The Comedian's Comedian Podcast - Shenoah Allen

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Shenoah Allen is the co-creator of the legendary The Pajama Men, as well as a writer, actor and director with credits across the Soho Theatre, the West End, and projects developed with the BBC and HBO - as well as even appearing on Breaking Bad!Now he's now created the dazzling work of genius that is Sunlight with Nina Conti and is currently on tour with Bloodlust Summertime. We discuss:using a monkey mask to tell the most human love story possibletreating the script like a jazz framework rather than a rulebookhow “doing nothing” can be the strongest acting choicethe challenges of leaving a 20-year comedy partnershipturning teenage dread into a solo comedy showand creating something that outlives youJoin the Insiders Club at Patreon.com/ComComPod where you can instantly WATCH the full episode and get access to 20 minutes of exclusive extras including:finding the humour in dangerous teenage experienceshow he pushed boundaries working with Kim Nobleand breaking out of characters to tell the truth on stage👉 Sign up to the NEW ComComPod Mailing List and follow the show on Instagram, YouTube & TikTok,Catch Up with Shenoah: Shenoah Allen: Bloodlust Summertime is at the Soho Theatre from Wednesday 18th to Saturday 21st February and Sunlight, Shenoah's film with Nina Conti, is out now on streaming platforms! You can keep up-to-date on Instagram, @imshenoahallenSupport our independently produced Podcast from only £3/month at Patreon.com/ComComPod:✅ Instant access to full video and ad-free audio episodes✅ 20 minutes of exclusive extra content with Shenoah✅ 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!Everything I'm up to: Come and see me LIVE including at the Leicester Comedy Festival! 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 back to the show. I'm Stuart Goldsmith and today I'm talking to Shanoa Allen. He first graced this podcast as one half of the legendary pajama men. And I described them to someone recently who hadn't heard of them and I felt old because they were like you just couldn't. You couldn't miss the pajama men at the Edinburgh Festival. What, are we talking 10? If I think it was 10 years ago, it was probably 15 years ago. They did some exquisite shows and I heartily recommend you seek out the original episode of this pod. search pyjama, I don't think it's pyjama, I think it's pajama, in your podcast, whatever

they're called, platform in order to find it, because Shanoa and Mark Chavez used to do these incredible shows, Mime, clown, funny shows, are brilliant, brilliant one-liners. I tell you what, if you enjoy the one-liner I'm about to say to you, which I mentioned in that interview, no one else understood, then you'll enjoy that. One of the characters said, I went for a walk in the park, it was easy. That kind of thing, right? But with lovely clown and mime as well. So anyway, that's where Shanoa is from. But he's also a writer and an actor and a director.

He's got credits across Soho Theatre, the West End projects developed with the BBC and HBO. He was briefly in Breaking Bad, and that was an awful lot of fun. So that was very fun to watch when you're in the middle of Breaking Bad and Shanoa pops up. More recently, however, Shanoa has created this movie with Nina Conti. It's called Sunlight. And it is, it's a dazzling work of absolute genius. There is not a moment in it that isn't either funny or heartbreaking or beautiful. I absolutely loved it.

And you know how much I hate doing research. It's so, so good. And it's also, well, we'll tell you about it. We'll talk about it in detail in this interview. But it is, I think I realised at the time, it is completely available to you. It has been released and you can find it. So if you've got, I've got a clever app, what's it called? You basically put telly in it.

You put the name of a show and it tells you what platform it's on. It's called Just Watch. This is not Sponcom. I use it all the time. Look for sunlight and just watch it literally today because it's wonderful. Shinoma is also on tour with Bloodlust Summertime, which is an incredible, I mean, it's just an astonishing, funny, funny show about his ludicrous upbringing. And we're going to talk about that as well. In the first half, we'll discuss how he had to unlearn some of the habits built from his time in the Pajama Men double act. We'll talk about using a monkey mask to tell the most human love story

possible. We'll talk about treating the script like a jazz framework rather than a rulebook. Come on, improv people. And we will talk as well about how doing nothing can sometimes be the strongest acting choice. Now, that is all coming up in, I'm going to say, I'm going to time myself on this blow. 20 seconds, ready? There has never been a better time to support this independently produced podcast. There's literally three of us. It's only £3 a month or more. You get access to instant ad-free, full video and audio. I tape off. all of them now. You'll get extra content with Chanoa more about that later. You get a very special episode 500 Stu and A hosted by a very special guest indeed, someone very dear to my heart,

and I'm recording that in about an hour and a half, so that's fun. And you get a lovely warm feeling inside knowing, oh, that's it, that's the end of my 20 seconds. Oh well, you can find out more at at patreon.com slash comcom pod. Here at last is Chanoa Allen. I think all my work, if you try to describe it, it doesn't, it's not the easiest press release to write. Sure. A movie about a woman who decides to cocoon herself within a monkey suit and not come out, finds a man mid committing suicide. in a hotel room

and she rescues him he's unconscious and he's a radio host and she steals him in his radio van and he wakes up in the desert to a giant monkey driving the RV and then

they develop a friendship and it's sort of a love story through this mask because she doesn't want to come out because of this alter ego is sort of bolsters her in a way that she doesn't feel she has the ability to... She doesn't feel like she has the strength to reveal herself without it.

And a friendship develops between Monkey and Roy are their names. And so she's afraid that that will dissolve if she comes out. And so they go on a... A strained and delightful adventure that's pretty madcap in the desert. I don't really, like, I'm happy for you to. I don't want to give away any of the things that happen on the road trip, but it is constantly funny and beautiful, or like funny or beautiful or both. It's such an achievement, man.

It's so, I absolutely love the movie. Is it out in a format that people can see? Was it like, did it do festivals and stuff? People can listeners buy it and watch it or see it on a platform? somewhere? Yeah, yeah. It's on Amazon and Apple. It's called Sunlight. There's more than one film called Sunlight, so look for the one that has the big monkey in it, or Google it along with my name or Nina Conte, and you'll find ours. And it's, yeah, I think it's on Sky, YouTube movies, and there's a little paywall on all of them, but it's not going to break your bank.

I love it so much. Are you, how do we start talking about it? Are you happy with it, how it came out? Does the finished product realize the initial plans? Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, creating something, this is going to sound really pretentious. Yes, please. But creating something is a fluid process, you know.

So, yes, it does, but also it's a very different thing from the initial seed of the idea. We knew that we wanted it to be a love story early on, but its current manifestation is very different than the early drafts of the script and ideas. We did a lot of improvising and developing the relationship, and then I would go away and write scenes and we'd come back and... workshop those so that the dialogue felt more natural. And so it was kind of a back and forth of improvising and then the structural work and also all the dialogue work for the other characters of the really kind of screwed down more mathematical sort of writing versus loose improvisation. We sort of keep that alive through the through to the end.

