Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Marcus Brigstocke (Part One)

Episode Date: March 26, 2024

This week we’re in North London with the comedian and actor Marcus Brigstocke! Marcus doesn’t have a dog - however, he does have an elderly chameleon called Roy… maybe it's time for a "Walking The Chameleon" spin off?! Marcus is absolutely fascinating and wonderful company - and our walk covers everything from being comfortable with being called ‘posh’, what it was like to work on an oil rig, and what it was like to overcome addiction as a teenager. The second part of our chat with Marcus will be available to listen to on Thursday this week. Listen to Emily’s walk with Marcus’s wife Rachel Parris from April 2022 here!How Was It For You? with Rachel Parris & Marcus Brigstocke is available from 10th April wherever you get your podcastshttps://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/how-was-it-for-you-with-rachel-parris-marcus-brigstocke/id1731856696https://open.spotify.com/show/1dDLtEESkLO0v2XPkKikrz?si=f0ef948d45c845e1 Follow Emily: Instagram - @emilyrebeccadeanX - @divine_miss_emWalking The Dog is produced by Faye LawrenceMusic: Rich Jarman Artwork: Alice LudlamPhotography: Karla Gowlett  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You're all right, weird man. You're so weird. And then they'd go, should we go and have a drink? I go, no, I don't drink. I've worked on an oil rig and I'm a dancer. Come on. This week on Walking the Dog, Ray and I went out for a stroll with comedian and actor Marcus Brickstock,

who's had a hugely successful career as a stand-up and is also well known for his TV appearances on shows like, have I got news for you, live at the Apollo, and would I lie to you? Marcus doesn't have a dog, but he did tell me about his chameleon, who had me at the name Roy, frankly. I had the loveliest walk with Marcus, partly because he was so open and honest,

but also because he's just fascinating, hilarious company. We also chatted about his wife, the super talented comedian, Rachel Paris, and their new joint podcast venture called How Was It for You, which is a very funny weekly peek into their lives and dynamic together, and it launches next month, so do listen out for it. I really hope you enjoy my chat with Marcus, except for the bit where Ray interrupts someone's yoga class, mortifying.

I'll stop talking now and hand over to the man himself. Here's Marcus and Ray. Raymond. Come on Raymond. How old is he? Straight in with the age. I love it. Well, you can't tell with this flavour of dog, can you?

He could be a puppy or a really elderly gent. Do you know his haircut is very forgiving? Yeah. Don't you think? That's what I ask. for when I go I say can I can you do something where people have to guess how old I am he is seven years old oh okay all right so sort of approaching middle age yeah all right Marcus well isn't that right listen my Roy my

chameleon Roy is very nearly nine and that I'm afraid is getting around the sort of record-breaking age for chameleons. Is it? Which means he's either going to be a record-breaker or I think he won't be with us very long. Just a heads up, Ray does this sometimes. Apparently it's called Stubborn Shih Tzu Syndrome. Stubborn Shih Tzu Syndrome. Okay. And is that confined just to Shih Tzu's or is that a thing that some people have?

Because I know a lot of people who've got stubborn Shih Titsu syndrome. I've met a few producers that I've been. would describe as having stubborn Shih Tzu syndrome. Yeah. He just stops Marcus. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, same with these producers. You think you're making progress and then they just stop. It's exactly the same.

Refuse to communicate. So, I'm going to introduce you. I'm so thrilled to have you on this podcast. Thanks for having me. Because I've been a big fan of yours for many years. I am with the wonderful Marcus Briggsop and we are with Raymond

and we're in North London. We're in Islington, which isn't actually your manner, I don't think. It's not my ends. No, I'm a Ballam man. Gateway to the south. But you found yourself up in these parts today, which suits me, because I'm a North London girl. Oh, do you live near here? Couldn't have been happier. In fact, I grew up not far. We lived here briefly when it wasn't fashionable or expensive. My dad once said we mastered the art as a family of living in the right suburb in the wrong decade. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? There were loads of people who managed

that. I mean, there are some people probably overlooking the park whose whole house cost them around £40, who now spend their days complaining that young people, if only they drunk fewer lattes, could also buy house. So we're in Highbury Fields, which is really beautiful. Where I've never been for a walk before. Ah, this is your first time. So this is, yeah, breaking new ground. I feel like a pioneer. Right, I'm going to take Raymond off the lead, Marcus. You don't have a dog. I don't.

