Nick Helm: Blowing the Roof Off Edinburgh and Taking Comedy by Storm

Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, Screamouts, and we are back.

We're back.

Wasn't too long a break, was it?

A month or so?

I needed it.

I really needed it.

I got to concentrate on this show for Edinburgh.

There was so much admin to do as well in this period.

My goodness, most of that is nearly over.

Designing posters, all that kind of stuff.

Loads of little things that you don't even think about.

But yeah, it was also a half term recently, with the kids were off, so it's been very, very, very busy.

Now, you can tell that this one was recorded in half term because in the background, you will hear my son.

My son Leo had to come with me because my wife had an event that she had to go to on the same day as this recording.

She was doing a sort of afternoon tea with our daughter and my other boy was at a friend's house.

I don't normally give the kid's name out, but I have to on this one because you hear it in it.

So I was all set to record next door to the stand in the motel one and it turned out that I had to take Leo with me.

So he was very sweet.

He was very, very, very adorable.

He sat in his little chair with his headphones watching a Pixar movie and yeah, he was good as gold.

Except he did come over a couple of times to ask about buses and cars and stuff that he's really into.

And my guest was very accommodating considering I don't know how many people do a podcast with a comedian about television with their own child sort of milling about in the background of a sort of foyer of a hotel, if you like.

And let's get around to who the guest is.

Should we just tell you?

Should we just tell you who it is?

Yeah, so after a little break, you want to come back hot and we're coming in hot.

We're coming in hot.

We got a good one.

We've got a great comedian for you.

This is the star of a BBC sitcom, ran for three seasons and my other things.

He's also been in a couple of Channel 4 things.

I mean, you know, he's a big name.

I'm not underplaying this.

He won best show at Edinburgh, best show at Edinburgh.

He will be in the tome of history for the 2010s when it comes to comedy because he is a tour de force.

And anyone in the industry and anyone around comedy and anyone who watches I Can Tell You will know who he is.

He's in The Reluctant Landlord, with Ramesh Ranganathan.

I mean, just IMDB him, okay?

His name, you know him, Mr.

Nick Helm.

Now, Nick is hilarious.

He is just brilliant on stage.

He's so like, it's hard to explain.

If you haven't seen him, go see him.

It's as simple as that.

He really, really gives it his all.

I saw him here last year where he sort of honed in on me because I was sitting in the middle of the front row, as I always seem to do.

And he berated me in front of the entire audience, even got me up on stage.

That was fun.

Something he does not remember, obviously, because he does a million shows a year.

But yeah, I loved having this chat with him.

And my boy being in the background, it's all part of it.

And he was really, really giving, really fun and a little tired, I think, from traveling too much.

But we got into it and I think it ended up being a pretty good episode.

So let's get straight in.

It's been a while.

We're back.

This is Television Times Podcast.

And here I am talking to the brilliant and wonderful Nick Helm.

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

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

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

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

Here are Television Times.

Hi Nick.

We've met before, but you won't remember me.

I remember you.

You dragged me on stage last September at the People's Theatre.

You shouted at me about it.

Was that in Newcastle?

People's Theatre, where's the People's Theatre?

And what do we do together?

You pulled me on stage to point out a cake because someone bought you some cakes and you showered about the price of cherry Pepsi maps to the point where I nearly had a panic attack.

That was quite stressful.

Yeah, yeah, I don't do that.

Well, I don't make people stress that way.

And I'm very good at maths, but for some reason, and as soon as you started, well, you won't get me, and then you got me.

And I got like, it just started to fucking down my own mind.

Of course, yeah.

But it was quite simple maths as well, wasn't it?

It was like one pound 50 times three or two pounds 50 times three.

And then I was like, 750, what, no, and you got note six?

And I was like, oh fuck, he's got, and everyone was laughing at me because I had a bum bag under a complete knob.

I loved it.

It was quite a stressful thing.

It was simple maths, but putting people on the spot was, yeah, really stressful for them.

Yeah, yeah, I love all that.

Well, I mean, obviously.

It didn't matter, at the end of the day.

It didn't matter.

Nobody's offended, right?

Everyone has fun with it, right?

Even knowing the answer didn't matter.

It was trying to get to the answer was the show.

The show wasn't, oh, you can add £2.50 together.

It was that you were struggling.

Yeah, that was the entertainment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you're great.

It's the journey, not the destination, actually.

So what journey and destination have you had today?

Where have you come from?

I've come from Sheffield.

And we've arrived in Newcastle.

This is, what have we got?

We've got seven more days.

I think we've got, yeah, there was eight this week and now it's seven.

So seven more shows.

Right, right.

It's been, yeah, 39 days.

I mean, your tour, I mean, I follow you.

So I see, well, you just seem to just be constantly on tour.

You're like a...

It's been long.

It's been a long time.

I mean, yeah, I haven't worked out, but it's probably, when did we start?

At the end of March?

Or are we in now?

Nearly June?

May, nearly June.

So yeah, so like next week is June.

So we finish in June.

So what's that?

March, April, May, June.

Yeah, so it's been like almost like three months.

But you're always doing other gigs and parts of other things.

Not the moment.

Although, although next week I've got an extra gig, have I?

Or the week after I've got, I've booked in a couple of gigs right after the tour.

Oh, and I'm very regretful for that.

Yeah.

You're not going up to Edinburgh to do anything, are you?

I don't think I'm doing Edinburgh at this point, but I love the show so much that if there was an option to do a couple of days in Edinburgh, I'd do that.

Yeah, that'd be fun.

I love doing Edinburgh, I've always done it.

Yeah, I've seen, I saw, oh, I read this, right?

I mean, obviously some Wikipedia crap in there, but 17, you went up there in a play.

I think I was 16, actually.

16, wow.

In 1997, my teacher took us up, and that was my first.

We did a play, so I wasn't a stand up.

I haven't been a stand up since I was 16, but I've done it.

That was when I kind of saw stand up for the first time.

Have we started?

Yeah, we're starting.

It's fine, it's fine.

For me, Al Murray got me up on stage, and that was when I was, and I felt incredible.

And then I think I went to see Al Murray, probably like three or four times within like a year period.

And he got me up on stage like three or four times.

Or he pointed me out in the audience a few times.

I think I was like really like eager to get involved.

But when I see people like that in my audience, I never pick them.

Oh really?

Yeah.

You don't want someone that's too excited, and you don't want someone that hates you.

You just want someone that seems to be enjoying it gently.

And then you go, and now you're a part of the show.

Or in my case, sit right in the middle on your own.

Yeah.

Sometimes I get lazy and it's just like, well, you're there the nearest.

And now I'm there.

But yeah, well, when we got me up on stage, and I was just like, oh, wow, that's incredible.

I want to do that.

How did you get from acting to stand up?

What was that journey, is how I can say?

I wanted to act, but I still am.

I'm terrible at auditions.

Like if I'd have had to audition for Uncle, I probably wouldn't have got it.

