TRIGGERnometry - Simon Evans on Comedy, Liberal Bias and Offence Culture

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

00:00:09.200 And this is a show for you if you're bored with people arguing on the internet over subjects they know nothing about.

00:00:15.740 At Trigonometry, we don't pretend to be the experts, we ask the experts.

00:00:20.220 Our brilliant guest this week is a wonderful comedian, one of our absolute favourites. Simon Evans, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:00:26.500 Thank you. Very nice to be here. Very excited to be in these hallowed cubes.

00:00:33.140 Simon Evans destroys trigonometry. That will be the clip that comes out of this.

00:00:37.840 Listen, man, thank you so much for coming on the show. We've got so much to talk about.

00:00:40.880 But for anyone who doesn't know who you are, just tell us who are you, how are you, where you are, what's been your journey through life?

00:00:46.400 I am 54 years old now, living in Hove in the south coast, on the south coast next to Brighton with my wife and two kids.

00:00:57.100 I've been a comedian for 22, 23 years now, which I sort of got into by accident, really.

00:01:02.940 I was planning on a career in journalism, having entered my 30s really without anything,

00:01:08.680 really having any gears, having really bit into my life.

00:01:12.620 And a newspaper asked me to write an article about people who were doing comedy workshops for fun,

00:01:17.440 just for recreational purposes.

00:01:18.840 And that began the sort of train of events which saw me begin stand-up.

00:01:22.060 And somehow it just clicked.

00:01:23.780 So at about the age of 31, I started doing stand-up.

00:01:26.240 and incredibly somehow, you know, every time one beam has given way,

00:01:31.040 another one has appeared and I've leapt onto it in time

00:01:33.260 and I'm still making a living, Touchwood.

00:01:36.560 Very good.

00:01:37.720 So there's so much going on with comedy right now.

00:01:41.100 You're performing at Comedy Unleashed.

00:01:42.880 By the time this video goes out, it will already have happened.

00:01:45.660 It's a show that we've talked about.

00:01:47.500 We've both performed there.

00:01:49.200 There's been an article recently that came out about that.

00:01:52.240 There's lots of discussion about free speech.

00:01:54.180 One of the biggest stories I think that's happened recently has been the Joe Brand case.

00:01:58.340 And for anyone who doesn't know, Joe Brand made the joke about how instead of milk-shaking, I don't know if she said far right, but politicians that she didn't agree with, what we should do instead is throw a battery asset.

00:02:11.020 And she was saying this as part of a comedy performance on a comedy program.

00:02:14.660 But I think a lot of the stuff that came out of that, and I talked about it, was the double standards of left versus right,

00:02:21.100 freedom of speech for comedians, freedom of speech in general, the ability to make jokes.

00:02:24.820 What was your take on that situation?

00:02:26.780 Well, there were a number of salient factors.

00:02:28.300 I think the most obvious one to say is that, yes, of course, it was a joke.

00:02:32.600 But I think it was a joke which, on a moment's reflection, you would see was probably not an appropriate thing to broadcast on Radio 4

00:02:38.760 at a point where tensions were very high.

00:02:41.520 And I think half the reason that milkshaking is such an effective tool is because it arouses a brief moment of panic in the victim when they don't know what's been thrown at them, you know.

00:02:49.800 And I think people live in genuine fear of being attacked by something more serious.

00:02:54.300 So I think a moment's reflection would have made anyone realise that it wasn't an appropriate thing to broadcast.

00:02:58.860 And that moment should have then been grasped by the various, you know, rafts of authority and editing processes and the producers and so on who would have mediated between Joe saying it and the audience laughing, but a little nervously, I think, and a sort of 24 hour gap, at least before it was broadcast.

00:03:14.720 So I certainly don't blame Joe Brand at all for a misjudgment or an error of taste or

00:03:21.600 whatever, because as I think we've all discussed before now, if you're to be able to function

00:03:25.780 as a comedian, you'll have to be able to cross the line, realize you've crossed it and retreat

00:03:29.760 without having your career in tatters, you know, without having a police investigation.

00:03:33.740 People refer to edgy comedians, perhaps without really considering what the word means.

00:03:38.180 Well, for me, it means the edge of what is acceptable and you transgress it occasionally

00:03:42.080 And you play with it. Even if you just do a live gig in front of a comedy club audience, every comedian is always pushing up to see where their where their collective edge is.

00:03:51.120 And one or two people will feel you've crossed it at any given point. And then you come back.

00:03:55.020 And for some people, you know, making a joke at the expense of, let's say, Down syndrome will be something that's beyond the pale and they just won't accept it.

00:04:02.840 Frankie Boyle got into trouble with a joke like that a few years ago, having done other material in which he quite literally, you know, decapitates politicians and vomits into their writhing trunks, you know.

00:04:12.980 So you just go, what is, you know, what is always not acceptable in these situations?

00:04:17.920 So it's not necessarily, I don't think it should be imposed on Joe Brand.

00:04:22.100 But having said all that, there was a tiny bit of schadenfreude that I enjoyed in seeing her held up to account because she herself has called other people on that kind of stuff.

00:04:33.900 You know, she famously had Carol Thatcher essentially, you know, blackballed from any further employment prospects at the BBC after an off the cuff remark she made, you know, in the green room. 0.97

00:04:45.360 I think a slightly old-fashioned and misjudged joke that she made, but it wasn't. I don't think

00:04:51.880 it was fueled by hate or any sort of vicious racism or anything. Well, Joe Brand reported

00:04:56.420 that. Carol Thatcher never worked again, whether or whether that was not intended as revenge for

00:05:02.780 Joe Brand's quite open loathing for her mother, for Margaret Thatcher. I don't know, but it seemed

00:05:08.400 to be an extraordinary coincidence if it wasn't. And then she quite recently scolded Ian Hislop,

00:05:13.940 of course, live on Have I Got News For You, when Hislop was essentially chortling at the notion

00:05:20.440 that a bit of a sort of clumsy knee grope in the Commons canteen was on the same level of Me Too

00:05:26.960 horror story, you know, as the Weinstein revelations and so on. It was all being collected

00:05:32.680 under the hashtag Me Too. I think a journalist, I can't remember if it was a journalist, you know,

00:05:37.680 attempted to grope an MP or vice versa. It was Julie Hartley Brewer. 1.00

00:05:40.480 right. Okay. Yeah. So, and it wasn't, you know, it was, it wasn't like he wasn't saying it doesn't

00:05:45.720 matter, but he was kind of joking. It's not really quite on the same level as these Hollywood

00:05:49.720 revelations. And Joe delivered this kind of minute long monologue telling him that this

00:05:54.360 kind of thing just wears you down and got a round of applause. But essentially she was policing his 0.97

00:05:59.020 sense of humor and his sense of proportion and telling him, no, this matters. Well, that's all

00:06:03.720 that everyone else has done. A lot of other people have then policed Joe and go, no, sorry.

00:06:07.380 but when you are a public figure you do live in fear now of a serious assault on the street and

00:06:12.640 this kind of thing doesn't help and if it had been the left who had been given an opportunity

00:06:18.980 to castigate a right-wing comedian for joking about something they would immediately have

00:06:23.980 you know brought up Joe Cox murder and so on as indications of exactly why these kind of things

00:06:29.800 are not to be joked about so I think there has been a huge amount of hypocrisy but none of it

00:06:33.560 I would say, in all seriousness,

00:06:35.740 should hinder any comedian

00:06:38.500 from cracking any joke they want to make.

00:06:40.840 Certainly in like a non-live scenario,

00:06:44.180 because it's then expected

00:06:45.800 that the producers will clean that up

00:06:47.220 and go, actually, that on reflection

00:06:48.960 doesn't really work for us.

00:06:50.180 And so we're just going to slip it out,

00:06:51.860 which of course they did in the later editions,

00:06:54.040 demonstrating the lack of confidence that they had.

00:06:56.520 I think the phrase is bolting the door.

00:06:59.580 Absolutely.

00:07:00.480 But maybe it was a discussion that needed to happen.

00:07:02.480 I don't know.

00:07:03.000 I don't know. But I don't blame Nigel Farage for kicking off because that's his opportunity,

00:07:08.080 of course, to play the game. And that is the game we all play now. I do blame certain other

00:07:11.660 comedians, funnily enough, who then claimed that this was hypocritical of Farage because Farage

00:07:16.340 had defended Carl Benjamin over his rape joke concerning Jesse Phillips because he hadn't.

00:07:21.220 Carl Benjamin was with UKIP, who Farage had left. And regardless of whether you like Farage or not,

00:07:26.100 he left UKIP and has said it has become a den of, you know, weirdos and, you know,

00:07:30.600 quite extremist figures and and indeed it has sort of become a little bit of an odd

00:07:35.560 it's like a clearinghouse for uh disaffected you know uh internet warriors

00:07:40.640 well we've had karl on the show long before all this controversy happened sargon of akar

00:07:47.040 which everyone of course who isn't in the internet just finds this absurd and like well that was his

00:07:51.900 name from when he was a gaming journalist wasn't it you know i think he was part of gamergate

00:07:55.520 i have no interest in that although gamergate some say is actually the birth of everything

00:08:00.100 that's happened since, certainly in America, you know, the whole of like 4chan and poll

00:08:05.900 and the green frog and all of the sort of tongue in cheek support of Trump and everything

00:08:10.780 and whether or not that shades into the sort of coherent politics of the alt-right, you

00:08:16.820 know, it's a lot of it lodged in that sort of culture war there.

00:08:20.920 Yeah, it did.

00:08:21.320 These things are all linked up.

00:08:23.280 But I'm going to echo, I used to listen to some of his podcasts and YouTube content.

00:08:27.540 I always found him an annoying, pompous sort of, he had a certain kind of presumption on

00:08:33.120 his part that he was the smartest guy in the room, you know, and I always thought you should

00:08:36.660 maybe look at getting into some better rooms, if that's how you feel, you know, raise your

00:08:42.260 game a little bit.

00:08:42.940 It's easy to just talk a kind of weird, you know, black death metal, black cross kind 0.84

00:08:50.240 of guys, you know, and think you're a bit smarter than them and understand how nationalism

00:08:53.780 really works or something.

00:08:54.900 You know, if that's the kind of company you're keeping, elevate your status a bit. 0.99

00:08:57.840 And unfortunately, I think he came a crop up because, you know, the mainstream media will just kind of go, you're a lunatic. 0.99

00:09:03.940 You're a risible figure. And here is your one claim to fame. 0.99

00:09:06.880 It was a misjudged rape joke about a sitting MP.

00:09:09.860 And so you're, you know, you're no longer fit for purpose.

00:09:13.740 Well, since you brought that up, Simon, sorry.

