Perfect Day with Jessica Knappett - EP 55: Adam Kay

Episode Date: July 31, 2025

Adam Kay joins Jess on the podcast this week to tell us all about his perfect day.The pair discuss being buried alive,  Boursin, escape rooms, writing, being a parent, and Adam has a very magical end to his perfect day.Plus Jess reveals her nepo baby past in the world of hospital catering. 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 megaphone.fm/adchoices

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All right then. Hello Perfect Dayers and welcome to another episode of Perfect Day. I'm Jessica Napit. This week I'm talking to author, comedian and former doctor. Adam Kay We started recording just after I told Adam and producer Lucy

that I thought I might have seen a ghost the day before in my house he asked me if I believed in zombies which obviously I do not hence are quite mad chat at the beginning of the podcast we go straight in we always do we always go straight in

we don't need an intro this is the intro. Apart from ghosts, we talk Borsan. We talk escape rooms, writing, a bit of parenting, and Adam has a very radical end to his perfect day. Plus, I reveal my Nepo baby past, in the world of hospital catering. And I cannot believe I'm saying this. But I Again, again. I talk about moths. I can't. It has to stop, but it won't stop until the problem stops.

Okay, let's crack on, shall we? This is Adam Kay's perfect day. I just... I just can't understand ghosts. You can't understand ghosts. I just can't understand even why people think that that's a thing. Because, like, I understand why people like the idea of heaven and an afterlife. That's very comforting.

And hell is a scary thing. But ghosts, what's, I don't know. Do you, do we all become ghosts? I just don't know the rules. So do I become a ghost? And does that mean I don't go to heaven? I'm also at heaven and I get sabbatical as a ghost? Crucially, what I would say is I didn't see the ghost.

Okay. It felt to me like someone walked into the room. Oh, and in my peripheral vision, I saw the dark shadow of a person and I was expecting to see a person. Okay. And then... How tired were you? Or drunk. How drunk and tired were you? I wasn't drunk. I barely drink anymore. Alcohol is poison.

But wouldn't you agree? I mean, I would, as long as I don't have to live by my rules, I would agree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Practically, it doesn't work. I was tired. It's always late at night, isn't it, when people see aliens and ghosts? It is. And they're often in America. No, we've had someone on this podcast who used to see aliens in his bedroom in East London when he was a child. Oh, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got, so I live in a house. I live in a church, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which protects me from ghosts because I've got God. Oh, right. Is it genuinely a converted church? No, it isn't. No, it's just a barn.

It's a barn. Because in my actual house, it's just full. of children and dogs. Right. It's a podcast incompatible. So I've been exiled as well. But we were told when we moved in

that we did have ghosts. Oh, wow. So this building is, it's the fatched roof there. I can sort of see the roof there. But it's from 1370. So it's madly, madly, madly old.

Wow. There's a pub in the village. And the story, there's a bit of the story that's true. and then it gets to the bit of the story that becomes about ghosts. So the bit of the story that's true is a guy who previously lived in the house was down at a pub for a jolly and he got hammered and he drove.

It's not a big village, so this is lazy, so it's sort of his victim blaming it. It was his fault. He, horse and carriage back to the house, parked outside the barn, fell asleep with his cigar in his mouth, burnt down the horse and carriage and the fatch of the barn and now his ghost is meant to haunt the place and they've got evidence of how and when he died so that bit's true but you know and they're like

when if you see any spooky goings on or weird noises that's old whatever he was called but I just think it's probably just the pipes yeah smells smoke phone 999 no don't phone 999 it's the ghost of old it's the ghost it's the ghost

so I don't know I just sort of I think it's quite binary whether you're into ghosts or not, isn't it? Like, I just don't, I just can't work out the maths of it. I just can't believe that that story is still alive. That's what blows my mind about this. Like, you do a stupid thing in 13 and 17 things. Nothing we're going to do our lives is going to live that long. And yet, were we to just blow ourselves up because of fucking idiocy?

That's our best chance of immortality. That's a useful lesson, is it? That's your legacy. It's very depressing, isn't it? It's so depressing and also just not in control of it in any way, are you? We don't know his name. He's just the guy who set fire to himself. Yeah, I mean, the previous people who lived here told me his name,

but they were telling me a ghost story. So I did slightly zone out at that point. Yeah, yeah. Because I'm quite anti-ghost. Well, you're a scientist. You're a doctor. A scientist. This feels like the start of a of a sitcom.

Right. Modern day X-Files, which... Oh, right. This is the exposition. Yeah, exactly. The scientist is here. Live on the podcast, like some antlers fall from the sky and sort of kill me. And now you have to go down and solve the ghostly problem with only burning lavender.

Or what's the, what do you do for a ghost? Sage. Sage. That's where I've been going wrong. Sage. And although we are genuinely thinking about burning sage in our house, we've got a terrible moth infestation. And apparently, I do believe, for clarity, I do believe in moths.

