THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.250 - JONNY SWEET

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Adam talks with British writer, actor and comedian Jonny Sweet about class, shame, not feeling at home in your own skin and other themes in his debut novel The Kellerby Code, as well as how promoting a book encourages authors to make up a load of bullshit about the themes in their books. Adam and Jonny also swap news of ailments and an unsettling Shiatsu experience, and in the outro, Adam talks in a queasily sincere way about what the late Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson meant to him.Conversations recorded in London on 12th November, 2024 and 29th April, 2025Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and additional conversation editing.Podcast illustration by Helen GreenPICS AND RELATED LINKS ON ADAM'S WEBSITE Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan Hey, how are you doing, Podcats? It's Adam Buxton here, reporting to you from a hot farm track in East Anglia, UK

I'm here with my dog friend, Rose How are you you doing Rose? The summer is a bummer. That's the spirit. Rosie is strongly unimpressed by the change of temperature and she much prefers to be lying in the shade or on a hot patio stone but not really wandering around the fields at the moment, I don't think. Is that right, Rosie?

Are we going back yet? Don't worry, we'll be going back soon. It is hot. It's just past the middle of June, 2025. And the last few days have suddenly caught really boiling. All right, let me tell you a bit about podcast number 250. I suppose that's sort of a milestone, isn't it? I'm not really a numbers guy. The important thing is that this episode contains some enjoyable rambly waffle with English writer, actor, comedian

Johnny Sweet. Here's a few sweet facts for you. Born in Nottingham in 1985, Johnny attended the local independent Nottingham High School before earning a place at Cambridge University to read English at Pembroke College. While studying at Cambridge, Johnny met Joe Thomas and Simon Bird, with whom he performed in the famous Footlights Theatre Club. After graduating, the three shared a flat together, performing in a sketch group that they called The House of Windsor. Johnny also performed stand-up solo after university, and in 2009 he won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer.

That was the same year that Tim Key won the Edinburgh Award for Best New Show. Johnny, Joe and Simon continued to work together co-writing and starring in the 2013 sitcom Chickens set in a sleepy English village during the First World War where three young men have managed to avoid serving in the war and consequently have become social outcasts. In 2015, Johnny wrote and starred in the BBC sitcom Together, a romantic comedy about a young couple embarking upon a new relationship. That was based on a Radio 4 series Johnny had written in 2011. And I really recommend tracking that one down too.

I think you can see it on Amazon Prime if you have access to that Also starring British comedy luminaries Vicki Pepper Dean not dime. Come on Katie Wicks Nick Mohammed Liam Williams and The aforementioned Tim Key in addition to numerous acting roles in TV shows like the Channel 4 comedy dramas Babylon in 2014 and Loaded in 2017, Johnny has appeared in films including Greed from 2019 directed by Michael Winterbottom and 2024's Wicked Little Letters directed by Tare Shirok. That film was also written by Johnny. 2024 also saw the publication of Johnny's first novel, The Kellebee Code, K-E-L-L-E-R-B-Y. Says the blurb, Edward Jevons is living in a world he can't afford and to which he doesn't belong.

To camouflage himself, he has catered to his friend's needs, fetching dry cleaning, sorting flowers for premieres, it's a noble effort really, anything to keep his best pals Robert and Stanza happy. To paraphrase Sam Leath's review in The Guardian, it's a lurid black comedy-cum-thriller about social climbing and murder, in which Brideshead Revisited and PG Woodhouse are referenced and further back in the mix are the great Gatsby, a dab of Patricia Highsmith and the lick of Martin Amis. I listened to the Kelebi Code on audiobook before speaking to Johnny as you will hear and loved it.

Really recommend it. This podcast contains not one but two conversations with Johnny. Our first took place face to face in London towards the middle of November 2024, less than a week after Donald Trump was elected for his second term. And as well as talking about Johnny's early days in comedy, we spoke about class, shame, not feeling at home in your own skin, and other themes in the Kellebee Code. The second part of our conversation was recorded earlier this year, in April 2025, when we reconvened to compare notes on the challenges of book promotion and ailments. And I regaled Johnny with a story about an unsettling shiatsu experience.

By the way, I've since looked up the actual definition of Shiatsu. It's a Japanese bodywork therapy that involves applying pressure to specific points on the body similar to acupuncture, but without needles. It's based on the concept of restoring balance and energy flow within the body to promote overall health and well-being. But before all that, let's travel back to November 2024 with me claiming that I knew Donald Trump was going to get back in a year earlier when his mugshot was published following his arrest in the state of Georgia in August 2023 on charges of having plotted to overturn the state's 2020

election results. In case you're interested how that went, as of June 2025 no trial has begun and no trial date is set. Back at the end for some bonus music waffle from me about the place that the late Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys held in my heart. But right now with Johnny Sweet, here we go. Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat Yes, yes, yes La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la I called Trump's victory last year 2023 when the mugshot came out. Yeah, you thought that appealed. And I thought, look at him in that mugshot. He looks brilliant.

Handsome. He's going to get in. Yeah. He just looked. Do you remember he had the kind of he's gonna get in yeah yeah just looked do remember he had the kind of he was glowering he was glowering he had a certain charisma let's be honest he really did and I thought oh no there's certain charisma I hoped he'd lost that yeah yeah so you're reeling I'm reading a little bit I feel as though I agonized the week that he got in when the podcast was due to go out I

felt like it was one of those times I felt like I had to acknowledge what was going on in the world do you know what I mean which normally I wouldn't yeah normally I feel like you don't know when people are gonna listen to the episode it might be a few weeks from now it might be years from now yeah so it doesn't necessarily have to be topical. Also, it's not about the news, the podcast. It's got a deep political undercurrent, but it's not explicit. It comes off. I don't want to like block out the outside world, but that one just felt like, oh, I think that's going to be on everyone's mind. It just hangs in the air a bit, doesn't it?

But then I thought, well, how do I acknowledge it? And in the end, I think that's gonna be on everyone's mind. It just hangs in the air a bit, doesn't it? But then I thought, well, how do I acknowledge it? And in the end, I did a short impression of Anthony Scaramucci on the Rest Is Politics US. Yeah, it's now in my way. He's got a great, I wouldn't mind hearing that actually. Well, I thought, as I was doing the impression, it felt good. But then when I listened to it back, I thought that doesn't sound like Anthony Scaramucci at all. I once did a I remember doing a an audition to play an Irish person during the Troubles

is a very dramatic role that I've been put up for sort of I think purely probably by accident by my agent and I spent a a week nailing the accent on YouTube, doing it every single day. And then I got into the audition and sort of heard it for the first time. And I started to kind of corpse, to sort of giggle essentially. And the auditioner started to giggle.

And it was a really sort of sweet moment where we both kind of giggled together and then she sort of pressed stop on the record and said, well, you know, bye then. And then afterwards I thought, oh, that's absolutely terrible. all together and then she sort of pressed stop on the record and said well you know bye then and then afterwards I thought oh that's absolutely terrible so I can feel your pain basically. I now when I have auditions people say could you try that in a slightly more could you do it sort of Newcastle? Yeah. And I'll just have to go that'll be a no I'm afraid can't do it so yeah. Yeah do you want to try that again but better? Yeah. I want to hear the accent now though I don't think I can do it without a fence, you know fending a large

Whole of Ireland and not a particular place in Ireland. My producer Seamus Murphy Mitchell is Irish. Yes, I know and I think that he would really love to hear the accent. Oh, yeah. Oh, you don't I don't actually think I can do it I honestly don't think I can I think it would be a really bad move for me. I like the beginning of it. Oy. That's good because it's sort of generic enough, I think. Yeah. How are you doing though?

How's life like? How was it this year having your first novel being put out into the world? Are you someone that follows the responses to the things that you make once they're in the world? I'm fairly, I try to not follow anything. I try to bury my head in the sand. Sometimes my parents will kind of call me and they'll say they read something and I'll say, well, just remember that I don't read anything and I try to keep it out. And they'll say, well, just remember that I don't read anything and I tried to keep it out. And they'll say, well, I think they're really unfair to you to be honest.

