Life with Nat - EP67: JOE LYCETT - Time for a proper conversation!

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Nat and Joe chat about how they know each other and what drew Joe to Nat. They talk home decor, bringing up kids and a possible cameo in Eastenders… enjoy. X Please subscribe, follow, and leave a review. xxx You can find us in all places here; https://podfollow.com/lifewithnat/view INSTA: @natcass1 We're also on Facebook now too: https://www.facebook.com/lifewithnatpod A 'Keep It Light Media' Production Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: [e-mail] SHOW INFO: Life with Nat - it’s me! Natalie Cassidy and I’ll be chatting away to family, friends and most importantly YOU. I want to pick people's brains on the subjects that I care about- whether that’s where all the odd socks go, weight and food or kids on phones. Each week I will be letting you into my life as i chat about my week, share my thoughts on the mundane happenings as well as the serious. I have grown up in the public eye and have never changed because of it. Life with Nat is the podcast for proper people. Come join the community. ♥️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. well how lovely hello joe hello but before i do anything i've got to ask you where in the world is natalie cassidy natalie is sat in her podcast room surrounded by lots of Christmas decorations that need to go downstairs. Well, I've seen this.

What's this thing behind you? It's like a little... It's from the Nutcracker. Is it a Nutcracker? It is. It is. It's a tin Nutcracker. I'm going to do this for the purposes.

There we are. There he is. Oh, look at that. He's lovely, but he's a bit tall, which is a shame. Yeah, so he doesn't get all. It's just his crotch that we get on this shot. Crotch and drum. That's all you're getting.

Crotch and drum. That sounds like a great drum and bass act, doesn't it? Crotch and drum. And you've got lots of lovely bamboo. Is it just wood? Is it bamboo? It looks a bit bamboo-ish. i don't think it's bamboo it's um fine it's just a sort of wood uh structure that is in the pink room uh as we call it because everything is pink in here and it's where i keep all of my

clothes that i've worn on various things so um all sorts of tat in these cupboards next to me. Is the Queen in there? Is the Queen's outfit in there from the BAFTAs? No, that's going to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Brilliant. Yeah, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery want to take that outfit and put it on display. So I believe, I think someone's going to have a look at it

and double check that that's actually what they want. That's incredible. so that is that's incredible how amazing is that oh still so gutted that we didn't get you to the BAFTAs that was an oversight it it was a real shame because the night before or the day before I met with uh some lovely costume ladies who were helping you just in case I was going to come. So I tried on this amazing outfit. Oh, no. I have to say, I did get pretty excited.

Oh, no. Well, if they're coming to do the fitting, I'm going to make it. Yeah, it's got to happen, doesn't it? No, we had to sort of stick to our word. I think, what was it? The aunties had to get to a quarter of a million followers on Instagram and then you would be their lady-in-waiting, is that right? Or my lady-in-waiting, that's right.

Your lady-in-waiting. There's always next year. There is, yes. We'll have to choose another Tudor monarch that I'll go as. And Henry VIII is, I think, I'm definitely piling on the calories for a Henry VIII look and the gout. What I feel would be brilliant with Henry VIII is you could have then six Huns following you as all the wives.

Oh, my God. And if I lose an award or a nomination or whatever, I'll behead. Now, that's real escalation, isn't it? I'll shred 10 grand and I'll behead Natalie Cassidy. Great telly, though. You'd get some great great viewing figures yeah yeah fantastic yeah i'm no i am sorry about that we'll do something marvelous but um that just wasn't our time and it wasn't our time i have to thank you really firstly for coming on here because i know that you're a very busy man so so lovely that you've taken some time out just to have a little chat with me

but i i obviously talk about you often because i i really don't quite understand uh why why you decided to sort of highlight me so much over the last couple of years so i wanted to ask you why that is because it all started with the ceramic fitness dvd which obviously I have downstairs yes and it's pride and place and then on to your tv show where where you featured me and I just I'm kind of baffled and honored and just wondered why uh do you know what I've had a very similar conversation with Lisa Scott Lee just not that long ago actually and um and she uh was talking to me she was on a pride show that I did on channel four and she said that she I think the baffled is the word that she used as well she was sort of didn't quite understand why I loved her so much

but you you know you're a kind of queer icon right Matt you you're you're aware of this yes very much so yeah and i think you know it's you're from a um i don't know what the word is um really but a kind of esteemed group of um soap stars i suppose if that's not too um gaucher term that are that have kind of permeated beyond the soap and that people you're a kind of you're a national treasure people even don't watch eastenders know who you are they understand your character in the show and we've sort of grown up with you and i think people like your gail platts lisa scott lee's obviously slightly different because she's over in um in sort of pop world but i think what it is is there's like a sort of um there's an authenticity to what all of you do and you're all very um yourselves and there's no sort of artifice and there's no um i don't know

what the word is there's no sort of diva ishness about about your public output you might be a huge diva behind the scenes i I have no idea, Nat. I am fucking awful. You want to see me at home. But you're funny. You're adorable. You're up for a laugh. Oh, bloody hell.

