Kai Humphries: Geordie Laughs, MTV Nostalgia, and Tales From The Dark Side

Good morning, Screen Rats.

I'm going to try and change the way I speak at the beginning of these things, because I feel like I am talking in a kind of weird way that I don't normally talk.

You know, today, on blah blah blah.

I'm trying to kind of keep it a bit more like how I would speak to you normally if I was in a pub or something.

So today, I am putting up a bonus episode.

This is in no way a reflection of the guest.

This is just, I want to get these shows out and not sit on them for so long.

This one was one of the earlier recordings I did.

This is Kai Humphries, today's guest, a Geordie comedian, really funny guy.

We had a great chat.

I don't know why I was sitting on it so long.

He doesn't have a show out this year at Edinburgh, so I was trying to get the ones out that do.

There's a few more, that's why I'm doing two a week until Edinburgh begins.

But this chat that we had was in the Motel One, which is the hotel next to the Stand Comedy Club here in Newcastle.

And they very kindly set out a little area, reserved a little area for me to recall Kai.

We had a lovely chat for about an hour on a Saturday morning.

It was the day of the FA Cup final when Manchester played Manchester.

Don't fucking ask me.

Yeah, and I wasn't really in my stride yet.

It was one of the, I was very keen.

I was like, okay, I've got to get everybody I can.

Oh, he's coming through, he's coming through.

Let's try and record this person.

I didn't really have the format down.

So it's more of a free flow than normal, I think.

But I just, it's the confidence thing, you know?

Now I am recording with people who I've never met.

And I've met Kai a few times.

So it was easier in that way.

But now I'm sort of finding my feet.

I can sort of switch it on a little bit and record a podcast.

I can walk in a room with the microphones on and we can go and I can do that now, which I learned really, really quickly.

It also helps if you have really, really good guests.

And so far I've been very, very lucky.

Anyway, like I said, this is Kai Humphries.

He's from Newcastle.

He lives in Scotland now.

And this was me talking to him in early June.

Welcome to Television Times, a new 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.

That's my book.

That's your book?

Yeah, every guest gets a copy.

As part of the...

Thanks man, I'm a big reader as well.

Oh, that's yours.

You get a book and a badge for your merch.

Thanks very much, man.

Well, you're an author as well, haven't you?

You got your Daniels-lost diary.

You know what that was?

That was a blog for the Huffington Post.

And I was posting it every day of the tour.

And it was just during lockdown when I decided to compile it into a book and get it printed and sell it just as a revenue stream.

And it done alright.

Did you print them out?

Yeah, I got them printed.

It's just a small little thing because it's a compilation of blogs.

But it was never written as a book.

I just compiled it as a book.

I like the cover, it doesn't even look like you.

Yeah, that's a picture from us in Moscow.

Moscow?

Can't go there anymore.

Nah, nah, we performed there just before it kicked off.

I think we've met maybe twice, I think I met.

Just after I watched your gig in 2018, and at some point during production, to make sure you have the tech.

I'm very minimal when it comes to tech.

I had one show, Punch Drunk, which I watched two days ago again.

Didn't you?

That's on my website.

Yeah, thanks for watching that, man.

And that was the one where I had to have a projector, I had to have props, I had a punch bag that I had to carry around with us and stash somewhere at the gig.

So I ended up like fucking taking this punch bag to Tasmania and New York.

Really?

You couldn't get one locally?

It had to be the one over the video.

So yeah, I was really pleased when I finished, even though that was my favorite show, probably my best show, I was really pleased to just move back to straight standup.

Yeah, because I think the standup I saw in 2018, forgive me, I don't remember the name of the show.

Team Smug, that one.

Yes, yeah.

Did I come and see you in 17 as well then?

Because I was up there with them, I was up there on the tour and I went and saw a ton of shows.

It was at the same venue, both were at the very same room.

Right.

So I've definitely seen you twice.

So one was definitely, he was stills on the projector.

And I did wonder if like, did you bring your own?

Or did they actually charge you?

What, for the projector?

I brought my own.

Well done.

Because I was in charge at one point of those charges and...

Well, that is the fringe in a nutshell, isn't it?

The fringe is just like, oh, you want to do this?

We're going to charge you for this, this and this.

You get charged for publicity, for PR, from every stage of development.

And you're like, I don't remember getting any PR.

I mean, you don't make anything.

You literally lose with like eight or ten grand.

Yeah, it's bananas.

You want to cry when you see the breakdown.

When you see that, you made tens of thousands in ticket sales and then you owe them money.

I've always had a thing that I've had to bring up until like after that show.

Like, first of all, I had this thing where I look like I'm Tim Neal when I put a hat on, because I've got blonde eyebrows.

It's like, I'm kind of like ginger.

I used to be ginger, but my hair's got darker.

And if I found there was a hat in the crowd, I'd get it and I'd show them.

And it would be such a big laugh early doors to the point that I started like bringing a hat and like stashing it down the back of me belt.

It'd just be like, I've got to show you this.

So I started carrying a hat around, and then I had one where I tell a story when I'm younger of me acting hard and standing up to my dad.

And then when I show them the picture of what I looked like, it's a completely different story because I'm acting hard, but I look like this little geeky nerd kid.

