That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Ben Miller

Episode Date: October 3, 2021

In this episode Gaby chats with another person with funny bones, it’s the brilliantly talented actor and comedian, Ben Miller. He tells some amazing stories! He talks about experiencing weightlessness and wanting to go the moon, and writing his excellent children’s books. This supremely intelligent man has both a science degree And a PHD in Physics from Cambridge and he tells the wonderful story of how he got into the famous Footlights. Plus, his wonderful working relationship with Alexander Armstrong and how he regularly gets mistaken for Rob Brydon. Produced by Cameo Productions, music by Beth Macari. Join the conversation on Instagram and Twitter @gabyroslin #thatgabyroslinpodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to that Gabby Roslyn podcast. My lovely guest this week is another person with funny bones. It's the brilliantly talented actor, comedian and author Ben Miller. He shares with me some amazing stories. We chat about experiencing weightlessness and wanting to go to the moon and writing his excellent children's books. This supremely intelligent man has both a science degree and a PhD in physics from Cambridge and he tells the wonderful story of how he got into the famous footlights.

Plus, his brilliant working relationship with Alexander Armstrong and how he regularly gets mistaken for Rob Bryden. Enjoy. Please, can I ask you a favour? Would you mind, please, following and subscribing, please, by pressing the follow or subscribe buttons, please. This is completely and utterly free, by the way. And then you can also rate and review on Apple Podcasts,

which is the purple, app on your iPhone or iPad. Simply scroll down to the bottom of all of the episodes and you'll see the stars where you can tap and rate and also please write a review. Thank you so much. How many places was that? Probably too many. But please, thank you.

Let you into a rather embarrassing secret. Okay. So here we go. I dreamt about you last night. Would you like to know my dream? Yes, I would. I would like to know, first of all, where the dream was. set in Morocco.

Ah, well that's interesting. That is very interesting. Yes, because that's where you've just come back from. Yes, I've just come back from there. Yeah. Yeah, well, because I was doing all of my reading and my researching, before I went to sleep last night, I dreamt that I came to see you in Morocco and you taught me how to fill up a helium balloon with a tajin.

Yeah, that makes complete sense. That makes complete sense. I think, what did we, did we use the helium balloon to, what did we do then? Was it like a helium balloon as in, you know, just the sort of thing you get at a party, that kind of thing? Well, it was huge. It was massive. But it was, it was inflated. But it had this massive big hole at the end and the air wasn't coming out of it.

And you said, this is how to cook a tajin. You put it in there and then Abraham Lincoln came to eat it. Now that's, now that is a brilliant mishmat. of what I like that. What your subconscious has done there is basically taking three facts you've learned about me and juggled them in the air all night.

Yes. That's fascinating. Because yes, I have a big connection with Morocco and in fact, therefore with tajines. Helium, that would be the science because I used to do experiments with helium when I did my PhD.

Helium is the, when you liquefy helium, it's the best, It's the best way to get things to the lowest temperatures known on Earth, basically, is to, well, I'm going to too much detail, but basically... No, please do. Well, basically, you use liquid helium. You use a mixture of helium three and helium four, and you pump off the vapour, and the liquid helium three, helium three, helium four, goes to some of the lowest temperatures on the planet. So you can get to tens of thousands of a degree above absolute zero.

absolute zero being the lowest temperature or anything can possibly have where it's essentially got no free energy so yeah that's good so you're taking the helium bit of that not a tiny short with a balloon tightly sure where the balloon comes from no because I think I read something about when you did a kid show you had did an experiment with balloons they did oh yes so because I love science I went on

the sky at night with my friend Brian Cox. And he decided that I was going to experience what it would be like to be weightless on the moon. So I think, off the top of my head, I think it's something like an eighth or a tenth of the gravity it is on Earth. So the way they did that was they tied lots of helium balloons to me. And I was literally floating. You know when you see those pictures of the astronauts bouncing, like taking those long. loping steps. Was it like that? Oh, it was amazing. It's the most incredible feeling

to, yeah, experience low gravity. Yeah, which I sort of, which I basically did. I just had lots of helium balloons tied to me until I was, let's say for argument's sake, an eighth of my weight, if that is what the, if that is what it is. So how many balloons were there? I mean, a lot of balloons.

Gabby, a lot of balloons. Oh, my word. A lot of balloons. I would say, I would say 50 balloons. There's a lot of balloons. But the best bits of that show, the best bits of that show weren't films, which was then trying to get it. Because of course, to begin with, they put on too many balloons.

You start floating off and then there's, yeah, I mean, it's absolutely brilliant. Yes. And also, when they got the right number of balloons, you know, and I was about an eighth of my weight, I just, I got quite giddy. You know, like you see the astronauts go giddy. Yeah. That is not just them. What I realized, that is not just them experiencing weightlessness.

