Sam Nicoresti: Self-Expression, Identity & the Hunt for the Perfect Skirt Suit

Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, screen rats, and here I am on a brand new mic.

Sounds nice, isn't it?

It's a Shure mic, it's a lot better than the one I had before.

Anyway, I am currently sitting in the studio with a very clean desk, like an episode of Miami Vice from the 80s.

There's nothing on it.

I've slimmed down all my gear, like I said last week, and it's just really clean.

There's like nothing on there.

I even got a little stand for my iPad, so it kind of looks like a fucking Apple Store in here.

Yeah, there's nothing on it.

It's really bare.

It gives me a lot of room when I'm doing these sorts of things though, and when I'm talking to guests via the interweb, they won't be such a big clattery desk for me to put my laptop on, which is kind of nice, right?

Now, today's guest on Television Times is Sam Nicoresti.

Now, if you haven't heard of Sam, don't worry, you will do because they are amazing.

One of the best comedians I've seen in years.

I see a lot of comedy.

I went to Edinburgh last year, as you know, with my own show and I see lots and lots of stand up.

I get a bit, as I mentioned in this part, a little bit bored of watching stand up sometimes.

I watch it thinking, well, I like this, right?

When I saw Sam's special called Woke Flake, it literally blew me away.

Totally blew me away.

It was like joke after joke after joke and it's like self-deprecating and stuff like that.

So I should mention, Sam is trans.

Sam is a trans woman and their show is fantastic.

The way that they deal with it, the way that she goes about the jokes, I don't want to give too much away, but it's just so clever and so smart and I loved it.

I really loved it.

And I think everyone should watch it, especially if you've got like some kind of weird preconceived notions or maybe you don't know how to feel about these issues.

Maybe you don't have an opinion.

You know, do yourself a favor and just watch Sam's special, Woke Flake.

It's on YouTube.

It's absolutely brilliant and I cannot recommend it enough.

And because I'm in contact with like PL companies and getting guests and stuff, I get sent lists of comedians who I might want to have on the podcast.

And once I saw that special of Sam's, I was like, I need to speak to them.

And she was in town the week after, which was brilliant.

So we met up and we had a face-to-face chat in the Motel one in the center of Newcastle.

Which was very, very noisy.

And then I saw the next show, which is proving to be brilliant.

And that's going to be at Edinburgh this year.

So check Sam out up there.

If you're going, as I will try to, or maybe I'll just avoid it altogether.

Not on a show, Edinburgh.

It's a bit of a pain in the ass, the whole thing, isn't it?

It just came around so quickly.

Like, I can't believe people are getting ready to go again.

I literally feel like I just unpacked my bags.

Anyway, near me, there's going to be loads of roadworks going on this week.

And there's people knocking, as I mentioned before.

There's so much racket around here.

The other day I came home and I was trying to edit, there was a person through the wall with a pneumatic drill.

It was like it was in the room.

It was unbelievable.

So I'm taking the opportunity to record this about a week before this episode goes out.

So I don't have anything else to report right now, but you know, less waffle for me is more chat with Sam.

So let's get on with it.

This is me talking to the brilliant, very funny Sam Nicoresti.

Calling Sam Nicoresti to the stage.

Thank you.

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

It might be funny, but it might not be.

But it's always worth tuning in for.

So here we go with another episode of Television Times.

So the reason I wanted to talk to you.

Yeah, I was going to say, because I'm not fond of Taddeus.

No, no, no, I know, I know.

But no, it's not about that.

So I was a bit worried.

What the podcast is really, it started off just about TV.

Yeah.

But then as it progressed, it's become meandering conversations that will sort of inevitably end up at TV.

But like I'm putting out a Chelsea Berkeley episode this week, and I don't think we talk about Tully for the first 40 minutes.

Fine.

So don't worry about that.

Sure, sure, sure.

I put my good glasses on so I can see.

Yeah, real look.

Good glasses, twins.

Yeah.

But yeah, the reason I wanted to see you was, I was looking at a lot of people going up to Edinburgh this year, I'm not going up to Edinburgh this year.

And I watched your special.

Oh, thank you.

Work Flake.

And I watched it again this afternoon, I've watched it twice now.

Well.

I just love it.

I love it.

It's one of the funniest.

I mean, I don't want to blow too much to make up your answer, but it's one of the funny.

I've tried to do stand-up, I don't do stand-up, I do storytelling.

But watching you in the first, say, 10 minutes of that special, I reckon there's a lot of people doing comedy that just go, yeah, there's no point in me doing this, because this person's got it fucking absolutely nailed.

That's what we want.

We want to put other people off.

You should.

There's too many of you.

There's too many.

You put me off.

Okay, good.

I'm glad.

One person at a time, I'm taking them out of the industry.

It's so good.

It's so engaging.

And I've watched, I think because, I think last year at Edinburgh, I saw 48 shows or something like that, which was insane.

Yeah.

I think I kind of, I didn't want to admit it to myself, but I sort of had enough of watching Stand Up.

Yeah.

You'd be like watching a really good show, but you'd be like, I think I might for this right now.

You know what I mean?

I'm going to watch a film.

Yeah.

So it's nice to feel engaged again.

And it's your special that actually got me back on the horse actually and like wanted to watch specials again, because it was just, I think I was sort of over the, there was a couple of people last year, Tom Ballard, and I saw Joe Kent Walters doing Frankie Monroe.

Yeah.

And that made me excited.

It's a fantastic show.

Really good, did you see it?

Yeah.

Thoreau Soho.

Yeah, front row?

No, no, no.

Hiding in the back in the shadows.

I stupidly sat in the front row and got all kinds of white stuff spat on my face.

Right, yeah.

I know Joe well enough to not sit anywhere near him.

Yeah, yeah.

I wouldn't do it again.

It's a fucking lunatic.

Yeah.

But yeah, that was a good show.

I don't want to talk about stand up too much, but like...

Oh, I love it.

I'm happy to.

Especially specials as well.

Like it's a completely different kettle of fish, isn't it?

Like, I hadn't really considered it until I tried making one myself, but you know, like sitting down and trying to watch as many as I could.

And just being like, do you know what?

This is actually a different art form, actually, like from doing a stand up show and changing the approach.

Because that show was adapted from my 2022 friend show, but it's not...

They're very different.

They're very different shows, I think.

Yeah, so I had a longer title, right?

So it was a...

Well, I mean, I'd all kind of in my head, like...

And I know it's easy to say this once you've like made the finished thing, but that was always a work in progress towards...

I'd always wanted to make this into a filmed piece.

Just because of the technology involved, I just thought like it would be such an obvious thing to do with it.

You used quite a lot of film and...

I mean, obviously, looking back at your...

On your website, I've looked all the way back.

Oh, gosh.

You probably don't want me to look at.

Well, I wouldn't put it up if I didn't care, but yeah.

I love that.