So I pull out the picture.

So I would stash that picture on stage.

And I just seemed to go through a lot of years where I just had to have something.

Yeah, a device.

Yeah, and I wouldn't have ever considered myself a prop comic, but I always had to go, where's my thing?

Yeah, it's easy to reach to, isn't it?

But I guess you can become dependent on those things.

Like my favorite old gag, and I don't know who did it, I must research this, it's not Malcolm Wise or someone.

It might actually be Eric Malcolm.

But he used to come on stage and he'd be uncomfortable for a bit, but you wouldn't know why.

And then about 10 minutes in, he'd pull out a coat hanger out of his shirt.

I love that.

That's my kind of bag.

Yeah, that's great.

Because I bet Amy's had gigs as well where he's like, fuck, I need a coat hanger.

I can live in the dressing room.

Because I know Barry Castagnola shrunk one of his t-shirts.

His t-shirt was shrunk.

It was the only top he had for his gig.

But he just quickly just wrote a joke on it.

And he just went, guess who's bought a new tumble dryer?

And then he puts his hands up in the t-shirt, inches up to his tits.

His belly's hanging out and he's getting a big laugh.

Quickest, grab the mic, do a punchline, like he's ever had.

So he's like, that's my opening gag now.

And then one day he didn't have his small t-shirt.

And he was like, oh, my opening joke's gone.

And he went to Gap Kids and got a kids t-shirt, just so that he could go, guess who bought a new Temple Drive?

And I have done it before where I've went.

And I can't wear hats and I've reached around to the back of my jeans to grab the hat and it's not there and I just haven't stashed it.

So I was just like, I can't wear hats because of the eyebrows.

And then just go, you're just going to have to take my word for that and then move on.

So you live in Scotland?

But you're from Blythe, I believe.

Yeah, Jordan that married a Glaswegian.

Quite the mix.

You've been up there a while?

About two years now.

Two years?

Yeah.

Right, because I'm a Londoner who lives in Newcastle.

I spent some time living in London.

Had my little Dick Whittington spell.

Can't do it now, can you?

I couldn't, I'm glad I did it this way, Rowan, because the amount of real estate I've got for the same price of sharing a flat up in Glasgow, for like a share on a two bedroom where somebody else is paying half for the other bedroom.

You get a four bedroom house with a double drive and a garden up in Glasgow.

So I couldn't do it the other way around, because it's like the same money, oh and a car for the same money.

Like my overheads haven't changed, but I've just got so much more for my cash.

Yeah, it's absolutely impossible.

I went, I mean, I'm from London and we went last summer to stay and I had to rely on my wife's cousin, who just happened to be living in London to let us stay at their place.

Because it would just not be possible.

We went down for two weeks, you know, show the kids the capital city for the one time we can afford it.

Yeah.

You know, it's hundreds of miles a day anyway.

Hamridge, what are you just moving around like that?

We had to pay accommodation as well.

So you live in Newcastle now?

I live in Newcastle.

2017.

Because we, my wife was heavily pregnant with twins and we were looking for somewhere to live because we'd been out of the country.

Because after I did Fringe, I would go and do, you know, the European Games in Azerbaijan or something weird like that.

We'd always be somewhere weird.

And once we got, once she got pregnant again, this was our second time pregnant with twins, it was like, we'd go.

Yeah, well, no, they're actually Hungary.

I think she was pregnant on her birthday when I swept her off her feet and took her to Sweden for the day from Hungary for her birthday.

It was a fucking disaster.

I don't know if I can talk about that.

But we wanted somewhere to live and I'd been touring here on and off for years.

I always liked it.

We were looking at Manchester, but it's too wet and my kids are Manchester accents.

So we picked here.

Geordie accent on the kids is cute.

I mean, I've been looking up Geordie, obviously you can educate me.

I didn't know that Goliath was in the catchment area for Geordie.

Yeah, we consider ourselves Geordies.

It's still the NA post-Cord.

Yeah, and it's called, I mean, the non-colloquial term is Tyneside English, I think it says in the video.

Tyneside English, I've never been called that.

That's very posh.

Technically Northumbrian for Geordie, you know, like Newcastle's West City, because we'd get the posh fruit in Newcastle for any, like, for shopping and the football.

There's local, like, non-league teams in Northumberland that people, like, hardcore support.

But we're all Newcastle fans, because that's what televised team, like, well, you get, like, a handful of Sunderland fans, and I think that might have just been, like, some of the mainers come from Sunderland and settled in Northumberland, so you get, like, little clusters of, like, behind enemy line magums.

Talking about football, I don't know a lot about football, but when my kid was in hospital, we had this weird situation.

The Newcastle team came round, but some of the players from Newcastle gave us a ball and a little dart.

And then about two days later, the Sunderland team came round, did the same thing.

So we left the hospital with all these mascots and I thought, I think you have to put the other one, I think you have to put those Sunderland ones in the charity shop, guys.

Yeah, get rid of them, pay someone to have them.

Anyway, Kai, this is a podcast about television.

Do you watch a lot of television on the road, or do you not really?

I like that crazy stuff in the podcast.

I've got a lot of stuff that I watch with me missus that I can't watch when I'm on the road.

