Desert Island Dicks - WILL SEBAG-MONTEFIORE

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

Actor, comedian and writer, Will Sebag-Montefiore, joins Dan to share who and what he'd hate to be stuck with on a desert island. Be sure to follow the podcast @dickspod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Dan from Desert Island Dicks and this episode features Will Sebag Montefiore. He's an actor, comedian, writer. He's done funny videos online that you can check out. And yeah, he's a funny and nice man. So that makes for a good podcast in my opinion. I'm going to keep this fairly short today. You know, the deal with these things. I ask if you could subscribe and give us a rating and all that sort of stuff. So let's just assume I've gone through all of that and let's crack on with the podcast, because I think that's what most of you are actually interested in. Let's get into it. It's 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 and actor Will Sebag Montefiore. How are you doing? Hello Dan, I'm good, how are you? Yeah good, thank you, good. We're recording after the bank holiday so I'm slightly blurry and kind of wandering around wondering what I'm doing with my life, but that's okay. Hey, that's okay. You and Prince Charles both.

King Charles, sorry. Shit. I can't stop calling him Prince Charles as well. I think I'm just going to stick with it. You know, it's like, it's Henman Hill and Prince Charles. Why do they have to keep changing everything? I don't like change. I want everything to remain the same.

Did you watch the Corrie Bobs? No, I didn't. I went off with some friends to climb mount snowden so we were we're on our way up a mountain during that although i saw a couple of people climbing the mountain with union jacks strapped to their backpacks which in wales that's very odd yeah yeah did you specifically go there to get away as it gets some high ground just in case? Yeah, no, I'm very indifferent to the Royals. So it was just something we'd planned, but it ended up being a weekend. But I'd say indifferent.

I think I was always fairly indifferent to the Royals, but I'm increasingly becoming much more of a staunch Republican every day that goes by, I think. Just moving from indifference, just going along the spectrum to soon being a revolutionary. how about you oh i don't i don't care about them at all i i think i'm definitely a republican which has connotations in america right republicanism it's totally yeah i find it i always have to check myself when i say it because i'm like oh god no that's trump yeah which one do we like do we like the republic or the or the democracy i don't remember um yeah no i don't i don't really care for them but i found it very funny that like because my my mum's scottish and my fiance's irish so i was very much like i didn't have any brought being brought up not that i was brought up by my fiance that'd be weird but being brought up by um a scottish woman it was always

like oh who gives a shit and like whenever the queen's speech was on at Christmas, we'd turn it off and go, take that, Queenie. But then my mum was going off to a little party to watch it, and I was like, you've changed, Liz. Sorry, mum, if you're listening to this, I love you. I love you with all my heart, and you haven't changed at all. Well, look, I tell you what, it looks like we've got more than enough material to sort of stoke our fires with uh what we're about to

do which is you know ask you who and what you would hate to be stuck with on a desert island i mean did you find it difficult sort of whittling down your choices for this yeah i i think i think i don't find it that and this is not a criticism of the podcast but i find it very difficult to be like to remain negatively charged towards someone for too long i think it it fosters like negativity within within yourself and then it just puts you in a bad mood um and i've worked a lot with a comedian called abandoman aka rob broderick or the other way around rob broderick aka abandon now i don't know which one is it aka is but his his shows are very celebratory of people and the shows feel very victimless and very uplifting.

And working with him has really been like, whoa, that's what I really want to achieve in my creative work. And so now I'm here to completely take down three people. So I feel conflicted about it, but it's fun. It's always fun when you find someone who you're like, they wind they wind me up you know it's my belief that the world would be better without this podcast you know and until we clear the world of all these dicks you know it's just this hard work that we have to do you know and then one day we'll have our final episode and we'll all live in peace but

until that day we are here there are no more dicks there There's just desert islands. Okay. Well, let's get on with the choices in hand. Who's going to be the first person joining you on the island today? First person was an easy choice. The first person is Matt Hancock. Yes. Yes. Okay. Has he been on the pod before? Has he been on the island with other people? He has been on the podcast, but you know know what i feel like it's been a little while and uh you know he still kept serving up the goods in the meantime so i reckon it's time we took a fresh look at matt hancock great well i think first of all i'm think i was thinking about this very much like how it would be for me on the island like and i think it would be very awkward with matt hancock and I, because my first video that I

made online that went viral or whatever was an interview, a fake interview with Matt Hancock, where I cut his lines out and interviewed him. And I think there's a good chance, if not him, his team saw that video because it was shared by lots of civil servants and people. So that'd be awkward because I made fun of him. I've done a lot about Matt Hancock, actually people so that would be awkward because i made fun of him i also have done i've done a lot about matt hancock actually so it would be awkward because i made fun of him loads i also think we'd actually probably get on like we're both posh and we both sort of like wine and restaurants and i've played golf before you know like I think we'd be able to have like a shared uh frame of reference and that would annoy me more because I think I think the cultural low

