Joe Kent-Walters: From Clown School to Cult Stardom with Frankie Monroe

Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, screenwraps, and welcome to another episode of Television Times.

Now, today, there's going to be a lot of fawning.

There's going to be a lot of fawning because this guest, I'm a big fan of this guest.

He's very young, he's very talented, and he's taking comedy by storm.

His name is Joe Kent-Walters, and he won Best Newcomer at Edinburgh last year, performing under the guise of his character, Frankie Monroe.

Now, I went to see that show, and I talked to Joe afterwards briefly, and invited him onto this podcast.

It's taken nearly a year, but, you know, that's how it works, apparently.

You know, it was incredible.

What a great show.

I mean, I saw around 50 shows there, and nothing made me so happy and excited and confused about why I was having such a good time.

It was just such a brilliant show.

It's hard to describe if you haven't seen Frankie Monroe.

This was a midnight show as well in Cabaret Voltaire, I think.

And oh, my God, he had the audience in the palm of his hand.

It was funny.

I sat in the front row.

I mean, he brought everyone into it.

It was so weird and so great and so fucking funny.

That's the thing with Edinburgh.

A lot of it isn't funny.

My show wasn't that funny, to be honest.

You know, a lot of people's shows aren't funny.

It's all like, you know, trauma and stuff.

This was funny.

This was enjoyable.

This was a night out.

This was the best thing I saw at the Fringe.

And you know, I'm really grateful that he came onto the podcast for a chat.

I mean, he didn't have to, you know, and he did.

And it was great.

And I had a really good time with him.

And it was really fun.

So, you know, let's get into the chat.

Let's go.

Let's listen to me talking to the brilliant Joe Kent-Walters, otherwise known as Frankie Monroe.

And do yourself a favour.

If he comes to your town, go and see his show.

And if you go to Edinburgh, go and see Frankie Monroe.

You will not be disappointed.

OK, let's get on with the chat.

Joe Kent-Walters, please make his way to the stage.

Thank you.

Roll up, roll up.

And welcome to another edition of Television Times with your host, me, Steve Otis Gunn, where I'll be talking to someone you do know or someone you don't.

It might be funny, but it might not be.

But it's always worth tuning in for.

So here we go with another episode of Television Times.

Yeah, I hassled you after one of your gigs at Edinburgh after I came to see you last year and came straight up to you and goes, do you do podcasts?

And you were being hassled by about 30 people.

So it was a brief interaction.

Hey, well, we've managed to do within the year.

I think that's actually quite impressive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's about a year, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If it rolled past the anniversary, less.

But within the year, I think that's pretty good going.

Yeah, yeah, I reckon.

Buildings don't get approved in that time.

That's true.

There's a kids' playground being built in my kids' school, and it's taken what I've worked out is the length of about two Japanese houses to put up a swing set.

So.

Well, too right.

I'd have a lot of questions, too.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't think they should be having too much fun.

Really, the kids.

I think you build a playground for them.

What do they think?

They think life's a joke.

You can just play all the time.

So you're a big fan of the COVID lockdown of playgrounds when they sealed them all up with them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Get them on the computers.

That's where they're going to be.

That's exactly what happened.

I think, you know.

Yeah.

He's off.

It's a bit of an early one at 10 a.m.

for a comedian.

You're a busy man, aren't you?

Yeah, yeah.

This is half an hour after I usually wake up.

Is it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's why you're in that game.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think I'm ready to go.

Yeah.

What time do you wake up, James?

Oh, mate.

Steve, by the way.

Oh, God.

Sorry, Steve.

Come on, you like me.

Terrible.

There's comedies like that, and there were people just let it go for years and years.

I have done that.

Have you?

Yeah, not with two, but one with Joel.

Joel.

Joel with an L on the end, Joel.

Someone's called you Joel.

I think it's because of how I say it.

I think I go, Joel, I'm going to name you Joel.

And it sounds a bit like it's got an L on the end.

Yeah, I've let that go.

I think I've got two Christmas cards with Joel written in it.

Is that you saying in quite a Manchester way?

You live in Manchester now, so is that right?

Yeah, maybe I've adapted.

I've adapted a bit of that.

Getting ready for the Oasis Tour to get the accent going.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.

You're going to go see them while you're up there?

No, it's just too expensive, isn't it?

I thought about standing outside Heaton Park while it was on, you know, like Spike Island kind of vibe.

Thought that could be quite fun, but originally I thought it was going to be Old Trafford Cricket Ground, which is like a 10 minute walk from me.

But it turns out it's at Heaton.

I have to get a taxi there and to get a taxi there to stand outside is a bit sad.

Yeah, and you're never going to get the traffic is going to be awful.

And also it's on during Fringe.

You could also pop in then if your show doesn't clash.

Yeah, that is true.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pop in and see them.

Well, going back to your question, I wake up normally because I have children.

I wake up somewhere around seven if it goes well, but often five something.

OK, three, five and seven.

Seven's good.

Seven's a winner.

Five something.

Weirdly, I don't hate it anymore because it's like quiet time for me.

So if I wake up in the summer months and the lights in the window, you just think, fuck, I'll get up and I'll get some shit done before these fuckers wake up, you know?

So it's quite nice to get some pop a pod on, do a little bit of World War III doom scrawling and then make breakfast, you know?

Yeah, that does sound nice.

The peace of the morning.

Yeah, I ought to try it.

Although actually everybody in my house works a normal job, so actually I get that.

I kind of get that all day, really.

