Nicola Mantalios: Cult Survival, Comedy Personas & The Rising Price of Bread

Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, Screen Rats.

Here we are, it's 2024.

This is the first proper episode of the year.

I know we had the TV roundup with Paul Critoph about 10 days ago or so, but this is the first proper interview.

And our first guest of the year is actually Nicola Mantalios.

She's a comedian.

She plays herself and tells her story in her show called Meeting Mary, next on at the stand in Newcastle on January 28th, by the way.

But she also has a character that she plays called Zoe, which is who she was performing as when I saw her most recently.

This episode was actually recorded way back in October in my old studio before I moved, before the nightmare of moving ensued.

It's been really hectic, man.

It's been so hectic.

It's been like, you know, first of all, problems number one.

You know, basically we were on a holiday around my birthday, which was half term, came back, had a birthday for my twins, found out we had to move, moved straight into Christmas.

And now we're planning my son, who's about to be 10, his birthday.

And it's just like, there's never a dull moment, man.

Seriously.

I mean, we are literally, yesterday we spent the whole day, me and my wife, essentially, you know, building the rest of the house, all the little bits that need doing.

And I've spent the last week or so putting the studio back together in a new place with all new, the same equipment kind of, we have a new pod mic.

It should sound nice and dull sit.

And we have, you know, I've built a nice new workstation for it, a work podcast workstation.

What do you call that?

I don't know.

Big desk, big desk full of stuff.

I've got some old rotary phone.

I don't know if you can hear it from here, but you can hear it.

Maybe it's too far away.

An old rotary phone is kind of like a little gimmicky thing.

I've got a AVO meter, I've stuck a light in that because I saw it in one of those posh shops where they turn everything into a light, got trumpet with a bulb coming out the top.

So I just wanted to make it kind of creative.

I've got some London Underground maps.

I've got my posters up.

It's looking pretty snazzy.

And on the shelf is my gripe at the moment, which is a Bodum coffee cafeteria.

Now this is the most white privilege of all, but at Christmas, we were busy putting the house together.

My wife left a cable out, my daughter tripped on the cable.

It pulled the Bodum off the countertop and it smashed into smithereens on the floor.

Glass everywhere.

I didn't get annoyed.

I wanted to, but there was so much going on anyway, it didn't really matter.

So I just went and bought another one.

And I went on Amazon.

I thought that would be easier.

We used them a lot lately, unfortunately.

And I thought, no, I'll go to Bodum, because I like Bodum.

I'll give them the money.

They make the good ones.

Amazon ones are probably cheap and inferior.

This thing arrived.

It's totally made of plastic.

The outside, the inside, the fucking, there's no part of it.

It's not glass anymore.

And even the bit you pushed out hasn't got those sort of curly wiry, you know, I don't know what it is.

It pushes the grains, you know.

Is it just plastic?

Looks like it's made for a quid.

I'll get in two weeks to respond.

And they have responded.

So on this podcast, I'm going to call them out and say, Bodum, you are now shit.

You are putting out inferior crap.

You're on my list of bad companies.

You are cheapening your products, just like Dr.

Martin's and those kinds of things where you just outsource everything to the cheapest possible factory you can find somewhere.

And you know, it's just rubbish.

And I do apologize for my sort of cold voice because I have got a kind of cold in the last two days, which is annoying considering what I'm doing right now.

So to our guest, Nicola Mantalios.

I met Nicola while she came around the house in the old studio in early October after I saw her at the People's Theatre here in Newcastle where she was comparing a really fun night of comedians.

There were so many.

It was a brilliant night.

Most notable for me was when Nick Helm came on and saw that I was sitting right in the middle of the front row and immediately picked on me and started screaming maths questions at me about the price of Pepsi Max or Cherry Pepsi, whatever it was.

And it really threw me and I'm good at maths, but this guy, he fucking made me so nervous and he got me up on stage to point out a cupcake.

I don't know what was going on.

Anyway, love Nick Helm.

He's absolutely brilliant.

But the next time I see him, I will sit right at the fucking back because that guy made me feel very nervous.

And so did Nicola Mantalios in her character that she was playing, Zoe.

And she also kind of honed in on me.

It's my own fault.

I sat in the middle, at the front row.

I don't know what I was thinking.

I got a ticket and it was like, oh, front row's available.

Sat there on my own, did the same at a Jen Brista gig.

I got hassled by the warmup comic.

And also recently, a similar thing happened when I went to see a big comedy night at the Time Journal.

So my days of sitting in the front row have got to be over at this point because it's just asking for trouble.

I mean, I'm not scared of the front row.

I always think it's silly to be scared of the front row, but I'm not actively going to seek it out.

And I've had these center front row tickets for ages.

And this is not some like, you know, me spending a lot of money.

These are like carte blanche, the same price.

Sit at the back, sit at the front, it's like 20 quid.

It makes no difference where you sit.

So yeah, anyway.

So I really liked her comedy persona.

And basically everything she was doing was just really, really funny.

I had been stitched.

So I thought, I need to talk to her.

And I had no idea what she was going to talk about.

And some of it is funny.

And some of it is going to go in a place you are not expecting.

And you know, this is a great one.

So here she is.

This is me talking to Nicola Mantalios.

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

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

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

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

Here on Television Times.

The pink lane one.

Pink lane salad, yeah, that's it.

Not a red, not an apple.

When I say pink lady, I'm always doing shit like that.

I do like pink ladies.

Pink ladies are really nice, but they're very expensive and we'll cut this, but you can weigh them as I'm going to, if you really want to, but don't do that.

I have done it once, twice, five.

But yes, the pink lane sourdough, £3.80.

