The Comedian's Comedian Podcast - Nish Kumar Returns, Again! | Part Two

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

Welcome back to the second part of Nish Kumar's return (again!) where we discuss:whether comedy actually changes minds or just offers comfortwhether anger or hope is the bigger driving force for Nishhow we can still win the climate crisis battlehas he finally learned to mix with James Acaster properlyand is Nish Kumar happy...Join the Insiders Club at Patreon.com/ComComPod where you can instantly WATCH the full episode and get access to exclusive extras where we discuss the shocking pace of the current political instability, Nish's role on Pod Save the UK and witness two men try to catch a bee in a basement.👉 Sign up to the ComComPod Mailing List and follow the show on Instagram, YouTube & TikTok.Catch Up with Nish: Nish Kumar: Angry Humour From a Really Nice Guy is on tour throughout 2026. Find all the dates and more at nishkumar.co.uk. You can also now watch Nish, Don't Kill My Vibe on YouTube.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 Nish✅ 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 IN EDINBURGH & 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.Get in touch: If you’re listening and thinking ‘I’d love to work with ComComPod on getting something out there’ or ‘there’s someone you should absolutely have on’ - drop us an email at [e-mail]! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stuart here. You can go to Stuart Goldsmith.com slash comedy for tickets to my national tour. That's right. I'm taking my second ever climate comedy show. It's called Canary. I'm taking it to the Edinburgh Festival for the last two weeks of August at the Monkey Barrel, Cabaret Voltaire. And I shall see you there in the last two weeks of August. And then it's a national tour for this guy. Cambridge, Glasgow, Oxford, Manchester, Cardiff, Maidenhead, Sheffield and Birmingham, culminating in my biggest ever tour show at Bristol Old Vic. Stuart Goldsmith.com slash comedy for all your tickets. Welcome back, everybody. This is part two of Nish Kumar returns again. In the first half, we, it definitely worth if you didn't hear part one, that's only a week under this one under in your feed. So grab that. And then I'll see you back here in a second. Lovely to have you back. In the first half of this two-parter. So that's part two point one. We're going to discuss whether comedy actually changes people's minds or just offers comfort to the afflicted. We talk about wanting the new show to find a new show to find out. We're going to discuss whether comedy actually changes people's minds or just offers comfort to feel. We're feel like one continuous train of thought. We'll talk about trusting in audiences' intelligence, dangerous, and we'll talk about joke structure for building a punchline. That is really, really good technical gear there. Support the pod at patreon.com.com. And if you had have done that, you'd have got all of this in one go. Jealous much, I reckon. Extra content with Nish, new format, Stu and A, all of that bump. But the key thing is that you get to support this show. And I'll be honest with you, Not all of you do that. Not all of you do that. I think only about four comics ever actually do that. And most of your comics. So you can see how I've really sort of structurally shot myself in the foot. But Stuart, it's a community garden. And it is. And it is. Patreon.com. Pod, if you would like to contribute to the community garden. Here is Nish Kumar.

What's your relationship to explaining stuff? Because I saw you in Wells and they are, you know, the left-wing people who think you're like Lexus say. and that's what they're there for. I love that. We'll talk about that more. But do you ever come across, do you ever find yourself needing to explain something for the sake of an audience? Or is the, and this is a very selfish question

because I specifically have to explain quite a lot of stuff sometimes. Or do I have to explain it? Maybe there is a more niche route I could take where I go, I'm only going to talk about the things that you already have an understanding of so that I'm not doing any telling. Do you mean I'm not doing any, as we know, as some of us know, you know what I mean? But there's, yeah, it sort of depends.

Because there's some stuff like with the sort of, with the kind of flag stuff, there's not really, like, everybody understands the flags, the right stuff, people really understand. And like the first, the first kind of 15 minutes of my last couple of shows have all been based off big news stories. So you don't really have to explain to people. You don't have to be like, the novel coronavirus originated. the wet markets of women. Like, you don't have to, you don't have to, there's a lot of stuff like that. And then, I don't know, I don't know whether this is sort of, maybe this is sort of accidentally by, there's a lot of stuff that I've reappraised as technical skill that in reality

is sort of an accident that I'm happy to take credit for. But I think that I generally tend to move into, you go from like big new stuff. then you kind of go into like, you might have to explain a bit more about this. You know, it's interesting because now I don't think I'd have to explain it in the detail that I'd explain it. But there was a big old chunk of my last show

that was specifically about Brian Johnson, the Glit Forever Man. Now it would actually be easier in some ways to do that. Yes, yes. But at the time, there was a lot of, you had to put a lot of explaining in. And so then you kind of have to start from,

okay, so there's this girl, who's so rich, he's essentially like trying to buy his way out of the human. So then that's when you get into the sort of longer winded explanations around stuff. And with that, with that it goes a great example. Do you assume that a proportion of the audience knows who he is? Yeah. But treat them all as if they don't. Do you mean?