Nice.

Then you go out at night.

Then I get, yeah, creature of the night.

Well, talking about a creature of the night, Frankie Monroe, I mean, Jesus, man.

I mean, I saw around 50 shows in Edinburgh last year.

Wow, well done.

I was doing a show as well myself, big waste of time that was.

But when I saw yours, it just completely changed everything.

It was really hard to watch anything after that.

It was like, well, I just want to go back and watch it.

It happens sometimes where you see someone so good and you have so much fun at the gig that you just want to go back again.

It's weird with comedy.

You don't see much stand up that you go, oh, I'm going to go and watch that again.

Why would you do that?

That would be weird.

But with your show, I was actually trying to sneak another one in, but I couldn't quite do it.

But it was just so much fun.

And I sat in the front row, got some white powder on me at the end.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, thanks so much, Steve.

That's so nice.

Yeah, I got 50 shows.

That's good going.

And yeah, I think there was a lot of things that the stars align with really for.

I think that late night slot and that room is what I always wanted to do, really.

Because the thing that did that for me when I first went to Edinburgh was actually more of a compil-

it was ACMS seeing that late at night in Monkey Barrow Ward that made me think that comedy was something I wanted to do, you know.

So that sort of late night, there's something special isn't there about the late night thing at the Fringe?

Yeah, I think so, yeah.

And also everyone's on board to have fun.

It's not like a sort of late and live, you know, or something like that, where everyone's a bit combative or anything.

No, no, nothing like that.

Yeah, it's not combative until the nomination came out and then it was that it felt a little combative.

Yeah, yeah.

Well deserved.

Are you kidding me?

Because, I mean, I didn't know much about you then.

And obviously I've looked since and it all makes complete sense when I look back at your sort of, you know, your theatrical beginnings because it's clear.

I worked in theater for a while.

I was a sound engineer in theater for years.

I was like, oh, this guy's an actor.

This guy looks like an actor to me.

You've got this thing.

I've looked back at lots of videos from like five, six years ago and you just got this presence, man.

You're just on stage.

You're just funny.

You have this command of the room and you've had that at such a young age.

How did you get that?

Where did that come from?

Is it just confidence or you just, you're just blagging it?

What's going on there?

I think it's maybe commitment more than confidence, you know, like, just able to fully commit to the art.

Not like one bit of you is is wincing and going, oh, is this a bit cringe or is that a good idea?

Like, you just managed to 100% commit when you're doing it.

I think it's probably that more than confidence.

I think it's, I don't know if I was even that confident at that age.

It was more, I was committed when I was doing it and I had the audacity to do it.

Audacity.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Audacity and commitment, I think that underrated the shadow of confidence.

And do you prefer a mask to hide behind rather than like do comedy as yourself?

Well, and that does help.

That does help.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I think if you were a stand up and you were saying, this is me and this is who I am, then if you behave in that way so big and then you're way more likely to not commit because you're going to cringe because you think it's, you know what I mean?

Like if you've got that little bit of a mask, yeah, then you can, then you just feel totally fearless, really.

Yeah, it's really different, isn't it?

It's like I've noticed, I saw John Kerns about a year and a half ago.

I'm sure you probably know him, but like the way he just puts it on stage now, just puts the teeth and the thing on just goes and you're just like, oh, well, he can do what he wants now.

It is a very freeing, it's like mask work.

And you've done, you've done clowning, right?

You've been to Paris and done the whole thing.

Yeah, yeah, I have, yeah.

Yeah, I did that for six months.

I did that.

I was just wondering, because a lot of people do it.

Is it like getting into college?

Do you have to sort of like, you know, be very good to get in or is it just pay the money and you can do it?

What sort of situation?

Pay the money and you can do it.

Yeah, yeah.

If you can, if you can scrape together the money, then they'll let you in.

Oh really?

They want your money, you know, they're like, they're like, yeah, thank you.

All right, come on in.

But I think actually that makes it a really, because there's another one in Paris called Le Carc, which is actually the more famous one really.

Like lots and lots of actors went there and stuff.

But that one you have to audition to get into.

And if you're not good enough, you have to leave.

But this one, I actually think that the fact that there's loads of people there who were doing this for the first time, there's so many very, very amateur people and also people who just heard there's a clown school you can go to and want to go to that.

So there's people who were a bit mad as well.

There was a guy there who just tried to join as many cults as he could in his life.

He figured that this clown school was a bit of a cult, which he definitely is.

I digress a bit.

The point is that being in a class with loads of people who aren't like professional actors or comedians or there's lots of just normal different skill levels.

It's brilliant for the learning because you spend more time watching people try and do it rather than you doing it.

You get loads from watching someone with lots of different experience levels fail.

It's a mad thing.

It's always very hard to explain, really.

Do you have to live there for the whole time?

You're living in Paris.

Yeah, you did have to live there.

The first time I was there, me and, I did a double act as well called The Lovely Boys with a girl called Mikey Blyde-Smith.

We went together the first time we went and we found a house on Airbnb called Fairy Tale House at the bottom of my garden.

That's what it was listed as.

We were like 21 or 22 or something at that point.

I feel like we were at an age where if something was funny, we'd do it.

You know what I mean?

It's like a yes man thing.

Yeah, we'd make decisions based on the fact that it was funny or stupid.

So now, we've got to live there.

Yeah, of course.

That sounds ridiculous.

It was like living in a Wendy house at the bottom of someone's garden, which at first was hilarious.