So there's always room for change, but we're also really trying to trying to be conscientious of what needs to happen in each scene so that we can tell a story that's easy to follow and is satisfying and everybody's getting their justifiable sort of end without it seeming too contrived or, you know, there's sort of a no-bullshit rule. And as soon as it feels like fake, then you've got to try again. Can you give me an example of something that would feel fake that you'd go, oh, hang on, we can't do this? Like, do you remember any particular bits that stood out?

Because I totally, I can see how that was a rule, because it feels, despite the ludicrousness of the initial, the appearance of the premise, it's like, I found myself thinking, oh, this is sort of the only movie that could be made in which Nina could wear the monkey suit and be the monkey, and for it to make sense as a coherent story that is both magical and mundane.

Like, I just, that's part of its charm, is you sort of think there's no other way that I can't imagine any other movie making sense but it makes sense it feels real. So could you think of something that's a good example of something that got cut that didn't feel quite right or like a direction that got excised?

Yeah, well there was there was like some talk about you know the monkey being crazy and kind of going out on a rampage and doing monkey stuff to find scenes of chaos where the monkey was being a chaotic force. And it doesn't need that added on.

Nina's monkey character already is punching holes and things with its kind of forthright way. So adding it like another level of anarchy to it felt false. It's funny, this was a kind of kind of. kind of a challenge. This is a little bit off the question, but because that character just says the thing always, it provided a screenwriting challenge because if you start a scene and you're expecting build within the scene, and then the character you're talking to just says exactly what's on their mind and what the end of the scene is, essentially, you've got to go, okay, I thought we were going to gradually head somewhere with this,

but you just said it. So now where do we start? I think that's really interesting. I think that's part of its appeal to me. I hadn't, I wouldn't have, I don't think I recognised that at the time. But yes, Monkey just says exactly what's going on. So that's enormously charming,

and it's great for someone with a busy brain because it's like, you could imagine almost from the look of it and the fact that it feels like a kind of art house movie, I might be a bit trepidacious going, okay, what's this going to be? Is this going to be a sort of slow, meaningful kind of a movie? And it's not like that at all. It rattles along.

And I think part of that is the leanness of the plotting. But definitely part of it is monkey just saying the thing. Can you just give me an example of what you mean by monkey saying the thing for people that might not, like I know what you mean, but what do you mean for people who haven't seen it? Yes, let me think of a good example. Oh, you've got me. You've got me.

I'm drawing a blank. Some of the, there's a particular bit that stood out for me, which may or may not be an example of this, but maybe we can sort of a talk back round to it, where Monkey describes, and it's just, oh God, it's such a weighty line, she talks about seeing a kid pull all the legs off a daddy long legs and just leaving it there.

and she says, little pod full of pain, that's me, daddy no legs. And I was just like, oh my God, what an extraordinary line. And I don't know if that's a good example of like saying the thing immediately. But like did that line come up through improvisation? Or is that a kind of stumble over it and sharpen it? How did that work? No, that came from an experience of Nina's in childhood. Okay.

And so, and she was, I don't, she was a little reluctant. And I think we both did this. And I do this with my show now, being like, I don't know if I want to say this, because it's personal. And it feels like maybe it's not the right thing. And I was like, that line is fucking genius. I really love it. Can we keep it?

Please. So we did. Yes. So there is a bit of a cost to it. And I wonder if that's like, does that, you mentioned that we would talk about bloodlust summertime as well for sure um does that idea like i think that chimes with a sort of an understanding or a preconception i have about comedy and art which is that it good art costs you something like it's not necessarily

trauma dumping you know it's like i think people mistake vulnerability and trauma dumping but if you are saying something deeply personal and meaningful to you that you've got to get out there is also presumably a counter instinct that's like no don't Don't let it out. Keep it because then it's, it has a life beyond the potential painful thing it was for me. Yeah. Yeah. And also, like with bloodlust, Nina's helping me on that. She, she's helped me to like see that I can talk about things that might have been horrifying and sad and terrible. but that doesn't necessarily mean the audience has to go through that if I'm talking about it. And so I've been able to kind of go further having an outside eye like her to go,

actually, you're not going to traumatize us. You know, you don't have to protect us so much. You can tell these stories and it's fine. I'm going to go, okay, because the audience isn't carrying the same baggage that I am to their experience of it. Obviously, some things might trigger people in both. pieces, but, you know, it's a nice, because people want it. People want the gritty underside of things. And I don't remember who, I think I'm kicking myself for not remembering what this director's

name is, but he said something like, I find the more I tell the truth, the more universal I become. Yes, definitely. And I find that really interesting because we're so scared to, you know, go, oh, this this is what I did or this is who I am. And then as soon as you do, people go, oh, thank God somebody else said that because now I don't feel like a monster anymore.

Yes, yes. That aspect you were talking about, the screenwriting challenge, how did you approach that challenge of going, okay, monkey has very directly said what's going on in the scene? Does that mean that the scene? It's almost like,

I wonder if there's a parallel between when you write a stand-up bit and it's a new bit and they laugh at the setup and then they don't laugh at the punchline and you go, oh, right, I guess the setup was the punchline. Do you know what I mean? Is there a parallel there?

It's almost more like jumping to the punchline, I think. Yeah, there were scenes that just took finesseing. And then we also let them kind of go on longer than maybe some editors might. In some cases, you know, there's a little, there's a little, kind of sexual moment that is regrettable immediately by Monkey. And the conversation afterwards is, you know, we just kind of let it go awkwardly and and all of that stuff's improvised. Like, we knew that there was going to be a little chat.

I knew that we were going to, I had the idea of like weighing things up in a mathematical equation sort of way, but all the things that Monkey says are new and fresh. I'm still trying to circle back to this idea of monkey saying the thing first. I'm trying to think of what build scenes like around the fireplace or anything about Wade. Yeah. You know, we kind of thinking, oh, she might want to keep this a secret. And immediately it's like, fuck that guy. He's a, you know.

Yeah. Yeah. That conversation after the sexual moment. is so, like, that's kind of such a key moment in the film. The first one for me, like, I loved the setup of the situation, like, just from the off. It's like, oh, this is great. This is new and novel and intriguing. And I like the people involved.

And I think the moment where I really fell in love with it was the song about holes, where they had, like, you know, they're kind of singing. And that feels like a very, that feels like a song born of improvisation. Absolutely. Yeah, it wasn't in the script. Um, so we, uh, we had the, like, did you ask him how many holes he had, uh, set up? But we didn't, and then, yeah, and then I said list them. And then she did.

And I said, that sounds like a song. And, um, and then we, once we got the joy out of singing this stupid song about holes, we were shooting a scene that was on the road. And you start in one place and go down and do the scene to the end of the road and then turn around and come back and do it again. So then we just started every time on the return trip to keep the cameras rolling and singing more versions of the whole song. So the whole thing was kind of created in front of the camera.

