Pod Insights THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST EP.242 - RICHARD AYOADE About this episode Adam talks with British writer, director, actor and comedian Richard Ayoade about David Lynch, whether it was easy inventing the compete works of the fictional director and playwright Harauld Hughes, what Richard thought of David Letterman's enthusiasm for him and his work, the weirdness of interviews, the art of putting yourself down, why Orson Welles hated Woody Allen, and why Mick Jones of The Clash made Richard cry.
Conversation recorded face-to-face in London on March 19th, 2025
Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and conversation editing.
Podcast illustration by Helen Green https://helengreenillustration.com/
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HARAULD HUGHES BOOKS https://www.faber.co.uk/author/harauld-hughes/?srsltid=AfmBOopgTc8ut0oSLqcD5DKA4uGFOFXBs0dUhoNoSMitpnmMsRIaAzpt by Richard Ayode (Faber website)
PICS, VIDEOS AND RELATED LINKS https://www.adam-buxton.co.uk/podcasts/rhwkafw2z2x3xe6-6ysb3-pfp9n-6xxa2-jnpn5-2cacw-6cz8f-gx8fb-nkb87-c6mae-bd5zy-yby4r-6392t-jf5tm-ph55s-cktl3-dsw49-r8ccg-sj9we-wzpe5-nzgjl-hn42k-r46sa-bp623-t4w8l-2pdd3 (on Adam's website)
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Transcript 11,789 words · 8 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buckston, I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan.
0:31 Adam Buxton? Hey, how are you doing, podcast? It's Adam Buckston here. You may be able to hear that I'm not where I normally would be, on my Norfolk farm track. But instead, I'm sitting on a bench in Victoria Park, East London. It's a beautiful morning, towards the end of the first third of April 2025, Trumplestiltskin tariff times. And I'm here for a few days because I've been recording my audiobook in an actual studio with humans, which is nice, a nice change for me. I did the first book, ramble book, in my nutty room in Norfolk during the lockdown in 2020.
1:14 Adam Buxton? And this time I was given the opportunity to record it in a studio. I thought, yeah, that would be good. So anyway, I thought I'd take this opportunity to get some fresh air before I head into the studio and record my intro and outro so I could get the podcast up for the weekend. Looking out at people heading to work, going to school. Lot of joggers, so many joggers. Do they identify as joggers anymore? They're runners, really, aren't they? Very impressive. I'm a few metres back from the main tarmac'd paths. I found myself a semi-secluded spot. Looks like a party spot. Lot of ciggy butts, empty cans, pear cider,
1:58 Adam Buxton? empty bottle of spritzy aperitivo, blood orange flavour. There's a can of Original Nourishment there, vanilla flavour. If anyone wants, there's still some left. There's also a blue surgical glove.
2:15 Adam Buxton? There may have been some procedures going on once the anaesthetic had been taken on this bench, that's a nice thought. Anyway, look, let me tell you about podcast number two hundred and forty-two. This one features some deep pan waffle, hmm, with returning friend of the podcast, British writer, director, actor and comedian, Richard Ayewadi. Now, of course, the other day I was talking to David Letterman, Dave, I call him, about Richard, and I was saying that he has many modes. There's actor-comedian mode on display in TV comedies like Garth Marenghi's Dark Place, The Mighty Boosh, Nathan Barley and
2:56 Adam Buxton? The IT Crowd. There's presenter and panel show mode in which Richard has hosted shows like Gadget Man, Travel Man, The Crystal Maze, and appeared on comedy panel shows including, most recently, Amazon's panel slash game show series, Last One Laughing, hosted by Jimmy Carr, in which Richard was one of the comedians alongside Bob Mortimer, Judy Love, Daisy Mae Cooper, Lou Sanders, Joe Wilkinson, and others, trying not to laugh at each other's antics. That show's been a big hit. Richard is also a director who cut his teeth on Dark Place back in the day and then helmed a number of music videos, also a concert film for
3:37 Adam Buxton? The Arctic Monkeys, and two features so far. There was twenty-ten's Submarine, starring Craig Roberts, Yasmin Page, Sally Hawkins, Noah Taylor, and Paddy Considine, and twenty-thirteen's The Double, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Mia Vasikavskaya. I think I'm pronouncing that right. I looked it up, and that's what I got. Richard has also appeared in front of the camera in films, including director Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir, Parts One and Two, where he played a pretentious director. And he also popped up in Wes Anderson's Oscar-winning The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. This year, Richard appears in another Wes Anderson film, the comedy espionage thriller, The Phoenician Scheme, due to be released on the
4:21 Adam Buxton? twenty-third of May in the UK. And that film boasts a typically starry cast, including Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Benedetto del Toro, Tom Hanks, and Michael Cera.
4:34 Adam Buxton? And then you've got Richard's writer mode. Last year, twenty twenty four, saw the publication of Richard's fifth book, The Unfinished Harold Hughes, in which he investigates the legacy of a mysterious writer, actor and director, who was in some ways remarkably similar to Richard himself. Last year also saw the publication of Richard's sixth, seventh and eighth books, collections of the plays, poems and screenplays of Harold Hughes. And in case anyone thought he was being a bit lazy, his second book for children, The Fairy Tale Fan Club, was also published last year. For my conversation with Richard, he was in what I would call relaxed, thoughtful chat mode.
5:18 Adam Buxton? We spoke face to face in London in March of this year, twenty twenty five, and there was a lot of film chat, as well as some deep waffling about the relationship between fans and their artistic heroes. Whether it was easy writing four books about a made up guy, what Richard thought of David Letterman's enthusiasm for him and his work, the weirdness of doing interviews, or recording podcasts for that matter, the art of putting yourself down, why Orson Welles hated Woody Allen, and why Mick Jones of The Clash makes Richard cry. But we began by talking about the late David Lynch. And by the way, the name of the co-writer of Straight Story, whose name I blanked on, was Mary Sweeney.
6:02 Adam Buxton? She wrote the screenplay with John E. Roach, and was the editor of many of David Lynch's films. I'll be back at the end for a bit more Waffle, but right now with Richard Iawadi. Here we go.
6:55 Speaker 02 As soon as you finish a film, people want you to talk about it. And the film is the talking, the film is the thing. So you go see the film, that's the thing. It's a whole thing and it's there and that is it.
7:11 Adam Buxton? Did you like David Lynch?
7:12 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah. I rewatched nearly everything he did.
7:16 Adam Buxton? After he died?
7:17 Speaker 03 No, before, just before, only because, not for great reasons, but Michael Sarah is in this Wes Anderson film and I knew he was in the new Twin Peaks. And so I thought, oh, yeah, maybe I'd put off watching it. Because, partly because the first time I watched Twin Peaks, it was too frightening. And I just thought, I need to build and recovery fright time for watching Twin Peaks, which means I need to watch in the day, which means I'm not working. So it's quite a hard thing to justify. But I watched that and went, oh, God, he's amazing, still amazing. And then went back and watched Wild at Heart.
8:00 Adam Buxton? Will you pull the microphone closer to you?
8:01 Speaker 03 Yes, we're here.
8:03 Adam Buxton? I've never seen Twin Peaks.
8:06 Speaker 03 It's good.
8:07 Adam Buxton? Why was it frightening? Like, is it real, does it get in your head?
8:10 Speaker 03 Yeah.
8:11 Adam Buxton? In what way?
8:12 Speaker 03 Well, it's slow in a very confident way. And then within the actual show, certain things happen that are about as frightening a thought as possible to have, I'd say. And there is a character in it called Bob, who is the most terrifying person. And I suppose it's, yeah, it's really had something to do with evil, actual, and not just wrong choices evil, but full cosmic throughout eternity,
8:54 Speaker 03 indestructible evil. And that's quite concerning.
9:00 Adam Buxton? Yeah.
9:02 Adam Buxton? That was the thing about him, wasn't it, that he did seem to believe in a kind of supernatural version of evil.
9:10 Speaker 03 Yeah.
9:11 Adam Buxton? As distinct from just the terrible things that human beings are capable of.
9:16 Speaker 03 Yes, he doesn't think it's probably soluble by better diet.
9:23 Speaker 03 So, yeah, it's pretty big and but he also seems to really believe in goodness, which I think is why it's so moving, that you have these terrible things, I guess I can blue velvet that very moving exchange where Carl McLoughlin says, oh, why are there people like Frank? And but there's also this great beauty and goodness and yeah.
9:47 Adam Buxton? Did you ever meet him?
9:49 Speaker 03 No, no, never met David Lynch, but there are certain figures you just feel close to, don't you? You just they're what they do is so impactful and there seems something very truthful about what they do that you have a familiarity. So in a way I have met it, but David Bowie was like that, wasn't it? Just everyone felt very connected to that person.