But because Henry Normal, the executive producer, had just seen me in Edinburgh and they'd just got a script and they were like, oh, well, that'll be great.

It was originally about an out of work character.

And then they cast me in it and because I write songs, they said, oh, well, we could write a song every week and then it's about a musician.

And so it sort of evolved like that.

But yeah.

And they're brilliant.

I look back at them now.

I mean, I look back at them like it's history, but it's 10 years ago since it began, I guess.

It's 10 years this year.

They look like, I mean, I sort of, I like to watch them as the pop video parts of the show.

And they just, they really stand out.

I mean, I know you've got your songs on Spotify, but was it released as a proper album?

Yeah, it was released as an album after the first two series, and then a deluxe album after the third series of things.

It's got like, but the songs are all like a minute and a half long.

They're really small.

Like people always say, you're going to play the songs live.

And it's just like, no.

They're all songs.

They're all very quick.

They're all very short songs, except for No Survivors, which was sort of like expanded.

And that No Survivors was the only song in this show that wasn't a song.

It was literally just me busking in the street and singing No Survivors.

And then when we filmed the first series, I think we filmed No Survivors, me in the street singing No Survivors in like week two.

And then by the time we got to week six filming or week seven, the crew was still singing it.

And then Henry Normal, he suggested that we expand one of the songs to full length and release it as a single to promote the show.

And I said, why don't we do No Survivors?

Cause all the crew like it.

And then we'll expand that to a full proper song.

And then if we do a music video, we can use the music video at the beginning of the episode and we'll treat it like a dream sequence.

And Henry's eyes lit up cause he was just like, right, cause we can get paid for one thing, but we can use it twice.

And it was just that brilliant, yeah.

Cause Henry's always like, yeah, you know, try and get the most value out of everything.

Yeah, it was like that.

But like for acting, I was terrible at auditions.

So I wrote a bunch of plays that I was in, or they were like kind of like dark sketch shows.

And I did like theater and education where I wrote plays that we toured around schools.

But they, and I got to a point with touring around schools where it was just like, all these kids hate me.

And there's like a thousand posh boys at a boys school where you got to tell them not to drive their cars fast.

And they all hated me.

And I was just like, if I can stand up in front of a thousand boys at a boys school and tell them to stop driving their cars fast, I can do like 30 people above a pub.

And tell them not to drive their cars fast and do jokes.

But yeah, and then that's how I got to stand up.

You write in music anyway, but way before Uncle, you just support his band.

I wrote like, well, I think one of my next projects is going to be, I've got an album to release and then a soundtrack album from a musical to release.

And then after that, I think my next thing is going to be, I'm going to go through, I wrote like a hundred songs when I was like between 15 and 20.

All right, all right, at university as well.

So 15 to 22, I wrote like a hundred songs.

And there are some good ones in it.

So I'm going to go through and I'm going to cherry pick them and I'm going to do like an old school kind of...

At the end of Tarzan signs, I always put a song of mine because I used to be somewhere out there as well.

How many songs did you record?

I've written about 500 over the years, but I'd say a couple hundred are okay and a hundred are good, I don't know.

But no one knows them, you know what I mean?

And so...

And did you record them all and release them all?

I released them myself, but I recorded them all very professionally.

The ones in the 2000s anyway, they're all pretty good.

And it's nice to just pop one on at the end.

I should actually ask you for permission to put one of yours at the end of this, if you want to.

It's up to you.

What song would you like me to put on there?

Anything you want.

Is it all right?

So I'll put No Survivors then.

If you want, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's good stuff.

Anyway, obviously Uncle did three seasons, which was, is there any chance of that coming back at all, ever in any form, or is that?

I always say, Oliver Refson and Lila Vanderbilt, they wrote it, and I was in it, and, you know, there was sort of like, well, they kind of decided that they'll do three series, and I think that there was never enough budget, and I think that we were constantly, the thing about telly is, I think the dream is, oh, if we show them what we can do for no money, then imagine what we can do for loads of money.

Oh, well, then you've got this, that you've done it with that money to do it again.

And exactly.

They say, well, you didn't need any money to do that, so we'll give you less money next time.

And so there was always this give and take with the BBC and us, because it was so hard to get anything made.

I did wonder about those big budget productions.

Like, how did you convince them that?

In terms of the songs and stuff.

I mean, they were like full on music productions.

There was never any budget for them.

Like, it was always like, we'll film this in a car park, or we'll film that.

You know, we filmed the video for No Survivors in a junkyard in Dorking, for some reason.

But we filmed it separately from the rest of the series.

So I think BBC gave us some money to do the music video.

But yeah, there was never any money to do any of the music videos.

Because it looks shinier and bigger.

Lyla directed the music videos, and Ollie directed the series.

And Lyla has like a background in music videos.

So Lyla knew what she was doing.

Yeah, it would always be kind of like you'd be in the middle of filming like a week where basically I was in every scene.

And it was like a constantly kind of like, you know, learning lines and then filming a scene and then learning the next scene and then doing the next scene.

And it was just constantly like that.

And then like on Wednesday after lunch, they'd put me in like a different room and dress me and put my makeup on.

And then I'd do a music video and then I'd, and we'd spend two hours filming a music video.

And then they'd put me in another room and I'd film another scene with, you know, Daisy or Oelia.

And yeah, it was just like a nonstop slalom of stuff.

And also I was recording the songs for the show, like normally up until the very last minute, but sometimes I think in series two or maybe it was three, like I was getting notes for the songs while we were filming.

So even if I had a morning off, it would be like, I'm in the recording studio doing it.

I mean, I loved it.

I loved working.

I mean, to one or the other, I either do nothing or I just work my ass off.

And I really loved it.

And you get into sort of a rhythm of it when you're learning lines where you kind of get better as you go.

I know when I did Reluctant Landlord, I really struggled with my lines because I was in like, I was in half of the series maybe.

And then my character had maybe three lines every five pages.

So you're always in the background, I know.

Always in the background.

There was a terrible episode where it was Christmas and I was decorating the tree in the background of a shot.

We spent two days filming that scene.

It was like a seven page scene and we spent two days filming it.

And I was dressing that tree and then undressing the tree and then dressing the tree for two days.

It was an absolute nightmare.

But because you have three scenes per like five pages or whatever it is, it was hard to learn than if you had like all of the lines in like three pages on Uncle.

So I just found that very difficult.

Did you enjoy that show?

Because I really loved it.

I do feel that it's sort of underappreciated.

Yeah, I mean, I literally, the original actor that was playing my part dropped out on the Wednesday.

Then they cast me on the Friday.

I went in and did a costume fitting on maybe Friday evening.

And then I was filming it on Monday.

And I literally was not part of it.

I wasn't part of it until they'd done a pilot, they'd done, you know, they'd written the whole series for someone else.

And then I came in right at the last minute.

And Romesh, I've known Romesh since before, before he even started really.

