Desert Island Dicks - FERN BRADY, LIVE!

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

The excellent Fern Brady, live at 21 Soho - enjoy! Come see Lou Sanders in Kings Cross on the 4th of Feb: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/qE9cZT4E82 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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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. Well, here we are then sometime in the year 2022. Who knows what day or time it is, but we are here. And what I know from previous starts of years, previous Januaries, is that we all need something to cheer us up and to buoy our spirits because, you know, it takes its toll, doesn't it? The constant drinking and eating and now you're left in this void and you don't know if you're still allowed to have a drink at 11 in the morning or not hell maybe that's just me but look this is an episode of desert island dicks featuring fern brady it was our first desert island dicks live that we did back in early december and it's

a beauty so i hope you enjoyed this one because we enjoyed it a lot. And after you've listened to this, you might think, hey, I need something to cheer me up in January. And that live show certainly sounded like a good time. Well, if that's you, then I've got some great news for you because we're doing another one at the beginning of February. The 4th of February is a Friday night at 2 North Down in Kings Cross, London. And it features the very wonderful and incredible Lou Sanders. So it's going to be a really good one. You know, it'll be like the first Friday night after January's finished. We'll all have got paid.

I mean, what better way is there to celebrate the end of January? I think this is a good thing. It will keep us going through the toughest month of the year and then we can all come together, have a laugh and a drink and then London is your oyster or the rest of the country if you want to take a train from King's Cross which is nearby and very

well connected. Okay, so there you go. I'm going to shut up now but if you are interested then you can get tickets from the link in the description of this podcast or the link which is also in our socials at dixpod on twitter and instagram or you can even google the two north down website and get them there okay here's a taste of what you're in for this is fern brady at desert island dicks live Hello. My name's Dan Benedictus and welcome to Desert Island Dicks Live. Thank you. It's 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 Fern Brady. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Hello. How you doing? Good. That was a nice posh hello from one member of the audience.

Hiya. You OK? Yeah, good, thanks. So we're about to share, well, your desert islandics, the worst people and worst things to be stuck with. Do you find that easy as a person to just sort of rant about things that you hate? Yeah, I send you my choices pretty much immediately.

Yeah. When you phoned to do the research chat, I started off telling you my least favourite people straight away. Did I not? You seem like a natural, and that's kind of why we booked you. You're in the right place. And how many people in the audience work in radio and know the people I'm going to talk about?

There's a smattering, I think. We'll see the reaction. You look like you work in media. I do. No, the audience. It's kind of like saying you look like a wanker. I mean, it's fine. No, we can all be wankers

together. That's what we're in Soho for. It's a safe space for wankers. Well, let's just get stuck into it then. Who's going to be your first choice? Frank Skinner. Frank Skinner. OK.

Taboo. Frank Skinner, the lovely, avuncular Frank Skinner. What have you got against Frank Skinner? Why do you think he'd be a terrible, terrible person to be stuck with? I never met him, never worked with him. I didn't tell my agent that I was going to say this on the podcast, so he's going to be delighted. Basically, I heard him on...

I never liked him when I was a child, watching him on telly or anything. I just got bad vibes off him. And then I heard him on Radio 4 recently, and I don't trust comedians that are religious. I was brought up really strictly Catholic and Frank Skinner chooses to be a Catholic now, even though he's an adult

and no one's making him go to church. So he was on Radio 4 telling this guy really confidently that when he prays, he believes that he's literally talking to God. And then the interviewer gave him a sort of get out by saying oh do you think maybe prayer is a bit like meditation and you talking to god is actually talking to sort of inner wisdom within yourself and frank skinner was like no no i'm talking to god i'm talking directly to the big man in the sky and And I just found that amazing

that he could say that and not be totally embarrassed. Yeah. I've got a feeling, and I'd have to check this, but I'm sure he came to it quite late as well, which is even more surprising. Those are always the ones that are the most enthusiastic. But you know when something makes less sense? Like, I've got a friend who, for all our childhood, smoked he never gave into peer pressure and he went to university at 19 just

started smoking and never stopped and you know when you're like this is the wrong time to start this thing like it doesn't make any sense now you're grown up like surely you can see it's stupid now do you know what i mean yeah it's quite a weird comparison if i I'm honest. But you sort of see what I'm getting to. It's just that comedians who are religious as well are found very suspicious. It just kind of makes me question all the other stuff that they're saying, if they have such a childlike belief system. I also have a thing where the people that...

I mean, he's a massively popular skilled stand-up, but there's, I remember one of the worst one-night stands I ever had was with this very English blokey bloke that said mate about 15 times in a sentence. And I remember waking up next to him and I felt his big chunky Kit Kat fingers touch my shoulder.

