Pod Insights Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware Jack Rooke About this episode We are so happy to be joined by award winning comedy writer Jack Rooke on the podcast this week! Fresh from his BAFTA win for his beautiful comedy series ‘Big Boys’ (and still suffering from a 2 day hangover), Jack joined us for brunch to celebrate the occasion. Jack is in the midst of preparing for the return of his comedy show ‘Good Grief’, and we talked about how comedy helped him with the loss of his dad when he was a teen. We also covered meeting Celie Imrie, rating gifted lasagnes, his love of working in Paris, his dream of Christmas dinner & thanksgiving merged into one meal, and we even get a confession involving Jessie’s mobile number! What a total delight to chat with the fabulous Jack, good luck with the tour! ‘Good Grief’ is touring the UK from August to October, tickets on sale now.
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Transcript 11,121 words · 4 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:35 Jessie Ware? Hello and welcome to Tabor Manners. I'm Jessie Ware and I'm here with Lenny. And it's a windy spring day. Are we still in spring?
0:43 Speaker 02 No, it should be summer by May, but absolutely it's not summer.
0:47 Jessie Ware? I nearly have the heating on.
0:48 Speaker 02 I had it full blast all over.
0:50 Jessie Ware? It's blowing a hooly out there.
0:51 Speaker 02 I know, and that's a cold wind.
0:54 Jessie Ware? We're doing a breakfast episode today. So someone's coming over for breakfast. It's Jack Rook, who I absolutely love. He created one of the best TV shows on Channel 4. Brilliant British, I don't know, would you call it comedy? It is comedy, but it's also completely touching and beautiful called Big Boys. Had three seasons, I adored them all. But started in the Edinburgh Fringe with winning, I think, lots of accolades for his, his stand-up called Good Grief, which has its 10-year anniversary this year. And that's why he's going back to Edinburgh to do it.
1:30 Speaker 02 How old is he?
1:31 Jessie Ware? He's, he's, he's one of them, them ones.
1:33 Speaker 02 That started young.
1:34 Jessie Ware? He's a bit Lena Dunham age, you know what I mean? Very clever and successful at a young age. Has he reached 30 yet? Yeah, I think maybe he is 30 or something. He's just very good. And he's coming over to talk about Good Grief, coming back.
1:49 Speaker 02 And I hope Big Boys.
1:50 Jessie Ware? No, Big Boys is wrapped up, Mum, if you haven't.
1:52 Speaker 02 I know, but he'll still talk, he won't talk about that?
1:55 Jessie Ware? He says he's done with pretending he's at uni now.
1:58 Speaker 02 So he's not a big boy anymore?
2:00 Jessie Ware? He's a big, big boy now.
2:01 Speaker 02 He's a big boy, yeah.
2:03 Jessie Ware? So we have Jack Rook coming on to talk about, yeah, stand-up, Good Grief, Big Boys, all of it. And I love seeing Jack and can't wait to chat to him. And I've been on food duty. Let me get the cookbooks. So Itamar and Sarit, who I love, they are Honey and Co. They are just the most beautiful couple, but also amazing, amazing chefs. They've got a new cookbook called Honey and Co Daily. And they've got Eggs the Daily Way, which is just kind of, you know, we're doing breakfast, so why not? There's peas with basil, spring onions, garlic and a bit of Aleppo chili. And then you just do it on toast. I didn't make my sourdough because I haven't done my starter. I know, I'm sorry.
2:44 Speaker 02 You're slipping.
2:45 Jessie Ware? I know.
2:45 Speaker 02 Did you buy it?
2:46 Jessie Ware? I did, and I got a nice M and S bread.
2:48 Speaker 02 Okay.
2:48 Jessie Ware? It's good.
2:49 Speaker 02 Yeah.
2:49 Jessie Ware? And then you just have a fried egg, but you put, you kind of coat the toast with some goat's juice. So there's like.
2:55 Speaker 02 How would you, how would you describe the crust? Is it a veneer removal crust?
2:59 Jessie Ware? This one, yeah.
3:00 Speaker 02 Yeah, okay.
3:00 Jessie Ware? Yeah, absolutely. And then we've done, I say we because Rosie, my sweet Rosie, has helped me with the custard. So another amazing chef, Helen Graham, has this new book.
3:13 Speaker 02 Not related to James, is she?
3:15 Jessie Ware? She's not, but she did go to university with your son.
3:18 Speaker 02 Oh, wow.
3:19 Jessie Ware? And she was the head chef at Bubela, that amazing vegetarian restaurant.
3:25 Jessie Ware? And centerpiece is her cookbook and it's really beautiful and it really complements Sarit and Itamar's food. And I've done hot apricots and cold saffron custard.
3:34 Speaker 02 Oh.
3:35 Jessie Ware? But Rosie, sweet Rosie, made the custard yesterday. I tasted it this morning and it was a bit grainy, so we did a new one. And now the next one is a bit runny. So I don't know, you can have grainy and more firm or you can have runny and not great.
3:48 Speaker 02 It'll taste delicious.
3:49 Jessie Ware? Anyway, and so, yeah, you fry the apricots in some maple syrup and olive oil and some sea salt flakes. So it's really, and the custard is amazing. I know you're not mad about saffron, are you?
4:02 Speaker 02 No.
4:02 Jessie Ware? Sorry.
4:03 Speaker 02 I love the colour.
4:04 Jessie Ware? It tastes so beautiful.
4:06 Speaker 02 Slightly, no, I think, I mean, I have had a little taste and it tasted delicious.
4:11 Jessie Ware? So, yeah, it's nice. Two cookbooks from two brilliant chefs. And it's just nice to have new ideas.
4:18 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:18 Jessie Ware? So, yeah, Jack Brook coming up on Taking Matters.
4:28 Jessie Ware? Jack.
4:29 Speaker 03 Do I look human?
4:30 Jessie Ware? What do you mean? You look amazing.
4:32 Speaker 03 Okay, great.
4:33 Jessie Ware? But the voice is horse.
4:34 Speaker 03 The voice is horse.
4:35 Jessie Ware? Why is the voice horse?
4:36 Speaker 03 I just spoke to absolutely everyone on Sunday night.
4:39 Jessie Ware? You're a chatter.
4:40 Speaker 03 So I was chatting, I met Martin Lewis, money saved for years.
4:43 Jessie Ware? Oh my god, his speech was so beautiful.
4:46 Speaker 03 His speech was so nice.
4:47 Jessie Ware? And quite like, like, I mean.
4:49 Speaker 03 Yeah.
4:49 Jessie Ware? Did you talk about?
4:50 Speaker 03 Yeah, we spoke about his speech and we also, and he was like, we really love big boys. And it was so nice.
4:55 Speaker 02 Everyone loves big boys.
4:57 Speaker 03 It's very, very sweet.
4:58 Jessie Ware? Can we just say firstly, congratulations, you won a BAFTA.
5:01 Speaker 03 Thank you so much.
5:02 Jessie Ware? A BAFTA craft, I mean, a BAFTA for comedy writer.
5:05 Speaker 03 Yeah.
5:06 Jessie Ware? For big boys.
5:06 Speaker 03 For big boys.
5:07 Jessie Ware? Which you know I love.
5:08 Speaker 03 Well, thank you darling.
5:08 Jessie Ware? And mum said, well, I can't wait for the next season. I was like, no, this shit's wrapped up.
5:13 Speaker 03 No, it's done.
5:14 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
5:14 Speaker 03 It's done. But in a really lovely way, we got to end it how we wanted to end it.
5:19 Speaker 02 You could do old boys next.
5:20 Speaker 03 Oh, I'd love to do old. Do you know what I'd really like to do next?
5:23 Speaker 02 What?
5:23 Speaker 03 Big girls.
5:24 Jessie Ware? Oh.
5:26 Speaker 03 Yeah.
5:27 Speaker 02 Yeah.
5:27 Speaker 03 Yeah, big girls, I'm working on it.
5:29 Speaker 02 Are you?
5:30 Speaker 03 Yeah.
5:31 Speaker 02 It's a brand.
5:31 Speaker 03 It's a brand.
5:32 Jessie Ware? And so congratulations on your BAFTA, but you were also at the BAFTAs, the telly BAFTAs on Sunday. It's now Tuesday when we're recording this, by the way.
5:41 Speaker 03 Yeah.
5:41 Jessie Ware? And you have apparently just left your party.
5:44 Speaker 03 We've just, so I haven't just left the party. We left the party at about six, seven AM on Monday morning. The whole roof of the Sea Containers, the whole rooftop bar. So you, so you have the BAFTAs, the ceremony is so long, everybody is.
5:58 Speaker 02 That's the Royal Festival Hall.
5:59 Speaker 03 At the Royal Festival Hall. Then you have a dinner, you kind of get through that because no one's eaten in about four or five hours.
