Memory Lane with Kerry Godliman and Jen Brister - S01 E05: Seann Walsh (Kerry only)

Episode Date: August 25, 2020

"I was in class... The bell goes... I look up and I see girls running to get front row seats... I'm not making this up!" Kerry chats with comedian Seann Walsh about his favourite photos Photo 01 - Seann's New Romantics Phase Photo 02 - Seann's Comedy Class Photo 03 - Seann on holiday in Ireland with friends and family Photo 04 - Seann's Edinburgh Festival Poster Photo 05 - Seann's pilgrimage in New York City PICS & MORE - https://www.instagram.com/memory_lane_podcast/ A Dot Dot Dot Production produced by Joel Porter Hosted by Jen Brister & Kerry Godliman Distributed by Keep It Light Media Sales and advertising enquiries: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Memory Lane. Each episode, I take a trip down Memory Lane with a very special guest as they bring in four photos from their lives to talk about. To check out the photos that we're talking about, they're all on the episode image and you can also see them a bit more clearly on our Instagram page. So have a little look at Memory Lane podcast. Come on, we can all be nosy together. Did you struggle to find these photos or?

Did you know where they all were? I struggled to find the comedy course photo. Where do you keep your photo? Are they like in boxes or albums and stuff or on your phone? One of them was sent from my mum. One of them was deep in the archives of Facebook. The one that's a poster, you know, the one of me in bed. Yeah.

That's a poster for an Edinburgh show. I mean, there's loads to talk about with that one, mate. We've got loads to unpick there. I love these pictures because they are so, they're so you. And the only thing, so this one of you, what is going on in this first one? Like this new romantic-y one? I reckon I'm eight, basically, I loved the new romantics. Oh, well.

Obsessively. How old are you? Yeah, no, no, yeah, it was, I wasn't in sync. I'm 34. Oh, I was going to say, you should be in your sort of late 40s, early 50s to be a new romantic on. on schedule? Yes, so my mum would play like Culture Club and all of that and she took me to my first ever concert was an 80s revival show headlines by Culture Club and boy George wore a satellite dish on his head. Oh man I love boy George. So the thing with the thing with me is if I like something I can't just, I can't just be passive. I have to, I have to be it. I have to jump in. Yeah. I fully commit. And I wanted

to be like a new romantic. I can see that in this photo. You've really committed to it. So how old are you in that picture? I, I think I must be 18, 17, 18. So what year are we talking? Oh God. 2004? Like that photo, that near romantics photo, I, I went out like that. Yeah, because in Brighton you can, but if you walked about like that in Lewisham, you probably would have got your head kicked in. Exactly.

Yeah. I mean, I only went out, this was an experiment dressing up. That's not how, to be clear, that's not how I sort of dressed up throughout being 18. Yeah. That I went out one night like that.

Yeah. And we didn't even go to a new Romantics night. We went to an indie night. And I thought, see, I'm so, I've just got such a bad sort of perception of what other people think. I thought that was the coolest look in the universe. Yeah, but that's the thing about not being cool, that there's cool on the other side. That's what geek sheep was, wasn't it? When it was like, you look like a dick, you look like a dick, you look like a dick,

but then you've sort of come out as a sort of a cool dick. And I think you're there, Sean, in that pitch. You look cool. You do look like a dick, mate, but you look like a cool dick. It's a great picture. But I went out, we went to a club, I think we went to a place called the Zap on the beach. And I literally, I thought this is it. I'm in my element. I'm finally going to like pull girls. Girls are going to find this. Not a lot of that gone on prior to this phase. Absolutely not. Right. That didn't happen for a long time. time. Right. So that, I mean, to be honest with you, that only started happening when I started

doing TV. No, I don't believe that. Growing up in Brighton, I would have thought it was a pretty kind of easygoing, liberal, like you say, liberal up, you know, it's kind of. Yeah, but I'm, I, no, yeah, but I'm, I'm, I was, you know, people, this is the thing, you look at that photo, people used to say, I was weird, you know, I remember when a girl in secondary school said that I was eccentric and I didn't know what that meant. I was like, oh, what's eccentric? And she said, you know, weird and girl. I mean, to be in Brighton and be accused of eccentricity really is quite an achievement, Sean. That is such a thing. I was just, I was obsessed with making people laugh. I would just do whatever it took to make people laugh. And did you do that from when you was a kid?

or you sort of discovered it in your teens? No, no, no. When I was 9, 10, I used to perform what were, I didn't realize it, what were essentially stand-up shows at lunchtime. What, at school? Yeah, so, and it was, I mean, this is a dream come true. It was exclusively a female audience. Oh, wow.

