Pod Insights How To Fail With Elizabeth Day John Bishop - ‘I’ve always wanted someone to say: you’re good enough’ About this episode John Bishop has been a hugely successful stand-up comedian for 25 years. Yet that wasn’t his first dream, which was to play football. We discuss his failure to do so professionally, his challenges at school, the working-class upbringing that shaped him and how comedy saved his marriage when he and his wife were at the ‘decree nisi stage’ of divorce. Plus: skincare tips and why making people laugh is like stripping. Yes, really.
✨ IN THIS EPISODE:
00:00 Intro
01:48 The Art of Standup Comedy
06:52 Reflecting on Past Failures
12:30 Class and Injustice
13:50 Family and Personal Struggles
16:47 Balancing Career and Family
26:11 School Days and O Levels
26:44 Sixth Form Struggles
27:49 Balancing Work and Education
31:15 Dyslexia and English A Levels
34:22 Comedy and Confidence
35:17 Parenting in a New World
38:24 The End of the TV Show
47:19 Skin Care Secrets and Final Thoughts
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Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan
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Executive Producer: Carly Maile
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Elizabeth Day? Hello lovely How To Fail listeners and viewers. This is just to let you know that if you want a peek behind the curtain to find out the last time that Kate Winslet spoke to Leo, or how much sex Vogue Williams considers to be normal, then you can listen to my subscriber series. Just follow the link in the show notes and we will see you there.
0:29 Elizabeth Day? Hello and welcome to How To Fail. This is the podcast where every week I speak to a new guest about three times they've failed in their life and what, if anything, they've learnt along the way.
0:40 Speaker 01 You're like the man I met. She said, what happened to you? I said, I married you.
0:46 Speaker 01 But at the time, I'd have done anything not to have gone through. My kids are the kids I used to throw stones at.
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1:36 Elizabeth Day? If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.co.uk/fail to start your free trial. That's Shopify.co.uk/fail. Go to Shopify.co.uk/fail today to hear your first
1:53 Elizabeth Day? My guest today is a hugely successful stand-up comedian, a man who has spent a quarter of a century in comedy, playing to sell-out crowds across the world, as well as fronting a number of entertainment TV shows, writing bestselling books, and raising millions for charity. Not for nothing, then, has John Bishop been hailed by the Daily Mirror as Britain's top comic. But it could all have been very different. As a child growing up on a council estate in Runcorn, Bishop had dreams of becoming a professional footballer. Instead, he found himself working as a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company, earning a decent living with a pension plan, private health insurance, and gold cards for two
2:37 Elizabeth Day? airlines. But a nagging dissatisfaction led to marital separation and then a career pivot. One night, Bishop wandered into the Frog and Bucket Comedy Club in Manchester and took to the microphone, cracking the only joke he could think of about French farmers. That moment changed his life forever. Within three years, he was a household name and was back with his wife, Melanie, the mother of his three sons. Now 25 years on, Bishop is taking his 10th stand-up tour across the UK and Ireland, and to mark this special anniversary, every ticket at every show will be just £25. "You're only ever four words
3:22 Elizabeth Day? away from joy or the fear that nobody will laugh," Bishop says. "You're always only four words away from success or failure. That's a brilliant tightrope to walk." John Bishop, welcome to How to Fail.
3:37 Speaker 01 Well, thank you. Thanks for the introduction.
3:39 Elizabeth Day? Thank you for being here. Tell me about those four words.
3:43 Speaker 01 I said that in relation to the joy of stand-up, because the thing with stand-up is that... It's it's all about the reveal, you know, you you set you set the joke up and then you're four words away and then the punchline is said. And and in English, the punchline is invariably the last word that's said. And so the last word of that sentence is you stop and people laugh. And I was speaking to someone about it the other day. And I said, the difficulty is is they don't laugh. You can't go back and do it again. I said, it's like being a stripper. You're like, you you you go boob, you get your boobs out. And if nobody's impressed, you go, don't go, oh, that was an accident. And then put them back in and get them out again. And you you the the the the joke is the last word.
4:28 Speaker 01 And so you're only ever, as you're saying it as a comedian, you're only ever building up to that last word. And then if you don't laugh, you've got to pick them up again. And if you do laugh, you ride on it. So you're only ever four words away from judgment, I think.
4:43 Elizabeth Day? Do you enjoy that adrenaline?
4:46 Speaker 01 I I enjoy the tight rope of it. I enjoy the the immediacy of it. And I've always said, like, stand up comedy is the most the immediate form of communications, the most instant form of communication. No one goes home and thinks about laughing. They laugh or they don't laugh. Laugh is an instinctive reaction to what's going on. And if they don't laugh, you have to carry on. You can't just go, oh, that that, sorry, that was my joke. I've got to go off now. You've got to carry on and you can't. Like in music, if you go to a music gig, you can ride through. The energy can pull people through. But with stand up, it is it is bricks in a wall. And one of those bricks just may not fit.
5:29 Speaker 01 And if it doesn't, the wall might fall down. So your whole act can fall to pieces.
5:34 Elizabeth Day? Do you remember that joke about French farmers?
