Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out - 211. Nish Kumar Returns: Dinosaurs Before the Meteor

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

British comedian Nish Kumar returns to the podcast to discuss the humbling nature of stand-up comedy, lessons learned from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and more. Nish explains the concept of his new tour, “Angry Humour From a Really Nice Guy,” and how he finds the comedy within his pessimistic views about humanity. Plus, Mike and Nish discuss different kinds of heckling, and why Nish’s voice caused an audience member’s Apple watch to call an ambulance. Please consider donating to Choose Love Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The descriptor of your new show reads, Nish Kumar is 40. His mind is breaking. His body is worse, which I love is a description. What is breaking your body and what is healing you, if anything? I would say, so like, my body is sort of showing the signs of the slowdown. Yeah, yeah. The big slowdown. It's the first yawn before the big sleep.

You could feel everything. like it's just the thing of that noise. That noise has started to happen without me wanting it to happen. The overall feeling of people having to look at my butt more than they did before. Why is that? Just bear it's butt. That is the voice of the great Nish Kumar. Nish is back.

One of my favorite guests we've had through the years and we work out a lot of jokes today. Like a lot of our repeat guests, we really really, really getting the weeds on jokes. I was thrilled to have him. If you don't know Nish, he is a brilliant comic from the UK. He's got a new special out called Don't Kill My Vibe. Nish is a super nice guy. He's very angry about a lot of things, but very funny about it. We talk about that today. We work out a lot of jokes, by the way. We have a new episode of me working out Listeners jokes over on Working It Out Premium on Apple Podcasts. We just dropped it. Pete Holmes and I work out your jokes that you sent to Working It Out Pod at Gmail.com.

If you go over to the Apple Podcast app, you can subscribe. It's $4.99 a month. You get no ads for any of the episodes. You support the show, which we appreciate. It's an independent production. And you get these fun bonus episodes, which are really, honestly, the inside of the inside of the inside of what I do every, you know, every day. By the way, you're probably listening to this, but you can also subscribe on YouTube and watch this episode. You get the full video of this episode, and you get all of our episodes starting at episode 100. That's when we started doing video.

And we appreciate it if you subscribe. We post more and more videos, so don't miss that. By the way, I'll be at the Netflix is a joke festival this Wednesday. This Wednesday, May 6th at the Wilshire eBall. There are only a few tickets left, so get on. On that, if you're nearby, it's going to be me and several friends, all of whom have been on the podcast before, headliners in their own right. And I'm going to be doing probably a half hour of new material, at least, actually. I'm really excited about that show.

Also, if you are in Canada, I will be in Montreal this summer, hosting a gala at the Just for Laughs Festival, July 24th. And if you're in Nantucket, or anywhere near Cape Cod, really, you should visit Nantucket. Take the boat over. It's so nice. I'm going to be at the Nantucket Performing Arts Center. Tickets for that go on sale, May 11th. And I'm doing a bunch of dates to support John Mullaney, along with Fred Armisen in May, Colorado Springs, Eugene Oregon, Bend, Oregon,

Moorhead, Minnesota. All of these things are on berbigs.com. Sign up for the mailing list, and if you want to go even deeper, sign up for text message alerts. That way it doesn't go to your spam. Just text Burbigs to 917444-7-1-5-0 to be the first. to know. Love talking to Nish Kumar. Right out of the gate, we talk about Edinburgh Fringe, which is, couldn't recommend more highly if you can possibly go to Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland

this summer. Nish has done that festival five times. We talk about hecklers. We talk about the humbling nature of stand-up. He's so funny, so insightful, enjoying my conversation with the great Nish Kumar. I went into my notebook about Edinburgh today because I was like, you've done what, six shows at Edinburgh? Yeah, I did 2012, 13, 14, 15, 16. Full runs, premiere the show there. I'm obsessed with the vet.

I've only been once, and I'm obsessed with it. And I always tell my listeners, go to Edinburgh. Try to go. If you can possibly go to, if you like comedy and arts and performing arts, figure out a way to go to this festival. It's bananas. It's like 10,000.

shows in one month in one city. It's, it's, yeah, it's like nothing else. Like, I've been to a lot of the big, big ones. Yeah, Melbourne's good too. Kilkenny's great. There's a lot of great ones, but somehow Edinburgh, and of course Montreal is great, somehow Edinburgh is unbelievable. I think there's two things.

I think one, it's bigger than any of them, like the scale of it is so huge. and the comedy is one element of it. So there's like a weird mime show. There's like four hamlets at any given time. At any given time in Edinburgh, someone is doing Hamlet. Right. And there's like three improvised Shakespeare's or something. Like it's outrageous how many, just the bulk of things.

Well, it started as the Edinburgh International Festival. So there is still that festival and it's theater, dance, all kinds of things, classical music. Yes. And then the fringe was literally the fringe of the festival. And it was at the peripheries of the main festival that comedy happened because comedy, as we all know, is not art. In spite of how much we try, comedy is not art. I don't know what it is. No, of course it's not.

But then now the fringe is now overrun almost the rest of the festival. So now the fringe is like way bigger than the actual festival itself. Oh, that's interesting. So it so the, so. So comedy was perceived as quote unquote fringe, and that's how it ended up being sort of a comedy festival. Oh. And so now I didn't even, this is all news to me. But also it's like you go, you start at 11 a.m. and you can watch shows until two in the morning.