point of the 21st century was when he went on I'm a celebrity get me out of here and I feel like this would be a real life version of that definitely and I think he'd be bringing all that life experience he'd probably end up sort of mansplaining to you how how it worked and like well listen when i ate some weird shit on on i'm a celebrity i approached it like this oh just leave me alone yeah and like he'd someone else would find a coconut and then a couple of days later he'd be like guys remember how well i found that coconut yeah it was an amazing thing that i did i think i wanted to choose someone who was a politician and representative of sort of the political class at the moment who i think are sort of like really enjoy that it's just a game yeah and yeah i uh i wouldn't like it i wouldn't like to be on the island with him

also he cheated on his wife and then he kept describing that as falling in love. I'm like, you can't spin cheating, man. You just can't. Yeah, he's just such a, like, there's such a great selection of awful people that have been in government in the last 12 years that it's quite hard to choose one, isn't it? But he's so sort of symptomatic of the kind of people who, you know, I don't think you got into this to help anyone. You did got into this to get as far as you can get as much as you can you you've like demonstrably

done really badly in so many areas like we we all saw that and now you know it's this sort of double think where you're like hey remember when i did really well in the covid uh pandemic but no we fucking sort like and then you sort of see people starting to kind of forgive him or like treat him. It's like, oh, look, I'm on, I'm a celebrity now. It's like, no, no, no, no, fuck you, man. Like, let's not. Whilst I'm a sitting MP.

Yeah. I do think that was the reason that made me so angry and wound me up was I think because the more you look at somebody's face and just see them interacting with people, the more human they become and the more like you understand them and you think actually they're quite charming and quite nice.

And like, that's what happens whenever I make a satirical video and I do these fake videos with people. You stare at Liz Truss for long enough, you start feeling sorry for Liz Truss. Like it just happens. And I think that would happen to me on the island. I wouldn't be able to separate the two. You stare at Liz Truss for long enough, you start feeling sorry for Liz Truss. It just happens. And I think that would happen to me on the island.

I wouldn't be able to separate the two. And I understand. I think the people to blame are all the people who allowed it to happen, but people who were just watching it. Also, boy, George can fuck off. Because when Matt Hancock came in, he was like, oh, I would have left. I would have walked out. I would have left if my mum had died in the pandemic. And I was like, you can't.

That's like the equivalent of being on a night out. I'd I was about to jump in and fight him I was about to do I was about to jump in and step in there you can't like have both the moral high ground and then not actually stand up for something yeah exactly it's like it was part of a bad response to a huge crisis like he sort of muddled his way through it there's so many things that are still you know like contracts being awarded to friends of the party like loads of failings from ppe to like lockdowns to like you know getting out of the lockdowns like all in during all this you're sort of having fun and having an affair it's like yeah there's just no part of this you come off well and and like and then to sort of have this sort of, try and have a rebrand,

like at least give it a few years, you awful man. I just think it really blurs the line of like, it's the Trump thing of like the celebrity, the politician thing. And I do, I don't know. It just, it feels like, it feels like, no, you're not allowed to do that, Matt. You can't have both.

Yeah. You can't come on and just dick about in the jungle. I'm allowed to do that because I'm an idiot, but you're an elected representative of the people. I think there's a lot of dishonesty about why he went in. I feel like he's someone who'd be on the island and you'd kind of get annoyed with him and just be like, oh, shut up, Matt. But then feel sorry because he's a bit pathetic.

And then it's like, do you know what I mean? It's like that sort of little brother thing of like, oh, stop crying, you idiot. And then go, God, I better go and help Matt get out of that hole that he's fallen into. He's also he's on TikTok now. He's doing his TikTok. So he'd be, you he'd be chatting about things that he sort of has an understanding of he's done a couple of lip syncs which uh i mean i just think it would be very cringy and also i think the biggest thing for me as well is that i say the

biggest thing all of these things are the biggest thing until i remember the other things but he his argument that he didn't break the rules, he broke the guidelines, is such a like arguing something on a technicality where I'm like, you know, like I went to my grandma's funeral and didn't hug my mum because we were like, don't think we should. And like, you're just smooching a colleague. Doesn't seem fair, Matt.

So how unfair are you going to be on this island? Exactly. I just think it's such a sort of elastic view of things and like it's such an important time when it's so important to be setting a good example to people. And it's like I just had it with this kind of era of politics where not only are you clearly not following the rules, you're benefiting so much.

It's not like, well, you know, to be fair, he broke the rules, but look at him now. He's still earning quite a lot of money and doing fine and and trying to change public opinion you're like oh just the teflon nature of these people it's like it's just so maddening so i think it's a perfect addition to the island it's a great first choice and um i think he's going to annoy the hell out of you so um who's the next the person joining me i'm aware that the the danger that i i've worried about that have me i've immediately fallen into which is that this isn't very funny talking about this stuff is just a bit sad um so i think it's going to get sadder uh because the next the next uh

friends that we'll have on the island is miss is top g andrew tate andrew tate yeah okay let's get into andrew tate andy t andy t as we call him the big 880 80 and and and tats i'm trying to beat yours and tats uh so again i mean it seems like most of my interactions with these people the only reason i read the news or know what's culturally going on is because i'm trying to make jokes about it to make myself the center of attention so andrew tate in like december had that spat with greta tunberg and if you haven't seen that it was on twitter it was very very funny you should go and look it up and i made a video making fun of him and that got millions of views and i'm scared of him and i think if we were on the island together, he would kick the living shit out of me.

