Chris Forbes: From Scot Squad to Stand-Up - Playing Ball and Hating Reality

Hey, Screen Rats, I might well be back from Edinburgh, but you wouldn't know it because I haven't left yet.

Yep, that's right.

I'm recording this before I even went, but you'll listen to this after I've returned.

So who knows what happened?

Hopefully, I didn't get in any kind of infringement trouble.

Fringe, hear that?

Because I had some leaflets.

Which actually stated that my podcast was the official comedy podcast of Edinburgh fridge.com.

That's right, fridge.com.

So if you go to www.edinburghfridge.com, you'll find all the links to this podcast.

Now, I handed out flyers with that on it in hope that I wouldn't actually be doing anything illegal.

Let's see how that goes.

I'm sure it's fine because I fucking own the thing.

So it is technically the official podcast of that website because that website is mine.

Now today on Television Times, we welcome Chris Forbes, excellent stand-up comedian and actor.

You'll know Chris from Scot Squad, which has been on our screens for nearly a decade.

He was also in Still Game.

He did a show called The Farm, which was quite popular.

And he's been in loads of other stuff too, like Jonathan Creek, which we discuss and talk about on here.

He's also got a new show called Court Jester, which will just have ended its Edinburgh run by the time this episode comes out.

But look out on Chris's website because he's sure to be out on tour with that show shortly.

Luckily, I was able to record this at the Motel One, which is the hotel next to the stand in Newcastle.

They sometimes let me use the foyer for such things.

And again, the lovely Rachel, shout out to Rachel.

She made it happen yet again.

So I'm very, very grateful to them.

Now, if it's all the same to you, I would rather just get straight into this episode because I've been recording episodes back to back in preparation for my trip to Edinburgh.

So I would like to just get into the chat.

So here I am chatting with Chris Forbes.

Welcome to Television Times, a weekly podcast with your host, me, Steve Otis Gunn.

We'll be discussing television in all its glorious forms.

From my childhood, your childhood, the last 10 years, even what's on right now.

So join me as I talk to people you do know and people you don't about what scared them, what inspired them and what made them laugh and cry here on Television Times.

I like it.

We're doing something really...

Exactly.

Thanks for doing this.

Not at all.

Just watched your show, obviously.

You must be relieved that that's over.

Very relieved.

It was a mess.

It's helpful.

That was great.

It was fantastic.

I'm not a sporty guy.

I'm not into sports stuff, but my wife is Canadian but moved to America when she was about 14.

So all I hear is that literally all that grouping of jocks, things in the school, and how she hated it.

She went there as a kind of Dr.

Martins wearing Nirvana T-shirt, wearing Canadian with plaid and, you know...

Brilliant...

.

straight into what you went into, which is incredible, really.

Yeah, an explosion of sight and sound and characters and people that seem to know who they are already at that age.

And you got all the names down, all your chantels.

Honestly, every single...

The braiding cadence.

It's mad.

You listed some names, left to right.

Did you say Steve someone?

Did you say his name was?

Steve Hull.

Steve Hull.

Well, there was a Steve Gunn and a Steve Hull, actually.

That's bizarre.

Steve Gunn, in that particular photo from the homecoming one, was actually from Alabama.

Quite a different guy, but good name.

You're here tonight and then off to the Fringe on Wednesday.

Yes, so I tech on Tuesday.

Yeah, Wednesday's the first kind of preview.

I like to think that it starts Friday, and that Wednesday, Thursday's still, can I really turn whatever that just was into a show?

Because it's called, I'll let you say your own title.

Yeah, Court Jester, Chris Forbes Court Jester.

So the work in progress that you're doing now is to make that into the show for Edinburgh, or is it also kind of work in progress in Edinburgh for a tour?

Yeah, do you know, I still like to think of The Fringe as a kind of playground of people playing around and trying out stuff.

It's obviously become much more industry heavy and serious and people bring in very polished shows, but I think it will still be a work in progress, but it's very much billed as a titled show.

And if it's still a bit rough and ready, I think that's part of the fun.

It's really, really good.

What just happened there we don't want to talk about, but with the other guy that had actually experienced what you had a little bit.

I mean, they would think you placed him if you did that in most venues.

And the people with the washing the mouth out.

I've heard about that, the washing of the mouth out.

I'm pretty sure my nan and granddad used to do it to my mum.

Yeah.

Because she, I don't think it was done to me, but I know it was definitely threatened.

I'd always heard it threatened and certainly knew as a thing, but not on a 16 year old boy for saying the word sucks.

