The Louis Theroux Podcast - S6 EP8: Jimmy Carr discusses the secret to his comedy, being a late bloomer, and controversial stand-up gigs

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

For this Christmas bonus episode, Louis sits down with writer, comedian, and panel-show super-host, Jimmy Carr. Jimmy discusses what lies behind his unique brand of ‘edgy' comedy, why he remained a virgin until the age of 26 and performing at the Riyadh Comedy Festival despite public criticism.   Jimmy’s film, ‘Fackham Hall’, is out in cinemas now.  Warnings: Strong language and adult themes.     Links/Attachments:  Book: Before & Laughter, Jimmy Carr (2021)  https://www.jimmycarr.com/product/book-laughter/    Fackham Hall (2025)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29008225/    Jimmy Carr Tour  https://www.jimmycarr.com/tour/uk-ireland/     Alex Hormozi quote:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DIzTPjPTZB0/     Book: Homo Ludens by Johan Huizinga  https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/203913/homo-ludens-by-johan-huizinga/    Peter McGraw’s Benign Violations  https://petermcgraw.org/a-brief-introduction-to-the-benign-violation-theory-of-humor/     Book: Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault (1975)  https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/13651/discipline-and-punish-by-michel-foucault-trans-alan-sheridan/9780241386019     Bob Monkhouse joke about cancer:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTUvRW7gtGU    Jimmy Carr: His Dark Material (2021)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt16259786/     Nadine Dorries’ comment about Jimmy Carr joke:  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/nadine-dorries-jimmy-carr-netflix-jewish-roma-b2008317.html     Jimmy Carr’s joke about injured soldiers:  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6486964/Jimmy-Carr-feels-terrible-about-injured-soldiers-joke.html#:~:text=Jimmy%20Carr%20'feels%20terrible'%20about%20injured%20soldiers%20joke     Saint Lawrence, the patron Saint of comedy:  https://www.catholicmom.com/articles/2015/08/10/st-lawrence-patron-saint-of-comedians     TV Show: ‘Game of Thrones’ (2011-2019)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944947/     Dave Chappelle quote:  https://btr.michaelkwan.com/2017/03/26/sunday-snippet-dave-chappelle/#:~:text=Posted%20by%20Michael%20Kwan%20%7C%20Mar,Maybe%20it%20was%20something%20else.     TV Show: ‘The Black and White Minstrel Show’ (1958-1978)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0198065/     TV Show: ‘The Young Ones’ (1982-1984)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083505/     Titania McGrath quote:  https://x.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/1453065592651517964     Musical: We Will Rock You, Ben Elton (2002)  https://wewillrockyoulondon.co.uk/     John Betjeman’s Slough poem:  https://allpoetry.com/poem/8493391-Slough-by-Sir-John-Betjeman     TV Show: ‘The Office’ (2001-2003)  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290978/    Naval Ravikant  https://nav.al/rich     TV Show: 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown (2012 – 2025)  https://www.channel4.com/programmes/8-out-of-10-cats-does-countdown     The Fog of War (2004)  https://tv.apple.com/gb/movie/the-fog-of-war/umc.cmc.3j815y9s5id2nvfztrlfh75il?action=play     Eric Weinstein’s Intellectual Dark Web  https://www.whatisemerging.com/videos/inside-the-intellectual-dark-web-eric-weinstein    Hillary Clinton’s ‘deplorable’ speech:   https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2016-37330420     Jordan Peterson on compelled speech  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-37875695         Credits:  Producer: Millie Chu   Assistant Producer: Emilia Gill  Production Manager: Francesca Bassett   Music: Miguel D’Oliveira   Audio Mixer: Tom Guest  Video Mixer: Scott Edwards   Shownotes compiled by Elly Young  Executive Producer: Arron Fellows       A Mindhouse Production for Spotify   www.mindhouse.co.uk   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello there, and welcome back to the Louis Theru podcast, or if you're watching it on Spotify, the Louis Theru Slightly Shit TV show. I just came up with that. Do you like that? That's quite funny. Well, the last series may be over, but, Guess what? I'm back. Surprise with some festive cheer and a bonus Christmas episode. I'm joined by none other than writer, comedian and panel show host with the most, Jimmy Carr. Jimmy has been a mainstay of the UK comedy scene for nearly 20 years. He is one of the busiest jobbing comedians in the world. His last tour sold over 1.2 million tickets globally.

That's a big number. making it the biggest ever international stand-up tour I mean he's British but he has a following in America definitely Australia so yeah those numbers might even be true he's probably best known for his rapid fire often darkly humorous one-liners he spits them out like a comedic spitfire he does amazing crowdwork as well and in fact at the moment there are many compilations of his audience interactions online

that you can find in your favorite social media feed. He's got his wits about him. He's got that thing where someone in the crowd can give him some attitude and he gives it right back to them. I have a lot of respect for people who can zing on the fly, ad hoc, improvisationally. You may also be familiar with him as the host of many, many panel shows here in the UK.

Shows like 8 out of 10 cats. I think that one's not on the air anymore. The Big Fat Quiz of the Year and most recently, Amazon smash hit Last One Laughing That's been smashing it In the ratings Where he's assembled with

He's the host But there are a rogues gallery Of beloved British comedians And they all try not to laugh Right And then the others try and make them laugh I think you're getting the idea He's a colossus of the present day comedy scene

And it's great to have him on the show Because it's a chance to examine someone examine, sounds operational, have a conversation with someone who's at the top of their profession and who will be a name that's known to many of you, and also to talk a little bit about comedy. But we're coming up to that. However, over the years, he has come under five of various reasons. In 2012, there was his involvement in a wholly legal, but nevertheless controversial, tax avoidance scheme. More recently, there were jokes that some people didn't like. We speak in particular about one he made in 2021 on his Netflix special, His Dark Material. I was keen to talk to Jimmy because he's a

big name, a talented comedian. I know him a little bit, but also because I was hoping to speak about comedy. And it, you know, it's a common topic in the sort of, is it the culture wars or these conversations about free speech, what we can and can't say? You know, there's a narrative that says, wokeness is killing comedy. And then there's another that says, are bullies online, are trolling people, and it's not funny, and they're pretending to be funny, and you shouldn't be allowed to do that. Right, there's this binary narrative. And of course, it's all more complicated than that. And I don't even know if we answered any of those questions, but we gave it a good fist. That could be a little bit like a rude joke right

there. Expect more of that kind of humor. We recorded this conversation in November this year at Spotify HQ. It was a Monday morning and Jimmy turned up in a three-piece suit. I was dressed characteristically, I think, in a blue sweatshirt. Maybe it was grey. He looked very sharp. You don't see people in, I mean, two-piece suits, let alone three. There was a little, what we call a waistcoat, and in America, I believe they call a vest. He was mid-promotion for his new film, Fackham Hall, which is out now, a spoof on Downton Abbey style. programs in which aristocrats in a stately home cavort and try and get married.

I haven't seen it. I don't know what to say about that. I haven't seen it, but the trailer looks funny. There's a bit where there's a young man and he's attempting to woo the beautiful woman and he opens the door and she's standing there and then his trousers go, binging. Have you seen that bit?

I make it sound kind of basic and maybe it is, But that made me laugh. What would you call that kind of humor? Rybald? It's sort of Viz style. It's literally like, I think there's even a sound effect and his trousers tent out at the front. A quick warning, this conversation contains some strong language and adult themes as well as some risque jokes from the off and throughout.

We've already started those. All that and much else besides coming up. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. When I was younger, I always wanted to be either an astronaut or an athlete. I was a fast runner. I thought maybe I could make it to the Olympics or be blasted off into space. As it happens, neither of those dreams came true. I had to settle for being an award-winning documentary maker and international celebrity.

Oh, well, we've all had big dreams, and it's never to. too late to make them happen. This is your sign to stop holding back and go for it, especially if your dream is to run a business, because Shopify is making it easier than ever. It's there to support you every step of the way, from designing your website to marketing, to product descriptions to sales. The list goes on and on. So give it a shot, turn those dreams into, sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash louis. L-O-U-I-S. That's Shopify.com

slash Louis L-U-I-S. You-I-S. You don't you dress like that like on a Monday. Yeah, of 12 o'clock.

Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't I? Save it for the part. Save it. We're not recording it. What's the point? This is called a soft opening. First time you've seen one of those in a while. That was me doing my Jimmy Carbitt. Do some dirty jokes as we go along.

How are you? This is nice. Yeah, not too bad. Yeah, it's like a fancy setup. Yeah. It's great. Off the strand. This is, and it's kind of, it's, I quite like doing things here in this building.

Go on. Because it's next to the Shell building. And I used to work for Shell. Yes, you did. back in the day. And it's that lovely thing of being reminded of that and the commute and the job you used to have. Yeah.

It's a nice experience. And the road not taken. Well, yeah, it's that thing if you go, the luck, I could have gone... Yeah, you talk a lot about this in your book, which I've read. Oh, did you? You're not here to plug that. Well, dear, it doesn't matter, though.

Talk about anything. Do you like plugging yourself? That's another joke. I'm working on that one. Nice. It might work. It's not quite... It's not the best but plug joke.

Which is the best buttplug joke in the world is David Tells. You know David Tell? Like American New York legendary comic. Yeah, he's sort of schlubby, self-deprecating. Incredible. Yeah, incredible. One of the great seats. He's in New Yorkies at the comedy cellar every night at 1am.

He had a great joke about I found a butt plug on a city bus. How did I know it was a butt plug? Because it fit perfectly. It's just such a funny boy. Such a funny boy. I read the book. I've been looking. I know you're here to, you've got a movie out.

if we're plugging stuff I've got a movie out and I'm playing a bunch of arenas but yeah it's a very fun thing it's very much kind of if this is a simulation

I feel like I've got some sort of cheat code nice I feel like if life is a big simulation if it's a big game somehow we're playing this off world in a pod somewhere next to the Matrix

and then like the luck to have an idea for a film is one thing But to get one made and released in the UK and America, it's like quite a lot of things have to fall the right way for that to happen. Tell the people what it's called. It's called Fackham Hall. I literally, the one show won't let me go on because it's called Fackham Hall. And they went, it's too rude to title.

And you're enunciating it as well. I'm not saying it properly. It's okay. If you say Fackham Hall, it's fine. If you say it too quickly, you could be in trouble. It's so weird that stuff like, you know, like I've got a big cock, right? And you've got a rooster with. you. You know what I mean? It's like, that's not rude, is it?

Well, I think if you say I've got a big cock there without the rooster bit, you really have to set up the rooster bit first. Yeah. It has to be a double entendre, not a single entendre. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so that was where I went wrong. Yes. But my point is, it's like... Someone is going to clip it up and just go, that Louis Throo is very full of himself, isn't they?

People say things that are rude. Anyway, let's not get off on a tangent. But it's fun having a... Is it for Netflix? No, no, no, it's a cinema release. It's like a proper actual go-to-the-movie. be social, get out of your houses which is a good message anyway, I think.

Yeah. And it's... You wrote it with your brother? I wrote it with my younger brother, Patrick, and the Dawson brothers. And it was, I don't know, quite different to normally when you write films, it's about you kind of write it and then you have to take jokes away.

And this was just, we put more jokes in. Because it's, it's... The pitch for the movie, the elevator pitch is, it's downtown abbey meets airplane. So it's like a period drama, but we're doing, we're giving it kind of the Mel Brooks treatment.

Yeah. and trying to make it as funny as possible. It's classic, boy meets girl, boy, marry's cousin. Nice. It's a bit of a spoiler. The trailer looked funny. And they didn't let me see the movie for some reason. I don't know why.

Film distributors, but yeah. But posh people in frocks, in stately homes, doing extremely crass vulgar comedy. Like, you can't miss, really. I mean, it can definitely miss, but it feels like if you're doing movie maths, You would go, well, what do the British do well? What do the Americans like that we do? Well, they like the period drama. We do that very nicely. And I think we do comedy very well. I think we do comedy kind of uniquely well. We, you know, punch above our weight, I would say, globally. Tell me about it. So there's that. You're touring arenas. Also, this is a chance just to chat. Like, we know each other a little bit. But I've never interviewed you before. Thank you for coming on. Can't believe in luck. You're welcome. I'm sure most people know who you are. Nevertheless, I always think it's helpful to hear from the horse's mouth.

Like, how do you think of yourself, what you do, the kind of comedy you practice? I don't know. I suppose it's that thing where I've been doing it quite a while now. And that thing of like, what's that great, Alex Horn-Mosey, do you know that guy? I love him. He says he has this great line about how real self-confidence is not shouting affirmations in the mirror. Real self-confidence comes from giving the world irrefutable proof, you are who you say you are. So that thing of like going, I am fundamentally a stand.

up comic. Everything else is kind of a side hustle, but I'm a stand-up comic. That's what I do for a living sort of eight times a week, get up there and put on a show. It's not just comedy that way. It is comedy and it's just comedy, whatever that means, but it's edgy comedy, isn't it? I think we could say that. I think you could, yeah, you could say that, but I think it's just, it's authentic comedy. I think I'm not a grifter, so I don't sell something that I wouldn't buy. It's got to be my sense of humor. And that's what makes me laugh. For better for worse, my crazy ha ha

any laugh comes on that when it's like a haunted seagull someone said in a review nice good review

it's my sense of humour that's what I like I like stuff that's a bit transgressive and I suppose it goes to

I mean I think at this point if someone comes to one of my shows and gets offended I'm like wow you know buy a beware

if you buy tickets to a horror movie and then you complain you're scared I was too scared yeah good problem to have whose fault's that though

and you kind of go well I tell quite edgy, transgressive jokes. They make me laugh and they make the audience laugh. And I think that thing about going, uh, in the world that we live in, the reason comedy is having a moment, uh, which I think it is culturally in the same way that music had a moment in the 70s and film had a moment in the 70s was because it was people being authentic. Yeah. And that reflects society. So people go, well, that's my sense of humor. Your sense of humor is very, it's a very personal thing. It's very much like your taste in food or your sexuality. Some people like the spicy

stuff and the BDSM and some people like it to be very mild and bland, great, but it reflects something about you that's more you than how you present. Like I love that thing when you get cognitive dissonance in a show where people laugh at something and then

there's kind of an intake of breath afterwards. As long as it comes in the right order, as long as you get the big laugh first, that's the reflex and then you get people going, oh, should I have laughed? Oh, I guess I did now. Too late now. do we shall we do just like i know i hate to put you on the spot no no no put me on the spot okay so like spot away well let's do a joke can we do a joke like i'll say we i'm really talking about

you well i don't know about doing it you know jokes on podcast tend not to you think yeah well this is it right well because it's that thing like there's no great publication of jokes there's no like they don't work in in kind of book form the thing about comedy the thing about being in an audience really why i think comedy's going through a moment is because it's a shared experience experience. Yeah. It's play. So I think that's what's kind of missing from our society. There's a great book. I think it's Homo Lundus. Luddens. Homo Luddens. By Johann Hoytinger. Yeah. How do you know? Great reference. But that thing of like play being the very important thing in our lives and the idea of going. It's playing man in Latin. Yeah. But when I'm when I'm on stage, there's a illusion. I'm the one that's playing. I'm playing a show. And the audience are just sitting there. passively. But actually, there's a very performative element to being in an audience. Maybe it's more obvious when you go and see a rock and roll show and everyone's singing along and

hands in the air and Bruce Springsteen says, how are you doing? And everyone goes, yeah, everyone is playing. And everything people seem to care about in life involves play. So you go from music to film, to comedy, to sports. It's play. We like watching people play and we like to play along with them. And I think it's incredibly important in life. I think we need more of that because I think actually the great advantage of humanity is that we are, our great

skill is cooperation. And the idea that cooperation is actually downstream from play. That's how we learn to cooperate. Interesting. We learn to get on. In a world where we're ever more isolated, you know, it seems that that's the thing that's missing. That's the thing people, you know, why are people so excited

about going to festivals and going to comedy shows and going out to see sports matches? agree with that. I think there's something, you know, in prepping for this interview, I was thinking a lot about comedy. And to the point where I started thinking, I'm going to need to stop thinking about it because it's driving me slightly loony. Why some jokes feel funny, even though they hinge on the idea that, for example,

I the joke teller, I'm a sex predator, right? And then other jokes where it feel, I mean, there was one... Well, often you laugh at the wrong thing because you know what the right thing is. It's, I suppose, first and second order thinking is how it works a lot of the time. I'll give you one. This is one that you told. This is funny. To me, this was funny, okay? Bear me out. Go ahead.

