Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Al Murray (Part One)

Episode Date: March 19, 2024

This week on Walking The Dog - it's comedian, actor, musician, writer and podcaster Al Murray! Al doesn't have a dog (although he does have a fox living in his garden...) so Emily took Ray along for a stroll with him in West London's Ravenscourt Park. Al is currently on tour with his legendary character The Pub Landlord as well as writing a new history book - is there anything this man can't do? Al shared his what it was like to attend boarding school, his thoughts on having therapy and the assumptions people make of him based on his famous ancestor.Part Two of our walk with Al will be available on Thursday!---Listen to Emily's first walk with Al which from March 2019 hereAl is on tour with The Pub Landlord throughout 2024. Visit https://thepublandlord.com/ for dates and tickets! You can but Al's latest book 'Command: How The Allies Learned To Win The Second World War' hereAnd listen to We Have Ways Of Making You Talk wherever you get your podcasts! ---Follow Emily: Instagram - @emilyrebeccadeanX - @divine_miss_emWalking The Dog is produced by Faye LawrenceMusic: Rich Jarman Artwork: Alice LudlamPhotography: Karla Gowlett  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Still, I note, no dog. No dog, no, no. We have a fox, though, in my garden, right? Al, that doesn't count as a pair. This week on walking the dog, Ray and I went out for a West London stroll with legendary comedian Al Murray. Al is obviously best known for his hugely popular character, the pub landlord, but he's also a very respected historian

with a fascinating backstory of his own as the great, great, great-grandson of Vanity Fair author William Makepeace Thackeray, So I could frankly listen to this man talk about his life all day. We had the loveliest chat about everything from the family passion for Labrador to his slightly challenging days at boarding school and the birth of his incredibly successful comedy career. Al, as you may know, also has his own podcast centred around the Second World War with historian James Holland, which I thoroughly recommend you listen to. And he's also written a brilliant book, Command, How the Allies Learned to Win the Second World War, which I really loved. And by the way, you can go and see Al touring this year as the pub landlord in Gov Island to book tickets go to the pub landlord.com.

I'm going to stop talking now and hand over to the man himself. Here's Al and Rayway. So the park's through that way, isn't it? Should we go this way? Yeah. Al, do you want to get a coffee for our walk? No, I'm right. I've just drunk a big pot of coffee. Do you mind if I get one?

You get a coffee. What'd be annoying? No, no, they'd be totally cool. Al, can I get you a coffee? Yeah, all right, yeah. Can I have a decaf, flat white, please? have flat white? Yeah.

And? I'm going to have a calf flat white. Fine. I live on the edge unlike my friend. Well, well no, I've just, like I said, I've just drunk a gallon of coffee, so. I love it around here. It's so villagey. It is very villagey.

No, we came for fireworks in November in the park, but they've got a laser show instead of fireworks. Oh, it's going to be Jean-Bichel Jacques. Well, let me tell you, if that's the future, I'm not having it. You know, like just some lamps and they had the Star Wars music and it lit up some trees. But it didn't light up the night sky and nothing went bang and it felt like it felt it's not good. What were the pub landlording? Oh, we did. Another clear sign that the country's done, cooked, finished.

First they take our fireworks. Exactly. Well, you know, fireworks are to celebrate the, you know, K. Catching a Catholic terrorist. It's exactly, it's right up his street. Frank Skinner finds that day very offensive. Oh, of course he does. He's got to find something offensive, isn't he?

Oh wow, my coffee's got a little heart on it. That's sweet, isn't it? Wonder what I'm going to get. Right, I'm following you, Al-Murray. So there's an indoor bouldering. rock climbing place here. That could be your next podcast. You have to climb a wall with Emily Dean.

See who gets to the top first, like gladiators or something. Right, follow Al. He knows where he's going. We cut through whom we end up in the park. Well, this is lovely. So this is your manor, Al, isn't it? Yes. Yes, I've lived around here for a really long time as well.

One of my daughters used to go to a nursery called Happy Times, where once I went in, she'd bitten someone. So that wasn't a particularly happy time. She'll be delighted I've remembered that. She was stood in the corner. You know when little kids, they know they've done something wrong, and they stand in a corner and you could see the air around them is going, I know I'm in trouble.

