How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S13, Ep5 How to Fail: Munya Chawawa

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

Munya Chawawa is the comedian who repeatedly went viral during the pandemic thanks to his hilarious social media videos. His parody of the Shaggy song, It Wasn’t Me, in which he satirised the former health secretary Matt Hancock’s extra-marital dalliance, has been viewed over a million times on YouTube. He's also a presenter on the Channel 4 show Complaints Welcome and was nominated for a 2021 MOBO Award for Best Media Personality.Munya joins me to talk about Zimbabwean discipline, the art of satire and dressing up as a urine sample (yes, you did read that correctly). We also talk about his A-Level failure and that one time he accidentally sent a nude he really regrets.Prepare to laugh until your belly aches.---How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpod Munya Chawawa @munyachawawa Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and

journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. I'm pretty sure that when I say Munya Chihuahua helped get me through lockdown, I'm not alone. He is the comedian who repeatedly went viral during the pandemic thanks to his hilarious videos, lampooning everything and everyone from Piers Morgan to the racist media coverage of Black Lives Matter. His parody of the shaggy song It Wasn't Me, in which he satirised the former health secretary Matt Hancock's extramarital dalliance, has been viewed over a million times on YouTube. It contained the memorable lyric, Though she hadn't had her vaccination, she got a little prick from me.

He wrote, filmed, cut and posted the one-minute video within hours of the sun breaking the story. Although Munya is a natural comedian, his content always makes a deeper point about the society we live in. And it's no surprise that his talent and insight have earned him a presenting slot on the Channel 4 show Complaints Welcome, as well as a Netflix production deal and a 2021 Mobo nomination for Best Media Personality. The only thing he seems not to excel at is cooking meat. An overly rare lamb dish cost him his place on Celebrity Masterchef. Munya was born in Derby, spent his childhood in Zimbabwe,

and returned to live in a tiny Norfolk village with his parents at the age of 11. After that, he studied psychology at Sheffield University. His degree, Munya insists, was perfect training for his future career. The perception is that it might not be a serious job, but whenever something bad happens, comedy is a necessary tonic, he says. Psychology is about learning how to help people cope. That's what comedy is. Munya, welcome to How to Fail. Oh, thank you very much for that lovely introduction

I will say this Elizabeth until you've tried my meat don't knock it okay because you know if we can have salmon sashimi what's wrong with lamb sashimi that's the question I have to say I looked at that lamb and I was like looks delicious

I don't know what that says about me I mean maybe I am a meat sashimi freak well this is the thing right no one told me that lamb or meat has to rest that's the first time i've heard that an animal that is already said needs to rest more so when i've cooked the lamb now and then i've served it and they've gone you should have let it rest this is the first time i'm hearing this information so it's just i'll stitch it up elizabeth that's the truth of it i i love that throughout the intro because i'm quite used to people listening to the intro and being like oh my gosh that was so moving and it's just I'll stitch it up a little bit that's the truth of it I love that throughout the intro

because I'm quite used to people listening to the intro and being like oh my gosh that was so moving and it's so amazing to hear all those great things about myself you've picked out the one thing that I said that wasn't great that's because I that's because I know the journey I've been on with food okay you're talking to a man who on my first day of university my first ever meal at university was mashed potato with roast potatoes with chips because I thought each of the different styles of potato would add something to the meal so to go from that to sort of raw lamb that's leaps and bounds for me so that is a proper joke I took that very personally. I'm sorry. Was that potato dish nice though?

Because I love different forms of potatoes. Oh no, it was horrible. I was basically constipated for the whole of Freshers' Year, but that's, you know, swings and roundabouts, right? And with that delightful image, can I just ask you actually, as a MasterChef fan, is it just incredibly stressful having to cook in that studio? Well, I mean, to be honest, I know what the world thinks about these people that do stuff on social media so I thought there's no way the judges are

going to know who I am and anyway I'm cooking now I can't remember what I'm doing I'm peeling some sort of meat or something anyway what's the Australian one called now John John he comes over and he goes I've seen your video last night and I was like I've seen your video last night. And I was like, okay, what was the video last night? Racking my brains. And I remembered it was me pretending to be Jamie Oliver making banana bread. And as part of this recipe, I'd like sort of dry humped this baguette. I just remember him. And then he sort of looked at me and went, I like the bit where you dry hump the baguette.

And then just walked away. And I remember thinking, God, why has he seen that? And from that minute onwards, I knew my journey was over. How can you respect someone's three-course meal when you've seen them writhing on a piece of bread? You can't. But I think that just shows how incredibly popular you became during the pandemic and how so many of us relied on you to help us get through the day, but also to help us make sense of some of the most absurd and terrifying things that were

happening. Because I feel like what your comedy does is it takes a serious issue and it lampoons the way that issue is sometimes miscommunicated. Would that be fair? miscommunicated. Would that be fair? Yeah, 100%. I mean, for me, like you mentioned, comedy is a tonic. And also, I do think it boils down to you can either laugh or cry, right? And I just think I don't want to be a person who's dispersing more sadness into a world that already at times feels very miserable. So that's a coping mechanism of mine personally. And I'm actually really glad to see that for many people in this country and in the world, comedy is also the thing that they turn to in difficult times. Comedy connects people and I think that's beautiful.

And your lyrics, like when you write those parody songs, they're so brilliant and smart. Do I know how hard it is to write lyrics? I'm just about to say I know how hard it is to write lyrics. It sounds like I've never done that, but I can imagine how hard it is to write lyrics. How quickly do they come to you? Like how much effort does it take? A lot of the time people have me down as this kind of like insane undercover rapper, but in reality, I'm just sort of writing a poem and saying it quite quickly because I used to love poetry at school. You know, that was one of my favorite things, just the concept of rhyming words, fitting them together. It's like a jigsaw. So, you know,

once you lay it over some sort of beat, people then are like, oh, wow, you know, it's rap. But for me, I'm just taking it back to sort of year seven basics poetry. I always had a thing for music. I remember at school in Zimbabwe that I was cast in a school play as Puff the Magic Dragon, which I'm convinced is some sort of euphemism for weed. I'm still not sure. I've not been given clarity on that. But I just had a thing for music since early.