You experience a very strange kind of joy when you're suddenly relieved of all your weight. You know, we're just, we struggle under this sort of, you know, we struggle under this enormous gravitational pressure. You know, we've got this, we just, you know, we're stuck basically to the surface of the earth. We don't really think about it. But we can't, we can't leave. We're just rammed down to the surface of the earth by gravity. And suddenly, when you don't have that holding you down, and you can just jump as high as you like and you can go straight.

Anyway, I just went bouncing off across. It was at Jodrell Bank. I just went bouncing off across the field. Just absolutely cock-a-hoo. I mean, and I was having the, of course, you know, then you have the producer sort of screaming in your ear that you're going to, you know, health and safety, health and safety, get back here. You're not allowed to do that.

I mean, I'll know. So, unfortunately, that bit wasn't on camera, but that was the most fine. I mean, can you imagine? Not to be weightless. No, I can't. No, I can't. What does it feel like? It feels like you, you know, you know that is emotional.

It's emotional, I suppose. It's that thing where you suddenly, suddenly you've been worrying about something and you realize you don't have to worry about it anymore and you get that sort of emotionally. You feel like a weight has been lifted from your shoulders. We say that, don't we? Well, it is like, it's very emotional. You suddenly feel.

very joyful and free and released for just a moment from gravity, released from your gravitational obligations. And off you go, bouncing across whatever field happens to be in front of you or jumping over people as I did. I decided to try and jump over one of the assistant producers. I think that's what really got them across. But you know, isn't it funny, though, when you ask any child, actually, usually a child, but if you ask an adult as well,

if you could have a superhuman power, most people say, I want to be able to fly. I want to fly, yeah, it was me too. I mean, I believed when I was a child, I sort of believed I could fly. I just believed I didn't really ever want to do it when there were other people around. You know, so when I was on my own,

I would sort of go and fly, yeah, and I used to have lots of dreams about flying. And it is that feeling. It is that feeling. it's a suddenly, yeah, like I say, it's emotional. It's totes emotion. You just sort of, you just want to run off. You feel like you've suddenly been released,

suddenly been released from gravitational prison and you're just going to make a break for it before anybody can. Would you go into space now? I mean, that sounds, I know it's a big leap, ha-ha. But it wasn't meant as a pun. But it's a huge leap from being tied to 80 balloons, to 50 balloons, whatever it was.

I would love to. Of course. I would love to. I'd love to experience, I mean, it's weightlessness they actually experience, isn't it? On those, some of those, well, they call it the vomit comet, I think, don't they? Which is the aeroplane, which goes up into the upper atmosphere and then just basically freefalls. So that you experience for a few, I think it's maybe just a few minutes, you experience what it's like to be weightless. That's how they sort of do all that film, you know, stuff like Apollo 13.

They film in those, you know, they filmed in those, as I say, sort of vomit comet planes. I'd love to do that. But then, of course, soon we might all be able to go, you know, on Virgin Galactic, right we, and sort of... And Elon Musk is not far behind, is he? With this sort of... We'll be shuttling to the moon soon, weren't we? I sort of don't want us to, though.

I just think, haven't we done enough damage to this planet? That's getting a bit deeper. I do wonder, you know, why should we go and ruin somewhere else? I know, we're going to mess up the moon, aren't we? This is going to be rubbish than sort of lying on the moon, sort of empty crisp bucket. and yeah, no, it's a depressing thought. When you were a child, though, and thinking that you could fly,

what you do now, I know, but all the magical books that you write, so I will talk about all the acting and the comedy and all of that as well, but the writing that you do and the retelling of the fairy tales and everything, that's done through, it's done through a child's eyes. And I know you were writing them for your kids, if I'm right, and thinking, that you were writing them for your kids but I love that you have this incredibly childlike view of life and I hope you, I hope all of us have that actually still in us.

That's one of the greatest things I love most about writing for children. So yes, you're right. I mean I started writing these books for my children. I've been writing a book for each of them. So the first book, the night I met Father Christmas was my oldest son, Jackson, and then the boy who made the world disappear was for, Harrison, this one now, the day I fell into a fairy tales from my daughter, Lana. And you're absolutely right.

I mean, he is them in the stories. I mean, they are the main character's stories, but it's also me. And I think one of the joys about sort of doing acting for a living, because you never really, you never really grow up. I mean, we are treated like children, actors. I'm doing a filming job at the moment. And you are, I mean, people take you to, walk you to the toilet. I mean, it's, I'm not joking. You say, you say, please can I go to the toilet,

and they decide whether you can go to the toilet, and if you can go to the toilet, they walk you to the toilet, and they wait outside until you're finished, and then they walk you back in. What do they think you're going to do? I have no idea, but I can only think that throughout history,

actors have sort of gone to the toilet, forgotten they were acting, just sort of wandered off and done other things, or, you know, I can only imagine it's there for good reason because they have to pay these people. you are told when you can have your food, you know, you're told what you can eat, you're told when you can, you know, you are literally treated very much like a child and it, and it's, it's a, it's a very childlike existence. You're basically paying, let's pretend, don't you? I mean, we've dressed it up as, you know, dress it up with as much research as you like, really, at the end of the day, you're sort of pretending to be somebody, aren't you? So it's a very, yeah, it's a very childlike existence.

