The Comedian's Comedian Podcast - Joe Wells

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Joe Wells is known best for his shows exploring mental health and his neurodiversity being autistic, while before that he first made his name as a political comedian with shows like Night of the Living Tories. Joe also hosts the podcast Neurodivergent Moments with Abigoliah Schamaun, of which their book is out today! We discuss:how performing for a neurodivergent audience can change the mechanics of live comedythe impact parenthood has on the kind of comedy you want to makehow comedy can be a tool for processing your neurodivergencewriting a book about OCD at 15how focusing on personal experiences stops your material becoming datedthe problem with saying “we're all on the spectrum”and how Joe's viral clip didn't change his approach to making stuffJoin the Insiders Club at Patreon.com/ComComPod where you can instantly WATCH the full episode and get access to exclusive extras including:The Dark Roomhow Joe takes extra beats to make reveals land harderflipping the script for neurodivergent audiencesand how being unfunny can be a secret power move in a club👉 Sign up to the ComComPod Mailing List and follow the show on Instagram, YouTube & TikTok.Catch Up with Joe: Joe's book with Abigoliah Schamaun, Neurodivergent Moments, is out today in all good book stores and Joe Wells: Daddy Autism is on tour later this year. Find all the info and more at joewells.org.uk.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 with Joe✅ 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!Everything I'm up to: Come and see me LIVE ON TOUR, 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.Other things: Comedy promoters, get in touch with Amy Miller and Joyelle Nicole Johnson!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. Stuartgoldsmith.com slash comedy for all your tickets. Hello and welcome back to the show. I'm Stuart Goldsmith. This is the Comedians Comedian Podcast. It's episode 512. God! All hail, Hypno Toad. Today I am talking to Joe Wells. Fabulous Joe Wells, first known as a political comedian with shows like Night of the Living Tories. And that's a fact I only remembered about three quarters of the way through this interview. Because more recently, he is known for his excellent, very funny and very meaningful shows exploring mental health and being autistic. neurodiversity more generally, or neurodivergence more generally. I can never remember which one is plural and which singular. Joe has also written for Have I Got News for you for Frankie Boyle's New World Order and as well as being a very funny stand-up. He hosts the podcast Neurodivergent Moments with Abigaliah Shaman. And he's got a new book out. Where's his new book? Oh, it's called Neurodivergent moments and it's out now in all good bookstores, all the terrible ones as well. Try not to buy it from Amazon if you can. And his tour show Joe Wells' Daddy Autism is on tour later this year. You can find out

all the info and more at joe wells.org.com. Classic Joe Wells' web address there, never one to follow fashion. In the first half, we're going to talk about how performing for a neurodivergent audience can change the mechanics of live comedy. We'll talk about the impact parenthood has on the kind of comedy you want to make. Impact, impact of parenthood, surely not. We'll talk about why Joe stopped blaming tough gigs on the audience, and we'll talk about how comedy can be a tool for processing your own neurodivergence. Yes, I think the audience are neurodiverse, and the self is neurodivergent. But I will be embarrassed to realise I'm wrong, so let's hedge it for now. There's never been a better time to support us. There's only three of us on the team,

and for £3 a month, you get access to instant ad-free versions of the full video of this episode and the audio. Extra content with Joe, more on that later. The new format, stew and a every week and a lovely, warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing that you've contributed financially to a thing you love. And I do that to very few things, and I do feel good about them. I also feel entitled. And why haven't read an Ivan from the Boers Gore and Sword's podcast done Mr. Inbetween yet, hey? That's a story for another time, because this time it's time for Joe Wells.

Welcome to the show Joe Wells. It's such a pleasure to have you on. Where in the world are you? Where are you coming to us from? I'm in my hometown of Portsmouth where I live and have always lived and I love it here. That's so nice. I'm a big defender of my hometown. You know, I think it's sort of, it's fashionable to people in Portsmouth. I did the Portsmouth 100th anniversary of being a city. They did like a comedy gig. And at the end of it, I said, I'm really pleased to be here. really think I travel around and I see the Portswood's a really brilliant city and people thought I was making a joke but genuinely I think it's really lovely. If you're a big supporter of Portsmouth, that makes it sound like there are quite a lot of detractors of Portsmouth. What do people, we'll get on to actual comedy in a minute, but just by way of warming up. What do people have a go at Portsmouth about? I don't think I've got any feelings either way. Oh, I think if you, well, I think on what I

like about Portsis, we don't get too up ourselves that, you know, there are other cities where they're very proud to be from there. I think if you did a gig in Portsmouth and you said, what is Ports of Like? It would be milliseconds before someone shouted out shithole. But actually, it is quite nice. You've got lovely, come on, we've got lovely sort of things going on culturally. It's great. But we don't like to be too proud of it. Oh, that's a humble. Humble. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I'm sort of excited that you're managing to live somewhere that you love and that you're from and that you didn't have to move to London. And you have a family. You have a family. have a child? How old is your child? In the book, your child is only six months old? She's 18 months now.

Oh, my God. Yeah, she's, she can climb things now and she's got a cold all the time. Oh, yeah. So yeah, she just, she, everything is, because you've got children too, haven't you? Yes, I have two, seven, ten. Everything is covered in snot and, but you're sort of happy. Yeah. It's covered in filth at all times. And so I suppose where we're meeting you, my assumption is that we're meeting you in a really good place in your life and your career, are we? Yeah, I'm very, very happy. And I think that it's interesting because I, there was a period when the, when the baby was, I think I'm just coming out of a period where I found it very hard to write comedy because I'm very, very happy and fulfilled. And that's not always a good space for comedy.

no one wants to hear that at a comedy club they want to hear sort of and I think all comedy not all comedy but but the majority of comedy is sort of cynical to some extent and I think I found it hard it's very hard to go out and be like oh I love my baby very much and I'm very tired but I don't mind because I'm happy and I and you know and that's very hard to make that funny but I'm finding ways to be cynical now yeah yeah yeah I think I had a comedy epiphany when I became a parent and had something real to complain about for once. Yeah, yeah. Well, there's that as well, is that where I think it's, you can't be, I guess a lot of my comedy has been quite like introspective as well,

particularly the sort of more recent stuff that's been more successful. And you don't have time to be introspective because you've got to feed a baby. So I think a lot of that sort of, what's navel gazing? Is that what I do? Yes. Yeah. I don't have time for navel gazing. Searching the self.

How do I react to the world? How does the world do like me, me, me kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And there's not as much space for that. But then you are going out and meeting more people and doing more things. And so there's space for other things. But it sort of forced, I don't know whether you found this,

but it sort of forces you to write a different kind of comedy. Yes. Yes, for sure. And the kind of comedy that you alluded to there in terms of like your more recent, most successful stuff, your last three, are you currently on tour with your? Yeah, so I'm between, yeah, there was a leg last year and then there's going to be another leg in the autumn, yeah. Okay, okay. So that's daddy autism. And your previous two shows, I think, were King of the Autistics and I am autistic. And in the words of Brendan Burns, what that guy needs is an angle. Yeah. Yeah. Talk to me about your...