And yeah, and they just sort of like asked me last minute and then I could do it.

I was in the middle of writing something else, but I dropped that for a bit and then went into writing.

Oh, I was editing, yeah.

On the Friday, the very last thing I had to do was I finished the grade on my short film, The Killing Machine.

I literally finished the grade in Soho, got in a car and they drove me to wherever it was, Elstree or wherever it was and I did a costume fitting.

But yeah, I really loved it.

I love Romesh more than anything on the planet.

I think he's our generation.

Jack Dee was my favorite comedian growing up and I think he's our generation's Jack Dee.

I think he's absolutely incredible, but he's not our generation's Jack Dee.

He's our generation's Romesh Ranganathan.

I love him so much.

I think he's absolutely incredible.

And they asked me to do that sitcom and I just walked into it and I didn't know what I was doing and they were all really kind to me.

And Yasmin Akram is incredible and I loved working with her and Marek Lowe.

The core team of people that were kind of in every day, we all got on really well and it was just lovely to turn around.

Was it a real pub or was it a set?

It was a set.

It looked so real that I thought that's a real pub.

When you're in there, it was absolutely, it felt like you're in a pub.

But the lighting that they had coming through the windows was just so much like daylight and they had these big kind of vinyls that were kind of, these vinyl kind of backdrops that were of like a street.

And then they just put them up real huge outside the set.

And then when you see through the window, it looks like a street.

And the only thing that was, if you look up, you could see all the liars.

But apart from that, it was exactly like being a pub.

It's to the point where the pub, I think the first series, we were either in Elstree or Pinewood.

And then the second series, we moved to another studio when they just kind of like took the set and moved it somewhere else.

But it was great.

Have you seen that Nathan Fielder TV show from America called The Rehearsal?

I've seen, well, I know of Nathan Fielder, but I've not seen The Rehearsal yet.

It's mad.

They built, I mean, they really go for it.

They built an entire American bar and they shift it.

But they don't tell anyone in it that it's not real.

So they've just rebuilt this entire bar.

They take people through this geometry and they're in the bar.

It looks real.

It's crazy.

It's wild.

Is that a series?

Yeah, it's one of those sort of...

It's not a prank.

It's like an elaborate hoax TV show.

He did an episode where they filmed like a pub or a bar on CCTV.

And then they got all of the actors to recreate it like it was a play.

And then they showed it to people.

And it was literally just people recreating an evening in a pub.

But they did it really well.

And then people treated it like it was theatre and there were like storylines that people were picking up on.

But that was a Nathan Fielder thing.

I bet that was one episode.

So I guess they did that and they were like, what could they do?

Nathan Fielder probably.

So I've seen a lot of that.

So you were in Eastenders, that's really strange to me.

I was in Eastenders two weeks ago, and if it was...

Why was that?

They asked me.

You just went, I'll do that.

They asked me to do it, and I was like, they said, we've got a part, would you like to do it?

It's Eastenders, it's with Billy Mitchell and Martin Trenneman.

Martin Trenneman played my landlord in the second series of Uncle.

Right.

I mean, this must be what...

So he's on Eastenders the whole time.

Yeah.

And, you know, when you get guest stars or, you know, guest appearances from people, then it lightens your day up because it's like, you see the same people.

Well, for Eastenders, you see the same people every day for years and years and years.

But with Uncle, we were on our second season.

You see the same people, same crew.

It's brilliant, it's like a family.

But then when Martin Trenneman came into, Martin Trenneman's in like phone shop in between us and he came in to do Uncle.

And I'd never laughed that much.

You know, whenever Brett Goldstein was on Uncle, we'd always laugh loads.

And whenever Martin Trenneman was in it, and Diane Morgan came in and did an episode.

That was the only time we'd ever got told off was when Diane Morgan came in.

And we had to film this like, what, two page scene right at the end of the day.

And I had this line about a lower lumbar being swollen.

And we just couldn't stop laughing at that.

And the first day Dee just ended up just like telling us off and saying like, you can't be like this, you've got to get it done.

So we got it done.

But like, it was always a highlight or a perk when you got a guest.

Anyway, Martin Trenneman, I laughed so much.

We did like an over the shoulder shot of him in the doorway over my shoulder.

And my basically, the only thing I had to do in that scene was stop my shoulder from shaking because I was laughing so much.

And they were just like, hey, Martin Trenneman's doing Eastending.

And it's a scene with like a legacy character, Billy Mitchell.

And I was just like, absolutely, I'll do that.

So I did it.

My only sort of like thing about it was that I was dressed up as an ostrich.

And obviously that's Bernie Clifton.

But he's been our friend at the podcast.

Has he been on?

He has been on, yeah.

Amazing, amazing.

Love Bernie.

So obviously he's the reference for that.

But also I would say a closer reference would have been when David Brent gets fired in the office.

And I was a bit like, I don't mind the Bernie Clifton thing, but I don't want it to be like a Ricky Gervais thing, because he's done it.

But then I just stopped fighting and I was like, I'll just do what they want.

And I'll tell the character.

Ostrich man.

He's just an ostrich man.

That's all he was.

But yeah, as soon as I, you know, I was just, it was absolutely no brainer.

It was in between the tour started in Scotland and then we had like a week and a half off for Easter.

And in that week and a half, I filmed an episode of Eastenders.

And I could not believe it.

Unfortunately, I wasn't in Albert Square, but I was allowed to look around Albert Square at the end of the day and I took photos of everything.

And I was like, oh my God, there's the Queen Vic.

There's the actual square.

When I went, it was just like a store cupboard or something.

Oh no, they were filming at the time.

They weren't filming in the Vic, but they were filming down the street.

So I had to be very quiet and do it around.

But it's so cool being on the set.

It's like, it's literally, not only do I love, you know, when you do something like Countdown, you're in the TV, do you know what I mean?

You've grown up your whole life seeing this thing and then you're in the TV.

In Albert Square, it was just like, oh my God.

And seeing like the geography of it, yeah, it was so incredible.

And my other thing, when I do TV, my favorite department and everything is the art department.

And you go down, on Uncle, I was always going down to the art department because they were always making stuff.

And you go like, oh, that's what, you know, that's gonna be in my flat.

And that's the, you know.

Oh, you like props?

I love, well, when I was at school, I used to like make props for my plays and stuff.

And I used to make, you know, I used to do art and more my art was very like three dimensional and kind of messy.

And yeah, I love all of that.

And so going in and kind of like taking a break from like learning your lines and acting and everything and going down to the art department is amazing.

So when you're in Eastenders, and you can see like the joins of how it's all put together.

Oh, it was brilliant.

It was just brilliant.

If nothing else, it was an amazing day out.

Yeah, I loved it.

Nobody got murdered on your episode?

Nobody got murdered.

It was a fun one.

It was really weird.

It was like, because I haven't watched Eastenders like properly in a long time.

When we watched the episode, it was just, it was a comedy episode.

It was all very light.