But very quickly, there was one bed and an open plan toilet right in front of the bed.

I've seen that in France.

Yeah, I've seen that before.

There'll be a toilet next to the fridge or something.

Oh, I didn't realize this was a cultural thing.

I thought this was just these guys being cheap.

But yeah, no toilet and that was the only toilet.

We'd take it in turns on the beds.

We'd have an air bed and the bed and we'd swap around.

It was a real ordeal by the end of it.

But I think we just wanted to save money and we thought it was funny.

To be fair, it sounds like it got you ready for the Edinburgh Fringe housing costs.

Yeah, well, we and Mike ended up sharing a bed again that year at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Of course you did.

Yeah, we did.

We shared a bed, the whole thing.

Like, more common-wise, it was so extreme.

It is.

When I go up, I stay in Penny Cook.

I think I've been told it's pronounced as an hour south of Edinburgh.

Yeah, I'm the furthest out I've been this year, which is about 40 minutes towards the least.

That one, I'm sharing a room with my partner.

My romantic, my actual partner, not her, my producer.

I'm sharing a bed with my agent.

It sounds weird, but it's how they do it at Avalon.

They want you to be close.

Did you ever see the TV show Baskets?

Just reminded me of it, with Zach Galifianakis.

Oh yeah, forget that this is about TV.

Because that kind of reminds me of your life a little bit, even though you're not American.

I've actually not seen it, people have told me to watch it.

You'd like that.

I've not seen it.

Yeah, no, I should, I should.

I like Zach Galifianakis.

He lives in the woods now, doesn't he?

Does he?

Yeah, he just lives in the woods.

Lives in the woods?

He's like, I've done enough.

He's not online.

I live in the woods.

He's not doing broadcasts.

Yeah, no, he's not bothered, he's done it.

He's done enough.

They're all doing that.

Have you noticed like Hollywood people, like I think Sean Penn is now a carpenter.

They're all fucking off into the woods to do like whittling or something.

I think maybe that's the end game for everything.

Maybe that is.

Did you see the most recent series of Celebrity Big Brother?

I did not.

Mickey Vaughn was in it.

Yeah, he's a different looking man.

Yes, well, and he was post-woods.

Oh, he's post-woods.

Yeah, so he went to the woods for, I think he said he was in the woods for 10 years, just him and his dogs.

And then I think he was maybe running out of money.

So he came on Celebrity Big Brother.

It's quite interesting to see a celebrity post-woods.

You know what I mean?

You see them pre-woods, they go in the woods, they become a carpenter, they live there.

And sure, the answer is he's mad.

He's gone mad.

That's what they do, I think.

Top of his game, his actor turns into boxer, turns into the wrestler, fucks off to the woods for 10 years, comes back as a sort of plastic Iggy Pop and puts himself on ITV.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and he's totally, he's totally gone.

Wasn't he being homophobic or something?

Yeah, he was, he was.

He said some pretty unforgivable things, but it's strange though, because if you get an 80s movie star and remove them from the last 10 years of culture, they've been, he's not even reading the papers, he's not even on a lot, he's not engaged at all with it.

But then you bring them back to celebrity, but you know what I mean?

Of course, he's going to say some, some bad things and...

It's like a real life version of that, what's that comedy show?

Is it Mammoth, where the 70s...

Oh, Mammoth, yeah, it is like a real life version of Mammoth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Apart from, I don't think Mike Bubbins is just like using racial slurs.

I don't actually know what he said, so...

I think it's...

I'll have to look into it.

He said some bad stuff.

I can't really defend that, but he got a lot of hate on him after it.

And I think it's so interesting seeing how the producers are working now on Big Brother, because fundamentally the show's cruelty hasn't changed.

Right, yeah.

They still know that that's the thing that pushes shows, like controversy and getting the public to pile on somebody.

So I think they know what they're doing, getting an 80s, who's lived in the woods for 10 years and gone a bit mad to come on.

Yeah, of course.

Because they're like, he's going to say some things that are not okay.

But then as soon as he does that, it justifies a sort of outside press pile on, which is what they want.

They know that that's what gets them the views.

But it's funny that they can kind of make out that they aren't as evil as they used to be, but they totally are, they're just playing a different game.

Well, I see that on, like, I talk about this a little bit sometimes about, I feel like in 15, 20 years we're going to look back and think, why did we put all these mentally ill people on television and stare at them?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, we're probably just going to enjoy it while we can.

I was very surprised to find out how young you were, because what you draw on is very, it's almost like a 70s pastiche with a bit of, you know, obviously League of Gentlemen and things like that.

But there is, I guess that's a huge influence on you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The temperament of Frankie, he feels like he's from like 1972 or something.

Yeah, I don't know where that's at.

I think I have always been a bit of an old soul, but I don't really know where it comes from.

I'm trying to think of like things that I watched growing up that could have done it.

Wurzel Gummidge was a big one.

Really?

Like the family favourite programme was Wurzel Gummidge.

So you were watching old stuff quite a lot then.

It said somewhere that you watched George Formby as a kid.

Is that right?

Yeah, I did.

I got really into George Formby as well.

How do you get into black and white films in that era?

It was actually, weirdly, the Frank Skinner documentary.

I don't know if you remember that.

No.

What did he do?

It was like a BBC Four job.

He just did an hour on George Formby.

For some reason, something about it just really, really, really clicked with me.

I don't really know what that was, but there was something about it I absolutely loved.

I joined the fan club and got a ukulele and started learning all the songs.