5:36 Speaker 01 Oh, hundred percent I do, because it was the only joke I had. And in fact, I'd been on the phone to my mate Jimmy before I went into the club. And this this is twenty five years ago, so not everyone will remember this. But there was a um a protest going on with French farmers about petrol prices. And something to do with petrol prices or gas or something. But I think it was all petrol prices. And what they were doing to protest is that they were blocking the borders with tractors, getting bales of hay and setting them on fire. And so English lorry drivers couldn't get back. And so on the news that night, there was all these lorry drivers going, I can't get home.
6:16 Speaker 01 I can't get home. And obviously they had perishables on the trucks, but also they couldn't get back home. And that was the news that the French farmers were blocking the borders. So the joke that I said is if you've seen them French farmers blocking the borders, wouldn't it been handy if they'd have done that in nineteen thirty nine? That was their gag. And then that was it. That was, that was the end of the gags.
6:40 Elizabeth Day? You're going back to the frog and bucket where it all started as part of this tour, aren't you?
6:45 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah.
6:46 Elizabeth Day? I read somewhere that you sometimes feel as if you've nicked someone else's life.
6:51 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. Listen, I was a month off being thirty four. I had a very good job. I was a sales and marketing director for a pharmaceutical company that specialised in immunosuppressants. So we worked in the field of transplantation. So people who had organ transplants, we, um, our, our drug prevented rejection for them. So it was a very specialised area, very interesting. And it was a good life in, in many respects, in terms of what, what aspirations I had in life. And I never had aspirations to be in show business. Or, or did I?
7:32 Speaker 01 Maybe I did, but they were so far suppressed because it just wasn't a world that was open to you. And so it does always feel sometimes, you know, I'd be standing on a stage and I think there's a comedian somewhere doing a sales presentation, putting a graph up thinking, how did this happen? Because it feels, it doesn't now because it's twenty five years since that night. Uh, but it feels, always feels that there's a process, and I'm sure you've been through it yourself, of imposter syndrome. Where you think, was I, was this really meant for me?
8:10 Elizabeth Day? Were you a good sales rep?
8:12 Speaker 01 I was great.
8:12 Elizabeth Day? What's the secret to selling?
8:15 Speaker 01 It's the same secret to being an interviewer, it's the same secret to being a comedian, I think. You've just got to, you've just got to make people like you. And if they like you, then they'll listen to what you've got to say. And I don't mean that in a insipid kind of way. What I mean is you've just got to be friendly with people. And I, I think that's, that's the key to all things in life, isn't it?
8:43 Elizabeth Day? One of the things I hear a lot from listeners is how tiring it can be when your mind just doesn't settle. And I can only imagine this feels even heavier with intrusive thoughts. It's that quiet sense of being worn down by something you never asked for and never wanted, but just can't seem to switch off. If you struggle with this, I want to tell you about NoCD because it's a resource that genuinely helps people. NoCD provides specialised treatment for OCD. And what I appreciate about their approach is how human it feels. You're matched with a licensed therapist trained in ERP therapy. That's exposure and response prevention. And over time, you learn skills that help your OCD symptoms become manageable. So you can live more of the life you want to live.
9:29 Elizabeth Day? If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, NoCD can help. Book a free 15 minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com/fail. This idea of tight ropes and lives unlived brings us on to your first failure, which is your failure to become a footballer. And it's a specific failure. It's the under 15 Cheshire Boys Schools Trial.
9:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
9:54 Elizabeth Day? Tell us what happened.
9:56 Speaker 01 I was a good footballer. You know, I was captain of the school team. I was captain of every team that I played for. You know, it was kind of drummed into me that, you know, that's your way out. That's going to be your passports off the estate. And football was just the, the thing that I was, I was in my head destined to do. And it, and it was also a connection with my dad and my brother. And it was a thing that we could talk about. I was definitely destined for that avenue. And I remember my games teacher.
10:27 Speaker 01 Mister Hilton eh took a couple of us to the trials but but all the way he was saying to me, listen, all you've got to do is just just keep it steady, you'll be fine. And we turned up and it was at King's School in Chester and I'll be honest, I didn't even know there was such a a difference between the schools. I didn't know there was. I I don't think I really understood about private schools or anything like that. And eh King's School was the private school in Chester. And we turned up because they had more pitches than anywhere else. It was all these lads playing, some that I recognised from some of the schools we played against. And they had one game going on first and then another game starting a little bit later. And we were in the second game, it was freezing.
11:13 Speaker 01 Eh so we watched a bit of the first game. And I noticed that a lot of the lads seemed to know each other's names and it as it transpired, the kids from King's School. Seven were on one team, nine were on the other team. And like all the other schools had brought three or four kids. And it was the ki- teacher from King's School who was picking the squad. So eh so anyway, they they had their game, the second game began. I started playing in the second game and I thought, this just doesn't look right. It ended up, one side had twelve players on. That's how much the guys who were meant to be coaching, were meant to be inspecting the players, were watching. They hadn't even noticed that one side had too many players on.
11:56 Speaker 01 I remember scoring a great goal, you know, in my head, it was a fantastic goal. It was a good goal. I remember playing well. I remember. One of me mates was getting a lift back off his dad and he said, you know, give you a lift and Mister Hilton saying, look, you go with them, you'll be fine. He said, I'll stay and I'll I'll phone you up later. I remember him phoning me up. And it was the first significant disappointment that I felt in my life. And I'd had a lot of things happen in my life, even up eh up to that point. And eh but I remember getting a phone call and him saying, I can't believe it, they didn't pick you. He said, I went mad at the teacher. He said, I've put an official complaint in the way it was done.