Do you? I do believe in burning sage. I mean, I presume it's got some chemical in it that moths don't. It's cheaper. It's cheaper than throwing all your clothes away. Yeah, and presumably cheaper than phoning like rent to kill or whoever do moths. So where were we? Oh yeah, what I was going to ask you was, I think just speaking of legacy,

you do have, I think you are somebody who will have a long-lasting legacy. You think I'm going to go on a murdering spree. Because of all the murders. Because you've got, because of, I think, well, particularly this is going to hurt and there's more to come. But I think that you're like, you're a diarist. You're the Samuel Pepys. It's specific to the NHS. The NHS, but I'm probably more, I don't know, Bridget Jones than Simon.

He was quite fancy. Do you ever think about that, though? Do you ever think like, oh, I have, I've nailed that actually, because I will live. beyond my days in book form and and television form um i'd i'd love to say i have that degree of ego i write books to preserve my my legacy i don't know i think it's very accidental i think it's very cool that you know when you create art of any form uh people know about you and your stuff beyond your sort of normal inner circle and that can, you know, persist a bit.

I mean, realistically, I suspect I'm not going to have the long tail that Peep's did. But you never know, never know, never know. I was in a GCSE English exam last year or the year before as a set text. Like it was like compare these diaries to some like sort of quite. worthy, proper ones and sort of compare and contrast. So I was like, well, hang on, this is, this feels proper. I feel establishment if I'm in the, on the GCSE, whatnot. That's a huge deal.

People are studying you now. Yeah. Oh, even better. Someone, I did it, did it get, I do signings, book signings after I do a show. And someone said they've done their PhD in Poland. on, like, my experience of being a doctor and, like, my diaries. On your experience of being a doctor? Yeah, or me.

There's a P. They've got a P.H. She's now a doctor in doctor. In me, in Adam Studies. Yeah, exactly. Which, it does feel like one of these, you know, sometimes there's like a headline that a university's running a course in Harry Potter studies. And everyone says this is a reason that further education should be disbanded. It does feel a bit like the stars of one of those.

But I was very flattered. And then she sent me, I said, could you send me your PhD? And it all seemed, yeah, very, very, very clever. But I started going a bit mad reading it, so I had to stop. Oh, yeah, that's like looking in the infinity mirror, isn't it? That's quite a lot. Yeah, that was a bit too much of a legacy that someone decided. they could squeeze a PhD out of it. Anyway, good luck to them.

Very flattering. I mean, it's deeply flattering. Yeah. Who would the other big dialogue? Adrian Mole? I'd love, I think that's probably the best, that's history's best diarist. I tried to get my daughter, my daughter is seven. So actually, I think, is she good for your new kids books? Yeah, for Clotie, not the adult books. She's got another, at least away, another 30 years before those are appropriate. But now seven, yeah, we say, We say seven to, so it says like seven to 12 on the tin, which means that parents delight and going, well, actually, mine was only one, whatever. So, yeah, I think they say sort of seven to 12.

Everyone knows her a bit of an underestimate, though, don't they? So actually, she's really, she's really clever, so it might be too. Yeah, maybe she can be mad or books then. Okay, fine, take that back. So have you got two? Is that right, if I'm mad? Yeah, seven and three. You've got two.

Have you got twins? They're almost, if someone asks in Sainsbury's and I'm pushing the double bug, I'm like, yeah, they're doing. Can't be asked to get into it. Yeah, exactly, because otherwise I've got to like draw a diagram and stuff. But essentially they are, so they're, you know, the genetically siblings, but they were born to two separate surrogates at roughly the same time. So they're three, four months apart, but, you know, I'm not, I'm not explaining that to whoever's asking me outside, you know, when I'm cured for the cheered for the cheered. Wow. So how old, how old are they now? What are you dealing with? We're dealing with two and a half. I've stopped doing months. I don't know what the

cutoff is for. You've got to stop. Yeah, got to stop. Certainly by the time you're at school, you need to have stopped doing that. Yeah, 196 months, mate. But I'm, so yeah, so they're two and halfish. Yeah, I've got a three and a seven. Three and a seven. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's quite, that sounds like, it feels like current chaos then. Yeah, three is obviously more chaos than seven, but seven can, seven can help with three and finds it all very amusing, so that's good. I've got two girls, though, so they're quite, they're all right, they're all right.

Good. They don't kind of fight too much. That's, that's later. Oh, that's good. Well done. How did you do that? Yeah. I mean, they did, but I've got two mortal enemies.

And I don't know what to do about it. So just sort of leave them to it, I guess. They're two and a half, aren't they? So they're just a lot. But God, that's a lot. And you've got, how did you manage? I guess did you do what I did, which is like, oh, I'd prefer to work, actually.

Well. I think I'll go and work. That's much easier. There is a bit of that. But it was. I've got to go to the barn. I've got to do a podcast. Yeah.

Yeah, I've got to just got to sage out the ghosts. It's for the household. Adam, should we crack on with your perfect day? Yes, please. Otherwise, we'll just have a lovely long gnatur. Yeah, we will, which we will do as well. This episode is brought to you by Square. You're not just running a restaurant.

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Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at no-frills.ca. But I'm dying to hear your perfect day. So let's go. Adam Kay, what's your perfect morning? Perfect morning. And it's on the topic of children.

because my perfect day, so I'm, you know, I say they're mortal enemies, but I'm a very proud, proud dad, and my perfect morning would be spent absolutely on my own without them somewhere else. So I can do some stuff like reading. I could maybe sleep in beyond five. I just need a day off. Can I have a morning? And in fact, you say about like, you know, I'll just go to a, I'm touring more than ever, partly just because I know that I will wake up in a hotel room on my own, which I used to find like touring quite depressing and miserable and like, you know, waking up in a premiere inn and blah, blah, blah, blah. And now it's sort of my dream because they've, they sleep in the room next to us.

