The Comedian's Comedian Podcast - Doc Brown (2019): ComCompendium

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

Once again we’re back in the archives of ComComPod towers with Ben Bailey Smith aka Doc Brown, a prodigious talent, with clean-cut standup and roof-raising comedy rap, as well as a parallel career as an influential and respected rapper. We discuss:the state of mind that led him to turn down a 220-date national tourhow his stage name became a millstoneand why he struggles to make a meal he wouldn't eat himself...Join the Insiders Club at patreon.com/comcompod where you can instantly get access to the full back catalogue of extras!👉 Sign up to the ComComPod Mailing List and follow the show on Instagram, YouTube & TikTok.Support our independently produced Podcast from only £3/month at Patreon.com/ComComPod:✅ Instant access to full video and ad-free audio episodes✅ Exclusive extra content you can't find anywhere else✅ Early access to new episodes where possible✅ Exclusive membership offerings including weekly-ish Stu&AsCatch Up with Ben: You can keep up-to-date on Instagram, @docbreezy88.Everything I'm up to: Come and see me LIVE - find out all the info and more at stuartgoldsmith.com/comedy. Discover my comedy about the climate crisis, for everyone from activists to CEOs, at stuartgoldsmith.com/climate.Get in touch: If you’re listening and thinking ‘I’d love to work with ComComPod on getting something out there’ or ‘there’s someone you should absolutely have on’ - drop us an email at [e-mail]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stuart here. You can go to Stuart Goldsmith.com slash comedy for tickets to my national tour. That's right. I'm taking my second ever climate comedy show. It's called Canary. I'm taking it to the Edinburgh Festival for the last two weeks of August at the Monkey Barrel, Cabaret Voltaire. And I shall see you there in the last two weeks of August. And then it's a national tour for this guy. Cambridge, Glasgow, Oxford, Manchester, Cardiff, Maidenhead, Sheffield and Birmingham, culminating in my biggest ever tour show at Bristol Old Vic. Stuart Goldsmith.com slash comedy for all your tickets. Welcome back to the show. Once again, we are back ferreting around in the archives at Comcompod Towers. It's not a tower. I'm underground currently, so ComCompod dungeon isn't very generous. But nonetheless, that's what we're doing among the archives with Ben Bailey Smith, aka Doc Brown. Hugely prodigious talent, incredibly lovely bloke, clean-cut stand-up and roof-raising comedy rapper.

We'll discuss all of that, his parallel careers and everything else. He does loads of radio stuff, I know as well. And something we didn't talk about at the time, I don't think it existed. But my son absolutely loved his children's book, the name of which escapes me, but maybe we'll bung it in the show notes. Really, really good. And I think there's a sequel on the way. That's not an exclusive, it's a guess. We're going to talk about the state of mind that led him to turn down a 220 date national tour.

Real good gear on that. He's very forthcoming, and I really appreciate it. We'll talk about how his stage name became a millstone and why he struggles to make a meal that he wouldn't eat himself. Is that a metaphor? Or is it about an actual meal? You'll have to listen on to find out from 2019. Here's Doc Brown. Let's talk about the confidence required to do that part of your job. Oh, well, I say it's your job.

You referred to having finished comedy. Yeah. When we were speaking, you said you're on sabbatical. I am on a sabbatical, most definitely. Do you feel like you'll go back to it? 100%. Great, great. Let's keep talking about it now. I didn't know whether we should be talking about it in the past tense.

in terms of your origin as a comic from what I know about you through research rather than anything you said yourself you started off as a rapper and you started off specifically as a rap battler that's where you got known

so I guess that is one of the things whereby if a comedian thinks of like a battle rapper they'll be like fuck I could never do that is there an equivalent thing where battle rappers or rap battlers

I don't know which way around the term is there an equivalent thing where they think oh, comedy, that's like the real thing. Yeah, I'd say the respect is mutual and it's not lost on either party how many similarities there are in crossovers. So rap battling now is essentially stand-up comedy.

I mean, if you look at the way don't flop, reinvigorated the battle world, when I was doing it was improvised. So you just had to come up with it, which is potentially really shit in rap in the same way as it's potentially really shit in comedy. Yeah, right. improv just makes people panic.

It makes me panic. It just makes me think of someone or four people in different coloured waistcoats just ruining my fucking life. You know? But don't flop. Organisations like that. Reinvigorated and reinvented the rap battle

by treating it like boxing. So we'll have this match up, these two guys, they don't like each other. Go away for three months. Write three verses. research as much as you want into that other person's life, make it as personal as you want, come back and destroy each other. And it just heightened it. It made it so much about the skill of writing, you know, in the same way as a Billy Connolly, you know, storytelling, ripping

people's images to shreds. It was just a very, very new and entertaining way to do it. And the way that it evolved over time was, it became closer and closer to live comedy. So they started having compliment battles where you had to beat the person by being exceptionally nice. That's just straight up comedy. You have to have a comic sensibility to do that. The normal battles without humour would have been pointless.

the improv in my day it was a lot of it was about blustering male posturing and aggression you know the reason I won battles back in the day looking back was because of humour I was never as tough as the other guys it was obvious I wore glasses you know

I was a nerd I was more well spoken whatever you know there was only one way for me to win those battles and that was to be self-deprecating and say basically isn't it embarrassing that I've just outsmarted you when you're Mr. Hip-hop

Yeah, you know, that was my whole stick Oh, I've got a cardigan. Yeah, that was my whole shit. So that kind of predates the sort of the conclusion of eight mile, doesn't it? Like, that's the whole... Yeah, yeah. When I saw eight mile for the first time,

I actually saw it in Boston with my wife when it came out in the cinema. And cinema in America is an interesting experience, you know. It's like a live show. People jump up and whoop and cheer, they comment on shit. Yo, don't go in there, sir? Yeah.

Yeah. You, what'd you do that for? You're out your mind right now. I love it. It's hilarious. But that scene, I mean, the film is essentially rocky with rap if you're into, you know, film theory. But it's still a great film. And that scene where he disses himself was so emotional for me because I was like, this is what I did.

This was my life. Obviously not to the same level of skill. But that's what I did. The first ever time I did it, I got diss for my glasses, I got diss for sounding posh, I got, you know, diss for not having a tough enough looking crew, I got diss for certain things that people knew, you know, whatever. And my instinct said, own it.

Not the second time I did it or the third time even, but by the fourth time, fourth or fifth time, I was very much like, know what are you going to say, but let's get on to the next level, because this is a game of intelligence. It's not about Kenaki Yo'est. That's not what this is right now. So watching that scene was deeply emotional for me.

But still no ties, no nothing in my mind that made me ever think that I would have a career in comedy. And at the same time, all I'm devouring creatively really is rap music, indie music and sitcoms. and comic movies. It's all I ever loved, you know.

My dad had been watching Harold Lloyd and the Marx Brothers when I was little. I was raised right. As I got older, you know, by the time I was 10, 11, I was watching Monty Python's Flying Circus, rise and fall of Reginald Perel, which I didn't understand at all, you know.