I had a thing for poetry since early. And in a lot of my sketches, it feels like now I'm just sort of fusing them with a topical angle, you know? And you have that psychology background because I think the other thing that makes them so special and funny is your insight into human behavior that Matt Hancock video have you ever heard from anyone that you might not have expected who's seen that video and got in touch with you well that was certainly my most far reaching video, right? And I know that because on the day it happened, I obviously had made the

video and posted it by 5pm. And then I was already planning to go out that night. So as soon as I left the house now, it was the fact that random people like the DPD driver or my elderly neighbor who literally grows roses for a living was like, oh, I loved your Matt Hancock video. That's when I thought, oh, mad, how have you even seen this? In terms of people reaching out, to be honest, pretty much everyone I meet now, if I ever go to these events and stuff, they will reference that video. So that's pretty cool. But I have a source that tells me, it's one of them ones where people start saying oh my friend's brother's cousin's hamster but apparently I met somebody who their brother apparently works with someone in Matt Hancock's family and he'd seen the video this is what I've

been told and he said does that mean people don't think I'm a dweeb anymore which to me does sound like something he'd say so I said exactly what he'd say that would be like his chat up line do you think i'm a dweeb or can we go on a date i'd love to know who in politics has seen it i mean that was essentially my question i bet you it did the rounds it's like one of those like really funny things that gets passed around at school involving the teacher that no one actually likes it would have gone gone around the Houses of Parliament like wildfire, I bet you. Do you reckon? That's a pretty intense thought, isn't it? To be like, wow, a video I've made in my room is circulating around Westminster.

That's crazy. I try not to think about that, you know. Do you have aspirations for your comedy to change things? Do you see it as a form of activism? Ultimately, the real truth is I make satire because for me, it's a creative expression. You know, the same way that a person who paints pictures for a living doesn't paint every one of those pictures so that it can go in a gallery, you know, so that it can be termed the new Mona Lisa. It's never about that a lot of the time. For me, it's more about saying what's on my mind, which I will have already gauged is a reflection of how people are feeling because, you know, I do my audience research. And if someone

does come away from that, having learned something that changes the trajectory of the world for better, that is a big bonus. But it's not like I'm using comedy as a guise to preach. It's nothing to do with that. I make comedy because I enjoy it. And if people are turning around and going, that actually really changed my perception, then, you know, like I said, that's just an added bonus. Yeah. You started off this interview talking about comedy as a tool of communication, sort of across different cultures, different backgrounds, different countries. And I mentioned in the introduction that by the age of 11, you'd moved three times. So Derby, Zimbabwe, Norfolk. What do you think those moves and those experiences taught you?

Because I read something fascinating about your school experience in Zimbabwe and you said that there was a self-esteem day. Oh, yeah. So first of all, Derby. Can't really remember much about Derby other than just playing the Spice Girls and being in love with Baby Spice. That's all I remember about my first four years. I was just convinced that I was going to marry Baby Spice and that she was going to stay the same age and I would grow older and then we'd get married. So that's Derby in a nutshell.

As for Zimbabwe, for me, it's a beautiful country inside and out. What I mean by that is, yeah, you've got your beautiful surroundings and it's luscious and green and it feels like very exotic. And then on the inside, people have this real authentic warmth and also a spirit of adventure. And also they're very connected. And there's also a real pride. You know, there's this idea of you take pride in where you're from and you also, let's build this place on respect. So in school, if a parent is walking through school, if someone's mum or dad is walking through the corridors, we were wearing hats because obviously it was hot there. You will raise your hat, you tip your hat and say, good afternoon, Mrs. So-and-so, good afternoon,

Mr. So-and-so. When your teacher walks in the room, you stand up. Good morning, Mrs. Da-da-da. How are you? I'm fine, thank you. How are you? To the point where I was a head boy of that school. And I would spend the mornings, people would come into school and we would check their socks because you'd wear long socks, which you pulled up. We would check their socks for garters. So like these are little sort of elastic bands. And if you didn't have your garters, you go home. Now you might think to yourself, hang on a minute, what kind of impact does garters have on me being able to be a thriving physicist or whatever? But it's the principle. It's the idea of these are rules, right? We follow rules, you follow rules. If you can't follow them, you can't be part of the game. And what that taught us is you need to have respect for structures, for people, for kind of rules of play. And that's

why when I came to England, obviously it was a huge culture shock for me now, because I've come from a school where if you don't have garters, it's basically a war crime, to now walking into my first day of year eight in Norwich, and I'm seeing someone with their ear pierced, a boy with their ear pierced, and I'm thinking, wait a minute, I'm witnessing a crime. Like, how is he allowed to have an earring in school? I can't believe it. I was stumbling around. I was like, his tie isn't even done up. His top button isn't even done up. He's wearing trainers like it was a sensory overload. I couldn't believe so many rules were being broken. And obviously I had to shift that perception and, you know, I had to adapt and realise, right, not everyone plays by the rules here. It's funny because in Zimbabwe, there's this thing, anyone who's going to go to England, there was this rumour that, oh, in England, the kids throw chairs at teachers.

Obviously, you think it's just one of those playground rumours, whatever. Sure enough, I go to England within three weeks, I've seen a chair thrown at a music teacher. I thought this place is a jungle. Wow. That's so interesting on multiple levels. One is the fact that you had such respect for rules and for wearing glasses in your socks. And yet you've become someone who is professionally irreverent. Do you think you can only be irreverent if you understand the rules in the first place? I think to be honest honest, there are means of defining the rules. OK, there's different levels to it.