It just, it just blew my mind.

But with these convos, we never know where it's going.

And I don't know why, but for that, I'll tell you something that happened to me when I was 12.

I was traveling around Europe with my parents and we were on the run in Europe.

And I've never told anyone this.

I don't know if it's in the book.

I don't think it's even in the book.

At one point, my mom said that I didn't shower properly.

You know, when your mom's like, you know, oh, come on, you know, I used to do that.

Mimics a dot of water on each cheek, forehead and chin.

I know what the fucking tricks make for me.

And she fucking stripped me down in a campsite and hosed me down in front of the other campers.

I'm not kidding, I was 12.

Oh man, oh, that's a scaring incident, isn't it?

I just remember in my mind, it probably wasn't, but in my mind, there was a complete audience.

Well, if anything, it sounds very European.

We went to Greece as well, and I had a little friend I was hanging out with, and at some point, the mother just took off her top, and her tits were just right in front of me, and she was just chatting as normal.

She was like, would you like a candy, or whatever she was saying?

I was like, not candy, it's a magazine.

You know, would you like a candy?

And I was like, no, I used to go around and ask people if they had spare coins for all their countries, to sort of say that I collected coins, and I just take them to the Bureau to change.

It was a scam.

Anyway, so it's nice to meet you again.

I haven't met you, but I think it was just brief and it was probably just me coming in to say, hi, how's it like, you all right?

Oh, and I was probably just blinded by anxiety and fear of ticket sales, so.

What time's your show on this time, Monkey Mountain?

This one's at 4.15.

So it's a good time in that nowadays, rather than just thinking of what kind of time is a good time, it's what is a good time that allows me to also drop my daughter off at nursery and be at home for not too late and maybe catch it.

So it's quite a good time for that, but hopefully a good time for audiences.

So eventually you work your way to Stuart Lee, one o'clock, lunchtime situation.

Home for five, day for seven.

What I was going to say about your show, what I really loved about it is I don't really know much about sport or basketball, but just the fact that it's a true story and you can tell it comes from truth, it just feels so real, especially the 90s aspect of it, which obviously is very, very cool right now and lots of TV shows and things about it.

So I just watched a Beanie Babies movie last night with my wife.

Oh wow.

I know it sounds stupid, it kind of has all that cultural references that you talk about as that sort of late 90s, it's the Clinton, it's all that stuff, you know.

Yeah, I'm leaning heavily on the fact that I hope people find it at least interesting and relatable, if not particularly funny at times, because it is just quite trippy to look back at that time.

And I don't know if it's because I turned 40 this year or because I've got a daughter now, but it's a story I've always wanted to talk about.

And, you know, I guess, like, in the film Stand By Me, it's like, do we ever really have friends like these who are kind of a teenager?

I've always told people the story about going to America, but never on stage.

And people have always said, you should talk about that.

Like, that's pretty unusual.

It's like, it's quite unique.

It's very weird.

Go and stay with the family and...

Yeah.

Because I was wondering that the whole time, like, he's going to his dad.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it's...

And I think it's weirder than I realised until I started doing it.

Yeah.

And it's really nice to then meet people like tonight, where there was a couple of people that had done a similar thing, to have the vindication of going, I did that and it was just the same and, yeah, that happens.

Yeah.

And it's mad to think that it's...

Even now, I think that is mad that that's true, because you just couldn't believe it.

It is very American, isn't it?

Cos, like, my wife, she actually came to the UK when she was 16.

She was in a, cos you call it a female football team, a girls' one.

And she was so good that they actually came over here and played.

Oh, wow.

And she was sent over with a squad over here for, like, I don't know, a couple of weeks.

Yeah.

They were 16.

Weirdly, I took her to Edinburgh the first time we were walking around Princes Street.

And you know, I don't know the names of the monuments.

Apologies, Scotland.

On Princes Street, there's a very tall, dark sort of spirey building.

I know the one you mean.

I don't know what it's called.

It's opposite M&S.

Oh, the M&S statue.

Yeah.

Scott Monument is a Victorian Gothic structure built to celebrate the life of Walter Scott.

She was walking past that and she went and she was like, you know, this is the first time I've been to Scotland.

Oh, hey, you should come to Scotland.

It's great.

You can go see Edinburgh.

It's brilliant.

She's walking along and she goes, I've been here.

Wow.

But because she was 16, she was American.

She had no idea of geography.

She thought she was in fucking Wales or something because they'd tell her nothing.

You just get off the bus and do some football, get back on and back to Arizona.

No, it's very odd.

