TRIGGERnometry - ＂How I Got Cancelled＂ - Andrew Lawrence

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissin.

00:00:08.660 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating guests.

00:00:15.020 Our brilliant guest this week is a wonderful comedian, Andrew Lawrence. Welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:19.640 Oh, thanks for having me on here.

00:00:21.600 It's great to have you on.

00:00:22.680 It's nice though. It's the best review I've had for a while.

00:00:25.440 i should be a guardian journalist just um give give you one good review uh so anyway one one

00:00:32.760 decent comedy journalist yes it will be a long time before that happens i'm afraid that one's

00:00:38.480 for you steve yes steve no what's his face bennett brian brian brian logan oh they're all the same

00:00:46.420 anyway they're all the same all these the racism has started already perfect all right what we

00:00:52.820 wanted to talk to you about is the sense I get from you there's you you want things to be fair

00:00:58.880 and meritocratic well this is throughout your career you felt like that wasn't happening

00:01:03.000 and there was a particular moment I think where all that came to a head for you well tell us about

00:01:09.620 that I think um yeah you can get to certain places that there is and there was an element

00:01:16.460 of meritocracy to it but I was certainly very naive and it is very naive to think that you know

00:01:21.960 it's a business and i didn't think it would work on merit but that's all i had you know i think

00:01:28.360 well if i work hard if i work hard i'll get there if i'm working hard than everyone else and i'm

00:01:33.540 better than everyone else more talented than everyone else getting a bigger reaction or more

00:01:37.280 laughs on the night than everyone else which is the only way to gauge these things um then uh

00:01:43.260 then i'll make some sort of progress and um the only progress i i really wanted to make was to

00:01:51.040 have some sort of uh uh quality of life financially and do my own touring shows i wanted to i wanted

00:01:57.280 to to play to my own audiences in in sort of art center venues and i achieved that and i still do

00:02:03.720 that and um uh so i achieved what i i wanted to do but i became disillusioned because i thought

00:02:12.440 it was a more kind of

00:02:13.960 morally that it was

00:02:16.460 a better industry than it was

00:02:18.800 and a more

00:02:19.940 that there were values

00:02:22.780 there because

00:02:23.700 it certainly

00:02:25.420 there is a face to the comedy industry

00:02:28.760 there is a front to it

00:02:30.300 that

00:02:31.640 especially now

00:02:33.380 that there's something ethical going on

00:02:36.560 that these are good people

00:02:37.680 which is

00:02:40.640 not the case it's it's like many other businesses there's a lot of nastiness a lot of corruption

00:02:45.760 going on and you expect that and you just try your best you work hard and you see what happens but

00:02:52.540 yeah I certainly got disillusioned but um I did a show in uh in 2000 and um the summer of 2014

00:03:00.840 at the Edinburgh Fringe by which time I'd I'd um parted company with the big powerful agents

00:03:08.620 that I'd been signed with

00:03:10.300 and I was now with a smaller

00:03:12.060 small independent agent

00:03:14.220 because I knew I'd sort of

00:03:17.740 I'd sort of been chewed up and spat out

00:03:20.380 I knew I'd had my run

00:03:22.200 I'd had my run and now they were moving on

00:03:24.420 sort of leaving me behind

00:03:25.520 it was someone, other people's turn

00:03:28.080 it was the next thing was coming through

00:03:30.440 people were bored of me now

00:03:31.640 that was alright as long as I was making a living

00:03:34.060 so I was signed with a smaller

00:03:36.140 more independent agent

00:03:38.020 I went up to Edinburgh with them,

00:03:39.900 a really good Edinburgh,

00:03:41.480 a really well-received show,

00:03:44.400 sort of predominantly kind of five stars and four stars

00:03:47.980 and then a few quite nasty reviews

00:03:53.160 towards the end of the festival,

00:03:54.520 quite political reviews.

00:03:55.820 The show I did was called Reasons to Kill Yourself.

00:03:58.860 I saw it, it was a great show.

00:04:01.320 And the first 40,

00:04:05.140 probably the first 40, 45 minutes of the show

00:04:08.000 was just gag, gag, gag about being quite miserable

00:04:15.300 and quite depressed naturally as a person

00:04:18.000 and about death as well.

00:04:21.080 And then...

00:04:21.800 I never would have figured you for that kind of person.

00:04:25.320 Then the last 15 minutes of the show was...

00:04:29.000 I stopped doing the gag, gag, gag every 20 seconds

00:04:33.540 And it became a longer-form bit for the last 15 minutes, which allowed me to kind of talk about my experience in stand-up comedy

00:04:47.560 and how I'd been quite naive and I'd given a lot more of myself and sacrificed a lot more than I should have,

00:04:58.040 thinking that there was the element of merit would see me through

00:05:07.340 and that it hadn't worked out and that a side effect of that

00:05:13.800 was that a relationship I'd been in with someone,

00:05:16.960 I'd lived with her for nine years

00:05:18.600 and she had also started out in comedy at the same time as me

00:05:23.800 and she'd won a Channel 4 writing competition.

