The Blindboy Podcast - Brolly Tonsils

Episode Date: May 1, 2018

Cillian Murphy Interview, Repeal the 8th, Siegfried Sassoon, Dada, Site Specific Theatre Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh good day you gandy dandies, wrap your lips around the podcast punnet and satiate your aching tongues with the soothing broth. What's the crack you bald boys and girls, how are you getting on? Crack, you bald boys and girls, how are you getting on? I've got a special podcast for you this week because it contains an interview with none other than Hollywood actor Cillian Murphy. And I know I made a promise before that I wasn't going to have like live podcast interviews as part of the regular Wednesday podcast

but this doesn't count because it wasn't recorded in front of a live audience it was recorded in a living room so it maintains sufficient fidelity to qualify as a podcast hug and Cillian Murphy has got a very soothing voice. He's got a cork lilt. A gravelly cork lilt. Also, I promised last week that this podcast would be released on Monday morning. And it is not Monday morning. It's Wednesday morning. You haven't gone mad. It's actually Wednesday morning.

What happened is that I reneged on my promise but for good reason I was visited in a dream by the otter Yorty O'Hearn who was the patron saint of this podcast and he had two fists

full of squirming minnows and made eye contact with me and urged me not to interfere with the with me and urged me not to interfere with the podcast scheduling he urged me that to release a podcast on a Monday

and not a Wednesday could create an environment of chaos that would upset the balance of the podcast so I didn't you know I was just like right well if that otter is visiting me in a dream to tell me this then I better listen to him so you're getting the podcast on a Wednesday and

the universe you know the universe has been returned to a level of balance there's there's no potential chaos but I'm sure there is an alternative universe where this podcast was released on a Monday and I'm sure that universe is in utter chaos or utter chaos alright

if this is your first time listening to the blind boy podcast go back to the start, you absolute prick. Because we've developed something. We've developed a rhythm. Do you know? We're up to 120 beats per minute here. You need to go back to the start where we were 80 beats per minute, you know?

We're playing 12 inches. You need to go back and listen to the LP. I had a good bit of crack this week. I've been writing furiously for my second book. As you know, my first book of short stories, The Gospel According to Blind White, was reprinted last week

it's doing fabulously it's back in the best seller charts which I'm very grateful for thank you very much to everybody for going out and buying the book of short stories but I'm writing the second book as we speak and

I've just been getting back into flow and it's fucking fantastic I'd been struggling a little bit and the reason I was struggling is just because when I released the first book there was feedback you know mostly positive feedback but some negative but it doesn't matter i've said it before feedback of any description can throw you off kilter if you are creative because i don't know reading about you know positive feedback is to be honest is a bit more can be more damaging i think with negative feedback you can actually say to yourself fuck off i don't give a shit about your opinion you wanted to read a different book I didn't write the book you wanted

to read I wrote the book I wanted to read but with positive feedback you've got people saying nice things about the thing that you made and what can get freaky is when the things that people like about the thing you created are not necessarily

the things that you yourself as the artist think are the good things and that can throw your kind of your creative locus of evaluation off balance so i've been staying away from like reading Amazon reviews or anything like that and just getting right back into the centre of flow when I'm writing and I wrote something today where

I entered a waking dream state which is exactly what I'm looking for a complete state of daydream where I leave, present reality, and channel words,

through my fingers, but there's a sense of control, but it's the type of control, whereby you're not aware of it, it's like, like the control you'd have, over a bicycle, if you were cycling,

cycling a bike, you know, if you think of the, the physics of cycling a bike, you know, if you think of the, the physics of cycling a bike, you know, it's quite demanding, you know, the way you're shifting your body weight, your muscles, going on this fucking,

you know, this lump of iron down the road on tyres. There's a lot of complicated physics going on and a lot of muscles being engaged but you do it autonomously but if you start thinking about how you're actually staying up on that bike you'll fall on your hoop and break your two front teeth

so that's what writing is like a little bit it's I enter a waking dream state and allow the story to reveal itself to me but my unconscious mind is steering this waking dream into something which has aesthetic beauty and structure

it's the only way I can describe it but I had a good lash of that today and it felt fucking invigorating it felt enlightening after a good hour or two of flow, you don't give a shit about nothing, do you know what I mean, you become invincible,

it's like you, for me it's like I achieve, just a pure state of fucking, kind of elevated consciousness during flow, so regular everyday bullshit that might irritate me, simply doesn't because I've sat at the seat of my own brain

Jesus Christ I sound like I'm up my own hope this week lads I wasn't actually visited by an otter in a fucking dream there was an issue with a USB key so I couldn't release the podcast on Monday but it sounds better when I say that I was visited by a fucking dream there was an issue with a USB key so I couldn't release the podcast on Monday but it sounds better when I say that I was

visited by a fucking otter and he told me things in my dream but I can't let you think that because it's too irrational I'm not going to allow

the release of a podcast to depend upon whether or not an otter visited me in my dreams that's Marty Whelan shit

that's the type of shit he gets up to so the the interview that i'm going to be playing with killian murphy um you know it's it is fully agenda driven all right let's be honest the reason that killillian Murphy is appearing on this podcast is because we have an upcoming referendum in this country. And it is a referendum to repeal the Eighth Amendment, which is an amendment in the Constitution from 1983, which prevents women and people who can get pregnant from having abortions for whatever reason they would need them. And there are 10 women a day having abortions in Ireland

by illegal means, whether that be travelling to leave the country or whatever. And on top of that, there's a huge amount of people taking fucking abortion pills, which just simply isn't safe. So, terminating pregnancy is heavily criminalised in this country,

and it is hugely unsafe. Not only is it unsafe, it's undignified, it's ethically unequal, it takes rights away from the pregnant there's a whole lot of things wrong with it and the deadline to register to vote is the 8th of may and i'd like to see men in particular okay like i don't think i need to convince any fucking women about the Eighth Amendment because women are quite informed around pregnancy and the issues that can go with it,

but us lads are not. I'm certainly not, to be honest. I'm learning quite a lot of new stuff recently because I've never had to think about it. I'm never going to give birth. Do you know what I mean? But I do feel quite strongly about repealing the eight because i want to live in a more compassionate society and if you yourself listening if you're not if abortions or something that you're just like no

not into them you you can still hold that opinion and have that opinion respected while without removing choice from other people to have that. And one thing I would say to you too is that keeping the Eighth Amendment in Ireland is not going to stop any fucking abortions. Abortions are still going to keep happening. All the Eighth Amendment does is it prevents safe abortion.