So that you're not... I treat everybody like they don't know who he is because... So in that instance, again, now it's interesting because it's interesting how that material would now feel different because so much like people are way more aware of him but from I started from a position of no one knows what's going on and so I'm going to start talking when people do know that's fun for them because then they get to be in the like inside but you're still addressing them as if the group doesn't know I'm still saying I'm still letting them the group know I mean and then

there's other stuff where if there's like like there's so many I I so I had to I did the sort of YouTube live chat that when, because when they put 800 pound gorilla, our wonderful friends, put the show on YouTube and they suggested it would be good to drive traffic to the show if I did a, um, a live

chat asking. Yeah, yeah. And then we also screened it in a cinema, the whole show in a cinema and James Acaster did a Q&A with me afterwards. And so one of the things that you cannot avoid is there are so many references to movies and musicians just,

in the show, right? There's so many. And again, with this show, there's like a whole bit about you know, this, like a sort of very fast reference to the Drake, Kendrick Lamar beef, right? And so, with stuff like that, I'm totally happy

for that just to be... That's something I've taken wholesale from The Simpsons. There are some things with The Simpsons where they make reference to stuff and it just sort of drift by. And, you know, you don't understand. I watched the Cape Fear episode of The Simpsons without having even heard that Kay Clear was a movie.

100%. My son, he recently became clear, like we were talking about the phenomenon whereby a lot of people think that there's a song in guys and dolls that goes, guys and dolls, we're just a bunch of crazy guys. And in the context of telling him about that, I mentioned, of course,

the Planet of the Apes isn't a musical. He was like, what? It's, oh man, I mean... He thought it was a musical. that they were making fun off by doing different songs. Stop the planet of the ape, I want to get off. There's jokes in that.

I mean, I hate every ape I see from chimpanzee to chimpanzee. It's beautiful. It's a work of genius. But there's so much stuff for the Simpsons that just like blows past. And it blows past quick. And references, it's great to have references that bits of the audience get. But you can't build your punchlines around those. Those can be the last on the way to the big punchline.

Those are there, they're there for the people. I've got a very specific joke that I'm going to use. advice for tonight. And I guarantee it'll be silence and you going, ah, in the back of the room. It's like all that stuff, you could just let that drift by. But then when it comes to the meat of what you're trying to do, I always start from a position of they're not going to know, they're not going to know what I'm talking about. So I, there's a routine in, there's a bit of this show at the moment where I'm talking about the, the sort of radicalisation of older generations and the kind of predicament. Again, like you say,

one of the sort of, one of the consistent strands on the candy floss is I've turned 40. So that's like, what does that mean personally for me? But also generationally, people my age are now like, you know. So there's certain things that I assume, there's certain things that I assume the audience knows. And there's certain things that I start from zero on. And I've realized you must never patronise an audience because that will immediately make them hop off. And also, you know, all the comedy I like, one of the sort of unifying themes of it, no matter how whether it's political or whether it's like deeply strange.

One of the kind of unifying things with a lot of the comedy I like is when the creators are interviewed, they will always say, you know, audiences are much smarter than they're given credit for. And so that sort of covers, you know, comedy about politics, but it also covers really strange and surreal and silly comedy. And that, you know, like Vic and Bob is a great example from the complete opposite end of the comedic spectrum, that audiences are much smarter than you're going to. I was thinking of that the other day.

A line from a Vic and Bob Sol popped into my head, which is a top hat filled with Gloy. And like, we all know what Gloy is. We know that Gloy is a very specific PVC, you know, whatever it is, like, you know, glue for, that kids would use. Yeah. No one ever uses the word Gloy.

I've never heard Gloy or seen it in any creative context whatsoever. But yes, crediting the audience, we're like, well, they'll know what Gloy is. And also just credited them, like, the sort of unifying. theory of sort of George Carlin and Vic and Bob and Maria Bamford is that they're all people who credit the audience with more intelligence than sometimes they're given credit for by, you know, sometimes people who make TV programs, you know, they're so much smarter. So, you know,

Maria Bamford bets that the audience is smart enough to handle her talking about her mental health. George Carlin bets that the audience is smart enough for him to talk about, you know, income inequality and Vic and Bob bet that the audience are smart enough to follow whatever tangent or whatever twist of, you know, a kind of late entertainment format they're going to do.

Or Harry Hill. Harry Hill, absolutely perfect example. Absolutely perfect, perfect example. Harry Hill is a perfect example of a convenience. Imagine Harry Hill before his first gig, saying to a third party, what I'm going to do is and you're going to take all of the jokes,

break them apart and scatter them in a seemingly random order for other thing. This is not a... We shouldn't... Let's not get stuck on this, but fuck me, man. One of my least controversial opinions.

Harry Hill is so funny. I did always be comedy in Kennington. You know, it's just like watching him just in that smaller space just he was so so funny and just so imaginative and just so many jokes just so many jokes I'm resisting the urge to recite about five of them as soon as we stop recording I absolutely will do that too but yeah just what just a sort of like an odd moment where I guess like I don't want ever want this part of me to leave my personality but there is always sometimes an element

of you feel a bit like a competition winner. Like when you're on a bill with Harry Hill and you're in a little room, I remember doing a JFL Gala with Maria Bamford. And it was Maria Bamford and David Cross. And I just remember being backstage with Nick Thune and the two of us were just both going, it's like they've let members of the public.