6:04 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
6:05 Speaker 03 Then you have a party sort of on like the concourse of the South Bank.
6:09 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
6:09 Speaker 03 And it was amazing and everyone's there. And then everyone goes at two AM to the Sea Containers Hotel where the rooftop is from two till six.
6:17 Speaker 02 When you say everyone.
6:19 Speaker 03 I mean.
6:20 Jessie Ware? Who was partying till six AM?
6:22 Speaker 02 Was the older ones there?
6:23 Speaker 03 Yeah.
6:24 Speaker 02 Oh, interesting.
6:25 Speaker 03 It was a really lovely, I felt like this year was one of the loveliest BAFTAs I've been to. It really felt like everyone there just wanted to sort of celebrate. And I think it's like. It's been quite tough, the TV and film film industry, I think like.
6:38 Speaker 02 Why?
6:38 Speaker 03 I think there's been a lot of stuff that hasn't been able to get, you know, cross the line. It's been tricky for a lot of workforce. I mean, a lot of people are sort of struggling with like sort of unemployment. Like, there's been definitely been a decline. I think post Covid, there was a boom of making loads of film and TV and then it's been a bit of a tricky one. So. If you're managing to make work and then you're managing to be nominated for a BAFTA and then you're managing to win them, you want to have a bit of a booze up.
7:06 Speaker 02 Yeah, I suppose you do.
7:07 Jessie Ware? So what were you drinking and who were you dancing with?
7:10 Speaker 03 I was drinking, because I'm very classy, a lot of Negronis.
7:13 Speaker 02 Oh.
7:14 Speaker 03 Which is my favourite drink.
7:16 Speaker 02 Is it? Why?
7:17 Speaker 03 Because I sort of think, if I'm, I'm not a big drinker, but if I'm gonna drink, I want it to taste like booze.
7:24 Speaker 02 Yeah.
7:24 Speaker 03 I want it to hit the back of my throat.
7:26 Speaker 02 So what's the main spirit in a Negroni?
7:28 Speaker 03 The moo.
7:29 Jessie Ware? Gin, the moo, campari.
7:31 Speaker 03 Campari.
7:32 Jessie Ware? It's a shit mix.
7:32 Speaker 03 It's a real, it's a real.
7:35 Speaker 02 It's quite bitter.
7:36 Speaker 03 It can be quite bitter and then sometimes you can get different deviations. You can get a white Negroni where they replace something. So maybe it's blank, I don't know, I don't wanna, I don't wanna sound like a mixologist.
7:46 Speaker 02 Soda in to make it long?
7:48 Speaker 03 No.
7:49 Speaker 02 What?
7:50 Speaker 03 But maybe they could do.
7:51 Jessie Ware? That's the.
7:52 Speaker 02 What's Spagliato?
7:53 Jessie Ware? There's that very fair, you don't know about memes already, do you? It's not a meme, is it?
7:56 Speaker 02 No, I don't know.
7:57 Jessie Ware? Oh, it's like.
7:57 Speaker 03 You would love this.
7:58 Speaker 02 Can't even spell it.
7:59 Jessie Ware? It's like, who was it? Olivia?
8:01 Speaker 03 It's Olivia Cook.
8:02 Jessie Ware? Cook with Emma Darby.
8:05 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, from House of Dragon.
8:06 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
8:07 Speaker 03 And she goes, Negroni, Spagliato. With a bit of prosecco in it or something like that.
8:11 Speaker 02 Do you put prosecco in it sometimes?
8:12 Jessie Ware? Yeah, but I think that's the one that fucked me up the other day and I had the worst hangover on.
8:17 Speaker 03 Yeah, I have, I, I have had, I have got a slight hangover still. I hope you don't mind. And I, that was never what, what I ever wanted to bring to table manners.
8:24 Jessie Ware? You're clean, you look happy.
8:27 Speaker 02 Sparkly.
8:27 Speaker 03 Okay, pray.
8:28 Jessie Ware? Yes, bright eyed.
8:29 Speaker 02 So who was the most interesting person you spoke to?
8:33 Speaker 03 Do you know what, when you when you get nominated for BAFTAs, you sort of do like a week of events before. So this is why I'm exhausted. We did we did like a big Vogue party on Wednesday.
8:45 Jessie Ware? Of course.
8:46 Speaker 03 There's a Dunhill dinner. I actually dressed myself.
8:49 Jessie Ware? You are good at dressing yourself.
8:51 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think because as a bigger person, it's quite difficult to get a stylist who's going to find brands that.
8:56 Speaker 02 You know what, you want.
8:58 Speaker 03 Become quite good. I wore an Adidas collaboration Balenciaga blazer. So we're talking like a black oversized, but with the Adidas three stripes down the side. It was very Mel C.
9:09 Speaker 02 Funny.
9:10 Speaker 03 Yeah. But I met Celia Imrie.
9:13 Speaker 02 Oh, did she fart?
9:14 Jessie Ware? She's lovely.
9:15 Speaker 03 Wish she'd farted. No, she did not fart. She just, she was, yeah, I know, I thought.
9:22 Speaker 02 I felt so sorry.
9:24 Jessie Ware? This woman.
9:26 Speaker 03 This woman in green. I'm like, she's an icon.
9:28 Jessie Ware? Oh, my gosh.
9:29 Speaker 03 She's a national treasure.
9:30 Speaker 02 She's a fantastic actress.
9:32 Jessie Ware? He'll probably cast her in the new studio.
9:34 Speaker 03 She should be in the studio.
9:35 Jessie Ware? Yeah, if he's lucky to get the Imrie.
9:37 Speaker 03 She's been in incredible American stuff as well. She's she's in a show called Better Things.
9:42 Jessie Ware? Better Things, my favourite.
9:43 Speaker 03 Okay, so.
9:45 Speaker 02 There's a new season.
9:46 Speaker 03 Look, Better Things is a hugely, when I first started writing Big Boys, I was watching Better Things. And I think the way that they play out relationships and those moments in which, and maybe particularly like, I sort of feel like I come from more of a matriarchal family than anything. Like, I've got a lot of aunties, a lot of female cousins, nieces.
10:05 Jessie Ware? And I feel, I also feel like you really celebrate that in Big Boys, by the way, like that beauty of like your ma. It's like, it's a beautiful.
10:13 Speaker 03 Yeah.
10:14 Jessie Ware? Beautiful.
10:15 Speaker 03 I think that's why I want to write big girls. I prefer writing women in a weird way. Even though, I know.
10:22 Jessie Ware? And your cousin.
10:23 Speaker 03 Big Boys, Cousin Shannon.
10:24 Jessie Ware? Because she had such a great, like the arc.
10:28 Speaker 03 Yeah.
10:29 Jessie Ware? It was beautiful.
10:30 Speaker 03 Well, thank you. I think, I mean, yeah, I don't think Better Things in particular.
10:34 Speaker 02 Okay, so did you dance with Celia Imrie?
10:36 Speaker 03 Danced with Celia Imrie, then met Celia Imrie the next day.
10:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:40 Speaker 03 At the, at this Dunhill dinner.
10:43 Jessie Ware? She was in. And we were still talking about better things and then we were sort of.
10:47 Speaker 03 Can I confess something?
10:49 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
10:49 Speaker 03 So I've done something really bad and you should tell me off for this.
10:52 Jessie Ware? Why?
10:53 Speaker 03 I smoked my first ever cigarette in February.
10:55 Jessie Ware? And now you're addicted.
10:56 Speaker 03 My final cigarette with Celia Emery on Thursday and we both went, we should quit, shouldn't we? And I haven't smoked since.
11:04 Jessie Ware? I mean, I mean.
11:04 Speaker 03 I mean, it was only. But I think, no, I think, I think start late, have a little double. It was just to get me through the bath season.
11:12 Jessie Ware? You sound like maybe you could be prone to asthma.
11:14 Speaker 03 I am.
11:15 Jessie Ware? So I think maybe avoid cough.
11:17 Speaker 03 We're gonna, we're gonna avoid cigarettes now, but me and Celia Emery had a cigarette in, in Mayfair. I mean, this is the most name dropping, show busy, lovely stuff, but she was really, really lovely and to speak to her about better things. And to speak to her, I suppose, about being an actor and better things, what I, what I really love. I mean, there's an episode. With her that I think is called Phyllis in a car park. Do you remember the scene in a car park? And this is like, she gets lost, she can't find her car.
11:43 Jessie Ware? Oh, yeah, cause she's kind of losing her mind, yeah.
11:45 Speaker 03 And then there's a beautiful funeral episode. But I just think on the whole, to have somebody like her in an American show. To me, I'm like, that's a very classy casting.
11:55 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
11:55 Speaker 03 I think Pam and Adlon is a very classy writer maker.
11:58 Jessie Ware? Do you feel like Seth Rogen really didn't know who she was? Yeah. Well, then he's not watching enough telly.