They're in the same room and I'd sort of, initially they say, slightly self-policed and they were just natted to each other for a bit before we had to come in and that was nice. Now they're in competition to sort of save a thing that makes us come in urgently. Oh, you've got clever ones. I don't know if they're clever or just scheming. What do they say? I think they've inherited the scheming.

So it's started with, you know, I need to smell smoke. Can you smell? Well, we're getting there. So it was like, I need some milk. Okay, fine, we can sort of that. And then I've done a poo. It's like, okay, well, do you need to stop that out. But then that's not got an immediate response.

That's like, oh, you do it. No, you do it. And then Ziggy, the younger one, started to say, I'm stuck. We have to go in now if you're stuck, because that could mean anything. But then Ruby, trump that. the other month with, I can't see. So she's running, running, running, running, in, in, no, she's absolutely fine. It was just a little Maya.

It was a dark room. It's a dark room. And she can see absolutely fine. But so that's now the, that's, they can't get out. They can't get out now because they started doing the mountain climbing up the sides. And we were like, well, it's going to do more harm if they're going to. sort of manage to scale it and sort of clatter off. I'm very much, I'm a proponent of letting them come to you.

Okay. Like, come and get in bed with me. Okay, yeah. And then we can draw this out for a good two to three minutes before you insist on dragging me downstairs to get some Cheerios. Yeah. Every minute counts. And I love them to pieces. but it goes without saying it goes without saying it's just that my love is a finite resource and uh i just

need a bit of time to recharge yeah yeah that unconditional love does have some conditions to yeah exactly yeah i'm not i'm not insane i got to this all the time so it doesn't it doesn't need to be fancy i don't mind making my own breakfast i don't know what it is it just i just want to be able to like get through a couple of chapters of a book that is designed for a middle-aged person, not for a two-year-old. Yeah. Oh, God, reading. Do you, because I'm really struggling with reading at the moment,

because I just, every time I sit down to read, I think, but I've got to make lunchboxes and I really should put that shit away and I've got to put that one. I just, I really, really struggle with it. And I think honestly only being in a hotel. with and you don't have any tidying up to do that's the thing is like it takes away the the stuff of life when you're in a hotel the it's not just resetting yeah yes these people who are just trying to sabotage your existence yeah yeah and you just get on top of it yeah it's the phine task of cleaning up the kitchen yes um uh

I mean, I'm doing a lot of audio books at the moment because that's my best chance of getting through a book. Yes. Because you can do that whilst you're, you know, doing the endless cleaning, tidying task. That's great. You can even do that with a child on your knee and pretend you're talking to them. Pretend. Yes, yeah. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. They're sort of doing their monologue about some leaf they found. Let's carry on with your perfect morning. You're in a Premier Inn. I'm in a Premier in. Let's be realistic. Premier in, reading a book on your own, crucially. Yeah.

Then what? Um, actually, I might go and have, I'm not going to make myself, well, I can't make myself breakfast. I'm in a Premier in. That would just be like a sachet of sugar. So I'm a big. big fan of eating on my own. Are you? Yeah.

And whatever meal of the day, I mean, Eve dinner, absolutely fine. Going into a restaurant, table for one, please. Really? Yeah. What do you like about it? You're doing the same face. I did when you told me how good ghosts are. I thought you were going to say you'd do the same face that you get from the waiting

stuff when you say just me. No, they don't like it Because obviously I think they'd rather their tables A cramful of people Rather than just have one person sat there You're not creating any Atmos Over there on your own in the corner, sir If everyone was sitting on their own

There'd be absolutely no atmosphere in this restaurant whatsoever I quite like Japanese restaurants in particular I feel like that is a given That people will be on their own Just on their phones and so I feel I think maybe as a woman

it's slightly it's almost like this is probably not happening this is maybe in my imagination but I feel like it's an invitation when you sit on your own is someone going to sit opposite you

and just have a honestly feel like people always talk to me when I'm on my own in restaurants and I don't want them to no I mean that's fair enough oh she's on her own well I'll go over

Oh, she's on our own because she's waiting for someone to talk to them. Yeah, I know what I'll do. But where do you, where, do you have like a favourite or do you just, you don't mind, it's just a blanket. You'll eat anywhere on your life. Well, I will eat anywhere. I do have a super mega favourite. So if I'm out in London on my own, there's a fancy dance Italian called Bocodalupo in Soho. and there's there's all the tables and there's also a nice long bar and you sit at the bar and it's all little bitty things and it's your fried artichoke and here's your you know bits red and oil and just sit there for a while often with a book that is but but i'm happy to do that dinner i'm very happy to do it at breakfast it's just feels slightly dead i'm for clarity i'm not doing this like often but it's your perfect day it's my perfect day and there's something very decadent a bit of

about sort of, you know, everyone's been in you, your food, and you're on your own, and you're just, it feels like a good start to the day. I can see now why you left medicine. Well, my dislike for other people. It's not coming across too strong. And also, I'm going to guess that there weren't many opportunities for a decadent breakfast in the morning on your own with the books.