I would probably die. I think he might keep me alive just to beat me up. There would be no reasoning with him and it would be physically and mentally painful. It's just such a weird, like root one basic understanding of masculinity, isn't it, with him? It's like, i am strong here is

my body i have a pet wolf i smoke cigars like it's just like oh man you've got such a fragile ego it's unbelievable how sort of like it all just feels like it's all just on a tightrope like could come crashing down at any minute and then like but behind it all you know there's some genuinely nasty stuff with like you know human trafficking and stuff so it's not even like if you were just like this awfully insecure man who had to have this sort of performative masculinity all the time that's one thing you could almost feel sorry for him but it's like you're also doing really horrible stuff a lot of the time we're all insecure men andrew just some of us are cooler about it but it's true it's like it's fine if that's what you are but like but yeah you also treat people really badly and yeah and spread like this toxicity amongst young men i do i like i do

genuinely worry like how it's impacting boys at school because like i think speaking as a cis man like going through like growing up and trying to work out what masculinity is and where you fit into it is there is a lot of associations culturally with violence and strength and stuff and you have to do a lot of like reprogramming and working out that actually it's okay to cry and talk to your friends and not just get a pet wolf and a cigar and sit in a weird dressing gown with you with it open and making videos online the idea of being stuck on an island with him and matt hancock is that you would see the human behind all the shit behind all the bravado and like the grifting to just get you to go to Hustlers University.

I mean, what's going to happen is by the end of this time when we get rescued, I will be Matt Hancock's personal assistant and I will have graduated from Hustlers University. That's what's going to have happened. I just think Matt Hancock's going to be his little pet on a leash. He'll just have him on a lead and then you'll feel sorry. You'll try and rescue him now and again, but then he'll keep falling over and you're like but he'll just have him on a lead and then you'll feel sorry you'll try and rescue him now and again but then he'll keep falling over and you're like come on come on get out of here

like because you know yeah because he like because andrew tate unfortunately would be this like threatening malevolent presence i mean yeah maybe eventually you could break him down just like you know intellectually but i think it would take a long time to deal with his facade i also think i yeah and like the chat would be tough like because both both him and matt hancock i don't think they have a huge grasp on like good crack you know i don't think they're like whoa what fun like his andrew tate's twitter feed is so over sincere and so like i play chess in my head i do six press-ups every four minutes do you understand like he doesn't know the word for backpedaling either he did a tweet about how his dad was really horrible to him which is very sad genuinely sad but he took it as like wow my dad taught me really well he

taught me how to pack pedal i was like sorry i don't think you know what back peddling is i think there's a specific bit of his quote-unquote humor that um really i think epitomizes people like him and like lawrence fox and people who are like conservative and provocative who i think just really want to be comedians and aren't cool or funny enough because there's a bit in the video where he um he's making about greta thunberg and he's like talking about how how much carbon emissions he creates and stuff and someone someone brings in pizza and it's very clear that they've brought in some pizza and they didn't know he was filming but he like does this amazing bit of improv where he says, yes, bring me pizza and make sure these boxes are not recycled. And it's like this really, you can see the cogs turning in his brain that he's like, oh, I can use

this and I can make it into comedy. And it's just the most flat like, oh, great. And those guys, it was a toss up between Andrew Tate and Lawrence Fox because they both have this over-sincerity and this desperation to make jokes. And every joke they make or tweet they send feels like they've sent leaning back with a glass of red wine going, you know, there's a real self-aggrandizing nature to it. Yeah, I find it's just horrendous.

So, yeah, the combination of these two on the island is going to be pretty strong already. So, yeah, who's the final person going to be then? So the final person, I struggled a lot. I sent you a list of all the things that I was thinking. I was going to go for a high school bully. Yeah. But I didn't think that would be that entertaining.

We're sort of covered in in andrew tate isn't it that sort of mentality yeah i suppose i suppose i'm bringing someone who's stronger than me and someone who i think could intellectually outsmart me so i'm sort of bringing all my bullies anyway um so i think i'm gonna go for ross geller okay ross from friends i think he's the worst. I think he's exactly the sort of person who would subscribe to Andrew Tate or Jordan Peterson and be like, you know,

Jordan Peterson actually has a lot to say about incest porn. It's great stuff. You know? He's way too handsy with his sister. He tries to kiss his cousin that time. Yes. And he's very annoying. Yeah.

See, I always disliked him a lot once though a friend of mine said oh no he's actually a good one because everyone else is just like a flat character and he has the most up and down of lots of them like he's the one who kind of has a crisis he's like shows a greater breadth of humanity which may mean that this person was looking into things a bit too deeply uh into the characters of friends and that made me like him more after i heard that but yeah generally it was sort of him and phoebe i could sort of get rid of i think were the ones i could do without phoebe yeah how dare you dan you're making a good case for you to be here oh my god phoe. Phoebe's amazing. She's so weird.