That's kind of what I was going to ask because like that process, from what I understand, any time on a film set is incredibly expensive because there's loads of people involved. So does that mean that there's got to mean that there's extra pressure, when you're improvising. So I wasn't sure if you meant like, we improvise, but we improvise in a studio or in a room, and then we work it out. But you're literally improvising in front of the cameras as well.

Yeah, yeah. But the script, you know, we spent a long time with the script. So we really knew the characters and what they wanted out of their situations. So anything that we decided to go off script with, we knew was in keeping. with the rest of the movie. But, you know, that's kind of an example, too. You don't want to say things from the end of the movie too soon.

And they have a few conversations, and it's easy to fall into other parts of their chit-chat and give things away too soon. So the script is there to make sure that all the little pieces of the equation are there and in the right place. And then we allow ourselves. to kind of, you know, like jazz, if you want some more pretension, you know. Meet me on the beat and then go wherever you want in between.

So talk to me about the origin of the movie. Because like, is Nina credited as the writer, but you're credited as the screenplay, the screenwriter? Like, what was it, was it an idea that came from Nina or like, what was the origin of it and then how did that kind of unfold in terms of making it? And how long ago did you start? I was talking to Tim Key, recently and he was talking about having started work with Tom Bazden on the Ballad of Wallace Island

18 years ago before it came out. I wonder how long this has been a kind of passion project. Yeah, seven years ago we started, coming up on eight. You know, it certainly comes out of Nina's Canada work with Monkey as a, you know, a 20-year sidekick that she's had. and the evolution of that character into this monkey suit. But, you know, she didn't know exactly what she wanted to do with that. She got cast in a Star Wars film, and then her part got cut.

They changed directors or something, and I don't know. She got cut, but she met the creature department in that process and met this lady Ness who makes Chewbacca's these days and said, do you think you could upscale my monkey? She said, yeah. And so she made a very nice, much larger replica of that little ventriloquist puppet. And then Nina and I happened to do an improv, the 50-hour improv show together, which is this kind of culty thing where people stay awake for two days and improvise.

I think I've talked to Ruth Bratt about this. I don't think I've spoken to anyone else. I know she's a devotee of the 50-hour improv. Yeah, she's a big-time veteran of that. I don't want to gloss over that because it seems like its own kind of insanity, but we'll put a pin in that and come back to it. So we ended up saying yes to that and ended up on stage together a few times as Monkey. And I just decided to be a guy named Roy.

Like you pick who your character is and who you're going to be as your main character for the next two days. And I came out and I was like, hi, I'm Roy. And Monkey was Monkey. And we just ended up together a lot. And then at the end, Nina asked if I wanted to do some gigs. And I was like, yeah. And so we started doing kind of improvised stand-up as Monkey and Roy. And then she asked if I wanted to do a film.

So it was her idea to do a film and would it be a love story? And I said, yeah, okay. And then we started improvising. And it just sort of emerged that I would write the screenplay and she would direct. And, you know, it says written by Nina and I, because so much of a It came out in the improv scenes and so many discussions that we have. As far as the actual document and the configuration, I wrote a lot of that. But Nina's editor's mind is all through that also and woven deeply through the way it's structured additionally.

So yeah, I mean, I wrote the screenplay and she wrote it also in a way. But in her way was more kind of currents running through it than the task of writing it down. Is it public knowledge and can we talk about the fact that you and Nina are in a relationship? And can we talk about how that pertains to the creative process? Yeah, it's public knowledge. It's not a secret. No, sure, but it's like, you know, I don't like to ask people about, their partners who are also comics

because it just seems a bit kind of salacious, but I'm just in terms of writing a love story with someone who you're in love with, that has to be its own particular kind of challenge and wonderful, magical thing. Yes. Yeah.

I don't know how much I want to go into that. Like, maybe I don't. But I will say that it's, I mean, in a way, it's a time camp. for us, you know, the film. It feels very much like a love story because it is for us. And so I'll say that.

And the process of making that film and falling in love with each other happened together. So, you know, for us, it's a, you know, I don't want to gross anyone out. But, yeah, it's pretty special. And, yeah, it's a time capsule. and I really love going into that world and we spent so much time in so many different variations of that world like parallel universes of what the film

ended up being that the landscape in our imaginations is vast. There's so many things that we didn't put in and didn't shoot. But it's a... It feels like our own little universe and it's yeah it's great and really special to get to turn that into a piece of art and show it to people so there's my love and pretension yeah so one of the questions i think i was i had planned to ask was about the the challenges or the fun the play of you spending a lot of time in that movie acting against an i'm not going to say expressionless but a mostly unmoving masked character but now you've revealed as a result of the 50-hour improv, was Nina inside the suit for 50 hours?

Or for the, you know, for the playing part of 50 hours? For the playing part? I think she emerged a couple times. Okay. And you can't stay in that soup for 50 hours. You have nothing. I found it completely normal talking. talking to Monkey

and I think it's because that character is so developed in such a real part of who Nina is that it always felt frank and straightforward

it wasn't like I have to pretend now because I'm talking to a toy and also it looks at you and just sort of looks right through you it has this the eyes are extraordinary

yeah those big open eyes are just like, okay, and it's a Roershack test. You know, you can sort of read anything you want onto that face. And, or whatever's going on with you, you'll bring that emotion to it. And we were really worried about that. We didn't know if that was going to succeed

as something that you could leave on the screen for that long. Are people going to go, all right? I'm sick looking at this fucking monkey. Like, what? Show us a person. So we shot a couple different places where Nina's character emerges as her, you know, as the woman inside the suit,

so that we'd have them if it felt like, oh, we need to reveal her earlier. But it carried, and I think, you know, I think once people kind of get on board with him, there's enough there. There's enough meat to who he is to kind of stick with it and want to see what monkey's going to do and just sort of pretty quickly start to just accept it as, like, this guy is here. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that face is as, it has as much expression on that mostly unmoving face as you get

with a lot of human actors. Like it really, you know, like you said, the Rorschach test element of it is fascinating. It's also a lesson in acting because you, doing nothing is mainly the best thing you can do. And Monkey can't do anything, so that's just there. I mean, Nina's movement inside it, I think she really realizes the character with her movement and stuff. But it came very naturally to her all of that. And most of the scenes in the edit was just like, God, well, we just stop talking and stop moving and stop trying so hard. And whenever there's a little bit of stillness, you go, okay, I can use that staying in.

Okay, okay, that's really. interesting. Did you edit it yourself or were you in the edit with an editor? I was in the edit a bit. We had an editor, Ries, but Nina helmed the edit and did a lot of the edit. So her and Riaz did most of it. I came in every few weeks and went, what about this? What about that? My job was essentially done by then. Which was a little painful. I was like, don't I get to Can I be... Can I... But I think it was really the right thing.