Yeah, I don't know what it was.

I mean, I do love it.

I love light entertainment and that kind of cheeky thing.

Even though a lot of the films, there's definitely moments and there's things about it that don't age very well.

Oh, I'm sure.

Oh, yeah.

Mainly, the main one is this sort of like...

Well, it's not surprising.

The way people used to talk about women is not just misogynist.

There's something a bit creepy about it, like sweet young thing.

You know what I mean?

That kind of vernacular.

So common back then.

And it's just so creepy, so profoundly creepy.

It's all very much like, oh, she's going to be a beauty when she's older and lines like that in old films.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or was it she's going to break some hearts when she...

You're talking about a six year old girl.

What are you talking about?

Yeah, so weird.

So weird.

Because when I was a kid, there was quite a lot of black and white TV still on because we're the 80s, right?

So that's when I grew up.

And it was like you'd have Norman Wisdom films in the summer holidays and you'd have like, I don't know, like Jerry Lewis and D.

Martin movies and stuff like that.

And I loved all that shit.

And that was ancient then, you know, but it was always on because I guess there was less of a backlog of television to watch.

There was a lot of black and white on.

Yeah, yeah.

It's well, by the time there's 90s and then all these rolled around, it was just like new cartoons, new cartoons.

So I'm wondering how the hell you stumbled upon black and white.

So that's kind of...

Yeah, video tapes.

There was a place called the catalog shop.

Right.

Did you have a catalog shop?

Do you mean like a Little Woods type thing or?

Maybe.

I wasn't called that.

It's like...

Well, you buy something on the catalog and then go pick it up and pay it off.

Do you mean like that?

I don't know why we called it the catalog shop because it was just a shop with stuff all around.

But I think it was stuff people didn't want.

Right.

Like a second's.

Maybe like an outlet store.

Like an outlet in Old America sort of thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But maybe it was an outlet from catalogs.

Oh, right.

This is my theory now.

Usually if there's like a mark on a shoe or one lace is wrong and they go to those...

And then they can't sell it in the cat.

So maybe it was like a Little Woods outlet or something like that.

Anyway, people did not want Wurzel Gummidge VHSs.

VHSs generally.

They did not want them.

They did not want them.

I was like, they were gold dust.

I was like, yes, we've got another.

We've not got this one.

We've watched that Wurzel Gummidge.

There must have been other old stuff that we got from there, but that's one that really sticks out.

I don't think I even saw Wurzel.

I think I was creeped out by it.

It's creepy.

I knew him as a former Doctor Who, so it was like I didn't like his face.

It was all pointy and creepy and weird.

There's a great moment where he always grab his head and he'd like that and he'd take his head off.

He'd put it on a shelf and then he'd get angry while they'd put it on.

So good.

Oh, is that where Red Dwarf nicked it from?

They must have nicked that for Crichton because he does that, didn't he?

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, they probably did, yeah.

There you go.

Thieves.

But there's a bit of Frankie in him, isn't there?

He's sort of creepy but friendly and nice.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

But he's still creepy.

Well, I wrote this down.

I wrote it down on the day I saw you.

I don't know if you said it every day, but probably you did.

But it's the greatest line I've seen at a comedy show.

Oh, yeah.

It's when you, at the end of it, when you're yourself and you take everything off and you come in and you say something, it's okay, I'm just a nice man.

I remember thinking that is just such a palate cleanser for the audience because they're a bit freaked out and you're just a nice man.

I like that.

There's something about that line that was just great.

It stood out.

Thanks, man.

Yeah.

Well, the main reason I do all that bit at the end is to, I think people want to give you money more than they want to give Frankie money.

So if you were to stay in character and do the book, I mean, firstly, it would probably be a bit exhausting.

But then, you know, if you're like, I'm just a nice man and then I'm more likely to want to chat to you after or put somebody in the book or buy some merch, you know.

Yeah.

So it's still a very practical thing for him.

I'm glad it tickled you as well.

Yeah, it was just, it was something about it.

It was like diffusing.

It was different.

I hadn't seen that in a room before.

Obviously, when you do stand up, the person is just still the stand up.

And usually if there's a character thing going on, you never see the end of that.

No one takes it off.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was just different.

I'd never seen anything like that before.

And it was just, how do you keep that energy up, dude?

Cause you're like climbing over the chairs.

You're behind people.

You're jumping in things, disappearing.

It looks really physically active.

It is.

It must take 5,000 calories a minute to be him.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I was treating that run a bit like, I'll sound so wanky, but like an athlete, you know, like I was just resting in the day and...

Like an actor.

Yeah, yeah.

Resting your voice, whispering.

Yeah, no, steam.

Steam's good for your voice.

Get a steam in.

Yeah, because it's quite an...

It must take its toll on your vocal cords, that voice.

Yeah, weirdly.

I've got quite a naturally strong voice anyway, so I kind of weirdly managed to not dwindle much over the fringe, but I feel the repercussions of it.

I've got a bad back.

Got a bad back?

Because of the hunching.

No, no, that's a jumbo car sponge.

Oh.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I don't actually hunch.

No, there's just two bits of sponge.

Hang on, I just need to plug my charger in.

Oh, yeah, you go for it.

But yeah, no, bad back because I was in dress shoes the whole time.

You know, like smart shoes.

And they're not supportive if you're jumping around.

Yeah, of course.

So I think that's what's done it.

I've got a really bad lower back now.

I've got a physio appointment through the NHS, would you believe?

Lovely.

