The Comedian's Comedian Podcast - Ray Bradshaw

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

This week on episode 499… I'm joined by Ray Bradshaw - the multi-award-winning Scottish comedian who’s about to head out on his fourth UK tour with CODA. You may know Ray from BBC Scotland and Radio 4, he’s recently just finished supporting John Bishop, and hosts his own hit football podcast, Fantasy Fives! We discuss:growing up as a child of deaf parents and how that shaped Ray’s confidence, memory and lack of stage nervesmaking comedy accessible with the technical challenge of signing live comedy with timing laughs and learning structureRay’s approach to stand-up with no notes and no structure but total authenticitybeing niche famous and knowing when you’ve already wonJoin the Insiders Club at patreon.com/comcompod where you can instantly WATCH the full episode and get access to over 10 minutes of exclusive extras including:using Edinburgh to turn material, not create buzzbuilding a comedy career around family lifeand embracing mistakes, from announcing the wrong person had died on live radio to thanking the wrong city on an arena tour👉 Sign up to the NEW ComComPod Mailing List and follow the show on Instagram, YouTube & TikTok,Support our independently produced Podcast from only £3/month at Patreon.com/ComComPod✅ Instant access to full video and ad-free audio episodes✅ Over 10 minutes of exclusive extra content with Ray✅ Early access to new episodes where possible✅ Exclusive membership offerings including a monthly “Stu&A”PLUS you’ll get access to the full back catalogue of extras you can find nowhere else!Catch Up with Ray: Ray Bradshaw is on tour in 2026 across the UK and Ireland with CODA, find out all the dates and more at raybradshaw.com. You can also watch Ray’s special, Bald Ginger, on BBC iPlayer.Everything I'm up to: Come and see me LIVE! Find out all the info and more at stuartgoldsmith.com/comedy.Discover my comedy about the climate crisis, for everyone from activists to CEOs, at stuartgoldsmith.com/climate. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the show. I'm Stuart Goldsmith today. I'm talking to Ray Bradshaw. It's episode 499, if you could believe that. We've got an absolute killer in the can for episode 500, which you can hear in the earliest part of January. next year. But for this one, for now, let's focus on Ray. There are some episodes I quietly regard, and I'll message producer Callum or pod goblin, Susie Lewis, who I don't think it's okay with Susie if I refer to her as a goblin. I should at least ask. But I will sometimes say to people, I'll get something in a can and I'll email them with just a quick couple of words on, oh, this one is, it's one of these ones. And this one is a splash of sunshine. I love to describe things of a splash of sunshine but this one in particular

I honestly came out of this episode wanting to be a better person I'm completely I think I'm madly in love with Ray Bradshaw the multi-award winning Scottish comedian who's about to head out on his fourth UK tour with a brand new show Coda

that stands for a child of deaf adult child of deaf parents child of deaf adults I knew at some point it's child of Zep Simon and I'm surely, sure it's adults. But you might know Ray already from BBC Scotland or Radio 4. He's just finished supporting John Bishop on his arena tour.

He's done other arena tours for Frankie Boyle as well as others. And he hosts his own hit football podcast Fantasy Fives. And the reason that I am going so hard on having fallen for Ray in an entirely platonic and respectful way is that he is, he's this incredible example of positive masculinity. Like he's just a non-toxicly masculine man. And there's something so positive and refreshing. I mean, I cannot wait for you to hear his answer to the question,

Are You Happy, that comes at the very end of this episode. Without wanting to go on about this too much, and I don't want to over-hype it, maybe I've already over-hyped it. I just thought that this was going to be an interesting chat about Raisa. comedy, how it was inflicted. He does work with them. He always uses an interpreter. He signs himself and he signs his own show and he's done this show that you can actually see on next up where he simultaneously, and we'll talk about it, but there's all sorts of interesting things there. I thought oh, that would be an interesting angle to talk about. But that is by no means all there is to Ray Bradshaw

because I just don't think I've encountered anyone who has as healthier relationship to his job as Ray. In the first half of this episode, we are going to discuss growing up as a child of deaf parents and how it shaped Ray's confidence, how it shaped his memory and his absolute lack of nerves on stage. We'll talk about supporting Frankie Boyle and John Bishop in enormous venues and tours and what being a safe pair of hands as an opener actually means. We will discuss making comedy accessible and the various technical challenges of signing live comedy with timing, laughs and learning structure to pre-recorded stuff, all of that stuff. And we will talk about Ray's unique approach. I don't know if it's unique, but it is one of those,

he's one of those unusual people who has no notes and no structure of any kind, and literally, well, I won't spoil it, but it's, his structure is loose, even by the standards of someone with a pretty loose approach to structure. There's more from Ray, 15 more minutes of exclusive extra content with Ray, as well as instant and ad-free access to the full video and audio, all at the Insiders Club on Patreon for £3 a month or more, and you can find out more about that at patreon.com slash comcom pod but now here is I'm sort of fluttering myself with one hand

here's Ray Bradshaw lovely to see you you were telling me you I interrupted you as you're about to tell me about all the disparate stuff you're doing today oh do you know that's self-employed life so I'm not sure when this is going to go out so we're recording this in December

so I today I am doing I've done 6.30 this morning I did the BBC Sport podcast. I've done three podcasts this morning. I'm doing a Radio 4 sitcom. I'm hosting the Scotland YouTube World Cup draw and I've got two gigs at Monkey Barrow. So I have a 19 hour a day. That's astonishing. I was about to ask. I was like, like we've been going, I think, for a similar length of time. The earliest clip I could find of you on YouTube was from 16 years ago. Oh, no. You'll be pleased to know I watched that. But we've been going to simply sort of getting on for kind of 20 years, right? And I was one of the things I know about you. We haven't encountered each other all that much. We've gig together once or twice. You very kindly and expertly did the warm up when I was taking a special in Oren Moore. And I was kind of looking at, okay, what does Ray Bradshaw look like from the outside? I'm aware you've got this angle, if you will, not to diminish it, but you talk about your growing up. The moneymaker. Yep. growing up as a child of deaf parents and we'll get into that a lot.

I watched deaf comedy fam on Next Up, which is very, very funny. And really, really interesting. There's loads to kind of explore about that. But also, I was sort of looking at you from the outside going, he's touring and he's doing quite a big tour and he seems to tour a lot. And I go, what's the juice here?