So, like, I've still got to watch the last season of Ted Lasso, but I've been on the road so long that, like, I haven't had the chance to watch it with her.

We've just finished Succession.

Yes.

I'll happily talk about Succession.

Oh, that was fantastic, wasn't it?

I love that.

No spoilers.

Gonna have spoilers on this, so just bear with.

Yeah.

So don't listen if you haven't seen the last season of Succession or the last episode.

Yeah, I just found it remarkable.

I was just fascinated by the whole thing, just how it's all a game to them.

They're just these fucking selfish billionaires with so much power.

And they're frivolous with their power and it's all self-serving.

And you know what's great about Succession?

You're not rooting for anyone, you hate all of them.

Oh, I disagree.

For some reason, I started rooting for Tom at some point.

I did root for Tom, yeah, because he's such a cuckold.

And you want him to sort of break out of it, you know?

Oh, I wanted him to fall on his face the whole time.

I thought that the fact that, spoilers, the fact that he won the Game of Thrones, like, fuck me, I did not see that coming.

No, I thought it was going to be Greg for sure.

I thought the other guy was going to die, the brother, and handle the power to Greg.

I thought, I paused it, and just said to Natalie, I'm calling it now, because it looked like Shiv was going to be getting that position of power, and then Tom was fucking betraying him.

And she was going to betray him.

So I thought it wasn't an option for her to not vote against Matson.

Yeah.

I thought that wasn't an option.

But they did it.

But I thought Roman was just going to last minute vote for Matson.

He's already been on the phone to him.

Yeah.

He's now the man, and I thought Roman was...

So I think that's what kind of led you to think there was going to be the twist.

Until the election night.

I mean, when Roman effectively sort of endorses, and there's sort of a Bush way in 2000, he sort of announces that the right-wing guy has won, and then there's the riots and he's speaking up.

Yeah, that right-wing guy winning, that was Greg's fault.

Little insignificant Greg, grass-ense, snitching that he'd been out with Matson.

Yeah, he got on the phone, yeah.

And he told Kendall about the deal with Shave, and Kendall just fucking, right, we're doing this now, Yeah, he went with Roman.

So then that fucking right-wing fascist got into power because of the sibling rivalry that Greg stirred the shit on.

And you're like, oh, the intern got Trump in.

Yeah, exactly.

It's that kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, totally.

And what I found fascinating with it was how much they turn your emotions around, like, so I'm watching Roman thinking he's a piece of shit after all I've enjoyed him, obviously.

He's the comic relief.

When I say you're not rooting for anyone, he's the one that's constantly making you laugh.

Yeah, he's got all the sides.

But then they do that thing, and I think it must be the final episode, right, where he's all a bit down and a bit depressed, and you sort of feel sorry.

I'm feeling sorry for the guy that basically got Hitler in.

Yeah, how are you doing that?

How are you making me feel that?

Yeah, it's so good.

It's a good rhyme.

I was actually, I had a paint where Ben Crompton was mentioned in Game of Thrones, Ben Crompton, yesterday, and he was talking about it, and he's got such a much more insight on how things happen, and he was saying, like, even the scene, like, you know, where they're in that mother's kitchen?

Yeah.

In the costume, they, like, I didn't even pick up on this, and I can't even remember this, but he was like, Siv and Roman were wearing light blue, and Kendall was wearing dark blue or something, and he was like, all of that shit's measured.

It's like anything, anything like that, where it's like they're against him right now, the team went up, the colour synchronisation, and he mentioned something about, what's Tom's second name, can you remember?

Wams Gans.

Wams Gans, and there was some athlete in America, I think he said a baseball player that got like, he got three people out in one strike or something, and then nobody realised the connection with the name until he got three players out with one strike.

That's a real person's name, because that sounds like, that's madder than Stephen Toast, that is a mad name that I just, I'm remembering it now, but it takes me ages to, every year I'm like, Tom, what the fuck is it?

Yeah, one scant.

So apparently there's some athlete there.

And I wish I was better at retaining information, because he was just so insightful.

Get him on the podcast instead of me.

I think we have connections actually.

But what made me, what I loved about that conversation with Ben is that like, if they're just a couple of things that he's like picked up on or read about, that means there's millions of intricacies in that show.

Definite re-watch when I'm 70.

If you really want to go down a Reddit rabbit hole, there's so many little devils in the detail moments that would still enjoy it subconsciously.

But you didn't pick up on it.

The colour scheme thing.

Is there a TV show that you watched when you were younger that maybe you didn't get and then you've re-watched as an adult and you've got all those intricacies?

Oh, not off the top of my head.

Sort of Sopranos-y type shows.

Something you might have missed.

I've just started watching The Sopranos now.

I've never seen it before.

I got Now TV because of The Last Of Us.

Oh yeah, that was a good show.

Did you play the games?

I never played the games, no.

And I'm not a zombie guy, so it was hard to get in at first.

But once I was in, I was completely drawn into the characters and the story.

Without any spoilers, just people that are listening, that have played the game, will know that what everybody's got coming is going to blow their fucking minds.

Yeah, there's just something around the corner that when I played the second game, I just fucking threw my control pad down and I just fucking stood up.

I will stay here and then.

I don't know if I've already said too much, but people who play the game know exactly what I'm talking about at the start of the second game.