Oh my God. That Nick is no slouch. I'm such a fan of Nick. But it's also you don't, you sort of, there's a part of you that thinks, I should be viewing these people as my peers. But there's also a part of you that knows that that's bollocks. And you just, yeah, it's just such a,

it's such a privilege to get to, you know, to get to see some of the gigs that I get to see. It's really, really mad. But they all credit the audience for the same level of attention. So what I'm always keen to do is not patronise the audience. And again, a big part of that comes from

being reared by the Simpsons. And also being reared on goodness gracious me and Chris Rock's HBO specials from the sort of turn of the millennium. But to sort of bring it back particularly to Chris Rock, if you go back and look at those routines, which I would,

Never Scared, I think is one of my favorite ever pieces of stand-up. If you go back and look at Never Scared, he's bringing the audience along. He's not patronising them, but he is bringing them along at every stage. You know, I, and the audience doesn't mind

if you start from the assumption that everybody doesn't know anything, as long as, A, because it's quite fun for them to feel like they know something the other people don't. And B, if you put a joke on every line of that explanation that's funny enough, they don't care that they know this information already. If you put a joke on every single...

And Chris Rock puts a joke on every single bit of the thing that he is trying to explain to you, you know? And then he... I mean, he has this... There's structural things that he does that are so interesting. I mean, I always think about... You know, he's trying to make the case that the US government hates rap music.

and so he builds on that every single brings people along with every single bit of that idea and then at the end of each one of those lines he'll say the government hates rap then he moves on to another idea of it

the government hates rap it's structured almost structured like a song you know first chorus first chorus yes yes and I always think of him doing that like literally clapping out the punchline yeah it's absolutely it's so clear what's going on

Love rap music, tired of defending it. Love rap music, tired of defending it. Then he's doing the bit about, to the window, to the wall. Love rap music, tired of defending it. Then he's going into his impression of a misogynistic rap song, smack it with a dick, smack it with a dick. Love rap music, tired of defending it. You always clear in your mind what's going on.

And so there are things where you can start from a position of the audience knows nothing. And then if they know stuff, it's fun for them. But also, they don't care if they're having something explained to them that they already know if the jokes are good enough. It's sort of like, it's one of the like fun things about doing this kind of comedy. It's one of the fun things about doing comedy about either things that people are not engaging with because they're depressing or they might seem boring. That's the funnest, funnest thing.

And does it work? Does it work? Are you changing the world? Are you changing anyone's mind? Are you giving comfort to the afflicted? Are you expressing yourself artistically? Because I'm really interested in the moment, at the moment, about utility. With all these gigs that I'm either enjoying and sometimes putting myself through,

I've got a thing, I want to, I passionately want to say the thing. And a lot of the time I am faced with externally or internally the question, but does this work? Yeah. No. It doesn't work. Because I thought it didn't. It doesn't, I'm not, I'm personally not changing anybody's mind about anything as far as I can tell.

And some of that is to do with the sort of specifics of my career and, you know, sort of becoming a kind of, you know, sort of character in the culture war briefly, like briefly. And sort of becoming someone that is a sort of bogey man to a certain type of person that means. means that your audience kind of self-selecting and they kind of already come agreeing with you. And that being said, the reason that I keep doing is, A, this is the type of comedy. Like, this is the thing that I'm, you know, if this is my song, then how can I keep from singing it? Which I think is a Bamford line. It's a Bampford line. It's a Bampford line.

She just made fart noises into a microphone. She just goes, if this is my song, then how can I keep from singing? singing. It is the thing that I, because it is, it is just what's going on in my head of all day. Separate from, you know, separate from a writing process. I'm just walking around the world. I'm listening to some exciting new album. And in my head, I'm thinking, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. We're so fucked. So then everything that comes out comes from the fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. and then so there's part of that

is just and a thing that I've definitely talked about on the show before that I still really strongly believe is the biggest mistake sometimes people talk about with comedy is it's all about honesty it's about honesty

you'll always see that in dramas about comedy and they'll say things like it's about honesty it's honesty it's not about honesty it's about comfort what an audience can smell on stage

when they say that an audience can terminally being dishonest. What they can smell is discomfort, right? And so if you're doing a type of comedy that you're comfortable doing or that is the kind of truest expression of what you're trying to do with comedy, then the audience loves it. And for me, that's the type of comedy I do. For Milton, it's one-liners. For Tim Vine, it's one-liners. For, you know, for Chris Rock, it's race and race-based comedy. For A-caster, it's you know, pretending to be his own tribute.

You know, that's the kind of honest expression of what we want to do on stage. But it's not about honesty. It's about comfort in what you're doing on stage. And that's what I'm most comfortable doing on stage in front of an audience. And the utility of it, man, like, I definitely don't think I'm changing anybody's minds. I know that I'm not. In fact, sometimes I worry. And I am sort of slightly wrestling with this in the show at the moment.

It's like, is it actually, are you actually making things work? Is it even ethical to do this kind of comedy? How could you be making things work? Well, you're sort of entrenching kind of political polarisation? Oh, polarisation, yes. Yeah, entrenching people in their own positions. You're not doing that.

Not fostering it. But, you know, it's all the stuff I'm wrestling with. But the one thing I will say in terms of the utility, and maybe this is me deluding myself, but I've just met so many people that after shows that are like, I'm a teacher, or I'm a, union organiser or I work in the charity sector or I'm trying to get people.

And it is interesting that that is the comedy that they seek out because they are people who are actually working to affect the issues that I am making comedy out of. And so I think what I've learned is if there is any utility in what I do, it's in giving those people a break. Now, I would argue that what you should do is watch something with Go and watch Taskmaster. And to be honest, they all do. Because I think that, I think we really undervalue, and especially after the pandemic, we should not undervalue it.

