That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Show n Tell with Steffan Rhodri

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

Steffan Rhodri (star of Gavin And Stacey) tells Gaby about the thing that brings him the most joy... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stefan Roderie, we have possibly something in your bag that is something that brings you joy. Now, we always have this extra nugget, this show and tell on our Friday extra episode. Oh, you should have given me some more. No, no, I like that you're digging in the bag whilst we do it. So you've got a bag in a bag. No, it's just a laptop. Oh, it's a laptop. Now, do you ever to tell you what it was going to be?

Yes, well, that's the idea. Okay. Well, what it was... No, I'll just guess. It was going to be something alive. It was going to be something alive? Yeah. Is this going to make me very sad?

No, no, no. He's still alive. Oh, okay. Oh. It's my dog. And I was going to bring him in. And I said, oh, can I take the dog in? And they went, yeah, you can take the dog.

And then I thought, I've got to go and do the play tonight because I'm doing Macbeth. And I thought, oh, I won't really have time to take him home and things. And then I thought. Does he come to the theatre with you ever? He has done, but not yet, not at the moment where we were in London. And then I thought, but if I. take photos and videos, not only can you see it, because he'd see him if he would just happily just lie there,

but also he can see him running, because he's a greyhound. Oh, he's a greyhound? Yeah. What's his name? Migg. You're in the Scottish play at the moment, and your dog runs on the beach. Now we're going to turn it around so everyone can see this,

because we've got the camera here. He's fast! It is, if you want to know what gives me greatest joy in the world, seeing Migg run on the beach, is it? Look at him, go out. Was he a rescue one? Yeah, yeah. He was a rescue one.

racer and I can't bear the thought of him, you know, having a life where he was forced to race, but it is fun to see him run now. Is that you? I think that, no, that's Tali and my partner. I was doing the filming, yeah. And do you want to see more pictures? Yes, please. So tell me how you rescued him.

Tell me that story. Oh, it's quite straightforward. You can see how... Is it the Greyhound Rescue? Oh, he's beautiful. Oh, look at those eyes. Okay, so we'll show it to the camera so everyone can see. Hello, Mick.

How old do they think Mick is? Well, we know, I think. We pretty much know when his birthday was. He is six, something like that. Look at that face. We had him at about two and a half. We've had him about three and a half years. Yeah, three years.

I can't remember. Something like that. But we, so Talia and I, we'd never even discussed having a dog. And because of our life, so she's a documentary filmmaker. and I'm an actor and it's not particularly convenient.

I've never thought it's convenient. And I don't know if something happened in lockdown, didn't it? People spent more time at home and thought, well, actually, you can work from home sometimes and you can be here more and sort things out and then there's more and more and more dog carers and walkers and more and more people had dogs. And she said, she'd seen on some Facebook group

that somebody was just fostering him for a weekend looking after him from the rescue centre trying to acclimatize him with being in a house. And I think, I seemed to remember, we'd had a bit of a row the day before, and I was trying to get back into her good books. And she said, well, I'm about this dog, should we go and visit him?

And instead of what I normally would have done, I'm going, don't be ridiculous. How can we have a dog? This is such a stupid idea. I kind of went, all right, darling, yeah, okay, let's go. And so we went along. And I think it was during the winter lockdown, the second lockdowns.

We couldn't go into their flat. They brought him out. And this woman brought him out, and he had his red coat on. He's in, oh, he's not in that. He's got a scarf. And he just leant into my leg with his whole weight, 37 kilos of it.

And I thought, and something happened inside me. I just melted. And I thought, he's amazing. He's absolutely amazing. We just walked him through this park, and we drove away and showed him, what do you think?

I went, we're having it, man, we definitely. It was like, no brainer. He was, and he, and it was. It was tricky at first because he'd never lived in a house. We didn't have to go to the rescue centre to pick him. We went back to where the lady was fostering him.

And we just picked him up from there. And they didn't, because it was lockdown, they just did a video tour to make sure our house was okay and we had a little garden and so on. And yeah, and... It makes you very emotional. It does. Do you know what makes me emotional?

That sounds horrible, but I know that they've got a limited life. And I can make myself... Just know, but live for the day. I know. I know. But I do. He gives me immense joy. He's got a watery eye. Oh, my word.

I love him. I absolutely love him. And yeah, he brings you joy. Yeah, absolutely. Because he just does that. And there's something, I mean, I'm sure everybody thinks this about their dog. But there is something so kind of innocent about him. Real unconditional love that comes from innocence, you know.

You've made me go emotional as well. Look at me, welling up. And I haven't even met, Mick. I wish you could have. I could have brought him in and then I thought, oh, it's going to be so awkward with going back to the theatre.

So has he been to theatre? Not this one, no. He has he been to theatre? He's not a stage dog, what do they call it? No, no, no. I haven't had him out because he's too, yeah, I don't want anyone else

to have that responsibility. So we just manage and Talia works a lot from home and then, so it's fine. And then if necessary, we've got, we use dogminder, who he absolutely loves.

We've got one dogminder who's besotted with him and he sleeps in her bed. when he goes there. He's perfectly happy wherever he goes. He's been on set with me, filming. I did a thing called In My Skin, which was wonderful Welsh kind of comedy drama series, won lots of awards.

And I had some filming to do in a car there. And so I brought my car to the set, to the car bug. And he just stayed in my car whilst I was filming in the other car. That's so lovely. Thank you. Thank you for bringing me to us and thank you for chatting. You're just, you are wonderful to spend time with. Thank you. My pleasure.