10:16 Adam Buxton? I think Bowie was a more complicated figure though, because he had a streak, although this may maybe just me projecting.
10:24 Speaker 03 Yeah.
10:24 Adam Buxton? Of self-loathing, I think. He was so hypercritical and he was so anxious about what people thought of him and he was at war with himself. Like half the time, he knew that that's not the way an artist should be. An artist shouldn't care about what people think of what they do.
10:39 Speaker 03 Right.
10:40 Adam Buxton? But he did care. And he his stated aim right from the start was to be a famous person. And he knew that that was a fairly superficial goal.
10:49 Speaker 03 Okay.
10:49 Adam Buxton? And yet he was this person who was, in many ways, totally original, even though the way he went about that was to be a magpie, to be an appropriator, to be all these things that an artist shouldn't really be, an authentic artist shouldn't really be.
11:04 Speaker 03 Yes, I think there is a problem with the idea of authenticity because, you know, there's nothing new under the sun, I suppose. And also, I was just reading about Francis Bacon. Apparently he went to one of the first showings of Geoffrey Bernard's Unwell.
11:20 Adam Buxton? The play.
11:21 Speaker 03 The play, the Keith Waterhouse play, yes.
11:23 Adam Buxton? Right.
11:24 Speaker 03 And Francis Bacon is in the play and comes on in some outfit that he wouldn't wear. And he stood up and shouted in the play, when I don't wear anything like this. I wear a sour rose suit. And because I think he was dressed in a beret or something, you know, ridiculously on point and stormed out. And you'd think of Francis Bacon as uncompromising, brilliant artist. I think he cared a great deal about his reputation. I think often artists do, don't they?
11:58 Adam Buxton? I think most of them do on some level.
12:00 Speaker 03 Yeah.
12:01 Adam Buxton? If they are in any way connecting with their public, then of course they do.
12:05 Speaker 03 Yeah.
12:06 Adam Buxton? And they're trying to manage how they come across and.
12:09 Speaker 03 Yes.
12:10 Adam Buxton? They're wounded by criticism. And they they may show it in different ways, but I don't know anyone who's totally. You'd have to be a bit crazy, I think.
12:20 Speaker 03 Yeah, or so.
12:21 Adam Buxton? Not to be affected, that is.
12:23 Speaker 03 Yeah, kind of zipped up and immune. I mean, David Lynch, his story wasn't that he was extremely negative and angry. Was it kind of the clown suit of anger, he called it, until he started transcendental meditation and that was his kind of origin story of. Suddenly bliss and going inwards and all of those things. But it'd be surprising if those things utterly left him. I mean, he wouldn't.
12:49 Speaker 03 Be human. But also, I think if we give this another hour, we'll get to the bottom of his personality and we can. Actually submit a diagnosis. That's the amazing thing. You really kind of speculate about people. You go, what do I know about David Lynch?
13:02 Adam Buxton? Of course, yeah, but I mean, it's fun.
13:04 Speaker 03 Yeah.
13:04 Adam Buxton? It's fun. And also, in a way, you're. I don't know, I always feel like you're just talking about what people are like in general, aren't you? And maybe.
13:16 Adam Buxton? What you're like a little bit. And I mean that in the general sense, and also you, Richard.
13:21 Speaker 03 I want. Oh, well, here's, can I ask you this?
13:23 Adam Buxton? Yes.
13:24 Speaker 03 Here's something I'm interested in. Say you really like um David Bowyer. Did you ever have moments where you went, I'm out. He's done something. I don't like it. I've lost interest. Or did you feel, okay, he's done ten great albums in a row. I'm gonna stick with him or whatever. Because I was thinking, like, I love Billy Wilder, but I haven't seen his last three or four films. And I go, why, I in some way cr- trust the sort of critical massive judgment of saying, it wasn't really that good in the seventies, over the person who for twenty years has consistently dazzled me. For some rea- and I wonder whether I'm just frightened, I don't want to be disappointed
14:10 Speaker 03 in what he does later. But that seems uh ridiculous. Why don't I just watch these things?
14:18 Adam Buxton? Because he's capable of doing stuff that's not so good. And why waste your time?
14:22 Speaker 03 But why not trust someone who has,
14:28 Speaker 03 in terms of that knowing someone and really liking what they do.
14:31 Adam Buxton? Yeah.
14:31 Speaker 03 I also feel the flip side of it is this really harsh relationship whereby it's like, and not only do I love you, you'd better not ever disappoint me. Ever. And not even in the smallest way, because I've trusted you. You don't know that because I've never met you, but I have trusted you. And um so I'm not going to watch Buddy Buddy, because it might not be as good as The Apartment. But it probably is full of really interesting, great things. And why not? Yeah. Anyway, do you have that?
15:04 Adam Buxton? Yeah, I know exactly where you're coming from. And I know, because we've spoken about it before, that I'm like you in general, like, once I'm on board.
15:14 Speaker 03 Hmm.
15:14 Adam Buxton? I'm fine.
15:15 Speaker 03 Yeah.
15:15 Adam Buxton? With Bowie, he did lots of stuff that was quite crap. And so in a way, growing up as a Bowie fan in the eighties, the tone of your appreciation was like, I was getting into all the amazing stuff he did in the seventies, but at the same time, I was being confronted by this sillier stuff from the eighties, the Jareth years.
15:38 Speaker 03 Okay.
15:38 Adam Buxton? And.
15:40 Adam Buxton? Then, you know, and then the tin machine stuff, which I couldn't even enjoy, like at least in the mid eighties.
15:45 Speaker 03 Yeah.
15:46 Adam Buxton? Never let me down. There's even bits of Never let me down.
15:48 Speaker 03 Absolute beginners.
15:49 Adam Buxton? Absolute beginners is straightforwardly good, yeah.
15:52 Speaker 03 Labyrinth.
15:53 Adam Buxton? Uh, this, I mean, I don't like a lot of the songs in Labyrinth.
15:56 Speaker 03 Yeah. I mean, I, I think I like all of the songs in Labyrinth. I have to say, I just, you know, I'm really signed up.
16:04 Adam Buxton? Yeah.
16:05 Speaker 03 And maybe, yeah, maybe it's trying not to have such a worshipful relationship so that it's okay if it's not exactly what you wanted.
16:13 Adam Buxton? Yes. I tried to write about this in, in the book that I've just done. And in the end, just as it was being signed off, like just sort of going through the proof, uh, whatever it's called, the, the copy edited version.
16:28 Speaker 03 Hmm.
16:29 Adam Buxton? And I got to the chapter about Bowie and I'd written this whole chapter about nineteen ninety five, me and Joe were working on, on the Adam and Joe Show, the early version thereof. And one of the things that we did in this development reel was a bit about reviewing David Bowie's new album.
16:46 Speaker 03 Okay.
16:46 Adam Buxton? Outside, which he had done with Brian Eno. And it was fifteen years since they'd worked together on the Berlin trilogy, Low, Heroes, Lodge, three of my favorite Bowie albums in the late seventies. So it was very exciting as a Bowie fan, like, oh my God, he's back together with Eno.
17:01 Speaker 03 Yeah.
17:02 Adam Buxton? Eno's not gonna let him be shit.
17:03 Speaker 03 Hmm.
17:04 Adam Buxton? This is gonna be great. And yet, when we heard Outside, it was so not what I wanted. And I wrote about all this. And then I sort of went back and revisited the album.
17:16 Speaker 03 Yeah.
17:16 Adam Buxton? After he died, because it's an album that people really love, like the Bowie fans say, oh, Outside, it's, it's terrific. Wasn't well received at the time, but actually there's so much good stuff on there. And Eno himself says, you know, that was one that I really felt fell through the cracks a little bit. And I was like, yeah, fell through my crack.
17:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
17:37 Adam Buxton? But then I thought.
17:38 Speaker 03 That should be the title of your book.
17:41 Adam Buxton? And then I thought, well, I should go back and and revisit it because I bet there's some good stuff on there. I bet it's like one of your missing Billy Wilder films. It's Bowie. I love Bowie and I love Enno. And sure enough, there is good stuff on there.
17:55 Speaker 03 Yeah.
17:55 Adam Buxton? But I still don't like it. There's some really, like, he does these.
18:00 Speaker 03 The talking bit.
18:01 Adam Buxton? Characters, yeah.
18:02 Speaker 03 Yeah.
18:03 Adam Buxton? It was the first time he'd done characters since the late seventies, early eighties. But anyway, ultimately, I removed the chapter from the book.
18:12 Speaker 03 Well.