There's a picture in there somewhere of like eight Mark Dolans, which made me giggle, because...

Oh, yeah, back when Mark Dolan was the perennial MC of New Act comps.

Yeah, he used to do every final, especially at Gilded Balloon.

Yeah, I did his show there once.

Really?

I know Mark.

I still know Mark, even though he's been on the podcast.

I did ask him the question, like, what the fuck's going on?

What are you doing?

But we'll find out later, I reckon.

Well, he's on YouTube now, isn't he?

I followed Dolan's career with some intre.

Yeah, me too, with a lot of intre.

Yeah.

One minute I'm singing Life on Mars with a piano at Gilded Balloon with him, and the next minute he's on GB News and I'm confused.

So, yeah, that was a weird one.

Mask mandates, that's what got him.

Yeah, the chopping up.

Yeah, chopping it up.

Funny now, isn't it?

Yeah.

In a weird kind of way.

Well, it's already so dated.

It feels so straight.

It's only been a couple of years, but the idea of anti-maskers, I think with a lot of those guys, I don't want to make it all about them, but obviously for the show, because I had that right wing podcast character, and I'm not going to say that came from anyone in particular, but certainly I was watching a lot of that type of comedian to trigonometry pipeline.

Right.

Yes.

I'm trying to really get down what is the figure of the, and why are they doing it?

And obviously it's such a wide variety of reasons.

But there's a couple, like Francis Foster, I think is one of Mark Dolan, there's another where it's always seemed a little bit more to be about, it's a career trajectory thing.

And I guess you can never really know what's going on in someone's head.

But I have to Google these people.

They're often on Jeff Norcott's podcast, which I do listen to, and I don't know any of these guys on there.

I'm like, who is this?

And I also say, it's always good to hear the other side.

I don't mean that for balance.

I mean, just to see what the enemy is thinking.

But I've had to give up because it started to annoy me.

I listened to Bill Maher and I had to just stop because it was like, okay, I can't listen to these people anymore.

It gets a little repetitive.

Very.

Yeah, which is obviously, I think that's when you start to really realize that it's a shock from, you know, it's a spiel that you're getting.

And they do tread the same ground over and over again.

Over and over, yeah.

And it's fascinating, because obviously, like for me, I really wanted to get into it because of that exact thing of like, well, look, you know, I'm going through this whole like gender process and I'm like asking these questions.

But I was like so stuck in that mindset of like, oh God, what if they are right?

Or just not even really knowing what they were saying.

And this-

Is there a they though?

Is there a they?

Well, it's, yeah.

I don't mean in that sense.

I mean, is there this sort of boogie man?

Is there this sort of Lacanian big other?

I mean, well, it's like, obviously, for the people that want to sell that image of like, I've been shut out the mainstream by culture and therefore I've been forced to take up these talking points, they require a construction of a they.

This is the thing.

I grew up in a time, I think, where like gay people were basically, you know, if someone was gay at school, they'd just get the piss taken out of them.

I remember one girl who was lesbian, and now I look back, it was awful the way she was treated.

You know what I mean?

And I just think people going through any kind of gender change or like yourself, my kids won't care about that.

What I'm saying is, I think trans issues is what gay issues were to say my parents.

I'm in the middle.

I don't give a fuck.

You know, everyone do what they want, be who you want.

That's great, you know, and I'm happy for everybody.

And what a time to be alive, to be able to do that with a lot less, I would hope, a lot less hatred and a lot less confusion.

Because 20 years ago, people would have been like, oh, there's a man in the dress, that's kind of weird.

Now, it's just like, you know what I mean?

It doesn't really matter.

Maybe I'm wrong because I'm not in that world.

Well, not wrong at all, but I think maybe it supports your point that it's hard to define an us and an them because it completely depends on where you sit.

And I think there is this side of it that's always been there with like LGBT stuff and queer stuff, where if you're considered to be outside of it, then apathy does become an option.

And you can take that.

It's kind of not dissimilar to sort of like, well, I'm colorblind, I don't see race kind of thing.

To me, it doesn't affect me.

It's a nebulous, removed thing.

I mean, to a queer person, to a trans person, the body is political in that way, but it's impossible for you to navigate a basic social space without being treated as a political statement.

Yeah.

Toilets is obviously the main thing.

Or sports and prisons, all of it.

This is why these become the flashpoints.

Because it's like, it doesn't matter that I would agree that, you know, I don't go around my life thinking like, oh, you know, like I'm this, I'm that.

Yeah, nobody does, do they really?

Until the point where you intersect with, you know, a law or a ruling or like, you know, a way of thinking or structure that tells you, you have to decide, i.e.

a toilet sign.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, all of a sudden, I've gone from being able to be like, well, you know, you can sort of experiment and find and actually like gender, it's a construct and you can feel this and you can feel that.

Not when you're in the spoons, you need to piss.

And you've got to decide, like, you know, what risk are you going to take?

There was a, I think it was 2018 in Gilded Balloon when, I think we just made all the toilets gender neutral.

And I thought, well, that's just like an episode of Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Sorted.

Thank you very much.

Why can't we just all do that?

I love the sunny take on it.

I think that was good, wasn't it?

It's such a phenomenal programme.

It's a rewatch, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

It's very funny.

And it's also such like a perfect indictment of what that culture war issue seemed to be based around, which was like, you can't do this, you can't joke about anything.

Look at what you've seen always.

Yeah, you can't do it because you're crap.

I love that.

I mean, the first like, I don't know, I don't want to ruin it.

Watch the special, but the first like, I don't know, six or seven or eight jokes are all you just taking yourself down.

And it's very funny the way you you swerve in a way.

I wouldn't put you obviously, it's a very different company, but it just reminded me of like Anthony Jesselnic or something.

But you think you're going down one road and it's absolutely the opposite.

Every single time for the first few minutes with yours and I love that.

I think that's the fun of comedy isn't it though.

Yeah, it's like you get this special dispensation to be so horrible about yourself.

Because that's what people want.

It doesn't matter what point, why the point you're trying to make.

You're self-deprecating and you're being an idiot and you know, you can you can get away with a lot of stuff.

What's your new show?

I'm coming to see it tonight.

What's your new show about that?

Well, you'll find out as I find out as well, because we're still in the preview season, but it'll be a bit of a discovery.

It's about skirt suits at the moment.

Skirt suits, it's about the hunt for the perfect skirt suit.

Right, what is a skirt suit for those who don't know?

It's a two-piece combo.

It's for non-parallel, it's the ultimate gendered piece of clothing.

It's a jacket and a skirt combo in the same colour and material.

Are you aware of the concept of a suit?

Yes.

Turn the trousers into a skirt, you're home free.

Yeah, I'm not saying for me, I can understand it.

And is it a trend?

Is it a summer trend?

I am making it a summer trend.

It's basically a kilt.

This is what I never understand about these things.

Go to Scotland, there's guys wearing dresses for literally fucking hundreds of years, and Ireland.