00:05:28.040 and they'd done nothing for nothing and she'd had nine years of of misery and and no income 0.70

00:05:36.600 nothing and and it's sort of you know it ruined her life really because you know this this guy

00:05:44.600 running channel 44 we'll have this new comedy writing initiative and it's a national thing

00:05:48.920 we'll do it but then we will just once it's done it'll be good for me it'll be good for my uh

00:05:54.200 career because i've done this thing but whoever wins we just won't care about them we'll brush

00:05:58.140 them under the carpet but so that relationship came to an end and i was i was uh i sort of angry

00:06:04.760 for her and i was um i was quite sort of feeling sorry for myself and it was a it it was a powerful

00:06:12.620 show i think it was very very funny for those 40 40 45 minutes and then that last 10 15 um i felt

00:06:22.740 I was saying what I wanted to say, but also what I felt a lot of other comics

00:06:29.780 and a lot of people coming into the industry,

00:06:34.920 I wanted them to hear before they made the sacrifices and commitments

00:06:38.920 that I had made, I suppose.

00:06:41.800 So it went very well, and the Edinburgh Friends, nothing came of it

00:06:45.600 because I was done.

00:06:48.400 I'd had my run, and it didn't matter how well I did up there.

00:06:52.020 I was sort of, you know, I was yesterday's news and I've been chewed up and spout and that's fine because I was still doing well, I was still on tour.

00:07:00.900 And October that year, I posted and I was sort of starting to post more on Facebook and Twitter than I had previously.

00:07:13.020 You can see where this is going if you don't know the story.

00:07:15.000 I was going to say that's always a good idea, as I have found.

00:07:18.460 for um because so many of the people coming to see me of course they're following me on

00:07:25.680 social media whatever if i've got whatever it is 20 000 on twitter or whatever no not well i don't

00:07:32.160 know what i've got but um there's a lot of people that buy tickets and and try to be funny all the

00:07:38.140 time and try and engage with those people on uh on social media and that's what i was doing all

00:07:43.740 time and uh and one post that i put on on on facebook um uh got picked up by by certain

00:07:53.860 people within the comedy industry some quite successful people within the comedy industry

00:07:58.680 who were really pissed off with what i'd said and and sort of um uh and uh and decided they

00:08:07.180 were going to go on a bit of a run with it and what did you say andrew because i wasn't as i

00:08:12.240 say i wasn't a comic at the time so i didn't follow it well there were there were there

00:08:15.540 were three strands to it the first i think um it was about how panel shows there'd been too many

00:08:23.800 cheap and easy jokes about um ukip on panel shows and that i felt like it was out of touch i felt

00:08:33.520 like this was 2014 before we'd have a referendum on brexit i felt like it was out of touch i felt

00:08:39.740 that this is what i put in the post that that actually ukip were resonating with a lot of

00:08:44.620 people and i think comedians are a little bit uh in a bubble and and they hadn't

00:08:51.720 that's a mild understatement right there they were they were sort of alienating people by not

00:08:58.520 by not realizing realizing that and um i said that people also people were

00:09:05.040 getting on those panel shows

00:09:07.220 not based on merit

00:09:09.300 but based on the fact they were

00:09:11.320 ticking boxes

00:09:13.080 equality and diversity

00:09:15.280 boxes which is true

00:09:17.460 and remains true

00:09:18.620 it's a

00:09:21.540 primary

00:09:22.100 it's a primary reason for people being

00:09:25.460 booked for

00:09:26.360 comedy panel shows and for stand up shows

00:09:29.220 on the BBC

00:09:30.920 and on Channel 4

00:09:32.600 and the third strand of the post was that

00:09:38.400 following on from saying a lot of people resonated with UKIP

00:09:43.540 because a lot of people were quite upset about

00:09:47.220 in recent years there had been a math uncontrolled

00:09:51.060 level of immigration which had put an enormous strain

00:09:54.900 on public services, on housing

00:09:57.480 and it had been a cynical thing

00:10:00.420 It had been something that had been done to push a lot of unskilled labour into the job market,

00:10:10.260 so wages for the poorest, lowest paid people could be kept artificially low

00:10:14.760 because there was such a demand for those jobs and zero-hours contracts could be rolled out.

00:10:24.260 And those are the three strengths of the post.

00:10:26.720 But of course, within that, there's a lot within that that you can use. If you want to go for someone, if you want to attack someone, there's a lot in there you can use to say, oh, you're this, you're that. This is, you know, this is, you're saying that, but what you mean is this.

00:10:45.400 And this was right at the start of where that became a regular occurrence on social media, on Facebook and Twitter, that there'd be these sort of mass kind of pylons where people would go for someone who had expressed a viewpoint that they didn't agree with and sort of manipulate what they had said out of all proportion.

00:11:15.400 and try to smear and discredit them and it became i think that was at the start of that and of course

00:11:21.120 happened so many so many people but it's a shock an enormous shock in comedy because it was right

00:11:26.060 at the start of that well you kind of got cancelled before that was like the cool thing to happen to

00:11:31.880 you know what i mean yeah i i think um you're a trailblazer i i don't it it's difficult because

00:11:40.020 to know the extent

00:11:43.280 and there is an extent to which I was cancelled

00:11:46.000 there is an extent to which after I put that post up

00:11:50.020 it affected me work wise

00:11:53.800 definitely I lost a lot of work

00:11:56.740 because of that post

00:11:59.080 I lost a lot of work because of that

00:12:01.280 at the same time

00:12:02.700 I can't say that

00:12:06.640 the

00:12:08.940 I don't think it cost me any

00:12:13.160 sort of let's say

00:12:14.540 TV work

00:12:16.460 or further work

00:12:19.260 I had a sitcom in development

00:12:20.800 I carried out

00:12:23.160 and went through with BBC Radio 4

00:12:24.780 but I don't think it cost me any work in broadcasting

00:12:26.780 because the parameters had changed

00:12:29.400 there and they wanted people

00:12:30.900 there was an equality and diversity agenda

00:12:33.160 rightly or wrongly I don't care

00:12:34.540 but that's how it is

00:12:36.460 They wanted people who were ticking certain boxes and ability or comedic ability was secondary to that, to that political agenda.