18:12 Adam Buxton? Because I just thought it's too deep level. I'll put it on the audio book as a bonus.
18:17 Speaker 03 Oh, that's good. Yes. A deep Bowie dive.
18:20 Adam Buxton? Yeah, yeah. At the end of the audio book, I think you get the missing Bowie chapter.
18:24 Speaker 03 Did you ever meet David Lynch? No.
18:26 Adam Buxton? Tantalizingly, I have friends who know people and who were in his orbit.
18:31 Speaker 03 Yeah.
18:32 Adam Buxton? Like, blanking on her name, but she wrote Straight Story.
18:37 Speaker 03 Oh, okay.
18:38 Adam Buxton? With him.
18:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's a great film, Straight Story.
18:41 Adam Buxton? Oh, yeah. I watched that again the other day.
18:43 Speaker 03 It's really good.
18:44 Adam Buxton? And it's so moving and.
18:47 Speaker 03 Yeah. Harry Dean Stanton is pretty good, isn't it?
18:51 Adam Buxton? One scene at the end of the movie as this guy's brother, the whole film, if you haven't seen it, listeners, is about, well, it's based on a true story, right?
18:59 Speaker 03 Yeah.
19:00 Adam Buxton? About an old guy who has fallen out with his brother and then he hears, like, years ago, he's fallen out with his brother, and then he hears his brother is very ill. And he travels cross-country, hundreds of miles, on a tractor mower.
19:15 Speaker 03 Yeah.
19:16 Adam Buxton? He's too old to drive a car. So there's like a loophole, which means that he's okay to drive his tractor mower. So he drives himself cross-country to to see his brother, almost because there's some element to the hardship being part of the journey.
19:34 Speaker 03 Yeah, and almost somehow keeping him alive until he arrives, it feels.
19:41 Speaker 03 But yeah, very beautiful.
19:43 Adam Buxton? And what then explain the Harry Dean Stanton bit.
19:45 Speaker 03 I just remember Harry Dean Stanton's face coming out when he comes out of a house and he's sort of just fresh. He's just got that great, long equine face, doesn't move. It's sort of western. It's like an old western face, but also somehow punk as well. He could be in The Clash, Harry Dean Stanton, or he could be in a John Ford film. I don't think I've seen it for fifteen years. I can't remember the scene. I just remember their two faces. That's about it. And just there's something very moving about the reconciliation. Wanting to reconcile. All of that is, yeah, incredibly powerful.
20:29 Adam Buxton? It's the climax of the movie and Harry Dean Stanton plays this guy's brother. And the actor playing the protagonist was Richard Farnsworth. And yeah, there's just one scene that must have only taken, you know, an afternoon to shoot, I suppose. But it's amazing and it's all, as you say, all about Harry Dean Stanton's face and his roomy eyes.
20:51 Speaker 03 Yeah.
20:52 Adam Buxton? And the emotion in his eyes when he sees his brother and realizes how far he's come for him.
20:58 Speaker 03 It's pretty good. He's good at loss, Harry Dean Stanton.
21:02 Adam Buxton? Yeah.
21:03 Speaker 03 In Paratexas. He's the loss guy.
21:06 Adam Buxton? That's the thing about movies. I heard you talking about what it is about film that you like and you mentioned things like the way that you can have these crazy juxtapositions. You talked about the two thousand and one with the bone flying in the air suddenly being uh replaced by the space station and things like that. And I love all those things too. But yeah, when I think about what I love about films, it's generally those Harry Dean Stanton moments, something in the face.
21:36 Speaker 03 Yeah, the reaction shot and being able to somehow be very close to someone while they think and through an accumulation of knowledge about where that person is. You can feel you're experiencing the thought and witnessing the thought at the same time. It's almost, yeah, it makes you a kind of supernatural entity at that moment, that you're able to understand things that you just couldn't ordinarily or feel you can feel things. Yeah, amazing faces.
22:13 Adam Buxton? What is it about, is it about actors? So can I, how do they do it, Richard? How does, Anthony Hopkins is like that for me, like he's
22:25 Adam Buxton? something about the intelligence in his face, the emotional intelligence.
22:30 Speaker 03 Yeah, I've only directed two films, but it is amazing when you see actors in somehow manage to inhabit
22:40 Speaker 03 what began as some writing, some text, and they are able to make it feel like they have thought of it. And it's just emanating from their face. I just, it's unbelievable to me. As someone singularly incapable of doing it myself, I just, you know, look like I'm in a call waiting to speak um and in some kind of freeze mode, but say to take a example that springs immediately to mind Jesse Eisenberg. I directed him in something where he had to play two characters. And he just through a series of internal adjustments could look entirely different, but no makeup, no different costuming.
23:22 Speaker 03 Just different aspect, different, yeah, was a different person. I suppose that's what acting's meant to be in some way, but yeah, it's extraordinary when you see it.
23:32 Adam Buxton? It seems to be sometimes though that really good actors in real life, I don't know about Jesse Eisenberg, you can tell me what he's like maybe in real life. But often they are almost necessarily kind of ciphers in real life.
23:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:47 Adam Buxton? You know, De Niro was was was famously someone who was possibly not electrically interesting in real life.
23:55 Speaker 03 Yeah.
23:56 Adam Buxton? And yet on camera is able to channel all this deep feeling.
24:01 Speaker 03 Yes, and I think there's so many things like in terms of physiognomy that suit an actor. So say De Niro on a chat show, I mean, he talked about saying a boring sentence, get a load of this one. Okay, so I think on a talk show. All the lenses are far away. So you're on some long lens, it flattens you out. If you think of those kind of great De Niro reactions, it's the cameras moving in. It's a Scorsese film, so it's generally moving in on a wide lens. And he has a really, what seems like an impassive face, but it's making these small micro adjustments,
24:42 Speaker 03 which I think in a wide lens with a sensitive camera is incredible. But way back with no real good thought to think of, other than how do I promote this film? On some long lens, it just looks kind of like nothing's happening. And so I wonder, yeah, I think it's the same sensitivity that makes him seem so subtle in a film that on a chat show looks like not enough.
25:07 Adam Buxton? I suppose the thing you need to do if you have Robert De Niro on your chat show, on Graham Norton, for example.
25:14 Speaker 03 Yes.
25:15 Adam Buxton? Is to have Tom Hiddleston nearby to do an impression of him to his face.
25:19 Speaker 03 That was a moment of some discomfort.
25:25 Adam Buxton? I can't get beyond that. I mention it so often on this podcast.
25:28 Speaker 03 It's a tricky one, isn't it? Because the impression has merit, let that be said.
25:36 Adam Buxton? Oh, yeah, he's a talented guy.
25:37 Speaker 03 There's a lot to say about it. But as to what Robert De Niro should be doing during it, I feel that question hadn't been properly investigated.
25:48 Adam Buxton? He handled it quite well.
25:50 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think he did it well. Yeah.
25:54 Adam Buxton? You didn't shoot him in the chest.
25:55 Speaker 03 He didn't. Yep. He could, he could have done a lot there.
26:00 Adam Buxton? Back to Graham Norton, though.
26:01 Speaker 03 Yes.
26:02 Adam Buxton? I saw you there with Colin Farrell.
26:03 Speaker 03 Colin Farrell.
26:05 Adam Buxton? Acting. You did a piece from Harold Hughes.
26:08 Speaker 03 Yes. It was the same piece called The Breakdown, which we did with your live show.
26:15 Adam Buxton? Yes.
26:16 Speaker 03 With Lydia, my wife, and, sorry, that's your line, isn't it? And, but Lydia is my wife, and Bennett, Brandreth is called, very kindly read this poem about someone who's had a breakdown. And Colin Farrell subbed in for them. On the Graham Norton Show. He was very kind to do it.
26:36 Adam Buxton? And did you prep it in the green room or was it days before the interview?
26:40 Speaker 03 There was very little preparation. I think I just sent it to him the day before. Maybe he saw it just before. But he's very humane and kind and as charming and, you know, delightful as you'd imagine.
26:54 Adam Buxton? He's a beautiful man.
26:55 Speaker 03 He's a handsome man.
26:56 Adam Buxton? Oh my.
26:57 Speaker 03 It's like looking in a mirror for me.
26:58 Adam Buxton? Yeah. Well, I think you're a beautiful man as well.
27:01 Speaker 03 Not enough people talk about the sheer physical impact I make in a room. It's, it's, it's too little disgust.
27:09 Adam Buxton? You always look good. So you are performing Harold Hughes on the Graham Norton Show.
27:14 Speaker 03 Yes.
27:15 Adam Buxton? Slightly surreal experience that must have been.