And there are... I really, really trust Nina's comic timing. And I, for, you know, anything that's overly sort of sentimental. There's not a lot of real sort of mushy moments in the movie, but there is an emotion, emotional tension that's between them. And anytime that's another kind of calling bullshit, when it got a little bit too sappy, gone. That's correct. The discipline to do that is phenomenal.

Was it a case of, you know, sometimes if you're doing, like I find if I'm doing an act out, as a stand-up, if I'm doing an act out of something, I find it very freeing creatively. It's much easier to come up with stuff if I'm doing a voice, for example, or doing something unusual with my body. and I'm sure that that must be I imagine that is a universal experience is there a kind of you know inside the movie and outside the movie when you are playing when you're improvving with Nina inside monkey

does it ever feel like she has an unfair advantage because she gets to like do you know I mean if you think of the work of Randy and Heath McIver you know Randy the puppet you kind of go like he's just the best stand-up he's just the best at stand-up comedy because

he has all of the puppetry skills and he just gets to wear this incredibly expressive mask so he can completely be creatively free the whole time because he doesn't, I don't know that it costs him less exactly, harking back to what I said before, but he is removed from it. He's got like a bulletproof shield behind which he can take further risks. And maybe, maybe it feels like that for Nina. I don't know. I think it, I think it is a bulletproof shield. I mean that, you know, And I don't think you have to wear a mask for that. I think characters operate in the same way like you were just saying. And I address that a lot of my show, actually, of being a chameleon

and how that's sort of a survival skill in life. And survival, maybe a strong word, but just to... Survival's generous. Yeah, just to smooth things over. You might go into character all the time to break the tension. and I've spent most of my life in other voices than my own on and offstage. So I address that a lot in my show and do the show in and out of the various personalities that I am. So Nina and I have that kind of experience in common, and like you say, I think it's pretty universal that you do things in a different way and you feel liberated.

but for this Roy is basically me. I mean, there's a little bit of an accent that he has that just gives me enough of a character to sort of let something else drive, so I'm not like thinking, okay, Shanoa, what are you doing now? It's like get a little bit of spark in Roy that I can follow. But I had to tone it way down, and so in terms of my arsenal of protective superpowers,

like monkey is. I had to strip them all away because as soon as I start being an entertainer, it's out the window. It doesn't work at all in terms of the film. And very early on,

watching playback, I was like, oh, you're really acting like an idiot right now. You're being a total clown, and that's not right. You need to strip it all back. So that was really challenging and an interesting process

to see, like, if I play this totally straight and rein it all the way in how will I survive? Will I suck? Will I be boring? You know? And then if I overdo it, it's just like

this guy is an attention-grabbing moron that's trying to steal the spotlight. And those gears must be very easy to slip into for you. You've got like decades of experience of being a physical clown and physical, you know, like improviser. The shows you did with the pajama men, you and Mark would just,

they were kind of just absolutely world-class physical silliness and improv. And, you know, it always had, and that's why it was world-class, was because it had kind of real genuine feeling in it. But that was operating through such, so much bigger a vehicle. Yeah, thank you. But yes, yes, definitely a much bigger vehicle that allows you to hide a little bit. Yes. But also, you know, I always want there to be a truth in the centre of whatever I'm doing.

Something that you should get round to is seeing Bloodlust Summertime. It's at the Soho Theatre. Very soon, in fact, this is coming out this week, something of February. It's on Wednesday the 18th to Saturday the 21st of February. So go and see that at Soho Theatre. Go to Soho Theatre.com. You can also see sunlight, which is this wonderful, wonderful film. with Shanoa and Nina Conti. It's out now on all your streaming platforms. Keep up to date with Shanoa.

And probably, I've not checked this, but you can probably see some of the incredible visuals, the Objadar that he presents us with at the end of this episode. So a little teaser there. You can follow him on Instagram at I'm Shanoa Allen on Instagram. That's in the show notes as well. You can see me live. God, I've got to update this, but you can certainly see me live in Lester, Bristol and London. Particularly in Lester. I'm going to be out of my mind. I think it's going to be on the 20th of February. So if you're not in London watching Shanoa, come to the Leicester Comedy Festival, I'm at Firebug at 6pm, and I will have flown back from Arizona that morning. So I will be out of my mind.

But I'll tell you what, if you were at Newbury, oh no, should I tell you about this? I'll tell you in the Postamble. Basically, long story short, had an absolute blinder of a gig in Newbury, which instantly fixed loads of challenges with the new show, and which means that I'm no longer terrified of that Leicester preview instead. Just feeling amazing. Right, I'll tell you more about that and Newbury and more in the Postamble. But go to Stuartgoldsmith.com slash comedy to find some public shows.

You can come and see me, notably Leicester, Bristol, London. There's a few more. Swindon's just gone in. Marlborough's just gone in. But they haven't physically gone in until I do them. Sign up to the Comcompan mailing list also at Stuartgoldsmith.com. And pin back your lugholes for this second half with Shanoa. We'll talk about the challenges of leaving a 20-year comedy partnership.

We'll talk about turning teenage dread into a solo comedy show, shaping improvisation into something that outlives you, and we'll find out whether he's happy yet. All right? So coming to Bloodlust Summertime and your extraordinary life history, a lot of which comes to play at that, you sent me a clip of it from London, Sweden, from a comedy festival, which I think was recorded, was it last year or two years ago? Yeah, last year, yeah. Oh, last year. So it reminded me actually, the further I got into it, and it's a really funny show, and it's just jaw-dropping in terms of the content. The bit at the end where you're listing, I didn't even talk about, and then like, blam, blam, blam, blam, all of these other things. This crazy story of your family life and growing up in Albuquerque.

The thing it reminded me most in the first few minutes was something that you had said, you gave me on this podcast many, many years ago. You gave me a very memorable answer to a question, which I think of a lot. At the end of the podcast, I often say to someone, are you happy? And it's a bit out of nowhere, and that's kind of the point. So I asked you and Mark, are you happy? And I remember, you said, do you remember what you'd have said at that time like 10 years ago? I don't remember. You said, yeah, no.

And it was just such a lovely, like, it was so great. I would urge the listener to go back and listen to it because, I mean, it's so lovely podcasts, the two very, very funny, interesting erudite men. But it was such a moment of like a real answer kind of bursting out of you. And so that's kind of like, that's most of what I know or remember about, about Shanoa Allen, is like, is that answer to that question. And I feel in bloodlust I get to find out a lot more about the background and the reasons and that personality. So how do you, where are you in the life of that show at the moment?