Talk to me about the extent to which your material about autism and your kind of ownership of that space. Or let's not say ownership. I mean, you have a sort of faux ownership, King of the Autistics, you know, but the fact that you have really lent into talking about that

and building an audience who want to hear you talk about that. Talk to me about. whether that was a surprise to you or whether it was kind of planned um well that's it yeah definitely is sort of faux ownership be and that show king of the autistics was all about um how representation is something which we're made to feel is rationed out and we're made to feel like if someone else is is taking up that space then then that sort of detracts from us um and uh so i see yeah so i definitely um and i know you were joking but but that you know i don't feel like that

owner and I'm very excited about all the other people talking about neurodivergence and autism and etc yeah I mean so there's a few things so I had an informal diagnosis as a child which I don't there's two versions of events one from my mother where I was told about this and one from me where I don't remember being told about this but that all came out in my late 20s I did a show I used to do lots of political stuff and I think it made me realize that I liked the political stuff because I liked shouting and I liked sort of um yeah that idea of sort of cathartic comedy and a lot of that came from being quite um you know having things which which weren't not being a I didn't have an unhappy childhood but having things where

you know, struggles that I wanted that I felt sort of unhappy about. So yeah, so I wrote a show when that sort of all came out and then I had the formal diagnosis as an adult. I wrote a show about that. I became quite interested in, I guess a lot of the sort of theory around neurodiversity and autism, people like, no one will know who these people are, but people like Jim Sinclair and Donna Williams, Damienilin's double empathy problem. a lot of the stuff I was writing was sort of coming from reading, sort of, I guess, like, theory about autism and neurodiversity, and then putting jokes into it.

And like anything, you know, I think that I was doing stuff that people liked, and that, you know, I obviously, like, we're always like, I'm sure it's similar with your stuff. If people are paying you money to do a certain type of thing and you're happy to do that thing and you're interested in that thing, then you will do more of that thing. So it's, it's, you know, there was,

I had some success from it and people wanted to come and see those tour shows and liked that comedy where I was exploring those ideas. And I had more to say about it. So it has been three shows, but I would, argue that they each say quite distinct things about neurodivergence and on autism. I think that they have clear.

I think it's the thing that I was saying as well about having a baby that like, I think a lot of time I've used comedy to sort of work things out for myself. And I think the first I'm, first show I'm autistic, which is on YouTube, was sort of me working out like myself and being. being autistic and what do I do with that information. And then the next one, King of the Autistic,

was about being autistic and being a performer and being in a space where you're expected to be representation, expected to be a role model, and how I don't want to be someone that speaks for autistic people, but also there's, I've got a platform. So, you know, I am, whether I want to or not, there's going to be an element of me, speaking for autistic people and I want to, you know, I want to sort of, I think it's useful to share my experiences

whilst also sort of lifting up other experiences. And then the most recent one was about having a child and about sort of discussions around genetics and, you know, screening and those sorts of things and knowing that statistically my child is more likely to be autistic. And was also about my relationship with my father who is very much not autistic. And, you know, And the idea that neurodiversity includes all brains, so includes people like my father and sort of like, I feel like I have a much better, I don't know whether he feels it or not,

but I feel like I have a much better relationship with my father at having written that show. So yeah, I think a lot of myself has been working stuff out for myself and also people have been interested in what I've been doing. So I've sort of, you know, there's obviously is an element of if people want to see you do a certain kind of thing, then there's an incentive to do more of it. but I wouldn't do it just for the sake of it, you know.

No, for sure. Given that I didn't suggest that you would do it just for the sake of it, and you have pointed out that you didn't do it just for the sake of it. Well, I wonder, is that an insecurity? Do you worry that people might think that? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. But I think that's probably my own insecurity more than anything else. but um yeah and i think that there's i've always taken a bit of an approach with particularly like fringe show

titles having them really on the nose because i find that's just a good way to my i do a lot of this actually like i think links with like class and comedy where um you know even though i'm doing okay now um like i've always like at least felt like i needed to make money from comedy so at the end of a fringe i was doing the free fringe and do i had a year when i did this was 2016 i did a show called 10 things i hate about ukep um which was a contemporary reference at the time and that show title was quite funny it's very on the nose people knew exactly what kind of thing it was going to be but it had big you know i had no profile at all then you know i'd done a few sort of support slots for some higher profile people had a couple of sort of reviews

but you know I wasn't known at all but having a title like that brought people in so I think that um since then I've always had show titles which have been fairly on the nose and I think that's because I wanted to get people in to my free friend shows so that I could have some money that was part of it and then and I've always taken the approach of you know be sort of a cynical as you want in the marketing you know market it in whatever way gets people in the door and then on stage do something that's creative and makes people think and that is, you know, that's your art. But my show title isn't the art. The art is the show.

That's really interesting, the kind of class sort of vector of that or the interface with class in that it's almost the, it's almost a privilege to be ambiguous in one's marketing because it sort of suggests that your primary thing is the art rather than needing to make some fucking money. Yeah. Yeah, and listen, I feel like a fraud as well, because I'm not from poverty, and I have married well. But I, but, you know, that first show, I'm autistic, I wanted to call it everything as an attempt to be human, which was a reference to a William Blake painting and something that I sort of explored in the show. If I was someone that had, you know, 10 grand to put into a big marketing budget and fill the room with that, I would call it everything as an attempt to be.

human but I didn't have that you know I had my my social media following and the free fringe so I called it I'm autistic because I thought people will know exactly what that is it'll be at lunchtime people will go I have some connection with that topic I'll come and I'll come and see it but it's the same show that I was going to call everything as an attempt to be human and the yeah just one sort of looks like high art and one doesn't you um you made a job I saw I I saw I am autistic on YouTube, but I'm halfway through King of the Autistics as well. Really, really funny.

I did wonder, well, there are some particular things you do. We'll talk about the craft of those shows in a little while because you talk about kind of script flips, and there is this that you're very, very good at like the planets have aligned. I don't know what the term is, maybe it's the same term, but where you kind of go, I'm talking about one thing whilst pretending to talk about another thing. You're very, very good at those. and we'll talk about the kind of the one of those that went viral

that kind of kicked off a lot of interest in your work. But just in terms of you said, what did you say? I'm quoting from your show. You said building an audience that's exclusively mentally ill people, which I think was you, I mean, you were being casual about the term.