That's a lot for bread.

It's a lot for bread.

I do struggle with those numbers, but that is not, this isn't going in the cupboards, but it's just like, I do find, well, maybe not, I don't know.

But the, so I press this by the way, whenever we mention films or accidents, but it's okay if you watch it on a VHS or DVD.

That's for when we've, what, mentioned sourdough?

We mentioned sourdough, the sourdough horn, that would be it.

And where's all this sourdough coming from anyway?

Because I thought it was supposed to be like a special thing that was handed down from like grandmothers from Serbia or whatever.

I think, I think that it was, it comes from San Francisco.

Really?

Yeah, I think the original sourdough was from San Francisco.

Really?

So I went to San Francisco in June, 2011, and I had clam chowder in a sourdough bowl.

So you scoop out all of the inner bits and then it's got a little lid.

Yeah, yeah.

It's all the sourdough.

So then you eat everything.

Welcome to Sourdough Times where we discuss all things sourdough.

No, we don't.

Let's get on with it.

So you were the host at the People's Theatre gig that I went to and sat stupidly right in the middle of the front row.

Something I'm doing again on Thursday at Jen Brister's gig, which is, I've never done that before.

It was just, I went on there and it was because it was just me, there was one seat and I thought, oh, I'll just sit there, I'll be all right.

Are you on your own?

Yeah, I was on my own.

It was fun.

I mean, it's somewhat, I do it because I, you know, I do stand up too and I've been to loads of comedy gigs and I don't mind.

I'm never really scared of the front, really, but that just seemed, it was, you were fine.

It was, it was Nic that just kept screaming numbers at me.

Well, actually it wasn't me that was there at all.

No, no, it wasn't, no, it wasn't you.

You were never there.

That's the other thing.

You were your characters, aren't you?

I had given her full reigns of my brain.

How do you remember all the names?

Have you remembered all the names of people and where they're sitting?

You have teacher skills.

I think, I don't always.

And if I don't remember the name and I make a mistake and they correct me, I'll usually be dismissive and say, well, it doesn't really matter because this is a temporary friendship, which is a way of deflecting the fact that I've just forgotten somebody's name.

But in real life, I try to remember people's names.

Thank you.

You know, I like that.

When you came out with your Wilko bag, I thought there was going to be some kind of political statement.

I was like, oh, she's going to bring out, they're all going to be P45s in there or something.

That's what I thought it was going to be.

But yeah, that gig was really fun.

And I didn't clock his name.

Who was the Poo in the Shoe guy?

Fernando.

Yeah.

That was some of the weirdest shit I've ever seen.

Yeah.

But like, you know, like, I couldn't work out.

It's quite surreal.

Yeah, I don't think I liked it, but I won't forget it.

Do you know what I mean?

It's like-

Well, that's something.

It's sort of-

A bit like clam chowder.

A bit like clam chowder.

But yeah, we'll talk about Tali in a minute.

But yeah, so how, I should ask, obviously you do stand up as yourself and you host at the stand and you do all these things, but you also have the character Zoe.

So may I ask a couple of questions?

Yes, of course.

How long have you been doing that character?

So Zoe was born in July 2013.

So just this summer, she had her 10th birthday.

Oh, right.

Yeah, she looks a bit older, but she's 10.

She looks a bit older.

She wears different clothes than you.

And do you find, what do you prefer?

Do you prefer being her or do you prefer being yourself on stage?

It really depends on how I feel emotionally that day and how much energy I have.

So both are at cost in a different way.

So if I've experienced any kind of heartache or trauma, I'm having any kind of difficulty that day, it feels like a, like brain holiday to be Zoe.

So it's kind of like that happy, sad clown, clowning sort of thing.

So I find it easier to perform as Zoe if I'm having any kind of challenge or difficulty in my real life.

It's like putting on a mask essentially.

Yeah, kind of, yeah.

Or almost like taking one off.

It's a bit of both.

So it's a bit like, so when I perform as myself, I'm doing stand up, I always feel like I have to, because I've been female, I feel like I have to look good.

Because you're instantly judged when you step on the stage and you take a microphone in your hand.

So there's a lot of thought that has to go into it.

And I wish that it wasn't like that, but it is like that because women are often judged just on appearance sake.

And it's, when I say I need to look good, I don't mean I need to pertain to beauty standards.

I need to both stand out and hide because if I have cleavage, sometimes people will just take that as an opportunity to shout.

So I have misogynistic and sexist comments.

I have to be able to move in my clothes and I have to be able to own space in my clothes and I have to feel like a little bit bulletproof, I suppose.

So a suit of armor.

Yeah, so if I'm performing as myself, it's a little bit more like a suit of armor.

Whereas when I perform as Zoe, I've got an absolute standardized set of armor in that wolf fleece.

And so partially Zoe's creation was born of thinking, well, I'm not giving you the best version of myself.

Here is the worst I can look in a way.

Judge that if you want to, that doesn't affect me.

I'm here.

I'm here for the words.

I'm here for the comedy.

I'm here for the movement.

It's not about who I am.

So there was, there's a self-defense there, but there's also a stripping back.

When you're actually performing as Zoe, do you also, is there like a lag, a time lag in your head where you know that you're sort of in there and you're about to say something as Zoe and you're thinking about it in your mind?

Translating it to the...

Yeah, are you translating like a foreign language or is it just you are that person?

I think I become Zoe.

It's quite scary actually.

Yeah, I think that something different happens because I think she has a section of my brain that is just dedicated to her.

And I hand the reins over and I have different mannerisms, different facial expressions, different posture, different mental processing.

And that's just all just given space.

So as soon as I put on the clothes, that's when Zoe is allowed to surface.