I think I always laughed actually.

I don't think I even mentioned it tonight because it was turning into a stream of consciousness at times of memories of being at school over there.

But I always laughed at the fact that one of the classes was US History at school.

It was called US History.

So it wasn't history.

Yeah.

It was called US History.

And they just didn't, they didn't care about the rest of the world.

And for the first four weeks of school, while I was taking US History over there, we watched dances with wolves.

That was like the level of edgy.

And it's like, well, why do we, how can we blame them for not really knowing that much about the rest of the world and about history if their only cultural reference point is Kevin Cost now?

I think I can tell you, I mean, I grew up in London a bit as well, so I had Asian friends.

But when I was in Ireland, like I go to Ireland now, and there's like black Irish people, blows my mind.

Not in any kind of weird way, just they didn't have this in the North.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, similar, yeah, the little small rural village I was from, it just was not very diverse or multicultural.

So that aspect alone was just wow.

And America, as everyone knows, is a melting pot.

So even being at school, people, you know, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans and people from all over, different states in America that had moved there and Canadians and as I say, there was Russians, certain people that moved over from Europe.

So yeah.

And the food, you must have been, you know, exposed to completely different foods.

The food was great.

I actually had terrible acne.

I don't think I'll bother talking about that on the show.

I think it was the change in diet and food, but the fast food stuff was incredible.

When I went over there, so I went over in 1999, it was very much over here.

It was really just McDonald's and Burger King.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They had Jack in the Box and all these things we never heard of.

Jack in the Box and Wendy's and Arby's and Taco Bell.

Curly fries, Oreo shakes.

Oh, Baskin Robbins and Pancake and Waffle House.

So yeah, a lot of fast, I loved it.

I loved it.

What a time to be there as a kid with all of that.

Yeah, I first went to the States in, I think it was 96.

And I was definitely there in 99.

And I just remember being in Hawaii of all places, being in Hawaii in 99 and just walking around Honolulu looking for a Jack in the Box.

It's like I'm not there for any kind of culture or any kind of, hey, I wonder what the Hawaiians eat.

This is the big thing.

I thought you wanted those curly fries.

They're so good.

They're so good.

Please just stop it because you're making me hungry.

So Chris, this is a podcast about television and you are a man that is on television.

You mentioned, that was funny because you said a line in your show, which was something like, basketball wise, you were in the Scotland squad.

Did you do it on purpose?

No, but I must remember that.

Because I was picking it up and I was going, that's funny, he was in the Scotland squad and now he's in the Scot squad.

That's really cool.

I must use that.

I'll take it.

Thank you.

So that's rung for, what is it, is it eight seasons?

Eight seasons, so that was mad.

That was the last season.

Oh, it was the last season.

Right.

And those eight seasons ran over kind of ten years, so a decade really of your life, which seems to have flown by, but it was a great ten years.

Yeah, I haven't seen all of it.

You're very good in it and I love Jack Docherty.

I followed Jack's whole career.

I mean, for me, I'm a bit older than you, but I remember when Absolutely came out.

I was kind of at the Absolutely schedule.

And I was just like, it was event TV for me.

I would get home for that.

And then I followed Mr.

Don and Mr.

George.

I was even in the audience for some of the filmings of that.

I saw his chat show filming in London.

And Whitehall in the 90s.

I mean, I followed him.

When I got to meet him in 20, he was doing that.

Well, it was an inspector show, wasn't it?

He was just doing a one-man show in the museum.

He did like a chief kind of address.

Yeah, and I got to meet him and for me, it was like meeting fucking De Niro.

I'm going to see his show about Bowie.

Bowie as a guest, Gilded.

It looks really good.

I've actually seen the photo of him meeting Bowie in a Bozeman line.

You know, people don't...

Well, certainly a lot of people will remember, but not a lot of people remember that he had hosted the Channel 5 chat show that Graham Norton had essentially taken over.

And the amount of guests he met, and again, at that time frame, it's all your heroes thinking he met them, interviewed them, and he's got these photos he can show you and it's did boil your mind.

I was always amazed that you could get...

I mean, I'm sure it's the same now, but it was so easy in the 90s to get free tickets for filmings.

So if you like something, you just...

There was no internet really, so I don't know how we did it, but I remember just maybe phoning a number or something.

And then these tickets would just be there and you'd just go and fucking sit in the audience and watch...

I went to Graham Norton three times when it was called So Graham Norton.

So it was just like...

I used to give Armstrong and Miller, Sean Hughes' show, Shawnee Show, all of it.

