Love Lives - Comedian Andrew Hunter Murray: ‘The political landscape is ripe for satire’

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

Comedian, QI writer and Private Eye journalist Andrew Hunter Murray joins us this week to discuss his latest novel, A Beginner’s Guide to Breaking and Entering.We talk with Andrew about satirising the housing crisis, the power of humour in storytelling, and how to humble the world’s billionaires using sudoku.We also discuss the golden age of Twitter, Carrie Bradshaw’s questionable writing, and why Frasier is the ultimate comfort watch.Catch Love Lives on Independent TV and YouTube, as well as all major social and podcast platforms.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hello and welcome to Love Lives, a podcast from The Independent where I, Olivia Petter, speak to different guests about the loves of their lives. Today I am delighted to be joined by best-selling author, QI writer and co-host of the incredibly successful podcast No Such Thing As A Fish. It's Andrew Hunter-Murray. Andrew has written three brilliant novels including The Last Day, The Sanctuary and his latest A Beginner's Guide to Breaking and Entering and yes that is fiction. On top of his books Andrew also writes jokes and journalism for Private Eye and hosts The Eyes podcast page 94. I am so excited to talk to him today so let's begin. Welcome Andrew. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for coming in. Can you start us off by telling us about this novel?

And like I said, how it is not actually a guide to breaking into someone's house like it might seem to be. It's a pretty good guide. You know, there are practical tips. I don't help at all with the lock picking. You're going to have to do that yourself. But everything else about blagging your way into nice places you're not meant to be is kind of in there.

I mean, could you start us off by reading out some of the rules that you've written in here? Because I think that really captures the spirit of the book. I mean, rule nine, always have at least two backstories. Rule six, prep your exits as soon as you're in. Rule four, gloves. Don't forget the gloves. Rule two, never run.

And rule one, nobody ever, ever gets your real name. It's about a guy called Al who lives in lovely empty second homes when the real owners are not there. And he does it without their knowledge. And he's very good at it. He gets in. He doesn't damage anything. He doesn't smash anything. Just gets into these beautiful homes, lives there, stays there, makes his way out.

If he's ever challenged, he's always managed to bluff his way out of it. And he has a great life up until about chapter three when things start going wrong. And then from that point on, it's escalating trouble for him and his friends. It is such a fun idea and concept for a novel. And I just want to know everything about how this idea came to you, because like I said, this is your third book now. So how do you go about formulating an idea like this?

What comes first and how does it build? I think the sort of in every because the books I've written have been really different. The first two are quite serious. They're all thrillers, but the first two are quite serious. They're quite futuristic. They're a little bit sci-fi. This one is here and now. It's a lot faster and funnier and a bit lighter. And I think it's always the basic premise of the world, though, that appeals. So I think this one came from, I don't know if you remember the Christmas that was cancelled in 2020. Yeah, a lot of us remember that. It was bad. Basically, my wife and I, we would go walking

around the local area because we lived in Stockwell at the time, next to Clapham, which has some beautiful houses. And we would do long walks because that was what was allowed. And we saw these incredible houses all over, you know, all over Clapham, which they're like doll's houses. And the lights are blazing away. You can see these beautiful, you know, interiors and lives. And it just really dream of living somewhere like that. And I think that started me thinking about how you get into places like this. And there is a reason that people like other people's houses it's because it's other people's lives and we're all interested in other people's lives

because they might help us make sense of how we're living and we're worried we're not doing it right as well so i think that's where it came from in the first instance and then that blossomed the character of al just arrived kind of fully formed and i just wanted to hang out with him and how did you go about researching the novel? Because presumably there was quite a lot of research into how to actually break into someone's house and how to do it without getting caught. I made up a lot of the rules. They just sounded plausible to me.

They do sound very plausible. Yeah, I think I think I would have a good chance of success because it's all about it's all confidence. Al's whole thing is he's got some skills in terms of actually breaking in. But the main thing is he looks like he's meant to be there. He acts like he's meant to be there. And that is really, you know, the way to get on in the world is people, we're all waiting for someone to say, don't worry, I'm in charge. I know what's going on. And Al basically can do that, you know, so that's, that's the entire trick.