I can't remember who she bit. She bit someone over, because over there's a big sort of Art Deco Hospital, 1920s Hospital, Robes Court Park Hospital. The nurse used to be in there, and you'd go in a really nice, really lovely place. but my main memory of it is her standing in the corner sort of glaring knowing she was in trouble. Fantastic. Happy memories of happy times. Yeah.

It's great that it was called Happy Times. Yeah, it's perfect really. So this is Ravens Court Park. It's Raymond's Court Park. Which is kind of near Chiswick, isn't it? Is it? Yes, it's halfway between Chiswick and Hammersmith. This is strictly speaking Hammersmith.

And there's tennis here and then there's fireworks in the autumn and they do they do stuff in the park. in the summer I think as well. I like this, Al. I feel like you're sort of Foxton's estate agent selling me the land. Well, yeah, if I were trying to sell it, I'd tell you it was in Chiswick, not Housman. Fullen borders.

So I am, of course, with the very wonderful Al Murray, comedian, podcaster, drummer, author, highly respected historian. Oh, steady. Is there no end to your time? talent. Well, I mean, they're all side hustles, it's the way I look at it. Sometimes the comedy's the side hustle and sometimes the history is the podcasting and the history, which are the tied up together of the side hustle. So I'm on tour at the moment, but we're doing weekends only

with the stand-up. And then the rest of the week, I'm trying to finish a book and a history book, which is, I'm really good at pitching books, Emily. I'm really, I'm really, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm brilliant at it, right? I go in, I see an editor and I go, what no one's written is a book, approaching this well-known topic and well-worn topic from a completely, from a fresh angle.

They've been two attempts, but trust me. And then four months later, I'm thinking, Christ, why did, why have I trapped my, paint myself into this corner? But, my best friend, Jane Goldman, who you know, who's a screenwriter. Yeah. And whenever I'm struggling with writing, She says, do you know what, Em, no one likes writing, everyone loves having written.

Yes, I think that's probably true. Although I have this real, I have this real agony with books that they're in black and white and you can't alter them. Whereas stand up, you know, I'll go back to the show at the weekend and I go, that bit needs changing. I'll take that bit out or, you know, or I need to speed this up or slow this down. And whereas a particularly a history book, it's in black and white. And I know there's going to be a lot of people pop up and go, you missed this out. Why, you've got that wrong. I disagree with it.

I mean, I don't know if people disagree with me about things, but like the actual sort of granular detail. Because I'm writing about one day rather than a, so I'm trying to just reframe a whole event through one day. Don't call it one day because that's going to cause a lot of confusion out. It's not called that. Don't worry. It's not called one day. And there's nothing romantic about this. It's tragic.

but it's not romantic the book I'm writing. But no, it's this thing. I'm brilliant. You know, I can pitch books. If you need a book pitched, I'll go and do it for you. As long as I'm going to have to write the fucking thing. Well, Al, I'm so thrilled you've met with us today. I should say we're in Ravens Court Park in West London.

I have Raymond with me. You have previous form on this podcast. Yes. And still, I note, no dog. No dog, no. No, we have a fox though in my garden, right? Is that? Oh, that doesn't count as a pet.

No, so we went away for New Year for the holiday. When we got back, there were two boroughs dug under our fence to next door, two escape routes, I imagine they are. And then the fox had also tried a third one against this concrete wall that runs, our back wall, which runs down many, many meters. And he'd obviously, or she'd had a go, she'd had a go at digging through that gate, up but but this morning next door's cat and the fox were chasing each other through the garden came over the fence and then back under the so I've not got a dog but I've got a fox with a limp have you got a fox at all I think that as near as that's like that's like having a pet in London you're going for the

possession is yeah yeah exactly or seeing the fox every morning is nine tenths of the law you know there are some people have dogs who don't see them that much You did have dogs growing up. You were very much a Labrador family, don't you? Yes, yeah. My dad was always very, very doggy. And yeah, there was Spike. Before Spike, there was nuts, there was Spike.

Hang on, nuts. I don't know about nuts. Nuts was the first dog. There was nuts, Spike, Bella. Oh, God, you know what, I'm glad you got your poo bags. Why? Chiswick is absolutely diabolical.

for dog shit. I sometimes post on Twitter about it because it's so you know people also do this thing where they'll put it in a bag and then leave the bag I know no we have every variation but there was a thing the other day of of a pile of a huge pile of dog turds but with a packet of cigarettes in them but there you go Emily it's oh thank you it's behind you in the world's worst pantom Dog poo Panto. Dick Shittington, yeah.