Like, okay. No, but I, yeah, I keep my head down. I basically avoid everything as much as possible and avoid sales. I still like my first reviews when I was doing Edinburgh, still stick in my head. When I was 18, I got one saying that I was a Michael Portillo look-alike and with a stupid grin plastered across my face. That stayed with me sufficiently that I've tried to avoid it ever since. Yeah.

So you don't read, like did you read, I'm not going to start quoting all your reviews at you. Don't read the bad. But did you read Brian Logan's review of Together when it came out in The Guardian? I think I probably would have. Very positive. Was it? No, I didn't remember that then.

That's good. Very positive. I would add only as an observation, not as a criticism, which is something you don't get in many reviews. Yeah, that's clearly soft peddling from Rome. ...that it's not a role, i.e. your role, in Together, or a show that trades on the type of comedy Sweet used to perform live. He's toned down the campness, the slyness, and the oddity of his stage persona.

This is a trad rom-com that requires him to be more or less normal and everyday feckless man child baby stepping towards love and adulthood. Yeah. Yeah. That's a fairly interesting analysis of my transition from stage to screen. No, it's true. I mean, I remember doing when I did stuff live and I loved it. The thing I struggled with was a limitation in my performance persona. Weirdly, I could only be an extremely camp. I mean, I love that he picked out camp, extremely camp, extreme anarchic person. And I would write stuff that I would want to perform and think the only problem with this bit of writing is the performer who's meant to be doing it because he just can't, like the Irish

accent, just can't get there. So I always wanted to write different sorts of stories, but after Together, I think I again found some issues with the lead actor and started to kind of split what I wrote and what I performed. And so I would write stuff for different people to act who were better at it and, you know, keep everything else sort of separate.

But it was weird that time because I remember I got to a point with live comedy where I just stopped wanting to do it and found that it wasn't everything I wanted to do, but I do miss it. And that kind of review does make me think, does make me remember that it was such weird, fun stuff when I was an age where everything was kind of exciting and new and the people I was performing with were kind of my good friends. Why did it suddenly become less appealing?

I think because I felt like ultimately, I think I wanted to write and tell stories and I felt like I didn't quite have that need. Like friends of mine who do live comedy, still like Tim, Key and Nick Mohammed, who are really close friends, I really feel in them that they absolutely just love, just love, it's how they refuel, it's performing live and you can feel that when you watch them. But I was more of a person who would be very much vomiting beforehand, them. But I was more of a person who would be very much vomiting beforehand and wondering why I was doing this. And then when I got a show right, I would love it. And that was the best bit. Doing a

Soho theatre run after in Edinburgh when everything was sorted out was good. But the 15 months before that where I'd go to the British Library and sort of stare at my kind of dim reflection in the laptop wasn't worth it. That's when you're writing. You're not just sitting there not doing anything but staring at your reflection. What I was doing was sitting there not doing it, but I was trying to write and sort of.

Right, okay. I mean, I love, I actually feel as though I have a kind of affinity with comedians and I love comedians. I think I am, I think I am basically a comedian, but I felt that live comedy wasn't ultimately my kind of bag. But then after that, when I stopped doing that, it then did take me a while to start writing the sort of thing that I wanted to write and felt like interested me. I wrote a film that was out this year too.

And wicked little letters. Yes. And the book, we sort of things that I could try to be sort of funny and also compelling and interesting at the same time. But I do miss when I watch live comedy, part of me is fairly kind of a little bit jealous and quite sort of, and probably also a bit competitive, like I would quite like to go in. But it was just one of those things where I felt that when I went to bed at night, I wasn't desperately wanting to kind of work out how to do my next set. I was trying to think of other stuff. The hunger had gone.

The hunger, the hunger. Yeah. And it was almost like a dog. I mean, when I was at school, I wasn't desperately into comedy there and then at university I just got fully deep into it and got obsessed with it and now I think I try and do a bit of both. Yeah. So what were you like when you were young? Where do you come from? Nottingham. Nottingham. My son is at Nottingham University. No way. That's good. Yeah, yeah.

And he's- Great university. Party town. It's supposed to be. Two universities. Two universities. Two universities. Great, yeah. And when I was growing up, it used to be you'd go out.

There'd always be a couple of fights in the streets when you came out of the bars. It's like fun. I mean, I'm not saying your son's in physical danger. But yeah. Just saying he should try it. You just do it once. Try a punch up.

It's acceptable. Yeah. And what did your parents do? Are they still with us? They asked to us, yeah. Try a punch up. It's acceptable. Yeah. And what would your parents do? Are they still with us? They asked to us. Yeah, they're plugging on. So they were my dad was a solicitor.

My mom was a chemistry teacher in a sixth form college. Academic types. Fairly academic, definitely academic minded for me. They were definitely sort of make sure you do well at school. And but home life was very, I think it was very sort of stable. And I almost don't think I had, sometimes I think I don't think I had an emotion till I was about 28 or so. I was quite sort of repressed, not for any particular reason, but it was a very stable existence. I was a scholarship boy at a private school, which is very similar to the Calibri

Code. And so yeah, to some degree, I was in a school where other people came from maybe a slightly different financial background to me. Was that a full scholarship you'd got or something? No, it wasn't. It was a part scholarship. I was on and my parents were very left wing. I remember my parents saying that when they Decided to send my brother and I to that school. They had friends who said I hope your children grow up to hate you Because of that decision to kind of yeah betray their left-wing roots So did you ever talk to them about that after the fact?

Yeah, I think we've talked about a lot lot actually, because I think it's something you don't choose where you go to school. And I really liked the stuff I studied. I got really into English. I loved it and I wanted to be an academic. So I felt that they had tried to give me that opportunity and that was quite positive. But I think the thing about those schools is often they have these odd kind of ideologies attached to them which aren't to do with getting a good education.

Toby So what do you mean by that? You mean more about a kind of way that a person should be in the world? Like toughening people up and all that sort of thing? Richard Yes. Or a value system, how you value someone's kind of worth or dignity, what you encourage them to do in their life that's worthwhile for them or for society. What constitutes a worthwhile life? Are you asking me that? No, I'm just saying that's the kind of thing that was being shaped.

Exactly, yeah. But I had loads of great friends who were not like that. But also, I mean, if you want to tell me what constitutes a worthwhile life, I'd love to know, has it got anything to do with podcasting? It's, it's a podcast. Okay. Uh, B, um, Scaramucci impressions, get your Irish accent right. And that's, and then call it quits.

Job done. Yeah. Power down. Good. But actually I wasn't really aware of that stuff massively when I was there. It was a very, I would think I had a very lucky childhood. And did people say, why aren't you speaking with the proper accent suite, you absolute oik?

No. Forcing you to cultivate more upper-class tones. No, I think I did that at university because I'm just a people pleaser. And I think I just, mostly unconsciously, but probably, you know, you're never completely unconscious of these sorts of changes. It got a bit posher. And then, and then in my early 20s after university, I was really like, what have you done? That's a bad, you've got a bad voice for like the whole of the rest of society. Everyone hates this kind of voice. And then, but then it was sort of stuck. And I, I don't really care now, but definitely there was a sort of series of small identity crises that I

was, because I was so emotionally repressed, I wasn't really aware I was having. So that was Cambridge that you went to. Yes. Yeah. And what did you get into study there? English. And you met Simon Bird and Joe. I met Joe Thomas on my first night there. And I did sort of almost immediately fall in love with him. I think I'll have I'll try and have you.

Yeah. He's got a nice vibe. He's just got such a great vibe. Yeah. And then yeah, then I met Simon not long after that. And then we were all kind of friends and competitors. Nick Mohammed as well was doing a PhD. Yeah. Wow. He was a bit older, but he, I remember him sitting on the stairs for a Phillights audition and him showing me this script for something.

