Perfect Day with Jessica Knappett - EP 44: David O'Doherty

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Joining Jess this week on her search for yet another perfect day, is comedian, author, actor, musician and big fan of day themed podcasts - David O’Doherty. The duo discuss bike themed pizza wheels, mattresses in boxes, David’s musical morning rituals and Shackleton’s doomed Antarctic expedition, to name just a few. Don’t forget David will be at the Edinburgh Fringe all August, so make sure to head out and see him! Like and subscribe for brand-new episodes every Thursday. Follow us on Instagram @perfectdaycast. And, why not get in touch? Email us at [e-mail] A Keep It Light Media ProductionSales and general enquiries: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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All right then. Who is this doomed Antarctic explorer? Hello Perfect Dayers, I'm Jessica Knappett and you are going to need to remember to rub your fake tanning at the knees otherwise it will stain. Today in crossovers of pod land we have another huge fan of days and someone that I think all you listeners may be familiar with. He's a comedian, he's an author, he's an actor, he's a writer, he's a musician. No wonder he's tired. He's not tired, he's got loads of energy. It's the one and only David O'Dockerty. Yes. I're in for a slightly longer episode today, listeners, because we had so

much ground to cover. And it happens, OK? We chat all about bike-themed apparatus, you'll be glad to know. We unfurl a life-improving mattress, David opens up about his morning rituals, builds a time travelling bike, cosies up with Shackleton in Antarctica. Too many spoilers here. It's an amazing episode. And importantly, I should say that this episode is not sponsored by Swaff Hager. Okay, let's get going listeners. This is David O'Doherty's perfect day. I got talking to a bar, but unfortunately I'm sitting in my dingy basement in my house.

Me too. I need to make it clear. You're in a basement. it looks lighter than a basement. Not only look, I've had to shut the blind here. You've got light in your basement though. Yeah, it's cold. It's always a few degrees colder than the rest of the house. This isn't to say it's a fancy giant house or anything, but it looks like I live in a bed sit, unfortunately, like a bike and everything. It's because of the bike. There's a bike in the back of David's shot, but there always

will be, won't there? You don't make any effort to clear that bike. I've been on your podcast and there is a, he's made no effort whatsoever. Somebody once said that me here is like, you know, those, are you a robot tests? Well, click where there's a bike in the picture. It's everywhere. It's every single box in the grid. Because do people buy you bike related gifts as well? They're like, Oh, David likes bike. I'll buy him this tea towel with a bike on it. Oh, I'll buy him this bike. I'm looking in the back of your shot there. Hook to hang your clothes on. Yeah. I'll buy him a bike shaped biscuit. Jess, I have a drawer with three pizza wheels where the wheels of the bike are.

Oh my God. So I already have a perfectly good one and I've three, like that is not an exaggeration. I have, I'll send you a photo of it afterwards. We can put it in the show notes. Please. Three lady, how many pizza wheels does a person need in a lifetime? Do you know what? I would say actually zero. It's one of those, it's one of those products. You don't even need one pizza wheel. You can

get by perfectly well without a pizza wheel. I actually find them quite annoying. I'm going to say it. I'm going to say it and I'm glad it's out there. Well, put this in your pipe and inhale. I recently got one of those mattresses in a box. Thanks to them, if they are the sponsors of the show, a really great box. Sorry, are you at the point in your podcast where you're getting free mattresses? No, absolutely not. All right, because then I was going to get jealous. No, a guy made a t-shirt of our podcast recently and gave it to me. And that's the first thing that I've ever been given, the first free thing I've ever received.

But that's an indication of where it's headed. Have you ever bought, using your own money, a mattress in a box? Yes, I have a mattress in a box also. Should we say the name of the brand and see if it's the same one? Three, two, one. Hang on. They sponsor a load of other podcasts. Right. Well, then they can start sponsoring ours as well, can't they? Because we love this. I liked it. Three, two, one. Hello, Fresh. Oh damn, why didn't I choose something stupid? That's just like the most obvious thing to do. This happens to me sometimes. I think you're not fucking, call yourself fucking, call me right.

You're actually giving the right answer. Never give the right answer. I was even training my children this the other day. I was like, if you don't know the answer, just give a funny answer. That's good parenting advice, isn't it? What the hell am I? I feel also what I was enjoying there, because I did think you would say the wrong thing. Why would you say the right thing? And then we would have had a good laugh. For example, in my case, when I said HelloFresh was a brand of mattress that I had just been sleeping for the last few months just on various over-packeted pieces of processed food.

Can we do it again? Can we do it again? What kind of mattress do you use? 3, 2, 1, Holesuiters. Emma's. It's an Emma mattress. You see, in comedy, you sometimes got to do the double switcheroo back then.

When you say the actual brand. It would have been so much funnier if I said it again. Look, my point... I can't believe how much self-hatred this podcast has ended on my part. My point is this. I got a mattress in a box. I dragged it down here. You're like, well, they've obviously given me the wrong size of mattress because the

box is not a big box and it's not particularly heavy. And then you open it and inside is, it looks like a giant dupe. It looks like someone has wrapped a huge dupe in cellophane. Yeah. And so I need something to open this with. What do I get from it? Would it made more sense to get a knife? I guess when I get a pizza one of the three pizza wheels and I run it down. And that is a cool moment because in a quite animatronic human way, the four corners of the mattress become sentient almost and they're like, and it fits exactly the bed frame that you had

asked it to fit. And then magically you're told don't lie on it for like 24 hours or something. And then it goes, and it gets bigger and bigger and bigger. It's really cool, actually, isn't it? It's really cool to unfurl something that you know is going to be a bit of a life improving situation this actually. There's a few in recent times.

I mean, in terms of life improvement, I'm amazed you've got another unfurling object. Oh yeah, it's just like my other unfurled object that I've just purchased off the internet. This is not so much the object unfurling as more a small bit of joy unfurling. I cleaned the windows recently. Oh, okay. It just made everything. Inside or out? Both. Whoa. Yeah.

