Nobody Panic - How to Throw a Kids Party (with Joz Norris)

Episode Date: August 2, 2022

Comedian and former kids entertainer Joz Norris joins Stevie and Tessa to give advice on how to entertain children at a party. Some of the anecdotes are harrowing, but you’ll finish this ep absolutely ready to throw a bday party for your sister's friend’s 5-year-old. Find Joz on Twitter and Instagram: @joznorris Check out his website: joznorris.co.ukJoz will be at the Fringe this year with his brilliant comedy/magic show Blink - head here for details and tickets.Subscribe to the Nobody Panic Patreon at patreon.com/nobodypanicWant to support Nobody Panic? You can make a one-off donation at https://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanicRecorded by Naomi Parnell and edited by Clarissa Maycock for PlosivePhotos by Marco Vittur, jingle by David Dobson.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/nobodypanic. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Carriad. I'm Sarah. And we are the Weirdo's Book Club podcast. We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival. The date is Thursday, 11th of September. The time is 7pm and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies. Tickets from kingsplace.com. Single ladies, it's coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September. At the London Podcast Festival. The rumours are true, Saturday the 13th of September. At King's Place. Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet. Welcome to Nobody Panic. I'm Stevie Martin. Tessa Coats is with me here.

Hello. There she is. And today we have a third. We are a thruple. We are... Consensual, happy thruple. Really good to start with sort of an innuendo because we're doing how to throw a kids party

with comedian, writer. He's going to the fringe this year. It's Joss Norris. Hello. Hi. Thanks for having me. Honk, honk, honk, josh. Wow, thanks.

Like a little balloon animal. You heard about all my favourite noises. So you're a, obviously, a comedian-writer, great lad. Right. But your top dog, thanks. A dog as well. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's worth people knowing that so they can picture it.

Yes, a big dog. Yeah. But you also do kids parties. I did. I did for about four years, but I had to stop because it sort of gave me a ego death. And I had to kind of remove myself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for about four years, I performed at kids parties.

It's a very common thing for, actually. actors, comedians to do that. It's a nice little side hustle that exists and there's a lot of, there's a lot of money. I haven't. I haven't done it. You've never done it. Oh, I've absolutely done it. I didn't actually know you did that. Yes, you did. Oh, the elephant where you drew the penis on the child's face. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She just tried to draw a trunk. Correct? Yeah, yeah. I mean, by all means, do burn all my best material nice and early. It's all right. It's a little teaser for the full thing later. I did. It was, when you say ego death, by which do you mean like your soul was withering? Yeah, because I was sort of doing it alongside trying to do comedy stuff.

So you have one sort of career here where you're trying very hard to invest in like performing and people caring about it. And then at the same time, a few times every week you have to stand up in front of a group of people who do not give a shit about what you're doing. Like they're just trying to run around and have a nice time. And if anything, the fact that they have to stop and watch you be entertaining for a bit is annoying. Like, they'd rather just do whatever the hell they want. Yeah. And trying to kind of maintain your self-esteem between those two things. And to believe that the comedy you're making over here is valuable,

even though every few days you have to go over here and be told you're an idiot is tough eventually. Also, I was quite bad at it. Right. And I think... Good. So you've got a lot of experience to bring to this episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm hoping I can talk about what I did and then people will learn how not to entertain.

Or they'll see insights into, he could have done it this way. And overall, they'll have a great understanding of how it all works. Amazing. And so the party, the party psychology, a lot to get through with the children's party. How did yours, did you organise them yourself? Absolutely not. I worked, absolutely not. I did certainly considered it.

And because I did think, oh, this seems like an easy, this seems like easy dollar. You know, there's always parties. I'm free in the day. Love to dress up. Off we pop. and the ego death was so bad. It's horrible, isn't it? You really think it will just be fun.

You assume it's going to be such a delightful job. Right? Why not? But they're horrible children. A lot of the time. They are horrible. They are horrible. And I'm like, out of due, they just want to scream and run. They don't want to do anything out.