I was an audience whore for that stuff.

So I'd say Scot Squad, what I would say about it is it's probably one of the only mockumentary sort of shows left, right?

Yeah, I mean, certainly that was the format style for television.

Once The Office, you know, took over the world, it was...

that was it.

And certainly in Scotland, it was probably one of the first ones up there in terms of a Scottish show to follow that format, so that was great.

But they are dying away and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but because there's been so many of them, it's probably quite nice, and they'll come back again in the same way that straight sketch shows were everywhere in the 90s and the early 2000s.

They've completely died down.

But I think they might be slowly coming back as well.

Yeah, I was talking to Ben Crumpton about that because he was in that thing called Mouthstroke Woman and there was loads around that time.

Yeah, I mean, it's all in cycles, isn't it?

I've heard the offices apparently having a reboot, the American office.

It's a terrible idea.

It's too soon.

Give it 20 years.

You've got to have that gap that they had between those terrible 70s sitcoms and then Mrs.

Brown's voice.

You need that gap or Miranda or whatever.

So there's a gap.

So it's like, oh, yeah, I remember this.

We have to be old.

So we're nostalgic for it.

We want it back.

Yeah, I think so.

I've turned my head down.

I've turned into my grandfather.

I'm just going to ask you some more awkward questions.

And I'm not trying to make you feel uncomfortable, but just answer as honest as you can.

I mean, you've already mentioned a couple of TV shows in there, which I picked up on.

I just bought my son some Simpsons pajamas just now.

Isn't that weird?

Bart Simpson.

Yeah, yeah, he's into that.

He sneaks those in.

My wife has told him, don't watch the Simpsons.

Whenever she's out and I catch him, he knows I'll let him off.

It's because we've started watching Red Dwarf together.

He's like, I have to.

Why have kids if you can't share that stuff?

And I'm worried that he'll think it's shit.

You know what I mean?

You worry about that?

Something you introduce your kids to, music or film?

Well, even just with I Love Basketball, which is still not a hugely popular sport.

And I'd love my daughter to really get into it as well, but if she doesn't, I'll be heartbroken.

I get really proud when he says something like, we were out once, and I love David Bowie, it's been mentioned already, but I'm a big Bowie fan and I play a bit of it in the house.

And at some point we were out, and Madness as well, I was a big Madness fan as a kid.

And my daughter, we were in Morrison's and Our House was playing, that's weird.

For start, that's weird.

And she went, Dada, Our House.

And then my son did some quiz at school and nobody knew who Bowie was apart from him.

That's the reason to have them.

That was a joke.

Of course I love all of my children, regardless of their likes and dislikes.

Now, let's ask Chris a question.

What was the first show that made him feel all warm inside?

Do you know, I think it was probably Markham and Wise.

And just because, whether I appreciated or understood exactly what it was they were doing, they were the people that made my parents laugh.

And so whenever I saw them and tell them, saw the way that they were reacting to them, I knew that they were doing something brilliant, something incredible.

And they've always stuck with me.

I'm really influenced by some of those older ones because they very much liked what they liked and then didn't move with the times.

They would continually watch Markham and Wise and The Two Ronnies was a big one for me.

I became a huge Two Ronnies fan.

Read all of Ronnie Corbett's stuff and Ronnie Barker's autobiographies.

I just was incredibly inspired by the kind of light entertainment, but you can be entertaining without necessarily, you know, it wasn't, they weren't necessarily outright comedians or actors, but there was this kind of vague sense of, you could be a kind of comedic performer and people really appreciated it.

It made people feel good.

So certainly, even if I wasn't specifically watching in the show, being around that show, being on and seeing how it affected people, that was definitely the first thing that gave me that feeling.

Was it repeated?

Because I remember I saw them at the time.

I was born in 69, so I saw some of those.

I remember those like 1977, 78 ones.

I think I saw them maybe live at Christmas.

And then since then, I remember the Andre Previn thing and all of that.

I mean, I fucking...

I think I went through a phase though, because of alternative comedy, I sort of dissed that comedy when I became a teenager in the early 20s.

I was like, fuck all that shit.

I'm watching, you know, Ben Elton or whatever.

And then I sort of...

It was for me, it was a book as well.

I read the story of Malcolm and Wise, some kind of autobiography.

And their whole, you know, coming up from Vaudeville, how they were put together and how Ernie was the star and all that.

And it just sort of gave me this kind of feeling of nostalgia.

And then I started trying to sort of seek it out.

But again, I, where would I have, how would I have sorted it out?

It must have just been...