27:17 Speaker 03 A strange moment. The whole project is quite odd because it's, I suppose it's a written project, but, you know, it's a book and a work, a group of books, um, unhelpfully enough. But the idea is that I can sound like him within the conceit of the book, which is about this sort of royal court nineteen fifty sixties playwright and that I once saw a, uh, an old volume of his in a secondhand bookshop and became obsessed with him and decided to find out about him and why he disappeared from this reaffirmament. So it's not like a, you know, I guess a comedy character which you would perform and work up and continues. Harold Hughes is dead, all the writing's done.
28:03 Speaker 03 And so it's, yeah, just talking about him. But I like that tone of veneration people have. As soon as anyone dies, oh, he was very good, wasn't he? Because he's over and I can't feel threatened in any way anymore. So, yeah, the whole conceit of it was, can you create a character's entire creative life and output?
28:26 Speaker 03 In one go and release it and just the sheer monstrous hubris of that. And presenting it as a very important find, the the reissue culture, you know.
28:38 Adam Buxton? We met before we did the show at the Palladium.
28:42 Speaker 03 Yes.
28:43 Adam Buxton? This time last year, exactly one year ago.
28:45 Speaker 03 Oh, was it? Good night.
28:47 Adam Buxton? And we talked about how were we going to talk about Harold Hughes.
28:54 Speaker 03 And I should have detected a warning in that because I think you were very kindly and I very often don't listen. Um, and this could well be one of those moments. I think you were gently saying. Maybe you really need to try and lay this out for this to be even moderately enjoyable for an audience.
29:13 Adam Buxton? Well, I was saying, if it was me, I would be confused.
29:17 Speaker 03 Yes.
29:18 Adam Buxton? Because.
29:19 Speaker 03 And it was you.
29:20 Adam Buxton? It was.
29:21 Speaker 03 And you were being you.
29:22 Adam Buxton? That's true. Well, yeah, but I didn't know. I would hope that the audience generally is more intelligent than I. And.
29:30 Speaker 03 Well. The audience is always more intelligent than everyone.
29:33 Adam Buxton? Sure.
29:34 Speaker 03 That's the danger of the audience.
29:35 Adam Buxton? But I just thought, to what extent do we need to lay out what you're doing here? Because it feels real and the way you talk about it is real. So it's like, well, is this a real guy? Is this someone I've just never heard of? Because it kind of intersects with people's insecurity about their own ignorance.
29:53 Speaker 03 Yes, I did feel because, yeah, so I think, yeah, I decided in my infinite lack of wisdom to talk about Harold Hughes, just like Harold Hughes existed. Um, maybe just to see what that would be like. Um, and through your kind indulgence, but I did get the sense of of a kind of awful liberal guilt. Not that the guilt was awful, but I felt awful inflicting it where people go, I don't think I've heard of this person. Does this make me bad? That I I don't care enough to it. So I, that discomfort wasn't that enjoyable to be a part of.
30:34 Speaker 03 Or to in fact be the cause of, but but yeah, it never felt like it should be a prank or one of those things where it's like, ha, look, you fell for it. And there is no person such as Harold Hughes, but more just that sometimes it can be singularly dreadful to have to talk about anything that's meant to be funny, seriously, in any way. And maybe it's just an attempt to avoid having to talk about. Yeah, the David Lynch thing, the the film is the talking. And in an ideal world, someone would read one of the books and enjoy it and hopefully it's clear. But the bit where you say, so it's about a writer and
31:17 Speaker 03 here's a playwright and the idea is that he stopped writing and I have to find out why he stopped writing. All of those things, even now, when I'm saying them, they're making me slightly stressed. And I can imagine someone listening to it, oh, stop talking to me. I don't want, I've got the day to get on with.
31:31 Adam Buxton? Right now, explain to us where we're at with Harold.
31:34 Speaker 03 Well, the way this book is going to exist is that there's a biography of Harold Hughes, who who I look like, I look a lot like Harold Hughes. But also, what's exciting is that his work is going to be published again for the first time. And as well as a playwright and a screenplay writer, he was also a poet. And he's written some pretty powerful pieces. And very fortunately, we have two actors here to read one of his poems, Lavinia Lovelock and also Barnaby Rusk. And I wonder whether they might be able to join us for a performance of one of his poems, which is called The Breakdown.
32:14 Adam Buxton? Is it a clapping situation, or is that not really?
32:16 Speaker 03 You know, I think you can clap, for sure. That would be wonderful. Thank you very much to both of you for reading the poem. And they're actually doing a tour at the moment to some of Harold Hughes's key works. Often, the audiences for his work are in the double figures. So this will be interesting to have this performance.
32:42 Speaker 04 The Breakdown.
32:45 Speaker 05 Have you broken down?
32:47 Speaker 04 I have broken down.
32:50 Speaker 05 Where did the event take place?
32:53 Speaker 04 It took place near my home.
32:56 Speaker 05 How far from your home were you when the event took place?
33:00 Speaker 04 I don't know how to get to my home.
33:03 Speaker 05 Was the breakdown sudden, or were there warnings?
33:07 Speaker 04 No one warned me.
33:10 Speaker 05 Are you with anyone? Or are you on your own?
33:14 Speaker 04 I am on my own.
33:17 Speaker 05 Was anyone else involved?
33:19 Speaker 04 No one else is involved.
33:23 Speaker 05 We are quite busy.
33:26 Speaker 05 Are you okay to wait?
33:28 Speaker 04 I have time. But I'm not okay.
33:32 Speaker 05 Are you insured?
33:35 Speaker 04 I am not insured.
33:38 Speaker 05 And what kind of car is your car?
33:40 Speaker 04 I'm not in a car.
33:43 Speaker 05 Perhaps it is better to stay in the car.
33:46 Speaker 04 I do not have a car.
33:49 Speaker 05 You do realise that this is the AA?
33:53 Speaker 04 I know who you are.
33:56 Speaker 05 We help people who have broken down.
33:59 Speaker 04 I have broken down.
34:02 Speaker 05 People who have broken down in their cars.
34:05 Speaker 04 And what about those who haven't?
34:26 Adam Buxton? And that was Barnaby...
34:28 Speaker 03 Yes, that was Barnaby Rusk and Lavinia Lovelock.
34:31 Adam Buxton? Lavinia Lovelock.
34:32 Speaker 03 So, thank you very much. Well done. It's very moving to be reminded about how powerful his work is and in many ways he was a mental health pioneer.
34:44 Adam Buxton? Is that in the book then? Or is that, do you have to buy one of the separate books?
34:49 Speaker 03 That's in a separate book. That's in the book. Pieces Plays Poems.
34:54 Adam Buxton? Harold Hughes.
34:55 Speaker 03 Yes.
34:56 Adam Buxton? Thank you so much.
34:58 Speaker 03 No, thank you.
35:30 Adam Buxton? Did you hear me trying to describe Harold Hughes to David Letterman?
35:35 Speaker 03 Well, yes, you can't, look, you sent a clip to me of you talking to David Letterman. And I was so more, well, is very kind. Obviously, I'm going to have to change this to be my ringtone so that whenever I feel bad, I can somehow listen to this. But I cannot understand why David Letterman has, he just seems very kind. And I just don't feel in any way meriting of his interest, very grateful for it. But if I think of him, do you know when Future Islands was on David Letterman?
36:10 Adam Buxton? Yeah.
36:11 Speaker 03 And his reaction after Future Islands is the exact perfect reaction. If you watch that whole thing and there was a photo and the kind of strange tension that you're held in, mesmerized tension of, wow, this is kind of amazing. This is also quite a bit, it's a lot of stuff here. And I think he says something like, that's all you need. Some, it's some perfect expression of.
36:38 Speaker 03 The impact of it.
36:39 Adam Buxton? What was it about that performance?
36:41 Speaker 03 It was just, it was like parties, like Richard the Third.
36:45 Adam Buxton? So this is an American indie band, kind of electronic rock.
36:49 Speaker 03 Yeah, the song's really good.
36:53 Adam Buxton? Very emotional music.
36:55 Speaker 03 Very emotional.
36:56 Adam Buxton? And the guy, the lead singer, literally beats his chest.
36:59 Speaker 03 Yes.
37:00 Adam Buxton? And he is incredibly limber, or at least he was. Actually, no, I saw them fairly recently. They were, they were playing at Latitude.
37:08 Speaker 03 Yeah.
37:08 Adam Buxton? And he really moves around, the, the front man. He's sort of, almost James Brown levels of limber, dancemover-y.
37:17 Speaker 03 But there's also a kind of Theatre Blacks element to it.
37:19 Adam Buxton? Yeah.