And I think the challenge of acting, and I think probably writing too, is it really the writing I do. It's just not to grow up. It's not really to ever really forget, to forget the joy of really, of just playing around. So it's a great, writing the books is just a great opportunity, really, for me to reimagine,

not even reimagine, just really remember, I put myself back into the age that I'm writing for. So in the moment, you know, it was nine for Lance book. I really remember that. I really remember that so well. I remember being a child. You remember being nine? I remember being nine, yeah. I mean, I remember, I really specifically, like a lot of kids, I don't remember much before seven.

But from seven onwards, you can remember quite a lot. I really remembered my year of nine, turned into ten very well. And I remember an incredible clarity, everything from sort of 13 onwards. It's very, it's very interesting. You know, we sort of jettison a lot of ourselves at seven. And then we jettison a lot again when we sort of turn 15, 16. But, you know, we hang on to some of it, don't we? We remember, you remember.

You said you remember about 9 to 10. Is there a specific thing that you remember? Oh, yeah. I remember the dens that I used to play. I was really, really lucky in that we lived in Market Town. but we lived at the very edge of the market town on the, and it was just fields out to the back, in Cheshire, growing up in rural Cheshire,

and just a field out the back of our house. I remember every inch of those fields and every, the dens that we used to build and the stream, and that was my kind of little wind of the willows sort of territory out of the back. And I think, I think I, so I think I owe it a lot to the, the fact that we, I'm not sure it would be the same if I'd grown up in a city. You know, I don't know if you'd have the same, because so little happened. It's quite easy to remember the few things that happened.

But that's lovely. Actually, for now, I suppose, as well, when we have to, I know you say you're filming, but in the first lockdown, there you were in Morocco, and that's why I dreamt of being a Morocco with you. I mean, I wasn't there. You were there with your family. Bit weird if I was suddenly there. But that would be very strange.

But you probably, that's what helped you appreciate that. I don't know. Maybe that I'm being too sort of deep about it. It is. I kind of, I think, well, it's really interesting when you get to some sort of, I lived in London. I love, also I love cities and I love central London. And I think it was coming, having, as I say, sort of grown up in the countryside and then going to, really wanting to be, go to the city.

And, you know, about five years ago, I moved out here sort of raw. or Gloucestershire. So sort of done the... Yeah, so that's really interesting. It was once I moved here that I started writing the children's stories, that's another thing. Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh, my gosh. As I moved back into the countryside.

I think that's when I started remembering my own childhood and becoming more connected with that. But where we were in Morocco, this is a... This is a... I've been quite an amazing story. So sort of rewinding, you know, just sort of rewinding the videotape slightly from where we are now, back to last March.

It was about the middle of March, I think. It's sort of, I don't know, 11th or 12, something like that. We were thinking, this doesn't look good. It looks like if we want to get a holiday and we better go now. So we decided to go for, with these friends of us, we decided, look, let's just go for a 10-day holiday now and get some sort of satchezer. this holiday and headed over to Morocco.

And literally the day we arrived, Morocco locked down because they were way ahead of the UK in terms of lockdowns. And Morocco doesn't have close to all this borders and close. And we were there for four months from when we arrived. So we had sort of 10-day holiday with this family that we were going to share this house with, this other family and they had got three kids. And we had our two youngest kids with us. So he had five kids, four adults, five kids.

We were outnumbered. And we had this most amazing experience because... You were all together? You were all together in this house. Yeah. Oh my word. We were all together in this house for four months. Yeah.

I mean, it was like living in a sort of, like a commune, I suppose. It sort of made me think, actually, I understand communal and all living a lot more a lot more than I did there's a lot you know it's a funny thing parenting is quite you know parenting is full on at the best of times but it's sort of when there when there were lots of children and lots of parents together it somehow gets easier and you sort of realize oh yeah this is must this must be how people used to live in sort of communities with kids running around and then you'd and you'd all be sort of vaguely responsible for whatever children there were and I suddenly thought you know have you have a new

perspective on there on the whole thing. It's quite extraordinary thing though for four months to be living in a different country with, I didn't realise it was with another family and escaping from here. Yeah, so we escaped. But it was odd really because, of course, Morocco's policy really was just to sort of lock everything down and nobody could leave the house. And that didn't really change much over the four months. Whereas back home, you know, things were sort of.

of opening up in May sort of things started to relax a bit, didn't they? So that was an odd stretch, really. There was a point where it didn't really matter much where you were. You were all going to be doing the same thing, just staying indoors. And then there was that sort of odd period where things were sort of opening up in the UK, but they weren't really opening up in Morocco. I mean, I think probably, I mean, nobody's really known, have they what the right, nobody's having any of the much idea what the right thing to do is.

but it's interesting, you know, it was very interesting to be in a country like Morocco where they decided to lock down very, very early and there were therefore very, very few cases. That's what was interesting. So when did you get back to the UK? Middle of July. Wow. Yeah, on a repatriation. I mean, it sounds rather lovely, if I, if I'm honest, it does sound, it sounds quite magical that you were there in Morocco in the heat.