12:37 Speaker 01 He said, but he's he's tended to pick all the people from his school. He said, it's disgusting. And I remember going upstairs.
12:47 Speaker 01 Going to the bathroom and I'm going, you're all right. I'm going, no, no, no, I'm going into the bathroom and crying because I suddenly felt all those dreams were gone. Because the pathway at that time is you play for the school team, you play for the county, scouts would pick you up for the county. And then you'd get an apprenticeship and go and all of a sudden that that that full stop had happened. And and and it must happen to a lot of kids, obviously in sports or in performance or something like that where somebody says you're not up to it. And I it was just the injustice of it because probably, you know, as I've got old and I have played with a lot of players who made it.
13:28 Speaker 01 I remember getting into the under eighteen side later on, the Cheshire under eighteen. And I mean, and I was still pissed off about it then because some of the lads had played in the under fifteens. And I remember we played the game against the Elsmere Port. And it was the first time ever I'd played the football match against somebody who was my own age. And it was this lad playing for Elsmere Port, who someone said went on to went on to play for Everton or someone signed for Everton. He was just miles better than me. But that was the first time someone my age was miles better than me. You think, oh, that's my limitation. But not at fifteen, not on that day. On that day, when they, when you talk about, you know, how to fail.
14:14 Speaker 01 What failed was the system. I I I I was so angry with the injustice of it. So angry with the fact that I know I should have been picked. And if it had been picked, as I say, I might have run out of track at some point. I would have reached the point of someone saying you're not good enough. But it wasn't for them to say on that day.
14:36 Elizabeth Day? And you deserve the opportunity. And it's like you were playing one game and there was a whole other game being played that was rigged against you.
14:44 Speaker 01 Exactly.
14:45 Elizabeth Day? That injustice, how did you deal with it at, how old were you? Were you fifteen or were you?
14:50 Speaker 01 Fifteen.
14:51 Elizabeth Day? How how did you process it then? Maybe you didn't. Maybe you locked it away and only look at it.
14:56 Speaker 01 You know what? I hadn't really thought about it very much until I got asked to do this show. I was thinking, what what are the points in your life? Where there's been a failure, where you've not achieved what you thought you were going to achieve. And that has stood out. And that immediately. Immediately came out. So that's been buried deep inside for a long time.
15:19 Elizabeth Day? How aware did you then become of class and the injustice around class in this country?
15:27 Speaker 01 Oh, I I was always aware of class, I think. Because we lived on a council estate, first of all, and when we left Liverpool, we went to a place called Winsford. I remember, you know, there were some lads lived on the private estate and they just had more toys than me. And my dad went to prison when I was six, only for for a year. But if there was ever a moment in my life that I knew how the world saw us, it was that.
16:00 Elizabeth Day? Hmm.
16:00 Speaker 01 Because I remember going to see him and I I will never.
16:08 Speaker 01 I'll never forget just the way you were looked at, the way the guards looked at you.
16:14 Elizabeth Day? Was it dehumanising?
16:15 Speaker 01 Oh, it was horrible. Each door you went through was locked behind you as you went through, as the families all went through. And it just felt like you were cattle. It felt like you were.
16:27 Speaker 01 It felt like you were judged and nobody is interested in the truth or the reality. You were just one of them. All of that got reconfirmed by that one moment.
16:38 Elizabeth Day? The story which I notice you're not telling, which I think is interesting because maybe you feel like, well, I don't have to justify it. But I'm going to tell a story about the reason your dad was in jail is because he was defending his wife, your mother. In a from men who attacked her and he couldn't afford a good defence and he was sort of stitched up.
17:00 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:01 Elizabeth Day? Yeah.
17:01 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:02 Elizabeth Day? So that's a very difficult thing for a family to deal with.
17:05 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. It is. It's it's hard. It's it's funny because I've just got my dad staying with me now. He's gonna be um eighty four uh this week, my dad, uh and he's got a twin brother.
17:23 Speaker 01 One of the stupid ideas in their defence was to say it wasn't him, which one of these twins did it? And I went, really, that's, that's, you clearly didn't have a good defence if somebody was suggesting that. But yeah, it was, it was that, that's what happened, yeah. And I'm glad that you, you know the story. But basically, there'd been an instance, an altercation at some point. And then, and then my mum was getting chips at a chipping, my dad was in the car and these two fellas started having a go at it and shoved it around and that was it.
18:01 Elizabeth Day? Have you forgiven the system that did that?
18:05 Speaker 01 No, never will.
18:10 Elizabeth Day? Because one of the things that came across loud and clear when I was doing research for this interview was how much you give back to charity. So ninety six thousand pounds to the Hillsborough victims' families, millions of pounds raised through sport relief. Is that part of your purpose, do you think, that kind of giving back to people who need it because you didn't get?
18:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. And, and quietly, I mean, the money that I gave to the Hillsborough family support group was, was anonymous, but they, they asked if they could make it public.
18:54 Speaker 01 I'd rather do it anonymously when I can. And, and, and part of it is because, you know, some of the things that I've been able to support are in themselves, you know, small charities that make a big difference. And, and it, and they're the things that, you know, it's nice, the sport relief thing was all, was all good. And it's nice to be able to do stuff that raises money. But I'm also very, very fortunate that I make a good living out of doing something that I love. And so I don't have to raise money, I just have to keep less of it.
