Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Rosie Holt (Part One)

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

This week on Walking The Dog, Emily and Raymond are in Battersea Park for a walk with the comedian, actor and satirist Rosie Holt - who is well known for playing her brilliant character Rosie Holt MP. Rosie tells us about growing up as one of five in a family home that was described as ‘The Bermuda Triangle For Dogs’. She also explains how she lost her confidence at secondary school and the journey she went on to finding comedy after initially trying to make it as an actor. Why We Were Right by Rosie Holt MP is out on 20th June. Pre-order your copy here!Rosie’s podcast NonCensored is available now on all podcast platformsFollow Rosie on Instagram @rosieisaholt and keep up with all things Rosie at rosieholt.co.ukFollow 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.

Philip Paulman's, he was aghast. And like Henry Bolton, the ex-view kit, he said this is appalling that MPs are able to behave this way and say these kind of things. This week on Walking the Dog, Raymond and I popped over to London's Battersea Park to go for a stroll with comedian, actor and political satirist Rosie Holt. Rosie shocked to fame virtually overnight during lockdown

via her parody videos posing as a Tory MP who was so brilliantly plausible. A lot of people were fooled into thinking she was real. And it won her millions of new fans and also led to a hugely successful live stand-up tour. Rosie, it's fair to say, could not be more different from the character she plays. She's super warm and sunny-natured.

To be honest, she kind of lit up the whole part when she arrived. So much so that I even forgave her for laughing uncontrollably at Ray, because she couldn't get over how ridiculous looking he is. We had the loveliest chat about her childhood growing up with various dogs, her experiences starting out as an actor, and we also chatted about the slightly surreal nature of instant online fame and how she navigated it.

She's also just written a very funny parody book called Why We Were Right by Rosie Holt MP, Brackett's loyal servant to Boris, Liz and Rishi, which is genuinely hilarious, so I really recommend you grab a copy now and for more info on what Rosie's up to, go to rosyholt.co.uk. I really hope you enjoy my chat with Rosie. I'll stop talking now and hand over to the woman herself. Here's Rosie and Ray, Ray. Come on, Ray.

All right, Rosie. Sorry, what sort of dog is he? I mean, I don't like the fact that you're laughing as you're saying that, Rosie Holt. He's like someone made him up, isn't he? It's very difficult not to sound like high since Bucquet when I say this. He is an imperial shih Tzu. He's an imperial sitsu. Do you know what he looks like?

You know in Planet of the Apes? Can you imagine if they had pets? I imagine they'd have an imperial shihu. Come on, Raymond. Follow Rosie. Are you just going to laugh this whole time? He's really great. He's so comical.

I always like how, you know, how dogs always look so embarrassed when they pee. But they go, stop it. don't don't I have to Rosie Holt I am so thrilled to have you on this podcast I had a very good feeling about you the minute you turned up because you immediately ordered a coffee and a pastry

my kind of woman very important should walk over here Rosie I haven't been in Battersea Park I don't think since lockdown where I met my parents and we all went for a walk

It was that time when you were just allowed to go for a walk. And then two days later, I found out I had COVID. I was so worried I'd given it to my parents. But I hadn't. It was fine. I'm with wonderful Rosie Holt. Comedian, actor, satirist? Yeah, I think so.

I think so. It always feels a bit grand, though, doesn't it? Satirist. I prefer, in fact, I like how you said it was, which was satirist. I think that's, I think that's, That's how I like it. I think it was quite female the way I did that.

Do we dare? Is it? If that satirist, if that makes sense. If that's all right with you. Yeah. And I've met wonderful Rosie in Battersea Park. So is this your sort of local manner? No, it's not.

I'm in, well, I am. I'm in Waterloo, which is not that far away. Rosie, you don't have a dog No, no I don't I had dogs all the time when I was a kid Did you? Tell me about the dogs when you were a kid Well, actually it's a bit sad because My parents' friends nicknamed our house

The Bermuda Triangle for dogs Because So we lived in the country And we lived not that far from quite a busy main road And we were right next to a pheasant farm which was a really bad combination for dogs. We had three dogs die on the road after chasing pheasants.