I'm going to murder the show. Young man came up to me outside a theatre, clearly emotionally distressed. Because he was upset about a joke that you told. This is the back, you know, that was... Okay. He said, hey, I was abused by a priest. I said, no, no, you weren't. I was just dressed as a priest.

Yeah, it's a perfectly serviceable joke. Yeah. I think slightly it's about context, right? So I think super edgy jokes, don't work on your podcast. But it is about, there's a big difference between being in a refugee camp and going camping. Yeah. Right?

Those are very different experiences. And I think sometimes it's fine that it's people have bought into the show. They want to come and they want to listen to super edgy stuff. And it's, ironically, to use the term, but it's a very safe space being at a comedy gig. You feel like, well, we're all here. We know that this guy on stage is going to say transgressive things. And they're benign violations to give Peter McGraw his Jews. he came up with that kind of theory.

So benign violations, the idea that violations... He's an academic. And he came up with the theory benign violation in comedy, which I think works fairly well for analyzing. Okay, so what are jokes? Well, they're violations. Something has gone away from how it ought to be.

Could be minor. Could be someone tripping over. Could be a war. Could be famine. Could be something terrible. And by making a joke about it, you're making it benign. You're taking its power away.

there's a part of you know we used to see in comedy as uncomplicatedly benign whereas I sort of see it's something different like electricity or a weapon that can be used for good or ill does that make sense and that you can shoot a dictator

or you can shoot a homeless person it just depends on who you choose to direct it at well I don't buy into the punching up punching down dynamic at all I think that's that's Marxist neo-Marxist sort of Frankfurt school thinking.

I don't buy into sort of Foucault the idea that the world is on power dynamics and you're punching up or punching down. You referenced Michel Foucault. We're going very deep. We could talk. We could talk. We're going. You studied sociology at Cambridge. Did you read any Foucault?

Yeah. Which one? I don't know. I mean, Christ, a long time ago. Yeah. I mean, I don't buy into that whole thing. I think that thing of going... There is power. But society is full of power relationships. Yes, but it's not the only thing going on. No. It doesn't explain every.

But that idea of going, the power dynamics of that is not something that I, you have to buy into that. You have to go, that has to be the premise and you have to go, right, you're punching up, you're punching down. You're in the service industry. You're trying to make 2,000 people laugh for two hours straight is what you're trying to do. And what's your sense of humour? What's the thing that's going to make you laugh? And I like the idea of being an equal opportunities offender and going, you're not going after anyone. You're just joking about all of these things. And anything that's a sacred cow, there's going to be tension around that and want to release that tension.

Also, the audience is a genius. You know, the old Lenny Bruce line. I think it is because you get in front of any audience and try a joke and they will tell you whether it's funny or not, and they'll tell you whether it's acceptable or not, any audience in the world. They dictate that. So you do that thing of like going. I don't think comedy is about repetition.

You don't get better through repetition. It's iteration. I got an awful lot from British cycling, weirdly, weird place to find inspiration. But the idea of like incremental improvements, tiny little little. imporments every night. And the idea of going, well, you could just change that little thing. You could split test it. I mean, I do two shows a night, so it's very easy to split test jokes.

Do you? Yeah, so you sort of split test the gag and go, well, is it funny like that or funny you like that? Does it work like that? Really? What are the audience? A.B. Testing, they call that. Yeah, so you kind of, you just go, you're constantly sort of trying new stuff and going, okay, does that, is that? Okay, what's better? You like a comedy boffin.

Well, yeah, I mean, everyone's kind of a nerd about something. You've got, like, there's a slight monk house energy with you. I'd like that. Would you take that? Yeah, I'll take that. How many people listening know who Bob Monkhouse is, do you think? I don't know, probably quite a few. No one in America.

No one in the States, but, you know, people in the UK. Do you know his cancer joke? She probably had a few. Doctor says, you got cancer. I said, how long have I got, Doc? He says, 10. 10, what? Nine.

Weeks, nine. Eight. That's good. That's good, right? It's good. And he told them when he had it, which is kind of nice. That's right. Yeah. Can we talk about 2022, His Dark Materials?

Yeah, sure. Because you've been, like, I like to talk about some, you know, controversy or at least deal with various issues that have come up over the years. You've, you've had quite a few. Thanks. We're going to leave the taxes out of it. I don't even want to go there. That's why I do two shows a night. One for me, one for HMRC.

Well, let's, so there was a joke in His Dark Materials. It must have been on, like, you basically, it had been up on Netflix for a, at least a couple of months because it dropped on December 25th, right? Yeah, but I mean, I think the way that these things happen is sometimes people that aren't in your audience get hold of a joke and then it becomes something else. It becomes a statement that you made, not a joke. It gets decontextualized.

Yeah, so it's that idea of the... I don't want a real risk of doing here, because one of the things that got lost, and I'm not trying to carry water for you, because I think the joke was complicated. And in fact, even before you made the joke, there's a whole run-up in which you're saying, I'm about to tell a whole bunch of incredibly risque jokes.

You call them career enders. Strapping everyone, you ready? There's a sequence and there's another one. And then there's a bit before I tell the joke and a bit after the joke where it's contextualized. But if you clip it up in the right way, you can, you know, you can cause a controversy. Yes. I've got to do justice to it.

Go on. Well, you're not going to tell the joke properly. I mean, it's just going to get nothing on a podcast, right? What are we going to do then? Well, basically, we'll say that the hook for the joke was that it seemed, you were talking about the Holocaust, it seemed quite pious. Like you were doing a quite serious, like, you know, we've got to do justice to this horrific thing that happened to 6 million Jewish people.

And then you mentioned that gypsies died. And then the hinge was, you spun that like it was a positive, which was obviously no one's mind was going there. Yeah. So it's the, it's the worst thing you could possibly say in that moment. No one ever talks about the gypsies and Roman people that died. because no one ever wants to talk about the positives but no one at the show

thinks for a second I think that but that thing as well of going it's it is kind of an interesting thing because people don't know that bit of history the Roman people called the Holocaust the devouring which thought that was a very

very pleasant well very poetic beautiful people you know it's like it's a it's really interesting to talk about those very dark bits of history but you're if you're gonna go down that road if you're going to do a bit of the show called career enders,

you have to expect there's going to be some people that are going to be upset. Yeah, it's all right. It's okay for people to be upset as well. There's a big difference between being cancelled, and there is a thing of like people going, not only do I not like him, I don't think other people should be allowed to see him,

you know, ban this filth. And people criticising you and going, I just don't like it. I don't think he's funny. That's absolutely valid. Culture Secretary Nadine Doris said the comments were abhorrent and they just shouldn't be on television. How's she doing?

Someone pointed out that Nadine Doris had previously sent a tweet where she said, Left Wing Snowflakes are killing comedy. Yeah, but then... Which was asked about it, she said Jimmy Car's joke was not comedy. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Did you know about all of that?

Did you, how closely did you follow the fallout? Not much. Not much. I mean, it's like... It was a big deal. Yeah, it was pretty massive. You would like, top of the news. Like, they were talking about you in Parliament.

They brought... I've had that a few times. Have you? Yeah, other people's opinion about me is none of my business. That's the line. That's what you've got to remember. It's also, you've got to contextualize this, right? There's a phrase in therapy, which is you've got to right size things.

And I think right sizing this is, I told a joke and some people didn't like it. That's what happened there. I mean, we can dress it up and call it cancel culture and get all upset. But you go, I told a joke, some people didn't like it. And then we moved, everyone moved on. People that still like me, come and see me. Anyone that takes that seriously, anyone that sees that bit of comfort. comedy and goes, oh, he must be, he must think that.

It's like, okay, I mean, I can't, I can't engage with that. I think as soon as you get into the discussion, it's over. The only defense of super edgy jokes is getting massive fucking laughs with them. That's the defense. Did they call you into Netflix to meet people from the Romani community? Did they do anything like that? Like, come and sit down. Netflix are like, yeah, do you think?

We signed you up. We, okay, this would be great. Do your thing? And it's still on there Because take it down Cut that bit out But it is still up there Who said that?