Is it socials? And you're respectable on socials, but you don't have a million followers on something. I was like, what's the Ray Bradshaw secret? And I suspect it is, is it BBC? See? I know you do breaking the news. Is it football? Is it like, what's the thing that's connected to do? I'll be honest, it's durability.

I'm like a fucking battering. It's doing as many different things as possible. So I was very lucky that I've done a couple of huge tour supports as well. So 2018, 2019. I supported Frankie Boyle on tour. And then 2021 into 2022, I did. did, I was meant to do one gig with John Bishop and I did 72 and I did his arena tour. We did Wembley, the O2, all that.

So that helped me after COVID. So I toured off the back of that and then it's kind of gone. So I did, so this is my fourth UK tour I'm about to start, which seems madness when you say it like that. And don't get my sales report through and I will say, why the fuck are we doing Winchester? But at other points, it's just like, you said we're doing. Glasgow, so I'm doing a 3,000 seat here in Glasgow, which is insane. A 3,000 seats?

What room? The Armadillo, so Glasgow Armadillo, yeah. So I've done the pavilion in Glasgow, the last couple of years, so that's been sold 12 and 1,400 there, and it's from all kinds of walks of life. So, yes, it's madness. It's absolutely madness. So to get to this level, it always, like, see, when I generally do think similar to what you were thinking. So I've filmed four specials last year. So four or 45 minute specials.

From the 12th of December, I've got a special going on IPlayer. So that will go there. The other three will kind of go YouTube, maybe another streaming service. So I think it's just the fact that, I mean, I've done, when you said at the start,

we've gone similar times, I've nearly done stand up half my life. I started when I was 19, I'm 37, and that's a grim thought, a very grim thought. Because I've done everything from open might, nights to kids TV warm up to lots of live radio I do a football show in Scotland that's the

biggest radio show in Scotland so I'm guest hosting that quite a lot and I do a bit of telly I do a lot of football work so I will take anything that's going because I don't know about you but I it sounds wanky but I look around like I live in a nice house in a nice area and I look around going me telling jokes about my knob paid for this, which is always such an insane thought. Sure, sure, sure. I find it mad. That's amazing.

Why can I just stay with, you shot four specials this year? How come you shot four specials this year? And let's widen that out into what you consider a special to be. Because I love, we all, I remember over the life of this podcast, over the duration of our comedy careers, anyone calling their show a special was like, oh, come on, mate.

But now that's what they are. isn't it you can't say Edinburgh shows in a context outside Edinburgh you mean shows but they're not just a show that you go and do it's like it's a special that is the right word for it so talk to me about why you why you shot four specials so I toured deaf comedy fam which is up on next up which is on Amazon or ITV I can't remember which way it goes um a lovely problem to have yes yes when I get my check for seven pound sixty two what a lovely time um so I did that and then I toured twice more off the back but I hadn't filmed them

and the whole thing was which I didn't realize and I don't know if people know this when you try film in a theatre it's extortionate like absolutely extortionate they charge you for the seats you take out they charge you for the rights

they charge you for all that kind of stuff so we were going to film one of the ones in Glasgow and we just left it slightly too late and it was a great show and a big sold-out theatre it would have been lovely to do so what I decided to do was just strip it back and I was like let's do four specials, 50 minutes

each 45 minutes, 50 minutes and do two in Edinburgh stand do two in the Glasgow stand because I knew the Glasgow stand was shutting down and moving so we've got them in there and it was just a chat so this sounds insane but I swear to God it's true

I don't know if you know this I am the face of healthy eating from Marks and Spencers in Scotland right? I did not know that that sounds madness in England it's Jamie Rednaut to give you an idea of how much budget they have in England compared to Scotland. So

the guy who films all the adverts, he does the Pokemon adverts, he does David Beckham stuff, Zach, a mate of mine, was like, I can bring a quarter of a million worth of filming equipment up. So we came up, we filmed them all. He did it for mates rates. So, like, ridiculously so.

Because I remember your special, you'd a great sell. And then we filmed them, and the idea was, let's just try to sell one. So the BBC have bought one. And it's just me and him. We've done it ourselves because you know what it's like when you kind of go into a bigger, like a bigger company. You can lose a bit of control over it. You can do it.

So I just got to choose. And if you want an idea of, I'm sure we'll get into this about how I work. I never write stuff down ever, right, ever. So I've got a really four special coming out in April. And it's the first time in, I would guess, five, ten years that I've wrote a script. because it has to go past commissioner for legal stuff I've never done it I'm hating it

I am absolutely hating it whereas when I was filming one of the specials I swear to God eight minutes before it started I was writing my set list for one of them on the back of the running order because I was like oh I should maybe finish on that

I should maybe do that and that's the way I work and Zach said Zach who's filming it came up and went oh why don't you do that bit about the story that happened to you with an audience member in Norwich and I was like, oh yeah, that's a good shout

and then we just write that down and do it that way because I think sometimes I've been guilty of this when you over-rehearse a show so much it doesn't feel authentic anymore. Sure, yeah, okay. One thing I would say when you see me,

not a lot of segways. It'll be straight in, straight in, we'll stop here and then we'll go. But yeah, I just love it. Like, just going out and kind of, I never think about what I'm going to stay on stage. anymore. So if I'm doing two club sets tonight, I will just decide as a go. And that's something certainly after COVID that I never think about what I'm going to do anymore, ever, because

someone to yourself, I'd imagine, I've got a back catalogue up there of four or five hours. Sure. And I can just dip into some bits, dip in some. I had to do something recently where I had to record two 30 minutes sets, two 30, set at 30 minutes sets. And I hated it. I hated it because it was structured and I don't like structure I like just being able to kind of and I think it comes from years of comparing from dying on my ars

doing TV warm up trying to get anything that will go so yeah it's it's cool and the new show is really exciting because

I toured 2023 and I toured 2024 and I finished my tour I did a New Zealand Comedy Festival to finish there at the end of May and I was back out on tour by the January with a brand new show, a brand new like 90, because I don't have a sport act, so I do both halves. So 90 to 100 minutes.

And I finished in South End and then I started in South End and it was the same tech. And the tech went, why the fuck are you back here? He was like, that's so quickly. And I was like, mate, I know, but I'm trying to cash in that John Bishop money. You've got to get a ticket as you go. Well, it's there. Okay. So loads and loads to talk about that.

