Pod Insights Happy Place Joel Dommett: “Pretending’s the first step!” Build confidence and quieten nerves About this episode Do you find yourself running a mental list of what you’ve got to do tomorrow...next month... instead of living in the moment? Comedian and presenter Joel Dommett is getting better at appreciating the present.
In this chat, Fearne and Joel debate if it’s a good or bad thing to set career goals, and explore how to focus on the process rather than an outcome. Joel also has some advice about faking confidence in order to build it, and explains why his marathon efforts brought out his shadow side...
Plus, Joel justifies some of his more questionable tattoos, and reveals some big behind the scenes gossip from The Masked Singer!
Joel’s Happy Idiot tour has been extended into the autumn; get your tickets here https://www.joeldommett.com/.
If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like:
Mo Gilligan https://pod.fo/e/2d3d77
Julian Clary https://pod.fo/e/2b6890
Joanne McNally https://pod.fo/e/294cdf
Child on the line is a three-part documentary podcast series celebrating the Volunteer Counsellors of Childline, and the brave children & young people who contact the helpline service.
Listen here: https://www.childonthelinepodcast.com/
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Transcript 14,460 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 Hi, I'm Natalie Dormer and I'm proud to be an ambassador for Childline. This year, Childline turns 40. To mark it, I've made Child on the Line, a three-part documentary podcast. We hear why children needed a helpline in 1986, how it was built against the odds and the challenges children face today, from abuse and mental health to social media and AI. Search Child on the Line and listen wherever you get your podcasts.
0:28 Fearne Cotton? Hello and a massive welcome to Happy Place with me, Fern Cotton. This is the show that makes you feel a little bit lighter. Today, I'm chatting to the lovely Joel Dommett.
0:39 Speaker 02 I've got these awful flashes of what I think is the worst part of my personality that came out at this time. I have a flash of me being dragged by two marathon employees to the ambulance and me shouting at what is people who are watching the marathon and just go like, someone record this. Like, I think I'm more important than the 50,000 people who are running. Like, it's the worst side of me that's ever come out and God forbid it ever comes out again.
1:13 Fearne Cotton? I'm really excited for you to hear this episode for lots of reasons. One of them is because, I mean, we touched on lots of different subjects, but one thing we talk about is really trying to sort of be present and find joy in the moment. And I think it's been a bit of a theme of my week. I took my kids to the circus. It was a circus with, it was like an old school circus, no, you know, animals being mistreated, et cetera, just sort of acrobatics and a clown doing ridiculously funny things. And it was one of those moments where I was mainly watching my kids' faces, which were lit up so beautifully. They were like laughing their heads off, squealing with joy. And I sort of got carried along with it. And I, like, I'm sure many of you, am the sort of person that can get a little bit in my head.
1:58 Fearne Cotton? And if I'm at something like the circus, I could be thinking, oh my God, when I get home, I need to do laundry and then I forgot to buy cat food. And I'm just running a mental list of what I need to do next. But actually, just watching their faces and seeing the joy in the moment made me do exactly, like, it was contagious. It was so wonderful. And it's something I've been thinking about a hell of a lot recently. I mean, it's obviously... You're not going to get that all the time. I did also go to a Jurassic Park experience with the world's worst hangover the day before. And let me tell you, I was not present. I was hot and bothered and it was really noisy. I mean, it was great fun. The kids loved it, but I was like, it's not, it's not with a hangover, is my tip of the day.
2:40 Fearne Cotton? So we're going to talk about all sorts of things, including being present and in the moment. Let's talk about Joel in a niche way first. He is such a beloved comedian and TV presenter. And he hosts the Never Have I Ever podcast with his lovely wife Hannah, too. I absolutely adore Joel. We've sort of met each other over the years at work things and he's been on Celebrity Juice. And personally, I love being a viewer of his TV shows. Me and the kids are obsessed with The Masked Singer. Do you know what I do on long car journeys? If I'm really bloody bored and I'm on my own, I will listen to random songs on shuffle and sing along to them. And when I've really nailed a song,
3:21 Fearne Cotton? I think that would be my Masked Singer song. I mean, what a loser. That's so tragic. But I am like a mega fan of The Masked Singer. I just think Joel is brilliant. And as you probably imagine, as a viewer, he is as nice as he is on TV in real life. He's just a bloody good guy.
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4:47 Speaker 05 And together we take on the hilarious challenges of modern life.
4:50 Speaker 06 William's the arbiter of etiquette.
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5:08 Speaker 06 Be warned, it's a bit rude.
5:14 Fearne Cotton? We're going to get to Joel in just a second, but a quick reminder that the Happy Place Festival in Gunnersbury Park, London is only, OMG, three weeks away. I actually can't believe it. I am buzzing with excitement. And then we're going to be at Tatten Park, Cheshire on the 30th and 31st of August. I'd love it if you'd come along. Have you got your tickets yet? I hope so. It's going to be so gorgeous. We're going to do all sorts of nice things there. We've got some lovely workshops and lovely talks. There's so much to do across the days, whether you want to do arts and crafts or yoga of all levels. Breath work, like relaxing sound baths, which mean you basically just lie down and someone makes nice noises and you feel super, super chilled. Get your tickets at happyplacefestival.com.
5:59 Fearne Cotton? Okay, look, there's no official start to this podcast episode because we were just already talking and I'd already interviewed Joel once that day. So we're just, it was just like one long stream of consciousness that you are jumping into. Here goes. Here's the show.
6:35 Speaker 02 Stupid things. This was, no one wants to hear about tattoos, but
6:39 Fearne Cotton? We do.
6:39 Speaker 02 This is a, it's a bird. It's a crow on my arm. And people are like, why have you got a crow on your arm? And the genuine reason is that the lady who did it was good at crows.
6:52 Fearne Cotton? Are you joking? You're like, just do a crow.
6:55 Speaker 02 Just what I was like, what are you good at? She's like, I think crows. And so I got a ma- like, and it's, they always wanna do it bigger than you want it. So I was like, oh, maybe I get small crows, takes up the, my entire forearm. Absolutely massive, it's like two full days.
7:10 Fearne Cotton? She is good at crows.
7:10 Speaker 02 I mean, this is another bad story that's really bad. I'll see if, so, I got this done and then at first day, the end of the first day, I noticed there was this weird line coming out the back of the crow.
7:21 Fearne Cotton? What?
7:22 Speaker 02 And I was like, that's weird. What is that line? And then I Google imaged the picture that she'd gone from and I realised that she'd not gone from a picture of a crow. She tattooed a picture of a taxidermy crow that was hanging from someone's roof. And the line was the bit of like string. And I was like, that's a bit of string. She's like, no, no, it's not. And then she covered it up on the second day. So it's not even a real, when you look at it, you're like, oh yeah, that doesn't actually look like a-
7:49 Fearne Cotton? It's a dead crow.
7:49 Speaker 02 It's a dead crow. It's so emo.
7:51 Fearne Cotton? Wow.
7:52 Speaker 02 It's a bit of you, that, dead crow on your arm.
7:54 Fearne Cotton? It's so me in the early noughties. It's a joke.
7:57 Speaker 02 That's, that's stuffed with something. That's not a real, a crow, a crow isn't like-
8:03 Fearne Cotton? No, it's really not. No.
8:05 Speaker 02 It's got some sort of flow to it.
8:06 Fearne Cotton? It's just a dead crow, some sort of flow. It's just a dead crow.
8:09 Speaker 02 Why is his eyes like so lifeless?
8:11 Fearne Cotton? Wow, a soulless crow.
8:14 Speaker 02 Which is also the name of my new band.
8:15 Fearne Cotton? What a bad name. Actually, someone needs to take that.
8:18 Speaker 02 Soulless crow.
8:19 Fearne Cotton? Just a free name for you guys. Um, I like talking about tattoos, Joel Domit, a lot. Me and Ryland did an exploration of bad tattoos recently. I mean, we've both got Chinese symbols. There is no more awful tattoo, I don't think. And no judgement from me. I mean, I have a teddy bear because Teddy Swims can only do that tattoo.
8:37 Speaker 02 That's great.
8:38 Fearne Cotton? That's the only one he can do.
8:38 Speaker 02 Cause that is a story. It's the story behind it that's important.
8:41 Fearne Cotton? It's the story behind it.
8:42 Speaker 02 Because it makes you, what, what I love about tattoos is that it bookmarks your life at a certain time.
8:48 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
8:48 Speaker 02 So like, there's no other reason for me to remember the, the Edinburgh show that I did where I got the Edinburgh tattooed on my ribs there. Like, and it's like a grotty little tattoo place where I realised halfway through, it's a tiny tattoo. And it took like three hours and it would have taken anyone who was good at tattooing fifteen minutes, right? And halfway through these two hours, that's when I asked him of his experience.
9:16 Fearne Cotton? Oh.
9:17 Speaker 02 Turns out, first tattoo.
9:18 Fearne Cotton? Brilliant, brilliant. And what is that, that tattoo?