And I worked for a company. And by the end, I was like, I only do face painting. Like, I was dressed as Cinderella most of the time. And I bought myself, the company was really love to cut corners. So, like, all my stuff was very crap. So I bought a lot of my love of it myself, you know, so I had all this, like, this antique. You're like invested in the, uh, career. Yeah, I basically, yeah.

So, like, they gave me all this, like, plastic shit face painting stuff. And I got myself, like, lovely glass jars and nice things for the children and glitter and stuff. That's lovely. They gave me this, like, shitty plastic crown. So I got myself one from an antique. A real crown. It was worth a hundred jewels. I'm still in debt.

Yeah. Now, you can pick up, like, nice costume stars. And then I got myself these glittery slippers because they love. to be like, wear your shoes. And I was like, I'm barefoot because I'm, I'm running away.

Right. So I just never had, you know, because Cinderella runs away a lot. Ah, yeah, from the, from the party.

So then they were like, so this is post midnight Cinderella. Exactly like you just did. Yeah. And they were like, she's not barefoot. You're supposed to have one slipper. Yeah.

That's a fair point, actually. Fair point. Fair point, well made. And I had to go out and get myself like, it's got to be made of glass as well. How do you swear that?

As the children kept saying. Also, the window of her running away to her, five minutes, isn't it? Like, she starts running at five to midnight. And she gets home. So all your parties are done in the five minutes. I was like, you're meeting this Cinderella in that exact window. The children didn't care for that.

And then these, my grandma, really had these sort of perspex glass, not glass, but like they were just clear, see-through, really, shoes, yeah. Is it as the grandma had the dead owl in the freezer? Absolutely not. Granny Coates couldn't have. So you got one with glass shoes, one with the dead owl. Grandma Broomhead, very, like, loves to be. Yeah, it's sorry, we're really in deep.

No, no, sorry. This is law. Let's just gloss over the owl. Let's go, come on. Listen, I've got one. Our grandma lives on an island in Vancouver. Right. One does not.

This is one with the owl. That's one with the owl. The other one's very glamorous, very put together. With a perspoke shoes. It's glamorous down to the ankles. And then of that, it could be anything. No one's looking at that far down. Don't look down there, grandma.

Anyway, so she had these clothes shoes, so I stole them off her. Right. Did she know? I thought it was best if I took those out of a wardrobe. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah. And then a little sort of blow on the front. They really looked the part and then the children...

Did they then believe in you more? Yeah. Okay. Pop a pin in it. We're going to ask, Jaws, for your most adult thing. Put a pin on the donkey. On the donkey. Pin the tail on the donkey.

Pin the adult thing on the podcast. What's the most grown-up thing you've done this week? I've got glasses. Stop. You've forgotten to wear them today. No, I only need them for long distance. But it's been... I didn't know I had bad eyesight.

Oh, wow. And since I've had glasses, I've found out that loads more of the world is visible than I thought. I thought if things are over there, then you can't see them. Your whole life. For a few years. But I'd see a tree, and I thought trees are mostly just sort of, they're over there and they're sort of blob-like. I can see leaves now. It's incredible.

And also, I've been to see two films since I got my glasses, and one of them was a Pixar film, and it blew me away. So you've been going to the cinema and being like, well, it's normal not to be able to see the screen. Well, I didn't really notice it before. I think I just thought films were a bit blurry. Oh, no. Pixar animation is great. It's really good. And I see why people go on about it so much.

Wow. Which opticians did you go for? I went to spec savers. Same, good, they're good, I know, they are good. What kind of, what style of glass did you get? I went for the, so the fancy designer ones were on sale. Oh, right. A guy came over to me and went,

darling darling you must have these as if he was in this like boutique optometrist in like soho he did not realize he was in the specs over he was in the stevensford road yeah he was like darling no that is the wrong shape and he took me by the shoulders and like took me over to like the balman section lovely service these these and i didn't work there or were just a man yeah he did work there um yeah i got sexually assaulted actually in there in a specas no and he and he gave me these glasses and i was all ready to be like yeah and just to pick what are like round no they're like square and they actually are great and i've had the same frames for like five years, six years now, because they actually were bang on.

I went to the Tottenham Court Road. So I didn't have that service at all. No, I've gone there four times since. I've never seen that. That's why I've opened to the idea he doesn't work. When he had a name badge, anyway, we can all buy a name badge. Right, okay. So let's get into the kids parties.