But that's what's interesting about it, it's not the physical object itself, it's the platonic form, it's like what it represents outside of itself.

Putting on a skirt would not be controversial given your like birth sex or biology or whatever, if it was within the culture to do so.

It's about what it represents.

I see your point, like I used to bite my nails like terribly until about two months ago, and it sounds weird that it took so long.

I was on a plane, I saw this woman really gnawing at her nails, and I just thought, that's so gross, I can never do that again.

And a switch formed in my head and it was it, it was gone.

And now I'm looking at them going, I might paint those, but then what will people think on the school ramp?

I don't fucking care.

So these things that go through your mind, it's actually quite funny.

And this old policing that comes along with that, and I think what some people get a bit upset by, which I do get, is that really, I think if you drill down into anybody, they're a freak.

Do you know what I mean, we're all weird.

I don't think anybody really likes being made to feel like, oh, I'm just a straight white, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, I hate being called cisgender, it pisses me off.

It's like I've been retroactively named something I didn't want to be named.

It sounds too boring.

And also, what is that?

I don't know if I'm that.

Maybe I'm not that.

I don't know.

It's such a fundamentally interesting and useful term.

This is the thing.

Cisgender is great because it does.

It's to mean it's it's as in to say that your sexuality is, you know, and your gender is like what it was at birth.

And I mean, in queer spaces, it's an incredibly useful word because it does help describe somebody in the same way that you would call someone gay or lesbian or queer or bi.

I try not to call anyone anything.

I'd love to get out of the box-ticking era.

I really would.

It'd be nice.

Do you know, but I think that's such a media-centric view of it because that comes so much from these podcasts and TV shows where they tell you like, well, people want you to be seen like this.

This is how you're being defined.

And it's not, it's just it's purely a function of language in the same way that a pronoun is a function of language, in the same way that, you know, you could describe someone like by their hair type or their body shape or whatnot.

Like, it's not how people are going around saying that that represents the totality of you.

But there's this, I think, quite pernicious lie that goes around that makes it seem like there is a dark undercurrent of like leftist socialist society that wants to make us all see ourselves.

I wish there was.

Right.

There isn't, unfortunately.

No.

Doesn't sound out that way because I voted to say I'm way, it's not going my way.

But yeah, hope for the best.

Well, I'm very scared about four years time with that lunatic coming in, if he does, which he won't, but.

It's funny, yeah, we will talk about it in the car on the way up.

I am a bit worried, like in the kind of...

It could never happen here.

It could never happen here.

I shall post some.

Great song.

We should play that every day.

But yes, back to comedy.

So yeah, you're doing a show tonight, you said.

Skirt suit.

It started off as me.

I really wanted to just do a stand up hour because I've never done one before, even though I've been doing comedy like forever.

How long have you been doing it?

Since I was like 16.

16.

You look young in those YouTube vids.

Yeah, and I still do now, thank you very much.

No, no, I know you do.

That's what I mean.

I actually...

You're a bit ageless.

I can't tell.

You could be like 24 still or 30.

I don't fucking know.

But the point is, obviously, you got in on that whole YouTube thing at the time, then a little bit later.

Early...

What's that decade called?

The one before this?

The teens?

The tens, I think.

I don't think it was decided yet.

It's not a good...

The teens doesn't say that.

Now we're back in the 20s, we understand.

We've got the previous century sort of sorted out for us.

The 30s, we know what happens in the 30s.

We'll be good for another 100 years.

But yeah, the 10s are a bit of a...

It's not fun.

I didn't like the naughties.

I thought that wasn't going to catch on.

But it did.

I really hate it.

Moving on.

I was never...

No, honestly, I hate social media and I was never...

I missed that whole, like, boot.

I never...

I really liked doing live stuff.

Yeah.

And I only did this recent show out of...

Well, actually, I was going to say out of desperation, but I think as well, because I'd written a thing that I thought suited a medium and I filmed...

I was never going to do clips and that from it, but my agent insisted.

Oh, they all work.

I mean, there's so many.

That last one is so clipable.

There's like...

Everyone is a hit.

It's like one of those albums from under the 90s where every song's a single, you know?

So like you can literally jump up.

You know what I mean?

It really is.

It's just it's boom, boom, boom.

It's amazing.

It was good advice from my agent and yeah, I do thank her for it.

So do you do your own socials or do you get someone to do it?

No, I do it.

I mean, I made that thing myself.

Like I edit it.

I do video editing.

So it was hell.

Like doing all of those interstitial moments, like the dream sequences in the woods.

And I mean, like don't get me wrong, like it's a real collaborative effort.

Loads of really great people, you know, like Ben Sutton directed it.

Yeah, my friend Izzy did all of the drawings and illustrations on it.

But like in terms of putting it together and compositing and that opening tracking shot that goes for all the different mode, like, you know, it starts in a podcast studio and it goes through the woods and then into the theatre.

That took so long because I had no idea how to do it.

Yeah, I had to watch a lot of YouTube tutorials.

You have to sort of stay on technology.

I edit all of this and do all the music for it and everything like that.

And as we've gone forward, the work load has just increased.

I have started to use a little bit of AI here and there.

I like transcripts and stuff, but often they just get the spelling wrong or they make it all American and have to go in and change it all.

Yeah, well, you've got such a funny thing to talk about on a podcast, but the Premiere Pro transcript tool has really come a long way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it is still little with errors.

But that's the self-service checkout like fallacy, isn't it?

That people think AI is going to take your jobs and it's what it's going to really require is just to get re-employed, checking the work of the machine.

Exactly.

It's good for rephrasing text when I'm bad at grammar.

That's about it.

Yes.

And all it costs is the boiling of the world's oceans.

Exactly.

And the resurgence of nuclear power in the United Kingdom.

I was thinking that the other day.

It was like, you know, I took a video and I turned it into a cartoon for one of my guests who didn't want to be on video.

And I thought, this is like really wasting the world's resources, isn't it?

Me fucking about making something into a cartoon.

On so many levels.

It's so wrong.

But that's what I think.

I recycle, but then I watch races across the world and they're in a Chinese village and there's a thousand lights on everything.

Do you know what I mean?

I just think, I say, fuck it, it's over now.

Why am I watching that at Picklejell?

I mean, that is the human condition, isn't it, really?

You try and then you look around and you go, well, if you bastards aren't going to do it.

Yeah, but I don't want to think like that.

I've been told not to think like that, but it's really hard not to.

I take my own, not that I go there, but sometimes my kids want to go to McDonald's and we take our own cutlery now.

It's the one sort of middle-aged dad argument that I agree with, which is the cardboard spoons and stuff.

Drive me fucking nuts.

You have to find a god to believe in.

Yeah.

Honestly, because I mean, honestly, this is the goody problem, is if you've got no, there's no external arbiter, there's no final judge in your head.

Unless you're...