And there was actually quite a depressing storyline that cut through it.

Yeah, standard.

But there was, yeah, it was just a real fun one.

And it was about the London Marathon.

So they filmed it like two weeks before the, normally it's like a six month wait, but because the London Marathon was coming up, they just filmed this scene.

And then I think the day before the London Marathon or on the day, they put in live footage into the actual episode.

And so the London Marathon was Sunday and then my episode of Eastenders was like Monday or Tuesday.

And it just happened straight away.

So it was really quick.

So I didn't have to wait around for it either.

I've said it to someone else before, I can't remember who it was, but I was once on tour in Australia with a play and we were lucky enough to go back, say, John Nabors' set in Melbourne.

And we watched Stephen Dennis doing the Paul Robinson thing and he was doing the scene with the phone.

He was like, hello.

And he was doing it, he did it like 10 times perfectly.

But you could see them editing it as it went because they said, oh, this goes out like in a couple of days time or three or four days later.

They're like editing it in the studio as they're filming.

I was like, I've never seen anything like this.

It was wild.

But again, like you said, like walking around Lasseters and around, you know, what's the street?

Ramsey Street.

Ramsey Street, stuff that you've seen your entire life.

Yes, your whole life.

And you're just there and it's just, some people live there.

Is Ramsey Street a real street or is it?

Yes, it's a place, it's called Pin Oak Court.

And people live there?

Yeah, people live there.

And they're just probably really, because it's a cul-de-sac, you can't even walk past it.

You've got to go in, walk around, come back out.

So it's kind of annoying.

Yeah, well, I think all that stuff is incredible.

Yeah, it's fascinating.

And there's a new one that I want to ask you.

What is the one that you want to ask me the most?

What's your favorite jingle?

What's my favorite jingle?

Yeah.

What do you mean, like a jingle for...

You know, like Shake N Vac, or...

There's a set of waffles.

Oh, okay, what's my favorite jingle?

Love a jingle.

Oh, do you know what?

I mean, it's...

I mean, I don't love any jingles, maybe, but I do, you know, I'm loving it.

I mean, I hate it.

That's awful, yeah.

But I mean, it's there.

Well, one that always fascinates me is Danon, because it's so short.

How'd they come up?

Well, there used to be Ricola, and people used to say Nicholas at me at school, but I don't know how well-intentioned he was.

I don't know if I want to advertise these people, but there's a Domino's one that's like, something like Domino, or something like that, right now, like really, really quick.

And I actually really like those adverts.

They're really surreal, and yeah, I like them.

I don't know if I've got a favourite jingle.

I just thought from a musical standpoint, you might have one like Um Bongo or something.

Well, I mean...

Probably too young for that one.

Um Bongo, I remember Um Bongo.

I remember Keora.

Slightly racist probably at this point.

But they're like, I mean, I don't have a problem with them.

I like them all.

They're like part of the tapestry of your life, aren't they?

Yes.

Like Ramsey Street or Albert Square.

I was out with my kids not long ago, and for some reason, I got the Fairy Liquid one in my head.

I started singing, hands that do dishes, feel as soft as your face.

Hands that do dishes, feel as soft as your face, with my old green fairy liquid, shout it out.

Is it face?

Do they say face?

Hands that do dishes, feel as soft as your face.

I might be able to edit it in if it's not.

What do you think it is?

Mandela effect.

It's like one of them, hands that do dishes, feel as soft as your face.

And my cream, Fairy Liquid.

Better get sponsored at this point.

Yeah, it was like, yeah, I kind of never thought about it.

Hands that do dishes, are as soft as you please, with maybe something like that.

Maybe please?

No, it's not.

I reckon it's face.

I reckon it's face.

I reckon you're right, but I've never thought about it.

No, no, I'll look at the lyrics up later.

I'll tell you at the end.

The actual lyrics are, now hands that do dishes can feel as soft as your face, with margarine, fairy liquid.

There was a point where obviously Uncle was all over the BBC, he was probably one of the top shows.

When did you first get a sense of being well known, being famous?

Did anything change?

And when was the first time you sort of realised that?

I don't feel like I'm well known and I don't feel like I'm famous.

I feel like I am a jobbing, stand-up comedian and occasionally I'll do something like Uncle, which is very exciting.

But you know, I don't feel famous.

People know who you are, I mean, yeah.

Yeah, but less so, I think, maybe.

Like, we finished Uncle in 2017.

People always come up to see it.

It's sort of like I'm on tour at the moment.

So I sign stuff at the end and I sell merchandise at the end and I meet people at the end.

It's not just about like selling stuff, but I do do that.

And so you meet all these people every day and it's a two-way thing.

It's so lovely to meet everyone.

And I think it's a good thing to go out and see people and talk to them.

And I talk a lot about mental health and we have conversations with people in the queue about that sort of stuff.

So I've got a bit of a warped sense of, like, oh, well, no, no, I am at the moment because everywhere I go, everybody knows me and people queue up to say hello to me.

But day to day, it's not really a thing.

It used to be every time I left the house, I'd get recognized and, you know, it's not as often anymore, but...

And how did it feel when that happened?

Well, what I liked about it was I wasn't, or I'm not, but I wasn't ever too famous.

And what I found, I mean, I've said this a few times to some other people, but I mean, not that I'm at house because I've never said it on a podcast, but what it was was that it was, I live in London.

And what it felt like was London was like a village where you go into the shops to pick up your paper in the morning and you say hello to people in the street.

And it was nice, it was really nice.

It made like this big, sprawling city into something that was actually manageable.

And people were, you know, you say hello to people in the street and it's nice.

I remember one time I was in Soho with Ramesh and we were going from one bar to a screening room.

And on the way there, we must have got stops, like eight times.

And it was like literally round the corner and people were giving me their phones so I could take photos of them with Ramesh.

And that was all right, but I always did selfies.

And that journey was kind of like stop and starting.

And I think, you know, like I've already said, I think he's incredible, but I don't know if I'd ever want that, the way that it just felt like it was like, oh, it was, I liked going on stage and being whatever the center of attention or whatever it is and performing for those people in that room.

And that's my thing.

But I also like leaving quite anonymously and just getting on with my life.

So I did notice that, oh, I do notice that London is kind of like, and also you forget that you've done those things.

I don't walk around thinking, oh, I'm his uncle.

You know what I mean?

And I don't walk around feeling like that.

And also you never know when people have just seen Uncle.

People come up and they're like, hey, what about that episode?

I've just binged it and you know, I haven't watched it in years, I haven't watched it in years.

So you never know why people are looking at you.

Sometimes you'll get a weird look from someone and you'll be like, why are they looking at me?

And then you remember that, oh yeah, I was in that sitcom or whatever.

And sometimes you'll be having like, I remember I was having dinner by myself in Chinatown and I was just sat, it was like lunchtime and I was just sat at a table.

I was getting on with some work and I'd ordered some food and there was a whole table.

There was like eight people around it.