Yeah. It's the real kind of fake it till you make it mentality. And I suppose this is showing you how far you can really take that. I think what's really interesting about this book is you're kind of examining this interesting time in terms of where we are with the housing crisis. So obviously now, you know, rents are sky high, mortgages are unbearably expensive. So it's an interesting time to write about housing, particularly from this point of view. Was that one of the things you wanted to explore maybe more subconsciously through the plot? There is a bit of that in there. I mean, the aim is always to entertain, but there's just a little bit of, you know, this is what it's actually like. And part of the reason Al's a fun character to spend time with, I hope, is that it's kind of a fantasy of, you know, he is moving

around all the time, but he's moving around between beautiful places he doesn't pay any rent on. And he is making use of, as you say, this massive resource, these homes all over the place, which are unoccupied, going wasted. There are hundreds of thousands, millions of young people who don't have somewhere decent, stable, safe, comfortable to live. And there are lots of houses that are empty and very nice. I mean, it's just a marriage of the two, really. And so Al is kind of, you know, it's a bit Robin Hood-y. He's not doing it out of the kindness of his heart.

He's out for himself. But there is a bit of that in it, too, definitely. And obviously, there is a bit of political messaging there, which is something that kind of comes through in your other books, too. What is it about the thriller genre that you think lends itself to those kind of political undertones in books? Because I do think the two worlds collide quite neatly in the fictional space. Yeah, I think so. I mean, I like thrillers because they, you know, a crime book, if I'm found dead in the kitchen one morning, it's just really a matter of who did it. And we'll just work that out and what their motivation was and it's a very personal thing with a thriller it's I was killed but I'd recently taken a job at Omnicorp and then and we follow what was going on at

Omnicorp and there's a there's a longer thread if you like and there are bigger ramifications so I always I always like that kind of story which kind of fans out into something bigger or you know and that's that's kind of story, which kind of fans out into something bigger or, you know, and that's kind of why I'm drawn to the thriller genre, I guess. Yeah, I know what you mean. It's like a very dynamic lens to kind of grip a reader through, but then also make commentary on wider issues you're interested in. And you've got one character, or in this case, it's Alan and three of his friends.

It's a group of characters who are being pulled into something that they don't understand at the start, and they're trying to unravel the thing from the middle of it and trying to get themselves out of trouble while getting themselves deeper into trouble. So it's unexpected trouble is another, probably that's the genre I really write in. Yeah, and I guess also a theme that you cover in your work is wealth, like extreme, opulent wealth. I mean, in The Sanctuary, you write about Ben, whose fiance, Cara, has been living on the remote island of Sanctuary Rock,

and it's the property of millionaire philanthropist Sir John Pemberley. Cara decides to break off their engagement and stay there for good, which I think is such a fascinating commentary on some of the billionaire CEOs that run our world. I'm sure I don't need to name them, but what is it that draws you to writing about the uber wealthy? They're kind of freed from responsibility in a way that the rest of us are not. And they're also there when you reach a certain level of wealth, you are to a certain extent invulnerable in normal society. You have to do something really, really bad as a billionaire to face consequences of your actions. And it's an insane fact that billionaires exist.

I mean, it's a mad truth that there are people who cannot really spend all of their money, even if they tried to. You know, it would be very hard for a billionaire to spend all their money. So you've got an unusual group of people who, through circumstance, whether it's they've made the money, whether it's they've inherited it, they have a different perspective on life. And obviously, the overwhelming majority of us are not only not billionaires, could never be billionaires. So that is the dynamic. But billionaires come into contact with people around them. You can't only talk to the other 700 billionaires on the planet, however many there are. You talk to other people who don't have what you have, and they will want something from you. And that's the other interesting thing. Because I've met a couple of

people who've had, I've never met a billionaire, I don't think, but I've met people who've had lots of money. And there is always a sense in which everyone around you wants something. And you're just trying to work out what it is they want and they're trying to conceal it, but also get it. Yeah, it's interesting. It kind of reduces every human experience you have to a transaction, I suppose, doesn't it? It will be very worrying. I think it's almost impossible to stay sane as well when you've got that much wealth and you know that everyone around you doesn't. That's why Success succession is such a brilliant TV series is because it it charts these people who are all pretty messed up but are also incredibly powerful yeah it's funny because we

look at billionaires that we know and they're all categorically you know pretty terrible um not even just terrible but just slightly odd which I think also makes sense because like you said they have such a unique experience of the world and with other people. So, of course, they are going to be quite strange people. I think the key might be to develop a hobby that you can't buy your way out of. Because basically a hobby where you can collect, you can buy all the stamps in the world. Fine. Done. Right. OK. Done. What am I going to do with my afternoon?

