Desert Island Dicks - CALLY BEATON

Episode Date: August 10, 2020

Comedian Cally Beaton joins Dan to share who and what she'd hate to be stuck with on a desert island. Be sure to follow the podcast @dickspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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host endorsements or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads. Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com. Hi, it's Dan from Desert Island Dicks. This episode features the wonderful Callie Beaton. And despite me having a cold and being a bit croaky we managed to discuss amongst other things naked rodents and bad reviews we've had interestingly since recording i got a review calling this podcast a one-stop shop for left-wing propaganda which was interesting i mean i try and play the dicks as they're dealt as it were so i'm not quite sure why the reviewer thinks I'm,

in his words, a fawning lefty sycophant. I mean, if he'd heard Tony Law's episode, he'd have heard us being very mean about the decidedly left-wing Joseph Stalin, but maybe he didn't get that far, and it's a shame. But he still gave us two stars, so it couldn't have all been bad. And if you've not heard all our episodes, then why not take a dip into our back catalogue, because there's well over a hundred in there with loads of great guests. And once you've decided how you feel, why not subscribe and leave us a nice review. A nice review. Right, now let's get welcome to Desert Island Dicks,

the show that sees you marooned on a desert island after a plane crash with the worst people and worst things imaginable. Who they are and why they're a dick is up to our guest and here to share their Desert Island Dicks with us today is comedian, writer and business mentor Callie Beaton. Hello. Hi there, how are you doing? Good thank you, how's things? They're all right, I've just had a horrible feeling when you said Dan Benedictus and I had a horrible feeling that in one of my emails, because I've got an email from you in front of me, that I might have called you Ben. I get called Ben a lot. Do you? So it's

not just me. I probably wouldn't even have noticed if you had. I was thinking is Ben normally short for Benedictus but clearly as that is not your first name that is not a very good conversation starting point. No you know what I've even got called Ben by people who've never known my surname so I think I just look like a Ben. You do look like a Ben. Did your parents sometimes call you by the wrong name as well or did they tend to get it right? Well they called me by my brother's names but not not by a completely different name. Okay but are your brothers called Ben? No they're not no. Okay. They stopped short of Ben Benedictus I think it would have been. It would have been a bit much. Well that's the Ben material burnt isn't it? We'll have to move on to something else.

How did you find the process of uh whittling down your choices for the island today do you know it's funny because um i like to i'm not exactly a hippie uh but i do i'm a bit of a believer in not punching down to people i try to be kind to people and i think particularly because of lockdown this isn't going to make me the absolute wrong choice of guest for you but i think because of lockdown, this isn't going to make me the absolute wrong choice of guest for you. But I think because of lockdown, there's been a real lack of kindness. So everyone I was thinking of, I was like, you know, for the worst people, I know we'll come on to that, but I was going to do Kanye West. And I thought, well, no, he's actually got, you know, mental health problems.

And that's like a serious thing, even though he's really irritating. And so I kept coming up with people and things and the things were easier but the people I was like oh but that's really mean so um but and even a couple that I've chosen when I came to think about it I thought I think that just makes me a bit of a twat that I hate that but we'll come on to it so I think um I've turned into a bit of a kind of let's spread good karma kind of a lockdown human and there um this i appreciate this is a humorous nice kind-hearted podcast but yes i found it harder than i thought i mean despite doing this podcast i do try and be positive myself and when i sort of i suppose my my uh loophole for doing this is that maybe if we kind of release our anger in short controlled bursts then we can get on with the rest of the

day i like that and you know that's sort of that's what that's my caveat to myself pretending I'm actually a decent person yeah I think there's I did a thing called the Hoffman process last year that is all about expressing your uh your innermost feelings and I found it excruciating because I thought god I'm very aware of myself and I can talk about where I'm at but expressing them so this is a much less painful way to express anger than some of the things I can talk about where I'm at but expressing them so this is a much less painful way to express anger than some of the things I did in a remote farmhouse in Sussex but that's a story for another day great okay well let's get straight into it then who's going to be your first choice for the island uh so uh Priti Patel is up there as I think probably I'm not the only person

who might like not to spend much time with her at the moment so yeah I um and it's difficult isn't it when there's someone you really don't like and then you see them on these briefings I mean to be fair I was thinking is there anyone who does the briefings either here or in the states where you go what a top man or woman I think I mean you feel kind of sorry for the medical experts uh but beyond that the politicians aren't coming out of this well. So I did think anyone who has to stand up at that horribly branded podium is going to get a rough ride. But I am. Yeah, I mean, I've obviously pretty I say, obviously, you wouldn't know my politics, but like 97 percent of the comedy community, I am not right wing. And I think anyone who is self-declaredly at the right wing end of the Tory party which she is um is yeah

wouldn't get my vote as as the best kind of human being to hang out with um and she you probably know or you may know that she she famously sort of modeled herself on Margaret Thatcher it was Thatcher that made her want to get into politics and I I'm a little bit older than Priti Patel but not much I think she's three years younger than me So I also grew up with Thatcher as a sort of, I mean, a strong female role model for sure, but not one I wanted to emulate. So it's interesting. So, so I, so yes, so I don't like the fact that she's a Thatcherite. Don't like the fact that she voted Leave and was such a vocal proponent of Vote Leave. Don't like the fact when she was in PR, she lobbied for alcoholism, not alcoholism, for alcohol and tobacco industries. So she's really got a history of getting on the wrong side of things and most