Yeah, I remember watching that when I was too young to understand what was going on, of course, yeah. I didn't watch the, you know, duty free and stuff like. that. My dad wouldn't have it. He'd be like, this is shit. Can I watch The Good Life? Okay, okay. The Good Life would be like a compromise, you know. He was a Nazi when it came to intelligent, challenging comedy, and it's all he wanted me to watch. And, but I never watched that not. Right up to when I did it, I'd never seen it. What's the, just before we leave the

rap battling, what's the state that you're in before you go into it? Is it a similar gig state? whereby you're thinking I can control certain controllables and there's a lot of stuff I can't control. Very similar. The big difference would be that I had no experience, no stage craft, you know. In stand-up. In rap?

I'm just hoping for the best. But very similar in terms of the nerves, thinking like, let me try and hit on these things, maybe this will help me. But there were so many unknowns because it was improvisational. So part of it was a big part of it was sometimes just get fucked, just get drunk and hope for the best. Whereas a stand-up, I wouldn't have had the balls to do that.

And what was different about you as a... How old were you doing? How old were you when you were laughing? I started when I was like 18 or 19. Okay. What was different to 18-year-old doc to the people in the audience who were looking at the battlers going, oh, I wish I had the balls to do that? It's funny because obviously, you know,

I'm seen as a sort of grandfather of rap and grime in this country now. So I get invited to events, you know, with actual young people. And I look at the crowds now. Grime is different, but like hip-hop, the hip-hop crowds here. It's very middle class, it's very white.

When I was in doing rap battles and stuff, you know, those crowds were fucking, you know, it was just male. It was not mixed. It was working class. It was hood, man. It wasn't even working class. It was hood.

And, you know, there was fights all the time. Shows got shut down at the drop of the hat because people had weapons. People getting stabbed. People getting beat up. You know, it was a completely different time. So the me of those times, you know, it was always on my guard.

I was always on Amber. I was not a street guy. A new street guy. I was not a street guy and I never claimed to be, you know. I think part of the reason I moved so quickly in comedy was because no one had heard my voice before, you know. It just hadn't heard this experience and I didn't even realize that I could bank on it, you know,

that it was a currency for me. It took me a while to recognize that. But it's very hard to articulate and in the same way as I'm sure it's hard for listeners to imagine what it's like being the least street person in a room of 1800 to being the most street person in a room of 1800 seemingly in a short space of time but that's my life is that something as might be a bit of a side note

but did you ever regret the fact that Doc Brown was both your rapping identity and your stand-up comedy. I regret it to this day. I was talking about this in an interview the other day with a paper. Let's talk about the name. I said, oh, that fucking name, man. I just, I didn't think I would have a career in stand-up.

So when, I was encouraged to do it by some producers I was working with at the BBC. I was writing gags. Behind the scenes as a part-time job. Well, I was still a youth worker. I was writing gag. for a Lenny Henry show on Radio 4 and for two or three other shows

and those producers there who really encouraged me to do stand-up in particular Ben Walker, I don't know if you know him and Paul Schlesinger and they really encouraged me to try it and you know they knew that I could rap

they knew I was musical they were like, you know, talk about that or, you know, mention that. I didn't know what I was doing. But it just seemed natural to use that performance name to do it. But I wasn't thinking long term.

It's my biggest regret in show business, bar none. It's not using my real name from the start. Because why? What effect has that had that you wish you could undo? A constant effect of like, could you like even today

I did some voice work and they were like could you play Doc Brown for the it's like it's not a fucking character it's me you know

people still have that thing of like it's like Ali G and Sasha Barricco no right right okay it's not fucking that it's my mistake

I should never have chosen the name I'd chosen to keep the name you know from the start my standup has been about a retired rapper

about a guy who is not cool anymore that's the essence of my stand-up it always has been and the smart people get it and the ones that aren't that smart don't get it but there is no character there is no separation and would it be easier in terms of

your rap career which I know as re I was listening to Stemmer on the way here and we'll talk about Stemmer, but your return to releasing rap albums, would it be more useful to you if you were able to sort of completely separate? That's Doc Brown, that's the rapper.

Ironically, it fucked the music thing as well because I just came back, put out an album which I was really proud of and people were just like, where's the jokes? Fuck! So it fucked me. It absolutely fucked me. The only thing it hasn't fucked is my acting. career because I was just like fuck that name I am me I'm ben Bailey smith and this is my acting

career and at least I can have some ownership over that Jesus I have no idea it's it's so fascinating the the dynamic between the outside perception of someone's success and how they feel about it because you know like do you feel like a success nah I never feel like a success I I feel like a success I I feel like a lot of, I think like a lot of artists feel, I feel like a fraud. I feel like somebody who's just sort of weasled his way in, somehow got in there and somehow kept it going. And this is my 10th year in show business.

I got into show business 30 years old with a child and a bun in the oven and a mortgage. And I was a part-time youth worker. The first time I stepped on a stage and did stand up. When I did So You Think You're Funny, which was my third ever gig, was the first round of that competition. I wasn't in it for a career in stand-up. I was in it because the prize was five grand, and I fucking needed five grand. It's very simple.

That's all it was, you know. Ten years later, I'm still here. Thanks to stand-up. You know, stand-up got me auditions to act, which is what I wanted to do when I was a little kid, you know. but just never really believed it was a possibility. Stand-up got me into writing, copywriting, which is probably my biggest earner writing script for adverts, you know. You still do that in the minute?

Yeah, I say it's my main job. People don't know that. That's fine. I like it that way, you know. My whole thing over the past three years has been to earn a living through entertainment without ever for a second compromising what I find interesting

so I meet entertainers every day like yeah I had to do that I had to do that terrible shit job because you know I got rent to pay I'm like fuck your rent man you haven't got kids you know I got high stakes that I'm playing with right I got two big children to feed and they get more and more expensive people

with every day I got a teenager to feed you know teenagers need my every day. But it won't change my decision making because I think there's anything I hate more than shit art. It just drives me out of the wall. So anything I can do

to just be able to say no, I will do. And there are certain areas, like I say, copyrighting, there are certain other things I can do that have no impact on the rest of my career. that I will do. It will pay for the following six months of living or nine months or, hey, praise the Lord,

maybe 18 months if it's good enough gig. And during that time, I can work on my movie. I can fucking work on, you know, I can learn to play the saxophone. I can study jazz, you know? Do you know what I mean? I can be a fucking artist, which is the only thing I'm interested in.

I'm not interested in. in fame. I'm interested in money to the extent that it makes me comfortable enough to get deeper into art. Like, that's the only thing that money means to me. I think one of the most broad careers, like, anyone I've had on the show, because, like, there are plenty of people who used to do something to a high skill level to a certain level. We know doctors, right, who've become standups and, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I'm pretty sure you're my first rapper. I've had comic rappers, but like your rap career is a serious rap career. Yeah.

And I do, I've got a lot to talk about that, but I want to focus on you the comic first before we get to that. But in terms of, like, you seem to me to have more self-belief than nearly any other comic when we worked together, you were just, I remember, do you know, I remember when we were on that tour in Aberdeen or whatever, you know, with the... It was a tour of Scotland's, yeah, yeah. But I remember... They were so successful that we had to pull a gig in a mine.

because it was a 500-seater that sold three tickets. That was it, that was it. That's fax, people. Little Callum driving us around. What are my Callum is? Goldsmith. Brown, Cook, three tickets. Shutting down towards left, right centre.