I grew up with dogs. Did you? Talk. We threw the Briggs stock dogs. And this was in Surrey, was it? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, my parents lived near a place called Hazelmere, and they had a spring of spaniel called Bertie,

who was a good egg, actually. He was really, really good. Very smart dog. and good fun and he was sort of not unduly but pleasingly terrified of my mother. And he'd wait until she went out and then you could just see him studying the situation once she'd gone out. He'd start gently breaking rules going on the sofa, going upstairs, just and if he heard the door go, it'd be lightning downstairs. But yeah, he was a lovely dog and then they inherited a wirehead dachshund called Shur.

Schubert, who was also excellent, a lot of personality. You see, the name Schubert, I love that, because that's telling me a bit about your family. I'm thinking quite cultured. Yeah. I mean, posh. Yeah. Let's jump to it. Posh.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are you comfortable with just saying? Yeah, definitely. We were posh. I think actually in my, across my comedy, I've talked about poshness as much as I've talked about anything else apart from maybe politics. I mean, I did a long-running series called Giles Wembley Hogg goes off about posh Gapier student who went travelling and sort of, you know,

went, it's actually really amazing because, you know, I've, now I've seen poverty and I've got a lot of it on camera. You know, he was that guy. And actually, like, really well-meaning, decent, but awful. And we'd almost certainly have a cabinet position now. They're always so well-wereign. meaning and you know what they've got the friendship bracelets well exactly exactly often round their ankles oh look Raymond I think Raymond may have pulled what's that is a spaniel Marcus yeah that is a spaniel I don't I couldn't say which one it looks very royal so I'm looking to you I think I think that is the spaniel that you often see rendered in porcelain isn't it right I'm not wrong am I people have a pair of

those on a mantle piece. So we, I can't tell you what it is, but anyone hopefully now has a visual reference for what we're looking at. It's a porcelain dog. I can't work out whether it's got white markings on its nose or one of those sort of nose strips, footballers used to have in the 90s. Well, one thing's for sure, and that is Raymond is absolutely not bothered. No. About that dog. Is he interested in other dogs? Do you know, I've raised him to be unhealthily codependent with me. Nice. Nice. So that, you know, he's frightened of relationships outside of the home. So, yeah, so I, I, my parents are posh.

Our family is posh and we knew posh people. But both my sister and I, my sister's couple of years older than me, she moved to Canada when she was 19 and she was just going over there to sort of do something and then she never came back. And I've always thought that quite a lot of that is because, Canada really doesn't have a class system like ours. You know, blue collar and white collar people with very, very different means,

mix much more socially than the UK does with the, I think, awful legacy of class. And then I had a very sort of weird childhood. I was expelled from lots of schools and ended up in rehab and various strange places. So I sort of, I am posh, but I didn't grow up in those circles. So all the people that I'd have known

in the first sort of, I don't know, seven years of my life, there's one or two of them that I bump into maybe once every couple of years, but I'm not, that's not my world, you know. Let's get off this muddy track. We ought really to have some sort of shirper for this. So that's interesting, Marcus.

Your dad was a stockbroker. Well, he was, yeah, back. Back when he first became successful, we have genuinely reached a quagmire now. I'm so sorry, Mark. No, it's fine, it's fine. Do you know what? I go for a walk two mornings a week with my best friend, and we're a strong and important example of positive male friendship. I love that.

It's really great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we do. We meet up at least one, often two, sometimes three mornings a week, and we just walk around the park. And he always wears shoes that can't really. really go near any mud. I like this other thing. And I usually wear shoes that can, but today I've come in sort of white-ish shoes.

Yeah, so, yeah, my dad was a stockbroker and my mum was a teacher and then a head teacher. And the rebellion thing? Well, it sounds like it was a lot more than rebellion. There were obviously lots. Yeah, there was definitely some issues. I have, um, I've been in. 12-step recovery for addictions of various stripes for 30-something years now. So, and my relationship with kind of addictive, using substances and processes to medicate

against feelings started when I was very young, really when I was about seven, and it was food for me first. Actually, if you scratch the surface with most addicts, drugs, alcohol, sex. whatever you will find usually that they've had a really unusual relationship with I'm so sorry Raymond has Raymond's having a moment and has joined in someone's yoga class I do apologise I'm so sorry guys I do apologize we're dog friendly here oh good there's dog friendly and there's a dog running on your yoga man Oh well thank you for being so lovely about it. Nice to meet you.