I didn't say it for all of that. And that's why, you know. But you are. And that's why, you know, there's lots of people who are on soaps or who are in the public eye who we could have asked to be involved in the show and we absolutely didn't because there's something mean about them or nasty or whatever and you're just a joy and a delight and um yeah and so the um i think it's because you messaged me about you wanted to, I think you wanted a painting. Is that right?

You instigated it. And then I started looking into it and I'd been doing ceramics at the time. And I thought it was Grayson Perry that said to me that the thing about ceramics is that paintings are, you think that a painting is permanent, but actually the colours will fade very quickly, relatively, you know, over a few dozens of years hundreds of years and obviously paintings are done normally on canvas which is quite a fragile material whereas ceramics they're burnt up at sort of massive temperatures and they're really hard wearing by design and we're finding ceramics from the ancient egyptians and all that and so i felt like if i'm going to do an artwork with you on it it can't be something that's going to be impermanent it needs to be as permanent as possible it's amazing I absolutely love it and I'll put a photo up on Instagram for

anyone who hasn't seen it but I'm gonna get it but if I can I'm really frightened because I've got an eight-year-old and a 14-year-old joe they're girls and you know there's a lot of arguing and i just really worry it is i know it's hard wearing but it's still fragile if it were to fall so what do you think do you think i could get it box framed yeah yeah you could um there's well there's framers in birmingham that i use a lot and they definitely do it they mount the back of it because the back of it is unbar um unglazed so you could put something on the back of it and then get that secured on absolutely um i'd be honored if you had it framed in your house but yeah it was um it was a it was it was a nice challenge for me because i was at the time i was doing ceramic iphones uh the first one i did

was with matt hancock's text to, I can't remember who it was, but it was one of the released WhatsApps that he had. And then I had one with Rebecca, it was Rebecca Vardy's account, that tweet I immortalised onto a ceramic iPhone. I'd like to do more. I really love doing ceramics. It's just finding the time, obviously.

You know, now I'm a father as well. And such many congratulations to you i listened to parenting hell actually today because i'm a fan of the pod and listen all the time and then um was so so pleased you did it so i had a little listen to you today so i won't go into all the details about it but i'll just so many congratulations isn't it amazing it's a great time isn't it yeah it is and i i'm i said to the other day like my my well of love for him on day one was a complete surprise to me i knew that i'd love him but i did think that there'd be like a kind of adjustment period where i'd kind of go oh shit what have i done and oh god this responsibility. But it was just straight out the gate.

I was just like, yeah, I'm totally on your side and completely adore you. And the love for you is unbelievable. And then I said a few days ago, I was like, how do I love him more than I did that day? Because it just grows. Like it's, I didn't think I could love more than that first bit.

And I become very soppy and say things like that about how deep my love is for my son. My heir. Your heir. He's very lucky to have you as a parent. Now, hang on. You promised me you were going to be drinking a wine on this one. Are you drinking a wine? Thank God.

Cheers. I was because I'm taking sips as we go, and I don't want to seem like I'm drinking alone. Cheers to you. What have you got there, please? I've got a red wine. Well, I can see that. What is it? Um, well, this is do you really want to get into this?

Oh, yes, please. So I don't really want to talk about this massively because people will go to the restaurant and then I will not be able to get in. But the best restaurant in the world is in Borough, Bermondsey, sorry, Borough of Bermondsey, South London, called 40 Maltby Street. And it started, I've been going for years, and it started as a wine cellar called Gagovey Wines. And they really know their shit and I'm a philistine when it comes to wine I'm very happy with you know a Black Tower from Tesco whatever and then started to kind of go to this and what they would do is they'd say oh what do you fancy and I'd say oh I don't know um what have you got and they'd sort of do the spiel and go

it's very fruity this one smells a bit of the farm and it's all like natural wines the food's incredible but the wine anyway so i went on the website because they do delivery and it was recommended they have like their the guys that work in the shop recommend it and let me um let me find this is rafe who runs most of it oh my goodness this sounds like a bit of me. Oh, you will love it. It's 23 quid a bottle. And it is the recommended staff picks. And at the bottom, Rafe has put here, is this the perfect red wine for this moment in time?

