The Comedian's Comedian Podcast - 6 - Adam Bloom

Episode Date: June 5, 2012

Adam Bloom understands jokes in a way most of us can only dream of. From his first gig, "when the white noise stopped", to his current position as a comedian and freelance fixer of other people's gags, he lets us in on his unique perspective...Get ad-free new episodes, bonus content from interviews and much more by joining the Insiders Club at www.comedianscomedian.com/insidersSee Stuart live on tour - www.stuartgoldsmith.com/comedy Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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To feel good and do good, go to bombus.com and use code audio for 20% off your first purchase. That's BOMBAS.com and use code audio at checkout. My biggest regret is not asking for help sooner because you're not alone. Being a parent isn't easy. Being a whole person while parenting, that can be even harder. On the latest episode of Mind If We Talk, host and licensed therapist Hesu Joe is joined by moms who get it. Listen is Dina Margolin and Kristen Galant, co-founders of Big Little Feelings and host of Conversations with Cam, Cameron Oaks Rogers, talk about staying connected to yourself,

how to genuinely show up for new parents, and why asking for help is a true sign of strength. Because no one has it all together, and that's okay. Mind if we talk is available wherever you get your podcasts. Listen and follow today. This is a podcast from Comedianscommodion.com. This is the Comedians, Comedian Podcast. Hello and welcome to the show. I'm Stuart Goldsmith, and my guest today is Adam Bloom.

Many of you, I think, comedians will be familiar with Adam. He's like, for those who you that don't know him, he's like, you know the guy in a heist movie, who's the specialist at cracking safes and outwitting security systems. Adam Bloom is like that, but for jokes. I found this conversation absolutely electrifying. So I hope you enjoy it. Without further ado, please welcome Mr. Adam Bloom. I think the thing we should start with is,

because I imagine you've done, you've been going for how long? 18 years. 18 years. You'll have done a lot of interviews, and you'll have retrod the same ground over and over about how you started and all the rest of it. So rather than that, I just think from the point of view of the listener, that material is probably available elsewhere. Okay. So shall we start, and we can, you can dip into it briefly if you like, but shall we just start by saying,

do you have to be a comedian? Me? Yes. Do you have to be, and maybe that might, you might talk about your origins along the way. Okay. But do you think you have to be a comic? Okay. And we're in, we're off, this is it.

Oh. the needle hit the record and there was no sound of a needle and I have to be a comedian because I wanted to be a comedian when I was 10 my life was a mishmash of just chaos until the day I did my first gig and then the white noise stopped wow that's exactly the answer I wanted anyway

go on yeah so it was on stage during my first gig I almost went over my whole life up to that moment I went, oh, of course. Of course. It was a bit like having a friend who'd come out the closet and then you realised why, you know, relations didn't work or why they were frustrated or you go, okay, now it will make sense and now they can relax and get on with it. And that's how it was. And my whole life prior to my first gig seemed like a kind of desperate need to show the world what was going on in my head that wasn't normal. You know, I'd have conversation with people and my brain would be just working overtime to come out of conceits and just play

around with what was going around me and some people would go this is great who is this bloke and some people go you're full of crap because they would hear the nonsense and not decode it because you say something poetic or absurd and it's rubbish if you want the straight answer from someone because I go home very hurt I'd be down the pub and I'd be just spurting out these thoughts and someone would say I'd go you're full of crap and I'd feel really

really hurt because you're not getting paid for this you're just going look world I see it differently to people because I would be on the school bus and see something on sign and i like a no smoking sign and i'd make a comment and everyone would crack up laughing but i honestly thought that that was obvious to everyone okay do you mean it's like you hear about people with with with with with with with with big willies who honestly thought they had a small willy until some point out yeah they had a big way do you mean and it was too and i just didn't realize for years i knew i could make people laugh but i didn't realize how absurd my perspective on

everyday life was until I was probably about 15, 16 because I'd make a comment just say what I saw say what I saw what you see, say what you see what I saw was

what other people saw and comedians work differently they'll spend some time with Tim Vine he'll make puns Mac Welcome makes wonderful puns

I remember once he he invited me to his birthday party during the Edinburgh festival and I was up in Edinburgh and I said I can't come up here in Edinburgh will you come up

and he said no and I saw your present will be missed and he went no your presence will be missed it's great isn't it yeah and then as he said that I thought oh my god how come I didn't spot that it's such a blatant obviously that your presence

would miss talking about birthday I mean but I didn't see the world that way that's how I'm talking about Ross Noble doing really well in the last couple years since Matt and been off the circuit I said his career snowboard and he's literally Ross Snowboard right and he saw Snowboard

William Noble yeah he just saw the word noble within snowboard and i don't so it's i'm not putting myself on a pedestal i'm just saying i see things differently to some people sure and some communities see things different to me and it's just we're different and that different thing that oddness that quirk that disfunctionality that whatever it is that makes me see it different to people uh was a very frustrating so it was genuinely problematic for you as a kid dealing with other kids in any way other than making them laugh. Not

not dealing with it in any other way, but it was definitely frustrating knowing that I could make people laugh but some people thought I was a bit mad

and people didn't appreciate me. I knew that if I could make a comment that made people laugh saying something that no one else spotted, there must be value in that. There must be financial profit to be made

for being able to see the world differently. And, but of course, I didn't. know I could do it until I did it. And that's why the first gig was such a profound experience. Because now it was proof. I can do this.

I've done it. I'm doing it now. It's happening now. They're laughing. It's not a delusion. I'm not a deluded person. I'm a person who spent years going, I know I can see things differently.

And now, because that thing you sell, I had jokes to my first gig that were four years old that had been in my head. That's unique. I don't think I've, I don't think I've certainly never spoken to anyone

who was, I mean, yeah, the idea of doing a first gig. with material that was four years old, things that you... I mean, material, yeah, just jokes, isn't it? Just to have a thing and have never said it, but to know that it would work. And did you know it would work? No, no, no, no, no, I didn't know it would work.

So you were really putting your balls on the line. Yes, what's the model for? If that had gone, if that one joke, and we've all had banned gigs, if your first gig had been a bad one, would that have snuffed you out? I think about that once a month for the last 18 years. It's such a fragile thing to think

that all over the world, there were people who had a stab at something and failed who could have been the next big thing in their field because they failed because of that particular audience just didn't click with them and they look what was I thinking? What was I thinking? And then they give up. It's tragic to think that, isn't it?

And I do honestly think that on a regular basis because I remember my having a slightly bad gig soon afterwards and thinking, what was I thinking? And the people doing well on the bill that night, two new acts who did well on the bill, have both given up since then. And I remember thinking, what are I thinking I can't compete with these people?

And, you know, a couple years down the line, they'd stop doing it. So I just hope people listen to this, thinking about doing anything with their lives, do it. And also don't give up on the first one, because it is the persistence that prevails, isn't it? Sure. Over the talent. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

Well, we can only hope. But you only hoped just by repeatedly bashing one's head against it, that in the end, the persistence will fail. so a quick break now i'll just tell you what's going to happen later on in the rest of the show this i think this is one of my favorite episodes of the comedians comedian if you i was going to say geek out is that a thing geeking out yeah if you sort of roll over and and geek out about jokes as much as i do you're just i think you're going to love this we're going to be talking about adam's very unusual position in the comedy world as a fixer and some of the people uh comedian and also some high-profile non-comedians for whom he's written.