It was magical. It was wonderful. There was a couple of funny things about it. One was we had the most incredible weather in the UK and it was terrible in Morocco. Almost one leads to the other. I know, but almost one leads to the other. You see, I think that's something to do with,

I don't know what it is, the polar jess or whatever. But if it's, they say in Morocco, if it's good in Morocco, it's bad in Europe and vice versa. So you guys had all the good weather, which was, it was actually sort of, I think it actually snowed in Morocco. in April or something, which was sort of unheard of.

Snow? Yeah. We actually had hailstones and snow. Yeah, in, in, we were just outside Marrakesh. It was very unusual. You see what we're doing to our planet?

I said it at the beginning. No, no, I told you. I told you. Yeah, but it was a, it was an amazing experience culturally, as you can imagine, you know, it's very, but you suddenly sort of,

you stop being a tourist and now you're a sort of local. Oh, to some point. And that was, that was really, Moroccans are amazing. Moroccans are so friendly and funny. And we've got a lot in common, actually. That British sense of humour, the Moroccans have a very, very strong sense of humour as well.

Always joking and very, you know, very present, I suppose. Very kind of, you know, very in the moment and very stoic. So it was quite, you know, it was quite a good place to be culturally. I could talk to you about science all day because I don't understand it. So you could tell me anything and I just say yes. I really have never got science. So I apologise. But the funny side I do get and I love all of that.

But how did that switch happen when you were at university? Because there you were going off to do science and then suddenly you were, was it through footlights? Were you in footlights? It was. Yes, I was in footlights. So I was studying natural sciences, which is a sort of what you, so I went to Cambridge and you don't really study individual sciences at Cambridge until your sort of final year. So everybody studies natural sciences, which is basically you pick three sciences and then sort of each year you drop one science and then you specialize in your final year. So I sort of specialized in physics and then stayed on and did a PhD in physics at the Cavendish Laboratory, which is a fantastic. experimental laboratory, which has the most extraordinary history.

It's whether, you know, JJ Thompson discovered the electron. I mean, all kinds of amazing scientists have been based there, and it's got this sort of incredible history, and it does incredible research. So I kind of joined a research group that were studying what's called mesoscopic physics. So when you have really, really small things that are about the size of atoms, that's micro, physicists call that microscopic. And then everyday objects like my teacup here, we call macroscopic. But you could imagine as you get small, you know, as you start with a teacup and you get smaller and smaller and smaller,

so you've got a few hundred atoms, that's what we call mesoscopic. So it's sort of on a, there's a weird, you know, sort of uncanny valley between macroscopic everyday things and very strange microscopic atom-sized things. And that's called mesoscopic physics. And I joined a group in the semiconductor physics. I joined the semiconductor physics group where we were studying mesoscopic electron systems. So it's basically electrons confined to small spaces,

not as small as an atom and not as big as an everyday object, if you see what I mean. And it turns out there you can see some amazing what we call quantum mechanical effects, which is, as most people know now, the atomic world is very, very different to the everyday world. Objects don't behave. You can't even really use our language to talk about how those, how objects the size of atoms behave. Our language is so designed to talk about the size of everyday objects that it doesn't really work. but we have got mathematics to describe it. And you can see some of that really extraordinary quantum mechanical behavior in semiconductors, basically.

So I was doing a PhD in that, and it was really, really fascinating, really, interesting, doing these amazing experiments, which more or less involved, as I was saying, there were buildings. I mean, there was about three floors in the Cavendish Laboratory, they would build these enormous thermos flasks that would be like the height of the thermosfloss would be about two stories within the building. Oh my goodness. Yeah, and then you'd have a rod, which would be another two stories worth of rod, that you could, so you would go up into the sort of into the eaves of the cabinet.

So you'd pull out this huge rod from the middle of an enormous thermoslask, and you'd put your tiny little semiconductor device on the end of it, And then you spend all night lowering it, sort of centimetre by centimetre into the thermos flask, because the liquid at the bottom of the flask, because it's such a low temperature that if you put the, you imagine if you lowered the rod too quickly, the difference in temperature would just cause an explosion. So you would just sort of lower this thing overnight until you... Not with your hands. Not with your hands. Well, you know, you'd be, yeah. I mean, you'd be pushing the rod down in sort of by hand, yeah, measuring up centimeter.

lowering it a centimeter and then you'd so it would take hours and hours and hours to get to get your sample into the bottom of this giant thermosflask where the really really cold helium three helium four was and then you would pump it all off you'd pump off the helium three and helium four to get the temperature you'd have a little thermometer in there so once you could see that the temperature was a few tens of thousands above absolutely zero you'd then start making measurements you could then you know do all sorts of things, making measurements, see what was going on in your little sample. Oh, my word. It would be so exciting. And you'd suddenly see, you'd have this graph paper and this, you know, sort of, you know, electric graph, sort of drawing out what you were discovering in that sample.