And then when Folly died, my dad went with never having another dog. And what kind of dog was following? He was like a sheep dog. The dogs you get in Babe. You know, the baby would get. He was really nice. Oh, that's so...

loved dogs so the first all we had was Lucy she was a coca spaniel it's like a list of sad dog tails and then um Henry and then Folly and Edward and then Edward unfortunately was a bit deranged and had to go back to go back to the mound but tell me let's go back to your childhood then yes you're one of five one of five yeah so I've got a younger brother and then to older brothers and an old sister. So I'm the second youngest. Yeah. What's that like? What is the legacy of that, do you think, growing up in a big family? Does it mean when you have that many siblings? I imagine you're quite good at conflict resolution. Yeah, do you know what? I think you might be right. I think it's, I mean, it was always very noisy. I mean, I really loved it. I felt really proud

that I had such a sort of big, interesting family. And then I think it helped being in the sort of sex. So there's my older brothers and my sister, and then there's a seven-year gap, and then there's me and my brother. So I think my older brother's always grumbled that we kind of benefited from having slightly more relaxed parents. I think that's probably true.

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely also, I think, weirdly, So I have lots of trouble with my vocal chords and I think it's because I grew up in a loud family where you had to fight your corners. You get the food. You had to get the food and eat it all. But yeah, I love being part of a big family. But it's quite a good anti-narcissist thing, I think. I think if you grew up in a large family, it's very difficult to be. You can't make it all about you. Right.

No. Yeah. That's probably quite healthy. But you can try. Often when I meet people who've grown up with a lot of siblings, they all struck me as reasonably well adjusted. Yeah. I wonder if that is to do with just sort of having to get along with more people,

you know, on a daily basis. Well, so, yeah, my sister, my sister's an occupational therapist. She said that when she was dealing with more difficult people, when she started, and her team were like, wow, you're so good at that. She said, I think it's just training from our family. Yeah. Oh, yeah, maybe. And so your parents, am I right thinking your dad was a solicitor? Yeah, my dad was a solicitor and my mum was a writer.

And what kind of, are we allowed to know? Yes. What kind of solicitor was your dad? It's a really good question. I don't really. I think he was, it was always so, seemed to me so boring. I think he sort of did, like, land. I don't, I don't know.

He'd always get sad because he said that none of us seemed interested in his job. I mean, he didn't make it sound very interesting. Your mom wrote sort of novels, didn't she? Yeah, she wrote kind of comedy novels called things like, she had the trouble with marriage and Annie Mae's black book. And they did quite well. It was quite successful, your mum? What was it like having a writer as a mum?

Were you sort of proud of her when you'd see her books? I was really proud of her, especially because she started, when I was younger, she was a supply teacher which she hated. And she started writing, and first she was writing sort of magazine articles and things like that. And she'd get rejection and then she'd get less rejections. and then she found a literary agent and it always seemed like she was she was kind of battling so much rejections until suddenly it took off

and also she was someone who really appreciated the success she got with it she was really so yeah I was super proud of her and what was the atmosphere and you said it was noisy in your house which doesn't surprise me in the slightest with seven of you

and you can have a lot of people in a house and still have very different atmospheres. And that comes from the parents a lot. So were your parents sort of quite formal? Were they... No. My parents were always, I'd say unusually, they're very in love and they always have been.

It's one of those things where you don't, obviously you don't know when you're a kid and then people would come over and they kind of comment on it. I mean, my dad found his work quite difficult, and so that was stress them out, but otherwise it was a pretty happy household really. So I was really lucky. And were they quite sort of bookish? I'm imagining if your mum was a writer.

