TRIGGERnometry - The Forgotten History of WW2 Evacuees with Dominic Frisby

Episode Date: November 7, 2022

SPONSORED BY: Ridge Wallet. Use Code “TRIGGER” for 10% off your order at: https://www.ridge.com/TRIGGER Dominic Frisby is a British author, comedian and voice actor. In this episode, he talks to Konstantin and Francis about the musical written by his father, Terence Frisby. 'Kisses on a Postcard' is based on Terence and his brother's experience as evacuees in wartime England. Find out more at: https://kissesonapostcard.com/ Listen to the album on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/19aAeNJLliZHA6DzfZ9oqh?si=bKUNFZ6PTzC8BNxU3UGKzw Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ | Channel ID: UCo_8zzSxKeL3arKWVuP8wdQ Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/​​​ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/​​​ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod​​​ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod​​​ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. 00:00 Intro  05:39 The Making of Dominic’s Musical 09:00 What’s it Like to Be an Evacuee? 15:38 ‘Kisses on a Postcard’ Preview 20:34 Dominic’s Father’s Time During the War 22:06 The Impact of WW2 on Society  30:51 Continuing Dominic’s Father’s Project 35:57 How to Get a Show on the West End 48:35 What's the One Thing We’re Not Talking About? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Germans are going to bomb the UK. And so the authorities decide that all the children in the cities across the UK need to be evacuated. My dad was seven and his brother was 11 and their mother had to put them on a train and just waved goodbye and they didn't know where they were going. Who would be taking them in? How long they would go for? None of this stuff. And who knows what kind of damage that did to family? across the country. My grandma decided to turn it into an adventure. And what she did, she gave him a postcard,

and she said, write the address of where you end up on this postcard. And if it's horrible, you put one kiss, and I'll come straight down there and get you back. And if it's okay, you put two kisses. And if it's nice, you put three kisses. Okay, so it was their secret code. And this The first scene that I'm going to play you now takes place on the first night when they're sitting there by candlelight the two boys discussing how many kisses to put on their postcard. Are you tired of using bulky old wallets giving you a bulge where you don't want it to be? My old wallet was massive, so it brought all the ladies to the yard, which was a huge distraction and got in the way of my esteemed work on trigonometry. Ridge wallets have an incredible solution for you. This is mine, sleek, stylish and with an industrial look to it.

It can fit 12 cards with cash on the back using a clip like this one or a strap. We've got one for the whole team. I've got one. Francis has one. Even our producer, Anton, has one. But he's from Liverpool, so he flogged his on the black market. The great thing about Ridge is that they give you a lifetime guarantee, which means if you want, you can have only one wallet for the rest of your life.

Ridge are so confident in the quality of their product, they will give you 45 days to test drive their wallets. That means you can get the wallet, use it, and if you don't like it, you can return it within 45 days. Because Ridge are such great guys, they're going to give you 10% off and free worldwide shipping and returns. To take advantage of this incredible offer, go to ridge.com forward slash trigger. That's ridge.com forward slash trigger and use our special code, which is, of course, Trigger. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kishon. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our brilliant and returning guest today is a comedian, broadcaster and author. Dominic Frisby,

welcome back to Trigonometry. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thank you for having me back. Very excited to be talking to you. No, it's great to have you on. You've been working on a lot of different things since we last interviewed you. Remind people who haven't seen you on the show before. Who are you? How are you? How are you? How are you? where you are, what has been the journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us? Okay, well, I'll summarise it as quickly as I can. I always wanted to be a writer. And when I was a young man, I saw that the best writers had all started out as actors, Shakespeare, Dickens, and many more besides. And so I went to drama school. And then when I was at drama school, I found I was very, for some reason, I was always top in radio. And so I've got a voiceover agent, like as soon as I left. So I started out just doing

voiceovers. Life doesn't always pan out as you're intending. Then I started, you have quite a lot free time when you do voiceovers and I wrote this comic song and a friend of mine said, he was a music agent. I said, can we get this release as a novelty song? And he said, no, go and do it at my brother's club, which was up the creek run by Malcolm Hardy. And in those days, if you did an open spot, they gave you a paid work. So I did an open spot with this song and they gave me a paid gig and suddenly I was a stand-up comedian. It was quite a good life. And so that, that's a, was what I did, stand-up comedy and voice-overs. And then because I was working on this other thing that we're going to talk about in today's interview, and we needed to raise three to five

million quid to make it happen. And I was trying to figure out how to make it happen, how to raise this money. And this was in the mid-naughties now. So I started a podcast as a means to meet all these very rich people that I saw talking on the internet who made a lot of money. And they were all talking about gold at the time and commodities and all this kind of thing. And as I'm sure you know from doing podcasts, it's just, it's amazing how many people you meet and the how much you learn just by talking to all these people, how much information you absorb. But one of the people I interviewed was this woman called Merrin Somerset Webb who was Financial Times journalist and she ran Money Week. And she said, oh, we need people like you to come and write for us. And so she started, they just gave me a

column writing for Money Week. And I was like, I don't really know what I'm talking about. And she He was like, it's fine, just write. And so suddenly I was a financial writer. So I've had this weird double life as a sort of comedian, author, songwriter, and a financial writer. And I sort of, bizarrely it works. And so that's how I've ended up where I am. Well, you're a man of many skills. But the reason we wanted to have you back is you've got this very interesting, very exciting story to tell.