Raymond has just joined in a yoga class. That was so amazing. I say joined in. Raymond's joined in a yoga class in the same way I would in that he attended. But that's it. He didn't help otherwise. Oh, Marcus, go back to what you're saying. Yes, so interesting. I was saying, yeah, if you scratch the surface with a lot of people who have substance or process abuse problems, you will find that the first manifestations of how they medicated was with food.

Because food is very early associated with love and approval. You know, we're breastfed and then weaned and then, you know, it's all, if you eat this, oh, well done, aren't you good? And if you have this, then there's a reward attached. And if you have an addictive personality and lose the ability to distinguish between that being a perfectly normal thing for people and actually a thing that you can use as a comfort all the time, then you sort of end up doing what I did, which is going mad with it. And the thing that should be comforting, becoming really destructive. So anyway, the addiction stuff all just spiraled until it was really dangerously out of control.

and you graduated essentially from food into drugs and alcohol yeah yeah yeah as a teenager yeah yeah that must have been really tough marcus well yes it was but uh no not but and uh i'm you know i'm lucky in that my my parents i've had it you know i've had my problems with them over the years i think most people do i mean with their own not with mine but um but um but um But, you know, they just sort of kept trying to help, which often meant that I was furious with them and, you know, would swear they'd got everything wrong. But they just kept trying to help.

And then when I did eventually sort of come out the other side of, not just being an addict, but also addicts in early recovery are, blessed their hearts, a terrible pain in the ass. In what way? Well, because it's, you have to replace one completely overwhelming thing with something else that completely overwhelms that. So, you know, if you think about the lengths that a drug addict will go to to secure their next fix or the lengths an alcoholic will go to to secure their next drink and conceal drinking and concealed drunken nurse and the same food addicts

and all the rest of it. You know, it's absolutely overwhelming. It's all day from the moment you wake up to the moment you pass out. And so when you replace it, you need something that will take up as much time, which means you're sort of absolutely insufferable for a long time and smug and judgmental. And, you know, it's like when a friend gets into wellness now, I suppose. So all of that, you know, it took me a few years. Also, I was so young. You know, I was only 17 when I stopped drinking and stopped taking drugs and so everyone I knew was a recovering addict. Most of them had lived quite a full life that had involved a lot of carnage and mine had but on a in a sense a sort of a smaller scale just because I was younger the damage was all to myself and you know some

people that were hurt but no one had been damaged otherwise I hadn't broken a marriage down for example. But I think it's interesting the fact that you were so young I can imagine and I you know much more about this than me, that, you know, it's hard for it to take, I suppose, that process of rehab, which is work. When you're young and unformed, which you were, I imagine that's fairly rare at that young age to have that many successful stints in rehab, you know, that I think there must have been, I find that interesting that you wanted to get better essentially. I did, yeah, I did.

I actually remember that very, very clearly. It was a long time ago. But I remember being absolutely astonished at having found people who were talking openly about things that had been really close secrets for me for my entire life up to that point. And it was such a relief to have people be able to describe what it is to be compulsive around food and the lengths that you would go to, you know, which were awful.

Stealing from people that you love, eating from people. You love eating from bins, you know, really just mad. Eating when you're physically in a lot of pain from having overeaten but just carrying on anyway. It's sort of the nearest I can get for people who haven't had that is Christmas afternoon. You know, when like a lot of people have it that day. Like they're absolutely stuffed, but somehow someone says, should we just make a turkey sandwich? And we may as well finish the quality street now and you think, well, I'm in pain, but I'll crack on.

It's sort of that all day, every day. So, yeah, it was a huge relief. And so the opportunity for me to get better was one that I really relished. But I also, being so young, I had no other pulls on my life. I didn't have anyone I needed to get back to. So I worked at it really hard. And in those days, insurance would pay for you to be in rehab until, not indefinitely, until you were better. but they pay for you until you were better, more or less.

Now, people going in, you know, they have just a few weeks, which is really only enough to, you know, for you to sort of begin to even detox, let alone look at any of the stuff that underpins it. What that did was sort of put a big, I mean, it changed how I think about everything, but it also put a big wedge between the life I might have led as a sort of, you know, posh public school boy and all that kind of stuff.

Hi. Oh, thank you. Say hello. We're doing one now, actually, so you can see. Nice to meet you. That's so nice. Do you know what? This is so lovely.