19:33 Elizabeth Day? I love that, yeah. I, this idea of working for a living and like how necessary that was, given where you came from. I imagine that made it particularly difficult to walk away from your secure job as a sales rep and to take this punt.
19:51 Speaker 01 It did and it didn't because, you know, me and Melanie got back together. It was a joint decision. You said in the introduction, three years. In reality, it was, I didn't leave my job until six years later. I'd overlapped so many times with the job that I did. And I, you know, I told my boss, you know, I'd go to the Edinburgh Festival. I'd rent a flat in Edinburgh. I'd have one week's holiday. And the other times, other times I was there, I'd be going to see the transplant unit in Edinburgh. I'd be flying down to London in the day, back to do a gig of a night. I was doing all of these things to run them parallel. And then it just came to a point, I thought, you know, the people around me
20:36 Speaker 01 who'd been on the circuit with me, like Alan Carr, Jason Manford, Michael McIntyre, Jimmy Carr, they'd all gone on. And I'd reached the point of recognizing that if you didn't make this step, then that's where you're going to be then. You're going to be a really good circuit comic and you might be able to generate an audience locally, but that's your limit. And so I just sat down with Melanie and said, look, I'd started doing these sportsman's dinners. And sportsman's dinners were getting done in the middle of the week. So you're doing gigs of a weekend and you're getting whatever you're getting for the gig. You do a sportsman's dinner and you might get 700 quid. I'm like, well, if I could
21:19 Speaker 01 do that, self-employed, change it, and then I could do a little bit of consultancy. The company that I was working for didn't want me to leave. So they offered me a consultancy so I could take that. So there was a lot of things suggesting, you know, you, you could be okay. And I spoke to Melanie, I said, look, I, I promise I'll make the same amount of money. Because when we got back together, because the kids had missed out so much. We kind of agreed. She was doing a job she didn't like. I said, well, you don't have to work if I can do this. And then, and then the kids will get the, the time that we never, never really had with them. And, and so I said, look, I just promised her I'll, I'll make
22:01 Speaker 01 to save a mountain of money. And she said, I, she said, I think you will. And for the first three years, obviously, I didn't. Everything went down. We added to the mortgage, all of those things. But the bottom line is, I remember looking at me kids, who at that time would have been, I guess, about twelve, twelve, ten, eight, something like that. And I thought the main reason for me not doing this is because we've got a nice house, usually going to a nice school, and I've got kids. And what's gonna happen if I don't do this, that would be the main thing that will bug me forever, is that I didn't do it because I had you. And
22:46 Speaker 01 that's a coward's way of living. I'm gonna blame you for me not doing it. And I, and I, and I could sense that because everyone was going, well, what, you know, you're taking a chance. And I just thought, back yourself. And what's the worst that can happen? Because when you talk about the work ethic, for me, I knew it was impossible for me to go back to where I'd started from. It was impossible. That would never happen. So anything beyond that was success.
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24:17 Elizabeth Day? Just tell us the story quickly about you and Melanie. I know you've told it before.
24:21 Speaker 01 Basically, the story is, we split up. I ended up doing stand-up comedy in a way I didn't expect it. And then what happened after being apart for almost two years, about 20 months, she came to a gig. Well, no, she came to a comedy club, not knowing I did stand-up comedy. I didn't tell anyone at this time, I didn't tell any of my mates. She's in this comedy club with people who don't know me, in this new job on someone's birthday, I think it was. And her ex-husband gets announced on the stage, walks on the stage, and at the time, I used to tell this terrible joke about saying, you know, I'm really sad at the moment.
25:04 Speaker 01 I split up with my wife and the audience go, oh, it's not that bad. We're not divorced or anything. I've just killed her, but I've kept her head in the fridge. Terrible joke and not something I would say now. And certainly not something I would say after that night because I looked to the left and the head that was meant to be in the fridge was in the audience and I thought. And we were, I tell you where we were at. We were at the decree nice size stage of the divorce.
25:27 Elizabeth Day? Wow, so it was really advanced.
25:29 Speaker 01 Yeah. So we were just haggling over money and kids and stuff like that. And I remember seeing the head thing, oh my God, that joke's going to cost me another 20 grand. And then, and then she came over at the end and she was laughing. And I'll never forget the line she said, and it sounds like a gag, but it was actually true. She just said, look, it was just great to see you doing that. She said, you've got that bounce in your step, that glint in your eyes. She said, you're like, you're like the man I met. She said, what happened to you? I said, I married you.
26:02 Speaker 01 And then she said, well, can we do something? And then we we ended up, and actually, on reflection, we ended up going to counselling because we couldn't, she wouldn't sign the papers and we couldn't finalise the, so we went to counselling not to get back together or to see what was wrong, to try and source out the final details without lawyers. And I remember sitting in the room, and we were sat in the room, and she was talking for twenty minutes, and I was talking for twenty minutes, and it was going a little bit backwards of all, and this counselling went, what are you two doing here? And she said, just, I can see, so why don't you just go for a coffee? I can see what you probably can't see. Just go and have a coffee. And then that was it.
26:47 Elizabeth Day? Oh, and do you consider it a full on second marriage, just with the same person?
