TRIGGERnometry - The Truth About TRIGGERnometry

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

Part one of a special two-part episode with Francis Foster and Konstantin Kisin. In this episode, they talk about the lowest lows and highest highs in the journey of TRIGGERnometry so far. We're raising money for Prostate Cancer UK. DONATE here: https://prostatecanceruk.org/get-involved/donate Get TICKETS to TRIGGERnometry Live with Ayishat Akanbi here: https://leicestersquaretheatre.ticketsolve.com/shows/873621622 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 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissen and a very warm welcome to our special first episode from the new studio on the set you can see behind us. We've done a great interview about all things to do with the past, the present and the future of the show, including talking about our personal lives and some of the background to where the show comes from, including Francis's worst ever gig. And then at the back I heard the word yid, yid, yid, yid, yid, Yidd and Constantine gets a little bit emotional. It was the end of a very difficult 10 days.

And I went into my room when it got confirmed and I started crying. We talk about the lowest lows and the highest highs in the history of the show. Enjoy. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissen. And welcome to our first interview in our brand new studio. We're going to be doing things a little bit differently this week.

because what we're going to be doing is interviewing each other about the journey of trigonometry. Indeed. We're going to talk about where we've come from and possibly where we're going as well. But the first thing to say is apologies for these terrible moustaches. We are raising money for prostate cancer UK. The donation box will be there somewhere. Anton will probably get it sorted by the time this goes out. So if you can support this great cause, please do because, you know, men need support. Exactly, particularly white men.

Anyway. Good. Well done, mate. But anyway, I've been looking forward to this. I've been really looking forward to this because it's a chance. It's therapy, isn't it? That's what this is. Yeah, of course it is. Okay, mate. We're both on the couch. You know, it'll appeal to you because it's free. Anyway, I can't believe I said that. Yeah, so we started. I deliberately didn't laugh to make it awkward. Yeah. Well done. Thank you very much. Rather like my gig on Wednesday night. Now, we started Trigonometry in 2018, April. April 2018.

But I think one of the things that people don't really know is a lot of the background stuff because we haven't talked about it very much. But let's start with where we were before we started the show. So you were a working comedian. Yes. Mostly hosting shows rather than doing sets. You were doing sets as well,

but you focused on hosting shows. You know, some of the best clubs in London, admittedly. But you were performing there. You weren't traveling so much around the country. You weren't doing your own shows to your own audience, which neither of us had at the time. What was that like? It was, on the one hand, it was quite good

because I worked really hard to get to that point. Comedy is fiercely competitive. It's not fair. So by hook or by crook, by working really hard, I got to the point where I was playing some of these really great clubs on a Friday and Saturday night to hundreds of people every night.

I was an emcee because there was a part of it. really enjoyed. It's unscripted so you can be improvisational. You can have fun with the audience. No gig is ever the same. It meant that I didn't have to travel, but what it was effectively was a cul-de-sac. And once in comedy, once you get pigeonholed as being an MC or a host, that's really it. You just get known as being an MC, which is actually quite narrow-minded and stupid of the industry and the people in it, because some of the best comedians were MCs. Daniel Kitsen. is a good example. Michael McIntyre did a lot of emceeing.

So it's at one point ridiculous, but also that's what it was like. But also, I would argue, you pigeonholed yourself. Wouldn't that be fair to say? Because you kept doing these emceeing gigs. It meant that you didn't have time to go out and try as much new material, to play in front of a different audience, stuff like that.

So I'd push back on that. And the reason I push back on that is because I don't come, I'm not come, I don't come from a wealthy family, means I had to earn money. I'm not saying you were wrong to do it, but what I mean is, I think partly the reason you ended up in that position is you put yourself in that position, maybe for very good reasons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look, it was for very good reasons, but the reality is, is comedy is a rich man's game. It is. Life is a rich man. Yeah. But, you know, particularly if you want to get ahead in the comedy industry, you've got to be able to go

up to Edinburgh four or five times. If you want to get notice, really you need to spend 10 grand a pop, that was never an option for me. I had to earn money. So, but yeah, there was an element of that. There was an element of that of, you know, not wanting to travel. And as a result, it was a shortcut, but like all shortcuts, inevitably leaves somewhere where you don't want to be. Well, there's another part to your story, because not only were you doing, you were emceeing, hosting these shows six nights a week, so you were there the whole night. So basically every night, You're around rowdy, drunk people, performing comedy. And then, quite often, you would then go and do the radio overnight.

Yeah. Right? I did talk sport radio. So I did overnights at talk sport, which meant some days I would do a full day teaching. Then I'd go and emcee a gig, sometimes MC2 gigs back to back. And then I'd go and do overnight radio until about five in the morning. Right. And sometimes you'd do that.

and then you'd go to bed, and then you'd wake up, and you'd go and teach. Yeah. Because you were still a part-time teacher at this point. Yeah, yeah. So I'd go in and I'd teach, and I was a part-time teacher. Or I'd do breakfast shows at talk radio, where the cab came at half five, quarter-past five, and then you've got to be in the studio at half-six. And if you've been MC in the night before, particularly if it's rowdy,

you don't get to fall asleep until about 2 o'clock in the morning because you're all adrenaline up out of your eyeballs. Yeah, it was relentless. But that's what you've got to do in that industry if you want to succeed. Or if you just want to survive. Yeah, if you want to survive, exactly. And the problem with that particular model is that it's not sustainable. You can't have a good life.

Your relationship suffer. Your health suffers. And I remember at one point, I got an eczema flare up so bad that it looked like I had like red blotches. You know how AIDS patients at the end stage? They used to get something called... Not really, mate. But keep talking about.

But that's what? They were dark red blotches. Dark red. And I remember being on the tube because I was so run down and tired. And there was this girl opposite me and she was looking at me. And I'm like, ah, she likes me.

And now she was just staring at my arm which was covered with these red blotches. Oh, sexy, he's an AIDS patient. Yeah. And in fact, it got... Yum, yum, yum. Exactly. And in fact, it got so bad with my exsma on my skin.

And I was shedding skin. So I'm like, this isn't probably what people tuned in for, that my girlfriend said to me, could you not sleep on my side of the bed? Because that's how bad my skin was. So I was really unwell. I was working frenetically. And also, I was very frustrated because, you know,

I would go to a gig. I would do very well. I was starting to open for people, but nobody in the industry wanted to sign me. No one showed any attention whatsoever. You were never going to be on TV. I was never going to be on TV. I was never going to have an inverted commas, a mainstream career.

And it felt that I... Why? Why? Because I was a straight white dude in his mid-30s at that point when the industry was all about diversity. I was also, as well, didn't have... didn't share the same political views as people in that industry. You were fairly circumspect about that at that point.

Yeah. Right? You weren't expressing your political opinion as openly, I think. No, I wasn't expressing my political opinions openly, but I didn't share the comedy industry's hyper-liberal attitudes to culture, to gender, to all these things, right? And what's very interesting about that is when I was 1819, you could say that I had liberal slash even woke opinions.

But the way that the culture shifted was in the industry, I was sort of known as a small C conservative or a conservative or right-leaning when I've never considered myself like that at all. And I got really frustrated because I saw the hypocrisy and the bias within comedy where people who have left-wing liberal opinions will get platformed, will get given a chance to shine. It doesn't matter how ridiculous these opinions are.

And you can see it right the way through the BBC. You know, Frankie Ball's New World Order isn't really a comedy show. It's more like a left-wing propaganda fanzine that you might find in the old-school Soviet Union. You know, people sitting around and talking. And the comedy industry says they want diversity. They don't want diversity. They want people of all races, genders and ages and ages,

to be on stage having the exact same opinion. So here you are basically in the comedy industry, in a cul-de-sac creatively, in a cul-de-sac financially, in a cul-de-sac in every way. Your health is going down the toilet. You're barely sleeping. You're doing overnight radio. You're teaching. And you're not really in love with teaching anymore, I think, at this point, it's fair to say.

Right? And then I come along and I'm like, hey, let's do a podcast. It's going to get us cancelled. Well, here's the thing. I originally, you said, do you want to do a podcast? And I was like, no, because I had a podcast. It didn't work out. It was very good.

But we were in our different ways for a multitude of reasons. It just didn't work. Well, people, given that we've had Nick on the show, right? We might say that you did a podcast with Nick Dixon, one of our recent guests. And he didn't work out because creatively you just didn't gel. Yeah, exactly. And so that happened. And then I got offered a podcast with Talk Sport.

We had a pilot. And this is what's interesting. This is what people don't know about radio and TV. So we did a pilot for them. And the guy and the head of TalkSport went, this is brilliant. This is exactly what is needed in sports radio. It's three comedians talking about comedy.

