The Comedian's Comedian Podcast - Flo & Joan (2019): ComCompendium

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

This week we’re delving back into the archives and going to episode 320 with the musical comedy genius of Flo & Joan where we discuss:going from open mics to a special on Amazon Prime in just four yearsthe inside story on their Royal Variety Performancewhy going viral makes you turn your phone offwhat they learnt from the Canadian improv sceneand how shaking an egg is harder than it looks... Join the Insiders Club at patreon.com/comcompod where you can instantly get access to over 30 minutes of exclusive extras.👉 Sign up to the NEW 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✅ 30mins of exclusive extra content with Flo & Joan✅ Early access to new episodes where possible✅ Exclusive membership offerings including weekly-ish Stu&AsPLUS you’ll get access to the full back catalogue of extras you can find nowhere else!Catch Up with Flo & Joan: Flo & Joan are on tour through the UK and Ireland from September! Find all the dates and more at floandjoan.com.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.

This week we're delving back into the archives and going to episode 320 with the musical comedy genius of Flo and Joan, where we're going to discuss going from open mics to a special on Amazon Prime in just four years, outstanding. We'll get the inside story on their Royal Variety performance, find out why going viral means you should turn your phone off, what they learned from the Canadian improv scene, and how shaking an egg is actually harder than it looks.

Flo and Joan are on tour throughout the UK and I. Ireland from September, you can get all the dates and more at floanjone.com. And here they are now from all the way back in 2019. Pre-pandemic, no less. Imagine our youth and hope. Here's Flo and Joan. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you, yeah.

I very recently saw your Amazon Prime special, which is like a Netflix special, but on a different platform. Same bit different. It's so great. Thank you. It's so great. I suppose I was kind of peripherally aware of you probably,

firstly from the nationwide advert and probably specifically the concept of backlash to an an first was probably the first bit of marketing, a bit of news story that kind of hit me as not having heard of you before. And so I kind of noodled around your YouTube stuff and then when I saw the special I went, oh, I get this, it's such a good piece of work.

Thank you. Are you proud of it? Do you feel like this is what we set out to make? It was a nice, we used mostly the last year's show for it, which felt like it was the first show that we wrote being professional comedians, I guess. So it did feel like this nice culmination. And then we put in all the songs that we really loved as well from the beginning. So it felt like we just tied a little bow on a certain part of our Flo and Joan span, yeah.

It was, yeah, it was amazing. And all the stuff in there is stuff that we loved, so. Yeah. Can't complain. We sat down and like, you don't really know what it's going to, we don't do. I think we'd done like one bit of telly before we'd filmed it, maybe two. And they're always us doing live things in front of like a, like the Melbourne gala and stand-up Central. We've never, we're not in control of any of that.

Our keyboard gets wheeled out. We diddley around for like five minutes. That's, we don't dilly around. There's a bit more skill than that. sometimes not all the time and then you get wheeled off and you're done so this was like a weird experience for us of being able to like

people asking us like what do you want the curtain to look like what chairs do you want you're like I don't know just chairs we just need why like those kind of things feel weird that you get a say in and then you walk in on the day when it's being filmed and you see like a million people working on it

it's so when you then watch it like that it feels very strange I don't know I'm wumbling around but like you'd have an doodle there It was really nice to watch it but you still it feels like a distant like it doesn't

I don't know this isn't helpful It was a great day It's just weird to I still find it weird watching Us do a thing Yeah So it was

When you do watch it We're all quite lucky It came out when we were up in Edinburgh This year And our best friends Who are Canadians Were overdoing their first sketch show at the fringe

So we got, and one of their members, directed our first two shows, and we've all worked together sort of throughout the years. So it was really nice to be able to watch it with them and to be with other people watching it. So you can kind of watch them watching it rather than having to watch it yourself. Because I don't think I will ever be able to, like, fully remove myself from it being me and kind of watching through, like, fingers a little bit, I think. But yeah, I'm very proud, I think, is what I was trying to get out after 10 minutes.

Yeah. It kind of makes me think I suppose when you said there about the difference between seeing you guys live I'd seen YouTube videos of you were to you know like you say at the gala and I'd kind of ages ago I'd sort of seen

probably the 2016 song which is a big viral hit for you on YouTube and it seemed to make so much more sense to me in that in that kind of you know one hour special show because it's so well kind of every aspect of it is really well put together.

Like you mentioned the curtain. Just the fact of the changing light on the curtain and the bulge and everything. And like you're both dressed in a really, you kind of look styled in a way that, or stylish in a way that. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Like that seemed to complement the precision of the performance and the precision of bits like, like songs where one element of the performance is that it's

incredibly difficult to learn, presumably. You know the one about Long Hair Blinda. Yeah. It's sort of, you know, or the Cracker Packer song, which almost seem like part of the joy of those is, we've written and then learned something incredibly fucking complicated for the sake of it. And I think those, like, it's so easy to, like I felt like I watched that special and was like, oh, that's why these people who I don't really know that much about,

and I guess haven't been going for so long, have got an Amazon Prime special. You know, it's one of those, like, you get the little. list as a comic as a performer you get a list of like these people are breaking through now and you go these guys and I saw it and went oh I get it so what let's um that didn't really turn into a question but does that do you know what I mean by that kind of like it's it's easy to imagine you guys doing like high-end cabaret type shows yeah because it all just looks so I know you are professional but it looks so professional it kind of it kind of exudes professionally that's There was very much up to the decisions of what we, I think when we had a meeting about the, what we wanted it to look like, I remember knowing what I wanted to see. I wanted like a dark, I think what I said was I want a darkness with a brightness. And I said, I want it to feel like if you were watching it and you saw a ghost walk past in the background, you wouldn't be surprised. And the person who we were meeting with was like, and we were like, do you get it? Like, again, like, we're not used to explaining these things to people.

being asked what do we want, how do we want it? And so we were trying to like give that kind of imagery of like a bit dusty and da-da-da and explaining that to a professional who was like, let me talk to someone else about this who knows what they're doing because we just didn't, we could see it, but they just didn't quite understand it. And then we found someone else who was like, okay, yes, yes, yes. We were sort of going for like an old vaudeville venue kind of vibe. That was where we started. We wanted like a dustiness, you know, like a bit of a tattie red curtain, but also bright lights. Again, I'm explaining my situation very well.

And it didn't end up looking like that. No, probably for a good reason. Yeah. There's someone else being like, I understand, I hear you. How about this instead? You're like, oh, yeah, cool. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I think it's interesting. It was nice to be able to put it in an hour because I think people have seen us in very out of context. They've seen us do everything that is available. to people is so different and so small. So like 2016 was one thing, drank too much is another thing. Most of people's exposure to us is nationwide, which is another completely different thing.

And so being able to sum it all up in one thing on our own, not our own terms, because nothing else was on anyone else's terms, but to be able to put forward what we wanted to in that, in an hour was really nice to be like, and here, here's a definitive sort of collection of what we do going forward please consult this so yeah yeah yeah that's an interesting way

looking at actually going forward please consult this this is this is the calling card now that you can go well that's that's what it is and let's use that as the platform so how long has it taken you to get to that when did you start

when did you start making music together he said having seen a video of you age one and three that was we actually we started doing this 2015 yeah March 2015 So four years. Just over four years.