And as I opened my eyes, I just saw all of Frank Skinner's biographies on his bookshelf. So it's like the type of English man that likes him is also why I don't like him. So let's picture the two of you on a desert island together. So, I mean, you know, there's going to be, like, basic survival needs. I think it's going to be distracting if, like, you know there's going to be like basic survival needs i think it's going to be distracting if like you're kind of going right let's make a shelter and he's like he's doing a rosary yeah he's trying to make the water holy or something it's like no that's not only

drinking water come on frank turn it turn these loaves into 40 loaves or whatever do the the wine and fish thing that Jesus did. Yeah, so I think it's an awkward choice. Also, he's always wearing a suit, so I think he's going to get quite hot and bothered quite quickly. I think it's a strong first choice. Who's going to join the two of you? Holly, Willoughby and Philip Schofield.

OK, so, like, co-joined. If I'm allowed to have them as one person. We'll have them as a unit, like a Jedward, sort of. Yes. A daytime Jedward. Together, Jedward have got really political on Twitter recently, by the way. They started, someone else has noticed this. Yeah, they started promising to say some home truths

about the entertainment industry and got, they're following them on Twitter. It got really interesting. But anyway, Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield, they're two of on twitter it got really interesting but anyway um holly willoughby and philip schofield are two of the most sinister people i've broadcast and i've ever come across and if you're if you're middle class and you work in the media in britain you can get away with like doing and saying really mad things uh and just the way they interviewed loads of so-called benefits scroungers on their couch ten years ago. And do you know what I mean?

They were really horrible to people when benefits were getting cut. And then the other week they had a thing where they made a feature of a piece where a woman had had cancer and couldn't pay her heating bill. So this morning let her win a competition where she could pay for her heating, and that was meant to be a poignant thing. The programme this morning is everything that's wrong about Britain. I don't mind Dermot O'Leary and Alison Hammond.

They're great. Dermot O'Leary follows me on Instagram, so he's obviously a good person. So, yeah, I don't know. I know what you mean about them being creepy because it's like... It feels like afterwards they go home and they go to sleep in a box that's like a life-size airfix kit.

Do you know what I mean? They just press themselves back into the plastic mould and then they're popped out again in the morning. Why? Do you know what I mean? Massive Tories. And the more Philip's followed the 5-2 diet as well the more Phillips being

fasted and you can tell he has like absolute seething contempt for fat people like he never says it when he interviews them on the show but he's oh Christ he's just such a terrifying man and it's weird how they're held up as these

I mean I don't know how other people view them um if the if the nation generally thinks of them as these warm lovely people um but i just find them very sinister yeah okay so we've got the two of them on an island i imagine that i mean you're there with them and frank skinner who also does a bit of presenting so it's going to be like you're sort of like the unwanted guest on the sofa a lot of the time that you're spending together, isn't it? And you never quite know which way they're going to go. Like some days it's like, here's Fern.

She tried to get water out of a coconut for two days and failed. Well, today we're giving her an opened coconut. It'd be terrible, man. Here's Fern. She's wasted all these fucking nuts. If you ever saw when Vanessa Phelps went mental in Big Brother, that'd be

me. Drawing messages in lipstick. Carving deceit into a palm tree or something like that. Guess what? I met her at something. She's actually amazing. Vanessa Phelps? She's one of the soundest people.

Oh, really? That's quite reassuring. She demanded the runner get us a plate of cheese, straws and grapes and she was like, where's my fucking cheese? And then got them to bring it over and then just didn't eat any of it. I just thought it was really entertaining.

Now you say that, it's like the least surprising thing though i mean like of course she demanded that i mean no but i never she's very very funny nice lady i thought you were going to say cheese straws and gravy and i'm like wow oh my god that's nuts um but yeah fair enough okay so you've already got like a weird setup now with like a few people who could turn very easily and decide to like you or not like you depending on their whim who's going to be the third well the fourth person joining the group of you on the island well this was hard to pick because it's because there's so many of

them but um it's Tess Holliday who's an influencer influencer, an Instagram influencer. I think she's most well-known because she was on the cover of Cosmopolitan. She's a plus-size woman, and I think it all got debated by Piers Morgan and the media. That's not why I don't like her. I generally don't like influencers because they seem to post a lot of stuff that's like a mix of uh eastern spirituality mixed with narcissism

mixed with stuff calling themselves a goddess and a lot of chat about self-care and then when you meet influencers in real life they're these really miserable people that won't even look you in the eye and um like if you've ever met any big famous influencers they're really and they've got these mad faces that look amazing on Instagram but then look really strange in person

