Ep 177 with Laura Smyth (Part 1) : Gigging is so real, we are very lucky

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We risk becoming an island of strangers.

We will strive for the de-nots of occasion of the club.

Do it, do it.

Come, Jack, come here.

Yes, you can.

They're eating the dogs.

They're eating the dinosaurs.

They're eating the dinosaurs.

And the thing is, we want to learn to do it in the Christmas.

I just don't think everyone should be sure.

Or the fuck?

He's going on.

Hello, everybody.

I'm Mark Steele.

Welcome to my podcast.

Sometimes I say these words and think, does that really reflect the way the world is?

Some weeks I think these are the only words that anyone can start any conversation with.

What the fuck is going on?

What the fuck is going on?

It's always a joy to speak to whichever delightful soul opposite me here.

But on this particular week, a particular joy, because at no point did I have to think,

oh my god, I hope they don't think I'm too common with my dirty little comprehensive

school background, because we were very much one on this sort of thing and it'll be my

absolute delight to speak to a very brilliant Laura Smith.

Every week I asked what the fuck is going on.

Nobody's got a clue until this week.

Because Laura Smith, how absolutely lovely to have you with us and explain what the fuck

is going on in so many ways.

We'll try it.

Well, I think it's Joe what?

I'll say it's an advance.

I think this is going to be show don't tell.

I think we will, I think we will glean from what you've got to say, what the fuck is

going on without you banging it on the edge.

I'm not banging on the edge.

I'm not afraid of hitting stuff right on the head sometimes, but I will at quest to experience.

You have got a bit of banging on the edge about it.

Don't call me a blunt instrument, Mr. Steele.

No, I think you could be both.

Well, you do.

You're like a cricket order that can stroke the ball through the covers and can whack it

over the ball as well as head for six.

Lovely.

I will pretend I understand the analogy.

I heard six.

I know that's good in cricket.

What the fuck is going on indeed?

Well, let's start with, because we've got to talk about this.

Let's talk about it.

Cancer survivors.

Do you have a say that, do you?

I do it in a heavy, heavy inverted comment.

Yeah, yeah.

I can't be earnest about stuff and cancer might require you to be earnest, but I always

sometimes go, breast cancer survivor, Laura Smith, yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's fine if it's to be fun.

Of course.

I am a cancer survivor.

Oh, fuck.

Well, actually, as a cancer survivor, I find your second hand smoke quite offensive.

Can you roll me one, please?

Oh, God.

I said, yeah.

Yeah.

I said, yeah.

Yeah.

So you could defend any, any arguing, you could sort of, you could be talking absolute shit.

Followed it.

It's a standard, yeah.

You could, I can imagine.

Oh, that's what, there's the liberally people who do it more.

I can imagine someone, I can imagine some senior person in the labour party going as a

cancer survivor.

I think my views on the efficacy of Peter Mendelssohn are actually better than yours.

Look, we're in a real deep professional victimhood stage of the world, aren't we?

Well, you know, it's very, it's great.

It's so great to paint yourself as a victim, because then you're at the top of any pyramid,

aren't you?

Yeah.

And we all know it when there's a victim in the family, you're at the top of the pile.

And I do think like, Staticism's gone out of window.

I did in my, in my book about my cancer journey.

Yes.

I did a whole chapter on the Stoics, because during my time in the hospital, very, very early

on, the first sort of radiotherapy session I had, I'd become mates with a soldier who

was also having his first session, and his was a much more difficult cancer than mine.

And he said, I rather think that in moments like this, it sort of, it rather helps to turn

to the sterics.

Yeah.

So I'm going to do that.

And so I went through a Marcus Aurelius Meditations of Stoics, and it is brilliant, have you ever

read any of it?

I haven't.

I, my, my into it was, I was a Deadminton's book.

He was talking about it a lot as well, and A Deadminton talked about it on his, Desi Island

discs, which made me interested in it.

I would describe my mum as a Stoic, I would, I, what I subscribed to, and I think this ties

into Stoicism.

And this is me, this is me, very away from the fact that I'm running the classics or Marcus

Aurelius Meditations.

But I'm, I really subscribed to Body New Trailery, we, we before we started recording, there's

a lot of body positivity or there's negativity, I'm a big believer in sort of Body New Trailery.