Now we've got to the extent that you, both of you have done it, I haven't. You're bad at it, Jaws. I was all right. Sometimes I'd do well. I'm sure you were both better. I was doing it for too long by the end. It's very self-deprecating because you're both comedians. You're looking at me like, no, Tessa was terrible, but let's get into it.

It's really hard. It's really hard. That's why I've never done it. I can't, I, the thought of them all looking at me, I can't even do that. So, fair play to you. So how to organise a children's party? Well, how to throw a children's party with emphasis on the fact that you're the entertainer, not the parent. Well, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. I kind of got it as an acting job because it was this company that runs children's part. It was started by a real magic brother and son. sister who had a... Real magic. They had a magic gats. They had a magic gats. I don't think they could do real magic.

And then the parties became more popular. They had to franchise it and get actors to play themselves to do these parties. So I was the male... I was the brother. What? And you'd wear a little hat and a little bowtie and a waistcoat. May you name this? I don't think so.

I probably shouldn't. I'm not going to libel them, but they just might not want to be associated with me. So they were called like Rosie and Jim. Yeah, yeah. And the magic show. And then people would... book Rosie and Jim Yeah, and on the phone.

So they would call up the company and the company would say, I want to book a Rosie and Jim's party. They would say, do you want Rosie and Jim? Or do you want just Rosie or just Jim? And they would choose. Or neither. Neither.

Just Jaws. I really don't want to be. I want to use your venue, but I really don't like your entertainers. But they would come to our venue and then they would sort of hire it out and we'd put out tables and they'd have kids food.

And then I would monitor. Basically, it was the thing. You would monitor. I was mom to. I'd look off and it's like, what do you do there? I'd look after the kids. I'd look after the kids. The kids would go into like a soft play area with me.

With you? This is Jim. He's going to take the kids up into the soft place and you will see them in an hour and half. And then I'd shut the gate. And the adults would stay outside and they would drink. So this is like a Wiggies world. It's like, it's at a place and the place is just owned by Rosie and Jim

or people are coming and going or. No, so there was a cafe out front, which when you weren't doing the parties, you would man the cafe. You would sell the coffees and stuff. As Rosie and, or Jim. As Jim. It was a man business. It was an absolute bad business. This is Rosie and Jim's Wiggy World.

They own the Wiggies World. Jim's in the cafe. I suppose there's the magic out. Everywhere you look, there's a gym. There were like five gyms, five roses. Five gyms talk to one child. I'm sure. It's more every day.

five gyms and five. No, usually you're like, burning money, hand over vest. You're kind of assigned to a day. You're like, right, your gym on Saturday. There are four parties on Saturday. You'll be the gym. Four parties? Yeah, we'd do four in a day.

That was a four day. Having simultaneously? No, no. Nine, eleven, one, three. And it's this level of entertainment. You count with the children. We count. Exactly.

Okay, so you're in the cafe. Right. So there's a cafe out front. It's normally staffed by baristas, but if it's busy, a rosy or a gym will come down and go, okay, who needs a, I've got a cappuccino. Why isn't a gym busy with the gym? Sorry.

Sorry, this is not a lot. It's a lot. This is very much Oz getting obsessed with the machinations of one particular business. None of that it's really applies to. Does it still work? How to work at this place. Yeah, I think it's still going. It's a lovely place.

Great. So, with your experience as being multiple gyms, yeah. What were the main thing? that you saw that they, you know, they did wrong, that you were like, actually, this is a good thing. You're there with these kids. What are the things that you do to make the kids have a good time? The big thing we, or they learned through the running of their business and that they tried to teach me is pacing. You've got to pace a children's party very carefully. Because when they

turn up, they're very, very excited. All they want is to run around and burn off a bit of energy and just sort of scream. So that was the purpose of the soft play bit. That was why they disappeared into the soft play with me. Okay. And then there's about half an hour where they just run about. What are you doing in the soft play area? Sort of vaguely orchestrating the chaos. Right. But you can't orchestrate it too much because at that point they will push back.

