Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Russell Kane

Episode Date: April 20, 2017

This week we head to Manchester for a walk with comedian Russell Kane and his pug Colin. Russell tells us how he found love in the front row of one of his shows, reveals why he’s finally coming clean about his age and explains why dogs never sleep on the bed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I always say when a couple gets a dog, it's like they're doing the A-level before they get a degree of baby, so you're ready to go dog. And some couples aren't ready for that, so they have to go cat. And there is foundation courses in hamster and fish. Hi, welcome to Walking the Dog. I'm Emily Dean, and this is episode four of my podcast for The Times. Thanks for all your comments and ratings on iTunes. It's so lovely to hear your feedback, and please keep them coming. And don't forget to subscribe.

So this week, I travelled up to Manchester, and I went out for a local walk with community. comedian Russell Kane and his pug Colin, who is super clever, lovely looking and has a really sweet little nature. Has anyone got his number in fact? Lindsay, do I need my phone with me? Well I've only living here one day and I've got no sense of direction. Let's go Ross. Colin? Wait.

So we're heading out of the door. We're going on a walk with Colin the pug and Russell Kane, his father. This is where the first thing where you go wrong with dogs, you exit first, you're the pack leader. Is that right? Ross, we should say we're in your brand new home. I've been here 24 hours. So we completed on the house about a week ago and we've had just some bookshelves and stuff put in.

So Lindsay moved up on Saturday. What's today? Right, so that was two days ago and I was gigging, obviously, working on Saturday as you do the day you're moving. Yeah. So I got here early hours of Sunday morning and I've just, all I wanted to do

is complete that library room. You've got an amazing library, yeah. I just want to establish where we are geographically. You're in a close. Yeah, Wimsel. Yeah, Wimsel. It's like a really. It's an estate. It feels like LA.

I never thought it would happen to me. I'm on an actual Jones's, Joneses housing estate. Joneses are like a posh version of Barrett. I really? And they make just really nice four or five bedroom family homes. And the reason we've ended up in Wimslow, Cheshire, is I, it's actually, it's the known as the Golden Triangle of Essex of Laughton and Chigwell on Buckhurst Hill to the Golden Triangle of Cheshire, which is all the edge.

You're all about the golden... Look at that big dog, Russ! I know. What's that? That looks like a big white chow chow or something or some Siberian husky is immediately in front of us. And the reality is my mum does her best, but it's just my mum down south. Right. And what we never could have foreseen when we set ourselves up in Woodford was... Is this you and Lindsay? Yeah.

Once the baby's born, because I'm away three, four nights week, Lindsay's just sat there on her own. Yeah. It's very isolating, whereas up here, you throw the baby in the air in a cousin or an aunt or a second cousin or... People just can't do enough. And she's a Mancunian as well, isn't she, Lindsay? Yeah. So her family are around her. That's the thing people don't realise about comics,

is that it is like having a partner working on an oil rig. It is. Because you're basically away for three-quarters of the year, aren't you? Yeah. This is the longest tour I've ever done. It's the most tickets I've ever done, which is insane because it's the least comedy I've ever done on TV. So you go and tell me that the old model of stand-up works

where you sort of appear on QI and then sell three. Colin, Even the last tour I did before this one, Smallness, you did the Royal Variety, you did live with the Apollo, we were like, yes, that's my London run, sold out sort of thing. Now, unless you are doing everything all the time, it seems to be hard to guarantee that TV will drive your theatre sales. There's two types of stand-up in my experience.

There's a stand-up who just loves being on TV and loves the whole lifestyle as well as doing stand-up. And there's those of us who, if we could get away with no one knowing our face, but we could feel the O2, we'd do it. Really? I'm one of those, like a Lee Evans type stand-up. All I care about is the theatre and being on stage and making people laugh.

Is live comedy the best thing for you? Yeah. You would happily just do that. If I could do the numbers, yeah. I think a couple of years ago I was doing TV for TV saying, now when I do TV, as soon as I get something commissioned, I am like full Schofield in the gallery up at 6am. I love it.

I love every minute of it, but the end purpose is in fame, the end purpose, or even notoriety, the end purpose is bums on seats in theatres. Because you like comedy or because you like making people laugh? I just think that's my calling. So Colin's just doing what he does. Is he having a poo? Well, I'm letting him stop, but really, if on a walk, you wouldn't stop. Why?

Because you're the leader, you just... I'm noticing. I wouldn't let him off the lead here just because of the cars and stuff. Plus, I don't know this walk. We should just say about Colin. I really noticed back there that you approach having a dog to, how you seem, from what I know of you, you seem to approach life in that way, which is you want to, you're constantly learning. You know, you think I'm going to find out everything I need to find out about this subject.

Before Colin came along and Colin is, I have got a dog by another woman. So it's very understanding for Lindsay to take that dog on. What do you mean? know you bought it with someone else. I got it with another girlfriend, yeah. My ex-girlfriend went missing at the time when I got my patio done. I would not have got custody of Colin

if my ex had been able to take him, but her setup at the time where she was moving back in with her parents and she couldn't take him. Right. I was all up for doing the gentlemanly thing and letting the girl take the dog. But she just simply couldn't.

At the time, I was on my own, doing a tour on my own, single for the first. time in my life I'd had solid girlfriends from the age of 16. You were married as well for a long time, won't you? No, not a long time for 10 months. In your world, that's ages, yeah. I mean you're married for like 10 months, you loser.

What I've discovered the older I get, and that's what this whole show is about. Yeah, the tour that you're doing, the life show you're doing at the way. Unfortunately, maturity and growing up is not pegged to number. So some people at 22 are completely mature, they're ready to have four kids and settle down. Some people aren't like that till they're 52, and you don't seem to really get a say in when that happens. When Sadie and I got married, we thought because our numerical age suggested we should, and we've been together four years, let's get married. But of course, as soon as we put rings on each other's fingers, we were like... Do you think it changed the relationship?

