How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S14, Ep9 How To Fail: Russell Kane

Episode Date: July 6, 2022

TW // descriptions of self-harmRussell Kane is a comedian, novelist, playwright, podcaster, memoirist and presenter. He's know for his sell-out stand-up gigs across and for his TV work, including Live At the Apollo and Celebrity Juice. Plus he has two -count 'em - podcasts, Evil Genius and Man Baggage.I think Russell is genuinely one of the smartest people I've ever interviewed and his mind functions at about three times the speed of everyone else's. It was a real honour to talk to him, especially because he's a fan of the podcast and came ready, willing and able to open up. His failures include his inability to relax, his 20s and his failure to be fully authentic. And, for the first time ever, he opens up about his experiences with self-harm, and how he finally sought help during one of the darkest episodes of his life.This is such a riveting and enlightening listen. Thank you so much, Russell.And this is the last episode of the season - but don't worry, you know me, we'll be back with a couple of brilliant bonuses before you know it.--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 Russell Kane @russell_kane 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 card, 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. My guest today is a comedian, novelist, playwright, podcaster, memoirist, and presenter. You could call him a multi-hyphenate, although there are so many hyphens, he might as well just be one long straight line. Russell Kane grew up in Essex, studied English at Middlesex University, and after graduation became a copywriter. His father, David, was a metal worker who, according to Kane, was bullying and aggressive. His dad died in 2004, and Kane did his first stand-up comedy gig shortly afterwards. He has made no secret of the fact he believes the two to be connected. And his career since then has been impressive. Kane won Best Show at the 2010 Edinburgh Comedy Awards

and went on to perform sell-out gigs across the globe. Zadie Smith is a fan. She once gave him a rave review in The New Yorker. On TV, his work includes Live at the Apollo and Celebrity Juice, and he has two brilliant podcasts, Evil Genius and Man Baggage. Art should be truth, Kane says, and the only thing I've found to be consistently funny is telling the truth to a horrific and cringing degree. Russell Kane, welcome to How to Fail. Oh, that's the bit I was dreading out of the way, to be honest.

I'm a massive fan of the podcast. And what happens is, I know you're being lovely, but most of your guests crumble at the loveliness of the intro and they don't seem to recover. Well, I'm a massive fan of you it's done now I was a little bit doing la la la with my fingers in my ears a little bit it's actually really intimidating writing an introduction to someone who is so multifaceted has so many talents and is extremely funny so if anyone should be nervous it was me and I'm so glad you're on this podcast partly because I know you have just moved house and I can't imagine anything more stressful than to have moved house and have dust sheets everywhere

and to be doing a podcast about your failures today so thank you I mean if only I'd have put in moving house as one of the failures so my other half Lindsay was in charge of the logistics of the moving so I'm currently looking for a suitable space in the garden to bury the corpse. Now, I ended on that amazing quote about your compulsion to tell the truth. Where do you think that comes from? Have you always had it? Being brutally honest, which I'm good at, I think it was more a sort of Darwinian process of finding out what worked for me on stage, process of finding out what worked for me on stage really in the beginning there was plenty of trying purely observed things or purely jokey things or writing purely observed things purely joking they just didn't work as well as the truth and even changing a name when I was there was no reason for me to say Dave on stage for my dad I could have called him anything Gary Gary's probably

a funnier name but it was like the words died in my mouth there's some sort of polygraph in my tongue that kills the sound as it comes out and it just doesn't punch to the back of the room with the same degree as when I use real names real stories real beats don't get me wrong I will over perform and embellish the performance and the speaking of the words of the other actors in those scenes but there's something about truth which sort of turbo charges the observation as it flies out of my gob it sounds like you feel that there can be no connection almost with an audience or maybe on a one-on-one level unless there's truth first possibly for me i have to be quite clear i've got this theory about comedy that there's two

types of comedian a type one and a type two and the type one comedians will be remembered forever and write brilliant routines that we quote and we say things like garlic bread or we quote Bill Hicks or Richard Pryor or something or Hannah Gadsby and we'll still be quoting them in 100 years then you've got the ones like me who will disappear in a cloud after death but we're very very easy at being funny at being ourselves. So I have a much easier time of it creating a show. If you and I were at the side of the stage moaning about a sandwich, I would probably go on and talk about that sandwich for five minutes to the audience and make it funny. That's the positive. I've just monetized

my personality. So because that is my business model, truth is the best way to monetise that. Do you really think you're going to disappear in a cloud? I just think if you're a type two comic, you're less likely to have spent hours and hours in, I'm a massive literature fan, in a sort of flow bear way, down your shed, screaming in a hut in Croissant outside Rouen, trying to find the perfect image as flow bear did. I remember there's an image in Madame Bovary where she passes out and it says that her eyes were like cornflowers rolling in milk. I mean, apparently it took him a week to come up with that simile.

Whereas I would have just gone, which was ever the best sounding simile and been on the next page. And as long as I was getting close to Dan Brown sales, I would have been happy. So that's the price you pay. But at the same time, I like an easy life. That's so interesting, because I think I'm like you. I mean, I'm obsessed with you, Russell. Literally within five minutes, you've quoted Madame Bovary. That's my favourite novel, probably still. One of the good things about being awful at French, but being a Francophile, is you have to read some of your favourite novelists in translation. And

the benefit is you get a new translation every five years which is now the current translation what that means is it's translated more into whatever the 2022 vibe is so whenever i think it was that sharp translated the last random sharp novelist so when that came out it was like reading it afresh but of course the french speakers will say we haven't really read it but at the same time i get a treat they don't get i get it in english the same with the Russian stuff. Not that there's the snobbery about Russian novels for some reason. If I said I've read Crime and Punishment, no one goes, in Russian. Another one of my favourite novelists, Zola, Teresa Rakan. Everyone's like, did you read it in French? No, I didn't. I read it in Penguin Classic in English. Then I watched EastEnders. Do you relate at all to Emma Bovary, who has a very romanticised view of the world and who wants to escape where she is in life?