00:12:47.180 And so I was out the door already because of that.

00:12:51.880 So putting that post up, you know, wasn't going to affect that.

00:12:56.360 It certainly, I was just out on tour at that point.

00:12:59.140 I wasn't doing club gigs because I didn't need to.

00:13:01.580 I was just touring, but there were certainly venues that wouldn't book me,

00:13:07.940 that would book me a lot in the past,

00:13:09.520 regardless of the fact they hadn't seen the show that I was doing.

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00:13:43.640 So you got put in the box basically

00:13:46.260 Yeah, based on that

00:13:48.100 Facebook post or what they'd read

00:13:50.500 About it somewhere

00:13:52.000 Or what they'd read about it on someone else's Twitter feed

00:13:54.580 Or read about it in

00:13:55.520 An online blog or something

00:13:57.760 Based on that they decided they didn't want to

00:14:00.260 Well, let me ask you something, because are you happy with the way that you phrased what you said in that post?

00:14:05.940 Because I remember when we had Simon Evans on the show, a great comedian.

00:14:10.200 One of the things he said is that a lot of people in the comedy industry agreed with you, and he did.

00:14:16.840 But the way you phrased some of the points that you made, which, in my opinion, are perfectly legitimate and valid points for someone to have, whether I personally agree with him or not.

00:14:26.940 the way he said

00:14:29.220 he felt the way you phrased some of that

00:14:31.180 something about

00:14:31.980 female comedians pretending to be comedians 0.89

00:14:35.420 or something, I don't know if that's the right quote

00:14:37.360 but he felt that he was

00:14:39.280 much more difficult for people to defend you

00:14:41.400 it's very loaded but that was

00:14:43.320 where the humour was

00:14:45.400 and don't forget the only reason

00:14:47.420 the reason why I was putting these posts up

00:14:49.300 on Facebook and on Twitter

00:14:50.880 was to try and entertain

00:14:52.660 and amuse

00:14:55.200 my audience

00:14:57.460 of ticket buyers

00:14:58.800 that come to see my shows

00:14:59.760 that's who it was for

00:15:00.940 it's not me

00:15:02.320 phoning up

00:15:04.280 comedians

00:15:05.520 or agents

00:15:06.100 or TV production companies

00:15:07.600 or sending them an email

00:15:08.660 or 1.00

00:15:09.280 you're a bit shit mate 1.00

00:15:11.200 exactly 1.00

00:15:12.720 you're only there

00:15:14.580 because you're a woman

00:15:15.180 well

00:15:16.080 they saw it

00:15:17.280 because it's

00:15:18.000 they want to look at the pages

00:15:19.400 up to them

00:15:19.800 someone else shared it

00:15:20.740 someone shared it

00:15:21.500 which is fine

00:15:23.740 but

00:15:24.020 you know it wasn't intended for them and there's no no reason why they should have bothered it

00:15:30.560 with it anyway they might have looked at it and thought well i don't agree with that

00:15:33.000 i moved on but they didn't want to do that they wanted to do more than that and um uh

00:15:39.360 the expression i used i think 2014 i said that um uh comics were being booked for comedy shows

00:15:50.220 based on their gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation.

00:15:55.860 And I think I said there were women posing as comedians on panel shows, 1.00

00:16:02.940 which there were.

00:16:03.600 There were comedy panel shows with comedians

00:16:07.120 and there were women who were comedians on there 1.00

00:16:14.660 who were open spots, essentially,

00:16:16.740 who were doing open spots or middle spots at gigs,

00:16:19.420 who had been fast-tracked in.

00:16:21.240 How things haven't changed.

00:16:24.180 For me, that is a harsh way of putting it,

00:16:26.540 but I'm afraid you are,

00:16:27.540 if you're an open spot

00:16:28.580 or a middle spot

00:16:32.160 who's just starting to be paid at gigs

00:16:34.160 and you have been fast-tracked

00:16:35.580 into Live at the Apollo,

00:16:36.460 which was what was,

00:16:37.260 to mock the week,

00:16:39.940 which was what was happening then

00:16:41.320 because they wanted female comedians. 1.00

00:16:43.440 If that's who you were,

00:16:44.540 then you were still learning your craft.

00:16:46.400 You were posing as a comedian.

00:16:47.740 You weren't there yet.

00:16:48.840 You were getting there, and it was certainly a harsh phrase,

00:16:54.320 but if you're reading it as someone who comes to see comedy,

00:17:02.360 buys tickets for an Andrew Lawrence comedy show,

00:17:05.760 the harshness of the phrase is quite funny

00:17:08.980 because the very fact that I've written the post at all is risky.