Did they just repeat them at Christmas?

All the time, yeah.

And then they still do.

But certainly throughout my childhood, they were always on.

And they must have been repeats because that was always the thing that my parents would say certainly, especially my mum would be like, they were the best.

They were the best.

Like, you still can't beat this.

And that's been the same my whole life.

Like, harking back to that kind of just pure, light entertainment style of comedy.

God almighty, I've just realised this.

I got it from him overnight.

When I go to Gregg's with my kids and they want to get a vegan sausage roll or whatever, I use the bag and I do the, you know, the catching thing.

The little click thing is catching the crowd.

I love it.

I do remember, like, always not being that into Ronnie Corbett's sort of monologue in the chair.

Maybe because he's too young.

That was the bit that was sort of like...

I think that's why, yeah, whether or not it was because of that, but I definitely was a Barker fan and it was his books I loved and I knew that he wrote a lot of stuff and I was kind of amazed that he could create these just funny sketches, I think.

But certainly even though I, and I still love those kind of traditional, I think just because it feels very pure and wholesome comedy and maybe it's because it brought people together that normally wouldn't in terms of family settings.

But certainly in the nineties, as you say, you almost kind of rebel against that a little bit.

And so, you know, loved stuff when I was then more in my teenagers, like when Shooting Stars, you know, certainly came on, which was then very archaic and surreal and not obvious comedy.

And that was exactly the type of stuff my mum hated.

She'd be like, I hate that.

What's this?

I hated it at first.

Do you know why I hated it?

I remember fucking, I remember, what was it called originally?

Big Reeves, Big Night Out.

You know why I hated that?

Because it replaced Absolutely.

I came home one day, Absolutely wasn't on and that shit was in his face.

And I remember hating it for fucking years because it was just like, I hate that now.

So that's no when it was good.

I liked it eventually and I got into it.

But I remember at the time, initially it was just, it was like when UB40 kept Madness off number one, I was like, fuck them.

It's just like, absolute fucking, you know, keep that gripe going forever.

But that Reeves and Mortimer series, the R&M with the song at the beginning, like Trapped in My Flat and...

I remember those songs for the rest of my life.

Very different as well and just like, how can you just be a bit mad but funny and...

Yeah, it's mental.

I mean, he's sort of stepped back from it.

In a way, like, Ronnie Barker, didn't he go off to do like antiques selling?

Weird like that.

Like, Suffolk, am I getting that right?

He definitely got into antiques and he's written about stuff like that as well.

And did you see like things like Porridge then when you were a kid?

And in fact, and I was very excited about this, one of the TV shows I was involved with in terms of writing was in Scotland, certainly in BBC iPlayer, was called The Farm.

And we were looking for a particular character to play a role of the factor.

And we tried to get an actor that had been in Porridge.

He had retired about 15 years ago, but even just getting in touch with him to see if he wanted to do it.

And he read the script and just said, you know, I don't think it's for me, but I really appreciate you seeking out.

Because in my head, I was like, I can't believe we can get this guy.

He's playing at Porridge as well.

Tony Ozobar, he played McLaren.

I think at the time as well, it was quite unique, because he was a black character, but he's a Scottish guy as well, which was even more, I guess, kind of at the time groundbreaking.

And even then for us casting a particular role at that, there's not a huge pool, as we were saying about, not a huge multicultural diverse.

But it was incredible just to even hear from him and hear that, well, he'll need it, you know, but he'd retired so long ago.

But it was the fact that he'd been in porridge as well for so long, I was really excited.

I'm thinking now, like, just because of what you've said, because a lot of the time when people talk about old TV that comes up from the past as like a racist element or something really like problematic, like, you know, you kind of rise in dance and you love thy neighbours and all that.

But actually, like, Morecambe and Wise, I'd say, Two Ronnies, maybe like some of the dressing up as women and the joking of that might not fly right now, but there's no hate behind any of it.

There's certainly for those two pairings, compared to a lot of the other acts and shows around at that time, they're the least likely for anyone to dig out an old sketch that would be like, they should be cancelled for this.

They really did keep it pretty.

You can't get cancelled for full candle.

I'm sure we guess where the answer for this is going to come from.

Do you remember your first TV crush?

I do.

I feel like they were very early on.

There was a couple competing, but I mean, I don't know if you were expecting Dawson's Creek, because I was talking about Dawson's Creek.

Maybe that's too, you're too old by that point.

I was a bit older for Dawson's Creek.

I would say it was probably between Jet from Gladiators and the Funhouse twins that were kind of around the same time.