But we really undervalue the social utility of comfort comedy and also weird comedy and comedy that takes you out of your reality. You know, why do you think people keep watching, it's why I think it's so sad about the reluctance to commission sitcoms at the moment. You know, when the pandemic happened, everyone just started watching the office and started watching the office and started watching Parks and Recreation and, you know, people watch

Alan Partridge just beginning to end because there's something there's something comforting about escapist comedy. You know, like, this sort of emergence, Bob Mortimer going from comedy icon to just full-blown, like, national treasure. It's not surprising to me. I would love to track the emergence of Bob Mortimer

as a national treasure in conjunction with the decline of the West. And the collapse of Britain as an economic power. Or certainly the last decade of political and economic turbulence that the country has experienced, it's like in those moments, you want Bob Mortimer. Like that's what you want because you need a break. But what I've realised is there is this sort of third space of people that work in, work at improving other people's lives.

Or they don't necessarily even work about it. They're just upset and concerned. concerned about the news. There's a lot of that in the people that come and see me. And there is some kind of relief that they find in coming to watch me make jokes about the things that they are either working to improve or also thinking about constantly. Like there's some kind of sort of, like, weird relief in it. And that's the thing that I think is of some social utilities. I also, and I speak as someone whose son, then nine, came to see Uncle Nip. at the Edinburgh Festival last year,

completely sanctioned by Mother who had seen the show in advance, and it was all good. I think there is utility in younger people deciding who they are politically on the basis of the comedians they love, because I did that,

and I'm sure you did that. You know what I mean? Like if I think Mark Thomas, Alexis Sale, those kind of acts, they helped me build my political self. So there's a utility for you. So I throw back in your face your suggestion that there's no, that it doesn't work. I mean, we're in even more trouble than I thought if I'm helping young people choose their political.

We're really fucked in that case. But I mean, yes, I see what you mean. I think it's sort of, it's certainly an interesting thing for me to weigh up. And, you know, everyone always returns to that Peter Cook quote. about the cabaret clubs in Berlin. Yeah, sure. Their role in averting the rise of Nazis. So, you know, he is sort of correct on that front.

Yes, but with any of the history, there's no control, is there? No, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no kind of parallel reality in which that didn't happen and things were worse or whatever, you know. Yeah. I think, yeah, I sort of hope there is some utility

to what I do, but I thought I'm, I'm enjoying, wrestling with that because I think that's a really that's the kind of thing that I'm trying to break through into with the show that I'm doing at the moment is trying to have some ability to express

uncertainty on stage like I'm trying to see if you can do if I can because a lot of the stuff that I've done is you know I've come to a conclusion like it's the thing that we're talking about the uncertainty in the argument and then I'm trying to see if it's is it possible for me to express leave an audience in a position of uncertainty

or communicate that I don't have an answer to this question. I don't have the three-face argument and can I wrestle with that a bit on stage? That's like a fun thing for me to be doing. But yeah, I think there was an interesting thing that happened in some of the, I think I spot it in the UK shows, but we definitely, Amy identified it very clearly in the US shows

because Amy said there were times where she was just like you know it's really this is important and it's nothing to do with you she was like it's to do with you to an extent but it's not really about you

she just kept saying they need to especially when it was Democrat cities in red states she was like they need to sit with each other and they just need to be reminded that there are other people that are upset about that and so it's not it's to do with me and Saflora's they're there to watch me do a gig, but there's something else happening in the room that is sort of out of my control.

And I felt it a lot in the sort of post-Brexit shows here. And I still feel it a lot in the shows here. But in the States, it was obviously like it was so, because we were there in February and March in 2025. So, you know, we're literally sort of arriving as the kind of second Trump term starts. And also, as America comes to terms with the fact that not only has he been elected and he's won the popular vote, but also that they're more, much more prepared in the second term from a legislative perspective with what they want to do with the levers of power than they were in the first term, where they were sort of just floundering around.

And I think to some extent you're feeling it a bit in the UK now with the audience realizing, oh, actually, Starma didn't have a plan. And there wasn't a coherent vision for what the country is. And we are in a bit of trouble here. And we're in, and you know, all of the polling. I really thought he had a plan. Yeah, we, yeah. The band's doing great.

Yeah. The band's doing great on climate. You know, there's a lot of really, there's a lot of really useful stuff being done. But, and with the climate stuff, I think this, there is a sort of underestimation of how big a part that plays in electoral politics. I mean, the climate played a huge, again, we sort of the tour last year was mad because we sort of, touring the UK after an election, then you go to America that he's just taken office. And then we got to Australia in the middle of an election.

And, you know, green issues help settle Australian elections. It is not a fringe position anymore because Australia is at the sort of delivery point of the climate crisis. You know, there's specific islands that are underwater. And so it isn't just, oh, well, this will satisfy your left. left-wing progressive base.