00:09:15.500 I was just going to say, yeah, the slogan of a cad fans who are here.

00:09:18.680 I can already see the comments on YouTube videos.

00:09:22.840 You get some, do you? You've got some overlap.

00:09:24.900 with him. Well, he's been on the show, so a lot of the people who watch us also...

00:09:28.860 I don't dislike him. My visceral reaction to him was not very positive. But I don't think

00:09:34.940 it was fair of the mainstream media to say, you are the guy who cracked that one joke

00:09:39.320 and that is your entire... Well, this is what I was going to ask you about. By the way,

00:09:42.980 Carl comes to Comedy Unleashed quite a lot. So when you're performing, he'll be heckling

00:09:46.540 you. He'll be throwing pints at you. But one of the... I talked about this Joe Brand

00:09:54.580 thing on the BBC and stuff. And one of the things that people were saying was, well, look at Carl

00:10:00.100 Benjamin, right? He made a joke and everyone jumped down his throat. And I guess for me,

00:10:06.000 the difficulty is that it's not so much that he made the joke. And I've said this to Carl face

00:10:10.080 to face. I said, I thought that was the wrong thing to say because he said it to her on Twitter

00:10:15.020 as opposed to just making a joke somewhere else. It was much more personal. Is that the line that

00:10:21.520 you think about that? It's very interesting. I mean, it's obviously is a different context and

00:10:26.560 context matters, but whether it makes it better or worse is a really interesting question, isn't

00:10:30.660 it? I mean, if as a comedian, I were to go on heresy and say, you know, women MPs are always 1.00

00:10:38.080 trying to introduce legislation about rape. To be honest, I look at some of them, I wouldn't even

00:10:41.800 rape them. Well, I think that would be the end of my career. I mean, that would be an absolute, 0.94

00:10:46.120 you know, in that context. And I wouldn't make that joke. And I don't think it would be funny,

00:10:49.680 but I want to be clear about that.

00:10:50.360 You've only just made it on the internet.

00:10:52.140 But now that'll get quoted.

00:10:54.120 But if you were to make that joke in that context,

00:10:57.000 that would be, you know, that would be...

00:10:58.420 That would be career-ending.

00:10:59.140 And they wouldn't broadcast it either.

00:11:01.040 And then word would get out, probably via Joe Brand.

00:11:06.020 You're only going for her on this one, yeah.

00:11:08.160 But, so in that respect, you have to say,

00:11:10.400 well, then, you know, the context is presumably less so.

00:11:14.400 But on the other hand, I felt,

00:11:17.140 I sort of was following the debate at the time.

00:11:19.180 And if I remember correctly, she was he felt that she was sort of minimizing and trivializing and laughing off the notion that men's sexual health, men's threats that men face and so on need the same sort of level of protection as women or whatever.

00:11:35.660 And in that context, he obviously felt that the heat was already raised and that this was the heat, the level at which a response like that was appropriate, whereas obviously just kind of out of the blue and out of nowhere, it wouldn't be.

00:11:47.260 Context is kind of everything in these things.

00:11:49.280 And of course, it's the first casualty of war.

00:11:52.040 So that is the tricky aspect of it.

00:11:55.100 But I don't think it was a great joke.

00:11:57.080 But then I didn't think Joe Brands was a great joke either.

00:11:58.980 The reality is, it's not heresy to say that.

00:12:01.840 That was the one thing everyone said that annoyed me.

00:12:03.680 He goes, well, you tune into a program like heresy.

00:12:05.540 What do you expect?

00:12:06.220 Well, no, that isn't heresy.

00:12:07.360 In front of the Radio 4 audience, that's orthodoxy.

00:12:09.520 The idea that Nigel Farage literally deserves to have life-changing injuries is Radio 4 comedy orthodoxy.

00:12:15.520 That is, that's as straight down the line as you can get, you know, to have said on heresy,

00:12:21.020 I don't know, I quite like Nigel Farage, you know, he looks like he'd be a nice bloke to have a pint

00:12:24.540 with, you know, that would be heresy. You could have told immediately from the audience reaction,

00:12:29.340 I suspect, that you had now transgressed, seriously, but you won't get that. 0.99

00:12:33.600 No, because you'll never get booked again. But I was going to say, do you think there is a bias

00:12:39.020 in comedy, Simon, with, you know, left-leaning liberal comedians getting the majority of the

00:12:44.520 airwaves? There are all sorts of different aspects of that question. I do think that the BBC

00:12:50.900 struggles to find even centrist comedians, I would say. I mean, I don't expect to see

00:12:57.100 right wing like the kind of old fashioned, you know, Jim Davison or whatever, right wing or the

00:13:01.640 sensibilities and the subtext, you know, that you might call racist or whatever,

00:13:06.240 underlying those kind of jokes. But they struggle to find anyone who challenges the,

00:13:11.620 I guess, the kind of campus politics that seem to dominate the fringes now.

00:13:17.140 In a different context, on social media, where I spend far too much time on Twitter,

00:13:20.720 it's obviously part of the whole proposition of Twitter and the whole dynamics and the

00:13:26.080 algorithms and everything that drives everything to the extremes because nobody's interested in

00:13:30.860 a moderate view. People are far more likely to click and repeat and respond and retweet

00:13:34.440 to anyone kind of going, you know, I'm insanely mad, you know, this violation of my rights, you

00:13:41.660 know, and or completely poo-pooing them. And it does seem to me that comedy is not, you know,

00:13:48.560 the world of comedy is not reflecting both sides of that argument at the moment, you know. So to

00:13:52.340 the extent that these arguments are taking place on the fringes at all, there is an awful lot of

00:13:56.420 comedy which doesn't concern itself with these sort of things at all, you know, and that's fine.

00:14:00.640 But it is interesting, for instance, and this is not a slam dunk argument, but just one kind of symptom.

00:14:06.980 Mock the weak, traditionally. You'll have six comedians on there, Dara O'Brien.

00:14:12.080 I know, for instance, I hope they won't mind me saying so.

00:14:15.360 Gary Delaney, for instance, is at least centrist.

00:14:18.180 I would say a little bit right to center with his politics and is quite interested in libertarian ideas.

00:14:22.540 He's quite interested in investing in gold because he believes that fiat currency is potentially very fragile.

00:14:27.300 Big fan of the show, by the way, Gary. How are you doing, mate?

00:14:29.400 So he has those ideas, you know. He won't do any of that on Mock the Week. He just does terrific. His puns, his jokes are fantastic. And that is his stock in trade. But none of them have that subtext. They are all just kind of, you know, like kind of slightly off colour references to sexual piccadillos or whatever.

00:14:47.820 Milton Jones, another one.

00:14:49.320 Again, I know he's politics centrist.

00:14:51.660 He's a very intelligent, interesting guy in real life.

00:14:54.420 But the character he plays on Mock the Week and on stage is, again, basically about one-liners that are of a craziness.

00:15:00.560 Whereas the left-leaning comedians, if you get somebody on there like Chris Addison or whatever, when he used to do it,

00:15:07.500 you know, who are able to kind of basically use that platform to undermine the notion that UKIP

00:15:15.100 is a remotely sort of, you know, prior to Brexit, that that was a remotely feasible proposition,

00:15:22.420 are quite comfortable in expressing their views. So there's a bias to that extent. I'm not saying

00:15:26.820 that there are no right-wing comedians, but the extent to which they feel their natural liberty,

00:15:31.540 that they feel that their license is granted to express those views. And that, of course,

00:15:36.600 then drives the audience in a certain direction and audiences and it's not I don't think insulting

00:15:41.420 to audiences to say this it's just you can be part of this audience yourself but the dynamics of

00:15:46.880 audiences are that they coalesce into a single body I mean that's sort of what the job of the

00:15:50.360 compare is in a comedy club is to kind of get them into a herd-like format if every if every

00:15:54.900 audience if every audience is thinking for themselves you have to have that because if

00:16:00.860 every audience is thinking for themselves independently is that funny making a decision

00:16:04.420 And then, you know, it becomes very choppy, you know, and you do get heckling, of course, at that point, because people feel quite capable of speaking against the grain of the crowd.

00:16:12.600 So you need that. And of course, if the audience is being, you know, driven along, you know, the droveway in a certain direction and then one comedian stands up and goes, no, that way, you know, you don't get the same laugh because you're not keeping the flywheel spinning.

00:16:27.640 You're putting a spanner in the works. And that's a very different dynamic in any. It can be exciting, you know.

00:16:32.820 And if you're a terrific comedian, if you were a George Carlin and you were invited onto that show and you had the confidence and the vocabulary to, you know, expose the political orthodoxies and the callowness of the views being, you know, expressed for what they are, then you could potentially create, you know, milestone television.

00:16:53.440 But the chances are it will just, everyone will go, what?

00:16:58.880 It seems that doesn't work.

00:17:00.880 That's not what we thought we all believed, you know,

00:17:04.240 and it all just sort of peters to a halt.

00:17:06.260 But isn't that the role of the comedian?

00:17:08.220 Yes, it should be, shouldn't it?

00:17:09.300 Yeah.

00:17:09.920 Well, I mean, comedians work in a number of different formats.

00:17:13.020 It's not necessarily the role of the panel game.

00:17:15.900 I mean, the role of the mock the wheat, you know,

00:17:17.620 I think it's realistic to say is to entertain people,

00:17:19.880 and it does a tremendously good job.

00:17:21.380 The joke rate is ferocious, you know.

00:17:22.880 But the number of laughs per minute you get on a show like Mock the Week sort of almost killed the sitcom flat, really.

00:17:29.880 You know, those, you know, they were very, very, very funny.

00:17:32.780 You know, you get and of course, then all those comedians bantering among each other creates a sort of nice.

00:17:38.820 You kind of want to be part of that gang, you know, so that's what that show is for.

00:17:42.180 It's not that show's job to challenge or even though it might like to wear the clothes of like, you know, something that you know, that is the job.

00:17:51.480 But yes, to be a George Carlin, you know, to really stand up and tear down all the sacred idols, not just those of the right or the left.

00:18:00.120 You know, he was every bit as much an enemy of the sacred idols of the left.

00:18:04.940 You know, a lot of his took that many of his famous quotation, was it political correctness, his fascism, pretending to be politeness, something like that.

00:18:13.140 You know, he was quite on it the whole time.

00:18:15.520 He went into his 60s and 70s.

00:18:17.140 But nowadays, the opportunities to get in front of an audience and say that kind of stuff are fewer.

00:18:24.500 Somebody like Stuart Lee has his, you know, those shows were tremendous in which he unpacks a lot of the subtext of a Richard Littlejohn article or whatever.

00:18:33.780 You know, that's very effective. And he's a very good comedian. He's a very intelligent guy.