Take it down, Nadine Dorries Yeah You seriously think the guys at Netflix Give up a fuck about Nadine Dorries Clearly not Not for me to say But they're doing their thing That thing of like going

Netflix is kind of serving the artist So they've come for Netflix a couple of times Where they've tried to take stuff down And they've gone, no no That's not what we're about They tried to change the law for a while Did anything happen? They said we should make this illegal

Yeah. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said the government was toughening measures for social media and streaming platforms who don't tackle harmful content. Did they actually change a law? No, they've got to be really careful on that. They've got to be very careful on the free speech thing. What was it like to be in the middle of it? I've been in it before. I think you have to... The first time it happens, I think it's very... You think, oh, well, that's that then. I guess we need another career change.

I guess we need to think about something else. When was the first time it happened? The first time was probably a joke about the soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. That was the first time that it was like front of the papers. I thought the joke was quite funny. It doesn't stand on whether you think it was funny or not. That can't be that. And that's where you always get to with the whoever the minister was at the time,

making a comment of a, well, I like jokes as much as the next man, but that's not funny. Right. Okay. Let's agree to disagree about that. Freedom of speech is you have to defend what you don't like as well as what you like. can't just defend the stuff you like. I often think about with comedy, the patron saint of comedy is St. Lawrence. You know this guy?

No. He was killed by like, I can't remember the emperor's name, but some Roman emperor had him burnt alive over hot coals. And as he was burning alive, the last thing he said was, turn me over, this side's done. That's not true, is it? Yeah, it's true. Really? Yeah.

They had barbecues in those days. I think it was like Valerian. It's like. Emperor Valerian or something. It couldn't be more Game of Thrones. Turn me over this side's done, he said, in the face of this. It's so cool, so funny. And that goes to the, the Chappelle had a great take on this,

which was as comedians. The joke that makes you roll around laughing and you tell your friends, you can't wait to tell your friends, it's the best joke in the world. And the joke that offends you when you think is disgusting comes from the same place. We're trying to make you laugh, trying to lighten the load of life a little bit

and we're paid for the attempt like evil can evil. We're paid for the attempt we are not paid for the jump sometimes swinging a miss sometimes something offends there's 30 other jokes in that show that could be the thing that we're talking about because we're similar ages

you're like you were born what 72? Yeah I was born 1970 so we grew up sort of the the tail end of well black and white minstrels was a thing, right, on TV. And there were comedians like Bernard Manning and Jim Davidson and others whose comedy was, I would guess, would now be considered offensive and would make liberal use of stereotypes.

Yeah. And then alternative comedy came along, people like Ben Elton and the young ones and Rick Mail. And they said, actually, you know what? Comedy should think more carefully about social justice. So in a way, I guess that always became part of my thinking was like, oh, there are, you can make someone laugh and it can still be a bad thing because it's bullying, let's say.

But it sounds like you're disagreeing with that. Yeah, I mean, I think it's all, it's, the comedy world is very broad. I mean, I think it's like you can't really cheat what you find funny. There's that great Titania McGrath line that Andrew Doyle wrote. Titania McGrath is a fictional social justice warrior

written by Andrew Doyle. And she had a great line which was if you find yourself laughing at a joke maybe isn't progressive enough which is such a great line such a great line I don't know like you know I'm not for everyone I'm pretty pretty edgy pretty out there

in terms of the stuff I talk about on stage saying something's too terrible to joke about is a bit like saying this disease is too terrible to treat or you never say that with a journalist God I can't believe you cover that story it's gross

you want them to cover those stories If anything, you drag them over the coals if they don't cover the terrible stories You want them to go there I'm aware that there's things that I might joke about Among Friends or privately That you wouldn't say publicly That I wouldn't say, yeah

But that's normal, right? But I would say that what is a comedian, right? What is and what is friendship? Your best friend is the person you have the lowest filter with Virtually no filter is like That's your best friend in the world I could tell him anything

Like, that's a wonderful thing you want to be a proxy for that for your audience. You want to be that close to them. You want to treat them as friends. And you'll be rewarded. They get it. They get when you're serious. They get when you're not serious.

I mean, sometimes I say very serious things on stage. And there's never any confusion. I've never had anyone be confused as to, oh, no, that's a serious bit of advisories. chatting to someone there that's going through something. Or, you know, we post these things. People know when it's serious and they know when it's a joke. They can talk for easily.

Would there ever be a joke you think that will get a laugh, well I'm not going to do it I tend to let the audience decide in terms of like balance in the show sometimes there's something where you go well there's been too much there's too much of that in the show already okay so I'll leave that for another time

are you conscious of trying to balance it out a bit so everyone's getting a pot kind of subject matter wise or you know if you do you don't want to feel like you're piling on you kind of want to feel like well you've done that and then we do something else and then you kind of want to mix it up a little bit. I think in terms of, also, I'm kind of a one-liner guy. One-liners are kind of my love language. But you don't want to have like two hours of one-liners. You want to mix it

up and do some crowd work and mess around and tell some stories and you want to have enough kind of different kind of rhythms in the show. Who did you watch growing up or who did you enjoy? I mean, Ben Elton would have been a huge influence, like in terms of like going as a stand-up comic that came along. And Vic and Bob, I think, for my generation were they were kind of the punk rock yeah of comedy they were very avant-garde surrealist yeah yeah surreal and different and I don't know it feels like we're kind of they're extraordinarily influential I think then it would have been like you know the young ones and the two Ronnie's and things because

Ben Elton Ben's still touring yeah Ben's no he sort of came back we live in Australia we've had Ben on the pod Ben I think would be conscious of our power dynamics he'd be thinking about actually is this okay has he ever reached out to you. Do you know, Ben? Are you friendly? I know him pretty well, yeah. But he's great. I saw his last tour. His last tour was, like, pretty edgy. I mean, he's like, he deals with some difficult stuff and he does it in such a fun way. He's a brilliant comic. He's a brilliant writer and comic. Who else? Yeah, it doesn't seem to get the props he deserves. I mean, really, he's had his hand and a lot of great stuff. Ask him. He'll tell you that himself. Well, I shouldn't

say that, but he's conscious of, I think he does feel a little bit bruised. He hasn't had his flowers. Why not? I don't know. I do. I don't know what it is. I think he's, he should get his flowers. I'll tell you, do you want to know why? He's great. I think you know why. Why? He's two left wing, too...

No, because he came up as an alternative comic and then he became enormously successful and wrote the Queen musical and there was some sense of cultural consent or whatever. It was seen as being too close and people felt maybe Stuart Lee was chief among them

that he sold out. There was people saw him as a hypocrite. I mean, good luck, everyone. Good luck with that. You got no time for that. I got no time. I just think that thing of like the comics criticizing other comics it strikes me is the narcissism of small differences.

Like we're all doing the same job. We all sort of started off together. Everyone should, you know, get along. If you don't like something, don't watch it, I guess. That would be as far as I would take it in terms of critiquing other performers. If it's not for you, it's not for you. Let people get on with it. What's your writing process?

I think it's like you can have I think systems better than goals I think write every day and then try stuff every night that seems like a pretty good system so it's just constant constantly writing new stuff trying new stuff

every night you'd write something not every night but most like most working days you'd be there so I get like at the end of the show I'll get a piece of paper out at the very end and I'll try like 10 new jokes and some of them will work

and some of them won't. And then you're constantly kind of building the next show. So you've got these kind of little building blocks of Lego of like, well, that's a joke that works, and that's a joke that works, and what would go well together and what's a good sequence. And so you're constantly, you're never looking at a blank page. You're constantly looking at stuff and writing and trying to, try to improve. And I guess your hit rate gets a little bit better over the years, but not much.

I'll write so many jokes that don't work. It's amazing. And you can kind of never really second guess what the audience is going to do. Sometimes you kind of have, I think, that should work. But then sometimes it doesn't. You know, you're trying to stick the landing. You have amazing poise on stage. And in fact, maybe above the writing is kind of confidence that you project,

an ability to own the room. Yeah, but I think that comes with, I think it's like being an airline pilot. It's like time in the air. I probably have more stage time than anyone else. Do you think? Maybe. You put more hours in than most comics? Yeah, I do maybe a two-hour show, twice a night, four nights a week.