so Tess Holliday annoys me a lot because she'll post a lot of stuff like F your beauty standards because because she's fat but then she has lip fillers cheek fillers botox and lives up to every other feminine beauty ideal um she's just a very angry person but then claims to be happy all the time and that's the gist of a lot of influencers i like there's a woman called celeste barber that takes the piss out of all those sorts of influencers if you've yeah australian women

she's good yeah i think just the idea of being stuck with someone that self-obsessed without an outlet on a desert island when all their channels have shut down she'd be well if she had her phone she'd be trying to make the whole experience go viral rather than helping us start a fire. I don't think it would stop them, though. Even if the phone wasn't working, they'd just be like chipping away at a rock until it was an iPhone shape

and then just sort of like, sorry, you're in my light. But now you say that, maybe all that creativity because it wasn't getting channeled under the phone maybe they would be the most useful person out of everyone i mean i'd say that would be true if they if it was sort of like a genuine useful creativity if it was kind of like oh i used to be a carpenter or like i used to be an art a sculptor but now i can sculpt this into a shelter

but it's like what do you do? You kind of go today I've been sponsored to tell you about this pencil like it's not transferable do you know what I mean? They have no CV because it's like I was 18, I became an influencer done there's nothing transferable other than I breathe oxygen in which case in your scenario

it's kind of competing against... Oh, I disagree with that. But I'm saying that because I've done a couple of paid placement adverts on my Instagram. But, you know, photography skills. Makeup skills. There's lots of transferable skills. But not for the island.

Writing the text underneath the post i just think on the island though it's like oh yeah sorry on the islands yeah they can maybe i know what's wrong with you for and you've had a grilling from those guys on the sofa but i'm gonna turn your life around and i've made like a little face pack out of these sort of like coconut husks and and then maybe then you would feel like a million dollars for one day and it would be okay but in general i, you know, I just don't think they're going to help you that much. Oh, okay.

I don't know. And also then they're going to set off the other interview, you know, they're going to set off Frank and Holly and everyone going, so what do you actually do? What do you actually do? And you make how much? I just think it's going to be an awkward atmosphere. And you're going to have to protect them

because you're going to feel bad for them against the onslaught of the daytime TV people. Out of everyone, I think Holly Willoughby would be the toughest and the most resourceful, actually. You think? Yeah, she has a hardness underneath her sort of beautiful, polished exterior. Yeah.

I think she'd definitely be the one that sort of... Because also, her and Philip, they are that type of person that is absolutely in love with... They probably have keep calm and carry on signs in their house, or at least a tote bag that says it somewhere. They absolutely want to shag the concept of World War II and that sort of notion of Britishness that doesn't exist. Yeah, well I think you've

picked quite a good mélange of, I don't know if that's the right word, I don't know where that came from, a good selection of people. Mélange. Mélange, is that the right word? You know, I haven't been in Soho in a long time and it's a powerful vibe, I don't know, something happens, it's just so awful.

Anyway, look. Mercifully, amongst the wreckage of the plane, 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? Oh, pate. Pate.

Yeah. Lovely minced up, chopped, reformed livers. What's wrong with you? Creamed, pureed animal animal organs we're coming up to christmas now and more people are going to be eating it just the smell of it on someone else's breath is like even just imagining it it makes me it makes my stomach turn it's so awful yeah it's a weird thing isn't it because it is just mashed up organs reformed into a paste but sometimes it's exotic like you know it's like oh it's marmalade glazed reformed organs

in a paste they don't put that on the packet obviously i'm a vegetarian and i don't even like the vegetarian recreations of it um they're vegetarian pates yeah yeah but i don't even like the vegetarian recreations of it. Are there vegetarian patties? Yeah, yeah, but I don't even like seeing it. The worst is seeing someone chew up a cracker with patty or bread with patty and seeing it through their open mouth. It's horrible. Give me a cheer if you guys like patty. Ooh, lots of you! Why? it's tasty

the texture is so smooth smooth meat you can it's horrible you can get chunkier ones as well can't you depending on how hardcore what cat food

yeah it's not chunky ones I think you get sort of more chunky ones or is that what are the chunks it's the same mash not slightly less mashed up shit I do I even I mean the whole patty family that I don't like um terrine either, salmon, mousse, any of that, because we're coming up to that season of all those kinds of salmon, mousse, and patty, and the mackerel stuff as well. That's a thing. Yeah, yeah. But the tension makes me feel like you all like it,