So yeah, so you had labs because that's exactly what I would have expected. Well, I mean, we're very, my family of Labrador-type people, yeah, very much so. And what is Labrador-type people? Oh, my parents lived in the countryside, their middle class, in the higher, higher, end of. of middle class I think it's fair to say and just Labrador's a my dad also he likes long walks always loved long walks it's not as mobile as he was but he's a long walk guy and a Labrador that's what you want for a five mile you know down to down to the ford and back and all that sort of thing that he'd do over Saturday morning so yeah

and this was in sort of Buckinghamshire was it and yeah North Buckinghamshire yeah people always refer to you as being posh. Yeah. And as you said, it wasn't really, there's posh and there's posh. Yeah, yeah. Yes, there's posh and there's posh. And there's, I mean, my, you know, my pedigree,

if that's what you're looking at. Yeah. It's certainly posh. But we weren't, you know, I always think, I just think one of the interesting things about public school that people don't, people who look on public school from outside, I don't realize. It's how, there's a wide, wide variety.

You know, and there are other people in top hats and canes, and then there are other very different places. We're quite a different sort of catchment and, you know, values and so on. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, it's, yeah, we are, yeah, we are posh, but we're not, we're not that posh. I think it's fair to say. And my dad was, you know, basically civil servant.

worked for the railways whole life so so you know it's not like we were trading on it or whatever you weren't bullenden no no no no no no no no no i never knew any of those when i went to oxford university i never knew any of those people you never you never encountered them you know because you were we were in our little group and never ran into any of those people look at these little sausage dogs cute have you ever seen such tiny legs i like the different coloured collars so they're color coded sausage dogs they're color coded sausage dogs they're color coded sausage dogs i love I know, I can tell the difference between them, but I think it does make life a bit easier. I can imagine it does, yeah.

What are their names? I love it. All Dine names. Dipples, Doris and Daphne. Fantastic. Oh, they're really cute. When I'm shouting off and I go, Doris, I mean, dimples, I mean, Daphne. I love it.

Love you to meet you and your dogs. Yeah, so. Go on, what's the, which? I think partly the reason people leap to this conclusion that you're sort of down to an abbey or something. Yeah. is because of your very famous ancestor. Yeah. Because you have a very famous literary ancestor.

I'm going to force you to repeat. William Thacker. William Makepeace Thackeray, author of Vanity Fair, and Barry Leiden and Penn Dennis and the yellow plush papers and he was a cartoonist and a punch writer and all that stuff. Yeah, and sort of he was kind of like, I'm trying to think of the right analogy because, you know, that he was,

contemporary were Dickens, who was basically the world's most, the world's most famous author, colossal bestseller. And then there was Thackeray. And it's kind of like, it's not like the Beatles and the Stones. It's like the Beatles and there are no other bands. And then there's, there's a story that. And was he famous and successful in his life? Oh yeah, very much, very much so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but, but, but he, he never had this, never had the success. that Dickens did. He never quite, it's quite interesting. His life was one of, and sometimes, sometimes, you know, hard relate to this. He was a very, very successful writer, like journalist, really, rather than a novelist. It's quite interesting. He was a really, really successful writer and a

brilliant satirist and really good at skewering stuff. And then he wrote Vanity Fair, and he wrote that on a kind of like, you know, they all wrote those books sequentially. You're sort of pamphlets or something like the release and... The Cornhill Gazette, I think, was the thing published Fancy Fair. And I might be wrong about that. My mum will go, oh, for God's sake, will you never learn this history? But anyway, and it was in installments, and he committed to writing seven, and then the whole idea is if it's a hit, then you write the rest of the novel, right?