So if I am saying, you know, there are certain jokes which I'll tell which people will go, wow, I can't believe you said that. But it's measured. Because one thing you won't see me do is you'll never see me go for somebody and be malicious or mean or you know swear about them in the language I choose because to me that's not classy it's not respectful okay but to critique either a policy or a behavior or an action from somebody who should know better that for me feels less irreverent and more like a just that's the same as me checking them for garters and saying yeah your socks are down right now. What's going on? So in some ways I do believe I have carried that policy over of,

do it tactfully, do it respectfully, but here are the rules you're making us follow. So why aren't you? You know, that's how I'm trying to approach it. That's an incredible metaphor. You're so clever. How old are you? Because I'm about to get really annoyed because you're about to say you're 27. I'm I'm 28 oh yeah ancient fine you're only 28 what do your parents think of what's happened to you over the last couple of years I mean it's really funny to me because parents I don't know you know I don't know what it's like for everyone else but sometimes it seems to me like creative people, their parents are never quite sure of what they're actually doing. So you've got my dad,

with my dad, I don't even care because I know for a fact he does not know what's going on. But that's, to be fair to him, at least he's being himself. Because I remember going with my dad to watch Avatar in Norwich. I mean, watch this three hour film now. This whole film is based around this fictional place called Pandora, which is like a metaphor for countries that are being colonized. And they keep saying the word Pandora, Pandora, Pandora. There was this whole thing when the movie finished of people having like the Avatar blues because they wished Pandora was a real place. So we've gone to this film now. I've watched it with my dad and I've come out of the screen and I've gone, oh dad, wasn't Pandora amazing?

And my dad was like, mm-hmm. And he went, who is Pandora again? And I was like, dad, Pandora's not a person. It's a place. And I just knew he doesn't have a clue. He didn't enjoy Batman. He thought Pandora was a person. And now when he sees my sketches, I just think he thinks, what is going on?

It's only when someone at his church goes, oh, I've seen your son. I think he's blessed that then my dad gets excited. There's got to be an element of Jesus to it. Otherwise, he doesn't want to know. As for mum, she's quite a meek character, quite passive in the sense of doesn't let anything get her too overexcited, doesn't let anything get her overwhelmed. But if she sees me in some sort of cooking guide or whatever, that's when you've hit the big leads. You know, she sees my face next to some sort of apple pie recipe by Mary Berry. That's when you know, wow, that's when she goes, my son's made it. I love it. I've almost forgotten that I need to get onto your failures.

But final question, just because I'm curious, how did your parents meet? Dad had moved from Zimbabwe to England with some sort of scholarship. I think he was in Wales, actually. This was at a time when, you know, people were unsure of what it meant to be black. They were unsure about, you know, what are these black guys? What are they like? And my dad, apparently, he was DJing. He knew how to dance.

He dressed good. And my mum obviously saw him and just fell for him. At uni, it must have been. And then, yeah, the rest is history. They lived in Germany a little while. And then, yeah, you know, that's the way it went. and my mum obviously saw him and just fell for him at uni it must have been and then yeah the rest is history they lived in Germany a little while and then yeah you know that's the way it went so my dad was the fresh prince of Aberystwyth apparently amazing well we're very grateful to them for having you and keeping the rest of us entertained so thank you to your parents. Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?

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and follow Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Let's move on to your failures because I'm so deeply intrigued and entertained by every single one of them. The first one is missing the back page of your final ever A-level exam by mistake. Yes. What A-level was it? Tell us what happened. Right. So picture this. I'm in Norwich, okay? And I always know that I've enjoyed listening to people, okay?

I've enjoyed talking to people. So come to sixth form now. I've leapt at the chance to study psychology, okay? And I'm ripping up psychology. I'm killing it. I'm so into it. I am always hands up in class all the time, always pitching counter arguments to theories and stuff. I feel like I found my happy place. Okay. Now it got to the point, even I'll admit this for the first time, I just knew how to play the game. So I realized very quickly that the people marking the psychology

papers didn't actually know the psychologists, right? All they were looking for was evidence of, oh, do you know the difference of this type of experiment? Do you know the difference between doing an experiment in America as opposed to like a small village in Africa or whatever? So basically I realized, oh, these markers don't actually know the psychologist. I could say anything. And so I went into one exam and I made up studies, right? I made up names of researchers, literally people I'd met and said that they did this in an experiment. And then I was like, let me just see if they actually know any of this. And my paper came back a hundred percent. I scored 100% on the exam.

Oh my gosh. So I knew how to play the game. And I was like, this is brilliant. I didn't even worry about that final exam because I was like, I'm going to get the A star in this. Boom, I'm going to focus on my other two subjects. So day of the big exam arrives, go in there. It's kind of a tough one, but we get there and I finish and I'm like, damn, I've got 15 minutes to spare. This is nuts. So I go through all my answers, tweak a few, change a few. And I can see people sort of looking at me across the room like, oh, yeah, we get it. You finished, whatever. You know, I wasn't trying to rub it in, but I just finished. And I was like, cool, I'm all done.

I'm going to wait for the time to expire. So we're walking out now, walking out the exam room. And everyone does this thing where they talk about the exams afterwards. And I didn't want to be a part of that because it made me nervous. So I was just about to get onto the bus and this girl went oh Munya what do you think of question 32 that was hard wasn't it I was like what do you mean there's only 20 questions she was like what you want she was like no there was a did you check the back page that's where like all the three 10 mark questions were and I thought no oh man my heart dropped three 10 mark questions I tried to run back to the room

I ran back to the room I said guys I've missed the back page we can't do anything about it phone the school are the maybe the most they can do in that kind of situation is they could give you two percent of the marks added on or whatever. And Day of A-Levels comes back, English Literature and Language, A-star, Drama, A-star, Psychology, A. And it broke my heart. It broke my heart because I was like, this is the one I was meant to do. I could have had my three A-stars and my CV. Because you know when you're that age, all you care about is your CV.