This is exactly what's needed. He then gave us about a list of 12 changes, which we incorporated. We gave him another version of the pilot, and he went, no, I don't like it. And that was it. And that's what you're faced within the industry, where you have great ideas. and people at the top are fucking clueless and they've got no idea.

Now, of course, there's exceptions and there's people who have talent. Of course there are. But there's a lot of people in that industry, both from radio, all different types of broadcasting, who don't have a clue what they're doing. And then there was a sense of frustration. You went to me, do you want to do a podcast? And I thought to myself, it's a lot of work.

It's a hell of a lot of work to do a podcast. It's a hell of a lot of work to do a YouTube show. If you're going to do it, you've got to be all in. You've got to do it properly. You've got to be consistent. You've got to bring something new to the table as well. This is what people don't realize. When comedians release a comedy podcast, they're like,

oh, why is no one listening to my comedy podcast? It's funny. Well, it may be funny. But what's different about it? Are you just going to be another maker of jeans on the market? Well, there's loads of people who make jeans. What's different about your genes? So when we talked about trigonometry,

and you were saying to me, well, I think that this has got legs and whatever else because we're talking to people, interesting people. I thought to myself, actually, that's something different. That's something that people can get on board with. And as well, a watershed moment for me was a whole Brexit referendum, where Brexit happened, and then the next day, I saw a whole cohort of people in my industry who knew, who knew,

now came out and thought it was acceptable to demonise, to mock, to smear people with different political opinions. And not only that, and they would disagree with this, but it's true, they found it absolutely acceptable to be racist to white men, but particularly old white men. And they would say things like, oh, what does it matter? He's just an old white man. And for you, that was particularly painful because you voted Remain, but your dad, who is a straight, old white man, presumably. That's how he identifies. He him. He voted leave, I think, right?

Yeah, he voted leave. And he's not someone who is in any way, any of those things. He's not racist. He's not bigoted or whatever. So to you, it was a very visceral reaction, I think. Yeah. And my dad married a woman of colour in the... My mother who's Latin American... Brown bird. Brown bird, mate. Fucking brown, fucking ethnic. All right? I can say it. She's my mum. Pronoms, she her.

and when it wasn't cool in the 70s, when there was no Snapchat filter or, you know, hashtag mixrace or whatever, all of these different things. So this is not a man who's intolerant. This is a man who doesn't like the... Foreigners. Yeah, exactly. Different foreigners.

Do you know what I mean? Just doesn't like Polish people, mate. Brown bird's good, polls are wrong. No, who just disagreed with the politics of the European Union. Right. Right. Which to me is a perfectly legitimate political position. What I'm getting that with you is you're knackered, you're working overtime, you're not necessary. You've got to a decent place, but you're not going any further.

And then you feel out of kilter with the rest of the comedy circuit that you're operating in, which is your world at this point, right? Because really, when you're a comedian, the way, I don't know whether it's the sort of people that are attracted to comedy or whether comedy makes you this way. but people won't necessarily get this, but when you are a comedian, your whole life becomes that. And I'm sure we'll talk about that

when we talk about my experience, but you are all in, all your quote-unquote friends are in comedy, your whole life is in comedy, and suddenly this world that you've been living in for the last 10 years, it becomes a place that you consider intolerant, wrong, in which you feel out of place, you're not necessarily feeling like you're going anywhere,

and at this point, I come along, and we go, okay, let's do this, right? And I don't know if you remember this, but you said, when I suggested it to you, you agreed. And then the next day you called me up and you said that you'd had a nosebleed, which again is a reflection of your health at this point, right? And you said, you know what, Constance? Maybe you should just do this yourself. Do you remember this?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I had a nose bleed. And it was so bad it needed my girlfriend to help staunch the bleeding. Because it was, at that point, I've actually forgotten about this. I was getting regular nosebleeds at the time. I remember I took my girlfriend to the theatre as a treat for her, and I had to leave at one point because I had to go to the bathroom because my nose was bleeding so heavily,

which isn't a good look for a man in his early to mid-30s, you know? He's getting younger by the sentence, isn't he? He started off mid-30s, now he's early 30s. Yeah, exactly. It was three years ago. You were late 30s by that point already. Anyway. Right.

So your health wasn't great, and you called me up and you were like, you know what, I'm not sure I can do this. and it's because it's capacity I just didn't have any capacity I know I know I just didn't have the capacity for something new

for a new project for wanting to take something on like this and you were like and you were like and you were said to me okay that's cool go away and think about it and I remember speaking to my girlfriend at the time bless her lovely person and she said to me

you know I like Constantine steak I think you should do this and I think it would be good for you and from then when we started doing it. I remember our first interview, we got some great advice actually from Simon Kane,

who's a big fan of the show, who's a podcast for himself. He said to us, record a dummy episode, essentially. So we got Finn Taylor, he was a marvellous comedian, we sat down, we talked, and then you... And it looked terrible, it sounded terrible. Everything about it was terrible.

Yeah, everything about it was shit. And we couldn't put it out. No, we couldn't put it out. But I remember the conversation being quite interesting. Yeah, the conversation was interesting. Yeah. And then, but you, I was like, is this good? And you were like, no, visually, because you were very much a child of Rubin and Rogan.

You were like, no, we have to change this. It has to look good. It has to look professional. See, I've never really consumed YouTube in any shape or form at that point. I just didn't have the time, and that wasn't my world. And you were like, no, we have to do this. Now, maybe you bang you on about lapel mics. I was like, what?

I don't understand. Why can we just have microphones? You know, when we go and do radio, that's how it was. How is this different to radio? And that's where the journey started. And from then on in, it's, and we'll go into it more. It's just been an absolute roller coaster of things that are really bizarre and surreal. From you appearing...

Well, hold off on that. We'll get to the later bits first. Let me talk about my situation before leading into it. So I started doing comedy around mid-2015, 2015. I did it like a short course about how to write jokes and stuff, and then I started doing it. And I think towards probably about 2016, 2017, I started watching a lot of Ruben, Rogan,

and just I became aware politically that something was happening. And I remember, and this will sound really odd, because I voted Remain and... Because we're good people. Because we're, you know, that used to be... The joke that we used to make three years ago, make... Keep up with the material. But I...

So I still had that very liberal mindset in many ways. And I still do to this day. You know, I'm genuinely a liberal in the traditional sense of it. But I remember during the run-up to the Brexit referendum, I probably watched... And a lot of people who hate us are going to take this bit and run with it. I probably watched every single speech that Nigel Farage gave in the lead-up to that campaign

because I think at some level I was already starting to realize that there was a piece missing in my picture of the world. And I've always been someone who's very curious about life and politics and the world and I was trying to get to what the truth is, even if it doesn't necessarily accord with what I already believe. So I started watching it and the more I did, you know,

and I was terrified of this. I was terrified of what I was going through because I remember I watched Dave Rubin for two years before I clicked subscribe on his YouTube channel. Why? Because I was afraid of what other comedians would... If they knew, if I liked this Facebook page, if they saw that, that's how the comedy industry works. Everybody's watching everybody and you're worried about the repercussions.

So at that point, I was terrified just to admit that I'm looking at something, the wrong think thing, you know? but my life at that point was probably as hard as yours I was I was working in some ways I was going to say even harder it's not fair to say that even harder but I was doing other things that made my life harder which is you were gigging mainly in London yeah I was not living in London and I would be gigging in London and elsewhere so my typical day before trigonometry would be do a full day of work because I was not making enough money to live off because it takes years in comedy to get to that point. I do a full day of work, jump in the car, drive for two hours,

do five minutes or ten minutes at some shitty gig with two people in the audience, drive home for two hours, get home for midnight, you can't sleep because your adrenaline is, you know, keeping you awake, you eat some shit, right? You go to bed at two, wake up at 11 feeling like you've been smashed in the head with a mallet all night, right? And then go again. What was your worst ever gig? See, it's interesting because I don't really remember these bad gigs because I'll be honest with you and we'll get to it later. Even when our life was starting to really get good in many ways,

you know, the bit I really remember was not a bad gig. It was a great moment in my life, which when I, you know, jumping ahead a little bit, when Trigonomci was going well, my contract situation had already happened and I was opening for Jeff Norcock, who's since become a good gig. friend and he was always very supportive to me. And, you know, for people who are not aware, at this point for me, opening for Jeff was like a huge opportunity. Of course it is.

And so, and other things were already happening and Trigonometry was doing well. And this was the day when I opened for Jeff two nights in a row. This was incredible, right? So what happened was we did two recordings in London. Then I drove to Bristol and opened for gig for Jeff at my old school theater in my school. That was a great moment for me. stayed the night in Bristol next day drive to Plymouth

which is another three hours drive do a gig for him there leave as soon as I've done my spot drive back to London for three and a half hours I get to my mate's house who I haven't seen for a year he allowed me to stay with him probably around 1 a.m.

