Off Air... with Jane and Fi - You're so old you'll have to get married in a trouser suit! (with Nina Conti)

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

Ayesha Hazarika sits in for Jane today and she pulls back the curtain on the House of Lords - much to Fi's delight. They also chat abattoirs (again), online dating and the joys of Coatbridge. Plus, Jane speaks to comedian and ventriloquist Nina Conti. 'Whose Face Is It Anyway' will be at Edinburgh Fringe Festival next month and her film 'Sunlight' will premiere at the Edinburgh Film Festival on the 17th of August. Our next book club pick has been announced! 'Missing, Presumed' is by Susie Steiner. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producer: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This lovely old gentleman came up to me and he was like, can I just say it's so fabulous having a young, fine filly like yourself. I was like, who, me? Enough about Geoffrey Archer. Only kidding, only kidding. So Eve has pushed up the faders of dreams. The faders of dreams. The faders of dreams. The faders of dreams. Faders of dreams.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, we have got a special guest star on the podcast today. Eve and I are very humbled in the presence of Baroness, say it again, Baroness Aisha Hazarika of... Court Bridge in Lanarkshire in Scotland. It's a very lovely place. I love it. Go there for your holidays.

It's really nice. Is it? So tell us a bit about it. Why would we go there for holidays? Actually, you might not want to go for your holidays. It's got a lovely museum, though. It's a sort of former mining constituency. It's kind of in Lanarkshire,

sort of about a 20-minute drive from Glasgow. And it's got the loveliest people. I grew up there. My dad was the family doctor. I'm just trying to think of what else it's famous for um it's not famous for that many things there's a museum called Summerlee which is all about I think kind of trains and steel and things like that it's got it's got one leisure centre called the time capsule that everybody knows about in the area because it was like I think it was the first place in the west of Scotland had a wave machine it was all very exciting why is it called

the time capsule i think it's i think the sort of design of it involves dinosaurs and things like that it is actually a bit of a time capsule because you can tell someone's age if you go do you remember the time capsule that was very exciting when it came to and the other thing that coatbridge is famed for is the um the man who taught his dog to do a Nazi salute. Right. So, yeah, I mean, it's a broad church, but there's some very lovely people there, very lovely people there. But, yeah, it's very nice to be with you. I'm such a fan of the podcast.

It's very exciting. Well, Jane and I are huge fans of yours. I do want to ask you quite a few questions, actually, about being ennobled, because I think it's such a fascinating thing. You were asked... So you're a Labour peer. Yes. You've been appointed. When you first go into the House of Lords...

God, I don't know where to start with all my questions. Do you... Does somebody show you around? Are you just expected to kind of decide what it is that you want to do when you're in the House of Lords? What's your speciality going to be? Well, just on a very practical level, when you first join, it is really, really overwhelming because it's a sort of combination

of like Downton Abbey meets Hogwarts meets Jurassic Park meets Spitting Image. Like it is completely surreal when you walk in there. And they actually, I have to say, the house authorities, both in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords, do a fantastic job of getting you in. And you have this big induction day. So they set up a day where you come in for the whole day. It's like your kind of freshers introduction day.

And you meet all the key people and they show you around and you get a lovely tour. And they're so friendly. Like everybody is just so nice to you and so, so friendly. And there are these doorkeepers who are these very beautifully turned out gentlemen. And there's a few ladies as well. And they wear kind of like um almost like

black almost like a white like a white tie outfit it's very posh and fancy and they're kind of scattered all across the building mainly to stop you getting lost so when you're like floundering around looking for the loo this sort of doorkeeper will just appear out of nowhere it is like Hogwarts and they'll be like Lady Hazarika you have to go this way and they just instinctively know where you want to go so they they physically look after you quite well and I have to say the atmosphere in the House of Commons in the House of Lords I mean I think it I think it might change in the House of Commons now because there's a big turnover and lots of new people across the house but it's it's very collegiate everybody's very friendly. So when you come in as a new peer, you can't sort of move for people from all parties coming up to you saying hello.