9:22 Speaker 02 It's my first Edinburgh show that I wrote as a comedian. It was called Neon Hero.
9:27 Fearne Cotton? Right.
9:27 Speaker 02 And so it's got neon hero and it's on, I cannot tell you how small it is. And it took two and a half hours.
9:33 Fearne Cotton? Was he shaking at this?
9:34 Speaker 02 Shaking, sweating. I was like, mate, why is, and I, and that was my, like my second tattoo. So I was like, maybe this is normal.
9:43 Fearne Cotton? No.
9:43 Speaker 02 That a guy is like perspiring over.
9:47 Fearne Cotton? So great. Hey, talking of touring, you've been touring literally all year and you're gearing up now for a second leg of your Happy Idiot tour.
9:55 Speaker 02 I'm doing the Palladium next year.
9:57 Fearne Cotton? I mean, that is such a great gig venue.
9:59 Speaker 02 It's really beautiful. And I actually haven't done a proper London tour date for maybe like five or six years.
10:06 Fearne Cotton? Really?
10:06 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's really weird. I just didn't, my last tour, I didn't really go in because you do periphery towns of London. But I never really went and did a big one in London. And so I'm really, I genuinely have loved writing this tour because it feels like I've actually got something, not just to write about, but to care about. Because now I've got an eighteen month old child and it's nearly two and, and so that feels like, I feel like I'm just sort of doing it for a different reason. I'm not just doing it because I love it. I'm now doing it because I'm like, oh, this is like, I feel like it's a real privilege what I do for a living and, and you know, it's all very cheesy, isn't it? But suddenly I'm like, oh, this is why you make a bit of money. So you can take it home and feed your child.
10:47 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, yeah, there is feeding the child and entertaining the child and buying clothes for the child and all the things like that.
10:54 Speaker 02 To tell you what, what I'm finding the difficult thing.
10:56 Fearne Cotton? Go on, hit me.
10:57 Speaker 02 Not to turn this into a parenting podcast.
10:59 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
11:00 Speaker 02 You've got to find the, the right clothing that fits the child at the time, which like the, the, the ages of clothing is like, you know, all over the shop. Sometimes he's in three, sometimes he's in an ear and a half. But then you've got to buy the right seasons.
11:14 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
11:15 Speaker 02 So you, literally you'll, he'll wear something for like a day and a half and then you're like, it's gone.
11:20 Fearne Cotton? It's done.
11:21 Speaker 02 It's gone. Why can't he just wear sacks?
11:24 Fearne Cotton? Sacks?
11:24 Speaker 02 Do you know what I mean? Just put them in like a Hessian sack for four years.
11:28 Fearne Cotton? Bring it, bring the Victorian era back.
11:29 Speaker 02 Yes.
11:30 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
11:30 Speaker 02 Just put them in a, cut a little hole on top of a Hessian sack. Pop them in that.
11:35 Fearne Cotton? I'm, I'm, this, I'm seeing like the Joel Dommett baby range looming. It's happening.
11:40 Speaker 02 Yeah, and then you can turn it back upside down and use it as a bag when he's too old for it.
11:44 Fearne Cotton? With a hole in the bottom.
11:45 Speaker 02 Hole in the bottom. I'll, I'll get my wife to sew that up.
11:49 Fearne Cotton? Shall we put you on Dragon's Den? Shall I call Steven Bartlett?
11:50 Speaker 02 Yes.
11:51 Fearne Cotton? Shall we see if this has like got legs?
11:52 Speaker 02 I'll get them, I'll get Deborah Meaden to put a bag on her and be like, what do you think? What do you think, Peter?
11:58 Fearne Cotton? Well, now we've solved your parenting dilemmas.
12:00 Speaker 02 Yes.
12:01 Fearne Cotton? Um, let's talk about your life at the moment because you've had a huge moment that you've just turned 40 at the weekend. On Sunday, you had a big party Saturday. The big question is, why was Ben Shepard pulling you around the floor by your arms?
12:15 Speaker 02 My fortieth party, um, someone said to me at the party, um, Joel, this is the weirdest collection of people in one room that I've ever been involved in in my life.
12:25 Fearne Cotton? Who are we talking? Who's there?
12:26 Speaker 02 So we had like Ben Shepard there and then you also.
12:29 Fearne Cotton? Who is the nicest man ever to live.
12:31 Speaker 02 What a, what a wonderful human being who's so nice and so successful while being so lovely.
12:37 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, and like muscly and.
12:39 Speaker 02 And muscly.
12:39 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
12:40 Speaker 02 I, I just, when you hug him, you grab such a big amount of lat.
12:45 Fearne Cotton? There's so much lat.
12:46 Speaker 02 There's so much lat.
12:48 Fearne Cotton? Disproportionate lat to just like, oh.
12:50 Speaker 02 Yeah, feels like he's smuggling baguettes.
12:53 Fearne Cotton? Maybe he is. That's, he's carb loading.
12:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah, maybe grab one out, just, just nibble on the end. Maybe you go from the middle because that's the nicest.
13:01 Fearne Cotton? I climbed Kilimanjaro with Ben. Could there be a better person to walk for hours on end through just relentless grey rock with? No.
13:09 Speaker 02 Such a good guy.
13:10 Fearne Cotton? He's so lovely.
13:11 Speaker 02 This is, uh, this is all gonna, can we do the next 45 minutes about him?
13:15 Fearne Cotton? Just about Ben?
13:15 Speaker 02 Just about Ben Shepard.
13:16 Fearne Cotton? I mean, I could fill a podcast about Ben.
13:18 Speaker 02 Yeah, he's absolutely great. We're actually starting a business together.
13:20 Fearne Cotton? Are you?
13:20 Speaker 02 To give a small tease, but, um, but we, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna.
13:23 Fearne Cotton? Can you tell us what it is or no? It's a secret.
13:25 Speaker 02 I don't really know whether we're allowed to yet.
13:27 Fearne Cotton? Baguettes.
13:27 Speaker 02 But it's, it's fully all about carbs.
13:30 Fearne Cotton? This is exciting.
13:31 Speaker 02 It's called smugglebaguette.com.
13:34 Fearne Cotton? I'm in.
13:34 Speaker 02 And Hessian Sax.
13:37 Fearne Cotton? Hessian Sax.
13:37 Speaker 02 It's a niche business that we're going into, but I think it's gonna be really successful. But so you'd have Ben Shepard, then you had Lee Mack, and then you had Wayne Bridge.
13:47 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
13:48 Speaker 02 Frankie Bridge from the Saturdays, then also like Sam Carter, who's the lead singer of Architects, my favourite band. So you've got like a metal singer talking to my dad, who's a truck driver from Bristol. Talking to Lee Mack and then Ben Shepard.
14:07 Fearne Cotton? So great. You've covered all the areas, like all the genres.
14:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's a very strange, it was weird things. I haven't had a party since I was like 21. And I genuinely found it quite hard to enjoy.
14:18 Fearne Cotton? Why's that?
14:20 Speaker 02 It's a weird one because I don't know whether it's because of my job. I think my job is to make people in a room enjoy themselves, right?
14:28 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, so you feel responsible.
14:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I found it really difficult to like go like, I'm having fun, instead of thinking like, oh, is everyone here having fun? And my wife, who had organised the whole thing incredibly, came up to me and was like, you're having fun? And I was like, I think so, which is not the answer you want to hear when you've spent the last sort of two months trying to make sure that you've got the right venue and that you've, who can make a cake made entirely of my face?
14:55 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, great cake.
14:56 Speaker 02 Great cake. And so, yeah, but I eventually got drunk and it was fine.
15:01 Fearne Cotton? It's really interesting, that responsibility that I think a lot of entertainers feel, that it does spill over into your private life. You know, it is your job, as you've just stated, to entertain a whole room of people. And they've paid money to be there. There is an accountability, like you want to show up and do your best. They go home thinking, yeah, I'm glad I got a babysitter, I'm glad I bought the ticket, I'm glad that I took the time to travel from wherever. That is tricky when you end up in social situations where, you know, that's not the setting to have to carry that weight, but you kind of end up doing it, I get it.
15:33 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I also charge people to be at my party too, so that helps. But like the, um, no, I didn't, the, um, but yeah, no, I do, I do, I was talking to you about this earlier, but I think, um.
15:45 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, this is my second interview with you today.
15:46 Speaker 02 Which is fantastic.
15:47 Fearne Cotton? It's like a lot.
15:48 Speaker 02 No, it's not.
15:49 Fearne Cotton? That's great. It's so, me too.
15:51 Speaker 02 It's, it's great. And, um, and let's make it a third.
15:54 Fearne Cotton? I agree.
15:55 Speaker 02 Let's go.
15:56 Fearne Cotton? Women's hour?
15:57 Speaker 02 Yes, please.
15:58 Fearne Cotton? Okay.