And they just sit there and laugh at your routines? Right, I'm not making this up. This sounds totally insane, right? So how lunchtime worked is the bell would go. Yeah. Right? And obviously, you would, you know, you'd have to sort of finish what you were doing. And then you were allowed to go to lunchtime to go to the playground.

This is a real memory of mine that has stayed with me since it happened to now. Yeah. I, we were in the class. The bell goes. you have to finish what you're doing, right? So whatever I'm working on, I'm finishing it. I look up out of the window and I see girls running to get front row seats. Oh, Sean.

Oh, my God. This says everything about who you are and what you're going to do with your life. It's all been downhill from there. That is a. Amazing. And you felt like you were performing, so you knew what you were going to do and say to perform for them? I would come up with the sketches. Yeah, I would come up with what I was going to do. And did you know what stand-up was? Had you seen stand-up? So you were kind of aching stand-up? Or you just did it naturally? I just did it naturally. I watched Jim Carrey. I watched Ace Ventura. And that's what.

what I wanted to do. I would, I would, I would, how do I do that? And you pull funny faces. And the only, right, I can't remember what this sketch entailed. Yeah. So, so don't ask. But there was a, a reoccurring sketch that would come back every lunchtime. They would look forward to this sketch. And do you, do you remember, do you remember the Animaniacs, the cartoon, um, Pinky and the Brain? No, I don't know. Okay, yeah, no, it's, sort of, yeah, you, You would have been told for it by that point. And it's American, or British? It's an American cartoon.

Right. I think Spielberg was the executive producer. It was called the Animaniacs. And one of the sketches in the Animaniacs was Pinky and the Brain. And Brain was the clever one that wanted to take over the world. And Pinky was the stupid one. Right. And I came up with a sketch, don't know what it entailed,

Pinky and the Brain Dead, where Brain Dead was even stupider than Pinky. And that's all I really remember from it. And they loved it. They loved it. When at the... This is totally insane. I love reliving this. Yeah.

It was a Catholic primary school. What happened at the end of lunchtime, you got... There were two bells. There was the first bell. When they rang the first bell, you had to freeze where you were. So the whole playground would freeze. right? Then the second bell would go and all of the classes would line up in their class. Okay? Yeah. And when it was found out that it was my last day at school because I was leaving to go to Brighton.

Um, they rang the first bell and everyone froze. And then they rang the second bell for everyone to orderly queue up for their class. Yeah. And then they rang the second bell for everyone to orderly queue up for their class. Yeah. when they wrote the second book, instead of doing that, all of the girls chased me. Oh my God. I was, and that was pre-planned. They knew they were going to do that? Or that was a spontaneous...

I don't know if they knew, though. I mean, you'd hope that it would be sort of pre-planned. What did they do with you? Spontaneous they couldn't control themselves. We've got to chase him. And what, did they catch you? Oh, I can't remember. You just remember the chase, like a lot of long Benny Hill rerun of being chased by women.

God, that's a pretty amazing memory. And that's it, you just dropped the mic and move to Brighton. Yeah, exactly. And I tried to, I tried to, I spent a very short time in primary school in Brighton, just the last couple of months or something. Okay. And I tried to carry on. Right. I tried to start the show.

Yeah. And the memory I have of this was me trying to start the show again. Uh-huh. And there were just two girls. And they all I remember, one was a black girl and one was a ginger girl. That's all I remember. Yeah. And I don't know what I was doing, but they just.

just stared at me. Sean, you couldn't get the magic back. The apps didn't travel to Brighton. It didn't travel. It was hack in Brighton. You know what's better than the one big thing? Two big things. Exactly.

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This is everyone from the course. Right. So basically, I wanted to be a comedic actor. That was something that I sort of thought I could do. Yeah. Stand up, I didn't understand that there were these places, these comedy clubs. where you could do it without being famous.

Right. There was a strange logic. I didn't figure that Lee Evans was once not famous. I thought there was no Le Evans, and then there was Lee Evans the ultimate experience, the video. Yeah. And I didn't realize that was a process, and that was a journey. And then when I was 17, my mum took me to Comedia,

which you took me and the family friends to the comedian. And Stephen Grant, the host, who are now friends, with came out. I remember what Stephen was wearing. I mean, it will be not surprised. We always remember what Stephen's wearing. Right. Right. And you've got to understand, we take this for granted with what we do, right? Yeah. It's just, it's second nature to us now. Yeah, yeah. I didn't know about the comedy club. He came out. He asks the front row what they do for a living. Yeah. And then says, off the top of his head, one of the funniest things you've ever heard.