One of the things I particularly remember you saying was because you were so new to it at the time. Yeah, yeah, that was great. And I remember just kind of marvelling at, I think you had a really good agent because obviously very early doors, someone saw the potential in you as a product. I mean, like this guy can definitely root.

If you do, if you do the problem, you do the property rap or the, you know, the bare jokes, you know, the kind of rap translations, the slang translation rap, that's definitely going to storm it everywhere. And they did, and they're great pieces of work. Clearly, very quickly, someone picked you up and went, you're big star material. Because I remember you telling me at the time that, you weren't phrasing it like, hey, I'm big star material at all. I remember thinking, I'm kind of a big deal.

Yeah, it wasn't at that at all. But I remember thinking, Jesus Christ, because you said, yeah, my agent said I should get into, or, said in order to help me act, they're going to hook me up with an actor. And I think you started to get like one-to-one acting lessons with, name escapes me. His name, actually I bumped into him on the tube the other day. His name is Shea Baker.

Okay. And he worked with Kwame Quay Amar, people who know about theater will know about Kwame. And yeah, he coached me one-to-one. And it was invaluable. and I actually had the chance to thank him face to face the other day when I bumped into him on the tube

but I think what really I'd already done the legwork when I was a kid I just never believed I could be an actor and that was a class distinction I felt that I was barred from it it was a teenage paranoia weed induced

sort of paranoia working class chip on the shoulder thing about acting, I think. Okay. But actually, once I got into it and once I worked with more and more talented actors, I could feel myself getting better. But your self-belief, I remember at the time,

just radiated off you. And even now, if you look at your career and the different things that you've done to a really professional and successful extent, like, I also remember at the time you talking about, I think talking on stage, maybe socially, about how before you got into comedy you'd been in a pretty dark place

you were smoking too much weed you were depressed and part of comedy was an attempt to I've got to do something It began as hugely therapeutic a huge release for tension anger

self-loathing it was really really useful the first three or four years but depression and anxiety need to be dealt with properly you can't control it yourself self-will is not going to get you anywhere in this world you have to let go you have to be vulnerable and you have to hand your bullshit over and i never did that i just went

oh maybe i could just be a star with this and talk about stuff on stage and it'll all be fine it wasn't and that's the main reason i had to take a break from stand-up in the past year you know because partly I did want to concentrate on my writing and my acting. But stand-up nearly killed me, man. I mean, you know, I don't have to tell any stand-up how lonely this profession can be, you know. You're alone with it. You create it alone.

You get in your car and you drive alone to where the gig is and you go alone into the green room or your dressing room. and you prep alone and then the compere calls you and you go on stage alone and you kill or you die alone and then you go back to your hotel and you deal with the fallout from killing or dying alone and then you drive back home alone

and then wherever you killed or you died your partner whoever you live with your flatmate they can't ever truly understand the last 24 hours of your life and you do that every day for as long as it fucking takes to make a career out of it and there are certain people

certain colleagues of ours they're built for that lifestyle I'm not built for it so it really there's a right smile on my face that no listener obviously would be able to see when you say the self-belief poured off you because my life is

an unlimited never-ending patchwork of anxiety and depression one after the other, after the other, after the other, after the other. And to take that into the world of show business where you're a face, you're a public figure, is very dangerous, I'd say. And to deal with it head on and to work with it, I had to put

stand up aside for a minute because it's such an emotional pastime like stand up you know it's so you to do it well you need to pull yourself into it and

there was so many times where I just felt ironically this name that I created dot brown I have to hide behind this shit man because because Ben is struggling right now

you know so if they want doc brown cool because i can give them doc brown that's the only time that i felt like thankful for keeping the name because at least i can go you know what ben's not feeling too great right now but these these motherfuckers won doc brown and i can give him 20 minutes of doc brown you know and it pays the bills you know um but yeah i got to a stage where i just i couldn't face it i just didn't have the confidence or the self-belief to be Mr. Saturday night every night. And I was just losing, I was just completely just losing track of everything, losing track of my life, really. The thing that no one talks about is we operate at an hour when the rest of the world socialises.

So we are part of a social experience for normal human beings. The normals, you know, the non-comedians. They go out and they have a good time and it's Friday night and they're meeting up with friends they haven't seen or they've been working all week and we entertain them. And then when do we see our friends? Like, I remember before Monday became a big stand-up night. Monday was the day, like you'd call up your mates.

Hey, what are you guys doing? I'd be like, fuck you, man. It's Monday. Where were you on Friday? You know? So I lose track of my friends and call another friend. Hey, how's it going with Lisa? I broke up with Lisa like six months ago, man.

Where you been? Fuck, I've been on the road, man. You know? Just losing track of my real friends and never, I've never like became like a showbiz sort of slut. It's just never been interested in that. Fame's never, ever driven me at any. point.

But I did feel alone. I felt really alone. And nothing made me feel lonely than stand-up, I think. Because in the same way, like you were saying, like, it fascinates you how nobody sees

a person's career quite like that person. It's the same in the other direction. So I'd look at all the other stand-ups and just think, you know, I'm made for this. This is not, I don't. I I don't know how you do this. I can feel it slowly driving me mad.

And I knew I had to just reevaluate. It strikes me that trying to use stand-up to get happy is a bit like using cocaine to learn how to meditate. Exactly. You can't use externals. If you feel vulnerable in any way, if you feel like, I don't know, if you feel like there's an element

that could push you off the rails, looking for an external to solve that problem is never ever going to fucking help. You've got to get to the root of the issue. With a lot of standouts, we all have the same issues. A lot of us have emotional voids or holes somewhere in our childhood or some trauma or some element

perhaps from way, way back that we've never really dealt with and we've become, to make ourselves feel whole, we've become people pleasers in some way and that's naturally ended up being stand-up. I look back on my life,

there's no fucking coincidence that I ended up doing stand-up comedy. It's just, it was fated to happen, it had to happen because it's the most immediate way of going, am I all right? And people going, yeah, you're better than all right. You're fucking amazing.

Oh, good, good, good. Whereas actually, what we really need is to sit there with your best friend, someone who actually knows you, and go to him, mate, am I all right? And we go, yeah, mate, you're fine, you're right, man. I've loved you since we were fucking in primary school. You're fine.

But instead of doing that, we go, let me jump on to this stage in front of 3,000 strangers and go, please am I okay am I an okay human being and they go

yeah you go you come and say you go maybe I am maybe I'm not just okay maybe I'm better than okay maybe I'm fucking

God and then you swagger out the next night like the god of comedy and the real god of comedy goes mate

I don't know what the fuck you think you're doing but I'm going to make you die right now and you go oh my God I'm not just not God I'm fucking nothing

I'm I'm scum I'm not even scum I'm like whatever's on the scum that's on the bottom of people's shoes I'm fucking piece of shit oh god and you can't answer the phone dealing with those kind of emotional

highs and lows for anybody once in their life would be quite extreme to choose to do that every day for years for decades for decades decades is insane and that's what we do.