00:18:37.220 And he takes his time and he trusts the audience to come with him on a journey.

00:18:40.920 And I don't want to see the back of him by any means. I just think it would be quite useful to have the right wing equivalent of that.

00:18:46.100 But there is a sort of presumption now, partly, I think, to be honest, you know, reinforced by things that Stuart Lear said, you know, that it's not it just couldn't be that there is no I couldn't have a right wing intelligent comment, you know, because because the right wing is the voice of privilege and the voice of power.

00:19:05.060 and say, well, that's just nonsense. It isn't at all. The right wing can be the voice of

00:19:08.140 tradition who are being trammeled at the moment. Traditions are being obliterated. Anyone,

00:19:14.040 for instance, who has a traditional view of gender, sex, and what it is to be a man or a

00:19:18.860 woman, their views are currently literally unsayable on the BBC. You can actually be

00:19:24.340 held up and arraigned in the court of public opinion for having the view that a man is a

00:19:31.900 biological man. Now, that is a traditional point of view. And whether or not it's right or not, 0.56

00:19:36.520 it's a point of view which somebody should be able to express without feeling anxious,

00:19:40.660 I would have thought, you know, and yet and that is no longer the case. So having

00:19:44.860 the idea that the right wing comedian is essentially the voice of the bankers,

00:19:51.700 that's just nonsense. You know, that isn't what right wing comedy is. Right wing comedy can be

00:19:55.560 any number of things. It could be like expressing the views of GK Chesterton, you know, or expressing

00:20:00.160 the views of Rajal Kipling, you know, these kind of, and these people were very funny,

00:20:04.780 you know, but they essentially had a tragic view of the essence of human nature as fundamentally

00:20:09.700 unsavable and, you know, progress being necessarily contingent to some extent.

00:20:16.540 But increasingly now as well, it could just be the voice of the socially conservative

00:20:20.540 people, which is working class people.

00:20:22.200 Yes, exactly.

00:20:22.980 And it's interesting, as you were talking there, one of the things I was thinking about

00:20:25.740 is the most successful right-wing comedian in this country now is Jeff Norco.

00:20:29.660 Yes.

00:20:29.940 And Jeff is very mild in his right wingness.

00:20:33.360 Do you know what I'm saying?

00:20:34.240 He's someone who can take a whole audience along with him,

00:20:36.780 even if they are left wing, which is great.

00:20:38.740 He's a very skilled comedian.

00:20:40.600 But you don't have someone who is slaying the sacred cows of the left.

00:20:44.620 No.

00:20:45.160 In the same way that Stuart Lee would do to the right.

00:20:47.800 No, and he doesn't dismantle that to the same extent.

00:20:50.380 As you're right, he's very good.

00:20:51.620 And he's nailed what he is.

00:20:52.800 And you're right, it's socially conservative.

00:20:54.480 He's probably, I guess it's that old grid, isn't it?

00:20:57.520 And so in economic terms, he's probably still on the, you know, the old traditional, you know,

00:21:02.320 my old man's a dustman, that kind of mentality, basically, who have been abandoned, of course,

00:21:06.620 if you look on that grid and how the MPs in the House of Commons, they are all in that,

00:21:11.280 in the quarter from sort of midday around to 9pm. Nobody is in that top left quarter,

00:21:16.500 which is like left wing fiscally, but socially conservative. And that is a huge,

00:21:21.240 a massive slice of the British public who have felt neglected and arguably voted for Brexit just

00:21:29.320 to express their discontent with the status quo, you know, regardless of whether they felt they'd

00:21:34.780 properly identified its root. And voted Brexit party in the EU elections and you get Labour

00:21:39.740 voters turn around and calling them racist. But anyway. Yeah. Well, this is Labour's massive

00:21:43.720 problem now, isn't it? Of course, the Tories have massive problems too, but Labour's massive

00:21:47.060 problem is that they're trying to split between those two massively opposing camps. They had,

00:21:52.260 in the post-war consensus, managed to combine that to create a coalition of the socially

00:21:56.680 conservative and the more sort of intellectual, you know, degree, you know, the credentialism of

00:22:07.680 like left-wing thought, you know, that has different views and wants to lift oppression

00:22:13.920 from increasingly more sort of narrowly defined intersectional groups.

00:22:18.740 So what we're talking about is very, very interesting because, you know, we're saying

00:22:23.500 that there's no figure on the right. And do you think it's because comedians self-centred

00:22:27.940 because they go, if I'm actually going to be honest about what I think and what I believe,

00:22:32.060 my career will be stunted and curtailed as a result?

00:22:35.220 I think it's perfectly conceivable that such a comedian exists. Yes. I don't know how often,

00:22:40.620 how many, and part of the problem is, of course, that you don't see them.

00:22:43.100 But it might be, of course, that that sort of person is not drawn to comedy now.

00:22:48.300 Yeah, they might think I mean, there are plenty of people like yourself who were able to blog, you know, and it's not quite the same as being on live at the Apollo.

00:22:55.020 But, you know, you can you can make video content.

00:22:58.960 You can make content one way or another. You might sell books.

00:23:01.460 You look at Andrew Doyle, for instance, he's written that book.

00:23:03.500 Titania McGrath has become an Internet sensation and he's sold a lot of books.

00:23:07.540 You know, again, he probably won't get the same sort of TV coverage, you know, but he certainly angered the left.

00:23:12.680 you know, some of them are furious. There's a guy, the assistant editor of the New Statesman,

00:23:16.540 I think, who's John Elledge. No, not George Eaton, but John Elledge. I might have his job title

00:23:20.860 wrong, but fairly senior figure there, who said, I will block anyone who retweets that account.

00:23:25.800 You know, and he wasn't joking. I mean, he sounded like absurdly, you might say snowflake,

00:23:29.580 but he is basically threatening people with losing access to a senior figure in the political

00:23:35.620 journalist, you know, of sphere because they've retweeted a comedy account, which is taking the

00:23:39.780 piss out of left-wing orthodoxy. So he's obviously, you know, he's riled some people, which is great,

00:23:44.320 but that's not, he would go down that route, you know. And there are lots of other things you could

00:23:48.000 do as well, of course. And other people might say, you know, yes, the right wing, you know,

00:23:51.360 they are, they're not struggling as much as you think. And you have this whole intellectual dark

00:23:55.060 web thing, which is a hilarious, very interesting. I mean, I've been following Jordan Peterson for

00:23:59.720 many years, and I think he's a tremendous live speaker, really compelling, because he's,

00:24:03.660 he's thinking in real time, and he's addressing real problems and trying to use his intelligence

00:24:07.640 and his store of knowledge to produce coherent answers to real questions, you know, that I find

00:24:13.940 interesting in itself. It's not necessarily because he's, you know, I didn't even really

00:24:17.660 register that he was that conservative, really, to begin with, but I see it now. But some of the

00:24:21.860 people that gathered around him, I think, are more opportunists. Dave Rubin, for instance,

00:24:25.820 who runs this kind of very successful podcast, very possibly a sort of template for what you

00:24:31.080 guys are trying to do here. I mean, he gets like a million hits per show or whatever. It's a very,

00:24:35.000 very successful format but i'm not sure whether his heart is quite as much in the in the advancement

00:24:41.040 of human knowledge so much as it is in the advancement of day room i love the way that

00:24:45.620 simon's laid that out and put us as the template for that listen i wouldn't blame anyone if you

00:24:51.360 managed to crack it it was like 10 years ago 20 years ago every british chat show wanted to be

00:24:56.480 letterman right yeah jonathan ross wanted to be letterman and eventually sort of basically cracked

00:25:00.500 it but for a lot of them went through it and jonathan ross had a couple of misfires as well

00:25:04.460 and Johnny Vaughan and so on.

00:25:05.980 Nowadays, I think everyone looks at it.

00:25:07.260 I do too.

00:25:07.780 I'd like to be Joe Rogan,

00:25:08.900 who I think is the real deal.

00:25:10.720 And I think Dave Rubin,

00:25:11.640 he's a smart enough guy,

00:25:12.780 but I think there is a little bit of kind of,

00:25:15.400 he likes to sell the whole,

00:25:17.440 I'm heretical, you know,

00:25:18.560 I'm heterodox thing a little bit hard,

00:25:21.060 whereas Joe Rogan just gets on and does it.

00:25:22.680 But I mean, Joe Rogan is probably

00:25:23.980 the single biggest chat show

00:25:26.340 in the world right now.

00:25:28.400 You know, that's probably bigger than Leno,

00:25:30.080 or I don't even know if Leno still is one,

00:25:31.480 is it?

00:25:31.820 Or, you know, most of them,

00:25:33.300 like uh jimmy kimmy yeah exactly they're very they're showbiz they're part of the showbiz

00:25:38.480 you know um process everyone comes on it's like graham norton they're very enjoyable you get to

00:25:43.700 see your favorite stars laughing and telling slightly off-color jokes but it's all part of

00:25:47.840 the promotional package isn't it whereas it's all fake he's all totally fake absolutely and

00:25:52.400 everything is judged you know in terms of numbers joe rogan is like creating some of the most

00:25:57.420 compelling conversations that are happening right now and talking to real intellectuals and the fact

00:26:01.880 that the guy is a is an MMA commentator turned stand-up comedian who mainly but you know will

00:26:06.780 happily talk about his testosterone supplements and and going elk hunting with a with a he's a

00:26:13.280 fascinating character you know so that is I mean there is that option and those guys nobody goes

00:26:18.740 on there is at all afraid of speaking their mind and expressing right wing left wing and Joe will

00:26:23.340 call them on it if it's bullshit of course that's the great thing Joe is intelligent enough to go

00:26:26.720 I don't think that's true is it you know I think actually if you look at the figures there's been 0.99

00:26:30.700 net migration across the border in the other way

00:26:32.600 or whatever, you know, he will call them

00:26:33.780 if they come on with that, but, you know,

00:26:36.660 it's just, there's quite a small traditional platform

00:26:41.440 in the UK, I say traditional in the last 20 years

00:26:44.740 or whatever for stand-up comedians to operate within

00:26:46.620 and within that, I think there is a bit

00:26:48.700 of gatekeeping going on, yes, I do think

00:26:50.540 and that is partly because if you run a club

00:26:53.560 or run a show, it helps if the audience

00:26:55.980 know roughly what they're going to get, I'm afraid

00:26:57.600 and the idea that people like having their views

00:26:59.700 challenging comedy, I'm afraid that's a fairytale. People like having their views reinforced. They

00:27:04.640 laugh much harder when something they already think is demonstrated as true in a fictional

00:27:09.220 anecdote with a punchline. Yes, that is absolutely true. And how much do you think the Edinburgh

00:27:13.960 Festival plays into this? Edinburgh Festival, which is home to the white, upper middle classes,

00:27:21.320 lefty liberal. But also, it is heterodox in the sense that people come in from all around the

00:27:27.900 world as well, I suppose. And also American tourists have always been important. Usually

00:27:32.020 whether the books balance at the end of the Edinburgh Festival is often to do with whether

00:27:35.920 we had good relations with America in this sort of year building up to it or whatever, you know.