It's magic. Like, I could not believe what I was, people were laughing. I was laughing, but it was in that moment when I saw Stephen, and he was, and I don't know what he said, what the first thing he said was, but it was then I realized, oh my God, I can do this. And was it any part of you that had a sort of muscle memory with that kid in that playground doing exactly that to those girls? No, that came back later. I felt so, I felt quite, obviously when you look back, it all makes sense.

Yeah, it joins up, yeah, yeah. It all joins up, of course it does. But, you know, I feel like, to be honest with you, I felt like my teenage years, at secondary school, I think it was probably to do with the move from Brighton to London. It was probably a lot to do with puberty. Yeah, yeah. But it was a, it felt like, even now when I look back, secondary school was a detour from who I was. I rebelled. I was a very naughty kid. I was all, I was suspended, detentions, talk of, you know,

fault being completely expelled. And what were these, what for? What were you doing? Like, I just, I hated school. And you just didn't follow rules and you just wouldn't. I didn't, look, I mean, you look at it, just all made, I didn't follow rules. I didn't fit in. I mean, the new Romantics photo, the reason I chose it is because I look at it, it's on, it's on my mum's fridge at home when I go back to Brighton. And I see it and you just go, there's someone that didn't fit in.

I just didn't fit in. Yeah, yeah. Although it was Brighton, no one was dressing up as a new romantic in. 2004 or five or whatever. But what's interesting, when you do a course on stand, the thing about, like, comedy and musicians, I always think this when young people discover music and then they become sort of pedantic about learning chords

and stuff like that. When a lot of people that, like, yourself, are a bit, you know, a bit outsidery, and then they discover comedy. And comedy does have its own rules, and it does have structure, and it does have a sort of, it does have a kind of linear, you do have to commit, and you start gigging, and you have to get to the gigs,

and you have to put trousers on and turn up and face the right way. And everybody kind of wants it. They grab it. The comedians I talk to about it, they're like, at last, some rules I could get behind. That's very, do you know what? I've never actually, I looked at it like that, but you're absolutely, yeah, you're absolutely right.

It certainly gets, well, I mean, it did many things. It gave me purpose. Yes. It suddenly, and, you know, That photo, with all of those people, that photo for me, it represents, without a doubt, the happiest period of my life. Really? That is, I told, I text you saying I was going to cry and my eyes are watering. Oh, I've gone.

But that's brilliant. Because you just felt like you'd found yourself, you'd come home. I've found myself and I was, I'm fucking, I've gone. Oh, I love that. I knew this was good. I love that. Your next picture, is that family with your one on the sofa? It's mainly family, yeah.

So were your family, I take it fully supportive, once you got on this road to comedy, they were behind you? My mum was very supportive. My mum is the person that gave me the... She scrabbled together. I think I even might have gone to the cash point with her. We didn't have much money. Yeah. And she managed to give me the 120 quid or whatever it was for the course.

And is your mum in this picture? Is that her next to you? No, my mum's not in the picture. Right. This photo, this is my, oh, what do you call it? Extended family. Right. So who is in this picture? This is Ireland.

So on the left is my auntie EVE mom. Mm-hmm. Evie, and she, I mean, she's as mad as a chair. Are all your family Irish? Your mum and my dad both Irish? My mum doesn't have any, no, my mum's English and doesn't have any siblings. Right. My, and my dad is Irish and has a lot of siblings.

Right, okay. But only my two aunties are there. On the left is Auntie Yvonne who's, yeah. Just one of the most naturally funny people I've ever. ever met. Okay. I can't, unfortunately, anything she's, why is it? She said and I gotta smush it.

I can't, excuse the action, I can only do the action really if I've been hanging around with them for a while. Yeah. But then, so shall I'll just do a side of generic on it. I can't I do it. I'm, I can't, I do it. I'm, like, shan, like, she's put a moisturiser on her hair, right? She put him moisturised her on her hair. She goes, Sean, why do we look in the mirror of it?

We put the moisture on. Moisterise, why do you look in the mirror when we put the moisturiser on? I know that my fucking faces. That is a routine. This sounds like she could be a stand-up as well. She could. She could have been.