I went to the centre aisle, and we may come back to this later on in my perfect day. Can't wait. And I got a 20 foot window wiper. Expandable. Yeah. Yeah. Unfurled. Extendable is what I'm looking for. Expandable. You can throw it out, whatever you want. That's the case with most things, I guess. It's like three pizza cutters. Yeah. Expandable. Oh, that's a nice feeling. Couple of questions. What do you see out of your window?

Oh, interesting. It's not so much what I see, then someone's just turned the colour up a little bit. It's like when you put your glasses on. What's your vision like? It's bad, but I refuse to get glasses because that would be acknowledging that I'm getting older. Oh. So, my way of raging against the dying of the light or whatever that phrase is, is to just not be able to see things or read things these days. You show them.

I mean, if I allow it to get a foot in the door, what's next? You know, my hearing, I'll get a sore back, my Riz. You could get contact lenses, couldn't you? And then no one would know. Yeah, but you'd still be admitting that you're a four eyes then. Whereas I just think if I tough it out for a few years, it might come back. Isn't that what they say? Spec savers, that's their saying. And if you don't come in and just tough it out, you can't see it.

Is what it says now. It's not what it says, David put your glasses on. I will not. Tough it out. Tough it out. No, but I have heard actually a listener emailed in about some contact lenses that you can wear overnight and they change. I mean, again, it's not, you're not going to like this because you're still going to have to acknowledge the aging process.

Yeah. But they change the, it changes the shape of your eye, it retrains your eye. What? So it's something to do with the reason your eyesight deteriorates is to do with the shape of your eye, it retrains your eye. What? So it's something to do with the reason your eyesight deteriorates is to do with the shape of your eye and apparently you can wear this contact lens overnight that changes the shape of your eye and over time you don't need glasses. Whoa, that sounds like some tech bro bullshit that a guy in a polo neck says in front of a cheering crowd.

Yeah, it's like a, it's like a sort of investment startup situation, isn't it? But apparently it works. I don't know, according to this one listener, I have heard other people talking about it. I don't care about getting old really. Sounds like you do. Yeah, I know. I mean, I'm not doing anything about it. If that's what you're asking me to dye my beard, you know what I mean? And get hair plugs. Yeah, we don't need them.

I went to get a driver's license renewal. And in Ireland, you have to go to the office and the affiliate and the thing on an iPad at the desk. And the lady said, we're going to take your photo. And I was like, OK, when? And she goes, We got it. And it's fine. I don't care. It arrived three days later.

It's the EU driver's license. And my immediate thought was like, who is this doomed Antarctic explorer? They've simply given me someone else's driving license. Oh, mate. I thought what you were going to say is that then you couldn't read the iPad that they'd handed to you. And that was when they suggested that maybe you might need to not have a driving license. If your driving license was revoked in the office for driving licenses because you couldn't read the iPad, that would be.

Yes. Or you go up to the desk, renew your driving license and they're like, sorry, this is a McDonald's. That would be a real sign. I'm just tough to hear all about your perfect day. And as we both know, we're both very big fans of days. Yeah. Well. David's got a podcast, which I expect everyone who's listening to this episode probably knows that David has a podcast called What Did You Do Yesterday? I've been on it. You know, there's some similarities there.

But they're different enough that the company who makes both of our podcasts decided that they could release both of them in the same week. So yeah, it's absolutely fine and everyone's happy about it. It's different. There's plenty of room for everyone. In podcasts, is that what you always say? Yeah.

We will just take whatever rubbish you did yesterday. You know what I mean? Whereas for this, I actually have had to have a little think about it, which is driving my perfection. Generally, yeah, this is definitely a better podcast. You know what I mean? Like if and let's hope it never happens, I were to pass away, they could use a bit from this podcast. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I do. Yeah. In 2025, David spoke about his dream day, you know, and they would have a little bit of me. Well, possibly it'd be an explanation for how you've died if you're still insisting on not wearing glasses. Well, my point is, they'll never use a clip from what you do yesterday because when we talk about our yesterdays, it's just like, and then I took threadworm chocolate because I had a scratchy butt during the night or whatever it happens to.

But it's the stuff of life, man. I love it. I really enjoyed coming, I enjoyed the process. I mean, I was quite meticulous about it. I wrote down every single thing that I did in the day as I was doing it. And I enjoyed the process. You realize it's all the small things in life, the things that make you laugh. And I didn't cry, but there's a lot, even when there's a little, I suppose is what I'm saying. And that's what's quite, that's what's so nice

about it. No one's ever cried. Yes. Like no one's, you never made anyone cry. No. Like what did you do yesterday? No one's. Oh my God. It could have been bad. One day you are going to get a bad one. And then I drove into an elderly couple still doing the podcast. They're committing to doing your part today from prison. I feel this is a purer concept for a podcast is what I'm saying. So thank you for having me on it. Superior. Thank you.

It is superior. Vastly superior. This is premium podcasting, whereas ours, it's just in a giant fucking skip of waffle podcasts. Whereas this has got more of a desert island discs prestige vibe to it. Jess. Oh, thanks. Thanks for saying that. Come on then. What does a perfect day look like for David O'Doherty? We'll start with your perfect morning. You wake up. As all I am a fabulously deep sleeper. Are you? Do you medicate? No, but I stay up too late sometimes and then have to get up with the helicopter for her

job. So the alarm will go off at a very deep point in the cycle. So what time are you going to bed? There's gigs and stuff sometimes. Yeah. So sometimes I go to... You're a night worker. Yeah, an essential night worker. Sometimes I go to bed at half 11 with the helicopter and other times I come back

from a gig at two, but still get up. For those that don't know, can you tell the listeners who the Helencopter is? Helencopter is Helen. Right. Person or animal? The Helencopter is a tall lady who also, we sleep in the same bed. Oh. That the press are looking for more information than that, but that's all we're going to give them at present. Great.