of all i don't like the fact about all these um bullying allegations so that's what's really got my dander up worse is that she doesn't seem to have a very good rep as a decent human even to people around her so that's what that's the final straw that broke pretty's back for me yeah and she has the unfortunate thing of I mean at least some of them pretend not to like the bad news that they're dishing out but I think she has sort of you know people talk about resting bitch face but she's sort of got resting smug face hasn't she it's like she looks so pleased with herself all the time and it probably is just a facial tick but she just looks so happy about all the bad news all the time yeah i think michael michael spicer did a really good do you watch his um do you watch his stuff uh i haven't seen it no oh he's brilliant so he does he he he's gone sort of really big in lockdown so he basically voices over the other half of

interviews he takes political kind of um speeches yeah oh yes no sorry i do know him yes yeah whatever he's called the not the guy next door but i'm not i'm not um be very eloquent about michael spicer but anyway his one of um priti patel was excellent and he does say because can you say anything without looking so smug pretty no okay you just keep looking smug she also has a real sort of teenagers as someone who has got teenagers she's got the enunciation of a sort of smug kind of yeah mum sort of intonation as well so yeah i mean i'm loathe to criticize any woman in the public eye on her looks but i think her look in terms of the look in her eye on her face is fair game so yeah i agree

there's just something very and she's also nothing sticks does it she got fired didn't she a couple of years ago for whatever it was she was doing over in Israel with all those unauthorized meetings and then she bounced back into the same party in a bigger job and I thought well that's that's impressive really isn't it so yeah she's um and you know what most of all I think is sad is that she could be a massive role model, couldn't she, for young women wanting to get into politics. And you could be like, what, an inspirational woman. But it's a shame, isn't it, what with her and Theresa May.

I'm not sure this generation of aspirational politicians are quite getting what they might need. Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? I just always think of her sort of being so happy when she was kind of announcing the end of freedom of movement. And you just kind of think, whatever side you're on, it works both ways. Like, you can feel strongly about immigration, but still maybe want to live abroad someday. And you've just like ended that for everyone. And you're so happy about it. And it's, it's so galling, especially now when you're kind of used to not having to go into the office and you start thinking well maybe I could move somewhere more interesting and less polluted and no no I can't I know I know and it also feels that there's almost a kind of I mean I'm not saying I'm not comparing her to Donald Trump to the orange faced one but I do think she has a she's really playing to the kind of right wing of the right isn't she and she's very much she yeah you can see just like trump does she's kind of like she knows she's

going to really piss off a lot of the country but she's like those real died in the wall right when people are going to love this so no i she um she could not embody less of what i would be interested in politically or ethically so no the thought of having to be and imagine waking up on a desert island to that smug face that teenage voice and those horrible opinions so yeah I wouldn't even want to get stuck on a you know imagine getting well you wouldn't be stuck in an uber with her now because you wouldn't be allowed in if she wasn't in your bubble but she's the sort of person if you did get stuck on a sort of broken down train with for 20 minutes you'd be like oh christ can you make this stop so yeah and I think yeah very very divisive sort of person if you did get stuck on a sort of broken down train with for 20 minutes you'd be like oh christ can you make this stop so yeah and i think yeah very very divisive sort of person and yeah having that on the island you know she'll sort of divide and conquer or attempt to or

you know sort of talk about i don't know if you're bringing in enough fish that day or things like that i can imagine her sort of being really sort of i don't know just quite snidey to be around and she won't let anyone leave the island or join the island she's very clear on borders so even if something even if even if a ship came by she'd be like no no you haven't completed the pre-requisite paperwork you're staying on the island so i don't like i wouldn't like her freedom of movement stance upon a desert island either but they're sending a lifeboat to save us it's like well you know i don't think they're sending their lifeboat to save us it's like well you know i don't think they're sending their brightest and best so we'll turn them around again yeah yeah

good choice a good choice who will be joining her with you on the island well uh the next person which won't mean uh anything to some people listening but it will mean anything to anyone in the comedy community or any people who are big consumers of comedy so steve bennett from chortle so you obviously know uh dan not ben that steve bennett is that he he runs uh chortle website which is you know the big sort of i don't know how would you describe it like the comedy a big sort of uk comedy hub i suppose sort of reviews and things isn't it and reviews listings um yeah so it's directory almost yeah kind of like a directory and it's and it has more as many things do when

you are a comedian it has more power than it would make sense that it has if you were to look from the outside in i mean it's got kind of a really crappy sort of goofy 1980s style kind of animated graphic and it's not um it there's nothing world beating about the site were you to go to it although we do all kind of look at it and use it but um so he's become a sort of self-styled influencer in the comedy world really so he does have a lot of influence and he's notoriously um don't know if i can use the c word on this yeah go for it but he can yes he can be quite cunty in his reviewing styles of people and he um he he's never been a fan of mine he saw me um which doesn't make him a bad person albeit