00:17:15.960 back then it's even risky

00:17:18.340 because it flies in the face so much

00:17:20.620 of what

00:17:21.940 the mentality and ethos

00:17:24.540 of the comedy industry was

00:17:26.360 back then and is now

00:17:28.720 it was so

00:17:30.260 such a sort of

00:17:33.080 biting the hand that feeds you

00:17:34.520 exercise

00:17:35.900 that's where the humour was, the audacity

00:17:38.400 and the cheek of doing that, that's why it was funny

00:17:41.040 which is

00:17:43.440 galling to have to explain it

00:17:45.200 It's galling to have to explain it because people got that

00:17:47.380 and then people chose to ignore that as well.

00:17:52.220 And when Simon Evans says, oh, I didn't agree with what he says.

00:17:55.020 That's not what he said, actually.

00:17:56.160 No, he said, I didn't agree with the way he phrased it

00:17:58.460 or whatever he said then.

00:18:00.780 He's missing the fact that it wasn't intended for him

00:18:03.500 and it wasn't intended for the comedy industry.

00:18:06.040 Why on earth would I bother wasting my time putting a post on social media

00:18:11.940 for anyone else than the people who buy tickets to see my shows.

00:18:18.680 And also, it's not as if I was the first person,

00:18:22.840 the first comic to criticise and take the piss out of Mock the Week.

00:18:28.200 I think a lot of people have been saying it was bad for a very long time

00:18:32.000 and continue to say it's bad online, a lot of comics.

00:18:36.600 So you put the post up and you saw the reaction.

00:18:41.740 There must have been a bit of you, Andrew, 0.98

00:18:43.200 that must have thought, for fuck's sake, what have I done here? 0.96

00:18:46.120 Do you regret putting that post up? 0.96

00:18:48.680 I felt, no, I don't.

00:18:50.320 Well, yeah, I wouldn't have put it up if I'd known the reaction.

00:18:55.620 It's still up there now, so the content of it I'm happy with.

00:19:02.280 And I regret a reaction.

00:19:04.280 If I knew the reaction, I wouldn't have put it up.

00:19:06.160 But at that point, I felt detached from the comedy industry anyway.

00:19:10.480 at that point because all i was doing was going and and this was the extent of of my job was i was

00:19:17.260 going to art center venues i didn't have a support act i didn't have a tour manager anything like

00:19:22.320 that i'd go to my art center venues i meet the technician and we work out the lights and the

00:19:27.600 sound and i do my show and i go home so i was detached from the whole comedy industry and had

00:19:34.720 been for probably a year or more, because I wasn't really seeing other comedians socially

00:19:43.840 or other aura gigs.

00:19:45.160 I wasn't doing TV or radio, really, at that point.

00:19:48.680 I was just doing those tour dates.

00:19:50.020 So, and these people who were suddenly, comics, who were suddenly leaving comments or messaging

00:19:59.020 me on social media, many of whom I'd never met before in my life.

00:20:02.720 um and some that i had i thought well why are you talking to me now i haven't talked to you in years

00:20:09.760 you know feel free to come and chat to me anytime on social media but

00:20:13.840 i i have no idea you're even following me or looking at my posts and uh so it was odd and

00:20:21.860 my reaction was well just just leave it i'm not really i felt like i wasn't part of

00:20:27.340 i felt like i was apart from it you know that it had never been my politics the the the politics

00:20:38.000 of the comedy industry i don't really i don't know what what i am it changes all the time

00:20:43.980 politically i i'm quite um i don't i'm quite you know without sounding poncy i'm quite nihilistic

00:20:49.940 I don't really, I struggle to find any real sort of meaning or have any real fixed views constantly.

00:20:58.660 You know, at different times, I think different things, but I'm not really committed.

00:21:02.700 Some men just want to see the world burn, Andrew.

00:21:04.600 Well, I'm not, I'm just not really committed to anything.

00:21:07.540 Do you know what I mean?

00:21:07.900 I'm not really, which is nihilism, isn't it?

00:21:10.020 I'd never, I'd always felt sort of an outsider in the stand-up industry to that degree, in green rooms, in dressing rooms.

00:21:19.100 and on TV

00:21:21.280 things I felt like

00:21:23.260 an outsider but then you step on stage

00:21:25.080 and it feels like you're at home

00:21:26.680 you know you feel this is it I know

00:21:29.020 where I am what I'm doing here this is

00:21:30.980 this is perfect I don't want to do anything

00:21:33.320 else but

00:21:33.880 that I know what my

00:21:37.280 politics are I don't have any fixed politics

00:21:38.920 all I knew was I wasn't that sort

00:21:41.260 of sanctimonious

00:21:42.720 self-righteous

00:21:44.780 sort of

00:21:47.240 faux

00:21:48.840 liberal thing that has existed

00:21:51.840 in comedy

00:21:52.480 long before

00:21:54.920 any of us started

00:21:56.780 but I felt like I could do it anyway

00:21:59.820 I was allowed to do stand up comedy

00:22:01.860 I didn't have to be that thing but

00:22:03.580 maybe I did

00:22:05.200 maybe you do have to be that thing

00:22:07.520 but

00:22:07.920 so

00:22:09.960 but it was very much marketed Andrew as when it happened

00:22:13.580 as in Andrew Lawrence

00:22:15.500 has now gone right wing

00:22:16.940 Andrew Lawrence is now turned to the dark side

00:22:20.320 well I think that was

00:22:22.260 there was one particular journalist at the time

00:22:26.680 picked up on it specifically

00:22:29.840 which was a guy called Steve Bennett

00:22:33.360 who runs a comedy website called Chortle

00:22:36.840 and when I put this Facebook post up

00:22:39.280 I think there were three articles about me

00:22:42.940 on the homepage of the website

00:22:45.860 So it's very unusual because I'm not well-known.