So on your perfect morning, are you waking up having had a deep sleep that has been interrupted by the helicopter stirring or is it a different kind of morning? Well perfect or not, me and the helicopter go one day off, one day on making a little breakfast and a coffee of toast maybe? Hang on. Let's just wind it back. I wake up and then because I'm in such a deep sleep cycle, this happens quite a lot. I wake up with no idea who I am. Whoa. You know, that sort of language, nothing's loaded. It's like a windows 95 or something. I'm just a screen and all of these different utilities start to load the game.

That's like patience, Excel, all of the different aspects of my personality. Your applications start to open up one by one. Sometimes it'll take a while. I'll have to pick up my phone and be like, who am I? And check my Wikipedia page. And then, yes, I, I, I remember who I am. Got it. Award-winning comedian, musician.

Uh, I play a tiny keyboard. Got it. Got it. Got it. I am, it's my turn. Actually, no, it's the perfect day. It's Helen's turn. And she makes my favorite thing, which is bagel, peanut butter from the cafe around the corner with the big sunflower seeds in it, chopped banana, a perfect circle of them. Then I think she sprinkles a tiny bit of salt on that and then honey on top of that.

Whoa. And a French press of coffee arrives, is just placed between us. And as always, my opening catchphrase in my perfect day and every day is, I'm just waking up. And I keep saying that for, I'd say 15 minutes before everything is fully loaded on, before we take stock of where I am. And then I think I've never said this publicly, but I sing a lot of songs about myself and how brilliant I am to wake up.

Because it gets a rise out of her, because she's reading the news on her phone, and I am still just static. It'll just be like, David, you are so cool. You have great taste in clothes and you're looking really well for 49. The song can go on for ages and ages and ages. Is that unusual? Is anyone? Yes, but I love it so much. What a detail. You don't have too many bikes. If anything, you should get some more bikes. It's this song that is definitely something deeply psychological is coming out in these songs and they rarely repeat apart from a few catchphrases like, David, you're doing

really good. Sometimes you run out of patience, but that's natural because you were tired. You know, when maybe something bad happened the night before. Wow. Do you do this every morning? I mean, if I'm being completely honest about it, yes. I do it every morning and I do it every day. And I probably only externalize about 10% of the many songs that come into my head about how great I am and how well I'm doing. And this is so funny. I can't believe it. When you're doing it, is it like how tongue

in cheek is it? Do you really think, like do you see what I'm getting at? Yeah, it fulfills a function in, it's like the dishwasher is really old and it doesn't make a sound when you turn it on. So it's not that surprising you forgot to turn it on last night. You know, I'll be getting across, like the great protest singers, I'll sometimes be getting across a political idea or maybe political in terms of our relationship. Yeah, I mean, like it's lighthearted, it's fun, it's beautiful musically, but also there's an important social message behind it. I'm getting that.

I'm hearing that. If any of the listeners would like to take the songs I've sung so far this episode, there'll probably be a few more and just remix them, turn them into floor fillers. I'm open to that. Challenge accepted. Let's have more of your perfect morning. This is lovely. Yeah. So what we what we slowly realize is where we are. We're not here in dirty Dublin, where I live.

We are in my late grandmother's cottage on the Atlantic Island of Ackle, the largest island off Ireland, where it's the only place I ever went on holidays growing up and always loved it. I ever went on holidays growing up and always loved it. And then on the 20th of March, 2020, my then 84 year old parents and I decided to move there, quote my father, just for a couple of weeks till the whole thing blows over, six months. Six months.

So I really, honestly, it changed my brain. I'd had a breakup not long before, obviously, my stupid comedy career had ended. And obviously I was worrying at the time about the world ending, but I also just, you're closer to nature. I mean, you just are, as in your main concerns where you're on the island are eating, sleeping, you know, and hanging out with other people a bit. It's not until recently, you couldn't even get 3G on a lot of the island. So you're the idea of bringing your phone with you and just checking all the time. You just couldn't do it. Sounds fantastic. Yeah. It's good. How are we spelling Ackle? A-C-H-I-L-L. A chill is how it looks like it's spelled.

Oh, right. Like Achille. It looks like it's spelled like Achille. It does. I think it's the Irish word for eagle is possibly what it is. Where do you get your food on Ackle in lockdown? There is a bridge to the island. It's not a fancy island, but it has one supermarket, which is of the Irish chain supermarkets. It's the fanciest one. Oh, really?

It's a strange thing that you're dangling into the Atlantic Ocean, and yet three sorts of hummus are available to you. It's good. Oh, that's incredible. It sounds like the perfect combination. So are we talking, we're waking up there on your perfect morning, but it's not locked down or? No, it's no, it's definitely not. We won't place it in a time, but I'm going to incorporate a lockdown element to it, which is the most joyous part of it. I got it in my head. I mean, this is, we're, we're, we, I don't want to take this too nerdy,

but I needed a project when I was on the island. And so only one Irish man has won the Tour de France, which was of course, correct. Steven Rochin, 1987. I decided to do a part by part rebuild of his Tour de France winning bike. There was no list of the parts anywhere. So I just had to stare at photos for the first few days. And then I joined Facebook groups that sell these parts, mostly Estonians, Belgians, certain places where cycling is really big, some Italians as well. And then

using Google Translate, I forged these friendships where I'd be like, uh, chow me me Bellas. Chow me Bellas. What's funny is... Have you got any gears? That's all I've got in terms of references to bikes. Well, because whatever happens with Google Translate, it always comes across more frothy than it is. So I'd get a message in and it would be a guy selling me a chain.

And it would be like, I am so happy to bring to your life the Ferrari of chains. I hope you and your family get great enjoyment. You know, that sort of thing. So elaborate. So all of these parts started to arrive then. One thing about the Irish Postal Service, in fact, postal services generally kept going during the Pando. And so I started buying all of these bits.

And after a couple of weeks, the bits were all in a box by the whole door of the cottage. And mum or dad would always say, I put your bits in the recycling. Like, I know, but like they obviously didn't, but it became the joke. Oh my God. You know the way a joke that was never funny the first time just stockhomes itself into your brain? If the joke wasn't made, I'd be like, oh, no one's made the joke about putting all of my bicycle parts into the recycling yet.