means he's got terrible taste but he's he was one of the judges um i did the bbc uh radio 4 comedy sort of new acts i did it a couple of times and you go you know you go out on a heat live on radio 4 and it's quite a big deal when you're a new comedian and I just could see his face like throughout my material like he everyone else was laughing who were judging and he hated me um I didn't get through I can't blame that on Steve Bennett but he did I just dug up I'm just going to get it up I did I dug up my review that he did so I did a show in Edinburgh last year rememberinburgh was a thing and um he came and reviewed me gave me three and a half stars and anyone would tell you no one wants a half star that's just annoying and then he said his headline was um invisible my show is a stunning piece of storytelling frustratingly wedded to a big chunk of lazily mediocre comedy um and he then

sort of lays into me and he's um he says when she mentions iceland you know there'll be a joke about the shop when she mentions a cat you know there will be a joke about her pussy and she doesn't disappoint or rather she does what a pity so um i think that's not that i'm bitter but uh so that's one of uh and he yeah he then goes on to write a review that basically says what phenomenal show it is but for my jokes um but he's always been uh yeah he's just always been very dismissive of me and I suppose I don't even know Steve Bennett he might be the most charming person were I to get to know him on a desert island but I wouldn't want him reviewing my capacity to

cut down palm trees or rub together sticks or whatever it is I'd be doing um and yeah and they do and and critics do have a bit critics can really play havoc with the mental health of us comedians so I think you know let's have a pop at him yeah no absolutely I think it's such a tricky one with critics isn't it because it's that sort of well obviously everything's subjective anyway and you know sort of part of the problem with the world I think is now everyone's a critic and I just sort of think like with the whole huge swathes of TripAdvisor I just think well I don't know who these people are I don't know what your taste is so who cares you know unless you're someone who's a mate of mine who has a similar interest it doesn't matter what you think you know what I mean and I don't like the sort of the kingmaker aspect of some of

these people it's kind of you know like a big golden hand pointing down like I can make or break you it's it's kind of troubling for me I think yeah and it's very and it's also so uh inevitably it's so subjective but ever since I've been a comedian i've whenever you see horrendous reviews for anything for films for you know musical performances you think i know you can't give people stuff just for trying but you think what people have put into doing edinburgh shows and stuff and then it takes one person to come in and annihilate it and then even if you unless you don't read the reviews you you know, it does affect you. So I think, yeah, there is,

and of course then there's the big scandal in our business before the scandal of there not being any comedy because we can't perform it. In the luxurious days when we had other things to complain about, it's getting so hard to get reviewers in as well. So like even getting Steve Bennett to my show was really hard

only for him to then be a bit of a wanker. So I really put him on the island as someone i would not like to be with to represent all mean reviewers and mean people who try and take people down yeah absolutely i've we got a one star review for this podcast recently and i what made me really angry is i think that you can edit your responses on itunes so i think they went and added an uh a response and i came back to it recently and I saw it again I was like I'm sure this was different before so you've kind of thought about it thought it's shit gone to the effort of leaving review then thought I think I could leave a better one than that and then amended it like god if I

ever find you uh well I won't do anything but I'll be very cross in my head on my own so an amended one star review so I'm going to give you one star and then I've got some better reasons for the one star and I'm just going to supplement them yeah but keep the stars one yeah that's yeah well I mean now I feel quite blessed that Steve Bennett as far as I know didn't go and add in any more nasty things about me on that review yeah I think that's the thing like we've all got our opinions and I think it's fine thing like we've all got our opinions and I think it's fine to share them with people but it's like I don't know I know people who are kind of really into leaving reviews of places you'll be in a pub with them and they'll leave

a review on on google or whatever and I think but but none of these people know who you are it's pointless like no one gives a shit about you like go and do something and then people give a shit about what you have to say about the thing you know yeah that's true although conversely lots of comedy clubs really rely on trip advisor reviews don't they so i think like angel comedy are big fans of trying to get everyone to go on trip advisor and put reviews on so i guess on the touristy to getting tourists into venues you know then we like it we just what we don't like is if they say anything we don't like i mean i think that's the that's the reasonable assumption to make isn't it yeah I think so and as you sort of alluded to earlier just having him on the island sort of picking away or even if he wasn't

being mean about you because of his history anything you do in the back of your mind or at least I would I'd always just assume that he's like watching me like the way I do anything he'll be sort of judging it and and critiquing it in his mind even if he's like watching me like the way I do anything he'll be sort of judging it and and critiquing it in his mind even if he's just having a perfectly nice time thinking of something else he might be daydreaming and I would think you're just critiquing my bants Steve and you don't think I'm funny so yeah I I think I've decided he's he's taken a gimme so I don't think he'd like to be with me on a desert island either. So I think I'm probably doing him a favour. Yeah. Okay. So he joins you.