00:22:48.540 You know, even at the peak of the work I was doing,

00:22:53.200 I'd go, I'd still occasionally get recognised once every,

00:22:57.380 probably once every couple of weeks.

00:22:59.380 Someone would say, oh, you're that comic.

00:23:00.980 And then it might happen every, if I was out and about,

00:23:05.680 maybe once every three days or something.

00:23:10.160 And I'd wear a hat all the time anyway because I hate all that.

00:23:14.340 But I wasn't well-known.

00:23:15.400 And so there was no, there was something extra there, the fact that he picked up on it and thought, I'm going to run with this.

00:23:22.040 And I'm sure he was getting hits.

00:23:23.880 It must have been that he was getting a lot of hits on his website for me.

00:23:27.500 He did the same thing with me.

00:23:28.540 When I turned down that contract, he did exactly the same thing.

00:23:31.100 And there was no, there was none of you.

00:23:32.640 Yeah, you were going to make a joke about Steve Bennett.

00:23:34.320 You can't miss this opportunity.

00:23:35.380 No, no, no, no, no.

00:23:35.820 I'm just saying it never happened to me because I'm a good person.

00:23:39.100 Not like the rest of you pricks.

00:23:40.640 But, Andrew, what really happened with you, it seems to me, is that you tread on a landmine, which maybe you weren't even aware of at the time, which is we all know, and even the people who advocate for the diversity thing, they know what they're doing, which is they're promoting people who are not.

00:23:59.300 And I don't say this is a criticism of them because it's not their fault.

00:24:03.920 But there are people who are being pushed because, as you say, they tick a certain box.

00:24:08.860 and you

00:24:10.980 seem to me like you tread on that landmine

00:24:13.460 because maybe you hadn't realised how toxic

00:24:15.260 an issue it was because you were really saying

00:24:17.560 the emperor's naked when no one

00:24:19.320 wanted to hear that

00:24:20.160 I don't even mind it

00:24:22.160 I don't mind that people get opportunities

00:24:25.240 for that reason

00:24:26.920 what I want people to do is admit

00:24:29.260 that it's happening

00:24:29.960 because there's other people

00:24:33.380 who aren't getting opportunities

00:24:34.680 because of this political

00:24:36.520 agenda

00:24:39.860 so

00:24:41.240 if you're that person

00:24:43.700 who's got this opportunity

00:24:45.400 because you've ticked that box

00:24:47.060 at least have the humility to

00:24:48.920 acknowledge that and know that

00:24:51.260 and actually some comedians do

00:24:53.460 to great comedic effect

00:24:54.840 I think

00:24:55.720 Romesh Ranganathan

00:25:00.580 who I love

00:25:01.600 I think he's a great comic

00:25:03.260 and he's a nice guy

00:25:05.560 he went on

00:25:08.440 I saw him go on a few shows

00:25:10.480 and he'd open

00:25:11.820 by saying

00:25:14.720 don't worry guys, it doesn't matter whether I'm funny

00:25:16.800 I'm only here to tick a quality or

00:25:18.760 diversity box or something like that, it's very funny

00:25:20.700 but he also knows there's

00:25:22.600 truth to that as well and he

00:25:24.380 knows that and he's saying

00:25:26.120 and I respect that and

00:25:28.440 also I've seen

00:25:30.160 I think I saw

00:25:32.020 at least his joke

00:25:35.580 I've seen other comics do it but I'm not going to give him

00:25:38.020 credit for doing it because he's the first

00:25:39.680 that I saw do it

00:25:40.480 so I have respect for that

00:25:43.280 and I think I'm a real believer

00:25:45.960 in that

00:25:46.440 popular expression

00:25:50.160 stay humble

00:25:51.840 or be humbled

00:25:52.580 and

00:25:54.780 I just want people to admit that it's going on

00:25:58.100 because it is isn't it

00:26:00.220 um and and uh it's all a little bit clandestine it is yeah it is and you know and then we see

00:26:06.240 people getting promoted and we're like hang on i just you're not that good i've seen you struggle

00:26:10.480 you touched on faux liberalism which i find really really interesting within the comedy industry

00:26:16.720 and that everyone pretends to be liberal everyone pretends to be woke why have we got this pressure

00:26:21.920 when really comedians are always dreadful people yeah well there's it's it's um you only think

00:26:30.120 that because you work with me i think uh it's it's an odd thing isn't it to want to devote your

00:26:38.660 life to go step on stage and trying to make strangers laugh and i don't think it

00:26:43.640 i think a lot of the time it doesn't come from a good place yeah um i it's very difficult the

00:26:52.300 whole the sanctimony the the self-righteousness the the the faux liberalism the the um the