I know exactly what you mean. I once did a play and there was a guy that said, did the same joke every night for six weeks. What was it? He'd knock on the dressing room door and go, hello, I'm looking for the theatre. And it got to the point where it was like, he hasn't, John hasn't knocked on the door. And then you get a knock, knock, knock, knock, hello. But yes, so I do know exactly what you mean.

At every roast meal we have ever had as a family, if someone says the word cranberry sauce, my dad goes, cranberry sauce. It was never funny the first time. So silly. Oh God. I love those. Look, they're so weird on there, those family quirks. There's a Rowan Atkinson sketch from, it's from the Live in Belfast record. Wow. And he does, he does a sketch where he goes, where it's all about the Senator's dead, does his wife know?

And then he goes, the Senator's wife's dead. He goes, the Senator's wife's death. So whenever anybody dies, the news is given to the Nappet family. Everyone goes, does his wife know? It's ridiculous. Right, come on then. Did we finish the- No. Did we finish the... we didn't. With the morning... I'm so sorry. We'll fly through this. So we've all these parts have... we've been building them up for the past while. And then I bought it in South Africa. It's one of... Stephen Roach's 1987 Tour de France team frames arrived. Now the thing about the

frame is it's the scaffold of the bike. It's the thing that everyone hangs from. And so I spend maybe the most idyllic two hours of my life screwing all of these parts onto it because they've all arrived and they've been inanimate and useless pieces of metal, but with the arrival of the frame, suddenly I build a bike and I cycle around the island and it's, it's just perfect. It's beautiful. So this is a memory because this happened to you.

So I used to work in a bike shop and I love fixing bikes. I love, if you arrive at my house for a cup of coffee, I will make your bike 30 to 40 times better in 10 minutes because I still have all the tools and everything. Because you're a tinker. My hands are disgusting, like all the time. So often when I go to grip the microphone at a gig that people have paid money to see me,

I just see layers of oil, grease and crud on my hands that even Swarfega can't remove. I don't know what that is, but I'm assuming it's a cleaning solution. It's really, do you not know it? It's a jelly with sort of sand in it. It's like a magical. But when Twitter was a thing, I used to pretend that I was sponsored by Swarfega, because it's also a funny name. And I'd be like, Swarfega presents David Artie's winter tour of Ireland. And Swarfega sent a cease and desist. You think they'd be happy. Now I did put up photos of me pretending to drink Svorfega and stuff like that.

Okay. I've built a heavenly bike and although we're going to switch through location and all the rest of it, I'm going to take the bike now to my favorite, one of my favorite places, which is the Lidl around the corner from me that in the midst of building the Lidl, they found Viking huts underneath it. And so the council said you can only build the Lidl if you put perspex over the Viking huts. Oh, love it. fill the Lidl if you put perspex over the Viking huts. Love it. It's on Angel Street in Dublin.

It's like one of the best tourist things to do in Dublin. And it's just a fully operational Lidl. And not only that, Jess, the Viking huts are over the centre aisle. The greatest part of Lidl as well as regards frivolous consumption. That's a double whammy. Yeah. That is a genuinely incredible outing in Dublin. I think people don't probably know about it.

You'd probably have to be a local. It's like the, I think I talked about it on your podcast. I used to live in Spitzelfields in East London and there's a, I think it's a Nero or a Costa. You go down to the basement, Roman remains. You go down to the toilet of the Costa, Perspex glass, Roman remains. Incredible. Just got to go to the bogs. While I'm at my favourite Lidl, I'm going to go next door to it, it's another of my favourite Lidl. I am going to go next door to it, is another of my favourite places to visit, particularly when I am looking for ideas, which is there's a church beside the Carmelite Convent, which is next door to the Lidl on Angier Street. And in it, along the side, an old Catholic church are the bones of St. Valentine in a box. Catholics, well, they used to

love bits of dead saints and whatnot. So we're led to believe, I think it's the heart of St. Valentine is there. St. Valentine is known for love, but St. Valentine is also the patron saint of something like hope or not lost causes because that's someone else, but there's a book that's been going since like the 17th century where the people of Dublin, there's a pen beside it and you write in your wishes to St. Valentine. A magic book. Yeah. And you can go back through it. And Yeah. And you can go back through it. And why it's so inspiring is, so it'll be, uh, St. Valentine, please intercede and help my daughter who's got her driving test next week. And she needs it because she, the baby is coming in two months, you know, that sort of thing. And the next one after that is I want him dead. And then the next one.

Yeah. So it's this, every single one of them is at worst a short film, you know? Oh my God. I love this. I must go there. Oh, I'll show you. This is fantastic. Have you ever written in the magic book? No, I wouldn't be very religious. So I don't think I could do it with conviction. So you're just nosy more than religious. Yeah. And also, I wish I was religious. It'd be great if I thought that writing in this book would help and then I'd be filling pages and pages. Yeah. He's written a 35 page request there again today.

I love hanging out in a church actually. I'm not religious either, but I do like going to church. It's just a good, it's just a nice atmosphere. Yeah. I, my mum had a fall yesterday and we spent seven hours in A&E and she's okay, but I got talking to a nun sitting beside me. Whoa. Which you don't even in Ireland, there aren't many of them knocking around. Yeah, it's a bit of a cliche, isn't it? Yeah. What's going to happen if you go to a nun?