It's more like that.

So I don't really need to translate anything.

I can comfortably be Zoe for like the whole day.

Have you done it outside just for a gang?

I've done it outside a couple of times actually, yeah.

So I've performed at Whitley Bay Film Festival a few years ago.

I was actually pregnant at the time and it was a really hot day.

So I put on the fleece and the Lycra combo on a hot day.

Whitley Bay, no shade.

No shade.

It was a street performance.

It was just all day.

So that was quite arduous physically.

I filmed as Zoe.

So I've spent all day in character and the quiz nights that I do.

So Zoe's quiz night that tends to last about two and a half hours because of the interval.

I stay as Zoe in the interval.

So, yeah, I could just be Zoe for a really long time.

And like you say, if you've had like a bad day yourself, you can just inhabit her.

So is it fun?

Yeah, it's really fun.

Yeah, it's really fun because she has this ability to say whatever the fuck she wants.

Sorry, Merle, I'll swear.

She can say whatever she wants and there's this, there's no comeuppance for it.

Yeah, so there's a lot more play to be had.

And because she's not offering that beauty, she's not offering that I'm available for you to look at, I'm available for you to objectify.

She's not offering that to anybody.

So it's almost like she's willing to challenge you on anything you say or do and there's no grounds.

You just can't take floor space with her.

She already owns every way she stands.

So how long have you been doing stand up generally?

Did you do it before Zyrie as well?

Before Zyrie.

So I started performing stand up in October 2010.

So 13 years.

The good old days.

When bread was more affordable.

I used to watch a significant amount of television as a child, so it was my sort of go-to thing in the 90s, coming back from school, I'd watch lots and lots of sitcoms, and after school TV.

Not so much now, just because I am super busy with entertaining my children and working and things like that, but I do try and keep up to date with things that are coming up, and yeah, I watch TV.

Do you have a show that you definitely don't miss that's on right now or?

Currently watching Sex Education.

I haven't seen it, how is that?

Yeah, I'm enjoying it, yeah, but because I'm writing a sitcom, I'm in the process, I find that whatever I watch, it feels a little bit like work because I deconstruct the set up, the story arc, the characters, the interplay between the characters, I try and understand what the A, B and C plots are.

Yeah, break it all down.

So it's a bit like going to comedy now.

And now I go, oh, I wonder if they're following the save the cat methodology.

I can see it.

I can see a real build up here.

There's the whiff of death and the bad guys closing in.

And so it feels a little bit like, yeah, like I deconstruct it a little bit, but I quite like that because I'm a little bit of a geek for my work.

You can do both.

You can sort of do that and still enjoy it, right?

I can still enjoy it, but I think I get, I think now I'm not lost in the narrative as much as I used to be because I'm looking at it as a piece of work that's been produced.

Like now I can, I've got a deeper appreciation for the team of people who are the thought tank behind it.

Yeah, you think those things.

Like exactly, like when Au Pooh and the Shoe did his thing, I just thought, who's cleaning that up?

I think that all the time.

Stage management?

Yeah.

It's like I can just see a fucking mess on the stage.

Weirdly, we watched a boiling point, the first episode of the TV show, not the movie, last night.

And it started, the whole, I don't know if you know, but the whole movie of that was a one shot.

I don't know how long it was.

It was probably nearly an hour, but it was one shot.

And it was insane how they did it, because it's a bustling restaurant.

And last night they launched the TV show and we watched the first episode.

And the first, I'd say 10 minutes of it was one shot again.

And I was like, oh, this is giving me a headache.

I can't watch this, because I can't watch it like a normal partner either.

I'm just going, well, who did that?

How did they time that right?

That person came in and had to knock that out.

He had to spill that just, how many takes did they do?

You have to pause it just to gather your thoughts.

Yeah.

And then they stopped doing it.

I was like fucking relieved I could actually get into it, you know, because otherwise I'm just breaking it down.

Just looking at how clever it is.

Like that film, was it 1918?

Was it called 1918?

It was all one shot.

The film was called 1917.

I don't think I watched that.

I mean, I enjoyed it, but it was all one shot.

So it was like, I'm just watching the cleverness.

Yeah.

And it's great.

But I don't want to be watching the cleverness.

If I'm watching the cleverness, the film isn't good.

You know what I mean?

I know what you mean.

Like if you're seeing, oh, the lighting's good.

Well, this is a bad show.

Okay, I'm going to ask you some podcast questions, actually.

If you don't mind.

Let's get, let's do the, I did this with Jack Doty.

Let's do the numbering thing.

So give me a number between one and 20.

Do I have to say it out loud?

Yeah, you say it out loud.

Okay, 17.

17.

Don't worry about the counting part.

Which TV character, if you could, would you embody for 24 hours in real life?

A fictional character?

Um, I really love Mr.

Bean.

Mm-hmm.

And I think that the clowning and the lack of words in Mr.

Bean's or when I can say Mr.

Bean, is a way of bringing people together who maybe don't share a common language.

It's universal.

So I think the universal clowning of Mr.

Bean has been an inspiration to me as a child.

And I think I took stock when I was with my Greek relative, my Auntie Rebecca, and she didn't have English and I didn't have enough Greek for us to share humor, but we could share that humor.

And so I think that's really informed an aspect of Zoe, because Mr.

Bean is not, it just doesn't give a fuck.

He's completely selfish, but yet you love him.

Yeah, you go with it.

Despite that, you go with it.

You go, well, okay, this is your world.

And there's a lot of self-sabotage that ends up happening because of his selfish nature and because he needs everything just so, and he'll get pissed off at everybody that gets in the way of that.