We're going to talk about Adam's disdain for laziness in joke writing. Some really interesting thoughts there. And a remarkable analogy about the shape and the pattern of jokes. We're going to talk about Adam's development as a comic and how he wishes maybe he'd done some things differently. He's got a very fascinating and some very encouraging thoughts about what the industry is or isn't looking for. And perhaps a breath of fresh air for some newer acts.

Adam is very big on the concept of loving comedy itself more than loving the idea of success I just think he's it's really positive to hear someone talk about caring about the thing they love more than and I'm not suggesting that my previous guests haven't but this has particularly come up

in this particular interview that it's so easy and I had an email from an act as well a newer act who was talking about how easy it is to become disillusioned and to feel disenchanted when people that you consider, let's not make any bones about it, people who you consider to have lazy writing or uninspired writing or a kind of a give me the success kind of attitude,

it can be incredibly depressing when you're cranking away trying to do something you care about to feel like you're getting overtaken or leapfrogged by someone who doesn't seem to care about the thing you love as much. So I think if you're someone that's ever thought that, I think probably we all have. And it's probably important to remember as well, the people you're thinking that about also put themselves somewhere on their spectrum and probably think that about other people.

But so some really, really exciting stuff from Adam on that. And finally, very, very excitingly, and an example of Adam's writing technique in which I've asked him to take a recent joke of his to bits and explain how and why it works and how he wrote it like that. So that's all coming up. Two little quick promotional things.

I know you know I'm doing the comedians, Comedians Comedian Live at the Edinburgh Festival. Tickets for that are on sale now. It's 1215 at the Gilded Balloon. That's a lunchtime show at Friday, Saturdays and Sundays throughout the festival. And we have got Mr. Rod Gilbert's date confirmed. Now, there's only 50 tickets. And if I mention it next episode in which I'm going to be interviewing Sarah Milliken and which I confidently expect my ratings, my downloads to quadruple, then all of the Sarah Milliken fans are going to get the Rod Gilbert tickets, which is fine. They're lovely people. But I want to make sure but you get them the hardcore comedy nerds. I'm prepared to tell you now that the wonderful Josh Whitacom is going to be doing the Comedians Comedian Live at the Edinburgh Festival

on Sunday the 5th of August and tickets are on sale for that now. The first time I've released that, Sunday the 5th is going to be Josh Whitacom that's going to be absolutely fascinating. I have heard from a housemate of Josh's that he writes for eight hours a day and just regards it as his job

and cracks the stuff out. So I can't wait. He's very excited about that as well. So that's the 5th of August. So leap on that and sell that out and let's get it full of comedy nerds. And for the super hardcore people, I'm going to make Rod's date available to my mailing list before anyone else. So if you want to know, then please email info at comedianscommodian.com and just put subscribe in the subject line or whatever abuse you want. It doesn't matter. It all gets through to me.

So that's info at comedianscom. Send them to me. I'll put you on the mailing list and I will make you make Rod's date available so that we can get it complete, so that Rod can turn up to be facing 50 shiny-faced comedy nerds with pens in hands. Let's maybe not aim for quite that. So that's 1215 at the Gilded Balloon. Tickets are on sell now. There's a link on the Comedianscom homepage. And last thing, I'm doing a preview at the Pleasance in Islington of my own show,

Prick, on Sunday the 24th of June. So to the same address, that's info at comedianscom. Email me your favourite swear word, and I'll pick the most creative one, and that person will win two free tickets to that preview. So without further ado, not a great deal. No, oh, this is a do now. I'm doing a do. I'll stop doing a do.

Back to Adam. My biggest regret is not asking for help sooner because you're not alone. Being a parent isn't easy. Being a whole person while parenting, that can be even harder. On the latest episode of Mind If We Talk, host and licensed therapist, Hesu Joe, is joined by moms who get it. Listen is Dina Margolin and Kristen Galant, co-founding. Founders of Big Little Feelings and host of conversations with Cam, Cameron Oaks Rogers, talk about staying connected to yourself, how to genuinely show up for new parents, and why asking for help is a true sign of strength, because no one has it all together, and that's okay. Mind if we talk is available wherever you get your podcasts. Listen and follow today. You buy a pair of socks, that's two socks.

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but it's just funny i know people who are you know their belief in themselves is greater than their ability in my eyes and they've gone on to do well because they've almost continually said i will do well i will do well often with successful parents you know children with average and successful parents do well because they just keep believing they will i can because my dad did i can because my dad did and there's something they do and the doors start opening and it's like that kind of jel i mind trick that guy's good why is he good well he's saying he's good for 10 years every day yeah i mean it is so much of the job i think is a the less technical aspects of it the kind of the personality driven aspects of it it is it's a confidence trick and i i don't know

anything really about neurolinguistic programming but what little i do know suggests to me it's about to create that situation for yourself. I certainly, I can think of acts as well, I'm sure, whose confidence seems at an inappropriate level, but nonetheless, further down the line, you go, well, no, that is one way to do it, is just to be so confident that you become good. Yes, yes.

But you weren't like that. You were confident based on something real and the fact that you just crack people up all the time. Yes, I do wonder, and maybe that was me. It's funny that you describe this delusion in people, you go, oh, I did quite well, maybe, oh my God. Maybe you just can't remember all the times you said something and kids didn't laugh.

I tell you can remember, I can remember the times when an audience didn't like what I did, and I shrugged it off like water off the duck's back. I remember thinking, I remember I heard what I wanted to hear, and that was a stage that I had in the new community. I've never discussed this with everyone before. I had, in my first two years,

such, because I discovered this thing that was going to prove that I had purpose in life and my brain was special and it was going to work out, I was unstoppable. I was absolutely unstoppable. And when I think about it,

I remember doing a bad gig at a last minute. Sasha Baron Cohen booked me in a restaurant in Habstead called The House. He used to book a comedy gig there. And Bob Mills had cancelled and he booked three new acts

paid to do a short set each to make up for the Bob Mills extended set. and um and uh he didn't stay a book along then with logic like that he even told the audience that yeah what a degree introduction this person the three acts will make up for bob mills so i'm a third of bob mills um uh physically i am and i went on and had a had a tough gig and it was a tough it was in a restaurant it wasn't set up well for comedy and and and he'd come back quite badly as well and uh where is he now and um and uh and uh i went on had a bad gig and i remember the audience It's looking at Sasha when he came back on stage as if to say, what are you doing?

You promised this is good comedy. That's another bad, but almost like last week it happened. It was like, oh, he's done it again. Someone who can't get it up and his wife's going to look and said, not again. And you just walk past the curtain, catch a glimpse that says, it's not just that didn't work. It's not again, darling. And that's the look they gave. I know it's a lot to read in from a look.