Yes. And so I was like, I'm ordering it. And we opened it tonight and it is amazing. And it's called Julien Perra I think or Julien Perra I don't know Gourmandise 2023 that's what the bottle looks like and it's slipping down real nice Nat oh that looks gorgeous I'm a bit of a philistine too I'll tell you that for nothing well listen seven o'clock with a newborn I was on my second bottle by then

what are you drinking Nat? I have a Shably oh lovely I've got a little cold glass of Shably I think it's a Tesco Finest lovely why not very nice

can't argue with that and I know people say all the time Lidl and Aldi have excellent wine. They have great sommeliers, sommeliers, Sicily people. Sommeliers. And they choose the Sicily people and they choose all the wines and they're very nice. So I'm not a snob when it comes to my wine, but I do like a kind of natural wanky wine. But I'll also have a, you a tesco little spesh yeah yeah

when i first messaged you about your paintings yeah the reason i did that genuinely wasn't just because you're joe but it reminded me your style of something that has stuck in my brain i did a tour of bedroom farce a theater show the first time i left eastenders and i went around the country and we were in cambridge and i remember there being this art exhibition in kettle's yard there by a lady called stella vine oh yes yes yes yes i've got one of her books which i thought it was actually very difficult to get hold of and it's um like pink like your room no somebody told me stella vine and i found the book and yeah i absolutely agree oh yes look at her diana yeah i know exactly who you mean yeah yeah yeah it's really um yeah it's stuck in my mind but kind of um it's just i loved her and it stuck

in my mind and i remember buying the book at the exhibition and then your stuff came up and it really took me back to the point where i actually sifted through all my books at home to find her book wow and i just think you're brilliant and obviously you've got art hole out which i'm so sorry to say that i can't pick up here because i haven't bought it yet but i am going to i'm desperate to buy it don't worry i'll send you no i'm not saying it for that but i can't wait to read it did you love doing it i loved doing it sorry i was getting distracted by looking at stella vine stuff i i really love doing it because it's me at sort of full silly mode so i am just being an idiot and um the premise of the book because people sort of don't really understand what it is because that's fair enough it's quite a weird thing it's basically my paintings and then writing about those paintings

so most of them are portraits so it's me sort of saying, this painting is of Liz Truss and here's the story of how I met Liz Truss and she sat for me and this is what we talked about. And it may or may not be true. I can't go into the details, but it was such a delight to kind of let my mind wander and find wherever it went. And sometimes it went somewhere that you know was

not usable but it often it went to such sort of remarkably daft places that it was just it was fascinating watching the brain kind of go where it went and yeah it was really fun and i'd love i used to be a graphic designer before i did stand-up and i always try and scratch that itch whenever i can so i like to do my tour posters and I like to get involved with any kind of literature that comes along with the tours and all of that. I love design. I love fonts. And so working on a on a book where it could be because art books are quite up themselves as things. And so there's lots of kind of structure and everything has to be in the right place and has to be very chinstrokey and so it was fun doing something like that that

you were just filling with jokes so there's a lot of footnotes in there because there's always footnotes in art books and it's just great to just do rambling nonsense footnotes that are just full of silly gags rather it must be so brilliant to cross the two passions of yours as well you know with the art with the humor and have it all in one book together absolutely yeah it was a delight to do because i've i've said this a few times to to people that i've i love doing stand-up but i don't hate but i find it very frustrating writing stand-up i get really in my head about it and this uh the I get really in my head about it. And this, the writing, I still get in my head about it a little bit,

but not to the point where it stopped me from writing it because I'm such a slow writer when it comes to stand-up because I don't know, basically. I think it's hard because you've got to have a gag rate that's really high because you've got to keep them laughing.

So it's got to be a joke every 10 minutes, 10 seconds or so. Not every 10 minutes. You're really failing. 10 minutes? to be a joke every 10 minutes 10 seconds or so not every 10 minutes you're really failing every 10 minutes um but um i yeah i i find that really arduous and writing this was completely delightful and i i loved reading it back and sort of seeing where it's sort of almost a sort of therapy really but yeah it was it was a lot of fun to do and yes it's a very colourful book and then I got really in the reads with like the paper type that it'd be on I went to Italy where it was printed and I went on press and made sure all the colours were great you know if it's going to be printed in Italy you've got to do a trip to Italy well

of course I mean come on you've got to pop how many days did you do be honest a week I think it was just the two. We had one night where we got there, and then the second night, the publishers, not the publishers, the Printer Trento, they're called, they took us out for a meal in one of their favourite restaurants.