It's funny you should say that because it's not even a cliche. It's hackneyed beyond any usefulness at all to say that it's you that changes, not the book when you reread every 10 years. But I would say initially when I was a sort of masturbating virgin 16-year-old, I identified with the poor doctor, sort of just trying to get laid by a woman he's in love with and just being deceived and being this sort of pathetic character on the sideline living a pedestrian suburban lifestyle. For years, I was like that poor doctor, but I was fascinated by Emma and fancied her.

Now, when I read it, of course, I feel more like, oh, my God, am I more like her? So at one stage, I felt more like Leon, my God, am I more like her? So at one stage, I felt more like Leon, you know, the hot guy she was banging. I was like, I want to be him. I started to try and identify with like the cad when I was in my single period. So it's really weird. It changes. That's the brilliance of Flowbear though. You dive in and out of each character. Do you think, so this is related to another quote I read of yours, which I'll read out now. There are not many things in life that would stop me climbing on stage I went on the day after my dad's funeral I've been on

with food poisoning with a bucket at the side of the stage if you give yourself to something totally then it becomes you do you think you're addicted to going on stage yes and more than that I can draw the analogy even more sharply I think we're roughly the same age. We're both in our very late 30s. I mean, I'm 43. That's very kind of you. That's what I call it. That is the colloquial term for very... I love it. I call myself 3017. I'm 3017 soon. And why not? French Canadians and French counting weird. French Canadians and French counting weird.

I'll draw the energy more sharply. So anyone who was subjected to the heroin adverts of the 1980s have grown up with almost like a phobia of any sort of addiction or needle or drugs and also a sort of rampant addiction to condoms as well. I spent my teenage years wrapped in a condom, scared of needles, thinking I was going to get AIDS if I blinked at the wrong person. I'm, again, a very unusual stand-up for you to invite on. I would love to give you the story of I used to watch stand-up when I was little and I knew one day I would break out the council estate

and it's what I was destined to do and I found a way if only I accidentally fell into it in the most mundane it was a dare from work way yes I was born to do it no doubt about it but if you come from my background and no one exposes you to these different artistic things you just never like I probably should have done dancing as well I'm double jointed I was never taken to dancing by my alpha male silverback dad so I've got all the way to my mid-20s without ever having watched stand-up let alone dreamt of doing it so this dare came about because I was now amongst middle class people telling me I was funny and you should try it you know have you heard of alternative comedy and all that so I went on stage I had a

great job at this point I loved my life I'd clawed out of the estate I got my first in English I've got the dream job hummus in the fridge pedigree cats clapham apartment I'd made it I'd tunneled shawshank like out of working classness through a tunnel behind a flow bear poster. And here I am. And I do this bloody standup gig for no money on a Wednesday. And it was exactly like that heroin advert. The first time you do it, you'll be sick and you won't enjoy it, but you'll come back for more and your life will fall apart. I vomited my guts up. I lost half a stone in the first year of standup through nerves, through diarrhea and sickness. And within six to 12 months, my performance at work slipped.

My relationship with my girlfriend who I owned a house with crumbled. I lost weight. I neglected my diet. I neglected my friends. I neglected my family. I became a junkie, addicted to the hit of feeling people laugh at what I was saying.

Strangers. I couldn't believe it was a thing. There is no ecstasy pill on the whole of Ibiza that could do what that did. And within three years, my career was gone and I was taking a gamble on this luck. Wow. So what was lockdown like for you? It was great for me. But you didn't get that hit.

You couldn't get on stage so what happened was two years before lockdown i've been doing this program with a youtuber who said to me how comes your lot meaning analog stand-ups who make their money from presenting things on stage or once on tv specials and getting paid why don't you ever put your stuff for free online spotify style and i was like it doesn't work like that. I mean, we hone our stuff, we make sure it's funny. And then we, you know, we go on Live at the Apollo for an astronomical fee, or we go on tour for even, and we give it to our audience. He went, yeah, yeah, but bruv, you don't understand. Topical stuff you won't be able to do on TV after a week. And the stuff that you throw away because it's not good enough, that is good

enough for YouTube. You would just try it. This kid was 18. So I went back and I tried it. I literally put a light up, stood up, not sat down being funny in a chair and performed as though to camera with a ring light within the imagined audience. It turned out when Facebook called me in for a meeting one year later to discuss what happened, that no other stand up on planet earth, not exaggerating, had ever thought to do that. Plenty are like, here I am being ironic in a chair with my kids, but no one had gone, right, Boris Johnson, and spoken, you could argue, desperately and needily, almost looking like you can't get on TV enough, E, to coin an adjective. But I took a gamble. And of course, I built this thing called the caning. I looked like a nutter with beans in the basement I would never use, because I was getting paid for these things. It was just a way of being funny when I wasn't on stage. And of course I built this thing called the caning I look like a nutter with beans in the basement I would never use because I was getting paid for these things it was just a way of being

funny when I wasn't on stage and of course the pandemic hit and I was the prepper with the beans the day after lockdown my first three minute rant I knew when to pause how to time it how to light it when to drop it how to interact with the comments underneath I was primed like one of those weirdos you see in the forest with spikes and rabbit skins. So I was good from the day after and I got that hit from the liveness of the videos. So you must have been one of the only people as well who owned a ring light before the pandemic. So kudos to you for that. I would love to get onto your failures straight away because they are such good ones. And I can tell how much thought and given what we were talking about earlier how much truth has gone into them for which I thank you your first failure

is your failure to relax and you cite a specific moment while on a tea break when you were 19 tell us about that yes so it's it I think we need like a positive version of a nervous breakdown which is like a nervous break through break ups as also yeah a nervous breakthrough that's it thank you you need a proper writer to solve these issues i mean i've been feeling for that for years because you can't say nervous breakup so what i mean by that is and i do work in mental health areas i'm not trying to invalidate what people are going through is my moment where something snapped in my head led to mostly positive outcomes, apart from this inability to relax.

