosseted world. And it's taken its toll on Jenna.

• 17:05Adam Buxton?

  And how do you prepare to play a part like that? I've heard you speak before about not being someone who does anything like the method and occupies that space in your personal life for weeks on end or anything like that.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  No, none of that. No, none of that. Um, yeah, read the script.

• 17:28Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  Uh, create a character. You know, I, I, I do things like, I, I'd stuff that I learnt at drama school, just so I feel like I've, I've done something. But, you know, I do things like characteristics. So what's your inner and outer characteristics? Sometimes I sort of think, who do I think this person's like who I know? Is there anybody I know I think I can get some inspiration from? And then go through the script and sort of do a thing called actioning where you go, what's my intention here? You do all that and then, then you leave your script in your trailer and you go down and do it and completely forget all about it. But I think sometimes just to feel like I've, I've got some foundation and just sort of stand opposite the other actor and see what happens.

• 18:07Speaker 01

  Because sometimes you've got to sort of be in the moment and see, you know, you can do all the planning you want. And then if they do something completely left field, you've got to go with it. You know, I mean, so I just don't, they'll still do their own thing. For me, it's a team sport.

• 18:20Adam Buxton?

  I saw a bit of those South Bank shows that you were in back in the day.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 18:25Adam Buxton?

  Nineteen ninety six. And then they came back and did a follow up a couple of years later as well. And it was the story of you, first of all, wanting to go to RADA. Is that right?

• 18:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was sort of cheated because I'd already got in at RADA, but they sort of mocked up sort of, you know.

• 18:44Adam Buxton?

  The backstory.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  They sort of then mocked it up to give it a little bit of, but yeah, it's probably about 10 years ago, a friend who'd never seen her watched it and we, I mean, we did laugh. It's a bit like a Peter Kay sketch. If somebody said that's Peter Kay pretending to be a young drama student leaving Bolton, going to RADA, I'd believe them.

• 19:07Adam Buxton?

  Were you worried about doing it at all? How did they find you?

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Yes. So what happened was, so I'm being, I'm being very facetious. So what happened was I got a place at RADA and couldn't afford to go. There was no way, single parent family. And it's just me and my mum. And so RADA said, we will put you up for this scholarship. Every drama school puts a student up who otherwise couldn't afford to train. And if they, you know, win it, then you get your fees and your maintenance paid for, everything paid for. So RADA put me up and there was about 18 different drama schools. And I went for the first audition and then I luckily got through to the final audition. Um, I met with the National Theatre and auditioned in front of Richard Eyre. Luckily, I didn't know at the time who Richard Eyre was. My naivety got me a long way when I was younger.

• 19:53Adam Buxton?

  And for non theatrical people, who is he?

• 19:55Speaker 01

  Richard Eyre, well, Richard Eyre is a, you know, he, he was then, you know, ran the National Theatre. He's an amazing theatre and film and TV director, prolific. So, um, yes, I didn't, I didn't know. I'd only ever been to Bull Talk again at that point. So I didn't know who, who all these amazing people were. And so I got it and it was the Associated Newspapers. Um, so basically Daily Mail had put this scholarship up every two years. So the Daily Mail paid for my education and, um.

• 20:27Adam Buxton?

  Makes you wince every time.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Well, it's just because they've spent most of it then trying to destroy.

• 20:33Adam Buxton?

  It's how it works.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's all right, it's fine. It's all the game, isn't it? So I by fluke got awarded this scholarship and I had to go to the Evening Standard Awards to collect it. Which was filmed and there was a guy in the audience called Daniel Wiles, who directed the South Bank Show and went, oh. I didn't realise they let, they let people like her in, you know, sort of northerners with a broad brogue. And so he approached Rada and said, could we do a documentary about this, this, this student leave, you know, getting in at Rada? So I got called into the office, into Nick Barta, the principal's office, and I said, no, because at the time, do you remember there was one on the Drama Centre?

• 21:16Speaker 01

  There was a documentary about the Drama Centre, which was quite, it was quite hard going.

• 21:21Adam Buxton?

  What was the Drama Centre?

• 21:23Speaker 01

  That was a drama school in Chalk Farm and they'd done, where they'd let them in, I'm sure like Anne-Marie Duff was in that year and. Who else was in? I don't know, it was John Sit, but there was, you know, a lot of people who've now gone on to do brilliantly. But obviously they were students at the time, but I remember watching it and going, oh, that looks, I don't think I'd like that. And then they said, oh, would you, and I was like, absolutely not. Even at that age, I was like, if they make a documentary about me now. My career's over before I've started.

• 21:53Adam Buxton?

  So you were watching the thing about the Drama Centre and you were thinking, I wouldn't like to be filmed like that.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  And then got asked, would I like to be filmed like that? And then went, oh, no, I don't think so. And then the principal, Nicholas Barta, said, look, it would be really good publicity for Rada. One, to let people know that, you know, we're more diverse in our cohort than people maybe expect. And it'll just give people an insight into training and maybe encourage other people like you to come and, on auditions. So in the end, I was like, okay.

• 22:27Adam Buxton?

  Other Peter Kay characters?

• 22:28Speaker 01

  It's a Peter Kay character.

• 22:31Adam Buxton?

  Why did you think you were like a Peter Kay character?

• 22:34Speaker 01

  I'm just like, oh, hello, like I am now. I mean, I am, I'm, yeah, I don't know. It was just, I suppose. Cringing to the naivety of, of, I remember just the, I'm sat in my tiny little bedroom at home with me. Little pin board all my Storm Roses pictures up in my little red polo net going, oh, I don't know what I'm gonna do if I don't get in. Sort of, it just looked quite spoofy, you know, but I suppose we're so used to those mockumentary type now.

• 22:58Adam Buxton?

  And they show clips of you, like from home videos of auditions and character pieces that you've done, is that right?

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I had a friend Cheryl, his mum and dad were teachers, so they were posh and they had a video camera. So I was trying to get into like a cooperative agency, you know, where they had a lot of those up north where. The actors ran the agency themselves, so you'd go in and man the phones for a day. So there was no sort of hierarchy. And there was one in, in Hebden Bridge called North of Watford. And I, I said to my friend Cheryl, will you film me doing some monologues? And I sent a VHS tape off to them. And bless them, they said, yes, come and be on our books, which, yeah, yeah, it was very kind of them.

• 23:40Adam Buxton?

  Well, they were really good. I mean.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  Oh, they were, oh, they were awful.

• 23:43Adam Buxton?

  No, they weren't awful, they were great. I mean, the thing is that me and my comedy wife, Jo Cornish, used to make home videos back in the day. Since we were like fourteen or thirteen or something like that. And I've still got some of those and they were not as good as yours.

• 24:01Adam Buxton?

  They were really not. But I was thinking about you when, when I watched those clips on the South Bank Show, like, were you. Do you remember what it was like making those tapes? Were you nervous in that moment or were you full of confidence just going? Oh, I, I know this monologue and I'm excited to do it and.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't think I ever watched them back, but I just thought, oh, I know what I'm doing. And I, I think it was like, I've got to do something because I didn't get to drama school, I was twenty one. So I spent three years trying different drama schools and getting rejected. So I thought, I've got to, I've got to do something. I can't just sit and wait. So I, I, I think it was just about being proactive rather than thinking, oh, this is, you know, gonna clinch it. I just thought, well, I've done something. I've sent a video off. It's probably gonna be a no, but I've, I've done something now, so I can sit and now keep waiting to. Eventually, hopefully, getting out of drama school.