No, it was mostly, stealing a piece of bread from the patient kitchen trying to decide if you had enough time to toast it before the next thing you had to do deciding you didn't and then just eating a piece of dry dry bread as you're walking to the next patient and thinking about NHS bread as well I know about NHS bread because I use to work very thin yeah I used to work in in catering in a hospital Did you? Yeah, my parents are both, my dad's a doctor, my dad's a consultant, anesthetist, and my mum's a physio, and my dad got me a job.

So you should have been a doctor? Yeah, I know, but I wasn't smart enough. I actually just found, I found that science subjects just so painfully boring, and I was, I was good at, I was just good at English and the arts, and it just was, it was just all going that way. Whereas for my brother, I think he was, there was great disappointment that he was very good at science and he still didn't choose medicine. And so you got a nepo job in hospital catering? I got a nepotism, as we call it.

Yeah, I am. And so I worked, yeah, I worked in catering, delivering all the horrendous NHS meals to patients. So you were in the delivery rather than the production. I was actually in both because I was what was called a floating worker. So I would turn up on the day and they'd be like, you're in the canteen. You're in the doctors are having a dinner, like some sort of lunch party. You know, I don't know, maybe there's like a much fancy hospital I went to. No, it was an NHS hospital but it did have a private wing.

So you did the silver service for them? Sometimes I had to do the events for the doctors. Sometimes a pharmaceutical company would come along and sponsor a lunch. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I would work there pouring some wine for the doctors at lunchtime. Gosh, people can hear this.

It was fascinating though. I really, really loved it. And I think that there was... Did you worry about the quality of the food that was sometimes... delivered. Oh my God. Yeah. And there was this, there was this guy. We will get back to your perfect day in a minute. But there was this guy, this one chef and he had, he changed the menu. They all used to take the piss out of me for being posh. Because they knew that my dad was a doctor. And there was this one thing on the menu that they actually changed to Jessica. They

called it Jessica salad because it contained posh cheese and it was the the chef was very proud of this it was a salad with with bozan get you and he was like it's my posh salad and the doctors are going to love this we'll call it jessica salad because it's so posh so posh I mean I do think borsan's posh i do i do quite like borsan yeah yeah um borsan i'm just gonna again this is your interview not mine but i am just going to just are we sponsored by borsan is that you need to a borsan ad break have you tried the viral borsan dip no because i'm not on any social medium that would allow me to be aware of a viral phenomenon borsan spread borsan across a plate crush pistachios sprinkle them on top of the borsan

hot honey you know spicy you know spicy hot honey or just then drizzle it on and it's flat and then honestly that is the most delicious thing you've ever tasted okay I mean it sounds like it should work

doesn't it? It sounds like we should stop talking about borsan and start talking about the rest of Adam K's perfect day although my bad If you do get sponsored, if you do get sponsored by Borsan, can you send me a couple of, send me a bit? It is nice.

And it is quite dear, to be fair. It's possible. So, yeah. Anyway, but we were talking about your tragic, the tragic breakfast that you would have as a doctor, which is just a life. I thought I was saying my tragic breakfast I have for my perfect day on my own. No, your perfect day breakfast is stunning. Okay, good. And is that, is that all you need for your perfect morning, Adam?

do we want to move on to our perfect afternoon? Is that enough for you just to wake up alone? I think if I managed to get a few clear hours of reading so we can get through half a book, that's amazing. That never happens. And also, I've got this thing that's happened, which I'm sure you have to where people send you books. They want to quote.

And it's, you know, I send people my books as well. because I want a quote and it's sort of you have to do it. But it is a big ask. Can you just read this book? I don't think you have to read them. I mean, some of them you have to because if it's someone who's... I mean, I literally can't read all them. I'd say, you know, I must get at least 10 a week.

So that would be more than a full-time job. But some of them are from like my friends. And then I can't, I do have to read them. And also, I know there are some people who, quote when they haven't read a book. But I have to read it just in case chapter 99 is a sort of weird thing where they admit to all sorts of crimes or something or, you know, also become very racist. And I need to make sure that I have actually read it before I say this is a masterpiece. And it's a shame, isn't it, because the audiobook isn't out yet? Oh, exactly that. And also an

your book, you can listen at double speed and crack through it. Maybe there are some people who can do the magic speed reading. Surely there's AI for this. Can't I get a robot? Can you get a robot to convert a PDF into? I'm getting this as a physical book. How do I do? Oh, are you?