That feels good, doesn't it?

Getting a sick physio through the NHS.

The vote went well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Get something out of it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and try to get it sorted out.

But yeah, so physically demanding and feel the repercussions of it a little bit.

I'd say this new show is a little bit, is slightly less jumping around.

Right.

I'd say Frankie's a little bit more static in this one.

Okay.

But only marginally.

New songs?

You got new songs?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, lovely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Maybe four or five new songs, actually.

I was thinking the Trowel song could give Jack Black a bit of a run for the money.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Totally.

Yeah.

Oh, when that thing hits TikTok, it will inevitably probably not do very well.

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Where does the demonic sort of horror, are you like a fan of horror?

Are you a fan of like, where does the sort of, you know, that part of it come from?

No, I have always been a fan of like, creepy stuff.

I think the biggest one as a kid, I loved Tim Burton.

Right.

I think I watched all of his movies as a kid.

I just like, as soon as I found that I really absorbed it.

I was also a bit of a goth, bit of an emo.

Okay.

You know what I mean?

Like Tim Burton, I think goes hand in hand with that world really.

Weirdly, culturally, the mighty Boosh was sort of within that subculture as well.

You know what I mean?

Like, you'd see all the people hanging outside cathedrals with the stretches and stuff.

They'd have a mighty Boosh hoodie on as well.

You know what I mean?

So I feel like that kind of link between like the creepy, spooky, horror kind of aesthetic and comedy kind of, yeah, stems from that like Northseas even man sort of stuff almost.

I do remember that.

I remember being on tour in South End and places like that and just seeing crowds of like new Goths.

I was like, is this back?

Yeah, yeah.

And then weirdly, we've had a reverse of that because it's back again.

Goth is back again.

I don't know what it's called now.

New Goth.

New Goth.

Noff.

Noff.

There we go.

Well, there is a lot of new language.

I learned that from my kids, the fucking brain rot.

You know what brain rot is?

Yeah, brain rot.

Yeah.

Get a bit of that into Frankie.

Get him doing skibbidy-toilet.

Yeah, yeah, well, probably.

For the young people.

Yeah.

What was I going to say?

Horror.

But like.

Yeah, horror.

Yeah, yeah.

And League of Gentlemen was so huge when we grow it up.

Those are kind of the early horror influences.

And they're all, of course, influenced by stuff that is effectively down the Frankie route in my mind.

Like when I see him, I think, oh, he'd be really good in like an old Tales of the Unexpected or something.

You know what I mean?

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Everything else all the way through.

It's kind of interesting seeing those.

Yeah, totally.

Yeah.

You're always part of a bit of a lineage like that, aren't you?

But when I was at uni, I did a theatre degree at uni.

It was a bit different to like drama school.

We didn't really train to be actors.

It was more like making weird stuff.

You know, to be like devising and making your own shows.

And I quickly sort of found a crowd of people who were really weird as well.

And they sort of showed me...

I've not really watched like David Lynch or anything like that before that.

They kind of showed me all of that stuff.

And then also lots of like, you know, dead cool 60s, 70s horrors, you know, like Suspiria and Rosemary's Baby.

Oh yeah, creepy stuff.

All of those kind of things.

So it's the creepy elements rather than the horror elements.

It's like being creeped out.

Yeah, probably, probably.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're not like spooky aesthetics, are they?

Those kind of things or like, but yeah, yeah.

We love that kind of stuff.

And that was the time when Frankie first came about.

I was going to ask how long ago did you come up with the character?

It was when we first started making shows.

Like shows is a weird word for it because it was kind of like immersive parties.

It was all very at school, if that makes sense.

You know what I mean?

Like, you know, we'd hire out a pub and some people would go up and like do a turn.

But then we'd also walk around in character and we'd have like big rituals and stuff that went on.

It was probably about 2018.

Anyway, I invented the character for that.

Then I started doing comedy properly and forgot about him.

Then one day he just sort of appeared again, really.

He wants to exorcise.

Creepy in and of itself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

How old is Frankie, do you think, as a character in real life?

Good question.

What is his actual age?

Well, I think his age got frozen when he made the deal with the devil.

And I think he was maybe, should just have this answer, shouldn't I, really?

Forty-ish, forty-two.

Yeah, I think forties, yeah.

Early forties.

Yeah, yeah.

It's just always interesting to me when young people invent old characters.

I spoke to Graham Fellows, who is John Shuttleworth.

You know John Shuttleworth?

Wow!

Oh, he's an absolute hero.

Yeah.

There's a good episode of this, actually.

It's probably one of the best ones.

Oh, I'll go back in there.

It's a good one.

He takes the piss out of me the whole time.

He came up with that in his early twenties.

He's on there as an old man with a Casio, like in his twenties.

It seems mad.

And he's grown into it.

So nice.

It's interesting to come up with that.

I guess that's what Alan Partridge is as well, of course.

Yeah, I don't know what it is.

It's something about an older presence on stage that is maybe not more engaging, but like there's something, maybe there's something more tragic about an older man.

Oh yeah, that's probably what it is, right?

Yeah, I think that is it.

Yeah, yeah.

If it's a working men's club thing, usually it would be someone who's like failed at what they're trying to do, right?

And they'd have to be a little bit older to have failed.

And also as a character, you've got the decades now to grow into him.

Rather, if he was young, you don't want to be an old guy playing a young guy.

Yeah.

Otherwise you're Chris Lilly, you know, you don't want to be that.

No, no, no, no.