And also there's a great tradition of collaboration in the House of Lords. There's a great tradition of cross-party working, particularly when it comes to scrutinising legislation. It's often found that if peers from different parties get together and they work on the sort of cross-party amendments they've got a higher chance of getting through so what was really nice is when i started i mean all the labour people were lovely to me but so many liberal democrats and um tories and and others came up to me a lot of old generals came up to me and were like we should definitely do some work together and i was like oh and also the other thing which is great,

as a woman of slightly advancing years, I was starting to feel quite bad about my age. Not anymore. And, you know, I was like, this Tory lord came up to me. And normally I'd be quite offended. You know, I'm a bit of a, you know, poor-faced left-wing feminist. But this lovely old gentleman came up to me and he was like, can I just say it's so fabulous

having a young, fine filly like yourself. I was like was like who me enough about jeffrey archer only kidding it was it was just it's just such a nice it's very nice but then in terms of you know what you want to do look i think it is a place where you're very much left to your own devices you can do as little or as much as you like and i think think the way to be a good peer, you know, is to pick topics that are really close to your heart that you care about deeply. And just to get involved,

and there's many ways you can get involved. You can ask questions, you can ask written questions, you can get up in the chamber and ask oral questions in the house. You can table a debate on an issue that you care about, which is a great thing to do because there will be other peers from across the house

that will want to come and speak. You can get in on sort of topical questions. You can join committees. So it's a great way to raise issues that you really care about. And the things that I really care about, I really care about women's issues. That's something that I've had a long commitment to.

I was the women's advisor when I worked with Harriet Harman. Of course, I had a great apprenticeship with Harriet Harman. I'm a member of the Fawcett Society, so I'll definitely be championing women's issues. I care a lot about arts and culture. When I made my maiden speech, I had a bit of a nod to that. So there's lots of issues, lots of international issues I care about as well. So particularly which have a crossover with women's issues. But I think that the joy of the Lords is

you don't have to go in and do sort of kind of that tribal politicking for the sake of it. And I think quite a lot of people have had enough of that, quite frankly, after the kind of, you know, the recent time we've had. It is a place where you can just have a bit more time to think a wee bit more deeply about things,

work in collaboration with other people and actually get some really good results. You know, I mean, I hope things will change in the... Look, it's fair to say, I'm not just saying this because I'm in the Lords now, but if we're really honest with ourselves, if you look at the quality of the House of Commons over recent years, it has not been a

place of great pride you know it's been very partisan there hasn't been a lot of good legislation coming through not a lot of scrutiny of legislation so actually the lords has particular things like the rwanda bill the lords was actually the place which was really providing very good robust scrutiny and it wasn't just from Labour peers. There were, you know, Conservative peers that were scrutinising whether the Rwanda bill was legal, whether it was going to be effective and whether it was the right thing to do, whether it was a value for money. So I actually think the Lords provides a very, very good place for proper scrutiny,

but it does definitely need reform. Do you already know the people in the Lords who don't do very much but still take the money? Are they kind of well-known people? Because it's interesting that you say you can do as little as you want or as much as you want. And I wonder whether, as in any kind of school or club or workplace, everybody knows who the slackers are.

And will you tolerate that? Is that just part of the thing, that you just have to accept some people aren't going to be as diligent as you? I think you always get that in any organisation. You always get some people that coast it and other people that do sort of put a shift in. But I would say that, you know, the more you put in,

the more you get out. Now, the Lords is a place where it's not a full-time job. So, you know, there are a lot of people who have other jobs as well. And that's sort of the point of the Lords. It is to bring in people with expertise. You know, you have doctors, you have lawyers, you have people who run charities, you have people who do sort of lots of work.