Yeah. That is ridiculous. Like, do you have a sense of that that's ridiculous? It is mad. Yeah, it is. We're not unaware of the timeframe and the stupidity of it. And obviously I'm in stress, I don't mean it's unwarranted. No, no, no, I totally.

It's, we're aware. We're very aware. We have, yeah, we know. So what are the factors going into that? What are your kind of secret weapons that's made that possible? that's made that possible. I think the fact that we both have the same reference, we grew up together,

so we have the same reference points. We can predict. Have we covered that your real life sisters? I don't think we have. I don't think we've made. I are real life sisters. We sort of layer upon layer of like potential truth and maybe, like our names aren't Flo and Joan,

but we are sisters. And we sort of layered lies and fairy tales on top of each other and have never clarified anything completely. People always still don't quite believe our names aren't Flo and Joan or don't quite believe that we're sisters. But we are sisters, but our names aren't. flowed down. I'm just doing.

Sorry, that's my phone. No. Yeah, we have the same, a lot of the same things make us laugh, which is easy. We're not having to, you can often predict what the other one's going to laugh at as well.

And then also surprised by the things that I find funny and you don't, which you're very wrong about. Yeah, I think that there's a shortcut that we have like a shared language, I guess, that weird siblings do kind of just have a little bit of a shortcut language, I think, between each other.

We didn't have to establish any, like, we didn't have to become friends and discover that we have things in common to then say, oh, why don't we do a sketch chat, like, or however other people get together, I don't know. But so that was a, it wasn't in a plan, like there was no grand plan. We didn't play music together when we were kids. I think you often assume with siblings that we're like a kind of mama rose, dainty June kind of kids. Our mom was like dragging us around pantosites together. We didn't do any, we weren't, we weren't, we didn't hate each other, but we just weren't friends until we were adults because we're really, really different.

We weren't like, we didn't dislike each other. We didn't fight any more than like regular siblings would argue or anything. But we weren't, there was no grand scheme of when we're going to do this thing together. This is our destiny. Okay. Because that would be disgusting. Certainly, if it was real, it would be the sort of thing you had to cover up. Oh, God.

Yeah, big of the R moves on that. Almost humiliating. Let's just stay that with a minute of who you were as siblings as children. Like, just that is unusual. The fact that it's not unusual, it's just not what, it's unexpected to hear that actually you just, you know, you didn't, you weren't like super tight as kids or at each other's throats or something. You were just kind of, in what ways were you different? I was definitely more of an outdoorsy, sporty. Popular.

I wouldn't say popular. You were popular. I managed to be the funny person in the popular group. Yeah. So I never felt popular. I was just quite clowny, I think, as a kid and loved to play sports and you were very much indoors being, doing the better things, which is reading books. I didn't read that many books when I was a kid. You read so many books.

I did it. She smashed through Harry Potter that you wouldn't believe. But everyone does, it's Harry Potter. I've never read Harry Potter. Yeah, I was just a bit, I don't even know if I was quiet. Maybe I was quieter, but not a quiet. But I'm more quiet now than I was when I was a kid. Do you think?

I was just in like a floaty group of friends who we were all, we weren't weird enough to be bullied, but we weren't popular. We just kind of floated around in the middle and went mostly under the radar, I think. so you're just different in that way and just had different you like sports and I liked I was going to say you like books I chose looks like my children

you had a nice house a nice husband now you two snap nose chill out yeah we were just we just led different lives and you would go to Hailing Island and I would go to commercial

like just like things as kids we're from Portsmouth so Hailing Island was like you go and have a little beach party on Hailing Island drink too much Smell off ice vomit juice

run into the water camping someone's garden hopefully your mum picks you up in the morning that was Hailing Island and what was the other one you said We go to commercial road so we just go shopping in commercial road and like that was it

Portsmouth is a hit town it's got a commercial road everyone loves Portsmouth M&S Argos I think it was only when we went We went to separate unies And then we were like, oh, we would, like, I would come down, Rosie was at uni in London, so I'd come down to London.

And I was in Cardiff, so she'd come up to Cardiff for a weekend and stuff. But also because you were like, oh, that's just a thing that people do is they go and visit other people in Unitowns. That's just a fun thing to do when you're 19. We also did, though, have the same, I would say the same interest in forms of entertainment. Yeah, that's true. Like we'd watch the same TV programs and go and see, listen to the same music. Well, a lot of the same music.

Lots of musicals. We'd always see those together. So we had, that was our like shared, a shared thing. We could quote the whole of parent trap. But when it came to weekend expeditions, we'd stay very much apart. Yeah. Yeah. Just to pick up on the very first thing you said when you kind of, I felt like just then you kicked into sibling mode.

Like, do I mean? Just like, you know, a few minutes ago whereby as soon as you started disagreeing with each other and it became like a very different sort of thing, which I, which was tremendous fun to watch. And I think probably we can talk about the. nature of the relationship between you on stage based on that because you are not just musically harmonious do you know what I mean but there are like the the the the the pinging back and forth between you the front cloth patter yes uh if you will it's um is and you know we clearly know what I mean by that yeah yeah yeah for the listener it's that I don't even

know where it originated it's kind of musical vaudeville yeah coming out the clown or funny character hello everybody in front of the curtain while they're changing the set it's basically Dr Nick Dr Nick from the sentence so we can talk about that but I just wanted to come back to that moment the very first thing you said was Rosie you were saying

you know I wasn't popular and Nicola like you were popular so was that a was that a tension between you as children I don't think it was a tension because I didn't I didn't long to it wasn't a thing that I think it would be a tent

it would be it would create tension if I wanted to be popular but I didn't have a desire to be popular so therefore I didn't get angry at Rosie being popular because why would you get angry at something that you don't want anyway which sounds very much like the words of someone who wanted to be popular

I didn't say that you said that I'm very self-aware to a point of self-destruction so I know like but I think that we didn't I think in still now we have our we have our strengths and we're very much it sounds I find it really difficult to talk about being in a sibling double act

without it sounding very cliche and like a bit saccharine but we balance each other out that's how it works so Rosie we always joke that like if Flo and Joan wouldn't work because Rosie can't play the piano and I've got no personality but like which is not true but and was an initial joke but we Rosie's more bubbly and I'm more still I think would you agree? And so and it wouldn't work if we were both bubbly or if we were both still

So we've always just balanced each other out in that way, which I think is why it works, because we don't. I'm never thinking, I want to talk more. And you're never thinking, I wish I played the piano more because we'd die really quickly if either of us wanted to do those things. My fingers would crumble and burn. Rosie plays a piano in our new show and has never has to ask me at the beginning of every sound check, how do I play this again? It's like three chords. but you're both singers you're both very accomplished singers

I don't know anything about music or singing but you clearly when you're doing that folk song or I mean stuff generally you know there's a kind of like you you have a sort of talky singing style for some of the numbers and then you kind of change it up in a very neat

kind of I don't mean neat but like it's very well directed in terms of perhaps by you the transition from like a textured bit to a different text you'd bit. When you're into the folk songs, you know, it's like it's really beautiful.