• 24:52Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. And what were you imagining in those days? What did your ambitions look like?

• 24:58Speaker 01

  And they weren't huge. I just wanted to act. I, I, to be honest, I think that was my problem. I didn't really have. A grand plan or a scheme. I just thought, if I can actually get a job acting. And I remember I did some theatre and education, so I went to my schools in a transit van with three other actors. Um, preaching to last year secondary school kids about GMVQs, which I absolutely loved. I had the ball. I'm maybe thinking, maybe I could just do this.

• 25:26Adam Buxton?

  What are GMVQs?

• 25:27Speaker 01

  They were sort of, I think they, did they replace like GCSEs or there were some sort of academic qualification? In, you know, secondary schools and we just devised a little show.

• 25:39Adam Buxton?

  Was it like Legs Akimbo from The League of Gentlemen?

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Imagine yourself inside a child. Yes, it was very Legs Akimbo. Actually, because Cragrats, the company I did it with, I think had, I'm sure, maybe. They were based in West Yorkshire, so I think there was some connection with the League of Gentlemen Boys and Cragrats. Yeah, they had like little offshoots of, you know, little companies going out everywhere. I mean, it was a great fun. I was sort of eighteen going round in a, because in a transit van with three other actors, staying in some. Funny house on the side of a reservoir going round to schools with kids literally going, get off. Quite rude. Oh, some were fine, but yeah, it was, it was an experience.

• 26:21Adam Buxton?

  But you were confident though, you weren't gonna be crushed by any negative responses, right?

• 26:26Speaker 01

  No, I was used to, I grew up in a very negative home, so I was used to negativity. It was fine.

• 26:34Adam Buxton?

  Do you have siblings?

• 26:35Speaker 01

  I have an older sibling, yes, an older sister Lisa, who's nearly nine years older than me. I don't know, sometimes I love to say it was being northern, maybe it was just the eccentricity of our, our family, but we, it wasn't a very positive family. There was not really encouragement. It was.

• 26:50Adam Buxton?

  The phrase, you got this, was not regularly employed.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Criticism or mickety taking was seen as a form of affection.

• 27:00Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. But it can be.

• 27:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, but I, I think it was, you know.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  You know, like I come downstairs for a night out and I go, what do you think? And my mum would say, oh, I'm not, I'm not surprised you've not got a boyfriend. Anyway, have a good night.

• 27:18Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  But he was fine, you know, well, was it fine? And now we've hit my fifties and now it's all unraveling, you know, and I'm blaming them for everything. And but no, so I didn't, I did everything, I never, I said to my parents, should I be doing this? Have you got any advice? You just did it. You just went, I'm not gonna ask them, they won't be interested and they won't know. So when I think now, I think, wow, I did lots of brat neck, I think they call it. You know, but I don't think it was like confidence, it was just like, well, you've just got to do it, haven't you? I didn't think, oh, I'm great at this, but I was like, I wanna. I wanna be in, I wanna perform. Originally I wanted to be a comed, I wanted to do comedy.

• 27:55Adam Buxton?

  Right, okay.

• 27:56Speaker 01

  I didn't wanna be an actor because I didn't know how I would fit in to the acting world. But then I thought I'd find a group of people and we'd do sketch comedy and, but then I thought, I've got to get to uni ever to do that.

• 28:08Adam Buxton?

  But then you met Diane Morgan.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  I did meet Diane Morgan.

• 28:11Adam Buxton?

  So why didn't that burgeoning into a collaborative friendship?

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Well, so I met Diane auditioning for Manchester Met Theatre School and they used to make you audition in front of everybody. And I remember sat on like the bleachers, you know, while people got up and did the monologue. And I'd done mine and I got up and then Diane, and I can still remember she sort of came down, she put her in a high ponytail. And she'd done this monologue and it was about, can't remember the woman was a hairdresser or something, but I'd seen so many people do it and it was a comedy monologue. And they'd really like hammered the comedy and Diane played it so sort of straight and subtle.

• 28:47Speaker 01

  And then when she finished, I was like, she's brilliant. And I was like, she's definitely in. And then they'd pack you off to the canteen after as well, they sort of decide who they're gonna recall back. So I sort of scuttled after and went. That one's brilliant, you're brilliant. And she was, you know, she's like, really? And I said, yes, well, I quite like yours too. So I was like, oh, should keep in touch. You know, so we exchanged landline numbers. And we did talk, we had loads of talk. So we started writing. A thing about ballroom dancers in black pool. Then we had this brilliant idea that I think, I think it's brilliant idea, but like I keep saying, we need to go back to about. A giant spider that lived in our house.

• 29:24Speaker 01

  We wrote, we wrote a full script and

• 29:25Adam Buxton?

  Still time.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I keep saying, you know, it might be thirty years old, but we can still dust it down. But I think she's got bigger fish to fry.

• 29:32Adam Buxton?

  She's got Android, that's gonna run and run.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's brilliant. She's brilliant. I'm so, you know what I mean? I used to sort of honor her for a bit and going, come on. But what I love about Diane, she never compromised.

• 29:43Adam Buxton?

  Yes.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  She just went, I wanna do what I wanna do when I wanna do it. And I was, I, you know, I just sell my soul. I'd lose a limb, it's brilliant, and I, for, for a part, you know what I mean? I, I didn't have the dignity.

• 29:58Adam Buxton?

  That's not what it looks like. I mean, it looks like you chose pretty well. But was Diane off screen? Did she always have that same demeanor, that kind of low key?

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, when I met Diane, she was quite, I don't know, shy was the right word. But yeah, but always that very dry. And I remember going into her house when we first met and she lived up in Cursely outside Bolton and going, wow. Going into a teenage girl's bedroom and it's got like, you know, Tony Hancock on the wall and Malcolm and Wise posters, you know, I had the Stone Roses and stuff. And she had comedians.

• 30:39Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah, okay.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  And she loved, you know what I mean? She was, you know, she had her encyclopedic knowledge about comedy. So she was so passionate about it then.

• 30:47Adam Buxton?

  You know, I envy you, your confidence. I envy Diane that sense of doing less.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:53Adam Buxton?

  Do less is pretty much always gonna be a good note, don't you think?

• 30:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's hard sometimes, isn't it?

• 30:58Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, I found it impossible. Whenever I did anything theatrical or any video stuff, I was always like, I'm just gonna do so much that surely no one will be able to complain because they've been given so, so very much. And Joe, I think, tentatively would say, you know, dial it down a little bit. I just couldn't.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  But I love, you know what I mean? I do love those physical performances when you, you, you know, I think there's a place for everything. And sometimes I think screen performance can get so like, what is, you know, sometimes you watch things and think, have they died? I know, it's still alive. But it becomes so small, you, you know, it's, it's, to me, it's always what's truthful.

• 31:42Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, okay.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  What is truthful? I mean, as long as it's as truthful inside as it is outside, you know, then look at Mandy. I mean, Mandy that Diane does, that's a big, you know, physicality with those sort of.

• 31:52Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, that's mad, physical, yeah.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, all right, Android, she's distilled it down to, I mean, and I do think, I, I did text her and I, I had a epiphany when I was watching it. And I said, you're brilliant. I said, I don't know anybody else who could convincingly play a robot and still give it warmth. And I did say you and Alec Guinness, which then she just sent me back a huge laughing emoji. But I knew she'd like that because she's a big, you're both big Alec Guinness fans, you know what I mean? But yeah.

• 32:20Adam Buxton?

