The Comedian's Comedian Podcast - Sarah Millican 2012: ComCompendium

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Episode 500 is NEARLY here, but first we're going all the way back to episode 7!Recorded in 2012, I chat to fellow comedy nerd, Sarah Millican, as we discuss her writing process, some of the unique challenges faced by a high-profile act, including playing large rooms and preparing for panel shows, as well as plenty of tips for newer acts on how to escape the day-job and turn pro!Join the Insiders Club at patreon.com/comcompod where you can instantly get access to 36 minutes of exclusive extras!👉 Sign up to the NEW monthly ComComPod Mailing List!Support our independently produced Podcast from only £3/month at Patreon.com/ComComPod✅ Instant access to full video and ad-free audio episodes✅ 36 minutes of exclusive extra content with Sarah✅ Early access to new episodes✅ 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 Sarah:Sarah Millican's new show, Late Bloomer, is now available to buy, stream and download. Find out more at sarahmillican.co.uk.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, welcome back to the show. This is a re-release of a Sarah Milliken episode. Episode 7 from June 2013. That's a year so far away. Who can even imagine that existing? But exist, it does. It happened. I remember it. I don't remember it. But I remember this. I remember this bit of it because it's one of the few bits of that year that I recorded. But this was the first guest to appear on the podcast who had actually listened to it before. Bless her, I will always love Sarah for this. Sarah and I started. At the similar times, we were in the same year at school of the So You Think You're Funny. We were in the year that produced or the year that framed and presented Joe Wilkinson, Tom Allen, a bandaman. Who else? Was Hannah Gadsby in it? Or a similar, I don't remember. Oh, I'm confused now.

But nonetheless, what a year. And loads of other brilliant comics besides. So this is Sarah. These are some of the people who wanted to hear again from Sarah. Alex Garley said Easily my favourite episode is episode 7 Sarah Milliken, the hunger to want to be able to own any room regardless of the size

the self-imposed rule of forgetting the previous night's gig. Alex Dixon says this was the first one I heard and I loved hearing about the process of being a comedian. Rochene says the depth of thought that she brought and Sarah, I presume not Sarah Milliken herself says she loves the bit where Sarah

describes Millikan's law, I think of it weekly. And if you're an insider, we'll also be releasing 36 minutes of exclusive extras from this episode. So look out for that in your feed. If you're not already an insider, you can join at patreon.com slash comcom pod for £3 a month or more.

Here is a 2012 Sarah Milliken. You are very positive. You're really positive. We were talking about Dan Evans' podcast earlier. We should officially mention here that you are the first person I'm interviewing who's already heard the show. Hooray!

I win some kind of prize. Certainly, definitely. You can be an ultra gold spitz. Yes. There's only one. I was just a super goldsmith? Was it? Was I a super goldsmith?

Yeah. Ultra. That idea would never have probably been mentioned again. Had you not excitedly gone, yay, I was super gold. But now it lives and it's your fault. So you, so someone, like in a conversation I had with Dan, Dan, as we were saying, whilst being incredibly endearing, has this kind of not quite a darkness or a,

sadness necessarily, but he has this kind of cheezed-off sort of attitude. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think when I speak to him, I kind of go, yeah, I'm not just when I speak to him. I mean, I also am someone who can be a bit more kind of, God, this is hard, this comedy life, this is, this is a hard thing, this is, oh, this takes a lot of me and all the rest of it. Whereas you have always, as long as I've known you, been so positive and been a kind of, you've been a of a breath of fresh air in the circuit, but also just one of those people who kind of goes, look at all, look how amazing this is. Well, yeah, when do you have your sort of more kind of mawkish moments?

When are you, is that after a hard gig? Or is that after you get in and it's three in the morning and you've got to be up at nine and you've driven all night or is it after a thing? Or is it just sometimes it comes over you? Yes, that one. Oh, right, because I had the other kind, the other kind, after a hard gig or after. Sensible, understandable, reactive, tiredness. But then I have my rule. You know my rule. Is it time? Should I tell you my rule?

Yeah, go on. This is Milliken's Law. Okay, love it. I've rather arrogantly called it. This is the if you have a bad gig, you're only allowed to be annoyed at yourself until 11 a.m. the next day. Okay. I've heard a variation on this, which is wait 24 hours, have a wank, get over it. Who's lost? Does I go to this law? No, it's not mine. I wish, if anyone remembers telling me that, write in, remind me who you were.

Where'd you have to wait 24 hours before you're allowed a wank? I think you're allowed other wanks in the... Oh, is that like an Uber wank? Yeah, exactly. That's the final wank. Exactly. It's a posh wank before you go back to being happy again. So, okay, so yours is too long.

Because if you've got a gig the next day, that 24 hours is too long. So mine, and I made this up, I made this up to help get me over bad gigs and it absolutely 100% works. So 11 o'clock the next day, you have to draw 900 and get over it. Because you're not allowed to, until then you're allowed to be annoyed at yourself

or annoyed at the gig or annoyed at the promoter or annoyed at the audience or just frustrated all of those horrible things that come with a bad gig. So 11 o'clock you have to get rid of it. Equally, if you have a brilliant gig, you have to get rid of it. it 11 o'clock as well. Oh, very good. So you can't be smug and think you're like a king of the

world after 11 o'clock because if you go into your next gig, which could very easily be the next day, either thinking you're brilliant or either thinking that you're terrible, you will die either way. Because you go in all Billy two dicks, um, thinking, sorry, I think I made that up as well as it used to be Charlie Big Potatoes. It's Charlie Big Potatoes where I'm from, yeah. I like Billy Two Dicks. You go in all Billy Two Dicks. You go in all Billy Two Dicks. I think I'm going. I'm two dicks thinking I'm going to nail this, you'll die because you're not concentrating on the gig. But if you go and thinking, oh, they're all going to

hate me, they will because you won't be very good. So you get rid of it all. I've been, but I have been known to get up earlier than planned, so I could have a little bit more morning in. So you can't get up. You could either wallow or champion yourself. Yeah, exactly. And it absolutely

100% works because you have to get rid of whatever it is and you have to treat every individual gig individually. You have to treat them all on their own. on their own merits and you can't go in with baggage. So that's one thing that I've done to help get through it. So that sounds to me like you are, you've got what is known in this world as willpower,

which I think is something I kind of, I aspire to. I don't feel like I've got much willpower at all. I've got kind of a relentless drive to somehow do a thing, but that seems calm and positive and right. This is a sensible way of doing it. But if it's a rule. Yeah. but you still decided to make it a rule, haven't you?