You have that kind of you're both able to sing. You put the work into the instruments more because you were less popular. We still like, the music is very, I think a lot of people think that I write the music, but we write it to, like Rosie is a musician. She's an incredible drummer, which is a musician and plays the drums in our new stuff. Oh, excellent. Almost not as like a, she doesn't just play The Egg Shaker. She's a room resistance.

So like we're both music. Thank you. I've noticed. It's a difficult. I do mean that. To be fair, I've been shaking that for four years and I do, every time I shake it, I get better and better. And I refuse for anyone to say that egg shaking isn't a skill. It should have a degree.

But no, we do, we do the music together. Like, we know, we are musically minded enough to know, both of us know what is, what works and what doesn't. We're not, I wouldn't say we're accomplished singers because that involves, like, we've never. warmed up before a show. We've never really taken any care of voices. We don't ever, I'm not a huge fan of musical comedy that sung like a singer would sing it. It takes away from the comedy. We're very much comedy first and then hopefully you sing in tune. We've just got musicality, I think, which I think, sorry. No, it's cool. I think Lady in the Woods works for us because it's not, because the melody is quite, no, it's not plain, but our voice, we found a style of music

that our voices sit well in where it doesn't have to have too much sparkle. Like you don't have to try to sing. Like it's not like a pop song where you have to put an effort in. That kind of folky music works for us. It sits well in our voices and our voices sound nice together when we sing that style of stuff. But then we've like listened to recordings of ourselves singing drank too much and we're like, Jesus Christ. I sometimes listen to myself and want to rip my insides. I can't believe people are coming to watch us sing that badly sometimes.

Well, I don't know the extent to which I represent what proportion of your audience that I represent, but I don't know enough about singing to think anything other than, well, they can really sing. I mean, I think it's fair to say that neither of us at any point have been approached to audition for legit West End musicals. So I think that's indication enough that we can sing in tune and we get the job done. We're not bad singers, but we're not being approached to be professionals. We get the job done. And some singing, we'll do the singing. We'll figure that.

Libby, boob, me ma'am, me, ma'am. Yeah. And in that, just to stay with that for a moment, with that song The Lady in the Woods, the measured way in which the punchlines happen, in which our, not to give too much away, but the measured way in which we as a first-time listener, audience, first-time audience for that song,

realize what's happening, laugh at what's happening, and then you stretch us and kind of your planning is just ahead of us and we just catch on exactly where you want us to. And by the time, I mean, I laughed out loud on a train. It's been like surrounded by people when you did, there's more. That is such a good punchline. That's a racist joke. And that's such a, it's such a knowing punch.

Like it's a really like a mature kind of punchline. You knew exactly what we were thinking. Yeah. Talk to me about. that and the construction of to use that song as an example well that that joke came it I remember the

before that there's more joke was in the one step before that was never funny and we tried to we we tried to make every step really funny I think the reason that there's more joke works so well is because the joke before is slightly it's an audience who are like

okay we've done it song is over so there was no way that we could we couldn't go back can make that joke funnier because then that joke... So it's just a case of how do we stretch the audience even further when they... They're done. They're done. How do we make them not done and keep going? And that song, we wrote it in...

When we were living in Toronto and it was 10 minutes long. I wouldn't say 10. It was edging on like eight to nine minutes. Okay, eight and a half, sure. And depending on how fast we sing it, I guess. But we... So we were doing it there and the Canadians could not... They could, you couldn't, we could have gone on for like half an hour

and they were still like on board. It was bizarre. Every word. I almost lost respect for them. If I didn't love them so much, I would have hated them. And then we brought it, we moved back and started, we went into our first, it was our second end of the shows. And we were doing our first ever shows in the UK as previews.

And we did the lady in the woods and we're like, well, whatever's come before this, we know this is, this song is fine. I can't wait to sing it. And they, we lost them for the second half. of the song. And so, and we tried it a couple times and we're like, no, they're done, like UK audiences were just like, no. And so I think that was where we also put in, there's more. Or maybe it came in Canada. I can't remember. But it was, oh no, they don't like this. Okay, well, we have to shorten it, but we can't, how do we push them a little bit further

than they want to be pushed? Yeah. But don't get, don't leave them bored, like insane Canadian people. Talk to a week just briefly about Canada, right? You lived in Toronto. Yeah. And you just both happened to move there independently or that was the plan to move there together? We are, so I moved to, initially I moved to Chicago for three months to do Second City over there. And then, because you can only get a three month like holiday visa for the States, but I knew that Second City had a school in Toronto so I could start my training in Chicago and then get a year visa or two year visa to stay in Toronto. And you were supposed to go travelling with friends?

Yeah, I was just working in a pub. I didn't know what I was doing. Yeah, I suppose to go travelling around Southeast Asia. English degree. Just put me in a coffin and sent me away. Yeah, I was supposed to go to travel. I just had money left over and then you looked like you were having fun. So I went out after.

You were doing things that were fun to me, like the improv courses and writing comedy and things like that. So I went out, I just used this money because I didn't end up traveling. Went out and did similar courses to you just after you. You did three months and then moved to Toronto. I did three months after. you in Chicago in Chicago and then went to visit you in Toronto because you'd stayed there and got a visit it's all very convoluted classic younger sister move of like she looks like she's having a fun time I'll do that too I'll pay the way I don't think so I think I think I knew that she'd be good

at it and I knew that she'd enjoy it so again like you can't be mad it there's like a tiny bit where you're like I've done all the heavy lifting here of like researching this and figuring it out and saving and knowing how much I need and da-da-da-da-da-da. But yeah, sure, I'll just forge you all my paperwork and you can just come on over when you're done. But like, when you know that someone's going to be good at it, you're like, I'm not going to be angry at you because you're going to love it.

It was fucking cool, but it was really, really fun. So I was like, yeah, right, then come over. I've got a flat. I never had a plan to live in Toronto because I didn't have a visa for Toronto. No. I went to visit you for a little bit, and I was like, this is quite nice out here.

It felt like a very quiet London. My only other choice would be to me. move back to Portsmouth or London, find a job there. So I just ended up staying in Toronto till Christmas, from September to Christmas I just stayed. And then I started to apply for a visa because I felt like I could live there. And then neither of us had a job. I didn't have a job because it couldn't work, but you had a... I had like just a thousand part-time jobs.

Yeah. And then I think we just wrote, we were like, we'll write a song, we like musical comedy. Let's try it. Try it. We did a show. It was all right. we did a sketch in fact

Jane Jane the first thing Jane yes you know Jane in the special she was the first thing

we ever wrote yeah played in a dusty little basement box and that's not there's no music in that that's a kind of yeah

I mean it's not yeah I mean acopella's probably the right word because it has a music yeah yeah yeah

but yeah then we just stayed out there and it was going well so we just yeah I don't think we ever gave it too much thought no

we just did it I don't know what I'm doing like, we're both doing improv and sketch and stand up. Because you're there and you don't know anyone. So we can try it and if we're shit, no one will find out about it. It's fine. So it's a really safe place to just try everything and find the things that you were good at and the things that you weren't so good at. And the things where you're like, oh, well, this works for us.