But I saw that. and I just remember going no, it didn't happen and I rejected it I just rejected it my dad once said to me if your wife captured you in bed

with another woman did die it you know they want to believe the good in you so you tell them the good so the shaggy song wasn't me

the same thing yeah yeah of course yeah but so I didn't accept I saw a room of people looking at the comparative to say why are you bringing

this rubbish to us and I just thought I can't be rubbish I cannot have it cannot enter in my head that a room of people think

I'm rubbish so it didn't happen bang that's incredible and wiped it out didn't happen that's incredible Mickey Flanagan

once said to me when you're looking at audience members you know you focus on the one person or one focuses on the one person who is laughing

who is yeah when you focus on the one person It's not only me who isn't laughing I remember Mickey saying you've got to Photoshop them out you've got to make them

invisible you've got to ignore this completely whereas of course it's much more in my psyche to look at them and kind of go for it and go, right, I've got to make you laugh otherwise the gig's been pointless. Do you know what I mean? As if, whereas actually someone might just have a totally different sense of humour and actually it's in the interests of the overwhelming majority if you pretend everyone is having that amazing time and allow yourself then to relax into

it. Yeah, sure. So you're, given that by now anyone that doesn't know you and is listening to this for the first time, we'll probably be regarding you as some kind of idiot savant where you Well, by which I mean you have this incredible ability that then fell into place. So I don't know. Are we imagining that you were totally functional as a normal kid anyway, but you had this extra thing?

It would make more sense in your superhero origin story if you were lonely and friendless. I was a popular kid, but what I was was extremely academic and messed up at school very badly. So I couldn't function in a classroom. Okay. At 11 years old, my desk was facing the teachers.

where everyone else's were facing each other. In groups of four, two by two, facing each other. So four kids in groups. Sure. I sat facing the teacher. It was the only way you could get me to do my work. Okay. Because otherwise you'd be mucking about,

or because it wouldn't go in? I'd be mucking him out. Okay. And the reason I brought a face of the idiot, the savant thing wasn't because I'd disagree. It was because I didn't think the people listening who didn't know who was could come to that conclusion. Sure.

But amongst comics, yeah, I get, I get, it sounds like I'm bragging. I'm just, we're just discussing. Bragg, feel free. this is the whole point of this, say the things that you honestly mean, don't worry about coming across like you're awful. I just get endless phone calls from comedians

who've got jokes that they can't get to work ringing me up and say, can you help me with this joke? And it's almost like, it's almost not a given, but a lot of people have come to a conclusion if a joke doesn't work, ask Adam because I've got this autistic kind of we're looking at the...

You mentioned the word autistic first there. I haven't mentioned that. You're the 421st person to not mention. but yeah so there's that there's that and I can stare at a joke and I used to get stoned when I was in my early days of comedian it doesn't have ever now ever ever ever but I would actually see jokes I was thinking of as scale electric tracks you know when you buy a scale electric set

they have a choice of different ways to set there I'd see the pattern of the joke in a shape so it would go that way that way and bend there and go that way and go that way there and Milton Jones always used to impress me because even back then because his jokes twisted in unusual places. Yes. And I'd see the Skelletric track of his choice.

Yes, even that. I mean, I try and think of if I'm trying to write a short joke or even a longer thing, I'm trying to see in terms of a paradigm shifting of like a set of events that we're then seeing from a different angle or a different perspective. But in my head, that's a very simple line diagram, whereas the simple fact that you've described it

as scare electrics, which has 3D quality to it and it's full of curves. I mean, that's already another level of thinking about it again. That's like, you know what I mean? Like that's filling in different dimensions, a graph taken in so many more dimensions. Because presumably you've got, you know, you've also got speed of, you know what I mean?

Yeah, I think you've made it deeper than it was, though, actually. I don't know, I don't know. But certainly, yeah, it was an interesting moment in my head that a part of my brain took over and told me what was happening. Yeah. In the joke. And I suppose, yeah, sometimes I see. repeated patterns in people's jokes

and I've got a lot of contempt for them because I think can't you see how formulaic that was and the audience are laughing and the public see the subject match and not the structure so they go that was a new joke that was different to your one

you, someone else talked about football so you can't talk you know and then I'll be watching a comic and I think the reason the reason comics like what I do if that's fair to say I think it is yeah is because I'm

my Skelectric tracks have got their own paint shapes. I totally agree with you. But the people who made the decisions in power aren't looking at the

skeleton trick tracks. No. And I think that... They're the sort of people that can be fooled perhaps by someone doing five pullback and reveals in a row

about five different subjects and not be sat there looking as we most good thinking right thinking comedians would be looking through our fingers going how is he

getting away with this? Yeah, yeah. It's quite funny. I mean what someone said to me in life you get what you actually your first

what do you call it first order or something like your priority in life you get if your thing is to have children then you'll have children

if your thing is to make money you would eventually make money and if your thing is to be a good comedian you'll eventually be a good comedian I was never out to become successful I was out to become good the success started to come with being good

and therefore four or five years in I was actually getting quite a lot of television but I didn't have a plan I didn't go oh good it's happening now this is great I just wanted to be good so looking back on it I now well I've got now got a family

I now think I wish I'd had a bit more a plan in a sure you know what I mean put some Skeletrics and some for a bigger but I but I just wanted to be a good comedian and I think that by wanting to be a good comedian I wasn't pandering to public taste so I would go down well

I just wanted to be good in the eyes of myself and my peers so you you send me I like what you do meant more to me than a TV producer saying come do this show Yeah For some reason

That's what I wanted And that is why you are so cherished I think by the circuit Which I think you are You know you are You're the fixer You know what I mean It's like you're the guy

The janitor Working away in the basement of comedy That's what it is That's what it is That's possibly the most unflattering way of putting it But I can see what I love it that you said

The janitor of comedy The bloke of the brown coat on a low salary He smells a bit And no one goes too close to them on their own But you know the file numbers of everything I see exactly what you meant It's a lovely analogy Yeah maybe IT is better

More flattering than janitor But maybe not by a long shot Let's look at your day-to-day writing life In terms of your own Now, you said you write for some other people. You also presumably write for yourself. No. You don't write for yourself anymore?

No. Never did. You don't write for yourself? Never did. You don't write your own material? No, I think of it. I don't write it. Ah, okay. All right.

I'm thinking, whoa, where's this happening? I improvise solid gold every night. Okay, so you don't write anything down? No. I write two words for any one joke. Three words maximum. Okay. And do you sit and create, when you are creating your material

or having a think about your own? Does that happen? Do you have a structure, do you go, right, for two hours now and they'll do this? Or is it just that every so often a joke occurs to you, you put there in those two words to remember it, and there's your... That's it. Wow. And that's always been the way. That's always been the way.

And if I'm, uh, if I'm on stage with one of those ideas, there's a good chance I'll improvise an extra punchline under the pressure of an audience needing a joke. Or I go on the stage, go, I can't get this joke to work. Okay, let's just trust my brain in that frame of mind. And on the stage Adam does it. Yeah. And offstage Adam can't. Yes. So that pressure is something I thrive on.

I think that's fascinating. That's come up frequently. Oh, has it? Yeah, I think I've described it before as you write a joke or something I'll do is I'll write a joke and then I'll ring a friend and go, is this funny? And in saying it to him, I'll improve it in ways I couldn't possibly avoid it. There you go. So the pressure of just having to tell something to make it work.

I find on stage is that tenfold, that ability to make it better. The other thing is walking down the street, something just hit me in my hands. head and I bounced it around. When I had a Radio 4 series, which ran for three years, I had to write the stuff because they were theme shows with narratives up to four other people in, generally two or three, and they had arcs and they were narrated, they had a point in a story.