So you sort of, you hide bean bags around the soft play zone, the pirate ship. Or your garden if you don't have a soft play. Oh, yeah, yeah. Sorry, you don't have to hire a Wiggies world for us. But looking for stuff is a big one. It just gets them to kind of explore the space. That's a big one for you, Tessa. as an adult looking for stuff, treasure hunt.

It's always fun, in it? I felt immediately calm at the idea of going, as an adult, I arrive at a party, the first thing we do is we have hit this on being bags, happy 30th. Well, you're sort of given a task. The most important thing is that the parents have a nice time. They're the ones who are actually spending all this money on it. And they're sort of conscious of what's going on.

Yeah, they can see. The kids don't get it. The kids just want to have a fun time. So the parents want to be able to know that their kids are fine, but to also be able to actually kind of relax a bit away from them. Like essentially you're kind of giving them some time where they can catch up with each other and stand around. So what do you hide for the parents? For the parents, we just hide.

Proseco all around the place. So we'd sort of immediately give the kids a task like that. And then you do a disco with them after about 20 minutes. Because at about 20 minutes, they start to get a bit restless. So you've got a 20-minute attention span with these kids, right? Yeah, it was all done in like 20-minute blocks. That's very good to know. I think that's about the natural length of time that you can tell a kid,

here's what you're going to be doing for this block of time. And about 20 minutes in, they start to go, why? What? What's next? Okay, so we found the bean bags. They found the bean bags. And then the music starts. In the soft play, or we move to a different zone?

We go into a little room in the back. So this could be your living room. A little dark room with gym in the back. Now we move from the garden into the living room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's disco. About five to ten minutes. They can dance free.

style and then that gets a bit boring and then you have to sort of steer that a bit more. We did that with, do you remember Last Ketchup? Oh my God. Oh my God. Said a hey, aha, aha, ah, hey. So we would teach them that dance. And then we would do Gangnam style. Oh, very good.

I broke my foot doing that once because I landed on it sideways while doing the hopping around bit and they all found it very funny. And that's another lesson is that you can't take out your personal hurt. or pain on the children that are laughing at it because they don't know any better. So when your foot snaps in front of 30s. Actually snap? I think I'd snap some sort of tender. I didn't break my foot, but I think I'd, I, it swelled up quite a lot.

In the moment? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that was a Rosie and gym party, so I was able to just sort of sit down and scream into my hand for a little bit in the corner. Well, Rosie took charge. Yeah, she takes charge. And then points and laughs and goes, isn't he silly? And then they all laugh at you.

So we'd do that for about 10. And then they eat and they go back out. And that's a point where they get reintroduced to the parents, reintroduced. It's irreparably changed. Here are your new children. So you can check in. They can go, oh, it looks like they're having a nice time. You give them sausages.

You give them pizza. Like a little finger food things that aren't too messy, not soup. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A great thing you can do as the entertainer is to go around and pretend to take all their food and say, this is for me. This is my bowl of crust. Of their plates? And then they'll go, no, that's mine.

And then you go, oh, sorry, I'm being sick. They love that. They love that. Okay, a bit of fun. And I would sort of take every opportunity to just hang out with the kids and not talk to the adults at any point because I just thought it was more fun. And I always thought, let them chat, let them have that. They don't want to see me. So I'd sort of kneel down for most of the party, really, and just never be it an adult's.

When you say let them chat, who do you mean the children? The parents. Just let the parents. They're doing their thing. What are you dressed as in this? A magician. Big sort of comedy boating. tie, waistcoat, bowler hats.

Bowler hat. I was wondering if it was a top hat or a bowler hat. Do you have a wand? In the magic show, I do. We would then do a 20-minute magic show. So sorry, I've always liked to circle back to the beam bags. The beanbags, yeah. Okay. Do we get a prize or anything for finding the beanbags? We simply find them. I think for a while there were prizes, but we ran out of them.

With children's prizes, I feel like as adults, we might often think you have to give a good prize. Yeah. But like a small bag of hats. Haribor. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We had loads of those. There were medals for a while.