She's so funny. Although it does annoy me that Lisa Kudrow just didn't learn the guitar because she didn't want to. I mean, to be honest, I'm quite a big fan of Friends. I find it so comforting. I know it's not very cool to be a fan of Friends these days, but I just find it's like it's just the easiest. It's like you can put it on any episode, any series, and you're like,

oh, there we are. It's sort of like, it's like, it's like, it's like televisual weed. You know, it's just like, okay, now I'm comfortable. I'm not thinking too much. Yeah, but if you have too much of it, you will start feeling paranoid. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I've been here for too long.

I've been watching too much. Even Netflix has asked me if I want to keep going. But yeah, Ross is kind of difficult one to like though, isn't he? Yeah, I think, I mean, it's almost as if all the things

he does are written to be dramatic and for comedic effect. But that in real life would be annoying. And I think that the whole argument of were they on a break thing i is i think the answer to that is yeah technically but like what would you want like rachel and him decide they're gonna go on a break after he's done all this crazy jealous shit

and then he immediately goes and sleeps with someone and then doesn't tell rachel and it's like come on man and if you're gonna if. And it's like, come on, man. And if you're going to be behaving like that on the island, I'm going to get Andy Tate to beat you up, you know? He has a personality that's like, he fits into that world okay, you know? But if he was on his own and you just have to hang out with him, I think.

There's a real smugness to him, to a lot of his kind of interactions with the others. Yeah. And he would just be so frustrating to be around all the time like when joey and chandler let him move in with them because he's because he's i think no longer able to live with emily because he said the wrong name at the altar he is is doing all this passive aggressive be quiet shit that would be frustrating if you're on the island and he was like guys i do friends are so amazing that anyone who's listening to that knows exactly the gesture that

i did without the visual cue that's it yeah it's so part of part of uh our sort of cultural understanding and probably to our detriment for a bit because we all say like too much now but uh but that's like fine i think also you know you want someone consistent and like when he is in one of his low points he is really mopey and annoying in a way that none of the others are like hi yeah yeah it's that very annoying that would be like i know people are that and it's just sort of unbearable it's like come on it's been six months now like let's move on let's move on and talk about something else yeah yeah and all the all the like dramatic the um like big romantic gestures of like going to rachel at just at the airport like that's so inconvenient man you should have told her the day before yeah exactly you had your time i mean like don't make don't make them make

a split decision on the plane holding everyone everyone up. Nobody wants that. Imagine you're going on holiday, or it's your honeymoon, and Ross from Friends gets on. Come on, Ross, you've had enough time. It's been, what, 12 seasons of this? God's sake. It's also like I don't think he'd be very useful on the island. Matt Hancock has probably been to the island before

because he's a rich politician. Andrew Tate would be able to probably beat up some animals and we'd be able to eat those animals even though i'm a vegetarian which i don't think he'd like but ross would just be like he'd just be talking to us about fossils he'd found on the beach would be goosed yeah i mean i guess you could use one of his huge baggy suits to make a shelter with but i think that's that's about it yeah what is he wearing when he gets i think he'd be wearing those leather pants when we crash land. Nice. And we'd spend most of the time trying to get him out of them.

Okay, well, we've got a good selection of dicks for the island and we're going to move on because now, 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 so what what we found in the in the little the food area of the plane that's what i imagine what they call it is a an amazing seafood platter so like high quality sushi seafood chowder

grilled sea bass smoked salmon like a shitload of caviar, a tuna melt, some smoked kipper, mussels, calamari, just everything that like I'm sure people who eat fish are like, that sounds amazing. Absolutely rank. Absolutely disgraceful. I can't believe, and I also know I'm wrong. Like everybody loves fish. I know that I'm wrong, but I can't believe that at one time there was like an early human who smelt a fish then cooked a fish and smelt it again and was like yeah i'll put that in my mouth i can't believe anyone would do that so like you can't you don't eat any any fish anything aquatic no nothing aquatic is a good a good description yeah i i think it's disgusting whenever people

try because it happens now and then, because they want me to be a pescatarian, but people will say, oh, try this. It's not even that fishy. And I'm like, well, what's the point? If it's not even that much of the flavor of the thing it is, I can't get over it. No one ever describes anything as fishy as a compliment.

I think it's an absolute disgrace. Yeah, it's true isn't it it's one of those things you're like oh i've eaten this fish but now i'm very fishy so i better brush my teeth because that's an unpleasant thing for people to but yeah but you obviously liked it to eat it in the first place yeah it's very strange isn't it like i know that i'm wrong and i love i love cooking i love i i cook food i cook fish for my fiance and stuff and i was like gross but i just i know that this is all high quality stuff i know like incredible sushi is really good i know how much people like it but i just can't get past the smell and the

taste and i used to eat it when i was a baby but then i i think my palate developed and now i'm a grown-up and think uh bitch so i mean even just being on the island anyway it's like yeah you know you're gonna have a fish heavy diet but now you've got even more of it so yeah yeah it's probably the one thing we'll be able to get in abundance yeah i'm gonna add some more sand as well the island i think the worst offender on that would be a tuna melt okay yeah i was going to ask if one is was if there's a hierarchy of bad fish for you i guess uh i guess like i guess sushi and stuff at least you've got the rice and the seaweed and stuff i'd still i'd still get something from that and I guess the grilled sea bass or something.