and you all stuff your mouths with it and have just open mouths filled with patty, smooth, creamy organs. See, I'm sort of on the fence. I don't hate it, but it's very difficult to make a case for it. Someone on our Instagram recently said,

oh, you just agree with everything. And it's like, because you're making a really good case, how can I now go, oh, these delicious, creamy organs, but when you spread them on a bit of like there's no you can't you can't make a case for it being nice because even it shouldn't have the texture i don't want meat to have the texture of like smooth creamy galaxy chocolate it's wrong is there is it maybe could they administer it in a different way like i don't know there's no there's

no you can't do anything with it you can't administer it like i have before i was vegetarian i had eaten animal organs whole and that's preferable but you still get like arteries or veins or something in them um yeah let's not forget this is going to be airplane pate as well that you're stuck with. Is that a thing? No, you've crashed the context. This pretend framework, we're hanging it off. But I imagine on a plane, it would probably come out of those little UHT little things.

Well, that's good because there would be a small serving of it. You just pop it out like a little ice cube of lung. No, it's liver, isn't it? Anyway, okay, well, that's so good. Serving of it. Pop it out like a little ice cube of lung or something. No, it's liver, isn't it? Anyway, okay, well, that's a good... I bet, I think as well, Frank Skinner, he must love pate. Oh, he loves it! Frank Skinner, he's got potted meats, hasn't he? He's like, oh, shrimp...

He loves it. He's got like some crab paste or something. He's like the poster boy for that kind of thing, I think. He loves it, man. You can imagine the influencer trying to do a blog like scratching it into a rock because there's nowhere to publish the blog but about how like a pate only diet for 30 days is good for your complexion or something like that a pate now wouldn't be an instagrammable food actually it never comes up on on instagram i mean there's other foods that i hate

we can add one in if you'd like. Anything, the layer of gelatine that comes up in sliced ham. Pate's friend. Yeah. I mean, the jelly's on the pate as well. They're close bedfellows, aren't they? Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's,

a lot of this is a big reason why I'm a vegetarian is just all the mad, unnatural stuff like jelly and meat. So we're going to give you a nice pate with a big layer of jelly on top. So that when you slice it, there's a nice sort of... Or like in a pork pie where there's a layer of gelatin between the pork and the pastry.

Okay, what are you going to wash it down with? What's your drink choice? Any alcohol I don't really like this is a controversial choice i'm sure as i look at everyone drinking christmas time in britain and you don't like lovely lovely booze it's fair yeah it's no it's fine just doesn't suit me i'm not um i'm not like clean living by any means um but it's just not a drug that suits me I mean like I took MDMA on Saturday and the worst that happened was um I started replying really earnestly to everyone's tweets on my timeline and I also I live in Catford in Southeast London, and we should all be on ecstasy in Catford

because you don't feel frightened anymore of all the maniacs in Catford. You just look into people's faces and you just see pain and hurt and you feel compassion. I was like, I felt like a Buddhist monk. I had a great interaction getting the bus home because a guy tried to do that sort of sexist like benevolent thing of going no after you as i got on the bus i went after you sir after you and insisted that he got

on the bus before me um fantastic a great night listening to massive attack getting the bus from crystal palace to catford um where his, it just makes me feel sick. It has millions of calories in it. Like, I'm from a country where everyone drinks excessively and they all look like fat-melted candles. Like, everyone in Scotland just ages prematurely from drinking too much. So I have really really really conservative views

on drink well yeah but you've coupled it with like very tolerant views on class A drugs well that's why I felt like I had to say that you know like you're not sort of being too you know it's okay but you know I feel like there'd be more empathy for me if I was a recovering alcoholic

because people have more sympathy then because they go, ah, you understand how great drink is then. You just can't do it anymore. Whereas I've never got into it and I tried but I just can't get into it. I think a big thing is

I've never struggled to say what I think and I don't need alcohol to make me a slut. So then in Britain I mean British people are so repressed that that's kind of alcohol's main function isn't it? To tell people who you think are a cunt

to finally tell them they're a cunt and to have sex with people that are embarrassingly ugly I guess. That's why people need alcohol. So I've never really felt I need it for that. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad. Reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Lips and 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. I mean, you make a good case for not needing it. I mean, I can't argue with that. I mean, you're going to be sharing the island with Frank Skinner. Again, he's a teetotaler now.