So yeah, that is what happened. And I'll tell you the lesson it taught me when you ask me. Oh my gosh, that was such a relatable failure though, because I still have bad dreams about sitting exams where I haven't learned the specific module. I think it haunts you for the rest of your life, she said, comfortingly, just haunts you forever. But tell us, Munya, what do you think that failure taught you?

What the failure taught me is about diligence. Also, it means now that whenever I'm reading any sort of newspaper, I start instantly from the sports page at the back. But what it taught me is... It's not true. No, no, no. Do you genuinely do that? Okay.

No. Damn. I actually start watching films in reverse order just to make sure I don't miss the end. What it taught me is to do with diligence, right? Now, I wasn't a careless person anyway, but it taught me that to be excellent, sometimes you really have to cross every T dot every I, right? So even with my videos, there's been times with some of my videos where I have been very tired or very eager to just put the video out. And I say to myself, no,

the thing is there's a second too long on that joke and it makes the punchline die out quicker. I need to take that second off. Oh, I've subtitled this, but there's a gap in dialogue and I need to be thinking, how can I make that funny? What adjectives can I use to describe that pause? You know, to make sure that no second of this video is unfunny. It's about taking pride in your work, isn't it? It's about, you know, having a meticulousness and a real diligence. The diligence is a word my dad always used anyway. But for me, that's about the difference between good and great Because it's very easy to make sloppy content It's very easy now to put something on the internet And it will do well

But there's no craftsmanship behind it And this is a good thing and a bad thing, right? So I'm not criticizing it per se I'm just saying it's the good side downside A person can go viral overnight, right? Without knowing what they've gone viral for And that's dangerous because what it does is It encourages a very vacuous form of fame

to become more prominent. But in a case where somebody has been working for something for a long time and they've developed it like a craft and they have worked on stuff, refined stuff, clipped away the bits that weren't good, improved what's there, that's art, isn't it? And that's all you ever really want to make.

When Adele drops an album, it takes so long because she wants to be perfect. Same with a picture, same for me with a sketch in my world. So a little lesson like that just taught me, don't rush, don't jump the gun. If people are pressuring you to put out a sketch, don't just put out any sketch because if it's rubbish, they'll go, well, that's the end of that then. So take your time and be diligent. I think that's such a beautiful and profound lesson because I think especially with creativity, there's this misguided belief that you are struck by the muse

and then your artistic flair comes into flow and you just produce something magically. And actually what I tell anyone who ever asks me like how do I write a book 90% of it is actually doing the writing is actually sitting there in front of your laptop putting the words on the page and you won't always feel like it but you've got to do it and you've got to remind yourself as you say it's a craft as much as it is an art if you didn't have the craft, the art wouldn't exist. It would be a beautiful idea in your head

that would never be out into the world. And I think that's such an important thing for people to hear. But I wonder if you ever feel that that comes dangerously close to an unfulfillable level of perfectionism. Are you ever taunted by your inner critic? Oh yeah, for sure.

I mean, after the Matt Hancock video, I couldn't make a video for two months because I couldn't. It was somewhere between a deliberate tactic and somewhere between stage fright. Because on the one hand, it's like, cool, now what I have is this audience. A hundred thousand new people are now following me. The next thing I post will be at the top of their timeline because that's the way the algorithm works. How do I make sure that every single different person who's followed me enjoys the next video? And that was hard. That was very hard. It coincided with the end of lockdown. So, you know, for some reason, political scandals eased off as

well. So it was like, do I want my next video to be sort of a half-baked song about Love Island? I don't know if I do. And that was hard. It was very tough. Part of me also thought, cool. The tactical side of me was like, people are waiting for you to put something out. And if you do put something out and it's not as good, they might go, oh, actually, he's not that funny. So I'm going to unfollow him now. So it was about waiting for the right story to come up and then eventually executing on that so that was hard and the reality is the next video sorry to drop the next video it was about the euros it was a video in which an England fan had gone to Bella Italia on the afternoon of the

England versus Italy final it was based off these clips I was seeing going around of people basically taunting Italians and and you know making up these songs about them. And it was basically, guys, football is a good thing. It's meant to bring people together. It's not a battle against cultures. It's a sport. And then obviously after that, I did a parody after the Euros did happen. And there was that massive, horrible racism circulating everywhere. I sort of made a spoof about a social media app that allowed racists to be racist in peace as a critique of social media apps that weren't monitoring or checking racism, if that makes sense. Because obviously that's the first way we found out about it, the Twitters and the Instagrams of the players. So I'd made a fake app, which was like,

look, we do everything you're doing, but just so yeah those two did really really well and I'm glad I waited and can I ask you whether when you put out these videos particularly ones about racism that comes at a personal cost to you what in the sense of whether I feel I'm depressed as it is so it's hard for me to make comedy about it a little bit like that but also because you're giving of yourself and your own insight and experience and I can imagine social media well because of what you're lampooning isn't the most nuanced place and is a place of toxic racism like do you have to like not check your messages not look at the comments is is there a bit of you that is just emotionally drained by it to be be honest with you, for the whole four or five years I've been doing this, I've never had to not check my messages because of any sort of hate or whatever. Anytime I try to tackle the subject of white privilege in America in particular, that's when people really kick off because I think obviously there's a massive cultural difference there as well.

off because I think obviously there's a massive cultural difference there as well. But in those situations, I just have to tell myself, some people will never understand and never want to understand. You know, that's the first thing I said when the Black Lives Matter protests were happening last year. And I just put out a little video about it, not a comedy one, just a talking one saying, oh, I'm going to be taking two weeks off just to kind of heal from this and to have a think about it myself. I just said, look, guys, you know, you're either somebody who understands what's going on and you appreciate that there's some inequality. You're somebody who doesn't understand it fully and you're open to learning, or you're somebody who doesn't understand and doesn't want to understand. And I was like, I'm never going to try and change those people because

if you make up your mind on something like that, it's very difficult to change it. And that's when you start to get emotionally exhausted because it's not like you're getting emotionally exhausted and making progress. You're just emotionally exhausted yourself and slamming into a brick wall. So when I make these videos, that's why I said to you, my goal is not to change the world per se, because if I do that and I don't see things change, it will feel like I failed. My goal is to put something in front of people and just to provoke thought. And if in their own independent journeys, at any point that helps clip to something, amazing. I'm happy that that's happened, but to protect my own emotions, I can't carry the weight of the world on my shoulders, you know? Yeah. Before we get onto your second failure, I wanted to ask you about how you measure failure

and success in comedy, because it is quite a brutal arena, I think, for those of us on the outside. How do you feel a video or a post or something you've done on TV has been successful or not? How do I measure the success of a sketch? Yes. I like to see people engage with it. So social media, I think I must have been quite behind because I know that people do obsess over likes, but me, I never really check likes because I don't really care about that. Because a like is just a press, isn't it?