I think the thing that initially fascinates me is you're doing two halves of a tour show, like all the best comedians, being your own support, lovely work. And you're not planning what you're doing. Or are you planning? Like presumably by the time it's a tour, it's coalesced into this is the routine of the tour. Yes and no. Yes and no. So this all comes from, so if you've watched that Def Comedy Fam special,

that is the most structured thing I will ever do. Because, so I was the first comedian in the world ever to sign my own show. So my mom and dad both deaf, so I grew up learning sign language. I signed the whole show. I spoke at the same time. So what that meant was, for the first 20 minutes, it was a voiceover. And I signed along to it. The second 20 minutes, I became my own interpreter behind me.

And I would do stand-up and I would interpret my own stuff. So that was a script. That was a video. So the interpreting was pre-recorded. I was my own interpreter behind me. Gotcha. So pre-record audio for the first 20, pre-record. video for this year signing in the last bit i would sign and speak and i reckon that structure broke me

because you have to do i mean i did that show 70 80 times maybe maybe a bit more we did an edinburgh run a tour a tour extension and then maybe another extension i think it went on for a long time over different touring companies as well because that's the nature of the business and then so I really enjoyed that I was getting deaf people come to their first comedy show they've ever been to it. It was like genuinely a beautiful wholesome experience seeing families like my family

who'd never been to a comedy club before coming along because it was accessible. I loved it but because I was stuck with that I was doing the same pauses I was doing the same inflections and you have to learn the timing so it was like sometimes I would do

20 minutes to stand up, while I was signing it behind me, pre-recorded, and not even look around because I had the timing so in sync. Whereas at the start, it's not in sync. So you're constantly glancing round, trying to catch a hand movement so you can see where you are. You would also have like a monitor in front of you showing you what was on the screen. Didn't do that. Very low budget, straight. Very, very low budget. I mean, if we thought of that, I even, phone right. Yeah, I even spoke to Tapeface about how he was playing sound cues from his watch and I tried that and that didn't work because when you sign you might bump your watch and it fucks the show so we can do that. So I went through all these different things. So I think

doing that so now when I tour I know what we'll start with. I know what we'll end with and now I've never had a support act because now I pay for an interpreter. So I have a sign language interpreter every show. So my last tour, that cost me £9,000 to get an interpreter for every show. So that eats into your support act budget straight away. That's that done. So if an interpreter says to me, I use them regionally. So if I'm in Scotland or North of England, it's Karen Forbes, so I've worked with 100, 150 times, who's great. One of my favourites, Paul Mancini is in South West. So he's a sign language interpreter, but also the bassist in a Slade tribute band.

So you can't book him at Christmas. He's like too busy. He's just a cool guy. He doesn't care. But some interpreters will say, can you stick to the order you've sent me the recording in? So whatever that tour show is.

And that's fine because they're more comfortable with that. Whereas a lot of the interpreters, just do what you want. So it means they'll kind of go with the flow with it a bit more. And also because there's an interpreter there, I can go ahead and chat to the audience. Because if I'm signing and speaking

or I've got a video thing. There's no time to do that. That's extraordinary. I mean, it would be, like, I was watching Def Comedy Fam thinking, were I able to sign? I mean, and I don't know about what that experience must be like to be talking and signing at the same time, let alone doing comedy. Like, I speak to a lot of bilingual acts or multilingual acts, but they don't speak both languages at once. So there's a whole, you know what I mean? There's a whole old thing to explore there.

But that would be hard enough for me who is quite, I'm not, I wouldn't say I'm rigidly scripted. but one of the challenges I have is remembering it all when you say like oh because you know like me you'll have five or six hours in your head no ray it's not in my head it's gone forever it's not gone forever I remember the closers from the last few years but without sitting down with a pen and paper

beforehand and going what was that bit I had a thing on that and a thing on that and where did that go I just do not have it in my head I'm looking at you going oh if I had a memory I could be like Ray so literally I'll read you a WhatsApp that I got from one of the boys I play football with this morning, where is it? I have zero recollection of this. Your memory

is fucking insane. That was about a football game we played in three years ago. So I think it's just, it's there. In your superhero origin story, let's imagine that growing up effectively bilingual constructed your neural pathways in such a way that you had... stress of all that coming out At one point At one point in the show you talk about How many signs there are There is just so many

The lexicon of signs is absolutely enormous I've no idea how it is Maybe you made this point In relation to the like compared to the English vocabulary Presumably there aren't more signs than there are words No there's less much less So you And also the structure is different

So when I sign When I say what's your name You would sign your name name what. So the words get jumbled up. So what happens is when you sign and speak at the same time like I did at the end of it, it's not full BSL British Sign Language and it's not full English. It becomes something which is called SSE, Sign Supporting English. So it's a hybrid of the two. So as a result, you choose your words so carefully when you're doing that. You don't have the freedom to do it because you need to marry up a sign to that word. So there's some words that exist in sing

language that don't exist in English. So like there's a gesture like um you would kind of flick your hands from inside to outside palms and it's like the mouth pattern you use is like pha and that means like there's nothing there. There's couldn't find it. There's nothing there. So that word exists in sign language not in English. So if you want to do something like that you need to work out what you're saying. Okay. Okay. So now I pay someone else to think about it for me and the interpreter will do that and it makes it so much easier. Yes. So I mean, My initial point was that, like, I would find, were I able to sign, I would find that hard enough. Imagine doing, like, doing stand-up. Imagine, I mean, the equivalent for me would be,

I'd do a stand-up routine, I record it, and then I try and mouth along with it on stage. I mean, that would be hard enough, but you're a guy who ordinarily wouldn't even know what you were going to say next. No. You'd kind of, you'd jump, which bit will I do now? Oh, that's reminding me of this. This glimpse from an audience member has made me think, oh, I've got a bit about someone with a hat or whatever, that must be absolutely extraordinary. So obviously very difficult to do. Staying with that show for a moment, what was the experience like of, I was wondering like when you were recording the stand-up, like with the audio stand-up, were you recording it in front of an audience,

or were you reading it, or were you just staring in, you know, like when you, early days of pandemic Zoom calls, no visible audience, and you're just delivering it into a blank camera. How did you make sure that that still felt like stand-up rather than a monologue? I did. I re-recorded it kind of once every three weeks based on if I was in front of audiences. So if there was a little bit, I can't remember what it was. But I remember there was one wee bit. It was like 14, 15 minutes in.