And he ends up in these really ridiculous situations because he's impatient or he wants the big, like if there's a bowl of apples, he's gonna take the biggest one.

And that's, Zoe's a little bit like that in a lot of ways.

Yeah, get to the front of the queue on the January sale, that kind of thing, yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

So I just, I love the lack of social dance that Mr.

Bean does.

And I would love to just be allowed to do that in real life.

He's just a bean Mr.

Bean.

Yeah, Mr.

Bean, yeah.

I mean, Mr.

Bean's holiday is on repeat in this house.

That's a movie, oh, movie.

But you know, it's based on a TV show, but that one where he cuts out, is it like a, what's the thing in the kitchen where you pass cups through, the little hatch thing?

Like he cuts one out, doesn't he, with a, and he's going, he cuts out like a fucking corner of the Queen's picture and something like that.

He takes it all out in one go.

Yeah, that's taken from one of the episodes, actually.

I think that he does that when he paints his-

Oh, the paint bomb one.

Yeah, yeah, because that's when he's decorating.

He's flat and then he realizes, because he moves the, oh no, that's it, because he moves the table to somewhere else and he's sitting room and then he realizes, oh, this isn't convenient for this little window now.

So then he just has to cut and he cuts through the telephone wire and-

Yes, yes, yeah.

And my son was like, what's that?

I goes, oh, that's the, they used to have little telephone boxes where it would be, what?

Yeah.

The one he loves is the body form advert one, do you know that one?

Like he's counting sheep in his bed.

And he's got this big stick to like touch the button because he doesn't have a remote.

And then he falls asleep and they goes, well, my body form.

And he wakes back up and I had to explain what that was.

But it's really funny.

Yeah, I love that.

And then I think he ends up shooting the TV.

It's fucking mental.

Yeah.

So this is something that happened to me.

When I first moved back to London, I went before Mr.

Bean was actually quite old.

I went to see Rowan Atkinson in something called The Sneeze.

And I didn't really know much about him at the time.

It was like the first thing I ever went to see at a theater, I think.

And he had this sneeze and he did all those bits, you know, the really classic scenes, you know, that they put on YouTube, the little clips from him in the late 80s, I guess.

And I went to see that and I didn't even, I don't think I realized what I was watching.

I was like, oh, that's the guy from Blackadder, I guess, doing his thing.

And it was just all, there was like no speaking.

So I saw that and I had the early Mr.

Bean.

I was in the audience and I'm like, so annoyed.

I didn't realize at the time that he was so unfortunate.

I had that as a young adult.

I went to see Jack Black sitting in London at the Apollo, what was the name of his band again?

Jack Black is, yeah.

It's gone out of my head.

Tenacious Day.

Yeah, it landed.

I went to see Tenacious Day and I was like, this is pretty cool and then time has passed and I've gone, actually that was really cool.

But I saw that.

So yeah, you don't often take heed of the moment until it's passed and then you realize, oh, that was a vintage moment.

Yeah, and I think what pisses me off a bit about me in the nineties is I was like snobby about things.

Like I was quite, you know, I was young, but I was like, I didn't want to fucking watch what she must have been.

That's for kids watching Home Alone.

This is bullshit.

You know, I like Jurassic Park, but it was like, this is rubbish.

Why am I watching this?

This is for kids.

And now I just look back and I think, oh, I had a problem with like Mrs.

Doubtfire being all flat.

It's like, well, that's a good movie.

You watch, well, I mean, it's debatable now, but there are so many like elements to that kind of early nineties, mid nineties stuff that I just didn't tune into because I just thought it was naff.

It was like the grandma.

Yeah.

But it wasn't.

It was actually brilliant.

And now I can see it for what it is.

And I was just like being a snob, I guess, you know.

Which is your prerogative as a teenager?

In my early twenties.

Yeah, as a young adult.

Yeah, you kind of just finding yourself at that age and you're looking around a little bit to say like, do we like this?

And you look at your peers to inform that.

And really it takes a little bit of time to, for things to season.

Yeah, I'm listening to Parklife.

My nan is watching Mr.

Bean and Hello Hello.

So I'm like, hmm.

It's probably that kind of thing.

Let's do another one.

What's the funniest thing you ever saw on TV?

Okay, so I get stuck in a loop with this one particular scene.

So I'm going to give you a little bit of a backstory about it before I tell you the one particular moment.

So I've got an old school friend and I was describing the scene from Fawlty Towers where Basil attacks his car with a branch.

So he's really annoyed.

He's basically the fast builds as it always does in each episode and he's trying to get, I think, a cooked chicken back to the hotel.

And he's running around town and he's really manic and everything's going wrong and everything's just building and building and building and adding to his fury.

And then he ends up taking it all out on his car.

And I once described this to my friend, Graham, from school.

And then every time I saw him, I ended up bringing it up in some way, shape or form.

I was like, oh, do you remember the last time I saw you?

I couldn't stop laughing about that scene.

And then we ended up, he had the box set of Fawlty Towers, and then we watched it together.

So I've linked the two things in my mind with this boy from school.

And so, OK, so the scenes where it was all Basil Fawlty's getting more and more irate.

And then his car breaks down on the side of the road.

And he just, he goes, that's it.

That's it.

I'm warning you.

I'm warning you.

And I think he gives him a countdown in the car.

And he just personifies the car, like, or anthroposizes the car, whatever.

Makes it human.

It can be that one.

And he gets this, and then he just, he goes off screen.

And so it's that classic sort of framing.

So you've got the car in the frame and somebody goes off and then comes back with just this massive fuck off branch and just starts matching up his own property.

whipping his car.

He's like, I'll give you a good thrashing.