Yeah. It runs like that. And the biggest thing about it is there is no curation of it whatsoever. Yes. Anybody. There's no festival director. There's no festival director. No one's directing it.

It's, it's anarchy. Like, it's like... It's really, it's anarchy. It's a hodgepodge of performances. And they're anywhere. Like, you know, we're in a studio on the third floor of a building in Brooklyn. There could be a show here. Mike, not only could there be a show here, this would be one of the best venues.

Like, this would easily be... There's a toilet. There's, like, drinking water available. There's, like, space for things to happen. Yeah, yeah. Also, there are walls and soundproofing. This would immediately be in the top 5% of value. It's so hard to explain to people that you'll go there and you'll be at University of Edinburgh or something and it'll be a lecture hall and that'll be a show.

And then you'll go somewhere else and it'll be like a gift shop and that'll be a show. Obviously every cafe is a show. Every bar is a show. There are caves because Edinburgh is, you know, it's like an ancient city. So there are caves that have been there for. hundreds of years. There are caves that way predate the existence of the country that you and I now sat in its modern incarnation. And I still believe that we made a mistake in COVID because as soon as everyone was like, there's this disease, I think somebody should have cracked one of the

bricks in one of the caves in Edinburgh. And you know, it's like Godzilla, you have to fight Godzilla with Mothra. Like, I think there was a disease living in the walls of that game that could have for an eating COVID-19. I've seen people get flus from doing a month in that cave and you're like, that's medieval. What you have needs to be cured by, I don't know, leeches and an exorcist. Oh, it's unbelievable. But it's because there's no curation, it means anyone, regardless of their mental health problems, is able to get a venue for a month and do this. And they do.

And they do. And it's, and as a consequence, you kind of see. the most exciting stuff. You see some of the worst things. Whenever people come and see me, now I always say, go and see something by someone you've never heard of. That's the magic of it,

because either it will be the best thing you've ever seen or it will be the worst thing you've ever seen. And most of those things will be on. And the excitement of seeing something great that you've never heard of and no one you know has ever heard of is a thrill beyond almost anything you can do in seeing live performance, I think.

Oh, God, yeah. I mean, there were shows that I saw 20 years ago that I can almost like physically relive the experience of like watching them for the first time. It's so great. When I was, hey, I wrote this down this morning. When I took a cab to the airport after I went to Edinburgh, 5.30 in the morning, a taxi driver asked us if we went to the festival.

We said yes. He goes, my wife and I went to see a show. I had terrible Scottish accent, but there were five comedians and three of them were pretty good and two of them were rubbish. And they knew they were rubbish. And it always sticks with me that they knew they were rubbish is somehow the meanest thing you can possibly say. They knew they were rubbish.

And then I was like, wait, am I rubbish? If I were rubbish, would I know I were rubbish? And is that the great crime of being a comedian? Is A, being rubbish. be knowing you're rubbish. I mean, that is, that's everything. Isn't it everything? That's why, I think there's two key reasons it has to happen in Scotland.

One is the weather is so bad that even in August at the height of summer, you can justify going and sitting inside a cave. I think that's a huge factor in it. But also, there is something about, and there is this idea that like a lot of the fringes, not really Scottish people in these people come from outside of Scotland, but there are a lot of Scottish people that go and watch shows. And they can sometimes be the most.

damning critics possible. I'm going to tell you a story. I'm not going to name the person just because, like, I have to stop slugging off other British comedians, otherwise my agent is going to punch me in the head. Trashing people left and right. I'm just going to say, so just in the kind of aftermath of the Me Too movement, there was a lot of the kind of initial conversation around Me Too. There was a lot of very dismissive comedy done about it.

which was not helpful and didn't really engage with the substantive issues that were being raised by the women that were coming forward in that period of time. And a British comedian was doing a show where they were being dismissive of the Me Too movement. And my friend is backstage because it's like an assembly line. Like one show finishes the next show starts. So you have to be kind of ready and in position, especially because this is quite a big venue. So there's like 500 people that have to get in and 500 people that have to get out in a really quick 15, 20 minute change.

And so when you've got the next show, you are often just stood in the back of the curtain. And you form these kind of really interesting month-long friendships with the people that are either side of you. And this comedian is on stage and every night was doing a piece of material where they dismissively referred to the Me Too movement as being sort of people complaining. And then would say, Me Too, what's next? Me Three, Me Four. Which is not even really a joke. It's not like regardless, separating my feelings of the politics of it out, it's not even really. wordplay.

Yeah, yeah. So it's, they said me, me two, me three, me four. And my friend is backstage and he can just hear what he immediately identifies as a very old Scottish woman's voice. And he just hears her go, what? What? What? It has to happen in Scotland.

Because there is a, there is a, there is a kind of hostility, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a. A learned hostility to the Scottish people. Yes. And I think that that helps you. And I think that just all I think about, I think about that so often. What? It's, it is funny when people have a reaction that it, like, there's, there's performative heckling. Yeah.