I don't know if you describe autism as a mental illness. I think most autistic people are mentally ill, separate, you know what I mean? Separately. I think it's like, yeah, so I would say for, I mean, again, like this is a whole, I'm so cautious of being a spokesperson. I hate when people make sweeping statements about autism and autistic people, but here is one. I think that autistic people are put into a society that can make them mentally ill rather than it being in the same way that lots of LGBT people.

struggle with mental ill health. It doesn't mean that that is a mental illness. It means that society makes you, that that would be my, my sort of sweeping statement about that. That's one of those things that you, I've just nodded as if I knew that already, but it makes such sense when you say it. But I don't think that's part of a sort of a public discourse. I don't think I've heard that before so much as like the moment you say, I go, oh, Christ, of course. Well, I think it, I think it's what's interesting to me is that actually, and I did for, until I, Before as a full-time comedian, I worked for a disability charity. And a lot of what you're calling script flips actually comes from,

there's a writer called Damien Milton who had a thing called the double empathy problem. So it's like because the narrative is always autistic people being the other, like you're always blamed either way. So in terms of communication, if I speak to you and you don't understand me, then it's old Joe's bad at communicating he didn't communicate properly and if you say something to me and I don't understand you it's old Joe's bad at communicating

he doesn't understand things properly so it's like either way so a lot of I guess a lot of the stuff that I do is inspired by those kind of writers and that sort of movement of autistic writers

and yeah and that you know that's the social model of disability I guess is that idea that you know when we're talking about mental illness and autism, the social model of, you know, we are disabled by society. That would be how, what I would see a lot of the sort of crossover between being mentally ill and being autistic. I would see through that lens. Yes. Yes. And I think what you're alluding to in the joke is that your audience has a lot of autistic people in it. Yes. Yeah, yeah. That's always been really important to me because I think there are, I never want to do stuff that,

I never want to just please non-autistic people, you know, I want to, it's like, I never want to do stuff as like, oh, I am autistic when I said this thing, what an idiot, like, and, you know, it's always important to me that, like, it's coming from that place of having, but I was about say, have you seen a net, and then I realized what a comedy, no thing you are, you probably heard of it. But I think the stuff that she was saying in that show about, like, self-deprecation. And I think that, you know, I always want to. to do stuff that autistic people would relate to.

But I want to be mainstream and I want to do mainstream clubs. But I think if I, if I didn't have an autistic audience, then I would ask, I'd have to ask myself questions about why that is and why the people sort of in, in my, it was a weird to say, community, because it sounds like we all meet up. But, you know, the people like me, well, if people like me weren't connecting with it, obviously some will and some won't. But, you know, if I wasn't have, if people weren't finding that connection, then I'd have to ask why that is.

And, yeah, and so it's important to me that people do connect with it. And is there any downside to that? Are there any drawbacks from starting to, like, I suppose creatively speaking. Like, you know, obviously I do lots of stuff about climate at the moment. So I attract lots of climate-aware people. So there are kind of, they're a preaching to the choir questions. And I wonder if there are also more mechanical issues for you in terms of how a, how a majority autistic audience apprehends your comedy or comedy.

Yeah, I mean, I get corrected a lot. Like, after gigs people cured up ago. I really enjoyed it. But you said. I may have been. I did. some stuff about airport terminals and someone was like, I really enjoy the show, but just so you know,

you said Terminal 3 at Gatwick and Gatwick actually only has North and South Terminal. It doesn't have. But I, yeah, well, I think one of the things which has been a rewarding challenge was I've been doing the shows as, I never say relaxed performance because I don't really know what that means, but like I've been having like, accessibility stuff where I've said you can you can get up and go out and come back in if you want you don't sit still in your chair um what other things do I set you are you know people can um oh there's no audience interaction that's been a thing which is um it's actually been

useful I've had quite a few people come to shows and say well I'm really glad you said there's no audience interaction because I didn't want to be yeah be picked on and so um But that's been like, it's been an interesting, like, challenge of my own, like, you know, because often us, I've had quite a few tour shows where there be, and I'm used to it now, but there were, but there'd be someone in the audience who's sort of fitching around a lot or maybe making noise or something like that. And like the first few times that happened, I was thinking, like, oh, this is really, I like, that person's not enjoying it.

They're hating it. And then so many times that person were, then come up to me afterwards and say, I've never been able to go to a comedy show before. I've never, like, enjoy it. And that's, that's really nice. But it's a challenge when, I think as a comic, you have a perception of how the audiences should behave. And, um, and it's very easy to go, oh, the audience is a bad audience because they weren't laughing loud enough or they were, they were sort of acting this way. I think it's been useful for me now to sort of let an audience enjoy the comedy however they in the way that they enjoy it um and sometimes

that's the way you expect where they laugh really loud and then other times there are people that want to just sit and watch the comedy and that's okay um and i think it has helped me to be oh you said it's good when i say really wanky things didn't you know but it basically is arrogant or anything else but um it sounds like something that trump would say but it makes me sounds it's made me more humble uh about you know not like the the the show isn't for me to feel like a rock star the show is for the audience who are there so you know it's not just and obviously we do comedy because it feels really nice when you go and everyone cheers and it's exciting and and you know there are certain clubs which are like so exciting you know when you when you go out and there and

there you get big laughs and blah blah blah but actually um you know i some of the tour shows that i have done where people have where it's been which have been very neurodiverse and where there's been sort of people getting up moving about a bit i know that those people have enjoyed it in a way that other um that they haven't been able to enjoy other shows and and i've done a really good job sort of doing a show for that audience so that actually is a job well done. just as much as, you know, when you do the comedy store, smash the comedy store and everyone cheers, you know. So that's been a useful thing about having a...

And then it transfers to clubs as well, you know, where like I think I am less willing to sort of write off gigs that are tough now, you know, I think it actually annoys me a bit when you sometimes will do a gig and there will be, you know, it'll be a bit quiet or it'll be a bit, you know, undersold or whatever and then someone will go out and sort of blame the audience for that. You know, I think I try to approach gigs with, I mean, maybe less than now that I've got a child and I'm tired all the time, so I'm not giving it 100%.

I've had a few things when she was small. I'm so tired. I just got to get through this 20 minutes. But in theory, you know, I tried to go out to every gig and go, like, let's perform my comedy as best I can for these people in this. room. And that's been helpful. The humble king. Yes. I'm very attracted to the idea of a relaxed performance. As a late in life ADHD diagnosis person, I don't really consider that relaxed performances are aimed at me. But I hate sitting down and watching an entire show. I would

much rather be walking around tapping, clicking my fingers or not necessarily clicking my fingers. I wouldn't even call it sort of stimming. To me, that feels like very alien language still, I'm very new to the party. But I certainly hate sitting still and I fidget loads. And so I do, my favourite way to enjoy comedy, this is going to sound awful, is at the back of the room or behind the back curtain,

doing something, doing a mindless computer game on my phone with my fingers, like a mindless thing, not anything involving strategy or thought, but like a keep myself busy thing whilst listening and I take in so much more of the show and the nuance and all the rest of it if I'm doing that. So I think I ended up accidentally. And that's another thing on my list is people can use their phones during the show. And also it takes like the awkwardness of because I think in a club if someone was on their phone,