In Australia, it's, hey, who is going to try and work on how we stop this country from occasionally catching fire? And so it is, so there is, you know, it is going to be more, it is much more of a vote winner, I think, than people realise it's. But anyway, yeah, I think that there's a bit, you can feel a bit of that in these new shows, it's like there is a bit of a sense of, uh-oh, we don't have a plan. And, yeah, it's, I'm interested to see how. have this show kind of evolves because at the moment this it's it's kind of it's sort of just one

long routine and I'm trying to see if possible if I can keep it like that I'd like quite like the idea of doing a show that is feels like one and obviously it's not it's you know stand-up is contrived spontaneity and so it's it's obviously a string of routines that I've got you know works on in isolation and are putting and are putting together but I'm trying to see if it's possible for me to have the whole thing just feel like one continuous, just like line of thought. Like you start speaking and then it just goes. And I'd like to minimize the infrastructure of this one,

you know, the kind of show element of it. Just because I really, I like doing the 2020 show was a story. It had a beginning, middle and end. The last show was stand up, but then it had some real show markers in it. You know, there was an ending. there was a there was a resolution to it and with this show I'm interested in going can I just can I strip everything back so it's just stand up and it just and it feels like I just got on stage and started talking and you get all of the kind of big themes and the little themes and everything but it did just it felt like I just started like if can I pull it all right back and strip it down to it's just like barest essentials like you Yeah, like really, I'm wearing a white stripes t-shirt.

Really, can I jack white this motherfucker? Can you pull it, you know, if you pull pop music down, if you pull everything down, it is just a guitar and drums. Like if you pull rock and roll music down into its basics, can you pull everything, like get it as spare as possible? That's like something that I'm sort of mucking around with. But, you know, the tour starts in September. There's a whole fringe of work in progress shows.

A lot is happening at the moment politically. So I don't really know how it's going to evolve. So this is Nish, as you know, and his tour show is all on tour throughout 2026. Angry Humour from a really nice guy is the title. It's a brilliant, brilliant show. I mean, just I saw it. I saw an hour of it in Wells, so a smaller version than the tour. And it's just packed with hootingly good punchlines and brilliant.

His stuff about social media. is so, so funny. It's all good. Find out all the dates and everything at nishkumar.coma.com.com. And you can watch his last special on YouTube. Nish, don't kill my vibe. So get on that. I'm on tour, as you know.

We'll do this quickly. Canary climate comedy shows, super excited about it. Last two weeks of Edinburgh and then Cambridge, Glasgow, Oxford, Manchester, Cardiff, Maidenhead, Sheffield, Birmingham. And then Bristol for the biggest headline show of my sweet life. Stuartgoldsmith.com slash comedy to find out the detail. and sign up for the mailing list in the second half. We will find out whether anger or hope is the bigger driving force for young Nish.

We'll find out how we can still win the climate crisis battle. Yes, we will. And we'll find out whether or not he's finally learned to mix properly. And of course, whether or not the bastard's happy. Let's get back to Nish. I mean, it's anger that drives you more than hope, right? So talk to me about hope. What hope is there?

Let's wrap up on what hope is there. But actually, what hope is there? Well, I guess I've managed to excavate some hope because when Brett came to see Nish Don't Kill My Vibe, at the end, he saw one of the New York shows, and at the end he just went, wow, I don't feel like killing myself. Wow, thanks, man. What a great piece of fucking feedback that is.

But I did try and excavate some hope. and sort of found it in something my mum said to me about, you know, the kind of her experience of race and racism in the UK. And this time, the thing that sort of, you know, that is the thing,

the hope that I'm trying to excavate is that, doing the podcast has actually made me realize that there are people who have come up with a lot of solutions. Not all of the solutions and some of the like, especially like some of the carbon capture technology isn't where it needs to be. in terms of... But it does need to get there. But it does need to get there.

This is the thing. And so there's a lot of... I get a lot of hope from realizing that there's a lot of people out there that are actually coming up with solutions. And there are really smart people thinking about how to fix these problems. That really, really gives me a lot of hope.

And also, you know, I feel a lot of hope because I see the kind of political engagement in younger people. I see that all the time. And I, I also see that the sort of politicisation of my generation, our rightward drift hasn't happened. And it hasn't happened because we're not, you know, we're so ideologically virtuous. It hasn't happened because, you know, a lot of traditionally, the point of conservative policies

is that you're supposed to slowly see their benefits. And what we have not seen the benefits of are deregulation. of capital or socially regressive anti-immigration policies. You know, because we keep trying to deport people, we keep bringing net migration down,

it ain't making anyone's life better. We haven't really got to grips with dealing with income inequality and it just keeps getting worse. So it's not that people my age are smarter. It's just literally, Ash Sarka, the political writer, always says the point of conservatism.

I don't know if this is, I think, feel like, like this is an idea that she's quoting rather than original thought, but it might well be her phrase, but she just keeps saying, they aren't giving us anything to conserve because we are not accumulating wealth in the rate the previous generations have. So that, I'm finding a lot of hope in that as well. And also, you know, when you see the, you know, the EDL reverse gay pride festival that they have in London, you know, what you also look at is the amount of counter-protesters and the kind of anti-fascist groups that are sort of springing up across this country.

And, you know, when you see, you know, when I meet politicians like Nadia Whittem who I think is a genuine conviction politician that is, you know, in this actively trying to improve people's lives, when you see Mamdani win, and again, you know, you can overstate it because he's won the mayoralty of New York, so it's hard to extrapolate beyond that. But you look at his messaging and you look at the things he's talking about and you look at the fact that, you know,

right now I think he's like massively reduced the budget deficit in New York. Yes, you almost had a sort of hit the ground running project 2025 playbook for good. But this is the thing. In the way that one would hope all politicians did. But that has happened before. You know, the Roosevelt in 33, you know, the New Deal,

that was the first hundred years, first hundred days, that's partly why American presidential scholars are obsessed with the first hundred days because FDR had so many interventionist plans for America. The 1945 Labour administration had a plan. They won the election because they had a plan to sort of radically transform this.