Although Kevin and Perry do a good job, but that was always the thing.

I've started re-watching Harry Anfield recently, and I think it is just seminal.

It's just so good.

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a couple of people I spoke to have done exactly what I think you want to do.

I spoke to Jack Doherty, and I spoke to Dom Jolly.

And you would like to have a chat show, apparently, as Frankie.

Is this a real thing?

Oh, I have said that.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean...

In character as...

Yeah, I would.

I would.

I mean, I'd like to try lots of different vehicles, really, and see what sticks more than anything.

There's a missing thing right now, isn't there?

Like something for Friday night for people getting home.

Frankie, talking to people.

Yeah, I'd love to make something like that.

Just mainly find a vehicle that suites him, that he can sort of sit inside, really.

Yeah.

That would be the main thing.

I'd be at a chat show.

I think that could work really well.

The only thing I think about is, would people be too scared?

You know what I mean?

If you get an unsuspecting celebrity to come do this chat show, would they just be too on edge?

You could start with like, do a collab with Danny Robbins or something, do an uncanny thing or something.

I don't know, something where there's a...

Oh yeah, that's actually not a bad idea.

Hey, we should go to some format questions.

How about that?

We've got format, can you believe it?

Oh yeah, come on.

Let's get in the format.

No, no, no, I'm having a nice time.

What's your favorite jingle?

You're a man of music.

Oh, if you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, join our club.

That's a good one.

That's a good one.

Yeah, I like it.

It makes me love the product more.

I suppose it's really doing its job.

It makes me think that I'm in a club.

Would I have a club bar?

I think it just elevates it.

I've seen those in the shop recently, and they're next to something called Blue Ribbon, and I don't know what that is.

So I definitely wouldn't buy that one because it hasn't got the song.

Because it doesn't have the song.

Actually, a very small amount of chocolate on your biscuit.

Blue Ribbon would be, if you like a little bit of chocolate on your wafer.

Blue Ribbon, that's rubbish.

Listen, Joe, there's only one biscuit on that section of the biscuit section.

It's called a Viscount because it comes in its little own green silvery wrapping.

And it's like a little special.

Viscount, have you ever had a Viscount?

Viscount, let me Google it.

The round ones that come individually wrapped in green tin foil.

Oh, I think they're in the tin foil mint ones.

Yeah, they are absolutely delicious.

Yeah, they are.

They're not good for you.

But they come direct from the 70s in the time machine.

It's just pictures of old sort of Regency men that's come up with a good Viscount.

Viscount, yeah, yeah.

McVitties.

Viscount McVitty.

He sounds like a landowner.

Club, yeah, I know that song.

That's surprising.

That's what's been going.

So here's one for you.

What's the funniest thing you saw on TV?

There's actually something recently that I think is in my all time top, funniest things that's made me laugh the most.

Yeah, it is a recent thing, believe it or not.

And it's Tim Robinson's I Think You Should Leave.

Have you seen that one?

I've seen some of it.

I haven't seen all the episodes.

In particular, the Sloppy Stakes sketch.

That really got me.

I don't know why.

Because it's pure absurdism, isn't it?

You know, like, I can't explain why it's funny, but there's just something about it that really, really got me.

He's just mad.

Yeah, he breaks the mold, doesn't he?

And you can't explain.

It's pure absurdism.

You can't explain why it's funny.

And that's my favorite kind of stuff really.

You just can't explain why that's funny, that there's just something about it that just completely blows your head off.

That's true, isn't it?

The funniest thing I've seen recently is a rerun of something I've seen before.

It was the episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, where Jake and Amy are getting married or something.

And Fred Armisen just turns up for no reason whatsoever.

And he gets the violin, he plays it really fast.

And he just goes, guitar, for some reason.

That is funny.

It's just so funny because what's that got to do with anything?

That's not a guitar, you silly guy.

His face and the way he does it, it's just genius.

But if you wrote that on a piece of paper, it'd be like, what?

That's not even funny.

Yeah, that is good.

Another top one would be the time that Bill Turnbull on BBC Breakfast said couldn't.

There's that feeling nowadays where you have to like, fill every moment with like a podcast music, something you never ever really quiet.

Yeah, we've killed boredom.

Yeah, exactly.

But you must get bored because you've come up Frankie.

So you'll be able to do that.

Yeah, I leave my headphones at home sometimes.

Do you like to, what is it called?

Soundbathing or something?

Going out listening to everyone yapping on their phones.

That's funny that we call that soundbathing, when that's just being alive in the world.

Everything's been renamed.

Why have we given that a term?

That's so sad.

Everything's got a term, though.

Yeah, I think there is something in that.

But yeah, if you're in the woods, like Mickey Rourke, bring it back to that, or in nature, walking around without your headphones on and just being there and being in the moment and allowing thoughts and ideas to, you know, fester inside is very well.

But on a bus or in a cafe, when every bastard is yapping into their phones or playing shit from their phones, I mean, I sound like an old bastard, but I fucking want it banned immediately.

I'd vote, you know, it should be something that the government is thinking of.

Ban the noise, like, put blockers up.

You have them in theatre years ago.

You could block, like, people's phones going off during a performance.

Why aren't they, like, in cafes and anyway?

It should be a thing.

It is mad that people think that's acceptable to play things out on their phone.

It is insane.

The other day, Molly, my partner on the bus, saw someone play something out of their phone and they also had their shoes and socks off and they were putting them on the seat in front of them, playing something out loud.