00:26:59.560 posturing you think is this knowingly deceitful are they knowingly

00:27:05.440 uh putting on this front or is it a sort of is it a sort of mass hysteria is there a cult

00:27:15.100 is it a cult you know i mean because i like to i like to if you've got a little bit of faith in

00:27:23.400 humanity you think i don't want to think that it it's a deceit they're doing it because they think

00:27:29.540 it would help their career i don't want to think that i want to think it's because it's it's got

00:27:34.780 into their head because it doesn't have to be that because like i was talking to somebody uh

00:27:40.720 at a comedy club the other day and he was saying to me oh i really like like the way you talk about

00:27:45.360 politics because i can't do it and i was like what do you mean you can't do it and he went

00:27:50.360 well i'm just a straight white guy born british therefore if i start talking about my opinions

00:27:56.740 i'm going to get destroyed there's also just an element of like survival instinct for some people

00:28:01.380 do you know what i mean it's not like fear yeah well it's not like they've sat down and gone oh

00:28:05.360 what's the best way to advance my career they maybe just don't want to get crushed

00:28:10.020 the trouble is if you're a good comic

00:28:12.240 you go for what's difficult

00:28:13.560 what's the one thing

00:28:16.260 people

00:28:16.660 what's the one thing

00:28:19.140 where there's

00:28:22.500 jeopardy in me making jokes about it

00:28:24.180 because if you get it right

00:28:25.180 the risk reward thing is

00:28:27.820 if you tackle that subject that could ruin

00:28:30.480 you and you get it right

00:28:31.540 the whole room explodes

00:28:33.680 laughter people doubled over with laughter

00:28:36.040 if you get it wrong

00:28:38.440 10 years ago

00:28:40.320 you'd probably die for the rest of the gig

00:28:42.400 didn't matter you'd start again at the next gig

00:28:44.460 if you get it wrong this

00:28:45.900 now

00:28:46.820 could be your whole career over

00:28:49.980 it could be as a comedian

00:28:51.580 so

00:28:53.240 the risk reward is much greater

00:28:55.820 but there is a positive to that

00:28:58.160 in as much as it is quite

00:29:00.040 quite an exciting time

00:29:02.480 to watch those comics

00:29:04.680 say those things

00:29:06.320 and take those risks where you think

00:29:08.000 this could ruin you but you're getting it right and it's hilarious because if those comics said

00:29:12.640 the same thing 10 years ago if patrice o'neill who's made probably arguably the best of all time

00:29:21.060 one of the best of all time patrice o'neill uh said the things he said whatever it was i don't

00:29:27.740 know why can't i harass you well yeah if he's whatever whatever he the things he said on stage

00:29:34.160 what were we going to say 15 years ago

00:29:36.360 he said them

00:29:38.680 then and they were

00:29:39.340 brilliant

00:29:40.980 if he said them now and got away

00:29:44.580 with it which he would

00:29:45.500 imagine how much fun it would be because of the jeopardy

00:29:48.640 and the joy that it would give you

00:29:50.520 you can do it

00:29:52.340 it's like the Chappelle special or Ricky Gervais

00:29:54.600 at the Golden Globe

00:29:56.100 people are crying out for it

00:29:58.240 watching those Chappelle specials

00:30:00.760 in recent years is exciting

00:30:02.400 he's gonna um but bill burr as well and uh andrew schultz as well andrew schultz

00:30:11.580 in this country wouldn't would not if he was starting out he wouldn't get a gig he'd be

00:30:18.880 he'd be he'd be blacklisted everywhere he would be blacklisted he would not he would not play

00:30:25.160 anywhere i think okay so that's a great point so he'd be but why do you think we have this urge

00:30:31.040 to blacklist people

00:30:32.260 is it

00:30:32.940 I don't know

00:30:33.940 it's a difficult word

00:30:35.020 blacklist

00:30:35.520 it might be

00:30:35.940 it might be the wrong

00:30:36.760 or you know

00:30:38.040 or suddenly

00:30:38.980 you know

00:30:39.420 shun or whatever else

00:30:40.720 punish people

00:30:41.440 for having the wrong opinion

00:30:42.500 or the wrong type of comment

00:30:43.520 but you see

00:30:43.960 it's all done very carefully

00:30:45.200 there's nothing

00:30:45.960 so much of it

00:30:49.620 isn't overt

00:30:50.300 but

00:30:51.260 you see Alistair Williams

00:30:53.140 talk about

00:30:53.720 how I can't play

00:30:55.460 the clubs

00:30:55.980 the clubs he used to book me

00:30:57.280 won't book me

00:30:58.020 and my career's over

00:30:59.800 because I put this video

00:31:01.020 about Brexit, which was a funny, funny video.

00:31:06.620 You should watch it if you haven't.

00:31:08.380 Alistair Williams, Brexit Burger King.

00:31:10.240 It's a very funny video.

00:31:11.660 And he says, I put this video up and now my career's finished,

00:31:14.780 comedy career's finished.

00:31:15.840 And I'm sure a lot of people look at that and think, really?

00:31:20.600 Yeah, are you sure?

00:31:22.100 I think you're playing up to this a little bit.

00:31:24.460 But I know because I've been there that actually there are clubs.