Now, the joke I was talking about cancer is that you think it's going to be Bishbashbosh,

you've got it all you ain't, and you kick its ass in modern parlance, or you don't.

But the truth is, it's not Bishbashbosh, it's a lot of Bishbish, Bishbish, Bishbish, Bishbish,

and you think, I'm, I'm, I'm I alright yet.

And then even when you have, you know, supposedly beat the cancer, or if there's no evidence

of disease, what you're left with is, I'm talking very loudly, because I know you're hearing

to be...

Yeah, yeah, I got, right, as we sit here now, my next thing to do after we've, whenever

we've finished, whenever that might be, is I've got to go to, and he's a marvelous thing

that they do.

Yeah.

He's a, a hearing appointment thing, because me hearing's a little bit wobbly, but...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because you know, as a, as a hearing sufferer, a survivor.

Oh, yeah.

As a deaf cunt.

And I...

Joe, what it is, aesthetic value, because you can't, I mean, we're two edits a minute,

but I think, I, I like most people, I think, can you mount on that more positive about

human beings than I went, not, I think I was always positive, but more, more so.

Uh, but one of the things I could see could be annoying, I mean, I don't blame people

at all.

But this is, if you, if you have struggles in hearing, my problems mostly are if I'm in

a crowded room, and then everything, everything, a bit like when a CD used to go wobbly.

Yeah.

So sometimes someone, if someone was a little bit quiet, and there's a sort of crowded room

and someone's going, so what have you got, you know, which town are you going to next

anyway?

Yeah.

And I go, oh, sorry, can you speak up, please?

I can't really hear.

Yeah.

All right.

So now, can you speak up, please?

Cause I can't hear it.

And on the fourth time, there is a temptation to go, I said, speak up, you're fucking

asshole.

Do you think my hearing suddenly got better in the half a second between ending the fucking

center that you saying it the next time?

Yeah.

Well, I, I sort of always avoided that, and I perfectly understand it must be your quiet

person.

But it's frustrating because you are changed now.

You are changed and you're living with that.

I would view it on the opposite because I'm loud anyway, but I might be in danger of

doing what my daughter calls my foreign voice.

I thought it says I've got a foreign voice, but she went, I speak to foreign people.

She's like, I can see her face behind her, because I'm like, yeah, yeah, because we went

to the Medina.

We got a taxi.

Yeah, it was good.

It was good.

You know, when I'm on holiday, it's all good to the fucking receptionist.

So I stopped doing your foreign voice, you monolinguistic, ignorant Brit.

That's what, you know, like speaking English is a foreign language.

That was what it should be because it's actually teaching English to Portuguese, but it should

be that.

There should be an actual geo-lingo thing where it translates this into English abroad.

Yeah.

I would like to know where the bus stop is, where's the bus stop?

The bus?

Yeah.

Brum brum bus.

And that is me.

Fucking idiot, Italian.

No.

No.

So I am, I'd probably be more in danger of doing that, but what I was told was the body neutrality

of it.

So, you know, yours is slightly more hidden, but you know, I've had my boobs off, I've

had my ovaries and floppy and tubes out.

Oh, really?

And what that sounds like?

All of that.

I've had, you know, I've lost the hair, I'm on hormone blockers, you know what I mean.

So there's all these things that you're adjusting to the new you.

And actually, I just like anything, like a bit of a fat gut or a stretch, you know, or

creases in my eyes.

I just subscribe to body neutrality.

My body very much reflects my life and experiences.

Do all it like Margot will be?

No.

I don't.

But I'm still so much, all the better for that.

All the better for that.

There's a little, but you know, other people aren't, other people, I've had friends that

have lost their hair and I've really struggled with losing that.

And you know, when people have asked me, oh, your curls, I've kind of not really thought

about it.

You know, I've not.

Did you have chemo?

Yeah.

Slant six months of chemo.

So did your hair come out?

So there's lots of sort of bits of you doing stand-up with nowhere?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, let's not be silly now.

Let's not be silly.

I spent £400 on a wig because I weren't going to be parmed off in an HS one.

OK.

And I kept on gigging.

I just kept on gigging it.