I don't know. I'd still hate it. The calamari, I could nibble off the batter. But a tuna melt. Yeah. Everything else, I'm like, I get it. You do you. Eat what you want.

I love it. Let's go get some sushi together. But a tuna melt, I think, is the biggest red flag of all. Like, I could hang out with Andrew Tate on this island all day and if he didn't have a tuna melt, I'd be like, I was wrong about you, you know? What is it specifically about a tuna? Is it the addition of cheese or something?

Well, the main part is the tuna. Like you got this lovely bread. I love toasty. I love toasted sandwiches. I think they're amazing. And then the idea of putting what comes out of a tuna can that smells like that into it and then adding heat and getting this beautiful cheese to melt into shredded fish.

Oh, it makes me feel sick. Do you like tuna melts, Dan? I do like tuna melts, yeah. You fucking sicko. I'm definitely going to be your fourth choice for the island. I can see it happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think there was something kind of a bit sad about it

in that a tuna is such a majestic fish. You know, it's like they're huge, they're meaty, they're very fast swimmers. They're these like heroes of the deep. And, you know, like in Japan, they'll like sell for thousands of pounds for these like rare tuna and the fact that like they just get minced up into this sort of gray fish and stuffed in a can that's like yeah yeah the kind of most average sort of fish you know like it's it feels really

undignified for them it's like i think that that is it like at least with like at least with some sashimi you're like whoa i they've, this is very fresh. It's like the purest this fish could be. As opposed to like stopping in a service station and getting a grey, oh, so grey. Grey and fishy. Those are the worst colours and smells. I don't understand it. Everything else I wouldn't, I wouldn't argue is bad.

I can understand why people eat it. But that is, you're an absolute sicko okay well i think you've argued your case well uh what would you try and wash it all down with a cup of english breakfast tea really okay i think it's like symbolic of how little we deserve as a nation i I think it's hot pond water. It's bitter. You have to put milk in it because otherwise it just tastes like nothing. It's the poor man's coffee.

It has an incredibly terrible colonial past and it's disgusting. And people who drink it are kidding themselves. Okay. I mean, this is like, tea has come up before and I found it hard to argue against then. I am a big tea fan. Why?

I don't know. I just, I guess I just enjoy the taste and it's hard to sort of pin down exactly what that is. You know, I find I don't dislike coffee, but I find it a bit much sometimes, you know, which I know makes me sound incredibly sort of unadventurous. Oh no, that's too strong for me but um i'd kind of i quite like that i can have you're perfectly arguing my case for me this is fantastic but i quite like that i can have several teas you know like if i have one coffee i just sort of need a poo and and i'm a bit jittery you know i mean so if you like something it's nice to be able to have quite a lot of it um true true but i do hate that it's sort of the thing we're most associated with as brits you know it's like oh you and your tea like have a cup of tea and watch the coronation it's like it's it's a crap

national mascot you know it's sort of like but it's so definitive of us it's stolen from somewhere else it like yorkshire tea spoiler alert not from yorkshire and it's just like you boil you boil some leaves and you pour it out and it doesn't really taste like anything and then you pour loads of milk on it so anything it did taste like it's now just got milk in it i don't know like i do think it's a bit of a crap thing in you know it's just like yeah your woolly jumper and your cardigan and your little flags it's like bit of a crap thing in you know it's just like yeah your woolly jumper and your cardigan and your little flags it's like you know and i agree with the like colonial past thing it's kind of it is like yeah it's a very british thing to do i i like like a herbal tea i'm not i'm not

throwing them under the bus or like i also like oh god i'm really not doing i'm really making a case for like oh yeah you'd get on well with Matt Hancock. But I love an oolong, no, a Lapsang Souchong. Okay. Like the smoky tea, love smoky tea. That will be okay. But yeah, just your standard breakfast tea with no sugar. What is the point?

It's weird though as well, like the more you drink tea, you know, you get like whatever hot drink you're into, you're very specific after a while. And it's like, if you're in the office, like I i hate i won't just drink tea for the sake of it like if i'm in the office there's certain people i wouldn't let make me a cup of tea you know and like if it's like really shit tea and they're gonna make it and it's really milky and sort of gray and i just think like they've left the tea bag in sort of thing i just think what is the point in this i don't know what anyone's getting out of that so it can be a terrible terrible drink i do also think like this is another part of it that again you're coming on this island mate because like part of the difficulty with tea