Why would you be good?

Yeah, what is that about?

Because I'm not religious and I still try to be decent.

There's a lot of religious people.

In my opinion, those seem to be very decent.

And what's going on there?

I don't know.

It depends if you believe in the innate goodness of the human being.

I think I do.

People are generally decent.

Most people you meet are decent.

Yeah.

You know, I've traveled all over the world and not been mugged or anything, you know?

Well, once in a lifetime.

That's quite a baseline, isn't it, there?

Well, I went to South America and everyone was like, you're going to get mugged, you're going to get mugged.

Do you know what happened?

I left my wallet in a hotel.

I went back and it was still there.

So that never happened.

It's all fine.

You're just making the world look scary.

Because you don't want me to spend my money in a different country.

That's my thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think structures definitely played their role.

You know, the example I always love is, you know, it's the psychography of a place, like the architecture of a place.

You'll notice, you feel when you're walking through like a bad bit of town, and it's nothing to do with you could see no one.

But it's about the, it's how the walls crowd in.

It's how suddenly you just feel like you're just in a tighter space.

You start to feel nervous.

And I think if you extrapolate that on a whole, you know, on a sort of macro level with like city design, the way we build, I don't know, like an estate or, you know, like a new, like shopping complex, whatever, it completely affects like human.

Oh, for sure.

Such a wanky thing to go about.

No, I think you're right, because I, at one point in my childhood, I grew up in a estate in South London, and I have at various points in my life, done everything I can to not live anywhere like that ever again.

It's scary.

Those places are scary.

And they might not be, but the brutalist architecture of it is just what makes you feel, like, oppressed.

It's like the internal city, yeah.

You have been deemed to live there now.

That's your social class.

You go and live in that fucking rabbit war, while, you know, matey boy lives in a big house in Hampstead.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, and of course, you know, some people would say that that's very much done on purpose, but...

We design estates and state schools like prisons, and before that, factories.

Yeah, factories.

Well, they're coming back, aren't they?

Are they?

Factories?

Yeah, we'll be building weapons soon, aren't we?

Oh, yeah.

I reckon everyone's gonna...

We're gearing up.

You're gearing up.

Yeah.

You're so right in a very depressing way.

I really hope I'm not.

No, it's awful anyway.

This isn't where it's supposed to go.

So, television.

You know, I grew up in the era of, like, Garth Marenghi and...

Dark Place.

So good.

Still funny.

Overloud sound effects and weird cuts.

Dean Lerner, was that his name?

That was it.

That was it.

That was it on the spin-off show?

Yeah.

Completely forgot about that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which was a really great vehicle for...

Yeah, Matt Holness's characters are absolutely amazing.

And I think that he got a little hard done by in that era.

Obviously, like, who am I?

I don't know.

But, like, I remember hearing that he was tied into a contractual thing because of Darkplace with...

That was Channel 4, right?

It was Channel 4.

I don't know who made it there.

Which meant that he then wasn't able to go on to do the bouche and everything that that whole gang went on to do.

But honestly, I mean, I think that Darkplace stands for Test of Time so much more than the bouche.

And I love The Mighty Bouche as well, but, like, that's much more of a sort of, like, of its era.

Somehow, I was on tour a lot.

I ended up watching it at the time, but I remember it wasn't bigger at the time.

I think the DVD made it bigger, I think.

Well, do you know, I was having this conversation the other day of, like, how strange it is to not have the DVD and the effect that that's actually had on the world in terms of how you can assume culture, because, like, you don't have that market for things to have that second life, like, cult hit.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, the DVD market used to be this whole thing where you could have these sleepy things that they kind of got passed over when they're on telly or in the cinema.

And the big gap between transmission and release of sometimes quite a lot of years.

But they do big on the Blockbuster network.

Yeah.

You know, on the love film, like, underground.

See, this is where you're going to sound old when you're old.

Yeah.

Back in the day, I used to...

Oh, it sounds old now...

.

come through the post.

On purpose, I referenced it.

Randomly.

And you're supposed to...

What will I watch tonight?

I don't know.

What will they post in the...

They used to just come...

And sometimes it would be the wrong movie.

Well, you'd put it in, and if the disc wasn't scratched, because they could get scratched, of course, you'd have a lovely time.

And you'd send it back in the morning, first class, with the post in, off it would go.

Yeah, it sounds decrepit.

And I don't know if you've ever noticed this, but I've seen it in a couple of different cities.

And I think because on the high street where I grew up, there was a Blockbusters that when it shut down, it never became anything else.

And I've seen this in quite a few different towns when I've been gigging around and stuff.

I think Southampton has one.

I think they've probably gone now, but up until, I would say, 2019.

Really, they just sat there dormant with sign up?

And I always wondered what that was, specifically with Blockbusters.

I wonder if it was because it was such a huge premises, that it'd be so hard for someone else to...

And then I guess we were living in Cameron's Britain.

It's the same like Wilco now.

I think because certain companies, I might be wrong, we can look it up and put it in if it's true.

I'd go, we'll just say anyway.

They probably owned them.

It's a bit like McDonald's.

McDonald's are franchises, but McDonald's owns the buildings.

So they're the biggest, like they're one of the biggest...

Landlords after the church and the new queen, is it?

Exactly.

So yeah, probably all those Blockbusters were left.

I think there was a feeling of maybe they'll come back as something else, like HMV or whatever.

Because I find it really weird going into HMV now and not seeing films and it's not the first thing.

It's like Pokemon cards and weird t-shirts.

I'm like, yeah, they always had a bit of that.

That's the new market, isn't it?

And it almost makes it seem like that culture now is less based around the object itself rather than the worship of the object.

Do you know what I mean?

So it's merchandise, right?

It's merchandise in first.

But not the film itself.

Yeah, and I think, I suspect probably not.

I think you're right.

We all consume things in a different way and you see it online, don't you?

And I think when you go to a Brits and Mortars shop, it's a bit more, like, that's where you would go to, you know.

I don't feel sad when I go in there.

I just feel like, why are you still here?

Walrus is gone.

You should have gone ages ago.

Come on, HMV, move along.

There's no need for you anymore.

Yeah, you're calling for the death knell of HMV.

I am a little bit, yeah, because I don't see the point of them.

I think it's sad to not have, well, it's like the loss of any space like that where I had a great record shop on my road when I grew up and that was fundamentally responsible for so much of the music that I was into as a teenager and for better or worse, do you know what I mean?

Some really bad choices.

But it's been hard to go into a space where someone's curated that space and you've got people there that you can chat to and they can recommend you stuff.

So if you go like, I quite like Mars Volta, they can tell you, check out this and check out that.

Yeah, that has gone, hasn't it?

Yeah, because obviously video stores are like that.

You'd have people that work there and there'd be the recommendations.

Yeah, geeks, what's happened to...

where do they work now?

Warhammer, do you know that?

No, they're running the fucking White House or whatever.