And the thing is the reason you spend £400 on a wig or calls is so it don't look like

a wig.

And then when someone says, core, I like your hair.

You go, thanks.

It's a wig.

You can't help yourself.

Did I read?

It's like a dress with pockets.

A strange thing that's happened to me was I've done it.

I've been on money just really.

The last few months got going with the Instagram thing.

And of course, you get all the sort of crazy angry people that write on there.

Most people are lovely, of course, but the old one, you know.

And then there was a couple that I did.

I don't know, I must have been from a funny angle.

I don't know.

And then quite a few people were going, what's the matter with your wig?

Sort your wig out.

I didn't really have a wig.

So what's that?

What a fucking useless shitty wig you look like.

Right.

And then a couple of people were going, don't you think it's a bit insensitive

given that he had cancer to complain about his wig?

And now they're arguing about my non-existent wig this week.

Yeah.

But this is it.

There's always something on social media, right?

And this is what's funny.

And this is, you know, you learn a little bit resilience here.

Is that you get something that does numbers, as they say, goes well.

And you get everyone, haha, share, share, light, light, light.

And then, of course, the negatives come.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you have to write, so you write out all the good,

then you write out all the negative.

And if you shut up and sit on your hands long enough and don't reply,

they'll argue amongst themselves, the snakely itself.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Go mad, go for it.

I always have this thing like, ooh, look at her.

Oh, she put a non-binary lesbian or something,

because I had the short hair and all that.

Be great if they actually spoke like that.

Y'all do, they do speak like that in my mind.

And then, on my temptations, always to go,

actually, I've got short hair, because it can't sound a thing.

I don't give a fuck whether you think I'm a fucking non-binary,

shaved dead lesbian or, you know,

they really always come for your comments.

They always come for your looks, especially for women.

They come for your looks.

And you go, drop me out.

I was just a woman with an opinion.

So you do learn a little bit of resilience.

And I was going to go back to what you were saying about me in,

you made the radio therapy.

In the same way, comedian, green rooms,

comedy club, green rooms are my favorite place on Earth.

There's something about a chemo ward and daily radio therapy

where everyone is so stripped back.

You're so stripped back in terms of all your,

you're so vulnerable that the connections you make

in those rooms of those people you see daily,

there's something, there is something so magic.

And it's like a privilege of that,

of that being stripped back, you know, you look like shit,

everyone looks like shit.

You see, someone come in with yellow eyeballs

and you think, oh, mate, you're a bit further cognitive me

and there's such humanity in the room

that there's nowhere to hide, and that's lovely.

I was doing a bit of a show about how,

and it sounds like a sort of wanky thing to say,

but it's really true.

I think the chemo therapy room that I used to go to

is possibly the most peaceful place I've ever been to.

I love it.

And it was just, you know, the first day I was there,

there was a sign up saying, sorry, there's a two-hour delay,

you're almost like it's a sort of, you know, like that.

There's not everything we go.

Like it's being run by virgin trains.

And then, I don't, well, I've got cancer,

what I'm going to do, I'm going to sit here,

and then I got chatting to a bloke who wasn't having chemo,

he was having arsenic.

He had this leukemia and that they decided

that the cure was arstic, and he was fitting off.

You had to be fitting off to withstand the arsenic.

And then that bit, and then if you could stand,

withstand that for a couple of weeks,

then your body got used to it, and then he was on that foot.

And all the while I'm thinking,

if I say, okay, I believe this is you're going to go,

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, he only believed it,

but it was true, this is a kill for it.

So, and he was a lovely, lovely bloke,

and then you get chatting to the other people,

and it's just like, I'd say it was like

when in a gentleman's club,

other than women were allowed in it,

and then you're all on a drip,

and I say, you know, people,

it felt like people would sort of,

the nurses would say, your cannula is ready for you,

so would you, why should we be playing poker today?

Why is choice?

And it was just, it was a lovely, lovely,

it's very gentle.

It's very gentle, gentle sort of room, and...

Yeah, you'd like to bottle that kindness and consideration,

and I don't know about, I think you were diagnosed

a little bit after me,

because I was still in COVID measures,

so my husband had to get the train.

My husband's off to that, yeah.

