Perfect Day with Jessica Knappett - EP14: Joe Lycett

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

The sensational Joe Lycett joins Jess on the podcast this week. The pair discuss Joe’s many exciting projects, being a political comedian, being sober, being hungover, being drunk, shared meals, pocket beers, therapy, napping and even more napping.  New episodes every Thursday - like, subscribe, leave us a review and follow us on @perfectdaycast. And, get in touch, email us at [e-mail] A 'KEEP IT LIGHT MEDIA' PRODUCTION Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

E-R-A-P-C-T E-R-A-P-C-T Alright then. Well, don't listen to my fans, they're all idiots. Hello Perfect Dayers, I'm Jessica Knappett and you are always on my mind. That is genuinely true, for better or worse. Welcome to Perfect Day. Today's guest is the lovely, the funny, the talented Jo Lysette.

Mummy herself. He's an activist, he's a comic, he's an artist. And we're about to find out he's a sleepy boy. I'm actually also a sleepy boy on this episode because my two year old wanted a full meal at 2 a.m. in the morning and I couldn't get back to sleep. It did sort of overtake me and I feel a bit bad about this episode because that's up us old because I'm a bit lacking in pizzazz. It's not Joe's fault. It's still a great episode because Joe is a great human. But I don't think I'm bringing it. And I will hold my hands up and say that it's all my fault because I'm tired. But what I will say is I changed my ways after this. I was like, right, do you know what? No more remote records. I'm better in person when I've had a night's sleep

in a hotel. So that's what we're doing from now on. So that you'll only get primo nap it. Because I don't want to bring you sleepy, Jess. That's not okay. You deserve better. You are always on my mind. So anyway, what you're about to listen to is two very sleepy people talking about sleep, but also lots of other nice things like sobriety. Oh, yeah. Well, we'll talk about that in another episode, but I'm not sober anymore. Being hungover, being drunk, shared meals, pocket beers, therapy, napping and even more napping. Enjoy, guys. This is Joe Lysette's Perfect Day. And I said, well, loads of money.

All right, then. You look at your own sound effects. yeah that's that's what happens i see you've got a road microphone there i've got the road caster oh i can't show you because it'll pull up cables the road caster pro now just press things oh my god that is an incredible setup. Also, where are you? You look like you're in an old lady's boudoir, who's also very skilled at interior design. Okay. Just as a little save at the end. Yes, a really nice save.

I'm in my house. I'm in the house that I live in. Is that your spare room? It's a sort of spare room, yeah. It's like a walk-in wardrobe. We turned it into a walk-in wardrobe. And it is very pink. It's absolutely beautiful it's stunning

there are flamingos it's weirdly calm you know it's a calm pink it's a calm pink yes where are you you look like you're in a um you look like you've been taken hostage by Christopher Biggins and you're doing a you're doing a a statement under duress Christopher Biggins Christopher Biggins is treating me very well Christopher Biggins is giving me all of the water and and what sits I require and um yeah I'm in my basement i'm in my basement lovely where do you live these days i actually don't know i don't know anything about you i live i don't know anything i i live in yorkshire good yes i moved back from los angeles to yorkshire because that's the natural progression, you see. Absolutely is. And it's the correct progression. And we don't regret a thing. Well, I don't.

My American husband has a few things to say about it. He's learned to start keeping those to himself. It's a culture change. Definitely, I to is he from los angeles no he's from colorado but you are in birmingham the la of the midlands um i bet you live in you probably don't disclose your postcode do you but i bet you live in posh birmingham though don't you because because there is posh birmingham right i've you? Because there is posh Birmingham, right? I've got a confession. There is posh Birmingham, yeah.

I'm not in the full posh Birmingham. I think Sutton Coalfield is where the tossers go. I'm in a place called King's Heath, but there's a posher bit which is called Moseley, which is just over the road. And this is a scoop for your podcast i am moving to mosley but it's on the kings heath end so it does mean that i uh even though i have the mosley postcode i'm still a short walk to the kings heath high street which is my favorite place to be that's not entirely

accurate but i do like the i prefer kings heath high street to mosley high street although mosley high street has just got a greg's so things are looking up click and collect i don't know actually i don't know do they is that a thing on greg's click and collect we just um that just made the ilkley gazette that's the town that i live in um recently that the greg's in ilkley had just been upgraded to a click and collect service oh my god that is what fantastic news i think that that requires a i love this by the way what do you but what do you need this for usually zoom is because you don't you don't have a podcast so why have you got the ability to um run your own sound effects. So I used to run my own radio station when I was at school. One of the first ways of sort of doing online radio.