So that's out. So it's got to be something else, you know. So what, like painting? So that's out. So it's got to be something else, you know. So what, like painting? Something like really, really, really hard Sudoku, I think, where you can't actually do it yourself. Well, yeah, you have to work it out. Maybe that would solve all of our problems if we just put all the terrible billionaires into one room and give them a really challenging Sudoku to solve. I feel like that could be quite a humbling experience for them.

Yeah, like when you go up to space for the first time and you see Earth without its borders and boundaries, you think, my God, we're all just humans, all of us. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. As I mentioned earlier, one of the places you write for is Private Eye, as well as hosting its podcast, which I can imagine must be a very fun job. Great fun. What place do you think a magazine like Private Eye has now in our,

I guess, let's just say capricious political landscape? Why do you think satire is so vital during times like these? Oh, man, look around you, you know. I mean, the really nice thing that Private Eye does, it does have the jokes in the middle, but it has this thick layer of investigative journalism on the outside. And that's an amazing combination, which took some years to develop into its current form. But at the moment, you know, Private Eye was on the story of the post office, my colleague Richard Brooks, who was on that really early, you know, or my colleague Heather Mills writing about Lockerbie or the tainted blood scandal, you know, all of these journalists write really interesting stories and the stories are told when they can be with a little bit of humour and that's a really encouraging way of getting the message across to people.

So I think that's why private eye is such a valuable thing. I also think there is so much happening in the world that's so ripe for satire and it almost helps you to understand it more. I think the best journalists and the best columnists offer news in a way that encourages you to understand it by making fun of it. Yeah, completely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And storifying it, if you like. And that's the entire art of journalism is to turn something into a story. And that's why when the ITV drama of Mr. Bates came out, that's what suddenly the story which had been kicking around since

Computer Weekly first published it in 2009, I think, suddenly came to everyone's consciousness. And, you know, there were a few hundred people who'd been writing and thinking about it who were going, why this now? I mean, we know it's really bad. So I think that's the way. In fact, Richard can help me with a lot of the consulting work on, there's a strong money laundering thread in Breaking and Entering.

And he was very useful advising how you get the money out of dodgy account in Switzerland or wherever and into the London property market and into your pocket. I want to talk to you about TwitterX briefly because it used to be this real haven for writers and it used to be this place where a lot of journalists kind of made their name and rose up through the ranks. And I think since Elon Musk bought it, a lot of writers have since left. So tell me what you like about Twitter because you are still active on it. I mean, ask me what I like about it is tricky because it's like asking an addict what they like about their drug of choice. It's just, what do I like about opium? I don't know. It's moreish. Yeah, I'm sort of, I like it because of exactly what you described. It has been, and to an extent still is, a place where you can gather lots of the most interesting minds on

any subject you're interested in. And they're there and you can write to them. And sometimes they'll write back and they'll, you know, so I'm really interested in things like clean energy and sustainability. All of these people, world leading scientists and writers and data scientists, people like that, they're on there. And they're putting out this really interesting information. So I feel like you can still curate it to be whatever you like. You just can't go below the comment line now, which is a real shame because you used to get a lot more, I think, of the organic conversations developing. Have you ever been badly trolled?

No, I never have. I'm quite lucky in that respect. I think because, A, I'm a man. I was about to say. Yeah, don't worry. No, no, no. That has helped. That's crazy, though.

Really? Never? No, the only time I've ever got near it was when, because I do this podcast, No Such Thing As A Fish. We had a TV series briefly in 2016. We did a couple of series of it. And there, whenever it went out, you'd get people sending you, but it wasn't bad abuse, but it was a bit of abuse. And I think that's because you're just on someone's TV and they decide, oh, I'm just going to, you know, podcasts you have to opt into.

It's very, very rare to get trolled for anything I've said over the last 10 years on No Such Thing as a Fish, because it's an audience who've chosen to be with you. And to an extent, you are shaping your audience there as well by the kind of show that you're making. You know, our audience is very different to Joe Rogan's or it'll be different to yours or, you know, whatever. So, yeah, that's helpful. Yeah. I mean, Twitter can also be a very joyful place. Your tweets are often the ones that go viral and make me laugh a lot. What have you been surprised about that's gone viral, been really widely shared? Oh, there was one. It some some stupid joke about Donald Trump and it was it was just I think hundreds of thousands of people liking or retweeting it.