And yeah, I love a little trip like that. Go to an obscure place in Italy to a print studio, see loads of massive machines and Italians working on them. It's fabulous. Great fun. It's a bit different to the documentary I've just been filming. I've just done a documentary for Channel 4.

Oh, yeah. And I was in Sheffield in a factory looking at Lion's Mane drinks. It's not quite as glamorous is it as yours well i don't know actually what's the i i love i did i went to a recycling plant in or was it sunderland or somewhere like that it was up north and um in the northeast and i loved that i love any sort of yeah process is really interesting to me so the lion's mane factory was it it was lion's mane mane someone had put lion's mane into a drink so it was all about lion's mane and how it's taking off the doc's all about different

things that we click on things that we're buying at the moment so i looked at barefoot trainers pizza ovens vegetable choppers and it's the things that people are buying you know just clicking i thought pretty much all of those things there you go so then i go off and sort of do a bit of fun science behind it how they work and chat to people that's so fun when's it gonna be on not sure yet new year because i did the voiceovers earlier today i did a couple and i've got a couple more to do but it was so nice presenting something as myself and you know heading it up i felt quite grown up doing it yeah absolutely you'd be well i know you'll be so brilliant at that and because you're a naturally

curious person as well and you're very easy company i mean we've not we only met the once i think in person right which is um stand up to cancer last year wasn't it or have we stand up to cancer no we haven't stand up to cancer and then even your show i was so busy i couldn't come on yeah yeah so um but you were so nice to me then you said you said something like you're a really special person or something like that to me but you you you really you've got such an energy about you be it on television or here but meeting you you've got such a beautiful aura i do i think you're such a special person so kind and so gentle and just so bloody funny no you're gonna cry no i do i really mean it you deserve everything that comes to you

because like you said there aren't many I might get in trouble for this, but you do see, I think, in our industry, quite a lot of people that have got an ego or are quite bullshit and can be rude to people, and they do really get on. So it's really lovely to see people get on who are really kind, I think. Well, that's nice of you to say. I mean, it is a weird one. I was saying that it's one of the things around the book that I've done uh I've done three books but two with a kind of established publisher what's really lovely about it is that you spend sort of you know 10% of the

time doing the book and then 90% of the time is going to book things and the publishing world is just full of loveliness and everyone's very bookish and called camilla and things like that and everyone's just very sweet and really into books and obviously there's a big business behind it and there's a kind of there's a there's a little bit of stuff going on behind the scenes, which is sort of less lovely. But generally the people that are in publishing are just nice eggs that like knowledge or reading. And that's great. Whereas telly attracts all sorts of strange eggs. And so does comedy.

And that's one of the things I love about comedy is that I'll be in a green room at a comedy club and I'll be with so many different types of people from so many different backgrounds and voices and that is really magic it's such a rare thing to have a job where you're sat in a room with people from all sorts of different walks of life who are getting on and are appreciating what each other does and you might have I mean there's there's a lot more uh trans people in in comedy than that you might have in I mean, there's a lot more trans people in comedy than you might have in other jobs and it welcomes all sorts of voices

and so I think that's brilliant. But in telly, you've got all of that and then all of the people that are, you know, the classic cocaine wankers that you bump into and, you know, pitch formats at you the ones the ones that when you're at an awards and you're sort of chatting to someone and they're looking behind you to see who's more interesting yeah yeah you know and that's that is you know and there's a lot of that and i'm sure there's a bit of that in publishing but i've not seen it i mean i don't know if you can read whilst on cocaine i think it's probably hard to to take yeah i think so

if that's you know if you're smacked off your tits. No, I think you're just talking about yourself, aren't you, for five hours? Yeah, yeah. So telly is a strange one. But you like doing telly. Did you love doing your show? I did love doing my show. Because it's a lot of pressure.

Yeah, it is a lot of pressure. But I didn't care about any of the pressure because it's an idea I had. And when I have an idea, I want to see it. You know, I want to know I've done it and tried it. And so it was, I can put myself through quite a lot of stress and discomfort in order to get to that final thing. And so that was, I was in the process and quite happily in it. And there's definitely shows that I was happier with and ones where I found like I was sort of not in control

or I wasn't doing well or whatever. But as an aggregate, I'm so proud of that show and I'm so thrilled that we pulled it off really because it's a hard sell to a channel to go, we're going to do a live show from Birmingham, which makes it double expensive straight away. And we don't really know what it is but we can sort of roughly give you some references but it will also be obsessed with kind of 90s culture and uh we'll sort of harp back to things that probably died a long