And it was in a moment, it was like a snapping. And it's analogous to all the horrific stories I hear about people stopping in the high street, their minds unravelling and then having to go to hospital or get sectioned, but I went the other way. So the background is, there's no violin to be had here yes I started life mother and baby shelter was the first official home my dad visited at night while we went to the house we didn't have a council house so my mum was living in like to the side of my great nan in a one room it wasn't suitable I was

born so my mum took the decision to move into a shelter to get us a council house so we weren't homeless but we didn't have a home my dad would work all day visit at night and then it took eight months so I did literally as Drake would say start from the bottom now we're here there was no like crushing poverty or scariness or any Ken Loach images so we went from that to a council flat to council house so no violins food on the table always had school books school uniform was fine that said i was the victim of the first generation where they got rid of any chance to get out the 11 plus was scrapped not that i agree with it but you know what i mean so i was that generation of whatever your mum and dad do and however middle class or working class you are you are 99.9 percent

gonna be that that is your social stratum and there's nothing you can do about it more or less unless something freak happens to you like me so that's what happened I bounced through school yeah I got a couple of GCSEs didn't really do my A-levels just went there just to smoke things I shouldn't and found myself a sort of hunched over bitter angry shop boy selling watches on Bond Street to rich people sometimes coming in just graduated from oxford with their mum to buy a rolex and stuff getting angrier and angrier at the time an author i'd never heard of rather like some sort of dostoevsky character who's building up to something horrific building building but at the weekend i was free we went raving we went to

these warehouse raves i love house music i love I love techno. I still do. Tragic. And then one day, through the smoke, emerged this girl about six inches taller than me, the type of girl that gets stopped and scouted for modeling, as indeed she did all the time when we started dating. She handed me her phone number and we start dating so now I'm the shop boy dating the posh model girl who's just started at uni I'm 19 she's 18 and I was waking up in halls we were going back to hers but it was halls and I was waking up and before I went to my train station to wait for my half seven train to be the angry Raskolnikov shop boy she was like drifting across the lawn and there were friends like clutching penguin classics and sitting with their legs outstretched as the sun broke across the lawn at 10 a.m or drinking cider at four because they didn't have another lecture and i was like what is the physical difference between me and them last time i checked i'm a homo sapi there is no difference other than

the majority private school i've been totally tricked and this is the thought that dropped in on that tea break i was kept a diary at the time I went I've been tricked I've been played a hand by the accident of my birth you could say the same for being female for race whatever your story is I've just been born with it it's not my fault that is out of order I'll never forget I sort of tipped my tea down the sink didn't finish it it's such a strong image in my mind. I sat down with this remaining tea break. I made plans for that lunch break. And I was like, how can I get out of this hole with my four sort of GCSEs and nothing and get to where she is so I can sit around on the lawn poncing about?

And then I knew I would overtake those kids when I got there. I had a passion for reading that I'd never tapped into. Still didn't know my difference between Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde at this point I still thought the importance of being earnest was written by Jane Austen I'm 20 nearly at this point you know you hear these working class kids who started reading Dickens at 10 I hadn't started reading at 90 I was so embarrassed and ashamed and it all came out in a gush and that lunchtime I called something called the national extensions college who this week i can exclusively announce i've just started a scholarship foundation

for for people in my position all these years later and i said help me they're there for people like me so they sent it was just as the internet was starting although of course i didn't have the internet i was living by now in my nan's housing association flat in a single bedroom with my clothes stuck to the wall on floating hooks because I didn't have a wardrobe. They said, we'll send you an A-level. It's in a box. You work your way through that box. You call your tutor remotely.

You send your essays off. You sit that A-level remotely. And as soon as you're 21, we'll speak to the university and you'll be able to get in on one A-level because you're considered mature. mature what a joke and that is exactly what happened I got the fastest and highest a grade in sociology that they'd recorded I won an award which was handed to me by Betty Boothroyd the photo is still on my mum's side I went to uni and she was right within I think within a semester and a half I'd overtaken everyone and I would wake up at six I would read the books I hadn't read for two hours before I read the books I was supposed to read for my course a through to zed austin through to zola and back again martin amos or kingsley I started

with and then through again to whoever evil in war and over that three years I caught everyone up and then eventually I was the only one to get a first I'm not saying that to show off I'm saying it show what a mental crazy steroid injecting thing that is to do and you mentioned your mum there where is your dad in all of this so what happened was me and my dad had had this bad argument when I was 19 he wouldn't let me bring a girl into the house I feel bad talking about it because it makes my dad sound awful and he was was a good dad. He was loving and protected and he worked himself to death providing for us. But ultimately he wouldn't let this girl in the house because her ex was black. That's why she wasn't allowed in. She was white, but she had dated a black guy before. At the time she thought she was pregnant. She turned out not to be. And I confided in my mum who confided in my dad. And

that was it. He banned her from the house. And as the raging lefty, as virtually communist as all 20-year-olds become, it was just a step too far for me. So I just moved in with my nan. I couldn't have that. But the point of the failure is that weird whatever's happened, that nervous breakthrough, I've not been able to switch it off. It's happened today.

It's happened tomorrow. It happens with every bloody tv show i do whether it's mastermind or or whether i'm doing a daytime tv tomorrow i'm the only one for example on steph's packed lunch who produces every sentence of his silly scripting that does at 1 p.m that no one cares about you know so i can't switch it off and that is a failure because it's done now i'm safe you know I'm in the air enjoy the flight like no what if I had a bigger wing or the best wing or a faster wing than everyone else I can't switch it off do you think that that is an extreme version of imposter syndrome that you still have I suppose I have a bit of it sometimes. It more comes out in extreme gratitude where I can't believe how happy I am and I'll fill up. I wouldn't say imposter.

It's a genuine inability to turn off this. It's like someone's lit a firework that cannot be unlit. The craziest thing I did, you'll be fascinated by this as a writer, was I got to uni with all of this plan in place. I'd saved up for my watches so I wouldn't have to work during the holidays so that I could pre-read the texts and hit the semester in September ahead of everyone else. And I didn't have to work while I was at uni. We had a massive problem as soon as I got to uni.