That's what we do as comedians. I mean, it's like, when you look at it like that, it's sadomasochistic, it's insane, it's nutty. And so therefore, I treat it like any other drug. Let me put it down for a bit and see what happens if I just do it at a festival every night and again. That is as articulate and accurate. a summation of comedy, you know, the comedy mental health dynamic as I think we've ever had on

the show. Boom, there you go. Is it the same in rap? Is it the same in acting? When you're kind of, there's the same kind of bright light quality to it. There's the same sort of, this might fix me quality, I guess. I think there's definitely some elements. I mean, there's definitely some elements, but what differs is the nakedness. I think, of all the art forms, there's this bizarre, additional massacism to stand up, wherever we make ourselves naked, we just say, my name is Stuart Goldsmith,

fucking kill me, you know? Now, you can do that right now. In fact, you can physically do it if you want, jump up on stage and kill me. No one else does that. Not even actors who are in a play, because actors who are in a play,

they're looking for a bit of that stand-up experience. Right? So they can say, you know, my name is, whatever, Dame Judy Dench, come and kill me. But you can't really, because she didn't write the play. She's a dame.

You know, she's doing it. It's an honour to have her there. It's not quite the same. She is taking a risk because she might forget her lines. She might be shit. She's not going to be shit, but she might be.

People go, oh, she was a bit shit in there. But that's it. For us, it's like, your Stuart Goldsmith, that's your real name. You wrote this shit. You made me come here. You're on your Twitter all week

telling me to buy this ticket. It's fucking shit. You've wasted my time. I hate you. I don't hate your comedy. I fucking hate you. That's what we're playing with. So you were at my gig last Friday.

I was, I was going to send that email. In other forms of art, it's not quite the same. So even within rap, there's some distance. You can do a live rap show, but it's all songs that... Think about how you pick your set list. You pick your songs based on what everybody... downloads, what everybody streams on iTunes and Spotify, you know that everybody loves these 12 songs.

That's interesting. You can do in a terrible mood. You could do your set list by looking at Spotify and going, okay, number one, that's the close up. Everyone loves it on closer. That's the open. It's obvious, obvious. And they don't want you to change the joke.

You do your best ever joke. If you go, why the fuck is Stu still doing this joke? It's hilarious, but he's still doing it. 15 years later, there's actually one of your gags that I still do. I don't do it in my set. I tell people all the time. What's that? I fucking love it.

So you say, yeah, some of you might notice I'm wearing Morels. It's a look that says, I'm not wearing a fleece, but I own one. That's one of my favorite gags. That was of all time ever. bless you. That was my opener for like three years until I realized like, because at the time I did wear merrils all the time.

And then I found myself once going, oh, I better wear those merrils so I can do it. And then that's my cardigan moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You had to get rid of it. But honestly, like, people always like, oh, you love that Lucy Cape at myself, that Bill Hicks thing where he's a really complex. I, that shit, I respect all that complicated shit. But I love a fucking silly gag. more than anything else. You know? Like when people talk about Bill Hicks, it was amazing the way he just rocked the system

and he, you know, he talked about drugs and, you know, my favorite Bill Hicks gag is? It's the one about the hump of hate, right? Where he says, like, he used to get dragged by these two female friends to go to nightclub, and he fucking hate nightclubs. They go there with his hump,

like he stored up all this hate, like a camel into his back, and he just walked like, and just smoking furiously into this club with his hump of hate and just stand there against the wall smoking and the girls would come up to go Bill, come and have a dance

I'm not fucking dancing. Come have a dance. No, I'm not fucking dancing. Bill, come and dance. He goes, you know, everybody will know how good you are in bed. You know, all the girls, they'll know by how well you dance. He goes, that's bullshit.

He goes, if I get up there and I dance, I'm, you know, I'm there in the spotlight and I'm just really in the moment, just take off my jacket and I'm feeling it, just really shaking my hips, getting into it, singing along. What difference does it make how good I am in bed? I'm gay.

What's your favorite bit of your gear? What? Mine? Yeah. Oh, hands down. It's a bit that I briefly fought the comedian Joe Boreover. We were in not. them together on some shitty weekend.

And we were just walking down by the canal. And I made an observation that made him cry. And he just said, dude, are you going to use that? And I never used, my gags don't work that way. I always just make it on stage and then build it off of that. I was like, what? He goes, are you going to use that? Because that's hilarious.

I said, nah, it's just like, I'm just saying, like, observation about canals he was like no dude I'm taking that if you're not and I know it's like okay what is it what is it exactly because now I'm worried

and he was like you know what you're saying about when you see a boat come by and I said all right I'll try it out on stage tonight and if it's shit you can have it it, it's yours

and he goes all right all right because he'd obviously seen an angle on it and I went up on stage and I said something about like I know like you see me rap I just relax because I'm not trying to be gangster I'm not trying to I'm not street do you know I'm not fucking gangst I'm I wave back at boats of people on boats you know I'm not that guy right you know and the wave of

laughter that came back I extended it I had there's a version of that gag that's like three minutes long right with an act out yeah with an act out yeah yeah lovely talking about people and boat going by me waving being with my daughter and her going, who are you waving at? I don't really know, but this is what I've got to do. There's like a whole act out version of it or there's a one-line version of it.

There's a minute and a half version of it. If I'm struggling for time, it was like a huge part of my set for five years. Yeah. And why? And it was so enjoyable because why? Because it was like the cardigan thing. It said everything you needed to know

about me. I'm not gangster. those back at people on boats. You know, it says everything you need to know about me. I'm smart enough to be self-aware. I am street, but I'm not that street. I'm observational, but I'm not an observational comic per se. And most of all, I'm silly, man. Like, silliness is the thing, like, that's the thing I really, really love.

I love having a point I really do and I don't do stand up in the same way like we were talking about what's the point in art if it doesn't mean something to you before I'd rather just not do it or earn money through advertising just do something different

I feel that more strongly than anything with stand-up if I haven't got a reason to be up there I don't want to be there that said me doing stand-up without some utter silliness I don't ever want to see that. If it's all about politics or race

or the importance of understanding where rap comes from or some earnest shit, I can't be asked. To me, that's not what. And there's a place for it. I get it. I really do,

and I respect the people that do it and do it well, especially the ones that do it well, because I think that's hard. You know, the Mark Thomas's of this world to do it well. It's just tricky. But for me, a true comedian is a clown, really. A true comedian is like, ironically, like Dr. Brown.

And, you know, someone who can just do something without words that's so stupid that if you don't laugh, you're not a human being, you know? And for me, that's the essence of comedy. And if I'm not doing something stupid in 20 minutes, if there's not at least three minutes of utter stupidity, then I don't know man I don't know

I think your ego's crept in too far maybe the vanity's kicked in Do you feel like you It's like me ripped Imagine if I came back to stand up And I was ripped And I was like Russell Howard I only just wore tiny t-shirts

Or Joel Domber You know I wouldn't be as funny I would I guarantee I'd still be funny But I'd be 27 to 28% less funny if I was ripped. I'm throwing that out of it.

I believe you. I believe you. That seems to resonate with the persona. Do you think that you achieved the level that you were capable of? I don't mean in terms of how funny you were.

No, no, no. In the slightest. Not even close. Not even close. Not even close. My promoters are a live nation, right? They did all my tours. They told me where I should be.

I know where I should be. Dude, you know for a fact there are comics that aren't half as good as me who are filling aren't in arenas right now. We both know that. I'm not big in myself up. That's fucking fact. I did nod at that, respectfully.