That's a lot of time on stage holding that. And I also do a lot of audience work. And I think that's like... Crowd work during the... You mean during the show, yeah. So that thing of like going... The load doesn't get lighter, your back gets stronger. So that thing of like years and years of doing that,

you get used to being on stage. I mean, in some ways you're kind of conducting the audience. You're sort of... I do quite a lot of stuff with... I mean, I seem to be standing stock still the whole time. I think that's the impression that I give, but there's quite a lot of stuff going on. It's quite sort of, yeah, it's very performative. It's striking, you know, reading about you, reading your book, this almost Damascene moment that took place when you were 26, would you say?

Yeah, about that, yeah. When you're working as a marketing guy for Shell and you'd gone to Cambridge, you'd grown up in Slough west of notoriously, I shouldn't say this to all my fans in Slough. But it's my word for being kind of a dreadful place. Only because of the Bechamon poem. It probably is lovely, is it? Well, the Bechamie and lovely Ricky. Ricky Chavez in the office. And Steve Merchant.

Set in Slough. He could have set it in Redding where he's from, but he went a little bit closer in. It's better. Come friendly bombs and rain on slough. And fall on slough. It isn't fit for humans now. Yeah.

There isn't grass to graze a cow. Rain over death or something. Yeah. It's not a great review. It's not. It's not on the, we haven't got it on the sign. They don't put that on. Yeah.

I don't know, but it's, um, I don't know. I, uh, I mean, I quite like growing up there. Um, but that thing of like, the 26 is an interesting age because there'll be people, as you called it. Well, but there'll be people listening to this. It's more of a third life crisis. Yeah, maybe a third life crisis. Yeah, maybe a third life crisis.

The last 25 of years of your, like 75 to 100, not much is happening. Who knows? If Peter Attie is right, maybe we'll be running marathons. Um, I think there's something that we don't talk about, which is the teenage years get a lot of attention. Like that transition from boy to man. But I think there's another transition that happens. I think for women it's 24 for men 25 when the frontal lobe completes where there's another kind of waking up that happens mid-20s that I don't think people talk about very much. I think it's a really interesting phase where you kind of become yourself a bit more

and you stop, you kind of wake up and look around, right, what are we doing? And if you're working as a marketing guy for Shell, you must have. I had very little agency though. I didn't really made a decision until I decided to be a comedian. That's really the first decision I made in life. I've heard you say that because I... Everything else was like the line of least resistance. You were four A's at A level. Right? Yeah. That's...

Something. You must be smart. What to get A levels. You've got four A's though at your A levels, no? I think I might have got five, but I don't count general studies. Stop it. General studies, isn't it? I mean, that's a grift. It's nothing. No one gets

five A levels. Have he had your IQ tested? I'm sure it's very high I'm sure it ain't nothing special But IQ and education It's not a good I don't know if it's no It's bullshit

It is IQ's a dodgy metric Really Yeah So you went up to Cambridge Was there no one trying to recruit you for footlights No but I was there around the same time As like Dan Mazer and Sasha Baron Cohen

And that crew Yeah Dan Mazza was Sasha's writer and partner in crime Yeah So I knew a few of those guys They were fun But then were you not thinking I'm thinking, oh, I'd love to be, you know, I'm creative, I want to, you know, I'm a bit funny with my friends, maybe I'll get a job that will.

I don't think I was creative. What were you thinking? I really hadn't given it enough thought. And I think we don't spend enough time on, like careers advisors are the worst people in the world, right? Because it's a guy that ended up being a careers advisor. So by dint of that, you go, well, this guy shouldn't be giving anyone advice. This guy's a fucking idiot. I think careers advisor should be a bit like. jury service. I think, you know, you should get a letter in the post. I've got to go and speak to 18 year olds for three hours. Fuck. And then you have to go and talk to them and go, okay, well, here's the risk I took.

What do you want to do in life? And what are you willing to sacrifice to be a person that you admire? What are you willing to give up? That's why we go and talk in schools, isn't it? And you're not allowed in schools, are you? Stop. After the incident.

I'm putting that behind me Okay So you went into it You basically attacked it Did you sort of I took it very seriously Because from the off You had a bit of money

Like you got your redundancy or whatever Yeah I had like a year's like float I was able to kind of sustain myself And I viewed it like I think if I'd done it straight from college I might have thought this is a This is a childish thing And I need to grow up and get a proper job

And I was suddenly introduced To the Edinburgh Festival at like 26 25 maybe Went up there and went, sorry, I didn't know any of this was going on. I didn't know there was this incredible. This was after I'd quit, after I'd quit Shell, went up to the Edinburgh Festival. The first year I went out there and went up there with Rickettsiavace and Steve Merchant and Robin Inns. And we went up and did a show together.

And we all did sort of 20 minutes in the show. And then the office hit that summer. What was the first joke you wrote? Can you remember that you performed? Or the first one you delivered or... I do remember it. It was about being working class kids, talking about, you know, getting, being boxes, and they were always talking about there was only one way out.

I said, I was growing up, I was very middle class. We lived in a cul-de-sac. There was only one way out. It's a perfectly serviceable, joke-shaped thing. It's sort of they like crossword puzzles. And I sort of view jokes as being, they're little, it almost feels like they're there, and you're trying to chisel away everything that isn't the joke. You're trying to get it down to as few words as possible to get the meaning across,

to get someone to have this reaction, to laugh. And I just found that, it was that, you know, Neval Ravakant thing of like going, it's about what could you stand to do for 10,000 hours? What is... Who was Naval? Come on. Now you're just making them up. Naval Ravakant.

Brilliant. One of the most brilliant people in the world. It's a sociologist? I know. He's like a business investor. Really? And he's just a very wise man. And he shares it.

He's very open. Nice. But his thing is like, you find something that is work for them and play for you. That's like don't follow your dreams, follow your talents. What do you find easy that everyone else seems to find difficult? Follow that. And I could do this thing.

I could write jokes and I could do that thing. You know, I'm still thinking about what we're talking about earlier and that idea of comedy and comedy is a sort of special realm. It's like, you know, comedy takes place with its own logic in some ways. At the same time, comedy is part of. of life. Someone once said to me, there's no such thing as a joke, which is an intriguing, challenging, you could say, they sound fun, paradoxical observation. But I think what it meant was, you can't just remove jokes from the realm of the rest of reality. And like, some things take

place on the edge of being jokes. But certainly, especially once you're off stage, you might just be communicating in ways that slip in and out of a kind of comic register. These aren't tightly defined areas of discourse. Does that make sense? I'm struck sometimes, well, when you do your crowd work, you're walking this line between making funny observations of people, sometimes humorously insulting them, but you deliver it in a way that is funny most of the time, right? I mean, I hope so. But sometimes, and sometimes it's serious. Sometimes there's like a series interaction. Sometimes it's like it's combative. Sometimes it's like there's a, there's a big difference to be someone heckling joining in at the show. Hickling means we need kind of separate

terms because heckling feels like, especially in America, people don't want to join in. Because they think they've been told in clubs, don't talk, don't join in, he's doing his act and you're watching the act. And I'm very much, sing along. I play with me, but fine. It's very, very clear when I'm doing, you know, performing jokes in the show and when it's like, yeah, join in, have fun. And you do crowd work and there's compilations of your working, your crowdwork or dealing with heckles. And they're not heckles. In fact, you've invited the interaction. And because it's quite clear that you're in a real setting where you might have some prepped stuff, but you're deploying it in a way that's organic and spontaneous or you're just coming up with stuff on the spot

with whoever you're talking to. Like what's your job? That's the fun of it is the improv stuff. It's like asking a magician to do real magic. Everyone's suspending disbelief. So for the first 20 minutes, when I go out for the big shows, I'll do 20 minutes of just probably four jokes a minute, four big laughs a minute is what you're solving for, and you're absolutely beating people over the head. And they're trying to get them to a...

And everyone knows this is pre-prepared material. He isn't just thinking of this off the top of he said. So you're trying to get people to release dopamine and serotonin, right? Essentially, I'm a drug dealer. Yes. And those are the drugs that I'm dealing in, serotonin and dopamine. and it's a variable reward system. So that idea of you, it's varied rewards.