I'll never forget it. The first book that I was reading, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, I decided that every time I encountered a word I didn't know before, and the first word was impudent, how ironic, I was going to write it down on an index card and then of course this is before I had the incident I didn't know if it was impudent impudent what were the cognates impudently impudence so I wrote down all the cognates with the diacritic marks on a card and I learned manually the English vocabulary I should have had. I carried these cards everywhere with me like a weirdo on the toilet when I was walking and I was only allowed

to discard them when the word occurred to me naturally in my mind or in conversation and it wasn't coming out in a sort of artificial show-off way. I had three and a half thousand of these and I burnt them. I was so ashamed of them. I burnt them when I was about 28 my heart is breaking for 20 something Russell I mean it's also uplifted because what an extraordinary story of drive and almost like you were learning this language but you were also learning your own worth. And I think that's such a profound and meaningful thing for people to hear. But if you still fail to switch that off, do you get any sleep? It must be quite difficult for your wife.

Yes. So as I said, in lockdown, we were actually fine because I found there was more things I could get my teeth into. And I love writing as well. I'm an aspirant novelist. You're not aspirant. You are a novelist. I know. I tried to pretend that one.

That's another one that should have maybe not have got published. I've written four or five now that haven't, that I've not even sent off some of them. And I love writing. And I was working on some nonfiction just before. So I had the edits on that to do. So there's always plenty of ways to get the energy out. And I suppose the other nervous breakthrough happened in about my third gig when I got on.

I was already like a very high energy person, like I'm speaking now, quite sort of intense. That's just my personality, always cracking jokes normally. But something happened on the third gig where this sort of manic, writhing, sweaty Lee Evans performance broke further through. Like, what do you mean there's another layer of nutter? And that, when I do that for 90 minutes, three nights a week, trust me, that finally removes the sting from the bee's bum and I have to sleep and recharge. I'm a bee sting comedian. I can't do two gigs in the night.

It doesn't matter whether the gig is 30 minutes or 90. Once I've deployed that sting, I go into sort of a cryogenic sleep at about one in the morning for eight hours, no problem. You mentioned there that you've been working on nonfiction. Was that Son of a Silverback? Yes, it was, yes. So this was your memoir, Son of a Silverback, growing up in the shadow of an alpha male,

which was about your dad. One of the things that I was wondering is, he was such a big presence in your life and is such a presence in your comedy. What it was like for you writing that memoir and revisiting what must have been some pretty dark emotional times? How did you feel after it? It's so tempting to agree with you you but the reality is I don't think I experience them as dark emotional times I can't look back and find a single memory of me cowering going where does my dad constantly invalidate me and is negative oh I'm crying in my bedroom it's only afterwards when I've got into my 20s I'm like that's quite like weird and intense the way my dad was

but because of my nature it didn't affect me on the surface at the time at least I can't find any I'm cowering upstairs I'm so scared of my daddy memories he was an imposing character as he he was fond of saying I've never hit you boy and I'd say no you've never laid a finger on you have I no as though it was an achievement father of the year and then he would ruin it by going that's because if I started I wouldn't fucking As though it was an achievement, father of the year. And then he would ruin it by going, that's because if I started, I wouldn't fucking stop. So it's a lovely image of physical abuse that would start and never cease until I was a pulp. So I was never scared of him. You were never scared of him?

Not in fear, in fear. Sorry, I was never in fear of him. He was a man that barely needed to raise his voice. I'll never forget on one occasion I'd gone over the top and thrown my brother off the bed and he'd landed really badly on his shoulder. And my dad came thumping up the stairs. I must have been nine and just a tiny bit of wee came out. Like I just urinated myself just a bit. That was the authority of the man who never hit nor raised his voice. I don't know how you have that authority.

I suppose a stand-up has it to a certain extent. Maybe that's where I've learned it. I mean, I don't physically abuse my audience. I don't really shout at them. And yet I very, very rarely get heckled. So maybe he taught me that. What I'm trying to say in a long-winded way is the book came out funny because I'm presenting these stories of this knuckle-dragging, shaven-headed Neanderthal, meat-eating, 16-stone steroid-in injecting, nunchuck manufacturing illegally, throwback. And it comes out funny because there's a sort of release from reading about this male archetype that we all know. In fact, we're working together to try and

defeat that sort of masculinity. I'm just wondering now, because I said in the introduction that your dad was bullying and aggressive. Do you with those terms yes on reflection okay on reflection but I didn't experience it at the time yes that disconnect must be quite difficult to get your head around I'm constantly being told by myriad therapists I need to get in touch with my inner child and it sort of frustrates me because I'm like she's me I don't know this I have a real resistance to that. Do you? So it's interesting because, and we definitely will come on to talk about this in one of the other failures, but I've actually been back to my inner child in a therapeutic way, which we'll come on to.

And I think there's a difference between what you experience as a child and when the bruising or when the effects of it come out. and when the bruising or when the effects of it come out. So sometimes it's not helpful to go back to your inner child if your inner child was totally resilient and had no issues at the time with what happening to them. My stuff came out in my 20s. So just constantly hearing from my dad, as soon as we left for holiday, right, the traffic's probably going to be shit.

We'll probably miss the flight. The hotel will be shit. I imagine I'll get food poisoning. Look at that. What a rip off. What a waste of time. Why do I waste my time? My life's shit. No matter how hard hard I try I fucking hate my life when my dad died

we had to clear his little shed out his little shed his big workshop at the bottom of the garden former council house that we bought thanks Thatcher I have to put a hashtag on I found his diary and I was like what Dave Kane keeps a diary I thought he was just into like meat metal and weights and the diary was one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever flicked through every page was a maximum of five words sometimes one rain shit at work James that's my brother it was ill at the time James bad shit week crap job rain crap nice dinner shit life it was just two words here and there. Like the diary of someone who couldn't really read or write, which my dad could read or write perfectly well.

It was disturbing. And I suppose that's what was drip fed into me. Yes, I've been tempered in the opposite direction, just like a piece of metal might be, but I've still been tempered. And that voice is in there, will be shit. It will go wrong. It might go wrong.