I'm quite careful not to be intensely rude about anyone on Twitter but I make up for that by being very rude in my private life about all sorts of people. I think that's a nice yeah yeah but no I don't I give away almost nothing about myself and that that's maybe a bit, I don't know, it's a bit pathological. But I tend to, like Fish, we've been doing for ten years. And if you listen to the whole back catalog, there are about four facts about me in there. That's crazy. How do you manage to do that? I mean, I remember when we met, we talked about writing about our own lives

and you said you never, ever reveal anything or give anything away. And I was like, how? And again, I do think it's the man thing that you're able to get away with that. People are not as interested in... I'm not saying that with any false self-deprecation or anything. I think people want to know about women, women of all ages. It's just, it's interesting to people, you know. And when you make something,

specifically when you make something as a woman, there is a sense of, right, we're gonna kind of go through it for your personal life, and we're gonna see how this maps onto your personal life now. And we'd like to know every little bit of information about how the two dovetail. Did you actually make any of this up?

Is it fiction, or have you just written out your life? Because you're not on Instagram, are you? No. Is that one of the reasons why you're not on there? For privacy reasons? I just don't lead a very visually interesting life. I'm sure you in the average day see more interesting things than I do, right? Do you ever go on Instagram at all in any capacity? No. Really?

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Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Okay, let's move on to the loves of your life. Your first one is something we've never heard on this show before, and I had to read it several times because I did not know what it was. Tell us about the Trek 7.1 bike. There we go. You nailed it. It's a wonderful, it's a hybrid bike. It's not one of the bikes with the tiny thin wheels where you can only drive around selected bits around, drive, ride around selected bits of East London.

And it's only got one gear, so you can't go up hills all day. So those are your road bikes. This is not going to be a hubcap situation. I'm going to give you no technical... I'm not going to be saying, the new Shimano brakes I've managed to secure at some... I'm not going to do any of that. I don't know how to fix a bike. I'm very lucky I've never had a puncture, and I'd be stuffed if I did. I mean, it's just good fortune.

And yet, I love cycling so much because it's just another kind of freedom. You're traveling at the speed which is fast enough to look around you and see things rolling by. And you're not going so fast that you can't really engage with it. And you're in the open air. So I've been cycling since I was quite young. I actually got kicked off my cycling proficiency course. You see, I'm blabbing my secrets of my life. This is the podcast environment.

I get podcast mouth. I was a bit of a bad boy. I turned up with a VMX and they said, sorry, eight-year-old Andy, no dice. We need gears so that you can safely complete the course. Pretty brutal. And so what is so good about this Trek 7.1? This is just because it's my bike and I've had it for 12 years and I've lost it and I've had it stolen and I've got it back. Yes. You said before that you've had your bike stolen and you got it back. How did that happen? Do you remember the riots in 2011? I went along to one on my bike, quite a new bike at the time, and I was just rubbernecking.

I wasn't there for new trainers or anything, but I just thought, oh, how interesting. There's things you do in your 20s, which you look back and you think, how stupid were you? You idiot. I just went along and someone punched me and took the bike and that was that. So you fell off the bike and they took it. And how on earth did you get it back? Well, I walked home and then I contacted the police because I'd written down and this is a tip for anyone who's got a bike, write down that frame number.

The frame number is kind of indelible. It's like etched onto the underside of the bike. It's kind of like welded. I don't know how they do it, but so it's very, very secure. So if you have the frame number, they can identify the bike. And literally the day after the riots, the local police have just gone around the usual suspects and said, that's a nice new bike you've got. And then yeah, by the time I phoned up to say, oh, I've had my bike nicked, they'd already

got it. So it has a special place in my heart. But generally, it's just cycling, the freedom it gives you. Also, I cycle with a friend of mine. It's really good to have conversations when you're cycling because like actually sitting in a car anything where you're sitting next to someone allows you to have a much better conversation i think which is why this is nearly the perfect format if you and i were sitting facing outwards we would get very real

very quickly i know what you mean it's kind of like being in a confession booth maybe it's how to talk to men how to talk to repressed men. Is no eye contact. It really helps, you know. That's my indication. Confession booth is another good one too though. What's the longest distance you've cycled in London? I was about to cheat and say I cycled to Paris, but that is not in London. You cycled to Paris? Takes a few days. You stop off along the way. Some baguettes, some wine. You end up literally at the Arc de Triomphe.

The last bit is horrible because, well, Paris used to be a lot more traffic than it is now. They've kind of clamped down on it. But yeah, the last, like the last miles of cycling before the Arc de Triomphe are not dreamy. You're not actually doing the Amélie style. Good morning, butcher. Good morning, baker. You are just fighting small citrons.