And he just likes to waste all this time.

Like, meanwhile, he's got this chicken or turkey or whatever it is.

He needs to get back to the hotel and he's just having a fight with his car.

That episode's brilliant.

Does it end up with him putting his foot in the chicken?

I mean, I think that it does end in disaster.

I can't remember if it's his foot in the chicken.

He sort of walks in the kitchen and Manuel has dropped it or something.

He puts his foot in it and then he's sort of walking around.

I think that there's several chickens that happen in that episode.

Things keep going wrong with the chickens and that's why it's building and building and the poor car ends up getting the blame.

I think it's just so obscure and it's such a waste of time and it's so funny because he's just created all of these impossible moments for himself and he's bringing it all on himself and it's all because he's led by ego.

So he wants to seem like the finest hotelier and so it's his ego tripping him up.

And so he's just like, I can't possibly ask for help.

I can't possibly admit failure.

And so you laugh at him and so you kind of want things to go wrong for him because of that ego, but you're also still on his side despite it all.

He's one you will that because you're enjoying the silliness.

Yeah, there's so many elements to that, isn't it?

Have you ever done anything like that?

When you bought that up, now I've remembered something I did when I was about 25.

I had a bicycle.

I still got a bicycle, different bicycle.

And I was cycling home, lived in London and this fucking bike, everything was going wrong with it.

You know, every bike had a punchy, everything.

And I warned it.

I remember doing that.

I go, you fucking, one more fucking thing and you're going in the river.

You can't.

I got down by Vauxhall Bridge in London and the fucking chain came off or something like that.

And I just did the John Cleese.

I picked it up and I fucking just threw it into the Thames and just turned around and went, oh, fuck, now what?

I warned you.

And I just saw it float away down the Thames like some lunatic mid 20s rage.

You just lost it, yeah.

Yeah, I did.

And then I just had to go home and then.

Had to get the birth.

First.

I remember as a child wanting three cushions behind me for watching TV, which is arguably too many cushions.

But it was definitely a battle for my mother's love, I think, between me and my siblings, because we were allowed one each, and I think I wanted all of them, which is completely ridiculous.

And I was building up the anger, and then I ended up having TV dinners, and I threw my dinner on the floor out of anger because my cushion situation just wasn't right.

I think my mom was trying to stuff the cushion behind me to make me more comfortable.

Was this a carpeted floor?

It was carpeted, yeah.

I got a smack for that, I think.

Oh, really?

Smacking?

Yeah.

We don't have that in our armoury anymore.

We've just got the warnings.

I think that when I say to my kids, you don't have that cushion, because if you drop food on that, that's a colour one, get the dark one.

And then I'm thinking in my head as well, these are just arbitrary rules that mean nothing.

What is a TV show that everyone else seems to like, but you don't get it?

Oh, you know what?

I've watched all of Succession.

I was mostly enjoying it, but it was about a world that I couldn't relate to.

So I think when there's a lot of lingo and fast-paced movement, so like the thick of it was a bit like that with politics.

I enjoyed the sort of social interactions within the thick of it, and the way that it chopped and changed the way we're treating each other.

But a lot of the language and a lot of the fast-paced kind of, you're having to keep up with the world, and almost like pressure to learn something in order to feel like, am I clever enough to understand this?

Oh, so it's making you feel stupid sort of thing?

I think so, yeah.

So I listened to Jesse Armstrong.

He gave a talk at the Cardiff BBC Comedy Festival back in May, who, by the way, he was one of the writers behind Beavers and Butthead, and The Power of the Queen's Nose, which I was much more excited about, even though he also wrote Succession, which is arguably one of the biggest TV episodes.

And Peep Show, and many other things.

Yeah, Peep Show, yes.

So yeah, I was listening to him talk about it, and he was explaining about how they had done a significant amount of research in order to make sure that all of the language was relevant and was accurate, and so there was so much information and research gone into it.

But I think I found it overwhelming.

I think I found it distracting from what was actually happening.

But I admire it because I admire how invested they were in creating that world and making it authentic.

So I was still able to enjoy it to some degree because I could see the storyline and then it was almost like I would have to sit back afterwards and digest what had happened and think about it.

That means it's good, right?

Yeah, I suppose.

But I just found it stressful.

I found it stressful watching it.

Overwhelming, yeah, because there's so much to keep up.

Talking about breaking it down, I mean, I love Succession.

I think it's brilliant writing an excellent TV show.

But the one thing that I did notice in the last season, I kept seeing this, and once I thought of it, because I rewatched season one and two with my wife, I'd seen it myself, I realized in the rewatching of the first two that, oh, every week, they just all go somewhere.

They all go somewhere.

Their carbon footprint must be fucking insane.

But they're always like, it's just an excuse to get in those black cars, get on a plane and go to like, I don't know, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, wherever they're going.

And they're always going somewhere.

And there was always like a glitzy party.

And my thoughts always were, oh man, I'm so glad I'm not there.

I would hate to be at such formal events like constantly.

Could you imagine?

Have all that money and then you've got to have a really formal life, like every day is a wedding.

You're always being watched.

Yeah, you're always being kind of studied.

And if you try to imagine what any of their homes look like because of that series, you're like, well, I can't really see it.

Because they were in so many different spaces, you're like, well, it must be difficult to put down roots if you're in that kind of...

Transient lifestyle, just constantly being somewhere else.

It looked like it was really difficult to have connection and find love.

So I found that interesting about the show.

And I really liked afterwards, so like after watching all of it, sort of looking back and thinking, okay, where were the seeds?

So looking back into season one and early episodes and say, where were all of these seeds that were planted to get us to this growth at the end?