He's already in bed so is his misses I go to bed I wake up at 6 a.m. So five hours later don't see my mate that I'm staying with either and I go to the battle of ideas the next day And that, to me, was a really exciting weekend.

That was success. That was success. But that was worse than any gig that I've died at because the emotional and physical toll that that takes on you. Imagine that, driving eight hours in the space of two days, doing two gigs and getting about, I don't know, five, six hours sleep a night. You know, and that was the pinnacle of my career at the time. It was success.

So to me, you know, some people not laughing, or someone cackling me, that was nothing as bad as what I was doing to myself, you know, every day. You know, so I don't really, you know, maybe it's because I haven't done comedy for a while as well. Like the memory of those shit gigs that I used to do, it really doesn't exist for me in the same way.

What I remember is driving myself to the brink of exhaustion, just doing the show and trying to make it work and, you know, always trying to improve and the gigs and the this and the that, you know? That was the thing that was actually the worst in many ways, you know. What about you? I mean, my worst seven gig, this is a story. This is a beautiful story.

So my 10th gig, I did at the local pub. It was known as the Grove in South Wimbled. It was my local pub. It was rough. I got my first pint ever served to me there whilst dressed in my dad's leather jacket. Okay? 16 years old, feeling incredible.

Legend. Exactly. We went in, I did a, I did a gig there. It was a 10-minute open spot in the middle. And I got up, and because it was my local pub, because of the people were people that I grew up with, I knew who they were, there was, you know, South London, you know, mixed crowd,

you know, working class, Irish, blah, blah, but I was like, I've got this. And I riffed. I riffed for 10 minutes, and I smashed it. And I came off and I was just like, I'm a genius. And the promoter saw me and went, that was brilliant. He goes, you need to do bigger gigs.

He goes, how long have you been going? I went, I've done 10 gigs. Then he looked to me and was like, wow, this is almost like a prodig. You're going to do this gig. I'm like, great. He goes, it's in the lava lounge in Bournemouth. So for our non-British viewers, Bournemouth is a sort of party town

where a lot of what we call hen nights and stagnants, which is a bachelorette and bachelor parties go to, right? Yeah, exactly. So it goes, this is where, see, this is where, yeah, the lava lounge. And to me, I'm like, great, 300 people in this place. This is going to be amazing. I drove down with the comedians, one of whom is actually a guy called Kevin Shepard, lovely guy, and he was talking to me.

And I noticed that Kevin, Kev showed a few signs of trepidation. He wasn't looking that comfortable. And I'm like, oh, what's going on? And he was going to me, this isn't an easy gig, Francis. I'm like, oh, I'll be fine, mate. Just did 10 minutes to 30 people in a pub, and I smashed it. 300, it's going to be 10 times better. Anyway, we got to the gig.

Kevin went on. The emcee went on, did okay. Kevin went on, opened, did okay. There was a break. I remember looking out, and there was 300 people. There was about, and they're all stagging hens. So there were 288 stags and 12 heads. And I immediately thought this is creating an atmosphere.

And it's not a pleasant one. No, I bet you thought this is my crowd. So anyway, they brought me to the stage. And I went on and they looked at me and I looked at them and I realised they weren't really on board. And I said my first joke and it got polite laughter. I said my second joke and it didn't get much. And then all of a sudden I heard this low rumble of discontory.

tent this booing, this booing. And I went, stop, and I said to them, stop, stop, don't boo. Not a good move. Not a power move, is it? Please don't boo. Let me tell my next joke. So just imagine the scene, right? It's a nightclub in Borthmouth, 300 stagging heads. And there's these very angry, drunk men dressed in mankini's looking at me and people coat out of their eyeballs whilst dressed as Spider-Man getting more and more angry. And I went, and I had a little cell up and I went, so I looked Jewish. And then at the back, I heard the word yid, yid, yid, yid until 300 people were all there chanting the word yid. Now, I don't know if you've ever had a very angry man who's morbidly obese in a mankini chant the word yid at you. But it's an

interesting way to spend an evening. The funniest thing about that is you're not even Jewish. Yeah, I'm not even Jewish, but I've been anti-Semitically heckled off a stage. So I was just getting heckled booze. Your shit, get off. Fuck you. Spurs are shit. I don't even support spurs.

The Tottenham Hotspur. So I put the mic back and then I walked off, utterly devastated. A feeling is my whole world was collapsing around me. This was my 11th gig. And then I walked up to the green room. And the MC, who's a guy called James Redmond, who was very big, it was a heart frog in soaps about 10 years before that. He played Finn in Holyoaks.

He just came up to me and he just held me as I was just shaking in the green room, just literally convulsing with just shock and just sadness as this shame overcame my body. And I remember thinking at the time going, there's a lot of women who I went to school with who would pay a lot of money for this moment. I just remember thinking that. And then this was a worst bit.

The headliner is called Terry Alderton. He's very good comedian. Brilliant comedian. Brilliant impressionist. Went on and did a 10-minute impersonation of me on stage. And all I could hear backstage was the words, please let me tell my joke. I mean, he was not being a dick.

He had to do that. That's the only way you address that situation, but for you, it would have been bad. Yeah, and he took the roof off. Yeah, of course. And then seeing that and everything that happened, and I remember bless him, he came up to me, and he put his hands round my face and went, I'm sorry, I had to do that.

That was the only way I was going to get them back. It happens to everyone. You're going to be fine. Go to bed, do a gig tomorrow. You'll be grand. And bless him for saying that. But he had to do that. But it's...

Yeah. You reminded me of a gig that... Do you know what? My worst gig is a gig I didn't even do. Really? Yeah. So you remember there was a... There's a guy...

I won't name names because there's no point. But there's a guy who used to run open mic type gigs in London. Yeah. And I turned up and it just looked like a cafe. There was no stage. There was no microphone. And there was no audience. Yeah.

And I turned up and I went, hey, and I always, you know, from the very beginning, I always tried to be professional. So I turned up, you know, I was like, hey, hi, he doing. Nice to meet you. I'm Constantine. So I'm looking forward to this gig. And he looked at me and went, it's good that you're enthusiastic. But can you go outside and see if anyone wants to watch the show? And I looked around. I looked at the situation. I walked outside and I just got in my car and drove away. And do you know what? That's the smartest thing you've ever done. I know, man. I know. So that was the world we were coming from. And then we start trigonometry. And at the beginning,

it was funny because you said to me, Constantine, I think we're going to need a producer. And I said, what for? Like, that's how little I know. I was just like, well, you get a camera, you get a microphone, and you just, you know, I had no idea what to do. And neither did you. Neither did you. Neither of us did. So, Anton, who is our producer, wasn't around this time.

We'll get to how we got Anton on board. But I mean, he was around, but we just didn't know him, exactly. Thankfully. So we started with, we borrowed a camera of one of your mates. Yes, we did. We borrowed a camera of one of my mates. We borrowed my wife's camera that she had. Yeah. And we bought some shitty tabletop microphones for like 20 quidd, right? And we hired this like 18 or 19 year old girl.

Yeah. Who was a producer for us, who didn't know what she was doing. Either, no. Either, just like us. And one of the first episodes we recorded was with Pippa Malgram, who's still to this day one of our great guests. But because of everyone not knowing what to do, we lost most of that episode.

Yeah. Do you remember that? Yes, I do remember that. And that was the level at which we were operating at the time. And I was scrimping and scraping to get guests because I had a few contacts. And we just started doing it. Yeah. And we just started doing it.

In addition to all the stuff that we just talked about. You were still doing the MC and the radio and the teaching. I was still doing all the gigs and all this other shit. And we've now added this new podcast and we have no idea what to do with to the list of things that we do. And we were both in relationships, long-term relationships. So we were trying to keep those as well. And we were putting our money into it.

And we had no money. I certainly had no money. So we were literally putting money that I couldn't afford into this thing. And look, the comedy club that I was working at the time, very graciously and very generously donated. space. Yeah, they're actually the space. Yeah, so we were very lucky with that because without that, I'm not sure how we would have started. But anyway, so we started off. The first episode is Gideon Rackman.

So Gideon came in. God bless him. It was great. He was great. He came in, sits down, we're around this table where you can't see our faces. It's from the side. It looks like a seance. Yeah, it looks like a seance. Terribly lit. Blah, blah, blah. We start recording within In about, I don't know, a couple of minutes, there's a horn beeping outside. Yeah. And it's ridiculously loud. Yeah.