And you would dread that joke coming up because you knew it wouldn't hit because the way you've said it. So I would just go back and record it. on Audacity or I was doing a football podcast at the time so it was in the capital studios so it was like million pound equipment so I would jump in for 20 minutes and do that and then what I would do when I was doing the sign language one that was much harder to film when I was interpreting my own self because I would have to then record the audio of me doing stand up and try leave gaps for laughs and there's nothing worse than leaving a gap for a laugh when you don't get a laugh yes 100% I was thinking that That must be extraordinary that you're thinking... Guilford G-Live, not enjoyable. So, yeah, when you get those bets. That's absolutely astonishing. Before we move on from that show,

and I mean, we should spend some more time with this with the nature of language and how you use it. Now, obviously, as a child of deaf parents, you don't have anything to compare it with because it's your life. So one of the things you said in the show, which I love with you talk a lot about, I've seen it as heard about the clips and stuff, You talk a lot about people's expectations of you as the child of deaf parents,

the sorts of questions that you get asked all the time. And I will say one of my favorite jokes of it was like a real, just such a peach of a joke is that thing about growing up as a child of deaf parents. It's very similar life except when you run out of toilet paper. And the closure on that joke is just extraordinary because we cannot help but immediately go, what it? Whoa, like that. Lovely joke. Or even better for me when you hear someone explain it to the person next to them

because they don't get it. Delisa Choponda never understood it I remember Delisa was like What is that joke about? And I explained it He was like, I just remember we went Very good I was like yeah yeah there we go

I'll take that But I generally think my upbringing shaped a lot of who I am And what I do because I say in that show I was like seven years old interpreting from my mum and dad phoning the bank doing all these mad stuff

So I'm never nervous ever Like I don't get nervous for a standoff before telly before anything I remember doing the 02 12,000 people chatting about if we're going for a pint as they were announcing me like it's just not in my DNA and now I'm looking at you going imagine if I had a memory and didn't suffer from nerves I could be as happy as Ray Bradshaw yeah well Michael Redmond who's an incredible stand-up once said to me he said he was Father Stone and Father Ted he went you're the person that's most like you are on stage off stage and I went thank you and he went it's not a a compliment. He was like, you must be unhinged in some other way. And it's probably as, I think it's just, I'm so, from being a kid, my mates have told me stories when I was like nine years old, they were trying to climb a fence to get in to a football pitch to sneak in. And I was like, why don't we just go speak to them and ask? And like, I went and negotiated and did that because I was so used to speaking to adults. My mate Mac was telling me this recently. And I just think

that upbringing has just made stand up so easy for me. And, um, in the thing where I've gigged with people who are hugely successful, hugely famous, and that 10 minutes before you see them go quiet, you see them check their notes,

you see them have to get in the zone, you see them pacing, you see them go to the toilet and try to psych themselves up. I feel so lucky I don't need to do that. Oh my God, Ray. I was doing a double up and I got to the stand in Glasgow.

I was on stage at 5 past 10, got there at two minutes past 10 or whatever. You know one of those really tight doubles. And Jack, the manager, it was like, we'll give you five minutes to get ready. I was like, put me on now. Like, literally, let's get this done. I don't need that tight.

You were, Ray, you were born ready. Yeah. I think that's it. Ready for what? We don't know. Permanently in the zone. That is just an enormously attractive quality for a booker, for anyone that's like, who's going to sort us out.

You know, when we did the warm-up thing. When I heard, oh, Ray's available. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, Ray, great. So you end up kind of emanating this sort of relaxed energy. You look like my old voice acting, and we'll talk about acting, because you went to Lipper, I know. Yes, I did. With my old voice acting tutor at Royal Welsh College, where I did like a postgrad for, like an acting course for a year, they said there's blow people and suck people, right? It's not necessarily pejorative.

Blow people, if you're trapped in a lift, a blow person getting. gets you out the lift and a suck person waits for the lift thing to be resolved. Neither is the right or the wrong way of doing it. But I feel like you're a blow person. I feel like if we're trapped in a lift, I feel like I'll get us out of the lift, but I'll probably make a big performance about it, whereas you'll just calmly get us out of the lift.

Yeah, last night I did the Scottish Power Football Awards. I was hosting that and doing a Q&A with Pat Niven. And there was a few things that went wrong, and people were stressing. I was like, I know how to fix this. Let's just do this. Oh, what's a quality to have. Five ten minutes.

And it's good. So I've now done a lot of radio and I think one of my best skills is I can get people to talk so our producer said he was like you get secrets out of people that they don't usually say and it's great because people feel comfortable

and don't be wrong, sometimes it's libelous and it's a nightmare as we go further down the line but it's fun because I spend a lot of time now like you said they start working in football and footballers are quite hard to open up because they spend their life in the spotlight

they're very reserved and just chatting in 10, 15 minutes you can get some absolute great little tip bits out of them because a lot of time cameras are on them at the same time and they don't want to one of the Scotland players told me recently that his girlfriend's had to put a lock

on the sweetie drawer because he eats too many sweeties and then straight away he's like I should not have said that because he was like his nutritionist the way watching you do and all that sweeties thrown at him yeah right oh he'd love that

he would love that well i think what you've got ray is social worker energy you my mom was a social worker yeah i don't think i knew that you've got the energy of like men's mental health advocate a safe man no i'm not one of them i'm like no no no but like a genuine one rather than one sailing hair belief or something like that one of them what i mean is you feel you've got the vibe of like you definitely want ray on the team he's definitely you've got talking about he's definitely you've got Like, I tell you what it is, it's non-toxic masculinity. Oh, thank you. I'll take that.

I'll take that. Big tall, strong guy who's nice and listens. Yeah, the BFG. I get a lot of, when comedy nights were starting, when I was still doing gigs all the time, I did everyone's first night. Like, see, a new club opens. I'm always like the safe opener or whatever you do that, because I'm not going to be too confrontational.