If you were to write that in a script, like someone's written a scene in an A&E in Dublin, oh, and obviously there's a nun next to them. So, do you know my initial, so we talked a little bit about the A&E generally, we'd covered all of that sort of stuff that had seemed quite well run, but we have been sitting here for a while now. And there was a guy who was just sort of walking around in a circle the whole time and we were hoping that he's okay. And there was a significant pause. And I considered taking out my laptop because I brought it to try to do some work, maybe. But I was like, nah, let's just talk to the nun. And like, I did go to Catholic school. So I was calling your sister, I know the lingo, but what came out then in my attempt

to make small talk with the nun, I was like, sad about the pope. Are you? Are you sad about the pope as well? She was really interesting on it. She was because whatever her order of nuns are, they were the ones that were affiliated with, he basically lived, I think he was Jesuit priest, but he'd lived in a place that was with the nuns. He was living in a place that was nuns, I think, looked after him and stuff. Right. So he was down with the nuns. He was down with the nuns, but the nuns are on a minimalist vibe. Like she was keen to

tell me that they weren't like the fancy nuns because she'd said, I'm living in Black Rock. So I was like, are you, do you live in Cyan Hill, which is a girl's school? And she's like, no, no, no, not in a school like that. We would be more, and mentioned sort of other parts of the city where there would be like dealing a lot with helping immigrants and just generally helping the poor, poor kitchens and stuff like that. So they were definitely the goody nuns. And yeah, she said she'd been into, she'd never met Pope Francis, but she'd been into his quarters once and

it was incredibly sparse. She said like he didn't, he didn't go for the whole, no pizza wheels to speak of. I didn't have a single pizza wheel. Or a bike. Do you think he had a bike? Yeah, yeah, apparently. Yeah, I think he did. I think I've seen a picture of the Pope cycling and it's probably in his former

glory. He won the Tour de France the year after Stephen Roche in 1988 in the full white robe. This was before aerodynamics or anything. Okay, is there any more to add to your perfect morning after we've been to Lidl and the St. Valentine's? And we've built a bike. We've built a bike. Yeah, we've also built a bike. That will take us around on the rest of the day. Gorgeous. Shall we move on to the perfect afternoon?

Yeah. David, have you had lunch yet by the way? No, I'm going to go to... I do love it. I mean, this is, there's going to be a huge... I don't know if you could see when people stop listening to a podcast, but I love Pizza Express. What do you mean? Can you see when people stop listening to it? Like, when I say that I'm going for lunch in Pizza Express...

I'm going for lunch in Pizza Express. I'm off. Yeah, a lot of people will just be like, oh, we enjoyed this up until the none part. And then... Mute. I'd rather sit in silence on this commute. And listen to another word out of David O. Doherty's mouth about how much he loves Pizza Express. Okay, let's talk about it. What is it that you love about Pizza Express? Not to have too much overlap with another podcast, which has its own place as well.

Look, we can't keep sidestepping podcasts here. Already. There's probably a my favorite Viking supermarkets podcast. We've already shattened their beans. Heath Express Hilarious is called Milano in Ireland. Really? Yeah. Similar to how Burger King's can't be called Burger King's in the state of Victoria in Australia. They're called Hungry Jacks there because a man with a van was like, no, I'm the Burger King and I will not be selling you. You are in breach of my copyright. Yeah, the king, the little crown.

I'm the king. Well, I think there must be another pizza express here. So they are Milano. I got into it as a sort of, particularly when you're on tour. If you get a train to a place and it's just unfamiliarity, you're in Huddersfield. You know what I mean? You're in York. It's always a risk, isn't it? You need to get some food before the show. Bingo. It's a risk if you're not going chain.

And Nando's, no, no, no, no, no, no. You know, the, it's something about the uncomfortable blue lighting of the pizza. Either way, it's got always got a blue tint. Don't know. Are you familiar with the chain? Oh, yeah. I'm worried that they're going to sponsor the show or something. Yeah. I don't love the quality of pizza because I do think that it used to be incredible and something happened, but I like the atmosphere and they're generally quite friendly in there. Wow. My kids like it. This is the worst restaurant review. They're generally friendly. They are. You know, you can go and have a glass. It feels quite smart. So pizza Romana, please. The big flat one. Right. Okay. Yeah. I want they do a Coke in a glass bottle and they bring the bottle to the table. See, these are the sensory things

that I enjoy. I get it. I want a coffee served by a man in a cycling hat as well. And then sometimes I will get, there's a kind of a super food veggie thing. Sometimes if it's the low, the 4pm low before a gig where you've nothing to do. And so sometimes I go there and with the explicit intention of just taking as long as possible, because the sound check is until six and it's always entirely empty and slightly cold in Pizza Express. But I have the laptop out and just more plates start coming and I eat way too much. You know where you are. But I'm happy to be there.

It's perfect. There's finer dining for sure, but there's something dependably, just the fact that I, you don't so much eat a Pizza Express pizza, you ATM it into your sad little slot and it cheers it up then. Yeah. Are you a 40-fold? Yeah, I do. Ridiculously, I remember when pizza was like going to pizza evening

with the family was a slightly more upmarket thing. I remember eating pizza with a knife and fork. Yeah. Then then we all decided it was okay to not do that. I think didn't we at a certain point. Listen, they give you a pizza wheel in Pizza Express. Of course, and you're like, I've got three of these. No, I steal it and bring it home and put it in another of the drawers. But yeah, now I sometimes I'll just I'll put the massive pizza into four huge bits and then effectively roll them up into themselves and eat it like I'm playing a... Like a mattress.

Like a bugle. Like a mattress doobie from HelloFresh. David, what else happens after Pizza Express? I get back on my bike and I travel through time and space to the Edinburgh Fringe and I go and see some of my friends shows. So nice. So, well, there's an excitement in going to see the new cool shows. There's also, especially people you know are going to be brilliant.