Right. And that's one thing. We all, we've all seen that. But then there's what. And what is interesting because it's of a piece of like a larger, type of response that people will have. I've had it in my shows. You do a premise. People go, no. No. No. And you go, wow, this is really, there's something here. The thing with heck, you're on something exactly correct. There are people who come to shows. Like my friend saw somebody

leaving a show once and the man was saying to the woman he was with, we have interacted with a comedian. And my friend was like, that's a whole story. And I know that you ruined that comedian's show. Yes. And there are people who go with a plan to heckle or there are people who heckle because they think they're going to heckle. And then sometimes the core of someone's being is activated and something is thrown out really without their full awareness that is happening. Yes. H. Which I think crucially you have to spell that H-W-H-A-T. Yeah. That's how you spell that word. What? What? And no. Yeah. No plan. That was not planned. No plan. No, it's guttural. There are certain responses in comedy shows that are guttural.

And it's a fascinating thing to watch. In 2009, I think, maybe it was earlier. There was a very big show on in the UK called The In Between. It's huge sitcom. I remember a really strong following now. I think they tried to remake it in the States, which was a kind of weird thing. I'm sure I auditioned for it.

Am I in it? Has anybody heard anything? Did we get feedback? Does anyone know if Mike is in the US In Between his remake? Does anyone know? Comment, like and comment below. Subscribe. But it was a huge show.

It still has a very strong, very loyal audience now. And it's a big deal. But at the time, it was like the big show that was on TV. And I know the guys that are in it. They're great. And they were in a sketch group that was on at the end of a show that I was doing at a college in the UK. And I was the first act on stage.

And I walked out and literally I picked the microphone out of the stand. And a man just goes, when are the famous people on? When are the famous people on? When are the famous people on is something you can, you can, you can run and you can hide. But that's going to come for you eventually. As a performer. It's Thanos. Dread it, run from it.

It arrives all the same. You can't do anything. event last week and it was like it was I was I was me and then it was a super famous actor okay like I can't say it was yeah and I showed up and I knew I was screwed because I wasn't in the program so it's not even like yeah we've got someone we've got someone from the thing that you like yeah it was just this is the this is the person we're all here for and then you don't know this but there's going to be a comedian who you do not know who's about to come on for 20 minutes and bomb, and then he's going to leave. And I was just like, oh, that's a tough one.

But it's funny because it's like, you, you know, and I'm far along in my career. Like, you cannot run and hide from this. No. This is coming for you, no matter what stage of your career you're in. Oh, my God. It's, it's, it's, this job is consistently humbly. Oh, it's deeply humbling. And I think that that is a good thing because I think if you think otherwise about the premise of this career and as you become more successful in it, you know, you're sort of you're charging people just to essentially spend time with you and your thoughts, feelings and opinions.

Yeah. And I think that that could create monsters. It has created monsters. Oh, Nish, have I just got some stories to tell you. You're not going to like this. apparently. I am one of the biggest divas in British Goldberg. No, no.

I mean, look, it's the humbling... Already based on, already what we've talked about, the famous actor and the monsters that you're talking about, everybody listening to this now or watching this now is thinking, as soon as that thing ends, I know that that British asshole is going to go, I need all of those names. And I know that that American asshole is going to give him the names.

That's what Malaney said when he was on the podcast. He's like, the real... The true great stuff. podcast happens five minutes before and five minutes after when you name names about who you're talking about. But the humbling is crucial. It's essential. It's essential because the potential for narcissism is so high.

Oh my God. And also, you stop being, if you stop being able to be humbled by this job, then that is when I believe you start being bad at it. I think that's true. And we've, of course, witnessed that a lot of time. Yeah. How do you... I sometimes see people where they've become incredibly successful stand-ups,

and you see... You know what it's like, and every comedian knows what it's like. You see them live, or you see them do especially, go, you went soft. I know. Oh, yeah, yeah. You went soft. I know. You're not doing the necessary legwork to stop this from being shit.

You're not... You're not taking the subway. Yeah. Or you're not taking the tube. Yeah. You're not living what people are living. And you're not living what people are living. living what people are living and also you're not putting these you're not taking enough you're

not allowing yourself to be humbled in the process of doing this work because like it's so easy you put it you put jokes up in front of an audience yeah and if they don't work you change them or you get rid of them and there's but i think sometimes you see people who are maybe just not quite pushing themselves because they know when they get into a big room it can absorb like there's enough people there laughing that it can cover the slightly weaker material. But I think you've got to allow yourself to bomb still. Oh, I know. And I do, Mike. And on that basis, I'm the greatest comedian of all the time. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, the humbling's got to happen. Has there been any specific humbling on this tour? Because you're in a huge tour. As far as I can

tell, I mean, I feel like you and I have known each other a little bit for five or ten years. Yeah. It's like, this seems like the biggest you've been. It seems like you're on a big upward trajectory. I, the thing with this is that I've kind of bled one tour into another essentially. So last year I was in the States finishing like a tour that I'd started the previous September. So I did Edinburgh as a work in progress. Then I toured UK and Ireland September to December.

Then end of February, I started in Toronto in Canada and then came down into the states. And then, but that was the first time I've ever toured in America. Wow. Previously, I'd just come here and done two shows in New York, two shows in L.A., and then gone home. And this time, because I had the visa, I just thought, you know what, let's just experiment and see what it's like. Wow. And it was, it definitely has impressed on me how hard it is just the kind of physical act of getting from place to place in America. Yeah.