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah and your second love is one that's quite common for writers but yours is quite specific so again like the bike tell us about this specific brand of notebook that i am not even going to try and pronounce it's a german brand and it's my local bookshop had a stand of these things and um i'm sure you know the experience of it as a writer. You want to buy a fancy notebook so you can prevaricate actually writing anything. If we were really trying to write as fast as we could, we'd write on anything. We'd write on kitchen paper.

But you want to get it just right. You have a nice little notebook. And I saw this stand. It said, Leuchtturm. And then it said, Denken mit den Hand. Thinking with the hand. Wow. I mean, I paid the way too much money that the thing cost and it was yeah and i just um i don't know it's just always nice having a little notebook i feel like i'm not really fully equipped if i don't have

one you said that you wrote your book in it i hand write all my night all my planning and scene planning and then eventually the laptop starts taking over and then everything I actually write out I write out on screen but the when you're writing a character for the first time when you're writing where your character might go so useful to have I do think you're thinking with the hand yes they tell me more about the process of how you plan writing because with my novel I kind of was so haphazard about it you know I had various notebooks I would then write chapter breakdowns and kind of do like diagrams sometimes. But there was no rhyme or reason to anything that I was doing.

How was it for you? Were you quite strategic in how you kind of went about it? Yeah, I think I have to be because I have tried the other method of just starting and seeing where you get to. And I wrote about a third of a book's worth and then ran out of steam and stopped and then start that same book again. So I've worked out through experience I can't do that. But I suppose with these kinds of books you kind of need to know where you're going because of the elaborate plot. Exactly you need a bit of a you need a destination and you need some you need a pretty clear route. But the thing is as on the Trek 7.1 it's all about what you see along

the way. So when you're doing the writing, it doesn't feel like you're having to write out or type out the exact thing that you've been planning because you notice your character's in a coffee shop, you notice something unusual about the barista or about the style of the building or whatever it is. So that's how you have fun while you're writing it. You're kind of constantly entertaining yourself and yeah, so it's a it's a fun process both sides. And what do you do when you get writer's block? If you get writer's block?

I do get writer's block all the time. I just I just don't write for a bit. And then I've never had a really bad case. I've never had six months of. But I think writers always procrastinate. What kind of things do you like to do when you procrastinate because you're not scrolling through Instagram like most people? No, but I am finding out some really interesting new heat pump studies

that have been published on Twitter and that's... I actually don't even think you're joking. I think you're being deadly serious. I'm being deadly serious, you know, because I'm informing myself. And that's actually, for the writer, that's very important. You can come up with any way of justifying it. But, you know, I'm not... You know, the Seinfeld method.

I mean, Jerry Seinfeld just goes in a room with a pad of paper. He's not allowed to come out for two hours. He can. And he says, my options are I can write or I can do nothing. I'm allowed to do either of those, but I can't do any third thing. And that's a very good that is quite powerful, actually. I mean, just we're not designed to be in a room with a box that contains all the world's information and entertainment.

And how often can you write without distraction? Like, what's your kind of daily routine if you're sitting down to work on your novel? How do you structure your day? I do it all before my working day starts, whether I'm at the podcast or at Private Eye. So I just the morning is where I have time to have a clear mind and think and write. So yeah, I have tried writing in the evenings, but I'm too sort of... No, I can't write in the evenings either. I always love the idea of being one of those sexy, like late night novelists that sits

there with a glass of wine and a candle, just like, oh, I'm just writing my novel now. Like very Carrie Bradshaw. But I can't do that. I have to do it in the day and come like 6pm, 7pm, I just want to eat and watch telly. Was Carrie Bradshaw in the world of the show a good writer? That's a very debatable question. I don't know. I mean, it's not like

the best prose ever, but I feel bad insulting her because I do think that that show is part of the reason why I do what I do. Well, there we go. Okay. Do you have a drink while you write? No, but that's because I write in the morning, you know, and I make a rule never to have a drink before 10. So I can't do it. This is one last question before we move on to your final love. But when did you decide or realise that you wanted to be a writer? Oh, really young. Well, I knew I wanted to be a reader, which I think is a slightly different thing. As in I was a very keen reader from a really young age.

And I sort of thought that I would get there somehow. But I didn't put any work into it until my mid-20s. I didn't actually do the work of actually writing lots and lots of early attempts at stuff, which is weird. It's kind of like when you're young and you're watching the Olympics and you sort of think, I'll get there. By the time I'm 12, I'll probably be this good at gymnastics. And you don't actually... And then we don't, so we're not. And I had the same kind of thing. I knew I wanted to be in the world of books and I read everything I could get my hands on. And then only when I was in my early 20s did I start really writing in earnest.