15:59 Speaker 02 Um, I, uh, I find it so strange now doing gigs because I, I appreciate the audience more than I ever have. Before I knew I used to do gigs, it was like lovely that people were there and I was like, this is so cool, what I'm doing. But now I feel like I, I, I under, when someone gets a babysitter to, to be here and spends money to, to be sat there and have a nice evening. And when I see someone in the audience laughing, it does something to me that, that makes me appreciate it so much more than I've ever appreciated it. Because I know what it means to like turn your phone off for like an hour and a half and spend this evening with me. And I know how expensive babysitters are. I know how much parents don't want to leave their children with other people.
16:44 Speaker 02 Like, that's a real responsibility that you give to someone. And all of those things, just to spend a night with, with a guy that they've seen on a show or something that they might find funny. It's, it's like a lot of trust. And if I think about that, that pressure too much, then it, then it all becomes a bit much.
17:00 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
17:01 Speaker 02 But I just try and just enjoy, enjoy it and have a, have a nice time. I always try and think as little about stuff as, as possible, otherwise it becomes really overwhelming.
17:10 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, you need to almost get into a meditative flow where you're just in the jokes and nothing else exists. Is that easy enough to do?
17:17 Speaker 02 I try to, I try to really boil it down to what it, what it actually is. Like, when I do the NTAs, the O2, live on ITV.
17:27 Fearne Cotton? It's terrifying.
17:28 Speaker 02 That all of the people who would be better at your job are sat right in front of you watching you. And I just try and go, it's just reading, innit? So I've just got to read this thing that's on the autocue.
17:39 Fearne Cotton? Can you get to that place in your head? I don't think I've ever really managed to do that.
17:43 Speaker 02 I kind of, I kind of pretend, I pretend I can, and I think pretending is the first step on, on the ladder to becoming it. Again, probably a very cheesy thing to say, but I think if I just really, really pretend that that's what it's about. I know in my heart of hearts I'm nervous, but that is all that it is. I've just got to read. And it's, you bring your heart rate as low as possible because you know, you can't read autocue if your heart rate's right through the roof. Because you start too fast, you've got nowhere to go. So if you start really chill and enjoying yourself, then, and also it draws everyone in. Everyone's like, oh, this guy's comfortable.
18:19 Fearne Cotton? Yeah. So how do you get to that state? Because I think I, when I was younger, I definitely could do that naturally. Because I was naive enough and maybe even cocky enough to think, yeah, you know, I'm on TV and this is what I love doing. And it was just all very second nature. And then I think the older I got, that just died. And the heart rate was really hard to control. The nerves would kick in if I didn't feel safe. And I think I found it almost impossible to go, just be really, really chilled. I mean, I can do it in certain environments. I love doing talks. I love doing this. I don't feel, I feel as calm as I humanly could. But there were some situations, certainly live TV, where I would feel there was no way I could control it. What, what's your method to get into that mind state?
19:02 Speaker 02 I really think about your interview with Davina that you did. I think it was either her on yours or you.
19:08 Fearne Cotton? Me on hers, yeah.
19:09 Speaker 02 And you talked about how you did Radio Two for a week and it was cover and you went to sleep.
19:16 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
19:17 Speaker 02 And it was getting worse and worse and you kept on thinking about it. I genuinely think about that all the time. Because I feel like that's, that is there in me. And this job is very strange in the way that you do at some points have hundreds of thousands or millions of people listening to you. And if you think about the weight of that, then it is just, it's, it's all consuming. It's too much. But if you boil it down to what it actually is, it's you with a microphone, which is such a weird contrast that you, I can't. I think I live somewhere in the middle of that and I try, I'm basically, I feel like my life is constantly dealing with swinging from either side or both of our lives is that,
20:01 Speaker 02 I think. And I, it difference to you, I think you were thrust immediately into this madness from quite an early age and you're immediately on these massive shows and in these magazines and being known as you. And then you, I think, maybe learnt to deal with that, that gravity later on of like, oh my god, I was huge back then.
20:25 Fearne Cotton? Definitely.
20:26 Speaker 02 Whereas me was the other way around, I suppose, where when I was younger, I was just doing stand up for a really long time and then built my way up the stand up ranks and did all that, did the Edinburgh shows, did the tours and to nobody, played rums of two people and one of those people would walk out halfway through. And then when I did start to get on telly, when I'd probably been doing it for about eight years, something like that, it felt like it was to a degree earned, I suppose, at that point in my career, not to say it wasn't for you, but like, so I felt like it was easier to deal with then and now, I think, because I look back and go like, wow, that was, that was my life without it, I suppose.
21:10 Fearne Cotton? And I think stand up is so brutal and I guess if you're gonna gain resilience, it's gonna be in that environment where, like you say, you're in a show and you can see the audience really clearly, they're sat in front of you, it's not like viewers at home watching TV. If people don't like it, you know, the jokes aren't landing, you know, people walking out, you see them go.
21:30 Speaker 02 Yeah.
21:31 Fearne Cotton? How did you initially cope with that? Because it is a real dent to your ego when, you know, you believe something you're gonna say is really funny and when the reception isn't there, that's a really hard thing to stomach.
21:42 Speaker 02 But it's on the flip side of that, and again, I'm an eternal optimist. So the flip side of that is it's the most beautifully productive thing that you could ever do in your life, right? You go out and you, you do a set and a bit works, a bit doesn't, a tagline works and you're like, oh, I feel like I could add to that, da, da, da. And then the next night you go out and you do it again. A couple of weeks ago, me and my wife, we did a speech together at a friend's wedding and
22:09 Fearne Cotton? That's fun.
22:10 Speaker 02 It was really fun writing it together and doing all this stuff. And then we, of course, what happens is all the bits that you think are absolute bankers, really fun bit. Goes like, fine. And the bit that you didn't even think was like, you thought it was just a little funny bit, but not really anything. That's like the bit that everyone's rolling with laughter, having the best time of life. So you never really know until you do it. But I said to Hannah, I was like, can you, do you, for the first time in life, she got it, what I do for a living. In the, I was like, imagine if we were doing that speech again, somewhere else tomorrow. Imagine how much better that speech would be tomorrow. Cause we'd take that bit that worked really well and we'd enhance it. And we'd like nurture that bit. We'd get rid of the bits that we thought were great, but actually were really shit.
22:53 Speaker 02 And then we'd like tie the end up. And like, that's the process that I love so much.
22:58 Fearne Cotton? It's like data. You're just collecting data every night.
23:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah.
23:02 Fearne Cotton? That's cool.
23:03 Speaker 02 And you learn that, yeah, the death stuff is not nice. Like you, you have bad gigs. But I think that was also, again, to the flip side of it, keeps you like a, a good person.
23:13 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
23:14 Speaker 02 Because I expect if you're like a rock star and you're going out every night and everyone's loving you every single night. It's sort of, your brain just tells you that, you're like.
23:23 Fearne Cotton? You're great.
23:23 Speaker 02 You're incredible.
23:25 Fearne Cotton? It's not good for a human.
23:26 Speaker 02 It's not good, right?
23:27 Fearne Cotton? It's really not.
23:27 Speaker 02 It's, I, still, even obviously you know how to avoid the bad gigs now, I suppose, but. You, you still have to work up material for a new tour. You have to go out in front of. Smaller audiences that don't know that you're gonna be there. They might be like a massive fan of Tim Vine sort of stuff. And then they've got you and. And then you have a bad gig and you go, okay, cool. You know, it keeps you like a bit, hopefully, nice.
23:52 Fearne Cotton? Hashtag humble.
23:53 Speaker 02 I am so humble. Jolde from the block. Me, I'm so humble, guys.
23:59 Fearne Cotton? You are. You're just a humble guy. Does touring life suit you? Cause it's quite an unusual way to live. And I know that obviously. You know, you can make it work to an extent with your family life and whatever you're doing now, cause you're at that level, but. It's still full on. There's a lot of travelling involved, not staying at home. You can get lonely. You know, how does it work for you?
24:16 Speaker 02 Again, I don't think people realise this about stand up, is that. They don't have to be exhaustive, stand up comedy tours. Like if you're in a band, you have to, you have the trucks that have all your set and you have drums and everything on. So you do. Like if I was a band, you'd go out on tour like for a month, like bash, bash, bash, bash, bash. You'd be away from home for that whole time. It'd be really hard and sleeping in a tour bus and stuff. With stand up, it's great cause like I can just, once that show is written, I go out for like two nights a week. Go there, do that stuff and then I can do filming bits in between and then I can make sure I'm, even if I'm out and I'm hours and hours away. I just drive home and get back at three in the morning, but then I'll be waking up for breakfast with my son.
25:00 Speaker 02 So it's, um, it's genuinely being on tour isn't as hard as writing the tour. Writing the tour, you've got to be out as many nights as possible for like two or three months. Like to just like getting that tour ready. And again, going to like gigs that you don't even know are good. So there'll be like ones where there'll be like no people there. There'll be like shows that aren't right for new material. Where people are like, why are you reading from a book? Like this is weird. I don't get that. And like, that's the hard part and you've got to do it so many times nights a week. Because if you do that once a week, by the time you go back and do it again, the next week, you've forgotten what worked and what didn't.