I'd be thinking, oh my God, their hate. Yeah. Whereas if you've set out the rules and gone, you can go on your phone and that's fine as long as you're not recording it, then you don't, when you're on stage, you then don't worry about it, and the people around them don't worry about it because it's just like, well, this is just happening and it does, yeah, it is a more,

I think that sometimes, the thing that's complicated is noise, because I think if you've got people who, this is conflicting access needs is what I've heard it's called, if you've got people who would struggle with background noise, and then you've got people who are going to make background noise, that's a very hard thing to manage. But yeah, things like, you know, people using their phones and stuff like that,

once, if there's permission for it. Also, if there's permission to, like, a lot of people have said to me, like about being able to get up and walk out if you want, and you're not going to be picked on for that, they've gone, oh, well, I didn't, I didn't need to, but I hate going to a thing and knowing that I have to sit still for an hour. 100%. But if, like, I've got the option to get up and go out,

I then sort of don't need to but it's it's you know it's it's um it takes that pressure off yes I did that I'm always worried about how often I may or may not need to go for a wee during the show and I find that if I've got some if I'm near the end of a row and I did this once in the old in the Bristol Old Vic there was a nice couple at the end of the row in between me

and access potentially to the loo and I just said to them beforehand just so you know I think I lied I think I said oh I'm on some medication or something at the moment which is a white lie because when I'm on my ADHD medication, I do need lots of whee's. But I said I'm on medication at the moment, and I don't think I was. And so I might need to nip out for a wee sort of halfway through.

And they were like, oh, totally fine. And then, of course, I didn't because there was no, this is, I feel like this is a very minor version of what we're discussing. But it made a tangible difference to me. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like, when you get in the car and you know, like, when I drive back from Brighton, there's no public toilets that whole time. And it just makes me, like, think about weeing the whole day. I would love, I've sort of,

participating in this and thinking in the back of my mind, I would love to make all of my performances, relaxed performances, but I am also very easily distractable. So I do want people to feel like they can be on their phones as long as their phones are silent, but I've got 20 years' worth of ingrained threat response to seeing someone be on their phone.

And also, I struggle more and more now to remember the next bit of my set. Do you mean? So not to remember it, but I'm so easily distracted. I'm very privileged that I think the people who come to see me are, I think it's harder to, like, if you've got an audience who go out, and I don't think this is probably isn't your audience either, but like if you've got quite like a rowdy drunk audience anyway, it's then harder to make that, you've then got that issue in there as well, which I don't have because my audience tend to be sort of really nice and I'm very lucky for that. And yeah, it's not going to work. I think everyone's sort of got to do what works for them. And yeah, I think that's what I like about comedy is there's so many different.

It's like the audience interaction. Some people want, and I love audience interaction. It could be brilliant. I see someone like Ross Noble or something like that is amazing. I've never been great at audience interaction. So I just decided not to do it and advertise it as not doing it. But that's not that I'm, it's that very polarized times that we're in where it feels,

I feel like people are going to think I'm against audience interaction. But, you know, I think it can be brilliant. and I like it. I do it sometimes in clubs are often comparing. But it's, yeah, it's good to have that choice for people. Have you done the RGB monster gigs at Edinburgh? I think it's called something like,

I think I've mentioned this on the pod before. It's something like five headliners for a tenor. And they've created this incredibly lean, sign up on a Google form, pass the mic, no MC. Like it's a money-making and creativity employing and fliring opportunities.

machine, right? So it's like, it's very, very lean. But one of the rules is no audience interaction. And I was backstage beforehand, having been told that and forgotten and turned up and they said, oh, no audience interaction or you don't get booked again. I was like, all right, mate. And it was brilliant. Because the very first thing, whoever's on first, who then becomes the default audience welcome, and literally walks out and says, just so you know, this is a no crowd work show, no audience interaction, we're not going to talk to you, you don't talk to us, let's get stuck in. And then just does their set. And it was so fun. They were so well behaved. There was zero. I mean, maybe I've got a lucky night, but there was just zero pressure or expectation. It's almost like

the room breathed a sigh of relief and suddenly you're in a theatre gig. It's great. Yeah, yeah. I think it's, you know, and I hate, I hate being on the other end of audience interaction. I went to a wedding a few years ago and there's a band there and I sort of walked past the band like so it looked like I was walking out. And then the singer, like, says to me, oh, don't go. We'll do what, name a song, name a song, and we're singer. And in that moment, I just, I forgot all of music at all. I couldn't think of a single song.

Happy birthday. Yeah. Yeah. It can be, like, yeah, it can be sort of like, feeling put on the spot can be really horrible. But also, it can be brilliant and fun and, you know, and it can be fun to do with people that want it. I often find at small festivals, if I'm in someone's audience and they know me, I'm like my presence in someone's audience doesn't mean I want to join in. And I often feel like people go, oh, goldsmith's in or something, because it's a bit of an in joke.

And I just crumple. I'm like, I'll only have a hide at the back ever again. I don't like it. I'm not here to join in. So this is Joe Wells, his book with Abigail Shaman. neurodivergent moments is out today everywhere you can get books and Joe Wells Daddy Autism, his tour show, is on tour later this year

find out everything you need to about that from joewells.org.uk. We talk a little bit about the book here in the structure of the book and I've been lucky to see I will say one of the best bits about this self-created job is getting to see and read books and PDFs of books before they come out. It's a fascinating insight into how it all works

and it lets me feel very special, and it's a very special book, so I hope you check it out. I've read a bunch of chapters from it. I've skipped about it playfully, and both authors contribute loads in a really different way. So I think that is a really fun thing. Before I tell you any more about me, let me tell you about brilliant friends of the podcast, former guests, American comics currently in the UK, Amy Miller and Joyell Nicole Johnson. Now, they're both fantastic in very, very different ways. I hope you've heard their episodes. Joyelle has a wonderful... Oh my God, the story she told on the pod

about kind of finding her voice and finding herself at the same time. It was wonderful. Amy Miller has this brilliant, dry sense of humour and she's so scathing on social media. She's so good at replying to awful reply guys. Both of their stand-up in two very, very different ways is excellent and unmissable.

And they're both in the UK, as well as doing bits and bobs of show, shows, you should follow them. If you're a promoter, get in touch with them. Because I was in cahoots previously with Joyelle about like whether I could help shout her out and get her booked in a few more places, because she's not well known over here, but she is a proper killer headliner. And then Amy Miller pops up and says she's coming out as well. So she's coming over, let's say. So please do get in touch with them. If you're a promoter, if you book anything, if you have any hookups to fun gigs that need more excellent, interesting lineups with

excellent, interesting American women, then you can catch up with both of them, Amy Miller Comedy on Instagram, and the website is amyemillacomedy.com, and Joyell is Joyle Nicole on Instagram, and her website is on her link tree, which I'm finding now. I mean, you can also find a link tree, and it's, she doesn't appear to have a website. She just has an Instagram and a link tree. It's so lean, but if you find her on Instagram, you can see clips of her on the Tonight Comedy Central, Late Night with Seth Myers, and so on. So, Joliel Nicole Johnson, Amy Miller, both incredible American heavyweight comics in the UK right now. So please hook them up.