I know you can't do that. I think by the time I've read it out loud or sort of scanned it in, I might as well have read it. I think you need to Hot House one of your genius children to be able to read Oh yeah, do a quick pricey Ruby can you come up with six good adjectives of this book

that I haven't just used in the last one I gave a blurb for That is a nightmare isn't it? Also yeah It's difficult to keep coming up with new compliments for books really I mean I know every book is different but But there are only a certain number of positive

because you can't go too extreme. No, because it sounds sarcastic. It sounds sarcastic. The thing I find hardest is, so basically every single project I do, or one does in this industry, someone puts out a press release, you know, from the publisher or the TV company or whatever, and they want to quote from, you know,

you know, you as the writer or whatever it is. And I don't, I've run out of ways to say, I am thrilled that this book is coming out. That's a nightmare. Honestly, I've got something coming out soon and that's the thing that's giving me nightmares. I'm so happy that it's happened, but I know that I'm going to get an email that says, can we have a quote, we're about to announce it, can we have a quote? And I don't know. what I used to say and what I still say is when I used to say when I was making drifters

because it was about it was a sitcom about like sort of being on like your fifth gap year I used to say if I could sum up my feeling was in one word it would be employed and that worked really well that's a very good one that was a good one I did it once or I did it once maybe I did it maybe I did it a second time I year or so later and I and but I've never been able to I it's what I say when people are like oh I heard about anything and I go yes I'm I've got a job I'm employed because so much of so much of our lives are spent in that sort of like hinterland of not being employed but I haven't been able to think of a single thing to say it honestly gives me nightmares could I

do it what do you yeah I've not really tried here we go here we go I tried AI because and I asked it because I wanted to know everyone was like your job's in danger everyone's jobs in danger we're going to be taken over by robots so I asked AI to just like the one that there's Google was pushing one on me Gemini it was pushing on me I don't know about anything other than chat GPT so it's like it's like I think chat GPT have to pay for and this one is free because I've got a Gmail account anyway so This sort of, it just sort of, it appeared. And I wanted to know how much jeopardy I was in in terms of employment and feeding my children. And so I asked it to write like 500 words in the style of Adam K. Because then I'm like, I mean, if it's good, then, you know, this is going to really sort me out.

But it wasn't very convincing. And so I thought I'm probably safe for now. Was it good enough that you would prefer to edit those 500 words or would you have just rather written them? It was just tosh. It was very impressive. It's quite offensive really. Oh yeah, maybe maybe that was it measured.

No offence. Idea of my writing, yeah. Yeah, it's actually. Word salad. Yeah. And actually I don't go back rereading my old. books because that would be quite a strange thing to do. So maybe that is just what my books actually are like. Well, that is reassuring. I mean, I don't know if it will be bad

in three years. Oh no. I'm sure we fucked by then. But a time of press, or certainly when this was, whenever this was six months ago, I was like, okay, I can, I'm safe for now. Yeah. And also, I think about this as well that there will come a point where anyone can, in inverted commas, right because of because they have access to AI but at least will be will be the people that they know wrote before AI existed so we'll have right we'll have we'll have will at least have that because we got in before so they'll believe they'll at least believe us right when we say we wrote it because I think in like five years anyone will be able to write a screenplay with AI.

Were we impressed by people who, I don't know, had to light the houses using candles. I don't know how cool it is that we... Yeah, you're right. And he used a manual plow. He's so cool. Yeah, you're right. I mean, the guy who set fire to himself on his carton horse, we weren't saying, and how cool was that that he drove a carton horse?

Horse and garden is what people call them. Okay, it could be. I was putting the car before the wall. First joke, 35 minutes in. We get there eventually. Lucy, just edit this down. Just edit the first 35 minutes out. Open with that.

With that, nice short podcast. We can on because we need the context of it. the horse and cart story. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah. That's lovely. Snip everything else out. You could probably get, say, five minutes, 10.35 into five minutes in.

Yeah. Yeah. So that will work nicely. Do you have a writer's room on this is going to hurt? Was it kind of team written or? No, we did a bit at the start to break stories. So invited a bunch of friends and new friends. and we spent like a week just sort of because it was a loose adaptation because the book was

obviously my diaries and so sort of the direct adaptation would be a sort of slightly strange one-man sketch show and so to build out the world I sort of pulled out various stories I wanted to sort of try and incorporate and sort of 3Dify and then we had to sort of fun chat with loads of smart people throwing ideas around but then I did go away and and do the typing because of all of it. I just, yeah, I wrote, it was seven episodes. It wasn't enormous, but it was a bit of a fath. I just thought, because it was, you know, autobiographical-ish,

because it's sort of, I, the thing I, my fear with doing that show was people like your dad writing in to say, well, that wouldn't happen. So, because I, so I wanted like, the medical specificity of it, right, and like the stuff about the life of the doctor to ring true and the stress is to be real. And I just thought the best way to do that would be to write them all. Coincidentally, that was also the way to get the most money. Yeah, yeah, no, I hear that. It was six. Was it six hours? It was seven 45s. So it was commissioned as eight hours, and basically the money you get is proportional to the length of the show,

the number of minutes that end up going out. And out of, I think probably ultimately laziness, I decommissioned it to 45 minutes and then lost an episode. But I always, I like a show that sort of rattles along. I think, because I, you know, my first job was. rolling comedy and we were taught that fast is funny like that's just a way to you know just keep it moving sort of don't hang around and so i've sort of slightly kept that even though i'm not in sitcom land anymore it's still sort of sort of applies i think yeah yeah yeah definitely and it was very

yeah it was very pacey and dramatic and so much going it was such an incredible series i enjoyed it so much it was just just hilarious and devastating and um it just had a great cast i mean like ben wish or can do no wrong and ambica more to uh and it was her first gig essentially which is i'm i sort of can't really believe but yeah incredible incredible incredible and and so there any more plans to make any more tv series uh yes uh i've got something brewing at the moment but i've i'm yet to uh write my thing that says i'm so thrilled that this is going out on whichever channel

that I don't think I can currently say without causing some sort of issue but yeah and I'm doing another to thing at the moment very different to this is going to hurt okay TBC I mean exactly

yeah D or C let's come on with you perfect I don't decided T B oh yeah okay yeah yeah Fine. Yeah. Fine. No further questions. Acceptable. Adam Kay, let's crack on with your perfect afternoon.