So I'm, like, all pumped up. I go outside to deal with it. And there's a woman trying to attach one of those, like, anti-theft devices to a steering wheel. And in the process, she keeps pressing on the thing, right? And I go up to, in my opinion, quite politely, and go, hey, excuse me, are you going to be much longer? Because we're recording a podcast next door. And she gets very angry with it. with me. And at this point, two other people who turned out to be her parents come out of the house

and they like their experiences, I'm harassing their daughter. So they basically chase me down the street. And it turned out they'd just come from a funeral so they were understandably quite upset. Yeah. And then we had to write a letter of apology. And give them chocolates. And give them chocolates. And that's how the show started. That was day one. Yeah, we were already pissing people off. Yeah, from day one. Inadvertently, but still pissing people off. And then we started thanks to you, we got some, you know, really good guess.

And so Pippa came in, although we lost that. Andrew Doyle came in. Yeah, that wasn't thanks to me, actually. You got Andrew Doyle in. Did I get Andrew doing? Well, we wanted to get Andrew in, and you were the one that had his detail somehow. And as we talked about at the live show with Andrew a couple of months ago, he thought we were trying to stitch him up because you didn't know us.

at the time, right? So we get Doyle in, we get Gideon in, we get Pippor in, we get Liam Halligan and I had to work really hard to get Liam in, you know. We got David Pilling in. David Pilling was great, and gradually we start doing stuff. And, you know, Peter Tatchell came in. Yeah, he did. You know, that was a big guest at the time for us. And then all of that's happening. And then our producer says, you know what, I really don't want to do this. Yeah. This was like five episodes in or something. Yeah, she was like, you know what? This is, for me, I don't really enjoy this. Kudos to her. Instead of, you know, being, you know, because she was only 19, but she had, you know, she, she had the stuff to come up to us.

I was going to say, Kajonis, wrong way of saying that. She had the stuff to come up to us and say, look, this isn't for me. So we're like, okay. Yeah, but the one thing I do remember about that is in the last episode we ever recorded with her, she so didn't give a shit that she was sitting in the corner just typing. And I remember sitting there seething at the fact that we were still paying her. And instead of paying attention to the episode, she was just like doing admin. And I could hear the keys. And every time she pressed the key, I was just like, really? I don't even remember that. What episode was that with? Would it be Jeremy Shapiro maybe? Oh, I was it Jeremy Shapiro.

It might have been. I don't remember. But my point is, like, it was not a good situation. No, no. So now having just started and just got the ball rolling, our producer basically says, I don't want to work with you anymore. So then we found another producer who you'd work. with before. Yep. And he had a studio that was professional, and he had the right, his cameras are probably more expensive

than the ones we used to this day. Yeah, right. Great cameras. Yeah, he was very skilled in terms of, you know, technically he knew what he was doing. And we were like, well, look, we can get, it's embarrassing, but we're like, look, we can maybe afford to pay you 500 pounds a month

to edit four episodes. Yeah. And record, which was really ridiculous money. Yeah. And he was doing it, you know, on the promise that it might one day become something. Yeah. So we go there. Yeah. And that's where the show really starts taking off because we get Sargonne in.

Yeah. We get Dina Fleischman in. We get Dr. Linda Papadopoulos in. Yeah. We get Brendan O'Neill in. Brendan, Claire Fox. Yeah. Eric Kaufman.

David Goodhart. Yeah. And Matt Goodwin. Matt Goodwin. Fucking hell, he's a great guest. Yeah. Like, if we got a lineup like that this month, we'd be really, pleased with that. That's an incredible lineup. And bear in mind, I remember when I read about

Eric Kaufman, because I read him and then I recommended him to you and said, look, we need to get this guy in, this guy's talking. You know, these were guys on the fringes, particularly like, I mean, you're on the fringes, their farm were well known now. Yeah. But Matt Goodwin and we made them. Yeah, we made them. Exactly. But all these people know, they weren't really in, in the culture war, as it were. No, well, Saigon was. Sargonne was, and so was Brendan O'Neill, but the rest of them, you know, really weren't. And then we brought them in, and then we had a conversation, and you could feel something was starting to happen.

Ella Weillan. Ella Wean, yeah. Tom Slater. Tom Slater. You know, we've got a lot of the spike grew in at that time, and they were great. They were really good. And, you know, at the time, I think one of the things that I remember as well is almost all of them said, I really enjoyed that.

That was great questions. Yeah. And I was almost slightly shocked because we were very new to doing it. And let's be honest as well, I think if you don't mind me saying, you in particular, me I was probably further down the red pill rabbit hole at this point. You were quite scared at times. Like when we interviewed Sargon, I remember sitting next to you and I could feel the fear coming off you because you were uncomfortable.

Oh, absolutely. I was very uncomfortable talking to Sargon because I don't like it. I'm joking, Carl. I like you very much. No, the reason was is because Cole to me was dangerous. Cole could end my career. There are people who still

dislike trigonometry and me because we interviewed Carl. I don't care anymore. They can have their opinion. Whatever, they're entitled to it. Yeah. But I was genuinely terrified. Kay Andrews. Yeah. We had Kay Andrews in there. Yeah. And it was a brilliant interview.

It was a great interview. So this is a point where the show is actually starting to take off. And I think one of the last interviews we did was actually with Jeff Norca. It was. It was the last one we recorded in that studio, Nicholas Gruen as well, we had in there. Yeah. And the reason I say the last interview, because as we were really starting to do well,

it became very clear that our producer, again, was not on board of what we were doing, to the point where when we interview, and he's a lovely guy, bless him. But when we interviewed Kate Andrews, I remember after the interview was finished, he cornered her and started explaining to her why she was wrong about. everything. Do you remember? And bear of me, yeah, I do remember. And bear of mind, actually, that guy, the producer, who I've still got a lot of love for, and I still in contact with, he's a very, very intelligent guy with, you know, very strong opinions of the world.

But I don't think he understood, like, because he was also in really great, we always get producers who are in great shape, don't we, just musly men. Oh, yeah. That he didn't really understand that a musly dude cornering a little woman and basically So you're wrong about this. Might be a bit intimidating. And I remember that because Kate then went, well, I'm going to leave now. And then she walked downstairs

and she literally ran out the door. And that's the last time I've ever seen Kate. Yeah. So that was part of it. So he clearly wasn't aligned. And I think because he wasn't aligned, it meant that he was starting to, you know, not take it quite seriously as we'd hoped.

And look, it was unfair of us to expect him to be doing a super professional job when we're paying him peanuts. Yeah. That was all that we could afford to pay him. But at the same time, it was starting to get to a point where it was unworkable. Yeah. And I think in characteristic KK style, I exploded at one point.

And I went, look, this isn't working. When are you going to do this? And he didn't like that. And basically, we went from, oh, the show's taking off to we've lost our studio, we've lost our equipment, and we've lost our producer. And we're back to zero. I remember because it happened over Peter Hitchens. Because Peter was meant to came in and he reschedule.

We booked Peter and he cancelled. producer cancelled and Peter was the biggest guest probably to that point that we would ever go. Of course. And you worked really hard to be fair to you to get Peter on. And you know, because, and look, to be fair to Peter, he didn't know who we were. He had a reputation to protect. So he was very cagey about coming on, understandably so. I knew that it was unsustainable. But in my mind, I'm like, we just need to bank episodes. We're going to, we're on a roll. We need to bank episodes. We need to bank episodes. We need to bank episodes. And then will be able to move.

Yeah. Yeah, my socially conservative. Yeah, yeah. Let's get all the points in. I just couldn't hold it in that far, man. It was just getting too much for me. Yeah, let's keep everything. Let's make, before we make the move.

Then you exploded, and I'm like, well, we've got three episodes. And I remember just being there going, how are we going to get out of this one? And then what we did is we went back to the comedy club. No. No. Didn't we? What about Minera?

Of course. So what we did is we had a mate of mine at the time he had a house actually round the corner from that studio and we used his house, a lovely house, to record an episode with Monira, which at the time we were very happy about. But also, he was like just in a random room in his house

and there was like a helicopter flying overhead. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And at the time, it didn't do particularly well that episode. He did all right. You got 12,000 views, I remember it. Yeah. It's now on over 100, I think,

because Munira has since been a bit of a public figure and there's been controversy involving her. So we recorded one episode on someone's house and we realized that wasn't going to work. So we went back to the comedy club where we were before and in that process we started looking for a new producer. Yeah, we did. And this is where Talk Radio came in

because I had a producer at Talk Radio who was really good to me and a super lovely guy called Andrew, Andrew Spence. And I contacted Andrew and I said to him, Andrew, we need to find a producer. And he goes, I think I've got the guy for you. And he went, and he went, what's his name? He went, Anton.