And certainly when I think back to my youth, this is great, I just think about it.

I haven't thought of this name for ages, and it's such a fun name to say.

I really love Topanga in Boy Meets World, an American TV show as well.

In fact, you know what, if I was going way back to when I was younger and probably the first time I thought, I can tell she's pretty, but I don't even understand what that means, would be the unfortunate name now to say it out loud as a grown adult now, but I'm sure the title of the character was The Child Princess in The Neverending Story.

Right, OK, we'll edit it correctly, don't worry.

So, the princess girl in The Neverending Story, when you were a wee boy it was like, who is this kind of angelic character and creature?

And bizarrely, last year, or was it two years ago, it's not been out yet, I got to have a tiny little part in a film that her and her now husband have written.

It is a film that's a throwback to 80s fantasy adventure films.

So, and at the time I remember saying, wow, she was probably one of my first ever crushes and now I'm doing like a wee film.

I don't have a scene with her but I got to meet her and her husband and it was very trippy.

Neverending Story, that is a weird fucking movie.

I don't think I've tried to show that to my kids but I think it's one of those ones that you think is OK.

A bit like Labyrinth or something but actually when you show it, they creeped out by all that 80s stuff.

It's the very same genre of that type of thing, Labyrinth and Neverending Story and that's what they're trying to recreate.

I don't know what it will be like.

My only memory of that, I'm trying to picture how I can't but I can see a lot of soft focus, a lot of Sybil Shepherd lighting going on in that film with lots of people coming out and sort of ethereal lighting into kind of like, I don't really remember it very well.

Did they make a sequel, did they?

Neverending Story 2, yeah.

There was, yeah.

In fact, there was never any Story 3 and 4 but then very different characters.

More like the sort of Home Alone 4 sort of show.

Yeah.

The first thing you saw on TV that made you scared shitless.

Do you know what?

It probably isn't this.

We had, again, grown up in a small village.

We had a local VHS, a video shop.

It was called Video Vision.

And it was one of those places where it felt like anyone could go in, even if you were a bunch of young kids going, and you wanted to rent an 18 horror, and a guy would just knock back an island.

Something from under the counter.

And the film that it does now, when I'm saying it, was, for whatever reason, we got two videotapes out.

No need to get out your phone, for these videos were played at home.

And at the cinema, no money was spent, for they watched these films on a TV set.

One of them was called April Fool's Day.

It was a horror film.

But the other one was Halloween Four.

Four?

Halloween Four.

What are we on now?

Yeah.

And the scene that has stuck with me my whole life is Michael Myers waking up in the back of an ambulance, and I hadn't seen them at the time, but evidently the last one had finished with him getting taken away in an ambulance, everyone thinking he's dead.

But right at the start of the film, he obviously comes back to life.

He starts killing people, but he put his thumb right through the eye of one of the paramedics into the skull and crushed his head.

Jesus Christ.

And because it was probably the first time that we were like, look, let's get a couple of 18 horrors out, and that happened in the first couple of minutes, it has never left me.

It has scarred me for life.

Michael Myers is definitely the boogie man for me from having watched those films when I was too young.

That's horrible.

My son keeps asking me who these people are because they talk about it.

I don't think he's seen it, but you know, you see, actually he probably might have done because you know, even though you can set up your box and your TV to not show them without a code, sometimes you just open it up and there's an advert.

I don't like that on the buses.

There was that movie Smile.

Oh, creepy posters for kids man.

Yeah, the school bus.

I mean, I just find that all it's like, if you got dirty mags at the top, then why have we got like a fucking horror, a Blumhouse horror going past my house every seven minutes?

Weirdly, I don't think I've ever said this before, but you've reminded me with that eye pushing thing.

I don't know why it reminded me, but you remember in Poltergeist, is it Poltergeist?

Where the guy starts tearing his own face off off the sink and the bits of flesh go in and the blood and all that?

That's my one of those.

Fucking hell, that's like, I fucking beat it.

You can actually feel it.

I tell you what, speaking of full of sex, in terms of a TV performance though, that rang true, and it's just, I remember that, and people in the papers at the time talking about how it was very graphic.

But I vividly remember The Lakes TV series with John Sim, a very young John Sim, John Sim.

And it blew me away, it was one of the first TV shows that seemed like it was just very real, very gritty, that dealt with very graphic and delicate situations in a very real way, where it didn't feel like you were watching actors, but felt like, oh, that could be your mate, you know, he just seemed very, very real.

What was the premise of The Lakes?