Yeah, but as soon as you tell other people that it's a rule, and other people, like, I know a couple of comics who told me that they had told new comics coming up about the rule. So if new comics are doing it, I mean, I'm, you know, stuck by it anyway, but if new comics are sticking by it, I can't not. Yeah, good. And also, you know, that's that, oh, nobody would ever know what I would know. And it's just really healthy.

I think it's really healthy to just go, it's the same as, you know, if any bad thing happens at work I think you can quite easily go, okay, we're just going to let it go now. Because it's not healthy. It's not healthy for you. It doesn't make you a good comic if you're hanging away. And it makes you lose self-confidence. And there are enough things in this industry to make you lose self-confidence.

Without one bad gig could do with the job for you. Speaking of someone who has had some bad gigs recently to hear you say, when you've had a bad gig, you know, when I've had a bad gig like this, do you still have bad gigs? Yeah, yeah. You're Sarah Milliken, off of the telly. Off of the telly. Yeah, it's different. It's not the same kind of bad. It's hard, I'd say, rather than bad.

But sometimes on a tour show, they take a bit of getting gone. And I would say, because they've paid to see me, it's not like at a comedy gig where you have to get them, grab them in the first sort of couple of minutes because you're one of a number of comics and they don't know anything about you generally.

So these people, on tour have paid to see me but I always work out there are probably half of them are like proper fans who have seen me on the telly or I've seen me do live stuff before and just like what I do and half of them have been brought

yes so that balances out at a sort of generally lukewarm audience because there are some people who I could say hello and they'd go oh I don't know if I'm going to like this so you have to win half of the audience and it can work against you can't it? people over enjoy themselves. I saw Eddie Isard in London in the West End and he walked out on stage and went, hello,

and people fell about actually laughing. And that made me, as a huge lifelong fan of Eddie Isard, that made me kind of go, oh, well, you know, let him do some stuff. But it's just, it's adorable. It's usually because people have sometimes bought tickets like a year in advance in this. So they're just the fizzing, they're just fizzing. Sure, sure. No, I wouldn't be negative about those people.

In terms of the balance of the run, that must be horrible. It has to mess up the sort of timing, if people laugh at different points and things. But generally, I have a lovely time. I'm very lucky. I have a lovely time because I do slightly a ruder version of what I do in the telly. I'm not massively different. It's ruder and it's most wary, but it's not in style. It's not any different to what I do in the telly.

So I think people hopefully are satisfied. But every now and again, there'll be a harder one. If it's hard in the first half, then I think if I had a support, I never have a support. but if I had a support, that's what they would have done. So I make out like I'm going on new in the second half. Okay. I don't go like, hello, and like I've not met them. Yeah, of course, of course.

But I come out thinking, if I had a support, this would be where they'd be nice now, where a lot of comics actually, whoever support come out in the second half when they're already lovely and warm. Yeah. So I come out, I can't ever take the baggage from the first half into the second half.

Sure. So I go into the second half thinking, this is where comics who have a support, start. And, nine times out of ten on the harder ones for the first half. The second half is lovely because they're warm, they've had another drink, blah, blah, blah. Very rare, but it does happen.

It's hard all night. It's not a death. I never die like that. I think it could do a gig still, but not at a show where they've, where, you know, I'm on the ticket. But it does happen sometimes where it's hard throughout the whole show. But then I still never comment on it.

I never do any of those rookie mistakes of saying, oh, that normally gets more, or, you're quite quiet tonight. they don't know that they're not alive for the audience. And sometimes you realise that's my stomach rumbling. Apologies, we picked that up. Sometimes it's because it's Tuesday. Like I remember I did my second Edinburgh show.

I was in the Beside at the Pleasants. And Mickey Flanagan was in before me. I've been in after me, sorry. And one of the days, it used to just go, how was it? And I'd go, oh, they're lovely, you know. One day and I went, oh, they're really tough today. And he went, it's Wednesday. And I went, oh, yeah.

Because all days blend into one in Edinburgh. But you forget that Friday, they'll be a bit more drunk. Saturday, they'll be lovely Sunday. They'd be quiet. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. They might be a little bit more quiet. Or a bit more listening, a bit more. So your clever stuff might work a bit better.

And then Thursday, back to drinking, Friday, heavy drinking. It still all works as a normal week. But because we're going, what days it today? It's day of 14. Yeah, of course. We're not working on the usual week. Yeah. So I do still have, sometimes when I try new stuff,

you know, like you said, you did a gig with a day, they're somebody dear and they're often unlisted and the reason people are unlisted and I sometimes go unlisted I'm not like the person that you were on with last night but sometimes when you're unlisted it's better because you don't get like an audience full of my fans in who are just going to laugh at everything

I think if I'm trying at news stuff I want it to be a bit more of a not discerning is not the wrong way because that sounds like I'm being really mean about my fans and I'm not at all but I want people who are going to go people that you have to win yes and people who will decide whether it's funny or not and not saying that my fans don't know the but they just already like me and I need to win people over it. It's the difference between my brother coming up and telling me a joke and some guy in the street coming to tell you.

Exactly. Exactly. So that's why you don't go listed. But sometimes when you're unlisted, you step out and people will go, oh, you know, they hear your name and they get excited. But then there are definitely other people who go, oh, I hate her. That's interesting. Because they've seen you on the telly and they wouldn't have, they might not necessarily have booked to come to this gig if they're known you more on. Sure. I'm well aware that there are people. that there are people who really hate me, who don't just, you know,

and I think hate it's a really odd way, but I get, you know, people tell me that they hate me. Oh my God. And it's a really odd thing, like nobody, it's, I don't think people are as mean about actors or musicians or painters. People don't ever go, oh my God, Jackson Pollock, I bloody hate him. They just would not bother going to see an exhibition.

Yes, it's, I think it must be to do with the thing that you as a comic give to people, which is that you make them lose control of themselves, that currency is so precious and so valuable that if you offer it to someone and say, I'm a comedian and then don't make them laugh, they hate you. Yes. Do you what I mean? They're like you, but you said you were going to be incredible.

Yes. It's kind of worse than just being a crap indie band, isn't it? Yeah, because it's a bit, it's less offensive to be a crap indie band. Yes, maybe. I don't know. I think that's right. It feels to that person. It feels offensive.

I mean, I'm guilty of that myself. There are comics, not ones that I know particularly, but there are comics out there who I really can't stand, who I'm just like, oh, you know, you see someone you might go, oh, this is cheap, it's awful, it's obvious, all those sort of things. And then you meet them maybe after a gig, and you go, oh no, you're just like me, you're just up there risking yourself.

Yeah. You know, yeah, exactly. But even then, if you watch, I'll watch people and go, it's not my cup of tea, but the audience are laughing, and you can't then deny, you can't say that somebody's not funny. You can just see that. it's not your taste.