And they'll come in and make a contribution on an issue that they really care about and they know a lot about. But I think, like anything, there's always some people that kind of take the mic. But I do think because there are, you know, there's going to be more eyes on the lords now i i hope that people will will you know take it seriously the other thing that i've

been quite impressed with is i've actually got to know a few of the younger members of the house of lords people who maybe i would hold my hands up to being a bit critical about in the past but actually like some of the younger people have taken it are taking it really diligently and they are really visible and they're in the chamber a lot and there's a very brilliant young woman from Plaid Cymru who went in recently and she's really young like she's about sort of 28 and she's brilliant in that in the chamber because she does bring a fresh perspective in terms of somebody who's younger and she's really articulate she's dead confident she stands up and she's asked some amazing questions on carers and things like that so I do think that hopefully there will be a new generation

of people in the Lords who do take it seriously but but I think look like everything there's a few people that give the place a bad name but I I would say on the whole, most people who are there are really grateful to be there. They care really deeply. They're not kind of in it for the money. They do work really hard. And, you know, they care very, very passionately about being put in there. Like I share an office with I think sort of like three men in their 70s and they work they work so hard like they work so so

hard and one man he you know he comes down from Wolverhampton on a Monday his wife drops him off at the station and he he works so so hard and he like stays in a little kind of bed sit while he's down here and then he toodles up the road on a Thursday. And, you know, people like that are doing great public service. That's good to hear. Well, you are our offer filly for today. I love it. I was going to say woof woof, but that's the wrong animal.

It is. So you've chosen some emails. We've got some cracking themes going on at the moment. And we were talking about defining a good sense of humour on the podcast yesterday. So we were trying to work out whether or not somebody has to define it for you, whether it's always up to you to say, you know, this is what's funny. We have to wait for someone to laugh to know that something's funny. So this is Adam in Perth. you asked to define good sense of humor i wonder whether it's like cake we might have our favorites mine is carrot cake but i'd gladly chomp on any variety my wife happens

to be more fruit cake than victoria sponge i want to say that with care adam but the important thing is we're big fans of cake there are common ingredients flour sugar eggs but it is the coming together of those where the magic happens and so it is with a sense of humor the ingredients being common interest shared passion and most importantly in my view the ability to laugh at oneself you can't put that in the personal ads of course but i wonder if the intrigue of writing must like cake might just kill two birds with one stone and you then then go on to say, though, Ophie, and your point about kindness, well, I guess in the same way,

no one would write must be a miserable bastard in the personal ad. I just can't help feeling if you were looking for companionship, there'd be anyone who'd advertise must be unkind, but maybe there is, and maybe someone would answer, who knows. Laters, which is the sign-off of the day in the podcast world at the moment. So I don't know.

You see, I think if you're unkind, then you don't realise you're unkind. But I think people who want kindness need, you know, you do need to identify it. I don't think we should assume that everybody's kind as a base level. No, a lot of people are are deeply deeply unkind in a sort of like horrible horrible way but i also do think i'm also very wary of people who virtue signal

their kindness because they are normally absolute shitbags okay am i allowed to say that yes you are allowed to say that it's a podcast you know like when people on their biographies be like peace love cats eternal kindness and then they really like start a pile on on you yes you'll find the covid vaccination yes exactly i'm i'm not i'm not i'm not down for that yeah no i would agree with you on that i think that just the whole topic of self-awareness and personal ads is a fantastic and fascinating one uh and yeah, I'm with you. I mean, you know, who hasn't been on a date where you just want to leave and you want the trip advisor to be not as advertised?

It's just there. But I think it's quite a good, like, I do think writing your sort of dating profile is the most singularly stressful thing you can do in your entire life. I agree, yeah. I mean, it's probably one of the reasons why people stay in unhappy marriages

for a very, very... Because it's just like, I can't do it. I just can't do it. Yeah. No, definitely. Definitely. And also, I think there was a fantastic dating site, wasn't there, set up by Sarah Beeney years ago, which was where friends wrote your dating profile for you and friends kind of

put you up for the dates which was such a clever idea because they see you for who you are and I think you can get yourself into such a model trying to define yourself I think that's a genius idea I take it a step further I would get your friend like because obviously I'm from an Asian family so we're really into like arranged marriages my mom my mom has been struggling and failing with me for many many years and now i'm just too old as my dad says my dad's like we just couldn't afford the diary now quite frankly that ship is sick my dad's like people will think it's your second marriage you know all this kind of he's like you're so old you'll have to get married in a trouser suit like you know that that's the vibes of where i am but i think a sort of version of an