You've got, you've got Soho coming up. Are we in time that Soho's still coming up? Yes. Yeah. It's coming up February 18th to the 21st, including a matinee. So there's five chances to come and see bloodlust sometime. Yeah, and then I'm going to Calgary just before that to the High Performance Rodeo, which is a fantastic festival in Calgary. And yeah, I'm going to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Nice. Tell me why something is called the High Performance Rodeo. Um, there's a Calgary

Alberta's kind of like Canada's Texas You know, it has cattle and oil Um It's not quite as off its rocker as Texas is But the radio

lifestyle Uh, is there And there's a Ensemble theater company that's been around there for 25 years or something that runs a festival and it's sort of one of Canada's gyms of theater festivals. It's a really cozy one. And it happens to the winter and it's cold and Calgary is interconnected by these things that are called plus 15s,

which are catwalks that are enclosed that take you from building to building above ground. They're 15 feet up so they're called plus 15s. And the whole downtown is connected via these little things like you don't have to go outside and freeze. So I can walk from my hotel down to the third. theater, a few blocks, staying inside the whole time on these little catwalk. Oh, my God. I had no idea that was a thing. Yeah.

So to understand this and kind of the, because I feel like, no, well, I'd just ask it. It's a question. Is Bloodlust Summertime your first solo show since the Pajama Men? I'm not completely up on your over and kind of what the last 10 years have looked like. Yeah. Yeah, basically. I did. I wrote another one about truck driving, even though I wasn't a truck driver.

But it was kind of was quite it was like my stepping stone to this I think I was I was doing a proxy by autobiography I guess sort of an emotionally true story and I did it at the Dublin fringe and I liked it but I don't know I think it was too soon after pajama men I was too raw and I didn't know how to who I was or how to be and I was just like okay well this is we're going to put this to bed for a while I'll go do a one-person show, and I tried guns ablazing. And I think it was too soon to do that. And this show, I feel like I've settled in. And it's taken time to figure out how to be a stand-up versus a character comic with a partner like Mark,

who we share the time and everything's this kind of back-and-forth and interplay, between each other and this is me alone. In terms of the pausing of the pajama men, can you just tell me a little bit about the decisions behind that? Yeah, we toured together for just about 20 years. And you start to feel crazy a little bit like you're turning into the same person or something. And I think we, you know, our biggest strength, when we were working together was our ability to pick up where the other one left off.

And, you know, if you're not familiar with our work, we did narrative sketch comedy that was based in improv, but sort of written and structured, but we were allowed to play within the structure, and we would weave together multiple storylines playing several different characters. And we did a lot of the same voices, and we would do things like have both of us play the same character in some scenes so that other people, the other one could react to that character as a different character. And it was our biggest strength, and after a while, after too long, it started to turn into something where it was a closed circuit. And we weren't getting enough new information into that. And it just felt too insular. So we needed a break to go work with other people and expand our horizons, I guess.

But yes, it's amicable between us. And, you know, I love Mark, and I find him endlessly inventive and funny. And I certainly don't rule out the possibility of doing a projiamad show sometime in the future. So that, it's like coming to a solo show, you're not just coming from a double act. You're coming from a double act, which paused because it had become too, like, sort of over, like hyper collaborative and one person, you know, moving in the same. you know, me and my wife will watch TV and one of us will make a funny comment and the other one will be like, I was literally just about to say that. And we're like, this is awful. It's loving, but this is awful. Oh, God, this is too much, you know. It's like becomes a running joke. So you're not just leaving a double act. You're leaving an incredibly tight knit double act. So tell me a bit more about those. Well, I suppose you were also improvising, you know, going to 50 hour improvs and stuff. So it's not like you've never stood on a stage on your own before. But in terms of making work and specifically shifting. genres to, you know, stand-up storytelling where, you know, if so much of improv is kind of

listening and reacting, suddenly there's no ball in that you've got to throw the ball in the air and catch it yourself. Yeah. Yeah. And that takes endurance, you know, for an hour that I was surprised, like, the first time I did it, I was like, God, I'm a little winded. I'm not used to just like doing this. I developed. it by doing gigs and that was sort of how I

found my way in it and started to build some trust of myself and my ability to tell stories as myself and have them not be boring or have them people or have

the audience go, why is this guy telling us this shit? And so I I did tons and tons of, like, sort of new material nights here in London and the Bill Murray and the Camden Comedy Club and whatever to hone that. And I really enjoy it. I really love the relationship with the audience. And this show, you know, it's a stand-up show, but it's a theater show in a way also.

It's, you know, it's still characterful. And as I was saying before, I sort of move in and out of these different personas. but I'm there the whole time sort of breaking that construct without, it's not really a construct because these personalities are sort of just extensions of myself

that are how I get through the day. And Nina's the same, so that's a funny part of our relationship. I mean, we go on holiday as different people than ourselves. You know, we have these two characters kife and kife, right, that just go everywhere together.

And they just talk about, yeah, yeah, good, good. And they, like, why did we just send Keefe and Keefe to Spain? We should have gone. They had a great time. So, yeah, it's, it's, it shows sort of all about, you know, it's similar to the movie in that way, that, that, these layers of, of, of, of masks and things that you use to just help you get through. At the beginning of the show, you describe it as an attempt to find your unnamed dread or find the source of your unnamed dread. So can you talk to us a little bit about that and what that unnamed dread is and how it expresses itself?

Yeah. It's a, you know, you use the term trauma dumping earlier in this conversation. And I thought, yeah, that's, I haven't heard that. exact configuration of words, but that's something that you don't want to do to the audience or to yourself. And I was definitely doing that to myself in the creation process of this. I was going in and working in the Bill Murray in the mornings and just sort of the beer-soaked little club that it is. And they gave me a key so I could just go in early and just work in that room and just smell like beer. I mean, I love it there. I'm not. I'm not.

Not going to Bill Murray, but you know, you're in a bar in the morning that smells like it's had comedy audiences in it every night drinking a lot of beer and spilling it on the carpet. And you, you know, I just have my phone and I record myself. And I, in the search for my unnamed dread, I basically cataloged every terrible thing that ever happened to me. And I was trying to find the funny part of, you know, the funny parts of those stories. And there were so many mornings where I was just like, what the fuck am I doing in here? Why am I in here unearthing all of this? Why am I lifting all these stones and letting these centipedes crawl around loose? So it was kind of grueling.

But ultimately, I think my unnamed dread has something to do with hiding and feeling shame. I don't want to scare people away from the show talking about this. It's a fun show. But I think, you know, in polite conversation, there's constantly a screen going up, going, this isn't the time for that or this or that or this. You know, don't talk about these things. They're not, whoever you're talking to is going to think you're weird if you talk about whatever just memory just was triggered.