26:53 Speaker 01 I think that story's a lovely story and and I think the bigger story is the fact, like, at the end of this month, it'll be thirty two years since we got married. That'll be our, well, on and off, obviously, but it'll be thirty two years and so getting back together when you've got young kids, after two years apart, you say, oh, that's all right. But then, to get on a rollercoaster that our life's been, where your life has completely changed, and and and you're you're one of you has become a public commodity in some respects, and everything that was normal has been thrown out the window, and to
27:38 Speaker 01 to still be there then, I think that's that's a bigger achievement, because what what we've had to go through as a family has been not something that we could have prepared for, and where we're at now is not somewhere I imagine we'd ever get to.
27:54 Elizabeth Day? Congratulations.
27:56 Speaker 01 Oh, it's, honestly, it's.
27:59 Speaker 01 As you get older, you reflect on things in a different way and what's important in a relationship changes and you know, we met, I was twenty one when I met her. It's funny, somebody asked me recently about touring and, and, and you're looking forward to going home and I suddenly, and I have a beautiful house and all of those bits and I just suddenly realised that's, she's home.
28:26 Elizabeth Day? Oh.
28:27 Speaker 01 But that's true.
28:29 Elizabeth Day? That's so lovely. I have a million questions I want to ask, but we need to get on to your second failure. Before I do, your top tip for a rela- a relationship lasting?
28:38 Speaker 01 Go on tour for six months of the year. You know what, I honestly don't know, you've got to grow together and it's, listen, anyone who says, oh, we're wonderful, that's bollocks, I mean, Jesus Christ. The other thing about being connected with somebody eh in the same way that we are is no one can make me feel like she does and, and so she can make me feel shit as well. So if Melanie's annoyed with me, it ruins me day. I couldn't give a shit what anyone else thinks. Someone's annoyed me, I'm not bothered, but she has, she has a place in my psyche.
29:22 Elizabeth Day? Yes.
29:23 Speaker 01 That no one else does and, and in the same way, she can lift me, you know, she's funny, and I won't be unique in this, everybody who does this kind of jo- you take your jokes to the world, you know what I mean? I give my jokes to strangers, I give my tears to her because, well, I'm down and I'm done. No one else sees it.
29:48 Elizabeth Day? Hmm.
29:50 Elizabeth Day? We're going back in time for your second failure, which is your English A level.
29:55 Speaker 01 Yes.
29:56 Elizabeth Day? Yes, so I understand. So you're at this school and you were the first in your family to do O levels? GCSEs.
30:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, God, I remember that. Yeah, yeah, no, I was O levels and I remember, I remember me dad saying to me, your mum says you're doing O levels. I said, yeah, good. That was it. That was the biggest. Because me, me brother and me sister, sisters done GCSEs and, and, oh, no, CSEs as it was then. And so, and I, and I've been put in these groups to do O levels and I went back to sixth form to the school that I was in. We had two thousand kids in the form and it was brilliant. I got an email, I got a letter literally two days ago that had been scanned in by my agent. It went to my agent, but it's from my old English teacher, Julie Widder's,
30:49 Speaker 01 Miss Widder's, who was also the head of the sixth form in this school. This school had a sixth form. It was starting at sixth form. We had two thousand kids in the school. We had six people in the sixth form in the first year of the sixth form. And I was one of them. In fact, I made it up to seven. And then what happened, I turned up on the first day in jeans and he said, no, the sixth form means you've got to wear trousers. And I went, I, I'm not going back. And I was asking me mum for trousers. There's no chance. I said, these are new jeans, so.
31:24 Elizabeth Day? Because no one had a job in your house at that time, did they? So you were worried about asking for money for trousers?
31:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, I wasn't going to do that. And I do is, me brother and sisters were on a scheme. Me dad was in and out of, of work. And me mum was working in a kitchen, cleaning pans. And I left and I started looking for a scheme. And then I ended up getting a job at I C I. A job that wouldn't exist these days, a male lad. I knew if I couldn't get off, if if football wasn't gonna be the way out. And it wasn't, listen, the estate wasn't, it was a really nice estate. But, you know, get on to that next stage in life. Whatever, if I couldn't do it through football, I tried through education. So I tried to do A levels at night school whilst I was doing the job.
32:12 Speaker 01 And I was trying to do a law A level, ironically, and a and an English A level. Uh, because I was good at English. I was always told I was good at English. And I was doing them at night school one night a week. And I got to Christmas and I went to see some mates in the sixth form. And I was in my work clothes, big metal boots and all that stuff, the clothes that you wear in a chemical factory. And the English teacher, Mr. Logan, Jeff Logan, saw me. I don't know why I know all my teachers' first names. I don't know any of them. And he, um, he said, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm trying to do, I'm doing, trying to do my A levels and stuff.
32:56 Speaker 01 But I said, but I'm working. And he said, well, why don't you come back? I said, well, I've missed a term and I'm not gonna start again. And he went, and him and Mr. Debridge, Dave Debridge, who's the history guy, said, look, we can help you catch up. And I said, I can't do it for the money. Okay, there's no way I can, I can drop the money. And so, Miss Phillips, the headmistress, I'll never forget this, actually. I remember they took me into her office and we negotiated that the school would allow me to go and sign on and come back and do A levels. Uh, without, without disrupting anyone else and telling anyone else that I was doing it. So that I could get the eighteen pound fifty.
33:40 Elizabeth Day? Wow, they really cared.