I don't want to talk over it a little bit. So why don't you tell us what you're up to? Okay. So this actually was something that my dad wrote. My dad was quite a well-known writer, a guy called Terrence Frisbee, died a few years ago. And he wrote this story about his time as an evacuee during World War II.

And he wrote it, and it was a radio drama on BBC Radio 4 in the 1980s, immensely popular. And it was like it got broadcast more than any other radio drama got broadcast that year or something. And it won all these awards. And it got letters from people who had been evacuated in Germany to escape English bombs and also people who've been evacuated in Russia.

So the story of children being evacuated was a huge subject and I fell in love with it and it was only about 19 or 20. And then he tried to get it made into a film for many years and I think it got optioned by Ken Loach but it got stuck in development hell. And then in the early noughties a chance encounter on a golf course

this guy from a regional theatre in Barnstable just said, have you got a project for me? And Dad said, actually I do, and he was talking to his friend who'd always been going, you should turn this thing into a stage musical. And so they did it as a stage musical. And it was just the best thing I ever saw, and that was why I started to try and work out

how to raise three to five million quid to bring this thing into the West End. So that's the sort of background to this project. And then during the lockdown, and Dad had died at this point, and I was just like, I'd been going through his stuff and the script and the CD was, I'd taken it home and he was just sitting there

every day I'd be sat on my desk during the lockdown and this script would be looking at me and I was going, if I don't make this happen nobody's going to make it happen so during the lockdown I decided I didn't have the means to turn it into a stage version, obviously COVID and all the rest of it didn't have the money or the means to turn it into

a film and it's not just making the film you need powerful allies distributors and so on to get the film seen but I did have the means to turn into an audio project. So I set to work and we made an audio project of this musical. Four hours long. I rewrote loads of the songs with my songwriter, who it turned out his dad had also been evacuated during the war. So he had a similar experience. And so, and then because it was the lockdown and nobody was working, we were able to get quite big stars involved in the project. John Owen Jones,

who's a big, like the greatest ever, Jean, in Les Mise and various others. And then by a chance encounter, we were supposed to record it in one studio. And they totally started breaking our balls about COVID. And everyone had to be two meters apart. And we were like, well, the orchestra can't sit two meters and all this stuff. So we ended up changing studios. And I just phone around the studios at the last minute. And I phoned up Abbey Road.

And they said, well, we've just had a cancellation. and if you like, you can come and record it here and we'll give it to you at cost because the conductor's got to go into quarantine for two weeks. So we ended up recording the whole thing at Abbey Road and various other studios as well. Abbey Road, you know, a Beatles famous hall. So that's the sort of background to this project.

Now I'm just going to tell you the story, the first like 20 minutes of the musical. And then I'm going to play you the one video we've made of the musical and we're going to see what your reaction is. Okay, so we're in its 1940, 1940, and the last of the soldiers have just been evacuated from Dunkirk, World War II, and they know the blitz is coming. The Germans are going to bomb the UK. And so the authorities decide that all the children in the cities across the UK need to be evacuated. And I think, I'm going to say it's either 4 million or 8 million kids

between the ages of 4 and 13 were evacuated to escape the bombing from the cities to the countryside. It was the biggest wholesale of movement in our country's history. And they were sent, kids were sent from their families. So you can imagine my dad was 7 and his brother was 11 and their mother had to put them on a train and just wave goodbye and they didn't know where they were going

who would be taking them in how long they would go for none of this stuff and who knows what kind of damage that did to families across the country some people had happy experiences and other people had terrible experiences and it's just an incredible story

and it's not a story that you hear told very often So, my dad was seven, his brother was 11. They're at home in southeast London. And their mum comes in and they have a little label on with their name and a gas mask and a bag with, you know, a change of underwear and some pajamas. And dad and his brother Jack are going, where are we going, mum? And she doesn't know. and so they walk up to the station and as they're going to the station

all the other kids from their school join them and there's this incredible crowds and the whole school puts their kids onto the train and just waves goodbye right that's you can imagine the terminal and in order to lighten the situation for them.