Whereas a comment, when somebody has engaged with it and they've gone, no, I need to say something about this. I want to say what joke I enjoyed and I want to say what I thought the message of this sketch was. That for me, I love that. I love to read through them, see what people are thinking, see what bits they liked. And also the biggest part of that for me is it just teaches me what to do next. If I did a video and it got 200,000 likes and I'm thinking, damn, what did they actually like about it? Is it because I was wearing this? Is it because I did this dance move at this time?'s very difficult for me but if I can read it and they went I love how

this was funny but there was also a message or I love the puns I love the wordplay that's just me constantly like I'm open to learning I want to get better so that's the more people engage is the more successful for me you just love people and connection don't you a hundred percent man absolutely because you've got to remember, my first few sketches, if 30 people were commenting, I was over the moon. I was thinking, what? 30 people are saying something about this thing I've made. I was just overwhelmed with happiness.

I was like, this is it. I want to connect to people. I want to make something that makes people talk and think. So to see how the level it is now is just, yeah, just a dream come true for sure. Your second failure, and there is no seamless link here, because your second failure is that you dressed up as a urine sample for a small advert. So tell us about that, because I don't even know where to start with the questions. Right. So, of course, it begins with the Zimbabwean because you know we

always find ourselves in these situations now I'm probably doing one or two sketches around this time you know I've got like a nice little steady trickle of an audience no problem yeah I get a message from a friend of mine called Taff which is Zimbabwean named Tafara and he says I've got this job for you it's going to be yes big money big money and I'm thinking yes good okay cool this will tie me over whilst I'm trying to make these videos. Because at the time I was working two jobs anyway. And was this in like your early 20s? Yeah, I mean, yeah, mid 20s probably.

Because I've got this job for you. And he says, it's with the UK anti-doping agency. And I'm thinking, okay, a bit strange. But if it's going to be shown to people at the Olympics and stuff, cool. Maybe Usain Bolt will see it or something. So I'm like, okay, I'm in, I'm in. So I turn up to this advert now. I go in there and we're meant to be pitching this.

I don't even know what the sketch was, to be honest. It was a mess. It was like a pantomime, but with no artistic direction. Anyway, I've gone into this changing room. There's no mirrors. There's no windows, no reflective surfaces, basically. Someone's come in and gone, pop that over your head and I've done it. You know, I can't see what's on my body because it's this big blue thing.

Eventually, when I walk out, the only place there are mirrors is in the room that we're filming. The room which has got all the casting directors, all the actors, all the staff, everyone. All I know is my legs feel really tight. I'm wearing some sort of morph suit and there's something big over me. And I walk in there and I look in the mirror and I realized I am dressed as a pot of urine. I am a literal walking urine sample. And that big blue thing that I can't see over is my lid. So I've got my arms and my legs sticking out of this urine sample. And I've now got to run about dancing and prancing, singing a song about testing athletes' urine for drugs. And I just remember thinking, how has my life got to this point? Instantly thinking of ways that I can make sure this

video never sees the light of day. And I just remember looking at Taff and thinking, bro, you owe me. You really, really owe me. And I got him back. Well, I managed to cash in that favor, thankfully, so it was not for nothing, but that was one of those days where you think, do I really want this that bad that I'm actually running around

just dressed as a container of wheat? Was Taff dressed up as well? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I don't even know if Taff was there. Taff just organized it so that he could be the one to say yeah i found someone for this job i don't know what he was doing so did you always want to be a comedian and was this did you see dressing up as a part of you i was gonna say did you always want to be a urine sample i mean that too maybe start with that question did you always want to be a urine sample? I mean that too maybe start with that question did you always want to be a urine sample in a blue morph suit? God I mean this was a time of my life where

I was actually trying to improve my image because prior to that I don't know what possessed me shortly after sixth form and all through uni but I had a mohawk and again it just felt like an extremely poor life decision that I am in daily conversations with Google images to remove. But I thought this is one step forward, a million steps back. You know, having a mohawk is one thing, but now actually kind of embodying Uranus just feels like we're taking backward steps here, man. Yeah. So, no, it's not something I'd wanted. Comedy is something I'd wanted and obviously wanted to do things that were going to further me and get me in the right, in front of the right people. But I'm just not so sure if you ask Leonardo DiCaprio how he started his journey, he'd go, oh yeah, you know, I had to do a few gigs where I was a stall

sample, but you know, we all do these things. Do you know what I mean? But what led you into comedy? What was the first time you can remember making someone laugh or thinking this is what I want to do? I thought that everyone's funny because if you're with your mates, when people are with their friends, they are funny. You know, that's what it's like to be around your good friends. So if I am funny, I'm thinking, oh, well, that's because I'm with my pals. Like it's not because I am naturally funny per se. I wanted to be a presenter and I am doing all sorts of things to get there, Elizabeth. I'm telling you, I used to email people saying I was Idris Elba's son. Can you imagine that? Shall I read you the email? Yes, if you have it. I've got it in front of me. God,

this is the first time I've read this in years. Amazing. Okay. Here's what it says. The subject of the email is Idris Elba, Mark 2. Here we go. Dearest Rebecca, word on the tough, cold, vegan-filled streets of London is that you are the single greatest living agent in town. Hopefully you've been tricked by my promise of being the next tall, dark, handsome instalment of presenting talent, seeing as I'm actually slightly below average height, with all the sexual appeal of Boris Johnson at a Magic Mike audition. God, I can't believe I wrote this.