And I remember thinking, yes, fine. And then I saw him on stage and it was very fun to meet those people who were all kind of, we were all just doing lots of Ricky Gervais impressions, masquerading as our sort of new original voices. And then, yeah, and then going straight to Edinburgh with Joe and Simon, it was almost like you were just on this kind of exciting track,

but I think I sort of fell into it as well. And when I was doing it, I would often be thinking, I don't feel exactly like the real kind of comedians. But now I feel like there's a bit of a balance. And yeah, it was very exciting. And did you feel like, because there's a kind of rhythm and a delivery that I associate with you and Tom Baston and Tim Key.

And I love it. It's very appealing. The timing of it, It's a weird combination of Slightly Jeeves and Worcester. She PG wood housey stuff plus ordinary everyday lingo kind of slightly twat ish Bans that you would do in in the office or whatever. Yeah, I don't mean the TV show but just at work, you know

Yeah, no totally. Yeah. I mean't mean the TV show, but just at work, you know. Yeah. No, totally. Yeah. I mean, I think that started with Cowards, that sketch group. Who was in Cowards? So that was Bounston, Tim Key, Stefan Golosiewski and Lloyd Wolf. They were doing stuff just when I got to university, they'd just left university. So they were kind of here. I mean, I was freely here, I worship in them. And when I got to university, they'd just left university. I was freely here worshipping them. When I used to bump into them, I would find it difficult to string a sentence together. Then I think, oddly, I think the P.G. Woodhouse stuff, I remember I went to India with Tim for about a month and we were reading P.G. Woodhouse. There was a lot of sort of, you

know how he kind of says he ruffled the bee? There's a lot of that, that kind of crept in quite a lot. What's ruffling the bee? Well, like ruffling the brow, would you say ruffle the brow? The bee is also the bean, which is the brain. So there's all these, there are all these kind of abbreviations that kind of fell in. And I think The Woodhouse Argot, which I don't really, I'm not that familiar with. Like I know it's superficially but Yeah Not much. I got into it late, I got know it's superficially, but not much.

I got into it late. I got into it in my mid-20s and I got out of it quite quickly as well, but it is fun. It is just very silly. Did you all happen to be on the same page as far as the Woodhouse stuff? There wasn't one person who was like, right, I demand you all read PG Woodhouse. No, and also we're all really doing separate stuff. It was just, I think Tim got me into it. Because superficially, I suppose it's an unfashionable thing to be into because it is so bound up with the British upper classes. And so for people who don't know much about what's actually in those books, you sort of think, well, why would I care about butlers and

posh people and aristocrats? That's how I felt actually, was that he was, it's kind of unfortunate because I think he's an amazing writer. But with the Kelby code, that part of where the Kelby code came from was I was reading the code of the Worcesters and finding myself just wondering why I had this image of Jeeves getting into bed at night and just imagining bludgeoning Bertie to death with his soul hammer or something. Yeah. And at the time I was tutoring for really rich kids in Chelsea. And some of them were great and they're lots of nice kids, but some of them were just complete pricks.

And Edward, the protagonist in The Kelaby Code is also a tutor. Yeah. Yeah. That was definitely autobiographical. And Edward, the protagonist in The Kellebee Code, is also a tutor. Yeah, yeah, that was definitely autobiographical. And I did meet a lot of difficult, I was treated basically like a butler. I was often sort of being given jobs that were not tutoring, just like hanging pictures and stuff. They were just, can you like do this? There's just a bloke in the house. May as well make yourself useful. So there's this one family who, they were very unusual and obviously they lived in this absolute mansion on the King's Road. And I went in and she had, the house was covered

in portraits of her, the mum, that she had commissioned off herself in different sort of tones, like a big Andy Warhol type one of her. And one of her, because she self-made country albums, so she did some with her with her like foot on a hay bale and stuff and it was really weird and her son, who was about nine when I went to teach him, he turned around to me and said, just so you know if I don't like you I'll have you sacked. And it was shocking because I immediately then did sort of just do what he told me even though I was 15 years older than him.

So then I was reading Coyote the Wooster's and I did feel that really I felt that it was so funny, but it's a shame because I find all that world really icky and what would it be like to write a story like that when we kind of include the feelings we have about those power structures now? And I did think is there a kind of version of a comedy Woodhouse novel that's funny and sort of silly in the way it is but also incorporates that darkness and that anger too. It was really good. I really enjoyed the book. I listened to the audio book. Yes, it's good.

Read by Jack Davenport. Isn't he good? He's very good. I auditioned for that audio book, by the way. I listened to the audio book. Yes, it's good. It's good. Read by Jack Davenport. Isn't he good? He's very good. I auditioned for that audio book, by the way. Did you? And you didn't get it?

No, no. And I was in the, and I was, I was fairly like, I see. Can you not insist that you read your own audio book? That's not in my kind of wheelhouse. But, and then, and then when I read, when I heard it, I was like, Oh, thank God for that. Cause he is so good. He is very good. Yeah, yeah.

There were so many things that I enjoyed and were funny and also unsettling and challenged some of my thoughts and ideas. It's like the perfect reading experience in that way. No, that's very kind. Thanks. Thank you. Honestly, it was great. And how did you tackle it though? Like I'm interested in the actual nuts and bolts of writing a novel like that

You know what? I when people ask about it I often say what I said to you earlier, which is that I I was reading the code of the Worcesters and then I Had this image of Jeeves bludgeoning Bertie Which was true, but that wasn't the genesis of the book. Really with the book, I started writing some scenes. And just to be so sorry, I feel like I've got to pick up for people who are not familiar with Woodhouse. Jeeves is Bertie's butler. Oh yeah, I should have said that. And Bertie's a kind of amiable goof. Yes. Right? He's like a decent guy.

Oh yeah, he's amiable. Yeah, he is amiable. He's a nice fellow and Jeeves clears up all his messes for him. Right. And he's a kind of fairly large man whose face doesn't move much and just deals with everything. Yeah. And they don't explore any of the kind of dark underside of the master servant dynamic in the Woodhouse books really, do they? Exactly. And that was very much what I thought it would be funny and fun and interesting to do. So it took a while, but it was very enjoyable. And normally when I'm writing

something there are moments of kind of deep existential crisis and self-loathing. And with this, there wasn't really. And you know, it's a funny book to talk about because it's easy to find yourself, especially in interview situations, trying to make a case for it like it's a Guardian column, or politically or in a nutshell. But really, it is about itself. It's about that character. And there's a kind of atmosphere of shame around him that I wanted to kind of work out. And I just wanted it to be entertaining and compelling and for it to be a character people kind of felt for, felt the pain of. But through doing that, it does kind of ricochet off political arguments that persist. And I also think Saltburn really affected it as well, because when it was was published that was the kind of topic of

conversation so so it didn't affect the writing of it because you'd finish writing by the time salt burn came out yeah in fact i'm i'm emma fennel who made soburn is a friend and she was in chickens she was sitcom i did with simon and joe the former sign yeah so we went for lunch and she was just getting her film together and she just cast Barry Coon. And I asked what her, how'd you pronounce it? That's why I don't ask why grimace. Oh, I was thinking like, I didn't realise it was a grimace. I thought it was a look of triumphalism.

Like I can pronounce his name. I bet you're going to go for Keoghan or something. No, I was, I was apologising to you, but so the listeners wouldn't know. Kiyon. I think it's someone's told me. This is what Google's here for. Kiyon. Pronunciation. So you're going for Kiyon.

Kiyon. Kiyon. I mean, originally, you just- Doesn't matter what I said originally. You just sort of made this noise. At least I flinched afterwards. I would go for Kiyogen. I wouldn't even bother. You'd be like, well, I'm sorry, I'm English.

I'm going to go for Kiyogen. Here's the pronunciation. Kiyogen. Oh, you're joking. That's horrible for me to hear. Barry Kiyogen. Kiyon. So is Kiyogen. Kiyon. So it's Kiyogen?

Kiyon. When you said... My version was saliva rich. No, it's more breathy, Orwan. It was just like a breath. Can you do something musically with my Kiyon in the interstitial... put it on a beat for crying out loud. Anyway, so she had just cast Mr. Kjogen in Saltburn.

And I said, you know, what's it about? And she basically pitched my book back at me. And I was really disappointed because her film was coming out way before my book. I hadn't got a publisher at that point. And I just felt that it would have more profile anyway. But in fact, I think it was quite useful for the book. I think it was quite useful in publishing. Did your heart drop though when she said like, Oh yeah. No, I was absolutely devastated. I was annoyed with her.