My grandma decided to turn it into an adventure. And what she did is, she gave him a postcard, and the postcard said, dear mum and dad, arrived safe and well, loved Jack and Terry. She gave him this postcard, she said,

write the address of where you end up on this postcard. And if it's horrible, you put one kiss. and I'll come straight down there and get you back. And if it's okay, you put two kisses. And if it's nice, you put three kisses. Okay, so it was their secret code. And so she turned the whole thing into an adventure for them.

And they go, so they go onto the train, and it's just their two school teachers and all the kids on the train. And they're sent, they get on the train at Deptford. And then the train goes across southeast London, and it just keeps on going and going and going. And eventually they end up in Cornwall in a tiny, tiny village at Liskard, and then they're all put on buses

and fanned off to different villages in the region of Cornwall. And Dad and his brother and about 50 or 60 other kids were herded into the village hall in this tiny village called Dobwolds, Dobwolds and Double Boys. They were herded into the village hall, and they were all made to stand there

and then all the locals just walk round and said, I'll take that one there. I'll take that one there. So it was like a cattle market. They were just picked out at random. And then they went and signed their name and they were sent off to go with these locals. And Dad and his brother were taken in by this Welsh couple who'd moved down to Cornwall. And he had been a soldier in World War I. They would eventually learn.

And you can just imagine these strange accents, these strange people, what a traumatic experience that was for the kids. But anyway, Dad was taken him by this Welsh couple, Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack. And Uncle Jack had, this was a huge thing. People tried to separate Dad and his brother. And they were like, we have to stay together. We have to stay together. This was a thing. We have to stay together. That was the instruction their mum had given him. Dad and his brother were taken in by this Welsh couple. And now he had been a soldier in World War I. And he was only five foot high. he'd been in this regiment called the Welsh bantams, which had come up against the Prussian

Guard, who were all over six foot. And they were involved in this massacre, the Mammatswood massacre, where only 17 of them survived. 17. And he went back to his village, and he was the only man from the village to go back. And so as a result, him and his wife, they'd just had to leave the village because all the other women looking at him like that was just too much for them. So they'd moved down to Cornwall, and he was now a plate layer on the great Western Railway. Dad and his brother love trains, steam trains. And they went back to this house.

There was no electricity. And they walked in and there was a canary in a cage, a cat asleep by the fire. They went into the garden. It was a tiny little railway cottage. They went into the garden. There was chickens in the yard and a pig, outdoor privies. And they had this son, Gwyn, who was sort of very funny and sang all the time. And outside the house there was this huge valley with woods and rivers to dam. And then the railway at the end of their garden with the trains going past. And they thought they had died and gone to heaven. They thought it was fantastic.

And this first scene that I'm going to play you now takes place on the first night when they're sitting there by candlelight the two boys discussing how many kisses to put on their postcard How many kisses? I vote three What would mum and dad think of it here?

Don't know. No electricity. They wouldn't like that. I don't care. There's no bathroom. I don't care. Outside love. Oh, in an outside love.

I don't mind if it's freezing for don't you see. I vote one. Got to share. All squashed up in it. Don't care Kisses on a postcard we must write something we've got to do The postcard model they show only mum is going to know

Quinn's not bad he's mad He plays rough called my hair called me scruff Kisses on her postcard model we do LIC TOOT Get done We put lesson three mum and dad will think it's rotten here They'll be worried Yeah well there's the trains they're good

And the station right next to us That's terrific Hey, wait, I've just remembered. Hens! What about hens? Egg, stupid, real eggs! Not that horrible powdery stuff. Eggs for you, eggs for me.

Eggs for breakfast, up and eat. Poached or bade. What's your score? All right, three. I say four. You can't. Why not? Mum only sit up to three.

But don't you see, the more kisses we put, the more happy they're going to be. Yeah, it's terrific here. really, isn't it? Like being on holiday, only there's no seat. We don't have to stop at four. Let's do hundreds. Yeah. This is fun.

Night's Harry. Look at them. Fast asleep. And they've covered the card in kisses. Night night, boys. That's amazing. Yeah. Really, really enjoyable.

And it's also powerful as well. Because in many ways, you know, we molly-collar children in our generation. But what these young boys had to go through is something that we can, none of us can comprehend, number one, and number two, certainly not children, being torn away from your families, going to places in the country that you don't know of, that you don't know about, it's a completely different way of life. It's very powerful.

And did that have a profound effect on your father? I think so. I think so. He used to talk about it. And that whole generation, Most of them are dead now. There's still, you know, a few in their late 80s and 90s. But they all used to talk about it.

And yeah, as I said, some had good experiences like Dad and others had horrible times. And basically, but that story basically just tells the whole of their time during the war. That's what you just saw there is like 20 minutes up to 20 minutes in. So he had quite a positive experience on the whole. He did, but I can't see how it didn't mess him up. You know, he spent four years down there. From seven to 11, four years. Wow.