So he starts writing and it takes off and it's a hit and everything. And it's really, really, well-received and really critically acclaimed. but what it isn't quite is a bestseller or it's a bestseller but not like a it's not the pickwick papers and so so he then spends the rest of his life trying to write the one book that means he can basically like relax

and get past the you know get to the point of being able to chill out about the whole thing and it never happens and so sometimes you think hmm I can see that I can see that I can see that you know you have a good run or you get a project away and then you think all I need is one more project that actually tips completely and it's a I just want my Dan Brown

in the bank exactly exactly and he's he's really interesting because he because he's in lots of ways he is a hack because he has to write for a living as his wife his wife suffered postpartum depression tried to kill herself and and he had to put her into into sort of caring accommodation and and she went to a mental hospital in, we go that way, yeah. Mental hospital in Paris where they had all the latest cures and all this sort of stuff. And she ended up, in the end, I think living in South End, like with a carer. So he had to bring up his two daughters by himself. It's all quite, his family life is quite difficult, and Andy was having to write at the same time. And he'd spent, he had an inheritance

that he gambled away when he was at Cambridge, like basically. in a term because he's an idiot. And so he had a, I mean, his life is an interesting one, but, but then, but, but, but there's Charles Dickens as well. Were your family sort of proud of that association? Oh yeah, yeah. And I had a great aunt, um, who was very much the sort of keeper of the flame. And, um, you know, because, because the thing is, there's a whole load of Thackeray

history that, you know, we, we don't, no one really knows what company he kept, um, uh, as a literary man of London, famous. Mr Mr Man in London with his wife sort of unwell. And my great aunt didn't want to hear anything about who he might have been hanging out with and in clubbable London or that's something. She went a bit high since bouquet on her. Yeah, a little bit, yeah. And you would, I mean, you would, you would pay him to come to dinner and he'd come to your dinner party. That's like you doing corporates.

Well, it is. It's exactly like doing corporates. Yeah, it's exactly like doing corporates. Or after dinner speaking. You'd pay him to come around in the evening and he'd, you know, he'd get drunk and he'd be. witty and garrulous and all that sort of things. You know, different world but completely the same. You know what I mean?

So fascinating. I wonder what he'd make of you doing what you do. I reckon he'd be quite proud. You're continuing the satirical tradition. Well, my great aunt used to call me the satirist. You know, that was her way of sort of getting over the fact I, you know, would swear at strangers in rooms above pubs when I first started out. But yeah, I mean, she did see it in that kind of, in that vein, which is nice.

Fascinating. Yeah. You've told me a bit about your family and I have a really lovely sort of idea of them because you once said that they had a kind of light touch. Yeah. What do you mean exactly by that? My parents, my parents had a really, they had a fantastic light. I remember one time in my lower six where I'd not, I'd not been really applying myself at school. My dad sat me down and said, look, I've read your report.

I can't come the heavy father with you. I'm not interested in doing that. But you know, you do need to get your finger out. And that was kind of the extent of it. Yeah. And certainly, you know, I think the school they sent me to and the education I had, the expectation wasn't that I would end up doing what I'm doing. But there was never a like, you know, when are you going to,

when are you going to knuckle down and take life seriously conversation? That never, none of that ever happened. I think about it. I do think about the time when I started out and, you know, all my generation of comic started out you know because I did I was incredibly you know I mean I do have the privilege of my upbringing and where I went to university or stuff but the real privilege we had when we were starting out coming to London is you signed on and you got housing benefit and London was affordable because your trajectory you know you

went from it's quite a posh boarding school but you were I should have been a lawyer or something or gone into the city or something I remember going for a job in Job interview. So I think a friend of mine, a college friend of mine kind of became a head hunter and she said, can I put you up for some things? All right. I remember going for a job at some city insurance firm. You know, where they were insuring financial liabilities and all this sort of thing. And in the interview thinking, I have absolutely no, a no idea what you people do. And sometimes when I have an idea, no idea about something, I'll then become curious about it, right? That's interesting. And nothing they said in the interview could convince me I want to do it. And they said, well, what do you really want to do? I said, I want to be a stand-up comedian. So I'd probably gig in the evenings if I was doing this.

You can see them thinking, this guy is here to waste our time and nothing else. So, you know. But I'm interested as a kid. You've talked about boarding school as well. I know Charles Spencer's actually just written this book about boarding school, hasn't it? Yeah, yeah. It seems like it's sort of a bit of a bit of. a hot topic at the moment.

Yeah. What are your views on it? Looking back, what were the sort of drawbacks to being there? God, I remember when I first went, absolutely, it made me, it making me really sad and really upset

and being away from my family. I found that all very, really didn't like it, and I'd say to my, right to my parents, like two, three times a week, going, you know, I can't stand it and everything. And I didn't, and I didn't like it. And I wasn't cut out for it at all when I was small when I first started.