I don't think it changed it. I think it was like turning a light up on the relationship. We don't speak now, and we send each other little messages about work, and there's no bad blood there between me and Sadie at all. But the girlfriend after that was Charlotte. That's who I got the dog with. And then when I split from Charlotte, I was single for the first time ever. So you can imagine poor Colin, I'm single for the first time ever. I'm doing a tour.

I'm living in London on my own. But it was really hard juggling with a dog and two cats. And all the women? And all the women. Not that many. Did you go through a fillet in your boots? Yes. Period.

How did you find that? I never really got boot-sized because I was only single for about 10 months. It was a cross. It was definitely an ankle trainer. And how did you find that? I mean, obviously it was very nice. Disappointingly, eat easy. So what happened was...

What do you mean disappointingly easy? So my mum has just got sick over the years. I make a joke that she's got a photo frame on her shelf and it's so thick at the back because I've got my arm round yet another girl who's definitely the one. So I'm serial monogamist. I'm like probably more of your female friends and your male friends. As a rule, when you're in your 20s,

lads go on lads holidays and bang themselves centres and get out of the system. I never did that. Whoever I slept with, I would fall in love with no matter how inappropriate or ill-matched we were. I think the longest I was ever single was about a month. So it's obviously got some issues there, not to do with sex, but to do with emotional commitment because I would just be like, I love you after a week. And they weren't short relationships either. They were always at least two, three years.

What's that sort of wanting to be needed thing? I honestly don't know because I'm very, very independent. But if you think most stand-ups want to be needed on some level, there must be. I think I just, I don't know, I just like the, I just like having a girlfriend. But what's happening was where I'd never been single and then I started to get a peer on TV and on stage, I had female, for most guys who aren't like manhors, it's not really a problem. girls as a rule don't come up and throw themselves at you in everyday life. It just doesn't happen to most bloke.

But when you're on tell you, that changes. It changed. So for the first time in my life, I had female attention. And because I've never been single, I'm sure girls have the same level of curiosity. That was all getting mixed up in my head. So when I split up with Charlotte, my mum was like, you have to have a year on your own this time

or you're just going to fuck up another girl's life by getting into something you're not ready for. And it was upsetting when I split up with. with that particular girlfriend, because she really liked me, and the reality was I just got into the relationship too quickly. And you ran over your head? I still feel bad about that one.

We won't live in together or anything. It's my shortest ever relationship, nine months. Right. And sometimes, as you said, it's not duration, it's just the intensity. And to me, you know, playing devil's advocate, if someone had bought a dog with me, I think they're in for the long haul.

Yeah, that's it. Is that fair enough? Fair enough. But at the same time, most of my male friends would have stuck their head in the sand started cheating. I've never touched wood ever cheated on a girlfriend. So I just look better to be honest. Rip the plaster off so my emotions aren't where they should be. We need to split up. I'm surely that's got to be better for a woman than stringing her along for another six months

because you've got a dog together and you feel bad. Yeah. Yeah. I was just I was just honest. I was honest. Did you tell her to her face? Of course. Good boy. And so anyway, so then I was single for a year and like I said it was just there was no chatting up, you could go up into a nightclub and say, are you single, is your boyfriend here? Don't come back to mine. That'll be it. Done in five minutes. We should just say there's another, what dog is that? Can you identify it? Is this a potential? I would say that looks like a shih Tzu with its fur, Sean. But I could be wrong. He's going to be a potential love match for Colin. Well, Colin's a, Colin's a bit aggressive when he's on the lead.

Hello. Hello. Hi there. Oh, that's a cute dog. Is that a shihitsu? Is that a Kama poo? Kavapoo. Oh. So that's a cavalier and a toy. Cavalier and a toy. Toy. They seem to be getting on well. Caval League King Charles and a Poodle Cross. So that means you get the non-shed in fur, you see. What's the exercise level like that it needs? It's not that. It's not bothered?

Yeah, well, he does. This is his second go today. So Colin will happily sit on the sofa for three days. Where does this go all the way into town? If you follow this, it will come out, you know, the walk around. No, I moved here a day ago, so it's my first walk out. Yeah. Right.

You can follow it along where you'll come out by a four years. Oh brilliant. Turn right and then left the hill and room Wicked. Take your bow. Bought of an hour. Oh brilliant. There's a pug, not very. We'll have to stop for a venterlin. Thanks. Bye. So anyway, so where we were, so there you were, having ended the relationship.

Yeah, I went for it. Abruptly, but in a kind way because you did the face-to-face. My emotions aren't where they should be. We weren't moving near that stage we were going to consider moving in together. Yeah. We weren't moving in together. We sort of got the dog. together but the dog was living with me and she was staying over it was that sort of

so yeah so then I was single started shaking around and then Lindsay was just sadly just one of the girls in a long list but I was just I'm thinking I've got feelings for this girl I'm bored with the behaviour so let's just follow those feelings to see where they go next thing you know married and here we are and you met Lindsay was she at one of your gigs she was in the front row of one of my gigs and what tell me what happened did you spot her and think I-I-I-I yeah That's not an uncommon thing anyway, like Pretty Girl in the front row. So it wasn't like it was, oh my God, there's a pretty girl at my gig.

This, Eros, take your bow out of my heart. It wasn't like that. It was just basic lechery of a fitty in the front row. Let's not, let's not build it up. Let's not turn it into something. It's like romantic. Sacred rather than the profane thing it was. Anyway, this, and I'd literally just split up with this other girl at this point anyway,

so my head wasn't in that space. But sat in the front row of my gig, it was a small warm-up gig, 300-seater, was Lindsay and her mum and dad. It was her dad who was a fan via this programme we used to do called I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here Now. So he'd discovered... Yeah, I'm familiar with it. He'd discovered me on that. And then Lindsay was sat there with what looked like a fur jacket on her legs. Let's call it fake first.

Let's say fake. And me being a bit of an animal lover, I wasn't having that. So I whipped the jacket off and started going, where are you from? She's like, I'm from the Manchester area. Because she was posh in Northern, I then ripped the piss out of her for a good five minutes, doing her like an Audrey voice from crying. And I was just going, Menkeh!