So are they literally doing that?

Are they doing series as per level?

It seems to be.

That's the timeline they're going on.

So then I guess if they're going to do a season three, they're going to go off on their own.

Do you think it's the best adaptation of a computer game to television?

Because they're usually shit.

Yeah, I think so.

I don't even know what would be the close second.

If you watched it and you didn't know, you wouldn't know.

Yeah, because Resident Evil's never really hit the mark.

Did the Mortal Kombat or...

I'm trying that again, aren't I?

Yeah, just keep trying.

Super Mario.

Just keep trying.

So, you're watching The Sopranos for the first time now?

Yeah, so I was just like, all right, I'm paying for the subscription.

I've watched the thing I want to watch.

What else is on there?

And I just think, I don't know how I'll let it pass me by.

It really stands the test of time.

It's not dated, really.

It's really still fun and exciting, and it's not like Shoulders Of Giants, where something, you're like, oh, that must have been good back then, but so much more good stuff's been now that it's been left behind.

Things after it look more dated than Sopranos do.

Ah, yeah, and I just think the fucking acting and it's great, the casting and it's great.

Like, I can see why it's so fucking popular.

What season are you on?

Just on season one, I think.

I've just watched the bit where the son realizes that his dad's a gangster, where the bully pivots and gives him his money, and he doesn't know why, and then his sister points it out to him, and then at the funeral, he's just looking around, and he looks around, he sees the veil lifts, and he can see.

The glass shatters for him, doesn't it?

He just sees the world for what it is, and he's smiling.

Yeah, no one's gonna fuck with me.

That's great.

This is such a good show.

I don't want to say anything more because you've got so much to look forward to, and there's a lot of people that, since it actually came onto streaming sites, that are only watching it for the first time now.

I think I watched a few episodes at the time, like maybe, but I was too young.

It didn't really do anything for me.

And I think it was around the time I was working on plays when I first got into this game, the backstage part of my life.

Yeah, I couldn't record it when I didn't, I wasn't carrying a video around with me, or a KCR or anything.

So it was like, if you missed it on terrestrial television, that was it for 20 years sometimes.

You never see it again.

That's right.

In 2019, when that last season of Game of Thrones was on, I was like, I don't, because it was being released episode by episode.

Right, weekly.

Instead of just the, here's your dump.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Here's your dump of things.

And I was getting so excited to watch it as it came out.

And I was like, this may be the peak of television, where like, because we're going to start getting stuff in bulk again, like mostly.

And this is the, they've built up so hard for these episodes coming out.

It's been over such a long period of time that that excitement was like real.

I like that, that's what succession builds.

It builds that weekly dose, which I'm not sure, how old are you Kai, I don't actually know.

I'm 39.

39?

Yeah.

Does not look 39, so older than he looks.

So you definitely grew up in the scheduled TV world.

So, where you would have to wait for the next thing.

And like, I don't.

Yeah, I grew up in four channels.

Yeah.

Channel five was an additional.

I grew up with three channels.

That's why, that's why.

It's a competition.

Yeah, was channel four new for you?

Came out when I was an early teenager.

Cause that's why, when I done a gig in Birmingham and Jasper Carrot dropped in to do a spot.

And I was hosting and I brought Jasper Carrot on and I was like, there was a while back then where he was as big as any comedian could ever possibly be because there was only four channels.

And I don't know which ones he was on, but he seemed to be on all of them at all times.

He was on adverts, he was on sitcoms, he was on game shows, he was doing stand-up.

He had a light, didn't he have a show just called like Jasper or Carrot or something where he just took...

Carrot, Carrot.

Is that what it was called?

Yeah.

It was good, aha.

And I just remember he was on everything and I was like, nobody's ever had that kind of focus now because there's so many options.

You've got Netflix, you've got Amazon, you've got Terrestrial TV, you've got Sky, you've got like all these options of multitudes of things you can be watching.

But back then, it was basically pick a channel and you're watching one of these four things.

Yes.

And he was on most of them.

For me, you said that and I immediately thought of Michael Barrymore.

I thought, well, he used to be on everything.

He used to have quiz shows, game shows, things like that.

These people that were just like these, Mr.

Saturday Night TV people, really.

Yeah, 1990s, Saturday, them TV presenters, they were like, they had everybody's eyes all at once.

And then it shifted over to like Chris Evans and then he sort of took over the whole fucking thing for like five years.

Yeah, he did, didn't he?

Were you talking about like the streaming where you just get dumped a whole season at once to watch now?

Oh, got you going.

I do miss the weekly, but I wouldn't want the weekly on some kind of silly thing I don't care about.

Like my kids watching Is It Cake or whatever.

I don't want them waiting a week to see that.

Yeah, you want to binge Park and Rick.

Yeah, things like that, The Office, The American Office.

I'm glad I didn't watch it at the time.

I watched it a little bit later.

That's another one that I've just downloaded season one of The American Office.

And I've just started watching Seinfeld.

You just started watching Seinfeld?

I've just finished season one of Seinfeld.

You're like an alien that has come to earth and you've found all this gold.

It's so good because I'm a comedian.

I've been a comedian for 14 years, right?

And you know when, like, I've never watched Partridge, right?