Not many people are doing it and we really enjoy it. So let's just keep on trying it. And we did other things alongside it. But that became the thing that we did mostly. that's a really sorry to just spoil I'm struggling on your high five

no it's okay if anything we should come out um there's I just want to underline what a great solution that is for a or what a great strategy that is

for someone that doesn't really know exactly what they want to do do it just try as many things as possible and then find a thing that you're good at that no one else is doing and let everything else fall away yeah

and then suddenly you look like a genius actually what you did was you just stuck with the good stuff We just did one thing, yeah It makes it so much easier than trying to force people to watch you do characters that aren't as funny issue musical comedy

We had a sketch in that first show we ever did And it was a shit sketch Oh it's sweet angel hole that one It was so quick What was the sketch? It was just crap It was about travel agents that shut down There was a travel agent at the end of our road

And I was like Who the fuck goes into this Like Let's do a travel agent about two old weird ladies who still have convinced that this travel agent should be they were just smell like there and it was horrible

I used to see video evidence of that yeah it was just really bad so we did it once no one laughed but they liked the song and they liked James we were like cool that's an easy we've got one out we don't have to sketch again and going into that experience for you Nicola as a like you clearly the the master plan maker

Not anymore. Deciding to spend three months doing Second City, that's a pretty big commitment to an idea. So was that like a thing that you, when did you dream that up? Was that like, since you were a kid? You were like, I want to perform. I want to perform comedies specifically.

No, I went to write. I didn't really have any interest in. I'm not a good perform. We figured it out for Flo and Joan, but being other people is not my jam. I'm not an actor. I have no desire. to act.

That sounds like I'm being modest, but I'm actually a phenomenally bad actor. It's just fine. I don't care. I'm okay with it. So I wanted to write. I wanted to write for TV shows, but American TV shows because I was watching,

I found 30 Rock online and just fell in love with it. I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen. And through that, found Saturday Night Live when I was like 16, 17, 18 and just loved it. And so I went to, you need to do music. And within months was like, I hate this. It was just very, it wasn't, It was just not for me, but I wasn't good at anything.

I wasn't bad at anything else, but that was the thing where I was like, well, I'm going to do music, I'm good at music. But it was very classical and blah, blah, blah, and I just wasn't interested. But when I lost interest in music, I found American comedy and was just obsessed by it. And I think I started writing like little parody songs, but they just sat on a hard drive. They were never shown to anyone, never didn't do anything with them. but was like, oh, I think, I think like every comic starts out where they're like, well, I make my friends laugh.

Will I, does that make me a funny person and my friend's just kind or whatever? So I was like, well, if I can make them laugh, maybe there's something to it. And then I found out about News Jack. And so submitted my first package to News Jack and got a joke on. It was like, cool, I'm not an idiot.

Like, I think there might be something here. Submitted a million packets since, never got anything else on afterwards. But it was like, that was like, classic. But it was enough to have, one that I was like, okay, I'm not insane. So maybe this is a thing that I can just look into. And rather than just try and figure it out,

I was like there are places that will teach me the style of comedy that I want to be doing, which is American comedy. And that was second city. So I was like, well, that's where I'll go to do it then. And I can learn improv and writing and all of these things in the style that I like. There was nowhere else to do it. And I wasn't, I was never going to have a career in music. I mean, until now.

But like in as a, like a, I don't know, to say serious musician that's not the right word but in the kind of classical world or whatever that was never going to be a career for me like there was just I'm not good enough to do it in that capacity um but yeah I just found this other thing uh and yeah I just went to second city and was like I'll try it and if I'm crap I'll come back and do something like I'll just go back to my day job that'll be fine um so yeah that's sort of how it was I think there's just you just have a little thing where you're like well I think I might this might be a thing and I'll have to try it I can't about just thinking, like thinking I could always do it and then never trying it.

And I had nothing. I literally had nothing to lose. So, yeah, you just do it. And you're stupid when you're 20. So you're like, I'll just do that then. And something, I'll fall, hopefully I'll fall on my feet. And if not, we'll just start again and it'll be all right. And having sent someone on a head.

Goodbye. What was your relationship to Second City before Nicola had gone to it and checked it out. Did you ever heard of it? Were you into the same like Thursey Rock and that kind of stuff? You'd show me a lot of with, I had no idea about Second City until you found out about it. You showed me loads of SNL videos. The um, Janice. Dunes. Dunes. Junice. Dunes. Yes. No, I just sound like a worded.

Okay. And like, yeah, just Kristen, Kristen Wigg and Gilda Radnorish stuff. And then was interested. I found all of that funny, Parks and Rec and those kind of American shows. Yeah, I've always liked improv as well. I liked Who's Lines It Anyway and things like that. I liked doing characters and things like that. So I just thought it might be a good fit.

And then I tried writing and stuff there as well. because I'm probably less of a writer than you are. I don't think you, I think that you think that you're a really good writer. I don't, I don't know. I get too distracted. Yeah, and it just felt like a really great fit. I really loved it. And I saw shows at Second City that I will, and I owe the improv theatre.

Improv shows on like a Saturday night at 11pm, when you're a few drinks down that I could remember lines from, I can remember the characters that they did. Just the most amazing stuff that I'd ever seen. You're watching it on stage, like, how is this not a script? This is insane. I just fell in love with it as soon as I got to Chicago. And what is the fundamental lesson that you both took

individually from Second City? I think it would. On like a technical level, I think it's taking the smallest idea and walking it as far as you can, I think. On like a technical note. on like a general note I think it's so silly but it's the saying yes thing

of just being like being positive being a good like when we go out of stage where it's like we always act as a team and try and move if one of us does something weird

the other one continues the weirdness together until it spirals and then the other one shuts it down I think yeah being saying yes to things I know it's the most cliche thing but saying yes

I also think the I mean, I don't think, I don't know how we deal with it now, but the, like, failing is a thing that I think I'm less scared of because we've, I failed at so many things. They're like writing scripts that people read and no one laughs at in front of like a whole class of people and doing, I did improv very briefly and was crap at it, but learning that way of like, that's fine, like, of not getting laughs when you expect, like, the failure, failing and still walking away the other side of being like, well, I've got another show tomorrow. so I've got no option I've got to do it again of not giving up on those things I think And also the failing being The failing is often the funniest part of the scene or whatever

Someone doing something wrong is often that little gift That allows you to just run that idea for a really long time They're my favourite bits when you Something goes terribly wrong And then you have to bring it back They're my favourite bits sabotage yum yum yum

so you're in Toronto you started making little shows together and sketches and stuff so what's the timeline from there until Amazon Prime special like what are the key moments in that that made that happen Edinburgh

Edinburgh we did our first Edinburgh in 2015 2016 2016 you're right we went after three months we're like we'll give it a go did you no no no no no no no no

We'd be doing it for nine... Just over a year. Just over a year, okay. When we say we've been doing it for just over a year, it was, I think there was like six months between our first gig and the next one. Right, right. That kind of stuff. But we had about...