Well, we could bond over that. Yeah, but he's a former alcoholic, so he's going to say, coming from different angles, I'm quite an alcohol fan, but I find now, increasingly, it's just making me worse and worse. And I'm like, I don't want to give it up

because it tastes nice. But I mean, I'm not drinking to excess. I'm just in my house. It's all I've got to do because I've got kids. Getting to eat. and all i do oh no the thing is alcohol makes me even more tired weed is like even more it's like i can't you know no you need the right um there's strains that make you feel more awake i'm a big stoner and i hate when people tell me they can't get into weed um weed because they feel paranoid

because I'm like when you first started drinking you probably weren't very good at that I mean if you look at a Saturday night in London a lot of people aren't very good at drinking but they persist with it week after week whereas with weed a lot of people have never really given it the chance yes there's a bit at the start when you first smoke it where you look around the room at your friends and you think,

I should murder all of you. That's just the first bit. You have to ride that out and then the good bit happens after that. OK, well, we'll have to have a chat afterwards then. Because, you know, I want to be an open-minded guy and I do love my children, so, you know, I'll just give it a go. OK, well, yeah, booze and pate join you. Do you know what?

It's accidentally quite a Christmassy choice. Yeah, yeah. You know, for the 1st of December, so, yeah, well done. OK, now, Fern, fortunately, you won't be without entertainment on the island. The Plains Entertainment System continues to work, but just your luck, it only has two working settings. One is your least favourite song of all time,

and the other is your least favourite film. What are they and why? My least favourite song is the one where the woman goes, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey, hey, hey. I said hey. Four Non Blondes.

Four Non Blondes. I think it's called that doesn't sound anything like the song did it sounds enough like it she has such a bad voice she shouldn't sing but she I mean

she writes songs she's like a famous songwriter that's the annoying thing isn't it when like because I lived through a time of working in radio

when they played a fuck of a lot of Scouting for Girls and then they finally went away. And then you find out like, oh no, but the guy's actually very successful. He's writing for One Direction now. And so he stopped and now he's even richer.

What the fuck is going on? It's so frustrating. Yeah. I don't begrudge our songwriting career at all. I actually went back to the song recently and I watched the music video for the first time for the Four Non-Blondes song because I felt guilty for some reason

that I hated it so much because a lot of people like it, I think. Or do you like it? Does anyone like it? Yeah, I think it's a song that really divides people rather than one that everyone hates. But I watched it and I still don't like it. I just don't like the sound of it.

She's got quite an abrasive voice. And isn't it in the song she's like, I wake up and I step outside and I take a deep breath and then she goes, hey. And if you knew someone who did that, if that was real, if that's based on personal experience and that's your neighbour, you'd be like, this is unbearable. Again.

And then your friends would stay over and it's like, did you hear that thing this morning? Oh, yeah. I don't hear it anymore. It's like a train going past. It's like but like seriously it's like do they tell you when you bought that and they didn't tell me when she was out then obviously i wasn't do you know what i mean it's like so it's it's unrealistic if anything to continue the christmas theme the other song i don't like uh that i said to you was my initial choice is um fairy tale of new york which is also divisive yeah why are you

gross you love it that's what i'm saying yeah i know a lot of people love it but i don't look i mean neither of them were irish and they're singing in this irishy way um but that's not why i don't like it my boyfriend's Irish, and one time we had a big fight in a Starbucks in Dublin, in Temple Bar, which is like the really touristy bit of Dublin. And I hate the feeling of doing things in time to music. And we seemed... The fairy tale of New York came on, and it was Christmas,

and I flung a suitcase across the Starbucks at him, and we were fighting in imperfect time to the song so it also has a really bad memory associated with it I bet all the onlookers were like this is just fucking brilliant oh yeah everyone was like New York came on these couple were arguing it was beautiful yeah wonderful it was like yeah I mean because now it's a bit tricky isn't it because there's like you know misogyny and like you know she uses bad words against him doesn't she you have to censor it now

so now it's like oh you know sorry I've just realised another reason I probably feel funny about that song when I was a child they used to repeat the same documentary about Christmas songs every single year. And they always had that song in it as number one.

But then the crucial bit of the story of that song was they always said the woman in it died in a tragic water ski accident. So I can't hear the... Wasn't that how she died? Yeah. So I can't hear the song without thinking of, like, don't go water skiing, friend. I didn't hear the song without thinking of like don't go water skiing friend um I didn't know that and I almost went that's amazing and then I didn't say now I've just said it anyway

so I think because it's so strongly linked with water ski deaths I can't I don't hear it and feel Christmassy I mean water skiing is one of the least Christmassy outdoor activities, isn't it? Well, not if you're rich. A Christmas person, you know, you have to live your art. Not like the four non-blondes women. My favourite Christmas song, sorry,