And, well, there are some poems that will never see the light of day. Really? Why never? Never, ever. Never, ever. You know that thing where people read out their teenage diaries? I've got, yeah, I would, for the same reason, because I would die of embarrassment and that would crimp my career. So I would actually literally die. So were novels always the plan, like the kind of goal? Again, calling it plan or goal is a very kind way of putting my, how I was thinking about it or working about it. But yeah, I've always preferred reading fiction to anything else. It's interesting

because most fiction is both bought and read, and I think increasingly written by women. So I find it very depressing how few men read fiction. I know. I've read a few articles about this and to the point where I have started asking my male friends, you know, when I talk about books, do you ever read fiction? And they almost always say no. Well, there are so many essay memoirs to get through first. But what if I need to kill someone with a biro and I haven't read Ant Middleton's latest? I'll feel like a fool. But that's the nice thing about A Beginner's Guide

to Breaking and Entry, is that I really think it's for everybody. And your third love is a box set, which I have to say again, I have not seen. But tell us all about why you've chosen Frasier. Have you not seen Frasier? Never. You have. I'm so envious of you in this moment. Is it one of those that's just really like formative? I think if you ever take the plunge you won't regret it. It's a show it's about Frasier Crane who's a very fussy uptight shrink but he's a radio shrink he's a celebrity shrink so he's slightly traded in his credibility for fame and money. His brother Niles also a fussy uptight shrink. They weren't afraid to have two main characters being exactly the same, which I think is amazing and weird.

Their dad, who's a retired cop, who is very different, and his physical therapist, he's played by Jane Leaves. She's also brilliant. She's from Manchester, allegedly. And it's about their life in Seattle. I mean, none of this is really... I loved this when I was quite young and like I wasn't on any of these things, you know. And it's amazing how the show manages to make the life of two people who are very outside the ordinary run of things relatable and lovable. And it's because they're very funny. They're very smart. All of them. Everyone is funny and bright and interesting, but they're also flawed. And you really see the flaws of Frasier and everyone around him. And it's not presented triumphantly. You see his weaknesses,

you see him being blinded when he fancies someone and he makes a complete fool of himself, or you see him being a complete, uptight fusspot and ruining his own day. So it's about someone who doesn't know how to get out of his own way and it's incredibly winning. It's warm, but it's not cuddly. There's always a bit of a spike in there. And when do you find yourself returning to watch it now? At any opportunity I can. I really, I just, I love it.

I think I've watched, well, for a while, I had seen seasons three to 11 and I couldn't bear to watch seasons one and two because I would then have finished Frasier and there would be no new Frasier. And it's that good. And it's a farce as well. A lot of the episodes are perfect, tightly written farces. So if you're interested in writing. I was about to say, do you think part of it is how you learned about writing and dialogue?

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. See, it's a big, it feels weird because i've written three thriller novels you know to say that fraser is a big influence but seeing how people react to each other seeing how you can show enough character without showing without um what am i trying to say there seeing how you can show someone's character uh through their behavior which is the key for so much particularly particularly on screen, you know, you don't have the luxury of an omniscient narrator.

You have to show the character through what people say. I'm always interested in hearing how writers, particularly fiction writers, like how few of them have done creative writing courses, but I feel like there's always something that you feel like that introduced me to character development, structure, writing comedy, creating drama. I guess, do you just pick it up subconsciously?

I think you do. Almost everyone who's reading is not thinking about these things, but you are learning a lot about story. And readers know when a story rings false, when it doesn't quite work. And I think when a book is successful, it's because it's managed to do something. And it might not be for everybody, but it has connected with people and it's found its audience so you are always kind of listening to the audience and in that sense and working out what what you've done that they've liked and what you've done that they haven't liked is really important for an author because we're all wanting to tell stories to as many people and

to connect with an audience you know so yeah every time you watch a story that works, you know about it. Do you find you have to be quite careful about what you're reading when you're writing, like if you read other books while you're writing? Because I definitely do. And I feel like it leads into my writing style. Because I've written two. I mean, this is such a curveball from the previous two. You know, the first two were not funny.

This is funny. And so I read pretty. I have a pretty Catholic taste I read kind of anything that comes across my desk you know so I have never found myself aping anyone yet. That is all we've got time for thank you so much Andrew it's been such a pleasure to chat to you today that is it for today thank you so much for listening if you have enjoyed this episode of Love Lives you can listen to all of our episodes on all major podcast platforms. You can also watch us on independent TV and all social media platforms.

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