is that we'd have all these conversations about who makes the best cup of tea and like whether you put the milk in first and i just don't care i just like i don't care how you're preparing this boring bitter drink. It's a bit like Friends, you know, in that, like, I find it comforting and I enjoy consuming it. But I don't want to sort of, like, have a long chat. I don't want a T-shirt with the logo on, like, you know, when they sort of, like, had that, like, when they had those sort of, like, pop-up Friends, like, there's like a friends festival or something like that you know like that's all too much you know i don't want to get i hope they called it a friendstival but i don't want to get so into it you know it's like i don't want to yeah i don't have the long

conversations i just want a nice cup of tea and i don't want to like go oh nothing better than a nice cup of tea you know could could i request that on the island there's like a magical cupboard that we know that anytime you open it something will be there and every time on the island there's like a magical cupboard that we know that any time you open it, something will be there. And every time I open it, there's just a teabag, a different sort of brand of English breakfast tea and milk. That's absolutely yours. And I tell you what, just to make it even worse, we're just going to give you this little pots of milk off the plane as well.

You know, the UHT. Yeah, great. To really annoy you. I mean, the idea andrew tate trying to open one of those is quite amusing i think he'd just crush it in his hand over the top and it would squeeze like you would like a lemon or something do we get to work out how the plane crashed i have more questions about the concept of the podcast oh okay yeah sure no i mean i haven't i haven't just i've never really delved that deep, but yeah, we can go for it.

Well, I'll tell you what, this is my way of getting my dishonorable mentions in. Okay. So I was on the plane having a great time, drinking coffee and giving the finger to anyone drinking tea. And then my high school bully, who I'm not going to name because that feels mean. It feels like something he would do. He'd skateboard down the aisle

because he was very good at skateboarding and he'd be snorting cocaine because he used to do that too um and he'd be doing his rap i remember a little bit of a rap that he did at school um so his rap he'd be skating down the aisle going blast off 10 to the zero don't be a hero drink malibu don't drink beer though people look at me like i'm some kind of weirdo pretty good good stuff. Oh God. Pretty good stuff. Yeah. Malibu.

I actually quite like Malibu. And anyway, he would bust into the cockpit and kill the pilots. And then we just go down. So that's how it would, that's how it happened. And he'd die in the crash, which I'm not saying I'd be happy about.

I don't know. It sounds like a pretty annoying guy. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't very nice. I mean, yeah,

it might just be that the plane just breaks apart having to have all these dicks on board and unfortunately you were there in the middle of their bullshit yeah yeah yeah this is too much can't take it just wouldn't i look around and be like hold on how did i am i one of them am i someone's dick no it's just a bad day for you i think you know and um thanks now you just going to make the best of it. Great. Okay. Well, look, you know, we've got pretty good results so far. I'm finding your island an uncomfortable place for you to be, you know, and I can tell that for you, it's not an easy time either, but we're hopefully going to distract you slightly because 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 is your least favorite film of all time and the other is your least favorite song what are they and why so we'll go with the song first because i think i'll talk about the film for about two hours um the song again hard to choose i think maybe maybe we'd have a little bit of blurred lines by robin thick maybe a bit of mr brightside maybe a bit of sweet caroline and every time it comes on matt hancock goes but i they all they all wind me up for various different reasons but i think the worst thing to be on this desert island with would be just the theme tune to the u.s office on a loop okay okay because i i think the worst thing to be on this desert island with would be just the theme tune to the u.s office on a loop okay okay because i like the song like it's totally fine and it's something

that i associate with comfort and with watching like during the pandemic and having on and anytime you hear it and sometimes i'll hear my fiancee you just hear from the other room. I actually really like the theme tune to The Office. I think it's really fun, but I think there'd be something about being stuck on an island because I think I could find the fun in Sweet Caroline or Mr. Brightside. I think I could enjoy that. I just think they're a bit overplayed and annoying with other people. But the unfulfilled expectation of having this joyful show never play, but just hear the introduction, which on its own is just a weird sound, would be nightmarish. Yeah, it's like smelling the food cooking, but never getting to eat it isn't it it's uh oh

my god yeah maybe all the seafood platter could smell like food that i love could smell like incredible aubergine curries and like pizza and burgers then i bite into it and it's just a tuna melt every single time yeah i think that's a good thing that's going to drive you a bit mad because every now and again you're so bored you're like do you listen some music all right oh god i wish i could be watching the american office right now you know so it's a good one for like nice and sort of bordering on insane i think so yeah it's good um what would your film choice be so the film would be a film called home sweet home alone which i believe is a 2021 movie. And it's within the world of Home Alone. I think it's like,

I don't know if it's a remake or a reboot, but it's set in the same universe. And it is like one of the most awful things I think that's ever been made. And I don't just mean films. I think I mean in anything. And so, because obviously, I imagine most listeners

by now are familiar with the Home Alone films. You know, you've got Home Alone 1 and 2. I think there were more after that as well, weren't there? I think there was like at least a third one. I think there's about five or six. It's insane. Yeah. I saw on Disney Plus recently there was a load more.

At Christmas, I was like, right, my son is now six. He was five at the time. And I thought, this is the time. I'm going to watch Home Alone with you. This is going to be great. And then you saw the other ones. He goes, oh, what about those? I was like, no, no, they don't count.