00:27:40.880 Well, after, for instance, after 9-11, there was a serious climate because they were all afraid of

00:27:45.500 flying, literally, or of European terrorism. And every time there's a serious outrage, you know,

00:27:49.580 that kind. And Americans, I think, are a little bit less, I think, you know, middle-aged Americans

00:27:54.920 are quite happy to go and see heterodox views. Actually, funnily enough, although we think of

00:27:59.240 Americans as being more sort of stupid and more, you know, feedlot mentality, but actually there's 0.99

00:28:05.300 a libertarian streak in American comedy and they can support, I mean, like Bill Burr, who would 1.00

00:28:10.220 probably be my absolute hero in terms of just like saying it like he sees it and not giving a damn

00:28:15.380 how it's taken and he's playing stadiums. I don't, I think I'd be surprised if a Bill Burr could

00:28:20.640 emerged from Essex, you know, which is, he's not a New Yorker. I think he's from

00:28:24.280 Boston. Connecticut. Yeah. And he's got that kind of whiny face. It's not like a mellifluous,

00:28:31.600 it's not like a sort of thing. This is true, really. He's a powerhouse. He's an amazing comic

00:28:38.680 and he is prepared to go places where very few others are. And then he takes you with him because

00:28:42.680 it's all vulnerable and because he has that whiny voice and he sounds like he's probably getting put 0.96

00:28:46.680 upon and he's probably made some dumb choices in his time himself, you know. It's hard to picture 0.96

00:28:51.040 him going back to a really plush pad or whatever, you know, even though he, I'm sure, can't afford

00:28:55.280 one now. So, you know, I think there's people like that come out of America, you know, somewhat to

00:29:00.880 our, we had 20 years when we were producing, you know, it was a bit, it's a bit like rock music in

00:29:06.240 the 60s, I think, you know, America and Great Britain are always the great seesawing entities

00:29:11.660 of these things, you know, there was that period when British rock music ruled America, so obviously

00:29:16.600 with Beatlemania and the Stones, you know, and then they came back with Credence. But then in

00:29:20.400 the 70s, we had Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin. Zeppelin were easily the biggest band in America.

00:29:25.180 Most of them thought they were American, you know, they were so massive there, you know. 0.65

00:29:27.920 And again, it's happened with comedy. We had some really great years, you know,

00:29:31.900 Eddie Izzard and Harry Hill, and there were some really creative voices, you know. But I think at

00:29:37.080 the moment, possibly the more creative stuff or the more honest, truthful stuff is possibly

00:29:41.740 happening over there again. And you said that you couldn't imagine a Bill Burr coming from the UK.

00:29:47.420 Why is that, Simon? I can't imagine him being accepted as much. I mean, he is a really singularly

00:29:54.360 talented individual. So maybe if somebody that good and that honest and that, as there's a saying,

00:30:00.520 not giving a damn what people think is a superpower. And I think there's some real

00:30:04.220 truth in that. If you genuinely don't care and this is your truth and you're going to tell it,

00:30:07.920 you know, that really will just dissolve a lot of doors that you might have thought were shut.

00:30:14.360 But I have, you know, it's been some time now and I haven't seen one. I haven't seen many that

00:30:18.400 really kind of come out, you know, fighting on that side. You know, the idea that I guess they

00:30:24.300 would call it red pill, you know, in short term, you know, just pushing back against the idea that

00:30:29.500 men, white men have all the, you know, have all the cards and have all the oppression opportunities

00:30:34.220 and none of the burden, you know,

00:30:36.180 and he's just kicking back against that.

00:30:37.680 I mean, that is probably unorthodox at the moment.

00:30:39.760 But you're going to get crushed.

00:30:40.700 If you do that on the comedy circuit in this country

00:30:42.720 as a newer comedian, you're not going to work.

00:30:45.940 You have to be really strong and really, you know, care.

00:30:49.420 Yeah.

00:30:49.840 I mean, I guess you might say the strongest similarity

00:30:52.780 would be Andrew Lawrence, who was brave enough

00:30:55.040 and also, incidentally, Ginger, you know,

00:30:56.580 which may have something to do with it.

00:30:59.020 I don't know.

00:30:59.400 Maybe that prepares you for some of the life's thoughts.

00:31:01.520 I don't know.

00:31:03.040 Well, what happened to him?

00:31:04.140 He hasn't, yeah, he hasn't had, I mean, he tours and I think he does okay and he did not give a

00:31:08.860 damn. I think when he produced his famous Facebook screed, he ill-advisedly conflated some genuine

00:31:15.540 concerns with some random ad hominems that didn't help his case and alienated a lot of potential

00:31:21.700 allies, you know, and made it impossible for a lot of us to say, I think he's right there. I think

00:31:25.860 he's wrong there because you just don't want to, you know, if you touch that kind of stuff,

00:31:30.800 it's toxic at that point. You know, I feel a bit sorry for him in that respect. But a lot of what

00:31:35.440 he said, you know, chimed, a lot of what he said did sound like a bitter rant from somebody who

00:31:40.720 was blaming everyone but himself for a failure to enjoy the... I mean, a lot of people have had

00:31:45.440 those moments where they think their career is going to really take off and then it doesn't.

00:31:49.100 I remember Adam Bloom, for instance. I hope he won't mind me saying this because I've talked

00:31:52.160 to him about it. There were a few years at Edinburgh when we thought Adam Bloom would be

00:31:55.940 like a household name worldwide you know and then things level off a bit and you have to adapt to

00:32:01.380 that and accept you know the new reality and work around it and I think Andrew Lawrence had a little

00:32:06.360 bit of that when he started possibly and then didn't you know and then it's quite easy to kind

00:32:10.500 of go why am I not on every show you know that's the trouble when there are now loads of comedians

00:32:15.280 and loads of panel games you you have to avoid that kind of actor's mentality every actor you

00:32:21.140 know there's like 10 actors for every job you know probably 30 or 40 for every good job and it's

00:32:26.560 really a challenge if you want to make a living as an actor not to be going why isn't that me why

00:32:32.040 didn't that you know because that kind of stuff just eats into the soul so there was always that

00:32:36.000 there was a little bit of contamination from that thinking I think but um yeah I mean and the trouble

00:32:42.840 is of course with a show like Unleashed which as you say I'm going to I'm going to headline that

00:32:46.000 but there is a danger with that that it becomes this kind of you know oh we're dangerous we're

00:32:50.260 reggie and then everyone goes and it's like well it's not really it's just a show where comedians

00:32:54.720 feel less policed than they might do but that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to run

00:32:59.320 on stage and start you know i was there's that danger that kind of bill grundy sex pistols 0.99

00:33:03.520 interview where he goes go on and say something rude you know what i mean and you you nasty 1.00

00:33:07.920 fucker or whatever it was you know there's this kind of oh god you know is this what is this all 0.99

00:33:12.440 it is you know but that's not what unleashed is at all no the thing with unleashed is the whole 0.99

00:33:16.140 point of it is just you don't self-censor exactly if you think something is funny yeah and that's

00:33:21.780 what we do i mean we go on stage to be funny we don't go on there to preach our political

00:33:25.220 exactly right yeah well unless you're a left-wing comedian

00:33:28.060 delivering truth bullets but yes you're on you're uncensored and that's good but if you find

00:33:34.860 yourself uncensored and then you find yourself not being that transgressive anyway but funny

00:33:39.000 yeah that's still fine isn't it is that's it's the the capacity of people to misinterpret willfully

00:33:45.560 misinterpret it as this kind of, oh, we're wild and crazy. We don't care what we think. And then,

00:33:49.440 of course, there's going to be an anticlimax because how can you live up to that? But really,

00:33:56.780 what you're saying should be the norm. That's the point, isn't it? That's what comedy clubs should

00:34:01.580 be. That should be the default method. And there should be one or two comedy clubs where they say,

00:34:07.800 if you are of a slightly nervous disposition, and without meaning to misuse the word,

00:34:12.600 if you might be triggered by reference to a sexual assault, then this is the sort of comedy club where

00:34:17.980 you can go and I assure you it's going to be, you know, all the material has been vetted and you're

00:34:22.840 not going to encounter anything that is, I don't actually have a problem with that. If that's what

00:34:27.480 people want, I think that's fine. What I've always, I think the distinction is that you are not allowed

00:34:32.880 to impose that rule across a university campus and say no event is to take place here, which might

00:34:38.640 trigger anyone who has been given a warning that that might be triggering to them and

00:34:42.660 is told to keep away.

00:34:43.960 Do you know what I mean?

00:34:44.360 That's the difference.

00:34:45.380 I don't have any problem with safe spaces within a larger space where you're entitled

00:34:51.000 to go.

00:34:51.600 And, you know, I don't think I wouldn't advise my children if they went to university to

00:34:55.340 avoid encountering views that they might find challenging.

00:35:00.000 But, you know, I might say to them, I might say to my daughter, don't necessarily try and inveigle your way into the rugby club, you know, and because you might find some of their jokes are a bit, you know, disrespectful.

00:35:16.440 I think guys are allowed to have a space where there also is a safe space for them to just let off traditional steam.

00:35:22.400 If it then gets out of hand, you know, I don't know.

00:35:24.940 I mean, I just don't feel like it's for me to police that kind of stuff.

00:35:28.180 No, you need to get the Met to do it.

00:35:30.220 Yeah, exactly.

00:35:31.680 Yeah, to call up and check their thinking.

00:35:35.120 As happens nowadays.

00:35:37.020 But it's interesting on your Bill Burr point,

00:35:38.940 I was actually thinking that I love Bill Burr.

00:35:41.420 I'm a huge fan of Bill Burr.

00:35:43.380 He is relatively unknown in the UK, actually.

00:35:46.740 He can sell well when he comes,

00:35:48.120 but people don't use his name, no.

00:35:49.980 No, what I'm saying is lots of us know him.

00:35:52.540 Yeah.

00:35:52.840 And we might go and see a show

00:35:54.420 and pay 50 quid for a ticket

00:35:55.600 and bring five friends.

00:35:57.180 But if you say to an ordinary person who's not a comedy aficionado in this country,

00:36:01.980 Michael McIntyre, everyone knows who he is.

00:36:03.980 Yeah.

00:36:04.180 If you say to them, Bill Burr, no one does.

00:36:06.440 Which American comedian should they?

00:36:07.720 I guess Chris Rock, they would say.