And I'm sure you can also find out where they're going to be in the UK as well. Talking of seeing people, Canary is coming to a place near you. And if it's not near you, get 300 friends together and I'll come and bring it to a place near you. It's going to be at the Edinburgh Festival, Cabaret Voltaire at 225 from the 17th to the 30th of August. That's the last two weeks. under Monkey Barrel and then it is going to be in Cambridge, Glasgow, Oxford, Manchester,

Cardiff, Maidenhead, Sheffield in Birmingham throughout autumn, culminating in the biggest headline show of my goddamn career, Bristol Old Vic, on the 18th of November. It's called Canary. It's all about the first climate show spoilers was about kind of facing up to

the fear of the climate crisis and how is anyone supposed to cope with that? And this is in some ways more of the same. It's more nuanced, it has more to say, it's more meaningful and I really interrogate the question of whether our guilt and our culpability and our individual actions, whether our attempts to do something about it, are really as valuable as we hope they are. And it finishes with the one single biggest thing anyone can do if you're worried about the climate. It's a relatively easy thing to do. And I did a preview in

Swindon. I was very proud recently to be the very first person on stage ever at the inaugural all Swindon Old Town Comedy Festival. Thank you, Sam John Michael. And it was an absolute banger where all the bits are now in the right place. And all I need to do is, and I always think of Hannibal Burris talking about this with, I think with SNL. Or was it, he was writing on 30 wrong? I clearly don't always remember it. But you put the jokes on an O-HP, put them on a wall and sit around beating the jokes. I don't have a writer's room. But maybe I'll write the jokes in crayon on the wall. it's so close and I think when it's finished it's going to be magnificent so I hope you'll come and join me on tour

at Stuart Goldsmith.com slash comedy to find out more about it you can also sign up for the Comcompod mailing list there as well coming up in the second half we will discuss why Joe wrote a book about OCD at 15 which I discovered about 10 minutes before interviewing him so there's a real interesting line of inquiry there we'll talk about how focusing on personal experiences stops your material getting dated we'll discuss briefly the problem with saying we're all on the spectrum we'll talk about how Joe's viral clips

didn't change his approach to making stuff and we'll find out whether or not the bastard's happy. Let's get back to Joe Wells. Are you the same Joe Wells that wrote a book about OCD called Touch and Go Joe? Yeah, that's me. Yeah, yeah. You were a teenager. Yeah, I was 15 when I wrote 16 when it came out.

Tell me all about that. I realize this is on the first page of the PDF you sent me. It's like, you know, also buy. And I read a little bit of the couple of chapters of the book. But let's just talk about that. I suddenly, because I think when I saw that you and Abigaliah Shaman had written the book of your podcast or a book related to your neurodivergent moments podcast, I thought, oh, wow, they've got a book away. Great.

I didn't have you pegged as someone who already had a career in publishing. So, or a career, you know, as an author. This is my third book. Yeah. And yeah, so I, well, I had very severe OCD as a teenager. And this was in a time 37 now. So this was a time where people weren't, there wasn't much written about OCD. A lot of people didn't know what it was.

And yes, I wrote a book about that when I sort of was getting better from it with the help of a lot of therapy. Yeah. So that sort of gave me a sort of, there were fun opportunities that came from that and I was doing talks to sort of CAMs, groups and schools and things like that before I was doing stand-up. Yeah, so that's that's that's that book. That is quite an interesting, not that I'm suggesting that is your comedy origin story, but that is quite unusual to be giving talks about a subject, then becoming a stand-up about something else and then returning to elements of that subject, perhaps. Yeah, I think there was an element when I, I didn't talk about at all when I started doing sound up because I think, I think it was an element of like wanting to, again, it was that

thing of like misconception. So I think if I did stuff about, I knew that if I did stuff about OCD, that I wanted it to be like represented properly. And I think it's harder to, particularly, I was quite aware of, you know, when I was a new comic, I was, yeah, I was aware that I maybe didn't have the sort of skills yet to sort of properly talk about the OCD. And, but weirdly felt fine solving all the world's political problems. But yeah, like, so yeah, I didn't, I didn't talk about it much in, in the early stand-up, just because I didn't, it's quite easy to stereotype OCD, and certainly the time I think everyone thought it meant being clean.

My OCD was sort of more unusual than that. so yeah so that that's yeah i was was sort of giving talks that were a bit more nuanced that there'd be some i think there's some funny things in in the book you know and it was sort of there were light-hearted elements of the book i tried to make it quite readable um you tried age 15 to make it quite a precocious thing to have done like what even with the circumstances what's the alternative that i write some really highbrow academic texts of 15 no no no i didn't to make it readable. No, that's not quite what I meant.

I just think that like, what were the circumstances around you getting the opportunity to write a book? Were you just kind of like, you know, an ambitious or, you know, I mean, were you so naive, you thought, hey, I could do this and then suddenly it turned out you could? Yeah, it probably was naive. I think I was, I struggled to make friends at school and I learned if I, so I wrote little, like, funny essays and things and would be allowed to read them at the end of class. and and then I sort of yeah so like and that sort of gave me some level of sort of social status I guess that's the the comedy origin story is that you know I was writing yeah writing sort of

funny essays and things so I knew I liked writing and and that became yeah that was a sort of way to communicate when I wasn't that good at socialising and yeah I have to thank my mum really because I wrote a few chapters and she sent them off to a publisher and I think it was out of right place right time where there wasn't books written

of the idea of lived experience was so new then and the publishers had there was a book called Freakskeeks and Asperger Syndrome by Luke Jackson and then there was a book called Caged in Chaos

about Disbrack but yeah there weren't the sort of hundreds of lived experience books that there are now and certainly there weren't as far as I'm aware mine would be the first one about OCD so like it was yeah I just sort of got in when that was that was the thing that was happening and you you talked about your relationship with your OCD being sort of treated with therapy. Is OCD not a new... What's the kind of taxonomy of it?

Is OCD a... Is it a neurodivergence? So I think that this is like a very evolving language. But so that neurodivergence that is one of those words where it has been coined by a person and I always forget how to pronounce their name, Cassiana Asusamu, I think is their name.

and it's to do with, I guess it sits alongside the social model of disability, so it's the idea, is that it's people who have a brain, which society isn't built for. I think that's quite hard for people to get their heads around because it's not, we're so used to talking about these things in terms,

in medical terms of you have this or you don't have this, whereas I think neurodivergence is reframing it of like, it depends on the society, and you could build a society where, certain types of neurodivergence weren't neurodivergent because society was built for and worked for them. So I would see OCD as a neurodivergence because it's your brain working in an unusual, unexpected way, but I would also see it as a mental illness, whereas I wouldn't see the way in which I am autistic as being a mental illness. so yeah I think it's

I guess that would be how I'd view it but also I'd put the caveat that I think you know I'm not I'm not an academic or someone who you know I've read some books but I'm not someone who is an expert in mental health or autism or any of this and also I think it's such an evolving conversation I think when you read things

someone like Temple Grandin who I think was very radical for her time, which was not that long ago, and she's still alive today. When you read her books now, they seem incredibly dated and cringy, but were quite sort of groundbreaking for the time. And I think everything I'm saying now will be dated in 20 years. But that would be how I, yeah, that's how I would view OCD in terms of neurodivergence.