And then I said, but then we swapped. I gave her the Calabi Code and she gave me the script and they were sufficiently different. I didn't have to worry. I didn't think about salt burn once when I was reading the Calabi Code. No, that I had seen it by that you had seen it. Yeah, that that makes sense. But in kind of the most basic facts, you could see why a kind of two sentence synopsis might sure probably troubling. But I do think it meant that when it came out, a lot of the press I did, I found myself talking a lot about politics of class, which obviously the book does touch upon and I sort of use P.G. Woodhouse in that way.

The obvious thing to ask, of course, is to what extent it's autobiographical. I mean, there are obviously certain elements that are autobiographical, as you've already said. So I had a list of like some of the particular themes. Oh great, yeah. And I've got some specifics, yeah. I'd love to hear the list. Okay. Well, sort of general areas that the book touches upon, which I was wondering, how much of this stuff were you writing and sort of weeping at the memory of the feelings you have on these subjects? The obvious one being class. When did you start to become most aware of that

and feel uncomfortable about it or did you ever? No, I think weirdly the way I describe it is it was a sort of jokey satire of myself in a weird way. It wasn't deeply traumatic. Something I think was closer to home was kind of social anxiety, people pleasing, a sense of, I think is very common when you start to talk to people about it, a sense of kind of not feeling at home in your own skin. So all of that, I felt that especially I think in my, I think it's very common in your 20s. And I started writing it probably at the start of my 30s. So the book certainly felt like it was about that in some way. And the idea of, um, Callaby house and that kind of whole fantasy was partly a class thing. And it was partly just the idea of a fantasy

of somewhere where you feel at home. And Callaby house is the stately home. That's like the focus of everybody's ambitions in this book. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where Stanza is going to end up, right? That's her family pile. Yes, exactly. And there are little Seinfeld references scattered throughout the book. Yeah, I think so. Edward does a commentary about Seinfeld for Stanza quite near the beginning of the book. Stanza is the object of Edward's affections, unrequited love, and he is, I think, getting on well with her at one point and they have a convo about Seinfeld. And then it occurred to me, maybe she's called Stanza after Georgica Stan. Rupert Spira That's a great, I love it. I absolutely

love it. No, I wish that were the Easter egg. No, in fact, she was called Helen. And I didn't ever feel that was a good enough name. And then I just went for dinner. And there was someone called stanza there. And I just liked the name and took it. Yeah, it's a cool name. But George Costanza is a big part of my kind of emotional universe. Yeah. Would it be weird to ask you to read a little bit, a passage? Yeah, okay. Bearing in mind I didn't get the audition

to do the audio book. I had to. It was just a bit that I was on a plane and I was listening to it and This bit came along. I thought wow, that is a great piece of writing and he's really put his finger on something very Minute that I feel as though I have felt in various ways very kind That is the passage highlighted there Do you remember the bit?

I think this is when they're, um, they've gone to the seaside. This is Edward and Madge who is the, she ends up being his girlfriend. Yes. And she kind of offers a version of the world and himself, which is kind of palatable and in a way he likes her because she skewers him and kind of sees him for the kind of doormat he is and makes fun of him. And she's had a hard time and they've gone to the seaside. And also Jeeves was often called away from a seaside holiday to go and sort out Bertie's messes. So I'll read it. I haven't practiced this, obviously. He looked off at a distant tanker and felt cavernously

empty. The summer had been too long. The rage came and went. Sometimes he thought it emerged merely because of hunger or tiredness, but really it derived from unknowable energies within him. Thick reservoirs of hatred of himself presumably, of the nation, the impossibility of living here today without by definition being in the wrong, and this wrongness being no less meaningful because of that. A hatred of his friends, his friends' enemies, of the things they all said in person on Twitter everywhere. Yet Madge smelt so beautifully of rose and oud that even as he bristled at the general falling short, the insufficiency that carpeted the world, he was compelled to grasp at this

fugitive moment of simple, unwinded pleasure. Thank you for choosing that bit. That was a bit that I kind of did feel actually when I wrote it. And what was the feeling though? It was that. I mean, it was a sort of uselessness, a feeling of uselessness. Uselessness as a part of society? Yes. Or just... Perhaps more widely than that, but a kind of difficulty in connecting to society and finding a worthwhile route for it. And also a sense of kind of being in a world of opinions and feeling that all of it's bullshit and that all of it is true as well or there's truth in it, but the way that it's expressed leaves you feeling dissatisfied. And I think that sense of things falling short, just the word

insufficiency, I think was something I was trying to get to the heart of. But I stumbled on the bit that you put in bold and red. Rupert Spira Oh, sorry. Yes. The bit I put in bold and red was the line, the impossibility of living here today without by definition being in the wrong and this wrongness being no less meaningful because of that. And I suppose what that meant to me was whoever you are, wherever you are, one way or the other, you are in the wrong as far as a large part of the world is concerned. You're not doing the right thing with your life. You don't have the right opinions. You haven't been

honest with yourself in the right way. Yeah. And if you continue to function within a society that is already unjust, and you have to function in that society because otherwise you're going to go and live under a sort of tree somewhere. So you have to, by definition, be complicit in it. Yeah. Other thing, how many of be complicit in it. Yeah. Other thing, how many of Edwards internal struggles have you experienced is my heading for this little list about class about the torture of unrequited love. Did you have to mind some personal experiences for that? Probably, but no, that wasn't mind. No, that was more

part of I think, the unrequited something else. Yeah. And not to say I've had a sort of 100% record. Haven't smashed it every single time. Haven't smashed it every single time. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] I'm gonna be a good boy. I'd never seen together before. Right, right. Until a few days ago. No way. Oh my God. I really loved it. Did you actually? Yeah, it was really funny. Together I think is a is contributed to my to my period of sort of existential crisis because I really didn't enjoy the process of making it. Alex McQueen plays your dad in the show.

Yes, very close to the real Mr. Palsweed. Oh, well, I was going to ask. Really, is it? At one point, the phone is ringing. He's lying down on the couch and he doesn't want to get the phone. He's waiting for someone else in the house to answer it. And he just shouts, Telefonico! That's very much verbatim. Very much verbatim.

Where's Telefonico from? There are loads of things that I grew up with, thinking were kind of fairly, not fairly normal. Yeah, I had a friend who met my dad and he said, now I understand why you say chow chow. It's like I used to say chow chow thinking it was just like an ordinary sign off. My dad would also ask me to put his yogurt in the microwave for seven seconds on low to take the chill off. That's him there. That's astonishing. So yeah, it was about my parents that show really. It was mainly about what sort of unbelievably sweet and odd people they are.

So why though was it a frustrating process? Are you reluctant to rake over it? No, what I would say is that I don't think I was quite on top of it. It felt like it was think I was quite on top of it. It felt like it was slipping away from me and being eroded and maybe I needed someone, some writing help or it's a lot to write and I spoke to you during that actually after a gig and I was saying, I remember saying to you, oh it's a nightmare, and you said I've got one piece of advice just try and enjoy it. Oh my god that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. It was good because I was like I should try and enjoy it and then after it finished I was like I failed to enjoy it. Try and enjoy it. Was that at the pub we met with Tim Kueh?

Yes, but it was very nice actually the way you said it. It was sweet but I don't think I succeeded in meeting that. And I just think maybe I should have gotten more people to help write it just to get it going. Cause I think I've got a photograph of that evening. Have you? Maybe I'll put it on the blog. That would be lovely. That would be lovely.

Yes. And afterwards I just thought, you know, there's something about something being filmed and edited and finished and it not being quite right which is fairly painful. Yeah, yeah. Were you able to enjoy any aspect of it? Absolutely not. I got so, honestly, I got so stressed out about it and then I got this ulcer at the back of my throat that was so big, the doctor thought it was cancer.