time ago and should have died uh back then and we're going to try and reinvent it but we don't quite know how and i'm gonna feature the local shop and my aunties are the stars yeah yeah absolutely yeah and watching those two kind of emerge as tv celebrities it's been another weird experience as well but um yeah i'm very proud of it but tell telly i am sort of i think it's a weird one i'm kind of wrestling with this at the minute is like how do you well maybe you can answer this i don't know how to do anything with a baby like i i'm struggling to respond to whatsapp's emails uh i forget things mid-sentence i don't i i i'm not functioning brilliantly as a um as a human i suppose that he is he's doing great but

how old is he he's two months yeah so he's two months my niece, my lovely niece, Elia, she has just had a baby and he's two months. Oh, congratulations. Yeah, baby James. And I can see she's the same because she's a doer and a goer. And she does exactly the same. What you were talking about on parenting. Now, she does one thing a day. She'll go to lunch with somebody or she'll pop to the garden centre or, you know, she'll do one thing.

But she's exhausted. And I actually popped around there tonight before picking up the kids from school. And he's absolutely joyful. Two months is brilliant, isn't it? Because they've just they're beginning to kind of want to gurgle and smile and they become they're really coming alive. Yeah, he's giggling and smiling at me and denise and it's just yeah it's great amazing it is amazing and when you said about love earlier obviously ellia's my niece but it's a bit weird because i lost my so my brother will be 60 next year so my niece is in her mid-30s but her nan my mum died 22 years ago

so I kind of take over a role of auntie and nan yeah so I'm kind of the she's got her mum who's my sister-in-law but for spoiling and loving in that kind of grandmother sense, I'm a bit. That's who I am. I'm the auntie. You've got unbelievable skin for a nan. Wow. I know. Don't tell anyone. What's the regime?

Just a bit of creme de la mer. Lovely stuff. Yeah, I need to get some. Your skin's a bloody amazing. What are you talking about? Denise keeps putting retinol on me. Is that a thing? Retinol?

Just tell her to keep slapping it on. Just trust her. Whatever she's doing. Yeah, I am quite happy with it. But I mean. Very good. I'm not doing it. She's doing it.

But this is the thing is that this is lovely. I've done a few podcasts, but I doing sunday brunch in a week's time and oh yeah i like sunday brunch i like sunday brunch but i've got to get i've got to get in a car i've got to wash i didn't wash for three days at one point i realized i'm in the same pants i was in 72 hours ago so i've got to do all those things which takes time obviously and then i've got to leave him which i don't want to do. And then I'll be gone and I'm literally going to get in the car, go to Sunday brunch and then come back and then that's it.

So I'll be back within 12 hours. Not even that. No, it probably will end up, no, it won't be quite 12 hours, whatever. It's a few hours away. You'll be all right. The idea of being away for a few hours is mad to me. I sort of, what, how? So the idea of doing then work, any sort of work.

It's really, really difficult. Obviously, we're freelancers. Do you know what I mean? So you can't, it's hard because we don't get maternity pay or, you know, we don't have that sort of time, paternity, maternity. It's really difficult. But this is going to blow your mind. Where you are now is beautiful but it's when i look back i think i could have left the baby all the time i could

why was i so worried about kind of that age six months eight months a year because now i've got 14 yeah and i don't want to leave her at all she so needs me at the moment just her hormones school life exams friends discovering herself i mean it's it blows your mind and you go i just want to be around all the time for you now and i don't it doesn't get any easier i just think if you're a good parent you just want to be around for your kids as much as you can be yes but they will understand that daddy needs to go to work mummy needs to do what she needs to do yeah well then they respect that we both want to work because we both think it's you know it's important to show your kids that you know there's a world out there

and it's good to have your own projects and things that you're working on and excited about and all of that. Yeah. So I don't want to retreat. Absolutely don't want to retreat. But I just don't actually know how I'm going to do it. It's early days. It's eight weeks. You know, I don't feel that you've not got to worry.

And it's a perfect time. Christmas is here now. Forget it. Just enjoy the festive period. Do you love Christmas? Are you a Christmas person? Well, this is another thing that's changed. I wasn't massively keen on Christmas.