And what I love is that they don't give a shit about me because they immediately, they just think, oh, who's that middle age woman? And they go, Raymond. Oh, it's Raymond. It's all about you, Raymond. Very healthy, though. If they'd seen you joining that yoga club, they might change their view.

Do you know, I found that really impressive and moving you talking like that because even now I'm conscious that, you know, you can talk about it in a more detached way, but it must be, especially with the food addiction, but I presume that never goes away. In some ways, it's the hardest. No, it's so shit. It's so shit. It's annoying.

You know, I've been sober from drugs and alcohol for, where are we now, 33 years. It's really amazing and thank goodness for me and for everyone in my life that that's not, you know, it's just not been an issue. Nothing got broken. But the food thing, you have to decide three times a day when you've had enough. And I still, after all this time, find that really, really difficult. And there's sort of the inbuilt comfort seeking that, you know, that food gives me. It's still something that I have to. to try and grapple with, you know, with really varying degrees of success. Yeah. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Hello, look, Raymond has made another friend. Is that a chihuahua, yeah? Longhead.

What's the chihuahua called? Harry. Harry, this is Raymond. Oh, Raymond, I love that, Raymond. Oh, I like them. They're like two great train robbers names, aren't they, Harry and Lane? This is a really, really good meeting as well, because they're a similar, size.

Yeah. Is it a piccanese? No, he's an imperial shih Tzu. Oh, wow. They were emperor's dogs. Yeah. And so originally, and it was punishable by death if you had one outside of the palace, the royal palace.

But, you know, we've survived. I think we're fine. I'll just check. Come on, Harry. Wow. We're going to get a tea. Lovely to meet you, Harry. And you too, sorry.

I'm glad you were able to do with them what everyone does with Raymond and go, nice to meet your dog, me. Quite right. Quite right. So, yeah, I can see that would be really hard because the food thing, it's daily, isn't it? Yeah. You can't, presumably, you know, with drugs and alcohol addiction, you say, well, I'll cut off the enablers. Exactly. And you just stop, too, you know, you just stop drinking, you stop taking drugs.

But I also, it's taken a really, really long time and I, I've changed my relationship with food and eating so that I can say hand on heart that the pain that my battle with it causes me and the difficulty I have with my weight is less important to me now than how I enjoy food socially. So I basically don't eat in between meals. I eat three meals a day and I don't snack. But I don't ever have cakes or puddings or biscuits or desserts, ice cream, any of that kind of thing. And that really helps. That simplifies things. Well, what would you like? We've got to the cafe now.

Sorry, Raymond, what would you like first of all? A dairy milk? I mean, Imperial, I'm afraid to say Raymond is such a good title for the face that you're. now pulling imperious to be fair he's a bit of a Karen is he well he's got that I would like to see them yeah can I see someone above your pay grade yeah yeah yeah um I'm gonna have what I think I'm hi there hello he's gonna have a latte please I'll have a black Americano please thank you we're gonna take we're gonna take we're gonna have it to go actually right

Have you always had dogs? No, he was a... I got him, I'd never had a dog and he was part of a sort of reboot my life thing. My sister died and then my parents died and it happened all in this really small space of time. So I got him because I wanted joy in my life and I thought actually having a little, bringing a little beating heart into your home. Absolutely. It just felt like the right thing to do. It's interesting you say about the...

beating heart thing that thing what you were holding Raymond as you said that you presumably could feel his heart as you said that right I held a baby goat last week I went I went to a wonderful place called Norton and Yarrow who make an award-winning cheese it's come in the top ten at the World Cheese Awards for the last two years and I went to make cheese with them it's brilliant but I held this baby goat and you could just feel its heart in your hand and there's something there's something absolutely kind of elemental about that feeling of you can literally feel the life of another creature.

We feel that with each other with people because we can communicate or cuddle or whatever. But it's different with an animal, I think. So we've got our, thank you. We've got our, I've got my latte. Marcus has got his Americano. He's so good at making friends. Isn't he? I think what you're trying to say, Marcus, is that he works the room.

He's a real operator, isn't he? Yeah, definitely. So after everything you've told me, which is an extraordinary story, an extraordinary in that, you know, you overcame it and you got through it. And you went to university. Yeah, so I had this weird, I had a weird period where when I came out of early recovery and rehab and all of that business, and I suddenly kind of went, oh, I've got no qualifications at all. You know, I had, I think, two GCSEs and I thought, oh God, what am I going to do now?