That's where they've all gone, mate.

They won.

But yeah, there is something in that.

And I do remember reading recently that there is a sort of hoarding of films happening on DVD because there are people that don't trust that the last streamers are going to keep certain movies on.

Yeah, I'm one of them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You started?

No, I never stopped.

You know, there's no point like collecting a movie that's always going to be on, you know what I mean?

Like I'm not interested in getting like Miracle on 34th Street or whatnot, but or like Die Hard, I think it's always going to be around.

But distribution rights are a huge issue.

Like, Moomins, there you go, there's a TV show you can talk about.

I love the Moomins.

The original, not the original series that was in the 1960s, but the 1991.

Are they Norwegian or Swedish or something?

No, it's Finnish.

Finnish, Finnish.

But that production was, I think this is right, when it was English, Japanese, and I think Finnish.

It might not, it might have been like a Scandi country.

Huge in Japan.

Yes, massive.

Well, it's because it's an anime.

That's what people forget that the Moomins is actually an anime.

Moomins is anime.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the headline.

That's the take away.

No, but you know.

Yeah, but you can't buy that on DVD.

It's almost impossible to find.

And it's weird because, and it's another great example of like Moomins merch, ubiquitous.

And there's a Moomins shop in Covent Garden.

Do you know the one thing you can't buy in that shop?

A bloody DVD of the Moomins.

But you can buy, I bought a branded Moomins saucepan one time for a friend.

And I don't think she appreciated it.

I think she was about to move house and I gave her a saucepan.

Yeah, really added to the packing woes.

But I'll tell you this, I haven't seen it when I've been round.

No, that's the thing with gifts.

When anyone gives you something, do you get it back out when they come around to show that you're using it?

Yeah, you should.

I've got a little favour to ask you.

Could you please follow us on social media?

And if you've got time, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get them.

It all helps drive traffic back to the podcast.

But for now, let's get back to the current episode of Television Times.

Have you ever seen Big River Man?

No, what's that?

It's not TV, I'm afraid, for your listeners, but it's a really wonderful documentary.

What's that?

It's probably been on TV.

It's been on my TV, I'll tell you that, I'm afraid.

It's about a man, and I'm going to get the country wrong, but I'm just going to say Estonia.

And he's an endurance swimmer, so he swam like all of the big rivers in the world.

He's done like the Yangtze and other rivers.

And it's following him as he attempts to do the Amazon River.

He's swam in the entirety of it.

What?

It's massively wrong, isn't it?

Yes, yes, yes.

A big bit of tension in the documentary is whether or not he can do this.

He's not a healthy man.

He's an alcoholic.

He's quite overweight.

He drinks about two bottles of wine a day.

He does it drunk.

And it's one of just the most beautiful character studies.

The places he goes.

And it's like, it's very, it's like hand held and it's very like into the heart of darkness.

Do you know what I mean?

It's very like the making of Apocalypse now.

Like it's him and his son and his son is like his manager.

And they just go on this like expedition deep into the soul and into the Amazon.

But the point being that he, I won't say what happens, but he doesn't die.

And apparently his next thing, the last I heard from this man is that he's gonna swim the world.

Swim the world?

He's gonna swim the world.

He's gonna get across the North Sea.

That's pretty rough.

Yeah, I know.

Well, this is, it seems obviously insane and impossible.

Also, I think he's like 70 years old now.

So the chance of him doing it feel quite slim.

But also the odds of this guy making it down the Amazon were like impossibly slim.

And he manages it.

How many miles long is the Amazon?

I don't even ask you that.

Yeah, sorry, I would have researched.

The Amazon is 6,400 kilometers long.

I thought of that recently because some of these said they were talking about the river and I thought they were talking about something being delivered.

It's weird how your brain is completely reprogrammed, right, with Amazon and stuff like that.

You've let these people steal the joy of the world from you.

Should we hit some format questions?

Sure, yeah, let's do it.

Let's see how it goes.

Sam, what's your favorite jingle?

What's my favorite jingle?

Instantly, Autoglass Replace has come to mind.

And I bet you've had that a million bloody times.

I don't think I know that one.

Autoglass Repair, Autoglass Replace, you've not heard that?

I don't listen to your adverts myself.

I mute them almost religiously.

Oh, right, this is not a teleadvert.

What is it then?

It's on the radio.

I have never listened to the radio, ever, just podcast.

Have you ever seen, I'll tell you what one of my favorite ones is, but I won't be able to get all the facts straight off the top of my head.

There is a brilliant Japanese advert that went around online a couple years ago that I'm a huge fan of for Kleenex.

And it is one of the, it's just a work of like Dada.

It's like a completely red room and a lady in a white robe.

And I am describing this purely for memory.

So this might be completely wrong.

I'm revealing more about my subconscious than I want.

Like it's sort of a mother maiden figure in a white robe and she's nursing this ogre child, this like orange ogre with horns.

And this incredibly strange song is playing, which is by a British artist who I looked up after and I own the record.

And I can't remember her names on my head, but it's something like Peter and Jane.

And the song is like, it's incredibly, it's just spoken word.

And it's kind of going on like, open up the window, here is the door, it's a beautiful day.

And just sort of like, it's just, it's very mood poetry.

In English?

In English.

Yes, yes, yes.

And this, and meanwhile, there's this soundscape of just a wind blowing.

It's like, it's very lynchian and then no context about what this advert could possibly be promoting.

And then at the end, she gets a tissue out and it's for Kleenex.

Sounds like those car adverts that you never know a car adverts till the end.

Yeah, right, because they're pieces of surrealist art because you're trying to tap into the male psyche.

Car adverts have not really advanced since the 50s in that regard.

They're still in that like age of advertising of like, we need to make men fear impotence.

Is that what it is you think?

That's what I'm saying.

Sure theory.

Yes, well not just my theory, you know.

I always just think, it's a car ad?

We can look at Mark Huser, but no.

It's the same with Curfew Man, they haven't changed.

Yes, because what do you do?

You can't tell someone what something smells like, so you have to sell sex.

Well, a person has to sell love, innit?

But you know that whatever Hemsworth isn't going out with that person, you know, it's just ridiculous.

You're not fooled.

No.

But you're media literate, aren't you?

Oh, yeah, I guess so.

They're not trying to sell Hugo Boss to you.

Yeah, I was thinking that, who's doing all the ads now?

Who's doing all the perfume ads?

Not him if he's Charlemagne.

No, not Charlemagne.

Charlemagne's doing everything, isn't he?

No, the other guy.

I was thinking of Dylan.

Who's he played?

Do you know this?

Do you like Bob Dylan?

Yeah.

Well, good, because I'm not a big fan.

It's nice to know who you are sometimes.

When that film came out, I thought, I know I'll never watch that.

Yeah.

I'll know it, but I still watch Havoc.

Dylan's a bit like, he's one of those ones where, I don't know if I could ever really claim him as, he's like your dad's, do you know what I mean?