25:44 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
25:45 Speaker 02 Cause it's like in those really tiny little moments, you have to like go do three nights on the bounce at least. Sometimes doing three nights, three gigs in a night, just going and gig, gig, gig, gig, gig.
25:56 Fearne Cotton? I don't think I realised how, um, exhaustive that bit was. I don't think I'd really given it. I guess it's like you're training with the Olympics and the tour is the actual Olympics. But the bit you're doing before is like, that's the training. I don't think I'd realised how.
26:08 Speaker 02 It's great.
26:08 Fearne Cotton? Hardcore that is. Yeah.
26:09 Speaker 02 And it's great on one hand because like, imagine if musicians could do that. They could go out and be like, do you like this chord?
26:14 Fearne Cotton? Yeah. Is this a good song or should we ditch it? Yeah.
26:17 Speaker 02 Shall we get rid of this verse?
26:18 Fearne Cotton? It's handy. I love that. The interesting thing about being a stand up, I, I sort of liken it in a way to, I watched that Netflix tennis documentary. I never remember the name of it.
26:27 Speaker 02 Break Point?
26:28 Fearne Cotton? Break Point, Point Break. Which one was it? Keanu Reeves surfing or I don't know. Anyway, one of the, one of those. And, and it's so interesting, being a stand up, being a tennis player, you are on your. Own.
26:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
26:40 Fearne Cotton? And I don't mean that just sort of like physically in the job, but mentally, I'm imagining, I mean, I would feel like this, it's quite a lonely place because if you're playing tennis or you're doing stand up, you can only rely on hope that it's gonna go well.
26:55 Speaker 02 Hmm.
26:56 Fearne Cotton? The knowledge that you have a skill set and some sort of inherent drive that you know is gonna keep you moving in the right direction, even when things aren't on track. So I mean, it's not even just in a singular gig, but in the terms of, you know, starting out in comedy, wanting a career, you've got to remain optimistic, hopeful, resilient, confident, without a team of people, like you're not in a football team, you're not in a team, working on a project together, it's just you.
27:24 Speaker 02 Yeah.
27:25 Fearne Cotton? Why do you think you as a person, your personality suits that and is able to, or has been able to do that to succeed?
27:32 Speaker 02 I didn't, I didn't really realise until I, I had a child myself, that I realised that my childhood was actually quite sort of geared towards me being a stand up comedian. I think it suits me as a person. Um, I'm, I'm a bit, I was a bit of a loner, I suppose. I grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, where I couldn't travel to like the nearest town without getting a lift from my mum. And so it was like very isolating. My brother always wanted to be a farmer, so he was so happy on the farm, whereas I didn't, so I just would just sit in my room and make up stories and make up performances for my mum and all of that stuff. So that, that sort of loner lifestyle has just been really perfect for me.
28:16 Speaker 02 And like, when it, when I first started, that sort of drive that you were talking about, I didn't really, that, that naivety that you said you had in your career, I, that naivety in stand up is just, you're doing it because you love it. You know, I didn't think about it being career, ever, ever. And I had no idea that you could make a career out of it. I was just doing it because I was like, this is so fun. And for the first time, even though I was a real loner, I had a community. You had all these stand ups around you, you meet up at all these gigs. And you'd talk about this amazing thing, comedy, that you'd be like, oh my god, I've got this amazing new DVD that I need to show you.
28:56 Speaker 02 And there's this new clip on YouTube that's incredible. And we felt like that we were a new generation. That it felt different for us because YouTube started in two thousand and six. I started comedy in two thousand and seven. So it felt like suddenly there was this huge wealth of material that we could watch. And we were being influenced by American comics in an entirely different way that I think the generation before slightly didn't. And it just felt, it felt so special. Looking back now, it was the most incredible time. Where I didn't know what I was involved in was so special. I just moved to London because I just didn't really want to live where I grew up.
29:38 Speaker 02 And I just moved into a flat of my friends, found this thing called comedy. And we'd just go out and do gigs, like sometimes I'd have got a little bike from a charity shop and I'd run it from. Because I found out if you had a bike, you could do more gigs in a night. You'd like print out the timeout listings for that night and have loads of names on it than you would be able to do. You were like, oh, that's probably an open mic gig. So I'll try and see if I can get onto that one. If I didn't get onto that one, I'd go to another timeout gig that I saw in the listings. And then I didn't get onto that one, I'd go to another one, riding my bike around town, trying to get like stage time. And yeah, and I just, I just loved, I like loved it. It was all because I just like loved this thing called comedy.
30:24 Speaker 02 And it's funny because like now all I do for a living is doing presenting and all that stuff. People might not even know that I did stand up, but I'd done all this time as a stand up comedian. But I think it's really shaped me and my, certainly my work ethic, I think, in what I do. And how I like to work on shows and how I like to like feel like an authorship to, to, to what I'm reading on an autocue. And I just, yeah, really shaped who I am, I think.
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32:28 Fearne Cotton? Do you think you have to be obsessive to do well in stand-up? Because it is niche and it is, I'm imagining there's lots of people out there that would love to give it a go.
32:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:36 Fearne Cotton? I'm imagining there's got to be a level of obsession that keeps you.
32:40 Speaker 02 Yeah, I think it is an obsession, actually. I think there's this weird thing where like, I feel like everyone should do it, it's so special. Like, why doesn't everyone do it?
32:49 Fearne Cotton? Because lots of people are really unfunny.
32:51 Speaker 02 Yeah, but like, I know loads of unfunny comedians. I'm not, I'm not a funny guy.
32:56 Fearne Cotton? Course you are, what are you talking about?
32:58 Speaker 02 You can learn to do like, you can, like, you can learn to be a runner.
33:01 Fearne Cotton? Do you think?
33:02 Speaker 02 It's the same thing. I really.
33:03 Fearne Cotton? Really?
33:04 Speaker 02 There is people who have a natural thing for it. There's certain people, and it's usually those. Oddball weirdos that you, there's certain people on the, on the standup circuit or on telly now, you know, who are just that, there's nothing else that they could do.
33:19 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
33:20 Speaker 02 There is nothing else in the world.
33:21 Fearne Cotton? Like Paul Foot.
33:22 Speaker 02 Paul Foot.
33:23 Fearne Cotton? I love Paul.
33:23 Speaker 02 Incredible. There's a new, newer comedian, at least, called Sam Campbell, who was on Taskmaster a couple of years ago. He's unbelievable. You're like, well, what else would he do if he was this incredible entertainer? I'm sure he would hate being called an entertainer, but, you know, and it's just these brilliant, brilliant, I love, that's why again, I love standup. It's like this thing where it gives a, a job to people who shouldn't have a job.
33:50 Fearne Cotton? Favorite.
33:51 Speaker 02 Do you know what I mean?
33:52 Fearne Cotton? Honestly, when I first saw Paul, so I, I met Paul Foot because he was on Last Comic Standing, which is a show that I hosted on NBC in the States.
34:00 Speaker 02 Oh my god, this is mad.
34:02 Fearne Cotton? So Paul and I were the only Brits on the show, so we obviously just became mates. And we ended up doing all sorts of weird things because we were really bored a lot of the time, hanging around. I mean, we went, I, we went to a strip club in Las Vegas together.
34:19 Speaker 02 Paul Foot in his strip club.
34:20 Fearne Cotton? I got him a lap dance, which was the funniest thing I've ever seen because Paul doesn't like women for a start. I mean, he likes them as friends, but it was just the best night out. He, and watching him do standup, I don't think I've ever laughed so much in my life. It's so weird.
34:35 Speaker 02 It's so odd.
34:36 Fearne Cotton? It's so odd and none of it should work, but it is perfect.
34:39 Speaker 02 It doesn't hit the, it doesn't hit the, the classic beats of, like, no one could write a Paul Foot joke.
34:44 Fearne Cotton? No.
34:44 Speaker 02 And.
34:45 Fearne Cotton? They're not even jokes.
34:46 Speaker 02 They're not even jokes. They're just like, and somehow you find yourself, this again, is this obsession is so incredible because like, sometimes people don't follow that rhythm. Like mine, stories I suppose would follow quite a classic rhythm of like a story. So you get why the audience were all laughing in unison at that, that moment, but someone like Paul. You're like, oh, why, how are the room all knowing to laugh at this moment? Because it's so all over the place with this rhythm. Russell Kane is another one like that.
35:14 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
35:15 Speaker 02 He's somebody who's so good in the room and he's so funny and his rhythm is so different to it. You would never be able to write it down like how it works. And Paul Foot gave me my first job essentially.
35:28 Fearne Cotton? Really? How come?
35:30 Speaker 02 So I was on the Paul Foot radio show. It was for this thing called Resonance FM, which was like, it's probably, it's not a thing anymore. But it's, um, it was basically this weird little radio show that he had. And I went in to be a guest on it. It was, again, I must have been doing stand up for like two, three years or something. And he, uh, he went, oh, do you want to come in as a regular? And I thought, yeah, of course. So I then came in as a regular and this is really early days of podcasts. He then got me to edit the show and make it into a podcast and put it up on. And I used to put it up on thing and we were in, this was when there was like 10 podcasts.