So it was quite a cultured household in terms of theatre, opera, galleries, you know? Well, my mum loved reading and my dad would read occasionally and read ridiculously slowly. So I have lots of holiday memories of him sitting. down with the book and then you sort of fall asleep after page two. There's an interesting question. I think you can tell a lot about your childhood from the books your parents would read on the beach. So if it tells you anything about my childhood, my dad would read a book and this is genuinely true on the beach called The Psychology of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.

Oh my God. Does that tell you what you need to know? Oh my God. That's brilliant. So what would your dad read on the beach? He was always reading. He seemed to be reading a lot. Was it the magus? The magists? Something like that. My mum always read so much.

She read loads. She still loves reading. Was there a lot of laughter in your house? Yeah. Yeah, it was, I mean, there was always various sort of arguments and things going on. I think I remember there was a lot of strong personalities. but yeah I think I've got really funny family my dad was very funny

well my parents are both funny but they're kind of funny in different ways I think my mum and I wonder if this is a female thing my mum's books were very funny and I don't think she was as confident as being funny as my dad was I think that's I mean certainly I think that's why I came to comedy a bit later because I'd make people laugh

but I'd always have to do it by a way looking like I'd done it accidentally. Do you know what I mean? It was only sort of when I was a bit older where I thought, well, hang on. I was a bit more confident than I was going, hang on, I am making people laugh and I know how to do it.

But I do think, I mean, I think it's a lot better than it was, but I think that's very ingrained in a lot of women. Or at least it was. Were you happy at school? No. No, I wasn't happy at school. I was happy until the age of a balance. about 11 and then I was very unhappy until 6-4 really. Yeah, that was really hard.

But then it'd be pretty awful if I said, I had a really happy home life and a really happy school life. And why were you unhappy? I was very unhappy. So I'd always been quite popular until the age of about 12 and then I suddenly wasn't. And I couldn't quite pinpoint why that had happened and I still can't quite pinpoint why it happened.

And I was getting on very badly at school, and then so my parents moved me to a different school. And then I was so unconfident that she was very shy with people, which I'm not naturally a shy person. And people didn't like me very much. So I kind of kept myself to myself and didn't have any friends. I felt very sad. And then by the time I got to six form, I kind of found my feet a bit.

And this was a private school that you'd gone to, wasn't it? So I'd been at state school until I was about 13, and they moved me to private school when I was sort of, I don't even know if it was getting picked on, but I certainly had no friends, and my studies were failing, and that was when my parents put me into private school, and I went to an all-girls school, which I didn't like at all.

We all started in state education, and some of us stayed there, and some of us didn't, and I think they were very much like we should use the state system, but if it isn't working, we'll put them else. in private, which of course is a privilege you have. But it always, for ages, I'd always go, yeah, no, I went to private school, but only from the age of 13. Do you feel the need to apologise for going to private school? Yeah, yeah, completely. Why? It's really silly because I don't think I should, but I think it's so, I think there's so much more

awareness now about that the obvious privilege you get of going to private school, that it is a it embarrassing because you do get you do get a huge leg up I mean my grades are sort of sort of doing so much better when I was at private school hmm um oh look at this little Frenchie hello darling you want to say hello to Raymond hi Frenchie what's the dog called Luna Luna this is Raymond Luna he's an imperial shih Tzu oh Luna's trying to play way. And he's not reacting. He's not having it. Is that his usual? Look this dog over there is going in but he's, these people are laughing at Raven. I know he's not really like a dog is he doesn't really. I mean this man we've just ran into it. It cannot stop laughing at my dog.

Because he's just, he's a bit ridiculous. He's a ridiculous. Nice to meet you guys. Bye. Bye. Bye, bye, Luna. Surely you do get a few people laughing at Ray. Oh, it never stops, does it?