There's certain bits of Christmas that I do like. And the aunties is an interesting one because the aunties, more or less most Christmases I'll see the aunties in some capacity. Often it would be on Christmas Day. and pre them being sort of part of the show. I, because there's such big characters, they would sort of dominate the kind of Christmas table and I would retreat

and I'd become this sort of child Joe that just didn't really speak on Christmas day because why, why, why get involved when Margaret and Paulina, you know, good old banter. So I really found it very interesting, my relationship with them and the dynamic of sort of coming out of weirdly, I'm the one coming out of my shell with them. And I'm nervous of performing around them and speaking around them because i sort of revert into kind of child me and they were nervous about being obviously like on telly they'd never done that before on the show so we're all nervous about it and actually we've our relationships way different and and and better really since um since we're doing that show so so there's certain elements about christmas like the christmas dinner where i would get a bit in myself about like or in my own head about like well what why can't i feel like i can speak or why am i not chipping in here and it's not like me to not speak so i yeah sort of

um i would get a little bit um sort of too introspective on christmas day but there are loads of little things that um well not that little actually there's um a lovely tradition that started probably best part 10 years ago um i got a i got a godson 10 years ago well a non-religious godson so he refers to me as his odd father um perfect which i think is accurate and he comes every christmas and we'll stay a night and we'll decorate the tree basically and he's now that's lovely 18 so he yeah so it was it was like a promise guardian thing so he was eight and he got to choose who his promise guardians were so it wasn't enforced on him and he chose me and i was a bit like gosh that is so lovely so lovely. It's lovely. But I was like, what do I have to do? Do I have to sort of, I've got to open a spreadsheet now?

What do I do? But it's turned out to be a brilliant thing. And I absolutely love him and adore him. And he's, the reason he chose me, I think, is because he's basically a friend of mine's nephew. And he basically was amazing at poetry and drawing and wrote these incredible things. And I was really fascinated. So I was sort of eking that out and we became pen pals. And then eventually we ended up being the odd father.

So that relationship and that sort of time is really special to me. And now that we can go down the pub is even better. That's great. So that's a really lovely tradition. And then there's little things like people pop around on christmas eve so i normally sort of make myself in uh on christmas eve and the one that sort of started a few years ago which is really is unexpected is uh is jess phillips the uh the birmingham mp always pops around with her family every christmas eve it's become this tradition which we've done for about five years now.

Well, it's because you're so passionate about Birmingham. I mean, what you've done for Birmingham, they must be over the moon with you. A visit from a local politician on Christmas Eve. Yeah, it's a weird old life, isn't it? But she lived literally around the corner, so that's how it started. And then she's moved and just, she's got friends around in the area so she drops by on a few different people

on christmas eve and that's really nice that's a really nice tradition so that we'll try and keep that up um that's really good there's lots about it that i i used to really dislike the kind of stopping of everything and i used to find that uh i don't know i sort of felt like my identity got a bit lost somewhere but i'm so excited about christmas now with a with a little babu oh it's good it's amazing i've oh you're gonna spoil him rotten you said you'll say you'll try not to but you will you are going to i'm going to create an absolute monster monster yeah the first thing he's going to get is charlie xx is brat because that is exactly what he's The first thing he's going to get is Charlie XX's brat because that is exactly what he's going to be.

He's going to be full brat mode. Now, I'm going to try and basically create the conditions that he thinks that he's in some sort of Victorian workhouse. Sounds like a plan. I'm not sure that's going to happen with the decor. You have, however, you can deal with that. I'm really not sure. This is what it would look like for the Victorians.

Have you seen Oliver Twist? They all had Attitude Awards. Yeah, you've got to change the decor if you're going down that route yeah i love i love christmas eve it's my favorite day more so than christmas i like the preparing i love cooking so i do a lot of prep and i i love carols at kings so i love having that on the telly and this year this year I'm doing the charity Bake Off Christmas special

and that is on Christmas Eve oh who are you up against well I think you might have to switch it on because I think you're going to be excited it's myself

Dean Gaffers Shobna Gulati it's a soap special Sherry Murphy Chris Bisson oh my Sherry Murphy Chris Bisson oh my Sherry Murphy soap special

I mean all of those names are a coup for Channel 4 that's incredible so yeah that'll be a laugh you can't tell me

anything about it I imagine you've NDA'd up to your eyeballs well yeah yeah was it fun did you enjoy doing it

I really enjoyed it it was a very odd it's one of those places that are so familiar and isn't it funny because i am i've lived on albert square in my other life and i understand how special that is but going into the tent and having no fielding there and paul commenting on your mince pies or whatever i did feel like madam two swords had come alive you know even i felt like that i felt really starstruck and a bit overwhelmed with the tent yeah what uh you've done that years ago when sam was doing it what did you think I was on with

Melanie Sykes and we were talking about Paul's eyes she was big into his eyes and I got I totally got it

when he looked at me there is something there's something about him there is something about those eyes that

well I couldn't explain it it was when we filmed it it was uh an england game was on and he was really kind and it was warm and and we sat outside the uh you know willie bay goes and that sounds really posh it isn't they're like caravans and we sat outside on a little trestle table and he was really kind. He shared his iPad so we could watch the game. So I like him for that. Yeah, he drove me around in a golf buggy at dangerous speeds when I did it, which was quite an experience.