That's all it does. And Cillian Murphy feels the same so what happened is about a week ago I was I had a lot of lengths of carpet to remove from my studio some lengths of carpet and a lot of. And I wanted to take them to the Limerick City dump. So I gave my ma a call. Because she has a car. And I loaded. A lot of carpet and cardboard into the back of the car. And we went to Limerick City dump.

And. While I was at the. The barricade of the dump. And my ma in the driver's seat was speaking to the man. Who. The dump custodian i don't know the official title but i'm going to call him a dump custodian because that's a cool name but anyway my ma was talking to that person and my phone started ringing it was it was a number i didn't know and i picked it up it was keely and murphy and now this was two weeks after fucking conor mcgregor

had mailed me out of nowhere when i was trying to put led lights up in my studio and send some choice words my way so i'm going oh fuck what does killian murphy want what have i done now but it was killian murphy and the artist ivan mcginnis and the journalist, Michelle Darmody. And all three of them were on the phone to me going, Hey, blind boy, what's the crack? Can we talk to you about something? So I'm like, yeah. Now, meanwhile, my ma is chatting to the dump custodian.

Turns out to bring a few rolls of carpet and some cardboard to fucking Limerick Dump cost 25 euros I'm on the fucking phone my ma has to pay the 25 quid I didn't have it to pay her back so technically Cillian Murphy owes my ma 25 quid but I digress

so the nature of the phone call was blind buy we've been listening to your podcast All of this Would you be interested in collaborating With Killian In making first and foremost

One or two little videos Producing ourselves Put them out Send them to fucking whatever website wants them With the specific goal of getting lads in particular to register for the referendum and to vote yes to repeal the eighth amendment so immediately i'm like fuck yes absolutely i would love to do that that sounds fantastic because one of my concerns is,

like, I'm trying my best to get to lads, but the thing is, my audience, sometimes I feel like I'm kind of preaching to the choir, you know, and the type of lads that I reach are already kind of, you know, already kind of left-leaning and informed and stuff like that but Cillian Murphy is the star of Peaky Fucking Blinders

which is very fucking it's huge it's massive and it has a lot of listeners in Ireland and or sorry a lot of viewers in Ireland and it's the type of lads who aren't necessarily going to be fucking listening to me.

You know, the lads going around with the fucking flat caps and the pleaky binders haircuts who look up to Tommy Shelby. So I'm going, brilliant. We can get Tommy Shelby talking about why the Eighth Amendment matters to young lads. So I'm like, yes yes let's do this this will be brilliant so we did and we released a video last week a two minute video of myself and killian having a chat about why voting is important and that performed fantastically and then i said let's do some stuff for the podcast too and to be honest as well I'm very humbled that

I'm very humbled that Killian is choosing this podcast as the platform that he'd like to use, that he's choosing to use because Jesus Christ he could fucking call up Jimmy Fallon and beyond that, do you know what I mean?

or Graham Norton, or whatever he wants, The Late Late Show, and he's chosen this podcast, so that's pretty cool, and as well he doesn't do a lot of interviews you know, he's one of the last celebrities that maintains a private life and isn't interested in the spotlight, he just does his job and then goes quiet, which i massively fucking respect so in the following interview i'm going to play we got to speak about the eighth amendment democracy but obviously while i have someone of keelyan murphy's stature to interview i also ask him about his artistic process as an actor and the stuff that I'm interested in you know

because why not um before you listen as well it's worth pointing out that during this interview I wore my plastic bag for this podcast I wear a special knitted bag that has decent fidelity and you don't hear it but when I wear the plastic bag it's very rustly so that's the sound that you're hearing it is the the sound of my plastic bag god bless so Killian is Gerry Adams in the IRA all right okay all right I'm here with Killian Murphy Killian you're an actor you're a Hollywood actor but you're from Douglas actually

Black Rock in Cork Black Rock you started off as a musician you were involved in bands and what I want to know

is like I don't know like if the music came to you first what is the similarity between the performative element of being a musician

and then transferring those skills into acting? Yeah, interesting. I think that it was probably to do with just wanting to perform. And music was the first thing that I experienced in the house. And, you know, you can... If someone gets you a guitar, then you can go away and learn that on your own. And then my brother as well played,

so we used to play together and there was a lot of music around. We'd go to a lot of like trad sessions when we were kids. So it was very much there. So that was the first thing where it became like a form of expression or, you know, like playing music live was the biggest buzz you could possibly get. And then we took that quite seriously.

You got signed and everything well we were offered a record deal yeah by who Assa Jazz record and would you have been around

like we say Sultans of Ping they would have been the big cork band at the time and the Frank and Walters and Frank and Walters as well

were you part of that buzz they were they were ahead of us they were about like I don't know five or six years ahead of us and who like

who would you have been listening to musically growing up those lads they were big influence on us but surely you had like Bowie or someone yeah the Beatles I suppose I've always said that their Beatles were at the beginning for me really and what would you out of the Beatles like would it be the earlier stuff the madder later stuff I suppose as the earliest but I like my dad would have had the the greatest hits in the car yeah and would you be more of a Lennon

or a McCartney man I don't know it's controversial isn't it it is I don't know I like both you know

and I think they were amazing the way they could they sort of that classic thing of going you know he writes that song I write that song

and they and the circle the competitiveness yeah that you hear in the different songs it is I like that yeah I like that about the beat I like being able to listen and go I know well And the subtle, the competitiveness. Yeah. That's what you hear in the different songs. It is.