In her face, and then threw her coat back at her. And then I did the show. I said to my tour manager afterwards, I bet I never see that girl again. She was so fit. So you didn't say to the tour manager, can you go and, you didn't do a sort of Tom Jones or a...

Couldn't. The venue was... But it was one of those venues that as the show comes down, it was like a clubby type venue. And the venue emptied for I could send in my tour manager to do a lechee harvest. I love a leachie.

I thought, how am I going to find this girl? Don't know who she is, didn't even get her name during the show. So I just tweeted one word. This is about a week later. I tweeted one word, not hashtags, didn't at the comedy club, just messing around really, with no hope or aim. I just tweeted the word minky. If you look through my Twitter feed, you'll find it in 2011 or 12,

which can't remember the year. One of Lindsay's friends replied saying, I follow you on Twitter. Is this about my friend from the gig the other one? week and I was like is your friend brunette girl she went she's here on Twitter and that's how I found Lindsay and then did you I believe that the young people call it slide into the DMs yeah I did I started DM in debt yeah sorry Ross I just have to stop because that's an incredibly cute hi I really like your

dog hello is that I think that's a little shih Tzu is it that's a shih Tzu no way gently calling good boy hello what lovely dogs you've got this is my pug Colin What's your what's these two dogs called what's this dog? That's called Scala. This one, Jasmine. She was found in a dustbin. Really? Oh.

Well at least you recycled her. If something's found in a dustbin it should always be recycled these days. Yes, that's right. You've recycled love. The best thing to recycle. I'm getting a Shih Tzu. Can you give me any advice about them? Yeah.

Do they? And we always keep the coat short because it's a nightmare. That's a laugh. to the mouth dog. I have a much of your brush, yeah. This one, for example, has got real small dog syndrome. She has no fear. No.

She will attack anything if she thinks and feels in its own playing. I recognise that. What I do, that's like me. She's not phased at all, you know. She's children. So grooming is a big deal. You've got to... Big deal.

Well, it's a big deal to me, as I hope you can see, the coat is important to me. But as I say, it's easier to keep them a bit short. Oh, it's really nice to me. Yeah you too thank you they do grooming do they that yeah sure and or else there's an excellent kennels but they have to approve you oh brilliant I might be coming to you for a recommendation thank you thank you thank you so Collin on his 11 plus I like them because I really feel she was slightly telling you what

I know yeah it's like she said I thought she was trying to imply Collin definitely wouldn't get approved we should talk a bit about how you got started in comedy and all that kind of stuff. You didn't have, you didn't start in comedy, did you? No, I went straight from uni into an advertising agency. I always wanted to write for a living. I wasn't keen on being on stage. Did it when I was younger?

And I sort of lost my courage when I got to about 15 and just thought, I want to write. I love writing stories, I love books, I love fiction. I just shook with nerves at an audition. It's like any rational, normal person, being on stage is really scary. I think that's 99.9% of people. If you pluck them off the high street now and took them through to a stage,

they would shit liquid and tremble. That's just a normal human reaction. And I didn't like that sensation, so I thought sod that. I also was obsessed with the idea of writing stories and books and novels. And if you can't, obviously, you can't be a novelist for living,

but you could be a journalist or a copywriter. So I thought, that's what I'm gonna do. Got first person in my family to go to uni, decided to do a more vocation. vocational end to the degree which took willpower because I wanted to finish with the flowery BA in English but I leapt across to the the vocational writing element at the end because I knew it would lead to a job quicker and then I was straight into an ad agency and I was in absolute heaven seeing around on pink couches coming up with concepts doing lunch it was it was I'd become middle

clock I had the flat in Clapham two pedigree cats dips in the fridge I was doing headlines I was working through the weekend you know I'm come from families of cleaners, manual labourers, you know, people, cousins that have been inside and all that. And, you know, I come from a counsellor state. There's nothing wrong with it, but that's my background. And I was living the dream. No interesting stand-up. I'd never been to see live stand-up.

It wasn't part of my childhood. There were no stand-ups I used to watch and think were inspiring. Did you have that? There's normally a creative person somewhere in the family, isn't there, but you can trace back. Or did you have that? Not that I know of. I was just the funny guy in the office. So when something happened, like everyone would be like, get Russell to tell it.

That's how it started. And that's what I've been like at school. So without knowing it, I've been practicing my whole life, gathering people around me and making everyone crack up. I wouldn't have thought about it in those terms at the time. I was just me. And so we got these things. The agency was quite a small agency.

It was only 50 employees. And every Friday we'd have these roundups. And I would deliver like the agency news and they got funnier and funnier. And then I was best man at my friend's wedding and I smashed that and someone said to me, why don't you just try a stand up, just try it. And I was like, because it bores me shit list. I got no interest in it. It makes me cringe when I watch a man trying to be funny on the day.

And did you have comics that you grew up? Nothing. Sort of thinking he's my idol. No, because in my house it wasn't like, hey, what is it tonight kids? Theater, stand up. It's like, Indian takeaway. We'll bring some back for you. Are you 16 now?

Drugs over the park. there wasn't like a cultural thing and it wasn't like I was from a poor family but there were books in the house because you get that there were no books in the house I was just a freak

Was there a suspicion of that cultural world or was it just not part of your world? It was just a door that had been walked past without realising it was there where's the point at which you say right okay I'm going to

say what you speak to anyone Russell Howard they had an Eddie Murphy tape they had something that they'd seen All I had, my dad occasionally watched Jimmy Jones and Roy Chubby Brown on VHS. That was my only contact with what I knew as stand-up. And you've got to remember, live at the Apollo with Jack D.

Started, I think, 2003, 2004. So alternative hadn't become mainstream at this point. It wasn't on telly yet. Honestly, not exaggerating this, I know stand-ups like to romanticise, but this is honestly what I did. I decided that night at home, I'm going to do it. I wrote down my five funniest stories that I would tell to people I'd just, So at the time I was a sperm donor, I thought that was quite funny.