So comedians talk about The Office, they'll talk about Partridge, they'll talk about Seinfeld, right?

And I'm like a bloke in the pub that doesn't watch football.

I mean, I do watch football and when I'm a bloke in the pub, I'm on for them conversations.

But when I'm in amongst comedians and they're talking about cult classic comedies, I'm just there like smiling, nodding, I'm getting a phone note.

Are you doing it as enjoyment or as research?

It started off where I'm like, I guess I better do me research and I'm really enjoying it.

That's very different.

That's not your style, the old 90s suit wearing American comedian.

No, but it's really interesting.

It's like...

The stand up they put in the episodes is shit.

Pedestrian as fuck.

It's so pedestrian.

It's all about sandwiches.

It's so boring.

Yeah, and I'm like, I'm fascinated by it.

But you're not gonna catch us laughing at me.

Like, you know how sometimes something will make you uncontrollably laugh?

You'll be listening to a podcast on a train and you're fucking...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You can't just smirk anymore.

You're belly laughing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's never gonna happen watching Seinfeld.

Well, he's the worst thing in it.

He's the worst actor in it and he's the worst thing in it.

That's the weird part.

The thing that's making Seinfeld good is Larry David writing it.

Yeah.

That's why it's good.

And I've just phoned like Brian Cheungo and I can just...

Yeah, I've just quite enjoyed what I like.

Like I said, I went and watched it as a chore.

Yeah.

And I'm actually just fucking getting through it with ease.

Yeah, well, it's all about Kramer.

Kramer's the last, isn't it?

Yeah.

Kramer's entrances, Kramer falling over.

Yeah, so that thing when he got up and started dropping the N-word in a stand-up set.

What the hell is that?

I didn't have a fucking clue who he was.

Michael Richards, yeah.

I was like, who is this guy?

Like, I didn't even know.

Yeah.

And then, like, I heard that he was in Seinfeld.

I completely forgot about that.

Yeah.

Whoops.

That was odd, wasn't it?

That was a tough one.

That was a really peculiar thing to happen.

It is a really, it's one of the, it's quite a while ago.

It might be one of the early cancellations.

Yeah.

But I think people have forgotten about it.

I mean, I did.

Well, he was in Comedians in Cars, getting coffee as well, talking about it.

So that was, like, yeah, I fucked up.

I think he did a big redeeming, and he said he shouldn't have said it.

And it was one of those ones where it was an early case of a comedian's work being filmed and then being shown before it was ready and all of that, and that's why he got annoyed, right?

Yeah.

And was he being heckled or something?

I think they were filming him on some kind of early smartphone.

I might be wrong.

We can edit that in the real story.

Kai was right.

It was heckling.

During a performance on November 17, 2006 at The Laugh Factory in Hollywood, Michael Richards launched into a racist rant in response to repeated heckling and interruptions from a small group of black and hispanic audience members, which was subsequently filmed.

I did forget about that.

Early cancellation.

So now I'm on the tree and watching his character and go, oh, that guy.

It's mad for you.

That's the problem.

That's the guy.

That's the racist guy.

The guy that said the N-word in a very aggressive way.

Not just casually like...

He called someone it.

It wasn't like Chappelle just saying it.

I still get uncomfortable when I watch some of the American black comedians come around and just start saying that stuff.

I just think, OK, now that's a bit...

Come on, guys.

I don't know if it's your word, but I have to hear it.

This is where you learn when you sound like a cunt when you do podcasts, because you find out all the little things you do, all the tripping over your own words.

Oh, of course.

I listen back to the old stand-up guy, I listen to one of my stand-up shows, and I kept saying, let me tell you, before telling people something, and let me tell you, fucking shut up with that.

Cut that out.

What an awful take.

It is funny how you hear it on podcasts, especially, like, I listen to War For Now, you know, Romesh and Tom Davis, and Romesh says it so much, he says, well, what I would say is, when you hear that, it's like, fucking up.

I do a podcast with Daniel Sloss, and he kept saying objectively, and he never used it for anything that was objective.

It was always hyperbole for a subjective matter.

But he would go, objectively, this is my opinion.

And then when I pointed out that he did it, he fucking kept tripping up on it.

He kept going, oh, fuck off.

Because he didn't know he was saying it all the time.

He didn't realise until it was pointed out that it was pointed out, he was just like, fuck.

So the name of that podcast, I believe, is...

Sloss and Humphries On The Road.

Sloss and Humphries On The Road.

Is that on every...

Sloss and Humphries On The Road.

Yeah, we spent about six to eight weeks there.

It was class, really good.

He's massive in Australia.

He plays arenas in Australia.

It's fucking bananas.

Like, he's way more famous in Australia than he is in the UK.

That's crazy.

I never understand that.

Yeah, it's odd, isn't it?

India, he's huge in India.

We went to India, and you'd think he was a member of the Beatles, because there were like hammering on the taxi window, swarming around them, like almost like in a crush of people trying to get a photo with them, but they were starting to get a bit panicked, you know?

Like it was like one direction level founder down in India.

He's got a boy band look, isn't he?

Yeah, it's funny to rest in India, because I went there on tour with a play, A Woman In Black in 2004 or something, and on the posters it said, Director from London and all of that shit that they do.