00:36:09.980 Chris Rock.

00:36:10.500 Chris Rock.

00:36:11.360 Who else?

00:36:12.420 Dave Chappelle.

00:36:13.780 Dave Chappelle.

00:36:14.780 Yeah.

00:36:15.720 And he's very good.

00:36:16.900 In fact, funny enough, Chris Rock, I mean, this is a really good example.

00:36:19.800 I watched Chris Rock's most recent show.

00:36:21.180 What was it called?

00:36:21.780 It had a funny name like Windmill or something.

00:36:23.960 Yeah.

00:36:24.900 Remember the one I mean?

00:36:25.600 Yes, I know the one you mean.

00:36:27.180 Clydoscope or something.

00:36:27.780 It was named after

00:36:28.700 a sort of childhood toy type thing.

00:36:30.160 Yeah, anyway.

00:36:31.240 Really good show, I thought.

00:36:32.720 Well, really good.

00:36:33.820 By Chris Rock's,

00:36:35.360 you know,

00:36:35.740 highly elevated standards,

00:36:36.920 I would say it was

00:36:37.660 a medium to good show,

00:36:39.520 but by almost anybody else's standards,

00:36:41.140 it would be tremendous.

00:36:42.620 But he got away with stuff

00:36:44.020 that I would never be able

00:36:45.280 to get away with.

00:36:45.980 And no white comedian

00:36:46.800 would be able to get away with

00:36:47.680 in this country

00:36:48.200 in terms of sexual politics,

00:36:49.320 not in terms of race.

00:36:50.100 Obviously, you can get away

00:36:50.760 with stuff in terms of race,

00:36:51.820 you know, because that is the deal

00:36:53.940 and that I completely sign up to.

00:36:55.600 But also he can kind of go, if a guy has a new girlfriend, his friends will say, what does she look like?

00:37:00.980 If a girl has a new boyfriend, her friends will say, what does he earn? What does he do?

00:37:05.240 Now that is, well, you can say whether that's funny or not, that's a subjective choice.

00:37:09.180 But there is no way a white comedian would get away with that.

00:37:11.620 Really? You think so?

00:37:12.200 I don't think so. No, no, absolutely. Different standards there, definitely.

00:37:15.240 And it may just be because of the context of his own personal hinterland and his reputation for telling it like it is, you know.

00:37:22.260 but i think there's a lot more i i mean maybe i'll get into trouble for saying this i don't know but

00:37:26.900 i think there is a lot more willingness within the black community to be realistic about

00:37:32.840 small-scale sexual politics not like in the workplace but just like what relationships

00:37:37.520 are like whereas white liberal orthodoxy about not like uttering anything that might suggest

00:37:43.920 that there is any sexual dimorphism in psychological terms is like anathema now i think

00:37:49.300 Chris Rockwood

00:37:50.620 did it really well

00:37:51.520 you know

00:37:51.860 I'm not

00:37:52.320 I don't begrudge him

00:37:53.400 I'm glad he did it

00:37:54.660 you know

00:37:54.940 just saying

00:37:55.420 I guess I feel

00:37:56.960 it's even broader

00:37:57.740 than that

00:37:58.080 like one of the

00:37:59.060 things I talk about

00:38:00.060 on stage

00:38:00.400 is someone saying

00:38:01.040 to me

00:38:01.300 go back to Russia 0.99

00:38:02.180 you pack it 1.00

00:38:03.040 I fucking apologize 0.99

00:38:03.940 for that 0.98

00:38:04.320 how many times

00:38:05.060 Jesus

00:38:07.060 you always bring it up

00:38:07.940 if it hadn't been for that

00:38:09.120 you'd never have met

00:38:10.280 yeah

00:38:10.660 there you are

00:38:11.600 and I

00:38:12.520 and I've had dark skin

00:38:13.900 and I talk about this

00:38:14.920 in my set

00:38:16.000 and usually

00:38:17.000 it goes down very well

00:38:17.900 especially in Kent

00:38:18.880 But seriously though, if there is any tension in the room, it's never from the ethnic minorities. 0.98

00:38:27.880 It's never the Asian people, it's never the black people, they're always laughing because they recognize the ridiculousness of it. 1.00

00:38:33.880 But also the truth of it. 0.96

00:38:34.880 And let's break the tension. That's what they want.

00:38:36.880 But it's always the white, middle class, liberal people.

00:38:39.880 Speaking on other people, taking offense on other people's behalf.

00:38:42.880 I mean, we've been talking about this for, God, it feels at least like a decade this has been a phenomenon, right?

00:38:46.880 right? People taking offence on other people's behalves. At least, I don't know how long,

00:38:50.780 would you say? No, I just became aware of it over a far shorter period of time.

00:38:55.500 At least a decade I've known that. And in America more as well. But yeah, that the liberal thing is

00:39:00.460 to take offence on other people's behalves. Definitely. Yeah. I don't know. It's very

00:39:04.520 interesting. There is a book called The Suicide of the West. I know there are at least three

00:39:08.800 books called The Suicide of the West. And I discovered the other two when a recent one came

00:39:12.120 out. The recent one is by a guy called Jonah Goldberg, who is, I guess, a right-wing, but

00:39:17.440 proper, you know, serious, not like remotely foaming. He writes for National Review, but he's,

00:39:22.280 you know, he seems like a nice guy. He was talking about the collapse of confidence in,

00:39:28.020 I guess, the values of Western civilization, such as democracy and free thought and so on,

00:39:33.020 and everything like that. And then I went onto Amazon to see whether to buy this book,

00:39:36.720 and there were other older ones. And it's interesting, it's one of those things that

00:39:39.900 people have been calling for a long time? The suicide of the West, have we lost confidence as

00:39:44.300 a civilization? And the first one was written by a guy called James Burnham, who was originally like

00:39:49.080 a Trotskyite in the 30s, an American Trotskyite. I think he was American anyway, certainly settled

00:39:54.440 there eventually. And then switched over to the right in the post-war era and wrote this book in

00:40:00.420 about 1948 or something like that, basically around the time of the foundation of the United

00:40:04.580 Nations, and essentially analyzing the world political drift in terms of the loss of confidence

00:40:12.700 of the West against communism at that point. There was no mention of Islam, of course,

00:40:17.220 which is nowadays seen as the growing in confidence. And it's really interesting because

00:40:23.860 you just see the same arguments coming up there, you know, and the same concerns. And he actually,

00:40:28.140 his analysis is very cool. It's well written. And he essentially sees it as, he sees liberal

00:40:33.460 politics as a way of post-rationalizing the decline of the West. So he doesn't really see

00:40:38.740 it as causing the decline of the West. He sees it as the symptoms of it. And he sees a way of

00:40:46.020 liberals understanding their loss of power in terms of a deliberate choice on their part

00:40:51.820 to share that power. So rather than kind of going, we are losing strength, we are losing

00:40:56.000 the argument, we are losing the will to conquer and to win these arguments worldwide,

00:41:03.460 rather we would rather engage in a kind of pluralism and a kind of moral relativism which

00:41:08.120 allows us to understand what is happening in the world as something other than an abject defeat

00:41:12.120 which is a really interesting argument you know and it's a really good book I recommend it but

00:41:16.200 it's I mean it's almost like that's you know those things that go all the way back to Socrates

00:41:20.060 kids today they got no respect you know that's you know those things are eternal it's a bit like

00:41:24.480 that but I'm not saying it's not true either so he would he identified that you know as people

00:41:29.720 taking offense on other people's behalf, absolutely.

00:41:32.540 And there are many great thinkers.

00:41:34.140 Thomas Sowell is probably the single strongest voice

00:41:37.380 in African-American sort of thinking for me on that front, 1.00

00:41:41.040 and he just has no time at all for that shit. 1.00

00:41:45.900 It's refreshing when you see people like that 1.00

00:41:48.060 because I think as we talk about orthodoxy,

00:41:50.920 that is the orthodoxy of our time.

00:41:53.480 Certainly in a comedy scene or comedy environment

00:41:56.520 in a comedy club, that is very much the way of thinking,

00:41:59.380 isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And an audience afraid to laugh. Analysis has been done of audiences,

00:42:05.220 you know, using cameras and microphones and so on to see who laughs first and where and when.

00:42:10.300 And there are certain people within an audience who seem to give the rest of the audience

00:42:13.500 permission to laugh. And I've noticed this doing corporates, which is corporates is a slightly

00:42:17.480 heightened environment in that respect. And also, of course, you have total control because there's

00:42:20.460 no compare. There's no earlier act who's taken it in this direction or that direction. You're

00:42:24.420 taking an audience fresh. All they've heard previously is some announcements about who's

00:42:31.000 won such and such an award or whatever. And you quite quickly have to identify who in the room

00:42:38.060 might be the guys. Very often, if it's a mixed audience, the women are more likely to have 1.00

00:42:43.280 control over giving permission to the men to laugh rather than vice versa. And that is a proven fact

00:42:48.740 in... I've read research. I think it was the University of Kent that actually conducted quite

00:42:53.640 a significant, you know, experiment within the comedy store and play like regular comedy clubs

00:42:58.100 as well, that many, many more times the men would glance quickly at their wives or girlfriends to

00:43:03.700 see if they were laughing and enjoying it, a comedian before they could start to laugh. And

00:43:07.040 if they thought they wouldn't check on every joke, but at the beginning, once you've got the core

00:43:10.300 proposition of this comedian, is this guy? Okay. Yeah. Okay. We like him. You know, there was a

00:43:14.740 little bit of nervousness on that front. You know, it's obviously you could then say, why is that?

00:43:19.240 Why is the balance of power? Is it that the woman is later going to be able to withhold sex? 1.00

00:43:23.640 I can't believe you laughed at that, man.

00:43:25.060 Thank you for making that explicit.

00:43:27.860 Are we saying that?

00:43:28.880 I don't know, because it might be something else.

00:43:30.480 It might be that he just doesn't have the confidence 0.98

00:43:32.220 to know whether he's going to make an ass of himself 0.92

00:43:34.060 by laughing at this guy, 0.94

00:43:35.120 because he might trust her to be more intelligent

00:43:38.000 or to be more emotionally intelligent,

00:43:39.600 which I think is a perfectly reasonable alternative

00:43:41.340 and slightly less transactional.

00:43:44.160 But anyway, in corporates, you get them,

00:43:46.780 and they're very often the boss.