Sure. Do you know what I mean? So, I can't remember what the question was. What were you talking about? You were saying about... About sometimes struggling. Yes. So sometimes if I come out at a new material night, it can be hard because there are

people who... And I, it's that thing of, do they really hate me or am I just looking and reading things into their faces? But I think... Maybe I am, but I think we all do that a little bit, that we look and go, oh, he doesn't like me. Like, I heard from another comic way, sometimes if people lean into each other, while they're on

when chances are they're going, I'm going for a way in the break, or they're going, do you want to, gin and tonic? Yeah. That comic thought that they were seeing, isn't he shit?

Yeah, of course. And I think we all have a bit of that. Maybe if somebody heckles, you immediately think they're going, you're shit, when really they're just going, oh! Yeah, exactly, yeah.

Did you cough there? Did you cough your shit? Do you personally have any kind of strategies as to what to think in those situations? Like, because I imagine, the way you seem to operate in the world, when seven years ago

when we did so you think you're funny oh that was a good year we were a good year there's a lot of good people from that year Joe Wilkinson and Kevin Bridges

and Kevin Bridges and Kevin didn't place did he no? No because Joel was third I was second and Tom Allen was first but thought he was third because Julian Clary read the piece of paper

upside out of it so I sort of felt like I won because I knew the best I could possibly do would be second Yeah, the last one that was announced for a second place. Well, there we go. That's exactly my point. Because to go and say, well, I felt that I got one because I knew I was sick.

That's so typical of your mentality. I know a lot of the people that listen to this are newer comics. And recently I've had a couple of emails and conversations which have expressed the same thing, which is it's all very well all these comedians saying, and then I turn pro and then I'm going but how? How do you do that?

So I'm trying to I'm not asking you that question necessarily but I think I'm trying to put more of a Okay then we'll start with that How did you or how does one turn From being a comedian who's got a day job To being a comedian who can just do comedy

Something that was said to me at the time Which I think is very true Is that there's never a comfortable time To make the leap It's never you never got like money in the bank and going, I can pay three months

of my bills with it. It's never comfortable. It's always a risk. But it sort of feels, there's a day when it feels right. Prior to that, in order to get to that point, you have to be funny.

And you have to work incredibly hard. I worked at, I don't mean working hard, like I know nurses and doctors and firemen work a lot harder than we do. I know that their job is harder. I'm not an idiot.

But I do know that this is the hardest I've ever worked in my life. And sometimes, because it doesn't feel like work a lot of the time because I love my job. And that's why I'm not very good of taking time off. Because it's easy to take time off

from a job where you clock in, you clock out and you go, I'll get two weeks off every year, I'm going to go on holiday to Spain. But if you have a job that you love, it's hard to go, I still need a day off from it. It's still, you know.

But I used to, some of my peers, I think we're working, we're doing sort of one or two gigs a month. And I would do three or four a week and I because I got divorced

and moved in with my parents when I started in stand-up so my outgoans were quite small quite low and I dropped down to 25 hours a week instead of 40 at work so that I could have a bit more flexibility so my outgoons were like my board

to my mum and dad and my phone bill so I could spend the rest on train tickets and bus tickets and hotels or more realistically staying on people's sofas and things in the beginning. Sometimes treat myself to a travel lodge if I didn't know anybody in that area

but I slept on somebody's offers. So what I did with my diary as well is if I did three gigs in a week I put three gigs in a week so if I looked at my diary and I had like four gigs to do that week I would actively get

because when you do an open spot it's easy to get them I think it is. Maybe there's a lot more comics now than they used to it is that what's coming up. Well in my day.

Yeah. Like in the day when I were a child. It was quite easy because they don't have to pay you. They're happy to just, you know, pad the bill out with people

who are learning the trade. So I could quite easily get four gigs put in in my diary for further down the line. And I never had anything less than 50 gigs in my diary at any one time. That's how I worked it.

And it really worked because I never look at, you know, I think people look at their diary sometimes and go, I've got nothing in. Never happened. Never had anything less than 50. Because if I did three that week,

I booked through three in. But maybe there are more. Sorry, what do you mean? If you did three that week, you booked three in. Like, every time you did one, you'd book another one in for the end of the... So I look at my diary and say, I've got four gigs in this week. I need to book four gigs in the future.

For the future, I understand. I understand. So I would email 10 people and hopefully get four gigs or whatever off the back of that. And they could be six months down the line. It doesn't matter when they are. It means my diary still has 50 gigs in it. And your diary is never ending. So that was a trick

I used to go into my day job an hour earlier than I needed to be there because I didn't have a computer so I'd go in and I just do that kind of you know that morning pages that people talk about where they're just like a stream of consciousness every morning so I'd go in at 8 start at 9 didn't clock in until 9 but went in

and I had an agreement with my boss that they said I could come in earlier and sat at the computer and just wrote for an hour and I've still got some of those like printed off and printed off and deleted it off obviously off the system and then I would have a look and still some of my very early bankers came from me just rambling because I was going through a divorce I was living back with my parents there was a lot of stuff going on in my head and it was quite a nice

released to get it out of my system anyway and then if a joke came off the back of it then brilliant so that was something that I did but I just I worked really really hard I think I think I think comedy throws off the people who if it's like a book somebody described it once to me like a book on Bronco and it throws it of the people that just don't put the work in. Yeah. Not necessarily the non-funny people. There are people working who aren't particularly funny,

but work really hard and make a living off the back of it. And you know what? Power to them, because it's harder for them. So I think the way you become pro is by showing everybody what you can do, but in the process learning how to do it. So you, nobody's brilliant at the beginning. You might have a natural talent, but you don't know how to play every room.

and I think that's part of the job. My second gig, my first one was pretty good. My second one rocked, but then probably third and fourth were, you know. And it's not about being, it's partly about being funny,

but it's partly about being able to work any room and being able to make your jokes work in any room. I remember when I did the new comedy awards for the BBC, Dara O'Brien was comparing and he said, what's your number one ambition? And I think some people might say, I want to go out the telly or I want to be an actress or I want a tour I want DVDs and I said I want to be able to play every room

I wanted to be able to go into a room with four people above a pub that has you know a pool table over there none of them have paid they don't really want you and make them piss themselves but equally be able to stand on a stage at Hammers of the Polo and it's sold out and you make them piss themselves I just want to be able to play any room any hard rooms I want to be able to play any hard rooms I want to be able to do that and I think I got to that point where

I could, I don't know, arrogant to say that I can play every room because I don't think I can but because I think I came off the circuit as I was learning how to do the really hard ones. Sure. And I don't know because I don't know if I'd be able to go into a hard room now because they treat me differently. They're looking at me like that's that woman off the telly we love her, we hate her

rather than I don't get judged on my, just my jokes anymore, I get judged on what their preconceived idea of me is. So I don't know if I'd ever test that again. I don't think I can't legitimately. Unless I changed my face. That might work. Do you sit down and write for a certain number of hours a week? Did you ever?