But they say Home Alone. He's like, no, they don't exist. Let me tell you, son, we're not watching those. That's the end of it. Because I think Home Alone is such an amazing movie, the first one. It's so brilliant. And Home Alone is such an amazing movie. The first one is so brilliant. And Home Alone 2, amazing. I think in both movies, they do such a great job of like,

all of the comedy is like driving the plot forwards and all of the exposition is comedic. And they solve all the problems in Home Alone 2 of like, hey, how could this happen again? I think they do it so adeptly. And all of the lessons that they learned from making Home Alone 2 were completely thrown out the window for Home Sweet Home Alone.

Like there's so much wrong with it. Like Rob Delaney, Ellie Kempner and Aisling Beer all in it. Pete Holmes, love them all as performers and actors. I think they're amazing. But they look like idiots in this film. It's so bad. I've got so many notes on this

and I can't even begin. So the little kid who's in it, he speaks like a jaded Hollywood screenwriter. There's no attempt to put the voice of the kid into the voice of the kid. He has this meeting with Rob Delaney at the start and is just cracking wires all over the place and then he's like you can't promise a kid a McDonald's and not give him one and then Rob Delaney's like what a McShame and it's like what's that a play on I don't understand and the whole

the whole film I think treats the audience like they're really really stupid like at one point the kid walks past this girl we've not met yet and she says don't touch me, Perv. I'm your sister. It's like, you can't introduce a character

by saying their relationship to the person that they're talking to. You know, there's always sequels where you kind of think, really, how are you going to stretch that? Like even Home Alone 2, you know, as you said, they kind of worked out how they were going to leave him behind a second time. Yeah.

But even at the time, it was like, really? Because the last thing you're going to do is forget your kid a second time. And they kind of got around that. But then it's like, you've got to stop leaving your kid now. Okay, you've just got to stop it. It's just not acceptable. Yeah, yeah. We like the slapstick thing.

But after a while, it's like, you've just got to find a new universe to inhabit. Like, just find a new thing to do now. well yeah you just don't need to do it also i think i actually think the problem with this one is that the slapstick isn't very good like if you were still going to be doing this if you're still doing the slapstick do a good job but in this they cut away the slapstick sequences they cut away at the wrong points they don't let you see the exciting bit happen a lot of the time and it's just not as also the pain that hank and marv experience in the first one and the second the pain is cumulative but in this they just seem to shake it off a bit better and the main thing i think that this film falls apart with is that you are rooting for the people who are doing the break

in so they've tried to makein so they've tried to make it nuanced they've tried to make like there's a good reason why they're breaking in and that good reason is is very deftly described in the in the plot where one of the characters just goes we can't afford this house now on your salary alone it's like why are you telling your husband that he knows you know like it's like they know there's a camera there so they have to explain everything for people and so you're rooting you're rooting for the villains and it was much better when the villains were just two horrible people with no nuance they were just bad people yeah like the fact that they

would rob a house but also leave all the water running to flood it as well it's like you dicks you know this is i hope you do get hit by a brick thrown by a seven-year-old off a building. Yeah. Oh, it's all just very, it feels very referential. And there's a bit where, so they clearly couldn't get Macaulay Culkin, but they got the guy who's playing Buzz to play a police officer. And the way they do that reveal, they do this really nice thing where they pull in onto the house and very subtly they have a sign

that says McAllister Home Security. And you're like, oh, cool touch, guys. Nice to imagine that Kevin went on to do that. And then later Buzz just turns up as a police officer. And rather than use this as a big punchline, they zoom in on his face and then they zoom in on his name tag to be like, it's the same guy. This is McAllister. And then the reason the police don't get involved with the break-in is because Buzz says, my brother does this every year.

He calls in a fake home invasion just to get back at me. And it's the only real believable thing in the film is the incompetence of the police. That made sense. It's a weird thing though, isn't it? Because our generation who grew up with home alone home alone 2 you know like i said you know it was really nice for me to watch it with my son but i want to watch the originals with my son and you know there may be

a few things where like at one point he said how come it's only white people and you're like that's a good point that maybe would have been addressed and we'll talk about that and that's fine but it's only white people and you're like that's a good point that maybe it would have been addressed and we'll talk about that and that's fine but it's like yeah i get the joy of re-watching this with my son now i don't want to watch a new version with him you know it's like who are you making this for because if it's if it's for an entirely new audience just make a new film yeah yeah i mean this this one's pretty white too if you're going to address those issues actually address them rather than just being like nah also like we'll cast a like one of the jokes is that they break into the wrong house and they break into a black family's house

who are just like hanging out but it's like did they have to be why like what's the joke here is that like well they definitely look different to the kid i didn't it felt weird it felt weird the only good thing in the film is that 19 minutes and 20 seconds in this is the first and only joke in the film which is jim rash who is an international treasure i don't know if you've seen communities dean pelton in communities amazing he plays a guy who's conducting them in a bell ringing ceremony um at a nursing home also they're at the bell ringing ceremony like dinging bells and having a full conversation whilst doing it and no one can hear it it's all so stupid dan yeah oh i think one thing we come back to in this podcast quite often is like sometimes it's worse to have something that's like close to or related to