There were little medals. And did you find that that added a competitive element were there tears, or is it nice to get a little prize? I mean, it depends on the kid, really. I think kids are sort of simultaneously like the best and the worst of people, really. They're either like horrible egos and they haven't developed any kind of sense of mind at all. So they just want everything. So if they see somebody else get something, then they have to have it as well. But when they're lovely, they're very lovely.

A lot of them made me cry. And that's quite bad as well in the middle of the kids. Crying, man dressed as a magician. They'd say really beautiful stuff. There's a bit in the magic show where I had to, we're making cookies together and I put all the wrong stuff in and it gets all disgusting. And then I'd accidentally set fire to it and put the lid on.

This is like an amazing magician. It was great. It was a very good show when performed well. And I would slam the lid on and then I would go, oh no, I did it all wrong and it's going to be terrible. And then we'd do a spell and take the lid off and there's cookies in there and it all turns out fine. And you eat them?

No. because they've been in there for a long time. They'd been in it. Again, it wasn't worth replacing them. So they, I think they sort of, I think they fermented after a while. So there was a real sort of boozy smell. So they had magic cookies. They can't eat.

Yeah. Yeah. And that annoyed them. Yeah. Give them to us and we go, we can't let off. And then put them away. But then there was one day. They were baked goods.

They were plastic. Yeah, real, they were real cookies. We just forgot to replace them. Yeah, no, we should have. We should have. What did the child say? This child, one time I was doing it and slammed the lid on and went, oh, no, I've done it all wrong.

and this kid stood up and sort of grabbed my arm and went, it doesn't matter that you did it wrong, you tried, and that's all that matters. Oh, my God. And I had to stop the show to have a little weep for a bit. Like when they're nice, they're really nice. So a lot of the time they get it, like, you know, a prize is just a well done, new one,

and most of the time they're fine. But when you get a horrible one, they're dreadful. They're absolutely dreadful. So let's say, you know, you've given a present, someone's thought, got found a beanbag. and the other kid's like, I want one, and so I was crying. What do you do in that instance? I think it would depend on how much I liked the kid up to this point.

It seems like they were basically quite sweet and had just had a bit of a react. Maybe I'd sneak them a packet of sweets. Or if I thought they were just sort of chancing their arm, is that a phrase? Yeah, it can be. Chancing their arm. What I might do is take them to the gate and point at the food that's being laid out on the table and go, look, you're going to have all that in a minute. That's nice.

So shut up. Immediate. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just move them on. I used to keep a massive amount of gold coins. Real gold. Sorry, I was losing so much money in this show. Yeah.

Old sovereigns. No, I'm sorry, chocolate coins. Oh, yeah. So then it was a constant like, oh, someone's crying? Oh, here we go. You know? I mean, this sounds great. You just need to be like, can you bring that to other, just normal parties?

Oh, what? Yeah, except now I suppose it's MDMA. You know? Oh, you're crying? Oh, here we go. Nice and distracted. Do you want a bit of this? I'm a bum back.

As if I've got a bum back full of drugs. But it wouldn't be, it's a similar mentality, isn't it? Yeah. Of, you know, adults to children. It's just like, distract, do this. Yeah, it's just like having the utility belt of bits. Yeah. With the disco, how long's the disco lasting?

20 minutes. Disco's about 20 minutes. I tended to make it 15 because I got tired very quickly. So I just, I think, I don't know what I did with the extra five minutes. I think I brought them out five minutes early. Sure. And I thought they can just eat for a bit longer. Smoking break.

It's interesting what they like, what music they like. I thought you'd just kind of just go for classic weird. You remember Superman by Black Lace? Superman, that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, that one. They love that, they absolutely love that. Do they?

No, the Spritz. Spray, surf. Honk your horn. Honk your horn. Doorbell. Yeah. That one, yeah. Did they like that?

No, they hated that. Yeah, I hate it. Because they all listened to actual pop from now. They love sexy pop. Yeah. So get the Bruno Mars on. So it's Bruno Mars. DJ as you would, an adult party.

Yeah, basically. With the hot. With the hot machine. I never DJed an adult. How do you know? I would rather die. You should put songs on. Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Sometimes I wake up in the night thinking about being surprise made to DJ. People are like, you're DJing now and I would simply pass out.