And other than the occasional postcard or letter, would they have any contact with the parents? I think mum and dad came down a couple of times because there are some photos of them down there. But yeah, four years. I think those who had unhappier experiences went back sooner. But basically, he didn't go home until after they started invading Sicily. because the man, Gwynn, who was the son of Auntie Rose and Uncle Jack, went off to fight in Sicily and was killed. Wow.

Wow. So did he ever talk about it, his experiences? He did, but most of it's in, you know, he wrote a book about it, so everything was distilled into that book. But yeah, he talked about it a lot. The impact that must have on a young child. It's a whole country. It's a whole country.

country. And the impact that must have are not seeing your parents for four years. And the impact on the parents? I think some people never found their parents again because they will have died or just lost contact. So there was some children who never found their parents. I think so. Some just ended up staying forever where they went. You know, one or two, not, not, I mean, not everyone. The majority will have gone home. And when we talk about the impact, I'm curious what you would say the impact is because I imagine that one of the things we're associated with your father's generation is this kind of stoicism that perhaps people now like to harken back to. So I don't know whether that's accurate, of course, but going through things like that as both parents of children

and children themselves, when we say impact, what do you think it was? I think people then were definitely mentally tougher than we are now. And, you know, they had no mobile phones. They had no means of communicating. And they were literally going into the unknown. I think they were much more trusting of authority than they are now. And one of the questions you asked me, Constantine, I remember when we were talking a couple of weeks ago, you said, could that happen now that people would send their kids off to just go to stay with a total stranger. There's nowhere vetting them. They're only vetted locally by their communities.

You know, there's no, they haven't got their little certificate that prove they aren't a paedophile or something. You know, would that be able to happen now? And because, you know, Britain was so much more monocultural then, whereas now it's much more multicultural. And so between the various cultures that we have, there's perhaps not the same levels of trust that there were then. And, you know, Cornwall particularly, you know, it's the end of Britain. But, you know, they spoke a different language in Cornwall. They didn't then.

They'd already stopped speaking it. But, you know, it's culturally very different from the rest of Britain. And, you know, anyone outside of Cornwall is a foreigner, let alone a Londoner. It also had a big impact on the towns they went to because, you know, the village kids, what happened is all the, you know, the London kids all came and they were better at sport, they were cleverer, you know,

when they had village kids against the Vaki's kids, football matches or cricket matches, whatever, the village kids would always get destroyed. The Londoners just thought the village kids were stupid. The village kids resented these newcomers. It, you know, created so much social turmoil in the places that they went to. There were, dad said there was fights all the time.

Village kids versus the Vaki kids. You know, any excuse for a fight. And, you know, they'd arrange these huge fights down in the woods or if it was winter, they'd arrange huge snowball fights. So they were never, so a lot of them weren't really accepted in the community then. I guess some of them weren't, some of them weren't. Yeah. Like all these things, there would have been some people who opened up their arms to them.

Yeah. and other people who didn't want them there at all. And were there some who just didn't, who kept their children in London because they wanted their children near? Or was that not really an option at that time? I guess there were one or two, but it's a bit like,

do you remember how scared everyone was when COVID first started? At this first lockdown, yeah. Yeah. And, okay, so let's just say, you know, we've got all this tension at the moment with Russia and Ukraine. And by the way, I played it that scene to a load of people, the first hour of the musical,

to a load of people in the car, just as Russia was invading Ukraine. And everyone said exactly the same thing's happening in Ukraine now with the massive evacuation away, particularly from the eastern Ukrainian cities. So something very similar happened in Ukraine. And, you know, you saw them. They just wrote their names on a label

and sent them off into the unknown. But if you just knew that Britain's about to be bombed, and just, and I'm, paralleling with that fear of the unknown that was COVID when it first happened. London's about to be bombed. You need to go for your own safety. It would take someone of a very contrarian mindset to go, no, my kids are safer here with me while, you know, Germany's bombing us.

And also as well at that point, although I'm not sure how aware they would be of this fact, Germany were very much in the ascendancy at that point. Oh yeah. It was only the decision to invade Russia. that did for Hitler. And if he hadn't invaded Russia, you know, America had stayed out and Britain was done for, he probably would have won. Hey, Francis, what do you think is the best way to advertise a business? That's easy. All you need to do is spend shed loads of cash on an advert that's going to be

promoted on a dying medium-light TV. Then simply sit back and watch all your hard-earned money disappeared down the toilet. What about advertising with Trigonometry? Why would I do that when I can advertise on an hour? ITV3 for the measly sum of 20 grand and be watched by six people. Because Trigonometry now has over 350,000 subscribers across the different platforms and gets two million views and downloads a month? That's right. You can place an advert with us and we'll promote your brand on one of our episodes. Your advert will be written by two professional comedians. Yeah, that's right. We're hiring two professional comedians.