And we got there, and it was like that, it was like we landed as royalty.

We were taken off in these nice cars, put in this Raj style hotel, people coming up, turning down my bed.

I was just the fucking sound guy.

The hospitality is amazing.

Taken out by the producers, everybody, not just the cast.

They love their guests.

You get good food as well.

You come back and you think, and then you check into a Premier and old Traveler is just someone grassing at you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm fucking back.

You have to come home and realize that you're not as important as you've just been made to feel.

Are you OK talking with Danish?

I'm meeting a friend for lunch.

You got your football today, haven't you?

We're good for a little win.

You're talking to the least football guy you'll ever talk to, but I'm wondering how today works, because it's Manchester against Manchester.

Who's rooting for who?

Me too, because of the takeover, maybe.

Yeah, just because we're those money chums.

We're like succession.

We're like Kendall and Rowman.

Who owns Manchester?

Newcastle and the United Arab Emirates.

Why the fuck are you banging on about football?

You have no interest in it whatsoever.

Get on with the fucking format points, mate.

I've delved into the past, into Kai's past here, to get a little insight into his younger years.

Kai, everyone has this.

You don't need to know a lot about telly, but you will have this.

You'll have an answer for this one.

Who or what can be a cartoon, as I've found out, was the first person on television to make you feel a little bit busy in your lines?

What attracted to?

Yeah.

Okay, let's...

Anything on television, probably come home from school, something's on.

You know what it was for me?

It was the music videos.

Does that count?

Yeah, it does.

It was always like the JLo one, Love Don't Cost A Thing, where she's walking into the sea and undressing on her way into the sea.

Christina Aguilera, Dirty.

Yeah, very filthy.

Shakira, wherever, whatever.

Holly Valance.

I was always about the music channel videos when they come to be attracted to women.

Yeah, I guess it's like teenage porn, isn't it, essentially?

It's like the first time you see something like that.

Let's go back to Holly Valance.

Have you met her in Australia?

We had a relationship back in the day, Holly.

Well, I had a weird one where in the late 90s, I can't remember her name.

A blonde girl who looked a lot like Marilyn Monroe-esque, I guess, if you like.

And she was like the fit one in Neighbours at the time.

And I went round the world in 99 and I stayed in a hostel owned by her dad.

And the amount of times I was like hovering, thinking she might pop up or, you know.

When's the daughter coming?

You're in a tuxedo.

She was in Neighbours, right?

She was in Neighbours.

Yeah, I believe so, yeah.

I used to do that all the time.

If you were in Neighbours, you immediately get like a pop deal.

Yeah, you get a contract for a song.

What was something you saw on television, probably before you should have, that shit the life out of you, that you still think about now, still kind of freaks you out a little bit?

I remember, it didn't shit the life out of us, but I watched Terminator 2 when I shouldn't have, because it was taking me.

My parents had rented that.

So how old would I have been when Terminator 2 was on video?

Terminator 2 came out on video, well those days, I think it came out in 1991, summer of 1991, and it would have been at least, it used to be nearly two years before things would come out.

Right, so I would have been ten.

So if you watched it at home?

I would have been ten.

So you saw the nuclear scene, age ten?

At home, in your lounge, watching it on the telly.

So my mom and dad, you know when you go to the video shop and you get some rentals, you get the ones that you're going to watch together, and then they get one of that when you go to bed, and that was Terminator 2.

And I got up early before me parents, and I fucking knew Terminator 2 was on rental, and I started watching it thinking, I can get this watched before they get up.

And they got up when I was halfway through it, and I got told off, and they were like, well, you might as well finish watching it.

They were like, I'm not going to let you watch half a film.

All right, so you're in now.

You're in now, so I watched that.

So I remember watching that way before.

And it didn't freak me out.

I wasn't fucked up by it or anything.

But I do remember just me mind being absolutely blown by it.

I mean, it is.

I still maintain it as probably the best ever action movie.

I don't think there's anything to beat it.

It just has something.

It's when Robert Patrick turns into like, you know, fucking liquid metal and starts running with her sword hands.

Yeah.

Have you seen this boy?

Yeah, so good.

The thing that creeped us out recently, in recent years, like Haunting on House Hill, that was a fucking, like, really fucking shock, like, moments and that.

Yeah.

Like, I actually jumped out of my skin watching it.

I can watch a horror movie, in my head it's a movie, it doesn't creep into my life.

Yeah.

Books, though.

Stephen King books fucking...

These aren't my words, these are words I've read, I've been told.

He lays eggs under your skin.

And I just feel like that, like that, like it is actually, you put the book down and you're like, so I was in, what's that town?

Beginning with N in the Northwest, Nantwich.

Nantwich.

I was in Nantwich, right, and I was staying in a hotel and I walked past the room, what was it, like 279 in The Shining.

So I walked past that room, right, I put the fucking Shining book down on the bed, just like shook off that I just walked past the room.

The lights started flickering and then went off.

And then our phone reception just went, the lights have just went off and they were like, OK, we'll send the caretaker, I don't want to fix it.

I'm trying to hate from him.

No, I don't believe in it, so it doesn't do anything to me.

If ever I feel that, like, intrusive thought, like, ooh, there's some of that, like, I'll just dismiss it immediately.