I wasn't just leaving down there. That's fucking fact. They know who they are. I know who they are. They know when I say that they know who they are. And if they want to have a beef about it, go for it. I'm not cussing you.

I'm saying well done. It's amazing. You're not as good as me, but it's amazing. Like, well done. It's incredible. That's what you can do with stand up, you know? With a little bit of intelligence, a little bit of ability, a little bit of talent, you can take it that far. Anyone who thinks I didn't have the option to do that is fucking deluded.

I chose not to do it. Ask anyone at Live Nation. They'll tell you, Doc Brown, fucking hell, yeah. He's the most hardest person to work with. Because what the fuck does he want? you know i remember the head of live nation saying to me dude this is what we do 2014 right

and he sent me a list he had his people send me a list of all the potential dates and he met with me in person and he said uh you buy a house off of this and i know what that means to you because you got two young kids you can buy a house outright

right right fuck a mortgage we do this you buy a house and move on to the next one and he sent me the people sent me the dates like 220 dates I looked at it and I went

hmm I'm gonna do 14 of these days ha ha ha ha ha ha um all yeah 13 of them are these ones oh what the ones

in and around the M25 yeah yeah those ones and then that one in Manchester because I really like weekends in Manchester I've got a mate I can get drunk with

and they're like right are you serious yeah I'm fucking serious and that's what it was and I did three tours I think probably combined

all three tours all three brand new not even hours was like hour and a half's, probably did 56 days in total. That's probably even a wild estimation. It's probably less than that. I didn't like being alone for that long, man.

Nothing seemed worth it. And then underneath all of that as well was two things. A fear of being the biggest comic in the UK. I was scared of that. I was scared of, I was watching what other comics was doing. This guy's hilarious. Now he's on TV. Now he's on TV a lot.

Now he's on TV too much. Now he's got six people trying to write him something to say on Thursday because he was on TV on Tuesday. I just thought, I don't know if I can live that life. So there was that element. And of course, you know, the invasion into your privacy

and Sean Walsh strictly come dancing. That's not my life. Do you know what I mean? And then the other element was purely artistic. I just thought, I think stand-up works in a big room. I think it gets shitter and shitter. And that sounds so po-faced and such a loo-faced. Oh, actually, my set-up's really important

because I only do it in 50-seaters. No, you only do it in 50-seaters because you're not that good. You're not that funny and you can't fill a bigger venue. I'm not saying it because of that. I genuinely, as an audience member, I just like it in smaller rooms. I was a huge, like I said, my dad made me a fan of some real niche comedy. And one of my big things in the early 90s was John Shuttleworth.

He used to love listening to John Shuttleworth. And I went and saw him live numerous times. And then, I mean, I travelled because I thought the smaller, the shit of the venue, the better. Even then, I knew as a teenager. I just, if you know anything about the character if you don't, look him up, it's fucking hilarious. I can't go back to Savory now. I can't go back to Savory now.

Just, he's the pinnacle of musical comedy for me. But anyway, you know, it's important for his character that the show, the venues are quite shit. But he was just too good. So I remember I'd gone to see him, I think, at the waterfront in Norwich. I'm not from Norwich. I'm from London.

I traveled there because I just thought that was, it feels right. Feels right. It feels right. you know and then you know he was at the

Bloomsbury I think in London I was like well I can't not see him and so I went there's something missing not from Graham's performance

he's fucking absolutely superb but it didn't feel right that 550 people were laughing and I can't tell you that is so that is so perverse sure

but it's just but okay so on the boss of Live Nation we're having this meeting and I said, okay, that's fine. You can do half the size venues, just do 440 dates. Do you mean? There must have been some element of like,

look, we've got a thing, you've got a product. I just wouldn't do it because I had the two issues. I couldn't do the number of days. And the loneliness will get your best mate from school who doesn't have a job to be your driver and your tour manager. I definitely could have done things differently. There's basically the short answer to your question, which I think I did as you were asking it,

I'm so clear on it. But the short answer is, I should be a multi-millionaire and I should be turning down podcasts like this. I should be really hard to reach. I should have the same number for you to be able to text me directly and say, well, you feel on my podcast.

I should be a real cunt. But I just chose something else. I don't know. I want to be in, I want to sit in the pub on a Wednesday night with my mates. I want to do boring shit with my kids and not be bothered. like and at the same time

I want to live my life in show business and is that such a strange oxymor well I was just about to say that sounds the first half of that before I want to live my life in showbiz that sounds really healthy that sounds really like mentally healthy that sounds like oh this guy's going to be happy you walked away from the rich and famous

contract that's great the problem is I was born to be an entertainer and I knew it in 10 years the 10 plus years that I was doing youth work which I found really fulfilling and I'm able to bring a lot too actually because of my semi-celebrity status

whatever you want to call it which is quite nice and it's quite a nice give back but I knew it even when I was doing it full time like in the wankiest way possible I was born to entertain

and to not do it seems I mean I'm churlish at the best of times but to not do it at all seems madness so and I don't think I'd be happy. Is there any part of it that wasn't a choice? Is there any part of it whereby you sort of tried something and it didn't go as well as you wanted

or it didn't get the reaction? The only thing that wasn't a choice was doing stand-up for the first time. That was not my choice. That was a combination of Ben Walker and Paul Schlesinger. It wasn't my choice. Everything else, I chose. I was very, very instrumental in the way that it went. I chose to have a small shit tour

I chose to turn down incredible opportunities have a think about this right most people know if you know about comedy in the UK you know who I am right name a panel show I've been on never been on one

ever that's not because of racism do you know how it easier it be for me to go yeah the thing is do you know what I mean like there's obviously some racial shit going on because I've been asked to do all of them a million times I've never said yes once

to any of them that's another good few grand I've lost but I don't I just don't I don't watch them I don't enjoy watching them and I don't have anything against

the companies who make them or the comics who choose to do them it makes total sense they need to put bums on seats for their tours I just I think I struggle to make a meal for someone that I wouldn't eat myself you know

and I know there's probably someone if not more than someone sat there listening to that thinking you fucking pretentious wanker call it like you see it I respect it that just felt the right thing to do so in my mind absolutely no question.

I've shot myself in the foot career-wise many times, many times. And I've said no more than I've needed to say no to things. And did those choices feel at the time and or now, did they feel like sensible, mentally healthy choices or did they feel like the expression of an anxiety and a depression?

I think it's a mixture. I think sometimes it was definitely a fear of fame, a fear of losing privacy, a fear of success and what that would mean in terms of what I had to do next, which I'm obviously not as proud of. And other times it was definitely like, nah, that's shit. I actually think that's a shit thing to do. I'm not going to enjoy it.

It was the right move. So I say it's a definite combo. Are there parallels with, Because it seems there are certain parallels with your rap and your comedy careers in terms of what you wanted from them, the fix you got from them. Yeah, but the big difference is actually made money from one of them. Did you turn down similar opportunities in rap to the ones in comedy? No. The big difference with rap is culturally, you say you're a don. Like, it's part of the profile. Say, I'm the fucking best. I'm the number one. I'm the best rapper you've ever heard.

hurt in your life. That's a big, big difference. And there's nothing in rap that I would have turned down willingly. If someone wanted to make me the biggest rap star in the world, I would have took it, man. I was young. I was pumped full of ego and testosterone. There was no deeper question going on in my mind at that time. Other than, if somehow you can make me, the best rapper in the world, please, let's just make it happen. And the only real sadness I have around that, looking back, is that there were a couple of opportunities that I could have made more of that I didn't.