I would do the, I'm sorry, the palpitations of it all. But I suppose it's just, yeah, it's hot. It's pop. It's fun pop. Yeah. That's what the children are. And I think I always thought that the disco is maybe a good time for me to get a bit of a rest. Like they're going to dance around, but they really match your energy.

So if you sit and have a rest, they will just sit and have a rest while you're playing Bruno Mars very loudly. So you have to always be sort of doing stuff. That's why it must be very tiring as a job. It's exhausting. It's absolutely exhausting. Yeah. This is why I was moved to only face painting. I was once in charge of a dance routine where we had a disco party for the job. but we hadn't learned a routine or anything

and then this girl was just like teach them a routine I was like what do you mean teach them a routine of what and they were nine year old girls who'd like you know she was really obnoxious and it was like they were very rich and it was this like they've probably quite good at dancing right that's exactly the main problem so I was just sort of doing a very child

marching on the spot bit and then they all sort of crowded me and I remember being like nope everybody back but then they just started repeating the everybody back move and then I was like this is a hell, this is hell, this is hell. And also the parents were all at the back, I remember. Oh, they watch. They watched.

And so I remember, like, then it felt like you were trying to do two levels, both for them and for the children. Yeah, yeah. So I think it's got to be that, like, children go in this room. Yeah. You go over here. This is clear delineation, and their parents are involved here. We sort of had to switch it when the kids were very young,

because the weird thing was it became sort of like a status thing, because families in the area knew about it, so they would be like, we've got a rose in gym party, which meant sometimes they would book it too early and you'd be doing these parties for like one or two year old kids which is too small really. One and two. And at that point you kind of need the parents to come in

and be involved to be like you have to help your kid to understand how to interact with this stuff because they're all too tiny. And they don't want to because they all want to stand out of that. So that's a difficult way. So they were just throwing babies at you and you're going to deal with these babies. All the babies just lay in a circle while you do the cookie routine. And then you try and do magic for a baby

and that's quite difficult as well because they have no understanding of like what you're. What is possible. I produce this thing from nowhere. And they're like, okay. I don't know whether that's doable yet. That might just be really... I might be able to do that.

To a baby, everything is produced from nowhere every day. Just like, whatever. Look, the thing change colour. And they go, okay. Maybe things do that. I've not been around for very long. So they were difficult. They were really difficult.

Wow. Okay. Oh, God. So we've got the disco thing. You finished your disco thing. You disco, then we're at lunch. I had a great, the best, because sometimes the kids create their own dance moves. And the best one was I had a kid who ran up to me in the middle of a disco and said,

my name is Lucas, and I take my sock off and throw it very high and then catch it. And that's my dance move. That's really good. He just did it for 20 minutes. I should try it. Yeah. We're at lunch. So you go and eat lunch.

Then we've had our fantastic magic routine with our off and poisonous cookies. Yeah. Then, now what? The magic's wrapped up, and let's say this time they've loved it. So there's then just sort of like, free time. Oh, no. Or just wind down.

Wind down. Actually, this was a really difficult logistical bit because you had to get them out of the building because another party would be coming in quite soon. Obviously, if you're throwing a party at home, you won't have that problem. Or maybe you do. To pause you for one second, if you are doing it at home, would you say there should be a clear time limit on it? Or like, how long can you entertain a child for?

Two hours? So we always did them 90 minutes. I guess if it's in your house, it probably could go on a lot longer because you could turn it into like a, you can just put a film on. You could have like a 90 minute active session. I think that's probably as long as you want. 19 minute active session, ink lunch? Yeah, I think.

Or maybe two hours, let's say two hours including everything all together, games, disco, maybe a little entertainment show, lunch, all that. Two hours where they're actively doing stuff and then probably if it is in your house you could just put on whatever, what a kid's watch, the Lion King. Frozen. No, it's live actually. Lion King.

But kids quite like it. Do they? Yeah, apparently, yeah. But it's just real animals. No. That's the crucial thing they're not real animals. No, they're CGI. What do they think live action means? That's not a liar.