I mean obviously that's, we sort of started to touch on that with that early morning thing, which I think is already a brilliant tip because I certainly, when I had an office job for a very little while in my transitional phase, I would try and do the jokes after work. that's not going to work, is it? I've never thought to go in earlier and get all that morning energy and all the rest of it. It's the morningness,

but also it's the fact that you can then sit at job that you feel unused in and not that the people that I worked with weren't lovely and weren't great, but to feel sort of frustrated and untapped and all of those things that a lot of people feel in a job, but knowing that you've just done an hour of writing,

you can sit at a desk 48 hours and answer phones or type or whatever you have to do because you've potentially written a couple of jokes that when you get the metro to the Chillinghamams like I used to do in Newcastle I did it, it was a new material that Gavin Webb State used to run and I did it seven weeks in a row and that's how I got from my 10 to my 20.

I did seven minutes, seven weeks in a row and I sometimes wrote it on the way and on the metro and I tried it out and generally it would start off with the seven minutes there'd be a minute of gold is cocky a minute of good stuff that worked straight away then there might be three or four minutes of stuff

that had potential but wasn't there yet and then the rest is dirge it got better over the years now I can write 20 minutes of new stuff and 15 will work and it's just because of being better at ditching stuff early on so I don't try the stuff that I've

think, like, I think I'm just better at knowing what works and better at knowing how I can tell a joke. But in the early days, I'd go up and there'd be one minute. But if there's one minute out of seven, I'm really happy with that. That's great. So that's how I used to write. So I'd go into work early and I'd type and type and type, and then I'd happily sit for seven, eight hours while I did something that paid my train phase largely to Lincoln or whatever,

random places. But now I'm not as good as I should. I, Busk is not the right word I do work really hard but I tend to always be making notes as soon as September, especially September is my oh my God I've got to read another show I don't start it in March I started in September I start making notes in September

but it's just constantly making little scribbly notes in notebooks and send and text to myself and sometimes if I say something funny my boyfriend will text me the funny thing that I said because he doesn't, I think it's all about harnessing it because it's quite easy to go, all right, they don't later on and of course, what happens later on? It's gone, it's gone, it's gone.

Totally. And no matter how long you've been doing this, they still go. I don't think how many better at retaining information now as I was there, so I still have to scribble it down. One of the questions that someone tweeted was, if you think of an idea during sex, do you trust it to memory or do you stop and then make a little note?

You don't have to answer that, but I can see from your face what the answer is. Depends which bit of the sex. I think I think it's totally fine to pause during four play Ha ha ha ha

Okay, good Good, there we go That's an answer That's a But I think Funny ideas Don't happen During the main

Crux Yeah Because I'm not really thinking About funny thoughts If I am That's a bad relationship Isn't it And so I'm not

I'm But if it's something occurs to me early, early doors. I will make a note of it. Maybe you could just, I don't know, this is, you might have to edit this out. Maybe you could just ask a, if you could just,

it is all I want your, that reminds us, no. I thought you were going to say something like, maybe you could just write it on his back. Oh no, no, no, no, it was much worse than that. Sorry, I'm quite rude. so I make notes constantly and when you're making those notes are you just

show you should I show you yeah yeah absolutely brilliant but are you turning them into jokes at that time or is September just krill just get all the stuff well just it's not even just September it's pretty much 12 months of the year I make little notes

so I've got a little notebook here and what they'll be is enough that will remind me of a story or an idea. So it might just be three words, but they won't necessarily, it won't be a sentence, it might just be three words,

and those three words remind me of that thing that I said about the thing that actually made me laugh. Because it doesn't make me laugh, because it doesn't make me laugh, I've got nowhere to go, you know? Yeah. So can you give us an example? Yes.

I was talking to my mum on the phone. My mum on holiday, and I was talking to my mom on the phone, and you know how sometimes when you're on the phone to somebody, but there's somebody else in the room, you sometimes say things to them so you'll sort of I'll be safe out

answered my phone now I'll be talking to them but then you might say oh can I get some out of the fridge and I'll go yeah yeah it's fine but then I'm still talking to I was talking to my mum and my dad was in the background and my mum just said not with that hand you won't and I just have no idea why that made me laugh so much

I don't want to know what that's linked to because my mind is already working overtime so I don't know if that'll end up but I've just written down not with that hand dashed mom and that remind me of that So let's follow that idea then. What do you do next to that bit? Do you sit and write around it?

Do you just take it on stage and say it and improvise around it? I think it was your Ben Norris podcast. I was very interested when you said, I think it was you that said it rather than Ben, that sometimes by sort of vocalize, verbalising an idea, it's more funny things come out of telling somebody about it than writing it down. Yeah. Yeah, you said that, didn't you?

So if I write that down and try and write a joke around it, it's not as easy. Then if I just talk about it to somebody or I don't know if maybe it doesn't even need the person. Maybe I just should do it in the flat on my own. But I tend to, that'll stay there until I've got a new material night. All that notes will stay. And then on the new material day, I will shit myself all day and write for like two hours, literally pulling together all of these little bits and tighten them all up and actually go and write what we got. And not having any idea.

Still not can't time it. still have no idea. And will you be typing up just those three words, or will you be typing up the story out? Well, typing up probably just, what I often use is index cards. Because the reason I use index cards is when I do new material, if it's on paper, it rattles because I'm nervous. But if I use cardboard, it's like someday I'll use, like, wood. It's getting gradually thicker.

I'll just be there with a slate with my jokes on it. And I will probably write that, what I've written in my notepad, on the slate, on the, on the slate. On the slate. Think of them as the slates from now on. It's Milliken's second law on the index cards. I'll write that on the index card. And then I will leave a little gap and then I'll write the next one and then I'll

write the next one. And then I'll sort of try and add extra bits, extra, like words that might spark off. Do you feel in that what that suggests to me and this might be the thing that I'm putting on it, but I find the pressure of a gig, like the pressure of telling a human being, activates your mind in a different way. So you're actually coming up with more things than you could do if you were just sat in your... Exactly. On my own, just typing.