I mean, really, really, and you'd know you were the only person in the entire world that could see that at that moment. And that was something new that no one had ever seen before. It's a very, sort of very, very exciting thing to do. Anyway, while I was doing that, that's. Well, I was doing that, PhD. I got really interested in comedy. I got really interested in, I thought, and I'll try and I'll audition for a play. And I auditioned for, there was a production of Julius Caesar.

And, I mean, amazingly, in the cast of Julius Caesar, was David Farr, who sort of then went on to write The Night Manager. And it was directed by Gareth Edwards, who now produces Mitchel and Webb and Upstart Crow in a moment. It's Ben Elton. So I auditioned for this play and I got the part of Cassius and Cassius in Othello. So Cassius is the one whose handkerchief gets stolen by Yago and then planted so that Othello thinks Desdemon is having an affair. And, or maybe it's all the way around. Maybe, I don't know, I don't know. Maybe Yago steals Desdemon's handkerchief and gives it to Cassius that one, make more sense.

sense from it. But anyway, whatever, however it works, I would come on stage as Cassius, trying to impose my authority on the scene and people would just start laughing. And I would go on night after night. I'd learn my line so carefully. I'd take it all so seriously. Night after night, people would just start involuntary laughing. And there'd be gales of laughter as I was saying my lines. And I remember thinking, I don't really know what's going on here. But but I wonder if I could turn this. I'm obviously a disaster as a classical actor, but I wonder if I could turn this.

I wonder if I try, I'm trying to act serious and people are laughing at me. I wonder if I did that in comedy, whether people would still laugh. So then I joined the footlights, you know, the comedy society. And sure enough, I found that the more serious I took something in a sketch,

the more people laughed. And that was the beginning of it, really. That was like the germ of the whole thing. I thought, wow. It was just as simple as that. Isn't that how ridiculous? But it is. But what an incredible thing to do?

Because a lot of actors who would be laughed at would then feel, I mean, broken-hearted and feel that they'd done something so wrong and would go away and do the full. That was the other thing. I loved being laughed at. That was the other thing. I really loved that feeling of people laughing. But to begin with, of course, I had no contend. troller. I didn't know, I don't know why it was happening. I don't know what's going on.

But I sort of, but now I thought, well, if I can, there must be something in this. There must be something in acting things as well as I can. But you're letting the situation be funny and then hopefully, by extension, I'll be funny. And that's basically, I've been just trying to do some version of that ever since. But the stuff that you've done with, with Zander, with Alexander, that you are, you don't do yattatatatatat comedy.

It's straight, but it's very, very, very funny. Well, I mean, Paul Merton said something once which you said, he said that we were the only double out with two straight men. And I think I think he's right. I think he's right, actually.

I mean, again, I thought, at the time I thought, that's a bit cutting. Then I thought, Actually, he actually put his finger exactly. It's a compliment. It's a huge compliment. It's actually exactly what it is, is we both play straight. We don't, we, usually there's a funny man and a straight man, isn't there?

But we both play straight. We both play it completely straight. And the situation is, or the character is the funny thing, or the situation is the funny thing. But all we do is we just act it as well as we can. And that's funny. The fact that we're trying to, we're trying to. The fact that we're in this. That's what we love.

Yeah. That's what we love as, as viewers. And also there's that thing because obviously I know you in real life as well, face to face in real life. And you have, you and Alexander both, I remember meeting him so many years ago through a mutual friend. And I just remember laughing. And it's the same thing.

You have that thing, you have that sort of, that little naughty grin. Actually, I'm going to go back to you being quite childlike. Yeah. That naughty grin that you're going to put a whoopie cushion under somebody's seat. Both of you seem to have that. So even when he's singing his very serious songs or, you know, whatever, there's that twinkle. And I do talk about that twinkle with people. And I think that some people just have it and it's naughty.

And I think, and also, so I love naughty humor, but I mean, you know, I love postcards from the seaside sort of humor. We all know very much. But I love those sorts of humor. I love the sort of the twinkle and the little grin and all of that. But you're all so incredibly polite. And I like that in humour. It doesn't, it's not, it's not about irony. It's not about being cruel.

It's not about being rude. It's just funny. It's proper laughing in your tummy funny. Yes, yeah, yeah. Zonda makes me laugh like nobody. There's something, that was a very, very joyous moment. Do you know, I sort of stole him from another comedy partner? This is an awful, awful, awful thing.