And I loved it and I loved all the kit and all the bits and bobs. And I saw this came out, this Rodecaster. And I'm also messing around with making little songs at the minute. I wonder if that was it. It's like I can plug everything into the same thing. And i've got this thing called a um a ko2 it's called and you can play it's a sampler essentially so you can play little samples and i'm messing with that so i don't know what i'm going to do with it yet but i've got it i like you are just endlessly artistic aren't you i know it wouldn't surprise me if there was an album next yes well you know

it wouldn't surprise me either i'm i'm a i'm a gnaws i'm just constantly desperate for attention when i don't get it in one place i go elsewhere there are so many ways yes but i'm getting lovely attention here tell me so mummy's been very busy. Mummy has been busy, yes. What's mummy been up to? Mummy's been to America. What's mummy been doing in America? Not to Colorado. I've been to all the places in America called Birmingham.

True story. Oh, this is the United States of Birmingham. Correct, yes. I've gone to all the places called Birmingham and there's way more than I wanted in the filming schedule. There's actually 17 Birmingham's in America. We went to the top 10. We ended up going to the top 10. But I did actually find it a brilliant and quite sort of beautiful experience. It was a great way of seeing the states because a lot of them are rural. They're all spread out across the kind of some in the deep south, obviously Birmingham, Alabama. But then you've got three in Ohio. Ohio is the highest concentration of Birmingham in the world.

There's two in Pennsylvania. There's one in Kansas. There's one in Kentucky. The one in Kentucky is underwater. It used to be a birmingham and then they built a dam and the lake kentucky lake covered over birmingham in kentucky there's loads of history to it we found out that taylor swift is a brummie can't go into too much detail but yeah she's a brummie um yeah so it's been a lot of fun so i've

been doing that uh i did a book which is coming out shortly. Did the Sky Arts Awards. I'm knackered. I'm fucking knackered. I bet you are. Yes, I saw this art hole is your new book. Yeah, yes. And it's lots of paintings and drawings and then the stories around them. So definitely the true about um all the people that i've

painted over the years liniker styles liz truss amon and ruth before they sadly split which was annoying because we had gone to print before did you have to cut the painting couldn't change that chapter you can just you can just chop it in half though, can't you? Could chop it in half. That's a good shout actually. Reframe it. I do need to just pause this recording so I can ring water stones. The other thing I saw was that you are,

I saw that you were announcing your creative manifesto for the arts. Yeah. So that was as part of um the sky arts awards basically when the sky asked me to do an award ceremony i said no because i think they're naff and i they're just everyone sort of celebrating each other and it's normally just sort of millionaires congratulating millionaires and it all just feels like and i just thought it's not i don't like going to award ceremonies i don't want to be at one. I don't want to be at one. I definitely don't want to host one. Really?

Does it not? Because you, as someone who has won a lot of awards, haven't you? Yes. Is there no sense of the firmness? Well, the first BAFTA I won, the first, I wasn't there and I was really happy to not be there. Right. I just thought the pressure of it and there's lots of people at things like that that I want to see and have a full conversation with. I end up leaving and feeling like I've ruined all my friendships

because I didn't spend enough time with any of them. I kind of spiral after things like that. So I generally don't go to them. I don't want to be at them. But then the last BAFTAs I went to was fine. But then I won on the BAFTAs I went to last year. And you did a fun thing with your aunties. Yeah.

So I had like it felt like I was doing something. Yeah. But also then you just do loads of like press and stuff and it's all very like stiff. And I don't know. It's just not for me, really. It's not. I didn't get. I know people say this, but I really, truly didn't get into it for awards and i don't like being at them anyway so

i said that essentially to sky i was like i'm not a fan of these things yeah and they said well how would it look if it if you were to do it what would persuade you and i said well loads of money and then if it could look like some something, like it wasn't done in the traditional way, but also that it has purpose and that there's a reason for it beyond just congratulating everyone in there. Like a genuine celebration of the arts. Yeah, and not to diminish any of the winners because they're all exceptional at what they do.

And in this particular awards, most of them are probably struggling you know they're in they're in arts that uh don't pay particularly brilliantly i don't think poetry is shelling out loads of cash i don't think the opera is so it's we are celebrating people that are in more sort of niche art forms but i did feel like there was uh an opportunity to basically campaign and essentially go we've got a new government and we can have a bit of a kind of prod and go what's what's your plan yeah you've been talking for years you've been in opposition for years what are you gonna do yeah what are you gonna do about it and what we pulled together is this nine-point manifesto which i'm really proud

of and is an actionable document it's not something we whizzed up in an afternoon. We spent a lot of time on it. One of them is to do with education and Michael Gove in his endless wisdom took the art subjects away from the way that schools were analysed and graded. The art subjects were either not included or in some of the ways that they grade them were just vastly reduced so it meant that if you're a struggling school you're not putting any resource into the arts you're going to go to your maths you're going to go to your sciences because those are the subjects that need to be doing well in order for the school to get a good Ofsted report essentially

so you could change that relatively quickly seems like a basic thing to me yeah the last government just went nah fuck that off so that's one of the manifesto points, for example. Sorry, I've really gone off on one. No, it's interesting. Just tell me to stop. It's interesting. It's your time, Joe. It's my session.