33:42 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. It, it was. Yeah, it made a massive difference there. And so and then I went home, told me mum and dad I was gonna leave cause I was gonna do A levels. And again, they were going, why, you've got a job. I went, because I want something more. And me dad was going, but what what is that? Like, like, you've got a job at a factory where everyone, no one leaves, you'd be, get your pension there. And I went, but that's not what I want. And I'll never forget it. The best advice anyone's ever given me. We sat there, we were talking, I had to get up at six to get the bus to work. And there
34:21 Speaker 01 I remember me dad saying to me, look, you know, it was nearly midnight. And I remember him saying, look, listen. I can't talk it out of it. He says, if it's what you want to do, he said, you've got to do it. Cause if you don't try it, you'll never know what would have happened. And I took that advice onto just about everything. So when it came to leaving me job to do comedy, I thought, I took that again. If you don't try it, I'll never know.
34:48 Elizabeth Day? You did try it and you worked really hard. You and you didn't get the A that you were predicted.
34:55 Speaker 01 No. So what happened, I sat my English A level. I always had a problem with spelling. At the time, dyslexia wasn't as as well understood. What it is, I can't spell in my head. And so recently I've been learning sign language. Oh God, deaf people love to spell.
35:15 Elizabeth Day? For your son, your eldest son?
35:17 Speaker 01 Yeah, he he doesn't need it or do it. I'm doing it now for myself. But that's how that was the connection. Cause he he he he's okay with heronates. And he wants to live in the heron world. Continuous as much as he can before he. But anyway, I'm still learning. I still do eh some sign language. But with sign language, the hard thing for me is like when people are telling you the new sign and you wait, they spell it to you, but as they're spelling it. It's doesn't make, it's not making any difference to me unless I can write down what the spelling. I just can't spell in my head. So it's always been this thing. And and there's a joke that I always say in stand up when I talk about being dyslexic where
35:57 Speaker 01 they phoned home and said, look, we think you're John's dyslexic. And that's where living in the northwest was so good. Cause we were only an hour from Wales. So my dad drove me to Wales, got out, pointed at the first road sign, said, there you go, son. You're not the only one. And there was an element where we were on holiday in Wales and me dad was saying, does that make any sense to you? And anyway, so I'd I'd been fine with it and and the I'd I'd apply I'd applied to go and do English and history at the great Newcastle Poly. And and the the estimated marks were really good and everything. My mock exam had been good.
36:36 Speaker 01 My history was good. I did well in the history A level. I'd I'd I'd got a law A level in one year. And and when I was carried on with the night school when I went back to normal school. So I was very confident and I went into this exam, this English exam, and I don't know what happened. Something happened. And in the end, they came back ungraded. And a U. And I went, I didn't even know what U meant. And they went, just ungraded in the school. We just don't know what to do. So the school paid to get it remarked. Because my whole life was hanging on this.
37:19 Speaker 01 And it and it came back and they sent the paper back and they gave it to me as well to school and and I wish I'd have kept it. And and he just went, you just had a meltdown. The sentences just made no sense. And and words were written backwards and some words were written like almost upside down. And it was just my brain had just gone berserk. And so I remember sitting with the teacher going, how did that happen? He said, you've obviously gone in that nervous and that anxious that it's overloaded your brain. And and I took so much from that because I remember thinking, I I remember walking in. Feeling the weight of the importance of it. And.
38:05 Speaker 01 And I've never felt like that ever again.
38:07 Elizabeth Day? It's so interesting because one of the things I understand about how you perform comedy is that you leave it quite free and you don't write anything down, so you don't over prepare. Do you think that's a legacy of this?
38:20 Speaker 01 A little bit, yeah. And I also, a lot of people always said to me about comedy, do you get nervous? And now and again, you get nervous. Probably always think, none of it matters. This doesn't matter. When something really mattered, I cared that much, I ruined it.
38:35 Elizabeth Day? Yes.
38:36 Speaker 01 So don't, don't worry about it. Cause it's like, I remember somebody asking me once, how would you define confidence? And I said, to me, confidence is about consequence. You can be confident if you're not bothered what the consequences are.
38:52 Elizabeth Day? That is so good.
38:53 Speaker 01 It, it's, it's like, what's the worst thing that could happen? The worst thing that can happen might be a bit embarrassing for 10 minutes. So the consequences aren't that great.
39:03 Elizabeth Day? How does it feel now, being the father of three sons who have a more privileged life than you did?
39:11 Speaker 01 Oh, listen, I used, again, I used to say my kids are the kids I used to throw stones at.
39:20 Speaker 01 And it's difficult, but I think it's a generational thing. I think we are the first parents, my generation of parents, are the first parents to parents in a world we never lived in. And, and we didn't understand, we were the first, you know, the internet, social media, all of these, all of these pressures of expectation, you've got to go, it's not your fault that you've grown up in a nice house and it's not your fault that you don't know.
39:59 Speaker 01 What I know.
40:00 Elizabeth Day? Yeah.
40:00 Speaker 01 And I don't, I also don't want you to know it.
40:05 Elizabeth Day? Yeah.
40:06 Speaker 01 I remember talking to a friend of mine once, who, who from a similar background to myself. And we were talking about having kids who, who maybe don't know, maybe, you know, don't know what you do. And they said, well, someone's got to win. You know, i- if you can't take them back to their estate, why would you want to? Someone's got to gain from it. What you want is, is you hope that they take the right values from it.