I think we thought we had an hour of material. We probably had about 47 minutes of material. And I've been to Edinburgh in 2012, and we'd both gone together in 2013, having literally just discovered it and wondering why the fuck we'd never been before. And so I'd always said I'd like to take a show there. I didn't know at the time what that was going to be. So when we had about this much

material, I was like, I think we should do it. Because we also knew we were going to be moving back to the UK. So we're like, we need to check if this stuff, if we're funny over there. Because if we're not, we might as well either pack it in now. We'll start applying for a Canadian visa to stay forever. So we did our first Edinburgh.

I remember not really wanting to get, I think you float the idea past me. And I was like, I don't think we need to. Like, there's a lot of hassle. Just like, we've seen these. songs in like tiny audiences we don't have a clue and then I think we just tied it in with seeing people in the UK as well so I was like let's do it it would be yeah that it sounds like the perfect ways of your head of right completely fucking naive it was naive and with no fear as a result and kind of working it in with seeing friends it was a bit of a jolly yeah we had

free hot not free holiday it was a very expensive holiday yeah we had no idea as well I think it's probably a good thing for us but we had no idea about the first show that you take or like the newcomer show we had no idea about that so we just went with essentially our newcomer show um yeah off like it was our first show uh yeah we didn't realize that people drip themselves through not in a bad i'm not saying this as a shadeway but people go and they do 10 minutes and then the next year they do 20 minutes and then they do like we were just like well this is what we've got in my mind we were like kick the door down bobble da boobo me and i think was it the first day we like we had the wrong plug for the piano so we went to do our tech

and blew on piano. The piano didn't arrive, did it? That was it. The piano got last, we blew the plug. We had to run our own tech. We had no idea. We'd like ask a friend how to turn on a tech board in the newsroom. Like, we just didn't have a clue.

But it was also quite nice. We were just like, we'll see. What was your venue? The news room. I mean, the news, which is, is that one of the Graham house things? No, it's a thing. It's, um, laughing horse. It's off, um, off the, Princess Street.

Okay. Towards Lee. Yeah. Oh, I know it. Yes. Okay. Near the cinema? Yes.

Yeah. By the only center. Yeah. 10pm. Yeah. It was perfect. It was, we couldn't have asked for more. Because no one knew who we were, but it was, because it was a free show and it was at 10pm, it was quite easy to, no, that's a lie.

It was not easy to convince anyone to come to see it. But it's an easier sell for people when they're like on the way home to be like, do you want to just see one more show and it's free? So if it's shit, you can just leave and you won't spend any money. So I think that worked well for us. What size room? Oh, fuck. No, however many you want. I don't know.

It got to the point where we were just like, we would just cram people. We had people sat like on the stage behind us once because we were like, if you can't, if you want to stay, this might be a huge health and safety risk, but there are chairs. We had like loads of chairs just behind us on the stage

and we're like, we don't move and we're very stagnant and we are very expressionless. Stagnant. So like you're not, but if you can't see our faces, you're not missing. At this point, you're not missing anything.

Still now you're not missing anything if you can't see our faces. So we were like, if you want to stay, you can just sit around. It felt like a weird story time. Yeah, it's fucking weird. But so, but, so, but. We'll just cram it just as whoever wanted to come in.

So this is year one and you're having to cram people in onto the stage because it's so busy. Not every night. But what did you feel like, hang on, we've got something this is working? What were those first couple of shows like? We were really scared. We were talking to our director, Ashley, um, before we left and she'd said, what is your biggest fit? And at the time, we would, just like we're scared that no one will come because we've both been to Edinburgh and seen shows where you're like, this is not good. And so we were, it makes it sound like dickheads, but it was, I think it was coming from a night of a hugely naive place as well where in your first year, you think you're the best person in the world until some, anyone else is like, you're not, you've been doing this for five minutes, like calm down. But yeah, I think we, so we've got, the biggest

sign is if you, if there are more people than there were the night before, something good is happening. And it just got, it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. And I think it just helped. It, because it's a free show and people are always excited to recommend things and if it's free, when they're free shows, people will take a risk on it because if they don't like it,

they haven't spent anything and they can leave. So I think we were just very lucky. I don't, maybe not lucky, but it was, we were fortunate how it played out that I think when people like,

we're the same, like you find something at Fringe and you're like, I've never heard this person before, this is the best thing I've ever seen you want to tell everyone. Yeah. I'm not saying that's what we were,

but you're just excited maybe to tell people when you found a thing that you personally like. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but if one person likes it and they want to recommend it, so I think that just helped us

in our first year. And then we signed with our agent at the end of that fringe, which helped. But we're like, we're going back to Toronto for a year, so nice to meet you, but see you in July.

And then that November was when the 2016 song went viral, which then bumped us again, I think. Which is, it's you doing a rundown of the year 2016 and it's it's kind of like um

I heard someone describe you as YouTubers like you don't think and I kind of looked more into it and I was like YouTube we've got two videos on YouTube but it does look like a YouTuber video in that you're either at home or in a domestic situation

We're in our shitty basement flat Yeah it's not a studio there's pictures on the wall and it's the two of you and you're kind of visibly reading the line lyrics under the line of it Yeah, not in a bad way, but it looks, it has those qualities that you go, oh, this feels genuinely has that authenticity that YouTubers strive to contrive. It was like, balanced on top of like 18 books and just any tall thing that we could find

with like the camera just balanced between like five mugs and super glued to like. Your laptop, we had to like support your laptops. It was just about to lean over the life. And it was, we were both in full time. I was in a full time job and you were in a nighttime job. Yeah. So we were having to, I think we called it like one in the morning. We're having to find these like pockets of time.

I remember being so frustrated. The people in the apartment above must have wanted to have burnt us. We're going through it so many times. So many times, just smashing symbols. Being like, fuck, say, why can't we get this right? It's so many words. We weren't going to learn it because 2016 was over in a month's time. And we had one gig left in the rest of the years.

We were never going to perform it anywhere. Interestingly, we played a gig the few days after it blew up. and the gig was to five people six people maybe it was just a lovely a lovely insight into the internet and then also normal life yeah

talk to me about that viral moment of it blow like what's the first like do you check back in with it and go oh Jesus look how many or like how did you know what did that feel like when it first started going on it was we did a we were both rehearsing for a different show

that we were doing so we'd put it out very quickly in the morning I think we had it sounds like the fucking movie moment but we were like I think we had like 760 followers on Facebook and we put it up and we're like wouldn't it be cool if we had 800 Facebook followers by the end of the year and it sounds so lame and contrived

so we went off to this rehearsal didn't look at our phones for like three or four hours and then got them back out and we're both at a break and we're just like what? It was the first moment was when someone commented in it that we didn't know and I was like who is this guy and I was looking on his profile we've got no mutual friends.

I don't know who this is. And then it started to just get... Hey, we should lock this down to private. Yeah. Hang on this guy. Too far. I don't like strangers. And then, yeah,

I was just getting messages from people being like, my university professor just shared this and he lives in Vancouver. I don't know how he knows you. Just like lots of that and then articles coming out

and I just turned my phone off and went to my job. It was so stupid. It was really... For about three or four days, it just didn't stop. You turned your phone off. I think in that

situation I would be like, I'm just going to check again. I think every now and again, like every once a day or like when I get from work, I'd check. But I, what can I do? It's just strangers talking and people were just arguing on a thread about white supremacy and shouldn't. You're like, I don't need this. Yeah. I would leave me to my life. Yeah.