Yeah, that's interesting about your school thing. So you didn't, you didn't feel you fitted in. It wasn't bullying as such, or was it? It was a little bit, I guess, but it was. But it was not, no, I don't know if you can call it pulling. It was, you know what, it was things like, I remember, God, it's terrible. Hey, you remember these memories, isn't it? I remember with my school tray going to sit down at a table, and there were a group of girls here,

and there was a seat free. And I said, I said, oh, hi, Fizzy, can I sit here? And she went, oh, no, someone's sitting here? And she looked around and she went, Penny, Penny, can you? Can you sit here please now? So it was things like that. Where it wasn't sort of out bullying, but it was people making very clear

they didn't want to be friends with me. Why do you think that was? I think I was, well, I think I was, it didn't help. I was a very late developer. And just before I started at the all-girls school, I tried to get my hair short because I'd seen Winona Ryder at the time.

Like a short pixie cut. And so my mum's friend came around and she went, goodness, she looked like a filler. And so I started this new school looking like a pre-bassive boy. And then also, because I'd had everything had gone wrong at the state school, for reasons I still don't understand, I was suddenly really shy. So I was a bit, I was a bit odd.

It was like I'd forgotten how to interact properly with people. And of course, kids are really unforgiving of people who are a bit odd. So, yeah, so I got there, but it was a, yeah, it was a miserable couple of years. And were you quite, uh, were you quite an introvert as well? Or do you think the school? Well, actually, I don't think I was an introvert, but I definitely was in that time. But I don't, I don't think I'll actually, I mean, I never had been as a child or at school beforehand.

But I, yeah, I certainly was at that time. I was suddenly really shy, but it wasn't my actual personality. It was just because I'd had a few knocks, I think. There's a particular kind of, if you don't feel comfortable in that environment, I think there are two ways you deal with it. Where I went to this girl's private school and I thought, I don't have anything in common with these girls. It's just that their value system is very different to mine.

My parents judge people by what books they had. Yeah. And their politics and stuff like that. whereas these people judged you by what cars you had in your drive. I'm not saying that ours is better. It was just different. So I sort of turned up there and I thought, I don't understand this currency.

I don't get it. Yeah. It's like, and what I think that kind of, what I think that does to you is you either retreat. Yeah. And you withdraw into yourself or you lie and you try and assimilate, which is what I did.

Yeah. So I would boast, I would lie, I'd tell lies about my house. and so we've got 17 bedrooms. I love that. But actually the truth... Did you ever get found out? Yeah, they'd start to ask to come round to the house. And they'd say, we're going to come out to the house. They started to rumble me. And even though... You want to see the 17 rooms? Oh, they're all under construction. Oh yeah. Yeah. But I think it's interesting how you would you react one of two ways. So mine was to become kind of obnoxious and it sounds like you retreated.

Yeah, I retreated. Though obnoxious sounds a better way to go, I think. No, not really, because there's so much shame with that. It's just so hard, though, isn't it? I mean, I really hated being a teenager, and I've got six sort of nieces and nephews, and one of the oldest is 16, and then it's 13 and 12. And you just go, oh, it just brings it all back,

how difficult it was. And were you dating? Rosie when you were... No, I was not. No, I didn't date at all. When I moved to Sixth Form, I fell in love with this guy called Alex, but it was very much unrequited. Yeah, I was a really late developer in everything and especially anything with boys as well. And you went to university? Yes. You went to Manchester? Yes. Because it was, we should say, actually, I haven't even established where you grew up. This was sort of It was Wiltshire originally.

Yeah. And then we moved to Bath in Somerset. Yeah. It was about 17. I'm imagining sort of country farmhouse originally, you know, like quite a nice... It wasn't a country farmhouse, but yes, it was definitely that kind of vine. Was it very... Mr. Bingley?

It was on 300 a year. Wouldn't that be great? It was not that. Okay. That would have been really nice. That's what I'm hoping. But it was a very... It was a nice house.

Yeah. With a big garden. So it's great. Was it one of those houses, I call them no number necessary, which a lot of the girls I knew, it was like the stables. Yeah, it was called Dunkerton. I'm so into Dunkerton. I'm so jealous of those. It was a real thing where it was like, you'd go, I live at number eight. They'd go, numbers. I don't know. We don't know. We don't live in the old schoolhouse. That's really true.