37:20 Speaker 03 And the band is very still, slightly glacial, then he seems almost, it's not that he's not in the band, but certainly they're doing different things. And so there's a kind of a tension in, this is, he's certainly committing to whatever is occurring and he's decided to use the stage. And um, it's not that it's funny, but if it weren't as good as it was, it could possibly.
37:52 Adam Buxton? Yeah, it's right on the edge. And also there's unexpected things that his voice does as well. So he'll be kind of singing in a fairly normal way and then suddenly go down like this in a weird, unexpected Cookie Monster way.
38:06 Speaker 03 Yes, and a lot of eye contact, a lot of um, challenging eye contact, I'd, I'd call it. And pauses in between the lyrics where it feels that he's held in the emotion of the last thing he said until a twist. But anyway, I'll, David Letterman coming in after that is a, a really joyful moment.
38:28 Adam Buxton? Yeah, yeah.
38:28 Speaker 03 Uh, where it's expressed. Um, but anyway, uh, you very kindly uh, sent this clip of you and uh, David Letterman uh, talking about me. And I think I was just so um. Not embarrassed, because that sounds like you did something that was embarrassed, but I can't even take it in.
38:45 Adam Buxton? Yeah.
38:45 Speaker 03 Because of all the, you know.
38:48 Adam Buxton? So you didn't listen to it?
38:49 Speaker 03 I I heard it, but probably just the rush of blood in my ears, a shame. It's probably the main thing I heard, just the roar.
38:57 Adam Buxton? It was quite a long.
38:58 Speaker 03 Of going, oh, just go, oh. Thank you, but sorry.
39:03 Adam Buxton? Weird to listen to, yeah, I guess. Anyway, he, but he just thinks you're great. And we were just talking about like, who else does four books? You published five books last year, including your children's book.
39:18 Speaker 03 Yes, well, it took a while, this thing. So I wrote everything that Harold Hughes wrote in order, basically. So I started writing his plays because for a long time I wanted to do something about a writer or a director, I wasn't quite sure which, who made a lot of stuff. And then you'd have a kind of biography about this person. And rather than doing one of those things where you just put an extract from a film in where, say if it's a Western and it just goes Clint McCluskey walked through the tavern and it would seem obviously made up just for the purpose of the extract. I thought,
39:58 Speaker 03 oh, I need to know everything that the person's written somehow. And I enjoyed writing these fake plays and things and wanted to do that. And only at the end did the idea of the biography properly occur. Because then what he did existed somehow, which was a strange thing to do, I suppose.
40:20 Adam Buxton? But were there times when you were writing a play by this guy you'd made up?
40:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
40:27 Adam Buxton? When presumably you hit a wall occasionally, like, or did they flow very easily? Basically, what I'm asking is, were there times when you thought, what am I doing with my life? This is difficult. I'm writing a play by a non-existent guy. And I've got several more plays and a couple of films to write and some poetry and what was it like? Did you not, why, how did you avoid having a total breakdown?
40:52 Speaker 03 Well, I think writing in some ways is a way of avoiding a total breakdown because it's an ordering of thoughts in a way that. Outside of the time it takes isn't terribly detrimental on those around you and the world. And I really enjoyed it. There's something about, um. You know, there's some people who can really write in the third person and they can have that authorial sense of putting everyone in their place, like Ian Forster, they can use irony about how this person sees themselves and they can position all of the players and
41:34 Speaker 03 I find that incredible, that someone can write, you know, Room with a View, that that seems incredible. To me, effectively writing the first person, which feels like improvising in a character, that doesn't seem tricky to me. I guess like, say Alan Partridge, the infinite riches of him talking is, I don't know, it doesn't seem like he's going to run out of being able to do that. So there's something, I think, in, yeah, first person writing that goes quite well with comedy, maybe. Oh gosh, I'm sorry for that sentence.
42:13 Adam Buxton? So you didn't have moments when you were getting stuck on one of the plays and just going, ah.
42:18 Speaker 03 Not really. Writing the plays, it's, I'd also, I'd had this idea for about 10 years. So I was kind of ready to go.
42:27 Adam Buxton? Okay.
42:27 Speaker 03 It sort of built up. But the biography, that was really hard, like the actual story of Harold Hughes and what happened, that went through many different things. And there was a while when it was going to be like a series of critical studies of Harold Hughes, like a load of essays. It was gonna be even odder initially. But maybe there are seven plays and there are seven films that he wrote. And yeah, it wasn't, it was enjoyable. I liked writing them.
42:56 Adam Buxton? What about, did you have moments, again, this is me projecting times that I've had when I've just thought, what am I doing? But did you, you know.
43:05 Speaker 03 I definitely thought, what am I doing? I definitely thought, what is, this isn't adult behaviour.
43:11 Adam Buxton? Uh huh.
43:12 Speaker 03 This isn't.
43:12 Adam Buxton? Like if you look at the news, the books were published at around the time that, well, it was the run up to the American elections.
43:20 Speaker 03 Oh, I think it is in dialogue with that.
43:24 Speaker 03 That's for sure. And I think, I think if you read this, I think the election will make sense.
43:28 Adam Buxton? Yeah. Okay, good. One of the things I said to David Letterman, which I don't know if you it registered when you listened briefly, was that it's a big ask of the audience.
43:42 Speaker 03 Yes.
43:43 Adam Buxton? You know, most people, well, okay, me, reading four books a year with my eyes, pat on the back for buckles. You know what I mean? So.
43:52 Speaker 03 Especially with your eyes.
43:53 Adam Buxton? Exactly.
43:54 Speaker 03 Because normally you just inject them.
43:57 Adam Buxton? Well, I do inject them with television, or I just shove books through my ears with audiobooks.
44:03 Speaker 03 Yeah.
44:04 Adam Buxton? So to actually read a book with my eyes, that's a big deal. And so you come out with four of them. You've got the Unfinished Harold Hughes, which is about you, Richard Iawade, or a version thereof, investigating his life and legacy. You've got four films, a collection of his screenplays. You've got plays, prose pieces and poetry.
44:30 Speaker 03 Yeah.
44:30 Adam Buxton? And then you've got the Models trilogy.
44:33 Speaker 03 The Especially Wayward Girl, The Model and the Rocker, and The Swinging Models, and those that the the four films, the later more supernatural ones, like The Deadly Gust About a Haunted Wind. But yes, so those are, yeah, London films, the first ones. And then there's these poems. But, you know, the biography of him, they're all quite short, I'd say. And I suppose because of this joke of it being Harold Hughes is dead and here's the complete reissue. It seems ludicrously big, but I don't think you have to read all of them, or indeed any of them.
45:13 Adam Buxton? But they're fun. I've been reading them on the toilet.
45:17 Speaker 03 I think you need to be somewhere where you can evacuate.
45:21 Adam Buxton? And that's generally where I do most of my eye reading, to be honest with you.
45:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
45:25 Adam Buxton? Okay, I'm going to open to a random page.
45:29 Adam Buxton? Hugo steps in, starts clearing away the enormous amounts of food. Do you like cats? Solvay?
45:36 Speaker 03 A solvay.
45:37 Adam Buxton? Solvay. See, that's half the problem there.
45:39 Speaker 03 Yeah.
45:40 Adam Buxton? You've got jokes in this thing about, like, one of the jokes is, one of the awards that Harold Hughes won was the, um.
45:48 Speaker 03 Oh, Euripides Prize for short-form drama.
45:50 Adam Buxton? Yeah.
45:51 Speaker 03 And also the Costa Coffee Award.
45:53 Adam Buxton? And also the Goethe Garter.
45:54 Speaker 03 The Goethe Garter, yeah.
45:56 Adam Buxton? Which, like, I only realised, like, a few weeks ago that it was pronounced Goethe and not Goeth.
46:02 Speaker 03 Okay, yeah.
46:03 Adam Buxton? So you're asking a lot of a certain audience member. Will you read a poem or something like that?
46:08 Speaker 03 I could read one of his poems. Oh, this is very short. This is called Then What? Then what? Lost in ink, blood in mouth, the rug worn through, you wonder. A lot of his poems seem to be about being drunk on the floor.
46:27 Adam Buxton? Mm-hmm.
46:28 Speaker 03 I think Harold spent a lot of time unable to get up.
46:32 Adam Buxton? You've never been a drunk-on-the-floor guy, though?
46:34 Speaker 03 No, no, only on the toilet.
46:38 Speaker 00 It's a compulsion that leads you to explore that leading edge all the time.
46:42 Speaker 06 Yeah, just a curiosity seek, looking at the idiosyncrasies of things.
47:03 Speaker 06 A mountain or a tree is the manifestation of forces that we are not capable of dealing with. I'm very drunk in this.