So I had to write down because you can't write half an hour on reading spontaneously throughout the day over the nine months, you got to write six half hours or five five hours it was. If you, then I had to learn the discipline of writing and I found it really hard but incredibly rewarding and by the second year I had it down to

a discipline where I would get up in the morning and I would write when I had the third series they doubled the slot from 15 minutes to half an hour so I suddenly went oh my God what I've achieved in two years has to be done now I've won oh my God oh my God and I did

from the day it got commissioned a day after it got commissioned I worked minimum four five hours a day maximum eight hours a day five days a week for nine months I treat it like a job. It was great. And over those three years, I generated five and a half hours of material.

Four was probably brand new. But if a comedian writes four hours of material in three years, it's absolutely brand new, three years of brand new stuff. That's considered a lot of material, isn't it? That's more than three other materials. And with the sort of the material we're talking, presumably you're also talking some of the hardest things to write, or the most time-consuming things to write.

And I don't mean time-consuming to write. What I mean is they are so... We're talking about one life. or short jokes where, you know, an hour of material might contain hundreds of short jokes. You're not an anecdotalist. You're not someone particularly that will tell a story about something whereby it's 12 minutes long and it's got some jokes in it and a lot of charisma. Just shoring up the year.

No, in all fairness, though, because it was, they were half hour long, I was able to turn off the gas a bit. Sure. So there was light and shade. I mean, imagine. And there were, they were stories, but my stories had one line as all. judge within them so it's halfway

between what I've described and what you've described Sure Sure A bit of Cozma Yeah Correct Yeah

So So you would be What would be Your Office set up then What would be The structures You would use When you go

Okay It's 9 o'clock in the morning I'm going to start Writing I went cafe hopping Okay I go to a cafe Via coffee

Sit on my laptop My thing was, if I had a laptop in a cafe, you better get on with your work because otherwise you just look like a bloke showing off that he owns a laptop. The nicer the laptop, the more work you have to do. It's a bit like if you wore a t-shirt and said, I've given up drinking.

You couldn't then have a pint because you'd look like one of those ironic t-shirts. So then you can't drink all day. It's by the idea, isn't it? Yeah, I don't drink. And there's nothing more annoying than a wacky t-shirt, is there? So I'd rather have a Coke

than be seen as a twat. Sure. So with a laptop on, I've open, I would sit there working. As soon as I stopped, I thought, I want to look, I'm just looking like I'm posing in a cafe. And I carried on writing. When I felt like I was there my welcome, or it was getting busy and I didn't have another copy, I would leave, go to another place. And I would do that nomadically around. My wife used to work in Victoria. This is why I lived in Soho, because I used to live in Victoria. But this is before then. She worked

to Victoria and I lived in Soho. We lived in Soa and I used to go to work. And my treat was my lunch break would be with her and I would work in cafes around Victoria until the time for lunch and that might be our break and I'd do it all day and then we walk back home together it's great

and what's strange is now I actually ended up living in Victoria soon after that for five and a half years and have got almost no memories of the cafes I used to black them out yeah well they're in the office aren't they I suppose maybe that's maybe I just got some bad experiences

in the cafe and to refuse to because of that happened Did you, why do you choose cafes particularly rather than in your house? Was that to do with the pressure of being outdoors, meaning that you had to focus? You're being in public and you had to get on with it? Yeah, I thought somehow how the people around me, it excited me to be around people, being alive and busy, Victoria's full of, you know, lots of people, office people get in an out of coffee, in a hurry. And it felt like something was happening. And I thought that sitting in an office or in my living room at the time was in a one-bedroom flat, it didn't feel, it was a room I'd sit with my wife and have.

dinner in and watch TV in so it didn't feel of context at least here now I've got an office so this all that happens is here is we play a wee game or I work I've got to tell I was usually two chairs on the table this is for my writing work when I sit with other people and and that's much easier to because it's a day rate you're being employed you've got to get on with it because you can't you know you can't do it so easy so okay so when you say it's much easier you have at some point even with your incredible kind of comedy generating skills you have found it hard to kick yourself to make you do it. So it is a struggle.

It's not just something you sit down and all pours out. It's a struggle. And then it's a struggle then suddenly... A million open spots. I've just breathed a sigh of relief. It's... This you know who listeners should be. Yeah, yeah.

I thought there's no way... I've actually only said million. There's no way I was going to let that go. The... It was almost humble and deluded at the same time, wasn't it? Hey, maybe that should be my... Engel. And I, yeah, I sit at home.

No, it's very hard. It's like trying to have a poo when you don't need a poo. And I don't know why we find ourselves on that situation, but we do. And it makes you just bawled at a party. I think there's going to do with Lou and then can't and then find you can. But that moment of when it starts to happen, I remember being, a change of scenery as well. But doing it at home, oh, I think I'll need a cafe. Also, cafe, before iPhones, I had no wireless in the, in the, in the,

a cafe now you're dangerous very dangerous absolutely my wife said to me once I'm going to take the digital route to work the broadband if you don't get on with your work so yeah why I go to she obviously knows exactly how to work you that's amazing so that but yeah so that

now what's dangerous is you know you've always got wireless on you if you've got on an iPhone or whatever so um but that was it I go out and I remember going to a cafe sitting down and the first thing I did I just went bang and I wrote a killer line that with a topper that was even better and it was worked in my radio show and my stand-up which was quite rare because it had everything my stand-up was as well rather than this slower pace or whatever

and and it was relevant in the shorter subject rather than a big arc and a call back to a whole story you had to absorb to get the joke which I loved by the way beautiful to have a joke that only works because the audience have absorbed an entire half an hour yes or at least 15 minutes of it's relevant to that bit bang they're not jokes anymore now their comments bring the whole thing together which is why Southbox better than

family guy South box lines are about the situation why I'm disjointed jokes so

there's even a South Park episode about the disjointed yes yes there's yeah but yeah

so that thing of sitting in a cafe and opening my laptop and go and a killer line coming to me

it felt so good but here's the question I haven't done it since 2005 when the series

was last commissioned so for the last seven years I haven't sat down to writing and stuff for myself. There's one exception

that's when I had an Edinburgh show that was themed. So back to the same problem, you can't just let stuff falling on a theme. So I did do one Edinburgh show that involves sitting down and writing on the back

of the three years' experience. But when someone employs me, I've got the responsibility to work with them because they're paying me. And when I've got a deadline like a commission, I've got the deadline or the Edinburgh show,

then I've got a responsibility like that. But just generating stand-up, I think I am lazy because I like, I know ideas all hit me, and no funny things will come to me on stage and that'll do and because I'm not in a position where TV people are excited about me anymore

I'm probably thinking what's the point of me sitting down and working hard no one cares anyway I may as well just do what comes to me naturally and you might go well that's a defeatist attitude but I didn't write in the first place when things were flying for me I didn't write so it's not like I've changed my approach

because I'm sulking or bitter I actually sort of saying well I've learned I can write but I've learned I can write but I'm not really working towards anything at the moment I'm living quite an artistic lifestyle I tweet jokes all day that come to me and I try out new material

and no improvisers on stage but where I'm probably at my most creative right now is where someone pays me a day rate and we sit down in my office and we spend eight hours bashing around ideas and they walk away of ten minutes of stuff okay so can you talk to us about that then Well, there's some things that I'd like to come back to in a moment.