Should we name names? Josie Long, like Josie's shows are kind of underrated. Like it's always baffled me as to how everyone doesn't know Josie. John Kearns, certainly. I'm also actually thinking of people who often occupy that time slot because we've had our lunch now. We're in the afternoon. They do that sort of four to six kind of period. Someone like Tim Key would be on there, but he'd

be on later. Sam Campbell, I like some of the little wack uh, wackadoos, Lou Sanders. I mean, I, I'm interested in the new people, but my pals. Look, it goes without saying it. We don't know who they are yet. They're new and this is your perfect day and your perfect day is seeing your pals doing their great work. Because like the start of every, particularly a stand up show, is there's a little bit of anxiety in the room because you look around and you realize we're all trapped and it could be shit. Even if you're an experienced old road dog like me, there is a free song of, oh my God, please be good, please be good when it starts. But if I'm going to see one of my brilliant friends,

Rosemata Feyo, you know, it's, you're like, oh, well, this, this is going to be amazing. And you can relax immediately. So you don't feel trapped. Isn't it amazing? Like Miles Davis said, he could tell whether a trumpeter was going to be good by the way they walked up to the microphone. And similarly, just because of the swagger really and the confidence, I guess they're exuding that like, I know what to do here. A few times you can tell can't you when people have walked up to a microphone or not? Yeah you can tell, can't you, when people have walked up to a microphone or not? Yeah.

And it's the exact same in particularly the standing up comedy. You just, it's after two seconds. It's the way that they, you know, you always know rookies because they walk out from the side and their arms are raised and they're like, come on. And as an audience member, I'm like, Oh, fuck. I just want this to be okay. I just please just we're all here to support you. And that's what I love about my friends gigs. They wouldn't ever have their arms in the air. They wouldn't, it's the eyes, I think it might be. It's even just, there's a calmness in those eyes. Like in that Bob Dylan, this Gracez Bob Dylan documentary,

someone talks about seeing Dylan as a pillar of air on stage that you almost weren't watching a person, you were just watching this elemental thing. And while that's a very wanky way to describe a John Kearns show, there is a sort of simplicity to it. And immediately you've transcended this person standing here and you're just in their mind and in their world. And that's why I still love it. That's why I still go back to that goddamn festival is because every single time, I think, Oh God, maybe I'm not bothered, you know, writing a new show. It's June. I should be outside having a lovely time.

You're like, Oh no, I do love this. You're a fan. I think I am first and foremost a fan and I've been very lucky in my career that it has intersected with, you know, like in 2002 I was in a terrible lineup show in a cave in Edinburgh. There was like a giant pizza oven and afterwards was two New Zealanders doing a sketch show and my gig had gone badly. So I'm like, oh God, I'll just stay here and watch whatever rubbish this is. And so it was Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement doing

Humor Beasts, their two person sketch show. Oh wow. I thought you were going to say Flight of the Conchords, obviously. Yeah. And afterwards, Taika said, stay, because the next thing's really worth seeing. And it was Flight of the Conchords. You know, it was like a complete fluke. And within five days I was playing piano in their show then, because I pretty sure I went to see it the next night and the next night.

I didn't know you did that. I didn't know you played piano in the Concords. Yeah, yeah. Just messing around now at gigs. And then what's wild is one of those posters on the wall behind me is so Concords were in 2002, they were so broke in Edinburgh. You're allowed 10 comps a day. You're allowed 10 comps when no one's going to your gig. And so Brett had printed off the 10 comps, was going to outside the Gilded Balloon box office and going up to people in the queue.

Like, this is the biggest no-no of all. And pretending to be a ticket scalper and people would be like, you have a ticket for what are you looking for? And they'd be like, oh, Ross Noble or Bill Bailey? And Brett would be like, I've got these tickets for Flight of the Conquerors. Like, I'll give them to you for three quid each. And one of the people he approached was Karen Corran, who is the boss of the Gilded Balloon. And she was going to throw them out of the festival because that's selling your comps is a big no-no.

And I happened to meet her later that evening. And she said, have you heard anything about this show? And I was able to say it's possibly the best thing I've ever seen. And that was in 2002. And one of the posters on the wall behind me is from 2016. And we played the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver, Colorado. Oh, just come from there. And we played to whatever 15,000 people.

When? So 14 years after almost getting thrown out of the Edinburgh Fringe. That is incredible. You were just in Denver, Colorado? Just in Denver. And we actually, it's snow, you know, because the weather in Colorado is so mad. Yeah.

It's snow. You just don't know what you're going to get. And we had tickets to just go and see anything at Red Rocks because my husband was like, he's from Colorado, he's from Denver. And he said, you have to, we have to just go to Red Rocks because you have to see it. And then it was very, very snowy and high winds and it had a weather water wind that not being able to go. But I know that it's this epic, you know, it's kind of legendary music venue as well, isn't it? It's a canyon and the whole canyon fills with the sound. How do we know each other?

You were in a failed pilot. Oh, that's how we know each other? You were in a failed pilot. Oh, that's how we know each other. That I made in 2017. Oh my God, yes, because I loved that pilot. David wrote a pilot based on... Shackleton. Shackleton, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. They spent nine months stuck in the ice with nothing to do. nine months stuck in the ice with nothing to do.

And Shackleton in the real version, basically had timetables up on all the walls. They would do running races around the ship. They would take the dogs out and have like a salt corp. On a Shakespeare play, didn't they? They took down the curtains and made them into costumes and put on the Merchant of Venice. Which is like, because it's just an ordinary crew. It's like 22 people or whatever, which would have been taken from different strata of society. And I just love that there would have been like someone playing a significant part in the Merchant of Venice, who had never heard of

Shakespeare before. And so I thought it'd be funny to write a sitcom where they're just trapped. Everyone was brilliant in it. Jennifer Saunders was in it. So many, it was a star-studded cast, wasn't it? It's crazy by today's standards because everyone in it. Phil Wang was in it, wasn't it? Joe Thomas? Yeah. Cael it wasn't it? Yeah.

Joe Thomas? Yeah. Cael Smith-Bino? Yeah. Now I had a small part in it, but... You and me both baby. To that. I blame myself with that.

I wanted to write one of those Black Addery type ones. Oh yeah, it was fun. It was that. I feel I could have done a better job. I didn't really know what I was doing because it's a very specific sort of writing because every single line has to be a setup. And people walking and slamming doors, scene ends. Like there are very strict rules to those things that I wasn't well enough aware of. Because no one had made an audience sitcom for years, I feel there wasn't a lot of script

editoring and stuff like that of people who just knew how to do those things. Yeah, but they're all dead, of course. That's the sort of comedy that I'm interested in. I mean, but you did do, I think you did pull it off. And you also did something incredibly difficult, which there was like, it was a big ensemble of characters and it was very silly. Yes.