And I've realised that and did something about it. That brings us on to your second failure, which is your 20s and your failure to fix a fundamental issue. Tell us about that, Russell. Right, so I've not really spoken about this before, which makes me a bit of a hypocrite because I do so much work in this area. I've never been medicated. I've never been diagnosed with depression I've never had any issues but as I got into my sort of mid to late teens as well as becoming increasingly funny amongst my group in a sort of abnormal way I was able to sort of hold court and as well as unfortunately my generation was the rave scene probably smoking and eating things I shouldn't have uh parties so who knows it's chicken and egg but I started to get this issue with say like I

couldn't find my keys or if something had gone wrong and we all lose our temper we all slam doors or put a mug down too hard or something like that but it got way past that never with people never in front of people really except the poor that. Never with people, never in front of people, really, except the poor girlfriends I was trying to date was in front of them. I saw just a childish toddler type temper. I wasn't able to control that boiling over. And it would manifest itself in the beginning with things I cared about being broken, like a laptop or something. Now, this is mostly mostly men but loads of women will slam a car door and or punch a wall now and again if they're having a really bad day or throw a plate of dinner

across the i'm not trying to make out this is a big dramatic illness or anything but it kept building and it kept getting worse then i think i was just trying to find a safe way for the temper to get out i discovered that if say i hit a wall or hit a book, I'm drowning in hardbacks, some of my poor books, and if it hurt as I hit the book, that quickly got rid of the temper. And that was the unfortunate link that was made between me being injured and me gaining control of whatever was going on inside. And you can imagine what happened from there on in. And the slightly unusual thing is, A, it's very unusual amongst straight males to this behavior beyond the age of 14.

So I'm sort of ramping up at 14, 15, 16. By the time we get to 21, 22, it really is quite problematic because these are the times where you're drinking way too much you know going beyond your limit and then if you had a drunk argument with your boyfriend or girlfriend at the time a stomp off to me would become a let's walk into this window and see what happens type thing crazy behavior lucky enough the window didn't break i have got up my arms scars which up to very recently i had lots of cover stories for about being a an enthusiastic pet owner i can't explain it to you elizabeth all i the only way i

can explain it to you every single person has slammed a door in a temper i'm assuming you have imagine if that slam is not enough and you want to go back and just keep slamming it till the handle comes off because you've split up with your boyfriend or you've discovered someone's cheating or you pound on a wall until plaster comes out. Everyone's done that. I've just unfortunately taken it to that next level. I was needing to see blood before I felt better. Russell.

Yeah. That plagued my 20s, I'm afraid. I can literally feel your emotion. And I, first of all, I feel so honoured that you have spoken about that. Thank you. And I know it will help so many people. And secondly, again, I just feel so sad and wretched for the person that you were. Because I'm in no-

It was infrequent. I don't want to overstate it was infrequent, but do you know what? I've never heard anyone else speak. I don't know anyone else that's got self-harming by way of controlling a temper they were scared of i've never i've never heard of it i know plenty of blokes that had their arms sling punched a wall at a weekend got carried away so i'm supposed it is a sort of working class frustrated masculinity thing but to do it as a sort of practice yeah it was just a matter of time so there was an incident that led to the change which is what happened so before we get on to that again as you say hardly anyone talks about this and so i'm by

no means treading on ground that i know anything about so i'm slightly cautious when i ask this question because is there part of you that was seeking to turn your anger inwards or that blamed yourself for feeling angry? No, no, I think it made that worse. I think it came after. So I would look at the arm with the hole in. I'm looking at one now right on the wrist. That was dodgy that. I hit the metal shutter of a shop run. It hit my wrist. I could have cut my wrist open and I probably would have enjoyed the drama of that. I think when I looked at that, it led to more of those feelings you're describing. Oh, what a loser. I've just injured myself. I can't control it. It was a mechanical feeling of enjoying hurting myself to express the fullness of the frustration. It's the only way I can

explain it to you. Even all these years past, anything like that happening to me, since 2009, 2010, since I've had, I don't want to use the word episode 2009 2010 since i've had i don't use the word episode but like i've done since i've done that behavior no i don't think so i think that's what it was looking into the science of it it's very common amongst working class boys normally ones that don't have dads but maybe having too much of a dad can do it that have not learned to it's called regulation it's part of the brain that regulates how far a temper or an emotion or a swear word if you can't stop yourself swearing and stuff and if that part is not trained or doesn't develop properly it can lead to ultimate expression would be Tourette's but it can lead to other versions of it like this is sort of

compulsive or irrational rather than compulsive behaviour to hurt oneself. I think I was scared of what I would do if I didn't do that. What could I do? Would I drive a car into a wall? Would I hurt someone else? It was never on my mind. I never felt aggression towards someone else. I don't know what it was. What happened that you were able to confront this and how did you process it? Well, of of course now I've gone and started in 2004 whilst working some stand-ups I'm working all day at an advertising agency which for anyone doesn't know that is all consuming anyway you don't have birthdays you don't have weekends you already don't have a life and I was driving like four hours to do an unpaid 20 minutes in Manchester at night like

crazy stuff so I was going way out of what I should be doing for my own physical and mental health so these incidents were ramping up then I'd start winning these competitions a lot of them and the big agents I win basically every competition I entered the baby ones and then agents like you need to do Edinburgh you could start winning the big prizes up there and for anyone that doesn't know the Edinburgh festival which I literally thought was just ballet and art before at the age of 27 I still thought it was ballet and art that's how ignorant i was about stand-up the fringe does this massive prize it's called the edinburgh comedy award or the perrier award if you're a bit older you might know it as that and that is the one to

go for to me it's bigger than baft or it's bigger than anything if you're a passionate stand-up but the pressure and the dad Dave like figures the posh versions staring over you Guardian Telegraph Times when you're up there all men all powerful men who want to be negative about you I suppose it's just very triggering and I was having more of these incidents basically and my partner at the time Lord Lover it must have been horrible for her trying to understand why she's with a grown-ass man in his almost late 20s now behaving like this and i just got in from a preview i was exhausted we were eating a chinese takeaway watching something and decky on the tv unwinding i'll never forget this i can't remember what our argument was