I would say it was neurodivergence, but also a mental illness. I think a lot of the language around neurodivergents come from the autism rights movement and you know, it's then it's sort of these other and it's been made broad enough to include other people but then other people have come along and gone oh this doesn't this language doesn't quite work for us

so I think it's I think it will all change very different I think that's why I try to a lot of the language around neurodivergence I guess is born out of like the autism rights movement and then other people have come along and gone oh maybe we can use some of this language masking or whatever um but there may be some of it doesn't quite work for us and uh so i think it's it's going to evolve and and that's why i try to

um i am particular about language but also i want and one of the motivations behind the book we've got coming out is i want to focus on my own experiences and the way i feel about things um and when I'm making sort of bold statements, I want to make sure there are things that are 100% stand behind because I think the language and it's all going to move around and change in the future. And I think if I write stuff that's really rooted in the experiences that I'm having,

then that won't date in the same way that if I wrote a sort of, you know, if I wrote a show that was like, this is what autism is and this is, you know, how we should categorize people and this is how, you know, these are the things that helps and these are the specific things which we should change and the way we should talk about things very specifically.

I think that would date very quickly, whereas I think if I write stories about my life and how I felt about them and how they changed my thinking about myself and the people around me, then that will always be true. Yeah. That's my thinking anyway.

Yeah. There was an interesting conversation around. I work on a kid's show called Pablo, and Pablo is autistic. And there was an interesting conversation about sort of, it's not, I don't think as far as I'm aware, it's not said in the show that he is autistic. And like there was a conversation, but in all that he is and all the marketing would be around that. And I guess like my thinking in the conversation, that we had about that

was that the language couldn't the language could move on so much and you know and 10, 15 years ago we would have been talking about Asperger's or whatever but if we just focus on the experiences and

and those stories then it's not that won't date in the same way yeah yeah no I mean that makes perfect sense I'm just thinking about kind of... There's a space for saying stuff that will date and, you know, and having conversations and having opinions which are going to be moved on from. So that's also fine as well.

People can do what they want. I'm just thinking of kind of characters in sitcoms like Arbred in community or don't remember his name, but that one in Third Rock from the Sun, from a long way away. You know, where you kind of think, oh, they were, these are kind of autistic representations but that don't say so. So they aren't tied to having to do. any spokespersoning. Yeah, and they will age a lot better than...

Yeah. Yeah, those things age a lot better than, say, you know, the curious incident or something like that or other like explicit, or the good doctor or something where they're like explicitly autistic characters. The structure of your book is quite unusual, in that I think it's quite unusual, in that it's you and Abigail are writing the book together

and you take a subject and then each write a chapter about it. Yes. I think in the prologue, I say, to give the illusion of structure. Yeah, I missed that bit. But it's very, very readable. I said it made it sort of just from the index. You sort of go, oh, I can dip into any of these bits.

And I did dip into a few of them to do with work and jobs that you'd had and parenting and things like this. What's the aim of the book? What's the kind of best case dream result of it being published? It's coming out soon. It's not out yet. Is that right? 18th of June it comes out. 18th of June.

So it's on like, I think, called NetGalley. So people who are book bloggers and librarians can get hold of advanced copies. And what's been lovely, the two words which have come up a lot in the good reads of reviews, which have made us so happy is funny and relatable. And those are the two things. We wanted to write something that had a primarily neurodivergent audience and would be relatable stories and also to be funny. And yeah, every time I saw one of those two words,

I was very happy about that. There's no sort of, even though I'm interested in all the sort of theory around autism, there's no big sort of sociological argument or thesis to it really, other than just I believe in the idea of sort of neurodivergent culture and that this can be part, these stories are part of it and we can share these stories and that that's worth doing in and of itself because they're funny and relatable.

That was a very good answer. that was a very I was wrong footed there by how how deftly you ended the sentence oh good then um is there anything that you

like in the process of editing the book were there other directions in which it could have gone or were there material that you cut and why did you cut it I think funny was always the sort of primary thing and you know I think that and when we did the podcast we were aware that there's lots of podcast about neurodiversity that are very earnest and inspiring.

And so to write something that's just funny was our, or, you know, that was primarily, that funny is the number one thing to go to. I'm trying to think there's things that were, I mean, most of the editing was that was the sort of comedy editing you do where you go, you know, when you get into like, is it funny to say the or Anne, you know, in this sentence and where we would meet up. and read the essays to each other. And they go back and forward on like, yeah, just little bits of wording. So that was most of the editing.

I think that the sort of knowing what the stories were going to be. So we've each written 12, I guess it's the 12 neuralvergent moments. There's sort of 12 stories. Yeah, most of the editing was how can we make this funnier or sharper, occasionally there was bits where we would go, how can I put this point across more clearly? There's a bit of a chapter about really struggling with. So my grandmother died and then I had to go to like a birthday meal

and just really being anxious about how the conversations that I'd have there because do I tell people? And if I tell people they go, oh, I'm so sorry. And then that's like this weird social thing where like I never quite know what to do when people say I'm sorry because it sounds like they've killed them. And so sort of, and the sort of the end conclusion was me rehearsing it with my wife on the way to the meal. So we sort of rehearsing me being me and her being one of our friends.

Very sad about my grandmother, I love very much dying. But that that's like just a feeling you feel. But then the thing that has to be worked out is the script of talking about it. and it's not that that is more upsetting the most upsetting thing is my nandai but the thing that's tricky and that has to be worked out and it is sort of like

stressful because it's the thing you've got to work out is the sort of scripting of how to respond to how people respond to that so things like that where we wanted to get the experience right and to explain exactly how it felt I didn't want that chapter to read like,

oh, I didn't care about my nan, I just cared about the awkward conversation. You know, I wanted to make it clear where it's coming from of that. But, yeah, so I guess the editing was making it funny and occasionally making sure that the sort of experience authentically came across and wasn't, all the stuff we're talking about earlier,

you know, where people can misinterpret and misunderstand things. You know, I didn't want someone to go away from that chapter thinking, oh, it was really funny because he didn't care about his nan dying. He just cared about the local conversation, you know, when that's not the point of it. So, yeah, that was the editing we did. But there weren't big things we sort of left out. Oh, there was one.