The only time it gets to me is in the middle of the night.

If I have to get out, then I'll walk through the house, and I'll live in a, what would be called a Tyneside flat, so I'm looking out on what looks like a Billy Elliot lane, essentially.

And I always imagine there's some fucker gonna be staring at me up from the lane or something.

I don't know if I've ever been through the food, because it's got the perfect street lamp.

It just looks creepy.

I used to stay at my grandad's every weekend, and he's got a very noisy house, you know, it breathes and it moves.

Fucking creaks and clunks, and it backs onto the farmer's fields, so there's always fucking crops just blowing around and children with the corn.

Yeah, and I was never scared when I was in that house, because my grandad's just in the other room, but when he was sick and he was in hospital, and I was maybe just like 21, 22, I stayed in his house to look after his dog and feed his dog, and I just kind of lived there, and without him in it, I just couldn't sleep, because like every single noise just had us on high alert.

It just felt malevolent without him in the house.

It was fucking really weird feeling.

So you had your fight or flight turned up to 10.

Ah, absolutely, but like when I stayed there, even as a child with him in the house, it didn't feel like there was any, but then when I stayed, I was just like every noise was something that was a possible threat.

His name was rocked up on that manifest to Epstein's Island.

Yeah, he was on there next to Bill Clinton.

Holy shit.

Bill Clinton, Smokey.

But what is the funniest thing I've seen on TV?

Oh, man, that's...

Could even be a special.

Someone that influenced you comedically.

Yeah, that's...

I fucking...

It's hard to just pick one.

I'm just going through there.

I just watched Baby J in Maloney's special.

I really enjoyed that.

I'm not gonna say that's the funniest thing I've seen on TV, but I thought that was a really good fucking comeback.

Yeah, I saw that.

Yeah.

It was the backdrop of it that I was just focused on it so long.

Changes the colours.

Is it real?

Is it?

It just looks so shiny.

He just turned up in...

Have you seen the show Bupkiss?

With Matt?

With Pete Davidson sort of playing a heightened version of himself.

And the lady turns up in that.

And he's got this twinkly eye thing going on, hasn't he?

Because he's kind of Irish-y, I guess I sort of drawn to him a little bit.

And I just think, he's got this twinkle going on that sort of draws me into everything he's saying.

Natural charm.

Yeah, he's a kind of a Seinfeld, isn't he?

He's a kind of a old school...

That's what I really loved about him, because he was still in that, like, you know...

Because he was always like, I love my wife guy.

I love my wife.

This is my wife.

I'm a family man, blah, blah, blah.

And then, like, he cheats on his wife and goes to fucking rehab.

And then he comes back with the exact same persona, but as this, like, fucking...

Like, talking about cocaine and talking about his lowest ebbs and all that.

But, like, all still in the same style.

I thought that was fucking really, like, an interesting one.

I think some people are just wrong about stuff.

This happens all the time.

You just see things getting s-

I mean, I've picked up the same, well, I haven't picked up the newspaper, I've been to the same newspaper site and seen two conflicting reviews of in days.

God, it could just be something like the journalists fucking stopped smoking last week.

Yeah.

It could be something similar, like a journalist having to file out with his wife.

There was an article in The Guardian the other day that said, Farewell, Ted Lasso, something like the most tedious boring overrated show on television.

I was like, What the fuck are you talking about?

Who is this cunt?

Yeah, it's so fun.

What's wrong with you?

I don't like football and I'm watching it and I'm enjoying it and I'm getting into it.

I went in, like, with like, because I hear the fucking Americans watching football is the most jarring thing.

Just the way they call penalties, PKs.

You must hate it when they start the show with soccer Saturday then all the time.

Because that would never exist.

You know, it's funny with the word soccer, right?

You know, it's derived from association football.

They've just shortened it and made it soccer.

I'm against it because football is football is football.

It's not soccer, right?

But everything else that you play, you don't call tennis racquetball, you call it tennis.

You don't call golf stickball, call it golf.

Like, everything's got, like, a snooker, cue ball.

Everything's got its, like, what it is, if you describe it, right, it's racquetball, but it's tennis, soccer, soccer.

Like, it fits in, it's in keeping with the way we name sports.

It's like, you've given it a nickname, it's in keeping.

But it's just one of them things that's just sacred.

And you just go...

Have you been watching Welcome To Wrexham?

You'd like that?

Yeah, I've watched the first season, yeah.

I've been keeping up with them.

So I hear Rob McElhaney talking to people all the time.

And also, if you listen to Smartless Podcast, which is very good, Will Arnett is always talking about football, and he says, I mean English football, not to worry about American football.

And they fucking hate it.

They absolutely hate that it's called that.

But why do they call theirs football?

You're not even using your feet.

Have you been to an American football match?

Is it called a match?

Probably not called a match.

Yeah, but we owe them getting it wrong.

We owe them fucking getting it wrong.

That's the thing, what I like with football as well, I like getting to know who all the players are, and their style and their positions, and where they play, right?

You can see who you're looking at.

The names on the back, you can see their faces.

When you're watching American football, do you just not care who's who?

You can't tell.

Do you not give a fuck who's who?

Terminator.

The Transformer walking around.