00:43:48.320 And if the boss sits at the front table,

00:43:50.100 and often he'll come and go, anyway,

00:43:51.800 now it's an entertainment for you,

00:43:53.060 a very funny man, Simon, Simon Evans, Simon Evans, yes, you'll have heard of him, of course,

00:43:58.900 you know, and it's a terrible introduction, whatever, and he'll then sit down and then

00:44:02.220 fall asleep, you know, or just sit there looking stony face to every remark you make, and of

00:44:07.180 course, this quickly sweeps around the room, you know, that this guy, if he makes, if he

00:44:11.040 goes, ladies and gentlemen, a real treat for you now, I listen to this guy on the radio

00:44:14.260 all the time, he's one of my absolute favourites, and I think you're going to enjoy him too,

00:44:17.160 please welcome Simon Evans, and he sits down there and starts roaring with laughter, the

00:44:20.480 whole room goes up and i wish i could say to them you know explicitly do that of course that's kind

00:44:26.960 of cheating but yeah but one way is to speak to them of course and get them engaged and let at

00:44:32.140 least the audience know that they're happy with that and tease them i'll tell you who's a past

00:44:35.260 master athlete dominic holland who is um again a guy who doesn't get as much airtime as he used to

00:44:40.000 or deserves in my view but he's made a very good career at making himself known as somebody who

00:44:45.700 is a very safe pair of hands in a corporate setting and he has that way of just gently

00:44:49.720 mocking the brass you know the the higher ranks he will just gently mock them enough for the

00:44:54.180 audience to laugh but not so that they'll kind of go oh christ you can't mention that you know

00:44:58.240 don't mention the divorce so he's brilliant mind you don't uh dominic's son is spider-man

00:45:04.780 so i think but even before he had a ticket yeah well i we've got about 15 minutes left simon i

00:45:11.460 wanted to uh ask you about there's this concept for anyone who is not a comedy kind of aficionado

00:45:17.640 So there's this concept of punching up and punching down.

00:45:20.920 And just briefly to break it down, at least this is my understanding,

00:45:24.360 punching up is when you're making jokes about the powerful,

00:45:27.220 like the boss in this example, or straight white men who have all of them.

00:45:30.300 Discomforting.

00:45:32.620 Satire is supposed to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, right?

00:45:35.780 Yes, right. 0.99

00:45:37.160 And punching down would be a straight white man making fun of a disabled woman. 1.00

00:45:41.240 Yeah, yeah. 1.00

00:45:41.660 Right?

00:45:42.420 And this is the number one way of judging comedy now.

00:45:47.320 Yes, which requires you to be familiar with intersectional point scoring and league tables and so on.

00:45:52.020 But even if you are familiar with them, it strikes me that there's quite a contradiction there.

00:45:55.840 Because, for example, a straight white middle class Etonian, old Etonian university educated man.

00:46:03.420 Yeah. Punching Doris from Macclesfield.

00:46:06.920 Yeah. For being racist for voting Brexit. 0.88

00:46:09.660 Yeah. That's considered punching up the racist Doris from Macclesfield. 1.00

00:46:14.260 Yes. Even though on the intersectionality scale, I mean, I don't understand who's more vulnerable than a pensioner.

00:46:21.860 Gordon Brown in the back of a cab referring to a bigoted woman. Was that punching up or punching down? It's a good question, isn't it?

00:46:27.200 That was almost the question, wasn't it? Yeah. I mean, I was on a Jeff Norcott podcast recently. We talked about this.

00:46:34.500 I think it's a I know Chris Rock, I think, originated the phrase to try and explain how he felt comfortable doing it.

00:46:41.360 I don't think he ever in turn intended to make this the deep, you know, the metric by which all other comedians are judged.

00:46:49.400 But for me, in my routines, I like to present a boxing match.

00:46:54.280 That's what I was saying to Jeff. And I said it in real time. And on reflection, I'm sticking with it.

00:46:59.460 Like one of my more kind of like my wife refers it to my hate crime material, you know, when I start doing stuff that's like might sound like it was punching down.

00:47:08.240 I do a routine. It starts with a joke about three men in a hospital there to collect their babies.

00:47:13.160 And there's confusion. And then the punchline is one of those two in there is Welsh and I'm not taking any chances.

00:47:18.720 Right. So the joke is at the expense of the Welsh. It's a big relief because the other man in the joke was a Pakistani. 1.00

00:47:23.180 And so you're going, oh, well, God, at least it wasn't racist.

00:47:26.400 So that plays with people. I think it plays with people's sensibilities already because you're going, oh, it's all right because it's the Welsh.

00:47:32.760 Then in the course of the kind of aftershocks, because I always think once you've got a good punch line up, you need to kind of like try and, you know, follow it up with the toppers.

00:47:42.120 I like to think it swings back and forth.

00:47:44.380 You know, I describe interactions I've had with Welsh audiences where I've come off the worst or where I've suddenly woken up to their trenchant hostility towards a middle class Englishman or whatever. 0.98

00:47:54.900 You know, it swings back and forth.

00:47:56.600 I may get the upper hand, but it's a proper, it's a match.

00:48:00.120 Do you know what I mean?

00:48:00.500 I'm the victim in one line and then in the next line I come back again, you know.

00:48:04.660 And I did the same thing more historically with Geordies.

00:48:08.460 Again, there's a kind of, you know, I'm laughing at them.

00:48:11.260 And it's, I mean, it's very, the actual basic material is very stereotypical

00:48:16.100 that they tend to be indifferent to cold weather.

00:48:19.400 That was it, really, that they just don't wear jackets.

00:48:21.740 I mean, that's the most root one observation about Geordies.

00:48:23.860 But you just stay with it long enough and see if you can't get something new out of it.

00:48:26.880 Half the jokes, I hope, were at the expense of my sort of befuddled, slightly Michael Palin-esque, you know, would-be tolerant and, you know, curious traveler in foreign lands trying to understand the culture of these people and treating them as if they were some remote tribe or something, whereas, in fact, they're part of the United Kingdom.

00:48:46.400 So it's as much a joke.

00:48:47.460 But that's the thing.

00:48:48.380 It's supposed to swing back and forth.

00:48:49.760 If you're relentlessly punching up or down, you are still just relentlessly punching someone.

00:48:55.080 That isn't funny, you know.

00:48:56.140 They have to get the odd punch back.

00:48:58.420 And I think that's the key.

00:48:59.420 And then it doesn't matter so much, you know.

00:49:01.260 And then you don't have to start getting your intersectional Olympic tables out, you know,

00:49:04.960 working out whether this was an acceptable victim.

00:49:08.120 But do you ever feel times that, especially when you're doing, for instance, a sort of

00:49:13.540 classic, you know, woke audience, that you find yourself censoring, going, this joke,

00:49:18.900 I stand by it, there's nothing wrong with it, but I simply can't do it because I know

00:49:22.440 that I'm going to lose them.

00:49:23.420 I would do a joke if I knew that the joke was good. But what will happen if I sense that they're significantly left to my views and are finding this uncomfortable is what will dry up is the little witty off the cuff asides and in the moment toppers and extras, which are actually, that's a real shame because that is what really makes a gig.

00:49:43.580 you know those little asides of what why an edinburgh show will start you know on the first

00:49:48.800 of august with maybe 30 or 40 good laughs and hopefully have a couple of hundred good laughs

00:49:53.100 by the end of it because each time you add a little thing that you think of in the moment you

00:49:56.320 know all the good writing happens on stage and if you've got an audience that you feel is hostile

00:50:01.060 to your core proposition then you're not going to be doing any good writing on stage unless you 0.98

00:50:04.880 decide to go fuck you i'm going out in a place of glory but i am not that guy i'm afraid you know 0.99

00:50:11.200 not generally speaking. I don't want people who pay money to come to a comedy show to 1.00

00:50:14.340 have their faces ground into my, you know, because I'm not even sure that I'm right.

00:50:19.280 Of course, you know, it's all just for a laugh. So yes, you'll try and steer it away to stuff

00:50:22.920 that we can all laugh about, you know, but it is a shame if you get that. And sometimes

00:50:26.460 only one or two people, again, policing the audience, an audible sharp intake of breath.

00:50:31.920 I really detest that because that isn't actually an honest expression of your reaction. It's an

00:50:38.540 attempt to stop everyone else enjoying this. Do you want to mean? If you play, if you do an

00:50:44.280 audience, for instance, I might do a show, I did one recently in Holmfirth in Yorkshire,

00:50:48.400 it went really well. It was absolutely delighted with it. It was like one of the last dates of my

00:50:52.040 genius tour, one of the sort of aftershocks. And they were really good audience. But there was

00:50:56.240 just one line when I made a joke at the expense of the North South divide and the kind of failure

00:51:02.320 of communication. But somebody in the audience sort of attempted to take it as if I was just

00:51:07.480 insulting Yorkshire as if I was condescending to Yorkshire you know seriously rather than ironically 0.96

00:51:11.940 and did that kind of and luckily the rest of the audience went fuck off that was a joke you know 0.98

00:51:18.540 and it was fine but that's what they were trying to do even if they weren't consciously trying to 0.96

00:51:22.300 do it that's what that communicates and that does anger me because you know nobody needs that in the

00:51:26.860 room you decide for yourself if you don't like a joke that's fine but you start drawing doing those

00:51:32.020 things and everyone then starts to feel a little bit oh I better not laugh because they didn't like

00:51:35.520 it and i'm not sure now if we're on do what i mean and that that's you know that's that's that

00:51:41.260 can be that can like slow you down that can freeze things up and and then you just start to sort of

00:51:46.120 run on three cylinders instead of four and it's you you're kind of policing yourself all the time

00:51:50.000 and that's no good i was going to ask you the reason i brought up the punching up and punching

00:51:53.820 down thing is i think you're someone who is a great example of brilliant comedy that is based

00:51:59.220 i mean if you write it down and you read it out in the cold light of a morning breakfast show

00:52:04.320 to an audience that is woke.

00:52:08.100 You make jokes that are extremely funny

00:52:11.780 and are well-delivered

00:52:14.160 and are delivered with a great sense of irony,

00:52:17.380 and they're hilarious.

00:52:19.100 Thank you.

00:52:19.560 But if you take them and you take away the context

00:52:22.800 and you write them down,

00:52:24.860 then they can be punching down.

00:52:26.840 You had a great routine about homeless people

00:52:29.880 and the beer tenants.

00:52:30.660 Yes, yeah.

00:52:32.080 And you're right.

00:52:32.660 I mean, I don't know if I would, that was 15, maybe even longer years ago.

00:52:36.980 And I don't know whether I would do that again now, although I might get away with it.

00:52:40.100 I don't know.

00:52:40.880 I had more than the exaggerated sort of baffled upper class toff kind of persona that I played then.

00:52:49.140 I mean, literally sort of in tweed, you know, whatever.

00:52:51.640 Made that more obviously funny because it was quite clear that this man had no idea what was going on in the real world.

00:52:57.520 It was, you know, it's interesting, isn't it?