When it goes to that point, I actually kind of weirdly admire it to be like, you know, you're living in some kind of, you know.

That turns me into, like, a Tory MP.

I'm like, what are you doing?

Get your feet off the, you know.

And, you know, I used to play music on my walk-mini thing on my bike and play music out of it, but it's because it's the adults doing it.

It used to always be kids and teenagers, which is fine because they're rebelling.

And of course, do what you want.

But when you see, like, a 40-year-old man blasting football out of their phone or some woman playing some fucking TikTok real outside at full volume, I just don't get the old, talking of audacity, I don't get the audacity of that, you know.

No, no.

And you can't go up to people, can you?

You get stabbed.

You can't even follow it even because when it's reels or it's TikTok.

Like, they saw us playing loads of bits of Frasier.

In fact, this was the person on the bus, I think, that my girlfriend saw.

So she was just playing loads of clips from Frasier.

And it's like, we're hearing all of these clips from Frasier and they're just being moved on before they get to the punchline or whatever.

Right.

If you were just watching an episode of Frasier in full, then we could listen to the whole thing.

But instead, you got to just listen to these little clips of things.

That would be the last thing I would ever imagine anyone to watch in clip form on a bus.

I know!

That's so bad!

I'm moving a lot now.

Anyway, that's just the way it is.

Let's go to another format question before you have to go.

Do you do any impressions?

Because you've got all these voices.

I guess I could learn one.

I've never actually consciously learned one and got good at one.

Because the only thing that I do is I can repeat someone back to them.

Straight away, I can mimic.

Yeah, but don't ask me to do it now.

I can't do you.

That would be too much.

When you watch something straight away, it's that you can sort of...

Yeah, so that's what I do in the show is I get someone's voice and I mimic their voice back to them.

I could do that and I could probably learn an impression.

But there's something that feels a bit cringe about doing that in this day and age.

Still big in America, though, with Saturday Night Live and all that sort of stuff.

Yeah, yeah, huge, yeah, yeah.

And it really does well on the circuit as well.

Like, you know, in a comedy club, someone does a good impression.

People love it.

I saw a guy, a comedian, I actually can't remember, I didn't really know them, but I saw them win over the guys in the street with an impression.

We were stood outside the comedy club and these guys come over and they say, they're from Ireland and they get chatting to us like drunk, like, where are you from?

He's from Ireland and then he starts doing an Irish accent to them.

I'm like, what the hell are you doing, man?

This is, you're asking to get punched.

Then they go, hey, that's decent, man.

I said, yeah.

Then one of them goes, oh, he sounded a bit Donald Trump.

Then this impressionist guy does this amazing Irish Donald Trump.

Then these guys in the street, drunk guys on a night out are like, hats off to your man shaking his hand.

Yeah, it was like street magic, but with impressions.

They have a real power to impress people.

It's a funny thing.

It is cringe.

It's a bit old fashioned, but who doesn't like to hear a good impression?

There's a guy that does Trump at the moment on Saturday Night Live.

I study him.

I can't understand how he's doing that.

It's so good.

It's beyond anything I've ever seen.

It's incredible to watch.

It's masterful.

There's a guy around here called Cal Halbert.

He lives in Newcastle and he's unbelievable.

He does a Michael McIntyre that is so good.

You can't believe what you're looking at.

It just doesn't make any sense that that's coming out of his head.

You know what I mean?

That's the other thing.

When people have like, you know, like someone has like, you know, I'll do I'm half Irish.

I'll do it.

You know, they have a real thick, you know, Northern Irish accent or something.

Shut your amazing eye and they talk like that normally.

And then they can do London or something.

Or like when Stephen Graham isn't a Scouser.

Yeah, yeah, he's amazing.

That's wrong, can't be looking at that.

That doesn't fit.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, man.

Or when I found out that David Tennant was Scottish.

Oh, did you not know?

No, I mean, you know, I just watched Doctor Who as a kid.

And it was when I was a kid at some point.

I really like I heard it and I was like, that's not his, well, that was that was my one for me.

It's like the guy in Slow Horses as well.

I can't remember his name.

Really good.

Or the other one, Lion of Duty guy.

He's Scottish.

I didn't know he was Scottish either.

Little fella, little fella.

You know, we need to stop telling Scottish people to not be Scottish.

It feels very personal at this point.

One more format question.

Oh, yeah, go on, go on.

OK, last one.

OK.

What's the TV show that you would erase from history with Men in Black It?

Press the button.

It's gone forever.

And one you'd bring back?

Holly Oaks.

Holly Oaks.

Yeah, I feel bad shitting on a soap opera like that.

Do you though?

People love them.

I'm happy to be able to love them, but something about Holly Oaks that always rubbed me up the wrong way.

You know what it was?

It's because it came on after The Simpsons.

You know, Simpsons.

So there's a shit in your glass, basically.

Yeah, yeah.

Simpsons.

I lived for six o'clock.

Channel Four Simpsons.

And then doodling, doodling, doodling.

And then, and then, yeah, you kind of, you know, then that comes in.

It's like the fun's over, you know.

I'd have raised that and I'd have a double bill of Simpsons.

Fair enough.

And do you believe people were watching Holyoaks?

Because it was on for so long and I don't even understand.

Apparently, it's where Channel Four got all their money from at one point, or maybe even still now.

Yeah, yeah.

Has it gone?

No, it's still going, still on.

You're joking.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

I think it is where they get like a lot of their viewership from.