12:04 Speaker 03 He's not watching enough TV, actually, Seth Rogen.
12:06 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
12:07 Speaker 03 Watch some more telly.
12:07 Jessie Ware? Yeah, some really good comedy, Seth.
12:10 Speaker 03 But I mean, she was so lovely and I also found out that she doesn't fly. She's got that condition where you're not really supposed to be on a plane, that, that kind of.
12:20 Jessie Ware? So she goes by boat to America?
12:22 Speaker 03 Gets the Queen Mary.
12:23 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
12:23 Speaker 03 To New York.
12:24 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
12:25 Speaker 03 She entertains everyone for a week, basically like she introduces screenings, she kind of hosts and compares. Then she gets a series of cars and trains across to Los Angeles. I thought that dedication. To being like, I wanna be in better things. At, at her, you know, stage in her career, I was like, yeah. Celia Emery was hands down the best person I've met.
12:45 Jessie Ware? Okay. I, um. I just wanna take a moment to acknowledge your brilliant speech.
12:53 Speaker 03 Oh, thank you .
12:53 Jessie Ware? Because you got it all out.
12:55 Speaker 03 I know, and it was completely .
12:56 Jessie Ware? You were amazing .
12:57 Speaker 03 Thank you so much.
12:58 Jessie Ware? And for anybody that didn't listen to it, you were talking about cuts to Edinburgh.
13:02 Speaker 03 Yeah.
13:03 Jessie Ware? And also state schools about how, can you explain better than I'm going to?
13:07 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, it's, it, I won like maybe last Sunday and I wasn't really expecting to because I'd won the year before. And the kind of thing in, in America, people win, you know, seventeen of the same awards for each season they do. But in the UK, that doesn't really happen.
13:24 Jessie Ware? Except if you're in adolescence, darling. Oh, God, yeah. Did he have a cigarette with you? He probably is due one now, right?
13:30 Speaker 03 Maybe, but that adolescence is a limited series, so they can only win once for that one series. Whereas we won on series two, so when it comes to series three, I was like, I'm coming merely as a sort of ceremonial piece of the furniture at this point. So then to win again, I hadn't prepared a speech. I didn't know what I was saying . I had no clue.
13:49 Jessie Ware? Maybe you brought out stats like that .
13:50 Speaker 03 Yeah, it something just came out of me. And it's because I've been doing, I've set up this commission with the Roundhouse, which is an amazing. Like art, well, you've performed at the Roundhouse before, like art centre meets music venue. Underneath the main stage, there's all these like creative hubs for young people to go and explore creativity, to go and. Start learning how to DJ or rehearsal rooms or start up a radio station, blah, blah. And I've been involved with them since I was a kid. And we've set up a commission to try to lobby the government to look into better ways for young people to access the arts. So I'd sat on this Zoom for this commission and you're hearing people from all over the country who are trying to advocate for better arts accessibility.
14:33 Speaker 03 And all these stats were just sort of in my head from, from a week of just being sat there . And then, and then when I won, I was like, oh, my God, you know, all I can really do in this moment is say. This TV show wouldn't exist without the arts, without fringe theatres, without comedy clubs, without arts bursaries. And all this stuff that I benefited from when I started, there was a thing called Ideas Tap, which was a resource for young people where you could apply for little parts of money. Big Boys was funded by something called the BFI Young Audiences Content Fund.
15:02 Jessie Ware? Does that not exist now?
15:03 Speaker 03 Doesn't exist. None of it exists. In fact, the week Big Boy Series One came out, they pulled that stream of funding. And so I feel like I've been really lucky, but every time I've got my foot in the door, something's been pulled up and I do think it's particularly bad. And that Edinburgh stat is real. There was a fund to help new artists go to the Edinburgh Fringe. It's been cut by ninety-three percent. And I'm worried that in state schools particularly, it's not even that drama and music is being cut off the syllabus, which it is in some places, but it's being discouraged. And I think if you have that disparity between what people are getting in the private education sector and what kids are, you know, fostering there, like, we've got to also make sure that we are giving arts and drama and musical opportunities to people
15:47 Speaker 03 who aren't from those sort of backgrounds. So it all just came out of me.
15:51 Jessie Ware? It was fantastic.
15:53 Speaker 02 They'll be asking you to be the next leader of the Labour Party soon.
15:56 Speaker 03 I do, I advise.
15:58 Speaker 02 It's an opening for a good orator.
16:01 Jessie Ware? Congratulations.
16:02 Speaker 03 Well, thank you so much. And it was, yeah, it was lovely.
16:04 Jessie Ware? Um, well, let's bring it back to your childhood.
16:09 Speaker 03 Yes.
16:09 Jessie Ware? And who was around the dinner table and what was a very memorable dish?
16:13 Speaker 03 I really have to say that I was really thinking about this because my mum's an excellent cook. And my, me and my brothers are not. Well, actually, my eldest brother is pretty good, but.
16:24 Jessie Ware? How many are there of you?
16:25 Speaker 03 There's, there's three. I'm one of three and they're always so annoyed because in Big Boys, I present my.
16:30 Jessie Ware? I know, only child.
16:33 Speaker 02 Well, actually, I thought you were till I read that you weren't.
16:35 Speaker 03 I know, yeah, I know. But I think it's, I was born on my eldest brother's twenty-first birthday.
16:39 Jessie Ware? Oh, you.
16:40 Speaker 02 Oh, so you're almost like an only child, yeah.
16:43 Speaker 03 I was raised as a kid quite solo, which is why I'm a bit of a spoiled brat. But, um, I would really have to say that the dish that I remember the most is my dad coming in drunk from the pub.
16:54 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
16:54 Speaker 03 And making rounds upon rounds of cheese on toast under the grill with loads of Liam Perrin sauce and loads of black pepper.
17:02 Jessie Ware? Delicious.
17:03 Speaker 03 Thick cheese and then going into the living room and watching like the Catherine Tate Show. Or Michael McIntyre or Mock the Week or Have I Got News For You. Like, I can really remember watching comedy with him with slabs of bread and cheese.
17:16 Jessie Ware? Sounds great.
17:17 Speaker 03 Yeah, just the best.
17:18 Jessie Ware? How, how old were you when he passed away?
17:20 Speaker 03 I had just turned fifteen. So, yeah, it was, it is, yeah, it was too young.
17:25 Jessie Ware? How old was he then?
17:26 Speaker 03 He was fifty five.
17:27 Jessie Ware? So he was very young.
17:28 Speaker 03 Very young, yeah. And it was quite unexpected. He, he was ill. And then we didn't really know what was wrong with him. And then he was diagnosed with cancer and he died ten days later. It was that rapid. No, none of us were ready. None of us had really spoken about what to do or what the plans were. And I think that's something that I always, you know, try and speak about grief quite a lot because we never got a really a chance beforehand to, to sort of access the scale of it, even just the admin involved in it. But I think, you know, it's sort of what's like inspired all of my work up until maybe like Sunday, you know, I don't think I'm gonna write about grief again.
18:11 Speaker 03 I, I was thinking about this on Sunday night, we're obviously like all quite drunk and we're all at the BAFTAs and I've got the whole team, the whole big boys gang, all the cast, the crew. And I was like, this is it. This is the last thing we've had in the calendar. And we started that project in twenty seventeen. And I oddly sort of feel like the last sort of day I've had just in the hotel, in bed, eating room service and um I've just been like quite relieved it's over because I feel like that's such a full creative experience. That's lived, that's been a struggle, that we've managed to fight for, that we've got. And now, and then it's one BAFTA and now it's done. And I'm like, that's such a lovely arc for it.
18:51 Speaker 03 But I sort of, yeah, I, I don't think I'm gonna, apart from this tour that I'm about to do where I talk about grief all the time. So, yeah, I need to actually still get my head in the game a little bit.
19:00 Jessie Ware? Which.
19:01 Speaker 03 I might take this off.
19:02 Jessie Ware? Of course you can, I'm cold.
19:04 Speaker 03 Are you cold?
19:04 Jessie Ware? Yeah, but I don't know what's wrong with me. Let's talk about good grief because this is kind of where you got your big break, right? Ten years ago.
19:13 Speaker 03 Yeah, I did the very first showing in the Roundhouse's young people's like theatre space, November twenty fourteen.
19:22 Speaker 03 And like, that has carried me all the way through. There are stories and lines from that show that are in the final series of Big Boys. And I'm so proud of that because that show, it isn't, you know, I never say this to put down anyone else's work, but it's not Fleabag or Baby Reindeer. It was never produced with like a team. There was not, it's not a proper play by any stretch. It is a sort of quite cart and paste, a bit punk at times, me cobbling together stories and little films, because I studied sort of documentary making. So I filmed all of these things with my nan, who you both loved. My nan, precisely, she was a dinner lady.