  Are you able to sort of distill the things that you got from being at RADA into little sound bites? Like, were there sort of, do you realise like, oh, I got better at this, this and this? Or these were the big things that they armed me with?

• 32:34Speaker 01

  They do give you a toolkit. This is whole thing they used to say about don't end game when you get here. Just, you know, there'll be things that'll come to you ten years down the line. There's things that you'll do and go, why am I doing this? And then you'll do a job in ten years' time and go, ah, that makes sense. I mean, some of it, animal study, I'm still waiting for that to drop.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Um, but I did, yeah, that's another story. Um, but.

• 32:58Adam Buxton?

  And that's just sort of trying to inhabit the physicality of.

• 33:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I do understand. I mean, I do get, but we used to be packed off to, we used to have to go to Regent Park Zoo um, once a week. And it was me and Sally Hawkins, the amazing Sally Hawkins, and, um, Ryan McCluskey, who acted as in my year as well. And we, we were just lazy and we went for chimpanzees. And then we, um, yeah, we didn't take it particularly seriously. And then we came back and for the first sort of couple of minutes, we played the Goodies' Funky Gibbon and did a dance. And then they switched the music off and told us off and said, this was one of the most important, you know, experiences of your training. And we've just basically pissed it up the wall.

• 33:40Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. Everyone does monkeys.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  But because we weren't, you know, they were like, you're supposed to, you know, inhabit, not dance to the Goodies soundtrack. And I was like, on the theme tunes, like, wow. We just thought we'd, you know, shake it up a bit.

• 33:54Adam Buxton?

  Sure.

• 33:55Speaker 01

  And Sally Hawkins has done all right out of it, I don't think.

• 33:57Adam Buxton?

  I think you've both managed to get beyond it.

• 34:24Adam Buxton?

  I've heard you talk before about the, I suppose, the two big challenges that seem to come up or things that people would say to you were often about your accent.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:35Adam Buxton?

  And about the way you looked, about your body image and where you were at that time.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:40Adam Buxton?

  I've heard you talk in terms of feeling that you had an eating disorder even. Is that something you say? I, I think that's something you said when you were talking to Simon Armitage. You used that phrase. Is that how you thought of it?

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Well, I didn't at the time, but because, you know, and this is awful and I shouldn't, you know, I used to slightly joke and, and, you know, and I'm caveatting this with this was not a nice thing to say. And I, I really understand that bulimia is a terrible, you know, affliction. But I used to say, you know, I'm bulimic, I'm just too lazy to be sick, you know what I mean? Because I used to eat and eat and eat and eat. And because I suppose I was just getting fatter and I wasn't getting thinner or, or, or looking fragile or, I suppose, ill, well, ill in, in the way that I was overweight. And I was obese, you know, um, it was a comfort, it was definitely a comfort thing. And I couldn't help it. And it is a form of self-harm.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  You know, but because I think people look at, you know, anorexia and bulimia, which, you know, again, horrific and, you know, and I knew friends who suffered. But for me, it was, I'm not saying it was the same, but it was, it was again, it, I think maybe that, they say that's about control, but overeating and just getting fatter was like punishing. In a way, it was a bit of a self-punishment.

• 35:55Adam Buxton?

  So where was that coming from? Have you sort of psychoanalyzed that for yourself?

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, yeah, I think childhood, parents splitting up was very, um, acrimonious.

• 36:05Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  You know, in some ways, you know, and I was at an age where my sister was a teenager, so she was sort of out of it. But I got, I was a bit of a pawn in the middle of it all. You know, which at the time I just, and I suppose, I think that in a way made me very independent and actually realised you can't rely on, well, generally rely on other people if you want things done or do things or gotta get up and do it yourself. But, um.

• 36:28Adam Buxton?

  How old were you when they split?

• 36:29Speaker 01

  Eight.

• 36:30Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah, okay.

• 36:32Speaker 01

  So, you know.

• 36:33Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, you're absorbing all of it without really being able to get your head around it, I guess.

• 36:38Speaker 01

  And some of it I used to think was fun. Again, my whole thing was laugh, even at that age, laughing at things. But you become the, I became the adult in a situation a lot of the time. You know, tell your mum this, you know, I'll tell my mum that. And you know, go and tell your dad this, you know, when my dad had, you know, divorced dad Saturdays when he used to, when, when, well, he didn't always turn up. But when he did, you know, I'd get taken out on a Saturday and, you know, and then I'd get all that. And then, yeah, just you get in the middle of it all. And, you know, I don't think you realise at the time how much, like you say, you're absorbing and processing.

• 37:09Adam Buxton?

  When you say you get all that, you get him airing his grievances about your mum.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then my mum airing grievances about my dad. And they couldn't be in the same room, you know.

• 37:20Adam Buxton?

  Are they still around, your folks?

• 37:22Speaker 01

  My dad is, my mum's not. My mum, uh, died about twenty years ago, but, um, my dad's, yeah, he's still around.

• 37:28Adam Buxton?

  Were they able to be on good terms ever? No?

• 37:30Speaker 01

  No, no, that, they never, yeah, which I was just like, what? I don't really, when, I don't really, you know, why they couldn't. But anyway, I didn't try to analyse it, just never had them in the same room, you know.

• 37:44Adam Buxton?

  And then how did you change your relationship with food? I'm interested in this, especially because I feel like I had a bit of that as well and maybe still do. Like, you know, certain attitudes to comfort eating and worrying about my body. And it's been like a, a frequency that's gone right through my life a little bit like tinnitus, you know, that, that increases and decreases every now and again. Like sometime, I'll go for months not really being aware of it. And then sometimes you'll really be very self-conscious and, and it's sort of crippling a little bit.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. I just wish people looked, you know, if somebody is overweight, you know, did, I, I always felt as well when I was younger, it was just people go, you, what are you eating that for? You know, so there was a lot of shame around food as well because I was bigger. So if I was eating. But we used to have a little sort of Tupperware biscuit tin. Well, it wasn't a tin, it was Tupperware. But, I mean, so it was like, you know, it made a bit of that noise when you took the lid off. But my mum would be upstairs and go, put it back.

• 38:55Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  I think, how does she know? But I do, I do think it's a real problem because if you don't look fragile, and I think even for us, it's admitting it's a problem. People just go, you're greedy. You're greedy. Well, why, uh, look at the reasons maybe, you know, what, what are the, the causes? But I, then it was after, when I did Dinner Ladies, every job I got offered had fat before the title. So it was Fat Mandy, Fat Peggy, Fat Karen, Fat Matt. You know, those were the days.

• 39:30Adam Buxton?

  Great characters.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Or good time girl or healthy, she's healthy looking and big, you know, so I I.

• 39:39Adam Buxton?

  Jolly.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Thought I'm gonna have to lose some, I'm gonna have to lose some weight.

• 39:43Adam Buxton?

  So weird though, because watching dinner ladies, you, that's not what jumps out at you. It's not like, oh, she's fat or she's overweight.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Well, the first series, I did lose weight between the first and the second series and then Victoria would put me in a fat, I had a fat suit for the second series. But I was always, I think because I'm tall, you know, five, seven. But I was brought, you know, when you look, I look at pictures of my arms, I go, God, they were huge, you know, I was. There was a film once, I can't remember what it was, and I remember sort of saying to my then agent, oh, can you try and get me seen for this? And then she said, I've been in touch with the casting director. And she said, they're looking for normal girls. I was like, oh, I'm not normal. So I just thought, oh, it's gonna be so niche, my casting. And then I remember a friend at drama school just going, well, why don't you try and break that and, you know, play Julia, uh, try and get, you know, I said, but.