And I find that really interesting.

So from an objective point of view, I think it's a masterpiece that we can learn from, but during the time of watching it, I think I was mostly stressed.

Did you watch Severance?

I love Severance.

Yeah, I really enjoyed that.

I feel like that was a good balance.

I felt discomfort in watching it just because it was building so much intensity.

And so...

And you really don't know where it's going or what's happening.

You don't know, yes.

You still really don't know what's happening.

Yeah, there's a lot of mystery.

There's a lot of like...

A lot of walking down hallways.

Yeah, a lot of hallways.

There's a lot of hallway filming.

There is, there's a lot of hallways.

One bit where he's actively just watching Adam Scott and one of the other characters just walking literally down.

This is a long shot.

Left, right, right, left.

Are they going to stop soon?

Because it was like deliberately long to make us feel uncomfortable.

Yeah, to make you feel uncomfortable and disorientated.

So you get a sense of the character's experience of lack of control and lack of navigation.

You know, it's probably like a really small building, but it's just wound, they're just wound around the wall.

What do you think it was?

What's behind that wall?

What's the place that I'm trying to map it in my head and build it?

It's such a mystery.

Now, I don't just turn things off and go, now that's it.

I give it a chance and I think about it and I view it as an investment of my time.

If I watch a show, I'm not really one for having TV on in the background.

I like to give it my attention.

No, I don't like that either.

I like to watch it.

Yeah.

I mean, sometimes if I check into a hotel and I'm getting myself sorted, because I like to organise myself, it might be a tough one, the whiteboards, I will put on the stand-up set.

Stand-up set, I don't mind not watching completely, which I think is okay, which is hard to say to a comedian, but as long as I can sort of see every few seconds, but I don't need to see every single thing.

Like you can appreciate an audio, yeah.

Yeah, it puts me in a good mood as well.

Yeah, absolutely, that's good.

I think with my character with Zoe, I think that there is a big visual element to, so if you're looking at more of a physical character and you're in facial expressions and body movement really informs the comedy, then I think maybe missing out by not watching all of it, but yeah, certainly it lends itself to an audio format.

Yeah, especially if I'm watching American Standard, I know what they're gonna say, and it's gonna be racist, isn't it?

The script is based on my stage show, so I have a stage show called Meeting Mary.

It's not quite a work in progress because Meeting Mary is a development and kind of an unraveling of what happened to me because I was excommunicated from a cult growing up.

I was fully indoctrinated in a really intense religion, and the writing of the show is almost like an understanding of what happened to me, and I'm pretty much like a real life Kimmy Schmidt except I wasn't in a bunker.

And so I'm unlearning and unraveling things all of the time, and I often feel like an alien in this world because I was kept really separate from this world.

And so my writing is all about what it was like to be in the cult.

So day to day, the intense structure of my time, the intense interactions with the other members of the cult, and then the culmination of what built up to my excommunication, which was pretty thorough.

I was like cut off and there was silence.

And even today, I walk past people, this happened to me in 2012, and even today people will shun me on the street if they know me and they're still members.

Yeah, so it's a pretty like all encompassing experience.

And I call it out when it happens, so that I'm not just having an internal struggle.

I call it out and throw it out there, even if I'm on my own, I just say what's happening and then I can move on.

So I'm not feeling gaslit in my own head.

So the show Meeting Mary is all about that.

So it's about the buildup, the life before, the buildup and then the life after.

So the show itself is a stage show.

So the next performance of that, can I plug that?

Yeah, so the next performance of that is on Sunday the 28th of January at the stand in Newcastle.

So that's the next live performance.

And I'm currently working with my production company to put my story in the script form with the end goal of it being on the television.

Wow, that sounds amazing.

I want to see it immediately.

So can I ask a couple of questions about that?

So when you were in this cult, do you live in the similar area to where that was happening?

Yeah, I live within South Tyneside.

So I see people sometimes, but I've moved to a place outside of where I was brought up.

So it doesn't affect my day to day.

But sometimes, like even if I go into Newcastle city center, so you'll see people preaching in the street and sort of set location.

I think that should be legal.

I find it really intrusive in my space.

So I find that really triggering sort of when I bump into people.

And I used to hide away and I used to kind of use their labels to describe myself.

And I don't do that anymore.

And I think I finally feel empowered to to feel like our own space.

And I'm entitled to belong.

And I'm not this sort of piece of rotten fruit that I was treated.

How I was treated.

Yeah.

It's awful.

I'm so sorry.

Well, I mean, it's definitely going to be a good show.

Absolutely horrific childhood, but it gave me a book.

And, you know, that's how these things happen.

I mean, I haven't had any.

I wasn't any anything like cult like.

And my family wasn't even particularly religious, but I did endure two years at the Christian Brothers School in Ireland, run by brothers.

And that was savage as an English kid in the early 80s.

That was not fun at all.

Racism, religion, just like you just get hit for everything.

But, you know, obviously it made me run a million miles away from it at a very, very early age.

I think I declared, I say it in my book, but I don't think it was that young.

But certainly by the age of about nine, I knew that I didn't believe in God and I didn't follow any religion.

I thought religion was just awful.

So, you know, it was drummed at me nice and fast.

And the prayers my nan used to make me say, my God, they were awful.

But weirdly...

You kind of feel like your body's being put through things and your mind's screaming inside.

It was traumatic, isn't it?

And, like, I remember, I mean, it's to do with television in a way, but I remember one Christmas when I wouldn't do as my...

I was brought up by my nan in the ground, because my dad was in jail and my mom was in Ireland or whatever.

But there was this one Christmas and it was like the usual kind of...