But this one was really interesting to me because I knew nothing about it. And it's one of those points that you wouldn't know anything about if you weren't in this sort of world. Is that your phone? It is. And funnily enough, it's our friend Eleanor Tom texting me. So I've just put it on. Don't disturb. Leave us alone.

We're talking about the arts. We're talking about the arts. I'm not, at this stage I'm not thrilled with the response that the DCMS have have done with it like Lisa Nandy hasn't uh herself addressed it I've had a sort of quite watery statement from the DCMS saying that they'll do something in due course which is it essentially means nothing nobody's nobody's gone oh yes i'll do that in due course and actually going to do it in any sort of kind of urgency yeah no yeah in in due course is definitely a euphemism for yes do do fuck off i did think yeah yeah do fuck off with your emails i did think that um i might have a little bit of respite uh

once a new government came in that i wouldn't have to be um being annoying publicly to the government are you mates with jess phillips i am mates with jess phillips and i messaged her about this and i don't know if i can talk about what she said but like we're not not in agreement about the response um I'm sure. Yeah. So it's like I thought I'd have a bit more of an easy ride and just go like, oh, I'm actually, how exciting. I'm delighted with this. And actually, we're not that far into this new government.

I'm like, oh, okay. Looks like I'm still a political comedian. It just feels to me like even with the best will in the world and there are people like jess phillips in government they still have to trudge through this sort of ancient archaic system that doesn't fucking work yeah and i am sympathetic to that like i do think it must be trying to kind of unravel what years decades essentially of bad government have done i you know you can't do that overnight i totally get it but um right now i'm a bit like yeah but what is

the plan yeah is there a plan well you're doing a great job and and thank you joe for all that you do because you are i, you are an amazing, it's incredible what you've achieved. And it's an amazing thing to see you take all of your talent and do something with it beyond showing off. Well, it's just a different way of showing off, I think. It's sort of, it legitimises all of the cock gags essentially doesn't it just going you're so busy do you i mean how do you manage how do you manage your time do you get stressed about how busy you are or do you yes oh god yeah i'm well i'm busy right now it comes in like sort of big blocks and so everything

comes at once and then you kind of kind of twiddling your thumbs for a while but this particular time in my life is very busy and um and yeah like i've definitely noticed a spike in my anxiety and i've been back to see the therapist and i've been doing like all the stuff that you should do when you're in these particularly sort of fraught times and uh fra, fraught is not the right word, but like, um, particularly busy times and sort of, yeah,

you can't focus on things. And I've definitely, yeah, I'm not, my mental health is definitely not the best it's been. And it's just the kind of nature of the projects of right now is sort of everything's kind of clustered together, but,

um, I'm not like bad mentally, but it's just like, you know, uh, not the best it's been but that's just the nature of the thing and i like working and i like making things so it's it's so you are motivated by that yeah yeah but i notice when i do do too much then all of the projects become less interesting i become kind of uh it becomes a bit drudgery drudgy is that a word um yeah but

my mum said to me years ago because I was about to do a tour and then I actually stopped it because I was just like I'm not ready and I felt like overwhelmed by it and I was talking to mum about it and she said you're a victim of your own ambition you want to do so many things but you there's only one of you and um I think that's probably about right really no but it's so difficult when you are so multi-talented and i mean it is very difficult it is so hard um cue sound effects oh oh oh no wrong one hang on um what's what's um what's a sad sound is it sound is there you go you see there you go i can do it all we will get onto your perfect day but i am always curious how multi-talented artists like yourself divide up their time and how they make

decisions about which area to focus on and lots of artistic and creative people have many passions don't they yes and what do you say to a question like that when somebody says am I wasting my time trying to spread myself too thin because you obviously do experience that yeah um I think sort of lockdown did this a little bit for me but there's something in me now where I've tried I tried painting and I loved it and then, but there's something in me now where I've tried, I tried painting and I loved it. And then I was like, oh, let's try sculpture. And I loved that.