I had a feeling that I might not be thick, but I wasn't sure. There was no evidence to support it one way or another. So I just went off to college. I had some great jobs. I was a dancer for a while. I worked on an oil rig at the same time, not as a dancer, but I would dance in London. and then go and work in the North Sea and then come back. It's insane, but it is all true. I'm not sure what to do because this podcast isn't going to be long. I want to do an entire podcast.

Well, look, I can do a really truncated thing. I was 18 and I was 5 foot 10, much shorter than I am now, and I weighed 24 stone. Right, it was huge. I was huge, morbidly obese. And in just over seven months, I lost 13, stone. So I'm more than half my body weight in under a year. I was very rigid at that time in a way that I wouldn't want to be now. It was sort of just the right thing then, but unsustainable now. And I reached probably the right weight for my height and age at that time and then didn't, you know, I wasn't sort of under-eating or anything. But obviously my body was brand new. I was 19 and I had. It was like being freed from prison.

So I went out dancing a lot, like really a lot, and I just couldn't believe how it felt to be able to move and to, yeah, it was just this, it was so joyful. And so I kind of went dancing as much as I possibly could until I got talent spotted one night at Ministry of Sound and they said, oh, do you want to come and dance with our, like our crew of, dancers so I did that and it was great it was really fun and I think so there was like the brand new body thing but there was also actually not being able to take drugs in a place because ministry had no bar right it was liquor free for the

first two years so everybody else I'm gonna say this with confidence everybody else was on drugs everybody I always found with and I actually still feel the same with drinking and even drugs, although I guess I'm less comfortable around drugs now. But if I arrive as people are getting drunk, then I'm very happy. I'm absolutely fine. If I arrive and they're already drunk, it's absolutely unbearable to me and I have to leave. I just like, I can't walk into a drunken room.

I'm like, I don't know how to join in. But I think with the dance music, I would arrive in the same state everybody else was, and then they all snuck off to take whatever they were taking. And as the music came up, I just sort of came up with them, you know? But I, yeah, so I had no qualifications, and I thought, well, I better do something. So I went to Hammersmith and West London College. Actually, I did a B-Tech in performing arts. I thought I'd better do one A-level just to prove that I can do academic work.

So I did the A-level at night school. And, yeah, went to A-tecotech. assumed I would get into Cambridge. And then I think Cambridge kind of went, look, it's all very well putting rehab down on your UCAS form, but it's not the sort of thing, dear chap. So I went to Bristol. I met amazing people to make comedy with.

So did you, when you applied to university, that's interesting. Did you, were you up front about that that you'd been in rehab? I was actually because I had to explain on my UCAS form what had happened. There was a gap of two years. of two years. And obviously, especially, I don't think I was conscious of it, actually, but especially for posh people, lots of posh people and sort of, you know, I just sort of, you know, I went

away, I don't know, God, I just skeeces and, you know, like nothing of any value. Value to them, to us. But, and I thought, well, I have to explain what's happened here. So I just, I, I put on the form having, you know, whatever it was, having had problems with addictions, this is where I was at that time and then this is what I did next and I think you know I was probably less well qualified than a lot of people who got on that course at Bristol but I think at least as much as they looked at it they'd have seen oh okay he's a self-starter do you know what I mean and when did the North Sea oil rig oh yeah oh that and other questions yeah yeah yeah so it may not surprise you to learn that being a dancer at

the Ministry of Sound is less of a career and more of a thing you do some weekend. And so I met some people who were looking for cheap student labour to go and work on oil rigs that were not drilling. So they bring the rigs into the Firths in the in the north-east of Scotland, the Cromerth particularly, and they fix them up to send them back out to see these are the exploration rigs that actually bore the hole so and there was some jobs going on there and I went oh well that sounds great so I showed up and what I had no idea about and I'm now mortified about is that there were a lot of people working on that rig who were laid off in exchange for people like me

cheap labour because they just didn't need people with any qualifications you know so why pay them that sort of money when they could pay me absolute buttons and when you arrive on an oil rig and you find out you've replaced the friends of the people who are there I think you know the guys on on that rig were amazing and what did you learn from the oil rig that you think applies you know that you still use today I'd see one thing from the from the point of view of starting life posh is Some people work for a living. You know, there's a thing I learned.