So in a way, it's coming out of hiding. Please come to the show. It's not as terrible as it sounds. Has the show had any kind of therapeutic value? Has writing and performing the show healed anything for you? Or answered that question about the dread? Yeah, well, I mean, you know, even like conversations like this where you go, okay, I was doing asset at 13 years old or whatever,

just say them publicly and go, well, yeah, that's fine. Think what you want, you know? You know, I think when I was younger, I wanted to make sure that I was protected somehow. And so I kept, I was worried that people would think I was crazy, so I was like, okay, I'll show you crazy. but I'll do it on stage. And I think I wanted to be in politics or something.

I was always worried about covering my tracks and making sure that I didn't come across as somebody that was untrustworthy or something because of my proximity to drugs and to criminal behavior and whatever. And now we have, you know, a rapist running America. And I think, actually, me doing acid is expanding my mind. You know, I don't have shame about these things.

I feel liberated in sort of telling my stories and just letting the cards fall and being who I am. I don't want to worry about what people think. But I also want to set the bar higher than that. I want to connect to people. You know, I don't want to just be like, it doesn't fucking matter what you think. I want to connect to people by telling stories and by telling the truth. That early moment where you were saying like,

I'll show you crazy. You were saying that was a response to worrying that people would think you were crazy. And was that worry, do you think? The worry that they would, was that worry because you felt like you might be crazy? Or was it simply that you were worried that they might think you were? Do you mean, was there a worry? Because you talked in that early kind of acid experience and others like it, feeling like, what is this?

I'm mad. I'm on the other side of the planet. I know I'm familiar a bit with what that experience is like. Were you concerned that, you might be crazy? And so you wanted to hide that? Or was it that you were thinking they might think you were. crazy and you knew you weren't. I think probably both but so I started in a private school money didn't change hands because my

parents ran this school and it was a it was a Waldorf school which is like taught through painting and drawing and what have you. Oh like a Montessori or a kind of yeah that kind of similar that kind of thing. Yeah. And then I went to a public school right around the time I started finding drugs. That's probably where I found them. And that transition was part of what made me feel like I needed to hide or something. My dad's gay. And I always knew.

You know, he didn't come out to us. My mom knew before they were married. and they live in my dad, my mom and my dad's male partner live together and have for the last 30 years or what have you. But when I went to a public school, state school, no money changing hands, much bigger school, and found out that people didn't understand gay people and found that there was a lot of, you know, faggot thrown around, you know what I mean? And I was sort of discovering goth, and I was wearing makeup and had dyed black hair

and sometimes mohawks and whatever, and I was getting called faggot in the hallways. And, you know, I never knew that people had it in for gay people, you know? So that was like a reverse coming out. It was like, oh, oh, it's not that my dad had something to reveal to me, it was that the rest of the world had something to reveal to me that they were intolerant. And so that was very jarring and made me go, okay, I've got to be further in hiding

because people won't accept this and that. I didn't last very long. I lasted a semester and dropped out and went back the following year. Okay. That's again, that's absolutely extraordinary. And it kind of goes a long way towards explaining why someone might then kind of dedicate their life to silliness and joy and art. I mean, does it feel like a rebellion? Or has it at any point felt like a rebellion against the world or society or normals? Definitely. Definitely. I really couldn't get my head around doing anything else.

You know, I like some of my classes. I like sciences and stuff. But, yeah, when I found the theater, I was like, okay, here's a place that I can exist and everything's okay. Before we wrap up, you referred to it, you alluded to it earlier on, but there's a moment in the show where you talked about, it was with the payphone story. I'm in town, in a different town, in a different state, and you're thinking, oh, my friend Aaron here, I might be able to call Aaron, maybe I'll end up doing an improv show tonight. And what that struck me as like, oh, that's like the gun-slinging life of the improv comedian. And if there's an improv show, you can probably get on.

It's probably less awful than being a comic and going, well, I can't just turn, I can't rock up at a gig necessarily. And if you are, there's going to be other comics that are vying for stage time. Whereas improv seems, I feel like a lot of the happiest people I speak to on this podcast are improv people. Because they're just like, oh, I just get to play. And it's just about finding, I've learned how to not be scared to play. And I find opportunities to play, and then I play. And what a life. That feels like a really beautiful.

beautiful thing. Yeah, it is. It's cozy and, you know, there's a lot of little kind of sub-communities that stay in touch with each other. Canada has a thriving community or a bunch of pockets of little, but everybody sort of knows each other a bit or you know someone who knows someone and you can drop in and be on a show. But is that like, is that kind of, is that presumably that's kind of threaded throughout your life?

Like if I think of lovely Andy Smart who passed away a couple of years ago He was one of those people who just He just lived big Loved Life Was often in the bar Would run a book on the Who was going to win the awards

And just kind of enjoyed it It was like it's like being a comic But with no I don't know about no pressure But being a comic with no kind of like There's no grind It's just like Oh it's almost

It feels like a religious version Of being a comedian You're just like I'm just open to the thing Yeah Yeah And, you know, it is a little bit cult-like in that way of, like, seeing the light of God in their eyes. I'm just like, okay, no, we're all here to share.

Oh, okay, shit. But, you know, the positive side of that is, it is great that people are like that and really warm. And there's a certain amount of needing to follow the rules a bit of being supportive on stage. in improv, you know, or people start to go, I don't know if I want to do improv with you, because you're not doing that. And the whole way, you know, it's always supposed to be very organic and I don't know. I think that there are still all kinds of ways that people compete with each other and and vie for being the best and what have you. But it is, yeah, It's less cold and it's more social than the world of stand-up, I think.

And what is the plan? And you are interacting with other people. It's not just you and you coming back to you. It's me against them as opposed to that's how it feels. So what's the next part of the plan after you conclude bloodlust summertime and the various places you're going to with that? What's the next creative project on the horizon? Well, two things. one, I am a sculptor now.

Whoa! What is your medium? Bronze. No! Yes, I do very detailed figures. I have a statue that I'm making. Do you have a maquette of it that we can see? Can you show me anything on the video?

Can you grab something? Yes, yes. I would love to see it. Is that okay? Have you got a second? Yeah, thank you. This may present a physical challenge now having to have the headphones on whilst holding up heavy bronze sculptures. Okay. This is incredible, Shinar. I'm so excited.

This is a little snail. Oh my God. That's eating a lemon. Oh, my God. He's got fancy hair. That's very fancy. This is an extraordinary thing. Well done.

Oh, my God. I'll put that one down It's so funny being tethered to this thing This is a sculpture of a hand With a raven coming out of its sleeve Oh Man these are incredible The hand took a long time

Here's another pretentious comment for you A lot of people asked me if I cast my hand No. No. Scoped at my hand on a clay. Too easy. Too easy. Hang on, that's an old pajama men line.

Yeah, it is. Little stitches in the buttons, you know. What? How is it, how does it work? You're making a model and then covering it in sand and pouring bronze into the sand or something? No, I don't have the first idea. Kind of, yeah. I get help with the casting part.