And I don't know if it's a better way of working, but it seems to be working, so it seems to work now. And what normally happens at a new material night is if I do what I think is the punchline and they don't laugh, I naturally improvise an alternative punchline because I don't like that bit

when they go, oh, that was it. I don't like that bit So I have to make sure that I'm fully rested Before I try new material I have to make sure that I've eaten properly And I've drank water And I've slept well Because if I go up

I did, I did And I always do my first Edinburgh preview In February at the Leicester Comedy Festival Because it makes me panic Because it's February And I go I only go 20 minutes And then I go, it's February

I've got 20 minutes That's awesome Yeah Yeah yeah So I do a full hour It's all mental games with yourself Isn't it to go It is to trick yourself

And to this is fine So if I know exactly where I am in February so I know either I'm God I'm going to have to haul ass and get loads of work done or actually this is coming along at a nice pace I did an Edinburgh preview in Leicester a couple of years ago when I had

the most chronic toothache I've never really been a big suffer of toothache but I had the most heroic toothic I'd had some work done and this is by the by but basically as I found out later on I needed three lots of root canal while I was going through this pain Oh my God and I was on a lot of painkillers and also

this gel that you rub on your gums when you're teething, right? This is, okay. So I was rubbing it on and going on stage sometimes in tears before the gig because it was so awful. And I had this new material in the middle of it all. I remember book on my seven door hotel in Leicester.

I only live in Manchester. That's a drive. That's an easy drive. I would never book myself in the hotel because I needed to get in and just calm down because I was in tense and in agony. And I remember being at five to eight,

the gig was a two-minute walk from there. I had five to eight I was still curled up in like the fetal position in this pain went long, did the gig and every time I did a joke

that didn't work and they went now I went okay number four because I had nothing I had nothing else there was no spark and this is where

I have to make sure that I'm well rested and I've slept and I'm you know and I've eaten properly and I've looked after myself because that's when I'm funny it's like whenever I do a TV thing

if it's a case of I've got five hours to do prep for this do I do five hours or do I do four hours and have an extra hour sleep? So always the extra hour sleep because I will be a lot of the stuff that I'll see and a panel show is off the cuff and I'll banter off other people and what they've said and I have to be fully rested in order for that part of my brain to kick in. So I could do five hours of prep for a panel show or three

hours and have an extra two hour sleep and that's much more beneficial because I won't have as much stuff on paper but I'll have a better function and brain. Yes. Okay. So that's when I do So it'll go, so then I always record my new material nights. Always record them. And you always listen to the recordings. Not always. No, okay. When you do 28 previews and sometimes it's four in a week, it's hard to listen to another hour.

Because you can't listen while you're driving because you've got to make notes of it. But what I often do is, well, is recording it. You're recording it really in case anything amazing happened that you can't remember. But often, if you make notes as soon as you come off, then you get most of it down. And I sometimes make noise as I go. It's really rude. But if they know it's a new materialite and they're not paying anything to say anybody, and they don't mind.

And it might just be one word where I've thought of an extra top row or whatever. But I do sometimes listen. It's especially for 10 minutes. If it's 10 minute new material, I'll listen to that easy. But if it's an hour, it's hard to fit it in. And then it's very rare that my jokes get typed up in full now. Because then that goes into an hour show or two-hour show or whatever, an hour-half show. and it'll still just be, that'll still be hand ma'am

that'll be no one else on my big full list of jokes. So I sort of kind of write on stage now compared to I used to write and fully form a joke and it would be word for word and then I would read it off and then it would work or it wouldn't work and I kind of go on with a rough idea of what it is and by describing it and talking around it around an idea I usually get five or six more punchlines

off the back of it and it's really effective but I think that's just because I'm better on stage than I used to be. I always think that's... All comics can be divided into writers who perform or performers who write. I was always a writer who performed. I think there's only... I was going to say Kitsyn, but Kitsyn's still a writer who performs. I think all comics can be divided it.

So it was always the performance that was always the hard thing that I had to bring up to the level of my writing because I'd been writing since I was 17 and one kind or another local newspaper columns or short films or whatever. whatever. So, and then I think the people who are amazingly funny performers, they need to crack on with their writing to bring that up to the level of their performance. So I've never really worried about my writing so much as my performance.

The writing's always, it's not come naturally, it sounds really cocky to say that, but it is something I find easier than standing on the stage is always the bit that makes me slightly uncomfortable. Okay, okay. Is that weird? Yes, no, not all. I think that's probably very true about the different types of performer there are. I mean, rather like in my first show with Rob Dearing,

the first interview I did when he was talking about, you know, he said in a week I normally won't do any writing. I won't sit down to any writing. And I started imagining this kind of Halcyon future of going, I imagine I wouldn't stress out during the day. And I would like, I love writing, but I spend most of my day putting off writing. And that makes me anxious and unhappy.

We all do. So it makes me feel like what you do is you might not get up and write for your stand-up in the day. but if you've done the rest of the work at the other times, you've done all of the note-taking, you've done all of the thinking about the notes, you've done all of the prep on the way to the gig, you've done the gig as often as possible,

and you do the work after the gig making the notes, I kind of find that I get stressed during the day, I eventually do the writing, and then I go to the gig, I do the stuff, it works or it doesn't, and then I go, oh, I've been working all day, I'll relax now. Yes.

I'm sort of... You're sort of unbalanced. You're sort of always slightly writing, if that makes sense, because if anything funny happens, or if I say anything funny or have I have, a funny idea or if I read a bit in a newspaper and I think oh that could make that work into a joke or whatever I make a little note of it so it's always constantly there but I very

rarely it's only if I'm writing a script and that is when I'm an absolute bitch I am such a horrible person when I'm writing a script I get tense I cry I scream I'm a horrible horrible person and that's because you're faced with the tyranny of the blank page and having to fill it and so all of your systems are out the window because you just must do it I've written scripts that have to be performed the next day for a row recording. I've written them that day for the next day. I've stayed up. I went through some horrible times on the first tour. When I, I did a gig in Norwich. No, I did a gig in Aberdeen. I flew from Aberdeen to Norwich to do Frankskine as opinionated. And then I stayed up all night and then

got to write my script, got a train to London to record the script. I've not gone to bed. train to London, vomited on the train and the BBC my producer said, we'll get you some way that we can have a lie down. So I had a lie down for an hour and then I did the recording. And I never want to...

So when I'm on tour, I try not to have any writing projects hanging over me because that is horrific to be doing a tour show then flying, then... And not getting much sleep that night, flying and then writing all day and then doing a TV record

and then, and I did everything to the best as I possibly could for where I was at. That's why I don't like taking writing projects on because I know what I get like and I know it's better if I just go, right, we're going to write for a month and that's all we're going to do and I can do any shows in the evening

we're just going to write for the month because it's too, I find writing much more stressful than performing. I actually feel my stomach knot on at the thought of having to sit down and write. Yes. So do you think now you're a performer who writes? It's kind of shifted because now you're that comfortable on stage. I still write, but I just scribble constantly.