We'd go up and he'd go into a Maggi's,

and obviously he was doing a lot of support for me,

and these Maggi's centers,

I don't know if you've ever used them.

Oh, God, I've just got a thing about doing a charity for them,

just this morning.

They're wonderful, so it started from an architect

that had stage 4 cancer,

and she just, you know,

talking about the clinical plastic chairs of,

you know, you have these horrendous diagnoses,

and, you know, and information,

and to take it on board,

and you're sitting in these very clinical sort of,

you know, municipal sort of...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So they design beautiful buildings,

and sometimes I'll take to my husband,

oh, no, I'll be all right, Ganna Mann.

He's like, no, no, no, I'll come up,

and he sort of pack a backpack,

and books and love these Maggi's places,

because he found a place to rest there,

and then I'd be on my own,

and then I had some recent,

I had sort of six monthly injections after treatment,

and then Coscova measurement, he could come with me,

and he understood the piece of it,

and just this connection,

and, you know, there's nothing like

facing your own mortality to value life,

and all these ironies are like,

and cliches are like, a true,

because you just sort of,

sometimes you put things into perspective,

and you're like, yeah, I'm here,

and you...

So, do you think you're, you do,

think things a bit differently

without realizing it now than before?

Oh, my gosh, of course, of course.

I mean, my diagnosis came just as I'd quit teaching,

and I didn't go back in September,

then got the diagnosis, and, you know,

you'd like to think it's not that,

but especially with social media,

I think it's always had a bit of that,

you know, we're competitive people comedians, aren't we?

See, there's a little bit of, like,

the dream became the day job then,

and it was a bit like, oh, not the week,

and all, well, I get live at the point

of who's got this, and who's got what,

and there's so much sort of crunky noise.

And actually, you get a diagnosis,

when you've got three kids,

and you go, oh, I just,

the only thing I want is to live.

Yeah.

That's the only thing I want,

I would be on Sunrise Dog Walks,

and the only thing I wanted to do is sleep,

and I have to sort of reconnect with that,

sometimes when things get a little bit like,

antsy or ambitious,

and something I did so much work,

my philosophy was always,

let the doctors treat the cancer,

I'll treat myself because this came from somewhere,

this mutation, this malignancy grew from somewhere,

not to do any self-blame,

but I did so much,

I went to a hypnotherapist,

I had a spiritual healer,

healer, I went to a cranial osteopath,

and I still see these people,

and what I realized, I barely breathed,

I sort of still don't know.

So what is a hypnotherapist?

I'm like, for all of these one by one,

I'm not familiar with any of these, right?

Yeah, I still see him.

Hypnotherapy really functions,

we have the talking therapies, don't we?

We have sort of,

I'm like this, cause of XYZ,

and that's just a narrative and understanding,

and I have had that before,

but actually, hypnotherapy,

what I like about it is,

in the first session,

maybe I've just got a good hypnotherapist,

he breaks down how the brain works,

and he breaks down our rectilium brain,

and we're trained to hold onto these traumas and herts

and anxieties to keep us safe,

but actually, that part of the brain

really no longer serves us in the modern world,

we can hold onto, oh, that's where the tigers are,

that's important or fire burns,

but actually, oh, that night I bombed at the store,

it doesn't have to be held onto, so heavily,

or that night, that time, the guy goes at me.

That's fast asleep, of course.

Sorry, sorry.

No, it is fast asleep,

so we're holding onto these things,

but of course, like anything,

any change that we want to do,

give up smoking, stop eating some March,

or change our conscious mind,

our ego and our frontal lobes go,

oh no, no, no, these things have kept us safe, stop, stop, stop.

So hypnotherapy functions,

the sort of bypass all of that,

and go in through the back door,

through the subconscious,

so you go into a sort of bit of a trance state,

in the same way, like, I lose the jetties.

Does that actually hypnotize you?

Yeah, you're hypnotized,

you're really in a trance state,

and it can be really trippy, you know,

you can be really like on a sort of trippy one,

where you're sort of walked into,

you know, you're talked into a sort of relaxed state,

and you know, you picture a room,

and I've had ones,

and you know, there's two rooms almost calling me,

and I'm going into the light room with a microphone,

but actually this dark room's calling me

that I don't want to go into,

and I'm sure enough,

when I go into the dark room,

where I can't see the floor, can't see the sides,

the one this was a real trippy trance,

but as I went into the dark room,

the darkness dissolved,

and I was just in absolute,

just, it's like I went into a darkness and fears,

and just loads of things like that.