something that you like on the island than it is to have something that's like close to or related to something that you like on the island than it is to have something that's just yeah you know this you'd just be thinking it's not home alone i wish we could just watch home alone the whole time yeah you know but you couldn't and it's i think that's the biggest crime of this thing if it was just a bad film i'd be like whatever but it takes such a perfect formula and it does it seemingly with no respect or understanding for the original. It's just like, oh, we'll just cash in on this. Like there's literally a scene where the kid imagines himself

talking to the police officer outside who is Buzz and Buzz says, you're home alone. Oh, that's why they called it this. Oh, what is that? Oh, because the kid, whoa, they should have said that in the number one and two maybe they would have been successful oh man it sounds so bad i might have to watch it now but um also maybe i'm really i also i know it there's nothing worse than listening to someone just

complain about a thing you haven't seen but it's uh not oh it's bad it sounds like an absolute bag of shite so i think it's a fine choice. Fine choice. It's a really good exercise in how not to make a film. So if you like any screenwriters out there wanting to look at it and directors and indeed actors. Fair enough. Okay. Well, finally, the island is overrun by the biggest dick of all the animals.

Which animal is it and why? I actually, this is is i found this very difficult because obviously there's there's like i could choose mosquitoes that wouldn't be great that'd be very very annoying but i think what we're on a desert island i think it's going to be hot all the time what freaks me out beyond anything is being in the sea and not being able to see your feet and feeling things touch your feet and i think just a load of like delicious fish and violent fish like small sharks and stuff and eels and stingray but i can never see them they're just below the surface and they keep touching my feet so i just can't go in the water that would that would drive me crazy and also would uh

it would be an ample supply of food that i wouldn't be able to have yeah there's something about that isn't it like you know even if it's just a bit of seaweed it's like good get me out of here get me out of here yeah yeah it's just every time it happens i'm like i go into the sea i'm like you're fine you're fine and then something will touch me and i'll go run away you know um and I don't think there's another animal like obviously like having a bear on the island would be difficult but at least you can see a bear I think there's something about the unknown that just oh yeah it's like if you're sort of snorkeling or something and there's you know you can see like coral or reefs or rocks or whatever it sort of feels safer there when it's

just like you're in the water and you just like there's so much with nothing in it it's just so featureless you just imagine like something coming out of it you know i don't know why that's more scary yeah i don't like it i could also there could be like a loud seagull just above my bed that'd be annoying yeah they are fucking annoying as well yeah so just lots of very tame uh aquatic wildlife that will come up and just give you a little nuzzle yeah yeah and they're probably really nice and if i got to know them like it'd be fine but i just can't or can't deal with it be walking with my tuna melt my cup of tea spilling it all over the shop fair play okay well look i think you've done a great job today uh your choices have been well thought out i can tell how uncomfortable they've made you and I think you've done a great job today uh your choices have been well thought out

I can tell how uncomfortable they've made you and um and you've done a wonderful job and for a positive man you've got into the spirit of it wonderfully so thank you I hope that the rest of your day is is upbeat and it won't be too annoying and you can shed all these negative feelings oh thanks Dan that was so that was such good aftercare i really liked that thanks so much it was great to be here i'm very excited about living on this island getting beaten up by andrew tate hugging matt hancock and uh ross geller having a lovely nap with ross geller that he would feel he'd feel sort of toxic shame about but i'd really like to spoon ross geller fair enough um now well you're on twitter and on social so we can catch up with your stuff there. Is there anything you're up to that you want to tell everyone about at the minute? Nothing live. I've got a podcast called Legitimate Likes, which is a podcast where we look at humanity's fascinations and try to work out if they deserve all the praise. And that's good fun. So you can download that, listen to that after you've listened to this episode. But otherwise, just follow me online and in person if you are so inclined.

But from a respectful distance. Yeah, yeah. Just a nice normal distance. Like if you could stay in bodies of water and just go below the surface and rub into my legs, that's how I like my fans. Brilliant.

Well, thank you, Will, so much for coming on Desert Island Dicks. It's been a pleasure, mate. Thanks so much, Dan. Bye. So there you go. Another episode done. And there's plenty more where that came from.

And as if to prove it, we're going to be publishing more so snap them up subscribe so you don't miss them and always remember if you sit there listening and thinking god i tell you who i want to put on the island or who i'd hate to be stuck with or the thing that would drive me mad would be this then you go and tell us you go right ahead and go to dixpod.com contact write us a little email doesn't even have to be long as long or as short as you want and we will get it on our episode of compact dicks where we have your submissions and make a podcast out of that before i go i'm just going to say that Desert Island X was a SinkClap production dreamt up and produced by James Deacon, presented and produced by me, Dan Benedictus, edited by the angel-like hands of Chris Attaway this episode. And thanks as always to John Deacon. He's just a supportive man and gives us lots of encouragement.

So thanks, John. That's it. I'm babbling. Goodbye forever. Not forever. Just goodbye.