about something inconsequential but the argument went where she shouted, I shouted, and then it went, the temper went like the Hulk. Anyone who's watching Incredible Hulk, the shirt rips, the face has gone green. And without thinking, it wasn't like, right, I'm going to go and do this. I don't really remember thinking of it. It's funny, really. And it will be stand up one day when I'm ready. So feel free to laugh, listener, please, because I do. I've head butted my Chinese takeaway food head butted my plate in front of me so I've gone down like a sort of comedy face falling into plate the plate's cracked in half and unfortunately the angle of it has cut right into my head and it's quite dramatic if you cut your head this sort of like sort of slapstick blood jetting across the room I've've sat down against the wall, not knowing what I've done to myself,

thinking, oh Christ, I've done it. Crack my head open. And as I've sat down, the blood and all that has gone into my eye and I'm like, I blinded myself, thought I had. And I'm picking this stuff out, which I thought was skull. And it was actually, you are allowed to smile,

the special fried rice. I was picking special fried rice out of my eye, thinking it was fragments of skull. Oh, my gosh. So, of course, I've ended up in casualty. And I just said to her at the time, that is it. I've hospitalized myself for an afternoon. I've got stitches in my head. I lied to everyone.

I had to fake that I'd passed out from exhaustion. I went to Edinburgh to try and win this comedy award, which I didn't win that year, with with stitches in my head and I'm really vain with my hair and I couldn't comb my hair so I had to go on with this like matted scab for the first week which fell off and then I had to stitch it and I was like that's enough so while I was up there I googled something I saw Goldie the DJ who's similar background to me talking and he's like this little mean-faced DJ with gold teeth it was like quite scary and I loved his music He's now going around hugging everyone and smiling like he's taking like a Buddha pill. And he'd done this thing called the Hoffman process. And that's when I found out about it. I suppose the only thing unique about it is it combines residential therapy with group therapy,

with talking. It's lots of different things that this guy called bob hoffman threw together and to me it was the thing that changed my life i know someone who's done the hoffman process and one of the things is you can't talk about it it's really no and there's something that happens at the end that is like so mind-blowing and no one can ever talk about it but i absolutely believe in the power it has to change your life. What can you tell us about it? So I can tell you about the mechanics of it, but you do have to, you'd sign a non-disclosure. The reason you sign it is not because it's some mysterious cult. It's because if you're listening to this and you think Hovind might be for you, if I give you any detail, you lose the effect of that surprising detail hitting you during the process. So you would have a less effective process because

i've spoiled it that's why it's non-disclosure all i can say is there's physical elements to it it was a bit american-y and very uncomfortable for me which is why it worked and over the week i would say they take you back to being about eight i can't tell you how they do it or why you do it all i can say is the food's amazing it's in a beautiful location but you back to being about eight i can't tell you how they do it or why you do it all i can say is the food's amazing it's in a beautiful location but you have to get your phone don't you it's not just that your phone obviously taken off you and that's the thing with regular therapy i've never been to for regular therapy or counseling so i'm speaking blind here but nearly everyone i know has is you walk out and you're on your phone you're back into the toxic suit within 20 seconds of getting on the london underground or whatever so this is eight days and eight nights of the most intense stuff you're not allowed to and these are

the rules you're not allowed to be on your phone you're not allowed to masturbate or have any sort of sexual release you're allowed to wash but you're not allowed to do exercise you're not allowed to massage each other nothing at all no reading just thinking or conversing with the other people even how the meals are done will be different to what you've experienced and all I can say is there's a few weird days of integration at the end but you're very annoying and want to hug every when you've got had like a personality transplant you're a bit of a wanker but after about a week it reintegrates with who you were before and you've got faults and bits go wrong here and there but touch wood since that day in 2009 September I have never ever had an incident of what I described to you ever again do I slam doors have I smashed a phone screen after a bad phone call of course I'm

a human being don't want to lose that but I've never done that weird stuff ever ever again that's how good it is yes it's bloody expensive it's like maybe I don't know four and a half grand four grand for eight days I don't know what the price is now but if you add up what you would spend talking to a counsellor at 65 to 100 quid an hour it pays for itself because I've never needed one since amazingsell thank you it's all i want to say about that just thank you so so much for trusting me and this podcast with that it was really really a privilege to listen to peyton it's happening we're finally being recognized for being very online. It's about damn time. I mean, it's hard work being this opinionated. And correct.

You're such a Leo. All the time. So if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions. If you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second. Then join me, Hunter Harris. And me, Peyton Dix, the host of Wondery's newest podcast, Let Me Say This. As beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mess, we are scouring the depths of the internet so you don't

have to. We're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news. Like, it's not a question of if Drake got his body done, but when. You are so messy for that, but we will be giving you the B-sides, don't you worry. The deep cuts, the niche, the obscure. Like that one photo of Nicole Kidman after she finalized her divorce

from Tom Cruise. Mother. A mother to many. Follow Let Me Say This on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new episodes on YouTube or listen to Let Me Say This ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Hi, I'm Matt Lewis,

historian and host of a new chapter of Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. Join me and world leading experts every week as we explore the incredible real life history that inspires the locations, the characters and the storylines of Assassin's Creed. and the storylines of Assassin's Creed. Listen and follow Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Your final failure is, as you put it, the false false streak so start with your hair oh this is a career failure I would

say I've only just finished paying back the debt from that loan I took out on my reputation about two years ago that was almost austinian in balance that I know wait now I need to understand I need to get my head around it like all the great sentences that pack such a punch that I understand it on one level, but I need to like dig into the lower levels. It was so false. It was like I'd taken out a loan on my true personality and that falseness must be paid back. And I've only just made the last payment, Elizabeth. And I'm now an eligible bachelor and ready for marriage with, I'm sorry. It's a truth universally acknowledged that falsity must be part of one's character. So wait, what's the loan, the loan you've taken out? The loan I took out was the falseness, the pretending and fakeness, thinking I could get