Well, because you sort of,

in my adult mind, I think,

all right, don't they just go teach it,

tell you there's no such thing as the number six,

so you can't count your fingers,

like in the...

Oh, like, you're under.

Don't be surprised, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, and also, you know,

it's a talking therapy,

and it's just about that sort of rewiring of the brain

to not hold these things so heavily,

and I think when I was facing my mortality,

in my head, I thought,

well, live or die,

whatever's on the other side,

I don't want to carry this shit with me anymore.

That's what it got down to.

I don't want to carry the insecurities,

the sense of not being good enough,

the rejection sensitivity.

I don't want to carry that shit anymore.

I don't want to carry negative things about myself.

I don't want to die having not cracked life.

So actually, I kind of overcame the fear of dying,

the fear of cancer,

the fear of everything.

And actually, what it's taught me,

a lot of the restorative yoga that I did in the spiritual

is about really a sense of wholeness,

a sense of cohesion, a sense of reconciliation,

and just being very present.

See that, I think that is very stoic.

It sounds like it's coming from a different sort of

the language around that is very different,

but what Mark's really has been a Roman Emperor,

I mean, probably didn't quite speak like that,

but it's a sort of similar way of thinking,

because ultimately, it's,

don't bother getting in a flap about stuff

you can do nothing about.

Absolutely, yeah.

And I know it's interesting,

when first time I was sort of able to go out and about

and stuff after I'd be sort of dream and ended,

and I was just drawing around Crystal Palace,

there's a sort of little, very annoying one-way system,

and it was a bloke behind me who got so angry,

because I hadn't sort of jumped the light

so that he could jump the lights, and he got so angry,

and then he pulled up close to me

when he got around, eventually a couple of minutes later,

and he was screaming and screaming,

and I'll put the window down just so that I could hear him,

excuse me, it's now stuck again, scream,

and you're fucking moving, you're fucking car,

you're fucking so angry,

and I'll just wait for him to end, and I said,

I'm interested in which day you're going to have a heart attack.

I think it's Thursday, but if you're lucky,

you'll hang on till Friday, and I'll put the window up,

and it's really only tells you a life,

and I've said the thing at the time,

I've wanted to didn't think of it late,

and of course, then I'll put the window up,

and I could just see him now in the window,

and go, yeah, do you know what I mean?

And it's, I don't, I probably would have been nearer to him,

you know?

A couple of years before.

What the fuck is going on?

Oh, what the fuck is going on?

We're always measuring against, so he has, he's in a rush.

Yeah.

He's on him, being present and accepting what is,

I mean, my husband's taught me a lot about it,

is because I'm very impatient person,

and you know, I'm looking at the clock

till I have a delay on Keema,

and he's like, really, what impatience is,

is just a lack of acceptance,

a lack of acceptance of what is,

and you want things to move faster,

and everyone's very angry, and a lot of depression,

and all of these things are like,

this imagined self,

this imagined self of like,

I want to be this, and I want to be that,

and I want to be that, and all these frustrations,

rather than the stoicism of what is,

being present, what is, I am ill, this is ill, you know?

I never really got into like,

oh my gosh, you know,

any sort of narrative construction,

really about my cancer, like as though,

oh, I could have been someone, and now I'm this,

if only I still have my boobs,

if only I had this, if only I had that,

I mean, sometimes, you know,

when me and my husband are in a bit of the other,

there's this natural hand, oh yeah, there's,

oh yeah, they're not there, do you know what I mean?

There's like, there's, and you know, there's,

obviously there's an awareness that my body's different,

but, or you go, like,

but this sense of self acceptance,

and then if you handle yourself with more grace,

you can handle others with more grace.

So this guy is angry that he's late in the,

and then you're the camp that's made him late,

and how easy is that to make this camp in front of him

the problem, rather than sit with,

I should have left him in earlier.

Yeah, yeah, you know, exactly.