And so I'm actually looking for the new art form to go, oh, that's exciting. That's a new thing I can play with. And so I'm drawn to new mediums and process and all of that. And as much as making new work, it's like trying a new thing. Like, oh, what would carpentry be like? I'd be interested. I want sort of want to try that. You know, there's like trying a new thing. Oh, what would carpentry be like? I'd be interested. I sort of want to try that.

You know, there's lots of different things in the world. Yes, but you don't seem to put it down again. You seem to keep going with it. Yes. So it's not a fad. I mean, you don't... That's a problem. That is a problem.

Seeing a thing that you've worked on for the first time particularly is just magic. I love all that. But that must be because you're very good at pushing through to getting something finished. Yes. Well, I think the big enemy to everything is self-doubt and that think of going like, oh, I can't or it'll be shit or whatever. But I think I've accepted that everything I am, nothing I'm going to make is going to be exceptional.

I thought you were going to say that you accepted that everything you make is incredible. Yeah. I've come to terms with the fact. Sorry, let me take it back. Everything I make is incredible. No, I've got to the point where I've gone like, I'm not going to be the master of any of these skills, essentially. Like, I'll never be the best stand-up,

I'll never be the best artist, I'll never be the best at any of these things. And that's very freeing because suddenly you go, well, I'll just be whatever I am at them. And that's enough. And that's fine. But you are excellent at all of them though. Well, I'm going to be subjective.

And obviously there are a lot of people who think your stand-up, to them that is, to your fans, that is the best stand-up. So you must know that. Don't listen to my fans. They're all idiots. They're wrong. Or, you know, there are people who appreciate, I mean, I really love your art, by the way.

I think it's so funny. And it is, I disagree. I don't think it's just okay. Oh, I think it's excellent art. Well, I'm not good at taking compliments, but I thank you. I'll take, in the words of uh charlize theron to my friend jenny who uh she was giving compliments to she said take the compliment bitch so i'm gonna take the compliment bitch okay joe i'm dying to hear

your perfect day should we crack on? Yes, please. Okay, let's start with your perfect morning. So, my perfect morning is I'm one of the world's great sleepers. I'm excellent most of the time at sleep. And if I'm in a good run, I can have had like eight, nine hours, wake up, have a coffee, a light bite,

and then go back to bed for another hour. Easy. I love like a morning snooze. That is, it is the pinnacle of luxury, isn't it? To take yourself back to bed for a morning nap. Exactly, exactly. But I wanted to read you a quote for this particular bit because this was sent to me by someone and it's,

can I swear on this podcast? Well, I think we've already established that. Yes, probably so. Because I thought this was really beautiful. In a 1958 interview in the Paris Review, Terry Southern asked Green, this is a writer, I don't know, I'll be able to find a bit, someone with the surname Green, about his inspiration for the book Loving. able to find a bit, someone with the surname Green, about his inspiration for the book Loving. Green replied, I got the idea of loving from a manservant in the fire service during the war. He was serving with me in the ranks and he told me he had once asked the elderly butler who was over him what the old boy most liked in the world. The reply was, lying in bed on a summer morning

with the window open, listening to the church bells, eating buttered toast with cunty fingers. There you go. That's it. Perfect. Hard relate. Hard relate. Eating buttered toast with cunty fingers, I think is heaven.

So, yeah, like that scene, that picture of sort of an open window, a breeze coming in, church bells, promise of a day, toast, butter, fat, carbs, post-coital, all of that, great. Oh, I love, I love this image. And where are you? Are you in Birmingham? Yes, of course. Yes, you're in paradise itself.

It's just in one of the 17, 19 Birminghams. And yeah, it's ideally, it's a kind of a sort of weekend-y sort of day. So it's like a Saturday, Sunday, nothing has to happen. Which presumably isn't something that happens to you very often. More than you'd think, really. And when I was doing late night lie sit, for example, I'd come off air on a Friday night, I'd get absolutely shit-faced and then I'd wake up Saturday morning and have nothing to do with the Saturday. I always planned it as such that there was no plan.

I actually quite like being hung over for that kind of giving you the legitimacy to just be a pig and sort of sit in a hammock and eat pastries. I know what you mean. Yeah. And there's nothing else you can do there's something sort of paralyzing about a hangover in a good way exactly exactly um but just a little one just so you're a little bit tender yes and you need to take things slowly yeah not you're not you're not vommy you're not no you could have you could have a bloody mary and you'd feel fine exactly exactly that yeah well you'll be interested to know joe i'm actually um

i'm going a bit sober at the moment i'm trying i'm trying it likewise i've been off for uh well since the start of the month so nearly three weeks weeks now. Yes. How's it going? I'm about the same. I'm pretty good, actually. I had my first real test. I find it's quite hard for work. Sometimes they get me a first-class train ticket. And on those first-class trains, they're just constantly offering you wine. They're constantly asking, aren't they? Yeah.