I like that. Yeah, I like that about the beat. I like being able to listen and go, I know well that's a McCartney song. And it has that extra layer of melody. Yeah. But then the Lennon thing is not quite as melodic, but there's a bite in the lyrics.

You could tell that he was listening to Dylan. He wanted to be a bit more political. Yeah. Do you know? And they pushed each other that way. But you know, McCartney was the kind of avant-garde one McCartney was the one who introduced them to all that art scene at the time

good way really yep that's kind of not that well known and then Lennon fully embraced it you know but he was very

you know experimental and of course you know fucking George Martin gets written out quite a bit as well like I mean

when it came to Sgt. Pepper's George Martin was the one who was like here look at these things they're called synthesizers lads

yeah do you know and the boys were going what's this and Mellotrans and all that carry on

yeah absolutely so then when to get into acting did you find that like did you train as an actor no just came naturally

well no I think I was curious about it you know that's the thing I think you have a curiosity about I was very curious about theatre I was curious about film so you begin to kind of thing I think you have a curiosity about I was very curious about theatre

I was curious about film so you begin to kind of explore it and there was a brilliant theatre company still is a brilliant theatre company in Cork called

Kirk and Erka Theatre Company they make amazing site specific work so I saw a show of theirs when I was 17 everyone knows the story and it was The Clockwork Orange

in Sir Henry's Sir I love the way you say it in the car. You can't say Sir Henry's without putting a car lint on the end of it. Which is no longer there. Sir Henry's, the ball and chain. Sir Henry's. It's gone. Did you see anything class in Sir Henry's?

Did I see anything class? A lot of DJs, you know, we kind of had the sort of... You didn't get the... Or she'd have been too young for the Nirvana. Nirvana. Didn't see Nirvana there, no. I could say I did,... You didn't get the... Or she'd have been too young for the Nirvana. Nirvana. Didn't see Nirvana there, no. I could say I did, but I didn't.

So tell me about what you were saying there with the Carca D'Arca. Yeah, so I saw that play and it was transformative because I'd never been to theatre before and it was like wild

and, you know, like it was promenade and it was smoke machines and fellas and stilts and it was like techno music and guys with mohicans and I went, wow, theatre can be like this. Was this a site-specific performance of clockwork orange

well they took over sir henry's like you know so you're there you're present you're walking around yeah yeah see that's class it was amazing it was kind of a kind of legendary production you know um and you so did you have a sense that when you went to this it's like all right whatever about a bit of music now i want to be i want to be getting stuck into this no i didn't want to close the door on the music but i was like wow this is very very interesting and these guys are very you know really unafraid about the sort of theater they're making and and and this is the other and it was like there was loads of young people in there just like you know like teenagers and people in their young 20s you know which is yeah there you go that's the like for me the purpose of site specific work is there's in there. Just like, you know, like teenagers and people in their young twenties, you know. Which is, yeah,

there you go. That's the, like, for me the purpose of site-specific work is, there's a problem with a lot of, with a lot of art where it's,

it can be quite stuffy and it can be very exclusive and people don't feel like going to the theatre is something that all posh people do. Yeah. Not young people

who want to have a bit of crack. Yeah. But then you start throwing Clockwork Orange into Sir Henry's. Yeah. Then it's like want to have a bit of crack. But then you start throwing Clockwork Orange into Sir Henry's. Then it's like, hold on a minute,

this is just a rave, a different type of rave. And it really, really affected me profoundly at that point. And I think, you know, I always say about theatre, if your first experience is amazing, you'll keep on going

for the rest of your life. If your first experience is terrible, you'll never go again yeah which kind of takes me on to like with that site specific way of working right

one of my favourite things that you've done is Win the Shakes the Barley which was Ken Loach who I would class as you know he's a site specific

socially engaged director yeah do you know he's all about using the place using local people like what was it like for your process as an actor like did you find it easier as because you were untrained to be working with ken loach and what like what was it like what was

the crack well first of all he i mean he i think he's one of the greatest filmmakers kind of living filmmakers absolutely and that we have. And his work is very political and it wears its message very clearly on its sleeve. But the performances that he gets from the actors and the way the films... Yeah, how does he do it?

Well, his method is kind of unique but it's quite well known is that we never get the script. Does a script exist? a script exists but is it like a script or like a Larry David guide? no it's completely written

it's not improvised or devised it's written but the actors aren't given the script we spend a lot of time sort of I knew kind of

I knew my character was a doctor but I didn't really know what's sort of where his politics lay until as as the film progressed

but then you sort of your events you're finding that yourself yeah so that's why the that's why the performances are so real because events unfold in front of your eyes and you react in an emotional non-intellectual way and that's why the truth exists you know and how is ken launch doing that like is like Some directors are shouty. We'll say, Kubrick on the set of, oh, what's the one, Jack Nicholson with a hunches. Like the stories about him there, he was nasty. He was screaming at the actors

and actresses getting emotional reactions at him. Is Ken Loach a compassionate, empathic director? Yes. That's what he does. In fact, he's so quiet and so mild-mannered, you hardly know he was there until it gets to the work. And he has a crew that have worked with him for years and years, so he had this kind of telepathic kind of understanding of,

in shorthand. Like music, that's quite musical. It is. That's improv right there. That's playing with a band, throwing an eye over, understanding. Yeah, and trust. But sometimes I remember doing scenes, he would never say action. He would say, off you go.