We were talking before about the idea of writing for other comedians. Some comedians get a bit bashful about it. It's perhaps an unwritten secret. There's some TV guys who have to turn over a huge amount of stuff might come to you. I mean, are we talking high-profile people that you write for? I'm not asking you to mention any names if you don't want to. Obviously, if you would, I'd love to hear them, but I'm sure there'll be some contractual reason you can. Of the 23 people I've counted recently that I've written for,

I'd say that two were extremely high profile Okay Three were extremely low profile And the other whatever is at 617 Were kind of people on our kind of working level And clubs Who would find themselves Coming to Edinburgh and thinking

Oh my God I don't think this show's any good I need it to get more structure I need some additional material Something like that So yeah on a basic On a general level there are people who are working job in comics

but a couple of people you know there's one person I've written for he's not a comedian and they're internationally hugely successful and if I could put that on my CV it would be amazing but I won't and that's explicitly part of the arrangement

is no no no no it isn't it's an unwritten it's an unwritten wall that I've created but I might turn around one day and say you know I probably could have got a little work if I put that on my CV and they go what's not on a CV?

Yes, you're mad? Are you mad? I'm quite offended you didn't put it in any sense in it. But the thing is, I think it's a bit like being a leg model for Julia Roberts. You know? Yeah. The film is ruined. I've never got an image of you as the janitor in the brown coat with Julia Roberts's legs.

Or Julia Roberts in pretty women getting into a car and a little bit of brown coat. Yeah, just a little bit of flaps in the door. With oil on it. Continuity mistake. It's very exciting. I did one thing. I wrote a press release for somebody who got nominated for a BAFTA.

And I wrote there was, no, an Oscar. Okay. That's a big deal, isn't it? It's a big deal. And I, they said to me, can you come up of a reaction to the press for me?

And I went, I was viewing a house at the time. And I stood in the rain when my wife viewed the house. and I texted his executive producer six or seven ideas in half an hour. Just shows, isn't it? I had an hour to do it and I came out of seven ideas. You've got to talk to the press in an hour ago. If I had a data, I would probably come up with seven or eight ideas.

Sure, sure. So it just shows what's that phrase of time, a job filled the allotted time. But anyway, it was so exciting, standing in the rain, pouring rain, missing a viewing of a house while I just texted ideas and one of them got used. And that night, I googled it, I got the email saying, there, thank you very much, we've got with you. and I googled it and it came up at like something ridiculous it was like 60,000

searches on that exact sentence and it was like national global press and I looked on Twitter and there was 600 tweets of the same sentence and I sat at home with a glass of wine

it was such a buzz and I suddenly realized that I must have reached the stage of maturity as a comedian because I didn't need the credit I didn't need credit because there's a 25 real comedian I'd have been

my hair out. It's me. It's me. It's me. I didn't mind. But what mattered to me was, first of all, I was getting paid for my one because I need to provide. And secondly, that if you're doing something creative that's being appreciated, it doesn't matter. If you take your ego out of it, the creativity exists and the thing is it. Like doing a good thing for someone that you know, they'll never find out about it. Yeah, lovely. So, um, so, so as I'm listening to myself saying this, there's a part of me that thinks, come on, Adam, this is just a, your name dropping without mentioning names

your ego tripping your saying those things so paradoxically or rather hypocritically I'm actually being a utilistical telling the story about having no ego so there is it

yeah of course there'll always be I mean yeah we need to understand we're all out there trying to provoke a response of one sort or another but if you can sit back and watch the response

that is provoked without having to absorb it somehow yourself that's reward enough yeah but a true stage would be for me to not have to never even tell the story in an interview well I have a

kind of deliberately you have a you have a but yeah it was a very nice feeling and there's I

just I love I love thinking of things that are funny yeah and however they're appreciated

as long as they're appreciated I will be happy my life so the answer to the question actually do you have to stand up is actually now no

I have to be creative yes okay However, if I thought about it's a lot If I gave up stand-up Because I had a massive project to work on I think how many hours I could then give Giving it takes three hours to get to a gig

And three hours back again And all that How much time I could give to a project I've got an office now My wife who works three days a week I can actually commit a lot of time If I wanted to turn my back On certain hours a day for my family

With them understanding that I could Yes But when I start to die inside I wasn't getting that a buzz because that buzz on stage That's a key part of it, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah. Have you ever gone? What's the longest period you've gone for without gigging? In 18 years. Yeah. Two weeks. I took a month off in January 2000 and I couldn't cope.

And I ended up turning up at a club and asked people to go and do 10 minutes. And Ricky Javis was in the audience. Oh, lovely. Yeah. January 2000. Angie Boombum, and Simon Money was on the bill. Oh, De Hems?

Yeah, okay. Simon Munner was on the bill, and Ricky Jerva was in the audience, and I did three new bits, and I said to Simon Money, I did three new bits tonight. He went, ooh, try four next time. This is classic money sarcasm. In the middle of your one attempted holiday. Let's talk about, um, let's talk about, um, Leaving aside the higher profile stuff at the moment,

just because I have no experience of this from either end, let's talk about people, like you were saying, job in comics of a zero profile level, you know, circuit profile. Coming to you and saying, let's have this eight-hour session. Okay. So talk me through that.

What sort of an approach do you take to that? Do they tell you, here's my existing material? Do you watch a video of them? Do you go see them live? All of those things. Okay. The thing I do the most now is they email me what they've got that they're working on. And I emailed back over four hours after four hours of working on it.

My notes, tweaks, rewrites, additional material, everything that I can think of. And also brand new material on the subject they've asked me to write about, if that's the case. And then they come back to me and we spend four hours sitting going over what we've done. And that's the most productive way I can do it. I don't think that eight hours you'll ever get a good last two hours out of somebody you just start to tire

and you wish it to end and they'll go to the loo and you'll go oh that's good I got a bit of a break from it and I did one the other day with somebody and we did I gave them five hours I felt a little bit more they weren't that registered

so they cost them an extra 20% so I gave an extra hour and at both ends actually I think I'd give them 10 hours of work and we sat here where we are now and we sat for five hours and we had one tea break

just to go downstairs and get something we even talked and worked through lunch and it was fantastic and it was just two people's brains going what do you do this

what are that back back back on back and all the great sitcoms are written by two people aren't they yes so it clearly is easier to do something with somebody else on your own and yet we're lone runners

aren't we we're lone mouth of runners so in a way everyone should have someone they bounce stuff off with and yet I don't I never have done you're the bouncer I'm about so. I've only got to say you're the wall.

I think that I think that I really, really should have at some point sat down with somebody and gone, what do you think of this? And then bouncing around. Lee Matt made a really good point. We did a new material night to an audience of 15 people. It was just flat. You know, you slip an existing joking to try and save yourself and that dies as well.