00:52:59.580 That homeless chap over there who's vomiting up his breakfast 1.00

00:53:02.100 appears to be wearing the same socks as I am.

00:53:04.220 You know, is that kind of, you know,

00:53:05.240 picking on some mindless triviality instead of...

00:53:07.520 You have to do that.

00:53:09.680 If I were...

00:53:10.460 As time has gone on,

00:53:11.660 I think I'm less of an exaggerated persona now.

00:53:14.100 I think I'm moving more towards who I really am

00:53:16.160 because as you get older, you do just kind of...

00:53:19.340 I don't know.

00:53:20.060 It's partly because it's exhausting

00:53:21.360 to write in character all the time,

00:53:22.660 but also you have things you actually want to say.

00:53:24.660 Maybe that's self-indulgent.

00:53:26.480 But as a result,

00:53:27.240 I think some of that earlier material

00:53:28.620 might sound more cruel now

00:53:30.440 because it would seem to be me saying it rather than...

00:53:33.600 But then again, Stuart Lee has that defense as well.

00:53:35.700 He says, even though he's never played a character,

00:53:37.960 he says that Stuart Lee on stage

00:53:39.400 is nothing like Stuart Lee really, you know.

00:53:41.620 And Stuart Lee says, for instance,

00:53:43.720 has this kind of unbridled hostility 0.98

00:53:45.480 towards the ignorant half of his audience, you know. 0.99

00:53:48.000 Most of you don't even get that, do you? 0.99

00:53:49.760 You know, that kind of thing.

00:53:50.560 Well, that is funny and it works

00:53:51.680 because he is sort of, you know,

00:53:53.680 an exaggerated version of himself.

00:53:55.320 But it is still himself and I am still myself.

00:53:57.140 But the more you push the exaggeration, the more you can then get away with the fact that,

00:54:01.260 of course, he doesn't mean that.

00:54:02.340 Of course, he's well aware that homelessness is a serious issue.

00:54:05.240 You know, he's just presenting the idea that somebody could be distracted by this absurd,

00:54:10.880 you know, etymological coincidence.

00:54:13.260 But do you not think, Simon, we've reached this point now?

00:54:15.800 I mean, the question that Constance imposed was incredibly valid.

00:54:19.120 Of course it was.

00:54:20.720 But jokes aren't meant to be taken literally.

00:54:23.540 No, but they do have subtext.

00:54:24.900 and if they didn't have subtext at all,

00:54:26.400 they wouldn't be as powerful as they are.

00:54:27.980 I don't think it's a bad thing that we have conversation.

00:54:30.160 I do think people should laugh

00:54:31.280 and their default should be to laugh

00:54:32.460 and take you in good faith

00:54:33.840 and only after a certain period of time

00:54:35.700 should you start to think,

00:54:36.520 I'm not sure this comedian is in good faith.

00:54:38.060 I think he genuinely does want to stir up

00:54:39.740 racial division or disharmony or whatever.

00:54:43.120 You've seen Francis.

00:54:46.360 I've seen him heckling.

00:54:48.120 But I do think it's a good thing

00:54:50.940 that jokes have the ability to like,

00:54:52.920 they have a bit of steel in them.

00:54:54.140 I don't think that's a bad thing.

00:54:55.340 You know, I think that's that's part of what makes the comedy seem very, you know, fertile ground for discussion like this.

00:55:02.860 You know, if it was just jokes, there would be nothing to talk about, would it?

00:55:05.400 I think that's fine. I think that's OK.

00:55:07.560 It's just, you know, overreaction or whatever.

00:55:10.460 Or, as I say, the sharp, the audible, sharp intake of breath is what I don't like when people just start going, well, no, if you find that funny, you laugh.

00:55:17.720 You don't find it funny. You don't laugh.

00:55:19.040 You know, you don't start going to go.

00:55:20.180 I did, I had, no, actually, I'm not going to tell that story because somebody, the person

00:55:24.840 might, might, go on, Simon, go on, I had lunch with somebody recently and they indicated

00:55:33.820 they were a vegetarian, with which I have zero problem, of course, you're talking about

00:55:41.140 like, you're talking about the trans lobby, exactly, this was in a restaurant, I wasn't

00:55:44.540 expected to cater differently for them or anything, we were all in a restaurant, we were

00:55:47.520 all choosing from the menu and the vegetarian made it known really quite seriously that if

00:55:52.460 one of the other people were to order something which they felt was really quite a cruel thing

00:55:57.840 to eat not just like a you know like a steak and kidney pie they would find that offensive like

00:56:04.500 that would be you know not an appropriate thing to eat in front of a vegetarian and that's what

00:56:09.520 I think the sharp intake of breath is do you know what I mean that's that's that is crossing a line

00:56:13.420 for me i didn't say anything at the time you know and and you know they are a good friend i don't

00:56:18.220 know if i want that bit left in the podcast there's no choice now simon okay yeah no we can

00:56:23.780 no um well now we have but you know what i mean it's like that kind of that's that's that's wrong

00:56:29.360 you shouldn't you shouldn't police other people's attitudes but of course humans will do these

00:56:34.100 things and so as a comedian you then have to go in i played early in my life i played the comedy

00:56:38.640 store. And there was a woman in the front row. I did an old joke, which I'd done dozens of times

00:56:43.480 where I said, my granddad, it was based on actually, but I used to refer to him as my

00:56:48.960 neighbor Stan, but he was my granddad's father. But my neighbor Stan, this was a true story about

00:56:54.380 him. He used to refer to the next door neighbors as the darkest next door. And I said, which was

00:56:59.040 a bit offensive and certainly rather old fashioned, especially considering they're Cornish.

00:57:03.600 now in fact they were portuguese which i still felt was a bit you know just amused me that he

00:57:09.160 called them the darkies you know even the faintest sort of deviation from anglo-saxon skin tones 1.00

00:57:13.900 but he was a he was a kind gentle old man you know who was just uh expressing his the views

00:57:19.020 of his generation anyway this woman on the front row as soon as i said that she said sharp intake 0.89

00:57:24.240 of breath audible intake of breath i said what what's the matter and she went i don't like no 0.78

00:57:28.600 we don't like darky jokes she just heard the word darky and assumed this was a joke about darkies 0.98

00:57:34.700 you know and about them being a problem or being stupid or something you know not at the expense 0.99

00:57:39.260 of an old man whose racist views were not only racist they were incoherent and had no you know 1.00

00:57:43.520 no sort of genetic yeah yeah and that i went into it and took the piss out of that and the audience

00:57:51.040 came back but there was a sort of balance you know there was a moment but like i felt i had

00:57:55.920 to deal with that because if I'd just gone yeah you're right sorry I shouldn't do oh no you know

00:57:59.680 then you've lost your confidence lost your faith you know the whole from out of that would have

00:58:04.060 rippled an entire so instead she had to be you know dealt with cruelly this is exactly what I

00:58:10.720 was going to ask you final question before we ask the very final question is uh one of your

00:58:15.340 probably most known jokes would be jokes about the joke about your eyes yes right which I

00:58:21.460 understand you got from a heckler yes at the uh up the creek sunday night at up the creek where it

00:58:27.440 used to be uh malcolm hardy's most sort of legendary performances he would you'd have a

00:58:31.280 decent act in the first half and a decent act in the final section but in the middle section was 0.97

00:58:35.320 uh was all open spots and he'd always go cool this one might be good might be shit you know 0.76

00:58:40.020 there was no there was no attempt to big you up at all and there were a group of guys i think they 0.58

00:58:44.200 were all cab drivers and they all used to congregate around the sound booth in the back left

00:58:47.840 section of the room who were just absolute samurai I mean they were or ninjas I should say they were

00:58:53.800 devastating hecklers and they they made or broke a number of careers you know and if you went on

00:58:58.960 there without the confidence that you had what it took you know that could be the end of your

00:59:02.400 career you know they would dismantle you and that was it but that was the only one he shouted out

00:59:06.020 where are your eyes and the whole I had no idea my eyes do disappear in shadow under stage lighting

00:59:12.240 in normal conditions they're small but you can see where they are but under stage lights you know

00:59:15.980 the angle comes down they just look like yeah like holes like I've been you know gouged and

00:59:22.260 everyone laughed and I had no idea why I couldn't get it back from there I'd done about two or three

00:59:26.340 minutes it was going all right you know not brilliantly and then that was it and then I

00:59:29.400 just sort of shuffled off and then afterwards I was talking to somebody and they said yeah no

00:59:33.220 your eyes do disappear maybe and I we agree that I should do that joke I should get in there first

00:59:37.460 because then you have a level of self-awareness the audiences love audiences love it that's the

00:59:41.960 old so-and-so has let himself go. That's the usual joke, right? Yeah. Egg, out of this life,

00:59:47.640 you look a bit like. Have you ever heard that? No, I'm looking for that joke. Tell me, Simon,

00:59:51.780 go for it. Egg was a character in This Life, which was an early version of sort of a steadicam,

00:59:56.760 single camera, sort of, it was a lovely sort of comedy drama series about people starting out

01:00:02.940 their postgraduate lives in London. And Egg was very much a series, sort of a bit of a heartthrob,

01:00:08.480 in fact

01:00:08.820 I'm going to have to do the research on how offensive that is

01:00:12.580 but that kind of thing anyway

01:00:14.380 of course you haven't let yourself go

01:00:16.240 that's the problem, you're younger than him

01:00:17.840 Andrew Lincoln

01:00:19.660 Stuart Lee again who appears I'm obsessed with

01:00:22.980 he had a 10 minute routine

01:00:24.360 in which he did all the people that he looked like

01:00:26.220 and let themselves go from Terry Christian

01:00:27.920 through the bloke who used to be

01:00:30.480 in Grange Hill and then Tucker

01:00:31.580 who then ended up in EastEnders, all these people

01:00:33.660 and all of them worked and the audience would laugh

01:00:35.780 again and again and again and you just realise

01:00:37.460 he looks like so many people it's absurd he has an even better one now i saw him a couple of weeks

01:00:42.000 ago at the bill murray in london uh and he walked on stage and went uh it looks like julian assange

01:00:49.080 has let himself go and he looks exactly like a fat version of julian assange that's interesting

01:00:53.480 hasn't got the white hair and he's got the white hair and and the beard he's got the whole look

01:00:57.760 i reckon he's probably cultivated it just for that one joke that is amazing yeah yeah so but

01:01:03.420 The reason I bring up the eyes thing.

01:01:04.340 But anyway, I wanted to tell you just to end that.

01:01:06.820 It must have been at least 10 years later,

01:01:08.200 I was in a cab and as I went to pay,

01:01:11.120 the bloke goes, you're a comedian, aren't you?

01:01:12.540 And I went, yeah.

01:01:13.080 He goes, I saw you years ago.