20:01 Speaker 03 And she and me would speak quite a lot about grief, because I think it happened, like you said, like, I was too young. I was talking about losing a parent and my nan was eighty and talking about losing a child. And that's just not the way it should be. But we really found solace in sort of slagging everyone off for how awkward and weird they would be with us after he died. And those sort of things where people kind of put their foot in it, or, or they just don't want to talk about it and pretend like it doesn't exist.
20:33 Jessie Ware? What was kind of the worst thing that somebody said?
20:36 Speaker 03 I can remember, like, I think people used to say to my nan quite a lot, like, oh, you should have gone first. Things like that, where they're just speaking.
20:48 Speaker 02 Often, often a parent would say that. Yeah, but you don't want somebody else to say it. Someone else say it, no.
20:55 Speaker 03 But, you know, I think people, sometimes I remember one of my dad's friends sort of crossing the street to avoid me because, you know, I sort of quite, he didn't know what to say. And this is it. This is why I wanted to write the show.
21:05 Speaker 02 Is that, do you think of that as something very British, that people don't know what to say?
21:09 Speaker 03 I think it's something very British. I think it's something that we have got better at, actually, since I first started doing that show. I, I do think we've had a much bigger, broader mental health conversation in the last ten years. I think people are slightly more empathetic. But it was really difficult at, at the time. And mine and my nan's way of dealing with it was humour, was laughing. And I think if you can make something funny, you can take the sting out of it. It doesn't mean, it doesn't mean it's like not painful, but you can take the shock, maybe. You can, it suddenly becomes something processable.
21:42 Speaker 02 Was your dad funny?
21:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, really funny.
21:45 Speaker 02 Yeah.
21:45 Speaker 03 Really funny. He was a black cab driver.
21:47 Speaker 02 Oh god, he'd have a lot to say.
21:49 Speaker 03 He'd have a lot to say about everything, I know.
21:52 Speaker 02 Yeah.
21:52 Speaker 03 Politics, politics a lot. Do you know what, my dad was sort of like, really, like, politically, um, not not loyal to anyone. I think voted every party at every point, at every different stage, which I'm sort of quite liked. I oddly. You know, some people, they come from, I'm a Labour family, or we're a Conservative family. I very much feel like my family are like. Who's there? What are they offering? What's the current thing? And then they kind of go by that. Um, which I find really interesting. And I mean, he, yeah, he would have a lot to say, but he was really. Good, I think. I think he knew that I was gay. I think he knew he had a little.
22:33 Speaker 03 No, no, I was too young. But I think he knew he had a lot of weirdo on his hands. So he'd often, yeah. He'd often take me into London in the cab and I'd drive in with him.
22:44 Speaker 02 Or anywhere.
22:45 Speaker 03 Well, no, he'd take me to Camden Market. He'd take me to, you know, he had friends who like. Lived in Highgate in quite nice houses and then friends who lived in Hillingdon in Tower Blocks. Like he would, I got to sort of experience. A lot of different types of London, a lot of different classes, a lot of different places. And I think that equipped me to sort of. I don't know, understand lots of different people's experiences. Um, so I think he.
23:15 Speaker 03 I don't know, I think he really like, I think he would love what I've ended up doing. Because I think he sort of, also, and I remembered this the other day, my dad, because he was a black character, you know, and he would run around. People like Harry Enfield, or he once had Tara Palmer Tompkinsen, remember her?
23:30 Speaker 02 Yeah.
23:31 Speaker 03 She's, she, she got in his cabin, she was wearing a beaded top, and then she shut the door, she like clipped the.
23:39 Speaker 03 And my dad was like, I've been cleaning up Tara Palmer Tompkinsen's beads for the last forty five minutes. And but he would often get like comedy producers and he would say to them, and I did not know this, I think my son should write a comedy. He's really funny. Because we used to watch sitcoms religiously, like I never was a, we never really went to the theatre march, but we, I don't think. Went to art galleries or anything like that. These are all things I found in my independent later life, but sitcoms were the thing. And so there's.
24:05 Jessie Ware? What was your favourite?
24:07 Speaker 03 My favourite, The vicar of Dibley, hands down.
24:09 Jessie Ware? Oh, really?
24:10 Speaker 03 I loved Don Frank so much. It's such a brilliant performance, but all of them. Emma Chambers is, and I loved Ab Fab too. I thought Ab Fab was great.
24:19 Jessie Ware? But there's a kind of gentleness with Vicar of Dibley, isn't there, that maybe like spoke to you?
24:24 Speaker 03 I think there's a oddly, that show, if you really take it, it's about the acceptance of outsiders. It's about an insular community having a, a, a woman vicar at a time where that would have felt so radical. And all of them being slight oddballs in and of themselves. That I love. I love. Any show that is driven by people choosing someone who isn't like them, where we have the ability to go. You know what? You're not like me and we see things differently, but I still have compassion for you and I want to be around you and I might learn from you. That to me is at the crux of big boys with, with Jack and Danny and that, that whole group. Yeah. But it's so totally inspired by the vicar of Dibley, I think.
25:07 Jessie Ware? I would like to just go back to your grandma and you. Was, was your grandma part of the rating of the lasagna?
25:15 Speaker 03 Yes.
25:15 Jessie Ware? Okay, can we talk about that?
25:17 Speaker 03 Yes, we can.
25:17 Jessie Ware? Have you talked about it too much?
25:18 Speaker 03 No, no, I love talking about it. Wasn't like the nun in Catherine Tate? No, that's more like my mum.
25:28 Speaker 03 Um, no, my nan was slightly more, I don't know, she was just really funny, very dry at times. You wouldn't expect, expect her to be as funny. My grandad was sort of quite a like play by the rules kind of guy. Whereas my nan was not. She was always naughty, always cheeky, always slipping me a little bit of food when she should and always like. Encouraging like a little streak of imagination. But yeah, she, she, um, well, no, she would have been involved in a lot of the lasagna.
25:55 Jessie Ware? Lasagna.
25:55 Speaker 03 So, so, and do you know what? It's interesting because I really think my whole career came from a poem I wrote about lasagnas. I wrote a funny comedy poem when I was eighteen about people keep on coming to the door to drop lasagnas off after my. Dad had died. And sometimes they would just drop it off on the doorstep and run back into their car as if it was like an unwanted, like like an orphan that we were given. And and we had so many lasagnas, just everywhere. We were kind of just going around with a fork going try a bit of too much bechamel. Let's go with that.
26:26 Speaker 02 So you were rating them.
26:27 Speaker 03 We were rating them. We made a grid on the fridge. And we were like Tracy Brooks from Park Avenue. She's the best. She's still the best. She makes the best apple cakes.
26:35 Speaker 02 Why was it so good?
26:37 Speaker 03 Hers, I think, was good because it had a bit of kick to it.
26:39 Speaker 02 Oh.
26:40 Speaker 03 You know, you know, sometimes with a lasagna, I think, I don't know. I don't think I had the language at the time. I couldn't tell you, but it was just, it it felt. You know, you were speaking about this with Lisa Kudrow about how KFC is good, but not because really the chicken. It's because of all the herbs and spices.
26:54 Speaker 02 Oh, it's great, isn't it?
26:55 Speaker 03 A lasagna with herbs and spice, that really done well.
26:58 Speaker 02 You have to liven it up.
27:00 Speaker 03 Liven it up. It had a kick.
27:01 Speaker 02 Oh, okay.
27:02 Speaker 03 But, yeah, and then some of them were really awful and really watery. And you're like, well, my dad's just died and you've given me a shit lasagna. Come on now.
27:09 Speaker 02 I'm sure they didn't intend to.
27:11 Speaker 03 No, of course not.
27:14 Speaker 02 Funny, when someone dies, they, you, people won't use the word they've died. They have to use like pass or passed on or passed. Why can't they just say they've died?
27:24 Speaker 03 It's a very British thing. We have over two hundred euphemisms in the English language for death.
27:30 Speaker 02 Okay.
27:30 Speaker 03 Things like shuffle off this mortal coil, things like brown bread, like we we cannot say it. And for so long, I remember that was a huge part of the first few performances I did of Good Grief were like, talking about how we just can't say dead. And I'd be like, he's dead. To me, that felt comforting.
27:47 Speaker 02 Me too.
27:48 Speaker 03 That felt like concrete, transparent, the truth.
27:51 Speaker 02 Yeah.
27:52 Speaker 03 And when people sort of dalliance around it, you can't equip yourself with any autonomy when you're pretending like someone isn't here anymore. It's like, no, let's own it. There was another thing I remember writing when I was a kid about like the dinner table and about there being like a an empty plate. And I think we definitely had that for the first few years after it would be like. Who's gonna sit in that chair? That was dad's chair. Let's just not sit in it at all. And let's acknowledge it. And now I think my brother just sits in it and doesn't think twice, which is kind of the beauty of grief is that. You know, the pain gets less and you forget and then new people come in and now there's like nieces and nephews and. You know, you fill the ta- you fill the gap with new people.