She's so funny. On the right is my auntie Paula, and she's more like my nan, who's 93, my nan, and still smokes. Right. But she's more of the sort of, the sort of, the responsible one, the motherly one.

Right. Who's got the obligatory pint of Guinness in his hand there? So there's two mates. Right. There's Robin there with the Guinness. Yeah. And in the white t-shirt next to me

is Barbecue Pete. Barbecue? Why barbecue Pete? I love telling people this. Many years ago, yeah. Me and Robin were hung over somewhere in Brighton.

Yeah. And we're like, right, pub. We're like, pub, come on, there's pub, there's the pub. Rang Pete, let's get to the pub. We ring up Pete. We're like, Pete, pub, come on. He goes, actually, guys, I'm, I was thinking of having a barbecue. Then, all right, cool.

We'll see you at the pub. And then it turns up to the pub and we go, oh, look, barbecue, Pete. That was it. That's it for ever more. Barbecue... But ever more, because he suggested a barbecue instead of going to the pub. Bloody hell man. Blokes and their nicknames.

Fucking... I know. Do you go to Ireland a lot? I don't go enough. Right. I don't go enough. We're going to plan another trip after the lockdown and we'll go. Because I didn't grow up spending much time with...

I did as a child, but more in the sort of the teenager is growing up. Yeah. You don't... You don't... it's all about this sort of identity and sort of knowing yourself, but that feeling, which I'm sure, you know, we all have, a feeling, again, not quite fitting in. Who am I?

And when I spend time with Evie and Paula and see the rest of the family, and by the way, I should say a lot of my time, not just with my family, but in Ireland in general, I suddenly feel like I make a lot more sense. Oh, that's interesting. being in Ireland and being with my family I get that

you feel Irish I do feel very Irish I do feel very Irish I'm good friends with Joanne Jan McNally the comedian and we get on like a house on fire and it's

it's just I've got a lot of close friends that are Irish from the comics from the Irish scene my favourite committee Dylan Moore and my favourite comic is Irish

like I just there's a way of looking at the world Like, do you feel like in your head it's got an Irish accent or Irish rhythms? Because there's something, there's a different vibe to Irish comedy, isn't there, almost? I do think that when I go to Ireland, I don't think it's a coincidence that I have. I've seen, you know, I won't name names. I've seen English acts, acts that I can say very English. And by the way, very good, very good, you know, very strong acts.

Go over to Ireland and it not work. Right. And I just, I don't have that at all. I go over and I feel at home and suddenly I feel like I'm talking to people on, on, I mean, you know, I'm going to say more of a wavelength because I, you know, I can do that here as well. There is a strong, there is a strong tradition of Irish sort of comedy and culture and poetry and language and music and it's all feeds into the to the stand-up voice, isn't it? Yes, and also, you know, if you're going to analyse my act, it comes, it, it, it's, it's, it's, it's. It starts at a place of, I can't handle this. Uh-huh. You know, whatever's going on.

It's incredulous bewilderment. That's how I describe your act. That's annoying. What? You're a muffler. You don't hear it? Oh, I don't even notice it. I usually drown it out with the radio.

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This picture. Are you in America in this? next photo? Yes. Do you know what that building is? Is it Ghostbusters? Is it there? Yes. I recognised it immediately. And it was so funny because I haven't. No, I have been to New York because it's it, I wanted to talk about America because I think some of what you talk about, an island and how you saw yourself growing up and your comedy heroes and all the rest of it, the next natural place for you to try and work is America. It makes total sense. Have you gig there? I've gigged there. I've gig there a lot now. Well, a lot. I've gigged there enough now.

I've gigged in New York enough that I'm comfortable. Really? There's no difference for me to... Really? Well, you can just feel like it's just a room and you don't have to kind of worry about it. Yeah, I try to adapt quickly and the covered effect, should we call it, is in full flow. Well, that's amazing, because I gig twice in New York and a few times in L.A., and I never got the magic. I couldn't make it feel natural to me there.

Not L.A. This is not America. This is not a photo of America. This is a photo of New York. Right. And you separate the two in your head? I absolutely separate the two in my head. Okay, okay.

So you're not out there to break America. You just want to be a New York comic. I would, to be honest, well, I don't know. Yes, I would sign on the dotted line for that. Right. It's more about the city, New York. Yeah, I get it. I mean, it's like a pilgrimage for stand-ups, isn't it?