Yeah, I find it, yeah, God, I mean,

there's sort of the, where I sometimes with, you know,

people have been lots of therapies,

but I sometimes think, oh, for goodness sake,

if it becomes introspective, which it often does,

and it's, oh, I feel I need to assert my needs

and my boundaries and all that.

And now I think it's all about you,

and this is making you worse,

and I think what you're saying is the opposite of that,

it's sort of being more at peace with people around you,

and then you could be more positive to people,

because most of the past majority of people have been,

but I really, really felt that with the,

through having the cancer.

Yeah.

Pretty much everyone, with very few exceptions,

were just immensely kind.

Yeah, yeah, and we are, we are more alike than unalike,

and there is, there is nothing worse on this earth

than someone that's not naturally assertive,

learning how to be assertive,

and I think we're really in a danger zone

where feelings are king, so you go,

well, I feel this, so they go,

well, we'll feel it then, fucking feel it.

But, you know, and in terms of what the fuck is going on,

we, you know, I worry that what's happening at the minute

with these stupid little magic mirrors

we've got in our hands constantly,

is the narrative construction that's happening around us.

So what does that mean, narrative construction?

Well, because we're being told to hate each other,

we're being told to be world up, we're all right.

You know, even all these videos of ISC

and flicking at fucking America,

if they wanted us to not see those videos,

trust me, the algorithm would shut them down.

They want, I feel like, we're being forced to fear our neighbours,

fear the government, we're accepting all these horrendous things

to the point of like, fucking, the Epstein fight.

Like, we're now aware, people are fucking rapists and murderers

that are in positions of power, and we're going,

we're so, we've got such a glut of information

and other horrible stuff that we're going,

it's just another horrible thing.

Whereas 20, 30 years ago, pre-smart phones,

we'd have gone, the whole world would have stopped,

the world stopped for Clinton and fucking

Monica Lewinsky, didn't you know that?

Well, that's a really good point,

and it's here, isn't it,

that the world stopped more for Clinton

with Monica Lewinsky than it did

for what the current president was doing with,

many men.

Yeah, with a serial sex offender,

who had so much sex offending going on,

he couldn't combine it to his office,

he needed an entire eye.

I know, and you know, and then we're also in AI,

someone made the point that,

now we're just doctored images

and videos left for our center.

We're now not, we're not believing the evidence for our own eyes

because we can hide behind that.

You know, you know, suppose,

and no one knows, we're not existing in truth,

and I think then, I think so.

I said, well, what is truth?

And truth is human connection, isn't it?

You know, truth and love,

and it's just stepping outside and connecting,

and we can't keep all this anger and vitriol

for people with different opinions.

It's crazy because the minute you step off social media,

and you talk to someone who might be absolutely like

vitriolic and banging a drum about any one cause,

you talk to them and you go,

I've got to say that, you know what?

And then you, what you are actually,

you're laughing about the same things,

you've got the same sex.

And it's all a lot lighter when you're person to person.

I think it serves the people who want us to be divided.

Of course.

The social media and all the Instagram things

that pop up on your phone,

because it's harder to,

it's, when people's,

when the sort of social world

was much more integrated over that,

and there were many, many things wrong

with the night in 50s and 60s.

But when most people worked in a workplace

with many, many other people,

not just factories,

but the offices and so on, schools,

or what have you,

or schools are obviously still the case.

But, and there was a sort of,

and the main sort of social outings

were, there were welfare clubs and so on in the work,

but the shipyards, the railway men out,

all these sorts of workers,

and people were much more connected,

and you were forced to deal with people

that were different to you in a way that now,

you can just write them off

and on social media and just go,

well, you're an asshole, fuck you if you wait there.

But even in the 90s,

but I'll go up to the 90s,

like really early, not his 90s,

you know, people were in the same pubs

or don't talk to me,

or like, or do,

or have a massive argument

then buy each other a pint,

and yes, and, and quite gnarly, weird ideas,

I mean, and like,

but also I was watching the take that documentary

of all things,

and, and it was,

The times that gets brought up

for this podcast,

but it was so fascinating,

like, the early 90s, the hysteria,

and people queuing,

even in the mid-naughties,

people queuing for the ticket box office,

like, how analog is that?