And then I had to get it a biopsy on my also in my throat. And I remember this moment where the specialist said, how's everything in the moment? Is work okay? And I remember being like, feeling almost too embarrassed to say it's just because of a sitcom, just piss or pathetic. But yeah. I'm doing a fun sitcom. Yeah. It's so silly as well. I mean, that's what's so funny is this. It's a really silly sitcom. But that was actually a moment where I was like, I'm not going to get like that about, you know, work again. There are some bits I do look back on and they were great fun. But I think I, I think I was at that period and now when something isn't perfect, especially when it's something that you film because there's so much contingency

when you film something and so much can happen that you're not in control of then now I really make it about how about enjoying it the process and trying to have an atmosphere of kind of this is great that we're doing this and and that's how I feel and when things aren't quite perfect I genuinely am quite philosophical about it and I think I had to in fact I have a very another piece of advice I got during that period was with Vicky Pepperdean Do you say Dine or Dean? I say Dean but you'll probably google it and say Dine in a minute No I think you're right on that one

Vicky Pepperdein who I had done some takes and I was stressing out and I was just saying to her, oh, I just think I fucked it and I was getting really overwrought. And she said, you know, I think sometimes you need to get, you need to, to a certain extent, you need to, you need to get over yourself. And it was great because it was good advice. It really is good advice, but it's so hard. It's like me glibly saying, oh, try and enjoy it. It's one of those bits of advice that is true.

Try and enjoy it. Get over yourself. Just relax. All those things. Yeah, that's all good stuff. Be yourself is the other one. And it's like, I don't know if you've noticed, but I am being myself. Myself is the problem. Yes, sadly that's, yeah. I took a trip down the river of time.

I took a trip, took a trip down the river of time. I packed some things for my trip down the river of time. I packed some things for my trip down the River of Time I took a camping chair and a fancy camera so I could sit and take pictures from my chair off the River of Time off the River of Time Time, Time, Time, Time I also made sure I had my laptop there so I could use my photo manipulation software and tweak the River of Time Time, Time, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, it for five months later? Yeah, it's about that. It's

five months later, probably wearing the same thing. And wow, things have changed. Oh my god, the first part of our conversation was recorded in mid November 2024. Donald Trump had just been elected president for the second time. Right. Did we even mention that? No, we're trying not to mention it. We started off by me saying that I'd done an Anthony Scaramucci impression by way of addressing the fact he'd been reelected. Yeah. And then we talked about your book and all sorts of other stuff. But on that day, I think afterwards we both felt that we were sort of discombobulated. Yeah, yeah. Is that fair?

That is fair. I think what you were saying before we recorded was it just sort of, it started fine, but sort of ended poorly with us feeling a little bit boring and edgy. The bit that listeners have just heard was the good bit from the beginning and that was all fine. That's good because there are bits in that ride. I mean I have this with every interview I ever have and especially if in general I felt as though it could have been better. There were bits where I feel like in retrospect, I was saying almost anything that came into my head and stuff that I didn't even really think.

Toby So that's just an interview. Chris That's true. Toby That's a normal interview. Chris Yeah, yeah. But it's very hard. Like you again, you were just saying before we recorded, when you have a book and then you find yourself justifying it, or making arguments for it, and you're kind of, I mean, often you're just lying because really why you wrote it was you felt it would be nice to write it or it's enjoyable.

Whereas often I find that I'm sort of accidentally painting myself into a corner where I'm a kind of class warrior, railing against lots of power structures. I find myself using the term power structures quite a lot, which just never really enters my vocabulary otherwise. So yeah, so maybe I had a little bit of that, a little bit of sort of feeling like I'd been probably out of social awkwardness

being disingenuous as well. Oh, it didn't come across that way. Good, that's good. But you'd also had a stressful time around then anyway. I think we were both stressed out, right? Yeah, we were both going through, I had some fairly stressful family stuff, which I needn't go into, but I was not sleeping.

And it's funny how when you're, especially as a parent when you're stressed, you sort of just keep plugging away. And it may take a podcast to alert you to the fact that you need to kind of get some sleep and sort stuff out at home. So maybe that was that was certainly playing a and you were too. I don't know.

Yeah. Well, while I was talking to you, I mean, I was stressed anyway, because I was trying to finish my book. Oh, yeah. So that was the main thing that was happening. This is a book that had taken so long to write. I'd missed so many deadlines. And the latest one at that point was September last year. So missed that one as well. And that was supposed to be the absolute final deadline from the publishers. They were saying, if you miss that one, well, it's going to be sort of difficult for us

to make it fit with everything else. IE, we may just not publish it. That's what they said to me at one point. So I was really stressed. And then I started getting a bit run down. And while I was talking to you during that conversation, which was a really fun conversation, by the way, and you wouldn't know it to listen back. That's good. know it to listen back. I hope listeners will agree. But while I was talking to you towards the end, maybe the bit where it started going off the rails that people haven't heard, my face started going weird. That is bad. You don't want that. No. I mean, it is a little weird anyway. I was going to say, yeah, no, look, yeah, it's good. It's ageing. It's a good face. And also, nobody's face is fully symmetrical. Since aging, and also nobody's face is fully symmetrical, but my face started going fully asymmetrical and I started feeling like I couldn't properly close my right eye and

it felt like I had a bit of a twitch or a bit of a weakness in my right side. So I was thinking, oh, I'm going to have a stroke. It's such a good interview. Yeah. That I'm stroking. Johnny Sweet has given me a stroke with his all good writing and insights about class. Now I'm having a stroke. Wow. That is scary.

That's really scary because you told me that afterwards. I think you did felt it coming on. Yeah. And you and I again I had not guessed that you were stroking in the interview but that is awful that is terrifying. Well it wasn't a stroke I'm happy to say but afterwards maybe I'll post the picture of us that we took on the day because you can actually see in my face it's a little on the wonk. Really?

Yeah. Really? And it wasn't massive at all but anyway i went to the dock after after you left. And she said pretty quickly i think it spells palsy. And she said i don't think it's a stroke and i don't think it's anything more sinister than that. more sinister than that. That is still very, that's still quite hard. Well, I was happy with Bell's palsy. Yeah.

I was like, as you know, any, yeah, because I'd heard of it before. Yes. And actually, I had heard of it with people who got it quite severely and never quite got over it, because it can be very severe. Yeah. Like your face can go completely asymmetrical, it just sort of relaxes completely on one side. You can't really control it.

I'm examining you at the moment and it seems that's lovely. Yeah. Adam's smiling. I'm doing a range of expressions. Yeah. No, it's gorgeous. But there were a few that I couldn't even do for a while after I got it. And I mean, Bell's palsy. I looked up the definition just to incorporate some actual facts into the podcast. This is a condition listeners, if you're not familiar, that causes temporary weakness or paralysis on one side of the face, usually due to a problem with the facial nerve. The exact cause is unknown, but viral infections or autoimmune disorders may play a role. Symptoms typically appear suddenly and include facial dropping, could happen during a podcast,

maybe after the conversation has peaked. And it might be an indication that a second podcast session is required four or five months later, it says here. Difficulty closing eye on the affected side, potentially problems with speech and taste. I noticed that I was making some pretty off-colour... Will Barron It was offensive.

...gags towards the end, which I've had to cut out. Will Barron I've got, and my health thing, I haven't mentioned this to you, but I was almost going to have to ask you if I could do this interview from a reclining position. Because I've got a, well, I think I have a leaking spine. I feel like that's a similar sort of genre to Bell's Palsy for some reason. It cures itself apparently. Apparently it's quite common. But the treatment is that you have to lie completely flat and drink as much coffee and take as many caffeine tablets as you can, which sends you absolutely mental because you can't really move, but your head is sort of wired.

And they also say you've got to get out of bed. I think to maintain a lateral position, you're supposed to log roll out of bed, which I found too difficult because it's too far. And you're also meant to, if you're going to cough, you have to cough with as wide a mouth as possible, which my wife obviously finds really sort of repulsive. Toby So as not to put pressure on the spine. Angus I think so. I think you don't sort of jilt. I didn't really do those things because they felt too sort of ridiculous.