And then he wouldn't even look. So he'd just listen. Okay. Do you think him not saying action is that the word action could be anxiety triggering for an actor? Yes, exactly. No cut and no marks on the set where you have to hit marks or anything like that. say an action is that the word action could be anxiety triggering for an actor yes exactly wow no cut and no like marks on the set

where you have to hit marks or anything like that so it's a sense of having a bit of crack and encapsulating the crack and bringing it in and just being honest you know

and not there's no like if you look in his films as well a lot of the actors sort of trip over their lines and talk the way people talk that's the beauty of it

that's what I love that's when I love. When I look at a Ken Loach film, I get a literary vibe from it. Yeah. Do you know? It's because,

and I'm surprised to find out that there actually scripts do exist. I thought it'd be more guidelines, you know, and a lot of it is in the responsibility

of the actor's mouth, you know? So one thing I want to kind of move on to, right, is you as Cillian Murphy, right, you're fairly quiet yeah

you're the type of actor you do your job and that's it you act and we'll say the private life of Cillian Murphy or what that's very much you try and keep that away from things you're away from the fucking spectacle yeah of being a celebrity which is something myself I respect a lot obviously because I've a bag in my head do you know what I mean but as well I just I just like the fact that if you were more

public if you were more red carpety played the ball a bit more it would probably have better greater benefits for your career

but you choose not to because you value having a fucking private life yes but it's also in terms of the the the sort of like the work or the craft or whatever you whatever you want to call it without sounding like like a wanker is that you don't mind sounding like a fucking wanker is that you

is that the less people know about you surely logically, the easier you can inhabit another character. That seemed to be always really logical. So that's kind of one of the main reasons. Also, you know, it's not my natural habitat, kind of talking about myself. I don't really enjoy it. But in terms of the work, that has always been a sort of a truism like that. Let the work speak, don't mind the person behind it. Well, yeah, but the less the person knows about you, surely they'll believe more about you

as somebody else. And like, that as well, like, I mean, that's, it's a thing that used to work more in the old school. Like, if you think of the likes

of Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, right? They were able to keep a mystery around themselves and become Bob Dylan, the character. Yeah. But nowadays,

in 2018, with social media, like, you don't have a Twitter, you don't have a twitter you don't have an instagram nothing like that no we intimately know and understand our celebrities now you know we feel like they're best friends we see their flaws whatever we know their political opinions you're very quiet politically and i suppose that one of the main reasons that we're sitting on this couch today and we want to talk about was the upcoming referendum in Ireland around repealing the Eighth Amendment. Yes.

And giving women, giving people who can get pregnant, choice over their bodies. And you're now in a situation where you're going, yeah, I want to chat about that. Yeah. How do you feel about that? Well. You're shitting it. No, I mean, you know, I've considered it for a long time. And I suppose, you know, in terms of the kind of background or context,

we moved home from London. You were living in London, yeah. Yeah, for a long time, 14 years. And we moved home, my wife and our two boys, to Dublin. And we moved just before the marriage equality referendum and so you you arrived into an Ireland that was quite politically engaged at that time and and and it was so we registered and got to vote and and you know it was this amazing positive kind of coming together for the nation it certainly felt like that and we were like wow this is an amazing decision by the nation

you know as a society and how was that for you like having left Ireland you say a good few years before did it feel like fuck I'm after walking into this new Ireland here

did it feel like that a little bit I gotta say it really did and it felt like right if we're gonna raise our children in this society

this is a good move you know this is a good step forward and you know I kind of felt very proud to be coming home. I think we all did, you know, at that stage. And then the other thing that happened was, I think Brexit happened like a year later,

and that was kind of the opposite feeling. Because, you know, the London that we loved and that living in the UK we loved, all of a sudden it appeared to me they'd made a massive calamitous error. Do you know what I mean? Well, it's the double-edged blade of democracy right there.

I mean, the marriage referendum, that is the beauty of democracy. That's the people going, hold on a second, let's work towards a better, more equal society. Brexit is, it's democracy,

but I don't feel Brexit was fully democratic because I feel there was so much misinformation that you have to wonder, someone's not playing fair. Yeah, yeah, and yes. And the thing that, the statistic about that,

that struck me very much, and I think it applies to this discussion today, is that, you know, amongst young voters, 70% of young voters voted to remain. Yeah. Right? And they're going to inherit this decision to leave the EU, right?

Yeah. They're going to feel the consequences of that much, much more acutely than, I think, the older generation. And I feel that in this debate now, young people... With repeal. Yes, that the young people

need to realise that they are going to inherit this decision. Do you know what I mean? And I feel, I kind of feel strongly about that because I have two boys, you know. And yeah, for me, what freaks me out,

what has me kind of feeling trepid about the up like obviously i'm voting to repeal the eighth i'm men young lads that's that's what has me frightened because like i'm never going to get pregnant do you know what i mean i don't have those organs to do that so it's it physically affect me. However, I want a fair society where people who are getting pregnant are not criminalised if they want to terminate that for whatever reason. I'm concerned that young lads in particular are just going to be apathetic. So like, do you enjoy voting? Well, I remember,

here's the thing, I remember being like 18 and, you know, being like fed up with everything, you know, fed up with like society, fed up with the,

you know, political system, fed up with myself and then you kind of go, actually, this voting thing is amazing because you have

a chance to change it, right? Yeah. Now, the thing about a general election is you chance to change it right? Now the thing about a general election is you might just change the numbers in Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael and maybe get an independent TD or something but with a referendum you can go in and if this passes then the Constitution changes immediately it's a done job like it's fantastically powerful. You have pure autonomy as a you'll become De Valera. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. The sense of, I don't know, patriotism. Yeah. Do you know it's fair to call it a patriotism you know? I think so. If we take patriotism to mean your society being a part of it and actually your voice truly mattering.

Yeah. So that's as well why i want the deadline to register for voting is the 8th of may yes and young lads need to get out and register before the 8th of may if you want to actually exercise your voice and feel that power and feel it's not only it's a good thing to do for yourself it's a good thing to do for your society it's a good thing to do for your society to exercise your voice like that. I think so. And that's the crucial thing,

that we're men and women are custodians of this society. We both decide about what's going to happen for our future. And I feel that very, very strongly. And I think you can be well-intentioned and say, look, it should be for women to decide this, but we need to go out and support women on this. Yeah, it's a societal issue. That's really, really the thing that has hit home to me most.