away with it. You see, you've borrowed against your authenticity. Wow. That's so fucking profound, Russell. Which you can get away with in most professions why not i mean i love if ian mckeown turned up with a complete personality transplant to present his next novel we would all think this novel is going to be bloody amazing he's gone mental if tracy emmon suddenly was the hot new thing again because she'd completely vault fast and changed who she was you need to come straight down to the Kent coast to see what I've installed we'd be like oh my god she's so relevant they're artistic ones let alone if you were a firefighter or a lawyer as long as you're nailing the job which I was in my stand-up I was winning every award you could win

still I was nailing every tv a performance you could be on but the difference between stand-up comedy and you can probably think of some other professions maybe teaching or nursing or doctoring is how your personality is is wedded to how the art or the thing is received and processed to the point where it calls into question the very thing itself yes and without getting too heavy and bringing in literary theory and everything but i think barts was on the money when the author is important obviously you're important elizabeth but when you read the party in a hundred years as i hope we will it won't matter whether you're alive or dead or whether you shaved your head and went

to live in thailand on a retreat when you were 60. None of that will matter. The book will stand. Whereas if I shave my head and live on a retreat and then do a stand-up show, that matters. This is what I'm saying. What's going on in your inner personality in some art forms, and of all people, Andrew Motion argued with me that poetry is the same. He wouldn't have it that poetry is immune to this as well because he said the poem is actually inside the person.

that poetry is immune to this as well because he said the poem is actually inside the person. So it was a problem when fame hit and I wasn't able to handle it and I made a few wankerish changes. That's the very intellectual, long-winded answer for why the streak was an issue. Okay, so the streak in your hair is a metaphor for this whole thing.

Correct. What happened was I only gone and won that fucking prize. Are we allowed to swear? Yes, absolutely. I've only gone and won that flipping prize that I've been chasing. I win this Edinburgh Comedy Award. In 2010? Me.

I've never watched stand-up in my life. I'd fallen into this. I've not got like down on myself. I'm a bright chap. But to actually be one of the persons that wins the thing in your business, it's just, it's not about imposter. It about being humble and realizing how amazing that is not only that but I then get on a plane and do that same show in Australia and become the first stand-up in history on earth to bag the Barry award which is the one on the other side of the globe for the

same show. I must also feel for the first time, potentially, that you are being seen and celebrated for all of these things that you have striven so hard for. And that must be terrifying, being seen. So do you think the falsity is also there has to be an element of disguise for you to cope because you're not used to that. Again, the old me would have said yes, because it sounds really nice and makes me sound like a great person. The real answer is I absolutely loved it. Like I said, I was the junkie that wanted the hit. I was getting bigger audiences. I had my own TV show.

I had two shows on BBC Three. It was great. What it is, to give myself an easy ride, if you come from somewhere, so whether you come from a background of colour or a single mother, or you are a woman, or you're like me, a working class male, and you feel, spent your life being conditioned to prepare to be invisible, prepare to not be heard, prepare to not be looked at, prepare to work in a shop. And all of a sudden, a significant amount of people give a toss about what you're saying. Sometimes you can't handle it and it goes to your head. You've only got to look at rappers and what happens to a rapper once they get fame. It's just like showing off in

grown ass men in their forties with like gold chain saying, look at me dragging on the ground because they can't believe their wealth and fame and want everyone to look at it. Well, that's what happened to me. But the difference is because I'm not a rapper, I don't get a free pass. I'm a truth peddler on stage. The first thing that happened was I realized everyone took me for much younger

than my age and still does. Turns out I've got this collagen imbalance, which is why I don't wrinkle at a normal rate. I know all women now hate me. Is that true? It's true. So I'm nearly, I'm nearly, I'm nearly, I'm nearly 47. I'm 47 in August. And I very, very, very rarely get a guess older than 33, 34 people that met me very rarely. So it's not vanity. That's just what people guess. I cottoned onto this and thought, right, first thing to do is knock five years off my age. I just thought that was a normal showbiz thing to do didn't realize it was going to be a big deal

I wasn't like lying like Ted Bundy concealing bodies under a house I just knocked five years off my age didn't realize what a massive issue that was going to be for all the dick swinging alpha male stand-ups the next thing I did was why everyone's looking at me I'm going to express myself and dress outrageously and be a bit like Noel Fielding or a bit like you know some of the rock stars I'm going to wear tight trousers I'm going to wear eyeliner and show off and be like a rock star man why wouldn't I Elizabeth that is as far as my thinking went yeah why wouldn't I enjoy fun clothes eye makeup and behaving like a rock star no one else gets to be and that is exactly what I did I put a streak in my hair I knocked five years off my age and I wore eyeliner I would

say it took about a year before I realized I'd drilled through one of the main power lines into the mansion of my career and the electricity and liquid was slowly draining into the basement because what was happening was one of the worst things that can happen in our realm of fame. I was getting more famous, but the theatre sizes were not increasing. They weren't dwindling, but they weren't increasing. I was stuck at the 500 seater. I'm like, hey, I'm on TV to a million people on ITV2. I'm doing this.

What's going on? The newspapers ran a story about me lying about my age no one cared including me in fact I wrote a show about it called right man wrong age and toured it and then just became my real age and then thankfully I won't say their name because I don't have permission but a very very famous stand-up comic took me aside and explained what was happening and that was that my stand-up act is all about my dad my nan is very funny it's very real even when I'm talking about COVID it's from the heart the audience at the end of the current show often cry at the end and yet they laugh I've had complaints I had a guy had to take his angina medicine in my show that's how funny it is but it's real it comes

from the heart and if you see someone going my dad my nan i started life in a mother and baby show but they're lying about their age and they're putting on fake ass makeup and looking like someone who they didn't look like a year ago that's someone who's false and attention seeker and the type of person who i would make fun of for being on Instagram, doing a pouting selfie, which I still do. I'm still in recovery from being a wanker. So that chat coincided with me falling in love with Lindsay, my now wife. And this is 2012, 2013. And she went, you're a good looking lad.