So, like, when I was working with Mark Ronson, you know, it was a pivotal time in his career where he was moving from where I knew him. I mean, when I knew him, he was a hip-hop DJ. and not much more than that, apart from the fact that he's started DJing big fashion parties through his sister,

big record label parties, and he played Puff Daddy's birthday while I knew him, you know. So he started to get bigger gigs, but he wasn't like a musician. He didn't have like a band and all of that. That started as I was, you know, doing like little DJ gigs with him and whatnot.

And he was putting together, something really different that ended up becoming, it sort of started off as like, you know, funky, hip-hoppy versions of rock and roll shoes that became the album version, you know, almost working out on stage. And I was there at that time. So a more fourth-right rapper would have said,

dude, like, let me jump on this, let me jump on that. I know you're developing this song with Amy, delivering this song with Lily Allen, you know, doing this with Santee Gold or Daniel Mary, whatever. Let me jump on this. There were eight bar verse. It could have been cool about it, but I just never asked. I just never asked because I just thought,

that's a dick move. That's too polite. It seems to me that this reminds me of, I think, one of the central things about you as a, if not as a performer, as a kind of a creative industry. You are your own creative industry. You're like, okay, so then I decided to do a kid's book and then I did a kid's book. You know, I'm so weird. I decided to put out five rap albums. They're all out there. It's so weird because that's how it must look to people and I get it. But from inside my house,

that's just not how it is. So with the kids book, you know, I'd had kids for a while, wanted to write something that I thought could sit on the shelf next to them, but never really pushed myself to do it. It was the illustrator that came on

and was the conduit just the same way Ben and Paul were the conduits for me starting stand up. They're just like, yeah, you can do this, you know. So there's that little bit

of added belief. By the time the book came out, it took so long. They were old enough, they didn't even care anymore. Same with the CBB's bedtime stories. I waited so long to get on. By the time I was on, they didn't even watch CBBs anymore.

Sure. So, but these things have happened. I know how it looks on the outside. It's like, this measured guy, I've done this, now I'm going to do this. Now I'm going to do. It's really, in my life, it's just like, stand-up's just not really doing it for me right now. I don't really know what I'm going to do next.

And then something comes along. You think, ah, it looks quite interesting. Have I got the skill set? Yeah, probably. I'll have a bash. And people will take the voice. And people will take your call. People will take my call.

That's true. Because there's a lot of people, if you look at Johnny Comedian, if you look at the next guy, the next person. They might have all of these ideas. They don't take the swings. I can't deny that,

you know, I do have that advantage of people going, maybe you will be good at it. It's not a bad shout. Let's test it out. So I definitely have that advantage. But where I'm at a disadvantage is I'm not the done of anything.

Like, you know you have the Jack of Altraise and the Master of None. I think that describes me pretty well. I'm not the don of comedy. I never, like, got to the pinnacle of comedy and then went, right, now I'm going to get to the pinnacle of children's books. Now I'm going to be the greatest actor ever. No, I just feel like I'm a writer and a performer. Like, those are the two things I definitely know I can do.

How they sort of come together. and present themselves as an actual commodity that you can buy? I don't know. I don't know. But I know there'll always be humor involved somehow. There might be something musical involved somehow. But I refuse to say I'm this one thing because no one thing has ever grabbed me like that. The only thing has ever grabbed me like that, I don't.

so it would be indie music and I'm sheer indie so I assume you've tried solved itself of course I've tried the first band I was ever in was an indie band it was about 15 and I sang we did smashing pumpkins covers and lemon heads REM Nirvana yeah man this might be totally wrong but Is there an element of your creative life where you, and I'm just trying to sew together various things we talked about here. So tell me if this is a totally wrong instinct. Is there an element of your creative life whereby you really believe in yourself one day

and then you really don't the next day? Yeah. I'd say every element. I don't know there's a single thing that I do. Apart from maybe certain elements of rap where I just think, fuck you, man, I can rap. You can't even rap. up.

But I'd say pretty much everything. One day I think this is amazing. And the next day I think, oh my God, I'm in way of my head. I'm in way over my head. You know? The first time I remember feeling that, I mean, I felt that every day in comedy. But the first time I really remember feeling it profoundly

was when I started to talk to comedians and they were funny offstage. and I was like, oh my God like these guys, they're born to do this shit. You're an imposter, man. You're not this funny offstage. You're not funny at all.

My friends, my actual friends, my real friends out, like from before show business, they're the ones who just won't accept the comedy thing. They'll never come and see me do a standout. Is that right? They just won't accept.

They're just like, you're not fucking funny. You're the least funny person out of the whole friend group. Yeah. And you know what? It's true. It's true. But there's a crucial skill that I've got that none of them have got. They're all way, like the funniest people I know are not comedians. They're definitely my friends. They make me piss myself, cry, tears of laughter. But they couldn't articulate what they do. So in every friend group, you always have one guy and they go, oh, Rob, he's so funny. He's so funny.

I'm always saying you should do stand-up. His stories are. amazing. He's so funny. He thinks us piss ourselves. But Rob can't fucking articulate. He can't bottle what he says and does. He can't do it. Whereas me and you can see some shit happening and bottle it. We know how to just go suck it up. We're like the fucking Ghostbusters. You know that thing that they've got where they can just suck a ghost up. And it's just in that fucking box. That's that comics, man. Like we can just see something

on a whole other spiritual plane and just go, I'm taking that, I'm putting it in the box. He was like, oh, you better not say that around Ben because he'll turn that into a joke. I never do that. What I'm able to do is something on a plane

that I can't even fucking explain to you because you're a normal. You're not a comic. You're just a human being, you're a civilian. There are six, seven civilians standing around having a conversation. Someone says something, and it's fucking hilarious this story

that they're telling. everyone laughs. There's an interjection here there that makes everyone laugh again. What I'm putting in my ghost buster box is not your story. It's something in the essence, the timing, the rhythm, the way that you told it, the confidence you told it with, the interjection that came it and when it came in, how it shifted

the reaction from the rest of the group. All of that, I'm bottling that, I'm putting it in a box, I'm taking it, I'm fucking stealing it, and you can't even sue me because you don't even know what the fuck you're suing me for. So tell me then.

You understand what I'm saying? Only a comic would know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And did you, when you were writing comedy, where you would write the raps and everything else would kind of coalesce in between the raps?

Yeah, I started off, I didn't know what I was doing, you know. Ben Walker said, dude, these raps are hilarious, man. Just keep writing them, keep writing them. And these are the ones that these have got like five, six million hits each. on YouTube from years ago. I remember maybe some of the first stuff

that I saw on YouTube. Of course. It was an easy way to sort of bottle what I was doing. But actually, the comic within me was growing in those moments between because the raps became what big jokes for normal comics

would be. Islands, essentially. So this one went well, trying out some new stuff. It might not go well, but I know I've got this piece of gold that you just swim towards that little island.

and there, get there, it'll be fine. That's what those raps became. And then to challenge myself, whenever I did a 20, I'd say, right, three raps. You one somewhere near the start, one somewhere in the middle, and close with another one. But you've got to get there, you got to get there.