Because I have a lot of friends that are out canvassing and a lot of friends that are working on behalf of various campaigns. And then you hear that from men that they're, you know, they support it, but they're like, you know, we don't want to get involved. Actually, that's not support. Unless you're going out there and actually exercising the vote that you have a right to, then you're not supporting it. You're cheering from the sidelines.

That's what we all need to do as men, I think. Yeah. Here's the opportunity to put on the soccer boots and actually try and score a goal. There you go. It is like. Yeah, yeah. So one thing you've done recently, right, which has been a massive success, right, is Peaky Blinders, right?

Mm-hmm. I fucking, I'll tell you what I love about Peaky Blinders and I'll get killed as an Irishman for saying this. Like, it's set in 1917, 1918? Yeah, well, I think we're up to, like, 26 or something. Go away. Oh, yeah, sure, it's jumping. We started in 18, yeah.

I, as an Irish person, was raised with the narrative of the Brits did their thing in Ireland and they sent over the Black and Tans and all of this. And I viewed Britain as pure privilege. When I look at Peaky Blinders, it makes me see, hold on a second, the working class of England, they didn't have it great. And what it also makes me realise, when Tommy Shelby is, you know, the narrative of Tommy Shelby is he's shell-shocked. And what he was going through in the trenches and the tunnels. Peaky Blinders was the first time that I reflected on the British working class and the Irish working class are a victim of the same system even though ireland was canonized the lads that were being sent even to ireland as oxys or whatever they might have been doing terrible things but they

themselves are victim of a class system and the only people that benefit from it are those at the top and peaky blinders maybe really realize that and reassess because it's something i always say too you know when i speak about colonialism a lot on this podcast and I always remind when I use the word Brits I always remind my British listeners I'm not speaking about you I'm not speaking

about the British people I'm speaking about the elite that have always driven this that have driven colonialism and used off the backs

of the working class in England to let that happen so that's the one thing for me with Peaky Blinders. But did you expect it to become as big as it did? No, I don't think anybody did. It was first just commissioned on BBC, wasn't it? There was no speak of Netflix or anything like that.

No, yeah, it was one commission. We did one series and then, you know, you kind of hoped that it might be recommissioned and then it came back. And it grew very slowly. And I think it grew in the right way, which is... Was Netflix a driver for it? Yes, but the way it really grew was just because the BBC can't advertise.

And Netflix only advertised on their platform. So it grew just between people and word of mouth. That's how it grew. Very, very incrementally and slowly, which was brilliant. their platform so it grew just between people and word of mouth that's how it grew very very incrementally and slowly which was brilliant

and then all of a sudden people started walking around with their hair cut that's what I love the fact

that it's defined fashion for young lads today very much so you know it's mad to have that Peaky

Binder look I love as well the back story of Tommy Shelby and the is it Roma Gypsy is that his yeah

he's half Romany Gypsy yeah and there's because there's one line you said in it did you have to how did you learn did you learn a bit of Roma

to do that part yeah it's a really difficult language to learn because it's not based in kind of any of the Latin languages so it's just

you have to learn it totally. Is it like, is it a slang or is it a proper language? Oh, it's a proper language, yeah. Yeah. It's a proper language, yeah. One thing as well that I adored,

there's a couple of scenes where it's just you and Tom Hardy. Oh, yeah. That for me, it's like, I want to, there's a Beckett vibe of it. Do you know what I mean? It's like, I want to, there's a Beckett vibe off it. Do you know what I mean?

It's like, I would like to see just that because there's an intensity between the two of you. It's just, it's two fucking top class actors doing their thing

in that room. Like, what's it like working with Tom Hardy like that? Do you get on with him? Is he a good guy? Yeah,

well we've known each other for a long time. I'd say he's a good laugh. He's an amazing fella. Like, you know, you've seen his films like he's a good laugh. He's an amazing fella. You've seen his films. He's a powerhouse. But the thing that I think makes those scenes interesting,

or any of the big two-hander scenes, is the quality of the writing. They're like a six-, eight-page scene, brilliantly, brilliantly written, and you only have to just do justice to the writing, and then you're away. But I also think a lot of the time, the show is just people speaking in rooms. Yeah,'s true and there's some set pieces but a lot of the

show is people speaking in rooms and again if the if the writing isn't good there you're it's not of course yeah you can't have it um fucking hell so thank you very much for being on the podcast it's best of luck to you and i look forward to seeing what's happening next. Yeah, likewise. Yart. All right. So there you go. Thank you very much to Cillian Murphy for coming out in support

of repealing the Eighth Amendment. Thank you to Yvonne McGuinness and Michelle Darmody for making it possible. It was their idea but yeah I can't say it enough times

the deadline for registering to vote is the 8th of May so please do that lads and get out there repealing I think we will have our ocarina Pause now

because it's 37 minutes in the Ocarina Pause is a kind of a digital Angelus where the app that this podcast is uploaded

upon Acast they insert digital adverts some bullshit that they're selling don't know but if you're lucky you won't hear an advert

and you will instead hear me very gently play my Spanish clay whistle the ocarina so here goes Thank you. to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for?

Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca That's sunrisechallenge.ca On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret. It's a girl. Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil. It's all for. Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil. It's all for you.

No, no, don't. The first omen. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey!

Movie of the year. It's not real. It's not real. What's not real? Who said that? The first omen. Only in theaters April 5th Oh yes oh yes so soothing

so funky the ocarina em so I had a bit of a hot take there at the the end of that interview with Cillian Murphy

because I just listened back to it there myself too and it's the hot take about the we'll say the fucking British soldiers that occupied Ireland during the 19 the late, you know 1919

1920, contextualising them as victims that's a bit hot that's almost too hot takey for my behalf. Because. A lot of the black and tans and auxiliaries. Were actually of the officer class.