It's also like that first moment of seeing like seeing other people have an opinion on a thing where you're like, that's a weird thing. And when it was, you would just refresh it and there would be like a hundred more comments. Like, it was just, it just gets out of control so quickly that you can only turn off notifications because you'd lose your fucking mind. I don't. And you'd lose your mind reading them and also just becoming, it would be so easy to become obsessed with it. Especially because we were like, because we'd never seen it. So there's like the side of it, which is fascinating where you're like, the internet is, like, you're just refreshing it.

And each time you're like, this is, people have too much time on their hands. The internet is insane. What the fuck? Like, just that morbid fascinating. of like, why are people doing this? And then on the other hand, you're like, I've, you're hemorrhaging, your own, hemorrhaging your own time,

reading things where you're like, I'm never going to meet this person and I don't care what they think. Not I don't care, but you're... No, a lot of the cases, I don't care what your opinion is about this thing. So I don't need to read this. So it is insane. And then it's all suit too quickly. It like disappears and you're like, cool.

That was the nice thing about it was that, because we only recorded it as a, video because we knew we didn't have any gigs and we knew that the song had a shelf life so the only way for it to exist was to put it online because we weren't ever going to play it anywhere which was nice because then by December we were like cool that's done we never have to talk about that song for yeah um which was very nice I don't know how social media people do it no I don't know how it's grim it is grim it's grim it's grim it's grimly we get it and presumably that was what you were aiming for though when you released the song no best case

loads and loads of people see it. Well, yeah, that is best case. And it does boost our Facebook. We had 800,000 Facebook followers by like the next day. 800,000, calm down. That's a lie. 80,000. 80,000.

That's like, but it was like some, like, ridiculous. Excited. Fake news. Eight million followers in this day. Every one of them is going to be a nurse in the Conservative Party. I don't know. That makes no sense. What?

I'm political. No, I do. but yet that kind of it increased our profile was that what you were saying yeah yeah yeah we did get it we shied away from it afterwards we were like we definitely didn't put any more videos up for a while after that I think because that's what you I think if you're not expecting because we done I think we put up one or two videos before which were like I think probably filmed at Edinburgh like because we because we had friends who knew that we were doing this but couldn't see us doing it because they were

all in the UK. So we put up like one or two just to be like, here's what we're doing. And it gets shared amongst your friends share it. Maybe their friends see it and then it stops. And you just assume the same thing is going to happen again. And that's, like, that's what you assume is going to happen. Like, we didn't put it up thinking like, this is going to make us famous. Like, because firstly it didn't. But also like, that's just such a fucking gross way of like when people are like, how do you create a viral video? It's like, well, if you're trying to create one, like, that's weird. That's such a weird, famy

I think that's the thing that lots of people have now where they're just trying to create content to go viral with the intention of trying to go viral

whereas we were just like we've been writing these songs and this one has to come out soon or it will have been a waste so it's yeah I don't we weren't expecting it

which sounds naive and stupid but we just weren't you don't expect that to happen so in the timeline of because it's only just a very few years you did that first show was it after that the 2016 video went viral.

Yeah. And then when did the nationwide ads happen? Was that before your next show or after your next show? That was after. We did a 2017 show, Kind of Stangler. Great title, by the way. I love that. Thank you very much.

That was in the Tron. Yeah. That was really fun month. Then Nationwide happened after that. And I think it was the November of that. November again. Yeah, because we literally, we'd move back. Our Canadian visas ran out.

we moved back to the UK in July, did Edinburgh in the August. We moved to London. We moved to London in September to start trying to gig here, not knowing anyone. And then we got nationwide in November. So how do you cope individually and together with kind of creative blocks or with a sort of, you know, do you have kind of long dark nights of the soul regarding the job? I don't think so. I suppose you don't because you've got to even going to.

We'll say that. We never have a conversation of what if we split up? There are still the shit times we're like, I'm the least funniest person in the world. Let's not do fringe. Go on. And how do you cope with those? We both agree.

Yeah. I don't know whether, I think it's maybe like a bad trait of us, but it's a sabotage thing sometimes where we're like, oh, let's just go on stage and be shit. let's just go and do it. That will be fun, won't it? And then you just go, then you go and do it. It's all right.

Yeah. Yeah. I think we've never had like, we've never done like a long, we've talked about not doing Edinburgh. That's always been a thing, but there's always, we're usually on the same page, but one of us will bring, like, the reality of not doing those kind of things, I think. And what do you mean?

Well, for us, like, for Edinburgh, we, because we don't do a lot of TV work or radio work because there's two of us and it's sort of those platforms are not available to us, which is fine. We, some, one of the ways we can make our money is by touring, which we love touring. But if we don't write a new show for Edinburgh, we don't have a show to tour,

so then we have no income for the next year, which sucks. Actually, no, it doesn't suck, but that's like the reality of art. It's not as easy for us to be like, well, we just won't do it. And then hopefully, like, we'll book a couple of, of, I'm also not saying this as shade on anyone else to talk, but it's not, we can't just say, oh, well, we won't do it

because we've got Mott the Week coming up and then we can do cats and da-da-da-da. Like those opportunities, we can't assume that those opportunities are available to us because they mostly aren't. So not doing Edinburgh is a much bigger thing than just, oh, we won't do it and we'll pick up the snack somewhere else. That's not. And also we love touring.

That's like the most fun part of our doing it. And you mid-tour at the moment? The tour just started October. Yeah, we did a couple of, Seven or eight days before Christmas, but as of January, January, February, then we sort of kick off all the way through till mid-March. No, or Melbourne. Oh, right, yeah, but as in the UK.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, which, and we like doing it, and so we like writing new material, but the pressure of writing it for Edinburgh is, we haven't dealt with it very well. Writing with deadlines is really the hardest thing for me. I don't know why. It's just, I don't know if you're, some people thrive on deadlines, and I absolutely.

I need deadlines and you don't like deadlines. Oh, that sounds like hell. We had a heated discussion about it this week. Like, we never fight, like we never argue, but like Rosie was, you feel that having deadlines makes Rosie stress. I lose my sense of play. Yeah. Because I feel like I now have a job that I have to do by this time.

But when the world is just open for you, then you can be like, what about this song about a swan that gets stuck in a shoe? and you don't have to think I have to write this one song by Friday and that's when it gets shit for me whereas I need deadlines because if I don't have deadlines I won't write anything and I like to feel like

I've done this much by this point to feel like I'm moving forward You need to book Nicola a load of fake gigs Yes Why did you say that out loud? Yeah sorry sorry And why are you on her side? Why deadlines are bad thinking? No no thank you for being on my side

Because that's also true That's creatively efficient, isn't it? If you think you've got a deadline, deadlines are kind of mutable. That's true. That's true. Okay, maybe you start doing that. Stop putting things in our diary. I'll book something and be like, well, it's absolutely what you're doing told us. Lots of chance.

You lie in white. And then you bring it up, you start doing it. Oh, mate. Very full. Turkish promoters been in touch. Well, you can speak to him. We're coming to Turkey. We need a fresh new 20 minutes.