And who's the third person to join the three of you? Well, this is going to be quite busy on the island now because I want all the 25 celebrities who were in that horrible Imagine video, that isolation thing that was done at the start of lockdown. Yes. Did you see it? Is it Gal Gadot? Is it Gadot or Gadot? I don't know. I'm going to call her Gadot, like Bardo. that was done at the start of lockdown yes um did you see it yeah is it gal gadot is it i don't know i'm gonna call her gadot like bardo but yeah she so she got all her celebrity mates and probably not all her celebrity mates but she got some quite cool people like kristin

wigg and chris o'dowd and people and yeah i'm sure everyone listening will have seen it and i had a quick look at it again before we spoke just to see if I really meant that that was a choice and I it was it was the way they were all so first of all they all thought they were so beautiful especially gal who is beautiful but it was all kind of it was all like look at I'm just oh I'm so beautiful on the outside and and actually I'm very beautiful on the inside because I'm sharing this moment with you but of course the worst thing was that was just what everyone was like you know frontline workers are our heroes piss off anyone with any privilege and it was like you so misread the mood of the world there are people bringing up three kids in one bedroom

without any toilet paper and no outside space and you're in your bleeding mansion going imagine there's no heaven so yeah it was it was just, it was like a spoof of something to make people feel better in a global pandemic. It was hard to believe it was done seriously. Yeah, because it's funny because I think there was like this real initial burst at the beginning of like, right, let's all organise quizzes on Zoom

and little sort of pretend house parties. And, you know, people did the rainbows in the houses so you could walk around with your kids and go, oh, let's see how many rainbows we can spot and like really wholesome nice things and i think we got like with panic buying we kind of peaked way way too early when actually you need that stuff further down the line but by that point we're all used to it anyway and you don't need these little sort of bonus sort of uh things to brighten your day and with them it's like obviously you know if you're a comic or an artist or an actor by all means release some entertaining content for us all to enjoy in lockdown but it's like this kind of this is this will heal the world this is what

they need and we're like standing there going oh thank you thank you so much for bestowing us with your beautiful voices and beautiful faces and it's like what is it I don't need that yeah I know I can't remember if the Madonna one came out before or after this one I think it might have been after when you know when she lay in the bath and said what an equalizer uh it was as she was in her sort of 35 room house wherever she is but I think it was um it was I'm sure you saw that did you see the Will Hislop um his I think it was I think the was um it was I'm sure you saw that did you see the Will Hislop um his I think it was I think the title of it was you know your aunt's reaction to the Thursday clap and it was him I'm sort of clapping and under his breath going well is that really your you know first

run of the day and I think I saw you you know do that and it was all just the bitchy stuff that everyone had started to think so yeah it was when the Thursday clap went sour um because I first time there was one I had a little cry inside didn't let anyone see but by the end even the person who invented it was like I think you should stop doing it now didn't she the Dutch woman so

but yeah I did hear I don't know if you listened to Louis Theroux's grounded podcast that he's been doing through lockdown and he's mates with Chris O'Dowd and he and Chris O'Dowd'dowd and he um and chris o'dowd i think is his guest on the last episode and he immediately like within about four minutes he's like mate what were you thinking and chris o'dowd takes it in very good spirit actually and he said he he's a mate of kristin wiggs and he didn't really he said he was only sort of half

listening when she said could you do could you do that he thought it she does a lot of stuff for um for different charities and he thought maybe it's for unicef or something he hadn't really read the brief so he said when he did he had no idea it was going to be a bunch of really privileged hollywood a lester's trying to tell the world that they were okay so yeah i think um i do like some of the individual celebrities who did it so by getting all 25 of them onto the island and saying I hate them for doing this I could also get a couple of people on I'd like to meet so it's a bit of a sleight of hand way to do this but I think there's like lots of nice interesting people in the group

but I think putting them all together it's like a sort of unbearable end of year party at a drama school or something where they're all nice individually but the collective energy and sort of like I think it also is Brit's like the utter self-belief doesn't sit well with us always you know and I also think with Imagine iconic song but it's sort of like that song is just going hey I'm just going to sit here and say imagine if everything was better and that's like me actually doing something but it's not really useful in any way so to use that song and then compound that feeling by doing it again is just I know it's not really useful in any way so to use that song and then compound that feeling by doing it again is just I know it's kind of something beautiful in a horrendous sort of way

it was like a spoof if Little Britain had done a spoof of pop stars and Hollywood A-listers coming together to do a little thing in a global pandemic that was entirely mistimed and mis-tuned they couldn't have done better also I did I did think, talking of drama students, you know, we were all doing a lot of Zoom. You're there looking very dapper in your kitchen. And I just thought, God, some of them also just have made no effort to set it up properly. Like they're not even fully on screen and they're not.

I just thought, why do these people not know how to film themselves better than this? So I also got a bit irked. But I'd say about a third of them were very poor quality videos. And I really thought they should have known better. Fair enough. I think it's a very, very good choice indeed. So I've got 27 people who I don't want to be with. That's a lot, isn't it?

That is quite a lot. But I mean, I don't know, maybe depending on how long you're there and how divisive Priti Patel is, you might whittle that down a little bit, either by cannibalism or deportation. So we'll see how you get on. I'm going to allow it. You're going to allow it, great. No, there would be a Lord of the Flies type vibe, I think, with Priti in the mix.

And then Steve Bennett could write it all up and put it on his website. So, yeah. Lovely, lovely. You're a podcast listener. And this is a podcast ad. Reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lipson Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements. Or run a reproduced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Lipson Ads.

Go to LipsonAds.com now. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N-Ads.com. Now, amongst the wreckage of the plane, mercifully, there was some food and drink left over. Unfortunately for you, it's your least favourite food and drink in the world. What are they and why are they so bad? So, prawns are my worst food in the world. And, do you know, I have absolutely no basis for prawns being my worst food in the world I just hate the look of them I hate the thought of them I was vegetarian from when I

was about 13 for about 12 years so some quite formative years I ate no no meat no fish and so maybe at the time as a teenager when I'd have been on holiday with my parents or something and I'd have eaten a prawn I never ate a prawn and then I decided um I'm not mad but I did decide I was probably allergic to prawns based on nothing but I think I just didn't like the look of them and I've managed to go through my whole life hating prawns but never having eaten one apart from prawn cocktail crisps which I do like and then I went to a friend's house for dinner just before lockdown. And she's a single mum of a little kid, you know, baby. And she works full time. And she'd made me, I think it was a risotto or something.