Toby And sneezing is a no no. Angus Sneezing wide open mouth. Toby Wide open. Angus I think you can. I assumed when I read it that you also couldn't cover your mouth. I think you probably can cover your mouth. But I just imagined people in lifts kind of coughing with a wide open mouth at people. And the caffeine is to encourage the blood flow, is it? Yes, I think it stimulates growth of the fluid or something.

And the economy as well. It does, it's good, it's really good. It speeds everything up generally. It's like a Rishi Sunak scheme. Exactly. It encourages writing. Yes, it up. It's like a Jeshu Sunak scheme. Exactly. It encourages writing. Yes, it does. It gives you a buzz.

So you're writing a new book. I'm writing a new book. You finished your book. Yes. In the intervening months. Never going to write another one. That's it. No more books.

You forget how painful it is though. I think that's, it's like having children. You forget how difficult it is. Well, women are always going on about how painful it is to have a child. They do actually I forget. And those are the ones that have never written a book. That's your Bell's Palsy coming back. Yeah that's right. It's affected my taste. I have not finished my book. I am still often in bed highly caffeinated and slightly gissary, wondering if I will finish it. I actually enjoy it. I'm plugging away. I'm just kind of taking ages. So I'm in the thick of it. You know what it's like. I can't wait to feel like you feel.

It's great. Let me tell you. Yeah, the sun is out. I mean, it's a beautiful summery day. Not for me. For me, it's snowdrifts. I feel so light. I'm so happy. I'm not that badly affected by the news. Every single thing doesn't bring me down. You're warming to Trump. You're coming round to his new way of doing stuff. He's shaking things up. Yeah, he's fun. Things needed a shake up.

Yeah, exactly. He's not so bad. No, I sympathise so badly. Writing is terrible. It's physically bad for you. It gives you all sorts of, as we yeah, see if you're fine sorts of leaky spine bells palsy. Yeah Don't write. Yeah, but I enjoy I do enjoy it and you enjoy the process when it felt like you were writing something and thinking

Yeah, that was a good bit or occasionally Yeah Because the attraction of the whole thing is to be able to make sense of the world in some way, right? To be able to set down your thoughts and organize them the way that you would like them to be shared with the world rather than what normally happens, which is you go on an interview, you just blither. Yeah. But this is going to be your life in a heroic arc. Yeah it's escapism. I find it escapist to be writing about something else that isn't real life. But I guess yours is a memoir, so you are.

I'm trapped in me. You're trapped in your own. Dreary reality of my life. What's the new book about, can you say? If it's published, it will be about a string quartet and kind of those sorts of people who commit every gram of their energy into art and aspiring for an unrealizable perfection at the cost of much else and kind of ambition competitiveness and how toxic creativity can be. So it's quite pertinent to this discussion, to how we feel. How did you arrive at that subject then?

Did you meet some people in string quartets? Have you ever been in one? No, I've never been in one, but I'm quite, I think I was attracted to it really because it sort of felt as though it was a good area where you can kind of penetrate really dramatic, beautiful ideas, but also it's a bit of an outsider zone. You know, a quartet would be named for one person often, and then the other three were kind of in and out and normally cared. But increasingly

kind of mirroring democracy over the 20th century, it became more democratic and everyone would have an equal say. But even then, it's clearly not the case. There are a lot of voices and some people just go with the flow. Well, that's the dynamic in rock bands as well, even though a lot of the time, you know, the bands aren't operating at the same level of technical virtuosity sometimes yeah. I watch the led zepp documentary the other day and i'm not a big led zepp fan i have to be honest. But there are definitely moments some incredible archive clips there where they are locked into each other they are so in the zone. And they're able to just go wherever they want the combination of that drumming and

John Paul Jones on bass and Jimmy Page's incredible guitar and then suddenly you've got Robert Plant who can do all that stuff with his voice and it's like whoa they are firing on all cylinders and they, you can see that they love journeying with each other and they're all staring at each other on these tiny micro cues that they're giving each other. And that's why it's so seductive for so many music fans because they see that and they think, imagine having that in your life. Imagine being able to go to those places with other human beings. Yeah, exactly. It's a rarefied mental state. I've certainly never, I don't think my concert band at school, when I was playing the flute, never hugely felt like that. But comedy can feel like that sometimes.

I agree. I did Kyle Smith Bino's improv night the other night. Oh great. I wasn't improvising. I was just being the emcee. Right, right, right. But watching them and his team on stage improvising, they were brilliant. It's an amazing thing to watch when people really improvise and you feel their joy at doing it. Yeah, I was reading someone the other day,

talking about drawing, saying the thing people don't talk about enough about drawing, like pencil drawing is that the line is guiding you as much as your brain is something like I love that idea and I think that's the same with playing without sounds like with playing and with improvisation you're kind of all locked into something that you're not entirely no single person is entirely in control of it. That's the dream especially for me as an over thinker yes because for me the line never gets to dictate where it's going, because my brain gets in the way. Well, there are different sorts of rights as well. I mean, I was listening to an interview with somebody who was saying,

some writers say, I just listen to my characters, I can't control everything that happens. And I think most people do a bit of both, but they quoted Nabokov saying that he's in such control that the characters quiver when he approaches the typewriter. And he said, whole forests of trees shed their leaves in fear when I approach. I love that idea. That's confidence. I am the opposite. I am shaking. Whole forests sit down and have a ciggy when buckles approaches. Put their feet up and roll their eyes. Good luck with his half secateurs. We're all going to die because this guy wants to tell people about the arguments he's had with his wife. Attention.

As part of my attempt to improve my mental and physical lot towards the beginning of this year, I went and saw a shiatsu guy. What's that? I was hoping you would tell me. I mean, he's just sort of doing physical manipulation. So it's like intense massage with a kind of slightly possibly therapeutic, mentally therapeutic angle to it maybe. And this guy was a monk, ex-monk. So he was the real deal. And some of my friends had seen him and they'd said, you've got to see this guy, you know, one of my friends had an injury. Um, and her

arm was knackered. She'd fallen down and really hurt her arm badly. A few months before she saw the guy, he manipulated her for an hour or something. And the pain literally went. She's like, I swear to you, I'm not a woo woo person, but it was literally miraculous. Wow. And I think it's at least worth a go. Anyway, so I go along and I'm thinking here we go. So I've had some sciatica. Yeah. Yeah. To add to my list of problems. No sciatica. Not too bad down the left side though. So I was thinking, Oh, well, see the guy maybe let's start with the sciatica. See if he can do anything about that. Surely that'd be like a walk in the park for this guy. Yeah. Anyway, he starts talking to me about my life. Also, his English wasn't great. So there

was a bit of a barrier of understanding between us a little bit. And for him, it was good because it contributed to a sort of nomic persona. Ex-monk, doesn't say much, deep insights, speaks in kind of aphoristic, mysterious sentences, short sentences. But I immediately was nervous. I immediately felt like I was being assessed. He was asking me questions about what do you do? I said, I'm writing at the moment. What sort of thing do you write? He said, journalists dealing with the truth

often require extra deeper levels of physiotherapy. Wow. And I said, yes, well, I'm writing a memoir. And there's a lot of truth in this, mother. He said, yes, interesting, interesting, lie down please. And then he starts manipulating my legs and kind of rolling them around a bit. He said, just relax, just relax. He kept on saying, just relax. I was like, okay, I'm just relaxed. I'm doing my best to relax. I'm trying to relax. It's impossible when

someone says to do it. But I was really trying to relax. I was like, okay, okay. Let go just relax, relax, relax. Anyway, long story short, at the end of about 50 minutes of manipulation of my head, my legs, everything in my body, he sort of gave a deep sigh, folded his arms and said, How do you feel? I was like, Yeah, it was a little painful towards the end. He's like, Yeah, it was, wasn't it? You are joking. And I was like, huh? And he's like, that's because you didn't relax.

That's because you didn't let go. You can't let go. You're like this, he said. And he showed me balled up fists. Wow. And then he said something about this was where the language barrier got in the way. something about this was where the language barrier got in the way because I think what he meant was if you carry on like that you'll run into more problems physically and probably mentally too. But what he actually said was you will carry on like this it will always be like this closed can't let go And then there is a storm coming.