01:01:14.500 I don't know if you remember me.

01:01:15.260 I heckled you from the back of the creek.

01:01:18.720 I said, where are your eyes?

01:01:20.620 And he was the one who'd done that.

01:01:22.740 And I mean, that was the opening routine

01:01:24.740 I used on Michael McIntyre's roadshow.

01:01:27.040 That was like my first properly televised,

01:01:30.260 you know, I had to give him a fairly healthy tip.

01:01:33.420 huge laugh, of course. But the reason I bring it up is that, do you think comedy is possible

01:01:39.040 without an element of cruelty? Even at your own expense?

01:01:42.840 Because this is one of the things that when I turned down that contract from SOAS, a lot

01:01:46.300 of people were saying, well, why do you need to be cruel? And I was kind of saying, well,

01:01:49.440 look, even self-deprecating comedy is cruel. Often the cruelest comedy is self-deprecating

01:01:55.480 comedy. Do you think it's possible for comedy to be this place where everyone's just holding

01:02:01.680 hands and you know no i if you define cruelty that way i think you're right there has to be

01:02:07.120 some sort of target even if it is only the bigotry of those who had previously defined

01:02:13.680 something else as the target you know something has to get it yeah even charlie chaplin who you

01:02:19.060 know lovable uh tramp you know um encountering modern technology and and having sorts of i mean

01:02:24.960 there's still the cruelty there that this is a essentially one of life's most marginalized

01:02:29.120 most vulnerable people who has been who can't even manage to get across the road you know without

01:02:33.780 and but is then using his his his native abilities to do so despite his low socioeconomic status if

01:02:40.280 he was not low socioeconomic status it wouldn't be so funny and so there's a kind of cruelty of

01:02:45.340 of like it's not a million miles from the tenor's joke in a way it's kind of going oh well it's

01:02:49.320 all right isn't it because you know they have this kind of acrobatic ability you know yeah i think you

01:02:54.240 do have to have it but it can be dressed up in all kinds of different ways and that's what i think a

01:02:58.480 really good comedy show is is one where the target moves around so much that even though at some

01:03:03.240 level you're you're registering that you know there's some cruelty it's not relentlessly in

01:03:07.700 pursuit of a single objective although that again can be funny if you overdo it so obviously again

01:03:12.840 with my welsh routine i would do it it would become a bit too long i was nagging on a nerve

01:03:16.920 then i would go anyway time to move on although i will say this you know and then you kind of get

01:03:21.480 you know and then it's funny again but yeah you have to move it around and and that's where

01:03:25.700 self-deprecating comedy is an essential part of any remotely long set because sometimes you have

01:03:30.540 to switch it around and it comes back at you. And this is why it becomes, as I said, a boxing match

01:03:34.940 rather than boxing like, you know, punching up or punching down. It's still just punching. You

01:03:39.060 have to take the punches as well. And, you know, Rocky was right on that front. You know, essentially

01:03:44.380 at the end of the day, life is about how many punches you can take rather than how many, you

01:03:48.240 know, it's how many times you can get up rather than how many times you can knock someone else

01:03:51.460 down that i think is um probably you know as as profound a lesson as you can learn through the

01:03:59.900 course of your life that that's what it takes you know and that's often quite literally what

01:04:03.640 the best boxers have it turns out as well powerfully built skulls that can take pounding

01:04:09.000 rather rather than um all being in the in the biceps and the hips and that is a that is a

01:04:15.260 massive part of being a decent comedian any comedian who looks remotely thin-skinned themselves

01:04:19.280 that is that is the death that is the end if you if you yourself are thin-skinned about comedy and

01:04:25.220 there are one or two people who uh sort of uh pop up frequently on various uh you know television

01:04:32.040 opportunities to discuss comedy matters who are who to my mind do demonstrate you know who speak

01:04:36.700 for the industry but are themselves thin-skinned in my view i'm not going to name names but i'm

01:04:40.880 sure so i know who you're talking about so someone who might have called me a naughty a while back

01:04:44.780 yes

01:04:45.220 yes exactly

01:04:46.720 well that is just

01:04:47.640 the death of comedy

01:04:48.420 for me

01:04:48.760 once you've reached

01:04:49.360 that point

01:04:49.780 you know

01:04:50.060 it's all over

01:04:51.560 well on that

01:04:52.180 I am really happy

01:04:54.120 with how this episode

01:04:55.000 has come to a close

01:04:56.800 it's ended up

01:04:57.040 back as a

01:04:57.600 I've been validated

01:04:59.000 and defended

01:04:59.820 by a comedy

01:05:01.020 here on my

01:05:01.700 I want to know

01:05:02.440 that you've made him

01:05:03.060 absolutely intolerable

01:05:04.300 and I am going to

01:05:06.560 bear the brunt of this

01:05:07.520 for the next six months

01:05:08.680 so thank you Simon

01:05:09.600 but the last question

01:05:11.100 we always ask our guests

01:05:12.380 which is

01:05:13.300 what's the one thing

01:05:14.140 people are talking about or aren't talking about that we really do need to be talking about?

01:05:18.640 Right. In comedy or whatever, whatever you want. Well, funnily enough, I had a conversation with

01:05:22.980 a friend this morning. I stayed with a friend in London and this was the chat we had over coffee

01:05:27.740 is that we are all living longer and nobody is paying very much attention to what to do with

01:05:32.800 the final third of your life. My father is 89 years old now and he sort of retired. He took

01:05:38.480 sort of necessary retirement, essentially mid fifties. So he has spent over 30 years of his

01:05:43.740 life in his post-work environment. And yet there's almost no discussion about how to make, he

01:05:48.860 personally is a very resourceful individual who bought a wood turning lathe. He has a kiln he's

01:05:54.540 used until quite recently as all sorts of hobbies and crafts, and he keeps himself active and is

01:05:59.000 not just slumped in front of the television for that time at all. But, you know, that is a serious

01:06:03.500 issue. And I'm 54 now. That's the age at which he lost his job and was deemed, you know,

01:06:08.740 unemployable again, essentially, you know, a man of that age with no qualifications, 0.70

01:06:12.020 very hard to find work in the midst of a recession as it was then. So that's an issue

01:06:17.840 which I'm sort of think about now, you know, what, how do you make sense of the final third

01:06:21.460 of life? We are all, we have available to us all the medications that will keep us alive.

01:06:25.060 They'll keep us ticking over. You know, you see anyone in their ages has a pillbox, you know,

01:06:29.160 with all the dates and the times and the, you know, without which they would probably be dead,

01:06:32.960 but they're not dead. We need to find ways to occupy them. And ideally, even to make them

01:06:39.660 economically productive. I know that sounds harsh, but if you've got half your population

01:06:43.840 are post-economic productivity, that is not something that any nation can survive for very

01:06:49.500 long. So I think that is the big issue. And it was interesting that Theresa May raised that issue

01:06:54.440 prior to the 2017 general election, and it turned out to be so toxic, such a third rail. But I think

01:06:59.960 That's what lost to the, essentially lost to the election.

01:07:02.220 She didn't emerge from that with anything like a workable majority. 0.57

01:07:06.160 I think she lost the goodwill of that, you know, those elderly Tory voters who are always 1.00

01:07:14.740 reliable, will always come out wind or shine to vote Tory because they feel that the Tories

01:07:21.700 will look after.

01:07:22.300 But any suggestion that we might need to look at the financial arrangements or the way in

01:07:26.740 which we approach, you know, in which a nation deals with its elderly, is extraordinarily

01:07:31.960 toxic debate. It's a very taboo subject now, even among those people themselves talking among

01:07:37.520 themselves. They don't like to discuss it. But we need to address that because everyone is living

01:07:41.820 much, much longer than they used to be. And our welfare state, you know, people talk endlessly

01:07:46.480 about whether migrants or immigrants are a burden on it or whether they, in fact, of course, which

01:07:50.600 the statistics suggest, produce the tax receipts, which allow us to pay for it. You know, I think

01:07:55.280 it's a very wrongheaded view. I don't want to close down any conversation about immigration,

01:08:00.460 but there are dozens of ways to talk about it. But in terms of them being a burden on it,

01:08:03.580 I just think that's been disproved categorically. But what is a burden on it is an elderly population 0.91

01:08:10.060 whose own mental health is at risk from their inability to engage or be productive or be

01:08:17.820 useful. And we need more templates for how they can be engaged usefully and constructively in

01:08:23.780 society. Basically, I'm saying grandmothers should look after my kids. I've missed that

01:08:30.320 opportunity. But yeah, that, that, that is the big conversation no one wants to have.

01:08:35.300 And it's a very important one. So Simon, if someone wants to find you on Twitter,

01:08:40.100 on Instagram. I can't imagine after that. Absurdly serious, but it is a burning issue.

01:08:46.540 I'm the Simon Evans on Twitter. I visit Instagram about once a year and very rarely post anything

01:08:52.820 of use but Twitter is my place

01:08:54.820 I have a Facebook page but it's not

01:08:56.680 for the fans. And you are going

01:08:58.800 to be at Edinburgh Festival. Yes.

01:09:00.620 Tell us where the show is, tell everybody

01:09:02.320 what the show is called and where it is. I'm going to be at the

01:09:04.700 Assembly Rooms on George Square

01:09:06.320 which is sort of down towards the

01:09:08.760 Meadows and I think it's

01:09:10.800 Assembly Room, I think it's Studio 2 but I'm not sure

01:09:12.780 anyway. The show is called Dressing for Dinner

01:09:14.820 but that's just one of those names, don't worry about

01:09:16.800 that too much. Simon Evans, 8pm

01:09:19.300 give or

01:09:20.840 take five minutes at the George Square Assembly Room.

01:09:23.820 Simon, as you will have seen during this interview,

01:09:26.440 is an absolutely fantastic comedian.

01:09:27.760 Make sure you go and see him if you're in Edinburgh for the festival.

01:09:30.280 I'll be there as well, as you know, doing all well that ends well.

01:09:33.560 Francis is going to be performing here in London at the Bill Murray

01:09:36.080 a couple of times during August. 0.99

01:09:37.660 Because I fucking hate Edinburgh. 0.98

01:09:40.260 As always, follow us at TriggerPod on all the social media. 0.99

01:09:44.240 Don't want to drag this out too long.

01:09:45.440 We will see you in a week from now.

01:09:47.480 Absolutely.

01:09:48.260 And also as well, please leave us a nice iTunes review.

01:09:50.840 tell a friend about it if you enjoy it subscribe we're also now on BitChute if you want to check

01:09:55.600 us out there thank you very much and we'll see you next week bye bye

TRIGGERnometry - August 05, 2019

Simon Evans on Comedy, Liberal Bias and Offence Culture

Episode Stats

People

Summary

Transcript