You don't quite know when the punch is coming. You kind of know something's coming, but somehow it's the sudden revelation of a previously concealed fact is how they kind of work. And you're doing this. And then you get to this space where, okay, right, we've all established, this is going to be a fun night. Let's join in.

And then people mess around and challenge you to stuff. And sometimes someone asks something poignant, interesting and beautiful, and sometimes it can be funny. and it's great, you know, light and shade, and all life can be there. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. When I was younger, I always wanted to be either an astronaut or an athlete. I was a fast runner.

I thought maybe I could make it to the Olympics. or be blasted off into space, as it happens. Neither of those dreams came true. I had to settle for being an award-winning documentary maker and international celebrity. Oh, well, we've all had big dreams, and it's never too late to make them happen. This is your sign to stop holding back, and go for it, especially if your dream is to run a business, because Shopify is making it easier than ever.

It's there to support you every step of the way, from designing your website to marketing, to product descriptions, to sales. The list goes on and on. So give it a shot. Turn those dreams into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash Louie, L-O-U-I-S. That's Shopify.com slash Louis, L-O-U-I-S.

Uh, eight out of ten cats do countdown. I've never rewatched on TV and then I watched a compilation. I know. All right, yeah. It's so fucking embarrassing. No, why? Why is that embarrassing? I don't know.

We're friends. You don't have to watch my stuff. Well, I'm too busy reading Proust and studying up on my Latin. Now it's out there. I watched it. I watched a compilation of it this morning is where I'm going and it was so funny. When that show is going to be a hit. Thanks, man.

Seriously, mark my words. We're 180 episodes in it. You're really good on it, and fingers crossed, it gets renewed. Thanks, man. It's good. It's really good fun. Really good fun. Elon Musk.

How well do you know him? I bet him a couple of times. I don't know him well. No one knows him well. I mean, I think he's a really interesting character because he is, he's McNamara, isn't he? If you think about McNamara and the fog of war. So, Macnamar. Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War.

Yes, he ran the Ford Motor Company. He's always coming up in this podcast. the Ford Motor Company, and then he got a call from JFK saying, will you come in and help me run the government? And that's, it's kind of exactly the same thing. Engineering principles. Yeah, Elon Musk got brought in by Trump to, you know, engineering principle, the government.

I mean, there's a very strange times. Have you met Trump? No. Have you met Peter Thiel? No, I never met Peter Thiel. You know who I mean, though. I know Eric Weinstein very well, who used to work with Peter. Is it academic?

Physicist. Physicist. Yeah, very good physicist. Who became a figure of sort of intellectual and cultural pundit, sort of on the right, I wouldn't say. I wouldn't say that. I'd say he was kind of the intellectual dark web. That's what they call it. He coined the phrase, I believe.

Did he? Yeah. Sometimes called heterodox thinkers. People are outside the constraints of what would be perceived as sort of conventional, liberal orthodoxy. Yeah. But that's kind of, that's the interesting place at the moment of going, well, what's, what's going on in the world? Like the, the Trump phenomenon, I find fascinating, but very, you know, it's very, it's troubling because it's a huge change, a huge shift. And really, the tectonic plates of politics have shifted.

The, Hillary's deplorable speech is kind of the crux, right? So the idea that somewhere, the parties on the left, which were the parties, the working classes, became, people talk about gentrification of neighborhoods. I think those political parties became gentrified and stopped up talking to the working classes. And now the working classes look to the right wing parties. That's a big shift in politics. We've, you know, been around 50 years and we haven't seen anything like that happen before.

That's a huge shift politically. And I'm not sure what happens now. I don't think it's a question of like we can live without institutions. I think we need to rebuild our institutions. You look at something like the UN and you go, well, Russia and China have got seats of the table. We're in a war with them. And India doesn't have a seat at the table.

Nigeria doesn't have a seat at the table. Japan, Germany, no seats of the table. It's crazy. So those institutions will be rebuilt and, you know, the world will turn and, you know, things will be all right. It's also like, I'm quite optimistic about the world. I do think it's like it's better than it was. but it's still very troubling and very, so many things are in flux at the moment.

That all may be the case. I definitely see social media as being, and the internet's being a huge part of what's happening. And when you mention mainstream media being disrupted, obviously, and I don't see like the BBC or legacy media is being replaced, I think they now have to exist in a jungle alongside all the other beasts, if you like, big beasts of Spotify, Netflix, TikTok and so on. So, you know, the mainstream or legacy outlets still have enormous influence, but, and as does academia, but they don't monopolize the conversation the way they did. And I also think like the idea of like 50 years ago or 35, 40 years ago, many of the same ideas existed, you know, Trumpism, it wasn't called that, but there was a sort of nativist outlook that was embodied by certain politicians, but it tended to be gate kept out of the conversation to an extent. Yeah. You know, it was also that thing of like, when you talk about the foundation myth, you go, well, why was America so productive?

The post-war, why was it so productive? Everything's about geography in the world, right? Everything's about geography until it isn't. And then everything's about Shakespeare and personalities. But America is uniquely blessed in terms of it's geographical. So it can afford to have a kind of crazy political system. But that politics in the 50s and 60s and 70s, well, those guys had all served together. that all the politicians had been in the same uniform in the same war and so they worked together so the guys across the aisle were not enemies

I mean I think the issue really is there's too much debate going on in the world and debate is about winning and there's not enough deliberation they're kind of conflated words but too much debate winning owning the other guy and lots of stuff on the internet about oh that guy owned that guy in that debate or that comedian owned that heckler

fine with a heckler but like if it's something serious, you want deliberation. The world that I see is 80% of people agree about 80% of everything. Maybe 90% of people agree. And then you've got the extremes on the left and the right, and they think the other one's the problem. But there's real problems in the world and how do you address them? How do you get to that?

Okay, let's talk about the solutions now, rather than blaming the other side. Geo-politics is a nice segue. We can touch this or not. I'll be guided by you. The Riyad Comedy Festival was in the news. Yeah, no. I played it. I loved it. So I hear. I loved it. I thought, I think we need to...

Some comedians... Oh, well, I'll say, but it was controversial. Yeah, yeah. Because of the human rights record of Saudi Arabia. There's been a lot about so-called sports washing. I guess this would have been perceived as laughter washing, or I don't know what. Some comedians elected to stay away and spoke out about it. Shane Gillis, very funny man. Theo. Love him. Theo Vaughn, I think. He didn't speak out. Mark Maron spoke out. Did anyone else? A couple of others, maybe.

I like Mark a lot. I mean, I like all those guys. a lot. Yeah. Some people didn't want to go. Fine. It was rumoured that they were being spent between 250,000 to more than a million, I think. On what? On what people got paid? Yes. Yeah. How much were you paid, Jimmy? Okay. I was paid,

I would say a commensurate amount with selling out an 8,000 seat a room. So, I didn't got paid, I earned it. Is what happened. But here's the thing. I think we need to give up on the idea that the Middle East becomes Western Europe. The Middle East is a very different place.

And the same people that will tell you, diversity is our strength, will tell you, don't go there, they're not like us. And the thing that I like about Saudi Arabia is the direction of travel. Look at where it was 10 years ago. Look at where it is now. The direction of travel is pretty good,

like where they go. They clearly, they kind of want to be Dubai, which you could have said this about Dubai 25 years ago, don't go there, they're not like us. And you go, it's a different culture, a different way of, you know, of conducting a society. So the idea of going, don't go there

because they're not like us. Why play 50 countries around the world? I don't, I'll go where the audience. Louis C.K. went? Yeah, we played the same. We played the same night. We did a doubleheader. Did you?

Yeah. Are you friends with Louis? Yeah. He got into some hot water. By the way, I'd love to have him on the podcast. Would you say he got cancelled? Yeah. Yeah, I'd say that.