And if they recognize me, they know me to be a sort of a booze hound yeah and they will they'll be like oh no wine today you know that it's difficult because of my reputation on lner trains i'm gonna see how far i can get before i crumble yeah what about you that's yeah similar basically i um when i was filming this birmingham show i was drinking every night because we've created a an unsustainable culture of getting shitted after each of the filming days on that show and um and so i just thought i've had my fill i've also just you know i feel like i've i sort of got bored of it a little bit and i actually just want a bit of clarity of mind and i knew i was going into a busy month so i just

thought i won't and i'm sometimes i feel you need you just need to sort of you need to send off because that's what i had i had an all-inclusive in my orca and that that'll do it yeah when i when i when i cut the wristband off at the end of a week of the week i thought i don't i don't need to drink ever again yeah exactly yeah sounds similar sounds like a similar experience we've had a similar experience okay on with your morning what happens after your morning nap it's time for a boozy lunch, basically, funnily enough. There's a restaurant in London, which I used to go to lots called 40 Maltby Street, which is a started as a wine cellar, then they put a bit of bread on the side, then they added a bit of

ham that they'd done themselves. And then it gradually turned into the best restaurant in the world. And I don't really know how they do it because it's a tiny little kitchen they do it in. I love that it was just piecemeal. It's just like bread, ham, cornichons, slowly, slowly. And now it's a five-star tasting menu. So some of my happiest days have just been going along to Maltby Street, getting there about one-ish, midday one-ish, potter down the market, and then end up in that restaurant for their lunch serve.

And they've got like a different menu every week, basically. It's sort of a blackboard of stuff that they've come up with, all exceptional. And then it will just be whoever's there with me, a few picky plates and a lovely bottle of whatever they're serving. Who ideally are you with? I'm with a kind of – I had this idea years ago. It was for my 30th birthday, so it was six years ago. I never did it, sadly, but the idea was that I would do 30 days of 30 dinners, and I would set up a Google spreadsheet that everyone could edit,

and I'd put every day there would be – it would be either a dinner or a lunch, and some of them would be Michelin-starred restaurants that I've always wanted to try or that I've loved and have been to before before and that would be on the more expensive end some of them would just be like come around for lunch at mine i'll cook and it'll be free and everything in between and and then the kind of how luxurious the meal will be and i try and sort of make sure that like if you have like a really heavy kind of fatty one then the next day will be nice salad thingsy things, whatever. Oh, so you wanted to do it consecutively in 30 days? Consecutive days.

Oh, wow. Because lots of people were saying like, oh, gosh, but you'll be so, you'll be stuffed. I'm like, no, I have meals every day. Do you not eat every day? And then there would be six slots next to each of the restaurants and people could put their names and they could do multiple ones and it would just be whoever chose that day.

And I think six is perfect. I think once you're over that, it starts to get a bit much. But six is lovely. You can have a bit of time with everyone. Everyone kind of gets to mingle or whatever. And so the beauty of the Mberry street experience is the table there's a table at the back that we used to go to and it was probably six to ten people could get around it but comfortably six to eight probably and it would get a bit crammed when you got over that and then it would just be whoever texts you saying we should meet up or whatever you just go oh well

i'll be at mulaltby Street or whatever. So it was sort of loose and people were just popping for a drink and say, oh, I've got to go off or whatever. And people are bringing babies and it would be just, you'd sort of meet people. It was sort of a meeting spot. And so it would be university friends. That spontaneity.

Oh, yeah. And then comedians. And then I've got some school friends that live in London. So it would be that sort of mix and melting pot of people that I know and there are people inviting their friends so you get to meet new people as well. And so it's sort of – I love that. There wouldn't be any one person.

No. It has to be them. It would be a kind of collective of lovely people that I've met essentially. How nice. I love that. I love that feeling of people dropping in and out and there's a sort of a spontaneous edge to it. You don't really know who's necessarily going to pop in when.

Yeah, exactly. When I was living in LA, I used to come back and just text everyone and say, I'm going to be in this pub all day yeah yeah if people could come then they would pop in and out and most people would come and just stay for the entire day and it got out of hand but it was it i don't do that anymore because um i don't know why actually i should i think it's something quite nice about just planting yourself in one place and saying i'm here come and get it i will be here between these hours that's what i do on my

birthday i just say i'll be in this there's a bar that a wine bar that i go to every year in birmingham and i just say i'll be here from probably two till six ish pop in have a glass of wine and then it's and then everyone's sort of mixing and it's lovely like a surgery yeah exactly yes mummy's surgery mummy's wine surgery should we move on to the afternoon I noticed this, I was talking to my partner, Denise. She's not called Denise, but that's what we call her in public so that people don't find out who she is. We went on holiday basically and I realised that if I just go on holiday

and do nothing, I actually can't enjoy the relaxingness of the day because I get towards the end of the day and I think, oh, I should have done something. You know, I kind of get, I get, like I feel like I've wasted the day a little bit. So actually at the start of a day, if it's a hungover day, it's slightly different. But at the start of a day, I'd love to do something.