And she'd made it on the back of everything else she had going on. I'm just sitting in her kitchen, lazing around while she's cooking and the babies, I was helping the baby baby vaguely and then she served it up and it was prawn risotto and I thought literally what am I going to do I can't I can't not eat the prawns it's like too obvious and she's slaved away over this thing so I did eat them and I absolutely hated every mouthful of them and then I then then I was thinking well I'm probably going to die because we all know that I'm allergic to prawns based on no information uh so then I was literally waiting well, I'm probably going to die because we all know that I'm allergic to prawns based on no information. So then I was literally waiting for the food poisoning or the ambulance to need to be caught.

And I was totally fine. So really, I proved to myself I just have an irrational thing against prawns. Well, they do. I mean, a lot of things, a lot of seafood. If you saw that on land that you wouldn't go near it like a lobster. You've seen the underside of a lobster it's like that's where they got the idea for the face hug as an alien surely i mean it's like there's so much going on down there it's like you can't need all those appendages and bits

and a prawn is like a scaled down sort of every man's lobster isn't it it's like and do they have is it prawns have the little blue like the sometimes they're pregnant is that right and they have like eggs and you have to take the eggs out? I thought it was more like a sort of a poo tube. I don't know, like an intestine or something. So I couldn't think of the word for intestine for a minute there. A poo tube, which is very good to see your brain's alive and well and let down. Have you been home educating your child?

Unfortunately. Do you think he's fit in biology? Luckily, he's not old enough for that. So he's he's not old enough for that so he spared my my uh knowledge but uh yeah i just think they're just weird looking animals aren't they so i can understand anyone being slightly untrusting of them and also anything which might is it shrimps or prawns where people quite often is it it's shrimps i think isn't it where people you get big shrimps giant shrimps king shrimps i think that i don't know i never

know when a shrimp becomes a prawn but i mean i mean i wouldn't eat maybe they're king prawns i mean i wouldn't eat i don't know what a shrimp is compared to a prawn but i wouldn't eat any such thing and i do know i've sat next to people my boyfriend likes prawns so he'll order king prawns and then you have to rip them apart don't you take off whatever bits you do and then they have that poo tube and then you have to take that out with like a fork or whatever you do and i just think anything where you're pulling out poo with a fork yeah and you're ripping off half its skull i don't think i'd want to be eating what was left so yeah i mean i i have no problem with prawns but i i absolutely you do now yeah and I completely see your reasoning it all makes sense and yeah when you have to dissemble the animal on your on your plate it's

like you know when you go abroad and sometimes like we're quite squeamish in this country about what we eat and and sort of the origins of it so but sometimes you go to other countries and they'll be like prawn cocktail crisp and there'll be like a little cartoon prawn or a cartoon squid or something going well hey eat me and we always find that quite weird but that is what happens with the prawn you just see the whole thing on your plate you know if you had to like take down a cow and open it up and everything see i'd be i'd be on for that i'd be like i don't know why i'd be like if i was stuck in it if on the island a cow ambled across and somebody needed to you know get stuck in and and make that into food i could manage that but there's something about it's like muscles I don't do you like muscles yeah I mean

this part of the podcast I always have to point I'm I'm not that squeamish about food really so I'm kind of pretty much game for most things um but I also do understand why all seafood is quite weird just stuff we don't know what's going on under there under the sea I mean it's just where all the weird stuff is isn't it although increasingly we don't know what's going on under there under the sea i mean it's just where all the weird stuff is isn't it although increasingly we don't know what's going on over the sea either do we so maybe that's the place to be but no i i've just got an irrational i've got an irrational disliking of prawns i think that's that's evident at this point i think that's fair and also very likely to sort of be around on the island and and and i think probably one of those things that you could sort of not quite cook enough and get ill from so you don't want that on top of everything

else on the island so that's fair although i suspect i think being on a desert island and not being willing to eat seafood would probably be self-elected suicide so i think you probably because you would probably run out of things to eat so i suspect i would have to get over myself and start eating seafood uh as a fairly uh a fairly early on strategy and being there. But yeah, I mean, I'd rather not. And yeah, I'm standing by my prawn choice. Fair enough, fair enough. And what would you wash those delicious prawns down with?