28:32 Speaker 02 How old would he be now?
28:34 Speaker 03 Oh God, I think he would be like seventy three.
28:37 Speaker 02 So very young still.
28:38 Speaker 03 Very young still, I know.
28:39 Speaker 02 Very young.
28:40 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. How old are you darling?
28:42 Speaker 02 Seventy four.
28:44 Speaker 03 I wouldn't have thought you were a day past fifty six. Not at all, Annie.
28:48 Speaker 02 Thank you.
28:48 Jessie Ware? Well, should I make some food?
28:50 Speaker 03 Yeah.
28:51 Jessie Ware? Whilst you chat about last supper.
28:52 Speaker 02 You've not had room service this morning, have you?
28:55 Speaker 03 No, I haven't. I've eaten nothing this morning.
28:57 Speaker 02 Okay, good.
28:57 Speaker 03 I've eaten nothing this morning. The room service at the hotel I was staying at though, I had a lovely little kind of. I had a little mezze of different beers.
29:05 Speaker 02 Okay.
29:05 Speaker 03 Had some lovely wilted kale, some, some um really nice buttermilk chicken tenders because I know you're a fried chicken girl. I love a good chicken tender.
29:15 Speaker 02 But I never eat it because I feel too guilty to eat fried chicken.
29:19 Speaker 03 Well, do you know what? I think you need to, do you go to New York much?
29:22 Speaker 02 We were there last April.
29:24 Speaker 03 Oh, really?
29:25 Speaker 02 Where's your favourite New York?
29:26 Speaker 03 Brilliant. I feel like all throughout, I was staying in Dumbo last time I went. I was there over Christmas.
29:32 Speaker 02 Where is Dumbo?
29:33 Speaker 03 Dumbo is like.
29:34 Jessie Ware? Brooklyn.
29:34 Speaker 03 South Brooklyn.
29:35 Speaker 02 Okay.
29:36 Speaker 03 You can get the ferry there. I went to this amazing Italian place where they did chicken fingers.
29:43 Jessie Ware? What was it called?
29:44 Speaker 03 The best. Do you know who are? It's opposite and a more famous Italian place.
29:48 Jessie Ware? Frankies or something.
29:49 Speaker 03 It's opposite a place called Giulietta's, but it's not Giulietta's, which is the famous one with the queue outside. It's the one without the queue outside.
29:55 Speaker 02 So they did like little chicken.
29:58 Speaker 03 Chicken tenders, you get them in a, a kind of in a bowl and then you can dip them in a ranch dressing, a barbecue and you can just pick whatever dressings you want.
30:05 Speaker 02 Were they seasoned well?
30:06 Speaker 03 They were seasoned supremely well.
30:09 Speaker 02 Would you have fried chicken on your last meal? Tell me what your last supper would be.
30:13 Speaker 03 Oh, my last supper. Okay, I was thinking, I was thinking about this. I. Really, I I quite like the the most simplest starters possible. I think when you're starting out in a mill, you wanna go simplicity is king.
30:27 Speaker 02 Okay.
30:27 Speaker 03 I would maybe go prosciutto, melon.
30:30 Speaker 02 Lovely.
30:31 Speaker 03 Palm honey melon.
30:31 Speaker 02 Lovely.
30:32 Speaker 03 Or just some like really well done like chicken yakitori skewers.
30:36 Speaker 02 Oh lovely.
30:37 Speaker 03 Something very plain, not too adventurous. You just start with something that like satiates your hunger, but it's nice.
30:42 Speaker 02 And just titles your taste buds, yeah.
30:44 Speaker 03 Yes. Now, this probably wouldn't go with that as a starter, but my main is always gonna have to be Christmas dinner. If it was my last supper.
30:53 Speaker 02 Oh what? Christmas dinner. Okay, yeah. I think Christmas dinner's great.
30:57 Speaker 03 It's it's just the best meal. Turkey, birghammon, stu- stuffing's my favourite food. You know, and lovely Andy Oliver.
31:05 Speaker 02 Yeah.
31:06 Speaker 03 Does that, she does a podcast where you pick one dish for Radio Four. I did it maybe like four or five years ago. And we cha- I chose stuffing and she explained to me the history of stuffing, how it was, you know, used for all the scraps and leftovers and. Stuffing to me is.
31:20 Speaker 02 Delicious.
31:21 Speaker 03 God tier.
31:21 Speaker 02 Do you have a special stuffing that you like?
31:24 Speaker 03 Do you know what my mum.
31:25 Speaker 02 Just sage and onion?
31:26 Speaker 03 My mum, I I sort of like it all, but my but mum does go, so my mum will do the main shop at Sainsbury's or Tesco. Sometimes Morrison's Asda, we've got a big Asda in Watford on the roundabout.
31:37 Speaker 02 You're very lucky.
31:38 Speaker 03 Thank you.
31:39 Speaker 02 I love Asda.
31:39 Speaker 03 I love an Asda.
31:40 Speaker 02 Me too.
31:41 Speaker 03 But then she'll go to M and S Waitrose for the bits. So we might have a posher stuffing than we do anything else.
31:48 Speaker 02 Okay.
31:48 Speaker 03 And I do believe that Marks and Spencer's comes up with the best stuffing around Christmas time.
31:53 Speaker 02 We we do, I do one with apricots and walnut.
31:56 Speaker 03 Yeah.
31:56 Speaker 02 Or I do cranberry.
31:58 Speaker 03 Fruity stuffing is great.
31:59 Speaker 02 A fruity stuffing.
32:00 Speaker 03 But I quite like having a few different types of stuffing. I also, when I first moved, I I I lived with my mum during Covid.
32:08 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:09 Speaker 03 And then twenty twenty one, I moved back to London and I live with two Americans. So I became a thank, I never celebrated Thanksgiving before and I think Thanksgiving is brilliant.
32:17 Speaker 02 It is brilliant.
32:18 Speaker 03 Cheese grits, the sweet potatoes, sort of marshmallow stuff on top, the collard grit, like everything about Thanksgiving. I would, I I would actually quite like to do. Sort of hybrid Christmas, English Christmas dinner, American Thanksgiving dinner kind of fused together.
32:33 Speaker 02 There'd be a lot of cranberry going on.
32:35 Speaker 03 Be a lot of cranberry going on, but that's never a bad thing for me.
32:37 Speaker 02 Never a bad thing.
32:38 Speaker 03 And a very good thing in case anyone has a urinary tract infection.
32:43 Speaker 02 Does, do you buy extra pigs in blankets?
32:47 Speaker 03 Yes, of course.
32:48 Speaker 02 You've got to have as many, you've got to eat them all before you even sit down.
32:54 Speaker 03 You'd tell me off because I go, I sneak into the kitchen before everything's been stuffed up and I'm always like.
32:59 Speaker 02 Me too. They're my favourite thing. They're so salty and delicious and.
33:05 Speaker 03 Especially if you like cook them just right. You get, if you hit that sweet spot where everything is like the saltiest it can be, the dream.
33:12 Speaker 02 How do you like your eggs?
33:15 Speaker 03 Oh my, however you want to give them to me, it's the honest truth.
33:18 Speaker 02 You, you just, you just, you just hesitate. Turned?
33:21 Speaker 03 I like them turned, yeah. I don't even know what we're having by the way. This is so exciting.
33:27 Speaker 02 Be delicious.
33:28 Speaker 03 Now I know eggs are involved, I'm really shocked.
33:30 Speaker 02 Ah, good.
33:31 Speaker 03 This looks up my street in a big way. My favourite meal, if it wasn't a Christmas dinner.
33:38 Speaker 02 It would be.
33:39 Speaker 03 Full English breakfast.
33:40 Speaker 02 Full English.
33:40 Speaker 03 Yeah. There's something about ceremonial meals and the comfort and the reliability. When you know what you're getting, but I really enjoy.
33:49 Speaker 02 Yeah.
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34:34 Jessie Ware? So this is Honey and Co from their new Honey and Co daily cookbook. Yeah, they're so good. It's fried eggs with goat's cheese and peas done with Aleppo chili, garlic, spring onions and basil.
34:49 Speaker 03 That is right up my street. You know, there's a restaurant, there's a cafe in Haggerston called Toe Path. Shout out to Claire Cole, who's one of the chefs there.
34:59 Jessie Ware? Oh, I love Claire.
35:00 Speaker 03 Claire's one of the best. And every time I eat there, I'm like, this is top, top tier stuff.
35:07 Jessie Ware? Mm hmm.
35:07 Speaker 03 This is amazing.
35:08 Jessie Ware? Um, should we now tell everyone where we really first met?