But yeah, his eyes are... They're beguiling, aren't they? They're piercing. You also sort of sense there might not be loads going on behind them. Is that unkind? I think he likes what he likes. Yeah, I think it's safe to say that he's probably quite a simple man.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He likes the simple things. I think that's fair. Yeah. Fair. And he's done well with it.

With his shirt. He's done very well with it. Good luck to him. Good luck to him with all his endeavors he flies helicopters now i wouldn't surprise me obviously likes vehicles he's just a big boy basically isn't he yeah great big boy i'm i'm happy with that i'm you know me too oh i can't well i'll add that to the diary things like that the, the Christmas specials and all of that, there's lots of things that I enjoy about that side of, you know, the culture of it.

I love the culture of it. I have to watch Jamie Oliver preparing the Christmas dinner. Every year the same one. That has to go on. Yeah, you do wonder how they do new cooking programs and come up with new ways of doing roast potatoes or the stuffing or whatever but they manage it somehow it is the same dish we've worked it out everyone everyone knows what they're doing we do not need an hour special from nigella on how to do it but every year she films one she does and also i do need it joe i have to disagree with you

i need it i need to know and i look at those potatoes and they're so crispy and the brussels don't look like mine and i think i need to watch this again because i want them to look like that tomorrow yeah i mean and it's particularly i don't really watch nigella any other time of the year but there's something about watching a nigella programme around Christmas which feels very Christmassy as well. And yeah, the whole thing's just happened, isn't it? One of my favourite books, if you want to get into Christmas, you might already have it,

is the Nigel Slater Christmas Chronicles. Oh. It is the most magical Christmas book and I highly recommend it it and it's just him talking about his love for christmas but he talks about the fire and the candles and it is so atmospheric and then it obviously has these scrumptious recipes in it but it really is a great for someone for christmas lovers it's always a great presence by someone okay but i highly recommend okay yeah i'll take that on board.

Is it like you sort of get a sense of the smell of Christmas through the book? Yes, you do. It's really well written. He's a brilliant writer. All his books are brilliant, actually, Nigel Slater. Yeah. You know, and he's cool, isn't he? And he's in his lintel, and it's a little house, and he grows all the veg.

But he talks about the seasons and the leaves and the crispness and the cult you know it's really great really really good how do you feel about when you film a christmas special of something like a bake-off or eastenders or anything else when you film it way in advance does that do you get in the christmas spirit at that point or does it do you think oh we're lying here Bake Off's ridiculous it's too early isn't it you can't get in the Christmas spirit at the end of August no I personally I personally can't do that no you put your earrings on I had a little bow in and I really enjoyed it but I love and I am a Christmas nut that I love Christmas quite a lot, but I can't do that. EastEnders is really different because we film it in October. So really, once we see the trees go up on the square, you kind of go,

oh, it's not long now until our break. It's only a couple of months until the real Christmas. Oh, I see. So it's not Christmassy, but your head kind of goes, oh, we're nearly at a break, which is quite nice. So how long do you get off for Christmas as a break? Usually we always get two weeks and it's quite nice. It's kind of school holiday-ish. So, you know, 20th of December till the 5th of Jan or whatever.

So those episodes, whatever you're filming at the end of December, that's going out in kind of March time, is it? So if you're watching EastEnders in March time, you can sort of see everyone's kind of clocked out, basically. Is that what you're saying? Cellar tape in hair, Christmas gift tags being thrown over their shoulder, that sort of thing. That explains the sort of dip in plot lines

and sort of performance style in the March episodes, I would say. What am I kidding? I haven't watched EastEnders for years. I apologise. No, don't apologise. Is it going well? Are you having a nice time on the square? Well, I have to say, I've got some news for you.

Sonia is actually in prison at the moment. Oh, I'm going to have to watch again. What's she done? What's the crime? Oh, my God. I'm really out of the loop. She's been falsely accused of murdering her fiancé's wife, who was in a coma. Whoa.

Pop that in your pipe and smoke it. And it is a false, or is this conspiracy theory? Are you going sort of full Donald Trump here and saying, you know, release the January 6th Sonia liars? It definitely wasn't Sonia. So it's quite a sad state of affairs at the moment. And how often are we seeing prison life with Sonia? We're not seeing any prison life.