And it doesn't have to be lots, but like do a bit of writing a bit of painting a bit of something creative just some getting feeling like i've done something basically is that because it's important to you to feel like you've achieved something i think so yeah you do have to rest your brain a bit but it's hard if you are naturally very productive as you are and also i think we do i don't know it's tricky because i think we live in a in a world where there's just so much productivity guilt nobody's saying you know what you should do have a nap actually there are people saying that.

Yeah. The rest is resistance. Have you heard of that? No. What is it called? The Nap Institute. That is the idea that in order to sort of get your own back on capitalism, you just take fucking loads of naps. Yes.

Yeah. Well, I am one of the great yeah nappers as I've said and I uh I schedule in before stand-up shows and before particularly before live tv shows I schedule into my day a nap so yeah before late night life every episode there's an hour in my diary in my sort of schedule for the day where I'm people can't come and speak to me or ask me anything because I go and close my eyes. Do they get you a little camp bed or do you just sleep on a sofa? They set up this sort of little sofa bed for me. It's all very glamorous. I know it's really sweet, isn't it? But I think it's really important. I would be the same. Oh God, yeah. It's fine doing

like 20 minute stand-up sets and not having slept or whatever. But if I'm doing quite intense brain work, like a stand-up show or a live TV show, I really notice that I'm not firing if I've had a whole day of rehearsal and scripts and whatever and then go straight into it. I'm kind of stumbling over myself and I start to get frustrated. It doesn't have to be long. And as I say, I don't have to actually fall asleep. Often I do, but it just needs to be a little bit of quiet shut down yeah but I think the thing that you're right that sort of you're like a computer

you need to go into sleep mode I need to go to sleep mode I need to be defragged basically I think I'll I mean I have a really similar thing but I also think that when my anxiety gets triggered, I actually get tired. And so it's almost like it must be some kind of adrenal thing. It is to do with, yes, when you release adrenaline, you need more oxygen because everything's working faster. And one way of getting oxygen is to yawn. So often before a show, I will start yawning. And it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm tired. It means that I'm literally getting oxygen into my system.

You're bored of the other people in the green room. Exactly. Yawning in their faces. Yeah, yeah. But I don't feel oxygen into my system. It means that you're bored of the other people in the green room. Exactly. You're yawning in their faces. Yeah, yeah. But I don't feel tired after the show. After the show, I'm up. It's before the show, I go into a complete sort of, and I noticed this most visually in Nicholas Parsons

when I worked with him, and he must have been, he was very old by the time i worked with him and he this he was hosting this uh just a minute this radio 4 program which is very popular if you're not familiar with it and um he would literally be sort of in kind of kind of a half state essentially just sort of napping and then when they said all were off he'd be up and you're welcome to just a minute but before that he would just be like completely down and sort of and that's that's you isn't it that's me that's the basically yeah when when this podcast record stops i just go into a saline solution until the next appearance it It's fascinating though. And also it's really interesting to me that you've managed to,

you've worked out a way to get through it and you've basically just asked for what you need, which is a little pull out bed, please, before the show. Fantastic. Yeah. Oh, that was it. I've got quite good from doing some very good therapy at sort of essentially a kind

of mindfulness, but sort of just recognising in myself when I feel uncomfortable about something, what that means. And there's a brilliant app that I recommend to everyone called How We Feel. And basically what it taught me is that in any given moment I might go, I feel really anxious right now and it's probably because I'm about to do this stand-up gig and I haven't prepared enough and that's because I'm not good at preparing for stand-up gigs and I need a shit and that that's that's actually what's is causing the issue not not this kind of complicated idea that there's sort of is what I think in the moment is causing the issue it's normally not slept enough not exercised enough not gone to the loo it's funny that I I've been thinking about this a lot recently because i don't ever i i never quite connect what's going on in my mind like i know that what i know that my mind and body are connected but so for instance when i eat food i don't think about how that affects my mind

