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00:05all right hello you you have a surprisingly firm handshake what's that surprising I don't know I
00:13just you give the vibe of a man who would be quite loose yours was loose judging me how are
00:24you I'm
00:26good how are you were you ill recently was I ill yeah did you have a bad something or other
00:38I was pretty ill at one point yeah yeah what was it well I mean I I mean well I
00:48got diagnosed with
00:49a malignant melanoma is that what you were thinking of but what I wasn't thinking of
00:57anything specifically but what is that well it's like a skin cancer so well what originally happened
01:09was a I was doing a gig yeah and in the gig I am I started the show wearing my
01:20suit but then in my
01:21show I changed my clothes and I end up in little little denim shorts and a Hawaiian shirt and I
01:28ended up stood on the stairway in the auditorium and then next to me was a GP and then the
01:36next day
01:37the GP sent an email to my agent saying love the show but he should go and see his GP
01:45as soon as
01:46possible so I went to the GP and then she referred me straight away to hospital and then the consultant
01:57said he wanted to operate that day to remove it is that what you're thinking of
02:05like I said I didn't have any Jesus yeah is it are you okay now yeah I thought that was
02:22a decent opener
02:23great and that's the greatest opening we've had over the 10 years that's just like
02:32so then when I when I was kind of recovered I then dug out the email from the from the
02:38doctor
02:38who'd emailed my agent to thank her so and the only detail I got wrong is she hadn't said she'd
02:45enjoyed
02:48the show that's probably harder to take what did I do wrong it's not easy is it our job no
02:55wow yeah
02:59was that the you the movie that came out in the past couple of months yeah was that in around
03:08the
03:09same time or was this well before it or so well that one was no that happened around about 2000
03:19and
03:19mmm 1817 something like that and then yeah we made the film in 2020 okay wow wow yeah just but
03:31I'm I mean I'm
03:32okay thank god like yeah yeah what is it what what is a like what did the doctor see do
03:39you think
03:40well she saw what I'd always thought was like a birthmark but then what happened was I think it
03:45started to change and then luckily the the GP had my back but yeah it's so it was it was
03:52like a raised
03:52birthmark and then that had to be removed and then they also removed some lymph nodes and then um put
04:02me on
04:02a course of treatment so I got rid of everything and then scanned me so there was no cancer and
04:07then
04:07put me on a course of treatment for a year I'm thinking about your skills as an actor from seeing
04:17you in the the thing with Steve Coogan the Alan Partridge chat show thing yeah the hosts of that yeah
04:26and I'm interested in decisions that you make when you're doing stuff like that because it's quite
04:37underplayed or something or it's soft or it's not you're not trying to you know claim the space
04:46that's a very sense that's a very sensitive antenna or something that you have uh do you think about
04:54the way you play things yeah I do I mean I think with that one it's it's a very specific
05:02job
05:02because I'm working with Steve Coogan and and as and him playing Alan Partridge that's kind of like
05:10it's quite a horrific combination and quite it's a lot for me to be offered the job was kind of
05:17mad
05:18um because that I think is I would say is my my favorite yeah and then and it would be
05:23bad enough
05:24that he just asked me to to work with him not bad enough I mean it's it's quite good it's
05:29a good
05:29opportunity but the two words you've used to describe it so far are horrific and bad yeah so
05:34it's moving in the right direction in a minute it's gonna be okay it's the same principle as my
05:43treatment so then um yeah so doing it the technicality of it is quite interesting because
05:50the first time we did it we were in like a tiny studio and it is it's very very intense
05:56because
05:57the director then closes the door in because it was in a radio studio that's where it's set and we
06:02did
06:02it in an actual radio studio so and like with two fixed cameras so now I'm just sat there at
06:08much
06:09closer than you and I sat now with Alan Partridge which is like I don't know it's like a sort
06:16of
06:16direct hit of your absolute hero and you're that far away and actually a lot of the shots kind of
06:22rely on the fact that you're in each other's grills and there's no there's no space some people have
06:28been very nice about my performance and it's that nervousness and stuff but there's a lot of it that
06:34I'm just like you know handing over from my life onto the screen where I'm genuinely in awe of this
06:41person and I'm genuinely scared that I'm gonna ruin it and that's what I'm thinking and that's what
06:48sidekick Simon is thinking yeah yeah um tell us about the uh the guts and the kind of willpower it
07:00took to
07:01make a movie that you'd written um yeah so we made have you seen it no so we made it