You are joking. No. So you became more of a fortune teller vibe at the end. Yes. And not with great, not with good news. No. And that made you instantly relax. The idea of this storm, this coming. Yeah, then I was fine. Skipped out, sciatica cleared up, positive mental attitude, finished

the book, all good. Wow, that's amazing all good. I was really polaxed by it. Yeah, that's horrific. I mean, the thing is that it was all, it was mainly my hangups that I was bringing to the table that I was using to translate what he was telling me. I think basically he was just like, just chill, have a chill pill. But what I was hearing was was you will never allow that line to draw itself Yeah, you're a flawed person. You'll get in the way. Yeah, you're terrible. You're why?

Donald Trump got in again and Why Western civilization is crumbling now fuck off fuck off out of here and by the way, that's 150 pounds, please And can you relax? Oh I had a dream. I was back at school That's £150, please. And can you relax? We had spent months and months painting sets and making costumes and posters for the play But we had not rehearsed the play I didn't know what I was supposed to say And yet the rest of the cast knew all of their words and their moves and the songs in the play and they were shaking their heads as the curtain went up and I was still asking what I should say and suddenly I knew what to do

I sat on stage and did a poo So the reason we're having this kind of recap a little bit is because we both came away from our first meeting feeling slightly like oh we didn't wrap things up as neatly as we could have done. I'm not guaranteeing that it's gonna happen this time but I really relate to that feeling especially now that I'm doing bits of press for my book. for my book and suddenly going on more podcasts than I normally would and doing interviews and being asked like big questions. It's like I'm never prepared for the big questions. I should just sit down and think about them properly, write some sort of book or other. But like yesterday I did a podcast with Nihal, Arthur Nyaka, who's really nice, thoughtful guy, but he goes deep quite fast with his

interviews. He'll just say, what was the biggest thing this or what was the most important time that? He said, in what ways are you a successful father? Things like that. Are you serious? Yeah. I'm like, oh, I don't think I am a successful father. Inspirational.

Yeah. But I don't want to go into all my hangups about why I don't think I am a successful father inspirational. Yeah, but I don't want to go into all my hang-ups about why I don't think I'm a good dad so I'm just gonna try and Roll with this question and be positive and think about the ways that I'm a good dad, but I don't really have any So you're just free style That is exactly how I feel Yeah because because what you really want is a kind of politician script that you accept is completely meaningless and

You just trot it out every I mean, I'm sorry to tell people this but this is I do think it's the only way to kind of Stay sane but also not end up talking for a little hour about you know, because that I felt that with the book I feel like I'm always trying to justify why I did it In fact the first ever Q&A I did trying to justify why I did it. In fact, the first ever Q&A I did, the first question was, so why did you write the book? And it's such an obvious, simple, nice question to begin with, but it completely flabbergs me because there is no answer to that question. And really, you don't really decide in a logical fashion, I must tackle the issue of country houses or, you know, it doesn't really work like that

You just get a kind of inclination that you're gonna do it but also People need to have a reason to put you in a newspaper and so often with the Caribbean it's political It's class and or you know, I suppose inherited wealth those sorts of things Which is definitely part of the book But also I do feel sometimes I end up being a bit disingenuous out of the sort of people-pleasy horseshit that the book is examining. And so I remember in our, because you were really so nice about the book and you had a bit that I read out.

Will Barron Yeah. Chris Will I can't actually remember exactly what I said, but I do remember thinking as I was saying it, you don't think any of this really deep down. Thinking that actually that's just a character thinking that or that's, I'm just imagining what the characters or thinks. But sometimes. But insufficiency was the word. That's it.

It was a passage in which the main characters having a sort of meltdown and just a ecstasy of disconnection from society and frustration with his own shortcomings and the way that the world works. It's beginning to ring a bell, yeah. Maybe it is. But yeah, that's right. And actually, I do remember writing that bit and thinking, yeah, I've got some off my chest. But I guess the difference I'm saying is. It's not like i needed to say that about life definitively it's more that i just something you've written down that's right but then you get into a situation like this like you're on a podcast or you're doing an interview suddenly someone. suddenly someone looks at you and says, so what's it all about? What does it all mean? What's your philosophy? You're like, oh, my philosophy. I know there's a heaven's gate type feeling sometimes where you're like, account for your

life. Yeah, that's how you sort of feel. That's right. And really, and I feel that especially when anything goes out or is published where you're like, you suddenly find that you have to stand by it as though it's your manifesto or your philosophy for all of existence. Whereas actually it's okay to just say... And I think you kind of, I think lots of people do do this when there may be a few books in or whatever. It's I don't know really just plugging away, doing my best. And normally, I wouldn't really normally mind that, but I remember thinking after that that you also don't, I mean frankly, you also don't want to sound too grand because you don't feel like that when you're writing. You feel like you're in your little laptop. You're just doing your best. So that was

probably niggling away for that reason. People want answers though. People want insights and answers. That's what all the podcast universe is predicated on. That's why Joe Rogan does so well because he's got all these blokes coming in telling you how to do it and how to work things out. They've got their strong opinions and everyone's like, oh yeah, great, a strong opinion. That'll work. I'll do that. Right. Yeah. And I find that so difficult personally. The only chance that I have is to write stuff down beforehand and then read it out verbatim. If I've been given the questions beforehand, then great. RL Yeah, I was the publisher said, I think they kind of

intuited that whenever I spoke about the book, I started to blush and sort of stutter. They said, do you want to have media training? And I was mortally offended. And then I did the media training and it was actually transformative. I mean, obviously it didn't work. The fact that I was niggling myself over this, but it is good and it's actually quite, it's almost therapeutic. I found it because you start to see it as a product completely distinctly from the process of writing it and from yourself. So I actually helped me to kind of flip into a salesman. So I'd say to people, yeah, I'm just trying to fucking take down the poshos. And it just, I didn't exactly say that, but it sort of alleviated

all of that angst about authenticity because you can't give in an interview an entirely thorough and comprehensively authentic global account of who you are. You just have to kind of say something for a couple of minutes. Give me the potted version of the media training so I don't have to do it. Oh yeah, yeah. Well, it's basically write down a few punchy sentences about it. You can learn. Okay. It sounds like you've done that.

And then you do them every single time. Yeah. But I've actually, and you don't feel self-conscious about the fact that because the thing in my head, I'm always haunted by the specter of the person who goes and tracks what you do and then just go, ah, he repeats this in every single interview. Yeah, I know, and I had that. And I think there will be, you have to gauge the fact that there will be a certain degree of self-consciousness in any scenario. But I've seen other authors do that,

and I don't think anyone cares. No, at the end of the day, it's not that important. No, exactly. Especially the level I'm operating at, really. What does that mean? Well, the kind of things in my book. I mean, it's not world-changing material. I can't wait to read the book.

It's pretty good. When can we? It's incredible. This is better. It's very good. It's very funny. It's hilarious. People keep putting the word hilarious into bits of blurb. I'm like, I wouldn't describe it as hilarious. But I mean, I think it's funny. It's hilarious. People keep putting the word hilarious into bits of blurb. I'm

like, I wouldn't describe it as hilarious. But I mean, I think it's funny. It's hilarious. And it's also very poignant at times and vulnerable. That's great. It deals with the dynamics of friendship and ambition. It deals with grief. It deals with grief over the passing of time. Grief in all its forms, how about that? That's great. And the main message of the book is just relax. That's fantastic.

Comes with a free chill pill. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. free chill pill. Wait. This is an advert for Squarespace. Everyone would like to have a website. Yes! But not everyone can build their own. No.

But they can come right here to Squarespace where they can start a free trial and play with all the templates. Type in a paragraph, pop in a pic, stick a video in there as well, don't be a wally, oh my golly, there's so many things that you can do, it's fun and easy too when you are working with Squarespace. Can I check my analytics? Of course you flipping can, and why not have a member's area too. Oh thanks, can I set up like a shop?