Some people actually work for a living. When you hear someone on question time going, you know, we want to reward hardworking families. I mean, the reality is that money makes money faster than work can in the UK. And that's been the case for a long time. If you've got money, it'll just earn you more money and that's it. but a lot of people really work and so and I you know honestly I'd met people who did very long hours my dad's you know my dad's a hard working man but the guys I met on the rig were of a just a different

order you know so I learned that I learned how to grease nipples which is that was a ministry of sound that was also ministry there was amazing crossover yeah it was day one they gave me this amazing crane operator called Keith. He was a macum from Sunderland who I thought was a Geordie and said as much and he was livid. That's a mistake you make once only. Can't do that. But Keith had, no word of a lie, Keith had love and hat on his knuckles, tattooed on his knuckles because Keith being a crane operator had tragically lost his little finger on his left hand under a crane wire. So all that was left of love and and hate was love and hat and my friend Andy and I used to I mean it was high risk

Keith could have killed us we just go past him go I know dear everybody loves a hat I know the most wonderful milliner near Aberdeen do you um so so Keith kind of hated and and took us under his wing and showed us all sorts of stuff and a lot of it was standing out on the deck as Keith moved very, very heavy things on the crane and sort of dropped them very near to us. And it was amazing. It was amazing. You climb up the ladder, about 120 foot onto deck level. And I never, I worked on the rig for about nine months and I never got over it. I've just been, this is nuts. This is the maddest thing you've ever seen. How interesting. God, Marcus, what an amazing life you're having.

Yeah, yeah. I've been very lucky in terms of fuel for comedy and writing and, you know, and thinking about narratives and stories and people. Yeah, it's been pretty great. I'm keen to know how the shift into comedy happened. Was that something that you first started getting interested in at university? Had you always had a passion for comedy and stand up? No, I went so, what happened?

So I wanted to go to drama school. that was my plan and then I applied and didn't even get a recall I mean it was a disaster I think what it was is I was if not the best I was like the keenest actor on the course that I was doing so that made me feel like I was a good actor and compared to people who were really studying it and and grafting at it I really wasn't and and so I went to drama school and I was really shocked I went and had lunch with a mate and went, God, I don't know what I'm going to do. This was everything that I thought was going to happen.

And he said, well, you're not of a good actor anyway, but you are funny. You should go and do comedy. And I said, well, I said, but you can't just do comedy because I didn't know. And he said, no, I think you can actually. I think you can just go and do it. And he phoned two days later, and he booked a gig for me. And I went and did a stand-up competition. in Hoban

and I came second first time out were you very nervous yeah I really was I really was I was shaking and the first I was I think I had seven minutes and the first three were appalling

and then I stopped I guess I was slightly less nervous after the first three minutes and changed and it went it went great and I honestly it's a real cliche but I

walked off stage and before I'd even sort of reached the side of the stage I was like I knew that is it that is what I want to do I don't really want to do anything other than that of course where I'm going is thinking when you'd been through what you'd been through yeah rock bottom in a lot of respects getting up on stage did that feel like there was less at stake almost do you think it helped in a strange way there was definitely you Yes, it definitely helped. There was context, which was that, you know, I'd known people who'd not managed in recovery and then who had died, people I'd been really close with. People whose sincerity about wanting to recover was the same as mine. It wasn't that they meant it any less.

And then they'd just sort of been alive and then they weren't anymore. They were dead from that. So there was definitely that context. And I think as well I had, there was, there was just a hunger for it. Like before that first gig, I could have quoted you in its entirety, Robin Williams Live at the Met. I could have done you most of raw and delirious by Eddie Murphy. And, you know, I just, I'd always had that thing.

I could watch Blackadder and the next day be able to just regale people with half of it doing the impressions. And, you know, so I had a. a hunger for it and a love for comedy, which actually, my dad's a very, very funny man. It's very funny. He doesn't sort of, yeah, he doesn't sort of perform very often. Occasionally he'll get up and do a speech and he's brilliantly funny. And my mum was really passionate about comedy and I've still got her seven-inch vinyl of Peter Cook doing, I could have been a judge. and so she'd sort of grown up

loving Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and stuff like that and we as a family we watch the two Ronnie's and Morecambe and Wise which most people did I think but my biggest passion had been The Muppet Show

and I stand by it saying that the Muppet show is pound for pound funnier than most of the you know as a variety show it's funnier than most of the comedy shows that were on I'm so glad you said that because I loved the Muppet show and in fact

you're very well very impressed by this. But I was growing up, we had a 70s pop star who lived next door to us. Oh, yeah. And she had, she said, oh, I've got someone house sitting. I'm going to LA. And Jim Henson moved in. No way.