Like, when I did Frankie Boyle's tour, they always referred to me as like the sorbet, like the palate cleanser before Frankie comes on and just. obliterates it so yeah but I generally it's why I do so many different things I like doing different things I think if I and I think also the money in stand-up if you only did stand-up religiously at the level I'm at an okay level it could be much bigger could be much smaller but I think if you're only doing stand-up you you don't get desperate but I think you rely on it so much whereas if you can diversify it into podcasting, into radio, into a little bit of teley, a little bit of presenting, a little bit of

writing, I've written columns and papers and stuff that, it just makes everything else a bit more relaxed. And then you could actually enjoy your job. Because I actually, you know what, takes the need out of it. Yeah, this hurt me recently. I get introduced on, because I do a lot of radio and telly, I get introduced as broadcaster Ray Bradshaw. And I was like, I was like, no. I'm a comedian That's my job That's what I've done all my life But yeah

Broadcasting And even now I think if you Google me Someone told me it comes up as Well I say someone told me Someone told me And then I double check So I definitely know it is

Of course I come up as A what does it call me A TV writer Rather than I stand up When I was like I've written for like three telly shows Like

I'm not prolific Yeah who knows The vagaries of the The algorithm In that respect Well let's let's take Ray Bradshaw with his robust mental health and his portfolio career and let's kind of test at some

of the things. Like, presumably, and I'm not saying I necessarily subscribe to this, but there is a kind of a narrative that we get a sort of an elegant poetry to stand up where we can go, oh well, you see what motivates people to be really funny is often some sort of darkness. You and I know enough comics that a lot of the time, we're just regular people. I think a lot of people have got darkness in them and comedians are entitled to talk about it. Fine. If you have such robust mental health positive attitude all these sorts of things when are you as motivated to work hard enough to make the stuff incredible as a person who's all knotted up and twisted up inside no no so i i remember there was a comedian in scotland called teddy ross teddy craig

brilliant jokes writer wrote for lots of people and i remember him saying to me before he was like this is years ago he was like if you had my material you would go like that and if I had your personality I would go like that and it's I don't think everyone has everything so for me a lot of the time I know fully well that I will rely on personality when I'm on stage because I'm likable so people buy into it a bit more I think a lot of times now I do a lot of corporates and because I talk about my mum and dad being deaf if you don't find it funny right at the start you will find it interesting and that will buy you more time to engage. And I think things like that make a huge, huge difference.

But yes and no, I've got an incredible work ethic because I grew up in a decent area of Glasgow but with two parents who didn't make a lot of money, who if your parents are disabled like mine, I can't maybe the exact number, but it's something like four or five times more likely to be unemployed. your the stats are against you my mom worked as a social worker nine to five and then taught sign language six to nine most nights so two jobs my dad was worked for glasgow city council cutting the grass doing that

not a well-paid job at all and then we'd go and do homers doing people's gardens all this kind of stuff so they worked all the time to give me my brother and my sister a nice life so i've watched that and now my son is the most spoiled wee kid in the world like he's six years old and he's six years old He's an absolute Nepal baby. He gets onto the Scotland pitch because I'm doing work, all this kind of stuff. And I love that. But I think I've always got that thing

because when we were growing up, we were, I didn't go abroad until I was 17 years old. We never went on holiday. We didn't have anything like that. So I was always in that mindset of, if you don't keep working, this can go away. And we go in five holidays a year. I have a lovely life.

But it's that. kind of thing of if you don't keep working, you don't keep doing everything, and you know yourself, you've been there. When you are doing a stand-up gig or when you're doing something and someone offers you X amount of £100 to come and do that day, it's really hard to turn down and prioritise stuff. So it's something I've got slightly better as I got older, but you've always got that kind of work. So to answer the question, you asked about 65 minutes ago, I think that the answer is no my jokes might not be as perfectly crafted as someone else's

but I will always turn up and give it 100% and never phone it in ever because I've seen people do that I mean I will occasionally there was one I can tell you exactly the last time I phoned it in when I'd done two gigs in the afternoon and then a fundraising gig for the football team I support Partick Tistle

went out drinking with some of the players open for Frankie, went back to the pub and then someone phoned me nine o'clock and said, are you on your way? And I just hadn't put it in my diary. And that is the most autopilot gig I have ever done in my life. The next day, I was telling the story of how drunk I was turning up to that gig. And the person sitting next to me went, I spoke to you for 10 minutes last night. I was like, oh, I have no recollection of this at all. So that's probably the last thing. So this is Ray. Are you in love with him yet? He's on tour in 2026 across the UK and

Ireland with Coda. You can find out all the dates and more at Ray Bradshaw.com. And you can watch Ray's special Bald Ginger on BBC Eye Player. I didn't know about that in advance and I haven't seen it, but I assume it's as marvellous as the rest of his stuff. Find out how to see me live at Stuart Goldsmith.com slash comedy. I've got various bits and bobs and previews coming up. Comedy Near me in Cardiff. Also in January, I'll be in London at the Camden Comedy Club. Those are all work in progress shows. I'll be in Meribel at the Franklish Comedy Festival, to which I'm taking the train to France to the Alps, why not, on the 2nd of February. On the 30th of March, I'll be at Paris, at Change Now, and I've got a working progress show in at the Pleasance in London

on the 2nd of April. So you can see it. If you're one of those people, and there's a handful of you that like to come and see the show numerous times in different stages of development, then by all means, fill your boots with those. I'll put more public shows on those as and when they occur. And I'm going to start, I think, in the beginning of next year, really hammering into doing lots and lots and lots of previews to get the show absolutely perfect for the Edinburgh Festival 2026, where I'm really looking forward to having come up with a name for what in my head is climate show too. If there's no shows near you, then by all means join the email list for details of the, oh, I nearly gave away a thing, for details of an upcoming thing and to find out when I'm going to be nearby you.

All of that is Stuart Goldsmith.com slash comedy, and you can also sign up for the Comcom pod mailing list too. Coming up in this second half, we're going to discuss why Ray doesn't believe in the tortured comedian trope, even though he's talking to one. We're going to talk about being niche famous and why that's actually very positive. We'll talk about choosing contentment over chasing fame, and we will talk about knowing when you've already won. Let's get back to Ray Bradshaw. What I always think back to is, right, my mum and dad are two deaf people who live in a lot. hearing world. They have gone through inordinate amounts of shit

in their life and they still have a very positive outlook. My mum is generally one of the most inspirational people you'll ever meet in your life. She is one of the first five deaf people in Scotland to go to a hearing school. She sat in the front of every class, taught herself how to lipread. She has taught thousands of people sign language. She travels

around the UK now, helping people learn how to lip read. All this kind of stuff. I go up and tell some jokes. People might not like it. nothing compared to that. I'm very grounded because of that. I'm very, I think a lot about other people and I've got a lot of empathy. I think that is, I think I stay in that deaf comedy. I'm pretty sure. One of the biggest skills you learn as a kid if your mom and dad or deaf is empathy because you, there'll be situations where people will probably say something shitty about your mom and dad being deaf when you're eight or nine years old and you're

interpreting and you need to work out whether you're going to deliver that. to them or drop it so you learn about the world quickly so if I have a bad gig I've got a bad gig that's fine you you have a brother and a sister am all right yep are they as well balanced as you are did because presumably they also grew up yeah so I'm the middle one so my sister and my brother's my sister's a lawyer and my brother's a disappointment so like between them he's not he's not actually he's he works in America he does very very well he works for a university and yeah they are

they're not they actually my sister came to me about something recently because she was like you will give me the most balanced opinion on this whereas maybe one's more

emotional one's maybe more hot-headed just the way it goes I think because you're in the middle you get a balance of everything and I like I was very headstrong as a kid

like I auditioned for a drama school when I was 13 I didn't tell my mum and dad I I saw a newspaper advert I got a bus I went and did it I got in

and I came back and I was like oh I'm going to go to this now like I was that was very much the way I was from early on

I kind of knew what I wanted to do and then I remember the first time I did stand up I was like this is class this is

I was on stage raw hydro Sam Avery was comparing were you nervous before that one your first ever stand up

gig I must have been I don't remember I must have been I would be thrilled to hear no not really no I I must have been, but I don't remember.