You know, so much of what we think, you know, when you have the fucking Olympics opening ceremony, you know, and people are like celebrating the NHS. Like it's something that's existed in Britain for thousands of years. Like it's Stonehenge or something. You're like, no. there was a day, and it's so much more complicated than this,

and it was a real difficult wrangling process, but also it is as simple as one day, everyone woke up in the United Kingdom, and however much money they had in their bank account, they were able to see a doctor, right? That's transformational. And so if you can do that, we have been able to do that once,

and it wasn't that long ago. And also the other thing that gives me hope is when you look at the kind of, when you look at the arc of human history, you look at what happened in the 20th century, because the 20th century, what happened in the 20th century is some of the worst that shit that's ever happened.

You know, the Holocaust is one of the worst things that humanity has ever done to itself. Like, it's horrendous. But then you also look at what comes after that and the kind of... The movement towards equality, you know, for Jewish people, the movement towards equality

for women, the movement towards equality for gay and lesbian people, the movement towards equality for people of colour. You know, you think about the explosion of consciousness around race-based politics that basically happens in the late 50s into the 1960s. You look at that, you think that is extraordinary. You look at where, like, working class people started the 20th century and where they finished it. You know, if you look at what the trade union movements have been able to achieve. And you look at the fact that my grandmother was born in India a fucking British subject. Like she was born a subject of the British crown.

And you look at where India is today. And it's certainly got huge amounts of problems, but it ain't owned by a white fella. You know, like that. And you look at how much we were able to push people and how far we were able to push the dial in that hundred year period. It's pretty extraordinary. We've had thousands of years of slavery, oppression of marginalized people. We've had thousands of years of it.

We're trying to turn a super tanker here, right? And the super tanker has been heading towards income inequality, racism, sexism, homophobia. You know, just in the 90s, the Industrial Revolution was sort of powered in this country because they were like, ah, we're just stuff many of them into factories as possible, it doesn't matter if they live or die, right?

We've achieved so much in a relatively short space of time. Whenever people talk about the kind of anti-racist fight, we've basically decided racism was bad in about 1960. You know, like, you know, really, really, if you really think about it,

like, it was, you know, America fought a civil war in the 19th. century. That's not that long ago. Like in the grand scheme of history, it's not that long ago that the position of the American government was you can legally own black people. Right. So the progress, and it's only because of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, and it's only because of, you know, Emmeline Pankhurst. It's only because of Niveven. It's only because of all of these people. that we've managed to like drag ourselves to a point where we've managed to drag ourselves to a point where we fundamentally changed our societies.

So we're still in the process of changing attitudes that existed for thousands of years. Like truly thousands of years. You know, Shakespeare was writing plays about racism and anti-Semitism. You know, these are ideas that have existed in society if biomed years. Why on earth would we have solved it by now? we're in the process we're in a process of reaching for a solution

like sometimes I do think we need to give ourselves a break you know like and actually sometimes you need to reflect on you know the work of people who have you know like think about

we're in Bristol like the Bristol bus boycott like think about that generation of people what they were fighting for and what they achieved in terms of leading towards the right E racial equality act in this country, right? We maybe don't spend enough time recognizing how far we've managed

to move civilization and how we're trying to deal with attitudes that have existed for thousands of years and perspectives that have existed for thousands of years. The climate crisis is this countdown clock. That's the thing that's really frightening. But, you know, if we've found ways to win

previous battles, then why can't we do it again? That's the thing that gives me hope. It's like, when I think about how far we've come as societies, you know, I watched the movie Benediction, which is about Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. And it's a brilliant movie, and it made me so angry because in the movie, it talks about how they were gay.

And when I was a kid, all we fucking read was Sigfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Daltre et decorumse pro patria-Mori, like all that over and over again. They never once said, You know, these two guys who kind of, we sort of celebrate as everything that's good about Britain, and we're making study all the time? By the way, they were gay. Never talked about it.

Absolutely unfathomable to me. And the fact that within 100 years now, the gay community has made so many strides. And, like, in terms of public education and public understanding, that now figures that would be so central to the culture, we would never dismiss their sexuality. And that's only because of activists from that community that have changed our perspective on all of these things. And so I just, I think sometimes the thing that gives me hope is

we're so focused on how far we still got to go that there are points where we have not acknowledged how far we've come, right? And that's a huge, that's a huge... That's a genuinely uplifting message. Yeah. That's a genuinely uplifting message. It's crazy, man. Like you look at the arc of human history.

I mean, I keep saying arc of human history. Like, it's the Martin Luther King thing. Great phrase you right then. You know, it bends towards progress. I think what we... It bends towards justice, I believe. It's the question, right? But like, what I'm solely realizing is like,

it's important to understand how far on that arc we've come. Sure. But also to realize that, you know, Martin Luther King was not a passive person, right? He was not passive. and he was in favour of peaceful protest but he was in favour of protest, right? And what he did was, you know, physically help bend that arc.