I remember thinking, it's a bit of a weird name. Right, and he goes, particularly what I thought. He goes, but I think that he'd be perfect for you. And I was like, okay, brilliant. So we went to meet him in a burger restaurant. Did. Yeah.

And so we went to me. But we didn't know he was vegetarian at the time. Now, to be fair to us, when we found out, we still kept taking him there to a steak restaurant. We took him to a steak restaurant, right? You've got to look after him. Yeah, exactly. Come on, you get some protein in you. Yeah, and spoke to him whilst literally eating animal in front of him.

But here's the thing, right? So we met him. This is the end of 2018, by the way. All of this so far has happened in the space of about six months. Yeah. Six months. In six months, we've lost two studios and two producers. Yeah.

And then we met Anton And then we were both really taken with him We were both really taken And we were saying look I think this is the final part And by the way I think he was taken with us

Because by this point I was absolutely I wasn't convinced I wasn't certain I was just I just knew I knew And I always said this to you

If the two of us stick together and we don't ever fall out between us of the stuff, this will be a success. Yeah. And I think it's fair to say that I sold you on that as well, Anton, right? Yeah. Because I knew.

I knew this was going to work. By that point, I knew. Because I just thought, look at how little we have. Yeah. We have two comedians who don't have any profile at all. Yeah. No equipment. No nothing.

No studio. No money. Well, negative money. Yeah. Right. And yet it's working. Yeah. I just knew it was going to work.

So we get Anton on board, and we just about start the process. Again, we offered him the same 500 quid a month. And he was working a bunch of different jobs at the time and doing all that. And this is the point where my contract happens, the very end of 2018, right? We've just moved to the new studio. We've just got our feet under the table. And then for people who are new to the show, I get offered to do this gig for charity at one of the wokenest colleges in the same.

country and they say that they have a zero tolerance policy on racism, sexism, classes, majorism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, biphobia, transphobia, xenophobia, etc. And I turn it down and I tweet about it and a couple of our guests retweet it and then it goes super viral. Super viral. It goes all around the world. This is the thing I always say about it. It was the second biggest story on the BBC on the day that Theresa May, the then Prime Minister of this country, was nearly removed from office by her own party. I remember that. And the story about some unknown comedian turning down some shitty unpaid gig

from some stupid college was the number two story. Wow. In the country at the time. And I was getting messages from all over the world. And that was an insane experience from someone who was not in any way a public figure at the time. Because I don't think many people ever had this experience, but you're basically, you can't sleep. Yeah.

day, you wake up at six in the morning and your Twitter DMs, you had a thousand people on Twitter yesterday and now it's just like thousands of people following you every few hours. And you're getting messages from the Today program, Times, Sunday Times, Telegraph, Spectator, Guardian, whatever, you're getting phone calls. Suddenly people know your phone number. Yeah. And it's just non-stop. And it was like that for about a week and a half. Yeah. Until eventually I got a call from my agent. which I luckily had an agent at the time to manage all of this craziness

and she said Good Morning Britain want you to come on and talk about this and it's funny to me to talk about it now because today I get a message from Good Morning Britain every few weeks now saying do you want to come on and talk about this or that

and I sometimes don't even answer anymore I'm just not interested but then I remember when it got confirmed it was the end of a very difficult 10 days and I went into my room when it got confirmed and I started crying. It's the last time I've cried, I think, because, you know, all of that stuff

that we'd been talking about and the things I'd been feeling about the importance of freedom of expression, the fact that society is going in the wrong direction, I was talking about all of this, and the world around me, the comedy industry, the people were around, they were saying, oh, this is all bullshit,

you're just making this up, none of this is true, you know, and I felt, you know, I hate to use this term, but I felt very gaslit by the entirety of my surroundings. And I remember my wife came in and saw me crying. And she's, you know, I just, it was that 10 days of just this endless stream of whatever that was happening, the stress, the tension, the worries, whatever. And plus that feeling of vindication.

That's what it was. I just felt like finally, this, this. idea that I had in my head, it's not just me being deluded. You know, I'm actually, people are recognizing the truth in what I've been talking about. And then I went on Good Morning, Britain, the next day. And it's a weird experience because they book your hotel in central London, they get your taxi, they drive you over, you turn up. And you get to this posh hotel, you know, and really, you want to be, you know, you have a, have a meal, have a glass of wine, go to bed, wake up fresh the next morning, but you can't.

Because your brain is racing. So all that happens is you're lying there all night and you're just, all of the shit is just running in your head, like you're just over and over and over and over and when you're rehearsing, you're thinking, what am I going to say? And what if this and what if that and what if that? And I hate going back to that interview that my first time in Good Morning Britain because it's, I come across very angry. And I did.

And I was very angry because it was that very angry. because it was that vindication. Plus, Rebecca Reid, who I'm actually quite good friends with sins. But, you know, she opened it by completely misrepresenting what had happened and saying that these students thought I wasn't funny when actually they just had nothing to, they thought I was funny and that's why they, but anyway,

long story short. So I'm not, well, that I did as well as I could have done, but I'm really not very proud of it. Because I feel like I don't come across well in that, you know. But that was a huge moment for the show. Yeah, it was. It changed the show. And then you went on Tucker. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember Alistair Williams, who is now, he was a former guest who I was a brilliant comedian, Alistair, going to me. It's so exciting that Constantine's on Tucker Carlson. Did you know who Tucker was at this point? No, I didn't know. I didn't, I didn't. It was so removed from the realms of what I knew and my life that I couldn't really process it.

and the thought of you being on Tucker Carlson, it didn't mean anything to me. He was just going, I can't believe he's on Tucker. I can't believe he's on Tucker. Big a show in America. Yeah. And also, I didn't know what you were going through at the time. I just didn't know.

I didn't know, you know, the, the storm. And to extent, I've never experienced that. I've experienced some parts of it to a very, very minor degree, but I've never experienced that type of thing. and then the reaction that the comedy industry had to you. That was the shock to me. Yeah.

That was the biggest shock to me. Because, and you're going to laugh very hard. But I was so naive when I turned down that contract. I actually, I mean, it's ridiculous how naive it now sounds. But I thought I was taking one for the team. I thought I was speaking out for team comedy. That's what I thought. That's what I thought.

I thought this is what all comedians can get behind. You know, the idea that we should be able to do jokes on stage and the only censors are ourselves in the audience. I thought, I'm standing up for us, for us, the comedy world. That's what I thought. And what I quickly realized is actually most of the comedy circuit

hated me for it. They hated me for standing up for free speech in comedy. Maybe not most. I wouldn't say most. A lot. A lot of people. A very vocal and powerful minority, I would say. But they're so powerful that they might as well be the majority. Yeah, yeah. Because they're all the TV commissioners. They're all the, you know.

Yeah, of course, of course. They're all the people who run Edinburgh. They're all the people who control everything, right? So that was one of the reasons that I was crying before going on GMB because I didn't expect that. No. I thought, well, first of all, I never expected it to go viral in the first place. But when it did, I was like, well, great. something good for the comedy world, for the comedy industry. And then to see the comedy industry

actually be angered by this. And misrepresent you. And misrepresent me. And actually, you know what, I think probably quite a lot of it was just jealousy. Completely. Quite a lot, it was just jealousy. But I think also a big part of it was ideological too, which is, I'd done the wrong thing. You know, comedians are not supposed to be about free speech. We're supposed to be about avoiding hurting people's feelings. And that was a shock. The truth was a shock. The children's is why no matter what someone's political beliefs are, I always have a tremendous amount of empathy for people who find themselves going from obscurity to being in the public eye in that way. I don't care who you are. I am one of the most mentally resilient people on, I would say

on this planet, genuinely. I am. I've been through a lot and I've learned a lot and I've done a lot of personal development stuff. I'm very mentally resilient. I don't care who you are. That is difficult. It was very difficult. And there will be people who can't handle it. Yeah. You know, they just can't. So when I see people being demonized or, or treated in this way, even when they've done something wrong in the public eye, there's a lot of me that I just feel empathy for them because I know how difficult that is. Yeah. And you stop. What happens, and this is something that I've experienced, is that you become a public figure. And you're not constant in anymore. You're constant in kissing. And you're a constant in kissing. And you're a

a public figure. And then you become a public figure for people to comment, criticise, but it's not really you. No, it's not you. They're criticizing a construction, an image, an avatar. And it's very surreal and very bizarre. And I remember watching you go through that. And also feeling that there wasn't, I didn't know what I could do, or what I could say. Well, you were very supportive, actually. Was I? Yeah, you were great. You were great. You, and I think, I hope you won't mind me saying this,

but Simon Brodkin, who's Lee Nelson. And I don't think he was because he was necessarily ideologically aligned with trigonometry. I don't think he is. It's just him and I'd gigged the week before, and he really liked me. And he thought I was good. And he was a very famous comedian.