36:05 Fearne Cotton? Wow.
36:05 Speaker 02 So I used to make the Paul Foot podcast with him.
36:07 Fearne Cotton? That's crazy.
36:08 Speaker 02 And that was a really big thing for me to sort of, again, it's all like levels with stand up. It was like this ladder, this really slow ladder, which is really necessarily slow. It's really, nothing happens in stand up too early.
36:25 Fearne Cotton? You've got to earn your stripes.
36:26 Speaker 02 And it's great.
36:27 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
36:27 Speaker 02 And it's great in that way. You can be like really frustrated, like, oh, why have I not got this show? And then you're like, oh, you look back when you do get it and you're like, oh, it's because I wasn't good enough.
36:36 Fearne Cotton? Hmm.
36:37 Speaker 02 I wasn't ready or whatever. And he like lifted me up to that first rung, I suppose.
36:41 Fearne Cotton? That's so amazing.
36:42 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's weird.
36:43 Fearne Cotton? We love Paul Foot.
36:44 Speaker 02 We love Paul Foot and that, the mad thing with that, that was probably 16 years ago.
36:48 Fearne Cotton? God, that's crazy.
36:50 Speaker 02 I have been in stand up like 18 years.
36:51 Fearne Cotton? That's so amazing. I saw Cat Cullen the other day, who I thought was amazing. I don't know if you've ever seen her stuff.
36:56 Speaker 02 So funny.
36:57 Fearne Cotton? Her songs are genius. Again, I was crying, like my ribs were hurting. I'm a massive fan of hers. I think she's incredible.
37:05 Speaker 02 Netflix, she's going on Netflix and she's so funny.
37:08 Fearne Cotton? She's very, very clever.
37:09 Speaker 02 She's so funny and it's just, and again, there's something for everyone. That's why I like, that's why it's, people get annoyed at the moment. It's very divisive comedy, I suppose. It's like people get frustrated that certain people are saying certain things. There's also another comedian for you.
37:23 Fearne Cotton? Find your one.
37:24 Speaker 02 There's loads of us.
37:25 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
37:26 Speaker 02 And that's what I love about it.
37:28 Fearne Cotton? When I was watching a bunch of your stand up prior to this chat, I had a very long train journey on Monday and it kept me highly entertained. I was going to Newcastle and
37:36 Speaker 02 I must have made it much longer.
37:37 Fearne Cotton? No, it made time fly. But there's something so brilliant about when you walk on stage, you are there, your energy is there, it's big, you're straight in. Sometimes you're almost sort of shouting, like you're excited, we know that you want to be there and you've got something to say and you're quite urgent about saying it. How do you maintain those energy levels? Because I'm imagining doing that, whether it is night on night when you're testing material or you're on tour, that's quite a draining thing to do.
38:01 Speaker 02 Yeah, I suppose so. And it's like, it's definitely my earlier gigs when I look back at my stuff on Tally from years and years ago, I can see a much more of a falseness that I had on stage that was more of a performative thing than maybe it is now. But I don't really find it that draining, I suppose. I just, I genuinely enjoy it. I really enjoy it. And hopefully, again, when it sort of crosses across the television, when people seem to say like, oh, you look like you're really enjoying yourself on on Tally. And I really do. I feel like it's, to say it again, a real privilege what I do for a living. And
38:43 Speaker 02 I think it's in that process of it that I find the enjoyment of it. Because I feel like, because I do change it every night and try and make it like fun for myself by changing things as much as possible. And I love the puzzle of the show and going like, okay, I'm going to put that bit in there and then I'm going to mention that bit again there. And then how do I tie this show together? What is this show fundamentally about? Can I make it have a sort of a little bit of pathos at the end? And my shows don't tend to be just me sort of talking for an hour and a half. It tends to have some sort of thing in there that's a bit like, a bit more of like a sort of showpiece, I suppose, somewhere at a certain point. And so putting that bit together and making it worth it.
39:29 Speaker 02 That's really fun and yes, I genuinely love it.
39:32 Fearne Cotton? I mean, you are doing a hell of a lot and you are managing to juggle continuing your stand up career, TV presenting, marathon running, there's like a lot going on. Would you say your personality is the type that needs to do maybe a bit too much? Push yourself a little too much?
39:49 Speaker 02 Yeah, I definitely like having a lot to do. I think it's probably considered ADHD, but I just, I would never know.
39:56 Fearne Cotton? Undiagnosed.
39:56 Speaker 02 Undiagnosed.
39:57 Fearne Cotton? I mean, I, same here. I tick many boxes. Just haven't done the test.
40:02 Speaker 02 Yeah, you, you sit in a room, like in a green room with those stand up comedians and you're like, well, this could be some sort of documentary about some sort of spectrum. I think it's like, we're all on it somewhere. And it's, yeah, I love to be really busy and it feels really, as soon as I'm not busy, I'm like, why I should be doing something now, which I need to try and get better at. Which again, my son has really helped with because now when I'm not busy, what I'm doing is hanging out with him.
40:31 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
40:32 Speaker 02 And that is so time consuming and so, like, it's so consume, it takes every bit of you to be there, which I love, which I really love. And my wife always really laughs because I'll go like the bit that she will look at the, we can look at the diary in bed. I don't know whether that's a very, such a, do you want to look at the diary before we go to sleep?
40:56 Speaker 02 Before we slide the eye mask down.
40:58 Fearne Cotton? Oh, I love the eye mask. I've got a silky one.
41:01 Speaker 02 Have you got the drowsy one?
41:03 Fearne Cotton? No.
41:03 Speaker 02 Mate, you need to get the drowsy one.
41:05 Fearne Cotton? What the fuck is that?
41:05 Speaker 02 It's like padded and it goes over your ears as well.
41:09 Fearne Cotton? Why have I not got that?
41:10 Speaker 02 So, and it's silky.
41:11 Fearne Cotton? I've just got like a common or garden eye mask.
41:14 Speaker 02 You need to step up your eye mask.
41:15 Fearne Cotton? I need to.
41:17 Speaker 02 It's fantastic.
41:18 Fearne Cotton? Literally Googling that immediately after this.
41:19 Speaker 02 It's, it's almost, it's almost, it's part eye mask, part pillar.
41:25 Fearne Cotton? You've sold it to me.
41:27 Speaker 02 I'm gonna get you one.
41:28 Fearne Cotton? Okay, thanks.
41:28 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah, for your birthday, whatever that is.
41:30 Fearne Cotton? Like fucking September, but go for it.
41:32 Speaker 02 Yeah, absolutely fine.
41:34 Speaker 02 And yeah, we just like, we check our diaries. And I'll be really busy and I'll go, don't worry, honestly, next month is really.
41:43 Fearne Cotton? Really chill.
41:44 Speaker 02 It's really chill. And she's like, you say that every single month.
41:48 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
41:48 Speaker 02 I think it also just takes me by surprise because I feel like I'm not, every month I'm like, it's all gonna stop now. Like, I'm, I'm, I've always got that fear of not.
42:00 Fearne Cotton? Me too, I get that.
42:01 Speaker 02 Falling apart.
42:01 Fearne Cotton? Mmm. Where do you think that comes from?
42:03 Speaker 02 I don't know, actually, because it's not, I, I mean.
42:06 Fearne Cotton? Because you literally couldn't be nailing it anymore if you tried in like all areas.
42:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's so hard, isn't it, to like know that?
42:12 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
42:13 Speaker 02 Isn't that the weirdest thing?
42:14 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
42:14 Speaker 02 You can, you could be like on every television show and doing a stand up tour, which is the dream of yours. Yet still you're going like, oh no, what if, what, maybe this tour is like smaller than my last tour. So that means I'm like, oh, it's all falling apart. I, I don't, I don't know, like. I would love to like, I need to have therapy, I think, at some point, just so someone can like figure me out. And go like, oh, you know, that's why, because of this and because this happened in your childhood that you, I haven't figured out that stuff yet.
42:45 Fearne Cotton? No.
42:46 Speaker 02 But it's not like growing up that we would have everything taken away from us at any point, that it would give me that insecurity.
42:53 Fearne Cotton? I think, you know, you don't even need to pathologise it perhaps because I think this industry does breed a certain amount of like comparison and fear that you're gonna lose your job. Because that's how the industry sort of works, I think. I, I've definitely experienced that where you're pitted against other people quite openly and you don't get the job or whatever. And then, so you're always feeling like you're slightly on the back foot. And maybe also just, you know, the notion of, even if you look at how comedy works today, like you said, with the inception of YouTube and now social media. You can constantly go, oh, well, they look like they're doing better than me or more than me. And we're all in that kind of loop of comparing ourselves.