It is exactly my dad's music.

It's my dad's record collection, that.

But I mean, like Blond on Blond and Time Out Of Mind.

I actually almost really liked His Born Again.

Blood On The Tracks, I was going to say, His Born Again phases.

It goes mad, it goes really bad.

It goes, I mean, once you hear it, there's too many verses, man.

There's just too many verses.

Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I can't remember all that, but he doesn't anymore.

It defined a sort of an era that you grew up, it's so large in your mind, isn't it?

It is weird, because even if you're not in the period, I realize I'm doing that to my kids now, because they're all going to grow up asking for Madness songs, because that's what I...

exclusively play Madness and Pet Shop Boys.

I don't know why that's happened, but that's it.

And so all my kids love that, and I'm just thinking, it's weird to me that in whatever years, when I'm gone, they're going to be like 40 and they're going to be listening to a 70-year-old record and going, oh, I love Our House.

You know what I mean?

It's going to be really weird.

My mum reminded me...

Well, not reminded me, I'd completely forgotten about this, but one of my earliest...

Two things I used to do on a loop as a child, like literally over and over again for months.

One of them was watch the bit from Forty Towers where Basil smashes up his car, which I think I've now mentioned on three podcasts, so it's really starting to feel like I am obsessed.

And then the other one was playing Our House over and over and over again.

Really?

Yeah, as loud as I could.

Yeah, it's built in, isn't it?

Yeah, the loop.

It's a perfect looping song.

Yeah, they play it in Asda now, which annoys me.

Do they really?

Yeah.

What's happened?

I know.

It is really weird what they play.

I went in Gregg's the other day and they had some rap on it, it was absolutely filthy.

It's like, fuck this, motherfucker that, and it was like, they're just buying sausage rolls.

I mean, when I worked in a coffee bar, we weren't even allowed to play popular music, we had to play classical.

Right.

Because it was deemed to like, you know, raunchy or whatever.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, right.

You don't want like, cannibal corpse going off in the Costa Duya, but we're probably only a decade away.

Oh, we're a decade, I think we're minutes away from all kinds of things.

I keep thinking, because I have a question here, let's kill this one on this episode, because there's no point saying it anymore, because it's coming.

So I have a question on here, which is, what do you think will be the top TV show in 2050?

Which we can still do, but in America, they just announced that they're pitching that show called The American.

Have you heard about this?

No.

Where contestants from different countries who want a green card go through lots of tests and things to make them American, and then the winner gets American citizenship.

So I feel like that question needs to die, because we're already there.

You think we're already at the point of terrible television, snake-eating itself.

I mean, how long till a prisoner is released and...

Huge.

Yeah, definitely.

Death Row.

New show on Fox.

Americans are crazy for that, though.

I think it's because they should never have televised their courts.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, that always seemed weird.

It's a country constructed around TV though, isn't it?

It's too big otherwise.

You need to have that.

The medium is the message for them in that regard.

They have to have it.

But yeah, I thought I was married at first sight and everything.

It's a bit like, especially as a...

We've got way past that, hasn't it?

Well, it's so funny when the whole debate around gay marriage was going on and people were saying, well, do you know what I mean?

It's going to denigrate the institution.

It's like, mate, the fucking institution is a TV show.

What are you on about?

Look at what straight people are doing with marriage.

I just was surprised anyone else was.

I remember being in Ireland when they had their vote in 2008.

It was a vote and that was part of whatever they were voting for.

It was an EU thing, but in there was gay marriage.

And I remember my dad turned around to me and going, you think it's OK for true men to get fucking married?

And I went, where?

What the fuck has it got to do with you?

I don't really understand your problem.

Massive homophobic, this guy.

I'm sure he's obviously had some experiences or something because he was repressing something.

I never really understood that.

It's like, what has it got to do with you?

That's what I always think with these things.

Like, if you're so against it, what are you hiding?

Some of it does wreak a little bit of, yeah, like I've lived a life of misery and I don't see why we should all start having fun now.

Yeah, I guess so.

It reminds me of that fact last year when there was a Republican convention, I think it's in Michigan.

Michigan?

How do you say that one?

Michigan.

I would say it wrong.

And Grindr or whatever the new version of that is went absolutely wild.

Yeah.

And they had like the most hookups in the history of that state.

That is funny though, isn't it?

Because like, yeah, people do forget that just like big data can...

Yeah.

We're so red.

We're so red.

Everyone is just known now.

But it is funny.

It's like that kind of inevitable thing of like transphobes getting caught, like subscribing to trans porn actors on OnlyFans or...

Yeah, after Thailand's all the way.

It's the classic thing of the American like anti-gay senator being caught in a, you know, six-way cocksuckin orgy.

Exactly.

That was like all the Tories were in the 90s.

It was all the same thing.

You'd be like...

I mean, I heard the rumor.

I don't know if it's true.

I'll cut it.

The only survived the Thatcher bomb because he was with a guy in a different room.

Well, it shouldn't have been.

Huge claims.

That was the claim.

And now he's fucking about it.

What's a TV show you would erase from history?

You would...

Men In Black, the Oppressive Button.

It's gone.

No one's seen it.

No one can remember it.

And one you'd bring back from the dead.

Oh, my gosh.

Well, to be fair, if you are talking about that, Little Britain...

But then, I don't know, like, I'm a...

It's like book burning.

You just can't do it.

Like, they're moments in time and they represent...

I think Little Britain is so humiliating to what we were as a country and the ways to which we used to demonise people.

You know, you want to be able to say, like, just get rid of it, but that's kind of the thing.

I hate that with Netflix removing episodes that have, like, problematic...

Always Sunny.

Yeah.

All the Irish ones.

Yeah.

Where she's doing the impression.

They're Irish, you write it, right?

I'm Irish-American.

So leave that in, for instance.

I was thinking more of the Blackface.

Like, Blackface is the perennial problem of any TV show, from the 10s to the sort of, like, 2016, but, you know.

It's unbelievable how long that went on for, and how many people did it?

Mitchel and Webb, Mighty Boosh, Sarah Silverman.

Mitchel and Webb did it?

Yeah, Mitchel and Webb did it, yeah.

How did they do that?

They did the one where Robert Webb's wearing a niqab, and then, you know, you think, oh, that's the controversial thing, and then he takes off and he's in full Blackface.

But it was part of this whole era of...

Right, so they were taking the piss out of...

Well, they all were.

I think, you know, we were all at that point, beyond that point of the 70s of doing a black and white minstrel show.

Yes, which ran till 1980, I've found out.

Really?

Which is quite late in the modern world.

And do you know, the Chuckle Brothers brothers were in it?

No.

Do you know if Chuckle Brothers have brothers?

The Chuckle Brothers brothers...

The Chuckle Brothers have brothers who are in the black and white minstrel show.

I did not know that.

That's the hell of a sentence.