You go to Manchester University. By that stage, did you start thinking you wanted to perform? Or was that a later thing? Yes, no. I wanted to go straight to drama school. And then my parents said acting as a terrible profession. And you should go to university. And if you still really want to be an actor, then you can go to drama school.

And at that point, now, of course, it's really ridiculously expensive. but at that point you could kind of afford to do both that wasn't completely outrageous. And when did the interest in acting stop? Because I always call it the look at me, Jean, that some people have. Does it sound like you had that, or maybe you had that and school knocked it out of you? Yeah, I did have it.

I mean, certainly when I was little, I was always putting on, forcing my brother to be in plays. Were you? That we did just for my parents and my poor parents' friends. I thought acting seemed tricky and terrible. So I wanted to be a TV. presenter when I was small. I thought that's what I want to do.

And actually, we ended up, you remember on live and kicking? They used to have like the awkward kids at the back. Oh, yes. Yeah. So our village, the village we lived near, the kind of local like children's group there,

the guy who ran it was like old school friends with Zoe Ball. So we managed to get a load of us to be those awkward kids standing in the back. on live and kicking. And I went on that and I remember asking Zoe Ball how she became a TV presenter. She was very nice about it. But did you think at that point

oh this is the lie? I thought yeah that's what I want to do. Just talk and people look at you, great. And then it was only when I think when I was a bit older, when things were going on really badly at school, there was like a local theatre group that I joined and that was really great and that's kind of what gave me my

confidence back really. When you graduated, you didn't go straight into comedy, did you? No, so I graduated from university and then I tried to get into drama school. So I spent a year like working as a waitress and trying to get into drama school, which I then did. And then the following year I went to Lambda. So the three years at Manchester then had a year waitressing and then three years at at Lambda Drama School.

So you were an actor for a while. Yes, but not a very successful one. Were you not? No. No, I left drama school and sort of had to go straight back doing waitressing really. And then

I left without an agent which seemed like the worst thing in the world. And then I managed to get I gate crashed and auditioned for Wuthering Heights and did that round Wales which was amazing

as Kathy Oh you've got the top draw Yeah And then everyone was After that everyone was going Just gate crash another audition I said I can't What do you mean you just turned up

So what I did was I found out where they were auditioning And I mean it was a book I was obsessed with Anyway I'd read Wuthering Heights And thought it was Incredible And then I took it turned up at where they were doing the auditions and I went up the, I watched the director go in. And then I wrote this crazy letter saying, you may have seen me outside in the big coat and hat.

And I've not got an audition because I don't have an agent, but I am perfect for this role. And I just wrote this crazy letter and I went up to the... reception and I said could you please give this to the director it's very important and then I just left again and then I went I left and I got on a bus and then as I got on the bus my phone went and they said this is this Rosie Holt and they said yeah and they said we've just got your letter we've actually had a sort of drop out this afternoon do you want to come in um so you put it like that yeah so I came back and I think and I did such a good audition because I was feeling so, I couldn't believe it had happened.

And he was very, very kind of, oh well, you don't need to chime to look at the script if you know the book so well. And I said, I do know the book so well. And I got the role. And that was amazing. And, yeah, that was a sort of amazing, amazing job. And then after that, it was a bit sad because you kind of think, I think with acting, you think, oh, I'll get something and then it'll just some mobile and I'll get more and more.