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the time to come and waffle with me. You'll find a link to his book The Kellebee Code which I really recommend. I enjoyed it very much in the description of the podcast. And along with that link, you'll find the picture of Johnny and Tim Key back in 2015 at the pub in King's Cross when Johnny was in the thick of filming together and I was advising him to try and enjoy it. There's also a picture of myself and Johnny after our first podcast waffle session in November 2024, where you can see that my face looks a little wonky, which I later discovered was due to Bell's palsy. That's what the doc said, and she prescribed steroids 10 days worth, and

that seemed to clear it up. It turned out to be a fairly minor case of Bell's palsy if that's what it was. I know some people can be quite badly affected by it. And now my face looks more or less normal for a middle-aged guy. A little bit wonky but then it always was. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys died last week as I speak on the 11th of June 2025. He was 82 years old. I loved a lot of his music. It had been a big part of my life since my late teens. When I was little I always liked hearing Beach Boys songs whenever they popped up on the radio or on TV. Fun fun fun. It's called fun fun fun. I mean what's not to like? Round round get around I get

around. Help me Rhonda, help help me Rhonda. It was always uplifting fun summery pop. Although when I became a music fan in my teens you know I was much more into David Bowie and art pop and it never really occurred to me to go out and actually buy a Beach Boys album. Then when I was a DJ at the Rock Island Diner in Piccadilly Circus playing a lot of 50s and 60s music at the beginning of the 90s, I played a lot of Beach Boys songs as part of my job there. I would stand in a DJ booth looking out over the restaurant wearing a baseball cap with a record attached to the top which I would wobble

around as I pretended to be surfing to songs like Catch A Wave, All Summer Long and Surfin'. Bow bow diddy diddy bow bow diddy diddy. Surfing is the only life, the only way for me now. So it sounds like an anthem for robots who love to surf that one. Anyway, I knew from reading music magazines around that time that the Beach Boys 1966 album Pet Sounds was supposed to be their best and one of the best albums ever made apparently and eventually I bought it on CD when I finally got a CD player in the early 90s but it took me a

while to get into Pet Sounds because it was a lot more grown-up I suppose and sophisticated than a lot of stuff that I was used to listening to. I think initially it was just the strings and the arrangements and all those kind of lush Radio 2 afternoon harmonies that made me just think oh I don't know if I like this it's a bit stuffy. I preferred fast songs with synthesizers and twangy guitars but Pet Sounds was one of those albums that I kept on coming back to and songs like Caroline, No, God Only Knows of course and Don't Talk, Put Your Head On My Shoulder sounded the way that I felt about love and heartbreak around that time. They

captured the same kind of feelings of emotion that I had around those areas and feelings of emotion and I guess I would have been the same age when I was first listening to those songs that Brian Wilson would have been when he wrote them which is a weird thing to consider, in his early 20s. Some of them he wrote with Tony Asher. And I think one of those songs was, "'I Just Wasn't Made For These Times', which I really loved.

And that one captured a feeling that I sometimes had of being disconnected from people around me, like Joe and Louis. You know, it seemed to me that they knew exactly what they were gonna do with their lives in a way that I just didn't at all at that time. In that song I just wasn't made for these times. Brian Wilson, as far as I can tell, is essentially singing about feeling isolated by his genius. He's too far ahead of his contemporaries. I felt that I had the opposite problem but the upshot was the same and the touchingly basic lyrics of the chorus sometimes I feel very sad.

Cut through everything. I listened to that one a lot when I was feeling self-indulgently blue. And then when I was at art school in 1993 I got the Beach Boys box set Good Vibrations 30 Years of the Beach Boys and that turned me into a Brian Wilson obsessive for a while mainly because of the music on the second disc many of which were previously unreleased pieces that had been recorded during the 1966 to 67 sessions for the follow-up to Pet Sounds which was called Smile, an album so ambitious and experimental that it was eventually abandoned and for many years was just this legendary lost album. Some said it was because Beach Boys lead singer Mike Love

thought the music was too weird and felt frustrated by Brian Wilson's collaboration with esoteric musician and lyricist Van Dyke Parks. But Brian's fragile mental state was clearly a factor too. He was eventually diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder, a condition that can cause hallucinations, depression, paranoia and mania, all of which may well have been intensified by Brian's abusive relationship with his father, and increasingly frequent substance abuse in the late 60s and early 70s. I've watched documentaries where people around him including Van Dyke Parks say that too much is made of his drug use

around that time but even by his own admission he did seem to be caning it fairly hard which probably doesn't improve serious mental issues. In the sleeve notes for the Beach Boys Good Vibrations box set, David Leaf encourages listeners to imagine what the finished version of Smile might have sounded like and rearrange the fragments of tracks on that box set into their own version and that was something that I did a lot and so did lots of other people. In the early 2000s a band formed by LA musicians also obsessed with the unfinished fragments of Smile convinced Brian and Van Dyke Parks to organize the music into a final

sequence that they would re-record for an album that came out called Brian Wilson Presents Smile. I went to see Brian with this fantastically proficient backing band at the Royal Festival Hall on February the 24th 2004, and they sounded amazing. 2004. They sounded amazing. I've included a link to a live performance from the same year in Los Angeles, which gives you an idea of how good that band was, and also how extraordinary a lot of the music on Smile was. There have been loads of documentaries about the Beach Boys over the years, which include bits of smile footage. I always liked one from 1985 which was called The Beach Boys An American Band directed by Malcolm Leo. As well as great footage of early TV appearances and some sad stuff in the final section about Brian's brother Dennis who drowned

age 39 in 1983 after years of alcohol problems. There's a good section in the middle of this documentary about the band working on Smile. You can see Brian Wilson wearing a fireman's helmet in the studio while they were recording an instrumental section called Fire, which became a focus for Brian Wilson's anxieties around the album. He ended up becoming convinced that there was something evil about the song itself. Anyway I've put a link to that documentary in the description of today's podcast. For the moment you can still see it on YouTube. I just wasn't made for these times. There's also

good documentary directed by Don Was that came out in 1995. I'd strongly recommend the 2014 biopic Love and Mercy directed by Bill Pollard starring Paul Danno. He's particularly good as the younger Brian Wilson. Last week I watched for the first time Long Promised Road directed by Brent Wilson, no relation, which came out in 2021. And what makes that documentary worth seeing I think is the GoPro footage of Brian in his late 70s being driven around Los Angeles where he lived and worked his whole life by a journalist from Rolling Stone magazine called Jim Fine and

He'd become friendly with Brian earned his trust and was able to ask questions about Brian's life in a way that was gentle and was gentle and respectful of his delicate mental state, even though there's still moments where you do feel a little bit voyeuristic and unsure of how good an idea it is to be kind of prodding him for reminiscences at that point in his life. I don't know. Brian Wilson wrote so many songs that I love. I've put most of them on a Spotify playlist for you in case you're interested. Link in the description. I was talking to my sons about favorite

songs. Nat said that his favorite was Don't Talk Put Your your head on my shoulder. It's so strange and kind of, um, soporific and almost psychedelic from pet sounds. But I always loved Till I Die from the album Surf's Up from 1971. I think that was written at a particularly dark and fearful time for Brian Wilson. And the lyrics lyrics I'm a cork on the ocean rolling over the raging sea how deep is the ocean they sound to me as though they're trying to evoke the feeling of being an insignificant speck in a pitiless universe but actually to me that song always made me feel a little bit more at peace with insignificance

and the temporary nature of existence, but I don't know. Maybe that's because I'm a cork on a not particularly deep ocean. Anyway, thanks for the music, Brian Wilson. Okay that's it for this week. Thank you very much once again to Johnny Sweet for his time. Thanks to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his invaluable production support and additional conversation editing on this episode. Thanks to Helen Green for her beautiful artwork.

Thanks to everyone at Acast for all their support. But thanks most of all their support. But thanks, most of all to you. You listen right to the end. Come here, summary hug. Good to see you. Until next time, please go carefully. And for what it's worth, I love you. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Gimme like a smile and a thumbs up I take a pat when me bum's up Gimme like a smile and a thumbs up I take a pat when me bum's up Like and subscribe Like and subscribe Like and subscribe

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