Please stop dressing like a prick. You don't need to do it, babe. You're such a good looking lad. And then I changed management. my management weren't bad shout out to my first management and thank you for everything but I went with a manager who was much more comfortable with telling me don't wear that don't do that that job might be 60 grand you're not doing it it'll make you look like a dick I wanted a no person a no person who will say no to me every day and tell me and now to this day if we were filming this in person today and coming to a studio I would have texted Danny and said what

shall I wear I still would have asked that should I wear a suit with a t-shirt and I just got a good woman or a good man it doesn't make any difference I happen to be straight who said to me wear this I love you trust me and from there it just it took off Russell what are you doing you're making me cry why are you making me cry you can see them online it was two years of I'm a slightly twirly and effeminate anyway on stage that's just the adrenaline that is not put on that is all me I've been like it since I was a kid I love dancing I love dancing like a woman it's just my style can't help it but that mixed with the makeup and everything I think it since I was a kid. I love dancing. I love dancing like a woman. It's just my style. Can't help it. But that mixed with the makeup and everything,

I think it was just a turnoff to some of the, let's not dress this up, men that I was connecting with. Men were enjoying listening to me, but they were put off by it. But also, you know, I know you've quoted Flo Barra and Dostoevsky. I'm going to quote Simon Cowell, which is that the public always knows.

They always know. An audience can sniff out inauthenticity Floba and Dostoevsky, I'm going to quote Simon Cowell, which is that the public always knows, they always know. An audience can sniff out inauthenticity at several hundred paces. And that's why I feel like I've had the greatest quote unquote success, although what's that really mean? That's a whole other podcast, in my life when I have been vulnerable and honest and myself. And that was such a revelation to me to take a gamble on being myself. And when you grow up with a lack of self-worth, which I feel that you did wrongly, but you did, you can't really believe it. It feels like a trick almost. It feels like that's the falsity, like just be myself. Are you kidding? And then to discover that it's exactly that what you say about having good people around you who are like do you know what I love you as you really are for all the good and

all the bad and there's such safety to be had in the peace of that love and I'm so glad you have those people in your life now who can reassure you that your integrity is so much more than enough like that's what it's all about really isn't it integrity absolutely even my daughter the other day she's only six i had my haircut she went it's too high at the front it looks silly and i immediately went upstairs and put some hairspray and put it flatter for the podcast i was doing because my hair tries to go up each week it's still trying to climb attention-seekingly high it's like grow the fuck up comb it put a suit on but i'll tell you what's more complicated in my situation elizabeth is i had that integrity and

truth in how i was being yes mixed with a surface narcissistic fakeness to do with vanity with my age and styling so if you look at the live at the apollo set i did maybe 2011 12 when i'm going through this phase what i'm talking about on stage is self-esteem and dating and a breakup I've been it's all very honest it's great stand-up in my opinion I would say that but layered on top of it is like it was perceived as fake even though it wasn't which is worse which is worse because I was being authentic I was giving up that vulnerability yeah it's almost like you're putting a screen in between you and the audience just showing off I just got carried away I can't rationalize it more than what about if I wore this that would look really cool like a rock star I

just didn't think it through because I'm doing all the things you're talking about having the courage to be vulnerable having the courage to be myself having the courage to tell truth and people are sitting in their chairs to listen to that. And then I'm letting off a confetti cannon while I'm talking about death. They're like, what are you doing? Those two things don't go together. What are you wearing now, Russell? If that's not too much of a question. This is the beauty of an Elizabeth Day audio only meeting. I mean, I'm still in my gym clothes, white t-shirt, joggers and jeans and jeans but yet again the joggers were selected from the ASOS ultra skinny section why I get a lot it's time to drop down to skinny or slim fit I know that you know that especially because the 90s are coming back and it's all

like baggy jeans now so I'm trying I'm really do you know the problem is I think that's prejudice against people who aren't tall if you're a taller woman or a taller man the baggy leg look is so good because you can go like a high-waisted jean and have almost a culotte down there but when i have a skinny jean because it tapers at the ankle it gives the illusion of leg i don't have i'm 5 10 average uk height but i like to walk like a six footer well listen russell i think you should just wear whatever the fuck you want to wear don't say that cost me a lot of money you are i was so looking forward to this podcast because you were kind enough to invite me onto yours man baggage and i honestly i love talking to you because so much intelligence and thought goes into every single thing that you say and i'm very aware that

this episode could be four times as long because I would never get tired of talking to you. I just think you've got unique and original insight. And I just can't thank you enough for that. How has coming on How to Fail felt for you? Well, I'm a bit proud of myself because there's three big podcasts I wanted to do. And I thought, I wonder if I'll ever get to do them. And I've managed to do all three of them in a year so I feel like I'm obviously doing something right when I open myself up to being a bit more open than I would have been and the truth is I would rather have been doing a joke every five minutes just to make sure there's some funny content in there so people come to see me on tour. So that's been the slightly unusual thing is I've got my normal energy,

but I've forced myself to just keep unloading from the basement stuff I've not unloaded for other people. So that's been a mixture of slightly unusual for me, but weirdly comfortable at the same time. Like it's something I should do more often because I feel like, I don't like the phrase white working class, but i feel like there's a lot of working class men whatever color you are lads that feel so trapped and they don't realize they've even got permission to speak because we've grown up with a masculinity where if we even show vulnerability it's an issue and you've only got to

look at the statistics of male suicide male steroid abuse is on. Why? I don't even know a woman that likes a 17 stone man with 3% body fat who looks like he's going to poo himself if he turns his neck. It's the insecurity of being a working class man. So if more men like me who sound a bit common were able to just open that cellar and unpack those things, maybe some of those problems would get fixed. So that's why it's important. I've pushed myself to do this today. My story, although it feels unusual, I'd like to think is universal in some way. Russell Kane, thank you so much for coming on How To Fail.

Thank you. 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.