That would have to be a mango lassi. Interesting. Have you had a mango lassi? I have, yeah. I find them quite pleasant. So I'm interested to hear them quite pleasant but so I'm interested to hear your reasoning well I did um I did wonder if it's so when you had when you have had a mango lassi what did it taste like it tasted of mangoes and a bit yogurty I suppose

yeah so I so I'm not sure because you can also make them with like a soured yogurt so I've only ever had a mango lassi once and I was in a cafe with a mate and I thought I saw it on the board I thought oh how refreshing and I thought it'd be like a mango I thought it was either a tea I didn't know what a lassi was this is going back a while I thought it's either going to be a tea some sort of mango tea or it'll be some sort of mango fruit or milkshake type drink and then when it appeared it looked like a mango milkshake i thought nice and then i took a big old slug on it on a summer's day and it was it it was like curdled milk and and it had cardamom in it and i just thought that is a bridge too far for something that's got mango in the title to be masquerading as something that nice and sweet but actually whatever I had was like a curdled

vial cardamom laced undrinkable thing and it didn't go with the mango and it didn't go with me I do always think they're quite funny things to sort of eat with Indian food because they can be quite I mean I think having milkshakes of any kind or anything like that with a meal is quite weird because they're just quite heavy things anyway and sometimes you're like eating nice indian food and then you've got to like suck up this really heavy thick thing and it's it's a feel at odds with what you're eating i mean i would eat you know at a diner when my kids were little i would happily slug down a salted caramel milkshake and fries and a burger so you see it's not even I can't even pretend that I'm not a

glutton and I've enjoyed the heaviness of it I think it's the sour when you've had one or it sounds like you like them are they very sour or is it more yogurty than sour more yogurty than sort of sour maybe you just had a really badly maybe it was like bad yogurt or something that might have been what I actually was allergic to instead of the prawns that I pretend I was. Do you think, but don't you think drinking yoghurt is, like, would you drink one of those little, what are they called, those little Yakult? Would you do a drinking yoghurt, Actimel?

No, I find them a bit weird. It always feels like someone's mixed lemonade and milk, doesn't it? Yeah. Which nobody wants. I mean, I'm a big fan of all kinds of, like, savoury yoghurt and sweet yoghurt and things like that. What's the savoury yoghurt? You know, like a raita or something with Indian food.

You get maybe some grated cucumber stirred through some yoghurt. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe a bit of cumin or something like that. I'm very into that sort of thing. I went somewhere in South America where they were just, for whatever reason in that country, they were just really into yoghurt drinks. And you'd go to the 7-Eleven and there'd just be a wall of them really the idea of yogurt and drink is is a bit odd i think so i do i do see where you're coming from did they have the yogurt drinks in a refrigerated section

or were they they did fortunately yeah they were they i mean i think they tried it here for a while do you remember yop oh yeah yeah they really tried to go big with that, didn't they? What an advertising campaign. Yeah. So, we never, the Brits didn't take to yop. No. But, yeah, so it does seem like a weird thing. The words yoghurt and drink, I mean, yeah, they don't sit well. Especially when mine was curdled sour cream.

I don't even think it was yoghurt. Or it was yoghurt that was very, very antique. And let's be honest, this is going to be an airline style mango lassi because of the plane crash. And given that you're on an island, it is going to be curdled and warm. It's going to be horrible. So even if you got the nice one from first class, it's not going to be good by the time you're drinking it. It's definitely not. It's going to be well off. Okay. Well, I think that's very fair. Very fair. Now now uh fortunately you won't be without entertainment on the island the planes entertainment system continues to work but just your luck it

only has two working settings one's your least favorite film of all time and the other is your least favorite song what are they and why well i'm going to start with my worst song and i've just realized this is gonna make me sound really bad So I know most people do like the Beatles and my worst song is Hey Jude, which on top of having gone for the celebrities who sang Imagine, it might make you lose a few listeners. But Hey Jude, I just find it really trite and annoying and it's overplayed.

And also the na-na-na-na na na na na na na refrain goes on for about three and a half weeks so I don't like that um so it's just I just and it's a real earworm isn't it when you hear hey Jude that's you you've got hey Jude with you for the night for the weekend you might have hey Jude with you next month so imagine if you'd got hey Jude with you at the start of lockdown you probably would still have it ringing around your head. So I don't like it on a sort of just melody, lyrics level. But then I did, I thought, oh, before I come on, I'm just going to see what the provenance was of Hey Jude.

And do you know what it is? Do you know where it came from? You probably do. Didn't he write it for John Lennon's son, Julian? Yeah, he did, yeah. And then I thought, oh God, then that's really mean. So yeah, Paul McCartney wrote it for Julian Lennon and it was hey jewels and then it got changed to Jude and that was obviously a really sweet thing to do is like doing something really nice for your mates and it was it

was when uh John uh when John Lennon had just gone off with Yoko Ono and left Julian Lennon's mum so then I thought ah so I've basically picked a classic that most people in the world really find comforting that was written in a really sweet way for a kid that had been left by his dad uh so what can I tell you I'm a bad person and Steve Bennett is correct in all he says about me I don't know though I don't think it's one of the Beatles greatest songs for me I think I mean that's the the good thing about the Beatles I suppose is that there's you know you've got things like yellow submarine which is you know great for that's a classic yeah there's some quite weird stuff as well you know they've done such a breadth but um paul mccartney he's one of the beatles he's a brilliant man but also he's sort of aged badly you know like you see him

rock up now and you're like oh here's bloody mccartney gonna play hey jude again at the olympics or you know it becomes of, because of its overuse, it becomes a bit cheesy and you forget that he's Paul McCartney from the Beatles and you forget he's not just like some mate of your nan's sometimes, you know. Well, he wears a high-waisted slack, doesn't he? And he's got burgundy hair and he's a fan of a buttoned up paisley shirt. And I think that is a very, very hard thing to pull off. And for anyone to go, you were so cool in your day so yeah no i'm i'm not a i would never i just never was a

big fan of that i did quite like some of john lennon's stuff but i never was a big fan of the beatles i'm afraid that's a horrific thing to admit but of the things i don't like about the beatles which isn't everything but hey jude yeah it's just not my thing and the you know the Gal Gadot cast of people singing Imagine they're going to be straight over singing on that aren't they they're going to love having a lovely campfire sing song every day and night to that I mean that's going to be unbearable and also if you feel bad about not liking something I mean they're going to be so sort of earnest about it as well, aren't they? It's going to ruin it for you.