43:26 Speaker 02 Like, oh, and we've got to shift more than we used to, right? We've got to constantly like change and reinvent and into, into places that we have no idea about. Like, I don't, I don't know what I'm do, I don't know what I'm doing a lot of the time. Whereas before I was like. Go to a gig, go to a gig. The more you gigged, the better you get at it. It was so simple. That was it. And then the more you gigged, the better you became as a comedian, the more TV you would get on. That was it. That was simple. And now it's like, you have to be an incredible editor to be able to put stuff on. You'd have to know like how the socials work and it changes every fucking month. And the algorithm changes. Like, we're not doing that. It's carousels now. You're like, what the fuck is a carousel? Oh, God.
44:11 Fearne Cotton? It's relentless.
44:12 Speaker 02 It's so relentless. And there's so many different parts of your brain that's taken up by all this stuff. And I love to be busy, but I hate it when my brain is like busy with all this like fucking shit. That's like, all these different, and I don't, and I never wanted to sound like I was this old fuddy duddy dude.
44:32 Fearne Cotton? You're 40 now, mate.
44:33 Speaker 02 I sound like I'm like, what is this new app? I can't deal with another one. Like, you know, 16 year olds, like, yeah, just do it.
44:42 Fearne Cotton? Oh, I know. Even my 12 year old is just like, how do you not know anything? Like, what is wrong with you? I don't. Look, we are, we're over 40. I'm over 40. You've just tipped over the edge, mate. So, look, it's all downhill.
44:54 Speaker 02 Oh, my God.
44:55 Fearne Cotton? It's really not. It's all great.
44:56 Speaker 02 I feel like we could be having this conversation in a care home.
44:58 Fearne Cotton? We could. And we probably will be one day. There's showbiz care home somewhere.
45:03 Speaker 02 Oh, my God. I can't wait for that. Meet you at Ben Shepard.
45:06 Fearne Cotton? But remember that time when I met Carney and Oog? It's all very tragic. But, I mean, you are juggling a hell of a lot. As you well know, in our house, we are obsessed with Mar Singer. We absolutely fucking cannot get enough of it. It's so good. Every series, I am mentioned at some point. I think I was Mel, I can never say her surname.
45:25 Speaker 02 Mel Gidroich.
45:27 Fearne Cotton? Gidroich. I never know if it's a ch at the end or a c.
45:29 Speaker 02 Yeah, I'll be honest, I said it pretty quick on the show.
45:31 Fearne Cotton? Yep. Breeze over that autocue moment.
45:34 Speaker 02 Oh, my God, ladies and gentlemen. Just some fear of getting it wrong.
45:40 Fearne Cotton? But it's either me or David Tennant every time. And my kids look at me like, could it be? I mean, no.
45:45 Speaker 02 This is why you should do it.
45:47 Fearne Cotton? I'm too scared. I'm absolutely terrified.
45:48 Speaker 02 What are you scared of? Like, what's the fear that you have? You fear of singing?
45:51 Fearne Cotton? Do you know the actual niche fear? The niche fear is the bit where they've guessed who you are and you've got to sing with the head off. What's my face doing when I'm singing?
45:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's, that is, that is the hardest thing.
46:02 Fearne Cotton? That's so awkward.
46:02 Speaker 02 Because also, what makes me laugh so much about that, like, is that the costume, when the heads come off, it's just, it just looks like an outfit.
46:14 Speaker 02 So like, this is my favourite one. Stephen Hendry was on the show.
46:17 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
46:17 Speaker 02 Snooker player. And he was, um, he was rubbish, like he was the character rubbish. So he was literally in a green bin and it was like all a really fun cartoon head in a green bin. And then when he had his head taken off, just looked like Stephen Hendry in a bin. Just like Stephen Hendry put himself up in for the recycling.
46:40 Fearne Cotton? But I think singing is so profoundly awkward. Obviously for singers, and I've interviewed a fair few in my, in my time, they would find talking into a microphone excruciatingly embarrassing. They'd say, how do you do, how do you do a talk to people? That to me feels like I'm, there's, I'm just talking. The singing, like, how do you hold the microphone? What's your, what expression are you pulling? I would just look mad.
47:02 Speaker 02 It's, it is mad and you've got to embrace the madness because you're, you're gonna be in a bin.
47:09 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
47:10 Speaker 02 So like, you've just got to embrace it. Also, this might help you. This is a bit of a look behind the curtain.
47:15 Fearne Cotton? Yes.
47:15 Speaker 02 But when you do that final reveal and the final, um, song, when you sing, we've got rid of loads of the audience for NDA purposes.
47:25 Fearne Cotton? Oh, that's interesting.
47:28 Speaker 02 Clear out the most of the audience.
47:30 Fearne Cotton? They don't know either when they watch it on the telly.
47:31 Speaker 02 Exactly.
47:32 Fearne Cotton? That's clever.
47:33 Speaker 02 And then, um, so it keeps the secrets alive.
47:36 Fearne Cotton? I love that.
47:36 Speaker 02 And they, uh, they, so you're.
47:38 Fearne Cotton? Because you genuinely don't know who they are, do you?
47:40 Speaker 02 No idea.
47:40 Fearne Cotton? No idea, no.
47:41 Speaker 02 And it's so much better that way because I like really play along. And, uh, and I just, it's also in the fun of it.
47:46 Fearne Cotton? It's the most fun show ever.
47:48 Speaker 02 As soon as I, if someone on the street just goes, tell me who traffic code is, Joe.
47:53 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, don't know, mate.
47:54 Speaker 02 I go, if I was to go like Sally Jones, he'd be like, oh, all right.
47:58 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, you've ruined it for me now.
47:59 Speaker 02 Ruined his day.
47:59 Fearne Cotton? Why did you tell me?
48:00 Speaker 02 But it's so fun. I, I just appreciate it so much more than I used to. I used to just, I got this job and I was like, oh, this is cool that I've got this job. People started watching and I was like, oh, great. And then now that I understand what it means now that people come up to me and say like, my sixteen year old comes down from their bedroom, it's the only show they'll watch with us. Uh, like, we watch it with our, our four year old, my granny, and we sit there in the lounge together, it's the only show that does that. And that, that means so much. And I'm suddenly, I'm now going and doing that show. I feel like this is so special. And because I've got that fear of it all falling apart any moment.
48:45 Speaker 02 Now, for the first time in my life, and I've never been good at this. I'm really trying to take in every moment and go like, fucking hell, man, this is mad what's happening. Like, I'm doing a show that people watch, and that is so rare nowadays.
48:58 Fearne Cotton? I know.
48:59 Speaker 02 Like, just doing a show that people like, and they watch together, and it's a family event. And I don't think I appreciated how rare it was.
49:08 Fearne Cotton? Hmm.
49:09 Speaker 02 And I think it's only seven series in now that I'm like going, well, this is a really cool, special thing that I'm a part of. And making it isn't, isn't horrible.
49:20 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
49:20 Speaker 02 Like, there's also people who are on shows that are really big, that making it is a real hard thing to do. Because everyone really hates being involved and there's a real diva at the top or something.
49:30 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, yeah.
49:30 Speaker 02 Whereas this is great, we all, we all love it, man.
49:33 Fearne Cotton? It's so good. And you're so right. I think with my kids who are nine and twelve, you know, they're predominantly watching YouTube. And I'm a classic sort of parent of that age group who's like, oh, can't you just watch normal telly? Like, that's the version of maybe our parents going, why aren't you reading a book or whatever? But when we have those moments where I know we all love watching The Masked Singer, we all love watching Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. We're all together on the sofa and it is such a moment. And we're all sort of shouting at the TV and it is such, it's a beautiful thing. So I love that actually when you're doing it, you have those little moments of, this is really bloody cool. Cause I think, you know, I was doing a talk yesterday and someone said to me, what do you, what does success mean to you? And I never quite know what I'm gonna say or what that even means to me on any given day.
50:18 Fearne Cotton? But I do think success for me now means those moments where, you know, I could be sat here interviewing you or interviewing, I had Mel Robbins on last week. And I'll get a little moment in the interview where my brain is quiet enough to go, this is really cool. Like, you're just sat here having this moment, having this chat with someone that's really interesting. And I think before I'd be like, get to the end of the episode so you feel the relief, get to the end, know that it went okay. And then you can go home and you can breathe and you can, and I was just all about getting to the end to feel the relief. Whereas actually, I think a successful day now is where I've been present enough in it to go, oh, I enjoyed that bit.
50:58 Fearne Cotton? It might not be all of it, but like just little moments, that feels like you've got a bit more autonomy over it. But also you've got that gratitude that I think naturally comes with enjoying your day. It's like that simple.
51:11 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's so true. And it's, um, it's like the, the NTAs when the, the breaks happen. And you're stood there because when you're doing the show, you're doing the show, you're concentrating, you're reading, you're doing whatever. And then a break happens and everyone else is really enjoying themselves, hugging, catching up, drinking, bit drunk, having a great time. You've also got the audience, like 15,000 people who are just like milling about, having a lovely time. And I'm the only one stood on, I've just stood on stage, just stood there, just like watching all of these people mill about.