47:17 Adam Buxton? There was a piece that appeared in Esquire in October of last year, 2024, and it was, you had written it, under the pseudonym Chloe Clifton-Wright.
47:27 Speaker 03 Yes.
47:28 Adam Buxton? And it was ostensibly an interview with you. As the author of the Harold Hughes books and the title of the piece was Play for Today? Question mark. An attritional interview with Richard Iawade. And at that point, when I read that headline, I thought it was a real.
47:43 Speaker 03 Okay, yes.
47:44 Adam Buxton? And I was thinking, oh, someone has got wound up by Richard.
47:48 Speaker 03 Yeah.
47:49 Adam Buxton? And they've written a kind of takedown piece about like, where's this guy coming from anyway?
47:55 Speaker 03 Okay, yeah.
47:55 Adam Buxton? And I was like, oh, man, that's that's weird. And then I realized, oh, he's written it himself.
48:00 Speaker 03 Yeah.
48:01 Adam Buxton? And I mean, even as Chloe Clifton Wright, I was thinking, that's pretty harsh. Chloe seems like a bit of a cow. Is that okay to call someone a cow?
48:12 Speaker 03 I don't know. I'm gonna say maybe.
48:17 Speaker 03 From the person's point of view, they might not want.
48:20 Adam Buxton? No, no.
48:21 Speaker 03 Even as a fiction.
48:21 Adam Buxton? It's not okay. I apologize to the fictional Chloe Clifton Wright.
48:25 Speaker 03 Yeah.
48:25 Adam Buxton? One of the things you say in Chloe's voice is, whereas Iawade seems little more than an inconsequential collection of borrowed tics and insincere self-effacement, the playwright to whom he refers was all gravitas, depth and mystery. And of course, I appreciate what you're doing there.
48:46 Speaker 03 Sure.
48:46 Adam Buxton? And I appreciate it's in your self-effacing style, but I thought even so, that's pretty harsh. To boil yourself down, even as a joke, to an inconsequential collection of borrowed tics and insincere self-effacement.
49:01 Speaker 03 Well, in a way, it's quite fun having a go at yourself. Fictionally, because really, I suppose when anyone's talking about someone else, they're really talking about their idea of them rather than what they actually are. And so the narrowing of a lens on someone is always quite funny. You know, when someone really emphasizes one aspect of it, I suppose why all the arguments in Spinal Tap are some of the funniest things. It's just emphasizing one aspect of someone or one deficiency of them to an extreme level
49:40 Speaker 03 is as revealing of the person doing that as what they think they're kind of pinning that other person to. So I didn't feel uncomfortable saying those things about me. I'm quite happy. It's almost can be sort of relieving of a kind of tension.
49:58 Speaker 03 In a way.
49:59 Adam Buxton? But do you, because as someone who has struggled to a degree with a certain amount of self loathing or insecurity over the years. Sometimes I hear the way you talk about yourself, or you put yourself down, or you sort of apologize for yourself. And I do think like, what is motivating? Is it just a joke? Is it just a, to what extent are you putting yourself down before someone else does?
50:28 Speaker 03 Yeah, the preemptive strike. I don't know. And I think with writing, it does come from a bit of you that you're not totally aware of, I find. So it's just it occurs and then you have to decide whether to keep it or not. And then I go, no, I'm quite happy to keep that. So there's an extent to which I think.
50:53 Speaker 03 What I'm like isn't quite my business. And I don't totally know how to put it. Probably if you know yourself, you know how bad you are. And that's, I don't think that is wrong. I think there is something really troubling about.
51:18 Speaker 03 Unreflective positivity. I guess as it's termed toxic positivity these days. But I think most people have a good sense of, gosh, there are some things about me that really needs some attention. One of the most depressing things I feel is if something feels not real or pulled emotionally in some ways. So I wanted to write something that was like a hit piece, a kind of a pastiche of a hit piece. And.
51:52 Adam Buxton? This is the Esquire.
51:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, the Esquire thing where just someone's just exhausted with someone and they just think they're pretentious and, and that just seemed a funny idea to write.
52:05 Adam Buxton? Have you ever had one of those written about you for real?
52:08 Speaker 03 A hit piece. I don't know.
52:11 Adam Buxton? Well, not a hit piece, but an uncomfortable encounter with someone who didn't get you always wound up by.
52:16 Speaker 03 I I think I've never had a non-uncomfortable encounter. I think every encounter's been uncomfortable. I mean, I did an interview on Channel Four News with.
52:32 Adam Buxton? Krishnan.
52:32 Speaker 03 Yeah.
52:33 Adam Buxton? Uh, we spoke about this when we were in Lisbon, but that was.
52:36 Speaker 03 I didn't feel that was uncomfortable, but the the thing before, the reason they asked me to do it, I think, was I'd done an interview. I can't remember exactly who with or what it was in, but I think the gist of it was, oh, come on, just stop trying to wriggle out of this. Just, you know, what's going on? I think a little bit. And so they said, do you want to do an interview about interviews? I went, okay, but I think maybe I'm incapable of not going, is this what an interview's meant to be? Like now, I go, I'm talking a lot. This isn't our normal conversations.
53:20 Speaker 03 As in, we would be both talking, there wouldn't be any assumption that somehow I should, that what I'm saying is worthy of record, that I should be saying more, that now it's your turn to say a thing.
53:33 Adam Buxton? Yeah, you've kind of thought yourself into a hole, right? You've overthought the encounter.
53:38 Speaker 03 I've maybe I've maybe, or or I thought about it just enough. The exact right amount.
53:47 Adam Buxton? You've thought about it the way everyone else should be thinking about.
53:50 Speaker 03 Why isn't everyone else thinking the same?
53:54 Adam Buxton? Yeah.
53:54 Speaker 03 And well, there is something slightly ridiculous about being interviewed.
53:59 Adam Buxton? Of course.
54:00 Speaker 03 Because.
54:02 Speaker 03 What is it?
54:02 Adam Buxton? Have you had therapy? Have you been in therapy?
54:04 Speaker 03 Ah, no, I haven't. Um, no, I haven't had therapy. I think it it's it seems like a pretty good idea.
54:13 Adam Buxton? Yeah, well, I'm just wondering to what extent, you know, as I said before, it's like I am coming at this as someone who, you know, struggles a little bit with self doubt and feels a certain amount of pain after certain encounters. And sometimes I look at what you say and some of the things you say in interview situations and I feel like, oh, if that was true of me, I would be in real pain. I wonder if he's in real pain.
54:39 Speaker 03 So things I've said in interviews seem like the things that someone in real pain would say.
54:45 Adam Buxton? Yeah, like you, like, wow, this guy is at war with himself.
54:50 Speaker 03 Well, yeah, I mean, maybe I I think in some ways. Yeah, but I mean, maybe not enough. I mean, maybe I'm just too glib about things. I mean, I I don't really understand um myself, I as in I don't know at all. And I think in some ways
55:14 Speaker 03 people who write often don't seem to fully understand themselves, otherwise they would do other things. Say at school, if you're personable, athletic, well liked and charismatic,
55:30 Speaker 03 you probably want to see how that works out for you, rather than going, I'm going to become an expert on French New Wave. Um, so I think in some ways, the thing that pushes you into a specific area of interest or a specific medium is the same thing that means you find it quite hard to talk about. Because just, I mean, you know this from musicians, they're not being difficult, they just don't know how to talk about music. If they could talk about it, they wouldn't do it. I mean, which seems very frustrating because you want to say. How did you do it? But and it's one of the things I'm really interested in because I love reading interviews. I love finding out about people.
56:12 Speaker 03 But very often, they can't express it. And that in itself can be quite enjoyable to realise or to apprehend. And that it's not being obstreperous or or yes, the David Lynch thing of the film is the talking. If they could express it in another way, they wouldn't have done that thing.
56:35 Adam Buxton? Do you know the conversation between Orson Welles and Henry Jaglum about Woody Allen?
56:42 Speaker 03 Yes, yes.
56:43 Adam Buxton? And Orson, these were a series of conversations recorded by a director called Henry Jaglum with Orson Welles, who was then his friend.
56:51 Speaker 03 Yeah.
56:52 Adam Buxton? And they would hang out in Los Angeles and Orson Welles was a couple of decades older than Henry Jaglum.
56:57 Speaker 03 Yeah.
56:57 Adam Buxton? But they had a close friendship and they would just chat in a very informal way about everything.
57:02 Speaker 03 Yes, although there does seem to be something slightly transactional about it because Orson Welles is trying to get funding. Henry Jaglum's more at the start of his career, he's going, I think I might be able to get some money through. I also have the sense of Orson Welles not showing off exactly, but slightly going, hey, I'm no old dinosaur. I can I can still mix it. I can still be pretty.