That should be war.

The Chuckle Brothers brothers...

The Chuckle Brothers brothers had brothers, and the brothers were at the...

I mean, my girlfriend's a huge fan of true crime television.

Scandinavian or just general?

No, no, not like The Bridge.

I mean, like documentaries.

Oh, right.

Yes.

I've stopped watching those now.

I think they should be eradicated.

I think that whole women-solving crime bubble is...

It's overdone.

It's not just fat, but it's like it seems to be tending towards this really strange place where now all of the interesting crimes have been solved.

And so now they are becoming like real crime, crime reporters.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's like the invasion of privacy of like literally, like, you know, the body's barely cold and you've got a bunch of podcasters turn it up.

Because of this fucking shit, this podcasting...

Podcasting, yeah.

You're the problem.

I'm not the problem.

I hate true crime podcasts.

I've never listened to one.

And I was trying to watch that new show called Happy Face on Prime.

And I was sitting there and all I could think was, this feels like a podcast that's been made into a TV show.

They didn't say the P word, because I know I have one, but I don't talk about it.

I don't refer to it.

And I don't actually like the word.

And when it comes up on TV shows, if anyone mentions a podcast, it's like two things that are going to date this period really badly are people mentioning podcasts and making us watch other people's texts on television.

I was going to say, it's the phone problem, is it?

It's why everything is set in the 70s now or the 80s.

Oh, right, because it's just...

It removes technology.

It's a huge problem for screenwriters.

It's like, how can you have a locked room situation when everyone's got access to 4G and this?

Why can't they just look that up?

That's a good point.

So it's why it's so easy.

It's not my point, but it's...

Yeah.

Other than also the lovely thing about setting things in an era is that you can disregard all of the troubles of the time and just create a cultural world that means you don't have to include this and that and you can tell an apolitical story.

Yeah, and make a nice glossy version of it.

I love that, though.

I love that.

The compression of the time and it becomes something completely of itself, right?

The 80s were presumably like never like that, you know, well, like this kind of like...

They looked like the 70s?

Yeah, neon soaked retro fever dream.

No, like...

Of course not.

Yeah.

It was just like bad cars and poverty.

Yeah.

As it continues to this day.

But it's fun.

It's like interesting to watch people create that myth, I think.

It's kind of interesting.

Yeah, you're right.

Let's end on one quick question.

Well, I've got a TV show I'd like to bring back.

I've got one.

I'll tell you this.

Are you using The Interceptor?

The Interceptor.

Are you ready?

Yeah, go on.

Tell us this.

Okay, right.

TV show I would bring back, Interceptor.

And my friend Andy Barr showed me this.

So all credit goes to him.

But this is some of the best hangover TV.

Actually, sidebar, best hangover TV, YouTube videos of animals that are making unlikely friends.

So like a cat that's friends with a hen.

Or a tiger that's friends with a lemur.

And what you have to do, this is, you have to do this, otherwise it's not fun.

During the intro video, where they're showing you the first animal, so they'll be like, you know, this giraffe, you've got like 10 seconds max to get your pictures in for what the thing is going to be friends with.

Yeah, right, right, right.

That's it.

And then whoever wins, like, I don't know, you know, work it out yourself.

Maybe like gets a cup of tea or a bikini or something.

It just makes life a little bit more fun.

Night Noodle.

Yeah, nice.

So what's Interceptor, though?

Oh, right.

Yeah, sorry.

Weird tangent.

It's just like mad.

Can't be better than naked attraction.

Before Hunted, this is like from the 90s.

Annabel Croft hosted it.

Oh, OK.

Yeah.

And it only ran for about five episodes before getting cancelled because the budget was insane.

It's like a Hunted style TV show where you get two groups of people who are friends.

They're either, you know, it's like, oh, me and my wife or me and my cousin or me and my twin brother.

Crystal Maids sort of vibe.

Yes, exactly.

Two separate teams.

They go to a different town every week.

You know, today we're in Bradford.

You know, today we're in Lake and Buzzard.

And they are given like a set of coordinates, a map, you know, some orienteering equipment.

Okay.

And they're basically told that you have to try and escape this Interceptor.

And the Interceptor, this guy, he is what makes this program so good.

This program could like really rides or dies by the Interceptor.

For some reason, he's got access to two helicopters.

And his only job is to try and track these people down.

And he basically does it by flying around.

And I'm pretty sure at some point Annabel just tells them where they are.

It's like a Beggar or Celebrity Island, whatever it was.

Sure, it's one of these style shows.

But I think it's such a great example of its form because it was before TV had that sheen to it.

So it's an absolute mess.

Like Annabel Croft, she's always stood in the town center on Market Day.

Like it's pandemonium.

Everybody's trying to come up to her.

And you've got like four kind of like TV interns trying to bat one away from getting autographed.

And then the idea is that you've got these two separate teams.

They're doing completely different things.

Like they're doing completely different tasks.

And it's a little crystal mazy.

And they're communicating with Annabel via walkie-talkies.

But simultaneously, and there's no, as far as I remember, no narrator.

So it's just a constant barrage of information coming through in exactly the same volume and tone.

So it's not like, we go now to Kathy in gym.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just information.

Straight to camera.

Straight to camera information.

She seems so stressed.

She's so out of her comfort zone.

And then you've got this guy called the Interceptor, who has really run with this character.

So I went on this deep dive, read it about it, and apparently he's been doing this character since school.

Like this is his thing.

Oh, right.

He's got a big leather trench coat, and he runs around, and if he ever sees the people he's hunting, he screams like a hawk.

Like, he screams.

Like in a big matrix coat.

Huge matrix coat.

And he flaps it, and he like, he'll like jump off a bit of like rampart or something.

He's like doing early parkour.

Right.

And he's like screaming like a bird, and chasing these people around.

And he's like, he's doing it like, he's got this like whole, he clearly, in his head, he's invented this entire like Terminator style character for it.

Like he's got catchphrases that he's inventing.

He's doing cool like movie star lines.

You've tangled with the hawk for the last time.

Oh, just the station lines.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But like, but obviously in this show that's not built for it, was never meant to have it.

The way they're framing him is not how he thinks he's being framed.

He's giving so much to it, and it's a pitch perfect performance.

It's genuinely one of my favorite pieces of television.

It's like, and it only ran for, I think they canceled it mid series.

No, it's like five episodes.

Five episodes.

They didn't even put the last one out.

Is he alive this guy?

Is he still around?

Do you know what?

If he is, and he ever like, here's this, like, fair play, I genuinely love it.

I think it was a beautiful performance.

I think it's just a highlight, and I hope he knows that, you know, he's remembered for it, and I really, really appreciate him for it.

You've been on tour, you've been around these towns?

Been doing like a little pre-tour.

It's been interesting.

Should I go around the country doing all that?

I love it.

You do?

Yeah, oh my gosh.

Like a hotel room?