When we make our ads funny and engaging to the point where some people, we'll be say the ads are their favourite parts of the show. Yeah, we probably shouldn't admit that, mate. All you need to do is contact us on marketing at triggerpod.com.uk. That's marketing at triggerpod.com.com. Advertise with us and we'll get your business cancelled. And what do you think the... Because I've never really heard these stories at all.

I didn't really even know that this was a thing particularly. What do you think the impact of that was on... on society going forward because these are obviously very significant things for young people to go through that age and a whole generation of children would have grown up into adults from that experience. Well, I look at Britain in maybe 1911 or something like that at the sort of the height of the empire when we really produced all these amazing individuals and we led the world in science and philosophy and math, you know, everything in the world and how quickly we descended from that greatness relative to other countries in the world. And it was the two

wars, first world war. And then, you know, people give Chamberlain a hard time for being an appeaser. But I think he lost five of his brothers in the First World War. And that was why he was like, we can't do this again, why he was so reluctant to go into the Second World War. It's a side of Chamberlainer that you never hear. And so, but I think it was, you know, you know, yet another thing that destroyed the fabric of Britain's greatness. It was just yet another episode in this sort of ongoing destruction. Because ultimately, we just lost so many people. And we used to have big families, seven, eight, ten people.

And now, you know, it's one or two kids. And it all starts with family. And if you destroy the family, and this had a terrific impact on British families. And one thing we're never really aware of is the fact that rationality. It didn't just end in 1945. It carried on for a number of years. And in fact, there was a lot of London and a lot of cities like Liverpool and Birmingham

that had just rubble for many years afterwards. So this idea that we, you know, bounced back and everything was fine. We were broken from the Second World World for a long time. Yeah, we were. And it's interesting that the rationing thing, the kids talk about it, how excited they were to eat real eggs.

And we would take it for granted. and, you know, meat. You get a little bit of it in the country for obvious reasons, but, yeah, rationing was, and sweets and, you know, there just was stuff wasn't in the shops. We take so much of that, the abundance that we have today for granted. That's one of the reasons I love talking to older people because I think I've talked about in the fall,

probably an episode of Giles Udi, the historian, about my family's history in Ukraine. I always bring this up. My grandmother, who's 96, she lived through, you know, she lived through decalicization, Stalinism, then the Nazi occupation. And she was, she always tells me how during the war, her and her girlfriends, they would have a bet on whether they would ever eat real bread again. That was the sort of experiences that people were having.

But Dominic, you mentioned family. I'm curious as well, you know, there's obviously a very deep personal connection here for you with your dad and being able to finish something after he's gone. What was it like working on this for you? Well, it's been my life's mission for 25 years to make this musical exist. Because, and it's not just, people are looking at it and go, you know, you love your dad. Of course I love my dad. But it's, it's, I'm sure you see this with comedians or something who you think are brilliant and nobody notices.

and they seem to spend their whole lives just not being ignored. And I just know how good this story is and how brilliant the songs are and how powerful and it's funny and it's got this huge, profound message to it. And it's also makes you laugh. It makes you laugh. I just wanted to make this thing exist. It's literally, and it's like, if I didn't do it, nobody would. And yeah.

So how difficult is it to make something like this happen? To take a musical from, you know, the writing, the music, putting it together and then taking it to the West End? It's, it can be really easy and it can be impossible. And, you know, like if you look at, take the example of six, about the six wives of Henry the Eighth. I think the two, it was written by two students or one was a student, one wasn't. And I think they wrote it in like two weeks. It was six songs, one for each of the wives of Henry the 8th. They did it as an Edinburgh show.

Did very well in Edinburgh. Suddenly it's a West End show. Everyone's raving about it. It's syndicated all the way around the world. I know the guy does the PR quite well. And he says he thinks that no musical ever has made as much money as quickly as six. And I think it's start. And that is despite the headwinds that are COVID.

That it had to be closed. So if you just hit something and it flies, it can be incredibly easy. And then for other people, you could spend your whole life trying to get something on and nobody cares. So it can be impossible. But you need to, the problem with putting this show on in the West End is it's got 18 kids in it. So you would probably need three sets of kids. So that's a logistical problem. But it's bizarre.

Musicals with kids tend to do very well. Oliver, The Sound of Music, Matilda, Billy Elliot. You know, people like stories with kids, but they are problematic. So it's got a big cast. It helps, if you want to do a West End show, if there's some kind of brand awareness before you do it.