So at the time, for him to reach out to me, he spent hours on the phone with me, just like reassuring me and consoling me. And I got, you know, I won't name all the names. There was a lot of famous comics that got in touch with me and were like, keeping my spirits up and, you know.

But yeah, your support and the support of a lot of other people really. There were lots of people also who were very supportive. I shouldn't lose track of that. And Simon in particular was really, really great. But anyway, that obviously gave the show a big boost.

And we went, this is the very end of 2018. And then at this point, I think we were starting to get to a point where I think we'd started a patron when we got kicked out of when we left our previous studio and people started supporting us and our first, like this was the first time we'd ever actually not, we were not taking money out of Trigonometry at this point

but people were starting to give us money and the money that we were paying Anton, the Generals 500 quid a month, was actually not coming from us anymore for the first time. No, we weren't losing money doing Triggerum. No, I think we still were. Actually, no, because then there was other costs. Oh yeah, there was other course.

Yeah. But then what happened is a couple of people came in. One of them who messaged us saying, guys, I love what you do. I want to support you. And I think the subtext was your show looks and sounds shit. What can I do? Yeah. And he bought us.

Cameras. He bought us new cameras. What about microphones? Did he buy microphones as well? No, cameras. It was just cameras. Right. It was just cameras.

And I think we ourselves put more money into it and bought lapel mic. for the first time as well. Not these ones, because these are much better. No, no, yeah. They were massive. They were like this big, yeah. And we got those, and then we started recording at the new space, right? Yeah.

And that's where we got, you know, we made progress. That's where we got Douglas, eventually for a second time. Yep. Right? We had a lot of our big... Peter Hitchens. Peter Hitchens. Yeah.

We got Hitch in there. We got... Starkey. Yeah, we had Starkey in there. Yeah. Zuby. Zuby. Dinah Fleischman again, Anaya.

Yeah, are you sure? Jeffrey Miller. Jeffrey Miller, who was great. Yeah. We did a lot, Mike Martin. Like a lot of our great interviews were done in that. And Ella Hill. Yeah.

That was a brilliant instance. I don't know what other interviews we're going to do. I suspect that will be one of, interviewing Ella in that way will be one of the things that I'm most proud of in my life decades from now. Yeah. Decades from now. I mean, Ella is brilliant, is an important subject that no one wanted to talk about, and we interviewed the survivor of a group of mass rape, basically.

Yeah. And it was funny. Yeah. Like, I'm so proud of that. Yeah, it's an incredible interview. It's an incredible interview. And that period where it was between the lockdowns, where we came out and we did in-person interviews,

That was a very special time. We interviewed Lawrence again. I think that's on something ridiculous, like half a million views. Yeah, and the first time we interviewed Lawrence as well. And Lawrence has gone on his own direction since. But at the time, it was a great moment. Yeah, it was a great moment.

And people were reaching out to us saying, oh, I love your show, and these are like people that we would respect. Yeah. So we interviewed Lawrence, A.e. Shira Tambi. It was a brilliant time. And still, to contextualize,

it. You were still teaching. You were still doing overnight radio. You was, I think. No, at this point, because this was, well, we haven't even touched on lockdown. Yeah, well, we haven't got to lockdown yet. Hold on. Yeah, yeah. So, before lockdown. So before lockdown, you were still teaching. Yeah, I was still teaching one day a week. Yeah. I wasn't doing the radio anymore. I'd quit the radio at that point. Right. But I was still teaching. And gigging six nights a week. And I was gigging six nights a week. And I was, the thing I talked about with Jeff, he was during that period. Yeah. Record to, drive to another city, do a gig, wake up the next day, drive to another city, do a gig, drive back to London, wake up after fire or sleep, go to the Battle of Ideas, all day there,

go to bed, wake up next day, gig. Yeah, yeah. And that was brutal. Yeah, that was the treadmill that we were on. That was absolutely brutal. That's what we were doing. And then, COVID hit. Yeah.

I remember when COVID hit, I was at the top secret comedy club, probably the best comedy club in the UK, love it to pieces. And I was doing it and I was emceeing a gig. And I think it was on Monday, I can't remember the exact day, I think it was the 31st of March, but someone will probably correct me on when it was. And Boris Johnson had just told everyone to go home, to literally go home, the society was shutting down. And it was the last gig that I was there. And the gig carried on because the next day it was done. And I remember the emcee didn't turn up because she couldn't get an Uber.

So I effectively close the gig myself. So I emceeed it and then I did 20 minutes at the end to close a gig. And it was just, it felt like end of days. And I remember there were this lovely sweet old couple who came to watch the gig. And afterwards they walked past me and they were like, we really enjoyed this. And I remember thinking to me.

I said, what are you doing here? What are you doing here? This is dangerous, legitimately dangerous what you're doing. Why are you here? And it was weird. There was just an air of terror in the room, but also a feeling of we need to be here because we don't know when we're going to be able to do this again.

And it was a very, very bizarre time. Well, how was that for you? Well, you know, I've been proven right on it. I said there's just a bit of flu, doesn't I? I mean, that was my attitude. Look, at the two of us, I think I'm much more risk hungry and you're much more risk-averse. Yeah. So you've been proven right over the last couple of years.

But again, to emphasize, when lockdown hit, we hadn't taken any money for us in any way. We still were putting our own money into it. The only thing was that was the thing that really was horrible about lockdown. What happened was we had just got our first. first big sponsor. Yeah. Which was QT, if you remember, advertising QT. And they agreed to pay us an amount which meant that we could increase Anton's salary.

And for the first time in the history of the show, nearly two years after we started, we could actually take a little bit of money for ourselves. I was so thrilled at that. And I remember in early April, just before lockdown, I sent our second invoice. to QT to our sponsor to get the second batch of money. And he wrote back saying, I've just laid off half my team. I'm sorry, I can't see this through.

So having just started to get to a point where actually we could afford to do this full time because it's not about putting money in the bank. It was about allowing us just to do this. That was what we needed the money for. And it's gone. And lockdown's hit. And the comedy club where we were recording said,

you can't record. Yeah. And you remember, people were very, very scared about COVID at the time. Of course. Understandably so. Understandably so.

So no guest would come in and we had to do everything remotely. Yeah. Right? I remember being locked, being in my flat and going from gigging six nights a week,

working, working, working to build this career to build relationships to get to the point where I was constantly working. Where I was earning okay money for the first time in my life, life. Okay money. I'm not talking big money, I'm talking okay money. And overnight, it was gone. And we were making, I was at point it was making 500 quid a month from trigonometry. Yeah.

I'd quit my teaching job. Yeah. And I was living on 500 quid a month. Yeah. Which didn't cover rent. Yeah. Which didn't cover bills. Yeah. Which didn't cover food. Yeah. We didn't cover any of that. Yeah. And I remember looking around the four walls of my little flat in a harringoingain going, I'm fucked. I can't go back to teaching. That's done. Stand-up's finished, possibly forever. Is this the start of a new world where this virus spreads everywhere and is deadly and what are we going to do? And I just remember just being overwhelmed by this sense of complete hopelessness. And I remember sinking into a feeling of despair. And that's when you decided to break up with your girlfriend.

Yeah, yeah. And then, yeah, and then, you know, and there was a number of things in my life that didn't work and we broke up and it was a right thing for both of us. But just looking around and realizing that everything had changed. And I remember comedians going, oh, this is only going to be two or three weeks. And I knew everything had changed.

I remember being in bed one day and going, and this was early April, and going, no, this is, this is permanent. Because the way I thought, there were only three ways out of this. Either we had a vaccine. There was, there had been, at that point, no vaccine against a coronavirus. Or what happens is the virus is not as potent as we thought. And at that time, it had got into the care homes. And it was really bad at the time. Yeah.

And thousands of people were dying every week from it. And I was like, well, that's not going to happen. Or the government are just going to let it rip. And that wasn't going to happen either. And then you remember Boris Johnson got very ill with it and was hospitalized. And then that's when I was thinking, no, this is really serious. And everything has changed. And I remember talking to a friend of mine who made the point that what we're going to have now is it's going to be like AIDS.

There was a pre-AIDS world and there's a post-AIDS world. And that's what it was going to be like with COVID. There's going to be pre-COVID and post-COVID. And that's the way it is. And that's what's proven to be. Well, here's the thing with lockdown and COVID is for all the terrible stuff that we've talked about it on the show a lot. I think it's fair to say that COVID saved us and made us. Yeah.