And you think, okay, well, there you go. What's the point of there? In some ways that's quite a nice benchmark If you go, this is dying Here's my best joke You didn't like that Well it's not my product Yeah, yeah

There's a chance, yeah I often do brand new material at corporates that I'm dying at Because I think if I can't get you My best stuff Maybe the excitement in my eyes Of trying something new Yeah

Often does it, often does it Just gets that little lift Where they go Something in your voice that says Here's something fresh Yeah, absolutely I can't believe I'm doing this crap Still 10 years later

So yeah so You know I have a tough court I'm flashing, I've sometimes even had flashes that I'm doing a bit of old material that's safe and relevant to the corporate. A flash of how young I was when I first said that and how hopeful I was in my case. Horrible moment.

Terrified to carbon date jokes and, yeah. I had a joke about the age of my granny and, you know, it's to do with my granny's 88 and then joke and she's 92 now. And then it's just, you couldn't see them all concrete. No, no, that's how old that joke. Well, I used to do a joke about having four cats and they're all dead now.

It's more bittersweet. So, but yeah, so what's the point, the writing thing, the process, what's the, what are we talking about? We're talking about, a bouncing. Lee Mack said, I honestly think when it's that quite a gig, we should just cancel the gig and all the comments should go for a pint and just take turns going, what do you think of this? Yeah, man. Seven comments on the table. Yes, that's a great idea. It is a great idea, isn't it?

Someone will do that. We should do it. Do you want to do it? The only, yeah, I mean, the only, the only time I have ever considered writing, with someone else. The whole thing was described, not with someone else. There's a couple of people that I write with

and bounce ideas off in a sort of deliberate kind of way. But the only time I'd ever considered paying someone to write with as a service, it seemed to me, and where I didn't get

very far down the process for this reason, I thought, I'm not going to be saying my stuff. I don't want someone to hand me a list of jokes for me to say. Because I suppose I saw it

in terms of the, you think of comics maybe on Mock the Week who, you know, pay someone to send in a list of jokes because they turn through a lot of stuff and they'll look through them and go this is like mine, this is like

I've already got this one. Actually, this one could be useful, fine. I thought what I get out of stand-up comedy and the self-expression that I get out of it won't be served by someone giving me a big list of jokes. But the process you've just described of saying, here's the things I'm working on in my act at the moment.

Here's the thing. And then actually that seems far more collaborative than I'd ever expected that process to be. Yes. and you'll end up saying something that still comes from you because the attitude is yours the core of the joke is yours

but it might just be a little twigate it's just like someone come around your house and go you know what your desk will be much better in the corner and you go okay you still chose the desk yeah sure and it's still your health and it's just in a different position and people you know

people can help you and over the year Brendan Burns believe it or not has probably given me more little tags than anybody else but people he's my best friend in comedy probably but people are surprised that because they think of myself as cerebral

and his stuff as very attitude and ranting emotional but Brendan has watched me so many times that and cares enough about me to tell me that he comes off and I come off and he says have he thought it was about saying that like that yeah that's nice my wife's good music stuff my wife's going to be some classically

brilliant lines I mean really really really really really funny lines I did a radio before recording and the audience applauded the line I stopped and I went that's my girlfriend's. I had to because it was the best line in the whole episode

and I actually tweaked it a little bit which was lovely because it made it a back and forth and that's the thing when I do is writing with people they tell me a joke

that doesn't work and I said why don't it say like this and then they'd say what about this and then suddenly they've taken back the idea but with my bit

in the middle of it and it's now gone passed around and it's lovely and it's such a nice feeling and as you said they then go away saying a joke that feels like

they could then Photoshop me out Yeah, absolutely. But yes, it's a wonder of the process and my wife turned out to me sometimes and says, why can't you put that commitment to your own career? And I suppose it's just that feeling of a, stand-up doesn't have a deadline, radio shows have a deadline,

an existing bohemian lifestyle doesn't have a deadline. Sounds like an album title. It's absolutely true. Bohemian deadline. There is, though. empty record. I was at a Radio 4 party and Harry Hill was there

and he said to he, I don't know I'm here, I haven't done in radio 4 for years but he'd been invited he turned up and I was saying how it was a year

I'd written you know for the five half hours and I said you know it's been the most prolific year of my career by a mile

I said just it's got a deadline I need deadlines we need more deadlines no no that's it I said I need deadlines and he put his fist in here

and went more deadlines That's great, isn't it? Two words. This is an absurd thing. Is that wonderful? And I just looked at him, I thought, that's why you're Harry Hill. More deadlines.

So let's talk then a bit about your, something you said earlier on about, you know, TV having, this implication being that TV has passed you over or you're not of interest to TV producers. Is that something that you feel? is taken for granted is that I mean I remember seeing you I remember seeing you on Buzzcox years ago before I met you doing the joke about Morse Co. Right.

With the, all of the things are bleaked out and in Morse Coate spells. That's on YouTube, that is. Yeah, wonderful. I mean, I remember crying laughing at that. So, do you, A, do you think that you're no longer of interest to TV people? B, why is that?

I think that what happened was, when I was very new, the industry got very excited. There was a young comic who was ambitious, relatively clean, good and prolific and I did like four Edinburghs in five years as a comic solo interviews

and they all went this is a comedian that can do all the things we want yes let's get on television but then when I went on television and went on Buzzcocks and other panel shows and bits and bobs I shied away a little bit if you watch that episode of the Buzzcocks

it's got Toyo Wilcox on it if you want to Google it I hardly said a word the whole show when I spoke I got into my zone and did my thing but I probably I said less than Toy Wilcox did on the half hour and I found it really intimidating

having Mark Lam elbow and me in the face for the whole time that Maltz code joke I actually said where's my camera because I said you keep swearing where's my camera and Mark Lamar went Adam and I went where's my camera

he went Adam and I kept talking over him because I knew this one big moment to do this prepared gag did the joke big laugh and then he went Adam you haven't got a camera which meant if he'd got to interrupt me the two times he tried he'd have said that and cut the joke off before it even lived

so I'd have gone where's my camera Adam you haven't got a camera big laugh moved on the car to do the joke now so I had to fight repeatedly I don't know how it's in the edit but I had to fight to say the one thing I wanted to say on that show I'm prepared and that hadn't prepared it occurred to me at that moment it would be a good time to do that but

the thing is that I wasn't cut out like that So what I was, the way I saw it was after kids skipping, I just wanted to play. And skipping in the play band, and people came back and went, hey, you're really good at skipping. How about you skip in this condition? Over here all day long,

with people chucking stuff at you. Oh, I don't know. It's not. And, you know, the person who wants it was just, okay, and then we'll force. Like Peter Kay would skip wherever you put Peter K with a skipping rope. He would do his skipping. Yeah.