You know they would have been posh boys. They would have been part of the system. But. When I speak about we'll say. The downtrodden working class of the British soldiers. There certainly were some fucking. Just normal fucking soldiers from the slums of England in Occupy in Ireland

in the 19, early 1920s and I tell you how I know this actually and this is an interesting thing and I didn't bring it up in the Cillian Murphy interview and I don't know why because I forgot but the film that I did bring up the wind that shakes the barley uh which I love because it's a Ken Loach film it was one of my favorite directors

but the it's it's a semi-true story okay it's kind of based on events in West Cork around between 1918-1922 in Tom Barry's Flying Column and my grandfather and my two granduncles were in that Flying Column in West Cork so the events of Wind That Shakes the Barley

certain things that happen in the film and there's an ambush which is based on the Kill Michael ambush which is based on the Kill Michael ambush which my grandfather was in my grandad wrote memoirs about his time in the IRA in the early 1920s

and 1918, 1919 and I have those memoirs and I've been reading them for fucking years and my grandad and his family they captured a British soldier and they had him prisoner in the house

for nearly two or three months and it wasn't even it wasn't like kept him prisoner in a like he a, in a, like he was a prisoner of war, but he wasn't like locked away, like after a couple of weeks, this British soldier was basically dressed up like a paddy, and from my grandad's stories, like he kind of liked being a prisoner, because it meant he wasn't out as an auxiliary getting shot at by the RA every day and he started to help around the farm and dig ditches and kind of be happy that he wasn't fighting and was a prisoner with this family but the one thing my granddad couldn't understand a word coming out of his mouth not a fucking, and he couldn't understand my grandad, because this was

1921, there was no television, you didn't hear British accents, you certainly didn't hear working-class British accents, and yeah, they couldn't understand each other, and my grandad died in the early 1980s, and I know my dad telling me. That one day. EastEnders I think it was. Was on television. My grandad recognised. The EastEnders voice. As the voice of this British soldier.

That was held prisoner back in the house in West Cork. So that was an EastEnd cockney accent. So. There's no way he was a posh officer do you know what I mean em as far as I know I think that soldier was

eh he was to be traded as a prisoner for some IRA prisoners I don't know what happened to him he may have been shot on the orders of Tom Barry

not sure I would love to read out some of my grandad's memoirs of his time in the RA of Tom Barry. Not sure. I would love to read out some of my grandad's memoirs. Of his time in the RA. In Tom Barry's flying column someday. But. I'd have to change a few names and things like that. Just to be sensitive to families.

And I'd have to get. Probably just have to ask some permission. If I was to do that. Because it just. Feels a bit weird you know. Em. But yeah. That's. When I want. That's one of the things for. When the shakes the barley for me. because it just feels a bit weird you know but yeah that's when I went that's one of the things for

Win the Cheeks the barley for me that's so fucking phenomenal is I knew some of those stories beforehand from just reading my grandad's recollections but digressing again but a lot of them were the black and tans and them were

of the officer class but World War I you know World War I was when But a lot of them were, the black and tans and them were of the officer class. But World War I, you know, World War I was when the system, the British imperial system just basically cleaned out its neglected slums and sent people to the fucking trenches. You know, those people are victims too. Victims of an imperialist capitalist system system you know, only a very small percentage of people actually benefit from that it got me

thinking about fucking class poet by the name of Siegfried Sassoon and Siegfried Sassoon, And Siegfried Sassoon. You might remember him from the Leaving Cert. But he was a war poet.

He was a World War I poet. Who was sent off to the trenches. In World War I. And after a while. After seeing so much death around him. And the pointlessness of it. He had a little protest. And ended up being

declared mentally unwell and was sent to a mental institution for soldiers but he has a most magnificent poem called Base Details which is a critique of how the victims of World War

One were only the poor, you know and I'll read it out for you how the victims of World War I were only the poor. You know, and I'll read it out for you. If I were fierce and bald and short of breath, I'd live with scarlet majors at the base and speed glum heroes up the line to death. You'd see me with my puffy petulant face guzzling and gulping in the best hotel, reading the roll of honour poor young chap i'd say

i used to know his father well yes we've lost heavily in this last scrap and when the war is done and youth stone dead i toddle safely home and die in bed fucking savage poem from Siegfried Satzun there from 1918 and a vicious critique of World War I from a dare I say it a dangerously Marxist perspective and I don't know enough about Siegfried Satzun

but I'm sure he would have been accused of Marxism with stuff like that because that was 1918 and the Russian revolution I believe was 1917 but a savage fucking poem and what I find interesting too about a lot of Sassoon's work is

he was all about realism do you know he was about very unapologetic realistic gory descriptions of

the battlefront do you know he wasn't necessarily looking for metaphor or allegory it was straight up blood bones and guts almost like gore metal

you know if you ever listen to a band like Cannibal Corpse there's a similarity in their lyrics to the brutality of Siegfried Sassoon and I've spoken before about the art movement known as Dada

which would be if I had to say I had a favourite art art movement known as Dada, which would be, if I had to say I had a favourite art movement, it would be Dada. And, interestingly too, if you contrast, we'll say, the work of Siegfried Sassoon and the work of the Dada artists,

which are both responses to World War I, you get right there the contrast of modernism and post-modernism. Sassoon, with that realistic honesty, is firmly modernist. Dada, with their bizarre irony, is

the birth of proto-post-modernism. Dada, too, was a response to the sheer brutality and madness of World War I. But where Sassoon chose in his art to represent realistically the gut-wrenching horror of war, Dada kind of took it a step further by going, a step further by going this is so

insane, this war this mechanised industrial war is so mad and so insane that even something like Sassoon where he's trying to give a literal description of what's happening, those words

themselves will fall deaf on the ears of safe civilians because they don't have a context so dada were like let's do something mad so the artist marcel duchamp got a toilet and put it in a gallery and called it art and that was his response to world war one you know how can we have beautiful pictures or poems how can we have anything critiquing society when society is currently beyond critique there's a Jax in a gallery

it's art it's a urinal deal with that and sort your shit out also myself and Cillian were talking about site specific theatre which is

if you haven't seen a piece of site specific theatre. I urge you. To go and see. A bit of it right. It's a form of socially engaged art. Right. I speak a lot about. As you know.