51:46 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
51:47 Speaker 02 And I'm like, oh, this is mad that I'm quote unquote, in control of this, you know? Like this is, this is my gig. Like it's mad. And like, again, in the stand-up show, if I was playing the O2, which I would never be able to sell enough tickets to do so. I, I wouldn't have enough time to take that in because I would be doing the show. But it's so nice to be able to have those, those, those rests where I can just go like mad.
52:14 Fearne Cotton? Hey, I'm pretty sure that O2 is in your future, PS. Come on, Joel. Of course it is.
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53:21 Fearne Cotton? Hello, this is Susie Ruffel.
53:23 Speaker 00 And Maisie Adams.
53:23 Fearne Cotton? And together we host Big Kick Energy. Hey Mais, what is it?
53:26 Speaker 00 Only the best podcast ever.
53:28 Fearne Cotton? Yes.
53:29 Speaker 00 A comedy entertainment podcast with a focus on all things women's football, all things hilarious, all things friendship. It's a laugh is what it is, Ruffel.
53:39 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, and a fair bit of gossiping too.
53:40 Speaker 00 Oh, and a lovely bit of gossip. Chow down on the gossip.
53:45 Fearne Cotton? You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. You just need to search Big Kick Energy.
53:48 Speaker 00 Grab a knife and fork and tuck in, baby.
53:55 Fearne Cotton? Hey, we haven't talked about the marathon, which was a big moment of this year for you. I mean, you are insanely fit. You set again your goals really high. You were trying to go, what, sub three hours this year?
54:06 Speaker 02 Trying, yeah, yeah.
54:07 Fearne Cotton? Which is a professional athlete.
54:10 Speaker 02 Not quite, but it is like, it's a thing that everyone aims for. Sub three is like a thing that like, it's, I was really wanting to do it before I was 40. That was like the big thing I've basically been working at for the last sort of year and a half. It just, for lots of people, unfortunately, the marathon in London this year was not that day. It was a really hot day. It was quite stifling, the heat. And so it's just really frustrating and I just, I mean, it's funny to that, it's really funny. But I just, I was on course to do it and I did a three ten in Amsterdam in the October before. So I was like, okay. And I really trained for it. My training runs went well. I was like, this is gonna be okay.
54:52 Speaker 02 And then suddenly the heat hit on that day, but everyone was like, we're gonna do it, still go for it, it's gonna be fine. About a 15K, I was like, this is feeling too hard. Like, this is, should be a breeze at 15. Got to the half, I was like, oh god. I remember 25K, there's 42K in a marathon. And 25, I was like, again, this shouldn't feel this hard. I do not remember from 25K to 30K, because I woke up in an ambulance at 30K. And I've got these awful flashes of what I think is the worst part of my personality that came out at this time.
55:31 Fearne Cotton? What?
55:32 Speaker 02 Honestly. So I don't remember any of it. And I have a flash of me being dragged by two marathon employees to the ambulance. And me shouting at what is people who are watching the marathon and just going like, someone record this. This needs to be documented. Someone record this. Quite angrily, really.
55:56 Fearne Cotton? Which people did?
55:57 Speaker 02 Which some people did. And then I got to the ambulance and I was saying to the ambulance, incredible saying, John's ambulance people. I was like, has anyone got Gabby Logan's number?
56:11 Fearne Cotton? Why are you trying to call?
56:12 Speaker 02 She needs to know what's happening. This needs to be on television.
56:16 Fearne Cotton? Oh, because she's hosting it, right? Yeah.
56:19 Speaker 02 So I'm like thinking that like Gabby Logan gives a shit about the fact I'm in an ambulance. Like, I think I'm more important than the 50,000 people who are running. Like, it's the worst side of me that's ever come out and God forbid it ever comes out again. I'm a horrific humor.
56:36 Fearne Cotton? We've all got a shadow side, okay? We've all got it.
56:39 Speaker 02 I thought it was a nice guy.
56:40 Fearne Cotton? You are a nice guy.
56:41 Speaker 02 I'm a piece of shit inside.
56:44 Fearne Cotton? We've all got that side.
56:45 Speaker 02 I said.
56:46 Fearne Cotton? It would just manifest in different ways. We've all got it.
56:48 Speaker 02 I was doing my first Radio 2 show that Saturday, the Saturday after the marathon. And again, I remember just saying to the St John's Ambulance people, like, oh, at least I've got something to talk about on Radio 2. They're like trying to like give me an IV drip and trying to get my thing down. All I'm thinking about is.
57:06 Fearne Cotton? Work.
57:06 Speaker 02 Like, I'm such a fucking psychopath. I'm an absolute psychopath.
57:12 Fearne Cotton? Oh, it's so good. It's so good. I mean, you poor bugger. Because I know how much that means to you, doing that sub three. And how, you know, you set a goal, you wanna bloody do it. You wanna achieve it.
57:24 Speaker 02 This is something that I wish I was better at in my career. Because I find it so easy to set fitness goals and be like, I wanna do that. I wanna do a sub three. I wanna, I wanna run this, this fast. I wanna be able to lift this weight that's this heavy. I'm so good at that because it feels so palpable. It feels so, so gettable.
57:41 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
57:42 Speaker 02 I'm so bad at setting career goals.
57:46 Fearne Cotton? It does not seem that way.
57:47 Speaker 02 I need to be better because I feel very lucky in the way that it's sort of all worked out to plan. But I wished I was better at going like, oh, in five years' time, I wanna be doing this, this, this, and this is the perfect thing. Because I know how important that is because then it sets you on the right journey. I think a part of why I sometimes feel like it's all gonna fall apart is because it's, there's no structure in place. Do you know what I mean?
58:11 Fearne Cotton? I do, but I will counter it by saying, because my own life experience of that is probably the absolute opposite. Because I used to, when I was TV presenting, think from a very young age, all I wanna do is be as big as Ant and Dec. Like, there was no greater goal, or Zombie Ball, whoever my heroes were and still are. I just wanna be as big as them. So here's the route. I have to do all the meetings. These shows are gonna work. There was always an easy decision for questions put to me because it was like, is that gonna aid me getting to that point? Yes or no? And if it is, I'll do it. But then everything kind of fucking imploded and went wrong anyway. And now I've ended up going on this tangent that I am enjoying a million times more.
58:53 Fearne Cotton? That feels like I'm challenged so much more. Has taught me more than anything. And I hadn't, I didn't know I was gonna do this. I had absolutely no clue. So I think it's no bad thing to have a very flexible approach to. Yeah, you wanna do well. Yeah, you can still be ambitious. But I think having a set goal. I, I think it can be detrimental sometimes.
59:14 Speaker 02 Yeah.
59:15 Fearne Cotton? I would say, just to flip it on its head.
59:17 Speaker 02 No, I think that's really nice to hear.
59:19 Fearne Cotton? Because who knows, you could get offered something that isn't in your great plan that you've got to end up. Playing the O two or whatever it is.
59:25 Speaker 02 That's what I find hard because it's like anytime I feel like I should do something like that. And plan my life like other people do. Something then comes in that I've never would have ever dreamed of.
59:36 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, how exciting.
59:37 Speaker 02 Yeah, it's exciting. It's petrifying all at once. It's great.
59:40 Fearne Cotton? Course, it's scary and exciting, but it's brilliant. Going back to the marathon. What do you think you learned from that experience? Because I'm imagining in that situation where you're lying in the ambulance. You could be really pissed off, frustrated, feel a sense of injustice because you've done all the training. Or do you still find the humour in it?
59:58 Speaker 02 I definitely find the humour in it. Again, it's something that, that's brilliant about being a stand up. Because if something fails, then it's a story. So it's like all fuel for your next, your next endeavour. Like it's, a failure is a, is a plus in a way.
1:00:13 Fearne Cotton? Yeah.
1:00:14 Speaker 02 And that's, so that's great. I, I like. I, at least you've got a story out of it. And the story is better now in reality than if I just did it.
1:00:23 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, did sub three, like done. There's no story. Yeah, well done. You're really fit.
1:00:26 Speaker 02 Literally got my child to come to the finish line wearing a T-shirt that says sub three. And I did it in six hours.
1:00:34 Speaker 02 So embarrassing. So embarrassing.
1:00:39 Fearne Cotton? That T-shirt needs to be in a frame.
1:00:42 Speaker 02 It's like, I mean, it's some three days. To be fair, I wasn't specific in the timeframe. But it's, it's so mad.
1:00:52 Speaker 02 I like set it all up because.
1:00:54 Fearne Cotton? The T-shirt is so extra.
1:00:55 Speaker 02 It's so, because like I know the way I work and the way that my brain works during these long runs and stuff. Is that I needed to give myself something to be accountable for. So if I told everyone, I'm going for some three hours, I'm gonna fucking do it. Whether you like it or not, come on. Whereas if I was silent about it, I would be like, well, you know, halfway through, I'd be like, I haven't told anyone on that. So let's just do three oh five. That's fine. Whereas if I had that goal, I'm thinking at the end, my, my child's wearing a T-shirt.
1:01:25 Speaker 02 I've made clothing. I've made merch for a thing I haven't even achieved yet.