And there was this one guy and I made eye contact with him.

I looked up and this one guy looked at me and then I looked down again.

And the next thing I know, he was whispering to everyone at his table.

And then the next thing you know, everyone's phones come out and everyone's Googling you.

And then it's just like, all right.

And then you're just like, I hope this finishes soon.

And then he walked by and he said, I just always wanted to ask you, it's so nice to see you, such a big fan.

He said, I always wanted to ask you, are you going to be making a second series of Uncle?

And I said, we made three.

And he goes, oh, are you going to make a fourth?

And I was like, why are you watching two series that you haven't watched, you greedy guy?

It's really nice to be associated with something that is universally loved by uncle.

I mean, everybody likes uncle.

I don't think it was ever as big as people think it was, but I mean, for BBC Three, it was a big hit.

The main problem was when we did the first series, they repeated the first series after Graham Norton.

We did the first series was on BBC Three, and then they repeated it on Friday nights after Graham Norton.

And even if you fell asleep during Graham Norton, you'd still get those viewing figures.

So BBC One was absolutely huge for us.

When we did the second series, they never repeated it on BBC One.

And so there was like a whole group of people that only watched it on BBC One, that it just never came back for them.

We did three series, but they just never advertised it.

It's still on the iPlayer, right?

Yeah, I guess so.

I mean, it's kind of like depressing that you can binge someone's entire career over a weekend.

But like, you know, you basically, we're all just shoveling all of our creative energy to a furnace.

I think with good things, like there's that US TV show called Hacks that I love, with Hacks, H-A-C-K-S, I don't know if you've seen it.

It's about a comic.

It's really good.

But we watch more than one of those at a time.

I sometimes say to my wife, should we watch the next one?

She goes, no, no, this is too good.

We need to wait till tomorrow.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right.

You don't want to ruin it, you know?

Well, yeah, me and my, we've toured together before.

But everywhere we go, at the moment, we're working our way through every single Alice Cooper album.

Oh, right.

And we're going from like 1971.

We're not doing 1969 yet.

1969 and 1970 were two albums that he produced with Frank Zappa and their terrible albums.

So we started with 1971, which I think was the first Bob Ezrin album.

And we're working our way, we've just got up to 2002 or 2001, Dragontown, but today we've listened to three albums.

Jesus.

What happened when you got to 1992, Hey Stupid?

That's the one I saw him on live at Wembley.

That was a mad album.

I remember, now it is a mad album.

Feed My Frankenstein.

Literally it was the one that we listened to before today.

So we got up to Hey Stupid, like last week.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think it's interesting, like his career is so varied, but when you get to like Trash and then Hey Stupid, he's basically doing sex albums.

Desmond Child.

Is that the guy who wrote all the songs?

He definitely did Trash.

And they're all like sex songs.

And it's kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

It's all about burning my beds and loves a loaded gun.

I used to have a love as a loaded gun, a cardboard sort of gun with a holster, and it would open and the CD single used to come out of it.

Yeah, right, I see that on eBay.

I don't know what it's worth, but yeah, he's so varied and when you get to Trash, it's kind of like, oh, they're all songs about sex.

Mid 80s, he was basically playing catch up with Motley Crue and Poison and not the song Poison, the band Poison and Aerosmith and Bon Jovi and he was like playing catch up.

And so they were all writing about that.

And then after Hey Stupid, which is an absolutely bonkers album, I always thought it was better than Trash because I thought A, Trash was overplayed and B, Trash was sort of one note because every song was about sex.

And that's kind of, not that I'm prudish, but it's kind of a waste of his talents because he's so like eclectic with, you know, he does like jazz and musical theater and, you know, there's so much to him that I think he gets, because Poison is his biggest hit.

He gets like lumped in with like all the hair metal stuff and everyone thinks-

Yeah, the show coming back thing, time that time.

Everyone thinks that he's heavy metal and it's kind of like that he does have that and he did do heavy metal albums, but he does absolutely bonkers albums.

He's great.

But Hey Stupid was sort of like, it surprised me how varied in quality it was.

And having listened to all of them, I think Hey Stupid probably has some of his worst lyrics on there.

And it's just kind of like, I still love it.

I love everything.

But like, I don't.

It's total cheese.

I don't necessarily love Constrictor, but I do love most of the other stuff.

And then he became a born again Christian.

Oh yeah.

And got into golf.

And then he did his best album, I think, which is Last Temptation, which we listened to today, which is all about kind of like morality.

And all of a sudden he's like writing about stuff that is kind of like, it's not just, he's not just writing about horror movies and it's not just writing about sex, but he's writing about morality and he's writing about the big stuff like heaven and hell.

And it's just much more interesting to hear.

And then he did Brutal Planet, which is all about how disgusted he is with the world.

And then we've just listened to Dragontown, which is kind of like all about kind of like how we're all going to hell.

And it's just so much more interesting.

You know, I'm not religious, but just hearing someone, hearing someone kind of like in the 80s, like grasping for like, well, what do I write about now?

And then, hey, stupid, he must've been like 40, 42, and he's still writing songs about, what, young?

Well, I mean, in my mind, he was old, but I went to see him, he was probably your age.

I saw him, the first time I saw him was Brutal Planet, which he must've been like 50, 52, and that was in 2000.

And I'm 43, and I'm just like going, oh my God, that's 80 years away, do you know what I mean?

It's like absolutely bonkers, he's always been old.

When George Michael died, I was like, wasn't he, what, how can he be that young still?

I didn't really quite understand.

He was playing around for, I've gone into music, I can beg you best to tell you slightly, there's this giant TV on stage when he did Hey Stupid live at Wembley.

It's a giant TV screen.

And he did something I've never seen before.

It was one of those times when I lived in, I was from London, I lived in London, I'm not from here, and I was just gonna see everything, it was the 90s, I was just gonna see whatever I wanted to see.

I was gonna see Bryan Adams around that time too.

He did this thing, so did Burnen.

Did you go to the Bryan Adams Wembley Stadium?

With The Angels and Extreme and Squeeze and watch a torture movie.

I don't think, I've only ever seen you too at Wembley Stadium.

I talked about it in my show at the moment, but that was my first ever gig.

That was your first ever gig?

My mum took me and my sister to see Bryan Adams.

Wembley Stadium?

Yeah.

How'd you come back from that?

Really incredible, we've heard of it as well, taking two kids to Wembley Stadium.

Must have been quite stressful, but yeah, it was great.

Apparently my mum snuck me in, I'm a bit older than you, my mum snuck me into a Who concert in London in like 1974 or something, and sat me on a wall.

I don't know.

1974?

How much older than me are you?

I'm 54.

You're like 11 years, aren't you?

Yeah, you're the same age as my wife.

You look better than me.

I definitely don't, it's just because I grow my hair.

All my hair's gone gray, all my beard has gone gray over the pandemic.

You're turning to Harry Nelson, but not in a good way.

In a good way, thank you.