arranged marriage but done by your friends as a genius idea so i'll look into what happened to that website because i remember at the time thinking it was superb uh right what you got um i have got okay hi jane and fee after your recent talk of abattoirs god this this podcast has range doesn't it really does um after your talk of abattoirs, God, this podcast has range, doesn't it? It really does. After your talk of abattoirs, it recently reminded me of a Christmas meal I went to years ago. My husband's work treated us to an evening

on a local steam railway. I don't travel well and I was a bit nervous about eating a meal on the move. We sat with a young colleague of my husband and his girlfriend. She kindly reassured me that their train stopped at the abattoir when the meal was served,

to which her boyfriend interjected, you mean the reservoir. I mean, going through an abattoir as you were like already feeling a bit queasy about your tea does not, you'd be like, what is that smell of blood? On the subject of email sign-offs,

I empathise with the dilemma. I'm a charity fundraiser writing applications for grants and often in my emails will thank you for your kind consideration, which doesn't sit well with my usual sign-off kind regards. So I'm interested in any alternatives. With my close colleagues, I usually sign off with take care and often pepper my emails with a wee smiley face emoji

and Helen says take care with a wee smiley face emoji and Helen says, take care with a wee smiley face emoji. Where are you on sign-offs with emojis? Oh, God. I feel like sign-off is just such a kind of political minefield. And when I worked in politics as well, the sign-off was always really difficult because you're like, do you want to be a ball-breaking woman or do you want to be a bit like simpering and nice?

But sometimes be simpering and nice nice that's how you would get stuff done so sometimes it was kind of like oh god the worst thing is like sometimes when you sent a sign off to a senior person and you forgot and you put a kiss kiss at the end by accident that's just complete social and political annihilation but i do think as well like the tone of emails is fascinating one of the most brilliant moments of the covid inquiry was when a brilliant former senior civil servant very female high senior female um woman helen matt namara she had some of her emails read out and she was like one of the most senior women in politics and in the government she's absolutely badass like an amazing woman but kind of ended up doing lots of sort of like very informal like hi guys

and is there any way I could just possibly trouble you to have a look even though she's like the senior person and the sign off is all like oh thanks ever so much for like you know I really appreciate it I'm so sorry to bother you I know I'm such a pain in the bum side and you're just like why do we do this as women why do we do this i i'm really guilty of doing that yeah i think what's really interesting about emails is that we've completely lost the one sense of formality because there just used to be one way to write a letter wasn't there it was dear sir or madam and then it was yours sincerely at the bottom we've gone so free form that's what the problem is and i don't have one singular sign off but i'm absolutely with you

sometimes i get it so wrong and i'll read back an email that is sent in a work context and i'll just think what planet were you on what planet you know there are kisses at the end of it i mean it practically starts with hugs hello you just think oh hi babes yes no or the even worse is when you're so overly familiar with somebody you don't know that well and you do the bye babes loads of kisses and you do a ps then you do a pps afterwards at this point just verbal incontinence you're like why would you be doing this i think as well the other thing has which has really damaged us is our communication is becoming so much more casual and so much more um sort of brief because of emojis and all this kind of stuff and also there's like

17 billion ways of contacting you now facebook messenger there's dms on twitter there's all these kind of things whatsapp and all it's too much it's too it's kind of ruined how we communicate yeah the dm thing uh I just will always struggle with. And I've got open DMs on my Twitter account, ex-account, because it can be very useful in terms of, you know, guests contacting you or people with stories or whatever it is. But I also get quite regularly passive, aggressively thumped by people in my DMs, people who've come on the programme,

haven't particularly enjoyed an interview want to say something in addition and i find it very very difficult to know how to read all of those and and they apply to them well they are usually people who are complaining or they're a bit worried about how they've appeared or whatever it is and there's something so personal about a dm isn't that yeah and it's always accompanied with a kiss and you just think oh god the thing is they can see that i've read it so i do have to respond to it nina conti is a ventriloquist and comedian perhaps best known as a double act of 25 years with monkey her inappropriate foul mouth puppet her new show whose Whose Face Is It Anyway,