is called We're All Going to Die Alone by Malcolm Middleton. He's a Scottish guy that was in the band Arab Strap. You should look it up on YouTube when you get home. I think just the idea of being stuck on an island with Christmas music is just such an insane... Like, just imagining you sort of, like, slowly perishing,

but there's a Christmas music, like, soundtrack the whole time just adds an extra layer of insanity that I really like. That and also Four Non Blondes I like the idea of Four Non Blondes wakes you up every day and then Fairytale of New York kicks in and that's your existence what film are you going to watch to try and distract yourself

from the incessant music Manchester by the Sea or Marriage Story they both fall into the category of stories for me that are about just like straight people's pain

and straight men suffering in silence and that's meant to be something I'm interested in or care about I could watch films over and over again about feisty, working class women going on a journey, preferably with a bit of shagging somewhere

in the middle. And then there's some redemption at the end and they escape their small town life. Manchester by the Sea, I watched because a lot of people I knew recommended it. My boyfriend said it was good and then it was just like this guy

is in pain but he's really manly and he can't express or articulate that pain. Couldn't give a shit mate. There's enough films about men's lives. I just want to watch stuff about women. Similarly Marriage Story

well wasn't that just because that guy thought that his divorce was interesting and he happened to be a film director so he made a film about it. I mean it looks like I mean like both characters like one's an actor and the other's maybe also an actor or he's a set designer or something. It's like can't you just be like average people

having a fucking like. Well but he was married, that director was married to Jennifer Jason Leigh and they got a divorce, so I figured it was about that. But surely the last thing you want to do is write over it. I just...

You see the trailers. I don't understand seeing the trailer for either of those films and going, yeah, no, that looks good. That's the one. You watch the trailer for Manchester by the Sea and there's a bit where there's just two of them in an alley crying.

They're like, you've been through so much and so have I and you go Friday night we've got to put something on like why not that I think they're popular films but I don't it's just

there's fun films there are good films out there like I mean maybe it is a good I just don't understand it I mean you know like i host a light-hearted podcast so obviously you know like my radar's skewed but like i don't know it feels serious it feels like a lot of my choices have been divisive uh really the division has been between the stage and the audience i feel like you love patty and I know a lot of people loved Marriage Story. But I don't like when there's someone

who's got a lot of money and access to the film industry then just makes a film about some boring thing that happened in their life. Another film that's in that vein is, I think it was called Beautiful Boy. And it's just about this rich guy and his son's a drug addict and then he tries to help him get better from being a drug

addict. It's the most boring film about drug addiction ever. The guy that was in, what's his name? Steve? Yeah, yeah Steve Carell's in it and I think Timothy, little Timothy Jalame. Oh, little Timothy. It's just, do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I know, that sounds like a very... Steve Carell being a funny person for a long time and having to do the opposite of it to be serious, right? Yeah. It's kind of like, what's the least funny thing I can do? Like, help my son get through a drug problem. Yeah. So no-one laughs, it's not funny.

Well, because... Do a funny voice, that's better. You know, like he was in Hotel Trans... No, what was it he did? Hotel Transylvania? Oh, Despicable Me. That's more funny. Come on, Steve, do the funny voice. But wait, because you asked me about films that I hate,

and I kept thinking of... I mean, there's a lot of films I hate watch, but then if you... Because I said Richard Curtis films initially because they show a version of London that I've never really come across the whole time I've lived here but then I have watched Notting Hill loads

and there's a lot of sort of romance films that I'll claim to hate but I watch them a lot like I just watched this great one on Netflix called Me Before You it's basically like a big advert for Dignitas.

Who's the girl that's in Game of Thrones? She's really fit. Right, Emilia Clarke's in it and then this guy, he's in a wheelchair and he's paralysed and Emilia Clarke's really, really cheerful and then the paralysed guy is really posh and uptight and he's a horrible bastard.

Emilia Clarke has to go and work as his carer and the whole time the guy wants to go to Dignitas. Sorry. This was like a blockbuster film. This was a blockbuster film. And they fall in love and And then in the end, a horrific game of Thrones accompanies him. A dignitas.

Then he gives her all his money. Nice. That's meant to be a nice ending. Is that not... Whenever they talk about legalising euthanasia, that's always the worry they've got, that people's carers are going to con them out with their money. It's so good.

I just watched it. I just watched it for like the third time because I saw that they'd put it on Netflix. And I put it on for my boyfriend and I said, wait till you see this. And he said, I don't want to watch it. You've told me about it in detail

many, many times and it also upholds these insane stereotypes about what working class people and what posh people are like in Britain like the posh people are totally rigid and unable to express emotion and then the working class people

in the film, at one point Emilia Clarke is like, oh grandad thank you for making this present. We are poor but we all make presents for each other from scratch. It's so good. And it's called Me Before You.