I wanted to write a chapter, but then it had something else for the food thing about this restaurant I used to love because it was really quiet because it was shit. And I'd always wanted to go to this restaurant that was called Mozzarella Joes. And there would never be anyone there. and but it was so quiet and I used to love going with if we had friends I'd be like we should go to mozzarella I'll tell you what is actually really underrated

Moxerella Joes because it would just be very quiet and peaceful but I think that was all I had to that story was I'd just like to go to this shit restaurant before we wrap up let's talk a little bit oh there's two further things

that I want to talk to you about one is to do with language I'm sure I read a really really good exploration and exploding, an explosion of why it's annoying when people say, yes, well, we're all on the spectrum. That's why it's a spectrum. And it was a really good rebuttal of that. And like, no, that isn't how this spectrum works. And I wondered if you either knew that bit of writing or had a similar, I would like to be able to use that in conversation. I couldn't remember it. Well, I think a lot of things are, I think a lot of

Autisticness is normal experience turned up, you know. And so I do understand the motivation behind people saying it. I've also quite a few people say it to me who I know and I've gone, in my head, I've gone, you're not a bit on the spectrum. You're very much, but you don't know. We all fractures our faces in the mirror, don't we? For how we meet people. And I think a lot, yeah, I think a lot of things.

Okay, so here's a conversation that maybe people aren't ready for. I think that, like, sexuality is on the spectrum, you know? I don't think anyone is truly, purely heterosexual, right? But there are, ultimately, like, I think people go, oh, this is the term that works for me, you know? And so to say, just because sexuality is on a spectrum, doesn't mean that gay people don't exist as a distinction. category of people that have experiences and that, you know, have experienced prejudice and blah, blah, blah.

And I guess similarly, I think, yeah, there are lots of things where people can, you know, there are people who communicate in different ways, people who find noise overwhelming people that have focus, special interests, etc. But then there are. I think there's a difference between going, we're all on a spectrum in a dismissive way of like, oh, well, it just means nothing then. and then going, well, there's a fuzzy line between autistic and non-autistic. You know, I talk about this person.

A lot of their contact me actually. So I did a gig once, and someone said they were told they were two-thirds autistic. They went for a diagnosis, and they said there's like three things you've got to tick off, and two of the three they had. So I think people like that, like, you know, there are people who are put in this weird gray area, and I guess that's why I like neurodivergence as a term. because it's not a sort of clinical and it's not it can account for you know that person who's two-thirds autistic or you know has been told they're two-thirds autistic can be accounted for that um

so yeah so i think it is i understand why people say oh we're all a bit autistic um because these are human traits but i think it can often be said in a dismissive way Yes, it's a bit like that thing about like you're a, he is a tourist, you are a holiday maker, but I am a traveller. It's a bit like you are, you are on the spectrum as we all are. Like he is on the spectrum as we all are. You have special interests, but I am autistic. It's like a distinct kind of categories. I think a lot of identities exist on sort of, you know, like people have done DNA tests and find out that they're, you know,

sort of 1% of certain ethnicity or whatever. Like, you know, like lots of identities are on a spectrum, but that doesn't mean that the people who sit within this category or who sort of identify this category don't exist as a group of people. Do you find, I was thinking of other autistic comedians, and then I started thinking about other comedians who I think might be autistic and who either don't know or who do know but don't mention it. And I just wondered whether there was,

I'm sure I was reading a thing in The Guardian where Stuart Lee had talked about getting a sort of like an unofficial or like a GP's kind of autism diagnosis or maybe a self-assessment diagnosis. And I think from, it's difficult talking about a third party from a half-remembered article, but I feel like he'd said,

you know, obviously this makes a lot of sense, but I don't have time, you know, I don't, I'm not particularly invested in it. And I just wondered whether you noticed in advance or whether there was ever a situation where someone made a joke about autistic people, say, and you as an autistic person with probably quite a broad knowledge or quite an in-depth knowledge of the criteria were able to go, oh, you don't know yet? Like, does that crop up? Oh, yeah, that's interesting, like,

Okay, I won't name them, but they, there was someone who I've met a few times and 100%, but I think doesn't fit a stereotype. So, I mean, most obviously, it's a black comic. And it just doesn't sort of, you know, people don't question my diagnosis because I'm like a nerdy, white man, you know, I've got boglins on my desk, you know. But I think that there's someone Not a figure of speech No I've got a monster

in my pocket here And then I've got some Lego and stuff But so people go Oh yeah that makes sense Autism And but yeah There's a One comment in particular

Who like I see things And I go Oh that's how my brain works as well But they present in a very different way They're a lot cooler than I am But I saw I did like and trying not to identify them,

but I saw them doing some stuff online about noise. And, yeah, I thought, oh, yeah, that, like, that makes sense a lot. My sort of people talk about Adar. Yeah, yeah, sure. Like, I was like, oh, okay, yeah, that, that makes sense to me, yeah. It's presumably like sort of first contact in Star Trek where the other alien races are going, well, until they discover faster than light transport,

we won't get in touch. So, is there some... You've done the thing that so many people would do that assume that I know about sci-fi. I don't like that. I don't think I made that assumption. I think that... It's fine.

I give up the idea. What the thing was? I got an email from our publisher saying, oh, we've got this new book out. It's sort of it's about autism and video games. I know you're a big video gamer and actually go no, no, it's just a video game

but I have that vibe and I don't mind. I will defend a potentially ostensible prejudice there in that I refer to this aspect of Star Trek a lot to a lot of people and I feel the explanation did describe it without any of some sort of way. The other alien races in the Star Trek universe they watch like, for example, humanity

and they wait until you've discovered faster than light transport and then they go, now let's make ourselves aware. Oh, I see. This is the subject of the movie First Contact. Right, okay. But I wonder if there is, I had an experience where me and Pete Dobbin were in Austin and we saw someone, we saw a very talented, very skilled magician do their first ever street show really badly.

And like first contact street performers, we went over and said, would you like access to all of the knowledge about how to make a street show work? Like we've descended, like, you've done the thing now, you've tried once. That means you're in the gang and you've earned knowing all. All of the stuff about how it works. Oh, I see. I wonder if there is a thing whereby almost like an uncontacted tribe, you see a person, your Adar Pings and you think, well, is there an appropriate moment

to say that if they ever have any questions, you'd be happy to field them? Do you see what I mean? Yeah, I don't know. I wish someone had said to me, mate, ADHD, 20 years ago, and I could have looked into it then. And I've long posited that there should be. a thing that people can say, a socially acceptable code word that we can say that means, hello, nice to meet you. If you happen to recognise in me anything you think I don't know about, I don't mind at all if you pointed out. You could just say that code word. Do you see what I mean?

Yeah, I think certainly saying like me, for referring to people as like me as a useful way to put it, isn't it? Because then they can't be offended by, well, they can't be openly offended by that. Yeah, I haven't. We have, there's a few people with the podcast who Aberglies contacted, and they've got back and gone, no, I'm not ADHD. And then we've sort of gone, all right, we'll give it a year or two. We'll wait for that. That's actually, that might, you might have answered that question perfectly.