It would have been late 70s, so it was like Dick Henry and Walkman Wise, two nominees were on, and I didn't want to go to bed.

I really didn't want to go to bed.

Even then, I was like, I've got to watch comedy.

I don't want to go to bed.

Stanley Baxter came on.

Oh, more stuff.

It was just a brilliant time for all of that.

And my nan just said, if you don't go to bed now, along the lines of, if you don't go to bed now, God will strike you down.

I was like, what?

Usually the death of that.

She was like, if you don't go upstairs and say your prayers now, God lay you down to sleep, pray my soul to keep and all that shit.

And it was the first time I realized I could die.

What?

And there was this higher power that would do that to me if I didn't listen to my parental units.

Fuck me.

We don't have that these days.

Like, we'll turn the Wi-Fi off.

We won't because we needed to.

It's gonna be a comedy, but there'll be a real darkness that's sort of in the background, the running thread, because it was a dark experience.

So it's been quite challenging to translate that into comedy, but it's a bit of a default thing for me in how I process as I use laughter as a way to process.

And it's been very, very helpful because it's a rewriting and helped me understand what's happening and to see the irony in things.

So it's been a beautiful way of healing from that sort of fucked up lifestyle that I had.

Interestingly, there's this one thing that always makes me laugh and that the cult was wholly against the occult, anything to do with satanic stuff, but not just satanic stuff.

So Halloween, the core meaning behind Halloween, like the sort of the changing of seasons and like the almost at the wheel of the year, the sort of, what's the word?

I keep trying to say pilgrim, pagan.

All Hallows Eve, pagan rituals.

Yeah, like that kind of it.

I really love all of that stuff and I've always been attracted to it, even when I was in the cult, but I was taught that it was evil and to stay away from it.

And even now when I celebrate Halloween, I tend to lean more towards the natural aspects of it.

So like the bats and skeletons and spiders and pumpkins and not the big ghouls and all the rest of it.

I don't really like to be scared.

No, and your own witch flying around in the garden.

No, thank you.

No, I'm all right for that.

I'll be there.

I just scream.

I'm so prone to be a response to anything that looks quite scary like that.

So yeah, I was having a reflection about this and how Halloween was always painted as evil.

So all of the witches were evil and the ghouls and all the rest of it and it's scary and you've got to stay away from it.

But I was told that from the teachings, the three times a week that I had to go to meetings, I was told that demons were around me all the time, listening to everything that I was saying, trying to influence all of my actions.

And I used to think that they were hiding in the carpet.

And that's probably why I've got laminate now, to avoid them being in the underlay.

It's kind of like the underground.

No one wants big shag for you, is that what they call it?

But that's an entirely different podcast.

All of my shags have to have some kind of intellectual.

Something to do with piles as well.

So what's all the carpet in terms of sound about carpet?

Yeah, I can't even say any of that, it's only rude.

Yeah, so just there's a lot of irony with the core beliefs that I was dogmatically trained in and given myself space to enjoy stuff that I was never allowed.

So I love Christmas, I love birthdays, any celebration.

I'm childlike for all of them and it helps me understand the passing of time.

Well, that's why you're leaning into it now, I guess, right?

Yeah, yeah, it's like a resurgence of it.

See, I think that about myself, because there's a bit in there where I'm in Ireland and a load of presents come from England and I see them in this cupboard and it's all Lego, it's all good stuff, right?

I'm looking forward to Christmas and then it comes and I never get the presents.

They never gave them to me, or they gave them to different kids or whatever, but I knew they were there, but they never gave them to me because they said it was childish, I was nine.

For me, Christmas is my dad coming downstairs and smashing my toys against the wall and smacking my mom or whatever.

I thought as an adult, I would be more like into Christmas, but I think I'm sort of gone the other way, which is unfortunate, which is like, I just think it's all kind of massively fucking capitalist nonsense and I can't stand any of it.

But I really wish I wasn't like that.

I wish I could get into the spirit of trying to get the thing I never had.

It's like they ruined it for me, so I don't want to have it.

You know what I mean?

But I think that it is those things that you've just said, that it is a lot of capitalist nonsense if you lean into that side of it.

And I really don't like the materialistic aspect of it, but I like everything that is mold.

So I like a mold cider and a mold wine.

I like mulling things over.

I like the Isle of Mold.

So I like the feeling of that time of year.

Yeah, like the Christmas market is on, you get that vibe, even if you don't want it.

Yeah, I want all of those things.

I want to be allowed all of those things.

So I love the smell of like a fresh Christmas tree.

I love a cinnamon candle burning.

I love making gingerbread.

I love going to, which I thought that would be triggering for me, but I love going to church on Christmas Eve and to hear the Nativity story.

But I view it as a story.

I don't go, oh, this is exactly what happened.

I just listen to it and go, oh, that's nice.

And then we'll move on to the next thing.

And it kind of feels like a cultural aspect of the whole celebration.

Just as if I was visiting Japan, I would go into Shinto temples and I would appreciate them and go, this is nice.

And this is like a cultural, historic thing that I can appreciate objectively without necessarily following the rules of it or saying I buy into it, I believe it.

I've actually done that and I don't believe in it.

It's lovely.

Have you ever been in Japan at Christmas Day?

Everyone's at work.

It's just a normal day, it's a strangest thing.

Just December the 25th, it's really normal.

It's funny now because now I'm thinking by you being able to go to church and enjoy Nativity, it's something from your past that could be triggering and maybe you wouldn't want to have embraced.

Now I'm thinking, because I thought the other day, why do I sort of lean into this, I'm half Irish, but Ireland is where all the bad stuff happened and my dad is the Irish person, not my mum.