So essentially, it was set in a lake district, hence the name, and someone moving there, his character, into a small community, and it was really more an insight into that kind of thing of everyone knowing each other's business, people having affairs and babies, and they were underage, and, you know, he's come out of prison, and it was all manner of coming of age, you know, he was young in it, I think 16, 17, and kind of figuring out who he is, what he's become in this small little community.

But, yeah, it was just really graphic, but in a weird way, life-affirming.

I watched a 90s TV show, I haven't seen it.

I would tell people to seek it out.

In fact, I wanted to reconnect with it not too long ago, and it turned out one of my mates, Cal, if you're awesome to this, Cal, thank you, he still had The Lakes DVD box set, which you can't get any more, so we were able to re-watch it.

Is it a BBC or was it IT?

It was a BBC thing, yeah.

Because you were in a show that came back, Jonathan Creek, another show for The Lonely, I've never seen, sorry about that.

But everyone tells me, you must watch it.

And for some reason, I didn't really...

Again, I don't know, maybe the age I was, I wasn't...

Well, I think it was a Sunday night thing.

Maybe I sort of wrote it off as a kind of grandma Sunday night, did some murders thing, I never really got into it.

But I've been told by so many people, it's like the best show.

Yeah, it's a nice, easy show.

It's very unoffensive, it's got really clever lines.

And, you know, it's a comforting watch.

I don't know if that's when it was on, but I can very much imagine it would have been a Sunday night evening show.

I actually hadn't really watched it, but I knew my mum had loved it.

And, bizarrely, when I first met my now wife, one of the shows we started watching when we were all hanging out was Jonathan Creek on Netflix, because they ended up putting it on there.

And it was because we were like, did you ever watch that?

And they were like, no, did you?

We watched that, like, just as something.

And we loved it.

It holds up.

Yeah, and it was probably about two seasons in when I got the edition to be on it.

We were like, no way, just as well we watched it.

That's really funny.

The nicest thing about being on that, I mean, it was lovely to even do that job and experiencing a kind of slightly bigger production.

And Warwick Davis was in the episode I was in, so sharing taxes with him and to and from.

But Alan Davies, who I didn't know obviously at the time other than respected him as a stand-up, as well, he couldn't have been nicer.

And he didn't say it on the day, but Polly on the show said, I bet he'll come and see your show because we were filming a month before August.

I thought she would just be nice.

And in the first week of August, just before the show started, he slipped into the show and watched it, bought me a pint afterwards, talked about the French when he used to do it and about what I had just done.

So for that reason alone, it was worth doing.

It's amazing.

I've only heard nice things and I've obviously gained quite an insight into his life through that podcast he did.

He didn't do a lot of them, but he talked about his childhood and stuff like that.

It's just awful and a lot of traumatic stuff from Irish parents that I can chime with.

I think he's just a really nice guy.

It's amazing that he's had that sort of career.

And that show he did that was cancelled around 2010.

Oh, Whites, I think it's called.

Oh my God, that's so good.

That was really good.

Fucking brilliant.

How is that?

Not back.

Bring it back.

Do a party down and bring it back.

It's a great show and everyone was in it.

Really good cast.

Amazing cast.

I'm a bit mindful of time for you, so I'll ask you one more question and then we'll go for it.

OK, the embarrassing question.

What's the worst program you like watching?

Oh, man.

The worst program.

I mean, I think now it seems bad, but I still watch Dawson's Creek if it comes on.

And I still really like it.

I don't know whether or not that's the worst.

I mean, I think it's a really good show.

I used to watch it.

Of its time it was great, but the fact that I still watch it if it's on, maybe that's sort of a red flag.

Did you always know how old they were?

Because I remember watching it, it was on Sunday mornings as far as I remember, on that T4 type thing or whatever it was, late 90s.

And I remember watching it and thinking, oh, this is quite good, this is quite good.

And then at some point about two years in, Dawson had his 16th birthday and I was like, he's fucking 16, the guy looks 25.

The way they spoke, they were like, he's 30 years old.

I had no idea they were supposed to be that young.

Intellectuals.

But no, I can't even say that because I can't say that's the best worst show that I enjoy because I don't think that's a bad show.

No, I think it's considered okay of its time.

Is there any kind of crappy reality things you're into?

You watch but you hate yourself for watching?

Do you know, what I will say is, I actually am not quite good because it doesn't matter what you watch, but I'm quite good at not watching a lot of the trashy type TV.

But my wife does love it and I always tell her, I'm guilty of being like, how can you watch that?

She'll be watching like the one about the boat and there's the crew in a boat.