So I'd always drop that in a pub that I'd donate. I was a sperm donor. So I thought, I'd tell that story. I'll tell a story living in my nan. Next day I went into work, Googled Stand Up Comedy London, and I said, I'm going to hit the first link and phone the first number and ask them if I can do stand-up. That's what I did.

Comedy Cafe came up first, clicked it, and I said, how do you do stand-up if you're an amateur? How does it work? What did you say to the person saying, hello, Comedy Cafe? I said, I'm an aspiring stand-up. How does it work? And he went, right, you come and do five minutes on a Wednesday, and you're in luck because all the stand-ups are in Edinburgh at the moment.

I didn't have a clue what he meant. Sorry, Russ. We've come to a junction. What should we do? There's a town centre. It's got to be there, right? Hang on, yeah. He said turn right at the Ford garage, isn't he?

Did he say turn right at the Ford? Russ, this is the garage, isn't it? Yeah, so it's right here. Yeah, so it's right, okay. So go on. So then, so you've got the comedy cafe. all the comics are in Edinburgh and I was like what do you mean in my mind obviously I've got a first-class honours degree in the arts how the hell had I got a first class honest degree in English and not

known what the Edinburgh Festival was in my back of my mind the Edinburgh Festival was ballet opera I didn't realise the fringe was a separate thing never heard of it in my life didn't know Perry Award none of it all foreign language to me and he said all the comedians here in Edinburgh so I'm like googling Edinburgh at the same time as I'm speaking to me. He went, I can get you on in two weeks. So in those two weeks, I went and watched stand-up three times for the first time.

What other stand-ups? Just to see what they did, and then copy it. Really? Really? I took the microphone out at the stand, I mean, I didn't have a clue. I did not have a clue. The first five minutes were okay, and I got one laugh in the middle.

And when that laugh hit, it reminded me of an advert I'd seen when I was about 12, that used to stop you taking heroin. And in the advert, you saw the needle go into the arm and the heroin go into the vein and the person go like that, that's what it felt like. It made me feel sick. It made me feel tired.

It took over my life, but I was fucking hooked. It completely f*** up my whole life. Why? When I came back after that first gig into my office the next morning, having taken the ego aversion of heroin for the first time, It was just because of the nature of advertising, you know, you need to be available to work evenings, work weekends,

you live the job, or one big team, I suddenly start disappearing three nights a week. Then I start going up to Manchester to do 20 minutes unpaid at the weekend. So desperate was I to re-experience the emotional heroin of people, strangers, laughing at me. And it got worse and worse. And I'd left. You keep using, it's interesting to me,

You keep using negative words, like worse, and this is when this terrible thing. Oh, I see. I was absolutely. But actually, it's a really positive thing. Now it is. Yeah. But you've got to remember is I come from a background where you don't have debt, you save up. And I was like, I can't believe Russell's left to college, got hired as a junior copyright.

And within 18 months, I was head copyrighted in an ad agency. So I was earning more than anyone in my family had ever earned. Not from being a stockbroker or working for a petrochemical company. But through using words in the arts, it's not easy to earn money in the arts. So for me to start not being dedicated, people putting question marks over me. It almost feels like you're having an affair or something. It was like you were cheating on your destiny. Did you feel that? When my mum was, it freaked my mum out, it freaked people who thought I should be bloody grateful and keep my head down.

Why am I doing an X factor disappear at my own ass thinking I'm going to be famous journey? Because it's only one in a hundred stand-ups that even gets in. sort of career, probably less than that. But I couldn't help it. From a money point of view, I was living in this 200 grand flat, 100% mortgage at the time. That was about when you could get them. So mortgage payments weren't insignificant each month, a couple of grand a month. I think the most I could earn was two, 300 quid a week with stand up at that point. So I saved a bit and just went for it. I left in March 2006. I left my job. And I did my first Edinburgh show in the August. I thought, if I don't get nominated for the Perrier, a newcomer, I'm going to go back to work.

If I did. I got nominated every year till I won it. Some of your ideas are pretty complicated, you know, and it's complex stuff you're doing. But I think you sometimes sneak it in by stealth. And I think guys that come and see you, and women, who sort of think, oh, I love him, he's brilliant. He was on, I'm a celebrity, and he was on the, you know. And they've seen you on something like that. And then they come in and you're discussing quite complex ideas about sexual politics and all that kind of stuff.

I do it in a simple way. Yeah, but I think that's interesting, isn't it? Yeah, because there are other stand-ups who remain nameless who like to take simple things and talk about them in a complicated way. And they were all supposed to be really impressed because they use the word onomatopoeia or something. Do you ever feel situations, like, do you feel kind of chippy with posh people? Not really, I've got a bit of an Evening War thing going on where I quite like being around posh people and want them to like me. Well, even what was your specialist subject on the Celebrity Mastermind, which you won? He was already posh and he had that about the Aristonelope.

aristocracy so he was going another class up sort of thing like this is the town centre well let's go for it's like a cute little town centre okay you know i ask you that because i really thought you didn't like me when you first met me really yeah and i met you in a working environment i don't even remember when was that well this is so interesting isn't it how you project your own stuff on to situations when you don't even remember when was the first time i think we were doing a show together yeah a radio show and i just really thought oh my god he hates me he thinks i'm really stuck off and then and then really The most of the most of I hate is Robert Mugabe and Hitler.

What you probably picked up on was lechery. Oh, I do hope so. That makes me more much fun. You know the boys are slightly horrible to people they fancy. Oh, well, that's great. The girls do it enough. That's a nice way of handling it. But no, the next time I saw you, and I worked with you,

and we sat down and we had a really nice chat, and I realized we really got on well, and I thought, no, we really get on, it's great. And weird, isn't that? Yeah, but isn't that interesting? Now I realize that was me just bringing some weird energy to that because I, and I think... You probably just read Lady Chatterley's lover or something.

I like, take you through to the potting shed, madam. You dirty bastard. Potting shed, never a potting shed. But I want to talk to you about the Hoffman process as well. Yes, please. Because this is something we've both done. And we should say, well, do you want to explain it for anyone listening who doesn't know what the Hoffman process is?