I'm fucking hugely passionate about art. And. It pains me. When when art is placed beyond the reach of regular everyday people. When art goes up its own hole. When it's elitist. When art uses unnecessarily verbose language to describe itself. And the average person on the street goes, I don't like this art it just

makes me feel stupid and excluded well theater as a form of art has you know that can go up its own hall um some people would say the likes of modernists like beckett who i fucking adore but some would critique beckett and say thatett and say that Beckett minimalised theatre so much that it became so absurd that it was inaccessible to anybody who came to the theatre whereas you go back to the likes of Sean O'Casey

something like The Plough and the Stars which I had the pleasure of seeing a great remake of that in the Abbey about two years ago but with Sean O'Casey with The Plough and the Stars, which I had the pleasure of seeing a great remake of that in the Abbey about two years ago, but with Sean O'Casey with The Plough and the Stars, that play is essentially, it's just Marxism, but in the form of characters. But even with Sean O'Casey's play, this was a play that was written for the average person of Dublin. And there's moments in it where the actors address the crowd. Because O'Casey would have been aware that the average kind of theatre goer would have been a posh, haughty, taughty person.

And if he's to get the actual, you know, the people who would have been affected by the 1913 lockout in Dublin to go and attend this play he needs to engage them and they might be roaring and screaming in a without kind of

etiquette at the stage so some of O'Casey's characters break the fourth wall and address the audience which is certainly a socially engaged perspective

but I've digressed again site specific theatre is a form of theatre whereby there's not even a stage like a site specific piece of theatre could take place across an entire building

and you as an audience member you can nearly interact with the actors, it's almost a fully immersive building and you as an audience member you can nearly interact with the actors it's almost a fully immersive experience and you could go and see the play every single day for a week and each day you will see a different play i saw a fucking unbelievable site-specific piece of theater in collins's barracks and it was called palsels and it was by Anu Productions, A-N-U if you want to see any decent site specific stuff Anu Productions, keep an eye on whatever they're doing, but in

Collins's barracks it was a play about it was about a story that happened in Collins's barracks during World War 1 about a group of lads, I think they were from the south of Dublin, they might have been posh but all of these lads went off to World War I about a group of lads I think they were from the south of Dublin they might have been posh but all of these lads went off to World War I

and died and the play takes place in their last night in Collins' barracks before they would have been shipped off to Gallipoli I believe it was and I as an audience member

they had recreated this dormitory exactly as if it was 1914, 1915, whatever it was. And I sat on a bed and the other audience members sat on a bed and the play happened all around us. And certain actors would have conversations in the far corner.

And I wouldn't be privy to these conversations because i'd be on the other side of the room but the audience members that were on that side of the room heard those conversations so everybody in the room got a different play and it was fucking amazing it was absolutely incredible so if you want to be truly engaged by art and theater go and see a piece of site specific theater please um i've been thinking a lot recently about virtual reality and you know i'm a fucking writer so i want to start writing for virtual reality because it's the new technology but it's difficult because if you've ever used a virtual reality headset you as the observer you've got a full 360 degree view so for the director it's difficult to focus

the observer's attention on one thing because you have full choice to look around whatever you want but i think the key to writing for virtual reality if you were to write a piece of drama or whatever it's to use the writing techniques of um site-specific theater in that multiple events can be going on all around you and you have the choice to engage with whichever one you want here's a boiling boiling hot take site specific theatre is almost a

quantum type of theatre and the reason being is that you can see two different plays at once like with quantum physics, there's this thing called a quantum superposition, where something can be two things at the same time, and that's what site-specific theatre is.

You're at the play, but various elements of the play are happening at once, and how you experience that play depends on how you observe it. That take is so hard I can't tell if I'm simply talking out of my arse fully completely talking out of my rectum or not so anyway

what else have I got to say oh yes the part of this podcast where I beg from you this podcast is supported by you, the generous listeners, via the Patreon page. What I would say to you is, if you enjoyed this podcast and you liked it and you had a bit of crack, and you would like to buy me a pint or a cup of coffee, please do go to patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast and you can donate to this podcast um the price of a pint or a pint of a price of a cup of coffee

once a month please do it's i really really appreciate it it's fucking fantastic and it's a nice model as well to have the money that's coming into this podcast to be funded and supported by ye you know when I made this podcast like I was able to say straight out yeah I'm fucking repeal the 8th I don't have to present the other side

I don't have to get some fucking Catholic lunatic on here disagreeing with Cillian Murphy because I don't take any BAI funding this is a 100% anarchic free medium right here, completely no one's pulling the strings here

you know this is my creation and I consult with G and that's it, and fuck RTE, BBC, whoever this is ours. And no one can do nothing. And.

There could be ten people listening to it. Or a quarter of a million. It doesn't matter. It's a very democratic. Socialistic medium. And. Yeah. Please donate.