By the way, scored the visa in the Trump years. Nice. I don't want to give too much away. It was scored in the Biden area. It's been renewed in the Trump administration. But the phrase permanent thin ice really feels like it applies. But yeah. So I did that and then I went back to the UK and filmed that show.

And the film of that is going to come out at some. I should have this information. I don't. It is available at some point. It will be available. at some point as people are listening to this. Does it have a title? That show is called Nish Don't Kill My Vibe.

Oh, nice. Because I wanted something... Nish Don't Kill My Vibe is a great title. Basically, you know, when you're titling a show, I'm interested to see how you work it, because at what point do you realize what the title is? Because you write shows that are often stories, or they're very, very themed.

It goes both ways. Sometimes it's, I have the title, and then I'm building backwards from the title the idea. Yeah. And then sometimes it's, um, you do it for a couple years, and then you go, well, like with the last one, the good life, it's like the guy, well, the principle is the good life. What is the good life? And it was like years in. So I don't, I've only done one show that is kind of one story. And that was a bit of a departure for me.

But the, generally the shows are, you know, and it's where I am at this point in my life and my career. And so like I sort of have like that show, I've been doing a lot of political. stuff in my stand-up shows and in my kind of television and podcast and radio output. You've been killing people's vibe. I've been killing people's vibe. And there was a guy. I was walking in the park near my house during COVID. And I was talking to my brother about the way that the UK Conservative government

was handling it at the time. And, you know, I was like just going like, fuck this, people, you know, like screaming into the phone to my brother who lives in Germany and who was like, okay, I just asked how you were. And at no point have you told me You've just gone straight into What seems to be five minutes of prepared material About your frustration with Boris Johnson

And I saw this guy kind of clocked me And in my head I was like, I think that guy recognised me But they didn't say anything And then when I got home I found that that guy had gone on Twitter And said, I saw Nish Kumar in the park today And it turns out it's not a character Oh yes

And so from there you go Oh, okay, that's like a fun bit of material And then you go, okay So I think the show is going to be about doing stand-up about unfunny topics. Yeah. Which is like, I feel like I heard Chris Rock say that in an interview. I think maybe with Mark Marin a long time ago,

he said that he likes doing stand-up about unfunny topics. Sure. And I think I sort of internalized that. And so I think, you know, because I, you know, those HBO specials, either side of the millennium, bring the pain bigger and blacker and never scared, are like three of the main reasons why I do stand-up. Yeah.

and why I do the type of stand-up idea. Yeah. And so I think I internalize that. And so I like the idea of doing stand-up. So then when it comes to naming a show you, like, okay, well, I'm doing stand-up about unfunny topics. I also am a huge fan of the recorded output of Mr. Kendrick Lamar. And so I was like, okay, so then this could be like a funny Kendrick reference

and also give you a sense of what the show is called. So anyway, I toured that show, filmed it, that film's about to come out. Now I'm on a new cycle of material. And in a similar spirit of, I just had the idea for this, and it made me laugh out loud when I had it. So then you're like, well, I have to call the show it. So my new show is now called Angry Humor from a Really Nice Guy. Yeah, I saw that. I love that too.

The stupidest possible titles for these things. What are you most angry about on a day-to-day basis? Like right now, I'm really angry because I'm 40 and I'm really angry that I'm 40. Why God? Definitely, probably about halfway through. Oh, Mike, I've seen my genetic history. I think we might be more than halfway through. I'm angry that I'm seeing patterns repeat themselves, negative patterns repeat themselves.

You know, like people my age came of age in the Iraq war. That's right. So we come of age at a time where you have a war that is, again, I'll use the phrase legally unorthodox. So you have a legally unorthodox conflict being engaged by America with a country that starts with I. And you also have that within that, it's a response, it's punishing a civilian population for a terrorist attack, right? Now I was under the impression that we had all come to a conclusion that that was bad. Right. And so now when you look at what's going on in Gaza and Iran, you have the same thing.

You punish a civilian population for a terrorist attack. And you also have a war that has seemingly almost no legal mandate. Right. At the same time, you've got like everyone, a lot of economists who predicted 2008 basically saying a lot of the underlying markers are happening again because of the lack of regulation of AI and the way that there's, the way that there's been an inflation of the value of stocks. Yeah. And we could be about to head into another financial crisis. It's like a multi-trillion dollar valuation of a thing that nobody even knows what the value of is. Yeah, it isn't finished. It isn't finished. It's a work in progress. Finish your jokes.

The AI industry. Finish your jokes. Yeah, let's get AI. on working it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's have the biglia puncher up. That's what we need. Mike for Biblia has got a punch up AI. You can't spell Bambiglia without A&I. You cannot do it. So let's, but look, so I'm, I'm, I'm seeing a lot of the stuff that I thought, I'm seeing us fail to learn lessons, you know. Yeah, I get that. I'm watching Bill Murray and Groundhog Day continue to just hit on Andy McDowell and punch Stephen Tabalowski. Like, we're learning nothing. No, I get that.

It's frustrating me at the moment. How does that hit you? How does that hit you when you wake up in the morning? Are you able to put that off? Are you able to keep your phone on the other side of the hotel room? Dude, I, like, I, my, it's exhausting. Yesterday, I went to Greenwich Village because, this is everything about this is a very revealing anecdote about me.

Okay. So I went to Greenwich Village because I like, to listen to our drain's going to fall on McDougal Street. Amazing. Because it's where Dylan, of course.