Can I go to an escape room? Oh my God, if you really want, yeah. Okay, well, sounds like you're not coming with. What's wrong with it? So stressful. so stressful and I don't know and I don't I don't know and I just I actually am a bit claustrophobic and I just want to get out okay yeah I mean that's all that's valid but I do see the fun of a giant puzzle the thing that I found I found difficult with them is the teamwork element and I'm I'm surprised that you're are you in the escape room on your own no no no I'm not I'm so the thing is I'm not particularly good at them, but I just find it quite fun, but I do need to be around quite competent people.

Okay, so yeah, I mean, that's the thing that I've, I just felt like, I just feel like the useless person and then I just think, I'm not, I'm not contributing to anything. So I should just, I should go, but I can't. We can't. Yes, by definition. Yeah, okay. You love the excitement of them. Where are you, where are you going?

to which kind is it is it the crystal maze one in london which what very very very strange i did do the crystal maze uh one two nights ago that does that does look really fun it was it was fun um and and there was something that made this so i was with uh a group of people some of whom were very famous um so it was uh i think it was like a some sort of press special press night, I think, whatever it was. And so, so I'm part of this group, dragged along. And you're basically, you're not going to say, are you? You're not going to say their names.

Hang on, can I just ask, are you not saying their names? Because you don't want to sound like a name dropper, or are you not saying their names to protect their anonymity? Both. I think, I'd sort of. It just feels a bit like you're telling people where these people. Oh, right. Me and the King.

around the Crystal Maze. Yeah, go on. So, you're in the... So, and these are people within the media world. And so you do this thing. And you've got your Richard O'Brien person who's sort of taking around and being all wacky. And they're very aware that there's sort of all these sort of like actors and TV people.

and it does slightly change things because they're now pitching for a job and trying to and like part of their job is to be a bit mean at you and sort of like I don't know but if they know exactly who all the people are it makes their job but we did one where

this wasn't an escape room this was like an immersive theatre thing I went along and our person who was sort of with us guiding us through this mystical world I'd seen in a casting and not given the job to a matter of weeks earlier

and whilst I'm glad that they were in employment and doing their immersive theatre I was quite aware that they had applied for something more television based and hadn't got it thanks to me

Put your arm around them and say, it went to Ben Weishaw. What I wanted to do was just put on a thick Spanish accent and pretend to be someone entirely different. Oh, God. Well, at least you remembered their face. I think that's actually, that's a good. Okay, so I'm actually the hero. Okay, that's nice.

Okay, great. So we did an escape room in, so like, as in a lot of things, America does better versions than West London, for example. Were you in Los Angeles? We were in New York, New York, New York. Yeah. And there's a very juggie escape room place called, they're called Comnata Quest.

Wow. And the production values are insane. And like, so the first one we did was an escape room. and you're in this sort of sex shop and you're sort of pulling dildos in a certain sequence and you're trying to strap the gimp mask on correctly. And that was so super, super, super fun. Oh, my God. I think my claustrophobia has just left me actually.

Okay, good. It was, it's just, it's going to rejoin the party very, very soon. And so we did that and it was wonderful. And then I think it was at the, we did that at the start of, our trip and then at the end we're like because they've got other rooms next to another one before we leave so the next one we've booked what happens is you're in a coffin and the other person's in a coffin and you can communicate with each other and they've got all the buttons in front of you and by working together you get out of the coffin no no absolutely

not no hang on at some point you have to get in the coffin voluntarily yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so they say the escape room is just a coffin sorry about that uh get in is that the point you would say no thanks i'm i'm actually just just going going now i'll um i'll be in the starbucks next door but you know you've you've you've spent like 60 dollars i don't care no does it mean that the other does it mean that the other people can't play yeah you'd have to do it as a tour so you know You're saying to someone else. They can't have a go. They can't have a go.

Yeah, I still, I'm still not doing it. No, okay, fine. I mean, it was... How big is the coffin? Just coffin size. Like coffin ties. Yeah, yeah. I'm not doing that.

No, fine. Did you do, you actually voluntarily got inside a coffin and it was locked on you? Yeah, but it's a good dress rehearsal, isn't it? I'm going to have to do it sometime. Oh, God, that's something. Can you see out? How do you breathe? No, no, no, no.

No, you can breathe. That's a bit much. It's not like if you don't get out in 60 minutes, we're just going to bury you. I mean, I struggle in, I avoid lifts at all cost. Okay. And that's for the size of it rather than the plummeting to your death aspect. Well, yeah, mainly.

but I don't need, I don't love both of those things. Have you ever been stuck in a lift? Apparently, yes, I have when I, I was, but you're blacked out and no, you can't. Too young to remember it. Okay. But I, obviously that's where it comes from. Okay.