And if you don't have the money. And you don't want to donate. If you want to just listen to it for free. You absolutely can. That's completely fine alright, yart let's answer a couple of questions Sam asks what's your position on death etiquette

seems no matter how much of a dick someone is, as soon as they die they're some kind of saint i.e. Maggie Thatcher and a recent example is Avicii, dying the man was slated to fuck by the same people praising his name when he died what's that all about

I think it comes down to respect do you know like I was certainly was no fan of Avicii's music do you know I really really and I'm a musical dustbin I love all music I go out of my way

to appreciate pop music, out of my way to really listen to it with fresh ears, and Avicii was just, I really struggled to find artistic value in it, you know, because he, artistic value in it, you know, because he, ah man, he was mixing fucking almost country music and happy hardcore, like, just did nothing for me, but, for someone to die,

I think he was, was he 28 or 26? For someone to die that young from alcoholism is fucking heartbreaking, and, his, it does, i don't care what music he fucking made that's only an expression of his that's only one aspect of his behavior you know it says nothing about him as a person so when i heard that he fucking died

it did sadden me you know i've had very little interest in avicii up until that point and like i said i had a rare contempt for his music but to hear someone that age dying from mental health and alcoholism and especially the fact that it was the alcoholism that went along with his fame

that's fucking heartbreaking so it just didn't feel right on the day for me to be dragging up his music because his music does not define him as a person Maggie Thatcher, different story you know, that's a different story Oliver Cranwell like

Oliver Cranwell was such a cunt they dug him off. After he died. And beheaded him. But you gotta have. I don't know it's basic respect. I suppose there's a little bit of time. That you wait.

And then you kind of launch into it. But. It's just what we do. It's just what we do. You gotta have a certain amount of I think what it does is that it brings up our own death anxiety you know

we all fantasize about our funerals no one wants to be called a cunt at their own funeral you know em it's a weird one Maria asks I'd love to hear your thoughts on daydreams

in the grand scheme of mindfulness and mental health I was touched on briefly in the Kevin Barry interview when he stressed the importance of mindlessness negative daydreams like imaginary fights and worries are obviously serious obstacles to mindfulness and positive mental health but do you think there's any benefit to positive

daydreams or fantasies or would you also consider it a hindrance to mindfulness and finding a happiness in your day-to-day life if you're effectively living in a fantasy world instead of the real world well no um like i explained at the start of the podcast i'm a professional daydreamer when i'm writing a short story it feels the exact same as when i was daydreaming as a kid i'm just very constructive with it like obsessively daydreaming around negative things where it you know when you're daydreaming about an argument that you'd like

to have with someone or an argument you had had which is a very common thing with people which can lead to mental health issues you know if it gets your blood boiling or your heart racing or you start to feel as angry as you would be in that situation you know consistently over the course of a day that is the exact opposite of mindfulness that that will lead to stress and unhappiness and a sense of injustice so that type of daydreaming needs to be curbed but imaginative daydreaming where it's pleasurable and enjoyable and it can be you know quite creative i see no harm in that unless it you know becomes an escape or a barrier from your real life but that's

that's play therapy you know Carl Jung stressed the importance of adults to maintain their ability to play you know when we are kids we daydream all day long we play with crayons we get down on the ground and fuck around with sticks.

Young stressed that this was very important for the mind of a healthy adult, and I'd agree with him 100%. I suppose it has to do with your attitude towards it. People can fantasize positively in an unhelpful way. People can fantasize positively in an unhelpful way. They fantasize about love if they fantasize about someone they can't have. And they live in the pleasurable dreams or fantasies of being with someone who has rejected them or isn't interested in them and stuff like that. That's not helpful, even though it's momentarily pleasurable it's about moderation i think you know um my positive daydreaming has a a very real impactful and beneficial effect on my life but i don't use it as escapism to the

point where it negatively affects aspects of my concrete existence. Do you know what I mean? But, Jesus, we can't be mindful all day long. You know, you can't be doing that. That is an ideal self. That's not the human way. We should be mindful. We should strive to be mindful in as many things that we do as possible.

But mainly to minimalise that type of mindlessness where you're obsessively focusing on negative things that might happen and negative things that have already happened. things that you can't change and that when you listen to your body it's quite clear they bring up the physical sensations of anger or anxiety mindfulness seeks to

limit those experiences they're unhelpful okay they're really not great and you end up having an imaginary sense of injustice I think that's all we've got time for this week

I'd have answered more questions only I don't want the podcast to be too long so I'm going to see you next week enjoy yourself the weather is lovely the weather is fucking gorgeous last week at the end of the podcast i spoke to you about how i was looking for consistently looking for crayfish in the water and i got a lot of

responses on twitter of people telling me that there's crayfish in a lake near their gaff or in a stream i was told that there's crayfish up in the clear glens in a stream that i have looked into many a time looking for crayfish uh someone told me that i need to be looking under rocks so thank you for that another thing what i plan on doing this summer because it's a very dear beauty in it to me um there's a fantastic beauty in drinking a can or a bottle of rain or sorry a bottle of wine in a summer in the summer rain especially down by

Yorty's couch that's something I'm gonna I'll do it once or twice every summer nice fucking summer torrent of rain where the temperature is warm and you find yourself

dry underneath a tree and do a small bit of drinking, a bottle of wine or a few cans, there's a tremendous I love that, I love that so much there's a real beauty in that and it's one of those things as well

you know I've spoken before about being grateful for having this bag on my head I couldn't do that if I was Des Bishop and people knew who I was but I can quite happily once or twice during the summer go down to that river, sit under a tree with a bottle of wine and

enjoy the fucking lovely wine and enjoy the lovely rain and I can't wait to do that. That's one of my favourite things to do. But if I was recognisable, passers-by would go, Look at poor old blind boy, he's farting on hard times. He's drinking wine in the rain. No, I haven't.

I'm mindfully enjoying a single bottle of wine in the rain because I find it to be an aesthetically beautiful experience and it's no different to what you do on your couch okay so mind your own business but luckily I have a bag in my head so I'm just some lad drinking wine and no

one cares and they can judge me all they want it doesn't matter it's not going to end up in the daily mail alright God bless have a good week absolute me all they want. It doesn't matter. It's not going to end up in the Daily Mail. Alright, God bless. Have a good week. Absolute shower of lovely cunts. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league

bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30 p.m. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game, and you'll only pay as we play.

Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.