It's never had. It's never. Yeah. I think it's interesting that you sort of came later to comedy, that it was almost like, I feel like, you were saying this about your mum. Yeah. And I feel like it took you a while to have the confidence to say,

oh, fuck it, I actually want to do comedy. I don't know if I just want to do pure acting. Yeah, completely. Isn't that what, am I allowed to do it? Was there an element of that, do you think? Definitely. I didn't think, I remember seeing some stand-up when I was at university, and it just seemed really mails.

and aggressive and I thought no and then when I was left drama school I was living with some

actor friends of mine and also Harriet Kemsley who's a stand-up she just started doing stand-up when we were living together so I used to be

her plus one at a lot of kind of gigs and initially I thought this is horrible because I thought Harriet was brilliant

but it was just sort of she'd do all sorts of crazy little gigs that she's seemed so unappealing but it did sort of I think it did put something in my head where I thought God there are other ways to be creative and I think the problem with acting is that you are

is actors is actors is you're kind of enthralled to someone else's creative here you're a kind of enthralled to someone else's creative vision right so you go in there because you're creative person but actually even if you get lots of work often if it's on TV, it'll be cut a certain way, or it's how the director wants it. But mainly, you're just waiting for the phone to ring. So that's out of your hands. And what I so appealed to me about comedy

was you could come up with an idea and then that night you could find somewhere to perform it. I thought, what a wonderful art form. You can just come up with ideas. And the more comedy I saw, the more aware I was that it could be so many different things. Trying to make people laugh is hard.

Yeah. It's certainly a lot scarier as well, I think. I get scared doing comedy in a way I never did acting. The audience is more unforgiving, but also it's all on you. So it's not, you can't say I'm a part of a, you're bouncing off other people on stage or things like that. Or it might be, you can blame it on the writing. I think you're responsible for everything when you do comedy.

And we should fast forward to, When things really took off for you, and I remember this very vividly, it was kind of lockdown, wasn't it? It was the beginning of lockdown. Yeah, it was mad. I mean, it's a terrible thing of the global pandemic, which is obviously rubbish, but was very good for my career. Before that, I was doing all right, like I was just about to, before the pandemic hit, actually, I was about to do a six-month tour in Chicago of a show called The Crown Jure

with a brilliant act called Brenda Murphy. And we did it in London and got great reviews. So we were about to go away for six months and it was a parody of the Crown where we were playing all the parts. And then the pandemic happened. So that was gone, which at the time seemed awful. And then I posted a video in the pandemic when during the Black Lives Matter protests.

And it went viral. And then it kind of went from then, really. So it was quite instantaneous when it happened. The night before, I'd read, there was a post by Sadiq Khan who said, we're taking down a statue in the Isle of Dogs because of its links to slavery. And there were all these hysterical comments underneath. he's going, you're erasing history and this is destroying democracy. And I, so I wrote a short piece of a woman basically embodying all those comments.

And she's, and the punchline was she said, they're erasing history just like Stalin did, who incidentally I have a statue of in my garden. And not because I admire Stalin, but because he looks good by the pond or something. and it went viral but it also went viral because a lot of people thought it was real which I hadn't been expecting And had you set yourself up in this video as an MP

Had you said... No, so this was before the MP This was like... You were just a sort of your classic daily mail Yeah, it was like a daily male sort of talking... Boxpot. One of those people you get on Jeremy Vine

who go, I'm sorry but I have to say that I think children should not be allowed to eat those people. So I'd sort of I did it like that and yeah people were really angry and people were going you should take down that statue of Stalin how many that did we just get loads of likes loads of it got it got something like um it got like 400,000 views in a in a like in a day or something and I was at that point I had I think had 3,000 Twitter followers so it was really it was really it was really extraordinary and there were and there's something you know people I admired and followed for a while

were sort of retweeting it and it was what was weird about it is it was all happening in lockdown so it was all happening when you weren't seeing people so I was getting suddenly getting all this interaction online and were you in you were sort of in your yeah I'd gone to stay back with my parents so I was at my parents house and I'd filmed it in their spare room so that took off and then I didn't actually do the MP character until sort of um six months later, but what I started doing was posting these regular videos of this sort of right-wing talking head who would just say awful things about everything. I started doing that regularly and it suddenly got me a kind of really, yeah, my, my,

I suddenly got a really big following from it. And then when I posted the MP one, then it really, things really blew up again. I really hope you love 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.