Okay, so we whack on Frozen too. Yeah, and then possibly you could then double the length of your party. And then all the adults can continue to have their nice time and the kids, because the kids should be tired at this point. And now they're sleeping in front of Frozen. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we would also, if they paid for the balloon package, we would then make balloons for them as a way to get them to leave. So if you do have an end point and you're like,

The kids are going to go at 1.30, so come back and pick them up at that time or whatever, whatever you've arranged. Then having something like that that sort of ushers them towards the place where their shoes are. Like party bags. Yeah. So you're like, okay, party bags and cake are over here. Come and follow Jim or whatever. You have to be called Jim. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then you lead them out. That switches them from like, okay, here's the new task. Your task is now you're going to be given a thing. So that's a reward. But actually, we're steering you towards. Now put your shoes on and get out of here. Get in the car. I was thinking about, so if people are listening, obviously can't do magic, maybe, other kind of fun little things that you could do in that slot.

And I remember when I was little, my granddad did this thing every time. We all loved it, which is that he would put loads of silly clothes on, come in, and then he'd go away and take one thing off and come back in and you had to guess what he's taken off. That's brilliant. Often it'd be like he'd be wearing one of my mum's dresses, like four hats, like, you know, a shoe in his pocket. There's a lot of that. And that would go on for 20 minutes. Yeah. That was like a big hitter.

So that might be a nice. So I can't believe I've never heard that before. How long do we get to see the first look? You're talking maybe 30 seconds. 30 seconds on the first. And he do a full spin. Any music? Yes, music, whenever he came in to show you what he'd taken off.

What did he go for? I actually don't. To be honest, because it was my parents' house, it was probably like some sort of terribly sexual song by Prince or something. That seemed to be an issue. When I was at the nursery and I was three, the nursery nurse told my parents that I'd been singing, turn around and let me out that zipper baby to all the other kids.

So then Prince was not allowed to be played. But it was that sort of vibe. And, yeah, that was a really, it was that and Pass the Parcel were big ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'd do a lot of Pass the Parcel. So we can, if we haven't got any magic skills. We can improv. We can move into a game or... Pin the tail.

I was removed from a playgroup for singing Patricia the Stripper by Christaberg. Yes, that's what we're talking about. Yeah, maybe. What were our parents thinking? What were they thinking? Okay. We had, I think at one point, somebody put a song on the disco playlist that we didn't realize had a swear word in it. I can't remember what, maybe it was uptown funk or something.

Is there a swear word in uptown fun? Probably, yeah. Something like that. One of those sort of pop song. that felt kid friendly but actually had something. And then when we realized it, it just meant if ever that came on during the disco, we had to shout very loudly over the point where the swear words. Which actually even directs you to the swear words.

Yeah, probably. Yeah. What was that? My mum was very good at just designing her own, because she used to put on these kind of things, but not like through a company, she would just kind of invent stuff. And she came up, did you ever do what's in the monster's stomach? No, what's that?

That's like a carrier bag and you fill it with old beans and spaghetti Like a Tesco's carri bag? Yeah, or something a bit stronger, like something that wouldn't give way. But you fill it with kind of goop. A bad for life? Yeah. And then you would also put a couple of solid objects in there, like a fork or a spoon. And then on top you would put a big monster's face.

She would kind of design a cardboard monster's face with a hole for the mouth. And you would reach into the monster's mouth and try and go, what's making the monster upset? So what was in there for your hand? No, sorry, what's the goop? Oh, like beans and spaghetti and spaghetti. And slime and jelly and stuff. And you'd kind of... And kids love that.

I love to get messy. Yeah. So they'd go, ooh, it's horrible. But we love it. And then they'd find a fork. And it's a fork. He's eaten a fork. And that, you can fill up a good 15 minutes probably with that.

We had a slide and my mom would put that underneath the clothes line and hang, then peg licorice bootlaces to the clothesline. So you'd go down the slide and try and eat a licorice bootlace while. I mean, this is excellent. You don't need to spend a lot of money on an entertainment company. And I've been talking a lot about it. through that length. No, but what we're taking from Rosie and Jim

is this clear structure. The pacing and the structure. You do need that. And then from that, we can tag it. We don't need a soft plate. You can invent whatever you want. We don't need a disco DJ. We've got a small room.