• 40:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wouldn't get in the room. I wouldn't. When I first started, I had an audition, it was a production of Three Sisters. I remember the director calling me in and I said, is it for, I can't remember the character, it was like the old housemaid. And he went, why would I be calling a twenty-three-year-old in to play the old housemaid? I said, that's the parts I played at drama school. And I don't really see what part I can be playing in this. And he went, yeah, it's for the youngest sister. I was like, what? I didn't know, and I didn't know to audition for it because I'd always played old people at drama school because I was bigger, which is. Ironic either because you don't generally see big, old, old people, do you? You know what I mean?

• 41:14Adam Buxton?

  They've got tired of eating.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, so, but I remember being, that meant a lot that somebody had called me in, even though I was big. I didn't get it, um, but it just meant that I actually, you know, I thought, oh, that gave me a confidence boost. That somebody thought of me for that role. I mean, I went down the typical route, just doing Weight Watchers at that point. And then got addicted to losing the weight. That was great. Every week you get your little sticker in your.

• 41:40Adam Buxton?

  This is in your twenties?

• 41:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, you've lost a pound, you've lost two pounds. You didn't lose any this week. Oh, God, must try harder next week.

• 41:45Adam Buxton?

  My mum used to do that.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, so and it, and it sort of worked. I think I, I lost about four and a half, five stone. Um, and then after that, I did just try and watch my eating. I think I just became aware. That if I did want to eat as much as I did, maybe just substitute the bread and the biscuits and the cake for. Maybe something a bit better. Try and do some exercise. But I've, I fluctuate up and down, you know, I'm, yeah. I'm, you know, fifty-two now, I'm slightly struggling at the moment, but I do like, I like eating. I say I like food, I think I just like eating.

• 42:22Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, so do I. I mean, it is one of life's great pleasures. You know, like going and having a great meal with friends. And if it's a really good meal, interesting food, well-made food, nothing's better than that.

• 42:34Speaker 01

  I know, and I think, yeah.

• 42:36Adam Buxton?

  Few things.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  But, but as well, I do, I know when I'm, if I get anxious about something, before I know it, I'm, oh, I'm in the fridge.

• 42:44Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  You know what I mean? I do that. Do they call it uncon- unconscious eating? Where I literally see something on the side and then before I know it, I've gone, oh, I've eaten, oh, just eating that.

• 42:53Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  I go, you don't need that. You don't, do you want that? Oh, oh, it's too late, it's gone, it's gone.

• 42:59Adam Buxton?

  I'm even aware of it when I do it sometimes, and then I just go, oh, I don't care. I'll be preparing lunch and while I'm preparing lunch, because it's, oh, I've got to wait for lunch to be prepared, you know, chopping vegetables. What are, waiting for them to boil. I just say, while I'm doing that, I'll have some crisps. And go to the, you know, go and grab some vegetables or whatever. Oh, look, there's crisps there. That's good. I'll have some of those while I'm getting these vegetables and chop them up. And I'm just gonna pop back and have just a few more crisps. While these vegetables boil and then that'll be good. And, you know, it's like that.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  But I don't, well, I, I'm gonna say I don't generally cook. I don't cook. My husband loves cooking. Um, which is good really, because he probably wouldn't eat very well if he didn't. But one of my main reasons about cooking is exactly that. I would eat and then I'd go on full because I've just been eating. You know, and I'm terrible at not being able to work. Like yesterday, I went for a big dog walk and I get back and I'm really hungry. And then I was like, oh, I'm just, I'll just throw us together a salad and, and I thought, I'll cut some bread up, I can have a bit of toast, you know. And then I get the crust and cover it in cheese and stuff in. And then I go, oh, I sit down and go, I'm not quite, not really hungry.

• 44:14Speaker 01

  I can't wait. It's like, no, no discipline.

• 44:17Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, I'm the same. And yet, of course, you are obviously disciplined, like you're able to get it together to. Do all the things that you do and perform and be good at that. It's so mysterious, isn't it?

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's acknowledging it, isn't it? I still say to people, I'm, I'm, I'm la- but I'm lazy. My friends go, lazy? You're the least lazy person I know. In my head, I think I'm lazy, but I don't know again whether that's just. You get an image of yourself that you can't share, you know what I mean? And then I think what is laziness or what actually is just about anxiety going, I don't, I don't think I wanna do that.

• 44:52Adam Buxton?

  Well, you've, maybe you've also got the voices of your folks in your head and the standards that they had. And the sort of bounce that came off the back of.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:03Adam Buxton?

  Those standards.

• 45:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:05Adam Buxton?

  Put it in the memoir.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, put it in the memoir, exactly.

• 45:09Adam Buxton?

  Do a big, long rant.

• 45:38Adam Buxton?

  I loved I Swear.

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Oh, right, yeah, thank you.

• 45:42Adam Buxton?

  I think I met you shortly after I watched it very briefly at a party.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  At a party.

• 45:46Adam Buxton?

  And I wanted to gush to you about it when I saw you. I mean, I already, uh, there's lots of stuff that I've really loved of yours. I loved, by the way, your. Hosting of the Transmissions doc about Joy Division and New Order back in twenty twenty, that really. Kept me company in those dark days. I loved that. It's brilliant. I recommend it to any music fan. I mean, I, I was never a massive. Joy Division, New Order expert, but it was brilliant, that series.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, they did a brilliant job, didn't they? They really did.

• 46:20Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, but I thought I Swear was so good and you were fantastic in it. And it was a real plea for tenderness and understanding. And it was so well expressed and well acted. So for anyone who hasn't seen it. It was based on the story of John Davidson, a Tourette's sufferer. He had a documentary made about him.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  He did, yes, which I saw when I was, I think it was about fourteen, fifteen.

• 46:50Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  John's not mad. I remember seeing, and it really made an impact.

• 46:55Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, it was one of those legendary bits of TV that everyone around that time, it was nineteen eighty-nine, and it was an episode of Q E D. Which is a great programme. Was it on the BBC? I think so.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  Can't remember.

• 47:06Adam Buxton?

  Anyway, they had a lot of really good episodes of Q E D of sort of. Left-field aspects of modern life. Like they had one on spontaneous human combustion. Do you remember that one?

• 47:21Speaker 01

  I was petrified that, I, I was fancied of picking up the Hoover. Wasn't there somebody Hoovering it? I, I can't, but I do remember that was a thing in the eighties. I was, that was one tad to the anxiety list. That was gonna spontaneously combust on top of everything else.

• 47:36Adam Buxton?

  Clear war. And spontaneous human combustion.

• 47:42Adam Buxton?

  That's one good thing about modern life. You don't hear so much about spontaneous human combustion. Everyone's moved on to different. Different things.

• 47:52Adam Buxton?

  But that was, I was worried about that as well. There was that picture in a sort of book of Mysteries of the Unexplained. Do you remember with?

• 47:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:59Adam Buxton?

  With like a black and white picture with a, a, a armchair next to a, a, a gas fire or something. And then just a pair of slippers with what's left of some feet poking out and then just a sort of pile of white ash. Someone had just been sat there and gone.

• 48:18Speaker 01

  I forgot about spontaneous combustion. God. No wonder, but I think the comfort eating comes from, you know what I mean? Never mind.

• 48:27Adam Buxton?

  That's true, yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe. That is true. Back in those days, you needed. You needed some chocolate digestives to deal with the day after and threads.

• 48:42Speaker 01

  Old Zed for Zuckerman, oh the trauma, the trauma.