That's not true. But alas, despite being dealt Uno cards in life's game of poker, I've still managed to wiggle my way onto a drive time show on X amount of radio station, a weekly show on full music and various red carpet events. Here are some of my highlights. I have never drank coffee in my life, but I'll take a chance on you if you take a chance on me. Deal? Deal. Thanks for reading my

email best mania and then the response with an email like that how can I say no Jordan will find us a 30 minute window best Rebecca oh it worked is Rebecca your agent today no no no but listen so here's the story as you can see I was trying to find any way possible to get in, right? And I got into that meeting. I can remember this specific meeting. Walk in. I know who they managed. They managed some amazing British talent. And she said to me, cool, senior Cheryl, like it. Love your approach to the email. How many followers you got? And I was like, oh, I don't know, like 2000. And she went, right, okay. Well, look, if you had 30,000, I might have put in a meeting with the digital team,

but unfortunately we can't work with people without a profile. Boom, gone, I've left out the door. I'm thinking to myself, what am I meant to do here? So I thought the solution was just to post more on Instagram, full stop. And if you go on my Instagram account and you scroll down, you're going to see a collection of very bizarre modelling photos in front of colorful walls in Hackney because I was like cool what I have to do is I just have to be fashionable so I'd spend every weekend going to vintage shops getting clothes and then finding a wall with the exact color scheme of that shirt and then taking

photos like religiously and it was fun but I just thought as a job, I would gain maybe like a couple of dozen followers each time, whatever. Eventually, there was a TV channel that I worked at for music. It was Channel 4's music channel at the time. And of course, I'm trying my same old techniques. I'm like, hey, you know, can I be the presenter? And eventually they just said, look, I'm sorry, again, you don't have a following. But what they did say to me is they said, somehow you seem to be quite good at writing and that's because during this time I was writing like a weekly news roundup on Twitter. Maybe like three people would watch it. It was called Six and Sixty, so six stories in 60 seconds.

So they're like, you seem to be good at writing and I'm thinking, yes, good, because this is what I've been practicing. So they went, you can be the producer on the show. Long story short, I'm writing these show scripts for the presenters, I'm writing them jokes, I'm seeing, yes, good, because this is what I've been practicing. So they went, you can be the producer on the show. Long story short, I'm writing these show scripts for the presenters. I'm writing them jokes. I'm seeing the jokes land and I'm thinking to myself, hang on, I clearly have something here. So maybe I should just ditch the fashion and try comedy. Do my first sketch, do my second sketch. Third sketch goes viral. I go up to 6,000 followers and I'm thinking to myself, cool, if I do this, if I have five more of these

sketches, I'll get to 30 and then that lady will see me. And then maybe she'll be, so I just carried on going, I get to 20,000 followers, 30,000 followers. By this point, I've got more than the presenters on the show. And I go to them and I go to them, oh, can I have a chance to present the show now? And then they turn around and they go, do you know what? We were actually about to let you present the show, but the channel's closing around and they go, do you know what? We were actually about to let you present the show, but the channel's closing down. We're going to have to make you all redundant. So now I've done all this just to get this shot on the show and the channel's closing down.

And I think to myself, right, what do I do? Do I stop my sketches or do I do something else? And I said, let me just carry on with the sketches and see what happens. And the rest is history. That's incredible. And have you ever crossed paths with a wrecker again? No, but I will say this much.

When I first started working at this TV channel, the way I started working there is because I won this competition where you had to submit a 30-second video and then people voted. And I literally, I promise you, I spent in the region of 72 hours without sleeping, just trying to get people to vote. It was longer than that. But anyway, when I won this competition, I thought it was the chance to really do some presenting. But actually, it was like a very small camera with a two pound tripod that broke as soon

as I unwrapped it. And I thought, okay, cool, maybe the prizes are that good, but maybe I can still find a way to get to the channel. And I remember sending this email to someone who worked there. And they copied in all the bosses and said hi Munya I'm really sorry that this opportunity isn't big enough for you and I remember thinking no no this is the last thing I want this is not what I'm trying to say and anyway somehow I ended up going to the channel in the end but what I remember is this not last year but the year before I had been asked to host the Brits Red Carpet for the Brits for all their digital content. So we were right at the top of the carpet. All of the celebs came

to us first. Honestly, it was a dream come true. And I remember for the night, I didn't buy it, I just rented it, but I'd been given this really cool Fendi suit. I'd had a really nice haircut and I'm walking through the backstage area, getting briefed by like two people on each side. Someone's like doing my makeup. And I heard this shout from behind me. It was like, Munya! And I turned around and it was the person who had wrote that email with all the bosses copied in.

And I just went, oh, hey, so-and-so. And then just turned around and kept walking. I was polite. I wasn't rude or anything like that. But in my mind, I was just thinking, all right. That's amazing. And I think it shows that even rejection, often it's always rejection, actually, that gives you the most fuel and the most drive to prove people wrong. So even in those moments of failure, you're actually acquiring something really valuable. Have you chosen this urine sample, Second Failure,

because it marks a kind of turning point for you in your memory? I've chosen it because for me, it will always remind me of the graft that I put in right from the start because I know what the world thinks about people who make stuff on the internet. I'm not a fool. You know, I know that there's a perception that it's just some fanciful social media game of likes and this and that and the other. But for me personally, anyone who turns around and says that to me or anyone who turns around and says, wow, Manu, you're an overnight success. I'm thinking to myself, you don't know the half of it because so much of my life building up to this point was just unpaid long hours. How would I describe it?