You've created all of these characters in this whole world. Do you remember your character? What I remember about it was that I was playing a woman disguised as a man. So I had, I can't remember what my name was, but I had been. Yeah, a stowaway. I was a stowaway.

Yeah. Yeah, but when you cast me, I was a bit pregnant. And by the time we came around to filming, I think I was like nine pregnant and by the time we came around to filming, I think I was like nine months pregnant. So I was a woman dressed as a man, but I was a heavily pregnant woman dressed as a man. Which raises all sorts of other questions on board, which is how does no one know this woman? The thing is that I would say, and this has happened to me twice in my life, I've been

incredibly lucky to be still hired despite being nine months pregnant. I think that a lot of women actors get pregnant and then they just become unhireable. And so it was genuinely, it was both baffling and incredibly kind of you and sort of very modern of you to hire me despite the fact that I was heavily pregnant. Because you need work more than ever because you're about to not work for a few months. I was really grateful for it, but I also remember thinking they can't fire me, but I think they don't want me to be in this because it looks ridiculous. And then my part just kept getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And then they also had to bring in, I mean, it must've been so expensive because somebody

was brought in to be my substitute as well. So I had like a whole B team ready to go in case I went into labor, which is also mad. But there's just like so many layers. And then the plot was like about trying to find a woman on the boat, wasn't it? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. They tried to make a woman out of snow then and stuff. That's right. And then there's someone like wanking over a biscuit tin or something. That was a really mad. There was. It was very funny. Here's my main recollection of it, which was there were certain times along the actual

process where I was like, oh fuck, that's how you do this. And Jennifer Saunders was in it and was just so utterly brilliant. Yeah, she was the cook, wasn't she? She was the cook. And scene one, she just worn a giant, not a strap on, but just a sort of double, she had a double dildo up her skirt. And she fluffed her lines in the first one and was like, fuck! And then just lifted the skirt and the audience like exploded. Wow. And then she immediately drops the skirt and just does the scene perfectly.

And what a pro. It's one of those moments where you're like, oh, that's how you do this. Oh, you have to be that good. Yeah. The thing is, you were, I think you're doing yourself down. I think you were, I think it was fantastic. And I think that then, and it still is, it was always being hard to pitch sitcoms. Yeah. always been hard to pitch sitcoms. Yeah, I just, it was the last project I did where, like, doing stand-up comedy ruins your

brain because there's no stupid editor that you have to talk to, there's no director. You just do it. You have an idea the night before in bed and you just say it on stage and wiggle your arms around as you say it. But then to go into that fully collaborative world where you're trying to take on board all of this stuff and some people have bad ideas and some people have good ideas. And then I also called in a lot of favors from friends to be in it. And then people will be like, no, we don't want that person in it. So then I have to ring my friend that I have talked into being in it and go, actually, they don't want you, you know. Ouch.

Yeah. I just, the whole thing, I have a weird memory of it, but that evening when we, when we actually filmed the pilot was fun and you were brilliant. So thank you very much. Oh, stop. David, that must be the afternoon, don't you? You've been to see your friends in Edinburgh. Yeah. Is there any more before we move on to your perfect night? I'm a real sucker for really basic stuff. Just sometimes I still love an IMAX.

So if there's any time, I mean, it'd be a funny balance to go from seeing a John Kearns Edinburgh show to then going to an IMAX called like Wonders of the Amazon. Oh, right. Let's have your perfect night, shall we? Yeah, I get back on the bike and I time travel to 2001, which is the coolest I've ever been. 2001, I'm 25. I was hanging out with some musicians at the time, just of my general extended crew. Cool. A bunch of us talked to the old man who runs the soon to be demolished pub, Thomas House,

which is near me now in Dublin. And we said, could we play records there? Would you mind? Like it was, it was a strange era in music where the sort of rave thing had been going on and then there was an indie thing, but around early 2000s was the first time you would play like an ABBA tune, followed by a Daft Punk tune, followed by the theme from Minder, followed by, you know, it was DJing. Yeah, but DJing became less because it'd been superstar DJs and Karl Cox and all of this sort of stuff. And then suddenly, you just brought your records from home and all the songs you liked, and you just

played them after each other. That became an option. you liked and you just played them after each other. That became an option and endless possibility was certainly opened up. Also, I think we'd come from an era of dancing and ecstasy to a dirty pints era. It was very much, we did this thing in the pub. It was a one-off. It was, we'd, I mean, originally of our group, we wanted it to be called, this is really bad, Jess, this is so bad. The night was going to be called Guaranteed Hole, which is awful. Okay.

I appreciate the honesty though. You didn't need to tell us that, but you have. Frank and I think Jean had said, we can't call it guaranteed whole. So then for a while the compromise candidate was guaranteed whole with a W. So it was guaranteed whole as if to say we are all connected is what we meant. You've got a dirty mind if you think it's anything else. We're all connected. We've just put a W for water in front of it and it's a different note. So that didn't make any sense and was still vetoed by the PC police. And so the pub was called Thomas House and it was called Thomas the Skank Engine.

So it's a tiny Irish bar with normally four old fellas would be at. And we packed it out the first time with our friends. And I don't remember how, but about a month later in the Irish Times, the paper of record, it said, is this Dublin's coolest club night? And suddenly there was a massive queue of haircuts going right up the street. And we certainly weren't charging in or anything. We didn't have any door policy. And suddenly there were 300 people trying to get into a pub that fitted 60 people. We kept it going for a year, uh, by just people would know to get there early and the whole thing would be set up around you.

And then one of us would do bouncer and just be like, not really bouncer, but just, I'm so sorry, it's jammed tonight. You know, because- It's one in one out, mate. Did you do that? It's one in one out. How did you decide who got to come in? Because it's only 60, you just let your friends in. First come first serve friends. Yeah. Sorry, I don't know you. You can't come in. Did people continue to queue and wait for people to leave?