sees her hijacking audiences' faces with her masks to spark a warped reality. And you can catch that at the Edinburgh Fringe next month and then on tour around the country. Now, Jane did this interview and she started by asking Nina about the risk of audience participation at her shows. Yeah, some people really want it and they sit in the first row and some people write to me in advance saying, please, can you do my proposal, you know, and I'll hide a ring in the monkey's mouth or please can you tell my dad he's a gift.

There's a lot of people that want to be involved, but I don't go there I I really feel like I've got to be intuitive to what the room wants on the night like a medium you know what I mean um so I I don't work with uh the over keen and I and I also only work with the willing I don't want anybody to be unhappy that's my biggest fear is that somebody up there is unhappy. But so far, thank God, touching wood, no one has been. But it can be, for the uninitiated, what can happen to members of your audience? Well, I get them up and I put a mask on them, which is just for their mouth. And it just covers their mouth and it's a

jaw which i manipulate with the little hand or squeezer and i then will say the things it looks like they're trying to say ventriloquially excuse my voice i'll say it ventriloquially through them and uh and have a conversation basically with myself but But once the mask goes on them, they look like a cartoon. They instantly lose some inhibitions because it's not them anymore and they're not in control of what they say. So they communicate non-verbally, you know, with the whites of their eyes and the whites of their knuckles. And everything you do is completely unscripted, totally freeform.

You have no idea what's going to happen. Genuinely. Yes, genuinely. And often people say, oh, it's rigged, they're stooges. As if, if you see any of my clips online, as if I would write those. I mean, if I was going to write something, it would be a lot less nonsense. It's very off the top of the head flotsam. But for some reason that creates a good response in the audience because it's like the stuff you wouldn't bother saying or coming out of.

OK, when I think about ventriloquism, my first question is always how did you pick that as your art form? How did you know you were going to be good at it? And how bad were you at the start? So would you mind answering really any of those questions in any order? I don't care. I was really, really, really bad at the start. And I didn't like ventriloquism. I mean, from what I'd seen of it or hadn't seen, I had an end of the peer imagination of what it was.

And I thought thought not funny creepy spooky gross and then I did it on a day where I had really nothing to do as an actress I had been at the RSC but I had just a big old blank day and I wrote a little list of what I would do to fill it out and one thing was uh the didgeridoo i would play the didgeridoo for an hour i would write my journal for an hour then i go for a walk then i do ventriloquism for an hour and i just did it because this crazy old maverick ken campbell who was a theater director had told me to but i wasn't listening he was doing workshops i wasn't going to them but I thought I'll do it for an hour now I know I know the name Ken Campbell because I grew up in Liverpool and he was a massive name in really experimental theatre notably at the Everyman wasn't he I mean didn't

he do up all night shows and all kinds of completely maverick stuff. Yeah, I'd done those. I'd been in his all-the-night-long shows, 24-hour shows. Hanging out with Ken was almost more like you were in a cult than a theatre company because you worked all hours of the day and things weren't normal. I mean, if you were practising a scene, he'd send people behind you to upstage you deliberately to make sure you would win the audience's attention just through sheer desperation um so it was like a hard and fast learning curve with him and he got me the the

teach yourself ventriloquism kit and I ignored it for ages like I say until I had this sort of dreary day where I thought I have to fit it somehow and I did that and um and I looked at this video I'd made and I really felt excited because I felt like there were two people having a conversation. And I don't suppose I wasn't instantly all that good at it, but good enough to feel like this was suddenly the right pen I was holding. I could write with this. Who was doing ventriloquism when you were growing up? Because I have a memory of an American woman and a puppet called Lamb Chop. Do you remember?

Oh, I love her. Yeah. She's, I think, the best one, actually. Right. Shari Lewis. Right. And there's a really good documentary, Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop documentary, which people should definitely watch out for.