And I think I find it much easier. It means when it comes to February to do the Leicester Comedy Festival, I quite easily have an hour. It's not an hour of good stuff, but it's an hour of stuff. Yeah. And I sort of feel like I have this romantic idea. I think it's because I used to write plays and I wanted to be a film director and I wanted to write film scripts.

I have this romantic idea of sitting in cafes and writing. I have a few friends who do that, and I'm very jealous of them. And I think I need to find a cafe that I can sit and write and just have, like, teeing milkshakes and things. But I don't know how much work you get done there. Yes. Adam says you have to cafe hop. So you have to go from one to another to another to another, so you're always in a new place with new stimulation.

Oh, okay, that's interesting. But I do, that's something I want to do over the next few months when my diary's not as busy is sit in cafes and write, because it's this romantic idea of that's, You know, that's where ideas come from. When they don't, they come from, my ideas come from me, living a bit of a normal life and seeing my friends. Yeah.

Because sometimes my, the only funny ideas I have are, you know, related to dressing rooms. Yes, well, this is it. This is a common problem, isn't it? You know, I believe in staying in nice hotels when you can afford it, and I can afford it. I've worked really hard. I've stayed on many a sofa. I've stayed in many a travel lodge. And now I can afford a nice hotel.

and I think it's more important to treat yourself really well and to make sure that you've slept well and you do a good job because potentially 2,000 people have paid 20 quid a year ago. I can't be shit tonight. So I make sure that I sleep well and I have a tour manager now, which I only had for the second half of the first tour so I don't do any drive. And it is a very, it's hard because you're away from home for long periods of time

and it's hard in that you never really settle anywhere, you never really unpacked. But it's much easier than it was. when I was doing driving for six hours, doing a two-hour show and then driving for six hours. It's much easier than that, and I'm very lucky to be able to afford all of that sort of thing. But I sort of, I kind of miss the,

oh, I'm stuck somewhere for six hours. I go and sit in a cafe and write, because I'm never stuck anywhere now. And I sort of miss that. Do you know what I mean? I miss the romantic idea of what a writer is, probably more what a poet is. I don't want to be a poet.

But do you know, that's an idea of that, oh, you know, I can't afford my heating, so I'll go and sit in a cafe. You know, where realistically I can sit in my flat and write here just as well. But I just, I kind of, I want to sit in a cafe and write. It's ridiculous. Talking about the way you write, there's the system for putting things in the notebook and then getting them on to the page. It seems like a kind of a reactive system.

Things happen, you make a note. Do you ever try and, I know you don't write theme shows anymore, but do you ever pick a subject and go, right, I'm going to do that? No, and I want to. to because I've, the last two shows I've done by just gathering. So it's gathering. If I say something funny or I say something funny or I say something to somebody, one of my friends and they say something funny

and then we have a bit of banter. And it's good if you're friends on comedians because then you can go, can I have that way? They're comedians. We have to tussle. Yeah. Yeah. And if I have conversations with my family and my family are generally hilarious. So

that works or if funny things happen to me or I think of funny things. But generally I don't sit down and go I'm going to write some stuff about dogs I don't know if I can do that I must be able to because when I do panel shows or when I do when we did the TV series you're writing to a subject which I'd never done before I'd never written to a subject and I found it quite a good it's quite stimulating but also quite a good sort of pressure to put yourself under to go I have to write some jokes about costume drama or whatever where normally I just go oh that's funny thing that my dad Dad said, I'll say that. Sure. And I'll write around it and I'll funny him up. Although he is normally really funny but sometimes he goes, I was really funny in that thing and you think, yeah, I did tweak it, Dad.

Yeah, I did put eight tags on it on it. Yeah. Did some work. But I really want to sit down and have an idea rather than a joke. I've always got a punchline and I work around the punchline. But what I'd like to do is go, I'd like to write some stuff about the fact that, for example, I don't want children. I've written some stuff about that,

but maybe the fact that I, because I think it's one of the final taboos to stand on stage as a woman in the 30s and say, I don't want children. Not that I can't have them, but that I don't want them. I think you can get away with jokes about anything as long as you're coming at it from the right angle,

so you don't write misogynistic or racist or homophobic jokes, but you can write jokes about those things that as long as they're coming in from a good angle, from a good, as in, I don't mean good as in not a bad joke. I mean good as in wholesome. in a way you can honest and

from the viewpoint of a nice person I suppose an honourable person you can write jokes about anything but I think still when I say

on stage somebody I said I don't want kids I don't really like kids and somebody booed in a tour show somebody one man but it's quite

the confidence of a man who boos assuming that everybody's going to follow suit and they all don't is quite funny in itself a boo a boo on its own

isn't scared but it did make me think I wasn't going to do some slightly harsher stuff about kids and I thought well you've just made me want to do that yeah right absolutely so I brought out all the big guns you know people will be strategically booing now

when if you do something a bit edgy it's better wrong it's getting fired up yeah it really does as soon as somebody says I don't think you're right like there's something wrong with me because I don't want kids

that makes me go all right okay well it's you know because there's a lot of people who think like me so so I need to write more to order a little bit and I need to sit down a bit more and write a bit more

and I need to do it in cafes. Yeah, yeah, that's a good plan. Because I like eating so why not do kill two birds with one stone? Which circuit comics when you were still on the circuit

inspired you? Of course, the question I'd really like to ask is which ones did you hate but that's another time. I'd probably that in the car. Yeah. But which ones did you

inspired you in terms of either their work ethic or their approach to the gig or the stuff they were doing or their courage or something I like to watch comics who could play a hard room without any tricks now every you know we all have sort of bankers and whatnot to put some

you know some weekend clubs employ people who are not just straight stand-ups so they use they are funny and they work very hard but they might also do music or they might do or they might have a CD back and track where they do a bit of funny stuff to it and they're often quite crowd-pleasing stuff that are massively effective and you can't blame them at all because they work brilliantly in those rooms or some people do sort of magicy stuff and what you know and everywhere has its place but I am impressed by those who just used words who could control a room that

I would look and go, this is going to be really hard. And thank God I'm only opening a middle end because by the time the closer goes on, they're going to be shit-faced. And they would just use words. And I was always impressed by the bottle of those people. Sean Collins, for example, I saw clothes a really rowdy jungler

sitting on a fucking stool. So was that. The confidence of the man. Isn't it great? And it's slow, I love his accent. He's got a lovely slow, sort of laconic delivery and had them in the pot. harm of his hand and it was really impressive.