Because you saw sort of Burgheim type thing emerge about, which is like, how do you get in? Does anyone know? How do you have to dress? You just have to have a vibe. Is it the way you dress? No, not really. Oh, that's not very German. I would occasionally be talked into DJing. Some really unlikely heads would be there every week. Paul Murray, who just wrote the bee sting, that book that was won every book award. I mean, all dancing on tables, like sweat drenched through your T-shirt. Luckily, even though it was the pre digital camera era, there was someone

was always there with a camera. The photos all look like indie sleaze photos, especially because the photos were generally taken with flash. Yes. So you look kind of cooler. You look like you're being papped a bit, don't you? Yeah. And we were all 25, 24. So we're the hottest versions of ourselves.

When I look at them now, it's like, we all look like we're in bands. Like at the time we all thought we were hideous. And you're probably smoking inside. Not only smoking inside, but you had to smoke inside because the pub had never had this many customers. So the urine from the toilets at the back was slowly making its way. There was no dance floor, just across the main part of the pub. We would stay there. I think it just operated on pub hours. So you might get an extra pint at half 11,

midnight, we're done. And I remember going out onto the street then just in a sodden t-shirt, particularly that summer of 2001. Like it's all kind of been done to death now, but like, to death now, but like someone would have got a 12 inch of Phil Collins, easy lover. Right. And people would be like, well, you can't play that because we just, you know, come through a big beat era, what are you doing? And then it would come on, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and people, yeah, Bill, Bill, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And people, yeah, like screaming. It's my, not my youth, but it is my young adulthood. It's when I was young and carefree,

there was a sort of four pints horniness in the air. And yeah, so I'd like to go there please. That sounds fantastic. I'd like to go there with you. Some of the things that come up on Perfect Day, I mean, this is one that I would, I would love to recreate this and go back there with you. And then I am struck by to go back to our Antarctic Explorer thing. I bet it was very cozy. The way Shackleton didn't have a mutiny was because...

So Shackleton was Irish, so he wasn't seen by the crew. Scott was the other contemporary, and he never learned the ordinary seaman's names. He would bark at them. But there is a sort of slight otherness in being Irish, whereby even though Shackleton was a Pasha, Anglo-Irish, definitely, he spoke to everyone in their first name. And the first thing that he did when the ship got stuck in the ice was he took down all the partitions between the officers quarters and the ordinary seamen's

quarters. Really? He went open plan. George Clark's amazing spaces. I'm knocking through. Now's not the time Shackleton. Can you do some navigation? Get out there with your ice pick. No, I'm knocking this partition wall down. So I'm cycling to 1916, 1915, and I want to stay there, but with one other added element, which is certain World Cups in football give you the late match where there'll be a game that kicks off at like 2am. Okay, really? All right. late match where there'll be a game that kicks off at like 2am. OK, really? All right. Good one. It'll be like Brazil, Morocco or something.

And it really matters. And you are nicely sleepy and trying to stay awake while watching it. And you fail and you slam the lid of your laptop down and doze off to sleep. But there are late night important sporting events as I snuggle up with Ordleys and Shackleton and all of my fellow sailors. You were there, obviously, as a pregnant woman, somehow on this ship of dudes. And we all go off to sleep. I have a place here, I deserve to be here, just because I'm a pregnant woman on the ship

doesn't mean I don't belong here. That's not a bad day. That was a real journey. I appreciate you putting so much thought into it. We had some great chats there. We went off on some tangents. We covered a lot of ground. We've recorded 36 hours to the listener. I just looked at the time clock and we've been here in Red Rocks doing

this in front of this huge crowd for 36, but they're still wrapped. They're still hanging on our every word. That's the side of a good Red Rocks, isn't it? Thank you Red Rocks. Good night. Are you doing Edinburgh this year, by the way? Yeah, I'm back doing gigs with no microphone in a room above a pub. I've got one in a few hours where I just, you just let it all out and you, all the good stuff comes from those, like basically semi improvised shows. And yeah, it'll be in ship shape by the 1st of August in Edinburgh.

You're doing the whole month? Ah, yeah, you might as well. Like I love everything, every part of it. I love in Edinburgh where, you know, you book a flat and then, oh God, I hope we haven't got a shithole, and then you turn it up and... Yeah, it's usually, it's me, Nish Kumar and Amy Annette. Sometimes Rosemar DeFeo shows her face. It's a great crew to stay with from.

It's as close as you'll get to being in friends. Oh David, I could talk to you all day. Thank you so much for coming on Perfect Day. That's all listeners. Thanks for coming along for the ride and thank you David, that was an absolute journey of a perfect day. Pizza Express, if you do want to sponsor our shows, please do get in touch. David will be at Edinburgh for the whole month so make sure to check out his show. If you haven't already, go and listen to David's podcast, What Did You Do Yesterday? Who doesn't love a day-themed podcast? Not me. Me. I do love day-themed podcasts.

Brand new episodes every Thursday. Like and subscribe and follow us at Perfect Daycast for all your Perfect Day news. And leave us a review will ya? You can send an email to everydayaperfectdayatgmail.com. Shout out to all the emails that were sent this week. Thank you, you made my day. From Yorkshire with love, I'm Jessica Rushton. I'm David O'Doherty. And we'd like to invite you to listen to our new podcast, What Did You Do Yesterday? It's a show that asks guests the big question, quite literally, what did you do yesterday? That's it. That is it. Max, I'm still not sure where do we put the stress

is it what did you do yesterday? What did you do yesterday? You know what I mean? What did you do yesterday? I'm really downplaying it. Like what did you do yesterday? Like I'm just I'm just a guy just asking a question. But do you think I should go bigger? What did you do yesterday? What did you do yesterday? Every single word this time, I'm going to try and make it like it is the killer word. What did you do yesterday? That's too much, isn't it? That's over the top. What did you do yesterday? Available wherever you get your podcasts every Sunday.