Well, it's hard to explain it properly about giving me details, which you're literally legally not allowed to do. We're not allowed to do, I know. Sign of form. But it's for everyone. It's for people whose lives are perfect. It's for people that have been on antidepressants their whole lives and it's for everyone in between. You might have a bit of OCD, they can't shift. They might have a bit of depression that's nagging but it's not

killing their lives. Or they might be in a bad place or they might have a temper that's slightly too fiery like I did. Or you might just want to go, like you would go to the gym for six weeks or a bit of self- improvement there was every level of person I think some of my friends are like what is this is a weird cult thing yeah what's you doing it's group it's basically group therapy yeah Colin sit sit well done you done really well I want you what's unique there's nothing unique in the ingredients it's the

combination of the three ingredients together it's teaching of like an actual course we sit down and do charts and write stuff there's the group therapy element where you'll see in a circle like I feel European and then the The unique thing they do is they combine that with a physical therapy as well, which sounds like complete American bullshit nonsense. I'm not going to describe what the physical therapy is, but I think it's safe to say if you go, if on this walk today, I slipped over and banged my leg,

I am more likely to remember this walk than if I wasn't injured, for example. So what I'm saying is there is a link between a physical sensation and memory, which I never ever thought before. So that means, say you've, I don't know, this is not anything you or I had. Say you've got mummy issues, for example. You can get closer to recalling those mummy issues if you were skipping at the same time.

So if I said, I want you to do 100 skipping, while telling me why you're pissed off with your mum. This doesn't happen. I'm trying to use an example. The body remembers, basically. We are physical creatures. Well, that's how animals learn as well. It's the triangulation of the physical.

physical therapy, the group therapy and the learning stuff that is the unique Hoffman process. The other unique thing is, which no one ever does. They spend tens of thousands of pounds going to the Priory and psychotherapists and on drugs they don't need and then they come back out an hour later and they're using their phones and everything. Hoffman cuts you off from your life completely for 10 days, nine and 10 days and how long it is now. It was 10 days mine was. You're not allowed exercise, you're not allowed books. The men aren't even allowed to masturbate. The women either. Well, they just assume that girls aren't going to be strumming one out in a dormitory.

You're like Queen Victoria and all thinking there's lesbians. Ladies don't masturbate. The average girl I know doesn't strum one out in a dormitory because they can't wait two days. We've got self-control. The average man, I know, does. I would say women have better impulse control, that's true. I would also, yeah, when I arrived at the Hoffman,

and a lot of people said to me, when you're given your laptop and your phone, some of my friends, and when I came out, and you are a bit irritating when you come out, because you're very evangelical and on. A bit irritating. People wanted to punch me. I was saying things like, you know, and you use this very forgiving, loving language.

Yeah. But I would say things like, you know, I appreciate that you feel that way and I respect this and it didn't last that long. But you integrate it. So what's all the stuff you've learned integrated with you? It's a charity. What are we going to say to the charity, Marco, the Charga? Well, I've definitely done my bit. I've just got back from Kenya and Uganda.

He didn't approach us. He knew not. And I also did a gig for Centrepoint the other way, because I've done my bit for homelessness and Africa. I always get a bit insulted when they don't approach me. Does that mean they think we're not good for it? I just look like I haven't got much to spare. I'm dressed like badly drawn boy from the naughties. But for me as well, I wasn't a very tactile person

before I did Hoffman. Like I particularly, I didn't like hugging and cheek kissing. It's not something I grew up with. And do you think that's changed? Since, from that day to this. Yeah. I hug everyone now. Even people I just met and fans at gigs and everyone and double cheek kiss

and it's just not. It's just not. It's just, I can't believe it ever wasn't normal. There were people on that course, on my particular course, in their 40s, that had been on antidepressants their whole lives. There was a man who turned up at the beginning of the week. Your typical sexist making the women feel uncomfortable, sallow skin, bags under the eyes, angry, you wouldn't want him for a boyfriend. I've never seen the physical complex.

It was like someone switched part of it. his brain on and colour came into his face he completely changed my particular issue that i was going it's no big secret yeah i would just had a bit of a temper and when the flip did you not with people with stuff i've never unfortunately never even managed to have a fight with another man but it was bad it was like you lose your macbook lose your car window kick your windscreening level of if it went it went sort of thing which doesn't fit with the rest of my personality. Never against a person, touch word, I've never laid a finger on a person or an animal in my life. It was stuff. It was more directly against me.

The more valuable the thing was to me, including myself. I wasn't averse to an old fist in the wall. So self-alming, essentially. Which I would then have to cover up and pretend I'd fallen over and stuff. When I got into stand-up, then I got to 2007, 2008, and I was trying to, you know, I was getting nominated for the peria. I was getting exposure from TV. My relationship with Sadie was getting complicated.

The pressure had got to something I'd never experienced in my life before, the emotional pressure. That's what stand up brings to bear on you in emotional pressure. And that's when things started to ramp up. You know, I thought, soon or later, I'm going to turn around and put my fist through glass or something, bloody kill myself or something like that.

You know, like punch the wrong thing and hurt myself. And there was just one particular incident. All I hit was a bloody plate. It was over something ridiculous. I was never scary. Like I've never lived with a woman. It's like, you scare me that it was always against me. I just hit a plate with my fist, but the way it broke, it cut me so badly. It scared me. And I was just like, that's enough. So I was like a anger management sort of thing. I suppose that's what I got wrong, which is weird because I'm never angry. There was just an article, Goldie talking about it, who I was into his music, about Hoffman. It's like for people.

that really are ready to make a change. Not that want someone to do it for them, that are really ready. And from that day, from the day I left, in September 2009, not once, not once have I ever hit a single thing. Not once. Really?

Now that cannot be a f***ing coincidence. I clearly wasn't going to grow out of it, so I was 35, it was getting worse. Well, I think what's interesting about that story you've just said, and I find that really, to know, I find that really moving actually. because I feel that what it equips you with, and it's not a cure, it doesn't make you this perfect person

who never has problems or doesn't get upset. You manage your reactions. You manage your reactions, exactly. So your responses to people and to situations. And that was obviously, you know, they also say, don't they, that you learn that pretty much most of what you do and what defines your daily behaviour, you can trace back to patterns you've learnt from your parents.