Me Before You. Going to Dignitas You Before Me. Because love is about putting yourself before others. Until it comes to who's going into Dignitas first. I think it would be a good film for the island because we're going to have to get used to the idea of death pretty quickly. Yeah, but you like that film, so you can't get that.

You can only get Manchester by the Sea and I've heard a blank. The other one. Marriage Story. Marriage Story. So, yeah, in-depth, sad films for you, I'm afraid. Okay, well, they were well argued. But finally, the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals. Which animal is it and why?

Well, this is one that would actually be near the island. It's a dolphin. I'm frightened of them. Frightened of the the lovely smiley dolphin well no their smile is like have you ever met a person that can't stop smiling but their eyes are dead that's what a dolphin's like

and I had the opportunity well so called opportunity given they rape humans and kill them for fun do they not I think I've heard about them raping each other oh well I don't know they they rape humans and kill them for fun do they not i think i've heard about them raping each other yeah oh well i don't know they might rape humans i don't know there's a lot of vulnerable people go swimming with them don't they it's like their final wish so i mean there's a chance uh when i was on holiday with my family when i was a teenager and uh they were like oh

we're all gonna go swimming with. And my dad wouldn't do it because he has quite rigid ideas about masculinity as a Scottish man. So dad wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it because I thought dolphins were evil. One of my brothers is weird and he said it was exploitative, which is fair. So it ended up just being my my youngest brother and my mum uh sort

of rode the backs of dolphins and the dolphins did tricks and they made a video of the whole thing um and i remember the the good thing though was um whenever i used to have house parties as a teenager i would put on this video of my mum swimming with dolphins because me and my friends loved to laugh at it and we would just rewind it over and over again. It's difficult saying against dolphins but I think they're not that nice.

There is some real bastard-y behaviour with them and I think it's like whenever you get, because they're very intelligent aren't they? That's what we hear. Like, dolphins are so clever. And I think as soon as you get an animal that's a bit clever, it turns into a bit of a cunt. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, Mark Zuckerberg's clever. Yeah. I don't want to be pals with him either. Or ride his back. Whatever people do with dolphins. Do the funny clicking sound, Mark. Maybe that's how they communicate at Facebook. It wouldn't surprise me.

Okay, and the sea is full of these dolphins, we're going to say. And I don't know, can you even eat them? Are they any use? I don't think you can. Maybe there's that one island somewhere that now and again you see a petition and it's like, stop all these islanders killing all the dolphins. I don't know what they do with them, though. I don't think they're useful.

No, I don't think people eat them. They just kill them. Yeah, don't they get stuck in nets or something? They're big noses. Not so clever now, Mr Dolphin. Yeah, OK. Well, I mean, I like anything that's a slightly controversial choice, so I think it's a good choice to round out your island.

And I think you've put together a really good selection of hateful people and things that I think together are going to make a really uh awkward melange i don't know what the word is um anyway but i think you've done a superb job now what one thing that we like to do uh on desert island dicks is we have a companion podcast called compact dicks which is where the listeners or audience get to have a say on who and what they think is a dick. And I believe that there have been some cards going around. Here is James, and he's got some listener suggestions. Not listening, you're an audience, it's real.

But you are listening, right? Can you hear me? OK, we've got some to go through. People who wish happy birthday or anniversary to their partner on social media that they live with. Oh. That's a good call. And I'd go one further, the newest thing, wishing happy birthday to yourself on social

media. Do people do that? Well, I don't know if it's just because everyone I know is a comedian and a massive narcissist. Yeah, people do. People wish happy birthday to themselves and then do a bit of a reflection on the year jesus christ i've got one says hancock beat to death with coconut i imagine it's matt hancock yeah matt hancock that's uh well that's mad because i was just

thinking about him today because um yeah the new health secretary was on the radio and i thought what's matt hancock up to these days and also i'd been in oliver bonus earlier in the week and i thought about poor poor old mr oliver bonus because that was the guy that um matt hancock was pumping his wife wasn't it i know his name's not literally Oliver Bonas, I'll just call him that. Anyway, why did you put him down? Just because it'd be quite satisfying to beat him to death with a coconut.

Yeah. Do I have to repeat that bit? If you can't pick that up on the mic, you said it'd be satisfying to beat him to death with a coconut. And I think that does bear repeating. And if you've ever tried to open a coconut it probably still wouldn't split on his head no but i mean hancock's head would break first yeah you just have to keep trying though you know god loves a trier um this is a good one cara de la veen oh carla the model she's Cara Delevingne. Oh, Cara Delevingne. The model. She's a model.