But we were like, Charles. I'd have been over the fence with sock puppets going, hey, Jim, hey, it's me. Just desperate for his attention. Did you meet him? Yeah. You could tell he had that sort of childlike unspoilt heart. Absolutely. Which is why he was there.

I've been reading his biography for about a year now. It's too big. It has an awful lot of and it was at this time that Jim's aunt's tennis partner dog's previous owner got a new house in Milwaukee. It has a lot of detail where you're like

shut up and tell me about Kermit. But I heard a thing recently and I don't know if this is true but it does make sense to me that Jim Henson really wasn't very into puppets. He was into TV. I know that's true.

And he was into stories. Yes. And jokes. He was a storyteller, basically. And like you say, he liked stand up and he was funny and he was but. He was so funny. My God, the jokes.

So I remain a big fan of that. And so, yeah, I just, once I thought, oh, comedy, then I was so hungry for it. I was just like just a missile for comedy. And I was weird as hell. When I got to Bristol, I was so weird.

I just, anyone who I thought was funny, I literally gave business cards to them. Can you imagine? It was awful. I was so socially messed up by what had happened in my life, not looking at the floor and kicking my toes, but the socially awkward in that I just didn't really mind very much what you thought was okay, which is now something that I would value. But at that time, I'm sort of necessary to do your job. I think for other people it was too much. There were two guy called Danny Robbins, who's now the mastermind behind 222, a ghost story, the Batsy Poltergeist and da-da-da.

So Danny and I were a double act for some time. And then Dan Tetzel and Danny and I were a sketch group, and we had various TV shows and radio shows and all of that. And they were guys that in week one of being at Bristol, I went too close. I went, look, I think you're very funny. and I'm mostly here to make comedy. I'm sorry for being tall, but look, let's do some things. And they were like, all right, weird man, you're so weird.

And then they'd go, should we go and have a drink? I go, no, I don't drink. I've worked on an oil rig and I'm a dancer. Come on. It sounds like you were just unafraid to ask for what you wanted at that point. Yeah, definitely, definitely. And so loved what we did. I mean, we did Dan and Danny and I, and lots of other people too, but you know, we did a new sketch show at least twice a year, wrote a whole new sketch show and did it and gigged it around and toured it and took it to Edinburgh.

We did stand-up shows. We did improv. We just did everything. And so by the time I left Bristol, then I was like, I don't know about ready, but I'd won the BBC New Comedy Award. and, you know, I was just so loving what I was doing that it, I guess my enthusiasm for it made it feel easy. Yeah. And, let's face it, I'm a posh, university-educated, straight, or predominantly straight, white man. And, you know, there were some roots for people like us.

I don't know if you've heard, but we've had one or two advantages over the years. Obviously, your comedy career really took off. Yeah. And you ended up, you did a lot of radio. You were doing the now show, weren't you? Yeah, yeah. And TV, did that come after things?

Like, have I got news for you? And sort of, you know, would I lie to you? It all kind of happened at a similar time. So the first thing was a series called We Are History, where I played a spoof, I played a history presenter, a sort of Simon Sharma-esque character, Dr David Oxley, brackets, B.A. Ons. And he was awful.

And it was really fun. God, it was so fun to do. And then there were various things that came along, like Channel 4 did a sketch show called Barking, which had in the cast. It's amazing. Catherine Tate, Omed Jalili, David Williams. I think Matt Lucas was in some of them.

So it's sort of lots of things happened at once, and then I kind of, I got, even though it was probably seen by the smallest number of people, it's probably the thing I'm most proud of. I did a thing called the late edition on BBC 4 when BBC 4 was relatively new. I loved the Daily Show and loved what John Stewart was doing and I felt very strongly and still do that the UK ought to have one of those and it ought to have one of those and it ought to be live and it ought to be at least four nights a week, maybe five. And so, and so I did that. My show was live. It was only one night a week, but it was really good. We did some great stuff, great, great stuff with John Oliver, actually, who, who's doing fine, I believe. What

ever happened to him? Well, I think he's fine. Poor lamb had to move to America. I really hope you love part one of this week's Walking the Dog. If you want to 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.