57:27 Adam Buxton? Yeah.
57:28 Speaker 03 Pointed.
57:29 Adam Buxton? It's like a series of podcasts before podcasts, right thing?
57:33 Speaker 03 Yeah.
57:33 Adam Buxton? There are audio snippets flying around on the internet.
57:37 Speaker 03 Yeah.
57:37 Adam Buxton? And then there was a transcription of a lot of these tapes.
57:40 Speaker 03 Yes.
57:40 Adam Buxton? That emerged in book form.
57:42 Speaker 03 Yeah.
57:42 Adam Buxton? Which I would recommend. But the exchange about Woody Allen, you say Jaglum, do you? Is it?
57:47 Speaker 03 Maybe it's Jaglum. Yes, I don't know. Let's call the whole thing off.
57:51 Adam Buxton? Jaglum.
57:53 Speaker 03 Yeah.
57:53 Adam Buxton? Anyway, the subject of Woody Allen comes up. Orson Welles says, I hate Woody Allen. Physically, I dislike that kind of man. Jaglom says, I never understood why. Have you met him? Oh, yes, says Orson Welles. I can hardly bear to talk to him. He has the Chaplin disease. That particular combination of arrogance and timidity sets my teeth on edge.
58:14 Speaker 03 Yeah.
58:15 Adam Buxton? He's not arrogant. He's shy, says Henry Jaglom. He's arrogant, says Orson Welles. Like all people with timid personalities, his arrogance is unlimited. Anyone who speaks quietly and shrivels up in company is unbelievably arrogant. He acts shy, but he's not. He's scared. He hates himself and he loves himself. A very tense situation.
58:35 Speaker 03 I take your note.
58:37 Adam Buxton? I read that and thought about the way that I can be sometimes.
58:43 Speaker 03 Yes.
58:43 Adam Buxton? Because of, you know, I, I always just think about myself in any situation. How does that reflect on me?
58:50 Speaker 03 I think that's a good thing, though, isn't it? I mean, as in, if you hear about something and just go, yeah, that sums up everyone else, that probably is not a good sign. As in, I think generally reading about these things is to, in some ways, go, oh, yeah. Am I guilty of this kind of a sin, as it were? Um, yeah, I recognize that, um, that there can be something arrogant in just not. I don't know for want of a better way of putting it, just putting your stuff on other people.
59:23 Adam Buxton? Mm hmm.
59:23 Speaker 03 Just, you might be uncomfortable, but now you're stressing the other person out. And you might feel shy, but you're, the sense of your anxieties leaking out everywhere and slightly rancidly poisoning everything. So I do think there's, you know, some responsibility of just, even if it's just on a vaguely civic level, just to not absolutely hand wring overly. It's not something I've managed to stop doing.
59:58 Speaker 03 I have mixed feelings about, you know, um, as liking a lot of their stuff and both of them have done things.
1:00:06 Adam Buxton? Orson Welles and Woody Allen.
1:00:08 Speaker 03 Have done things that are less good. And also I think Orson Welles was in this very specific situation where here's someone who's made what is regarded as the best film of all time by many people unable to get work or to make a film. And so I think there must have been a certain huge frustration at someone who was just making a film a year and had this kind of carte blanche, as Woody Allen would have had at that time. And also, I think, what was it? Was it Casino Royale that um they were both in? And I think Woody Allen, had he written it or had he rewritten it? And I think it must have felt
1:00:51 Speaker 03 hugely frustrating for Orson Welles. I mean, his opinion of him notwithstanding. The Chaplin disease, I wonder what that is and whether that's, I don't know.
1:01:02 Adam Buxton? Combination of arrogance and timidity.
1:01:05 Speaker 03 Is that something that he feels comes across in the films or or personally? That's the thing that I, when I read that, I wasn't sure.
1:01:11 Adam Buxton? Right.
1:01:11 Speaker 03 Because I think you'd be hard pressed to say that's not quite a good creation, the Chaplin persona is is not bad.
1:01:18 Adam Buxton? Maybe the timidity is the is the tramp character in contrast with an arrogance off screen. I don't know.
1:01:25 Speaker 03 Yeah, but in a way, isn't that a clown? I mean, a clown is desperate for the audience's love. And is those absurd things? I mean, in a way, I think a lot of comedians know how to exaggerate in themselves the things that are ridiculous and uncomfortable and most people rightly try to repress.
1:01:56 Adam Buxton? Mm hmm.
1:01:56 Speaker 03 Because they're unpleasant. Whereas, you know, the Marx Brothers know what to emphasize and just go, yeah, you probably shouldn't speak this tactlessly. You probably shouldn't steal all these things. You probably shouldn't run around. And Orson Welles, in a way, he's not like that interested in humor. I mean, the trial's really funny. But I think his. He's kind of a hero actor, isn't he, Orson Welles? And I also think maybe Orson Welles's fatal flaw is one of self pity. Whereas the Chaplin and Woody Allen characters, they're really quite tough.
1:02:38 Speaker 03 You can't destroy them. I think that's one of the strange things about clowns. Because they've admitted to and exaggerated every flaw that you can perceive in them. They become indestructible, whereas Orson Welles could be laughed at and ignored. And in a way that's really quite painful when you see later. When you see him getting his, I think there's a clip of him accepting almost like a lifetime achievement award at some American society. And he does it brilliantly where he says something like, "Far be it for me to beg for funds." And he leaves this great pause and everyone laughs, but I am still trying to make films.
1:03:22 Speaker 03 But you know, no one there. I mean, everyone's celebrating him, but no one's going to give him any money. And that's, it's really kind of sad to feel the desperation of him in those adverts where he's drunk, that there's something Shakespearean tragic about Orson Welles. That you struggle to say there is as much about Chaplin and Woody Allen. They're more sneaky, wily, very different characters, dramatic characters.
1:03:57 Adam Buxton? Well, you put him back in his box.
1:04:14 Adam Buxton? The other day we met up to go and see Mick Jones's exhibition, The Rock and Roll Public Library. And it's a, uh, an archive of 20th century pop culture that he himself has amassed after his years of being a pivotal figure in the world, having been a member of The Clash and then Big Audio, Dynamite and all the other projects he's done over the years.
1:04:44 Speaker 03 Yes, there's a clip of him playing Train in Vain, uh, is one of the most moving things I've seen. There's one moment, I don't know why this really, I don't know, gets me, why, uh, cry, because everyone loves him so much and everyone loves what his music's done for them. And there's one bit where someone just shouts out something like, "Go on Mick!" And it's really, uh, you kind of choke up watching it. Or maybe it's just me and I've got some, uh, I'm having a breakdown. But it's so moving and he's so winning, his kind of smile, he's got the best smile, his voice, it's just him and a telecaster, it sounds great. Everything
1:05:27 Speaker 03 about him is, is just a pleasure. Yeah.
1:05:32 Adam Buxton? I'll put a link to that in the description.
1:05:34 Speaker 03 If you're ever not feeling good, you've watched that and everything's okay again.
1:05:39 Adam Buxton? You and I were invited to the, one of the launch nights of this exhibition of Mick Jones's Pop Cultural Archive. I imagined that we were going to get there and it was going to be, you know, just a few people wandering around a gallery space and we'd have a little chat with Mick and he would show us his laminates and, you know, jobs are good. But actually, we, we arrived and there was a giant queue of old punks.
1:06:08 Speaker 03 It was a big queue. It was a punk snake.
1:06:11 Adam Buxton? Yeah.
1:06:13 Speaker 03 Snaking out into Denmark streets of about two mile, solid two mile punk formation.
1:06:21 Speaker 03 Guy, oh, I, ah, oye, oye, gob everywhere, spitting, studs.
1:06:28 Adam Buxton? Pushing each other around.
1:06:30 Speaker 03 Pogoing, it's the likes of which you've never seen, spiky hair, people singing My Way.
1:06:37 Adam Buxton? Union Jacks.
1:06:38 Speaker 03 Yeah, disrespecting authority, then kind of commercializing it.
1:06:41 Adam Buxton? Safety pins.
1:06:42 Speaker 03 Yeah, it was unsafe. It was an unsafe formation.
1:06:47 Speaker 03 So we, we went back to our bourgeois homes, didn't we?
1:06:50 Adam Buxton? We didn't even go in, because it was a really cold night and.
1:06:54 Speaker 03 I don't think it was even cold. I think it was just the prospect of being kept waiting for even one second. So enraged, such old media hands that we couldn't go. Yeah, I think probably we both had the same unrealistic dream of floating into a white gallery space.
1:07:14 Adam Buxton? Yeah, being given champagne and then within half an hour, you're best friends with Mick Jones.