• 48:45Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. Anyway, John's Not Mad was crazy because no one had ever heard of Tourette's Syndrome before. It was like, wait, what? There's a thing where you go around and you can't help saying these appalling things and swearing and saying all these words you're not allowed to say. And so it worked, that documentary, on a kind of voyeuristic level of, my god, have you seen this? This sort of meme type thing before memes were a thing. And everyone was talking about it the next day at school.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:18Adam Buxton?

  But of course, looking back, you see, like, oh, life must have been incredibly difficult for him, and that's what the film, I swear, is all about. And they did a follow-up thing when he was older, didn't they, about John Davidson?

• 49:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, they did. Because then, I remember, when I was doing Shameless, Jack Dean, who played Marty, I played a character called Veronica, and they were brother and sister, Marty and Veronica, and Marty had Tourette's Syndrome. And I remember, we were talking about John Davidson, he said, oh, he said, that's who I've sort of been researching for Martin. Then he gave, he gave me another video, which was like the follow-up, but then with other young people in, you know, sort of younger than, probably twenty years younger than John, sort of following the... Yeah, and that really hit home.

• 50:01Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  You know, I suppose I was older then, but like you say, at school, I remember it being, we're all like, oh, like, say, oh, did you see that? Did you see?

• 50:08Adam Buxton?

  Yes. And I suppose there was a slightly sensationalist angle that they were playing on in that, I believe it's called coprolalia.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:18Adam Buxton?

  Is the form of Tourette's, which tends to result in involuntary use of obscene and offensive words. It's not like a lot of Tourette's stuff, where they just do, they have noises and other kinds of tics, but they're not necessarily saying extreme things. But it was really great. And you got to know the character, like, Dottie. This character that you played, remind us who she is and...

• 50:45Speaker 01

  So Dottie was the mother of one of John's friends from school. John was having a really difficult time with his family, and basically, Dottie had, she'd been sort of a social worker and a nurse, and just sort of understood him and took him in. She sort of saw that this young man was having a really difficult time. Nobody was understanding, nobody was, you know, very few people were giving him sort of the time of day, and he was a bit lost. So she just sort of said, come in, and he ended up staying with them. And she sort of took him under her wing, sort of a bit like an adoptive mother, but, you know, they have a really, you know, seeing them together, and they're still, they've still got a really strong bond, and they are friends. It doesn't feel like it's a mother-son relationship, they feel like pals, you know what I mean? But she

• 51:28Speaker 01

  sort of took him under her wing and just sort of held his hand for a little bit to help him. Because at the time, there was very few people, you know, like, because there was no understanding of it.

• 51:38Adam Buxton?

  No, people just thought he was acting out. People just thought like, well, this guy

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:44Adam Buxton?

  just wants to do all these things and wants to say all these things.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  Well, that's it. And I think, you know, a son, Murray, as well, you know, I think he befriended John and said, you know, invited him home. So, you know, as well, I think, you know, I think the whole family, they were a really special family. Chris, who's Dottie's husband, and then Murray's Dottie's son. And they're just really special. You know, you can feel the humanity when you, you know, you go to the house. It's just, there's something, there are good souls, good, good.

• 52:11Adam Buxton?

  And in the film, you see that she, Dottie, was diagnosed with terminal cancer at one point, and given like months to live.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was really, because I spoke about it, she said, yeah, she, she, they found this sort of cyst on her liver and said, yeah, it's cancer, you're dying. She said she didn't feel ill, didn't feel, you know, but they said, oh, yeah, it's terminal, you've not got long left. And then it turned out, I mean, Dottie herself, when I spoke to Dottie about her life, you could do a film about, you know, she has an extraordinary life. Anyway, it turned out it wasn't terminal cancer at all. But, yeah.

• 52:44Adam Buxton?

  Unbelievable. To have gone through that. I mean, in the, in the film, you, the character seems to be very resilient. It's like she didn't come apart when she got the diagnosis, or did she?

• 52:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's, it's sort of in that, you don't really see her get the diagnosis, you only see her when she's got the sort of all clear. You know, it's, it's something else, it's not cancer. So in the film, we come into the film after she's sort of been diagnosed. And it was interesting, because I thought, how do I, I play that? You know, there's a woman who's just been diagnosed with cancer, but not, meeting Dottie, I thought she will have been, of course, inside, but outwardly, she's getting on with her life. From what I remember, I said, there was no sin, you know what I mean? She wasn't ill. She was just told that this was, you know, her fate, but...

• 53:29Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. It's crazy. She's still with us, Dottie.

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, she's extraordinary. She's still doing, you know, she does, still does a hell of a lot of work for Tourette's, and she's in touch with John, and she's really special, Dottie, really special. Yeah.

• 53:46Adam Buxton?

  Are you in touch with John? Were you?

• 53:48Speaker 01

  Not a little bit. I mean, I met him when I went up, and I was, it's funny because I was a little bit starstruck.

• 53:53Adam Buxton?

  Uh huh.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  Because I said, you know, I said, I remember seeing, you know, your documentary when I was fifteen, it was quite, and he's so lovely. And he's sort of so humble, and, you know, brilliant, and he's done so, the advocacy that he's done, and, you know, the, the sort of activism that he's, he's done. But, no, we, we didn't really have, because, you know, Rob and John were very close, and then I sort of keep in touch with Dottie, but I find out through, you know, through Dottie, what John's, what he's up to and what's going on, and he's...

• 54:20Adam Buxton?

  That's Robert.

• 54:21Speaker 01

  Arameo.

• 54:22Adam Buxton?

  Arameo, who played John.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 54:25Adam Buxton?

  At the end of the film of I Swear, there seemed to be a suggestion that new tech was being developed that actually might be helpful, like the the wrist device that he was wearing? Are you aware of that, having progressed at all?

• 54:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I don't know, but I know, speaking to John about it, because it's so part of him now, actually having something that will stop, maybe stop or at least relieve his Tourette's for, or I think it can reduce it. He's not sure if that's what he wants, which is really understand, you know, you, you sort of go, of course, because it's so much who, who he is now from so many years. But I don't know how far that's, that's gone on. But I, I do remember him speaking at a screening and saying he, he wasn't sure about it, you know, because he's, he's lived as he is for so long now.

• 55:18Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. I guess it's the same sort of thing that some people have with antidepressants. For some people, they're incredibly helpful and get them into a functional state, and for other people, it feels like they flatten them out in a way that they don't like.

• 55:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:32Adam Buxton?

  And everything becomes a bit foggy.

• 55:36Adam Buxton?

  Have you ever been on antidepressants?

• 55:38Speaker 01

  I...

• 55:39Adam Buxton?

  It's my favourite part of your questions. I always open with that.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Antidepressants. I have, I have actually, yes, yes.

• 55:46Adam Buxton?

  And were they helpful?

• 55:48Speaker 01

  Yes, they were for a little, I went, I was on them for a short, I've sort of two periods of time I was on for a short while, and then I think the second time I realised I probably needed other medication, being a woman of a certain age, rather than antidepressants. And, you know, and I think that, that sorted me out. But yes, I, I, I have. And I was always a bit like, I don't need them, I don't need, and then in the end, the doctor said, I, you know, give it a, give it a go. But it did, it did just settle things and, you know, help me. And I was always frightened that if, if I did, then maybe I, I wouldn't be able to act.

• 56:23Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, that's right, right.

• 56:24Speaker 01

  Or I'd take the edge off, or emotionally I wouldn't be as available, maybe.

• 56:29Adam Buxton?

  And did you feel any of that?