I think that's fair to say. He's not on legacy media anymore. so I think that's a form of cancellation I think some people would argue that you're not cancelled unless you lose everything but I think it's he's still got his audience he's still got the people that love him

and want to go and see him well I think part of the issue we're up against is the word cancelled and I'm not going to be that guy who says it's not cancelled culture it's consequence culture I just mean that it's so binary yeah but there is that thing with like you go with freedom of speech

yeah but you have to deal with the consequences You know, if you're going to say that, you've got to be, you know, you've got to be willing to say it and go, yeah, I don't, I don't regret telling that joke. That's fine. Some people really were upset by it. That's okay. Look, I've got the people that come and see me and they really like that stuff. And I've got to serve them, not someone else. Not indeed Doris, or whatever she was called. I don't give the fuck what she thinks. Do you, have you ever lost work over a joke? Who knows? I suppose it's that thing. of going, how much more successful could I be, were I to cut out the 10% most offensive stuff? Could have been a bigger mainstream hit? Yeah, probably. But I don't want to be a grifter. I don't want to sell you something that I wouldn't buy myself. If I'm not for me, who is? Your book is a self-help book. Nevertheless, there's... That's not what they want to. Well, I wanted a

Celebrity and I kind of went I really don't care about that You didn't and I think Nevertheless, there is self revelation in there Yeah, there's a few kind of bits in there But I mean it's really I kind of I thought it was The idea of doing a sort of self-help book

For people that wouldn't necessarily read a self-help book I got that. I think I'm quite aware of like There's some great quotes in there that you found from people I love a good quote Things that had helped you through life you talk about your relationship with your mum, you lost her to cancer when you were...

No, pancreatitis. Pancreatitis, what is that? It's when your pancreas stops working. I thought that was a kind of cancer. A slightly different thing. But yeah, that's pretty... That's a lot. Here, I'm going to throw a few things out there

and you can pick up from this, whatever you like. You said, when mum died, you were very close to it. Your parents had separated. I don't know if they were divorced. I don't think they were divorced. They were separated. You talk about almost being overly close. You said, when mum died, I was lost.

We were close. I suppose the therapist was. tell you I was enmeshed, a surrogate partner for my mother. Maybe, maybe we were too close, but I don't see it negatively. Yeah, so we had a very close relationship, and you don't know what normal is. Partly because your dad was gone, do you think? Yeah, emotionally absent, certainly. You don't know what normal is, right, as a kid.

It's your house is your house. How you live is how you live, how you play, what you eat, whatever, it's just normal to you. And I think sort of stepping back at that and looking as an adult, you go, well, that's probably a lot. lot of oversharing there going on and actually I just needed to be a kid but whatever. Overshering about what? Everything, life. Really? Yeah. And I was

very aware that my mother was... You said she was depressive. Yeah, so she was, I mean, very severely depressed in getting no help at all. So I thought it was very normal for your mum to be in her dressing gown when you got home from school and hadn't been able to get herself out of bed. I thought that was just absolutely, yeah, yeah, moms are tired.

And you kind of look back and go, art, just like a therapist would have been something. But there was no access to that and no real, I don't know. I feel in a sense like I let her down. Why? Because I didn't help in any practical way. I didn't have what I have now. I didn't have access to, I didn't know what was going on.

What kind of help could you have given, though? I think just to point in no direction, I think sometimes it's just the idea of going, you need to go and see a doctor. You need to go and see, you need a medication. you need something here. Like any kind of intervention. She didn't take care of herself.

Were you having to be a relationship counsellor as well? In a sense. But I mean, listen, this was, I did not have a tough childhood or a tough break. I had a lucky break. My mother was incredibly funny. She had a thing called narcolepsy, which is a sleep disorder. But it also affects... Cataplectic narcolepsy.

Yeah. So she had like a laugh where she would make... make no noise at all, but she would kind of melt if you made her laugh. She would, like, literally lose muscular control and just melt. So my whole child, I mean, the whole reason I'm a comedian, I think, is clearly linked to making my mom laugh was the funniest thing in the world. It was just joyful. They were both Irish-born? Yeah.

And you could bring her, yeah, from Limerick. And then they moved to Slough. Well, look, you said my mum's dead, my dad's dead to me. I thought that was a big thing to put in the book. Geez. Yeah, it sounds harsh. Yeah. I think it's okay, though.

I think it's, I get a lot from Alanon. They've got some great lines. They've got great lines in, I really like AA as well. I really like AA language. I drink a little bit myself, but I like the language of that. And they talk about detach with love. One of the most spiritual places you'll go is an AA meeting. Amazing.

But detaching with love. You don't need to hate someone. You don't need to wish them ill. But I have that. He's not in my life. He doesn't mean in my life for 25. years. That much? Yeah, I haven't seen him since I was 26, something like that. But it's okay. It's all right. It doesn't matter. I think it's, I think there's a statute of limitations

on your parents being the problem. I think an 18 year old telling me, listen, I'm sorry I was, I'm sorry about that, but my parents were terrible. Seems fair. I think a 40 year old saying that is fucking tragic. And I don't know where we draw the line, but the answer is, Somewhere. Somewhere it's no longer acceptable. Of course. Like, I mean, you bring it up. But, I mean, who fucking cares?

I'm a grown man. You've got two kids now, though, and there's a part of me thinking, well, that's going to be so meaningful for your father. Like, the idea of having a relationship with his grandkids and that might be meaningful for those kids when they're a little older as well. I mean, I sense it's not a road back, maybe. I don't think so. I don't think so But that's okay I'm all right with that

Except the apology that you're never going to get and move on You talked about father figures This is an awkward segue But I know that Jordan Peterson's Been somewhat meaningful for you Is that fair to say?

Yeah I like Jordan a lot I think Jordan is trying to help a lot of people And he's very authentic He's very He just says what he thinks

I think he's a good guy I mean a lot of people think he's the worst but you know but okay yeah he for many he's viewed as a sort of manosphere figure which I think he's overstated you know the idea that oh he's like Andrew Tate you know people see him on an axis with that

that's fucking lunacy which seems extreme nevertheless he's clearly he's said a few things partly I think it's a symptom of being overactive on Twitter or X maybe but is that not a to conflate those two just seems that seemed quite mad to me.

It feels like that's kind of concept creep. If you put everyone in the same brackets, like it loses meaning, right? He came to, he's a Canadian psychology professor, specialising in a lot of Jungian-type disciplines. Nevertheless, he came to fame relatively late in life through YouTube lectures,

having gone semi-viral or achieved some notoriety because he resisted compelled pronouns. He said, like, I'm not taking a view on whether it's right or right, wrong to call yourself by a certain pronoun of your choosing. He's just, I don't want to be compelled to use your pronoun. Yeah, I believe his stance was, I will do that with an individual, because that's the

polite thing to do, but I'm not in favour of compelled speech. What do you think you're getting from him in general? What do you think, like, his key, the key takeaway is? I think, I mean, it's, it's an awful lot. It's like, I'm not signing off on everything he's ever said, but I think if you're a young man in search of something, I'd say he's quite a positive force. The 12 rules thing is, you know, that's quite positive. You've become quite friendly with Jordan.

Yeah, I know, yeah. I sit in one we're in the same city and we'll have dinner. He'll come to a show. I wonder how he identifies politically. Is he swimming quite close to Trump at this point? I don't know. I mean, I think he'd be... He took work with Ben Shapiro, didn't he, on the Daily Wire?

Yeah, but I think that's, you know, that's all right. I feel like you're on the edge of coming out politically, but maybe not. Maybe I'm... Well, I'm like, I'm a creature of the left, but I don't like where the left is gone in terms of going, that idea of the, um, leaving the working classes behind. Leaving the original kind of Marxist ideas behind of the redistribution of wealth. Like, I think there needs to be a redistribution. But for me, it isn't from rich to poor. It's from old to young.

I think we need to deal young people in to society. Like, if I was going to run. office, my thing would be, okay, no one under 30 pays any tax. We have to give them a little head start. They have to be allowed to buy a house and start a family. Just that's what society's for. And the whole of our political system is sort of solving for the old, which is, I don't know, I don't think it's going to work long term. It's striking, you know, reading about you, reading your book. The kind of the most mind-blowing thing in your book, is learning that you were a virgin till you at 26.

That's the most mind-blowing thing? I would say. No, I think you'd take away fame and fortune. You're a good-looking guy. Stop at you. Stop flirting. You're intelligent. You went to university, right?

You have a lot to offer. Thank you. This sounds like they wind up to a joke and it isn't. Well, yeah, but I think it's very good to talk about this because I think there is a lot of pressure on young men to lose their virginity and feel like they're, it's that weird thing at the moment where the world is

Harreams and peepholes It's a very small percentage of men Getting all the girls and everyone else is hopelessly addicted to porn And I think it's very good to be open about it And say not everyone develops at the same time I had a I was enmeshed with my mother And maybe that was a part of it

I'm sure that's what a psychotherapist would say And you go You don't find the person until you find the person You don't feel you don't love yourself you don't like who you are particularly What does that mean in meshed? Yeah, I think you're emotionally kind of unavailable. Right.