It was just tough, basically. So for example, I'd work all week and then on Saturday, I'd do my radio show, which I'll prepare for all of Friday night, do that for the whole day on Saturday. And then Sunday, I would volunteer as a host for these acoustic afternoons where musicians would play music and I would host. And it was in Box Park. Box Park is very noisy. People are catching a vibe. No one could even hear me host. No one could even hear my jokes. But I would spend all of Saturday night and Saturday writing up individual bios for the artists performing, designing games based around them. Same thing at uni. At university, I would do this show where we'd interview people on nights out. And I would literally start work

at 11pm when the night out started, interview people until about 1am, go home, edit until about 3am, sleep, wake up, post it for 10am. And I'd just do that every weekend. Not even every weekend, I'd do it Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday. So when I think back to those days, not earning a penny, nothing, just all my free time going into it. And I remember thinking to myself, I wasn't even sad. I was really happy I was getting to do it. But I remember thinking to myself, maybe one day, like, I'll be able to make a bit of money from this. Or maybe one day I'll be able to pay my rent from this.

And now after those six, seven, eight years that's happened, it just feels like, thank God it has. You know, it's not a surprise to me because I know I was grafting. But just thank God it has. And thank God I was right to me because I know I was grafting but just thank god it has and thank god I was right to keep going because all of that stuff has been invaluable it's that diligence again it massively pays off thank you for sharing that no worries your third failure is the most baffling one and your third failure as you wrote it to me, is sending a nude instead of a candle. Yeah. God, why did I tell that?

I think I panicked when I told that story. God damn, why have I said that? All right. All right. All right. Well, I'll tell you the story anyway, because it's too late now. It is. So I'm at uni.

I lived in some real rough places in uni in the sense of, I once lived in a house with nine boys and two toilets. I'm not even going to begin to describe what that was like, but I had the attic room. So in this attic room, felt like my little safe space away from everything. You know, like I said, I was quite weird, quirky guy. I had my little mohawk and I dressed like some sort of telly tubby. So you would have thought that I would have had little to no female interest and you would be absolutely right apart from somebody that I met there and I was like you know it's going steady you know just in that early phase where you're kind of like oh I like you and they like you back

and you're just in you know the thrills of you know being young and thinking oh I might have a girlfriend or boyfriend it's got to the point now where we're just such a normal part of each other's day we're just communicating through videos and pictures and like, oh, I'm eating this for lunch and oh, I'm in the student library and this and that. So on this one particular Saturday morning, I have got up and she said to me, you know what you have to say? And I went, oh, well, you know, I'm in that horrible attic room. I'm about to upgrade it because I bought three bubblegum scented candles and they're arriving today. You know, when you're broke and at uni, literally getting three jelly belly candles is the height of luxury so don't judge me yeah anyway she goes I don't believe that for a second she was like you're having me on and I was like

no I'm not because at the time I think I was obviously trying to do that thing where you act a bit macho and I played American football and I went to the gym so I was trying to half the time I was trying to give off this tough guy image so she was like yeah that's obviously a football and I went to the gym. So I was trying to, half the time I was trying to give off this tough guy image. So she was like, yeah, that's obviously a joke. And I went, no, no, I'm serious. And as this conversation is happening, I've got out the shower. Okay, so I'm texting, I've got my towel wrapped around. And then I literally hear the doorbell go. So I go, right, hold that thought.

Run downstairs, boom, it's the candles. So I get the candles, run back upstairs and I lay them out on this desk. So at this point of the story, I need to interject with a tangent that will feel weird, but it will make sense in a second. When I went to uni, my dad gave me one gift and one gift only. It wasn't a laptop. It was this gigantic diary, right? A diary so big you couldn't carry it unless you had maybe like two people to help you lift it. So obviously, I was never going to use this diary. I just left it on my desk forever. It was just, you know, it was useless to me.

So we're back to the main story now. I've laid these candles out on the desk. I've taken a picture of them. At this point, the towel's off because, you know, I'm in my room. I'm back in my room again. The postman's not going to see me. So the towel's off. So I've taken a picture of these candles. I've sent it. And then all I get back is two letters EW eel I'm thinking what why are you saying that to candles and this is the point that I realized I forgot on my desk behind the candles was a panoramic mirror right so what I had sent is an accidental nude, it wasn't quite a nude because guess what? I looked at the picture, literally, oh, I'm shaking, I'm sweating. I'm like, God, no, please let this not happen.

My life's going to be ruined. And I zoomed in and covering my dignity was the corner of this gigantic, useless diary that was perfectly positioned in the place so that I was still modest. So you couldn't actually see any nudity. And I just remember thinking, dad, thank you. Thank you for this moleskin diary. And that was a story of how I sent my first only ever nude. Wow. So first of all, it's clearly what your dad would have wanted was for you to use that diary to cover your penis. Secondly, what happened with the girl afterwards? Well, because I'm a very polite young man, OK, I have got good values.

And I thought to myself, look, this here, if she thinks this is deliberate, not only have I made myself look bad, I've also given off the wrong message, but I'm going to lose someone I really like. So I said, I can't believe I've just done this. I've just sent this to my psychology group as well. Right. And she went, what? And to prove to her that I had done this, I then sent the picture to some of my psychology friends and screenshotted it in that I basically messaged him. I said, just don't ask me what this is. I sent it to them and then screenshotted those chats and sent them to her and was like, see, I'm an idiot. I'm a moron.

God, that's really clever. Is it really clever? Because now four people have my Yankee candle nudes. Anyway, I remember they were just like, Munya, by this point, we're not even going to ask what this is. Just do what you need to do. So, you know, things were fine. Basically, I salvaged it.