In terms of terrestrial TV views, you know, that people actually watch scheduled telly, it's Holyoaks, really, I think, like because there's enough people that follow it that will watch it every day.

Whereas everything else just comes from online.

Have you ever watched A Soap?

No, no, no, I've jumped into bits of curry, but not never watched it, but I know what's going on.

It's a bit like a drug, isn't it?

I caught myself watching Doctors on tour, like for about a month and I was like, I've got to stop this.

It starts with Homes Under the Hammer and it's going to be in Doctors.

Then you've got to stop.

Then you've gone too far.

You've got Homes Under the Hammer.

That's like weed.

That's your gateway drug.

Before you're on it, you're on Hollyoaks crack.

Well, in COVID, I got on the Jeremy Vine train for a bit and that was like, whoa.

Oh my God.

That is what I could get rid of as well, actually.

That is just-

The whole universe of shows.

Style, isn't it?

There's like six of them now.

They just run one after the other for like hours.

Oh God.

Show that I'd bring back.

Well, I'd probably make Sunday Brunch every day.

No, I'm just joking.

Big fan of Sunday, isn't it?

People like that show, right?

I've never seen it, but I go.

I weirdly, I do actually find it very watchable only because of how sort of bad it is really.

Like I like watching Tim Lovejoy make jokes that don't work.

He flops about six or seven times per episode.

It's really worth watching it for.

Like he'll really set one up and it'll go down.

It's worth it.

It's good for that.

And it's so awkward as well.

And I've heard people just get drunk on there and stuff.

Yeah, they do.

They do drink on there.

Yeah.

Some people, some people are quite hung over as well.

That's quite fun to try and spot.

You got to get Frankie on there.

Frankie on Sunday.

Oh, that would be that would be the dream.

That's all I want.

That's actually all I want.

But I keep knocking at that door.

It's not coming down yet, but I'll keep going.

Well, we'll have to wrap this up now, Joe.

So thank you for coming on.

And we did talk about Telly kind of around.

Yeah, I reckon we got a lot of Telly chatting, actually.

Yeah, a lot of Telly.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much for coming on.

And is there any chance we can get a little appearance from Frankie at the end?

Do you think he'll pop on and say hi?

Oh, yeah, go on.

And he can, Frankie can plug the Edinburgh Fringe show.

It's so weird.

I never do it like this.

I know.

Okay.

See you later.

Bye bye.

Oh, hello, Steve.

How you doing?

Oh, I'm doing well, Frankie.

Thank you for coming on and saying hi at the end.

Very good, very good.

You know when he called you James in the beginning?

He did, yeah, he's fucking idiot.

Yeah, that was me.

I said, go on.

I said, call him James.

I have to look away.

And he fell for it.

He fell for it.

I could have let it lie, but I decided to just pull him up on it quickly because it's embarrassing, isn't it, if it goes on.

Oh, well, I knew you'd do that.

Because you're a strong man, I can tell, I can tell.

But yeah, quickly, I'll just say that if you come into the Edinburgh Fringe this year, you should come see me new show.

The last one was Frankie Monroe Live.

Now it's Frankie Monroe Dead.

In brackets, good fun time.

Because I thought, if people come to the show, it's called, then they might, they don't.

I don't want to see the dead show, but it's going to be a good fun time.

So come along.

That's 9.30 on Cabaret Voltaire.

Cabaret Voltaire.

Come along and see that, yeah.

That's early for you, Frankie.

That's early.

You'll be in bed by midnight.

Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to be a bit better behaved this year.

Cool.

Well, thank you for coming on to Television Times at the end there, Frankie.

And thank Joe for me as well.

I really appreciate it a lot.

Yeah, I wouldn't do it.

I wouldn't.

All right.

Bye, Frankie.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

That was me talking to Frankie Monroe.

Before that, I was talking to his inventor and creator, Joe Kent-Walters.

What a great chat.

I'm really glad we got around to that conversation.

I've been trying to talk to him for nearly a year.

He's a really funny guy, really talented.

And do yourself a big favour, go and see Frankie Monroe live.

I promise you, it will be one of the best nights of your life.

Now to today's outro track.

Right, today's outro track is called Time for Crows, and I'm really surprised because I thought I'd put this out before, but I haven't, which is weird because it's one of my favourite songs, especially of that period in which it was recorded.

It was recorded in Japan in the year 2003, and you can hear these crows in the background.

I went around Yoyogi Park in Tokyo with a mini disc, a tiny little microphone on it, recording crows, which I then sort of inserted into the song bit by bit, and I placed them, like, you know, splicing them live, essentially, using a 16-track hard disk recorder.

I can't even explain what it is, but I didn't have a laptop yet.

I was a year away from owning my first computer, so fuck knows how I even did this.

And, yeah, so I wrote this song called Time for Crows in Japan, and it was all about, like, you know, humanity is going to be replaced at some point by a higher species, especially dolphins, but I thought, what if it's crows?

What if all the crows are just waiting and that's what they're doing, communicating from telegraph pole to telegraph pole?

That was my thought, anyway, behind my whole thing.

Anyway, this is it.

Let's stop jabbering on.

So this is the song, Time for Crows, from the album The Fear of Flying, from 2003, recorded in Japan.

Here we go.

That was Time for Cries, I hope you enjoyed that, and I hope you enjoyed my chat with Joe Kent-Walters.

Come back next week for another great episode.

Until then, thank you for listening.

Bye for now.

Look into my eyes.

Tell your friends about this podcast.