I don't think you're very attractive when you're in your early 20s to women because really if you had to sort of summarise what women find attractive, it's competence, being good at something. Guys get attractive around 30 because they start to get good at something.

It seems like it's shallow, but I don't think it is. But I feel that when we were growing up, it seems, I mean, this is TMI, I'm sure. I lost my virginity. when I was 17, which felt quite late, you know, in my peer group. There was, that guy was like, oh, I lost mine at 14. I'm really, 16.

And then I was like, 17, got it in, finally. It was the lucky guy. Thank you. There you go. There's a joke. Yeah, but that thing of going, okay, it's, it's, but it is what it is. Were you think? I did have some intimate relationships.

Yeah, I had some interrelationship, but I just didn't have. You were a committed Christian. Was that part of it? Yeah, I think that was part of it, yeah. I want to make it forever? Were you like one of the... I think that kind of, that was a part of it, certainly. It's almost like unrecognizable now to look back

because that thing that I was saying earlier about when you're kind of 25 and you feel like you're suddenly yourself, there's kind of a waking up mid-20s. And I feel like I was quite a religious guy growing up. I was Christian. And then I had a close relationship with my mother. This is not... You're not a qualified therapist.

Why am I telling you this? But that thing of like going, it's okay. It's like happens at different times. It's not a race. No. But I think a good thing to talk about. Yeah. Because it feels like people don't talk about that.

And it feels like there's a perception that everyone else is having more fun than you. I think now more than ever with social media, the comparison is the thief of joy. Everyone is having a fucking amazing time online. Would you look back and say, like, what's holding you back? Like, what would you say to your younger self? Like, get a grip, man. Get out there. No.

No, I'd say, this is great. Just do this. You'll like who you are. Don't worry. You know, because it's also that thing of like you go, losing Virginia, 26 makes me more OG in-cell. But you go, there's another side of that where you go, I've had an amazing life.

So you can't pick and choose the bits of, like that thing if you're going to be, if you're going to go, well, what if I was different there? Well, maybe I wouldn't have, maybe I wouldn't have had the ambition to get on stage and to try and be something and to try and get really good at something because I felt like I needed to impress, I thought that would be the impressive thing. You go, okay, well, that's valid. It's like I don't quite know what the impetus was to make me want to do this thing

that's clearly terrifying stand up in front of people and tell jokes for two hours but something did and maybe that was a bit of it that's okay, use it, it's all good it's all in the mix so I think going back and changing stuff is like, hmm sounds like you weren't trying that hard to lose your virginity

no I don't think I was but it's also in a Bill Clinton turn Yeah, there was some stuff going on. Don't panic. Right. But then there was a block there. I think a lot of kids are not having sex now. Yes. Well, I think it's, it's again, it's, it's the Harim's and peat-poles.

It's 5% of the people online are having a great time. And 95% of people are having a terrible time. I'd love it if there was some kind of dating thing associated with shows. I'd love it if you could get people to date at your show. at my show. Because I do think, well, I would say, I would say sense of humor

is the thing. Yeah. That thing of like, if you can laugh together, if you laugh at the same things, if you find the same stuff funny, if you have a little sense of humor like in jokes that just organically come between,

that's the long term. That's how you build a reservoir of goodwill that's going to be a relationship that's going to last for years because you can get through anything if you can laugh together. I agree. That's what's keeping, well, among other, many other things,

are keeping me and my wife together, for sure. That's a big part of it. I can still make her laugh. And not with reading my jokes, you can't. I wouldn't try that. I think we might be good, man. So really, it's so lovely to sit down with you. Likewise.

It's just such a nice, I don't know, it's cool. You're welcome back any time. I think it'd be weird if I did like three in a row. How far could I take that? There'd be questions about that. Welcome back. Should I stop doing that? What did you think?

I liked it. I'm answering my own question. Thanks to Jimmy for coming on the podcast. A few notes. These are my footnotes. it's punching up, punching down. Look, respect to Jimmy for making no bones of the fact that he thinks it's a fallacious or kind of flawed or bogus analytical term.

And I do agree that where is up and down, right? You're saying like up's there and down's there. Well, I know that, but in power relations, it's not always that clear. You know, it's like the term elite. Who's in the elite other than me? You know, we're told that the elite is this sort of. of woke liberal consensus sometimes by populists, but they would say that they're not the elite and the elite is the oligarchs who are funding the populist movements. You know what I mean?

Am I getting too political? I'm moving on. I said there's no such thing as a joke and I couldn't remember who said it. I googled it. It said Freud might have said it and then I re-googled it and I don't know if Freud did say it. I don't know if anyone has really actually said it like in writing nevertheless it gets repeated quite a bit and is sometimes attributed to Sigmund Freud and it does bear on I suppose an idea of Freud's which is that all jokes carry some sort of emotional charge and that they are giving vent to something forbidden

that there's a tension release so they're not benign or pallid expressions of some sort of neutral language game that they are actually a truthful expression of some deeper sense of conflict or turmoil or anxiety. So there you are. I said I made that up and there's more stuff on the teleprompter, whatever we're calling that thing. I think I said it better than Freud. Jimmy said, the world is Harim's and peepholes.

Harims are obviously gatherings of women, stables of women, often at the courts of Ottoman. and sultans that were at their disposal. Peepholes are small holes through which you peep. And that's a metaphor, I think, for social media. So many peep holes singing. And that will be featured on the album. We've done that joke. It was blur.

You got that, Park Live. All the peep holes. Harreams and peep holes. I just freestyled that. We don't even write this shit down, except for this bit. And with that, all there is to say, thank you for listening this year.

Brackets, Millie's written some LT sincerity, question mark, question mark, question mark. Can you perform some sincerity? No, but seriously, folks, it's been a big year for the pod. I'm reading this. I can't pretend that I care what you think. think too much honesty has the masks has the mask slipped but seriously folks thank you for listening

and watching what a year it's been let you i'll let you cast your minds back it seems a long time ago when we had army hammer we spent a long time trying to think of how we would describe him for our intro and we settled on actor and figure of some controversy it took about an hour to think of that Florence Pew Brian Johnson's Nighttime Erections is the name of my jazz combo

Other highlights I went to L.A. For Sean Penn interviewed him in Malibu We became friends We Well I won't say we didn't become friends But I haven't seen him since

Sean if you're out there You know We could hang Other favorite moments He's not really favorites you can't really have favorites it's like favorite children it's not that you don't have them you just don't like to say which ones it is it's like they used to say there was a certain airline i can't even remember which one it was and they'd say we understand here at united

i guess it was united that you have a choice so thank you for choosing us we understand that the louis through podcast that you have a choice it's a crowded landscape there's a lot of podcasts out there. Some of them are actually pretty good. So thank you for choosing us. Me. Thank you to Spotify. Right? Why not? It's Christmas. Thank you to Millie. She's down there. Thank you to everyone. The production elves who slave behind the scenes. Can I say slave? That feels potentially insensitive and unguarded. That's it for this year. All that's left to do is to wish you a very merry Christmas, or whatever your festival of choice is. And leave you with the credits. The producer was Millie Choo. The assistant producer was

Amelia Gill. The production manager was Francesca Bassett. The music in this series was by Miguel Di Olivera. The executive producer was Aaron Fellows. This is a mindhouse production for Spotify. Ho! Ho! Ho! Oh! When I was younger, I always wanted to be either an astronaut or an athlete. I was a fast runner. I thought maybe I could make it to the Olympics or be blasted off into space. As it happens, neither of those dreams came true.

I had to settle for being an award-winning documentary maker and international celebrity. Ah well, we've all had big dreams and it's never too late to make them happen. This is your sign to stop holding back and go for it, especially if your dream is to run a business. because Shopify is making it easier than ever. It's there to support you every step of the way, from designing your website to marketing to product descriptions to sales. The list goes on and on. So give it a shot.

Turn those dreams into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash Louis, L-O-U-I-S. That's Shopify.com slash Louis, L-U-I-S.