I did a week-end, a whole week of Edinburgh weekend clubs at Christmas like the sort of rowdy Christmas gigs and you know the Christmas is a horrible time for comedians because it's all Christmas parties where two of them have gone,

let's got a comedy and the other 88 have been drugged a lot. And I've seen people get, you know, bread rolls thrown at them. You know, or you, It's when you come out and you see they've all got the party ass one, and they've all got there, those party things that curl up at the end where they're called,

and you think, oh, this is going to be horrible. And then somebody comes in and says, everybody just do 15s, and you all go, yay! I once instigated that. I once said to the show manager that's looking, you know, we're starting late, it's looking rowdy. I guess you wanted to just do 15s,

and it was quite a new show manager who went, good idea, and as he left, all the other comics high five, me. You're welcome. And Craig Campbell was closing. all week and he was there was actually the hardest night he didn't have anywhere near as hard a time as the rest of us because

I would say two thirds to three quarters of the audience were from one company and they were rowdy and weren't listening and they were horrible audience and the security staff couldn't there were too many for the security staff to get rid of them all so what they did was they waited until anybody went to the loo and they just didn't let them back in oh very good because they were drinking

I thought this was going to, this story was going to end with, and what Craig Campbell was doing is, he's a one-man security team. He was, they just didn't let them in. They just, they kept, so that the two blocs or women would go to the loo, hammered, because they were drinking so much, they were going to low quite a lot, and they just kicked back. So gradually, by the time Craig went on, actually, on this particular night,

there was a third of the room full, but of lovely people who wanted to come to the company. On that night, he had a nice time. But the rest of the week, because I remember that night, Simon Bly was in the middle and I was opening and he came over to me in an adorable sort of fatherly kind of even though there's probably only 10 years between us

and said do you want me to go on first and I said I just want to get the fucker out of the way because I thought this isn't going to get better as than that goes on I'm going to have this probably the easiest job and as it turns out they'd all gone by the time the break was so Craig Campbell had these but Craig for the whole week

with nothing but words just was amazing at Christmas gigs at horrible horrible Christmas gigs where they're talking and they're eating and they don't really want you to be there and do you remember what it was

what aspect that it was I mean I know he's doing a million different things at once but what do you think it was that made that work so much it's just experience and knowing which joke you start on to make them go oh rather than make them go

oh you know I think it's just experience it's just he probably didn't enjoy any more than I enjoyed mine because he was foot on the gas probably all the way through. You know, you can't leave a gap because that's when somebody pops up, their head up. I always think they're a little bit like the mea cats because they just popped their head up.

I did one once where, oh God, it was one of those gigs where you think if I trip over a word at any point during this, they're going to fucking have me. And as I was busy thinking that, I tripped over a word. Concentrate on the job in hand, Milken. And I tripped over a word. And all I said was, oh, that'll be all those cocks I've been sucking. And everybody went, and backed out again.

Thank God for that. So, who else? Gavin Webster, I think, is very good. Yeah. It was, I think it was all the headliners while I was doing supports and opening and middle and all of the headliners, because you look and you go,

I'll never be as good as that. I remember doing, I died once at, this has just become a podcast all about my deaths, but I died once at Leicester, a gig in Leicester. When I was opening, Tom Stade was in the middle. and Jim Jeffries was closing. I died. Tom Stade struggled for his first 10 to 12 minutes

and then got them and then they were okay for him and you know how good Tom stayed is. Sounds incredible. And then Jim Jeffries properly won them over and it was a real... There was one woman in the audience who had decided she wasn't, she decided she wasn't going to like him and he didn't bully her at all but just was determined

you could see he was determined to make her laugh and by the end she was piss myself and it was just a really skillful job that he did and I liked watching people. Nailing an easy room is, you sort of come off and go, brilliant, that was great, I feel great, I'm funny, hooray, I've got at my job,

but nailing, turning a room around from they hate me or they're not listening or, you know, to this is now a playable room. Like sometimes you know you go on first or maybe because I don't really compere, but when you compere, you go on and you make it a playable room from an unplayable room.

And that feels like you've really done a good job. You've worked your arse off and you've made it a playable room for the rest of the night. I think that's one of the skills. So what kind of comic did you think you'd be when you started out? Have you turned into the sort of comic you anticipated be? Because I think you've...

Well, I won't say what I think. I'll let you answer that question. I think I've softened. I was harsher in the beginning. My first gig that I ever did ended with a joke. with a joke that I wouldn't do now. Couldn't get away with a now. Can you tell us what the joke was?

No. Possibly tell you the joke. It was very harsh. I think I remember it. I remember the existence of a harsh joke, but I can't remember. Oh, there was a few. Yeah.

I think, I can't, I don't know if I have become a comic that is just a bit more accessible and a bit more public friendly because I wanted to be that or because I've just aged and have realised that I don't mind offending a whole room

but I don't want to offend one person as if I do a joke about something mean about kids and there's somebody in the audience who's lost to child I would be mortified that thought that I had offended them but I'll quite easily do a joke that makes something about spunk or something

and makes the whole room going, oh, probably just said that. Happy to do that. Yeah. But for one person to feel horrible

in that room is not my job. Everybody should feel nice. So I think I've got older and maybe that's why I'm not as, I've got a bit of an edge. I can still, like I quite liked on the series when I was interviewing,

I quite like being a little bit mean to the guests because it was always in a tricky way, but I could be quite sort of sharp and sort of bitchy's not the right word but a little bit catty maybe and because I'm a nice person and because I think they knew that it was coming from a nice place and also we always had guests on who were willing to go along with the ride and knew that it was a comedy show, it's not a chat show

but I think I've become the comic that I don't know what I wanted to be I think I just wanted it to be my job so I guess I have become the comic because it is my job but I'm not as edgy as I used to be I was never really that edgy but I did have a bit of a sharpness about me and I don't think that's there anymore

and I think that's been a I think it's been an organic change I think the same as how some people start off one way and gradually fall into whatever they end of being I think you find out who you are by doing it a lot but I don't I think when you play to so many people be it on a telly where there's millions watching

or be it with an audience with a few thousand I just I don't want anybody to go away feeling like they've been attacked and I think if you do a joke I don't know because in one of a couple of shows ago I had a rape joke that was right in the middle of the show

but it's about the angle that you come in at and it was actually quite a soft angle it was quite a feminist angle and nobody but a denial it nobody I never got a complaint I never got a message from anybody so that trick is if you're going to have a terrible horrific joke put it in the middle because you can back it up by another joke story you're talking between two stuff about cakes because if you yeah if you if you finish on it people might leave going oh well I like the first 55 minutes but that last one and it colours their whole perception of what the show has been like they they can't walk out whistling and rape joke can't they no um but you see the thing is about

I've written like four jokes ever about cake, but because they were the ones that were on the teddy, you know, I think, you know, people do that, if you could write a letter to your former, your 12-year-old self, what you'd write, and some people would say, don't fall in love with that man,

or work harder at school, I would say, you're going to be a comic, don't write any jokes about fucking cake. I saw you flinch when I mentioned that, and I'm afraid it's just because I received 30 tweets today about cake. But in the same way that Joe Brand was pilloryed for jokes about periods and tampons, they pick up on one thing. They pick up one thing.