I was sharing a flat with Jez Butterworth, who is very well known now as a playwrights who wrote play, Jerusalem. Amazing playwright. Brilliant playwright, wow. And we, and Jez was in a play with Zanda. And then Jess said to me one night, Zanda's doing, you know, Zaddi is this very funny guy who's in this, there's a play that I mean he's going to do a show at the I think it was the et cetera theatre in Camden I mean to call it a theatre it's quite a you know it's quite a leap of imagination it was a sort of sort of a just a sweaty black box in you know in

in a basement in Camden it was it it was it was one of it it was you know some theatres you know some fringe theatres have there's a particular smell that you get when you go into a pub it was one of those fringeses of that particular smell that particular the smell where you think there's been no window open in here for about 15 years and people have been performing very sweaty fringe plays in here. It was that kind of, you know, it was absorbed by all the sort of black curtains and everything. We sat in this tiny theatre and Sander and his double-out partner who was David Wollstonecroft. Now, do you know who David Wollstonecraft is? I don't, no. He is the man who wrote Spooks. Oh my word. But, but at this

time was doing sketch comedy with Xander. He was actually, he's a very gifted impressionist. David Mawesden Grove, funnily enough, the man who wrote Spooze. Anyway, so we are watching David and Zander on stage, and it's the, they are brilliant, but I sort of fall in comedy love with Zander. And I start sending him, it's awful, awful, awful, awful, awful. I start, I start sending little sketches, like sort of like sort of love letters, but just sort of writing a little sketch.

Oh, I thought you were going to send you, sent him flowers and I sent him. bottles of beer I was just, you know, no, I'd send a little you know, B.A. do, little sort of notes with like a little sketch, you know, here's a little sketch we might perform, you know, that sort of thing. And anyway, he succumbed eventually. I said, look, why don't we do, you know,

why don't we do a show? Why don't we do a show at Edinburgh at the French Festival? It said, okay, then we started rehearsing. We were rehearsing on the King's Road. And we decided to go out at lunchtime and buy some comedy props. and I really remember very, very clearly that we bought a rubber chicken.

I don't remember what we thought we would do with the truck chicken. We had our arms. Always funny. Always funny. So we had our arms full of comedy props and I do remember Zanda was carrying this rubber chicken and we were walking down the King's Road and David Wollstonecraft came towards us and I said to Sander you have told him

and he said, no, I haven't told him. David, David, he said, Hi guys, what are you? What are you out of? I said. Oh no. nothing. We're just doing a bit of shopping, just sort of wandering around.

I remember him looking at the rubber comedy chicken. At least, yeah, he said, yeah, good. Zada, do you think we might do any, you know, you think we might be any more shows? And Zalda, yes, yes, I'm sure we might, you know, might just say anything. Anyway, we're just off, yeah, we're just going to go for a little bit. It's the most awkward, can you imagine?

It's an awkward, awkward situation. Stealing somebody else's partner is... No, no. Court. Court, inflagranti. I mean, the only thing that would have been worse if he'd walked in and we were actually doing a sketch with the rubber chicken, that's the only thing that could have been worse.

But we were... We didn't even tell him then. That's what made me laugh. We didn't... Darned didn't even say then, are we doing a show? Does he know now? I think he may still be waiting at the Etcetra Theatre. Cat him drumming his fingers, you know, writing the old script for spooks while he does it, of course.

But yes, drumming his some fingers on the tabletop. I'm wondering when Zand is going to turn up. Oh, Gabby, isn't that awful? It is. It's a cruel. All is fair. All is fair. All is fair.

No, but I was saying all these lovely things about how polite you two are and what gentleman you are. Forget it. No, forget it. Especially not that, Alex Alder. Goodness me. I always ask in this podcast what makes. you properly belly laugh. And I think,

I think you sort of answered it already that it's, that it's Alexander. It's Alexander. When we get together, it's his, there's an odd, it's a very,

very lucky thing that when we're together, we sort of, we're such different people, but, but share a lot of the same values and have very, very, you know, have the same sense of humour,

basically. And Zanda, I've always found it so hard to keep a straight phase when he does anything. He's just extraordinary. I'm doing this podcast with him at the moment and he sort of puts on this voice like this, he talks like this.

I've listened, it's very funny. It's really, I mean, but some of the, I'm the one who's laughing all the time really annoys and I'm always the one who's laughing because he does sort of ridiculous like this when he's sort of talking. And I'm trying to do a character. You know what I'm trying to do a character with very,

with a limited degree of success. I sort of, my problem is like he, sort of just forgetting that I'm a character and just talking as myself. And his problem is he goes, bore and bore into this sort of very bizarre, bizarre, sort of adoidal pronunciation. And he, this is one of the things I really, really admire about Alexander as a performer is he can, it's very hard to go big as a performer.

I'm quite good at going small and I know my, I know my limits, but going big I find very difficult. One of the things I've always loved about Zandria as a performance. He goes, when he goes bigger, he gets funnier. As most people, when you go bigger, it's not as funny. And the bigger he goes, the funnier is his. And he will go to, I mean, he literally knows no limits. He literally knows no limits to how big.

I love that. I love that. It's very, makes me, but you two make me properly, properly laugh. I mean, I just your old sketches and stuff that you do And then I was listening to your podcast yesterday Because I was going to be chatting to you today And I was doing the same thing And it's slightly embarrassing

That when I see you, I just giggle You used to live around the corner from me And if I drove past you, I'd giggle Like a stupid child And then you were very kindly came on another show recently And I just, you walked in and I'd giggled And if I ever see Alexander sing, Which, it's so cruel

because he can really sing. I laugh because he makes me, and it's a horrible thing to admit. And we were somewhere together, and it was a charity event, and he was singing. And I started laughing. And I felt so guilty. And he just said, I don't mind. I don't mind. Oh, no, but it's, no, it's a wonderful.