40:33 Elizabeth Day? Before we get on to your final failure, you've spoken so movingly about some of your childhood and the things that you went through. And I suppose it's quite a cliche question, but I'll ask it anyway. Do you think your comedy has to be rooted in that darkness?
40:51 Speaker 01 Well, you say movingly, what, what, what made you use that word?
40:55 Elizabeth Day? I, because I felt moved. I feel, I suppose it's just an intangible thing where I feel that I feel your emotion. So you talking about your sons not knowing your darkness. I find very moving because also part of your role as a parent is protection.
41:12 Speaker 01 Yeah, but I don't want people to feel that I had an unhappy childhood. I had a childhood that was reflective of the circumstance I was living in. But I don't talk about it as, as in depth as this. And sometimes, you know, even during this conversation, I found myself catching myself. Because as I've got older, I've been more open about some of the things that I've kept
41:39 Speaker 01 as a blow down. And I've, and I've kind of become more comfortable with that. So maybe it feels more emotional than I realise myself. And I think it's also you used the word darkness, there's not darkness. There's, there's things that have shaped me as a person that I'm grateful for. But at the time, I'd have done anything not to have gone through it.
42:07 Elizabeth Day? Your final failure is your failure to follow your gut when your in-conversation TV show came to an end. So I remember the show, it ran for four series.
42:17 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:17 Elizabeth Day? It was an interview show. You interviewed everyone from Cuba Gooding Jr. to Jeremy Corbyn. So tell me about that and why it came to an end and why you categorize it as a failure.
42:29 Speaker 01 I tell you, so what happened is UK TV, which was one of the arms of Sky, other channel W, and he said, you know, and I wanted to do, I wanted to do this. I wanted to do a one-on-one interview. And he said, how is it gonna work? I said, well, this, you know, I'll sit with somebody and talk with them and it'll be an hour of one-on-one interview. And we're talking like 2017, this was happening. And he said, have you ever done it before? I said, well, see what we're doing now. This is it. That's all the magic that there is. I'll say something, you say something, we'll put cameras on it. And so he said, okay,
43:09 Speaker 01 let's give it a go. And we ended up doing 41 episodes of this over, over 2017 and 2018. And as you say, great interviews and I loved it. But because I'm a comedian, it took everyone a while to adjust to the idea that, yo, these were just conversations, these were not set up for gags, these were, these were what is now known as a podcast. And, and what happened, it came to the end of its life as far as the commission was concerned because of the way the deal had, they had lots of television, you know, you know, because they could repeat
43:49 Speaker 01 it so many times over so many years. And so they, it ended. And I was absolutely gutted because I think on television was the thing I was the most proud of. I really. I enjoyed doing it. I felt I was good at it. I felt it was revealing a different aspect to me. But I also felt at the time it was quite unique. And so I wanted to find a way of carrying it on. And I, and, and I spoke to people doing podcasts and everyone's going, yeah, but there's no money in podcasts. And I was thinking, well, stick it on YouTube and they go, yeah, but there's no money in it. And, and, and like you've got limited time, you've got all of these other things that are going on, all of these projects that are going on.
44:33 Speaker 01 You know, just written a comedy drama for ITV, I was writing a book, I was doing this, I was on sort of, and you've got, you know, your family was at a, at a difficult stage with their age and their teenage and the, and like, you're gonna do something for nothing. And I just thought, yeah, but I really wanna do it. And, and I can't find a way of, and I, and I, and I call it a failure because instinctively, I knew I should have carried on doing it. But I was, I took the decision not to based on the fact that everyone was saying, look at your time as a monetary value. Look at your, you're gonna give time to this when there's a monetary value to your time that could be spent somewhere else.
45:18 Speaker 01 And I really gutted myself because I'm not that bothered about money. I've never been motivated by money. But I felt like because there's so many other people involved, that was part of the decision process and I, I shouldn't have done. And then, and then obviously, you know, this show, other shows fill that void. Whereas at the time, there was no one else really doing it. And now, and I, you know, I ended up doing another podcast with a mate of mine, Tony, called Three Little Words. But again, we were paid money to do it by Amazon. It was behind the paywall. You know, the in-conversation was behind the paywall. And, and all of those things are stuff that I just wanna remove myself from.
46:02 Speaker 01 So I now do a podcast with a mate of mine, Des Smith, Des Smith, Des Bishop.
46:07 Elizabeth Day? I was gonna say.
46:08 Speaker 01 If I ever call him Des Smith.
46:10 Elizabeth Day? There's only room in this comedy world for one of us. It's called the Bishop Exchange.
46:14 Speaker 01 It's the Bishop Exchange. So it's, and it's, it's actually. Brilliant, because from, from going to the point of always wanting to interview somebody and peel something back. I think you do it brilliantly. I think other people do it brilliantly. I don't need to do that. What I need to do now is, is, is have a laugh for an hour a week with a mate of mine. And that's what we do. It's basically the phone call that we would make each week to each other anyway. And it's fun. And that was another thing, and I think when we come back to education and life and all the rest of it, one of the things that I've possibly undervalued, and this was another bit when it comes down to seeing this as a failure.
46:54 Speaker 01 I've undervalued the value of, of the skill I've got. In other words, I've always wanted validation. I've always wanted someone to say, you're good enough, you should have got that trial, or you should have got that A level. You, you're, you're clever enough. We, we accept now that you're clever enough. Rather than just going, actually, wh- what I'm loving now is getting back to this point of going, actually, what you do is you make people laugh for an hour. That's enough.