• 56:30Speaker 01

  No.

• 56:31Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  No, no. I don't know, I, I remember, you know, but that, I got slightly obsessed with that. But then, you know, I think the reality of it was, I could still do my job.

• 56:41Adam Buxton?

  Because you've got the craft.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Because...

• 56:44Adam Buxton?

  Because you've got that...

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Because I'm a big old ham. That's what it is.

• 56:49Adam Buxton?

  You've got to have the craft, especially if you're going to play a part like Myra Hindley. How does that not get you into such a dark, depressing place?

• 57:03Adam Buxton?

  That it just sort of leaks into your life?

• 57:07Speaker 01

  Because you have to protect yourself. I think I've always been quite good knowing where the boundary is, where I go, okay, this is just that, it is acting now. I mean, sometimes I think maybe if I did go, if I, you know, followed the method, whatever, you know, people say method, don't they? And I want to go, who, which practitioner do you subscribe to? Um, but, you know, the general term that gets banded about a method, I think maybe I would be better. Maybe would I be a better actor? I mean, I'd probably a more annoying human being, because I find most method actors quite annoying, the ones I've worked with. It's very, I find it very selfish, if I'm being honest. Takes a lot of oxygen out of the room. But that's just my opinion.

• 57:52Adam Buxton?

  And this is, we're describing people who ostensibly stay in character

• 57:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:57Adam Buxton?

  throughout a production.

• 57:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 57:59Adam Buxton?

  On and off set.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:01Adam Buxton?

  And want to be sometimes referred to by the name of the character and things like that?

• 58:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 58:08Adam Buxton?

  I'm thinking now of, well, I suppose Jim Carrey, when he was doing Man on the Moon.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:14Adam Buxton?

  Wanted to be thought, behaved like Andy Kaufman.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:19Adam Buxton?

  And there's a great documentary.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  I've seen, well, I, I, I got through about twenty minutes of that, and I went, oh, I, I, I can't, I can't watch it anymore.

• 58:27Adam Buxton?

  It was a tough watch.

• 58:28Speaker 01

  I want to kill him. Because I think of the impact on all the other actors.

• 58:34Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 58:35Speaker 01

  You know, and then I think if everyone was doing method, it'd be absolute chaos. But I think certain people rely on it's just them. You know what I mean? And not everybody else is doing it. And yeah. I'm not saying I use elements, maybe we did Stanislavski's, you know, we studied Uta Hagen at Rada. I like a bit of Meisner every now and again. I like, I mean, and no, that's not, that is a method. Every actor has a method of how they, you know, create a character, get into character.

• 59:07Adam Buxton?

  What's Meisner's trick?

• 59:09Speaker 01

  Well, Meisner's all about observation. You know, being present, acting is reacting. I can't remember, was it he's called William Asper, the guy who wrote, or maybe it was Sanford Meisner's actual book. And it said, you know, you don't have to be an intellectual to be an actor. And I was like, this is the guy for me. You know, I like this, you know, and it's about observation, maybe surroundings of the person you're opposite. It's about locking in and being present and going with it and not, you know, not playing a mood. You know, sometimes you go, I've got to cry in this scene. And then they'll spend, you know, the next 10 minutes sort of working themselves up. And I think just see what happens.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  It's exciting when sometimes you just go, I'm not planning it. And it, you know, but hey, everyone has their own way of getting through it. And but I generally, I find the method actors who will take, it saps, it saps the oxygen out of the room for everybody else.

• 1:00:06Adam Buxton?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  You know?

• 1:00:09Adam Buxton?

  Why does it do that? Because they're operating on a different?

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  Well, because it's all about them.

• 1:00:14Adam Buxton?

  Okay.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  And it's usually when they're playing a character that is, you know, slightly a bit left field or a bit off kilter. I don't see anybody playing method when they're playing somebody nice. They go, I'm playing this nice guy, Joe, and he's lovely and he, you know what I mean? And he has the fruit and veg shop and he's really lovely to his wife. I'm just going to be method all day and that. They're not doing that. It's like if Joe's a serial killer or if Joe's got an affliction or Joe's, you know what I mean? But then we get, but it doesn't stop. So it's quite exhausting, you know, I like, when I've done my scene, I like to go have a cup of tea, read a book, have a gab, a bit of gossip. You know what I mean? And go, you fellow actors, not somebody coming in, you know, turning the tea table over and being all a bit, you know, crackers.

• 1:01:03Adam Buxton?

  That must be exhausting. But I suppose part of the job, like what you were describing before, being available to things happening in the moment. That requires you to sort of get slightly outside of your own head, right? To be vulnerable to, am I anywhere near describing?

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I don't, I don't subscribe to that thing that I go, oh, so I'm doing a scene, I'm playing a character who's just, you know, mother's just died. So I don't go, oh, oh, I must take myself back to when my mom, I don't do any of that. I go, this character's mother's that. So I try and be the character responding to the situation, not Maxine responding to the situation. Doesn't, it doesn't work for me. I just go, oh, that's this picture of my mom.

• 1:01:52Speaker 01

  It takes me out of, it's play. See play in being somebody else, you know?

• 1:01:57Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  But it's fun.

• 1:02:00Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  Should be fun. I get a bit like, I get on sets and I go, oh, this is not going to be fun, is it? This is really not going to be fun. And everyone's taking it really seriously. And as my mother would say, you're not packing parachutes.

• 1:02:16Adam Buxton?

  That's a good phrase.

• 1:02:25Adam Buxton?

  The idea of everyone having to have a political position if they have a platform. Like what do you do if you are an artist and you have a platform? Do you have a responsibility to speak out on every issue that is like a huge, important one? And I was watching a podcast called Politics, Joe. Do you ever watch that?

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:02:44Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, it's really good. And there was, I think it's really good. One of the hosts on there was talking about the fact that she felt artists do have a responsibility to always introduce politics into whatever venue, like if you're on a stage and it's not a play where you are saying someone else's words, if you are someone appearing as yourself and you have the opportunity to introduce a political message, then you have a responsibility to do so. Like everything has a political dimension, whether you like it or not. And if you are an artist, it's, it's not really good enough just to fudge that and say, oh yeah, but that's not what I'm doing here.

• 1:03:27Adam Buxton?

  And I, I, I know what she means. And of course that's true. Everything does have a political dimension. But I don't know if I agree that you need to hear everybody's opinion on that subject. Like some artists are doing the work they do because they may not be good at articulating their ideas in other ways. Or maybe they don't have well thought through positions on some of those issues.

• 1:03:57Adam Buxton?

  I mean, that's certainly how I feel, you know, some people sort of go, when are you going to talk about Gaza? When are you going to talk about Palestine? Why don't we, you know, it's important for everyone to make their voice heard in this situation. And, you know, I think I've vaguely expressed feelings of shock and sadness about what's happening out there. Like most right thinking people would, you know what I mean? But not made them, not boiled them down to an explicit political statement.

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Adam Buxton?

  And I think for some people that's frustrating or disappointing, you know, and they think that's a kind of cowardly abrogation of your responsibility as someone with a platform. How do you feel about all that stuff? I mean, you are someone who does, who does clearly, or who has made political, straightforwardly political statements.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:49Adam Buxton?

  Have you encouraged people, like friends of yours to do the same? Are you disappointed in people who don't? How do you feel about an artist's responsibility in that situation?