So that's why we have a lot of duke rock musicals. It helps, you know, and you see a lot of revivals of the Sound of Music or Oklahoma or whatever it is. And this had none of that. And it didn't have a big star attached. to it. So that was always headwind rather than tailwind. And it makes it very hard. But, you know, the beauty of audio is it's cheaper to make. And I'm not convinced that people seem to want to see

musicals rather than hear them, bizarrely. But at least I know it now exists. And so you upload it to the internet and it's kind of permanent. And so that makes me happy. I'm sure. And when you say exists, how can people listen to it, watch it? Because that was not only beautifully sung and whatever, but it's also beautifully filmed and acted too. Yeah, well, that's the only video we made to promote it, but it shows you how it could look if Netflix or someone were to turn it into a TV program. But Kisses on a Postcard is the website, and you can either, you can just get it on your podcast app, you know, Apple Podcasts, you just type in Kisses on a Postcard and you'll get the four hour. It's four and a half hours. I didn't, I was going to make it two hours. And then I

just thought, do you know what? People like really long audio books. People like your show. They're like Joe Rogan. They're like long stuff. So I just thought, I'm just putting the whole thing in. So four and a half hours. And so you would listen to it in half hour chunks, the same way you might listen to a series or something. So yeah, you can find it Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. Kisses on a postcard. If you want CDs, you can buy CDs as well, old school. And I mean, even just doing the audio version, it costs me a lot of money. And I'm going to make a big loss on it. But I don't care because I just wanted to make it happen.

That's the problem. You stick it up on to a podcast, you upload it. And there's no existing brand, so I can't do, I can't advertise all the things that you advertise and so on. Because that took you several years to get the point where you... Kisses on a postcard, sponsored by Manscaped. There you go. I was thinking South Bank investment. It's very interesting what we're talking about,

and particularly, you know, the road to the West End, and we were saying that. Like, how does that work? How do you take a show and then get it transferred to the West End? You, it's, it, it, a lot of stuff starts in Edinburgh. A lot of stuff starts in the province. They're put on a show at one of the regional theatres or in a fringe theatre,

and it captures a zeitgeist and people get interested in it grows from there. Sometimes a producer will have a vision, sometimes a big star will come along and say, I want to do a musical, and they'll find a musical that's a vehicle for the big star. It happens in any number of different ways. But there are only so many theatres in the West End, and to get a show on in the West End requires extraordinary amounts of capital. To do this now, this show would certainly more than five million quid,

probably near a 10 million now at today's prices. It's an insane amount of money. You would need investors. Angels, they're normally called theatre investors. It's famously high risk. There's been all sorts of musicals made about people losing money in musicals. You know, it's a famous way to lose your money.

But some of the biggest fortunes in history of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Cameron McIntosh, two of the richest people in the country, made their fortune, made their money in the West End. So it's like how do you become day, or Chris Rock or something, you know, it's for whatever reason, you get the TV gig at the right time, you're already good, and then people want more of it and stuff just happens for you, and you catch a tailwind, and it happens for some, and it doesn't happen for other stuff.

And do you think that in this case, I mean, one of the things I wanted to speak with you about is history, because this is obviously something that is now history, essentially, for most people. And Francis and I, we've had plenty of historians on the show. We are both fascinated by history. I think if you don't understand history, you don't understand the present or the future at all. What's in the expression of those who do not understand the past are doomed to repeat it or something like that? I think a better one is those and those who do are doomed to watch others repeat it, which is, I think, to a large extent, what we're living through now.

But what I wanted to ask is, do you think there's an audience out there that's big enough for something that's about history in a world that's obsessed with right here, click, click, click, two minute, Twitter clip, all of this, right here, right now. Do you think there's enough people who are still interested in history? I have absolutely no doubt. You know, this is a, you know, not every drama or has to be set in the present day. You know, it's set in the past, it's set in World War II, but it's not a history lesson.

It's a story about the adventures of two kids who leave there, who are separated from their family. You know, Harry Potter's a story about a kid who's. separated from his family and sent into an unknown world. This is a story about two kids who were sent from their family in London to a tiny village in Cornwall, and it's about the stories of their adventures over four years in this tiny Cornish village. And it's got laughter, it's got tears, it's got drama, it's got good songs, it's got fights, it's got stories, it's got everything you want in a drama. And so I have no doubt that there is an appetite

for it. Because if you think about, I think it's the most popular musical now, which is Hamilton. Hamilton is based on historical events. Yeah, it is. And one of the side effects of Hamilton is you do take an interest in Alexander Hamilton, who you might not previously have known about. I personally don't like the portrayal of Thomas Jefferson, who I think is a rather heroic figure in the past, and I don't like the way he was portrayed in Hamilton.

But yeah, Le Mises is about a historical event. You know, a lot of great musicals are. And do you think one of the challenges might be, because, and I really like theatre, but the more I've looked at theatrical culture and theatre and musicals, it does seem to be more and more cross-pollination with Americans.