What I do is I simply invite them on the podcast. That's enough. To finish up then, to wrap up, your very famous, very viral routine that you did a video of, you did, you released a video taken of top secret of you talking about your non-autistic brother, which was a script flip of like, I'm describing him in the language that people would talk about an autistic person, but everything's reversed. It went very, very viral and, um, I mean, part of me wanted to ask kind of when you go viral. I remember when one of my clips went viral for the, like crazy viral for the first time. And

I was like, oh, all of a lather, I haven't been putting much work into socials. How do I quickly maximise this? Were there things that you did or things that you regretted not doing? That, you know, are there things that you were like, oh, this is, like my first one, it, it went, it was an Instagram clip from my account, which at the time was called at Comcompod. That's now a separate, distinct account. But I thought, oh, it's not clear to the viewer who the comedian, what the name is of the comedian, yeah, things like that. Were there things like that that happened when that first you had a first experience of something really popping off? Probably.

But also I try not to get too sort of swept up in algorithms and, you know, how to gain social media because I think it can drive people mad and I think it can stop people making stuff that is good. and I think that I always want, like, I always want the thing that motivates me to be making stuff that's good. And I know that sounds really obvious, like all the people who I like, whether it's musicians or comedians or writers or whatever, I like them because they make stuff that's good. And maybe it's naive of me, but I sort of want to, you know, I put stuff up on social media and, you know, I'm not, I'm not disengaged from that. but I think that your main motivation has to be trying to make stuff that's good rather than trying to, you know, do social media right. And I think that's how people will keep coming back to what you do

is if you make comedy that's good and funny and interesting. You know, whether or not I was doing that is not for me to say, but certainly that's why I was trying to do. So that, and I think that's what my motivation is, is how can I be really funny? How can I put across some interesting ideas? I think the other dimension to it for you is that, as you said on stage, people come up to you and say, oh, my therapist showed me that video of you. Yeah, yeah.

Which must be enormously gratifying. Yeah, yeah, it's been nice that it's been sort of, there's a few clip. There's another one about my wife singing as well, which has been, um, apparently, someone said it went viral on all the psychologists and therapists like you know like work groups for people that have because this is this is a specific act therapy as well so a lot of the group it went around on that which is nice um so yeah like yes it did do that as well social media for good joe this is wonderful benevolent virality yeah i think that's great so um the book is out on the 18th of june And you're on tour, the second leg of your daddy autistic tour is when?

Daddy autism, yeah. Daddy autism. In the autumn. I think there's one in September, but in May and October, November. Fantastic. Joe, are you happy? I am very happy, yeah. I wish I had a more nuanced answer.

But I think this is a thing we, and I hope you do it too, and everyone who's a professional comedian listens to this does, just like reminding yourself that you. you are absolutely living the dream, you know, that you're making a living from comedy, and whether or not you're on, you know, that big TV show you want to get, or you're with that agent you want to be with, or whether you're with, you know, whatever in with that club, like if you're making a living from comedy, that is like such a privilege place to be, and I think we've got to remember that.

So Joe's book with Abigail Shambriarch, It's neurodivergent moments. It's out now, and his tour is Joe Wells Daddy Autism on tour later this year, joe wells.org. com. If you enjoyed this episode, get your hands on the exclusive extras. We talk about the dark room. We talk about taking extra beats to make reveals land harder. Some good technical stuff there.

We'll talk about flipping the script for neurodivergent audiences, and how this is fascinating, how being deliberately unfunny can be a secret power move in a club. Patreon.com slash comcom pod. to get your hands on that and you can find out how to see me live at Stuartgoldsmith.com slash comedy come and fill your boots with my canary. Also, you should fill your boots with the work of Joyle Nicole Johnson and Amy Miller by finding them on Instagram or wherever you can find them. Thank you to Callum, thank you to Susie, thanks to Rob Smouton who did the music. Our insider producers were of course, Luke Hacker, Roger Spiller, I Cave Dave, Daniel Powell, Keith

Simmons, Sam Allen, J. Lucas, Gary McClellan and Chris Warwick, Dave McElroll, Paul, Swaddle, Alex Wormall and James Burry. They get their names Red, out at the end of every episode because they are insider producers, which means they're paying over the odds for their Patreon subscription, and I'm very pleased about it. And I hope that this doesn't remind them that they are and make them go, oh, I've left that on for 10 years. And a very big thank you, of course, to our two special insider executive producers. Neil, what did Neil do recently? Neil has become an actual silversmith. Am I allowed to reveal that? I saw it on social media. I think Neil makes jewelry now. It looks so great. Neil's Silversmith, Peters,

Andrew Super Goldsmith, Dennt, and to the Super Secret one as well. No postamble today, gang, I'm afraid. It's 11.05 on a Monday morning, and I've got some jokes to beat, so I'm going to go and do that. But I'll tell you very quickly that the boy did another stand-up gig. And someone referred to him on socials as the artist formerly known as Bootros, which I like, but he'll still hate that. He doesn't want to be Bootross anymore, and he doesn't like me saying that. but the artist formerly known as Butross, Tafcab, I think is, we all know who we're talking about. He did some stand-up at his school, at a school PTA comedy night that I do,

and he did, he'd written it that day, like an hour before he sort of jumped out of the bath and said, I'm going to come do the gig right, and I'm like, I thought you didn't want to do it. He did observational material about the fact that the school house names have changed recently, and he took the piss out of them. He's 10 now, by the way. heartbreaking if you've just jumped into this episode from being, from listening to episodes 120 and then suddenly jumping to this one, 10 years old. And he did observational stuff about the discipline, the school, the system they have of, you know,

the punishments that you get. He only did like two and a half minutes. He got some little laughs and then two massive laughs where I was like, oh my God, he's leveled up. He's doing observations. I'm so proud. Anyway, busy things to get done now. So more on that later another time, perhaps.

What else? No, nothing else. I'm excited, man. I'm in the right. I'm in the pocket for Edinburgh. I am right in the pocket. It's all, it's like the show is already excellent. And from this point on, I've got full belief in it.

I know exactly what I want to say and how I'm saying it. And, oh, a really interesting thing happened last Friday at 4.30pm, which I can't share with you until it's resolved. But when it is, me to resolve the thing because I had a bit of a a bit of a revelation about something I got a potential offer for a thing and it made me feel a certain way and that is of interest and we will return to this when there is more time and when I can

spill the beans so that's it for now we've got such great episode in the can what have we got coming up a two-parter with Nish Kumar coming up I'm super excited about that is an absolute belter I have got who else is in the car amy Annette oh it's such a great episode And we also have, there's like four people who are hanging on waiting to get diarized that I keep having to reschedule. They're all brilliant. I can't wait to talk to them.

I can't wait for you to hear them. Five, five people we've got her as well. Exciting times ahead. Speak you soon. Bye.