35:13 Speaker 03 We're talking about the university?
35:14 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
35:15 Speaker 03 Oh, my God.
35:16 Jessie Ware? I feel like people don't know this story and it's really good.
35:20 Speaker 03 When I was at university, I had a job and I was working at the students' union reception. Um, doing like your little admin tasks, often mostly giving people their NUS extra card so they can get a discount in Topshop. Or giving them condoms so that they wouldn't accidentally get each other pregnant. University of Westminster, University of Westminster Students Union, shout out. And at one point, we were booking our freshest ball. And somehow we got Jessie's number.
35:50 Jessie Ware? How the fuck did you get my number?
35:52 Speaker 03 I don't know how. And I feel like I, I can't even really remember if you were like on like a conference call or we were all speaking to you. I know there was a girl called Jenny, but we were basically like, we were like kids as well. So we were like, yeah, like we'd love you to come and do this like freshest ball thing. Like it's gonna be really, really fun. Just like play a couple of tracks. We've got you. We give you 10 grand or this. And I can't remember.
36:14 Jessie Ware? I obviously didn't do it.
36:15 Speaker 03 You, I don't, I don't think anyone was in from your team was interested in you doing it because at the time, like, we were, we were, we were punching above our weight. We were punching above our weight.
36:26 Jessie Ware? I mean, I just love that someone gave you my number. I don't, uh.
36:30 Speaker 03 You're, you had a song at the time which got renamed. It was called 110%.
36:34 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
36:35 Speaker 03 And it got renamed to.
36:36 Jessie Ware? Oh, my God. Mm hmm. God, you know everything.
36:39 Speaker 03 Close to you. Uh, it was just one of my favourite songs ever. It's, I would actually say, no, that's not my favourite of your songs, but it's, it's out there for me.
36:47 Jessie Ware? That'd be a bit depressing because that was on my first record.
36:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, but that's, that wouldn't be depressing because your first record was brilliant. But no, I would say Begin Again is my favourite, Jessie, well sung. Um, but yeah, we got Miss Dynamite instead.
37:00 Jessie Ware? Oh, well, great booking, great booking, and actually probably got the party started more than I did.
37:04 Speaker 03 She really did get the party started, but you know, anyway, if I ever work there again, there's ten grand with your name on it.
37:11 Jessie Ware? Did we finish your last supper?
37:13 Speaker 02 No.
37:14 Speaker 03 No.
37:15 Speaker 02 We've start, we've got starters and main, Christmas dinner. Is there any room for pudding?
37:20 Speaker 03 My favourite pudding, which I do think would go well after a Christmas dinner, is a really good chocolate mousse. Very plain, very simple, no, no, no trills or frills, no, no, no, nothing else, just. And I mean, I am that slight cliche of went to Paris once, went to Chez Janu, had the chocolate mousse.
37:41 Jessie Ware? Changed your life.
37:41 Speaker 03 And now can't stop thinking about it. I, I'm ultimately underneath it all, have all the sort of culinary integrity of like a TikTok influencer.
37:52 Speaker 03 Truly, I'm just like, that is good. And I know why people take a photo of it all the time. In fact, the last time.
37:57 Speaker 02 Culinary integrity, I've never heard that expression.
38:01 Speaker 03 The last time I went to Chez Janu, they um just brought us the whole pot. They just brought us the whole. Because they were like, we've only got about two or three portions left and there was like a table of five of us, brought the whole thing. We all just sat there with spoons.
38:12 Jessie Ware? Oh my god, amazing.
38:13 Speaker 03 Going round.
38:14 Jessie Ware? Do you spend a lot of time in Paris?
38:16 Speaker 03 Yes, I really love Paris. Hello, you never tell us. No, no, I really like Paris to write in because the Eurostar is cheap. If you book it in advance, it's quite cheap. Um, there's a lovely little artist's residency hotel where I go, I get quite a cheap rate to go.
38:35 Jessie Ware? Where's that?
38:36 Speaker 03 It's just by the, oh my god, I keep, Montparnasse.
38:40 Jessie Ware? Okay.
38:41 Speaker 03 By the big tower, near the Jardin du Luxembourg.
38:44 Jessie Ware? Okay.
38:45 Speaker 03 And I love writing there because I'm away from London, I'm away from distractions. And because in Paris, they're a bit snobby, so they won't just let you get your laptop out anywhere.
38:54 Jessie Ware? Right.
38:54 Speaker 03 You have to go to quite specific places to go and write. And there's a cafe. Um, on a barge in the north of Paris, it's called Water and Dreams. And it's like a barge meets library, meets cafe, meets co-working space. And you can just sit there on the water and write all day.
39:13 Speaker 02 I'll have to say it's one of my pet hates when you go in a cafe and people are sitting with one coffee and their laptops.
39:20 Speaker 03 Yes.
39:21 Speaker 02 And you can't even sit down. They, they, well, I'm not one to mention the, right, the cafe they do it. But I just glare at them and they've got, they're all plugged in.
39:30 Jessie Ware? But this is a co-working space, mum.
39:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, this is designed for writers.
39:34 Jessie Ware? Maybe you should live in Paris, mum.
39:35 Speaker 03 You should live in Paris because they bet they will not let you.
39:38 Speaker 02 I agree with them.
39:39 Speaker 03 Yeah.
39:39 Speaker 02 Just go home. I mean, I wondered.
39:42 Jessie Ware? I was really enjoying his romantic story about reading, writing by the sun.
39:46 Speaker 02 Because they can't afford the heating, so they go somewhere where you, you're, you're sitting, working and not paying.
39:52 Speaker 03 Maybe, that's something I would have done as a student, to be honest.
39:54 Speaker 02 But I just find it annoying. They take phone calls as well.
39:58 Speaker 03 Yeah, phone calls, phone calls is a bit much if you're like in the main bit.
40:01 Jessie Ware? Yeah, right.
40:02 Speaker 03 But no, Paris, because they don't allow it, you go to certain places. There's a place called Nuage. Which is like a chapel that's been converted into a co-working space.
40:10 Speaker 02 Great.
40:10 Speaker 03 You go in in the morning, you pay twenty three euros. And all day, coffee, food, they come around, they're like.
40:22 Speaker 02 He's just saying all his best French words.
40:26 Speaker 03 There's a little, um, there's a little dog that runs around. You can just stroke the dog for a bit. Everyone there, you can leave your laptop there, you can go for a walk around the Notre Dame because everyone's co-working, you get little lockers. You, so you pay twenty three euros, which is what, twenty quid, and then you get everything included.
40:39 Speaker 02 Oh, mate.
40:41 Speaker 03 It's great. There's also a lovely.
40:43 Speaker 02 Do you never work at home, Jack?
40:45 Speaker 03 I don't like working at home. The only time I ever write at home is between the hours of eleven P M and four A M.
40:53 Speaker 03 I cannot write in the daytime. There's something about when everybody else is doing stuff. I just can't sit and write, I can't focus, which is why I.
41:00 Speaker 02 You've got FOMO.
41:01 Speaker 03 I get really bad FOMO in any, I get FOMO, so I have to.
41:05 Speaker 02 You have to be out and about.
41:06 Speaker 03 Country or wait till everyone's asleep.
41:10 Speaker 02 Has anyone carried the tradition on black cab driver?
41:14 Speaker 03 No, but I do have this.
41:16 Speaker 02 Oh, wow.
41:17 Speaker 03 A little black cab tattoo here.
41:19 Speaker 02 What happened to his cab?
41:21 Speaker 03 I think we just sold it. My mum.
41:23 Speaker 02 There was a fortune there, like.
41:25 Speaker 03 Like, I wanna just drive it round. But she can't, but you can't.
41:29 Speaker 02 She got done?
41:29 Speaker 03 Well, no, she didn't get done, but, you know, it's inadvisable to pretend to be a cab driver.
41:34 Speaker 02 Unless you tell them how much you hate Sadi Khan.
41:37 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
41:37 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's the only, everybody's universal cab driving.
41:42 Speaker 03 But you know what? Every London cab driver hates every single mayor of London, irregardless of.
41:46 Speaker 02 Yeah, they do.
41:47 Speaker 03 But like, I can remember my dad being, I hate Ken Livingstone, I hate Boris Johnson, and you're just like, yeah, they're just, anyone that comes in, you're like, oh.
41:55 Speaker 02 Jessie's going to do the pud now. Can you cook?
41:58 Speaker 03 I cannot cook. And do you know what? I recently.
42:01 Speaker 02 What do you mean you can't cook?
42:02 Speaker 03 I'm really bad.
42:03 Speaker 02 Can you read, Jack?
42:04 Speaker 03 I can read.
42:05 Speaker 02 Then you can cook.
42:05 Speaker 03 I know, but do you know, I tried to find some cookery lessons because at the start of the year I was like, I've got to be better than this. Because it is sort of just like, I can steam things, I can roast things relatively well, but, but.