1:07:19 Speaker 03 And leather jacket and just going, Mick, have you ever thought about, um, do you ever want to just jam?
1:07:24 Adam Buxton? Exactly.
1:07:25 Speaker 03 Um, on the side and go, yeah.
1:07:26 Adam Buxton? So he says to you, let's jam. And he says to me, can I please be on your podcast?
1:07:31 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:07:32 Adam Buxton? And then we leave the gallery and we get given like a couple of pics that they used in the clash.
1:07:37 Speaker 03 I was actually already going higher than that. I thought he was going, I don't really use some of these guitars. I don't know whether. I, I'm just gonna throw them out. Have you heard that Francis Bacon story? This is quite a good Francis Bacon story whereby he was in the Colony Club. And he said, I've just been to Harrods and they're useless. I just got a load of suits from them and they're disgusting. Threw them all out. And then almost, I think there's a pause, everyone leaves and they all go to Francis Bacon's house. And the next day they're all in Harrods suits.
1:08:14 Speaker 03 Um, and so I kind of thought it'd be a bit like that. I don't need this stuff.
1:08:20 Speaker 03 I always thought I wanted the guitars for somebody who could really play, because I heard you play with Dinsmore Junior, and despite your protestations, you might be a generational guitarist.
1:08:32 Adam Buxton? And I want to get the band back together again.
1:08:34 Speaker 03 Would you?
1:08:35 Adam Buxton? Well, look, I'm not prepared to relinquish that dream.
1:08:38 Speaker 03 Hmm.
1:08:39 Adam Buxton? And I would like to extend a warm invitation to Mick Jones to come on to the podcast.
1:08:48 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:08:48 Adam Buxton? And waffle about the old days and the new days and whatever else he wants to waffle about. And you can come along too, and you guys will jam.
1:08:57 Speaker 03 That would.
1:08:57 Adam Buxton? And I'll sit there and I'll produce the session.
1:09:00 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:09:00 Adam Buxton? I'll do some BVs.
1:09:02 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:09:02 Adam Buxton? And then we can all go home.
1:09:05 Speaker 03 I think the parallels between Joe Strummer and I can no longer be ignored.
1:09:11 Speaker 03 And I think we should get it back together.
1:09:13 Adam Buxton? What would be the Clash song you would most like to play?
1:09:16 Speaker 03 Train in vain.
1:09:17 Adam Buxton? Train in vain.
1:09:18 Speaker 03 Is, yeah. Spanish bombs, I like a lot.
1:09:21 Adam Buxton? Yeah.
1:09:24 Speaker 03 White Riot, White Man in Hammer.
1:09:26 Adam Buxton? Ah, that's a good one.
1:09:28 Speaker 03 I mean, lots of good songs.
1:09:31 Adam Buxton? There's lots of not rubbish songs.
1:09:34 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:09:34 Adam Buxton? If people were taking turns to play songs around the campfire, what would you play? And you had to sing as well.
1:09:41 Speaker 03 Oh, if I had to sing?
1:09:48 Speaker 03 Probably that.
1:10:21 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:10:28 Speaker 07 This is an ad for Squarespace. Okay, we'll return to the AI apocalypse in just a wee wee moment, but first I wanted to talk about Squarespace. Do you know about Squarespace, Steve? Uh, yes, Monty. I think I might even be a little bit more tuned into modern tech, websites, et cetera, than you. I don't know, just guessing. Oh, Steve, I love this dynamic. I'm old and conservative and you're young and progressive and that's what makes the Newswind podcast such great listening. But yes, you're right, I must admit, I didn't know much about Squarespace. But because my new grumble book, Hell in a Handcart, is out this month, and I look forward to getting enraged by that, so I should hope.
1:11:03 Speaker 07 Anyway, the publishers, Bluestar and Dogwhistle, made a beautiful website for the book using Squarespace. I know, I got the newsletter that you sent out using Squarespace and the website does look great. Videos of you airing your views, members' areas for your mad fans. You've even got a merch store, I see. That's right, a Union Jack top hat is a big seller. But they constructed it all so fast with Squarespace. They did most of it over one lunchtime, Steve. Well, you wouldn't want to spend much longer on it, would you? Shut up, Steve. But here's the thing, anyone listening to this can start a free trial right now at squarespace.com/boxton and see how easy and versatile Squarespace is. And when they're ready to launch a new website or domain, they can save 10% off their first purchase by using the offer code BOXTON at checkout. Right, well, maybe I'll visit squarespace.com/boxton and start a new website just to refute all the nonsense in your new book. Oh, don't do that, Steve.
1:11:48 Speaker 07 I will. Oh, shut up, Steve. Shut up. Now, back to more depressing matters on Newswind.
1:11:56 Adam Buxton? Continue.
1:12:09 Adam Buxton? Hey, welcome back, podcasts. That was Richard Iwadi talking to me there, and I'm very grateful to him indeed for coming along and making the time to have a chat. I'm hoping to put another episode out featuring Richard before too long, and that would be made up of a bit more of the live show that we recorded last year at the Palladium. There were a few bits of chat there about music, about our...
1:12:38 Adam Buxton? Shared enthusiasm for Frank Black and the Pixies and he was our guest, our musical guest at the show and, and I'm hoping I might be able to include one of the songs that he played live. But the problem with anything that's got a musical performance in it is that it has to be cleared for the podcast and that's proving to be more complicated than I would have hoped. Anyway, I hope that will emerge at some point. We also talked a bit more about Wes Anderson in that live podcast chat, so it could be a nice part two to today's episode. I've realised there's quite a few music related chats coming up in the podcast. I've been trying to listen to more music recently, especially with the
1:13:21 Adam Buxton? world the way it is, there's only so much Trump you can take. So in addition to all the politics chat, I've been trying to stuff a bit more music in my ears. Yesterday Spotify served me up Seematt's single, which she played on the podcast last week, Running Planning, and it sounded great. The album version was terrific. And then Spotify served me up some squid. Mmm, delicious. The album I've been listening to quite a bit recently is Sinister Grift by Panda Bear. I was never a huge Panda Bear fan, Animal Collective
1:14:00 Adam Buxton? and all that, they were a bit too, uh, busy. And the Panda Bear stuff, I never got on with that well, but this album, I love it. It reminds me a bit of Deer Hunter, who I also like. Anyway, music waffle, who knows, maybe we'll get Mick Jones on the podcast and then it's gonna be golden music waffle time. Few links in the description of the podcast today. By the way, instead of putting loads and loads of related links in the description of the podcast, I'm putting a single link which will take you to my website, the page for the podcast on my website and you'll find all the links there, plus usually a picture of me and my guest.
1:14:43 Adam Buxton? So this week you'll find, as well as the link to pre-order I Love You Bye, on the webpage for this episode, you'll find links for the unfinished Harold Hughes audiobook, that's read by Richard himself, as well as Chris Morris, David Mitchell, Lydia Fox, Noel Fielding, Sally Hawkins and Stephen Merchant. I don't have any guests on my audiobook. Well, I've got Cornballs. I haven't recorded with him yet, but he's going to come in and record a couple of bits, including a bonus chat for the end of the audiobook, which will be an opportunity for him to respond to some of the things I've
1:15:22 Adam Buxton? written about in there, about working together and our relationship and occasional angsty moments.
1:15:31 Adam Buxton? What else have I got linkwise for you? Article about the writing of Straight Story. There's the Future Island's performance on David Letterman that Richard was talking about, which is the gift that keeps giving. It's great. There's that performance of Train in Vain by Mick Jones, the one that makes Richard weepy. And there's a trailer for The Phoenician Scheme. Click the Related Links button in the description of today's podcast for all that. All right, I think that's it for this week. Got to get to my audiobook session now. Thank you very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for production support and conversation editing.
1:16:13 Adam Buxton? Thanks to Helen Green, she does the artwork for the podcast. Thanks to everyone at Acast. Next time, I will be back in the Norfolk countryside, hopefully on another day like this. It's been so nice this last week. I like it as well because it's cold. I would prefer overall to be a little colder than a little too hot. That's my personal preference. But just the blue skies and the bright sun, it makes everything a lot easier, doesn't it? Anyway, I hope you're doing okay out there. Thank you so much for coming back, listening right to the end. I hope you enjoyed it. How do you feel about a bench hug? Is that a good phrase? Come here.
1:16:58 Adam Buxton? Nice to see you.
1:17:00 Adam Buxton? Have a great day, don't jog too hard. And until next time, we share the same outdoor space. I'm not gonna go too loud on the bye because I'm in a public park. Take good care. It's nutty out there. And for what it's worth, do bear in mind that I love you. Bye!
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