How real life is that?

How real and tangible it felt,

and not that long ago,

even when they had their comeback tour,

their reunited tour in the early noughties,

people were sleeping out intense.

Do you remember that?

It just felt so much more social, isn't it,

than everybody just wait hovering over a laptop?

And, and then having ticket prices inflated

once you get to the top of the bases,

but it was, it was like,

we've lost so much in such a short amount of time,

of just like,

and we're lucky, we gig, we gig,

because it's so real, gigging is so real.

I wonder if that's one of the,

the, that's one of the reasons behind

the sort of growth in stand-up.

I know there's all sorts of other things,

you know, the theatres don't have the funding

and so on,

so it's much more difficult for them

to put on plays and dance and things like that,

so they rely on stand-up.

Which is one of us.

You know, it's you go with theatres and generally,

you sort of see the posters for all the other things,

and it'll be other stand-ups,

tribute ads, tribute bands,

you know, like the, whatever, the T-Rex one,

or, yeah, yeah, all that sort of thing.

Filling Collins.

Yeah, is that a real one?

There's loads of them, I love the ball, yeah.

Someone told me they saw a George Harrison tribute act

and I said, I've made it.

I went, please tell me he's called My Sweet Fraud.

And they went, oh, I wish I could see him.

I thought, did he not think of that?

Or psychics.

Yeah.

There's loads of them, isn't there?

Oh, you're, I've coming from,

I'd come on, is there someone here

who's had an argument with someone?

Yes, how did you know that, you know, those people,

and it's full of that because the,

the plays and so on, they require funding

and they require lots of technicians

and the theatres kind of for them anyway.

But other than that, I think another reason

for the sort of boost in stand-up,

because it doesn't just happen here,

it's right across Europe in some ways,

it's even more marks like in France,

because I'd sort of, you know,

I'd like to follow things in France,

but stand up there over the last 10 years,

has gone from virtually nothing

to being as massive as it is here.

And I wonder that's part of it,

is it something,

it's one of the few places where you go

and there's a connection with other people,

where you're not just sort of digital.

And it's, I don't know, especially since lockdowns and stuff,

I don't know if you've had it where people have come up,

people have come up to me in clubs and gone,

oh, I didn't know how much I needed to laugh,

I didn't know how much I needed it,

my friend dragged me along and I'm just so glad I did it.

People are in their little heads, so much,

there's so much sort of solitism,

that's so much thosome.

And, you know, and it's like,

the other thing, as a stand up,

you think the whole world exists in Twitter

and you think,

because you're getting this curated algorithm naturally,

and this is why people can't handle a difference

of opinion,

because they've curated the whole world

reflecting back at the most like one.

But I always say,

you go up and around the country,

it's like taking the temperature of the country,

I mean, you know,

because you go, you might say something like,

you'll be in Yorkshire or somewhere,

you go, you are the cost of living crisis,

and people are sort of going,

no, we all bought our house for 10p,

50, you know what I mean?

And we're all driving raindrops.

Like they're, they're all right.

You know, out in Essex, they're not,

I think you're a fuck about a cost of living crisis out in Essex.

Do you think everyone's talking about something,

like they can give a shit,

they're all right,

or then they are, or do you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, I know, I think it does.

I mean, I suppose as you sort of get your own audience,

that becomes less.

So, you know, I'm mixed bills as much,

you just sort of.

Not really.

So that, so that could be,

I would imagine if I was to sort of go

to a very foragey place.

Yeah.

There's probably things that I do that I go,

all this way gets a big laugh,

and that might get a sort of fuck that.

Yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, because I've got a joke at the minute

where I say, I've been at my nephew's coming out party,

and everyone's like,

he's still on tag and that,

but it's nice to have him home, right?

So it's like, ooh, yeah.

And that joke is so funny, right?

Because I could be in like a club

that's really like super working class,

you know, at NSX,

and the first bit gets a,

who's this short head,

let's be insane things.

I mean, and then I do the joke,

and they laugh in huge relief.

And then if I'm in a more sort of evolved kind of

open minded sort of place,

they love the first bit,

and some of them get the second bit.

Welcome back, it's not anymore.

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