And also, I reckon, knowing my luck, at least one of them's ukulele will have survived and perhaps we'll find out that Kristen Wiig is a secret jazz flautist. So I think, I mean, the thought of it is unbearable, although it would give Steve Bennett something to write about, wouldn't it? But yeah, it's an experience that I will leave for my worst nightmares i think yeah we have had people put ukulele players on the island before as well just randomly as a sort of category yeah yeah as a category of persons they're even a category of musicians aren't they i mean of comedians sorry they're a comedian there are

quite a few comedians with ukuleles couple of whom i very much like but yes so i like the fact that they've become a sort of subsect of society that's good okay and what would your film choice be my film choice this was dead easy for me was mother did you watch mother no because it's a scary film isn't it it is a scary film and i don't like scary films no it's funny because i didn't i don't like scary films either and this is a horribly name droppy way to get into this but I worked for I used to work for Viacom for years and they own Paramount Pictures among others so I went along to the premiere of Mother because I worked for Viacom and I got you know got free ticket to a premiere and I was really

enjoying being on the red carpet and I was you know looking at Jennifer Lawrence arrive and at the time she was dating Aronofsky who directed it and I was you know looking at Jennifer Lawrence arrive and at the time she was dating Aronofsky who directed it and I was like oh this is so exciting I hadn't even stopped to find out what the film was because it wasn't out by then obviously it was just launching and I absolutely hate horror films and I hate thrillers so it wasn't my best kind of film but it was just absolutely shit it was um it's yeah it's Jenniferennifer laura and i don't think it did that well so lots of people probably won't have seen it or might not even know of it but it was on general release a couple of years ago and jennifer lawrence and javier bardem live in this kind of um remote

it's a bit like a sort of amicable horror type idea so they're in this remote house and then the house becomes like an evil person and he's like a writer with writer's block and i think she can't get pregnant and the house starts doing weird and evil things and then michelle pfeiffer appears i can't remember why but it ends it ends up with these really quite gruesome scenes and and then at the end there's this massive like apocalypse and there's like hundreds of horrific people all in the house and then there's military devastation and and apparently there was some sort of biblical allegory they were trying to depict the whole thing was an absolute shit show of chaos uh and it was yeah i could not believe that anyone had

properly seriously made that movie and thought that people might like it it didn't actually get terrible reviews it was even nominated for something i think at the venice film festival but i bloody hated it. It sounds so stressful. It sounds like there's so much going on in this horrible, scary world. It just sounds like it would really raise my blood pressure. Which I guess it's intended to. Yeah, it was exhausting.

Well, I think that with horror. Don't you think with horror films? I mean, I did like The Joker, which obviously is quite horrific. The recent Joker with, however you pronounce his name, Phoenix. So I don't mind something that's got some quite, and I like all the Tarantino. So I'm all right with a bit of violence and a bit of tension. But it was very stressful. You hit the nail on the head.

Yeah. I needed a lie down afterwards. I just find as life goes on and people will say this is a bit closedminded, but, you know, I've done all the day's work. I've dealt with my son. He's in bed. I just want to do something that's not going to keep me awake, you know, that's going to relax me and be mindless, you know, mindless soup for me to eat.

And so my brain isn't filled with crap and I can sleep a bit before it's time to start the whole fucking process again. And maybe that makes me narrow-minded. But sometimes I just want sweet, sweet respite from everything that's happened so far you've basically just said my whole life is a horror story have you met my son uh I need light relief because the next day I'll be back into the horror movie myself maybe you it's more that I'm just very lazy you know he's adorable he's wonderful my job isn't even very difficult I think I'm just very lazy so when it's uh when the when the lights go down you wouldn't want to be scared no you're right and

actually um I mean this is the sort of thing you know you know when you go to the cinema and something's kind of shit enough that you almost think you'll walk out uh and I definitely would have walked out but for the fact that I worked for them and I was sitting with loads of like decision makers at Paramount Pictures so I couldn't even go this is a load of shit i had to sit there with a face that looked enraptured and stay there to the end and go to a drinks thing with people who were something to do with it afterwards and it was awful so um if i hadn't already left viacom i think after this i would have had to leave so but now that i'm out the other side of working for them i can confess to the fact i thought it was one of my

all-time shittest movies I've ever seen yeah well fair enough it does sound horrendous though but definitely definitely not going to be watching it but yeah I mean being stuck with that I mean after the sing songs let's all settle down to a nice movie and it's that oh just dreadful and I imagine watching a film with a bunch of actors as well is probably really annoying because they'll even if you hate it they'll be telling you why you're wrong and things like that and talking about lighting. And at least three of them will have been up for Jennifer Lawrence's part and not got it. So it'll be really triggering for them that they have to watch it.