The eyebrow-y one. Eyebrows, yeah. Has a great way with women, though. Her track record with beautiful women is... I kind of admire her. She went out with an Australian model, Stella Maxwell.

She went out with St Vincent for a long time. She's going out with another beautiful actress now It's almost like attractive people pick up attractive people successfully I know but there's not been a lot of... I didn't mean that to sound like a dick at you I just, I don't know It's more that there's not been a lot of sort of

legendary swordsman lesbians in Hollywood Shields women There just hasn't been someone like that legendary swordsman lesbians in Hollywood before. Shields women. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what the equivalent is. There just hasn't been someone like that that's so open about it in my lifetime. She gets a pass then, okay.

I would hate to be stuck on an island with a wrinkly old nudist. And it kind of ties back into Frank Skinner though, doesn't it? Oh my God. I did a gig for nudists last year before lockdown, and any time I... So any time I tell people about this, they're always like, did they not have clothes on?

Well, yeah, they didn't have clothes on, otherwise it would just be a gig with people who happen to be nudists in their spare time. So it was at a pub in Camden that has a normal gig most of the time and I arrived at the pub downstairs everything looked normal except there was a security guard at the bottom of the stairs and I said I'm here for the nudist gig and I guess a lot of people didn't say that because he just was like yeah come up and then I went up and the whole room was just naked people of all shapes and sizes

and I was sitting normally I'll sit at the back of the room on the floor doing notes before I go on stage which is fine apart from when you're sitting when no one has trousers on you can just see all these like bare hairy arse cracks in front of you and the editor of nudists monthly or nudists Britain he was there with his wife and kept cornering me trying to tell me how great nudism was and once everyone's

naked no one is naked I was like I couldn't give a shit I just want to do my set and they had gender neutral toilets which I'm totally for like our toilets are homer gender neutral except when I was in the toilets doing my makeup like a sort of a vision or a ghost in the background I looked in the mirror and there was a 20 stone naked man staring at me crouched in the corner of the toilet.

And we caught each other's eye and he kind of looked embarrassed as if to go, yeah, I know this isn't normal either. And a man in the front row got a stiffy. He was really fit and he was holding his willy down during my set. Wow. Oh, my God. fit and he was holding his willy down during my set Wow Oh my god And you know what comedians really love when we

have a good gig if we have a really good gig, people all rush towards you at the end of the gig to say they loved your set I really love that, not when everyone's naked and rushing at you like a load of bald wolves or something.

Horrible. Horrible. Oh, my God. I don't think we're going to get better than that. But it was a good gig because the power dynamic was really firmly established because I had my clothes on. No-one heckled me. I guess it's so easy to find faults in your audience if they're heckling you and they're naked.

Yeah, yeah. Do you know what Fern, I think that's such a good place to end. I don't think we're going to get much better than that. I think we should probably wrap it up there. Thank you so much for coming on Desert Island Dicks today. Thank you for having me. Obviously we've all had a wonderful time and we want to see more of you so where and how can we do that?

Not in a nudist way, you know just in general, in a normal comedic way. How can we see more of you? Oh I'm on tour from the 25th of January all over Britain and I'm doing a big show at Earth in Hackney

which is kind of too hipster a venue for me and that's next June nice one right we will see you there thank you very much for coming on Desert Island Dictionary thank you for having me

thank you for coming again play some music or something so it's not awkward when I walk off stage So there you go. That was Fern Brady on Desert Island Dicks live back in December 2021, all the way back there last year. So long ago now, lost in the mists of time,

but saved for posterity in audio form just a reminder now that you've heard it that you can get tickets for our next desert island dicks live with lou sanders at two north down by following the link in the description or just googling desert island dicks live i'm sure that will work as well or just go to the link in our social pages at dixpod on twitter and instagram desert island dicks is a sync clap production it was dreamt up and thought of and produced by james deacon who also edited this episode is hosted by me dan benedictus and it's often edited by chris attaway we get social media support by Jason Leitch and Chinsey Clinton. And a big shout-out, as always, to our statistician, GrandMamsterFlash,

and our historian, our podcast historian, John Deacon. Not the one from Queen. This one's much better. I think that's it for me. We'll be back next week with another wonderful podcast from another wonderful guest, and maybe I'll find a new adjective to describe things other than wonderful who knows let's see the only way you can find out is by listening and the best way to make sure you never miss an episode is of course to subscribe so do that if you want to leave us a rating and a review that is also very much

appreciated thanks again for listening bye