00:31:29.440 there are clubs that won't book him now

00:31:32.880 and for him

00:31:33.880 the difference between

00:31:35.960 those clubs that won't book him

00:31:38.100 that were booking him

00:31:39.100 who are not booking him now

00:31:41.460 is the difference between making a living

00:31:43.140 and not

00:31:44.420 so by putting that video up

00:31:47.760 and these clubs not booking him anymore

00:31:49.640 he's not able to make a living from

00:31:53.260 stand up

00:31:54.780 potentially

00:31:55.860 which means he can't focus on

00:31:57.780 on what he's doing full time he's got to find some other source of income and it's very very

00:32:03.780 damaging to him as a comedian in developing going to do gigs and writing and coming up with new

00:32:09.540 material because now he's got a lot of money worries about how he's going to pay his bills

00:32:13.640 when actually his diary should be full every weekend should be full in his diary because he's

00:32:18.440 a good comic and he he delivers and he's reliable um and he's he's not he's not controversial

00:32:25.500 actually he's not he's you know you can you can look at some of the stuff he posts online and

00:32:31.300 think he's controversial but you put him in a club anywhere on a weekend and he'll he'll deliver and

00:32:36.680 he's a very reliable act so people should book him and i know he's he's he's not lying there are

00:32:41.920 clubs that because they you know when i uh touring venues some of them stop booking me and even this

00:32:51.860 time around and my tour this time around i send them a copy for the blurb for the show to promote

00:32:57.400 the show that they put on their their website whatever it is a hundred words or something and

00:33:01.560 based on that not a word of the show they haven't seen the show don't even know what the show is

00:33:06.040 before or what what the content of the show is before they booked in two venues on this short

00:33:11.900 show on this tour booked my show in contracts all all done got the copy for the show i said we're

00:33:20.420 not we're not doing this so they had to pay me a cancellation fee because they want to cancel the

00:33:26.760 show which is fine i don't have to make the journey you found a great way to cash in money

00:33:31.320 on your notoriety money it's the it's the um uh i but then i i came to doing playing less and less

00:33:40.040 touring venues so i thought i want to stay sharp i'll go back and do the clubs but then when i

00:33:44.860 went back to try and do the clubs clubs that i'd headlined for years and years um regularly

00:33:51.880 suddenly uh i couldn't wouldn't talk to me uh wouldn't wouldn't return my emails my phone calls

00:33:59.340 nothing they wouldn't talk to me uh and um uh frozen out by um by by by some bookers uh who

00:34:11.520 know that if they put me on the bill

00:34:13.460 I've got the TV credits that will sell the

00:34:15.560 tickets, they know I'll deliver because I've been doing it

00:34:17.460 so long, they know I'm not particularly

00:34:19.260 I'm not controversial, they know that

00:34:20.860 and this is the thing, I'm not

00:34:22.760 even a Facebook page, I've never put

00:34:25.520 anything on social media

00:34:27.560 that has got me

00:34:28.680 suspended or any kind

00:34:31.460 of ban from social media, never

00:34:33.320 not once

00:34:34.000 I wish we could say that

00:34:36.060 and yet there's this

00:34:39.220 false impression

00:34:40.800 out there of me of being

00:34:43.140 a controversial

00:34:45.280 comedian

00:34:45.900 which has been generated by

00:34:49.120 this journalistic

00:34:51.220 input

00:34:51.740 at the time I put

00:34:54.580 that Facebook post up

00:34:56.720 the Chortle website

00:34:59.000 Steve Bennett, the guy who runs it, put three

00:35:01.300 articles about me on the

00:35:02.800 homepage of his website

00:35:04.360 which is unusual because

00:35:07.100 no one knew who I was really, I'm not

00:35:08.860 well known

00:35:09.640 um and he he sort of uh and it was obviously getting hits from for him uh probably predominantly

00:35:17.600 from people within the comedy industry so so he ran with it and made a lot more of it um

00:35:23.260 than there was and made it into something a lot more controversial than it was and then

00:35:28.680 um i think the independent as well at the time which was still a newspaper rather than just an

00:35:35.040 online blog um uh published some some stuff about me as well because i thought well this will get

00:35:41.540 people clicking online uh which was um quite far removed from anything that i'd put i'd put up on

00:35:50.580 social media but they wanted the clicks uh for advertising or whatever speaking of advertising

00:35:57.760 before francis asked you our last question because we're out of time you're about to go on tour at

00:36:02.040 the time this comes out you may already be on tour which is called pale male and stale

00:36:05.800 great title pale male and stale so uh where can people get tickets for that i'm sure you'll be

00:36:11.460 at least as funny as this interview uh if not if not more um yeah i saved all my best stuff

00:36:17.540 yeah how do people get tickets you know you can come to my website andrewlawrencecomedy.co.uk

00:36:24.580 and it's just a staggered tour.

00:36:28.220 Yeah, it's all on the website

00:36:30.240 if you feel like coming along.

00:36:33.440 All right.

00:36:34.060 Go and see Andrew.

00:36:34.860 He's a very, very, very funny comedian.

00:36:37.020 There was one question I wanted to ask,

00:36:38.980 which before we wrapped up,

00:36:40.440 and I kept trying to ask and it kept going away.

00:36:42.480 Sure.