So, you know, there's a show that on Broadway, that's a hit, they bring it over here. And in many ways, it just squeezes out our own talent, doesn't it? Yeah, I'm afraid that's true. A lot of stuff that does well on Broadway will come over here. That's another route into the West End that I didn't mention before. I'm afraid we as the English are lucky that we have English

because but it's also in many ways our downfall because you know if we had a different language that wasn't an international language I'm sure it would be better to preserve our own things but because we have English we tend to get diluted a little bit by America but particularly musically but you know, the Hollywood, American theatre, American media, you know, it's just an all-powerful machine and so it affects, you know, drama and theatre and everything everywhere. And, you know, the entertainment and businesses are, there's a lot more people who want to be famous actors

than there is room for famous actors at the top. There's a lot more people who want to be writers. There's a lot more people who want to be podcasters than there are people who actually want to listen to podcasts if you know what I mean. And so it's a cutthroat ruthless industry and you've got to be hard and you've got to be good and you've got to take the knocks and you've got to grab the opportunities when they come

and all those feel good messages. The entertainment industry is ruthless and there's a lot of competition. And then you do see the stuff that gets on, particularly on a lot of telly, and you're like, how did that get on? when there's so much good stuff that's just queuing up and doesn't get noticed. How did it get on?

How do they get on TV? I don't know. I think if we're going to moan about TV comedy, I think a lot of TV comedy is owned by about two or three agents, and they seem to control a lot of it. I think producers don't set the net wide enough. I think there's a lack of risk-taking. In producers, they don't want to take the risk on a new guy,

that get this guy because he was the guy from such and such. therefore, you know, it's the commissioning process against, you know, YouTube or whatever, which is just a free-for-all. But there's all sorts of risk, but there's people in commissioning don't take huge risks a lot of the time. They don't take huge risks. And whatever, one of the things... And it's hard. It's hard to make good entertainment. Yeah, and given some of the costs involved that you're talking about with putting on a West Shent,

end show, for example. I mean, I can see why people would be somewhat risk-averse with five million quid. I've got, I need 10 million quid, Constantine. Would you give me 10 million to put this thing on? Or you could go and do Oklahoma and have, you know, Hugh Jackman in the lead role. Right. What are you going to put on? Yours. Yes, Morales. And that's why he's terrible with money. Yeah. But there is a beauty to musical theatre in that you can have a hit. I think it was Lionel Bart, who was a perfect example of this, he created and wrote Oliver, which is a huge global hit success, transferred all around the world, they made a film of it. And then he made Robin Hood a few years afterwards, which sent him completely bankrupt. Like, I don't understand Lionel Bart,

because Oliver just contains brilliant song after brilliant song after brilliant song. It's obviously a fantastic story as well. And it's a fantastic musical. And everything, else that guy did in his life was not very good. And yet Oliver was so brilliant. And it was like he took his whole life. And it's like he did a deal, a Faustian pact or something. He says, give me all the talent that I'm going to have over my lifetime. I'm just going to put it all in this one musical. And yeah, I don't understand how the same guy can create one thing that's so good and other stuff that isn't. But that's the magic of it, isn't it? You know, it's that lightning in the bottle moment. Yeah. Because it's very few people. He did in that, he caught lightning in the

It's exactly the right. And the rest of the time, there was no lightning, only sunshine. Because like we're saying, you know, if you've got other people's money and you have to justify to them why we're going to put it into this unknown musical where there is no, where there are no stars, or you can take a show that's crushing it on Broadway like Book of Mormon and it's already got a lot of heat behind it. Yeah. Book of Mormon is brilliant. Yes. But those two guys were already well-known from South Park. I think another problem quite interesting I've been thinking about a bit recently is if you, like you doing this show, are directly answerable to your customers.

You have a direct relationship with your customers, and if people start watching the show, you're out of business. A lot of organisations, and this applies to the NHS and also to the BBC, they're not directly answerable to the customers. The customers pay to the middleman, whether the TV tax or your tax, and then that's given to the NHS or to the BBC. So that customer relationship, I mean, you find a lot of people in the BBC often actually have contempt for their viewers,

and they think they know better than their viewers. And certainly in the NHS, you know, the customer can't hold the doctor to account in the same way that, you know, I can hold the guy who sells me the shoe shop account or whatever. It's a bad analogy, but you get my point. There isn't that direct customer relationship. And I don't think that leads to quality service. If the provider is directly accountable to the customer

in a traditional customer-seller relationship, then there's a lot more accountability and that results in better content. Which is why I'm glad we've had you on to talk about it and you've put it out as an audio that people can access and enjoy. Because at the end of the day, I mean, obviously the three of us can spend hours whining about the BBC and there's plenty to complain about, But the reality is we live in a different world now.

And in that world, you put stuff out and people like it or you put stuff out and they don't and you live and die by that sword rather than some guy deciding that you are the right person or not the right person. I mean, the destruction of the gatekeeping industry has been one of the greatest boons of this technological revolution that we're living through.