Correct, yeah. and that's all they are as patterns. That's it. As soon as you realise that. It's just, they totally lose their power. I mean, I'm still, I'm not allergic to a door slam or a raised voice, but I think I'm not too harsh on myself. I still put that in the category of normal behaviour.

Every person slams a car door because of a parking ticket. I think you've got to give yourself a bit of leeway. No screen, no glass, no object. More important, no part of my skin has been broken. broken since that day out of anger, which is mental. You would think there'd be at least one falling off the wagon. I know you dealt with this a lot on your shows as well, but your parents, you came from, you've discussed,

you know, you've talked about your background. Unbroken home, undivorced, unabused, never hit by my dad, school uniforms, holidays, pets. Yeah, okay, we live in the council street, but we bought our own council house that we then extended. My dad put a swimming pool in the back garden. Out of all my friends, we were the best off. There was nothing missing there.

But my dad was just a negative, very negative man. And so it's lucky for me, it's very funny. So like a traffic jam and the whole day's f***. The traffic's the whole, it's one of those, one of them. If a glass of water gets spilled at dinner, whole meal ruined. trousers soaked. Every word, the maximum negative word it could be. Some kids would be like, it sounds to me like you had one of the best

childhoods on the planet. There are people fishing dysentery water out of a well in Rwanda. But for me, it obviously just had a profound effect on my inner monologue. Everything you try will fail, it will turn to shit, it will rain later, you will tread in dog shit, you will crash your car, it will break down, you will be ripped off, you will end up in debt just over and over and over and over and over and over and over so don't try just no try and try definitely admit no no quite worse mixed with a violent trying energy that never stops yeah a violent constant hamster wheel effort yeah it's never gonna work out

faster on the hamster wheel while slagging the hamster wheel off that's my dad's emotional model so it never has never affected me it's never affected my success but obviously somewhere embedded in me, when I can't find my house keys, for example, it flips that switch. Do you then go to a place where the whole day's screwed, everything's gone wrong, I can't find the, is that how you'll... Yeah, that starts, and it ends very quickly with a kicked in Brabantia bin, what it used to. Not anymore.

Nice bin. You know the silver Brabantia with a kickmark. I know the Brabantia. Or the plasterboard hole in the wall that you have to then repair for, you move out. You know. Hoffman is only nine days. But when I think back, it was like I was there about six months. It was so intense. Like Big Brother house shit.

And on the final day, I had the advert, the idea of advert, the idea for smokescreens and castles. I said, I'm going to do a show just about my dad this year. And I'm going to walk through my childhood house, room by room, and think of a routine that relates to each room, living room, TV, bedroom, set, garage, cars. And that's what I did. I won the Perrier off the back of the Hoffman.

That's incredible. And your life totally changed for you then? It did. Stand up when you're like me. Like I started late. In fact, I started exactly the same as Frank Skinner, age 28. Really? And so where I've been practicing my whole life and had this,

it's a talent, isn't it? It's not arrogant to say it's a talent. Obviously, I went a lot further, a lot quick. the most other guys we've been going for years. Then when I won the Perrier, I sort of jumped up and then it goes back down the other side temporarily. So you sort of get that initial success when you think that's it, I'm going to, I'm the next track while I'm going straight to the arenas.

But for most of us, 90% of us, you have to then go back down and then do a slower climb up the next hill, which is what I'm doing at the moment. Well, do you think it's a bit like when you graduate, which is how I relate to that, or if you're not a stand up. That's what it was like after the Perrier. So you made a few, I made a few BBC 3 series. You're the next big thing. you're the next big thing for a few years, then that dies away.

And then you have to work on, okay, what am I going to do now? Once I'm in my sort of Jonathan, Ross, Graham Norton phase, I've got to get that. And that's what I'm working on at the moment. I've had a good run of it being the young bloke. So I thought, well. When you say Jonathan Ross, Graham Norton, you mean sort of. What's my long term? What's Russell 2.0?

Yeah, what's my long term career? And what is Russell 2.0? I've done the Skinny Gene BBC 3. I've had a brilliant career out of it. I've done seven tours out of it. So I thought, I'm going to explain. explicitly comb my hair and call it right man wrong age, say. It's time to grow up.

The time for pretending to be younger than you are is over. This is me. I've had a kid. It was time to grow up. And this is my birth certificate. This is how old I am. I'm not scared of it anymore. And bang, of course, that's all very funny.

And that's what's led to the... There's no dressing it up. It's the most successful tour I've ever done. Reviews-wise, commercially, everything. And why do you think that is? No idea. It's... I tell you what it is. Out of the six or seven shows I've toured, I've got two types of show.

Properly funny, belly laugh, like McIntyre type show. Yeah. And then a kind of emotional, profoundly type, trying to be like Daniel Kitson type show. But the ones that are really good are the ones that have a bit of both. So smoke strings and castles was, that's my dad, it's probably funny. But then people cried at the end. Yeah. So, of course, when Miner was born.

Well, that's the dream, isn't it? Yeah. When Miner was born. And I thought, yeah, that's my daughter to the minute. I thought, well, I'm going to do it again here. I've got enough stories with my dad I haven't used yet. So I literally just talk about my year of growing up and the baby being born. And I thought there's so many shows about men talking about, oh, I've got a kid now.

But no men talk about the emotional and psychological experience of pregnancy. I've never heard it. They do a bit like, oh, and I couldn't stick my dick in because I thought the baby's head was going to touch my willy. That's the only routine I've ever heard. They do their, oh, what's it like seeing your favourite pub burn down? And then they can't wait to get on to the jokes about, and then I was changing nappies. But who's ever stuck for an hour and talked about scans, male fears, breach birth? All the stuff that women talk about, men do have an opinion on it.