But, you know, at were fine. Basically I salvaged it, but you know, at the small price of four people now having an image of me naked in front of a bubblegum candle. So I don't know what your relationship status is or what your dating history is, but I think the perception for someone as old as I am, so I just turned 43. So when I go online, I'm like, this is a foreign world world and my perception of you is that you are so fluent in modern forms of communication that you would never accidentally send a nude in fact you probably sent millions of nudes all the time like to girls on tinder that's possibly my perception but it's so interesting that you're not like that so yeah so Elizabeth I'm gonna I need

to stop you there because listen okay I know that you might be hearing my voice right now thinking, well, these are the sounds of a certified sex god. But actually, to the contrary, when I joined Tinder for a year of being single, I had so few matches, I wrote to the software developers of Tinder, this is a true story, to ask them if there was a bug with my app.

So that tells you everything you need to know about me wait so are you single now or are you with someone no now i have a girlfriend great how did you find her uh well just through work actually so thank god for that and i think also it was one of those things where you're friends with someone long enough to be like oh i actually know everything i need to know about you to like you without having to go on a series of awkward dates because I think I would have been quite awkward on dates but on that tinder thing I don't know what was going wrong but I literally had one match and the day I got that match I was so excited and then I found out it was a bot to promote red nose day oh this is the most tragic dating story i've ever heard isn't it that's mad did they ever get back to you the developers no of course they didn't how many how many men do you think they have messaging them every day going my app's not working oh my god that's amazing.

That is amazing. It's so interesting to hear because I had a six month foray into the world of online dating in my late thirties. And as a woman in her late thirties, it was a real jungle. I mean, it was really, really tough. And I think it's actually really refreshing to hear from a guy in his twenties that you didn't feel like it was your natural territory either, that everyone finds it a bit intimidating and weird. Oh, my God, 100 percent, because the thing is, you know, it could be a blessing and a curse. But in Zim, another thing is that we were just I thought this is the same anywhere.

But you're just very respectful to women there. If anything, if you like someone, you just have to wait for them to come to you and never even approach them because you don't want to be seen as rude. And when I came to England, believe it or not, this would have been maybe three, four years ago, call it. And my friend came into work and she said to me, oh man, I was on the way to work today and these builders were shouting at me and I was, were saying things to me. And I was like, what would you mean? She was like, you know, they were just saying things to me, like how I looked at stuff. I was like, oh my my god like I've never heard anyone say that she's like what are you on about she said do you not know this thing happens every day and I was like what do you mean and then she told me about what catcalling is and my mind was blown I didn't even know that that kind of thing happened like

in my mind I couldn't imagine doing something like that if I ever even did something near to that my dad would be all over me like a rash. So I just realized that, wow, my approach to women is just the complete opposite because we've just always been taught to be so respectful. So that probably hindered me in dating because I'm not very forthcoming. I'm not confident to approach or just to start a chat randomly. So in some ways, I guess me not doing that well in dating wasn't necessarily for the wrong reasons. But it was an unfortunate knock on effect of just being quite shy and a bit too reserved, you know? And are you still shy? I mean, it just depends, isn't it?

Around my friend, obviously, I'm just an absolute madman. But I'd say that I'm not shy in situations where I know I've got an extended period with someone because I'm like, cool, across this, I'm going to get to warm up. You're not going to go running if we're together for the next two hours having a chat or whatever. So like on this podcast, I'm thinking to myself, cool, we're in a situation where you're going to get to know me, I'm going to get to know you. And I start to ease up a little bit. But there are some situations like these big red carpet events or these parties or whatever where I just think lord I wish I was at home playing Mario Kart right now or something and how do you feel about recognition I mean I'm imagining because you had all those years of graft

and diligence that actually when you get recognized on the street or by your next door neighbor it's quite nice is it at the right sort of level for you now yeah I mean to be honest it can get a bit strange there's never been any negative at all which is great but it's stuff like if I answer the door to Deliveroo I always have to turn my face away because I've had instances where they've gone oh my god it's you oh this is where you live amazing and then you're like oh no okay what does that mean what does the intonation mean there um same way as like last summer I was sitting on the balcony and our because we don't have a garden we had balconies that of the flat that we were sort of renting I was house sharing really with a lot of people and cars were like driving past and bearing in mind I had sunglasses I didn't have

a cap so I was wearing a t-shirt on my head and people people were swerving. We overlooked this busy road and people were like swerving off the road onto the pavement and jumping out their cars and being like, Munya, Munya, I want to give you one of my free t-shirts or can we take a picture?

It was just getting crazy. Postman was coming to my door being like, oh, I can't believe this is your house. And I thought, okay, yeah, this is getting a bit nuts. Maddest one I've had is Oxford Circus waiting waiting to cross the road, loads of people there. And this moped pulls up onto the pavement and everyone backs away except me. And he like goes, mate, I love your stuff. I've got some perfume. Rolls up my sleeve. I'm just stood there at this point in disbelief. Rolls up my

sleeve for me, sprays my entire arm in this perfume and then just goes, hope you like it. And then gets on his bike and drives off was it bubblegum scented because that would be no just had a really fragrant forearm for the rest of the day thinking what happened tell me if this is an inappropriate question because I don't mind not asking it but how does your girlfriend cope with that she's used to it because it's been quite a gradual journey in the sense of, you know, when I was making my sketches at the beginning, those kind of things started to happen. And then obviously now they happen on a bigger scale.

But, you know, she's very measured. She understands it. The fact of the matter is they're all very positive interactions. And so when it's like that, you interpret it more as, wow, these people have really enjoyed your content. They really love what you've done to the point where they want to say something to you. And that ultimately is a good thing, isn't it? Definitely. And you do connect with so many people in such a positive, warm, hilarious, and unbelievably smart way. And for that, I am grateful. And I know so many people who listen to this podcast are grateful

and I'm so grateful you came on How To Fail it was completely wonderful chatting to you thank you so so much Munya. Thank you Elizabeth and I'm sure there'll be many more fails to discuss in future hopefully non-candle related. Brilliant come back in five years. Okay deal you've got yourself a deal. years okay deal you've got yourself a deal if you enjoyed this episode of how to fail with elizabeth day i would so appreciate it if you could rate review and subscribe apparently it helps other people know that we exist