Yeah. And, you know, there were reasons I went, but I don't know if they were good enough reasons. Now I look back at it, really. It was a, and it's, I don't know, it's 50 years ago, nearly, so it's a long time ago. So the world has changed, but I think the fundamental thing of being away from your family isn't any different. if you were to do it now. And it does, it sort of shapes you, doesn't it, that experience? Yeah, completely.

How could that experience not shape you and turn you into the kind of person? I mean, what we didn't have, or as far as I know, we didn't have at my boarding schools, you know, sexual abuse and the stuff that Earl Spencer has been talking about. But you did, you know, everyone's away from their families. And obviously, there's a giant flock of pigeons here. That was pigeons, by the way. Fantastic. and the old moor hen you see how i might have known if anyone was going to be able to single

out a bird like that he's just he's like Wikipedia i couldn't tell you what a more hen was i think they're the black things with the red with the red um front of their head and beak the ones with the green faces that's like a mallard right you see that's a standard that's your standard that's like a duck duck isn't it if it's got a latin name it's called duckus duck duck us. It's, you know what I mean? It's like a Fisher Price duck. Exactly. It's exactly. It's the first duck you think of. When they're psychologists says to you, whatever you don't think of a duck, that's the duck you think of. I mean, I'm going to say they're a bit basic. They're basic, basic, basic ducks. Basic

W-6 duck. But that's so interesting, it's interesting what you're saying about boarding school because you're right, I can see how those things, things would stay with you because you're such a sponge when you're that age. Yeah. And how do you think, do you think it's made you more emotionally resilient, but perhaps a little bit more buttoned up? I think, I think, I think it's done both at both of those things. I think it, you know, it equips you for being buttoned up and for using that if you need to use that. But I mean, it is, but I think, you know, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, we're meant we're meant to talk to talk about everything now and I don't know I still don't know if that's still don't know if that's right still instinctively I'm not sure that that's actually sometimes if you've got a problem the best thing to do is shut up about it not tell everybody and not burden everyone with it just shut up about it because sometimes you can you can talk yourself into I think it is possible sometimes to talk yourself into a worse place if you talk about a problem too much and so so so I don't know you can talk yourself into a worse place and so I don't

don't know. I mean, you know, certainly, I'd be, you know, I've never, I've never been for therapy, but I think it would be, I think I'd, because I do like talking about myself as well. So, so, you know, because that's the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, you like being the sensitive of attention and you, you know, all that, all that, all that stuff that goes with the job, you know, or the motivations for the job at least, I think. But therapy is, it requires stripping down a lot of layers, I suppose. Yeah. Would you feel comfortable with that?

Probably not, you see. Probably not, you know, and I'd wonder in the end if it were necessary is the thing. You know, maybe, maybe the sort of, it's too late. It's just too late. I am the calcified, like a calcified central heating system. You know, it's too late. You'll never get the fur out of my veins or something. I don't know.

Interestingly, because everyone would look at you in a hugely successful career you've had and are continuing to have and assume you were a noisy, charismatic extrovert who owned rooms. And that's really, that wasn't, doesn't seem like that was the case. No, not really. And it's certainly not. I mean, the thing is, it's always with a, you know, we need to call some witnesses. But certainly that's never how I felt about anything when I was a, when I was, because there is that, I think one of the things I felt about boarding schools,

you kind of feel like you've had the rug pulled out from under you, because you've been set, you're away from home, you're away from your family. And so, and also, I mean, the other thing about boarding schools, boarding school. I think it's interesting because now, you know, they're all in their own rooms now and and all the sort of stuff. We were in dormitories and, you know, you put 10, put 10, 11 year old boys in a room together. There's going to be ruthless pecking order stuff going on all the time. Lord of the flies. Exactly. You know, yes, I mean, Lord of the Flies, he put the end of the world into that to make them fight with each other. I mean, we didn't, we didn't need that. We didn't need a

nuclear explosion to make us treat each other appallingly. You know, we were well set for that anyway. Let's go this way. And anyway, so I wasn't sporty and I think what was interesting at schools, a lot of people, you know, being sporty gave them a framework for, you know, you play games, you get on the team, you know, all this stuff. I've not seen this before. What is this, Al?