They just keep their mouths shut for nine months because they're shitting themselves that they don't want to... Because obviously it's not really their journey. It's not their world. Or they're sort of conditioned to think it's not their world. Right. But at the same time, men are having all these feelings. I thought, well, that's very, very funny. And I know the girls in the audience

when I start talking all lean forward in their chairs thinking, finally we get to hear what a man really thinks about X, Y, Z. So that's what I did. I'm always looking for that angle. There's loads of shit about my dad in there, loads of shit about Lindsay. Obviously, I'm going to say it's funny,

but I do think it's the funny show. And so... Do you think also, I mean, I would describe you as a feminist comic? Probably. Would you say that's fair? I think the word, unfortunately, has been ruined for...

a lot of sensible women that believe in quite reasonable things. Yeah. By a lot of keyboard warrior idiots. Yeah. I think real feminism is much more practical and hard work and doesn't really appeal to the sort of regional dwelling column writing activist. Well, I think it's just respect, isn't it? That's sort of what it comes down to for me.

So when we were talking earlier, to bring back to our earlier conversation, so Russell Cain's Letchy Harvest, during that period of your life, When... I couldn't enjoy it if the woman was deceived about what was really going on. So if that makes me a feminist, then I am. But then I think some men get off on the deception of it. Yeah. Do you think that's true?

Like when I watch the programmes like Jordy Shaw, they just want to get laid. And then they do functional David Attenborough animal pumping. I'm like, what... It's clearly not about the sex because they sort of... They actually do it with a broken, blank look on their face, like a junkie just sticking the needle in. just to get high. Some men it's just a power trip. It's like a toddler completing the shape cube.

But then in a way. Whereas for me, I actually, it was about the connection of, I don't want to turn into Luther Vandross or Barry White, but I always, girl always would stay the night, always. Like I would never do a kind of now, get out. And why did you feel? I mean, with Lindsay, it obviously was different, wasn't it? And you just felt this is the right person for me. Well, I just saw her two or three times and actually my instinct was right stop seeing and now you're falling into your old pattern right and uh but once it got to the once it had been three or four months and I was still feeling the urge to see her like you're just sort of proving something to yourself now let's just go with this take it slowly and see what happens two years

later married but the main thing that's changed in the last year this time last year I've got a series commission for BBC 2 and I player called stupid man smartphone I go to really inhospitable parts of the earth, get dumped, and all I'm allowed is an iPhone with signal guaranteed and a different companion for each episode. We are then told on the first day, this is your mission. Episode three, I was being pursued by dogs at the old Soviet border. Right. I was with a YouTuber called Mazzie Maz. And we were staying in an abandoned building one night with only a fire made from old rubbish to keep us warm. There were dogs and sirens in the background. I'll never forget this moment. He turned to me and said, explain something

to me, Russell. Why does none of your lot, like traditional stand-ups, put an iPhone on a tripod and perform stand-up down it and put it online? And I was like, well, it doesn't really work like that. We refine our stand-up for months and months and it's, then we do it on lively Apollo and it's worth all this money. And obviously, who would come to see me on tour if they'd already heard it? He went, no, no, no, no. I'm not talking about that stuff. He said, I'm talking about pointing to the newspaper and saying, I know, look. a pop star just got caught shagging behind a bin and just doing some stand-up about that. So I did the first one thinking I'm going to get absolutely slated here, caned, put it on my

Facebook and I wrote to Mazzie Maz and I was like, oh, it's sort of working but not working. He went, pick something that everyone's talking about and just talk about that and put it in the title. Yeah. Explained our hashtags and all that work. So the next one I did, Kim was when Kim Kardashian had exposed herself to Bet Midler. She did around with Bet Midler and Kim Kardashian got her fan. And he had tits out.

I was like, there go, bitch, shut up. And I thought, well, that's quite funny. Imagine if that's how normal human beings dealt with conflicts. I don't write it. I improvise for 10 minutes. Do you? So you don't prepare any of that stuff? I might write, while I'm in the shower,

might write a bullet down quickly. But you're just riffing in the way that you would. And then I just, the reason it looks like jump cuts is because I've got no choice. It's just my iPhone stuck to a window. Cut it for an hour and post anywhere between two and three minutes. And is that doing really well for you? What I realized was if it's a trending

subject that everyone's talking about, which unfortunately doesn't happen very often. It really goes wild. So I did one about the sugar tax. 800,000 people watch. Pokemon Go, 2 and a half million people. Watch Pokemon Go. I did it just because a 19 year old told me to. A 19 year old told me to go and film stand-up in my bedroom. And I thought every single person in the industry is going to get, oh my good, what, because you're not on TV, you're going to... You need to sell out and do stand-up. Quite the opposite. And now you've got two and a half million people watching.

I used to think you were shit. That's what we give them a go. And then Carol will be replying, let's get two tickets for Peterborough. Yeah, okay. Maybe this is the future, Russ. You see, it seems to me you've got your tour, you've got your caning.

Yeah. And do you think, like, is your life, is this, would you have looked into the future? I thought this is exactly how I want my life to be. I never would have seen this coming with the technology side of it. But now I'm just going to run with the caning stuff because it's led to all kinds of things.

I've been on Question Time. I saw you on Question Time. I thought you were really good. So it's now feeding back into the teleworld. When you're on things like question time, when you're famous, I think people hear your name and then there's word associations that go with that. Do you know what I mean?

So they think Russell Kane and they think? Strinky hair twat from BBC 3. So you think that's what they think? I think that's what I did. Yeah. I don't think that's just, that's purely my thought. I got out of nowhere. I win this Perrier Award.

They stick me on like the youths. channel and I made a program now on and it was all like it was a smashed up theater we were the we were the gothy rebel brother of live of the apollo so I dressed for the part thinking I was getting it right eyeliner and skinny jeans yeah I sort of went with it I was having a great time I didn't realize that people were thinking it looked to other people like I was cynically changing my image because I was on because I got a bit of publicity whereas in fact what I was doing was like any actor or performer I was dressing for the part, which I thought was what you're supposed to do. And I thought, oh, it's really cool.