42:18 Speaker 02 That's all right.
42:19 Speaker 03 I'm quite dyspraxic, I'm quite useless with my hands. I spill everything. I'm genuinely chuffed and thrilled that I haven't made a complete idiot of myself eating that, those eggs on toast because I normally would have. No, but it was great. But I am, yeah, I'm just a bit useless. And anyway, I was looking for these cookery courses and they were all, they were known for beginners. And the ones that were for beginners were for like fourteen year olds.
42:44 Speaker 02 Oh, no, we went on a, a cookery course, Jessie and I went to the Prue Leith School.
42:49 Speaker 03 Oh, really?
42:49 Speaker 02 To learn how to make bread.
42:51 Speaker 03 Oh, yes, please. Do you have fun?
42:53 Speaker 02 Yeah, it was great fun, wasn't it? It was really good.
42:57 Speaker 03 I would like to, I think what I need to do, my kitchen at my house in London is not very nice. It's one of those old hobs, it takes forever to heat up.
43:05 Speaker 02 Find you, find you. Are you renting?
43:07 Speaker 03 I'm renting.
43:08 Speaker 02 Are you going to buy?
43:09 Speaker 03 There. I would love to buy, but you know, Big Boys was Channel Four, I've not made enough money to buy it, but hopefully the next job, let's hope. But that is my dream, is to own somewhere with a kitchen that I'll actually be half decent at cooking. Now, for a split second, I thought that was like mustard, but it's not, it's custard.
43:26 Speaker 02 Cause it's got saffron in.
43:28 Speaker 03 Oh, really?
43:29 Speaker 02 That's made it very yellow.
43:31 Speaker 03 This is really exciting.
43:32 Speaker 02 It is very exciting. So if we, if, so if I.
43:36 Speaker 03 You're frying apricots?
43:38 Speaker 02 That's the normal thing you do with apricots, isn't it?
43:40 Speaker 03 Okay, great.
43:41 Speaker 02 And what would you have on your last supper, your drink of choice?
43:45 Speaker 03 My drink of choice, do you know what? I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go posh.
43:49 Speaker 02 Okay, go posh.
43:51 Speaker 03 I would love a white port and tonic. Have you ever had a white port and tonic?
43:57 Speaker 02 I never have.
43:59 Speaker 03 White port and tonic. You've got to promise me that you'll have one this summer.
44:04 Speaker 02 I will do. Where did you drink that first?
44:07 Speaker 03 I drank it in, no, the first time I ever had one, it was in Gordon's Wine Bar, uh, by Bankman. Yeah, really, really fun. And they were like, have a white port and tonic. And I tried it and I absolutely loved it. And now.
44:21 Speaker 02 What do they call it? Is it called anything?
44:23 Speaker 03 It's called a, a, just a white port, white port and tonic. But it's really, it's quite sweet. Um, but then the tonic gives it a real kind of, it takes, it takes the edge of how sweet it is. But I think they also do it at Peckham, Peckham Levels.
44:40 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah. Oh, I've been there. I went to a party there two weeks ago.
44:43 Jessie Ware? When are you going to Peckham?
44:44 Speaker 02 I went to Clareham's Eightieth.
44:47 Speaker 03 There was an Eightieth at Peckham Levels?
44:49 Speaker 02 They, they cordoned off a little bit of it.
44:51 Speaker 03 Really?
44:52 Speaker 02 Yeah, it, it was an old car park though, wasn't it?
44:54 Speaker 03 Yeah, it is.
44:55 Speaker 02 It does feel a bit like a car park, yeah.
44:58 Speaker 03 Um, they also do it at a lovely pub near me called The Lady Mild May. I would genuinely recommend you have a white port and tonic. I think it's gonna be the, the. The drink of the summer.
45:07 Jessie Ware? Like Brat Summer, it's gonna be white, you're making it.
45:09 Speaker 03 It's white port and tonic.
45:10 Speaker 02 I think you need to come up with a good name for it. Um.
45:13 Jessie Ware? Why?
45:14 Speaker 02 Like Porto Prance.
45:17 Speaker 03 Oh.
45:18 Jessie Ware? That is good.
45:18 Speaker 03 Yeah, that is good.
45:20 Jessie Ware? So this is Helen Graham, who is a fantastic chef. She had, she used to cook at Bubba La. Have you ever been to Bubba La?
45:26 Speaker 03 No, but I've heard of it.
45:27 Jessie Ware? So delicious vegetarian place.
45:29 Speaker 03 Yeah.
45:29 Jessie Ware? She's amazing. She's got a new cookbook out and this is her um apercots, hot apercots with cold saffron custard.
45:38 Speaker 03 That sounds like a mystery.
45:39 Jessie Ware? So.
45:40 Speaker 03 It's beautiful. It looks beautiful as well.
45:42 Jessie Ware? Oh, my God, this is really good.
45:43 Speaker 02 Delicious.
45:44 Jessie Ware? Helen, you're really talented. It took two goes at doing the bloody.
45:48 Speaker 03 It's the hot and cold thing.
45:49 Jessie Ware? It's the hot and cold.
45:50 Speaker 03 Really good. Are you enjoying it, Lenny?
45:53 Speaker 02 Delicious, really delicious.
45:55 Jessie Ware? Um.
45:55 Speaker 03 I loved that.
45:56 Jessie Ware? Oh, I love that. I could just literally go up.
45:58 Speaker 03 Oh. Boom.
46:00 Jessie Ware? Um.
46:02 Jessie Ware? I don't really want you to go.
46:04 Speaker 03 Oh, well, that's very sweet.
46:05 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
46:05 Speaker 03 I don't really want to go.
46:06 Jessie Ware? Well, then maybe we could do this again sometime. You're such a wonderful guest, Jack.
46:10 Speaker 03 Oh, thank you so much for having me.
46:12 Jessie Ware? Come.
46:12 Speaker 03 Will you come to the tour?
46:13 Jessie Ware? Yes, can we talk about this now?
46:15 Speaker 03 Yeah.
46:15 Jessie Ware? So the Good Grief that was debuted in Edinburgh ten years ago.
46:19 Speaker 03 Ten years ago.
46:20 Jessie Ware? You are returning for your ten year anniversary.
46:22 Speaker 03 Yeah.
46:23 Speaker 02 New material.
46:24 Speaker 03 So how I'm doing it is I'm gonna do twenty minutes of brand new material.
46:30 Speaker 02 Yeah.
46:30 Speaker 03 Funny stand up.
46:32 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
46:32 Speaker 03 Explain the context of the show. Then there's gonna be an interval so everyone can go back to the bar to get another white wine. Then.
46:38 Speaker 02 Or a Porto, no? Porto and tonic.
46:40 Speaker 03 Or a, or a, thank you very much, Porto and tonic. And then um I'm gonna perform the show for the hour in its entirety as it was performed back in twenty fifteen.
46:50 Speaker 02 Wow.
46:50 Speaker 03 Which will be really fun. And it's a.
46:53 Jessie Ware? You get two different, like, you get two shows, two Jack group shows, yeah.
46:57 Speaker 03 You get new comedy and then, and then the existing show. And then at the very end, I almost do a little bit like a, so what have we learned? And I sort of take, I do a little bit from the present day as well. That is where I'm sort of outlining the fact that that show was written with all of these arts burseries and all this support and all this help and it has all gone. So it's a little call to arms at the end to say, how can we? I suppose fill the gap of a lot of that funding that's lost. And how can we ensure that young people are able to engage in storytelling and actually make it and and be the story themselves. Cause that, I was really lucky that happened and everything that's happened with big boys. And winning two Paphers and all that lovely, lovely stuff and the stuff I will hopefully do in the future.
47:42 Speaker 03 Has only come because I managed to get all of that funding and all of that support. Um, but it is a laugh.
47:49 Speaker 02 Where do you think you stand on visiting graves? Do you, do, do, does your mum go and visit the grave? I mean, I know people.
47:56 Jessie Ware? Where do you stand on?
47:57 Speaker 02 No, no, not stand. What do you think about? It's a dreadful thing to say.
48:01 Jessie Ware? No, but like.
48:02 Speaker 02 But I, like Jewish people don't visit graves.
48:04 Speaker 03 Right, okay.
48:05 Speaker 02 Because that, that's, they're, they're not there, but you visit once a year out of respect.
48:11 Jessie Ware? So you do visit graves?
48:12 Speaker 02 You only visit once a year.
48:13 Jessie Ware? And then you put a stone on.
48:14 Speaker 02 And you put a stone on to show that you've been.
48:16 Jessie Ware? The knock knock.
48:17 Speaker 03 Yeah.
48:18 Speaker 02 We've been and that's, we, we respect you. But lots of people go every week and will sit there and talk to the person and um have a conversation. And feel that they can still connect with them.