Yeah. Which reminds me I always used to call you periods, Milliken, to watch you up. Periates Milican. Because I did so many jokes about periods. Because you did so many jokes. Somebody once called me and said, I love your period joke.

And I said, I don't have any period jokes. And he said, oh, you know what you did? And I get me mixed up with somebody else. He just because I'm a woman, he went, oh, she's probably got period jokes. P periods aren't funny. That's why I'm going any period jokes. So I don't, I'd like to think that I've just evolved into the comic

that I am because I've aged and I just don't want to offend anybody but maybe I've softened it's one of the other it's either that or I've softened because of the way that a sort of a mass audience makes you behave that way because you don't want everybody

I don't want everybody to like me I wouldn't stop being rude for example I can't read be as rude on the telly but I'm a little bit rude on the telly but you can't I wouldn't stop because I don't you know because oh five year olds have to be my fans I'm not bothered about five year olds being my fans it's comedy, it's for adults, so I'm not really bothered.

The last thing I was going to ask was, if the old plan was to be able to play any room in the country, if that was the goal that you started with, and to a certain extent you went some way towards completing that or maybe superseded that being a necessary part of the plan, what's the new plan at the moment now that you are a lady who has fingers in many pies, who has all sorts of TV and writing and radio and touring opportunities, you strike me as the sort of person who will somewhere have a mission statement either written down or at the back of your mind.

What do you want to do? I think it's less a sort of five-year plan of I want to be on series six by then or, you know, I want to always be good because I, somebody said to me who shall definitely remain nameless that... Until after I turn this machine off.

When you're successful, it doesn't have to be as good because they come anyway. Yeah. but I yeah they might come to this one but then they might not come to the one after that if this one is shit So I want to always be good because I think just because you're popular doesn't mean you can't be good Popular's not the same as good Yes popularity isn't the goal is it?

Popularity gets them in the door Quality makes them come back again And because you go into bigger and bigger rooms each time or you do more and more nights maybe each time Because I don't really fancy Arenas suit some people have I don't think it's it's me. So this is about working out how many nights we go on tour and maybe that gets extended with each tour or whatever.

So what you need is the people that came to come back and more each time. So therefore I can't ever do a show that's not. It's still only my opinion if it's good or not. But I can't ever do a show that I'm not really proud of because that might be the beginning of the end. So if everything that I do is as good as it can possibly be, be it TV, be it, you know things I do for free that are just for fun

or you know that I think is that sort of use my brain a little bit more or TV spots on different things I want everything to be as good as it can possibly be and I don't want to ever think that I can slacken off because I think now is the time that you must continue and if you slacken off I don't think you deserve it that was my stomach rumbling me for the rest of you're not on it

Like your stomach disapproved of what I was saying So do you want to still be touring? Do you want to be going out and driving four hours to a gig And well even if you can stay in a nice hotel now But you want to still be out and touring every night And Not every night At the moment I've decided

Because I did two tours A year after each other And I've decided to do every other year now Because with Edinburgh and previews because I do like 20 or 30 previews, it means that I'm on the road 10 months of the year and I am 36 and do not own a plant. And I quite like to have a bit more of roots, I guess,

and maybe a pet and maybe a plant and maybe a big milk in my fridge every now and again rather than a one pinter. At the end of the tour, that's the first thing I do is I buy like a four ponder. I never drink it. all because I don't really like milk. I just have it on my

frosties and in my tea. I can't drink a glass. Oh! But it's a symbol of the end of a tour is buying a really big milk. Yeah, I'm going to be home for a bit. If every other year I tour, so I'm not touring, I've got 12 more dates at the end of this year of this tour,

and then I'll not be touring again until I'm going to do the Edinburgh Festival next year. So it means I have, between now and then today, we're doing another series of the TV program and to the TV program. and to maybe, maybe go to Australia or, you know, maybe just bits and bobs that are fun and nice to do and a little bit more living at home

and I've got a column in a magazine coming up but I can't tell you what it is yet but maybe by the time this goes out, I might be able to tell you. So that sort of thing. I'm trying to sort of give myself a bit of work that's in a flat that I can do and still earn money because I know there'll be a time

when nobody wants me anymore and it's not me, it's not Oboo who, you know, it's the make hay well the sun shines. Well, people still find you funny and so much. There'll be a time when they go, oh, it's just, you know, maybe the industry will change or people's,

sort of, um, people's taste will change and now will be... God, I'm just sick of the cake jokes. Endless cake jokes. This is a fifth show about fucking cakes. So, then I still want to have a job,

so that's why I do, I write things, and I quite like writing things that I'm not in. I like writing things and send them and somebody else produces them and makes them and they, you know, like radio stuff and columns and things that I can do and will hopefully still be able to continue while my face is, nobody wants to see my face anymore.

And that's not, it's not, it's not, I don't think it's defeatist. I think it's realistic that I'm not going to be, there's only Joan Rivers and Ken Dodd who are still doing it in their 70s, eighties, nobody else is still doing it. So the chances of me being one of the two in that time is slay. to none. I don't know, with your views on the trunk, I can see you trundling on stage.

That's the creeping Deppard in your 75. Call them all pricks. Well, I mean, but there might be, it might be that I decided don't want to do on the road anymore and maybe I want to do other things instead. But so the way I'm lengthening in my touring time is by doing it every other year. Because I think if I did it every year,

I might only do a few more and then go, oh God, I can't do it anymore. Wait, if I do it every other year, I get a year where I'm, And plus it makes the shows better because the shows are a year and a half in the making instead of being slightly shoved out, which they sometimes are. And it means the show can be really, really good. And that is worthy of people's ticket price, you know? I think it's, I can't really control ticket prices of things very much, but I can control the quality and length of the show.

So the same with the DVD. The first DVD, I couldn't really control how much, because all of the shops charged whatever they want. But I can control the extras and how long the show. show is and you know so you can control the product if not necessarily how much people are paying for it so you can make sure that it's worth the money that you know somebody's going to charge for it so I think the ultimate goal is just to to always be good no matter what you do to make sure that you don't let the quality control slip we did 111 dates in this tour and in my month break I made a six-part TV series oh my God and

that's why I'm having this month off because I'm fucked but it's lovely just seeing friends and I guess I'm having, you know how a lot of people have two days off a week? Just having them all in a month.