• 1:04:59Speaker 01

  No, I don't believe that everyone has to make a statement. Some people, if they're not, like you say, if they're not engaged politically, if they don't know fully the facts of what they're talking about, then I'd rather they didn't. And I think sometimes we've become, in the West, we've become so obsessed with it that it takes away from what really is happening. So all now we're turning on each other. Why are you not speaking out? You should be speaking out. You've said this, but you should need to see more of that. It's, again, I think it's become very self obsessed. And then, and now I think, but this is, what is this doing to help what's happening in Palestine?

• 1:05:38Speaker 01

  What's this happening, doing to help the Gazans who, you know, homes and, and lives have been obliterated? You know, I, I, I think we've become so wrapped up in, in fighting that it's completely taken away from what's, what's going on. And it's become a bit virtue signaling. And it's become very personal and people are, yeah, I, I just feel it's in many ways, it's diverting from what's, it's really happening. Because you've got all these, you know, people now arguing who should be speaking. It's not about us. It's about what's happening over there. And I've never believed that everyone should speak out. If they don't want to, they don't want to.

• 1:06:20Speaker 01

  Let's just focus on what's happening rather than all this. Cause again, this, this is what's eating everybody's time up. Eating everybody's, you know, social media time up. Eating, playing on everyone's brains. And we're absolutely missing what's still continuing in many countries around the world. The conflicts that are going on, the occupations that are going on, the apartheid that's going on. So no, I, I don't, I don't believe everyone. I believe you should have the right to speak out politically if you want to. But I don't think you should force it onto people because I think that's gets dangerous then.

• 1:06:56Adam Buxton?

  Do you have an idea in your mind for the most constructive way that people can engage with those issues? And be of some sort of practical help? Something that is abstract, that is happening to something that is happening across the world and that they don't have any personal experience of beyond reading it in the news?

• 1:07:19Adam Buxton?

  I'm putting a lot of.

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, but.

• 1:07:21Adam Buxton?

  Pressure on, I'm sort of dumping. How do we be valuable members of society?

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, we, it's about connection, isn't it? It's about educating ourselves and it's about sifting through what is on both sides. What is the truth? You know what I mean? What is really happening? I don't know. I wish I, you know, I wouldn't be an actor if I had the answers. I'd go do something worthy or proper, but yeah. But what, what worries me about things like this, then people go, oh, I'm bored. I don't wanna listen. I'm just, it's all become noise now. So it just takes away and I'm just don't want people to, cause we do, we move on. We see the news and we go, oh, it's too much. I can't keep watching it. Or, or are we still on that war? Are we still on that occupation? Are we still, you know, the, their attention span drifts off and then there's something else to focus on.

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  But all this is whipping up. It's taking the, it's, it's taking the focus away from what's really.

• 1:08:13Adam Buxton?

  Hmm.

• 1:08:14Speaker 01

  The fact that we are in a mess and we need to pressure, you know, the people in charge.

• 1:08:21Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  To, to, to be doing something about it. Can we, can we divert that energy that way?

• 1:08:27Adam Buxton?

  Right. You engage with your vote. You engage by staying aware of the issue. I mean, I have done sort of fundraising things for Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders, because I feel like that is an actual practical benefit to the people in those situations. But I don't think that saying the prescribed slogan when I'm asked to, when I don't know everything that I feel I ought to know, isn't gonna make a practical difference, a positive difference. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, because it just, I don't know. And sometimes I, you know, constantly I get asked, oh, can you comment? Can you comment? And I feel the same. People know my political stance now. Do I have to keep?

• 1:09:16Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:17Speaker 01

  Reiterating it. And I'm, you know, this is what I feel. This is how, who I am. We know this and I, and it's, it's like you have to keep. It just becomes, I think, just let's just move forward about making a change. It is right to you, MP. You know, sign the petitions, like you said, get involved, you know, fundraisers, charity. Get the word out there, but you know, just get into the grassroots, helping the actual civilians. You know, it must be so frustrating when you're in a place like that, when you've been through what you've been, and then you're just watching all these Westerners squabbling over. And you're like, I can't, I can't feed my child. I can't get fresh water.

• 1:09:56Adam Buxton?

  Hmm.

• 1:09:56Speaker 01

  You know, my home's been destroyed and yet we're just seeing this lot over there in, in fighting. You know, constant, yeah.

• 1:10:06Adam Buxton?

  I always think of, uh, Life of Brian.

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is people's, yeah.

• 1:10:12Adam Buxton?

  Not the fucking people's sandwich, Judea. Did you get a people's friend?

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  Who's the guy when they go splitter was, he's always over there.

• 1:10:20Adam Buxton?

  The popular front of Judea.

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:24Adam Buxton?

  Oh, man. What are the films that, do you watch a lot of films yourself?

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I go through phases. I'm not, you know, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:34Adam Buxton?

  Do you always watch new stuff or do you, like, do you challenge yourself?

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  I generally, I mean, I like British films, but I, I do like a European film.

• 1:10:44Adam Buxton?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  I'm not a big Hollywood blockbuster watcher.

• 1:10:50Adam Buxton?

  Right, okay.

• 1:10:50Speaker 01

  You know, I watched recently, I did watch at home was The Christifers with Michaela Cole and Ian McKellen.

• 1:10:57Adam Buxton?

  The Christifers?

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  The Christifers, yes. Ian McKellen plays sort of a, an artist coming towards the end of his life and his children, Jessica, played by brilliant Jessica Gunning and James Corden, sort of hire this art restoration person to basically finish off one of his works that he won't do before he passes. So and it, it just had a beautiful, it's sort of quite a nostalgic feel to it and the acting was brilliant. I mean, it was, you know, basically two handed between Michaela Cole and Ian McKellen. Um, yeah, it just had a really beautiful nostalgic feel to it. Just seeing two actors, two brilliant actors just,

• 1:11:40Speaker 01

  you know, bouncing off each other. Brilliant score by David Holmes. Yeah, I really enjoyed that.

• 1:11:44Adam Buxton?

  God, I've never even heard of that film. That's how totally, it's directed by Steven Soderbergh.

• 1:11:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's only recently, I think it was out last year or something.

• 1:11:53Adam Buxton?

  Twenty twenty five, black comedy, directed by Steven Soderbergh. There you go. Okay, that's a good recommendation. I'm gonna watch that. I'll tell you, uh, the thing that I watched over the summer that was, I was knocked out by, by someone else I totally never heard of. La Chimera.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  Ah, yes.

• 1:12:12Adam Buxton?

  Have you seen that one?

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  Um, no, with, um, Mr. O'Connor.

• 1:12:15Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  Yes, I need to, I need to watch that.

• 1:12:18Adam Buxton?

  I can't remember why I saw it, but it was so good. It's directed by this woman called Alice Ro-Rowacker. And then we watched another one of hers about a sort of weird time travelling thing, an earlier film of hers. That was good too. Happy as Lazarus from twenty eighteen. And, um, that was really good. But La Chimera, like, oh God, I loved it. It was, it was so fun to have that experience of not knowing anything about a film and being completely surprised by it. Quite like Josh O'Connor anyway.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:55Adam Buxton?

  He speaks Italian throughout. Actually, there's a couple of scenes where he's speaking English, but that, that was pretty good. It was beautifully filmed, like, everything about it, just that there's an opening scene on a train and the way it's filmed with the light coming through the trees, strobing down the carriages. Can you picture it? Like shots down the carriage with the light strobing and, oh, it was so good. There's so many magical, interesting moments and great performances through it. So that was, that was good fun. That was really memorable. Um, and you mentioned Michaela Cole before.

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:13:31Adam Buxton?

  You're working with her. Are you allowed to talk about that?