And that was really an incredible thing to witness. where I failed was I just went I'm not done I don't want to you know I don't want to do this I don't like this

and looking back on it now I would go I would kill to have those chances because now I go okay this is how I want to be seen this is what I can do with that attention I can now use that power

to do this so why is it that you don't think that's a possibility anymore because I think that the industry treats comedians the way that children treat toys they hold the newest toy they've got around

because it's the one they're excited about and they forget the other ones and there's also the ego of a producer wanted to feel discovered somebody and no one's going to discover me if I was on something they'll go yeah we've been around for 18 years

there isn't a feeling I remember having a ridiculously good Edinburgh at 1998 insanely good Edinburgh and the next year no one was interested in what I was doing because it was like well we can't discover you now

we want to be going to come on this thing I've got this thing kind of look at my boy my boy and my boy and my boy And it's, it's, I don't think there's, I don't think an industry cares about someone who's had some success disappeared or, or while we've gone away from the line. And it comes back with something good again. I don't think it works like that. I, you know, you get your time in front of the industry, then you get time in front of the public. So let's say Johnny Vegas did an amazing end of 1997. The industry got, the industry took a while, so the public took a while to find out about him. So there's two bursts. Yes. They weren't both in front of the public. I've had my public burst So now I'm sort of a bloke

Who was on television for a bit And it didn't sustain And therefore he's now been dropped I don't see how You know I'm going to have to write a book And the book be hugely successful And then be interviewed as a guy Like that book

And then that's a middle finger To the people who didn't want me on their show Yes that could work though Could it not That you become the guy who gets interviewed About the incredible book Yes And then suddenly you're flavoured a month again

Yes Because I mean there are other ways to do comedy on TV, surely, other than panel games which are horrible, combative experiences. Yeah, okay, but the truth is, if I wrote a book that was successful enough to get me on these programs, I would probably be happy playing the small clubs

for peanuts and have the money from the book coming, and that would be a lovely life. Wouldn't it? Do you mean, actually going, I don't need to play this game, because as I said, my objective is to be a good comedian. Sure. But I think you are. I mean, you're completing that objective.

You're winning. Yes, but I, but I, but, but, I don't know. I don't need, I don't need to be, I don't want to be famous, and I never want to be famous. When I started getting a bit famous, I remember going, holy to New York in January 2000, and as a plane left, London, to go to New York, I remember thinking,

this is a couple of weeks away from being hassled. So that proves to me that I wasn't enjoying it. Of course I was enjoying the money, and of course I was enjoying sell-out shows where people came to see me, but what I wasn't enjoying was the lifestyle of being, and now I've got a daughter, the thought of people hassling me,

where I'm trying to walk with a lot. Really, I mean, I've got less and less well known, and my face has aged and my hair's changed. So I'm, I used to get recognised about seven times a day. Now I get recognised about once every three days. Okay. That's a big, big difference. Sure. And the thought of Eminem talks about people, Hasting and he's with his daughter, you think, God, leave the guy alone. And so I would love to be successful without being famous. And if I wrote a book, which is, by the way, what my next project is going to be, because it gives me a form of deadline

because I'm going, I have to finish this book. Absolutely. And it also means the end product isn't me competing as a, in the line that as a comedian. It's really funny. On one level, I feel like I'm,

if you look at all my peers who are doing sell-up shows in Edinburgh, when I was doing set-up shows in Edinburgh, I'm the one who's not very successful. I've proven myself by doing, you know, I've sold it at 300, 50 seats on a Saturday night in Edinburgh. I sold out, when I was doing about 170 seat,

I sold out a thousand in advance, my extra dates sold out in the afternoon. I did a very successful run of Edinburgh. So, you know, seven times I've done that. Sure. So I've done everything I think I can do within my industry to prove that I'm able to go on to next level.

And for some reason, didn't go up to the next level. Yes. I accept that. I'm not going to blame things. I think I had maybe had a bit too much too soon and didn't know what to do with it. Like I said, I was skipping. You're going, I don't know, I don't know skip this. Now, I will skip with four cocks in my mouth

and skipping where it handles made of cocks. In fact, just jism, going from one cox to another where they somehow meet and link. Is that possible? Sure. If there's anyone can find a way. But yeah, but it's not a sour grape sting. There's probably every few days I find myself playing

in a slightly dodgy gig where the sound's not good or the lighting's not good and it's not very busy and I think God how did I end up here I thought I was on the track and be doing really well

but then again I also wake up and go I've been doing what I love for 18 years and I still love it Well this is it As much as we can look back at people you started with or were digging with

who then went on to me superstars A lot of them The ones you probably don't remember because they're not superstars Gave up or are still hacking around but aren't nearly as happy as you I'm sure there's a lot of people out there you don't seem like you've ever...

The terms in which you're talking about maybe haven't been passed over by TV, you're not talking about them really in bitter terms so much as you've still got this incredible thing you could do and it's a shame that didn't happen. Right. There's none of the sort of, you don't reek of dressing or bitterness in the way that people can.

No, I love it. I love it as much as I ever did. I can't believe that I'm glad you to see that, but I can't believe on paper I should be bitter. But because I love comedy, more than success more than money and because I love

the thrill of doing it then I'm still doing what I love and James Mullinger do you know the comedian I do know James Mullinger he said a wonderful thing he said you see people and Britain's got talent

and they're backstage being to me and they go this is my big break if it doesn't work if it doesn't be well tonight that's it and he said well then you don't love what you do then didn't you?

So they're saying it's thickness isn't it you're singing to millions of people across the world or television or whatever or playing the piano in a pub for enough money to live on are the same things if your objective is to pay the piano.

Yes, it is. Of course you get it. It would be so lovely to hear Anton Dex say to someone well then you can't mean it. That would be wonderful. That was a stage of the audition process. There was a lovely moment in Montreal just for laughs

called New Faces which was a bill that was to the industry where they even had a projector screen above the stage for the balcony people to watch a projected image of you so they could see what you look like on the screen

during your gig you were being seen by Hollywood people on the screen during your gig and we're backstage and I was a bit more experienced than that comment so I wasn't even new to Montreal let alone you to Common

I'd be going maybe seven years my second Montreal and there were all these new acts around me who were really this is it this is this and the guy who was they're sort of coaching us backstage went okay everyone

this is a big way there's a lot of people out there a lot of Hollywood people out there a lot of film people out there deals have been struck this is where I think Mitch Hedberg got a deal struck

in that years before half a million dollars this is a big thing if you make it tonight make sure you do it because do you want to be out there in 10 years time on the circuit

doing universities and I went yeah that's what exactly what it was such a lovely moment but his whole his whole it crumbled and he went

oh well that's all right for you that's what you want to find but it was lovely Because it was, it reminded with the Beavis and But on the Beavis about to do America, they look at this waterfall or some bubbling thing and they're all with the tourists, all with the drinks

and big fat people with the big slurby drinks. And the guy at the tour guide went for a hundredth time that day, went, this water place, natural reservoir produces 250,000 litres of water a day. And Beavis went, that's not that much. Yeah. It's a lovely bit.

where the person's so used to everyone being going and the thing is when I said that of course I know I sound like I'm being like I'm the punk I was the anarchist but the truth of the matter is I didn't like the way he was selling it it's a gig where people see you they might give you big things

it's a game of snakes and that is and you can go shut up to the top because someone had the right shape face for a film but I didn't like the way that it was being said that your failure as a comedian if you spend your life doing live comedy do you know I mean?