Of course. It's a very famous story. I like to listen to Hey Joe outside the Café War. I like to walk around McDougal Street because Chas Chandler went to see Jimmy Hendrix at the Café War and he was thinking about bringing

an act back to the UK to record a cover of Hay Joe. Wow. And serendipitously, Hendrix opens with Hay Joe and Chas Chandle brings Jimmy back to London. And like those are like, two of my like all-time heroes. And then I was like walking through Washington Square Park. And again, like, it's like a spiritual thing for me.

Yeah. Because, you know, in the 60s, you would, Dylan would play, Dylan would play, Dylan and Joan Byers are playing in the afternoon. And then Richard Pryor is doing stand-up in those same rooms. Like, this is the, this is the birthplace, this kind of crucible that form so much of the culture that form my personality. So I'm like so happy and so excited. And then I walk through Washington Square Park and like, there's those old guys playing

chess and one of them tries to play chess with me. And I'm like, dude, I suck. And he really laughs at that. And then I was looking at all these musicians. And it was really beautiful. And there were all these kids doing this kind of, I think it's like a K-pop dance for TikTok right there. And it's just so nice.

And then in the middle of all of this, in my head, a voice just goes, dinosaurs before the meteor. That's very funny. Yeah. It's like, you can't enjoy anything. But there's a part of you that's like, what do we do? This is the thing. What are we doing?

Like, it also, it feels very apocalyptic. But at the same time, you're like, can you? Can you not just enjoy five minutes of your life, Nish? Can you not just move around without having the thought? I know what you mean. I have the same thing in that neighborhood, by the way. Yeah. That's where the comedy seller is.

It's the club I play the most in New York. And it's, it is, I lived on Sullivan. Oh my God. Right next to McDougall in a studio the size of this room. And in my 20s. Amazing Edinburgh venue. You lived in an incredible Edinburgh fringe venue. And I really romanticized it for the same reason that you do, which is, that's where Dylan

and Hendricks were and Pryor and all these people. It was unbelievable. And I always have this thing where I go, because I'm 47 now and I'm going, and I walk around New York and I go, I think it's still New York in. Yeah. Like I think, but from your perspective, from London, like, how do you find it? Do you think it's still doing a good job being New York? Well, I mean, I think a lot of these cities will always attract young creative people that are trying to do interesting things. But I think we're sort of at risk. You know, I get very annoyed when people start picking out. People do it with bands a lot where they're like, oh, these are nepo babies or these are privilege, just that and the other.

But you've got to look at the kind of socioeconomic circumstances that we're all living in. And if you're pricing young people out of cool cities, then cool cities won't be cool anymore. And it's interesting how it's sort of been pushed to the peripheries. And now probably if you want to meet those young people, you know, was Brooklyn 20 years ago. And now even it feels like they've been pushed slightly further out. So now I think if you have to go up to like bedstay and stuff like that. Sure. With London, you can feel it kind of, it's, Hackney was the kind of epicenter of exciting, trendy stuff that was happening.

And that's now sort of been pushed almost further out to Tottenham and Waltham style. Like it's interesting how we're just at risk of making. our cities a lot less cool by not letting young people live with them. I think that is worrying. But New York and London will still turn up. You know, I was at Geese at the Hammersmith Apollo on last Wednesday. Wow. And, you know, you watch them and you go, okay, so this is the next.

This is the Ramones. This is television. This is the strokes. This is the next one of those New York bands. So New York and London will always continue to throw up interesting people and exciting people. Yeah. Yeah. Because you've got just, if you pack lots of different types of people into any place,

that's why I think Edinburgh is so cool. Because if you just pack a load of creative people into a space where they don't really have enough room to maneuver without bumping into each other, that's where the cool shit really happens. Yeah. I don't think it's coincidence that people from different disciplines come out from the same city at the same time. I think that that is by design. That's what makes it. No, I think that's the point.

Yeah. The point is, it's basically impossible to live there. Good luck. Good luck, everybody. Try to work together because that's the only way this is going to make sense. But you've got to have like, you've got to have like cheap, you've got to have some housing that makes allowances for it. Like I was talking to a friend of mine about the show, Friends and saying how even in the mid-90s, it felt unrealistic that people could do that. Oh, of course.

But that's because the creators of friends, like Seinfeld, Friends and Seinfeld are shows written by people in L.A. in the 90s about living in New York in the early 80s. So the reason that the finances don't make sense is actually because it's about the experiences of people 10 years previous in those cities. And like you have, you know, you have to, you know, Larry David lived next to Kramer in subsidized housing that was specifically for artists. Yeah. And so sure, of those two people, one of them is going to be Kramer. But Kramer might be crazy enough to inspire his neighbor next door, Larry David, who will then end up. You know, it's horrible to think of things in these terms, but like the net contribution, if you invest in the arts by creating subsidized housing, by putting government money into them, you get it back so many times over. This is a strong case.

For every two people, one of you is Kramer and one of you is Larry David. And we need to support both of those people. And I am honored to be the Kramer. To be Kramer. To James A. Castor Seinfeld. Well done. I'm deeply. Well done.