i think how about how that affects my body i don't think about how that affects my mind for instance so like i know that i'm intolerant to dairy but i eat it anyway because i like it and because the doctor said to me like basically you can you can either not have cheese or diarrhea you can have and and i said i'll have diarrhea and eat the cheese, please. But that feeling when you have diarrhea is a horrible feeling. And if you're in the middle of a meeting or you're in the middle of a romantic date, nobody can see these cues because only you can feel it. But you're trying to be like, oh, yes, and very relaxed. But your entire body is saying, leave now. You're going to be like oh yes and very relaxed but your entire body is saying leave

now you're gonna shit yourself alert and and again you kind of put it down to going like oh god you know i didn't sleep well last night and that's because i was worrying about this and whatever no you've had a you've had some this very simple thing you've had a bit of milk and your body's not responded well to it yeah and you've had no sleep also mean yeah i i've been awake since 4 15 with a two-year-old demanding pasta relentlessly demanding lindsey santoro the birmingham stand-up has got some amazing stand-up at the minute about she's got a toddler and she says basically saying having a toddler is like having a drunk person in your house 24 7 and then she just says like at 4 a.m just them going i want some yogurt that is it it is toddlers are drunk people it's a drunk person they are they are drunk no it was mini it was a pasta and then it was mini milk which we haven't had for in

the house for weeks those like little yogurt tea that i mean i understand they are delicious i mean they give me diarrhea obviously i eat them anyway um right let's let's have the rest of your perfect afternoon joe so then i think you know you've had a booze nice boozy time there's there's two options here, really. But the main one, the one that I'm drawn to, is a nap. I love that you've had loads of sleep. You've got up, you've gone back to bed for a morning nap. You've had a boozy lunch and now you're going back to bed. Correct, yes.

So we go back to bed and we're having an hour. No more than an hour. Just a little settler and then you kind of um i think emerge from that and really it needs to be a relaxed sort of gardeny out in a park some sort of you're not in amongst it you're not in a in a pub or whatever you're not in a bar you're in a bit more a sort of easy place that's a bit more natural but maybe like in lockdown me and my friend would go for walks where we'd have pocket beers and that was quite a nice thing where so maybe you've had your nap and go for a little pocket beer around in the park and you just have a little wander, a little stroll

and watch the sun come down and float around Kings Heath. Well, Highbury Park is my favourite park to go for a little walk around. And there's a theory, there's a type of therapy called EMDR. Are you familiar with it? Is that the trauma release therapy the way with the last yes eye movement and desensitize reprocessing i think it's called and i did a bit of it back in the day and it's really good and it basically it's on the nhs it's a it's a a robustly scientific thing but it sounds a bit mad like it sounds a bit made up no i think it is it's supposed to be brilliant and there's another

comedian who i won't name who i know has had that very successfully yes and um and basically you look left and right uh and think about issues in your life essentially yeah and what it does is it stimulates the two sides of the brain it gets them talking to one another essentially gets the electrons firing and there was a theory i read that going for a walk has the same effect essentially the reason why a walk is so good for the brain and clears brain fog and all of that is that obviously there's a bit of action and a bit of blood sugar changing in your body, but also looking left to right as you go and kind of making sure you don't fall over and objects or whatever and taking in nature

is doing a lot of left to right looking, which is stimulating both sides of the brain and making those issues in your life and the things that you worry about, whatever, giving some context to them. But I also think going for a walk with someone and having a chat is much more, I get a lot more out of that on a relationship level than I do sitting opposite someone and trying to

interpret their facial cues all the time I often think about it as well it's there must be some science to it's a similar thing to when you're in the hairdresser's chair or the makeup chair I get tired in those chairs. I don't know why. I get very, I mean, God, I'm just constantly asleep. I can get tired. But I wonder if that's because I think you sound like you need, you might need a little bit of a change. I need a holiday.

But I think there's something about not having direct eye contact. I think you end up, well, I do anyway. I end up saying things to people that I've just met. Yeah, yes. I don't think I would normally say. So a lovely walk with your friend in nature. And is there anything else or should we move on to your night? Well, I've had a nap and a walk.

So, you know, I think that's perfect. That's quite a lot to fit into an afternoon i think i'm going to guess what your perfect night is it's probably going the fuck to bed it's an early night it's not a late night guess what guess what guess what i'm in bed by half nine well it, it depends really. There are two sort of types of perfect night for me, which is either a kind of quiet one at home with Denise where we're sat having a nice home-cooked meal

and then watching an episode of whatever it is that we're watching at that time. And those are heavenly evenings. And they're so, and then go to bed at like half nine, ten. Beautiful. Cozy. Are you the cook or is Denise the cook? Denise does lots of good cooking and she loves to do an Instagram recipe.