Okay. Here's a little rhinoceros. Oh my God. Oh, God. Here's a baby rhinoceros. And here's a pangolin. These guys I made for a... Oh, I love a pangolin.

A forensics team that is helping to stop their poaching. Oh, my God. I'm just going to stop kind of being blown away by this now. This is amazing. A couple of quick questions. We must wrap up, but I'm just on this. This is completely out of left field. How did you get into it?

I just quickly, how did you get into it? How did you stumble across sculpting in bronze? I was making masks years ago and I thought I kind of have a little bit of a flare for this. And I always thought I could do that when I saw sculptures. And then so in the past like year, I've put more time into it. I got a little art studio and I've just been doing that a lot. And I do that and write.

And I have a little few square feet where I've got my clay and a big marker board and a desk. I actually have three desks that surround me. And so there's clay and then there's sculptures that are half done. Oh, and you can swivel on a little stool

and you can swivel around. Yeah, it's my little cockpit. That is a dream come true. What a thing. It would be, forgive me if this is trite or obvious, but do you think there is something about making an ethereal thing

that isn't written down and is improvised and you improv and you create stuff and it just disappears like smoke. And as a result, it's very satisfying to make a physical thing that stays there forever and will outlive you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it is fun, the bronze things, because they last 3,000 years, you know.

They can, you know. And if they're undisturbed, probably longer. So that is kind of fun to make these things and go, here you go, world. And they're sort of droppings. that I'm leaving around. That's amazing. But yeah, and the other thing is an animated film that I'm developing. Okay.

Just because we're tight on time, I'm going to have to hand wave that with like, yeah, yeah, we're all making an animated film. But that's the next big comedic thing. Nina and I are developing that together. Okay. So that's our next film. Okay. So two quick questions then. The first is I love asking this to people who I consider successful.

Why aren't you even more successful? I don't understand money very well. I don't pursue it. I don't think I ever really, you know, occasionally I'll get like a lucky break and sort of make a little money and that keeps me going. But I don't know how to cash in on art. And I never, I'm just not a good. gun for hire. So I've tried. You're just a gun. I've just a gun. It's just shooting wherever I want. I can't play the game. I try, but every time I do, it's immediately obvious that I'm faking it.

And that my heart's not in it. I don't want to be there. So it's occasionally the two worlds converge between finance and something I want to do and I make a little. But I think I, yeah, I don't know how to play by their rules, man. Great answer. Last question, Shanaa. Are you happy? No. Yes.

Yeah, I think I am, you know, by and large. It's day to day, you know. But I, you know, I really love my partner and her kids and our cat. And I feel more stable than I have in most of my life. Thanks, man. But it's, you know, every day's fucking new. Who knows what the next day throws at us. So that was Shanoa.

Thank you so much to Shanoa for coming on. I was fizzing after that one. Brilliant. Bloodlust summertime. Shanoa stand-up show is at the Soho Theater from the 18th to the 21st of February. get and see that. Do watch sunlight. That's available on your streaming platforms. I cannot recommend it enough. And I find it hard to sit and watch things. If I've mentally pinned something as work, because it's research, I can really put it off. Not only did I not put this off, the second I started

it, like, within the first minute and a half, I was like, oh, I'm going to immediately watch all of this. This is great. It's so, so good. Keep up to date with Shanoa on Instagram at I'm Shanoa Allen. And if you enjoyed this, there's more with him. We'll talk about finding the humor in some of his, Oh my God, his insane teenage years. We'll talk about finding the humor in some of those, just extraordinary experiences. We'll talk about Kim Noble and how he pushed, he was inspired to push his boundaries

with his show directed by a friend of the podcast, Kim Noble, and we'll talk about breaking out of character to tell the truth on stage. All of that is only available to you if you're on the Patreon. Patreon.com slash comcom pod. So join the Insiders Club. You can see me live at Stuart Goldsmith.com slash comedy. So thank you to Shanoa for coming on the show.

Thanks to Lou Doyle for helping sort that out. Thank you to Susie Lewis for logging. Your evil co-producer is Callum Morin. I've been Stuart Goldsmith. And your insider producers include and are not limited to. Luke Hacker, Roger Spiller, I Cave, Dave, Daniel Powell, Keith, Simon, Sam, Alan, Jay, Lucas, Gary McClellan, Chris Swarbrick, Dave McCarroll, Paul, Swaddle, Alex Wormall and James Burry.

And if you're incensed as I am that they all seem to be male, despite the listenership of this podcast being pretty much down the line, male female. And if you are not yourself male and would like to redress the balance, then please go to patreon.com.com. Pod. A great big thank you to our two special insider executive producers, Neil Daddy No Legs Peters, and Andrew Ladybug Dennant, and to the Super Secret one as well. Thank you for listening. Postamble at you in a second, but if you're not sticking around for that, then do before we next speak, which will be with Lindsay Santoro. That's an absolute corker. That's been in the can for a while. I can't wait to get that.

out. So if you're up for that, then try to retain a consistent sense of self between now and then. Right, so assuming you've hung out, I have spent the day, as you can probably hear from the speed at which I'm talking. No, you're not on 1.2. I'm actually talking this fast. Oh, God, that's, well, just to tangently tangent, my son also revealed that he actually watches TV. He's been watching, what's it called, I Carly. It's exactly what the 10-year-old boy is now into. And he's been watching it on 1.25 speed so he can just jam it all in. I mean, that's not right, is it?

That's not right. It's not a slow show. It's a sort of peppy, fast-paced sitcom. But, yeah, terribly worrying. But now he's given me the idea. I will do that with some shows. Most notably, what do we watch? We remember me and my wife watched Better Call Saul,

and we basically skipped through it to the Mike Erman-trout bits and referred to it as Better Call Mike. So it's, I've only myself to blame. I was going to talk to you about, oh yes, the high-speed chat. I feel I have spent the whole day feeling like Bradley Cooper in Limitless, which if you've not seen that film, you've got to see that film. It's a near-perfect B movie. It's absolutely, so good.

It's up there with sneakers and inside man. Specifically, it's about a pill this guy takes. A little clear pill. What a design choice. A little transparent pill that allows him to access the rest of his brain that he doesn't doesn't access. If you buy into that, we only use 10% of our brains, Guff. But what a movie. And I've felt like that all day. It isn't just the meds. It's also, I think, finally getting around to attacking a challenge that I've been trying to get around to attacking for nine days.