We saw her a little bit in the holding cell before she got taken away. But actually, lovely Nat over here just wanted to have a few months where she wasn't there. So I've been doing some other things. I see.

I see. Perfect. Lovely. And that's how they work it out. Well, I am a great fan of, again, the 90s, noughties TV drama Bad Girls. Oh, yeah. So I actually feel like they could have brought that back and had a kind of crossover with.

We could have had a spin off, a little spin off, because at the same time Sonia was in prison Sharon went to prison for a few days well there you go look at that and I said come on yeah just a few just a break days yeah but I said why have we not done a couple of scenes with Sonia and Sharon inside they've missed a trick there Joe so you in the holding cell but you've not done like an inner I suppose they don't have the budget to do a full they They've got to find the budget. We need a full Sonia in prison spin-off series. That's my demand. Here's a question.

How easy is it as a mid-tier comedian like myself to get a walk-on part in EastEnders? And who do I speak to? I think we can try and do that somehow the thing is with eastenders is they're very they're they're lovely but they are quite you know private and and sometimes they i mean they just don't really go in at the moment or buy any of that kind of oh let's get someone in to walk on and it'll be fun but they bloody used to joe robbie williams was in the vic on the phone yes well this is it and the vic you know in london a pub would be full of celebs and it's a london pub isn't it essentially is it like it's a trend yeah east

end it's yes exactly e20 yeah i think we can sort that. Is there a sort of specific area on the map where they, or it's just somewhere in the east? Because actually now it should be full of kind of orgies, really, shouldn't it? It should be sort of full of sex parties. They're not having sex parties on the square? There aren't any sex parties on screen. However, I have said, why haven't we done a late night eastenders as a special yeah with lots of fucking and blinding and bastarding and you know it would be quite interesting and

quite fun well all i'd want to do is i'd want i i wouldn't do it without a line and i'd want the line to be silly and something along the lines of like me sat having a drink in the vic going there's a sausage in my pint something like that and then okay then someone slapped so you sort of forget about it you know it's blink and you miss it but it is it is a maybe five to ten word line that i deliver and then some huge thing happens elsewhere if you could make that happen well i shall try my very best or maybe i could when you're released from prison i could be the taxi driver that drops you off oh you could they usually use the man who does all the cars uh it's the same sort of man and we don't really see him often. Right.

But maybe you could come in as something that, you know, let's have a think about it. We'll have a think. A police officer. I'd be a police officer. Yeah, you could be.

Although I'd quite like to see you in a more flamboyant outfit. Maybe you could kind of deliver some flowers for someone. Lovely. Like a nice florist or something. Yeah. Dropping some flowers to someone lovely like a nice florist or something yeah dropping some flowers to sharon yeah someone's died and you're popping something off but is there a funny line i'm sure there's a sort of you know i've got some tulips for sharon or you could do kind of quite a camp something like look after those chrysanthemums they they don't last long. Yes, we're in.

Okay, that's the line. And am I doing it in my voice or am I doing it as if I'm an East End? Yours. Mine. Look out. Hang on. Stop, cut. Start again.

Running up. And action. Look after those chrysanthemums. They don't last long. How's that? Check it. Amazing. Yeah. Lazy.

I was going to say one take wonder. It was the second take. It was the second take. Okay. Well, thank you. Whoever that needs to be passed by, if you can put that under their nose.

Okay. I'm not working loads next year, but I will make space for my walk-on part in EastEnders. It would only be 40 minutes, and then we could have a bit of lunch and a glass of wine. All right. We'll make it work. Joe, thank you so, so much for joining me tonight.

We've been chatting for an hour. At 50 minutes, and I don't want to take up any more of your time, but I just want to say thank you so, so much. What a delight, and thanks for being so lovely and part of my silly world and yeah i've absolutely um adored having you on things and having you in my life so i hope we get a proper in-person something at some stage i'm sure we will at some stage definitely in the future perhaps with the kids but enjoy Christmas well maybe then we don't have to

be away from the kids and mine are older so they're very good with babies so it's great because your baby's there you can enjoy him but mine can kind of help

so it's quite good I'm in alright thank you Nath what a treat what a lovely yeah lovely thing oh

thank you Hi this is Chris McCausland. And this is Diane Boswell. And we've got a new podcast, haven't we, Di? We do. What's it called? Winning. Isn't.

Everything. Every week, me and Diane, we're going to be having a little catch up on the back here strictly, aren't we, Di? We are. I've missed you, Chris. I've missed you, too. We're going to talk some nonsense, so why not tune in?

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