00:36:42.900 The thing I loved about your comedy,

00:36:44.300 I still am a massive fan,

00:36:46.140 but when I first, as an open spot,

00:36:48.240 one of my favourite comedians, genuinely.

00:36:51.140 And the reason was,

00:36:52.300 is because you would have with your jokes,

00:36:53.980 I would describe as a beautiful savagery to the way you write.

00:36:58.160 And I look at Mock the Week, and I look at a lot of these satirical panel shows 0.98

00:37:04.300 or people on TV, and it's fucking boring. 0.96

00:37:10.140 Comedy, to me, should be about saying the truth, 0.98

00:37:13.240 however unpleasant it may be, and just hitting that bullseye.

00:37:17.080 And that's what audiences, that's what deep down we go and see comedians.

00:37:20.540 That's why we worship the prize of Patrice O'Neill's, your Bill Hicks's, your Joan Rivers, people who come out.

00:37:27.860 Why has it become so boring?

00:37:31.400 Well, you know, I think always the sort of comedians you're talking about are predominantly American comics.

00:37:40.060 And I think there's a lot more you can do in America as a stand up.

00:37:46.580 I think

00:37:48.340 for a lot of years

00:37:50.460 not anymore but when I started out

00:37:52.980 probably until

00:37:54.760 probably until four or five

00:37:57.040 years ago the BBC was

00:37:58.560 what you

00:37:59.760 aim for and to

00:38:02.920 get on there you had to

00:38:04.920 you had to water down

00:38:06.180 water down what you do and I did

00:38:08.980 that and a lot of acts did it as well

00:38:10.560 because you know

00:38:13.000 you want to earn some money

00:38:14.880 you don't want to live in a dump

00:38:16.200 and you know if you've got a family you've got kids to support and mortgages to pay and nursery

00:38:24.240 fees you love stand-up but you've got to find the money from somewhere and if you're looking

00:38:32.380 the further you go away from stand-up to look for alternative streams of income the worse you get

00:38:39.100 stand-up because you need to be giving it your full focus it's you can't do it half-assed it's

00:38:44.920 you have to give it everything absolutely everything to be good at it to be really good

00:38:49.820 at it you have to there can't be anything else um i think uh andrew so before we let you go

00:38:56.900 uh the last question we always ask is what is the one question that no one's talking about the one

00:39:01.600 issue that no one's talking about that we should be talking about yeah do you know what it's

00:39:07.060 difficult because it's all out there isn't it it's all out there somewhere there's too much talking

00:39:12.100 there's too much talking i think um all right that's it we're shutting down

00:39:17.320 trigonometry end the conversation hashtag no debate i think there needs to be a

00:39:23.340 more uh discussion about um social media and and how it's uh regulated or not regulated

00:39:32.560 as the case may be and uh about um um uh i think and a lot more exploration of its impact on people's

00:39:44.700 um people's lives i think we're just scratching the surface of that i think uh things that

00:39:51.820 facebook and twitter instagram are now having a profound impact on um a lot of people's lives and

00:39:59.440 And I think there has to be some acknowledgement of that, first of all.

00:40:07.840 But I think there has to be a lot of discussion about that.

00:40:12.100 Not enough discussion about that, I think, takes place.

00:40:15.620 All right.

00:40:15.920 Well, thank you.

00:40:16.500 It's a great answer.

00:40:17.960 And it's actually very, you know, it's very prescient because as a former teacher,

00:40:22.240 I've seen the effect, you know, children completely addicted to smartphones,

00:40:25.360 all the rest of it being around it until 2 in the morning, 10 and 11-year-olds.

00:40:27.740 but thank you very much

00:40:29.000 for coming on the show

00:40:29.820 Andrew

00:40:30.060 if people want to find you

00:40:30.880 on social media

00:40:31.700 ironically enough

00:40:32.860 where can they do that?

00:40:35.960 well

00:40:36.140 I'm

00:40:36.760 at

00:40:38.260 Andrew Lawrence

00:40:39.360 on Twitter

00:40:40.100 I guess

00:40:40.800 I love the way

00:40:41.700 you had to think

00:40:42.240 it's your own name

00:40:44.020 by the way

00:40:44.760 well done on getting

00:40:45.400 the fact that you're

00:40:46.000 a former teacher

00:40:46.560 into yet another episode

00:40:47.920 yeah absolutely

00:40:48.740 good stuff

00:40:49.420 as always

00:40:50.620 make sure you follow Andrew

00:40:51.640 check him out

00:40:52.080 he's very very funny stand up

00:40:53.840 make sure you go see him

00:40:54.920 on tour

00:40:55.280 really really great comic

00:40:56.680 deeply problematic

00:40:58.120 deeply problematic

00:40:59.060 male pale and stale 0.89

00:40:59.980 there you go 0.99

00:41:00.500 and as always

00:41:01.820 follow us

00:41:02.300 at TriggerPod

00:41:03.000 YouTube

00:41:03.500 Facebook

00:41:04.920 Twitter etc

00:41:05.800 and we'll see you

00:41:07.040 in a week's time

00:41:07.680 with another

00:41:08.220 brilliant episode

00:41:09.180 take care

00:41:09.740 see you next week guys

00:41:26.680 You

TRIGGERnometry - June 03, 2020

＂How I Got Cancelled＂ - Andrew Lawrence

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