48:30 Speaker 03 I think that's beautiful when they do. It's, it's not for me, but during Covid, when I was back home with my mum. I went and visited my dad's grave every day.
48:42 Speaker 02 Did you?
48:43 Speaker 03 The whole time, because it was that one mandatory walk that we got. And I don't know why, it just sort of felt like really, and I'd never been before, I, I hated it when I was a kid. And he'd first died and people would go up there. And she sort of really quite liked my dad's funeral. Because it was a really beautiful celebration and there was like five hundred, six hundred people there, it was.
49:00 Speaker 02 He's buried, not cremated.
49:02 Speaker 03 And then he was cremated and then we had a separate funeral for his. For, you know, little cremation, the stone setting and that I hated and I was like, I'm never coming here again. And then during Covid, I went every day. And there was this woman and who's a neighbour from a couple of streets down. Who at the same time as me went every single day to go visit her daughter. And we just sort of became like, we just sort of smiled at each other, we became kind of like little grief friends. I don't know really why I went so often. I think it was also because it's like, my dad's in a lawn cemetery, it's quite beautiful to go to. And there was something about that, that maybe isolation that we all experienced where I was like. I weirdly cannot go and visit my friends, but I actually can go and sit here and just think about stuff and.
49:47 Speaker 03 Sort of talk things through.
49:48 Speaker 02 Does he have a nice.
49:50 Speaker 03 Yeah, he does. It says Free Bird on it, which is his favourite song by Lynyrd Skynyrd, which we have in Big Boys. And, yeah, it's really, really sweet. And now I love going. I don't go all the time. But if I do go, I feel like I have a different relationship with it. I think that's the like. Really important thing that I try to tell people about grief is that it shifts and changes all the time. The stuff that you find unbearably painful at the start. Subsides or changes or then becomes the thing you love, becomes the most celebratory thing. I think that's sort of what Big Boys was about in a way, because.
50:26 Speaker 03 Big Boys does look at topics like suicide, which I think is really tricky and really difficult. And I I'd never watched anything where somebody who'd lost someone to suicide was able to sort of. Push past the injustice to still celebrate that person. And that to me is like the the thing that I'm. Most proud of with Big Boys, that I think it is a space where people who've lost someone in that way can go. Oh, I can still celebrate the best times and the good things and the amazing facets of that person without it being. Them being solely defined by their passing. And that's like, I think maybe just from being bereaved a couple of times. I don't know if I'll ever stop grieving and that's sort of okay. I think that's sort of part of it.
51:11 Speaker 03 But that's why it's really nice doing that show again from ten years ago. And actually, I think I might do good grief in another ten years' time.
51:19 Speaker 02 Do you know?
51:19 Speaker 03 I think I might do it every ten years of my life because, you know, there's more people that are gonna pass away in my life. And I think it's more more content. Um, but also I'm quite inspired by. Lisa Kudrow on the comeback.
51:36 Speaker 03 Because, you know, grieving is a constant process and. Uh, how I feel about it in another ten years' time might be completely different. I sort of like. Checking in with that. It's not something that kind of comes and goes. It's always sort of with you. And if I can make that funny, which it always has to be, I'm like, my rule is make it funny. Because if something's funny, it becomes less scary and then it becomes sort of accessible. And I do really believe in. Talking about them and not in a morbid way, but I just think it it makes it feel less. Isolatory, if that makes sense. Don't think isolatory is a word, but it is.
52:17 Speaker 02 Death is gonna happen to everyone, isn't it?
52:19 Speaker 03 Exactly.
52:19 Speaker 02 Yeah.
52:20 Speaker 03 That's the first line of Big Boys from the pilot. The first episode is, "Statistics show that one in every one people will eventually die."
52:27 Speaker 02 Yeah.
52:27 Speaker 03 And to me, I'm like, that's almost quite comforting to know in a weird way. Like, you know, make apricots, make hot apricots with cold custard. Because you're gonna die one day, so you might as well.
52:37 Speaker 02 Yeah, and have another bowl.
52:39 Speaker 03 And have another bowl.
52:41 Jessie Ware? Um, Jack, thanks so much for being on.
52:43 Speaker 03 Oh, thank you for having me.
52:45 Jessie Ware? Before we leave you, and it may, you may have already answered this with the cheese and Liam Perrons. But is that a nostalgic taste that can transport you back somewhere, happy or sad?
52:54 Speaker 03 Yes, and that is my T-shirt. Scampi Fries takes me to that every pub that I used to go with my dad as a kid. They also did, like, cheese moments.
53:04 Speaker 02 Are they cold or hot?
53:06 Speaker 03 They're cold. They're cold, they're like cold little kind of.
53:09 Speaker 02 Well, you get them in a packet, they've got a bite.
53:11 Speaker 03 They've got a bite, they've got a pack, they pack a punch.
53:14 Jessie Ware? Yeah, they're so good. You've never had a Scampi Fries?
53:16 Speaker 02 I've never even heard of them.
53:18 Speaker 03 I am going to send Scampi Fries to your house.
53:22 Jessie Ware? Um, Jack, thank you for being on Table Manners. Good luck with the tour. Can't wait to see what else you produce and I can't wait to watch it, you're brilliant.
53:30 Speaker 03 Can I say, I think you two should also do a spin-off.
53:33 Jessie Ware? What's the spin-off?
53:34 Speaker 03 I think you should do a spin-off called Tableware.
53:37 Jessie Ware? Oh, what, like Tupperware?
53:38 Speaker 03 Your surname.
53:39 Jessie Ware? Yeah.
53:40 Speaker 03 But then you tried lots of different types of cutlery, Tupperware, plates, crockery. Let's expand it from the food to the things we have out of the food. It's just a merchandising opportunity.
53:51 Jessie Ware? Yeah, absolutely, I agree with you. We, we, we've already thought.
53:55 Speaker 03 He makes nice plates.
53:56 Speaker 02 We've always, I always thought Tableware was a good brand name.
54:00 Jessie Ware? We also thought table wine could be good too. Do you know what I mean? We thought about it all.
54:04 Speaker 03 You could even put an H in there, because then it could almost be like, it's table wine.
54:08 Jessie Ware? Whining.
54:09 Speaker 03 Wine you can wine to.
54:10 Jessie Ware? Okay, let's like, let's just brainstorm a bit, okay? Cut them cameras, let's go into the.
54:16 Speaker 02 You used to be working for Bob and Haggerty.
54:19 Jessie Ware? You're, you're mad men.
54:21 Speaker 03 Could I say, I'm an opportunity.
54:38 Jessie Ware? Jack Rook, just the best guest.
54:41 Speaker 02 An absolute delight.
54:42 Jessie Ware? So fun, so interesting, fabulous, loved every second.
54:47 Speaker 02 I just think he's got so many stories to tell that he's going to go on forever. I told him I predict he'll be the David Attenborough of comedy.
54:57 Jessie Ware? Okay.
54:57 Speaker 02 You know, still going at a hundred.
54:59 Jessie Ware? Happy birthday, David Attenborough. Loved it, loved the pudding so much.
55:05 Speaker 02 Me too.
55:06 Jessie Ware? And the eggs were great.
55:08 Speaker 02 Delicious.
55:08 Jessie Ware? This was like a really easy brunch meal to do for someone. So I'm just saying to you now, people, Honey and Co Daily, great book. And Helen Graham's.
55:20 Speaker 02 So is it all vegetarian?
55:22 Jessie Ware? Helen Graham's centrepieces, yeah. Bold, vibrant recipes to put vegetables in the spotlight.
55:27 Speaker 02 But do you know what, Jessie? The cover of that book was the colour of your dessert.
55:31 Jessie Ware? Mmm.
55:32 Speaker 02 Yellow and orange.
55:33 Jessie Ware? And the custard did set.
55:36 Speaker 02 It was delicious.
55:37 Jessie Ware? I got it. Oh my God, I could drink that.
55:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
55:41 Jessie Ware? Oh.
55:41 Speaker 02 Have you got a lot left over?
55:43 Jessie Ware? Not enough, Lenny.
55:44 Speaker 02 Okay.
55:44 Jessie Ware? Not enough.
55:45 Speaker 02 Okay.
55:46 Jessie Ware? Thank you to Jack for coming on the podcast. You can go and watch Big Boys, three seasons of it on Channel Four. Or you can go and see him on his tour, which starts at Roundhouse and then goes to Edinburgh. Then he does a whole tour and he's amazing. Good grief, celebrating its 10 year anniversary. What are you doing for us today, Mum?
56:02 Speaker 02 Going to see if I have to have an operation on my bloody hip.
56:05 Jessie Ware? Oh, well, we can get some more podcasts in.
56:07 Speaker 02 Shush.
56:08 Jessie Ware? We'll see you next week.
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