It's like if you play jazz, you want to go to New York. If you do stand up, you want to go to New York. Yeah, I would go and I would go to the comedy cellar. And I would go on my own. I'd sit again, I was the kid that would go to Crater on it, the 17-year-old, the 18-year-old, the 19-year-old that would go to Crater on his own. I was now in my 30s and I was sat at the back of the comedy cellar. Again, I was sat with a table.

I was the bloke. Sorry, do you mind if I see it here? I was that bloke. Do you mind if I join you? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it felt good, it felt right? It felt, I feel so right when I'm in New York.

The last time I was in New York, I just felt so content. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, oh, you know, I've got a lot of issues that have come off the, the strictly thing. Yeah. You know, I can't, I want to avoid talking about them. No, me too, that's fine.

But you can reinvent yourself in America, can't you? You can start again. But it's not, yeah, it's not just about reinventing. It's not about, I don't look at it about, I suppose it's about reinventing your career. Yeah. It's not about reinventing yourself as a person.

I just get to go and be me. Yeah, and don't take that with you. And I don't. And I felt human again. I felt unjudged and I felt, you know, all the things that have been written about me. Well, you can scratch that out. You can just say, I'm rubbing it out.

I can be me here. Yes. And it's, I just, I just, I can't, I just not felt, when I'm in New York, I feel like I've not felt like this in a long, long, long time. I feel, and I've only been there for short stint. There's a real romance to America. I love talking about why we love it, you know, like Brits, especially if you work in comedy or music or whatever. You just, there's just a romance to America and especially New York.

Well, especially New York, Ghostbusters. the reason I chose that photo me stood outside the Ghostbusters headquarters is when I was a kid the what I would do my mum tells me when I was a very young boy she got me the double cassette the double VHS of Ghostbusters 1 and 2

and again going back to my obsessive compulsive sort of behaviour yeah I'm by the way I'm not I don't think I'm OCD I don't think I am I've just it's just when I like something that's... You immerse yourself in it.

Yeah. I would put on Ghostbusters 1. I'd put on Ghostbusters 1. I'd put on Ghostbusters 1 again. I'd put on Ghostbusters 1 again. I'd put on Ghostbusters 1. And I'll go to bed. But I do get that. I do think that is the equivalent of a teenage boy learning guitar.

That is like playing the same three chords over and over and over until you've got it. I wish I'd done that. Well, yeah, but you're learning comedy. You're just learning. You're getting it in your bus. aren't you? Yes. And I just,

every time I've been to New York, I've lost count how many times I've been to New York, but every time I go, I make sure I pick a day and I go, today's the day, and wherever I am, I walk, I walk to the headquarters

and I get a phone, every time I get the photo, I get the same photo, it's just me outside, I go past the headquarters, it makes me, it makes me so happy. I love it.

It's my safe space. It's your pilgrimage, Sean. That is your cathedral. You're going to church. That's where you're going. But it is, you know, how like people put on, you know, like people will put on music for comfort. Yeah.

I will, if I'm having a bit of a down day, I'll slap on Ghostbusters, I'll clean the flat, I'll do whatever I'm doing around the flat, but Ghostbusters is on. That's brilliant. Listen, Sean, you have been brilliant. I'm so flattered that you did, you know, opened up and was so honest with your stories because you have had an extraordinary life.

You really have. I really enjoyed it. I've really enjoyed it. It was quite emotional looking back at the, looking at, we're having to talk about them. It's quite emotional. Yeah. But also, you know, I went through other photos when I was finding this. It brought me back in contact with Jim, who was in the top right at that comedy course.

Oh, really? Yeah, because we, we talk very occasionally, but yesterday we chatted for a long while. We reminisced and it's been lovely. My favourite, oh, it's been a joy. I mean, my favourite story is you doing those gigs to those girls in that playground. That will stay with me. I just think that's such a lovely story. If anyone ever asked you again, can you remember your early gigs?

You've got to say it's those playground gigs. I just love that. Yeah, sent Winifred's school, Hibbergreen, absolutely smashed it. Yeah. That's it for this week. The rest of Series 1 is available with all the photos on our Instagram page and Jen and I will be doing new episodes every week. Thanks for listening. Bye.

I'm Max Rushton. I'm David O'Dardy. And we'd like to invite you to listen to our new podcast, What Did You Do Yesterday? It's a show that asks guests the big question, quite literally, What Did You Do Yesterday? That's it. That is it. Max, I'm still not sure.

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