And yet the deadline is fast occurring. Like, it's a thing I've got to do this Thursday. And it's only been nebulously there. And now it's there in a much more concrete way. And now I just need to learn the bastard thing, which is never my favourite point of anything. But the combination of, what was it? Maybe I just slept enough. I was feeling ill this morning. But the old flawless medicine wallop. What a day it's been. In fact, it's been such a productive day that already I'm thinking, I'm not going to climb down from some collaborations I agree to earlier on, but I might need to knock them forwards in the calendar because the danger is you get on the ADHD meds. Liz Dexhamphetamine, thanks for asking, and you have more energy and focus than you normally have.

I'm just talking quickly anyway. They've worn off now, so I've had a coffee, so it's probably mostly that. But the thing that happens when you're on them is that you then make plans for times forgetting that you won't be on them necessarily at the time. So let me just go back over my emails and see what I've promised. I wanted to talk to you very quickly just about Newbury, which was, it's an Avalon, gig, which is like his mixed bill of acts. Jesse

Nixon was hosting and oh wow she was great. Oh my God, she was great. It's wonderful seeing someone who you've known for a while and then haven't seen for a while, suddenly bowl you over with how much better

they are. She was not too shabby to begin with, but oh my God, wow, well done. If you want to book someone really smart and funny and full of persona and just all the stuff we like, then get yourself at Jesse Nixon, and that's my advice. Anyway, I missed, who else was on?

Bilal Zafar was on, and Dom Houghton Woods, Dom Hattonwoods, apparently both did magnificently, and I apologise I wasn't there in time to see them. But Newbury Corn Exchange is a perfect room for comedy, and I was simultaneously thrilled to be on stage, having the moment I wanted. Talk to you more about that in a second. And also, just kind of annoyed. Kind of annoyed. I've been touring. Well, not touring, well, I went did some, I did the Fronglish Comedy Festival. Thank you, Richard Lett and Erica and everyone there. The Fronglish Comedy Festival in

the French Alps, and I bloody took the train. And I did it with Neil Delamere and Jessica Fosterkew and Rob Rouse, and other comics were there in and around it. But, um, Seeing the three of them all be at the absolute master craftsperson level was so enthralling and participating in it. And also being good was real great. But how do I phrase that? Also being good. I also smashed it. I had an absolute banger of them seeing did great. And then I did a preview of the new climate show.

And that wasn't master craft person level just yet. So let's be honest rather than. than modest about that. But one of the gigs was tremendous and it's so lovely to see people kill and then go on and also kill. What a joy. What a gift. But I'm aware that Jessica Fosterkew of this parish, brilliant, brilliant comic. We were just chatting about touring and she's touring at these venues of a similar size to Newbury Corn Exchange. And I just, I was on stage thinking, why can't I fucking do this every night? I'm killing this. And the answer, of course, is that I've spent the last 10 years trying not to leave the house. So I, uh, I've,

I might start reconfiguring things slightly and putting more club stuff back in because, or rather putting, I don't know, probably the truth is I've got to start putting more effort into the non-business related socials because I do. Do you know what? It really rekindled my appetite for building a crowd and doing big rooms. I've toured three, four times in the past. And I'm a small touring guy. There's a few towns I can sell 200 tickets here. mostly I'm at the ones in 150s. They're not always full. Is this TMI? But, you know, warts and all, I just don't have the kind of tele-exposure

that you... What I'm saying is, before Taskmaster comes knocking, it's pretty hard. Also, I think the other element of it is this podcast, loads of people have got a lovely podcast on which they're funny, whereas my podcast, again, my own fault,

and I've not shot myself in the foot here. I don't think it was, it's don't think it's deliberately self-inflicted, but it was definitely a decision. The nature of this show is that I'm not on it riffing up a storm and showing you all that I'm funny. So I only have myself to blame for not, over the many years I've been doing stand-up, building a significant live audience. Although big love to everyone that does come. And there are, you know, there's lots of you. But the point is, oh, I've got to reconfigure, man. I've got to re-optimise for going, all right, let's start really smashing out the social stuff and building a crowd and making sure I can do a tour.

where every venue is Newbury Corn Exchange. The point is, this is the point. I got into a tangential, a sort of happy, whatever the word is for happy jealousy. When you're like, I wish we were doing big venues all the time. And all of that will come, I think.

I feel very self-actualized, and I think I can just, I don't think I can just make that happen, but it feels an achievable goal. If long term, the other point is that the stuff is, this is the thing I wanted to do. Right, here we go.

This is the brief chat, and then I'll go and pick up the girl from school. I did Climate Show 2, then working title and inconvenient time. Last year, 2025 at the Edinburgh Festival, as a work in progress. And I remember thinking at the time, this is pretty fucking good. This could be the show. I've since... It's not that I've changed my mind, but the whole point of doing a whip and getting really ready for the whip and taking lots of time to write it, the whole point.

was that you then have got a whole another year to take it to bits, retool it, finesse it, and make it really, really, really what you want to do. Since then, I've had some lumpy old previews because in some ways you're back to basics and in some ways it's harder being back to basics because you had a really good Edinburgh and part of me was thinking, well, maybe I should just shut up and just do that again next time. But what I was going for was the experience that I've talked about in this show a few times. It's come up from time to time. You take a show to a festival, Edinburgh, Melbourne, wherever.

You smash it, you know, you, you, you, not smash it, you, you bed it in for weeks. And then a few months later, like, so you end up with, okay, that's the show, that's the hour. And then a month or two later, you do some long set, you do the comedy box of 45 minutes or, you know, an extended headliner. And you naturally solve all the problems of the show because you're no longer fixated on making it be an hour. You just naturally do the best, most pertinent, funniest 45 minutes. off stage and this has happened to me several years on the trot. You come off stage and go, oh God, I wish I'd had this gig in June, and then Edinburgh would have been so much better. So doing the whip last year and then the show this year was a specific attempt to engineer that. And apologies for feeling

slightly smug, you've got to take the good bits where you can. That absolutely happened last Friday, Newbury. I made loads of instinctive decisions. I dropped loads of stuff I don't need. I've retooled the whole shape of the show and I came away from it absolutely walking on air. Although, pleasingly, I didn't need to walk on air because I drove home in my new car, a second-hand Scoda Enyac electric vehicle, which I powered with renewable energy and had to wait quite a long time to do so, but it is good. I last bought myself a car 15 years ago and I remember at the time I promoted myself

I gave myself the title of Head of Creative Development and I bought a car and this time I just said to my wife about an hour ago she was mindering about a sort of accountant related email and I said don't worry about that I'm Chief Financial Officer. So I think, let's pick up the girl time. So I think I've promoted myself to, well, I am CEO.

I promoted myself to director. And I bought a SCoda. That is fucking great. And it's so nice to have a new car. Like I said, second hand is not new you. It's so nice to have a vehicle new to me that I am, I feel confident that I can put up with a lot of sitting in service stations having planned poorly and needing to put a load of electricity in it whilst waiting.

I've done that twice already and I've enjoyed it both times. Bye for now.