Yeah, just watching a bunch of clothes, everybody's just fucking got helmets on, you kind of tell who's...

If you want stats, you go to a baseball game, and it's just like doing algebra or something, maths, there's so much information on the board.

When I was a kid, that's called rounders.

Rounders.

The girls played it.

So, the American eyes, Americans getting involved with football is just like...

Oil and water.

It doesn't mix.

I just have a feeling, I don't like the Americans touching our sport, I just don't think the two go well together.

So when Ted Lasso...

I don't remember their mitts on it.

When Ted Lasso put that grubby little hands on football with an American sitcom, and I saw the trailers, I was like, oh, this looks awful.

This looks truly gross.

And then I saw a bunch of my friends saying how good it was, people who I trust, and part of this was going, I wonder if it's because their friends were Brett Goldstein and the feel like they have to say that.

No, he's great in it.

And then I watched it, and I fucking loved it, and Brett's amazing in it, and I thought it was really heartwarming, and I just really, I was actually bigoted back then.

I was just a bit bigoted that I thought Americans were going to fuck up me sport.

There was a bit in the mid to end of season two where it started to get really cheesy and turn into sort of like an American's version of England.

And yeah, every time they walked, they walked past a phone box and a pillow box, and everybody was like eating candy.

Eating candy.

That cartoonish enough of that that it's fine.

I feel like it's like watching a cartoon at times.

If you've been to Richmond, it kind of does look like that.

Does it actually?

It does.

It's really idyllic and picturesque and quite fancy.

So yeah, I mean, they're not wrong.

But he wouldn't, yeah, I don't know.

Sometimes he opens his window and you can see a completely different view because I know where that alleyway is and it annoys me.

But you know, that's just like when they go, in any American film, they open the window in Paris and the fucking Eiffel Tower is right there.

Yeah, like I done the bungee jump from Golden Eye.

You know, at the beginning of it, Piers Brosnan jumps off the dam.

No, damn.

Where is that?

It's in Locarno in Switzerland, but he ends up in Russia.

Really?

So he bungee jumps off there and unclips himself when he's in Russia.

What about all the sort of Disney over content of Star Wars?

Yeah, I'm over contented up.

I'm almost up to speed on the latest Mandalorian.

And I felt like it started strong, and then I just watched it like...

I tried to watch that with my boy in the first scene.

It looked pretty much like Amsterdam with hookers in the windows.

I was like, no, he's going to have to be a bit older to watch this, because we watched...

It's just called Obi-Wan, isn't it?

Yeah, I like that.

Yeah, it was good.

That was a nice little bridge between...

Liam McGregor looked, what, 10 years older than him?

He's supposed to be 20 years later.

I think he is in his 50s, but he's supposed to be like 5 years older than he is in real life.

He's still about 36.

Well, I guess he left someone off, if they've got medichlorians in their blood.

Is there anything you would like to plug?

I've just finished my tour.

I don't know when this goes over, but I've got one show left in Manchester on the 18th.

Are you at Edinburgh?

I'm not doing the Fringe this year.

I'm not doing the Fringe this year.

This will come out just before Fringe.

Well, OK.

So why don't you just go and watch my show on my website?

Everybody can watch that at home.

Yeah.

And you all like watching stuff.

That's what the podcast is about, watching stuff.

Fantastic.

I watched it last night.

It was all...

no, in the daytime yesterday.

It was absolutely brilliant.

It was really, really funny.

Loved it a lot.

So, yeah, Kai Humphries, thank you very much for coming on to Television Times Podcast.

Thanks for having us, mate.

No worries, man.

Thank you.

That was recorded at the Motel One, as I mentioned, which is the hotel next to the hotel.

That was a little bit noisy, but the audio, I think you can really much hear everything, right?

Wasn't terrible.

Okay, to today's outro song.

Okay, today's song is called Trust.

It's a song I wrote on the road.

I was working on a musical called Aspects Of Love, and yeah, life was not going to plan.

I can tell you that much.

And although I have been told that somebody, well, somebody very famous actually, our name drop here, David Essex, the man who was very famous in the 70s, he told me he found the song a little bit pious.

He was very, very lovely to me on tour, and we were very pally whenever we were hanging out, and I really liked him.

But I think he got the wrong end of the stick, because this song was really about trusting yourself.

It's a spin.

It sounds like it's pointing fingers, but it really isn't about that.

Anyway, it was recorded in Ireland after spending quite a lot of time in North America.

I actually wrote it, again, I wrote about writing.

I wrote...

It's a bit of a surprise.

I think I first did one on the grounds of Harvard in Boston.

I wrote it that day.

And then I played again at Java Joe's, which is also in Boston.

Then I made my way to Toronto.

And that's where I met my future wife.

So I guess the song is from a sort of sad part of my life.

I didn't really ever write songs about myself.

This was just the first bunch of songs I really ever did that about.

I was always sort of observational or, you know, singing about the world or something.

Anyway, it's a song called Trust.

I think it's pretty good.

Let's see what you guys think.

There's a bit of noise there from a Chicago coffee shop.

I always like to get a bit of ambience in things.

Okay.

Well, that was the first bonus episode.

Come back next Tuesday and there'll be another episode of Television Times Podcast.

Thank you for listening.