Do you want to read it out? It's a memorial. stone with the old Solidarnosh, the old Solidarity logo on it, in memory of Charles Vernon Hart, lifelong campaigner and freedom and human rights, honoured by NSED Solidarnosh, as one who supported Poland in her hour of need, born on the 20th November, 949, killed in the Tavistock Square bombing on the 7th of July 2005. Be the change you want to be in this world, you want to see in this world, Mahatma Gandhi. Gosh. Whereas the Polish centre is just, it's just around the corner from here, the big Polish centre. And there were lots of

to Poles in West London after the war. How lovely, you know what I love? I mean, it's so sad, but it says this person died in 2005, obviously in the Tavostock Square bombing, and there's fresh flowers. Fresh flowers, yeah. And I love that. I love the idea that there's still someone, you know, coming to see that. Oh, how moving.

A bit of history there. So, yeah, sorry, you were saying. Yeah, so, so, and I wasn't sporty. So you're, so I, and I think I was, you know, bright and you're looking for places to be confident in. I used to be terribly self-conscious when I got into my early teens. Did you? Yeah, yeah, all appallingly self-conscious. And so you end up, so I ended up sort of thinking, well, I fancy acting because then you're performing and then you've got control of the being self-conscious.

You're like occupying it and making it work for you. And that, I think, is where I ended, how I ended up in the end, being a comic. And we had a drama teacher at school who was brilliant. And there's a bunch of us who he encouraged and who, funny enough, suddenly crops up, you know, something like, oh, I just ran into your old drama teacher and, you know. And I always say to them, tell him it's all his fault.

And they're like, don't let him get away with being nostalgic. It's all his fault. You know, there were a group of us and we got together. would scyve off games, a whole bunch of us, and hiding, there was a, hide in a bit of the school together and play music together and hang out and did plays together and all that sort of stuff. And that's the sort of, that's how I ended up sort of finding performing really. And you did, you found performing at Oxford, didn't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And famously, you were with the review. and you worked with... Stuart Lee was our director on that and Richard Herring and Armando Inichu was sort of around when I first started doing stuff. Dave Schneider and... What about Harry Hill? Did you meet him after? I know I met Harry in London in sort of 91-92

when I was working on weekending which was, I mean, so long ago this now. BBC used to have a topical satire show once a week on a Friday night and they had it on Radio 4 and they had an actual open house commissioning process so you'd turn up on the Wednesday or the Tuesday I can't remember at like 11 o'clock and the producer be sat there and anyone could come into the building and pitch and if you did well on that if you got stuff picked up enough

got it into the program then you'd become a commissioned writer and that was that that was like the that was their pipeline for all sorts of people loads of people went through there and so So I met Harry on that and he, I mean, he could probably actually accurately date when I met him because it was when it was the first Leaves on the Line story about British Rail. The pub landlord was essentially your sort of slight off the cuff thing, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was because we were doing a show called Pub International where we had a band and Harry sang, I played the drums and his old, um, um, his old, uh, um, um, his old, um, um, um,

medical school pal, a guy called Matt Bradstock, Smith, who's no longer with us, sadly. He played keyboards, and we had a musical bit at the end of this show, and Harry would do some stand-up, and I was meant to link it all, and I'd come up with a thing when we previewed it in London that didn't work, just didn't work, and I'd written all this stuff, it just didn't work, and I couldn't make it work, just couldn't make it fire at all. And so by the time we got to Edinburgh, I still hadn't really got my head around what was going to do and the first night in the cabaret bar at the pleasance in Edinburgh I said well why don't we say that the compere's not shown up and the barman's offered to fill in and Harry's kind of like yeah

whatever you know another one of your brilliant ideas and so that that then turned into that turned into the to the act and it became this huge success and still is and we should say you're touring at the moment with the pub landlord yeah gov island is the name of the show yeah um so a classic vague title in order to not paint myself into a corner with you know some people they give their show these these titles you think yeah but but now you're gonna have to do that so it's the opposite of my book pitching thing where i have no firm idea i've got a nice loose title funny poster You're presumably so confident in that character now, Al, that is it very easy for you to sort of slip into it?