Absolutely. for me there's an echo of something Alan Cochran said to me I was friends with Alan before I got into comedy and he's always said very wise Alanish things to me and one of them was to play the room and not the occasion that's nice and that to me that guy's big whipping you up into a frenzy speech is the exact opposite of that very intelligent and very sensible advice

play the room not the occasion that's beautiful I think it's lovely I remember Sean Mew I was telling Sean Mee I was but no it's about a corporate that was paying very well and he shook his head and went don't ever think about the money and I thought oh yeah of course the people in the room

who are paying have no more or less right to be entertained you know than someone who walked in for free it's people giving you their time and you're sharing a moment in their lives so the fee

what will I deliberately be a bit less funny if I was getting paid less you just do what you can do in the time it's a really refreshing inversion isn't it because it's so much the time oh I'm doing this corporate well thinking of money

no do the opposite do the exact opposite yeah yeah certainly about the money on the way home when it's gone badly as well as you can cope with the situation

yeah but um so uh yeah that's a lovely place the occasion it's a lovely I remember Andre Vincent was I was nervous

at a gig then Andrevincher just went an audience is an audience and I thought yeah you're right an audience is an audience um it's a put all the

the Williams sisters their dad said a wonderful thing he said the only pressure is the one to be put on ourselves yeah they're on yeah absolutely me if you yeah yeah you know that's that's a wonderful that's simple that's what pressure means the thing you do to yourself and that's the only thing it's entirely isn't it you just play a game

with tennis and you do the best you can do and hopefully win yeah that's it so the last thing i wanted to talk about before you zip off is the what structures you have I'm trying to be as geeky as possible, as nerdy as possible, for people out there listening to this who write things. And I wondered if there's any rules or structures or ways of attacking an idea. You know, I mean, I imagine with you, I could give you a subject and you'd immediately tell me 10 funny things about it. But just in terms of how you, whether there is like a thing, do you look at it first that way and then upside down? Do you see what I mean? The important thing I do is I make sure I don't say anything that I think is derivative or cliched or formulaic.

So I refuse, I have a hack thing. Okay. And I refuse to go do anything that falls into that level. So you won't even look at it from an angle that you feel has been covered? No, I can't. I can't. Because as soon as that happens, I feel like I'm selling the audit short. Paul Zennan once said to me

I think you think audiences care more about comedy than they do and I never got to tell him that it's not that I care I'm treating the gig I'm doing the gig to the one comedy gig in the audience

who might be there because it's not fair to disappoint them I know that you can fall the public I just don't want to I can't sell crap to people so I could not do a joke that I think is hack or derivative and that's not to say that everything I've doing is brilliant,

but at least it's coming from an original structural angle. I understand. Okay. But to actually, to where I look at something, a tweet. There we are, a tweet. The most recently thing I tweeted was, I hope Greek people are good at puzzles because they've got a lot of plates that need glue them back together. That's wonderful.

Do you like it? I love it. I love it because I really, what I love about that is the timing, the time it took me to think backwards through those images and get to the, get to what was going on. Oh, okay. I love it. Oh, love it. Now, the thing is that that idea. It's got a two second fuse. That's what I mean. That's what I love about it.

Okay, now, so when I wrote that, okay, what I'm getting across is that group people in a bad situation financially and they've been a bit flashed by the culture that ruins the fake things. How do I put that together? So it's very important, the order, like you said, like the order you put things together in. The thing I've noticed that people do wrong the most when they present ideas to me is they give the information to you in the wrong order so it doesn't excite you

because they've let the air out of the bag before, you know. So if I say, here we are, Greek people smash plates. They used to smash plates. I bet they're not smashing any more plates. Let's hope they're good at puzzles. There's no surprise. So the word puzzles is the, is,

some people would put the word puzzles at the end because they think that's the payoff. It's a puzzle! But I say, cryptically, I hope they're good at puzzles and that leaves you in the air. What? What?

And now it makes sense and then you go back over information and tie it together again. If you said Tartore Greece is in a recession, they've smashed a lot of plates in the past, let's say they've got at making puzzles. That can still work, but it's not a good joke.

Yes, okay. But it's exactly the same time I've just said. And that's the danger of that if it can work but it's not a good joke. People will keep having it work on stage for as long

as they want and it just won't because they'll get 10% less but that order that order I hope they're good at puzzles

because they've got a lot of places and they didn't bloom back together and also if you say blooming back together that's making it

seem like a puzzle in that moment God you know what really on the same subject a great joke Harry Hill did a whole thing about his

grand getting things wrong and you go Harry what's this um a jigsaw puzzle for a chicken I just can't do it man it's a box of corn flakes this is an amazing joke

and that moment and you go oh my god he's a genius there's a box with a pitch on the front of what's in the thing and a lot of little pieces she goes I just don't get it it's all beak is that way

is that way and and let's be saying that the audience see the jokes the subject matter not structure I've actually seen both in this case

because it's a joke about a puzzle that the penny drops and you go, oh, yeah, his is a better joke. His is a much better joke because he's got the box on the image on the outside as well. It's so satisfying. It's so satisfying. The

Greek thing, I mean, this didn't get 2,900 followers, no one retweeted that. Right. Which surprised me. I normally get one retweet on anything I say that's considered attempting to be funny. But the thing is that I remember, as I

nearly not tweeting it because I thought it was bent insensitive because there were people sleeping on the streets in Greece, aren't there? So it's a little bit cruel. Okay. But it's a joke about an economy. It's not about in it. Yes, yes. But at least there is social commentary, not sure. There is a, it's the closest I get to a political joke

because I don't do anything political. No. In my stand-up, in fact, in my stand-up my persona is so non-political, I wouldn't make that into a joke on the grounds of it's political. Yes, I would keep away from it. Okay. In order to preserve the apolitical nature of your persona? Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm a political, yeah.

Is that a real word? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. As soon as I start to express, I have social opinions, but as soon as I express a political one, it starts to go away from the person I really am, which is an innocent person who lives in a little bubble

and doesn't watch the news. It upsets me, so I don't watch it. That's true. As a very, that was absolutely fantastic. Thank you very much. We're going to go. You can say goodbye, if you like. I don't know what the end of the thing is.

I haven't really got a stuff. fall the structure for the end. That was Adam Bloom. Thank you for having me. It was of joy. So thanks for listening, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you found that as God. I just absolutely blew my mind. I was buzzing for about five hours after that interview. I just find Adam so inspiring, so intelligent. And it's fabulous to hear someone not only care that passionately, but also understand his subject from such an internal kind of level. So that was Adam. I'm still planning to do an open spot special, probably in two or three episodes of time. Get in touch if you're a newer act and you've been going between sort of, what, two and four years. I'm not going to make any conditions. Just get in touch if you are a newer

act and you have strong opinions about something. I know, I know everyone is going to go, help, it's awful. It's too many people doing it. It's all collapsing and there's fewer gigs and the industry's contracting. So let's take that for granted. If you've got a solution to that, If you've got a particular way you think you're going to handle that, you'd like to share with us, or even, yeah, probably you won't want to share it with us. But if you do, if you've got any secret plans as to how the rest of us can Nick your great idea, then please get in touch. Thank you very much to everyone for their support.

Thanks always to Graham Crockford and Tom Wateracre for their technical assistance. To my brother, Robert Goldsmith, who you can check out at robert-goldsmith.com. He's online and he makes internet adverts, little those little web buttons you see on Edfringe.com. I'm very excited about mine, so have a look at his work and book him for those if you like. He's done a lot of my design stuff. Toby Rose for the internet stuff, and thanks always to my friends and yours to entertain for their support. I've been Stuart Goldsmith.

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