Oh, Below Deck, I've never seen it.

And she'll watch Married at First Sight and stuff like that.

The Married at First Sight one, if I'm in the room, she says I always slag her off for watching stuff like that.

But I am terrible at being like, secretly kind of watching out of the corner of my eye.

And then she'll be like, you always end up being like, so what's he done to her?

What's her problem?

She says I always end up just having to explain the show even though you're saying you're not watching it.

And I know you really want to watch it, so.

Is there anything you'd like to plug, anything you're in that's coming up?

The Dunkin and Judy Murray Show, while sold out in the fringe, we're also doing shows in Aberdeen and Perth later in the year.

And speaking of later in the year, I'm very excited by the fact that I've just recently shot a part in a TV program called Dog Squad.

It's a kids' TV show.

Not a Scot Squad spin-off.

And I'm so excited that my daughter will get to watch this, because I watched it with her before.

I got to do a little bit in it.

And it's a show that kind of introduces young children to a kind of world of disabilities and other afflictions, but through the guise of different therapy dogs.

So there's a guide dog and a mountain rescue dog.

And so I got to film a scene with the wonderful Kika, who is a C9 dog and her owner, Dr.

Amit.

And it was just joyful.

When people say, never work with children and animals, I can see that in terms of how tricky, but I would do that every day of my life if I could get into work with dogs.

So look out for that.

That's great.

On the sea babies you said later in the year.

You'll be on Bluey next.

Oh, the dream.

Trying to get my daughter to watch that.

She wouldn't.

I love it.

It's very good.

She likes Bing and I hate him.

I hate him.

Bing.

Oh, Bing's a twat.

Oh, such a moany man.

Peppa Pig as well.

I've got five-year-old twins and the boy is...

I watch Peppa Pig and I'm like, do you have to?

It's like nappies.

I've got rid of prams.

Nappies are on the way out.

I need Peppa Pig to fuck off.

I think I had a vasectomy just because I can't watch Peppa Pig anymore.

Bing's a sin for me.

I just, I can't stand him.

He's so annoying.

He's got a wee friend called Pando and he takes his shorts off all the time.

It's like, anyone that's seen it will know it's horrendous for Bing being an arsehole and Pando taking his shorts off.

Sounds like Pingu.

I once had a job, it's just taking a weird turn at the end.

I went to drama school to do technical stuff, stage management, originally.

And when I came out, I became the, immediately, immediately became the technical manager of the Fashion Cafe, which was like getting fucking keys to the Titanic the day before it went down.

And it was like, everything was falling apart, the auditors were in and everything.

We were doing all these shows.

And at some point, I'm not sure how it happened, but we ended up, somebody put porn, the audio of porn in the restaurant with Pingu on the screen.

It accidentally worked.

You know, when you sort of do those, what's his name?

Hugh Dennis, when he does his Prince Charles thing, it's sort of like that.

Pingu's going, and they go, oh yes, oh yes.

And it's like, I urge everyone to seek out some Pingu.

Someone's done it on YouTube, I'm sure.

Porn and Pingu, that really works quite well together.

Anyway, that's a very strange thing to say at the end.

Motown One, thank you very much for letting us do this here.

And The Stand for almost letting me do it there.

Thanks Chris, thanks for popping by on Television Times.

Thanks for having me.

It was such an easy talk.

It was so easy.

It talks to me.

It's such a good laugh, and really, really lovely.

One of the nice ones.

So to today's outro track, it's a song called Cafes of the World.

I recorded it in Ireland in 2008.

It was written shortly before that time.

It's sort of about all those hours I used to waste hanging around in cafes and pubs, and just like with nothing to do, like no book on me for some reason, and just snake on my Nokia, and like this is pre-apps, you know, pretty much, and social media had just begun.

So I had nothing to do.

I would have killed for like all the things that we complain about right now.

As it was recorded in Kerry in Ireland, I thought it would be fun to go and record the background noises of the cafe from the Trilly Grand Hotel, an establishment that I used to get chucked out of as a kid being like, you know, run out of town in that place by the manager.

So it's a massive two fingers up when I managed to stay there in 2013 when I was researching my book.

So that was fun.

But I do love that hotel and I'd love to stay there again.

So no hard feelings, Trilly Grand.

So here it is, Cafes of the World.

Cafes Of the World from the album After the Fireworks, which I recorded in Ireland in 2008.

Soon to be reissued and remastered.

Right, you know what to do.

Follow the show, leave a review if you liked it.

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Come back next week and thanks for tuning in.