So, you know, it's like that as a comedian, isn't it? And you see someone who got the gig you were meant to get and you can barely watch them. So, yeah, it would cause it would wreak havoc among the 25 celebrities. And it would also it's the sort of thing you would have on a plane, isn't it? You know, it would be on there. It would have gone straight to in-flight entertainment. So I've got no doubt it would be available. Now, finally, the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals.

Which animal is it and why? It's the naked mole rat. Yes. Are you familiar with the naked mole rat i am familiar with with their work i think i've seen the program on them so it does what it says on the tin doesn't it exactly and you might if you've watched a program on them you know more about them than me but i just know that when we used to go my son's now a zookeeper and when we used to go to um we spent a lot of time going to zoos he's autistic and his obsession of choice was always

animals so there's not a lot i haven't seen of any zoo in this country and probably most zoos in in other countries and um and we always used to go around the um i don't know if it's i think it's called bugs life or something at london zoo i don't know if it still is it was opened like i don't know about 15 years ago and it it had all these like butterflies and jellyfish and little tamarind monkeys. And it was a sort of nice indoor bit, which had lots of interactive things. So, you know, as a parent, you're like really relieved when your kid gets somewhere that's child friendly and they can just do shit. And you might even get to finish a cup of coffee or something while they do shit. So I was always really happy to get into that particular place.

But you go around the first corner i don't know if they're still there and then there were all these like there were all these like um sand tunnels uh and then you know with the glass cutting halfway through the tunnel so you could see into the tunnels otherwise it would be a shit display and then these naked mole rats which basically look i think the without putting too fine a point on it they look like little sort of penises uh with with uh yeah that point on it they look like little sort of penises uh with with uh yeah that's basically what they look like little phallic little weird looking if you imagine a mole with no skin crossed with a penis would you say that's a fair yeah but with sort of

rodent teeth on the front and then horrible buck rodent teeth on the front so if you imagine putting buck teeth on the end of any given penis and sticking it in a in a tunnel at a zoo and think whether you'd like to see that i didn't like seeing that no they kind of look like they're not finished you know like lots of animals start off looking like that you know like you see the young rodent without you know and it's sort of it looks sort of embryonic or something like and and or like baby kangaroos they start off not looking like a kangaroo they're like an embryo and then they crawl into the pouch and finish growing and it looks like that it looks like it's come out too early and it hasn't got all the fur yet yeah it's crawled into the pouch and come out too soon i

think yeah yeah definitely and it looks and some things like we had a little um baby great tit that fell into our garden yesterday and it was really cute things like we had a little um baby great tit that fell into our garden yesterday and it was really cute and like most baby animals they make them cute don't they say that everybody can like kids they make them cute enough that you don't just go do you know what i'm leaving you at the 134 bus stop because i've had it so and obviously you'd really have to you know the naked the naked mole rats got a face that only a mother could love i think it's fair to say yeah what did you did you learn anything in the program you saw about them because i don't even know what they do or why no it was a long time ago i just i just i've got a very distinct

image of what they look like and i know they burrow in sand they have sandy burrows but i don't know many many good facts about them because i think i don't know i wasn't that eager to find out more you know it's like here's this horrific looking thing i'll tell me more you're like no i'll find out something about whales or something instead i think they have um yeah well you're very wise i think to cut off the naked mole rat as quickly as you because i think on and i also think on an island because i've seen them burrowing in in sort of sandy crevices i reckon they'd be everywhere on an island like that and then imagine seeing those horrible little phallus uh rats phallic rats poking imagine that imagine you're trying to have a little bit of a sleep and up pops a phallic rat it would be yeah very upsetting they're small

i should add for anyone else i mean they're only i'd say they're sort of about as long as your finger they're not big i don't know if that makes it worse or not you know some animals are sort of less scary when they're slightly bigger i don't know yeah just the idea of lots of these little things like you at least if they're big you could avoid it i don't know this yeah they're not they're not one of uh god's great great master strokes are they and imagine if you put imagine if there was one at the end of your espadrille you put your foot into your espadrille i'm assuming you'd have an espadrille and there'd be a naked mole rat so and i don't suspect you could even eat them so some some animals that are dicks you'd be like well they're dicks but they're providing us with great food

you could not there's no meat on a naked mole rat no no there's yeah it's pointless pointless rubbish they're barely a meatball exactly um well i think that's a very good choice for something awful to overrun the island with and coupled with all your other choices i think that's a very good choice for something awful to overrun the island with and coupled with all your other choices i think you've made for a terrible place to spend the rest of your life which means you've succeeded beautifully in the brief so uh well done and thank you very much for coming on today and before we go is there uh where can people sort of see or hear more from you at the minute well that is a very good i put a tweet out this morning saying that of my eight gigs in august four have been cancelled because

of covid lack of funds and ticket sales so sadly like all comics it's quite hard to see me live at the moment but anything i am doing live is on my website gallibeaton.com but i am doing lots of other things i'm doing various bits of radio i did a of radio. I've done a bit of telly. I've got a book I'm writing and a new podcast I'm going to be launching. So yeah, the best thing is to follow me on social media at Callie Beaton on all the usual outlets. So I've got a few things on the bubble,

but not as much live work as I'd like, like the rest of us. Okay. Well, thank you anyway for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure. And thanks for sharing your dicks with us thanks for having me