Profoundly honored. Who are you jealous of? I mean, like everybody. Everybody. I'm really jealous of someone like Frank Ocean. Okay. Yeah, I get that. There's laughter in the room

at even the thought that I would be. Yeah. When you walked in the door, I was thinking Frank Ocean part two. Frank. I think I love the idea that Frank Ocean, because this, everybody talks about now how you have to be,

you know, you have to be out there. You have to be on these platforms. You have to be on social media. You have to be, and Frank Ocean just like does an album and then vanishes. Yeah.

I'm jealous of him on every. level. I'm jealous of his talent because I really believe... That is enviable. I think he's a genius. But I'm also jealous of his ability to disappear and not have to sort of keep feeding an algorithm with this stuff. I think this, you know, I like the idea that there are still people who can retain a kind of air of mystique. Again, just because like I grew up on Bob Dylan and Bob Dylan as, some of you know, some There's a Guardian article today and the journalist is quoted in it as saying that Bob Dylan is like China. We know what he's doing, but we don't really know why.

Right. Like Dylan, like his whole life has retained this air of mystique. And there's always this idea that if he existed now, he would have to be doing like, you know, front-facing camera videos being like, hey guy. Hey guys. Hope you got the new album. It's out tomorrow. It's really weird. I'm crooning on it.

You know, something like it. Whereas, you know, now everybody has to expose to be so out there. And I like the idea. There's a few outliers, though. Like, I've thought about this recently. Donald Glover is an outlier? Yes, yeah, I would say so, yeah. Like, it's like, where is he?

Yeah. You know what I mean? He shows up when he does these great things. Yeah, but even he had to do a promo. I saw a promo video for him for the Mario Brothers movie. Okay. Even he ends up. They got that in the contract.

He didn't want to do it. When I saw Gambino in a Mario Brothers advert, I thought they got, There's no way that man wanted to do that. Yeah, yeah. But it's just part of the reality. Like, I mean... Bo Burnham has mystique. Yeah, Bo Burnham has mystique.

Yeah, he has mystique. He's also tall, which I think helps. Yeah. Donald's tall too, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Glover and Burnham have a bit of that, like, air of mystique around them. Who else? Who else has mystique? I guess...

Someone's got mystique? I guess Acaster of the, like, my sort of contemporaries. I'd say ACA has some mystique around him. And I only know that because people are. occasionally go, ask me about him. Like, I'm his spokesperson. You know, when in the 90s and 2000s, Banksie had spokespeople.

So Banksy was, you know, the artist and nobody knew who he was. Right. But then he would have, like the comedian Simon Munnery was one of his sort of spokespeople for a while. And sometimes me and Ed Gamble are James A.cast as spokespeople. Yes. Yes. But, yeah, I guess I think I think Frank Ocean was the first person I thought of because I, I would like to be as talented as him.

And B, I would like to, I would like the idea that you could sort of slightly disappear between things. But I suppose Glover has a lot of that. What is, what's the best piece of advice someone's given you that you used? Man, it sounds like such a trite thing. But I just remember my uncle saying to me, you know, if your name is on something, you've got to have some pride in it. Like he was just talking about work in general. like, you know, how he feels about work. But he said, you know, at the end of the day,

if your name is on something, you've got to make sure it's the best that it can possibly be when you do something. And I think that is the thing that I think about a lot, which is just the pride that you, you know, if you're gonna make something, just try and make it the best it can possibly be. Yeah, yeah.

You're not gonna, even if you don't come out with something that's like a masterpiece, at least you need. need to walk away from it thinking, that's the best version of what it could possibly have been. What is the weirdest thing that your algorithm serves to you on Instagram? My algorithm, my friend, I showed my friend my Instagram Discover page the other day, my friend, and he said, are you a 75-year-old American academic? Because if you look at my Discover page, it is videos of Bob Dylan.

Yeah. Videos of James Baldwin. Uh-huh. Sure. It's Dylan Baldwin. Right. Seinfeld bloopers. Mm-hmm.

And like general sitcom bloopers. Mm-hmm. And then like some new stuff. Yeah. And then... You're a real old soul. Mark Maron on a podcast. Yeah.

Well, Mark Maron, not on his podcast, but on a different podcast. Having a go at some American comedian. Yeah. And it's, it's amazing how much of that. One of the weirdest things that I get served consistently is like is just people playing the guitar. Just like as a not professional guitar plays.

Do you play guitar? Yeah. And I'm real bad. But that's never stopped me. Yeah, yeah. And so I get loads of like, guess this chord sequence. And every time I get one right, I'm like, come on. That's cool.

That makes me feel like a big mouth. I love that. Have you ever been punched in the face? So many times. Really? Yeah. Have you never been punched in the face? I have, yeah, quite a bit.

I'm surprised you have. I'm not surprised I have. I'm surprised you have. I've been punched in the face a lot. Remember one times that felt demoralizing? When was the time that it felt demoralizing? I mean, I should say, It hasn't happened to me, it hasn't happened to me for a long time.

But when I was in school, I used to get in fights all the time because I can't let things go. Like if somebody says something to me, I've always got to have the last word on it. And it's a sort of impulse that has served me very poorly in my career. Because it's like with an audience, you're like, just meet them halfway. Yeah. Don't get in a screaming around with it. Sure, sure. And I don't have that sort of ability.

Oh, that's interesting. And so if I feel that somebody is being behaving poorly in my presence, even if it's not to me, I can't not say something. And I am not gifted physically. And that's a really bad combination. Sure. You know, it's, you've really got to have, you've really got to be able to back up the checks you're writing. Oh, I know. And I cannot physically.