But I, so I need to get whatever it's called EMDR or something, don't I? Just stairs. Just get stairs. But do you know, speaking of New York, I find particularly in America, it's really difficult. Well, obviously in New York, the buildings are too high. But it's really difficult to ask to use the stairs in some buildings. They're just like, what? No, it's the lift's there.

And I'm like, no, don't get in it. And you're on floor 68. Well, we have to go and get someone to unlock the fire door and then do this. I mean, do that. And then that's when I start to feel like a real. I don't know that. But I always know. where the stairs are because my husband thinks that there will be a fire every night

and we both need to know how to get from the room to the stairs. Is this because of the guy from 1072? I don't think so. So what do you mean? You know in your house where the stairs are? You mean when you're staying away? Oh, yes. Yeah, no, yeah, that one we've got sorted.

That one don't need to do a rehearsal for. He's scared of fire wherever you stay? He's a catastrophist, and so one of the things he just assumes will happen at some point will be some kind of disaster at night, which never happens, except for once when we were on holiday and there was a massive earthquake. Oh my God. Which did not help the problem. Was he really calm because he had all?

He had it all figured out. No, no. It went absolutely bananas. Because I thought they always say that like major catastrophists are like, yeah, here we go. Got it sudden. You knew this was coming. Where were you when there was an earthquake? It was, I said massive.

I mean, it's not like sort of one of the sort of, you know, catastrophic death situations. But we were in Greece and one of the islands and there was a, it happened just, you know, outside. And we'd gone to bed. It was our first night of the holiday. And you know any time you're in a new hotel room or a new somewhere, when you wake up, it's disorientating. I've got a sort of period of five to ten hours of trying to work out where I am when I wake up. But this was, so we went to bed and then we were woken up a couple of hours later.

It was like that happened at one in the morning. And everything was just shaking. and we were just sort of being thrown out of bed and it was very, very, very strange. Did you have your children at this point? We did, so that made it super stressful. So they were, we were in the bedroom, but they were in cots because they were younger

in the sort of living room, a bit of the room. But they slept through it somehow and were totally fine, even though anything seemed mild, mild wind outside normally seems to wake them up. They've absolutely ignored the sort of six-point, whatever it was, earthquake. But his main, James' main reaction afterwards was like, see?

Because, you know, after 15, 16 years of this, there's a certain amount of eye rolling at every single hotel we go to when we pace out the journey to the emergency stairs. And now it's been totally reset. I think it's nice that he's so open about it, though, because I think a lot of people do that stuff in secret. Oh? And don't actually share their phobias.

Don't share their fears with their partners. Okay, no, I guess that's a good thing. It's quite nice that he's pacing it out with you. It's also nice that he doesn't have it as severe as his mum, who turns off the Wi-Fi at night in case it catches fire. Oh, really? Oh, no. So it has diluted through the generations,

and hopefully maybe our children, you know, will only do this like every other night in a hotel. and their children maybe not at all. Who knows? I don't have that sort of obsessive stuff, but obviously I do have the phobes. Do you have any phobias? Not, but I mean, the stuff I don't like

is generally the stuff that is dangerous. So, like, I'm not good with heights and ladders and stuff, but fair enough, I could fall off. I really hate. But everyone thinks it's fair enough. their thing. Oh. Don't they?

The fire could happen, it's fair enough. Oh, that could happen. That is fair enough. I don't, I really, one of my very worst things are the box graters. Like for grating cheese? Yeah. What you're scared. I'm not scared them like I'd have to

leave the room. I've grated my knuckle on one couple of days ago. Just throw them away, get them out your lives. There are other other grateres are available. That's mac and cheese and knuckle. Enjoy. On your mateteet.

But yes, no, get them out of your life. What? Because you've seen, have you seen too many injuries? Or do you, like, are you afraid of it? I've just injured myself too many times on graders. And I just, I just, I did it once really badly where I sort of took a sort of full, you know,

line of. of line of finger off. Hang on, there's a word, there's a special word that you used for that in your book. D-gloved. I did, I sort of, it was a fingerless glove. It was a partial, partial glove.

But that's a reference to a penis, of course. The penis got to be used. It was a lamp post guy, wasn't it? It was, yeah, jumped onto a lamp post, too much friction, not enough penis. Anyway, Um, Adam, we've gone off topic, but that's what we always do. Oh, no.

We're in an escape room for your perfect afternoon, but let's move on to your perfect night. So I don't know if this is allowed, but I'm going to find out imminently, and hopefully it is because I don't have a backup plan. Can my perfect night just be Christmas Eve? Oh, that's lovely. Because I really like Christmas Eve, and then Christmas is really, really stressful and terrible. But Christmas Eve, we're wrapping the presents, you know, we're chopping the vegetables, we're building the toys for the kids, we're ordering in a Chinese, might go for some carols, there's mulled wine, and there's none of the bullshit and the family and the stress and the visitors, and nothing's gone wrong. Oh my God, that's fantastic. I love that and absolutely with you on Christmas Eve Chinese.

And also it's me and James is doing it together and that's fun. Romantic. It's an activity. Are you a romantic? I mean, enough to not get divorced. But not so much that I feel constantly. sick about the activities I'm performing. Trying to strike that balance.