To bring it back to TV, I would say that Alice Cooper is the love of my life.

And the first time, I always found him really scary.

I think my sister brought Poison on vinyl as a single, and he had a skull on his shirt.

Yeah, he's got the leather jacket, he's looking down.

He looked real scary, and I was real scared of him, and I was a real timid child and all of that.

And then he was on Clive Anderson Talks Back, and he was on the same episode as Julie Andrews.

And Alice Cooper was talking to Clive Anderson, and he said something like, wait till I tell my kids I'm the same show as Mary Poppins.

And he was so funny, and he was so sort of like casual, and just like self-deprecating.

And like before his music, I saw him on Clive Anderson, and I was just like, oh, I like this guy, I liked him.

And then he did Wayneswold, or maybe it was after Wayneswold that he did that.

And I saw Wayneswold, and he's so funny, his cameo in Wayneswold is so funny and great.

When you compare it to the Aerosmith cameo in Wayneswold 2, they absolutely nail it in Wayneswold one.

He's so brilliant in it, he's absolutely perfect.

Wayneswold film.

And then that got me into it, that got me into it.

Do you know what I mean?

That got me into Alice Cooper.

And then I think the first song that I heard was Lost in America, which is a funny song.

And then I was just like, oh, I'm not scared of him.

I think he's really funny.

And then you can kind of like, all of his lyrics suddenly become tongue in cheek.

And then he's really great.

But my first introduction to really Alice Cooper was on Clive Anderson Talks Back.

So you were quite aware that it was a character quite early on, I guess, in that way.

Well, yeah, and I've taken that on board for like what I do.

My only regret about my career is that I would have had a stage name.

Oh, really?

Because people just come up to me and they call me a chump in the street and you're just like, I'm doing John Cairns and just put the teeth in.

Yeah, well, I think John Cairns is like, but he's still John Cairns, right?

But Johnny Vegas is Johnny Vegas, but you know, and Harry Hill, you know, these are all kind of-

Oh God, I remember seeing, I was really, really into comedy in my early 20s.

I was really lucky because I used to go to the Town and Country Club too, and 99, is it called 99 Club?

99 Club, yeah.

And I used to see, I saw Jack Dee, I saw Harry Hill really early on.

Chris Evans was still doing comedy then before he did Around the Time of the Big Breakfast.

Oh really, was he a comedian?

He used to come on, he came on with a rubber chicken naked and danced around to a Queen song, Don't Stop Me Now.

I don't, it was with someone else, I don't think it was that funny.

That doesn't sound great.

I don't think it was great, but then Harry Hill came on with a big collar, and in my mind he was old, but of course he wasn't, he was probably 28 or something.

Yeah.

And he went on and did the whole, I don't know.

Well, he hasn't changed, you know what I mean?

He just, that's like Kiss, do you know what I mean?

They put the makeup on and you can't tell, but Harry Hill is kind of like, he's like a silhouette, isn't he?

And you go, right, and like Jimmy Carr, it's like Jimmy Carr as an aged and Harry Hill as an aged.

They're gone.

They are.

That's our look.

That's true.

Oh, do you know what I loved?

People don't remember it.

It's like it never happened.

Fruit Fancies, do you remember Fruit Fancies?

These little black and white sort of silent movies he did at the beach where he'd pull over some seaweed and he'd find a plug and he'd plug something in or.

So I've always loved Harry Hill, grew up watching Harry Hill.

He's like an absolute hero.

I put him up with Thicke and Bob.

Like when I was growing up, Smell of Reeves and Mortimer was my favorite.

R&M, the song's in R&M.

Amazing.

I mean, trapped in my flat and.

When I did my series Heavy Entertainment, we went through every episode of Reeves and Mortimer and we broke it down to the sections that it was in because it feels like absolute chaos.

And then we broke it down to like, right, so there's a two minute sketch here.

It starts with the song.

Then they do a three minutes on the desk.

Then they do, and what we realized was it's incredibly structured.

It's a bit formulaic.

It's like, but you can't tell from that two weeks because they swap bits out.

But yeah, really.

Anyway, so there was that, there was Fist of Fun, there was Jack T, Jack T Live at wherever it was.

And there was all this stuff that was on.

And then Harry Hill came along in the mid to late 90s.

I loved him.

So it was Christmas, maybe 15 years ago, 10 years ago.

And we were all sat around, me and my family, we were all sat around the TV.

No one can ever agree on what to watch.

And I'm like, let's watch Harry Hill TV burp because that is multi-generational.

Everyone can enjoy that.

And there was real resistance from my mom and my sister, which is, oh no, not that.

Really?

Yeah, but they were like, oh no, not that.

Because I think they have an idea that it's silly or it's annoying or whatever.

And then I just put it on and within maybe 30 seconds, the whole of our family was all roaring with laughter and my mom was wiping tears around from her face.

And you go into stuff with a preconceived idea, but he's just incredible.

And he went from like a, hey, hey, Leo, let me put your headphones on, he's back.

You all right?

There you go, put them on your head.

You're welcome, sweetie.

Sorry.

Good.

So yeah, they're intergenerational.

I mean, my kids are watching him on Junior Bank Off.

Yeah, he's incredible, he's incredible.

Yeah, but also he is silly, but his comedy has like an anti-establishment, you know, kind of like, it's like a jagged edge to him.

I think he's really great.

Yeah, I love Harry, he's brilliant.

Because recently, like last year, he was making like a long short film.

It ended up being about an hour, but he made like this hour black and white silent movie about a caveman and he put me in it.

I mean, I'm unrecognizable in it, but like he put me in it.

How is that to watch someone as a teenager and then end up in one of their projects as a grown man?

Well, he's lucky.

I mean, you meet all sorts of people in this industry and you meet your heroes and some of them are disappointed and some of them, you know, Harry Hill is one of the people that absolutely one million percent lives up to your hopes.

Yeah, yeah.

So the first time I met him, we were doing a format test where, what was it?

Alien fun capsule.

So before that got commissioned, we did like a dry run of it down in King's Cross.

And it was the first time I met him.

There was me and Matt Crosby and a couple of other people, I can't remember.

And basically we were on this tiny little stage in between two toilets in King's Cross.

And we just went through the format.

I wasn't going to be used in the series.

I was just kind of like a comedian that happened to be free.

But I'd already done heavy entertainment by that point.

And I went in and Harry was there obviously, cause it's his thing.

And I went in and I was just like, oh, I've been a fan of yours since your Channel 4 series.

And he just sort of like diverted the conversation.

And he spent 15 minutes telling me how much he loved heavy entertainment, how much he was sort of surprised he didn't get a second series cause he just thought that it was, you know, he just basically was so complimentary to me.

And it was like, oh my God, like, and then a couple of weeks later, I got a delivery through the post.

And it was, it was like this, like this jiffy bag.

Yeah.

That had all of these stickers of birds on it that you'd get from like a wildlife center.