And so Ireland is a fucking nightmare for me in that way.

But for me, I lean into it because I am that sort of culturally, I guess, right?

So I never really felt English English because I had that.

I have that too, I'm half Greek, so I have that feeling of not quite belonging places.

Yeah, it's not great, is it?

No, it's not great.

And I think, especially when you're taught something.

And then so when I was outside of the cult as a child, if I went to school, a lot of people had bad experiences at school, but I used to view it as a bit of a place that I could be myself.

And nothing that bad's happening at school really compared to...

Yeah, I had a really nice time at school.

I had friends.

I liked my teachers.

I wasn't the cleverest.

I was in the top class at school.

I enjoyed it, but I didn't always like every subject.

I sometimes had detention if I was late, but then I tended to chat to everyone in detention and I liked them too.

Do they still do detention?

I don't know.

I think so.

I mean, it feels like it's, it's harsher for the teachers themselves looking to give themselves longer.

I don't know.

Why would you do that to yourself?

It's cool, it's not good.

Anyway, talking of making, maybe that's why I moved up north, so I could just constantly feel out of place.

You think?

Maybe.

I love it up here, I'm never going back.

Okay, let's do a fun one.

What's the TV show you saw as a kid that scared the shit out of you?

See, I was quite protected by a lot of scary shows as a child because of the religious influence, so we were not allowed to watch so many spooky things.

Well, I was about to mention Scooby-Doo.

Oh really?

Yeah, I was actually, because whenever Scooby-Doo came on, it was immediately turned off because it was associated with the occult.

But I don't think that, I don't think my parents ever got to the bit where it was the reveal and it was just turned out to be.

There's just a normal-

It's the local pedo?

Yeah.

It's not a ghoul, it's a pedo.

I think like, you know what, it was more films, sorry.

I think Indiana Jones scared me quite a bit.

Yeah, I think Indiana Jones really freaked me out.

I think I had a-

Did you see it on TV though, at home, on the VHS?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I saw it at home.

I think like anything that just felt like-

They're creepy, aren't they?

Because it always feels like something's about to happen.

Something about, yeah, I can't cope with anticipation, so it was the feeling of anticipation, so all of the snares that were in Harrison Ford's way.

So anything to do with like quicksand.

Oh yeah, quicksand was a big one as a kid.

Yeah, and I always-

Quicksand everywhere, apparently.

I always felt like quicksand and tornadoes and the Bermuda Triangle were going to feature much heavily.

It's not even real.

It's not even real.

It's like, well, hang on a minute, when is that bit of my life going to become a problem?

And then I'm now looking back going, I've not really been in quicksand then.

When I first took flights, I remember looking to see if it went over the Bermuda Triangle because I wouldn't get on the plane.

Yeah.

I was like, okay, if I go to New York, do I go near it?

No, I'm fine.

Do you know where the Bermuda Triangle is?

I do know where it's supposed to be.

It's south of Bermuda, isn't it, in a triangle going down?

So there's three points of it that sort of are, I just had this the other week in one of my quizzes, Bermuda, and I think it's Puerto Rico, and I think Miami is the other corner.

Yeah, it doesn't almost touch the penis of America, doesn't it?

The penis, yeah, the wang.

When I was a kid, there was this magazine, I think it was called The Unexplained, maybe something like that, and you'd get it every week.

You wouldn't have been allowed it.

But it was like, you know, UFOs and Bermuda Triangle, Bigfoot, that kind of stuff.

I think, like, the cult that I was in used to make their own films about the end of the world, because it was a doomsday message.

So I was pretty scared of those.

Did they have a date in mind?

Did they have one of those dates?

So they did have a date.

It was 1975.

But then come 1976, they'll kind of scratch the head.

So now they refer to it as the light getting brighter.

So they now say, OK, we don't actually know a date.

It's just right ahead of us.

Yeah, so I think, like, anything that was produced secularly could never be as scary as the information videos about the doomsday message and the doomsday cult that I belong to.

Well, no one else is going to have that answer.

That's a brilliant place to end.

Mantalios there, she came around the studio, we had a chat.

You weren't expecting it to go down that road, were you?

You really weren't.

Check her out wherever you can.

She plays live all over the place.

Try and find her gigs online and go and see her show Meeting Mary, which she'll be performing next at the stand in Newcastle on January the 28th.

So listen and look out for her.

Now to today's outro track.

Now considering my conversation with Nicola, this song seems particularly apt.

It's called A World Without God.

I wrote it 20 years ago in a shed in Dublin.

So I was on tour and we were putting on, I think it was Woman in Black in a theater called The Helix in Dublin, which was on a student grounds and I was in a house opposite and I was bored one afternoon.

I just remember feeling a bit weird and I went in the shed with the guitar and I wrote the whole thing in one go.

The version I'm going to play now was recorded, I think a year later with my friend Dez.

I think he played the bass on it and we added some strings and stuff like that.

It's a bit of a rough recording.

I really just like it.

It's one of my favorite songs I ever wrote.

It's got really fun lyrics in there.

There's lines that probably wouldn't work in the current climate, like every fatty wants to dance, every smoker wants to quit, every model wants a pie, every writer wants to stop, things like that.

Anyway, enough of me waffling.

Here we go.

This is it, A World Without God.

Music fading, do you remember that?

Songs all stop with an abrupt end these days, don't they?

Bang, and they're off.

Anyway, that was A World Without God written by me, musicianship added by Mr.

Desmond Pye, including some backing vocals there at the end.

Thank you for listening to today's interview with Nicola Mantalios and come back next week for more Television Times, where we have another fantastic guest.

Thanks for listening and see you soon.