I just saw it at London Rain Dance Film Festival, and it's stunning. That woman could do anything. She could conduct an orchestra and do ventriloquism at the same time. She then turned her show into Japanese. She did it in Japanese. Wow. I mean, the woman was a genius, and Lamb Chop was very sweet. Well, your monkey is not so sweet, and actually is quite troubled, I'm going to say.

Would you say? Well, I would. I just have. How did you alight on Monkey's personality? By the way, is Monkey non-binary? I couldn't work that out either. Yeah, Monkey's not. No, I think Monkey's actually more male. I think Monkey's more male.

Except that he is an adjunct to me so he he knows what it is to be a woman but it's a it's a male persona um well I found him in in I found him I stole him off a mate actually because I thought he had a sweet face and then when I started to learn ventriloquism I thought I wonder if that monkey has a moving mouth because that's all you need you can make a bulldog clip a puppet if you want you just need a moving mouth and he didn't really wasn't meant to have a moving mouth I had to pull his stuffing out and force my hand up through a sewn bit that wouldn't normally open and I could get little tiny bit of movement in the mouth but as soon as I turned him to me and he said hello Nina I thought uh-oh this is serious.

So it's all a long way from your stint at the Royal Shakespeare Company isn't it? I mean is there anything about that you miss? The Royal Shakespeare Company uh something like a kind of holiday camp I suppose. I enjoyed the company in the dressing room because I've been alone since and that's much more frightening yeah but you're not alone are you because I mean you've already outlined your very close relationship with with monkey um yeah who's never had a name other than monkey no because in some respects there's something about what I do which I don't want it to get too silly I mean I take it seriously but I am talking to myself I'm talking to a furry animal but if I called him Jonathan or

something I'd want to puke yeah um I mean I don't know what the audiences in Edinburgh are like presumably some are brilliant others not so um as you go around the country, is there a place where, frankly, you think, oh, God, not insert name of place again? I've made this tour very strict. I'm going to the places I love the most. Oh, that's such a clever answer, Nina. That's such a good answer. Well, it's true, actually. And before, you know, you can look at the ones on the card.

You can work out my process of elimination of places I feel that way about because I'm not doing them this year none of them come to mind but I thought I'm actually I want to enjoy my tour I don't want to dread it I don't want to you know pull up in car parks where my heart sinks so I um yeah I've got all my favorite places this tour and can you ever imagine a time when you're not doing this in my coffin hopefully I'll stop then will will will monkey be in there with you I mean I don't know for sure poor guy he'll be he'll be outlasting me as I decompose. I mean, yeah, throw one in with me. Send one to the Benthaven, Kentucky, Ventriloquist Memorial,

and my kids can have the remainders. There really is. I was hoping just briefly to get onto that. There really is a special place in Kentucky, isn't there? Can you just describe it? Yeah, it's a mausoleum sort of for the rest. It's the resting place for the puppets of dead ventriloquists. You would not find a more silent building on Earth than these voiceless, bereaved objects.

Well, that's something to put on your bucket list, isn't it? That's Jane Garvey in conversation there with Nina Conti. So, look, Aisha is an incredibly busy woman, as you can already gather. And she's doing this podcast for us today because Jane is off attending a family function. And Ayesha, we will get you back on the podcast because there is so much more to talk about.

But you're also doing the lunchtime show, aren't you, today? I am. Can I just say I've just loved it. Can I come back? I've just had such a... It's been like a mini break. Oh, it's really... It's a lovely... Do you know what? And our listeners and community is just loved it. Can I come back? I've just had such a, it's been like a mini break. Oh, it's really, it's a lovely, do you know what, and our listeners and community is just so fantastic. And the messages that you get are just so

lovely. You know, we're talking about kindness and abattoirs. You've got it all. It's got range. It's got range. So Aisha will come back and Jane will be back on Monday. Congratulations.

You've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fi. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live every day, Monday to Thursday, two till four, on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale. And if you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online on DAB or on the free Times Radio app. Off Air is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.