I can tell you, COVID saved my marriage, for example. Yeah. If I had continued working in that way that we were just talking about, it was going down. hill rapidly because I just wasn't I wasn't spending any time with my wife because I just didn't have any energy to do it and emotionally I wasn't there I wasn't present because I was constantly on my way somewhere on my way you know we were sitting last night just talking and I remembered driving home from from a gig and I literally felt that I had so little time I got a empty water bottle and I peed into it while driving on the motorway do you know how fucking dangerous that is it depends on big a dick is

I suppose. Well, not for me, but, you know. But no, yeah. Yeah. But it's also a reflection of a state of mind. I just couldn't fit it. Anyway, it's a reflection of a state of mind, and it's a reflection of where you are.

And you're not a good partner. No. To anyone in that situation. Frankly, when I think back to it, I'm amazed, like, we held this together. We held our relationship. Well, not in your case, but, you know, it was really, really tough.

And the fact that lockdown happened, and hey, you know, you want a gig? Well, you can't. Yeah. You want to do this? You can't. Yeah. So you might as well do what we started doing, which is live streams, which we'd been doing

like once a week up to that point. And even then sporadically. Sporadically. And we just look, we just went, look, we've got nothing else to do. Let's do two interviews a week and let's do live streams. And then we got Anton on board with the live streams over time as well. And it just became a thing that people, and now we call them raw, Trigonometer Raw.

It's a separate show. which will probably go further and further in its own direction over time while the interviews go further. And we'll talk about that later on. You know, and that was a huge moment for us. And that was the first time when we actually started to make enough money, cover our costs, and so that we could do the full time. Yeah, yeah.

And even then, there was a perception in the industry that we were making a lot of money. At that point, we were. No, no, no. We were paying, I think, we went from paying Anton on 500 quid to paying him a thousand quid a month for full-time work. Yeah, yeah. It was full-time.

Yeah. It was insane. I remember literally sitting down right before lockdown because at this point we're already thinking we need to go full-time. We were in a steak restaurant, ironically, with Anton being a vegetarian. And I remember saying, I mean, it's ridiculous and we laugh about it saying this now. I said to him, Anton, what is the least amount of money we need to pay you to do this? Yeah.

Because that's the situation. Yeah. We needed to take it full time. but we couldn't afford to. Yeah. And Anton came up with some ridiculous figure like a thousand pounds, which you can't live off in central London. No.

Right. That doesn't even cover rent. No. But that was the moment when we sort of went, okay, we're doing this. Yeah. We're doing this. And actually, my second appearance of Good Morning Britain,

I'm very pleased with because it ties into the story of Anton joining us because he was doing part-time work at the time. And I just did this thing with, what's his face, Adil Ray and Dr. Shola where, I mean, you know, they got wrecked.

They got absolutely wrecked by what I'd said and it was really good. And I was calm and I was measured and I was funny and I was playful but I absolutely destroyed them. And I sent a message to Anton saying, Anton, I think we need to make a video of this. This was like what? In the morning? First thing? A.m.

And Anton had just got to work. Yeah. And he'd got to work. in and this is the story that he always loves to tell which is hilarious. He gets in. He sits down at his desk. He gets the message from me having just like made a coffee for himself. And I go,

Anton, we've got this thing that if we put it out, it could go viral. And he goes back to his desk, he picks up all his shit at his job and just walks out and he goes, I'll be back. And he didn't come back that day. And I think that's kind of when you knew you were all in, right? And then lockdown. And then

that's when the show really took off. Yeah. And the show took off over lockdown. The first lockdown. The first lockdown. And the thing that really meant that we could really take our foot and put our foot on the gas was that we embraced remote interviews. Because before then, we'd been like remote interviews were crap

and they're not as good as in person. And we know that to be the case. They're not as good as in person. That's just a simple truth of it. But every interview was a remote interview. No one was doing in person. So all of a sudden, you could do a remote interview. and then we got some really big guest, Scott Adams came on.

We got Gad Sad. We got some huge people on. And, you know, Deborah, so, Deborah came on. All these people that we'd been watching on Rogan and Rubin, all of a sudden were appearing on our show. And it was really, really, really exciting. For us? Yeah, for us, not for them.

But what I also mean is the reason I bring it up is when the first lockdown, it only lasted a couple of months. but it radically transformed the show. It meant that we all went full time at this point. Again, not making much money, but we had enough money just to not have to do other things. That's all it was, right? Just so we could not have to do other things.

And that's the point at which we went back to the comedy club right as the first lockdown finished. And we interviewed Lawrence Fox again, and we interviewed Zubi. This was the BLM hype situation. Aisha Khanbi, Inai, Flaaron, Iman. A lot of people who were critical of this movement. And we were frankly, at this point, we were like, okay, we know what we're doing.

Yeah. We know what we believe. We know who we want to talk to. And we don't really care what other people think about it. Yeah. And so that, and that was a really, really exciting moment because we could, you could feel that, you know, that everything was really starting to motor and do really well. And then we got asked to leave.

Yeah. We were asked to leave for a variety of different reasons. The reason you feel hesitant to talk about it is that the club and the people there had done us a lot of good things. And we will always be eternally grateful to them for doing that. But also, the way we left was unpleasant and I think it was unfair. Yeah. Right.

And I think we got kicked out of their due to a combination of political differences, which we always knew were going to be the case. A little bit of jealousy, a little bit of just lockdown sent everybody mental. But it was very unpleasant. Yeah, it was. Especially for you. Yeah. Because these were your friends.

Yeah, because it was unpleasant. It was unpleasant for me. And then I remember thinking that we went in, we recorded it and we had to leave. And just feeling this sense of devastation, feeling a sense of shock, feeling a sense of bereavement almost because it had been a community. So that happened. So I was thinking to myself, right. Well, just imagine this for people watching.

Hold on before you say how you, like, we've just got to a point. Yeah. Just got to a point where we can actually, we're not making money. Yeah. And I keep mentioning money, not because I'm Jewish, but just because it's what makes anything work. You need money to make things work, right? We just started making enough money to pay everybody

just enough to cover their basic costs so we could do this full time and make it what it needs to be. We've got these big guests. The show's exploding, it's growing. And now we've lost our studio again. Yeah. In the middle of a fucking pandemic and lockdown. Yeah.

So we've lost our studio. We've lost everything. I then get a call from my landlady going, we're going to need you to leave the flat. So not only that, I lost my flat. And then I remember just looking around going, right, they've taken my career's gone.

I'm no longer at the comedy club that I used to be. My relationship has ended. And they turn in the flat, I can't live in my flat anymore. Oh, you've got left as me. Yeah, and that's depressing. And I was thinking, anything else? Yeah. Anything else?

Yeah. And just, and going right. And then I moved in with a friend as a. stopgap. And then I remember calling you up. I go, look, I think I've got an idea. I've got an idea. You went like, well, what is it? What's the solution? I go, look, why don't we rent a flat in London? We rent a flat for myself and Anton, and we just turn the living room into a studio. And then when it's not a studio, we'll put everything away and it becomes a living room. And that way we're not beholden to people. That way we don't have to ask the people. That way,

we're not dependent on favours, all of these different things, all of these different things. Yeah. And so after a few weeks of non-stop looking, you worked really hard, you found a place, we moved in, we got it designed the way we wanted, we threw basically all the money we had at it because we just knew it needed to be right. Same as my approach has always been, it needs to look good and needs to sound good, and it needs to be a good experience for the guest. And I remember we got these chairs that we're sitting in now and the first time we walked into that studio we sat down, Douglas Murray sat down across from us

and I just, for the first time I just thought wow I have the freedom to ask this great man who I respect so much who we are becoming closer and familiar with anything I want. I don't have to worry about some woke comedian behind that door right there

in this tiny room, you know, overhearing me ask the wrong question or whatever, I can just say what I think and ask him what he thinks and we can have a conversation. And that's when the drilling started. And that's when the drilling started. Yeah, yeah, that's when the drilling started. Because there's a, you know, doing the show in a residential space is difficult. It's going to cause challenges. But nonetheless, that was a brilliant first interview with Doug.

It was. We had some issues with the sound, which we ended up. getting around. And then it just, I think, it's steamed roll from there. And then we started doing raw together. We used to do it remotely or in my little office at home or whatever. We started doing it properly with the good cameras, with the right equipment, streaming live, four nights a week. And that's kind of where it went and went and wet to the point where for the first time, we actually didn't get kicked out of the studio. Yeah. We moved ourselves. Yeah, because what happened was the flat was great, it was lovely.