Get those new songs ready. I don't know why Turkish. I just. I'd go to Turkey for sure. It's hot out there. Tell them now. Politically, very quiet. There's not a lot going out there.

It'd be a great place to sing comedy songs. What do you want ultimately in the end, before you die? Ultimately, seem to have more weight there than I meant it to. But let's assume that you want a tour for the next 10 years. What do you want after that? Have you any idea? Have you any inkling of like some sort of, master plan?

I don't think we have a master, master plan. We were quite lucky in that a lot of the things that we had in a master plan, we got to do quite quickly, which sounds like a brag now that I'm saying it, so I'm kind of embarrassed. We can establish that, you know, we have established. We just haven't very quickly. If you deserve it, it's warranted. Cool, thank you.

So it was things like you wanted to do Melbourne, I wanted to do JFL. I've always wanted to do the Royal Variety performance. That was on my like, before I die. And we recorded it last week. Did you? Yeah. Oh, there was me, I didn't know. That wasn't a hot tip.

That was an example. So that was my like, before I die. Oh, wow. And you were able to tell me that? Are you allowed to tell me that? Yes. I don't, I mean, I can't say whether we've made the edit or not. I don't know that.

I think we have. I don't want to say it. When will you know? When is it? 10th of December. Yeah, 10th of December, I think. Yeah. I'll get a steer on there.

I'll make sure this, this bit doesn't go out. But yeah, so I think those were some of the ones that we were like. Holy shit. How was that? It's fucking wild. Because isn't it like the audience for that, I don't know more than me, but isn't the audience for that like 10 times any other TV show?

Like it connects to the entire world in a way that... I think so. It's almost the internet. Yeah. It's like that. It's something, I think it's you, we were told that by a lot, we spoke to a few comedians who had done it

who had told us it's not, it's not going to be your favorite gig you ever do because it's the audience, not a comedy audience, and they're having to adjust their brains from like... And I've just seen a dance number. Yeah.

I think 50 people swing children around a room dressed in gold Greek outfits. And then Emily Sando sings a sad song and like a very beautiful sad song. Like their brains aren't wired to reset themselves or they do reset themselves each time but there's no... They have to reset so they...

It takes them a while to warm up and if by the time you've done your three minutes then goodbye. So we were sort of told like, play it for the cameras and don't worry. It was quite nice to be told, like, it's probably, so it's not jarring if you go out and no one's laughing because they were like, it's not going to be like the fun one, but like play it for cameras. And if no one's laughing, then hopefully you'll either get cut or they'll put something on it. But it's really fun. I think that like...

We didn't die on. We had Robin Ramesh were the hosts. I think they really brought like a relaxed, easygoing energy that just were, we had a really great time. Yeah. I thought we were going to eat shit with a golden spoon on the stage. but golden spoon but like

when you hold it in your hands it makes your hands get black afterwards 100% yeah a ring from you get green hands yeah

we actually had a really nice gig it felt like it felt like you were playing into a comedy crowd which was not expected and Kerry Godaliman did it and blew the roof

and Frank Skinner blew up like it was everyone came away being like that was unexpected we'd all prepared for the worst yeah it was a really great gig thank God

I mean yeah we'll see how it comes out but it for the for what we had prepared ourselves for it was very cool yeah but I don't so I don't have to

talk about that one so you've tipped up all of your ambitions just death yeah I guess we'll just keep writing weird songs a lot of things like we got to do live at the Apollo and we didn't think that was something

available to us because we do musical comedy and it's very stand-up centric and we've had things come towards us that we've been like oh my God I never thought we'd be asked to do this

thank you so much so we kind of at the moment fly a bit we just Karen writing stuff and see what comes. Did you do JFL? We did JFL this year, yeah. Yeah, that was really fun.

It was really lovely because we did our warm-ups for, we did our warm-ups for the gala in the same theatre that we, when we were starting, we would go to Montreal Sketchfest. And so we went back to the same theatre where we would do. Which venue was it? We went in and the tech was the same and he was like, oh my God, I know you too. Oh, we hadn't been there.

So it was so lovely to be like, oh, we've done this and we know this. was really, really nice and loads of our friends from Toronto were in town with Shea the People and like lots of stand-ups and stuff that we knew from when we were starting and we were all going to do JFL together was the coolest thing. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. So as you said, though, if you're not anticipating doing panel games, panel shows, you've done Apollo, you've done the Royal Variety, you've done JFL, you've done Melbourne, what's left?

Well, someone kind of said that to us the other day and they're like, we've done everything, haven't you? Oh God, is that it? So that's it. You've completed comedy. We've kind of done it. I'm going to go and go back and work a waitress. But what is the, I mean, without that panel game thing, is it, is it, what's the, what's

the strategy, I suppose, in terms of ultimately you want to, I mean, one of the things is like minchin size, huge things. Yeah. To do that, you'll need to continue cultivate, you know, to tour massive. Yeah. You're going to have to continue cultivating huge audiences. So what are the steps for that? Is that more, like it would be useful if I was marketing you,

I'd go, if you could knock out another couple of viral videos. Yeah, right? Yeah, we're sort of. But like don't look like you were trying to go viral? Yeah, it's like kind of accidental viral, which I think, yeah. We have to, we have to, and we are just creating more things for us. So we want to write musicals and working on something cartoony. You need an early 90s film that hasn't been done yet.

Oh, God. Well, no, I am not a huge fan of. movie musicals, films that are made into music. Right, original things. And all the ones I've seen so far, except for Matilda. Which was a book rather than a musical. Yes. Rather than a movie.

Sorry, yeah, you're right. And in the hands of Tim Hynchon wouldn't have gone wrong. Yeah. That's a line. There are many that I've seen that I'm like, this is, I'll watch the film instead, actually, thanks. Sure. I don't, I'm not, I like original stories as well.

Okay. Yeah. Well, that sounds like a fun challenge. yeah we're working on it we're working on it yeah we'll see they take a while to be able to write a musical it's like one of my big girls it's my big girls I love musicals so much

a massive nerd when it comes to them so to be able to do in whatever capacity whatever size I think it would be really funny to write some well I would love to know about how you go about writing a smash hit musical you can probably come back on the show and tell me it's six months

yeah You know, typically In our style of, yeah, doing things too quickly. Get it done. Get it done. Finally, Jake Donaldson says, did you experience any industry backlash

or resistance from bookers to work with you after you became the face of the nationwide ads? Did people accuse you of selling out? I don't know. Not that weird nags. We keep that. Probably happened, I guess.

I can't imagine. There was someone who was like, should we cancel the show because of the death threats because they thought people would come and kill us in the venue which I can see why they would be concerned

but I mean we wouldn't know if there was then we didn't know we weren't trying to get anything we weren't trying to get anything made or anything at that point to know that people weren't and you weren't known to the industry at that point no I don't think so

we weren't know that was probably our first in I think if they did they kept it to themselves or they might not have wanted to book us it like I think there was an you could I don't know no I don't know They were definitely...