You're a fighter, but you do not have fighting tools. I, I am completely lacking. Yeah, yeah. I have, I have, I don't even have the first, like, I fight, it looks like I'm, like I look like scrappy do in a fight situation. Did you get, can you think of a time where you. you got fully punched? Yeah, I got fully, I actually,

this was like a story that I told on stage in my first show. And I was in Burger King. I was in a railway station branch of Burger King at, you know, very late at night in London. And I was with my friend and this guy pushed both of us.

And I just turned around to him and went, hey fuck you like really like fuck you don't do that and the guy punched me

just fully in the face just straight out and then I hit him with the only object I had in my hands and so this would have been 2009 I would say and that's quite important information

I rolled up the newspaper I had in my hands and started hitting him with the rolled up newspaper and it is like a grandma Truly, like, it's the sort of thing you'd see Aunt May do in a Spider-Man.

Like, it was exactly like that. Like, just, he punched me. I hit him with a rolled-up newspaper. Exactly that. You, you, wait, wait till my boy Peter gets on you. It was also like, and this is a gay, would just require some context for an American audience, but it was a Guardian newspaper,

which is like our version of the New York Times. It's like the progressive lefty mainstream left newspaper. And so I often say that that is the thing that set me up for my career, which was trying to hit people in the head with vaguely left of center ideas and repeatedly getting smashed on the Facebook. But there's something about being beaten up at a railway station branch of Burger King because you couldn't just let someone push you and not say anything. And then it's like if you're going to say stuff like that,

you've got to have some ability to back it up. Otherwise, you've just got to take the push. But there is a kind of disconnect between what my brain thinks my body is like and what my body is actually like. 100%. Yeah. I relate to that deeply. Do you have material?

Do you have anything from the notebook that you're kind of considering right now kicking around? Yeah, there's stuff that I'm trying to work out about how I, I'm trying to work out, there's two things. One is I'm trying to work out how the like dinosaurs waiting for the meteor thing could be made funny. Yeah. Like the idea that I can't just have a nice time in a park without thinking we're all doing. Yeah, you can't be in the present. Yeah.

And also I think there's something funny about the comparison of the climate crisis to dinosaurs getting hit by the meteor. Because I'm like, that's actually kind of unfair on the dinosaurs. Because the only, we have done this. So our equivalent is if the dinosaurs had had like a pro-meatial lobby that had spent like 50 years actively lobbying dinosaur Congress and buying up members of the dinosaur political establishment and then hired a dinosaur advertising agency to get individuals to calculate their meteor footprint to pass the blame onto them. And I haven't fully worked out. Which they might have. Don't rule it out. I haven't fully worked out.

How well do we know? where that I haven't fully worked out the like how to make that funny or like there's kind of an initial premise there but I need to work out what the full thing is and I'm also trying to work out how to say like I have so much I've met my brother has had a baby yeah his wife had a baby I have a nephew two years old and I've suddenly realized that I will never ask my parents to take me seriously again right because my nephew did a shit on my hand. And I love this kid, but I will never be interested in his opinions because he will always be the kid that did a shit in my hand. Right. And now I'm like, oh, that's why my parents don't respect me. That's right. It's deep. It's really deep.

I think that's really deep. Because if you had a friend that did a shit in your hand, you'd still be friends with them. Yeah, but you wouldn't say, what do you think we should do about? What are your thoughts on this? What do you think about the AI bubble? Yeah, yeah. Hey, Captain Hanshitter, shut the fuck up. Yeah.

No, that, that is true. It is, it is like, do you have a thing? I mean, I guess you tie it to like, do you have a thing with your parents where there is a disconnect? No, and I think the interesting thing is part of the thing, like, I think, I think my parents and I are, like our relationship is almost better than it's ever been now. And I think part of it is because I've stopped trying to get them to take me seriously as an adult. Oh, that's interesting. And met them more at their level.

But I think also they, we've kind of met each other at a level where they are, they now are like willing to countenance the idea that like, I am an adult who has some agency. I think like maybe if you talk to what your relationship with your parents and then you backdoor it into the shitting on your hand, idea You got a backdoor double entendre of course with backdooring into the shitting in your hand but I think like backdooring into it is your friend

because the audience doesn't see it coming Yeah right It's not like this is the premise I thought of Yeah yeah But it's already interesting hearing you just talk About your parents Yeah And then like if you happened your way into that

Yeah I think that's super fun I mean the thing that's working that's the, I think, would be the way in at the moment is just, my mum actually said to me, there was like a large scale, like, far right sort of race riot in London in September last year.

And two days afterwards, I was going to do a show. And my mum said, what are you doing? And I said, I'm working. I'm going to do a gig tonight. And she said, are you doing your normal material or something fun for a change? Oh, God. Which, all of which is funny.

So great. Also, at my 40th birthday. Something fun for a change. Also, at my 40th birthday party, my mom kept going up to groups of my friends, pointing at me, just pointing at me and saying, all those stretch marks and for what, nothing? That was my mom's like cocktail party conversation.

And so I think maybe the way into. For what, nothing? And also, by the way, she knows it's a joke. She's doing it as a bit. Yeah, it's not like, you're not, my parents say the funniest things. You're like, she knows exactly. It has a set up, it has a punchline.