And I'm delighted about that that people like us now have the opportunity to actually stick by what we believe. You thought this needed making. You've put it out there. people are going to listen to it and they're either going to enjoy or not. And that is the judgment of the public with which we all live. I could not agree more Constantine. And we have, we have to be so grateful in this day and age for technology. Because suddenly with one phone,

with one phone, you've got a kit that would have cost you two, three, five million dollars 25 years ago, just with one phone. And it has democratized anything. And I'm like, with everything I do, it's just like, I can't be bothered to send. sending in letters to the BBC, begging them to notice me and put on my show. I'm just going to go and make the song that I want to make. I'm just going to go and do whatever it is I want to do. And if people like it great and if they don't, well, you know, and I just think that has created so many opportunities.

And it has improved the quality of content. If you listen to people 15 years ago, nobody wants anything that's more than three minutes. And then suddenly podcasts came along and people wanted five-hour conversations. And they're like, what? and, you know, nobody would have commissioned cat videos, and I think cat videos are the most... And nobody

would commission, you know, some spotty bloke to give you instructions about how to, you know, repair the handle on your mug or something. But those how-to videos are the most watch things on YouTube and instructional. And they're so helpful. Yeah. And you want the spotty guy that knows about China fragments.

You don't want, you know, Emily Maitliss on mugs. No, you don't. Well, Dominic, that's why, you know, I'm excited about this. I think it's great. I think people in our space, frankly, need to... I mean, look, we spend a long time whining about all this stuff. We've whined our way to wherever we are.

Now I think it's up to us to start building things, to creating things. That's why I'm excited about kisses on a postcard. I think it's going to be great. I can't wait to listen to it. I hope our audience will do as well. And with that, before we ask you, I use your last question. Is anything you wanted to add or say... Just thank you very much for the opportunity.

Kisses on a postcard.com. Please listen and I hope you enjoy it. And the final question we always end our interviews with is what's the one thing we're not talking about, but we really should be? It's funny, the last time I did this show, you asked me that question, and I said race. And I talked, you know, defining what it actually is racism.

And then about two or three months later, the whole BLM riots and all that kicked off. It's his fault. Yeah, exactly. You started, I just want to say, I'm sorry. And the, so, and it was quite an awkward conversation. I remember, I broke out into a sweat. But it was, it was premonitionary.

I was right. That's what he's trying to say. So here's the thing. This is not so much of an issue thing. It's just something that I think is happening or could happen. and that is the and it's where I think podcasting is going and that is the power of audio now when if you think we only invented writing as a means to transfer information over distance and over time you know if I need to transfer words beyond what you can hear in that actual present that's why we invented writing

but the brain the human brain actually absorbs words through the ear, better than it does off the page. And I think once you understand that, you understand this extraordinary boom we've seen in podcasting, audio books and all the rest of it. And they say that radio is the most visual medium. It's a lovely old expression because you create it all. And with that in mind, I think where media is going

is, do you remember, you're probably too young, but in the 70s, there was this huge boom in the concept album. And so there was the War of the Worlds is probably the most famous example, audio dramatization of the War of the Worlds by HG Wells. But there were many other concept albums, the wall, and there was this huge boom in concept albums, which was sort of spoken word, music, drama,

Bowie sort of played with it a lot and just imagine stuff. And I think, I hope that this podcasting audio boom moves into a sort of people start really experimenting with music, audio drama, audiobooks and it all sort of comes together and we get these incredibly visual audio pieces. I think we could be going in that direction

and I think that would be good for art. I mean that was a lot less stressful than what you said last. I'm like, where is he going to go with this? Oh no, it's just long podcast, so a bit of music, cool. Excellent. But it's all going to be race, based. Fantastic.

There you go. Dominic, thank you so much. We're going to ask you a couple of questions that our audience have submitted for locals, and only they will get to see that. So make sure you join locals. But for now, tell everybody, just remind everybody where they can find the musical, where they can find you online, etc. And then we will go and ask you those couple of questions. So you can find me at Dominic Frisbee.com, and my Twitter handle is at Dominic Frisbee.

and but the website for the show is kisses on a postcard.com. The show is called kisses on a postcard. So stick Kisses on a Postcard into Spotify or Apple Podcasts, whatever. You'll find it. But Kisses on a Postcard.com, it all starts there. Thanks, Dominic, and thank you guys for watching and listening. We will see you very soon on locals. And then afterwards, with another brilliant episode like this one or Raw Show,

all of them go out. 7pm UK time. And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, It's also available as a podcast. Take care and see you soon, guys. I've heard Dominic talk about how the housing crisis is much more than simple lack of new homes being built. Can he explain further about what else is causing the problems in supply

and what, more importantly, can be done about it? Yes, I can.