But also, I think when you start stand up, you've got that level of confidence and arrogance that you are going to be funny in a room full of strangers because you don't know until you've done it. So I must have been... I remember I wore a T-shirt with David Hasselhoff that said, what would the Hoff do? I remember that.

That was, looking back on that, I was like, what the fuck are you doing? So I did that, and then I... Someone said, oh, I run gigs, and he gave me a card. He was called John Glennon, and he worked for John West Salmon. And that was his business card. And I was like, well, comedy is showby.

is. And then I did my second gig in Eggbrith Cricket Club and a girl who I liked at the time came down and seemed really attracted to me afterwards. And I was like, I think I might give comedy a go. This is pretty good. And let's go from there. And I got the bug. I reckon for about 10 years I didn't go more than 10 days without a gig. You know how you get those people who would do a gig then wouldn't gig a week again for two weeks. I was, I was very lucky that I had a student loan at the time, because I was second year in uni. Yeah.

I remember, I remember this. I was in, ah, what's it called? It's a bar in Glasgow, Hillhead Book Club. Chris Ramsey was doing the Avalon gigs at the time. And Ramsey phoned me, and I'd done a few of them,

it was kind of in the cusp of it. And Ramsey phoned me, and he went, do you want to come and do Keel Uni tomorrow? And I was like, yes. Hug up. Literally googled, where is Keel uni? It was like five half hours ago.

I was like, why have I done this? But I would go and do the gig because I just had that insatiable appetite of loving it and like see when you're on stage, it's class. It's absolutely class.

Like it is, there's nothing better than it. And the thing that's blown my mind most recently was I, when I did the pavilion in Glasgow so we'd, the first time I did it, it's 1,200 people there. Like madness. Have you had this shoot? I saw my own cue. Have you ever seen your own cue?

Only, yeah, once or twice, once or twice Under very different circumstances. Yeah, yeah. It looks round. Are you like, that's for me? This is so cool. Because when people are sitting down in a theatre, that's where they're meant to be.

So it doesn't seem as, but when you see a queue around the block, I was like, this is good for the ego. This is good. I was texting, take pictures of this. Is it teachable, do you think, your outlook? Because you must be aware, presumably you're aware that you're a bit of an outlier in this. disrespect. You're very happy and balanced. Mental health, very robust, doesn't get nervous,

loves being on stage, no downsides, right? And that could almost, that should be on your business card. Ray Bradshaw, no downsides. You must be aware that that's unusual. You, I imagine, have been in situations in green rooms where someone else has been stressing out or crushed after a tough gear or nervous or whatever. Are there any things that you can effectively teach, as a result, I don't mean take, but just kind of share that you can effectively share or does it just boil down to? You've just, you're all right and you've grown up with perspective and there it is. I generally think it is that. I think, um, it's, I think you probably could teach it, but I wouldn't know how to because it's like everyone else. Your upbringing is so

unique to you that it just kind of shapes you and there's little bits like that. So for me, no, I don't know. I think it's interesting watching my son. So he's six years old and he is slowly getting the same kind of vibe that I have, which is great. So he is... That must be incredible. I mean, my son's getting the same vibe as I have and I'm worried for him. Alex is loving football. He's chatty. He likes... I mean, his teacher was like, he likes attention. I was like, I wonder where he gets that. That's weird. So that kind of thing. I don't know if it is. I don't know if his teacher. I don't know if everyone would want it though, because you've got to have those kind of nuances that make you do you want.

But I genuinely, I've said this before on other stuff, I would really, really struggle to do stand up if I dreaded it all day. Sometimes you do dread gigs, you're doing a big corporate or you're doing something that you know is not on your wheelhouse. My wife says, I say a lot of times, I can't be arse today. She gets that a lot. but at the end of the day again I'm 37

I've never really worked a real job I've got to do some amazing things I was in I went to Greece three weeks ago with the Scotland team to watch Scotland play in Athens and they said I could bring a mate so I brought my mate Craig and we went out and got pissed and we did some work it was like how am I to complain about anything

tell me how you process the dread if there's the odd gig dreads a big word I have dread sometimes I've sort of, yeah, I've dread sometimes, I'll leave it there for now. How do you process the dread? Because that feeling of like, for me, it's all complex and layered and like, oh my God, I don't, if it's not my wheelhouse, I'm like, I don't belong and I'm going to feel like I don't belong and it's going to chime all this school bullshit with me. How do you process that dread? Do you go, I feel a bit glum today, or is it, is there anything kind of like deeper?

No, no, it's definitely, I feel a bit glum, but think of the money. That is generally what happens. about to Benjamin. I will think about process that and like my dad will ask me sometimes if I'm doing a gig, how much did you get paid? And he's the only person that does this. And there'll be a few times, quite a few times where what I got paid for that one gig that I was dreading all day is more than he made in a month. And that way, if I ever feel like a, he's like, don't be a fucking idiot. He's like, I would jump at that. And my dad probably would try.

And my dad, I remember there was that big phase of comedians doing travel shows with their family. Someone was like, would your dad be interesting? I was like, my dad would get me cancelled within about six seconds of the first episode. Because a lot of old sign language is racist.