It has a punchline. It has a punchline. It has imagery. She knows exactly what she's doing, right? She, she, like, but I think maybe that's the way in, because actually instead of people, I think, I get laughs for the first two bits, but then I'm struggling to get into, but I think the funnier perspective is to go, and you know what, she is entitled to say anything that she wants, because actually I have, don't have a leg to stand on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At various points. Yeah.

Maybe that's the way to kind of get into that second phase of the material. And maybe it's like, and maybe if you in the audience don't agree with some of my opinions tonight, you think of me as cheating in your hands. And so if that's your experience of this, I apologize. You have every right not to respect me. It's such a funny perspective to be empathetic with someone that is not enjoying what you're doing. I, um, I wrote this. I wrote this down, which is I have an iPhone and an Apple Watch and a MacBook laptop, and they all do the same thing on different body parts.

It's the same thing. Just where is it? And one day my Apple Watch starts doing a mysterious countdown from 10. It goes 10, 9, and I press every button. At the end of 10 seconds, it called the police. and they showed up. And that's when the war, and that's when I knew the war between humans and machines had begun.

My watch called the human police on me. I tried calling human tech support, but all I got was more machines, and the machines laughed at me. And I said, agent, agent, agent. And finally I spoke to a human. And I was so relieved, and he laughed at me too. And that's when I knew the humans had changed alliances.

By the way, totally true story. I actually talked to an Apple person who didn't believe me. I was like, they were like, no, I don't think that happened. I would go, no, no, this 100% happened. What? Yeah. That's great. Yeah, isn't it wild?

It's really funny. There's got to be somewhere to go with it. It's the beginning of something. Like, every time that there's been any kind of colonization, that has been, there has been a requirement of maybe not every time. I'd say probably probably not in the Americas, right? But there is certainly like people that, like if you think about Germany, obviously not everybody was completely supportive for the Nazi regime,

but there were some people that collaborated, right? Like there were people in France that collaborated. We don't really talk about the people that are going to collaborate with Skynet. We never really talk about the people who are going to be like, okay, I've always been a huge supporter of the machines. Love the machines. I love the machines. You got to love the machines.

Rage for the machines. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Rage for the machines. Like, I think that's a really interesting idea. And, like, also, it would be funny to position yourself as someone who would totally take the machine side. Like, everyone likes to think that they're going to be John Connor. Holyer than now. But actually, some people are going to side with the machines.

Some people are going to be Cash Patel. That's so funny. Yeah, so I got that. During a show of mine in Australia, a woman's Apple Watch call. an ambulance. Oh, interesting. Because my voice is so loud that I can't wear an Apple Watch because it always warns me that I'm in an area of loud noise.

Yes. And prolonged exposure to my own voice could damage my hearing. And during a show in Australia, a woman's Apple Watch called an ambulance. And I said, what's going on? And she said, I think it thinks I'm in a tornado. Oh, my God, that's great. So the final thing we do in the show is working out for a cause. Is there a nonprofit that you like to support?

And what we do is we contribute to them when we link to them in the show notes and so people can support them as well. So, I mean, I do a lot of work. There's a charity called Help Refugees Slash Choose Love who do a lot of really great work with refugees and migrants. And they sort of started as just people who were like, oh, you know, there's a refugee crisis going on in Europe.

we would like to do something. And it's now kind of exploded into this international organization. And Josie, who runs it, goes and speaks to the UN and stuff. And so they are really amazing. Nish Kumar, thanks again for coming on. Always so much fun. What a pleasure, Mike. Lovely to see you.

Lovely to see you. That's going to do it for another episode of Working it out because it's not done. You can follow Nish on Instagram at Mr. Nish Kumar, M.R. Nish Kumar. His new special, Don't Kill My Vibe, will premiere on YouTube May 12th, but you can get early access right now, actually, through 800-pound gorilla. You can find that on Nish's Instagram or his website, Nish Kumar, nishkumar.com. Check out Burbigs.com to sign up for the mailing list. Our producers of working it out are myself along with Peter Salomon, Joseph, Berbiglia, Mabel Lewis, and Gary Simons, Sound Mix by Shib Sarin,

supervising engineer Kate Balinski's special thanks to Jack Antonov and bleachers for their music. Coming up this month, we got Jack coming on the show. We just recorded it. It's an awesome episode. I got a sneak preview of that album. It is incredible. It comes out in, I think, about a week and a half.

And also, he's playing Madison Square Garden in June. Again, so good. I went last year. Special thanks to my wife, the poet J. Hope Stein, and our daughter, Una, who built the original Radio 4. made of pillows that makes this all sound so nice. Thanks most of all to you who are listening. If you enjoy our show,

rate us and review us on Apple Podcasts. It really helps us out. We're approaching 5,000 user reviews. That's when we'll know we've really made it. Thanks, everybody. Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell your Scottish cab driver at Edinburgh. Just say, hey, those comedians you saw

might have been rubbish. And they might have known they were rubbish, but you know what's not rubbish? Mike Barbigli is working it out. It's where comedian. Mike Barbigliola talking about it. talks about the creative process with other comedians, filmmakers, and writers. No rubbish, no problem.

That's a good tagline. Thanks, everybody. We're working it out. We'll see you next time.