You know? And I push myself and push myself and push myself. Make the gaps wider, two raps now, one at the beginning, one at the end. Or towards the end, I would be like, okay, two raps, but no music. You just have to do it. Your Apollo set, I remember, was one of the first times I did it.

No music. Yeah. So push yourself, push yourself. And unbelievably, the comics that I have a, I reserve a special kind of hatred for are the ones that would come to me and go, oh, you know, these backhanded fucking compliments. Oh, I wish I was like you, man. I was so jealous of you, you know, you just, if I could cheat like you, you know, you got to fucking, you know, you got the raps. I wish I could have that, you know.

Sorry, what? No, I'm just saying, you know, because obviously you don't have to do jokes. Like, it's just, ah, must be just so much easier for you and you just kill it. You're impossible to follow. You're impossible to follow because you just got these amazing moments. I wish I could have a moment like that. I've just got to write 20 really interesting, complicated jokes, 20 minutes worth of really interesting, complicated jokes.

I wish I had what you had, though, man. No, those guys, I say, get the fuck out of my face before I knock you out of this fucking green room, you know? Fuck you. On so many levels, fuck you. Because out of 20 minutes of comedy, same way you do, with three minutes total of rap. And in those minutes, in each of those 60 seconds,

I've got more jokes in 60 seconds than you've got in seven or eight minutes of your set. And I'm cheating. I'm operating on a whole thing. fucking different level. That shit used to driving me up the wall, man. I'm not a gimmick. I was never a gimmick comic.

And from the start, I hated musical comedy. I hated it. I saw it. I was seeing it around me, seeing comics go, oh, a really funny song about that, and here's how it goes. It was so bait. It was so telegraphed.

I hated everything about it. So what I used to do was, I'd make this music with one of my old rap producers, is, you know, I come down. And while everyone was getting their beers in the green room and whatnot, I go to the sound man with my CD or my USB stick. And I go, I write down. I say at some point, I don't know when, I'm going to say this.

When I say this slide, it's not a joke. It's just a series of words. When I say that series of words, press play. Don't worry about anything else. When should I press stop? Don't worry about that. I got it all tied out. I'd produce it myself, like work out where it stopped.

You wouldn't have to press stop. It would stop and I go back into jokes, you know. Never went wrong. All those years, I never needed any rehearsal. I just say, when you hear me say those five words, press play and we're good. And those five words were so meticulous. Like they'd seem like nothing. So I say, yeah, but you know, that's how it is sometimes.

Throw away. and that would be the cue and if the dude was sharp enough he pressed play you know if he didn't on the occasion he didn't it was too subtle he missed it it's fine it's comedy man

you know just work around it but 90% of the time they clock it they press play and I know exactly how many seconds of silence I'd recorded into the track I'd know exactly when I hear the first hi-hat what I'm going to do next and I'd just seamlessly

go into the rap and it would blow people's fucking minds like it was the second coming of Jesus Christ and I thought I'm going to be fine I'm going to make a living in this shit man

that's crazy I mean I really for people who've not seen it for the world's population minus six million who haven't seen the bits on YouTube like I mean you know you're not overestimating the result of that that slang translations

bit like I still remember sections of that. Do you know what I'm just like I ejaculated loudly then walked off proudly. People come up to me in the street and quote it like I've never heard it before. I mean it's a beautiful thing. Did it cost you anything

in terms of credibility? In the rap world? In the rap world. Only a tiny bit. It's actually been much harder the other way round for comics to accept me as a comic. In the rap world,

The rap world initially there was a little bit of like, oh, he's taking a piss out of rap. And then I would always say, come and watch the show. Because I felt I was elevating rap, you know? I remember watching all sorts of rappers when I was a kid, like the Beastie Boys, you know, De La Sol, NWA, people who would poke fun at things that you just weren't supposed to poke fun at within rap and recognize that a 4-4 beat is just a template to do

whatever the fuck you want. As long as it's creative and the rhyme bangs and you can rap properly, it's fine. You know what stopped overnight when I got into doing rap comedy was the comedians who do a funny little rap at the end of their sets. That just suddenly stopped.

That's interesting. You know? It's really funny because, you know, obviously, I'm quite a middle-class guy and, but nevertheless, And the beat starts and the music's terrible and the rap's terrible. And it's funny because it's terrible. That stopped overnight because what I was doing was never parody.

It wasn't funny because it was shit. It was good and it was funny. That was a new concept. And there's no coincidence that offered the strength of that you have things like, you know, like man's not hot and people just do nothing. And all these elements where it's like the lines are slightly blurred. It's like, this is funny, but it's also, it's quite good. You know, people just do nothing.

They've got like seriously good grime artists. Yes. Collaborate with, you know. Similar with Michael, with Michael DePar. Who's that? He's the comedian that does. Man's not hot. Gotcha.

Yeah. So, you know, none of that stuff's lost on me. It was a new wave that I was undertaking. What was lost on me was that I was creating any new wave. I just did what I thought was funny. I just thought, this will be funny. And that is literally it. It's a funny thing about that slang thing was,

I remember doing it on tour in Dubai. And I know this old comic called Mickey Hutton. He was in his 50s Seasoned dude And he watched me for the first time That first night As you do when you're talking with someone You watch each other's gig the first night

Know what you're dealing with And I did the slang thing And he came to me afterwards He said, hey you're pretty funny He goes, you're pretty funny He says, see that thing at the end With the cards So yeah

I expected him to say That's genius, that's genius He goes, yeah That's the first thing thing you'll lose. I say, what? You guys,

I'm just saying as you go forward with stand up, that's the first thing you'll get rid of. And I was like, dude, is it,

fuck, that's my closer, man. He goes, I don't know, I know, you're close of it. It killed.

It killed. Did really well. Just saying, the whole prop thing, if you're going to stay on the road, I guarantee you in six months,

you'll never do it again. And I was like, all right, me, great. And I was a bit like, from that point, The whole, the rest of the trip, I was a bit like, this old guy, you know, telling the young guys, the young cats. Like, what comedy?

Six months later, I never even wanted to look at those fucking cars. To have a prop as a comedian is a fucking nightmare. So, like, you know, I've always been a big drinker. You know, you go on the road, you're going to drink. You're not necessarily always going to remember to check the cards. The order of those cards, the way up they are, is crucial to that bit. I mean, it's like working with Ali, Cook. Yeah, yeah.

It's like magic. The prep is everything. Yeah. If one of those cards is upside down, you're fucked. Don't shake my hand as I'm walking up to the stage. Yeah, yeah. Don't touch me. Don't look at me. Don't touch my suits.

You know, if one of those cards is upside down, I'm fucked. because the track started. My time to deal with a mistake is zero. There's no time. I can't go, oh, that one's upside down. No, I'm mid-rap. So obviously that started happening. And it was just like, fucking hell.