Realistically, they probably would have been. Yeah. Yeah. Alex Owen Hill says, one of the things that made them so funny when I saw them live, which I couldn't really appreciate when I'd heard them before on the radio,

was the effect of their deadpan delivery. Did they explore other styles of delivery before landing on this one? And what led them to their now deadpan style? I feel like I could guess. Nicola, born deadpan. Mine deadpan came out of absolute fear. No, not fair.

I actually think it did come out of fear that the first shows that we did we didn't quite know what to say to each other on stage we knew that we knew that we had songs to sing and singing the songs is the easy bit we're naturally quite dark in personality so that came through in the delivery of a lot of things I think but the deadpan in between as well was

I think it was often not being not knowing what to say and not knowing what to do so you just look out and be slightly with quite weird anyway so we just leant into the weirdness. I think also like when you know musical comedy it can be so twee, it can be not always, that being deadpan and not being bright and bubbly with it,

I think that would have been too sickly and to where our songs are quite tight and, I don't want to say the word intricate, but here we are intricate. Like it's, you want there to be a kind of looseness or like you don't want them to be high energy, we can't be high energy and bubbly as people. Because it's just too much.

It's like a kid who's eating a bunch of rainbow drops where you're just like, this is too much. So being Deadpan worked for us and allowed an audience to relax in the songs, I think, as well. And know that we're not like fucking weird stage school kids who are like teeth and tits and smiles and hair and bunches and stuff like that, I think. Yeah.

Teeth and tits and smile. And smiles. You've got to get the three. It's an illustration. Come on girls, tooth and smile. Oh, yeah, I didn't even think of that. Christy Shields says What were their impressions of the Melbourne Comedy Festival last year?

Did you get a chance to see some shows? And if so, who impressed you? Yes, I love Melbourne so much. We're going back this year and I'm so excited. We've always loved Australian clowns. In the first year, we were in a fringe, we found Tom Walker. And he just, I'd never seen anything like it. It was amazing.

And then Tessa Waters was recommended from someone who was a fan of Tom Walker. And then we watched their show is called Glittery Clitory. Oh yeah, what they're called. And the Fringe Wives Club. Fringe Wives Club. Yeah. We watched their show. They've just seen loads of different clatt.

I love, I think Australian humour is brilliant. It's weird. It's Josh Clank. Josh Clank. Oh. Oh, yeah. I've not seen Josh Clank. I've seen his posters.

It's so funny. Yeah. Yeah. So it felt like a bit like a comedy heaven for us because we got to see a lot of that. And the great thing is when you go there, you don't know any way. I know. It's like Edinburgh, but you haven't been to it. This is it.

It felt like going to Edinburgh for the first time where you're discovering all these people that you feel like everyone in Australia knows who they are, but you're discovering for the first time. And it's so exciting to be going and watching people that you've never seen instead of like the kind of jadedness that you have in Edinburgh where you see,

you only go and see people that you know it's going to be good or someone has recommended them to you. Whereas Melbourne was just, oh, it was brilliant. Yeah, really fun month. We made loads of, we didn't know that many people in comedy at that point. so we made a lot of our now close friends in Melbourne as well so Melbourne has a very fun place in my heart

a very fun place in my heart it's just a load of merry go around so in my right ventricle I often wrap up on this podcast I often wrap up on this podcast by asking people if they're happy you're happy yeah I think so not all the time that would be insufferable

but I think we get good about I can't believe we're doing what we're doing. No. That makes me happy. Yeah. Yeah. I like doing what, I really like doing what we do. I couldn't, I mean, it's shit sometimes.

Like any job is shit sometimes. You're an idiot if you think no job is not shit sometimes. But the high points are really fun. Yeah. What are the shit bits? New material. Yeah, do no idea. The shit.

The shit's bits for me. when people say I didn't think I would like you so that it's really frustrating that you often start on a on a back foot for me especially for musical comedy and then again to girls doing it it's sometimes doing like club stuff is just so annoying that we could have had you in the first 30 seconds

if you just don't be a dick it's you see other people you see audiences do it for the performers where I'm like you should have been on board from this first 10 seconds you're on board the other person who is very much the same Why have you chosen to not do it? That really frustrates me. But that's just a musical comedy thing as well of people not liking it,

which is fair enough in many occasions. Yeah. Yeah, that's the annoying part for me. I think so. The other problems that comics often suffer with things like the isolation, which I guess is less of an issue for you. You know, touring, you get to travel and tour together.

But like envy of other comics' success, which probably isn't an issue given your current success. I've had to check, yeah, I definitely had to check myself on things where you're like, oh, someone's so I got to do this thing. It's like, that was never going to be an option for you. You can't get. What sort of thing? I don't know.

Like, every now and again where like you'll see someone on a, like a panel for a thing and you're like, we could have done, we would have been really good to be on that. But I, we also, we don't talk enough. I respect that we don't talk enough in shows to give any person the confidence that we could, we know we can do it. We know that we're I think, I mean, I'm going to, whatever. Because you're trying to convince me in this. I know, I know. But like, we know that we're funny people, but we

don't talk enough on stage because for us at the moment, it was more important for our music to be good. But, so we can't be annoyed at not being booked at things because we have booked for those kind of things because we've not shown enough that we're capable of doing them. And they're on a high enough level that no one's going to take a risk on us, which is absolutely fine and make sense. But you do have to like you get angry for like not angry but for a tiny second you're like oh that sucks and then you're like you've not shown that you can do that yet you know that you can but you know one's going to book you on your word of mouth for like not word of mouth like on your words that you can do

this thing but that I think is also again like the naivety of not have not having been doing it for very long that still now I can't speak for you but I still think I can run a little bit faster than I currently am walking but that's a thing that I'm like trying to level out in my myself and figure it. And I acknowledge it. Like I said, I'm quite self-aware, so I know when I'm doing it and I know when to check it or we check each other when we're doing the same thing, which is quite nice. I'll be like, Nicolini's check yourself and she'll be like, no, I don't. I'll wreck myself. I don't. Oh, God, that was embarrassing. Yeah, I think we just balance each other. We've, even if we're both feeling the same way,

I think there's that like we will argue the other side. for the sake of arguing the other side. So even if we're both thinking the same thing, I will sometimes say something and you'll be like, oh, well, have you thought about this? And I know that you're on my side and you're just doing it to be difficult. So we do manage to kind of balance that

and check it in each other, I think. I think. If you say so, yeah. Okay, thanks. So that was Flo and Joan from back in 2019. They're on tour throughout the UK and Ireland. from September, find all of the dates and more at floanjone.com. If you enjoyed this episode, you can get access to exclusive extras with Floo and Joan

by joining the Insiders Club on Patreon, including we've got the directorial tip that helped them go viral on socials. We'll get the backstage story on the nationwide teleadverts. Do you remember them? They blew up and actually resulted in, ah, death threats. Christ on a bike. We will find out more about the devilishly cunning improv-style narrative structure that forms the backbone of their Amazon special, and we will get their analysis of each other's strengths and weaknesses. All of that in the extras, head to patreon.com.com.com for more details, and you can find out how to see me live and everything I'm up to at Stuartgallsmith.com slash comedy, big announcements there coming soon. See you next week with, I won't say in case we jiggle

the order, but it's a real, the one we've got in mind is real good. See you then.