And that's what I think we, the trap we mustn't get, we must not get trapped into is to thinking things will resolve themselves somehow. You know, the arc of the moral universe has to be bent physically towards justice. And he understood that. And he had his hands on the arc. And so we mustn't fall into the trap of thinking, everything's hopeless because we've not achieved anything. We've achieved so much.

But we also then mustn't fall into the trap of, oh, it'll all sort itself out. They're all as bad as each other. They're all as bad as each other. And it'll all sort itself out. Three quick fire questions to close on, Nish. The first one, have you learned to mix yet? No, man.

Good, good. You're not allowed to learn how to mix. Yeah, well, Acaster has. Has he? Yeah, so our DJing. I don't like that. He can actually mix now. It's really impressive.

He can't do it. We can't do it on the DJ next to I even learn how to do it. So he's still stuck with me. So he can mix. Yeah. I have to just play on the iPad. Yeah, so he can't mix. Second question, why is your watch set an hour earlier than the actual time?

Because I found this watch. Having thought that I'd mislaid it. Okay. Amy found it in a set. of draws that I'd forgotten the existence of. You were wearing that watch on Saturday. That was 48 hours ago. You have yet to change the time.

Lovely stuff. I wondered if it was like, I set my watch early by five minutes, so I'm always perpetually late, so I get to places on time as a sort of junior attempt to sort out, you know, ADHD problem. I wondered whether you've gone for a solid hour. No, it's the other end of the ADHD. But also, the worst thing that I've realized about it is that I wouldn't,

I haven't worn this watch. the reason it would have been stuffed in a draw somewhere is I wore it definitely last year in Edinburgh. Yeah. So that means this watch, the last time I wore it, was still an hour behind. No! So I missed two windows of daylight savings. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. This is an hour behind from the winter of 2020.

Impressive. impressive work. Finally, are you happy? I mean, yes. I mean, quite a weird thing to say

after having talked so much about how scared I am about the world, I'm really scared. Like, I'm really, really scared about what might be coming

in the short term. So, like, that is making me feel, you know, like very, I feel very, feel very tense about that.

But sort of in my life I'm working to sort of improve my mental health and physical health so I'm trying to do both of those things you know and it's not like a clean line so like the show

talks about like a panic attack that I had in Edinburgh in 2024 because I was watching race riot footage and you know then we recorded that show and we finished it and then I I had an even worse version of that for three months. Just for about two and a half months last year, from kind of September to mid-November last year,

I was just not in my brain because of me having a kind of reaction to watching footage. Again, just of the like, of the sort of Robinson March, right? And so it's not like a clean line, you know, and there's definitely work that I've still got to do so that I don't physically, feel a response to the news. I mean, it's a pretty, if I'm able to step out of it for a second, it's a pretty hilarious thing that a guy whose job is writing jokes about the news has panic attacks because of the news.

Like, it's really like, it's unfortunate. But so there's definitely elements where you're like, I'm not, like, it's not a clean line. But also, you know, I'm very lucky in my life. and I have a lot that I'm really grateful for and I'm able to be grateful for that in between all the other stuff. You know, like,

just on a kind of personal level in my relationship, my family, my friends, I have a lot of really great people around me and actually I'm trying to be more actively grateful for that because I think, again,

it's sort of, you know, it's like you, there's still a part of you that's when it's like, you have to write down things are grateful, you're like,

fuck, you know, what's the fucking point of this? And then you realize, like actually, no, it's a practice, you're training your brain. You actually have to, you actually have to acknowledge the things that you're grateful for. So I'm really trying to do that a little bit more. But also, I sort of had quite an interesting, I can't remember if this was in the show that you saw or not. But there's, when I was talking to the psychologist about ADHD, and he was talking about what's your brain like, I was like, you know, it's just howling, screaming voices all the time.

and he asked me about doing stand-up and I said, oh, you know, it's not a problem. Like when I go on stage, all the voices are silent. And that's been true. So in October this year, it'll be 20 years exactly since I first did stand-up. And the first time I did stand-up, it was the first time I walked off stage

and I remember thinking, Christ, that's weird. I was not thinking about anything else. That's really weird. And he was basically then explaining to me like... I'm sorry, I'm preempting the reveal here because it's such a funny bit. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But he then, he basically was like, no, no, it's not, it's not anything magical, romantic. It's literally like the adrenaline when you're on stage levels out your brain chemistry. And so like your dopamine and cortisol get leveled out by the adrenaline. And I've sort of, I, I, this sounds like a very small thing, but it's like it's actually weirdly made me really grateful for stand-up because it's, I didn't realize how much of a, I always sort of resisted, because I always resisted the idea of stand-up as therapy because I think that's

very reductive. Yes, but maybe it's medication. I think it has been, it has definitely, like I'm really, I'm really glad that I found this job because I think it has really helped me. And also it's like put me in this community that is like that has really sort of supported me and kind of, you know, my friends, everybody's sort of, it's such a loving group of people that it's put me into. And so that's also another thing that I'm grateful for is like it's given me a lot. You know, my personal life is given me a lot mentally and it's given me a lot of money. God, I'm so glad I'm so glad to hear you say that. And I tell you why, one of the other questions that we didn't get to, was, and we won't get to this, we'll talk about it.

In a minute, you can tell me five Harry Hill jokes, and I'll ask you about this gig I want you to do for me. I was thinking that I mentally group you and James and Ed together, because we're friends and we've stayed in the household, all the rest of it. That's kind of stuff. But those guys, they're squillionaires, right? And I was thinking, Nish is doing great, but he's not doing off menu great. Nobody's doing off menu great.