So I'm very happy to be in her hands when that's happening because she's an exceptional cook. So great. But also if she's not up for cooking then i i'd get a lot out of cooking and i love cooking for her particularly i love it so there's a lot of love that goes into making food for people isn't it yeah um yeah so i like that kind of there's something nurturing about it that i quite enjoy um have you got a signature mummy's tea time recipe that you go back to it's interesting I've literally forgotten all of the things that I like to cook no don't worry I like doing um when I've got the time I like doing fresh pasta I learned to do

fresh pasta in lockdown really and I get a lot out of that and particularly this time of year doing anything with things from the garden because um all the slat all the slags all the slags from the garden um particularly very successful and denise loves them and i love them as well is this fresh sweet corn just doing a few cobs of that just get them under the grill just put them in boiling water just to sort of soften them and then under the grill just to kind of blacken them off and then covered in butter and salt. Smoky little slags. Oh, God, I'm salivating. I love a buttery corn on the cob.

Yeah, but when it's literally off the cob in the water, straight in, it's prized off the cob and then in your gob within 15 mins. Off the cob and in your gob. There it is. I should be working for the Green Giant, shouldn't I? Yes, so I get a lot out of that. But yes, so that's a very nice evening.

I'll take that any day of the week. But then I do also love a night where I don't want to be in one place, but I want to bounce around so i want to go like oh we'll have a pint there and then we'll walk over here and we'll have a you know glass of wine there and then we'll end up in the village and we'll have a dance there i love a night like that where you know and it doesn't have to end late often they do but like i'm not going like we've got tickets to the nightclub like I want to go to loads of places. I want to do a pre-lash.

I want to do a kind of mid-lash, post-lash. I want to kind of, and it's one drinker everywhere. You're not lingering anywhere. You're moving. I love those nights. Magic. Bar crawl. A bar crawl.

Pub crawl. Pub crawl. And you have to go to an Old Man pub as well. You're not going to like you can you can have one at a wine bar but you have to kind of do you know a bit of high culture low culture do you want a bit of a coaching horses piano knees yes yes yes yes i know the stuff or a samuel i know because you're against samuel smith because they were bad they were bad boys naughty boys shame because the pubs

are lovely. They are and the Lark is nice as well I think technically I'm banned from Sam Smith pubs but I've been in a couple since the ban. What was the stunt in the Sam Smith? We did a protest outside

I actually can't remember now. That's bad isn't it? You can't remember now that's bad isn't it you can't remember all your stunts I can't remember everything I've done I don't know who you are are you still called Hugo Boss I don't know

I haven't read the forms that I've signed for years right this is from producer Lucy apparently you set up your own Sam Smith's pub in the heart of Yorkshire to mock the many rules the pub enforces. Yes. Yes, I did do that.

You don't remember, do you? You don't remember opening a pub in Yorkshire, do you? No recollection of that. I remember being there and I remember a very frightening man who kept following us around the brewery when we were filming. I don't remember. I think you were asleep. This sounds like it was a bit too stressful and you had to fall asleep.

You were asleep on the job. Oh, Joe, thanks so much for coming on. I'm going to let you go because I know you're busy. Well, I've got to go to bed, obviously. I prized myself out of the nap that i was in to do the podcast and i must return to i i i genuinely am going to go and have a nap now what what are you going to go and do are you doing the same um i might you know close the eyes see what happens well it's been so lovely to see you i'm i'm thrilled to be on on your potty thank you for being here actually i've had a

lovely by thinking about my perfect day i've had a lovely by thinking about my perfect day i've had a lovely day well that's how it's supposed to be thank you and get yourself back to bed bye bye night night nighty nighty bless There we have it. The sleepiest episode so far. Actually, it's a callback, isn't it, to the Tim Key episode where he suggested a podcast about napping. Well, you've had your preview.

Thanks so much to Joe Lysette for coming on the show. And remember remember his brilliant book, Art Hole, is out in shops now. It is so good. He sent me a copy of it. It's a very, it's so funny, obviously. It's beautiful. And it's, you know, it's powerful stuff. You should all just check it out. I mean, what an amazing talent. It's insane. And if you go to Joe's Instagram, by the way,

you can read all about his manifesto for the arts, which is all really interesting, important, vital, powerful stuff because he's doing it for you and me. I think you're always on his mind as well, actually. Coming up, we have more amazing guests. Harriet Kemsley, Kiri Pritchard-McClain, Bretty Boy Goldstein, Joe Thomas, Jameela Jamil. Don't say we don't treat you nice. We treat you nice. treat you nice, we treat you nice. So like and subscribe and follow us on at Perfect Daycast for all your perfect day news. From Yorkshire with Love, I'm Jessica Knappett, wishing you a perfect day.