For example, when you're at a theatre and you're about to go on, do you have to get yourself into that mindset? There is zero ritual. I travel very light in performance terms. So I did this play last year, The Crown Jules in the West End, with Simon Nye wrote. It was his first play. and Sean Foley directed it,

who I worked with on the Spitting Image Show last year as well. And Neil Morris, he was in it. It was brilliant. Mel God, I'm going to miss some people out. Carrie Hope, Fletcher, Joe Thomas, Ada McCardy. It's like he's doing the Oscar speech. I don't want to miss people out.

Well, it was really, really, it was such an interesting experience because some of the actors, they learn their lines and they go away, They learn the lines, come back to the known lines, and they do it the same every time. And some of the other actors are really, they're really like, they really are work chewing through what this line means. Why does this scene, you know, what do I need to do? What am I after?

You know, what does my character want in this scene? All that stuff. They're doing that, what's the guy in succession called? Jeremy Strong. They're doing a Jeremy Strong because he famously is quite method, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so there was none of that. There was none of that from me.

I'm just thinking, how do I learn my lines? And, you know, some people would need, and they're all brilliant. This is, this is, there's no vestige of sort of criticism or piss taking this. They're all brilliant. They're all brilliant at it. But it's, you know, some people really thinking about the energy on stage and where I fit in. And I'm just thinking, I'm going to, I have to stand over there now.

Yeah. So, and do these lines. And I'm going to do, I'm going to try not. to rush them. So then you have more of a transactional approach? I think so. I think so. But the thing about doing stand-up is you really, I mean, you know, to be serious about it for a minute, you really have to be in the moment, you have to be absolutely in the moment. You cannot be anywhere else when you're doing it. You can't, you can't have half a mind to something else. You can't be You can't be half uncommitted.

You have to be completely in the moment. Obviously, you've picked the moment, you've decided the moment, you've shaped the moment, but you have to occupy it completely. And that's the thing that's still amazing about it for me is a thing to do. The thing I still find so incredibly exciting is that... Is it where you're happier, style? I think probably. And I think most comics, that is the case.

That's why you would. you know, go around the M25, you know, a thousand times in five years. Well, you would, but I'm interested. You would. But that's an interesting point. Yeah. Because I do think we're obviously at a different stage now with stand up. And a lot of the comics that I know, yourself, Lee Mac, Frank Skinner,

though you've all done that. You did your time. I'm sort of aware of comics, I suppose, fast-tracking a bit more. Yeah. And because of social media. Yeah, yeah. How do you feel about that? And without judging them, obviously,

because, you know, who's to say, everyone wouldn't have done it if you were starting out now. But how do you think that's, that was very valuable to you that experience? And would, do you think in some ways you're not getting those knockbacks and that resilience? Well, like, if you don't do. Well, that's a really good question, because, you know, there's the urge in me that think, you know, the guy who's done the miles and all that, you sort of think, you know, these youngsters, they don't know what they're doing and it didn't do them any harm and, you know, the 10,000 hours and all that.

And you do, the thing is, is though, it's always been changing, it's always been shifting. I mean, that's doing all the history I do, the one consistent thing ever is changed. You know, the old soldier in me thinks, well, yeah, but can you do it at midnight and all that sort of thing. But then I'm always finding things I can't do that I don't have a skill set for, even having done this all this time. For example, you couldn't go on Instagram and say, hey guys, I'm going to talk about a collab I'm doing. Yeah, that's not going to happen. I'm really fortunate. People still want to come and see me. This tour is going extraordinarily well.

There's still people who come all over the country to see me. I'm not like, I'm sort of not going to get too tangled up in wondering if the, whose grass is greener or if there is, even, is there any greener grass, you know. Well, the pub landlord who was this sort of slightly bizarre fringe character on the edges of society, now seems to essentially be reflecting the current political climate. Well, I know. I mean, this is, this is a thing. It's your fault out. Well, I have, I have had people tell me that on social media.

You, by mocking it, made it all acceptable. Have they seriously said that? I've had the odd couple of people who pop up and say part of the normalisation process of, like, well, you know, sorry. I was doing me jokes, you know. I really hope you loved part one of this week's Walking the Dog. If you want to hear the second part of our chat, it'll be out on Thursday. So whatever you do, don't miss it. And remember to subscribe so you can join us on our walks every week.