And he put stickers all over this envelope.

And when I opened it, it was a handwritten letter that was two sides, cause I would have framed if it, if it was one side, but it was two sides.

So it's handwritten letter, again, telling me how much he loved heavy entertainment and all this other stuff.

But it was also a DVD of kind of like a super cut of his Channel 4 series.

And it was just like, it blew me away.

It was just like, it was absolutely incredible.

He didn't need to do any of that for me.

He was so nice.

And we've worked together since, and I have, I did Alien Fun Capture in the end, and he did a pilot over from BBC, which they never commissioned in the end, but I was in his pilot.

It was bonkers that I didn't get commissioned, cause it was Harry Hill, Jennifer Saunders, me.

I was in one scene, but yeah, it was incredible.

So what's it like, yeah, you grew up with it.

Comedy is one of them industries.

If you go into business, you might not meet Richard Branson, right?

But if you go into comedy, you probably will meet Stuart Lee at some point.

And then you become part of it.

I never want to lose that.

I've seen other comedians kind of like go shoulder to shoulder with legends, and that's fine, that's absolutely fine, but I always feel like I still want to have that reverential quality where he's still, you want to look at these people and see where they are in their careers and kind of like go, how did they get to that point?

And how do they keep going?

Do you know what I mean?

Because you have spikes in your career.

Yeah.

I just think, yeah, I love it.

I love being part of the history of it.

There was a point when I started doing stand-up comedy, there was a point when I got nominated for something or people were copying me on stage, and I felt like if they were to write a historic document about the stand-up circuit in the 2000s, 2010s, I would have to be in it.

Yeah, of course you would.

Do you know what I mean?

And I felt like I was part of the history of it all.

So I kind of like have that sort of attitude to it.

I'm just happy to be part of it really.

Talking of like getting little packages, I told you, Bernie Clifton did this pod once, and about two weeks later, I got a Jiffy envelope with a little signed photo, but on the back with a little note, a CD of him singing, and a Cracker Jack pen.

Which to my lot, is like getting a Blue Peter badge, Blue Peter badge, naff, Cracker Jack pen, cool.

But he didn't have to do that, it's so sweet.

It's an old school, I think it's really good.

But also, you learn how to handle it all.

I saw the way that Harry was with me, and I was just like, that's who I want to be.

That's how I want to treat other people.

And then you see how other people behave, you know, and there is bad behavior.

Not like illegal behavior, but there's just like rudeness and sort of entitlement.

And then you see that, and I'm really grateful for seeing that, because you go, I don't want to be like that, but I do want to be like that.

Hey, sweetie.

It's very soft, it's very soft.

Is it finished?

He's getting into it now.

Yeah, soft, soft.

Off you go.

He's attacked our little fella.

Should I ask you a couple of format questions to end it off?

Let's do some fun ones.

What's the TV show that you'd like to bring back from the dead?

TV show, Uncle.

So yeah, I'd always made more Uncle.

So that was the thing.

They wrote this thing and they said three series and we're out, and I was like, brilliant, okay.

I respect your opinion.

But also when we finished filming it, the kid was 15 and he was gonna be 16 in one month's time.

When we filmed the pilot, I think we filmed the pilot in 2013.

It came out in November.

That Christmas or that January was when all the Jimmy Savile stuff came out.

And then when we filmed the series, the way it affected us was that the actual standards on what you were allowed to say in front of children completely changed.

And so it was actually very difficult filming the three series.

And when he became 16, that was when sort of like the limitations kind of like eased off a bit.

So you weren't allowed to swear in front of him, you weren't allowed to talk about sexual drugs in front of him.

We were filming stuff, like scenes that had drugs in it and stuff like that.

And so we had to film around him.

And then he turned 16.

So we finished everything.

We finished filming.

We weren't gonna make any more Uncle, but the months later he turned 16 and he had to go in and do kind of like ADR.

It was four weeks later and he was going in and he was swearing and talking about drugs and everything like that.

And my old point was when we left it at three series, he was, all of these limitations were about to be lifted off of us.

And I always thought that it wasn't about an adult and a kid, it was about an uncle and his nephew.

And that is, you know, only fools and horses, stuff like that.

As that relationship grows up and the relationship changes, he was two years away from going to university.

He was, you know, he was going to become an adult.

He was going to get a girlfriend, get married or whatever it was.

And it would be like that relationship would be constantly evolving.

So I understand that we did three series and we were out, but I also just thought it was kind of like just at the time when all of these storylines were about to open up for us.

But I think that the budget limitations got upset.

But what I would say is, I think that pretty much everyone, I know that me and the kid have had like a difficult relationship with the series, but I'm very happy about it now.

I'm in a really good place about it because it sort of eclipsed my career for a bit.

But now it's just a part of it and I love it.

Elliot had a big difficulty with it because he was playing a nerd when he wanted to be a cool teenager.

And so he's got a difficult relationship with it, but I think we'd both be up for it.

I'm in contact with most of the cast and I think everyone would do it.

And Ollie and Lila would do it.

It's the 10th anniversary this year.

Why wouldn't we do it?

But I think the BBC are really interested in it and it's really, it's just a BBC decision now.

I don't know how true it is, but I know that when we were filming the second series, there was a rumor that David Spade really liked it.

And I'm a big David Spade fan.

And then he made a film called Father of the Year that was on Netflix, which was basically about him being an irresponsible adult looking after a kid.

Well, yeah, that's kind of what we did.

But was there ever a proper American remake on the?

There was a Mexican remake and there was a Korean remake.

The Korean remake was all about K-pop and I didn't watch it.

And I found out about that because somebody added me into a tweet when the trailer was out.

And I was kind of like, that's how I find out that you're remaking it.

It was bonkers.

But I felt very like a bit on edge because I wrote these songs.

And if they're doing a remake and they're going to put a new song to it, then you just think, are these songs going to be better than my songs?

But I never heard anything about them.

So I don't know really about the Mexicans.

I think the Mexican remake was an actual remake and the Korean one, it was a bit more wholesome.

If I was going to bring back any TV series, I would bring back Uncle.

Well, Nick, I mean, ask me one more.

We can't end on what TV series you're going to bring back.

And it's my own.

All right, we'll do one.

Robin of Sherwood.

I've got a good one.

I bring back Robin of Sherwood.

Robin of Sherwood with Sean Connery's kid.

Sean Connery.

Jason Connery?

Jason Connery, yeah.

Where's that come from?

Wow.

Here's one, because I don't think you've done, unless I'm mistaken, I don't think you've done any.

Gunn to your head, what reality TV show would you go on?

I mean, I've turned them down.

What have you turned down?

I'm a Celebrity.

I've turned it down twice.

Oh, you have, they phone you up and they say, what do you do, I'm a Celebrity.

And then you have a 10 second moment where you go, work for Joel Domett.

And then you go, oh, I'm not Joel Domett.

And people would absolutely hate me.

Yeah, so I turned that down.