But the realities we had outgrown it. Yeah, and also, you know, when we talk, people think we're super successful and rich and whatever, which we're really not. Like, at the last studio, like two months ago, we would record the interview in the very room where I would sleep on the sofa. Yeah, you would literally sleep on the same. I remember saying to one on one of our calls, because we do these monthly calls with our top supporters from locals and Patreon and subscribe star, etc. And I remember saying, you know, I was sleeping on the sofa,

and one of them laughed. He laughed like he was like a joke. But two months ago, that's what it was. Anton had his little room, which was packed with all our equipment. You could barely walk around it. You had your little room. Yeah. And then the living room I would sleep in.

Yeah. You know. And that was it. And it looked like a studio. It looked like a studio. It looked like a studio with two bedrooms attached to it. Yeah. And when we wanted to have lunch,

Initially, we ate our food off little stools. Then we got like a portable table that we would put up and then have to get rid of just to have enough space in the studio to put the equipment in. Do you know what I used to do, actually? Anton, I'm sorry about this. I shouldn't admit this. Every time Anton went out on a date,

I made sure that I put just a picture of Lawrence Fox on his bed just when he came. You're such a cunt. You always have been, haven't you? Yeah. Just bring it. Oh, you know, This is so romantic.

It was bad enough. His room was filled with lights and studio equipment or whatever. Do you remember that not just going back for a second, that Anton used to carry the entire studio on his back. Yeah. In the previous studio, because we couldn't leave anything there. We had to just, he would get all this, and he would be this massive bag on his back.

Yeah. And then two little suitcases. Yeah, like a tech turtle, turning up and then just unloading. And then so finally we were like, okay, look, we got a bit of a nudge in that they were doing massive renovation adult place. Not only in the building, but also in the road. They literally digging up the entire road. So I was having to negotiate with Polish builders who could not give less of a fuck.

Yeah, but also it was an incredibly rough council estate in East London. Do you remember when Tim Stanley came? Yeah, Tim Stanley came in, we interviewed him. It was all great. And then he walked out and we just heard like a mental homeless man assaulting him outside. Well, no, yeah, but not shouting. Yeah, not literally. It's just Tim Stanley trying to get away.

Yeah, and those... Well, first day we moved in there, you nearly got mugged. Yeah, I did. And then some guy came up to my wife and said, oh, do you want to come with me? I'm a nice, clean boy. So it was a rough counsel. He was not the greatest place to, you know,

I remember waiting outside for Douglas Murray just in walking past looking around. Yeah. But anyway, so, and now, we've moved to this place where we can have this beautifully designed set for the main interviews and a separate set for Roar that we're still working on

that's going to be different to what it's been so far. And I think we should talk about, I know we've gone for quite a long time, but I think we should talk about where we're going with the show. And one of the things that I think we were really keen to do, you know, is to bring the idea of honest conversations with fascinating people more and more

to the forefront of what we do. Because I think as the show has evolved, Initially, you know, the name Trigonometry, a lot of people are very confused about why we called it that. You know, I think a lot of people think it's about triggering the libs or whatever people talk about. Actually, it was very much, in many ways, a trigger warning. He was saying, look, we're going to try and have an honest conversation about difficult subjects, and you might find this offensive. That it was sort of a defence making is more, almost. And look, we've got to, let's be honest as well.

We were also angry. Yeah, we were. We were angry. I was angry at being in an industry where I felt misrepresented. I think we both did. You can speak for yourself, but I certainly felt misrepresented, condescended, looked down upon, sneered at,

all of these things, just because I thought differently. And I was fucking done. So there was a part of trigonometry, which was fuck you, at least from me. 100%. 100%. And I was the same, especially after that contract happened. especially after I realized that actually these other people in comedy

who I thought idealistically, admittedly, were, this was my team. And they were liberal, which they're not. Yeah. In the old school sense of the world. And they're not liberal. They're authoritarian. They're authoritarian. You want to shut people up. They want to shut down discussion. They definitely don't want you to be allowed to have your opinion. And by the way, they hate you for being successful.

Yeah. They hate you for being successful. Yeah. You know? So there was a big thing. part of it that was that fuck you initially. And I think you and I have moved on quite a lot. Yeah. We don't feel that way. And that's why I think the slogan of honest conversations was fascinating people is in many ways much more representative of the future direction of trigonometry than the word

trigonometry. Yeah. You know, so people will see more of that, I think, coming in. And eventually, that may even end up being the name of the show. Yeah. I think trigonometry, the show and the the title of the show has been brilliant. And it's summed up a moment. But that moment was very much, you know, 2018, 2019, 2020. I think as we want to be moving on, what we want to do, we've always strived to do this, which is bring, you know, people from the left,

people who we disagree with. But we want it to be a more open place for these people to come. But see, I mean, you say that people from the left, people we disagree with. We just interviewed Will Storr who's on the left. Did we disagree with him? No, no, no, no. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. Like, so I think we shouldn't put ourselves in this trap. I don't think we disagree with people on the left. You are of the left. Yeah. I am very open to a large number of important ideas that the left focuses on. I just think we're not on board with this woke nonsense. Okay, so progressivism.

Yeah, we're not on board. I'm not on board with progressivism. I'm not on board with pretending that things are true that aren't true. And that's all I've ever cared about. The thing that unites us more than anything is intellectual curiosity. Yeah. And we want to get to the truth, no matter which side it's on. Yeah. Right.

Which to me is why the slogan is much more representative of who we are now than the word trigonometry. Yeah. And also as well, because emotionally, I'm not, I'm not angry like I used to be. I don't feel frustrated. I don't feel unheard. I don't. It would be incredibly hypocritical and duplicity. and me to claim any of these emotions,

when the reality is that none of that applies anymore. And the trigonometry came from us being in that space, feeling those things. It was a kickback. It had its elements in punk and all the rest of it. And that's why, when the logo was designed, it had those things, it actually woven into it. But I think now as we move on, we want to move past that.

We want to actually broaden even more the conversation. Yeah. We want to talk to a wider range of voices. Well, look, this is something you and I have always actually been really interested. I mean, if you think about the three of us and our favorite episodes, they're not really. We've done some great episodes that are, you know, woke idiots, this and work, because they are idiots and they're dangerous idiots.

And we'll continue to point that out because I think it's important. I think it's important to defend, you know, civil liberties and Western Enlightenment. and values. They need to be defended. And if they're not defended, this world will change in a bad way. I feel very strongly. That's why, you know, in my book, this is what I talk about. That's why it's called an immigrant's love letter to the West. It's very important to protect and preserve these things. But in addition to that, look at our favorite interviews. They're with evolutionary biologists, with scientists, with people who can explain a lot about what's happening in society, not in terms of the culture war, but actually just in terms of how people behave, how human beings are wired,

why they do what they do. And so that's what I've always seen the future of the show as. A lot of people think that we're just these culture warriors. I don't feel that way at all. I feel the great privilege of doing the show is we get to talk to people who are just interesting, who are just successful, who have a mindset that anyone in their right mind would love to emulate,

that have an ability to dissect and separate bullshit from the truth and present it in an articulate, interesting way. that's what the show will be about. And I keep saying this, I don't know if it's true, but I suspect 10, 15 years from now, if the show is still going, which I hope it will be, and I'm sure it will be,

we'll be pushing back against people on the right. And we do it all the time. I mean, I've just been having arguments with people on the right who are going too far, in my opinion, on this obsession with, you know, conspiracy theories about the vaccine. People who say, oh, the vaccine is not at all about health.

I'm just going, are you fucking mental? Yeah. Do you what I mean? Of course. There are a lot of things that have happened in relation to COVID that I think are very suspicious and suspect. But let's not go down the rabbit hole that far. Let's not go into retweeting David Ike or whatever.

So I'm going to be pushing back, I think, against all the people who I just think are just wrong. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and if they're on the right, we'll push back against them. And if they're on the left, we'll push against them. But it's like anything. Once you talk about a subject too much, it becomes hack in order.

to use a comedy term. And it becomes boring and stayed. And a lot of what we were talking about in 2018 has now filtered into the mainstream or is beginning to, certainly. And now everybody's talking about it. But that's a sign for us as well that there's other things to talk about now,

things that are not getting addressed. Let's leave it there because in the follow-up episode to this one, we're going to talk about the actual issues that we are interested in, what's going on in the world, what we want to cover going forward, etc. But for now, been the past, the present and the future of Trigonometry.

Take care and we'll see you in a few days' time with a follow-up to this. Take care and see you soon, guys. We hope you've enjoyed this incredible interview. Remember to subscribe and hit the bell button so that you never miss another fantastic episode. And if you believe that the work we do here at Trigonometry is important, support us by joining our locals community using the link below.