• 1:13:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've just, I finished, um, well, they've just, they've just, I think they've only wrapped a couple of weeks ago, a week ago. So just done this part of this new, her new show, which, well, I think, well, it will be brilliant. Cause the writing is extraordinary. She's written, co-directed it and is in it, is the lead in it.

• 1:13:52Adam Buxton?

  Um, are you able to say what it's about?

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, cause I think, I think I've seen the press, yeah, I've seen a press release. So it's, Michaela plays this writer called Henry who sort of goes on a bit of an odyssey really, finding out about, you know, a, a sort of Ghanaian heritage. And then what unravels from there and the people she meets. And it really is, I mean, it's ten part, so ten one hour episodes.

• 1:14:16Adam Buxton?

  Whoa.

• 1:14:17Speaker 01

  And she's got, it's a few longest amazing cast. But I don't know. I mean, it is, it's brilliant. It goes everywhere. It's about, people keep saying what it's about. I said sort of about everything really. I don't know. I don't quite, don't know if she does it. And in such a subtle way as well, you know what I mean? It's nothing's, but yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it's brilliant. It's brilliant. It's like her character goes on sort of this, this, this odyssey, meeting various people along the way and then brings, brings her back to London and what, what that experience is, you know, and it's, it's funny and it's moving and, but she's, yeah, she's extraordinary. She's, yeah, a true inspiration. I have so much admiration for her, just how

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  she, a brilliant writing, a brilliant acting, but then how she runs a set and looks after everybody. I said, I've not felt cherished on a TV set for a long time. But yeah, it really restored my faith in, in what I do.

• 1:15:12Adam Buxton?

  What's it called?

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  It, well, I think at the moment, it's called First Down Earth. I think that's, now whether that's the working title and then it'll change. But yeah.

• 1:15:23Adam Buxton?

  That's exciting. Is that gonna come out this year or?

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  I wouldn't, I think they've just finished filming, so then editing in ten hours. So it might probably not, might not even be next year. But I think it will be worth the wait when it, well, it will be worth the wait when it comes out.

• 1:15:36Adam Buxton?

  Right. I was wondering what she's been up to because I hadn't heard that much. I mean, I hadn't heard of The Christifers, so clearly I'm out of the loop. But, uh, oh, I'll be very excited to see that.

• 1:15:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:47Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, that'd be great.

• 1:15:55Adam Buxton?

  Wait, continue.

• 1:16:07Adam Buxton?

  Hey, welcome back, podcast. That was Maxine Peak talking to me there. Very grateful to her for making the time. There's a few links to bits and pieces that we spoke about in the description of today's podcast, including

• 1:16:25Adam Buxton?

  one of those South Bank Show episodes, I think it's the follow-up episode from 1998. And in it, you can see a clip of Maxine and Diane Morgan getting elocution lessons. And I mentioned that Diane is going to be a guest on the podcast in the next few weeks. I actually recorded that conversation with Diane last week.

• 1:16:51Adam Buxton?

  And she gave me her side of her relationship with Maxine.

• 1:16:57Adam Buxton?

  It was very interesting hearing her side of being friends with Maxine and then seeing her become so successful as an actor when Diane struggled for years and years before eventually switching to comedy. Anyway, that is coming up

• 1:17:14Adam Buxton?

  at some point in this next run before Christmas. But yes, thank you very much indeed to Maxine Peak. She's one of those actors you always know, whatever they're in is going to be worthwhile. But if you haven't seen them, I would really recommend, I swear. And that drama thriller, Last Scene, is it eight episodes or something? Can't remember exactly, but it's really good. Really good. I loved it. It was gripping. And I also mentioned MSF, Médecins Sans Frontières, in my conversation there with Maxine. One of the aid agencies that go out to parts of the world in crisis, either because of natural disasters, plagues, or war,

• 1:18:00Adam Buxton?

  and give help to the people out there regardless of their political affiliations. You can hear a couple of members of MSF talking to me on this podcast, telling some of the extraordinary stories about the work they do and how it affects them in their own lives. The current director of MSF, Javid Abdelmonem, he was on the podcast back in 2023, episode 210. And last year Natalie Roberts, the executive director of MSF, was on episode number 260. And MSF are an organisation that relies completely on donations. So if you are able to make a donation,

• 1:18:46Adam Buxton?

  there is a link in the description. Thank you.

• 1:18:52Adam Buxton?

  Now, you can probably hear that it is extremely windy. It's actually a couple of days after I recorded my intro. Doglegs is still at home and she understandably is very reluctant to come out and I felt a bit mean making her. But actually, right now, it's not too bad. At least it's not raining, which it has been solidly for the last 48 hours out here. Right now, it's just

• 1:19:23Adam Buxton?

  very strong wind that is blowing big branches down off some of the trees around here. And that probably means that we're going to lose power

• 1:19:33Adam Buxton?

  sometime if it doesn't let up in the next few days. I've got the camping battery all charged up. My wife wanted to know exactly how long that would power the fridge for. I was guessing 24 hours at a push. The right now, this wind is the result of Storm Boulo. My wife was quite indignant when I started saying Boulo. I actually looked up how it was pronounced. She said, "The person on the BBC didn't say Boulo. It's pronounced Boulo." I looked it up. Boulo, Boulo, Boulo. It's Bouelo. Bouelo, Bouelo, Bouelo. According to ancestry.com, the name Boulo

• 1:20:19Adam Buxton?

  is of Dutch origin. It's derived from the old Germanic name Baldowin. Baldowin, which combines the elements win, meaning joy or friend, and bald, meaning bold or brave. So that's good news for buckles. Apparently, I'm becoming increasingly bold and brave. Hey, just back inside editing the outro. And it occurred to me that there's probably a lot of you wondering if I got my parcel delivered the other day after trudging out in the rain and pinning a note to the gate at the end of the track. Of course I didn't. It's broken Britain. Okay, don't forget if you can to get your tickets for myself and Joe Cornish

• 1:21:05Adam Buxton?

  doing our run-through of the 30th anniversary Adam and Joe Show live show at the Hackney Round Chapel. I think I said church in the intro. It's the Hackney Round Chapel, a really beautiful venue. It's going to be a fun night, so I hope you can make it long.

• 1:21:23Adam Buxton?

  You'll get to see a few bits and pieces that the folks at the Albert Hall might not see.

• 1:21:31Adam Buxton?

  Don't forget as well to explore the Patreon page where you will find bonus full-length conversations, Q and A episodes with me talking to Diggory and answering the questions that you send in. Please continue to send in questions about anything. Stuff that we can chat about in the Q and A episodes. And if you're able to send in anything audio, whether it's a jingle or a voice note or something funny you heard, or I don't know, whatever, please do. You'll find all the details for where to send those in the description of today's episode.

• 1:22:15Adam Buxton?

  Oh, wow, it's really

• 1:22:18Adam Buxton?

  getting very Boulo now.

• 1:22:21Adam Buxton?

  Thank you very much to Diggory Waite and to Claire Broughton from Hat Trick for their production support and editing on the Patreon episodes and on this one.

• 1:22:36Adam Buxton?

  Thanks to Seamus Murphy Mitchall for his continued production support. Thanks to Helen Green. She does the artwork. Thanks to everyone at Acast for all their help liaising with my sponsors, but thank you most of all to you. Come here, hey. It's good to see you. We can deal with this, right? This storm. Ah, it's fine. We've seen worse. And until next time, we share the same sonic space. Please go as carefully as you think is wise. And for what it's worth, I love you. Bye.