47:30 Elizabeth Day? Hmm.
47:30 Speaker 01 Because right now, that's the importance of that for me, and recognizing that. Like this last tour I've done and this next tour is just, is just, it sounds stupid, but I'm, I'm getting more professional at the comedy. Whereas the comedy used to be something I could do and I'd be more professional at the other stuff like the in-conversation.
47:56 Elizabeth Day? That voice that you long to hear saying, you're good enough, whose voice is it?
48:03 Speaker 01 Hmm.
48:06 Speaker 01 Hmm. Probably me own.
48:11 Speaker 01 I, uh, I, I'm often my own, not where it's critic that I'm down on myself. I always.
48:21 Speaker 01 I always think there's something more I could do. And, and, and, and that's been a good thing. But like Melanie said, sometimes that's been hard to live with. Because it's, it's led at times to the, almost like a FOMO. Almost like, well, you know, I know that, I know this is a nice hotel, but I bet it is a nicer hotel. I know this is, I know, I know, you know what I mean? Almost like, I know we're having a nice time, but I bet it is a nicer time down the corner. And I've, and in some respects, and I think that I will not be alone in this. In some respects, I'm so much more a better person now. Than I was, you know, twenty years ago.
49:05 Speaker 01 And I needed to be a better person twenty years ago than I do now. Because twenty years ago, my kids were grown up.
49:13 Elizabeth Day? Do you regret that?
49:14 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, I, I think I'd have been, I, I, not regret it. I've, I've always been as good as I can be with the tools I had at that time. But just, because the, the thing that people don't realise is when you, when your circumstances change. You know, fame for whatever that is comes along. It's affecting everyone around you, but you're the only one who gets the applause. You're the only one that the light's shining on. And that's hard. And I, I would have liked, when I see a lot of my friends who are in a similar position to me. Their kids are babies or they're just having kids.
49:58 Speaker 01 They're being born into a world where that person knows who they are. You know, me and Melanie were in this, getting to know ourselves just as people. And then getting to know ourselves in this changing environment whilst trying to bring up kids. You know, I, I would give anything. Oh.
50:19 Speaker 01 I'd give it anything to eh to have them as little kids again for the day. You know, if I could, if I could, if I could just pick them all up at once. Or ride them all on me back at once. But, you know, the oldest one's dirty. I can't do that now. Can't do that with one of them, let alone three of them.
50:47 Elizabeth Day? You'll probably be able to do it with grandchildren.
50:49 Speaker 01 Yeah. My son said that to me actually yesterday.
50:53 Elizabeth Day? Talking of grandchildren, I'm I'm going to end on an extremely important and deep and difficult question, John. Are you ready? Because you're turning sixty in twenty twenty six. Your skin is phenomenal. And I need to know why. What are you doing to your skin?
51:11 Speaker 01 Is this this?
51:12 Elizabeth Day? This is a genuine question.
51:13 Speaker 01 You know what? And right now we could hold that and I could get sponsored for my podcast.
51:19 Elizabeth Day? Yeah.
51:19 Speaker 01 L'Oreal could come in, give us a good right few quid and I'll say whatever they want. You know, the truth is, right, I've not eaten meat for forty years. Eh any meat, fish or or meat. So I'm vegetarian, that helps. This is going to sound awful. I don't wash my face.
51:38 Elizabeth Day? You don't wash it, so it starts washing itself, probably a bit like hair?
51:42 Speaker 01 I honestly don't know. And the reason is, I used to have an allergic reaction to soap. But I found out it was cheap soap, perfume, cheap soap, would make my face flare up. So I stopped washing it. So I I literally, there's some nights I barely put water on my face.
52:01 Elizabeth Day? Do you put moisturiser? Sorry.
52:03 Speaker 01 Yeah, I do. I do put moisturiser. And again, it's one of those, one of those things that me dad, me dad like, me dad's a, you know, he's a tough. I let him, you know, worked on the docks and then worked on building sites all his life and all that stuff. And eh and, you know.
52:21 Speaker 01 He's what you'd imagine a working class man to be, you know, we don't talk about a lot of things. In fact, I was saying, saying to someone the other day, if me and my dad don't say, if you watch the match, I don't think we've had a conversation for 10 years. But, but I remember when I was a kid, him saying, always, you know, your mum uses this moisture, look after your face. I love the fact that you're saying all of this, because this feels, I mean, with the girls, it feels like, like, like we're having a slumber party.
52:50 Elizabeth Day? Listen, we've got the pink.
52:51 Speaker 01 You go, oh, come on. Honestly, that's it. I haven't got anything. Yeah, yeah. Avocado, rub avocado in, rub avocado skins into my face. Can I patent that before we say it?
53:08 Elizabeth Day? Yeah.
53:09 Speaker 01 Thank you for saying that, by the way.
53:10 Elizabeth Day? It's a pleasure. I'm glad we've ended on this note. We've, we've been on a journey, but I did want to ask you about the quality of your skin. You're clearly just genetically blessed.
53:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'd, I'd, I'll take that.
53:20 Elizabeth Day? Thank you so, so much, John Bishop.
53:22 Speaker 01 No, thank you. This has been, been interesting. I hope it's been worthwhile.
53:25 Elizabeth Day? I've absolutely loved it and I've been moved in spite of the fact you thinking that it hasn't been moving. Please do follow How To Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.
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