Nobody is. Nobody is. And I just mentally kind of, because I see you and James performing together, you know, all the other kind of like you and Ed and your sort of shared history. I was like, oh, those three guys, they're all sorted. I thought, it's not as sorted as they. Yeah, no one is assorted as those two. But you are right to group together. You know, like Ed, I mean, Ed and I have known each other.

21 years now. And so, you know, like, Ed is like a sort of part of my family. You know, he knows my parents. You know, he's like, he's sort of part of my family. And with James, it is sort of embarrassing how separately people have said to us, you know, you talk about James a lot. And somebody said to him, you, someone said, to him, do you, so do you have other friends apart from them? It's just, he seems to figure quite a lot

in all of your stories. And you're like, yeah, I guess, you know, I guess those people are like, really like, yeah, I guess you are right to agree with me with them. And they are, it is funny because the number of times people say to me, you mentioned on off menu again, do those two not have any other friends? And you go, no, they don't. That's why almost every episode of off-menu features some kind of a reference to me. So, yeah, like, I would say you're right to group me mentally in with those two. But nobody's making off-menu money. No, there's fuck you money and then there's off-menu money.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's really like... But it's sort of... And also, you never need to buy a meal. So not only is there. as I imagine an enormous income. But also people constantly gift you

the finest food available to humanity. I know, man. And this is like the worst. You know the worst thing is in the last two shows I've done bits of where I've sat on both of them. And it's such a dick mood. Because you know what? The dirty secret is,

I fucking benefit from that fucking show so much. Like, so much. Because the problem is when they're going to free meals, me and Amy andette are with them. And I always, I, I am like, Lorraine Bracco in Goodfellas when we go to a restaurant you know the Copacabana scene where he goes in through the side

the one shot through the back room that is how we enter restaurants and like and like you know it's like and then he kissed me it's like each time I saw him I couldn't and I'm like being led down and then a table appears it wasn't there in the first place

it appears that we're seated down and I always feel like Lorraine Bracco with those who I'm like what do you do and I'm so rude about them in my stand-up and yet I have benefited with so many incredible meals from the both of them

like it's like a pretty clean line I am I'm a mob wife to off menu credits so that so that was Nish Kumar. Thank you so much to Nish for coming on to the show one more time and I hope he returns many more times henceforth. His tour, angry humour from a really nice guy that is happening

all throughout 2026. Nish Kumar.coma.coma.coma.com for all the details and his former special. Nish don't, it's not former, it's still a special. Nish Don't Kill My Vibe is the name and that is on YouTube. Get all the extras on Patreon. The extras include we talk about current political instability in We'll talk about the high stakes of the recent Makersfield by-election. That's very out of date and now I've got an insight in what it's like in his role on Pod Save the UK, but we'll find out more about that as well. Full ad-free and audio versions available, no ads, and you can see them. You can actually watch them using your peepers if you go to patreon.com.com slash com-com pod for only £3 a month. Find out how to see me live at Stuart Goldsmith.com slash comedy.

And thank you once again to Nish for coming on the show. Suzy Lewis for the logging. The music was by Rob Smouton. Callum is the producer. He's evil. And thank you to our insider producers as well. Lovely. I imagine these people hovering around Callum on gyroscopic chairs with banks of monitors in a sphere like. Who am I imagining? Barbara Gordon. Thank you. They are, of course, Luke Hacker, Roger Spiller, I Cave Dave, Daniel Powell, Keith Simmons, Sam Allen, Jay Lucas, Gary McClellan, Chris Swarbrick, Dave McCarroll, Paul Swaddle, Alex Wormell and James Burry.

A big thank you as well to the execs. Lovely to have the execs here. Neil, bottle of water, Peters, and Andrew bottle of paint denant. I'm just saying things that are on my desk now. And, oh, the paint is yellow eco-fabric paint, and it's for my sweet-ass idea for my ultra-sustainable canary merch for the Edinburgh Festival. So come to the show, and I'll sort you some of that.

So, and to the super secret one as well. Now, Callum has put a little note here saying post-amble here, if you're going to do one, but no need to. OBS. I love writing, OBS. I'd love to post-amble at you. I feel you're missing out on post-ambles, but shall we assume that it is summer and I'm busy

and maybe let's say, in July and August there are no post-ambles, and then if you get one that's like an extra treat, I'd love to do one. I've just got a mountain of stuff to do. And I know one of the things I have to do is a post-amble, but it's the most malleable of all the things. So instead of moaning at you, I shall instead not do it.

Does that sound remotely like a... sort of made a decision, who knows? Oh, fuck me. Okay, we're coming again. Just tidy this generally. I'm sorry, what... Oh, God, I don't know. You could just...

Why don't you leave all that in? And it will really show the listener the extent of which I'm completely mentally breaking down as I try to have a kid's summer holiday run two different businesses, do all the podcast stuff, and plan for the whole of what I'm... laughingly calling Q4 and other festivals and gigs and the show isn't completely finished yet.

It's real good. But why don't we just, I tell you what, Callum, why don't we just leave all this in and fade out on me having an absolute breakdown? And then I can guilt anyone who's expecting a post-amble into feeling like they're demanding too much of me. Yes, yes, as I spiral off into madness.