And Spotify. And we don't need the magician. We've got strawberry laces on the slide. And even magic, a lot of magic you can do just with stuff that you've got to hand. You know, you can make a coin. You can make a coin disappear. I can't.

You just put it in your pocket. They're kids. They don't know. Yeah, but join them a coin. If they're nine-year-olds, you go, look. Oh, yeah, nine-year-old. Try it. What have we learned?

You've got your 20-minute segments. Yeah. You've got, you're called Jim. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, you've got... We're separating the parents. Separate the parents. Just let them have a nice time.

So you don't feel self-conscious as well. A full adults watching you with their children. I think it's important. The first two segments are the most high-energy segments, because that's when they're going to burn off all the like, we're going to party. We're going to party. Yes.

So the second half, you want, want it to be built around something like sitting down and eating lunch and then sitting down and either playing a game or watching a show or whatever. Yes. Because at that point you want to start to calm them down so that they can go home and chill out. Yes. So high energy into low energy instead of...

So smart. Having little coins in a bum bag or little little... Coins in your bum bag. ...drysonly bits to distract the people. If there's tears... Oh, little chocolate coin and we're off. Gage rewards based on how nice the kid is. If it's a horrible kid, don't let them get away with everything.

Right. Otherwise, they will just keep pushing you all day. They'll just spoil it for everyone else. Yes, yes. Well, look, thank you so much, Joel. No pleasure. I hope it's been of use to listeners. Yeah.

To you guys. Absolutely. Genuinely, so much. Yeah, it's been so helpful. I feel like I could feasibly throw a party for a friend's child now.

They actually could have a go with it. It's these little tiny things, you're like, oh, okay. Yeah. Because it takes you a long time. Like, in comedy, for example, somebody will be like, oh, come and do a comedy gig at my work.

And you'll be like, I cannot express how bad idea. That's a bad idea. Because they're like, but you do it there, so do it here. And you're like, there's so much psychology of the comedy, you know. And so it's a similar thing of being like, these are those little tiny bits that's going to make this between a success and a hellscape. Yeah.

And may I also add, completely separate to anything we've been discussing, I saw your dog today. I saw your dog today. I saw your show, Jaws, your last show. And it was my favourite thing I saw in Edinburgh. And I'm so excited about your new show, which is Blink, which is this year in Edinburgh, August. Venue time. It's a Pleasance Jackdome at 820.

It is sort of a fake magic show. Yes! So it draws on a lot of this. Amazing. Define fake. I can't really do very much magic. So it sort of pretends to be a magic show. I wanted to try and make a magic show with no magic in it.

So that it constantly threatens that it might be about to do some magic, but maybe never does. Or maybe does it? Or does it? So is it, will you be, Hello I'm Jaws? Or are you, Hello I'm Jim or are you a character? I'm Joss Norris, but I'm Joss Norris has quit comedy and has retrained as the greatest magician of all time. Incredible.

That's so fun. And I'm really nice. And I just, I only ask to be like, and what are the rules? Because sometimes when I see a magic show, I'm like, are you really here? Are you the character? She needs to know. And will you be this? Yeah, lovely.

It's sort of me, but it's all a character thing because I haven't really retrained as a magician. I love the premise. And sorry, what's it called? It's called blink. Oh, sorry, it is called blink. Because I'm going to make everybody blink at the same time. That's my magic trick. Spoiler alert.

That's a finale. That's very funny. Okay, great. Oh, my God. Oh, that's so fun. And I'll be watching it when I come up for the weekend. You're there for the whole month, of course. I'll be watching it on, I think, I booked for 19th.

Oh, thank you so much. You can do me at 6 o'clock. Do test potato. Yeah. And we're straight off to the magic show. That's a good evening. Oh, that's a good evening. That's a lovely evening.

Thank you so much and thank you so much for listening. How can people find you, Jaws? I'm on Jaws Norris.com. Or just at Joss Norris on Twitter and stuff like that. Instagram, I think. I forget what I'm on. Insta. You can find us at Nobody Panic Pod.

Please do email us. PANICPodcast at gmail.com for more episode suggestions. We are working through them. And goodbye to you and your children. Goodbye. Goodbye. Get your party bag on the way out.