Yes, I'm aware of that. So he's been trying to learn the PC ones, but he will forget the minute he has one beer. And we will see someone from Southeast Asia and the show's over. Like that's what would happen. So he's very much of that ilk. But he's, I wonder if he will ever come on stage and do something

because I think he could. So in terms of the dread, it's just get it done. And also, it's only that one day usually. Like, I remember where was I going? Oh, I was going to Australia. And I was in the pub with my mum. mates a few next four and I just finished a tour I was about to go to Australia I didn't really want to leave home and you know what it's like and then I said that to my mate

and my mate was like you get paid I was like yeah he was like this is what I make in a month that you get paid more than that and I was like yeah his exact words where stop being a cunt I was like yeah okay that's the perspective we needed to hear the Scottish equivalent of the goodwill hunting speech but that was it and I was like No, I get it. I do get it because we are, no matter how worried you are about doing stuff, we are in a very privileged position when you do, when you work in the arts, quote-unquote, if you do, stand up if you do. I love that you would put quote marks around the arts.

Yeah, the arts. I, during lockdown Scotland, Creative Scotland, didn't view calamities and art form, so we had a big argument and we got it done. There was a group of us, but I had Fiona Heslop, who was the minister for arts at the time drunk tweeting me on a Friday night going back and forth at each other because we were arguing. It's like Fiona, put the wind down, man, what are you doing? But we got it. They got it. So yeah, is it an art?

I don't know. I've been trying to get funding for single language interpreters from Creative Scotland and Arts Council doesn't happen. Doesn't happen. So it has to come out in my own pocket, which seems mental. It does seem mental. We've got some quickfire stuff. Let's go.

why aren't you more successful than you are? And I always ask this, I know I didn't do my little caveat. Normally I would say, I consider you very successful. So the question is, why aren't you even more successful? No, I don't know. I think I'm relatively successful for where I'm. I think I've shunned away from a lot of London opportunities. I think a lot of time if I was, who said that to me?

Oh, a radio producer last week. She was like, if you were in London, people would know who you are. And I was like, well, that's a bit of a loaded sentence, but thank you. And yeah, I think I remember I did a TV show, came to see me, support John Bishop at Wembley or the O2, one of them. And they were like, oh, we won't use them this year because we already got a Scottish one. So I think that's the thing as well. You get the quota. I just saw the new series of Live at Apollo got announced and there's no Scottish acts on.

There's one Welsh shack, I think it's Kiri. So I think there's a little bit of that. But I think I'm really to the... I'm happy with my successively... I've always done every year. I've tried to get slightly better than I was a year before in terms of stature or whatever.

So, yeah, I think... I mean, let's just blame Kevin Bridges. He took up all the Scottish money. Let's do that. He's so good. I saw a gig recently. He's so good. He's so good.

I remember the bit of Kevin's orders remember from years ago. I was talking about like two lads in a flat in the gorbles who swear they've been missold PPI. Like, do you know what I mean? All of this stuff that's kind of contained within one of those

bits. He's so, so good. How famous are you? Do you get recognised? Yeah, I get recognised, yeah. Presumably in Edinburgh. Glasgow football stuff. When I went to Germany for the euros last year, I would say

in the 10 days I was there, I probably did, between maybe 400 and 600 photos like it was it was insane because i i work for i do work in sky sports news bbc Scotland talk sport and the scotland national team so this is a broad portfolio yeah so if you're with the scotland national team and you're a fan you will likely have seen me on something and you have a memorable bald head and ginger beard combo well no everyone in scotland looks like this so so yeah i do okay i get him i was playing um um I still play amateur football

and I was playing I was playing against this guy assuming a few months ago now because I've been injured for a bit and he's giving my dogs abuse the whole game just kicking me shouting at me all this kind of stuff

we literally finished and he came up to shoot my hand he was like I saw you on tour of John Bishop I'm a big fan I've seen you on tour nice to meet you and I was like mate

you've just abused me for the last 90 minutes you could have just said you knew who I was at the start so a little bit a little bit like niche Scottish famous but nowhere anywhere

anywhere else. I got recognised in Chicago. Oh, that's nice. A guy came up and went, are you the cunt from TikTok? In a Scottish accent. I've got ten videos on TikTok, but yes. How do you cope with the kind of wider contextual problems of the world?

How do you apply your perspective, easygoing attitude, positivity? You mentioned like collecting for charity, food banks and so on. How do you cope with geopolitics or the climate crisis or those kind of things. Do they bring you down or worry you or what? Yeah, they worry me. They worry me a little bit, but it worries me more of my son's generation because global warming, I'm very good friends with Matt winning and Matt will drop in a fact

one day that will make you sad for three days. So that's the way it goes. I think in terms of my stand-up, I don't really address politics. I don't do it. I don't really, I guess I don't view myself as that intellectually savvy to go do it. So it's not. my wheelhouse. It doesn't suit my personality. What I do, do is two or three big fundraisers that I organise a year. So in my local area, I do one or two a year and it's paid for my son's nursery to get a new garden. It's paid for the food bank, do all that kind of stuff. So I do the bits I can control. And again, I said earlier, I actually got asked back to my old school to do the school prize giving hand out the prizes in summer there and had to speak i think i saw a photo of that

on your facebook yeah it was mad it was mad and nine teachers were still there from when i left and i hand my big thing was if you live in the west of scotland in the area we live where that school is you're in a position of privilege you use that for good go out and do some charity stuff do whatever if it's just volunteering if it's just helping out if it's going in yesterday me and my wife were out for lunch and we saw the last time we were in in this place in Glasgow great cafe actually,

it's called beefcake and there's no woman called Jenny that comes in and she's, I don't know what she is, I would ballpark at mid-80s she comes in every day she has a brand day

she has something to eat and she's got a playlist and they put her playlist on and she sings along to old songs and we saw that and the staff were so nice there and last time we were there someone paid for her drink

so yesterday when we were in we said is Jenny been in they were like no she's coming later so we paid for her drink and it will pass on down there so this wheeled women's on a racket getting pissed off brandy in the middle of annies land but like those little things you can control to help situations do it the bigger stuff i must have done as i'm sure you have 10 15 fundraisers for gaza in the past two years and that won't even touch the side but it's a little bit you can control isn't it

do you but two questions left i'm really looking forward to the last one do you have any any mantras or anything that you say to yourself, is there any particular thing that if you could encapsulate your approach, or do you think, or that's kind of emblematic of your approach? Like, I've started doing this thing, I've pinched off someone, a kind of business person. At the end of the day, when I'm kind of closing my laptop, at the end of like a day of, you know, writing, admin, whatever, it won't all be done. So I say out loud as I close the laptop, I say the work isn't done, but it's time to stop. And that helps me switch off. It's quite a useful thing.