Everyone's going to think I'm really cool. I'm going to spike my hair up. I've never, you know, I've never given a shit about what I wear before. It never went any deeper than that, like most people would think. But of course, because I'm a man and I'm a man of a certain age, people didn't tolerate it. There was a bit of a backlash. But it's worked in my favour now because now I can comb my hair and talk about the backlash. Now that's your new show.

You know why I like talking to you? You're honest. Yeah, I got some stick for lying about my age, but if anyone asked me what my age was, I would always tell them. All that happened was in one interview, less person was like, how old are you, Russ? I went, I went, guess, and they said to the age, and I went, go on put that, and it started from there. Because obviously, I'd look a little bit younger than my age. I look a lot younger than my age. Sorry, Russ, I've just died and gone to heaven with this time.

Is that a Norwich Terrier? Is that a Norwich, or a Norfolk Terrier? It's a Norfolk Terrier. Oh, brilliant. Hi, Northfetteria. Is that good dog knowledge or what? It's hard to tell her Norfolk from a Norwich. They're very similar, aren't they?

And the Cairns, the base Cairns, look quite similar. No, I recognise it straight away. Oh. Gertie, you actually look like you're breathing. What's your dog called? Gertie. Lovely. Well, I'm feeling like there's a bit of a,

it's a bit upstairs downstairs between Colin and Gertie. Yeah. Colin's the butler, isn't he? No. Gertie's the posh lady. No. No. Gertie's the stable girl.

Oh, Gertie. Bye, Gertit. You're so cute. You're lovely to meet you. Bye-bye. Now that is good dog breed knowledge. Come on. I'm really impressed by that. If you look on my library shelf, I've got about three books of different dog breeds.

And I went through a period of being obsessed with them. Like, as an adult, where I would just tour, where I wanted a dog so much, I would read the profiles of every dog breed. That'd be a good specialist subject for me. Anyway, so I was telling you, yeah. So when people guess my age... Oh yeah, gone. Like people I've just met, they always think I'm about 10 years. It's getting...

the older I get, the younger the guess he's getting. So a few years ago, people would think I was like two or three years younger than I was. Then when the article where, you know, I should have corrected the person didn't, it was five years. Now when I meet people, they think I'm about 30 or something, 31, 32. So can I, how old are you? Forty-one. Well, you look great. And what it is is I've got too much, lucky for me, I've got the benign version, which just is what most people would call double jointed.

So I'm obviously unusually flexible for a man of my age. The giveaway sign that it's not just flexible is though my feet are completely flat. I have to wear like Shrek sort of thing. Yeah, I have to wear orthotic implants. That's a Shih Tzu, isn't it? Unusually thick hair. He's an angrily shih Tzu this. Is it?

Is it? Oh, he's really not happy. Hello. Hi Shih Tzu, don't get across. Don't go away. No, we'll do a walk by, I think, on that one. That's not... I spotted that. See, I can read dogs. What did you read there? Tell me what happened.

Body language was aggressive. The feet were forward, the head was forward. It was aggressive. You could tell from back there. And I went diving in and he barked. Yeah, because he... and also he's got a fringe down, so he might just been being defensive. And I had sunglasses on. That is a dog. I can almost guarantee... Look at him. What's his story that dog? He's got a lot of anger. He sleeps on the bed and he's allowed on the sofa. Guarantee.

Well, I was going to do both those things with my dog, but maybe I shouldn't. Why can I not allow the dog on the bed? Because once the dog has the same authority level as you, if someone comes in and oversteps what considers his mark, it's his flat, not yours, and that's how kids get bitten and shit like that. And do you think that's why that chit-so was always really aggressive? That was leading the walk, not her. He was in charge of the walk.

So he gets to decide what is and isn't allowed. Very, very dangerous, particularly with a small dog. They're down at children height, you know. Why don't you do a dog? programme. You know so much about them. Yeah, so I've got flat feet. Oh yeah, so we go back to the collagen plant. My skin's a bit stretchier than it should be.

Yeah. Well, this is great news for your daughter. So if you look on my face, there's not many lines from... There's not any lines. I thought, I've got to be honest, I thought you had Botox. Look, look, look when I go like that. You've got lines. Then I do that?

Botox free. So you look super young. So congratulations on this. But when I was younger, I just looked to my age. But when I got to 27, 28, we're still getting ID'd, I just kept going to. with it. So what happened was, someone said to what's your real age? I'll go, oh yeah, I'm this age and I'd find it hilarious. Yeah. So I was, I didn't really, I wasn't very good at keeping a secret. I wasn't very palomera about it.

So people were seeing that's Paloma face. You don't say who famously fib's about her age. Paloma says the same as me. She's like, what's the big deal man? Everyone does it. And people were looking at my sudden change of hairstyle, sudden change of clothes, fibbing around my age. I were like, oh my God, well that stuff about his dad, none of it. He obviously is not a genuine person after all. I think that's what happened, I think. And if I hadn't nipped it in the bud quickly with a complete self-awareness and taken it head on, I think I could have had a problem. But I didn't. I was like, great.

If that's what everyone thinks, brilliant. There's a f***ing great show in that. Right man, wrong age. Let's take it on the road. Do you know what I start to think as I get older, and I don't know about you. Sorry to bring up getting older, Russ. But as I get older, I think people will accept anything. Yeah.

If you're honest. Yeah. I mean, I say that. Except, I mean, I'd still hate it. And chlamydia, that doesn't really. Yeah. Yeah. That's not so great.

definitely got some media. If you tell me beforehand, I don't mind. Well, that's unusual. Give me it. What a lovely way thing to everyone. I've had a very different route. It's definitely syphilis. Do you know what?

I respect your honesty, not the normal reaction. Ross, I've really enjoyed our walk. Did you enjoy it? It's been amazing. You've got some stuff out of me that I honestly have never spoken about before. I haven't got to do. Is this the right house? Definitely yes.

Russell, this isn't your house. I hope you enjoyed walking the dog. enjoyed walking the dog, thank you for listening, and don't forget to subscribe on iTunes, otherwise, no treats for you.