How is it going to hate you?

I think people, you get hate every time you do anything on TV.

And I was just like, do you know what?

It's not worth it.

It's not worth it.

Would I do it now?

Probably.

If you're in there with some kind of fascist politician that you've got to sidle up to, it might be tricky.

At the time I was kind of like, I feel like I'm not at a point in my career that I need to do it.

And I was just enjoying it all the moment.

But maybe I'd do something like that now.

I don't think, gone to my head, what would be...

Going to Celebrity Traitors if they made one or something like that?

Or anything a bit funnier?

Yeah, sure.

I do Celebrity Traitors.

They did this thing called Werewolf Live, an online thing that comedians do.

And I really always enjoyed that.

It was basically similar to Traitors, where there's a werewolf in the village and you've got to work out who it is.

But I'd weigh it all up.

I wouldn't do Big Brother.

I would definitely do Strictly Come Dancing.

I love dancing.

Yeah?

Yeah, I love it.

You love it?

I've got a bit of a rhythm.

I mean, I'm not very good at kind of like learning specific dance moves.

The choreography was always difficult on Uncle, but yeah, I love, I've got rhythm.

I love moving around to music.

I think I can do that.

Next time they're filming, I'll turn up.

I'll turn up and do it.

Who would you like your other celebrities to be in the idol world?

I don't care.

So let me think.

You, Carolyn Quenter and David Essex.

I mean, that would be incredible.

Just joking.

That would be incredible.

David Essex.

That would be amazing.

Yeah, I'm Carolyn Quenter.

Yeah, that would be great.

You know, I've met all sorts of people and it's never you think and you kind of like, oh, yeah, you're all right.

Who was your first crush on the television?

I really loved, I mean, it's not necessarily a TV crush, but I would have known her from TV when Madonna did Holiday, the Holiday period Madonna.

Very early Madonna.

Yeah, really early.

I absolutely, and I had a friend who had big sisters that were like Madonna and, you know, I just had a massive crush on her.

I think it was True Blue, I think.

But when, True Blue.

I mean, I mean, she's, you know, constantly reinventing herself.

She's incredible.

But like, yeah, but early Madonna.

And then, you know, you know, I liked Debbie Gibson and people like that.

I worked with her when I was 23.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I worked on the opening cast of Greece at the Dominion in the West End.

And she was a massive pop star, obviously, from the 80s.

And she is just like standing there and I'm putting a mic on her and she goes on and sings.

It was crazy.

I really liked Annalise in Neighbours.

Yeah, of course you did.

And there was a point where there were twins in Neighbours that Paul Robinson was going out with one of the twins in Neighbours.

And I fancied the other twin that wasn't going out with Paul Robinson.

But that's specifically her.

I stayed in a backpacker hotel in Sydney that was run by the actress who played Annalise's dad.

And I stayed there so long, I was just so expecting her to pay a visit, but she never turned up.

Oh, well.

And I was like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm staying where she's probably been in here.

Who, Annalise?

I don't remember her actual name.

Yeah, I kind of, Kimberly Davis.

Yes.

Yeah, and then My Lifelong Love, which is Pamela Anderson.

What is the funniest thing you have ever seen on the TV?

Funniest thing I've ever seen on TV?

Yes.

Well, I tell you what, it's a Harry Hill thing.

There's several things.

I watched, there's a Marx Brothers film called Coconuts, and there's a scene in that where Harpo is going through passport control.

And when I watched it on my TV in my flat, I thought I was losing my mind because I just thought it was...

I couldn't process how crazy it was.

I just thought it was amazing.

And there was another thing with Annika Rice.

Oh, I had a crush on Annika Rice.

And Michaela Strachan.

The standards.

So there was a bit of an alien fun capsule with Annika Rice, and they were doing a thing where Harry was reaching over to get a pickled onion, and they did a thing where his hand stretched off camera, and then it follows like this little hand as it goes past all of the crew, past Annika Rice and the three contestants that are on there, and it goes down like the corridors of the TV studio that they're filming, and then it goes, it just follows his hand going for ages and ages and ages, and it picks up a pickled onion, and it comes all the way back again, and then he eats pickled onion, or he gives it to Annika Rice.

I can't remember the end of it, but I was sat in my flat watching it, and it was in the middle of the day, and I was completely sober, and I remember I had my hands like gripping my hair, just like going, this is absolutely, but like, you know, I was just watching it, just like going, this is absolutely crazy.

I was crying, I just thought it was, it was funny, but it was beyond funny.

It was like I thought that I was losing my mind when I was watching it.

Yeah, it just, oh, it was brilliant.

It was brilliant.

So yeah, I mean, that is a legitimate, that's a legitimate answer.

I mean, I don't know what I'm doing for the rest of the year.

I'm writing for the rest of the year.

So you can go back in time and watch my tour.

I've got an album coming out, I've got to finish the album.

I'm always very sort of like, every time I say my album's coming out, I don't release it.

Has it got a title yet?

Down and Dirty.

I've got an album called Hot and Heavy.

This is Down and Dirty.

That's what it's going to be called.

I'm sticking with that.

I mean, I'm just basically trying to get the tour done and then we'll see what happens.

I'd like to do more dates, I'd like to do more tour dates, but we'll see.

Autumn Extension possibly.

Well, thanks for coming on Television Times.

It's been absolutely brilliant talking to you and meeting you.

Thank you for having me.

It was a lovely chat.

I was very nervous about how in-depth I had to get with it.

Also, when I'm on the spot, my brain goes completely blank and I can't remember anything.

Oh, it's just a chill thing.

I mean, we talked about Alice Cooper for ten minutes.

It's all fine.

But I did, I was very clever in the way I linked it back to Clive Anderson and talked that on him.

Well, Leo, do you want to say goodbye as well, since you're here?

Goodbye, Leo, goodbye.

Thanks for being quiet for most of it, even though you're a good boy.

You were really great, Leo.

Look at the buses now.

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

Nick Helm talking to me here in Newcastle upon Time.

Check out for new dates, you know, he's always touring, he's always got a show on the go, and he's an excellent, excellent stand up, and you should go and see him if you haven't already.

Now to today's outro track.

Now, we're not even doing my little beeps because it's one of Nick's.

I like to do that when we have a guest who's musical.

Why put one of mine out when we can put one of theirs?

He gave us the permission to put out No Survivors, which is from the TV show Uncle.

Brilliant song, it's been in my head all week.

Give it a listen, go back, watch Uncle, all three seasons are brilliant.

He's a great performer, go see him live, the end.

So here we go, this is Nick Helm with No Survivors.

That was Nick Helm with No Survivors from his TV show, Uncle, where he did a song in pretty much every episode, like a pop video.

Hilarious.

You need to watch it if you haven't already.

Anyway, that was Nick on TV Times Podcast.

I loved talking to him.

He's an absolute comedy legend.

And come back next week for another episode.

And until then, thanks for listening and bye for now.