Or sometimes I just completely forget them. Get there and go, oh, fuck, I haven't even got the cards. I think probably the very worst one was when I set it up and realized I hadn't brought the cards. I'm more the cards They're like Oh Anyway

It's just like End on a completely Different closer Could you ever do it Without the cards Because you're articulate Yeah totally Totally

But the thing about standups Is we very rarely Once we work out a bit We very rarely see the flexibility Of that bit It's other standups Who will go Dude what you should do with that

Just do this And you go Oh my God How did I not see that It's because you're so emotionally In your bit. So for example, I used to have a bit that always killed. It was, what did I used to call it? I think I used to call it square brackets. And it was a concept of like rap is so formulaic now that I could

create you a rap that can work for you. It could be a business for me. I can just sell it to you, you know, in the same way that people sell legal documents with the square brackets with the, you know, the bits blanked out. You just put your name in there. I could create you a rap blueprint. And you could take that and you could just be a world famous rapper. That's how fucking shit rap is these days. That was the sort of concept for the bit. Then I do a rap of that document. So I say, yeah, what's up? It's your name. And I do these, like, throughout, I do these little bits where I change my voice and it would be what was, what you put in the blank. Yeah, yeah.

So just do the blank. I do the blank every time, but in a different voice and have people cracking up. And initially, in my mind, the way to do it was to draw square brackets on my hands. So I'd get a sharpie. And if you saw me during that period of my stanna, any time, if you saw me in Sainsbury, at any given time of day, I'd have square brackets on the palms of my hands. and then I'm not even sure if it was another comic or if I finally saw a light

and just like made C inverted C shapes of my fingers I was like I can just fucking do it with my fingers why am I drawing on my hands There's two last things One is I just wanted to talk about very quickly One is your album Stemmer Which I'm halfway through on the way over here

And I'm really enjoying I'm really enjoying I'm really enjoying. I don't know, I don't keep in touch with rap. That's probably for the best. Yeah, probably. But on Papillon, when you're rapping about depression, or on empires when you're talking,

and these are both on your most recent album, on empires when you're talking about, it seems, just from one lesson on the way, walking down the road just now, it seems like you're rapping about the fact that you're not cool, that you're not part of the genre. It's not good, you're not grime. Yeah.

Yeah, that ship sailed, is basically what I'm saying. Sure, sure, sure. It's a different empire now. Yeah, okay. And I'm just interested in the extent to which you feel your work in rap genuinely says what's on your mind. And is that different to what you could articulate with comedy? Like, which of them gives expression to the most honest bits of your psyche? Yeah, 100%.

I would say like with the rap, the beautiful thing about rap is you don't have to justify anything. So there are elements of that album that are 100% from me in the A1 first person. And there are other elements that are completely the opposite. I'm telling them in a first person way. But it's a story that's been given to me by someone very close to me, very dear to me. and I want to be able to tell their story and then there are other ones where it's completely foreign story

that fascinated me but to tell it in the first person is the most immediate way to do it and the most interesting way to do it in rap so I wanted Stemma to be reflective of the front cover is men trying to be men

and failing heroically that's that's where that was the concept that fascinated me like um and i mean men i don't mean people i don't mean men and women i mean men um and uh i really wanted to follow that through in an honest as in as honest a way as possible um in stand-up i think it's very hard to be that explicit and have people not go oh why has he said this why has he said that you know you know know, in music, I think, although it is harder in rap, because in rap, I think, it's similar to stand-ups, we get attacked for, say, how can you say that? How can you say that? Hey, mate, it's a fucking song. Freddie Mercury said, Mama, just killed a man. Yeah, sure. Sure. Gun against his head,

pulled the trigger now he's dead. No one was like, how could you say that? You know, but everyone does that to rappers. You know, the reason I actually think is racist. It's racist. I don't think they believe that young black guys have the intelligence to speak in the third person, to tell somebody else's story in the first person, to play with that idea of what is a story, what is real, what isn't, what does it all mean? I don't think that young black guys have the intelligence to do that. And we love that. We love the fact that they don't because we can constantly play with it. Yeah, okay. And Stemmer is really a grown-up. playing those same games.

So Stemmer is 12 conversations with 12 different men and you just got to guess which one is the first person of my story. But it's all real, it's all from the heart and nothing on there is

make believe or fiction. Whereas in stand-up I'd say it's probably 50-50 and then everything else is a free-for-all in it? sort of bullocks, whatever's most entertaining. So that last question then, let's just come back to what I asked, what we kind of put a pin in an hour ago maybe,

was, is your love and your desire to be the biggest rapper? Is that what got in the way of being given the opportunity to be the biggest stand-up? No, I think, as a youngster, I definitely wanted to be the biggest rapper in the world. As I got older, I realized that was impossible. By the time I was 30, I knew no one wanted to hear a 30-year-old rapper. I discovered stand-up.

And one part of me creatively died and another part was born. So the two never really affected each other negatively in any real sense. I think what stopped me being bigger as a stand-up was just Ben. Really. It was just Ben not knowing what the fuck he wanted. You know? And even in the midst of that, I made a healthy career, a healthy living. You know, my kids are happy and somehow I'm still working. And I'm still not playing the game. I'm still the most difficult artist to manage.

And people still want to work with me, you know? And I think maybe it's just because, I don't know. I don't know why it is, but I think a part of it is because people miss the real, man. People miss just being spoken to like a fucking adult with a little bit of honesty. And show businesses is wrought with bullshit, you know? So every now and again when someone just goes, no, no, that sounds shit. People are like, oh God, I'm so glad you said that. I'm so glad you said that.

And everyone just relaxes, you know. And I think that's really been me throughout however I felt personally, whether I felt super confident and full of my ego or super anxious with zero ego, I like to think that with my business, with the business of showbiz, always just gone, yeah, man, that sounds cool. Or, no, man, that sounds shit.

And it seems to have, I don't know, it's made me some friends and some enemies. Are you happy? Right now, I would say, I'm grateful, man. Like, I'm super, super grateful. And I'm grateful for the little things. I'm grateful that my friends from before everything

are still there. My wife from before everything is still there. and my kids don't think I'm a douche. I was super grateful for those things. Thanks, man. So that was Ben. You can keep up to date with all things Doc Brown on Instagram at Doc Breezy 88.

That's the kind of cool name, a cool Instagram guy would have, isn't it? Or is it? Is it like an old person thing? I don't know. I think it's cool, but I think just Doc is cooler than me across every front, so I assume it's cool. My name on Instagram is at Stuart Goldsmith Comedy, which seems impossibly dorky in the face of Doc Breezy 88. But then maybe I only think that because my perspective is so terribly elderly. Nonetheless, I think it's cool.

You can find, that's the kiss of death, isn't it? If I think it's cool, that's the absolute kiss of death. But nonetheless, he is cool and comes up with incredible stuff. And me and my children absolutely love from even further, from considerably further back than this episode was recorded, absolutely love his, the explainer. gangster rap slogans. I think he did it on Russell Howard's Good News a million years ago. But me and my children will very occasionally just, apropos of nothing, say,

what the bloody hell, this is how I live my life, and burst out laughing. So enjoy that. Doc Breezy 88 on Instagram. We've got exclusive extras, the full story on Doc hosting the BAFTAs in LA, how to improvise in front of Samuel L. Jackson, and why Doc's change in career is sort of almost kind of my fault. You can find out more about that at Patreon. com. Pod and find out how and where to see me live on my increasingly wonderful autumn tour. All of that at Stuartgoldsmith.com slash comedy. See you soon with more new and original content.

Bye for now.