What a beautiful spectrum you've created there. Do you, I guess Christmas Eve, I think I remember from your book that you had to work quite a lot at Christmas, did you? Yeah. So is this quite a losing? So this is Adam 2.0 layabout non-doctor. Christmas Eve. Yeah, but did it give you an appreciation when you lost, when you missed all those

Christmases? Yeah, I mean, that's one of the, one of the big things people don't necessarily think about in terms of, you know, the, you know, NHS staff is the fact that quite obviously they're needed 365.25 days a year. It's that that is what the, that's, the NHS has to always be there and it has to be full of people. And if, if you're not, you know, working Christmas Day, then it'll probably work in Christmas Eve or Boxing Day or New Year's Eve or, you know, one of those. Because, you know, there's a lot of shit shifts and only so many members of staff. And so I do, I am sort of very grateful that I'm not having to miss all this stuff, but at the same time, I'm still very mindful that there's, you know, a million and a half

people who work for the NHS who do have to do have to do that. I mean, having said that, I don't go and volunteer. I'm not, you know, not that thoughtful. Not tagging anyone out. Could you, if you wanted to? No, I couldn't because I'm on the GMC register, sort of where will the doctors have to be signed up, I'm listed as retired. But every retired doctor got temporarily unretired over COVID. So there was a period of a few years where I had a valid GMC number

because they wanted all hands on deck. Well, my lazy bastard father didn't bring that up. I don't remember him unretiring himself. That's news to me. So basically, right at the start, they sort of didn't know quite how bad this was all going to get. And so they had like basically a phone number where you were asked to declare yourself if you were a former doctor or former healthcare professional of all sorts of stripes who might be able to help. And so I phoned them up and they took me through this interview and they said, and when did you work and what did you do there and what grade did you there and then this.

And so talked through all of my stuff and I was feeling quite, you know, this is my chance to, you know, there's a huge helplessness during COVID. And I suddenly felt this is, you know, I'm trying to do various bits and bolts. This is something very tangible where I can use my skills such as they were to, you know, to try and help. And so I'd go through all this and then a week or two later, I get an email saying, no, we're right, thanks, mate. You just make your banana bread. Not even enlisted for jabbing. No.

I trained to be a jabber in... Did you? Yeah, I did. How long they're training? St. John's ambulance. Two days. Okay, yeah. Two days to do one, and it actually is quite easy,

but then when I actually started doing it... Don't stick it in their eye sort of thing. Yeah. Nobody, I think I was quite good at it because nobody seemed... A lot of people would say, was that it? And I thought, oh, that's good. But then people...

Is that it only squirted it on the floor or because your technique was really good? And then people started recognizing me and saying, Were you not the good? You weren't you going to stay? And then I stopped doing it because I thought that is not going to fill people with confidence. I was thinking I was doing a good thing.

You weren't doing a good thing. And that was my one way of trying to please my parents. That was the only time that I actually made my parents proud. See, I'm basically a doctor now, happy. I did like it though. There's something so appealing about like actually I loved the feeling of like, oh my God, I actually could make a difference here instead of whatever the hell it is I do. It's just that has absolutely no meaning whatsoever.

I enjoyed that feeling very briefly. Oh, God. Adam, we ask people at the end a bonus question, which is, is there a piece of perfection that you'd recommend this week? This is a genre that I actively avoid, and then someone said, I promise you, give it a go. Right. I think you might like it. Because I don't like the sort of sci-fi stuff where there's a set of rules and, you know, oh, no, on the planet's blog on, you have to wear this sort of helmet and you can't eat cheese, or whatever it is. So I don't like that sort of space bullshit.

But I watched a show called Murder Bot. which is on Apple and I think it's based on a novella and it's 10 20-ish minute episodes and they zip by and it's Alexander Scarsgaard in the lead as this sort of robot person and it's funny and sarcastic and just good story and so I normally and I got through that in two nights or the 10 episodes. Wow. It won't be for everyone. For example, it wasn't for James

who was like, what's this shit? And stop watching. But I really enjoyed it. And so I recommend MurderBot on Apple. Okay, great. I've not heard of that. Adam, thank you so much

for coming on Perfect Day. Thanks for having me. I've had a lovely, lovely day. Was I being too mean at the start about ghosts? No, it's hilarious. Oh, what a brilliant episode. What a perfect day.

Thank you so much to Adam. And Adam's first crime novel, A Particularly Nasty Case, is published on the 28th of August, and he'll be kicking off a national live tour too, so please go and make sure you see him. And why not come and see us live at the Edinburgh Fringe on the 19th of August.

Follow the link in the show notes and buy a ticket, will you? Please press follow on your podcast app. It really helps us. And if you like us, you can write a little review. And that really helps too, because it boosts us up the charts and then more people listen and then more people want to come on, etc., etc. From Yorkshire with love, I'm Jessica. up it and I'm wishing you a perfect day.

How do you know if you're worrying too much? How can you mend a broken heart? Does peaking at school ruin you for life? I'm Susie Ruffel, a stand-up comedian and someone who has always experienced anxiety. And I've written a book. Am I having fun now? considering some of life's big questions. Featuring bonus insights from the likes of Charlene Douglas, Sarah Pascoe, Elizabeth Day and Dolly Auditon.

Am I Having Fun Now? Is out now in hardback, ebook and audio.