Have you got any little kind of things like that? Nothing like that, Stuart. Nothing. You don't need it. I think a lot of the time what I do is, I think you've got to remind yourself and other people that we work with people for people in front of people. So just don't be a dick to people.

I've seen it. Where's that front? Is that, I feel like that's from a manual. It could be. It could be. I don't know. Someone must have said it to me about 10 years ago and I've adopted his own. But yeah, it's probably from fucking anchor man or something like.

I'll be one of those. Like do that. It's picked up. But I think it is very much. a case of always treat the people around you well, whether it's, I remember, there's a guy in Scotland, I've told him this story, Chris Quilletti, and he was 17 years old, he was a runner at Capitol when I was doing some work there, and Gary Spence, brilliant radio DJ, does the drive time show on Clyde 1 in Scotland, came up to me and said, be nice to that guy, he will run radio

in ten years. I would say about eight years later, Chris commissioned me for one of my first radio shows, a music show that Mark Nelson and I did. And it's that kind of thing of you always should treat people well because they might help you further down the line. They might not, but if you're a dick to them, they will remember that forever. And we have been in venues, I'm sure, where you've seen someone be a dick to the staff and you're like, what is the point here? Why are you doing this? So I don't say that when I close. my laptop every day, but it's more of that, it's my way, that. Last question then, Ray. Thank you for your time. This has genuinely been inspiring. I feel like

I'm going to be a better person. I might be a life coach now. This is good. You should, mate, you at 100%. What have you got such? I did get asked to do something similar to that about five years ago and I didn't respond. Yeah, yeah. I've got such a good vibe. It's really, really good. I ask this of everyone. Are you happy? Yeah. Yeah. Like, why would I not be? Like, I mean, I'd be happier if I had hair and I wasn't ginger and stuff, but, like, it's, um, yeah, I think I've, I think I've been pretty happy most of my life pretty much. And it's, uh, it's nice. Like, I, yeah, it's a hard question to answer to, yeah, because you don't want to say braggy, whatever, but there's not, put this way, there's not much I would change about the situation I'm in, family-wise, lifestyle wise, health-wise, health-wise. whatever still with both my parents

all that kind of stuff I don't think there's much more to be I'm very much a look on the brighter side of things even when

someone I was at a funeral last week chatting to people like that I'm always thinking about the good times rather than this current thing

so yeah yeah I'm happy yeah I mean I sound like a dick but you do that is a rare and beautiful thing right it's not what the ratio

What's the ratio of people saying they're happy, Stuart? I've mostly people say, I would say it's three-thirds. It's yes, I'm happy, sometimes with caveats. A lot of people say, I'm content. And some people say, yeah, not really. I'm sort of in the middle of something or I'm struggling with a particular thing or there's like a repetitive thing. What I loved was, I said, are you happy?

And you went, why would I not be? And that is a rare and beautiful thing. Yeah, I've got bifold windows behind me. Why would I not be happy about that? Byfold doors? like we've worked up to this I couldn't really dream of that so that was Ray

thank you so much to Ray for coming on the show thanks to Will from Multitude Media for helping set that up thanks to producer Callum and Pod Elf Dryad Pod Dryad Susie Lewis and thanks to you for listening and Rob Smouton for the music of course as well

So Ray is on tour in 2026 across the UK and Ireland with Coda, ray bradshaw.com for all the dates and more. And you can watch his special bald ginger on the BBC eye player. Fifteen minutes of exclusive extras, including the way Ray uses Edinburgh, which is a revelation, using Edinburgh to turn material over and just kind of not worry about buzz at all or profile of those things. Just like using it like the workbench. We'll talk about building a comedy career around family life and also in those extras. racing some famous mistakes and some of the very famous by thanking the wrong city on an arena tour. That's a fun story. All of that on the extras. So Patreon slash Comcompod to get access

to all of those plus the whole thing on video and everything else. See me live, all the stuff at Stuart Goldsmith.com slash comedy and you can get all your socials content at Comcompod. Just search that on YouTube. And honestly, do me a favour. I ask not for me. the incredible work that producer calab has been doing getting the the comcom pod youtube channel together i would love you to just search comcom pod on youtube there's some great stuff in there including a 15 minute um clip from the acaster a castor a castor most recent uh appearance on this podcast in which we talked about how uh he went through a period of wanting to quit stand up what that meant to him why that didn't happen and there's some really good gear there and there's also an

annoying little white dot on the wall of the jade wall behind the two of us. That's in my kitchen and I love that little white dot and my god there are literally hundreds of people there howling in rage about how annoying that white dot is. So my advice is support producer Callum and the show by watching that but just have it on in a window whilst you do something else or just focus on the dot as a sort of mindfulness process. So TikTok and Instagram as well at Comcompod. You can follow me at Stuart Goldsmith comedy on various things. Thank you to the insider producers. And let's, as we tap dance our way into Christmas,

let's maybe put some jingling bells over these. I'd just like to do it a bit differently every time. But the people are, this is, thank you to our insider producer slash reindeer's. Roger the red nose spiller. And then I Cave Dave and Daniel Powell. I'm doing them in pairs like Dasher and Don. Keith Simmons and Sam Allen, Jay Lucas and Gary McClellan, Chris Warbrick and Dave McCarroll, Paul Swaddle and Alex Werble, and then James Burry, who is with me on the sleigh. And a big thank you as well to our two special insider executive producers, Neil the right wheel, Peters and Andrew the left wheel.

Does it have? Oh, it's a sleigh, it doesn't have wheels. I fundamentally misunderstood Santa's sleigh. But thanks to the lads anyway, they can be big bags of presents, and to the super secret one who is the magic that sends us all through the night sky together. This podcast is brought to you by Comedianscommedian.com and the foundation for making sure that Brett Goldstein has a lovely, happy, warm feeling in his tummy at all times because he's a lovely person in the world. This is the last episode of 2025. We're going to have some end-of-year compilations coming out over the next few weeks.

Another evil, I'm beginning to think he's not all that evil. But this is producer Callum and I putting our heads together and going, oh, that would be a good thing to do. So it's like a look back at the year with some various kind of thematic compilation stuff coming out in the next few weeks. And then in January, we will return at last and let you know who is going to be in Episode 500. And you can hear it. And you can hear it all sooner and more visually. You can hear it visually if you're in the Insiders Club. So jump on board that. So a very happy Christmas to those of you who celebrate a happy festive season and some time off work to those of you who do not. And let us all, as we barrel our way,

into 2026. Try to retain against all the odds a consistent sense of self. Bye for now.