He's a proper singer. There's nothing better. I mean, I, you know, I can only speak myself, but I love that. You do see that when some people, you know, that some people. people, it's a funny thing, you know, because you might be in a situation where you're not really going to particularly say anything funny, but you literally say something like, oh, I'm so sorry, I couldn't find a parking space and people start laughing because, because I think they are, they are conditioned to think, you know, that, you know, and I've always find that a wonderful, you know,

a wonderful thing. I love that. I love that when people are sort of already giggling, because, you know, They've seen you be silly for so many years. I mean, why wouldn't you? You know, you've seen somebody be so sort of silly for years, year, year upon year. But you can do all your straight acting. So you do the, you know, you fly out to the Caribbean, you live there for six months,

you do the number one drama on television that nobody, you know, when you left, everyone was devastated. And it was charming. It was absolutely, it still is, very charming. Well, thank you. But it is funny. I'm also being, you know, that's the thing. You know, it's also funny.

It's also, it's also, there's something funny. That I can't do anything about that. No, but laughter is, I mean, I always say that laughter's the best medicine. I really, really believe it. And I think in the world as it is and everything, we all need to laugh. But I get the thing, I said, when you said that you went out on stage in Shakespeare and people just laughed, and I was saying to you, or most actors would be upset. But actually, I'm so pleased that you've given me the opportunity to tell you

that you don't, I just have to see your face and I laugh. And I mean that with deep love, I really, really do because you're one of those people that makes me laugh at you and Alexander and Rob Brighton, as I said, who I'm speaking to you this week. And I still can't believe that people think you're the same person. That's weird. You're very different. We are different.

I've been mistaken for Rob Ryden for so long. I have to think that we do look, that there has to be some sort of similarity, but I'm delighted. I'm always delighted. And I used to, Rob and I, we don't do it so much anymore, but we used to always pass on the compliment. So if somebody came and gave me a compliment about him,

I would text him, and I'd give him a brief description, you know, sort of woman, you know, mid-30s, looked slightly harried, possibly, you know, family shopping, really enjoyed Marion and Jeff. Did you mean? That's so lovely. And he would do the same for me. We sort of, it sort of became after a while. And then they became appointment, I think for both of us, you can check this with him when you speak to him.

But for both of us, I now just pretend I am him. I think it's just sort of easier. And I will happily sign things with Rob's name and sort of take any kind of compliment going, you know, you enjoy the trip, really, aren't that sense? text, even do a site sort of, oh, no, that's wonderful. There we go, there we go. Sign that for you then. Lovely, lovely chatting to you. Oh my God, you sound like him. Yeah.

That's really freaky. Does he do you as well as you can do him? I imagine better. I mean, Rob is a proper, you know. He's a brilliant, yes, he is very good. Don't you love the show? I just, I think that's one of my absolutely treasured possessions and my little, you know,

digital versions of the trip. Oh, oh. I find him and Steve together, yeah. With you, with all of you guys, that you all know each other and that you've all been in this extraordinary business for the same length of time and you all have that same gift,

that laughter gift, which is a gift. It seems to be that there's a, maybe back in the 80s that people were very, no, we want this and we want this and we're going to fight because we want this, we want this, it seems much more now that you're very supportive of one another. I loved it when I started doing comedy.

I have to say, because I did do a little bit of sort of straight acting at college, and I loved it. As soon as you went to the Gilded Balloon and you met the other comedians, it sort of felt like you'd found your people because it was so supportive. Oh, wow. Everybody, comedians are very, very supportive of one another. It's a remarkable thing. Didn't used to be, though. Didn't used to be like that years ago. There was a cynicism about it.

There was in the 80s, I think, but in the 90s, when we all sort of started. So, you know, I was the same time as the sort of the legal gentleman and, you know, Dave and Steve, Steve Coogan, you know, we were all around sort of at the same time. And we were all trying to do a similar thing, which was really, we were trying to break through with character comedy, which wasn't really popular at the time. It was stand-up comedy. It was the thing. And we were all part of a sort of, you know, a group of people trying to get our sort of toe in the door, really.

So there was a lot of, I suppose, I suppose, I suppose. it's partly that. I suppose it's always been quite fraternal, the sort of comedy community. But also, I think as you get older, again, I probably can't speak for myself, as you get older, you get more appreciative as well of the opportunities that you've had. You get more appreciative of other people's talents. You get just generally, you just get an idea of how lucky you are, don't you? As it goes on, you sort of think, oh, wow, when I was younger, I sort of maybe took this for granted slightly, but now I realise what an extraordinarily fortunate position I've been in.