You get hotels or digs?

Depends, sometimes staying with friends and sometimes it's a travel lodge.

I mean, I miss, listen, I miss my fiance, I miss my cat.

I'm like, especially like post-pandemic, a real creature of comfort, but I definitely got into comedy because I wanted to travel, and not far, just around the UK.

Yeah.

Like my nan is always going on about how well traveled she is.

She's never left the island.

Oh really?

Yeah, but if it's on this island, she's been to it in the caravan.

She only went to Ireland when she was like 50-something, and that was her only place she ever went.

I'm scared of fly-ins, but yeah, I like travelling like the UK.

I just think it's nice.

It's just interesting to see what other people are up to.

How do you deal with it?

Fly-in?

Yeah, I try and make sure that I'm heavily medicated.

Do you?

Yeah, I really do.

I just couldn't.

It's horrible.

It never goes away, I'm afraid to say.

I've been working on it for 20 odd years.

My friend was telling me that you can pay a lot of money to do an expensive course, which he did.

It's about trying to overcome your fear of fly-in.

You go on this intense two-day course, and you're with other people who are scared of fly-in.

And they talk through the psychology, and you meet with therapists and psychologists who rationalise it, and then you do exercises and role plays.

And the last thing you do is you go to Gatwick Airport, and they say, we've chartered a plane and it's just for you, and we're going to fly you from Gatwick to Luton, but once the doors are closed, that's it, we are doing it.

And you think, well, that's a nice thing.

But can you imagine a worse scenario than being on a plane full of people who are terrified of fly-in?

The one thing that gets you through is sitting next to someone who's normal, and you're like, listen, if she can do it, if it's like 70-year-old granny can sit here.

You need someone to focus on.

Yeah, but if everyone is like clawing at the seats and running up and down the aisle, that's completely true.

It would be an absolute rat cage.

You need to have someone with the newspaper open.

Huge spy-like broadsheet.

See, I don't believe that works.

That's called saturation therapy, isn't it?

But I don't like massive spiders.

I'm not a big fan of lifts.

But you can't just say, we're going to put you in a big lift full of spiders, and then you'll be fine.

Fear factor.

It just doesn't mention that show.

Really?

It was the host of that, didn't it?

No.

Joe Rogan.

Really?

Yeah.

Is that for real?

That's for real.

What did we do in this country?

Didn't Desiree Burch do it?

Do you know what I'm on about?

Where they did shock aversion therapy, or like exposure therapy.

No.

And it was like the whole thing was, it was so bad.

This wasn't Desiree's thing, but it was so exploitative.

Because I remember it was on when I was a kid, and it was like, you know, you'd come in, you'd be like, oh, I'm scared of spiders.

And they'd get like some shield, come on and be like, I'm a psychologist, and I think pouring 100 spiders on you is going to help.

And it was obviously just so we could see someone screaming.

Of course.

But we've got like, we've got, I'm a celebrity for that, to get our six kicks out of that now.

Watching people eat bollocks and things.

Which is fine, because then that's more about like, you know, people trying to rehabilitate their political careers or media careers or whatever.

But I don't mind that it's on the surface of like, we're doing this purely for sick entertainment value.

There's no reason why we're watching someone eat a kangaroo dick back when we were like giving it this sheen of like, oh, a psychiatrist says that this will cure your mother complex.

Rating a testicle.

Yeah, just do it if you want to do it.

They've always had shows like that.

They're just like gunking shows for kids.

This is kind of a version of, I don't really get it, but yeah, I guess.

Gunk is fascinating and I could talk to you about gunk.

You could?

Yeah.

Do you know how it started?

Gunking on telly.

Yeah.

It feels sexual and weird.

Is that what it is?

I'm of the opinion that gunking is part of some sort of deep-rooted British fetish that we haven't mined.

I think it's related to mud and mud is related to like rugger and public school conditioners.

Oh yeah, mud wrestling was a whole thing years ago.

There's something about dirt in this country, wet dirt.

But it's actually, it's an American thing, but it was started by a British producer.

And I don't know the name of the show, but this is where I'm gonna get these facts wrong, but I think it started in the 50s.

Oh, right.

And it was like, because I know, because it was on, like Pete and Dud had a Gunnkin skit.

But it started where it was like this TV show where someone had left like barrels of, I don't know, jelly in a basement, and it had gone mouldy.

And this guy was like, oh, I think it would be really fun to like pour this on children.

This is all on the Wikipedia page for Gunn, by the way.

And it was like, but not only that, I think the children should be in their underpants, and I think they should be chained to the wall.

So I'm sorry, but Gunn comes from an incredibly sick place.

Okay.

But then we adapted it, and then we had Get Your Own Back, and that like the fear of the father.

I used to watch that show, I was terrified of the dads on that.

Do you know, because they always came out in those cages.

And it used to be like, my god, that man.

Gunk your dad.

There's something weird about that too.

Yes, well, it's Edepall, it's Edepall is what it is.

Right, right, right.

Yeah, I don't like it.

It's Gung the father and Marry the mother is what it is.

Gung the father and Marry at first sight your mother.

Oh, that will be the show.

There we go.

Yeah, that's my pitch.

Marry your mother.

Marry your mother and Gung your father.

Yeah, Channel 4.

Well, they call it the Edepall's Complex.

I mean, this is actually a great pitch for a TV show, and it's like, it's a prank show where, yeah, you have...

I'm not even going to go into it.

You've got to be in the underpants, changing them all.

I'm not even going to finish that.

Don't finish.

I'll talk about it in therapy.

Well, thanks for coming on, Sam.

I don't know what that chat was about.

Well, we hit a lot of TV, actually, in the end.

We talked a lot about stuff, especially gunking in underpants, so...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's get that image out of my head now.

All right, thank you very much.

Oh, sorry.

Thanks for coming on, Sam.

That was me talking to Sam Nicoresti, a fantastic comedian.

Go and watch their show Woke Flake on YouTube, and watch it now for free.

It's brilliant.

One of the best specials you'll ever see.

Go and check their show out at Edinburgh, which will be on in August, as usual, and follow their career wherever you can, because they're going to be one to watch, seriously.

Okay, now to today's outro track.

Right, today's outro track is a remix of a song that I put on a previous episode, but just don't ask me which one.

It's called After The Fireworks, but this one's known as After The Fireworks, Clydeside Electro, because it was remixed in Glasgow, in a Starbucks, as a lot of this EP was.

It's called The Transatlantic EP, which I've been featuring recently.

And yeah, I really like this remix.

It's just a bit fun, really.

So if you've heard the original, here's the remix.

So this is After The Fireworks, Clydeside Electro.

That's an abrupt ending, isn't it?

So that's after Fireworks Remix there, and yeah, I hope you enjoyed that, and I hope you enjoyed my chat with Sam Nicoresti.

Please come back next week for another great episode.

Until then, see you next time.

Bye for now.

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