1:01:29 Fearne Cotton? You've gone on like Snappy Snaps website, like on the T-shirt.
1:01:32 Speaker 02 Awful. So awful. The whole thing is it's so, it's, yeah, I don't know why I fill my life with these things. And I don't actually know what my next sort of goal is gonna be, but I know that in the last.
1:01:43 Fearne Cotton? You need to have a challenge or that sort of person.
1:01:45 Speaker 02 Definitely. Because I, I, I've realised it the last month. When I haven't had like a goal, I was like, I'm just gonna give myself a small rest. And I, I just feel just a bit like I'm, I'm missing something in my life.
1:02:01 Fearne Cotton? Yeah. Were you quite forgiving of yourself in that moment? You know, obviously it's not your fault. It's bloody hot and you've done all the prep, whatever, but it's so easy when you don't meet a goal to beat yourself up.
1:02:12 Speaker 02 But then the, the thing that, that was brilliant that came out of the whole thing is that I could have quite easily have given up in that moment and gone like, oh, I haven't got my target. I then was lying down in the ambulance for so long that my legs wouldn't move. So I couldn't stand up. And I was like, I think I want to finish it. And they were like, no. And I said, I think I really would love to finish it. So I had to stay in the ambulance longer for my vitals to come back to life. Then I, I, they helped me sort of stand up and my legs literally wouldn't bend because you've gone from running really fast to lying down for an hour and a half. And then I, um, it took me about half an hour, three quarters an hour to do one revolution of the ambulance.
1:02:55 Speaker 02 And because I kept on falling over, I was like, sort of like Forrest Gump, Pelotia or whatever. And some reference and then, uh.
1:03:04 Speaker 02 I was like, I said, I'm just gonna get on and do it, start really slow. And I think over time, my legs will, now I'm not falling over, I'll be able to do it. And it's like, however much snow it takes. And then your legs warm up and then you get faster and faster and faster and faster. And I think I ended up doing it like six fifteen or something like that, after spending like two and a half hours in a marathon.
1:03:22 Fearne Cotton? That's amazing to get your brain back into the idea of shit, I've still got so many miles to go.
1:03:27 Speaker 02 But that was actually a real gift because the fact I could, could finish it in the first thing. And the fact I really got to enjoy it, that second half was so enjoyable. Because the first half, you're just like, I gotta reach this target, I gotta run faster, I gotta keep with this flag, with this pacer, you know? And then the second half, I just got like to see that there was loads of people cheering and loads, they had the time to be able to see your name on your shirt and say, go on, you can do this. Like, it was a real joy where you, you come out of it going, oh my God, isn't London special? And isn't London great? Like, if I ran that whole thing in three hours, I would have finished that marathon and gone, aren't I great?
1:04:11 Speaker 02 Whereas instead, I came at the end of that marathon and went, fuck, isn't London great? Isn't like fitness great? Isn't like community fantastic? The fact that we all get together? Isn't my wife fantastic? The fact that she was there, like, helping me and making sure my son was okay and napping and it's all good and da, da, da, da. And I had the time to think about those things. So I think when your things go wrong, it's, it's like, it's better than if things go right. Same with stand up, it's like, when something goes wrong, when you have a bad gig, you learn so much. You go, oh, that bit's wrong, that bit needs a stronger ending, that needs to work. When you have a good gig, you don't write any notes because you're like, I'm great.
1:04:50 Fearne Cotton? Yep.
1:04:51 Speaker 02 And you don't learn anything from that. And so you learn so much more about yourself and from just having things just falter and go, go badly.
1:05:01 Fearne Cotton? Also, I think your whole marathon run is like a really lovely analogy for life. Like, when we rush through it and we're just thinking about the end goal and how it's gonna benefit us, we sort of miss everything.
1:05:10 Speaker 02 Hmm.
1:05:11 Fearne Cotton? But actually, when you're not in a rush and you're slowly moving through the process, that's when you get to go, oh, wow, let's have a look around and see what's actually going on. And I think we're all in the, in a rush to get to. Like this bit where we're gonna feel okay.
1:05:25 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:05:25 Fearne Cotton? And it never comes.
1:05:26 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:05:26 Fearne Cotton? It will never come. It will never arrive. So actually, might as well just enjoy or at least look around and be present to whatever we're going through.
1:05:34 Speaker 02 And to put it in a fitness term as well, it's a heart rate thing. So I've found that in television. When like in the marathon, you first half, your heart rate is so high that your your body doesn't have the ability to think about anything else than like powering your body. And it's really diff- like when your heart rate's much lower, you can take so much more in. You have the ability to think faster. You have the ability. You have more oxygen into your brain, literally. I remember I used to go the first sort of live telly I used to do. I used to be so like excited and just get my energy so high and then go off and then fuck up the autocue because I was reading so fast. And I was like, why am I so good in rehearsals? And then I'd get to the real thing and I'm awful. I could never work it out.
1:06:17 Speaker 02 It's because my heart rate was so high. That's the only difference, right, between the rehearsals and the main thing. So if through understanding that, that was where I was like, okay, just the whole thing is about getting your heart rate as low as possible. When you before you go on stage, whether it's tour show, NTAs, Master Singer, anything, you're so much better at your job when you're just like present.
1:06:40 Fearne Cotton? Yeah, and that's a really good tip for anyone listening to this who might have to do, stand up in front of people and say something at work. Do a presentation or whatever. Is that heart rate thing is is a bloody good tip.
1:06:51 Speaker 02 Bring your heart rate down with it. Literally, I used to, I don't necessarily do it anymore, but I used to literally wear a heart rate watch thing and look at what my heart rate was and just found that interesting. And then physically bring your shoulders down. When your your shoulders are up and you physically bend, bring your scapulars back on it and then just like go, just breathe and then take a breath, go out.
1:07:13 Fearne Cotton? Do the thing.
1:07:14 Speaker 02 Just read.
1:07:15 Fearne Cotton? Do the, just read. Before we wrap up, I'd love to know where your happy place is.
1:07:20 Speaker 02 Oh, it's, I mean, it's really changed a lot in the last couple of years. My happy place, one hundred percent, I was at home. It's like with Hannah and Wild. I suppose it would be in the morning where we, because our jobs are a bit unorthodox. Often we're there in the mornings and not there in the evenings. And so we just love having breakfast together. And I just love making him laugh. It feels so special. And I love, I love my family so much. And I feel like really privileged to be able to spend time with them and to be
1:08:03 Speaker 02 able to see him grow up and be a, hopefully a, a, a better person than me.
1:08:08 Fearne Cotton? Oh, mate. Well, that is just the most adorable, adorable answer. And I'm so, so happy to see all the brilliant things that you're doing. It's just like a joy to watch you thrive and try all these new projects and do all these TV shows that bring us lots of laughter and lots of fun. So thank you so much, Joel.
1:08:26 Speaker 02 And it's a pleasure to be on this show. I genuinely love it. And you've taught me a lot in the way of, it doesn't have to be the same way as everyone else in order to get satisfaction and enjoyment out of life. And you can just take a, like, a complete left turn and do something to please yourself. And, and it can all turn out for, for the way for the better. You don't have to follow upstream all the time.
1:08:52 Fearne Cotton? Yeah. Thanks, mate. That means a lot. Thank you, Joel.
1:08:55 Speaker 02 Thanks for having me.
1:08:57 Fearne Cotton? Oh, Joel, you bloody legend. Do you know what? I love chats like that, which managed to sort of meander through very funny terrain to really thoughtful, poignant moments. It was just sort of like a lovely episode, one that I will think about a lot, especially that heart rate stuff. You know, I struggle still now with the thought of doing a live TV show, something that I used to do literally, like sleepwalk into and do with my eyes closed. My heart goes bananas and I feel like I've got no control over it. So I think I'm gonna go and let all of that percolate somewhat because it was very interesting to hear how Joel deals with those sorts of nerves. Joel's Happy Idiot Tour has been extended into
1:09:38 Fearne Cotton? the autumn before closing at the very prestigious London Palladium in April 2026. I'm definitely gonna go. You'll have a riot over time, so get your tickets to see him. And keep an eye on your podcast feed during the week, by the way, because there's a really cool episode coming up. Spoiler, you might cry a little bit. I did.
1:09:58 Fearne Cotton? But you'll also laugh a lot too. In the meantime, a massive thanks again to Joel, to the producer Anushka Tate at Happy Play Studios, and to you, you lovely lot.
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1:12:06 Speaker 04 It's time. It's the most wonderful time of the year.
1:12:10 Speaker 00 Halloween.
1:12:14 Speaker 00 And you guys know we don't do Halloween by halves. Full costume, full prosthetics, full commitment. I'm a rat. And I'm the chef. It's our Ratatouille special. Then we're grabbing our broomsticks for the witches.
1:12:27 Speaker 00 We've got a spooky hotline caller. An update from our woman who was in love with the ghost of Prince Albert. And your tarot card dial levers. Listen to our Halloween specials, search for The Girl's Bathroom.
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