And you develop a real fondness for your cohort, I think, for people who've been through the same, you know, been through the same experiences you have and sort of come through the same school of comedy, you know. Can I make a suggestion that all of you, what we really, really need is all of us, of you coming together to do something together. It would be fun, wouldn't it?

It would be lovely to do... Oh, yes. It'd be loved to do... I mean, and to do something where we're all acting, I think it would be great. Do you know, I mean? I mean, it'd be fun to do a sketch, you know, big sort of gang show type sketch show, wouldn't it? But it'd be also...

Yes, but for the character. Characters. You know, like a kind of, yeah, character piece. I think that would be wonderful. There used to be things like that, didn't they? There was things like Marple and stuff back in the day. You used to have a sort of extraordinary cast of characters, didn't they? they. But you and Steve and Rob and Xander and actually you've got to put David Tennant in there as well.

He's funny than all of us put together. When David decides to be funny, he's unbelievably brilliant at it. Do you ever remember that people like us? Or his podcast is he, he, no, no, no, he did this. He was on this with Georgia and just, he's another, he's like you. He just, I can't help him. it, but I giggle and people think it's just, people think I'm really pathetic. I saw him in, in a lift. It was very embarrassing. We got into the left and we're chatting saying, hi, I started giggling. And he went, you're all right. I went, I'm really sorry, you make me laugh. And then I just thought, oh no, he's going to, it's just, and it's the same thing. And I like, like I said, people with funny bones. And I do think there are people with properly funny bones. And he's got

them. I mean, his people like us episode, I think, was just, one of the, he plays a voice artist. I don't, I mean, maybe, you know, maybe it's available on YouTube, but if anybody gets a chance to sort of just Google it, he plays a voice artist and there's this absolutely brilliant, I mean, I can't really make it funny by describing it, but there's the producer sort of in the studio,

talking to the voice artist in the booth, and sometimes they can hear each other, and sometimes they can't, and it goes on for about 10 minutes of each of them trying, not quite hearing what the other person said, and it's all down to, David, so, so funny. I mean, brilliant. Brilliant, man. Well, I feel like that about all of you guys. I really do. And I want you all to do something. And if there's a, if there's a part for a stupid female to come in and just giggle at you all,

I'd like to be, what I'd like to be is a multi-millionaire, um, air-s, American, New York, Jewish heiress. Nice. I walk in and I just have to laugh. And then you can kill me. And that's fine. And I would have been in it. That's a plot. What you've described there is. It's a plot. I think we've got the whole thing ready to go. And you all kill me. I don't mind. And I laugh while it's happening because I would just. You're a joy. You really are a joy. And still the fact that you don't know how to tie a bow. Did nobody teach you how to tie your laces?

Well, I never, I was taught at school. Obviously, people attempted to teach me when I was at school. I just couldn't ever get the hang of it. And then my father, who was a, who was a, he was a, he, He was, you know, my father was a polytechnic lecturer. You know, it was also, anyway, to know, this is the story, he couldn't tie his laces either. And he said, he took me to a side one day. He said, you haven't trouble tying your laces. He said, I can't do it either.

This is how I do it. And he showed me this sort of bunny ears technique, which is what I've been doing ever since. It's cheating. It's cheating. But it's what I've been doing ever since. It works a treat for me. It works for a father.

And I can only imagine that going back for generations and generations, ever since we've worn shoes with laces that people in the Miller family have been quietly taking the younger generations to one side saying, yeah, you want to try this bunny ears. Cheat. This is how you do it. Cheat.

Have you done that with your three? I'm doing it with my son at the moment who cannot tie his laces. I do think it's a genetic thing. I do think it's a genetic thing. So I'm teaching him. Yeah, my oldest son, funny enough, managed it no problem.

But my middle son has got exactly my problem of whatever. I don't know what. what it is, but literally it defeats me every time. I know what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to sort of, it seems insane to me. You're supposed to create a bow. You make one bow, and then you're supposed to loot the other bit around somehow

and pull it through some hole to make another bit. It doesn't make any sense. Just make two bows, ton together. Easy. You sound like my husband. We have this conversation because he does the bunny ears, and I just think it's wrong, wrong. I wouldn't let him teach our girls that, so no.

They have to do it the proper way. Do you know, I will forgive you that because you just properly make me laugh. And for that, I thank you deeply. And you're just completely wonderful. So thank you very much for taking part in this. So lovely to chat. I do love your podcast. It's great.

I mean, I think it's a podcast unlike any other. Your chats, I don't know how you do it. But you sort of, I think you start in the middle and then you work back to the edges. That's your technique, isn't it? But anyway, it's been lovely chatting to you. Thank you so much. Bless you. Have a lovely day.

You too. Bye for now. Thank you so much for listening and coming up on the next episode is the very gorgeous Vicky Patterson. That Gabby Roslyn podcast is proudly produced by Cameo Productions, music by Beth McCari. Could you please tap the follow or subscribe button and thanks so much for your amazing reviews. We honestly read every single one and they mean the world to us. Thank you so much.