07:09we made a short film in
07:132007 and I don't think that took too much guts or willpower because it's just a short film so to
07:19make
07:19the feature I think we're very lucky it was an adaptation of that short film I didn't have much
07:25fear at all about about any of it I think from the from the start of what once we once
07:31we wrote it
07:32and I wrote I wrote it with Tom Basden once we wrote it I was reading the script and I
07:38thought
07:39I could totally imagine this being a feature film you never know completely but I think
07:45I think um I mean I've got lots of self-doubt in in in lots of it but I did
07:51I did think I always
07:52thought if I wrote a script the question was whether I was able to write a script but I felt
07:58if I wrote a
07:59script in this case with Tom where I really loved it and really believed in it I I thought then
08:07there'd be no reason why it shouldn't be made and maybe be good how long did it take to write
08:14about six weeks but it took an incubation period of course yeah 17 years yeah yeah yeah I think I
08:24think we with those characters that we had in the short film I think we had complete faith that they
08:30were like they're quite interesting and we're and me and Tom we were in a sketch group years ago
08:36and we so we've learned each other's rhythms over the years do you do you still enjoy stand-up
08:43I I don't know I mean I did it last night and I just loved it I do I do
08:48love doing it but I feel
08:49like maybe sometimes it takes out you put quite a lot of yourself into it mm-hmm and uh how
08:57much of the
08:57show would be poem based this one there's um there's 18 poems it's usually 18 poems yeah I start when
09:07I when I do my first um warm-up or first um you know preview on scratch night I start
09:15with about 50
09:16actually a full deck of playing cards I read more playing cards and I do that and talk in between
09:21them
09:21and then gradually it just gets whittled down and whittled down until I've got
09:2618 that I've complete faith in what and what's your uh not so what's your comic character but what's
09:35what is the thing that you're looking for that makes you laugh in a poem
09:43um is it about vulnerability is it about being strange is it I don't know I mean sometimes there's
09:53sometimes something unexpected will happen in a poem but then sometimes I certainly when I first
09:59started writing them there'd be stuff where um nothing unexpected is happening and it's sort of almost
10:06uh the the the joke in itself is that I'm reading this thing out I do remember that was like
10:12a big
10:12part of it when I started where it would just be about like two people like coming across each other
10:18on a hill and curtsying and you're like I mean that's a disgrace that I'm reading that out and because
10:24I'd so I tried stand up before and it had been like I'd found it really hard just like literally
10:30jokes
10:31and I'd done it and I just hadn't worked out what my voice was and this stuff really unlocked it
10:37it's it's character comedy like um no I don't think it is not really no not now that then it
10:44was yeah
10:44because I also played it drunk so I was like my suit was ill-fitting and that would have been
10:50about
10:512005 or four or five and then around about 2009 I switched into like a smarter suit my friend came
10:59and watched the gig and said she thinks it would be better if my character's more dignified and then
11:06I stopped I'd already stopped pretending to be drunk by that point but now it was more no it wasn't
11:13character it's like a persona I mean you don't know it at the start or because of coming it from
11:18that
11:19direction of it being a bit more of a character it is strange to think where you're trying to get
11:24to but but I do think you need to try and get to something where there's a lot of yourself
11:29in it
11:29and so now I think I can sort of there are probably bits where I'm kind of having my cake
11:35and eating
11:35it but largely yeah I think there's there's there's quite a lot of me of me in there I think
11:41and
11:42does it feel like there is a lot to write about like do you do you is is the well
11:50always full when
11:51you when you go to write oh no no but with this there was a lot it was just kind
11:57of unpicking how
11:58to do it what was strange is I had written a show when I was ill and it was called
12:07the wars because I was
12:09in the wars I was kind of merrily going along doing it as a work in progress and doing it
12:14a lot in
12:15London just go hammering away at it and it was getting better and better I really did like it
12:20by the end but then I just thought I don't know that I can do this at this precise moment
12:24and then
12:25lockdown yeah so it's kind of a lost one but there's in in the new show there's there's some of
12:31that is still there's elements of that that still stay yeah so as as you were saying that I I
12:39it seemed
12:41to me that but when you came out first of all I asked you about the illness you were genuinely
12:49it
12:50you looked like you were what like uncomfortable and is is do you have a sense of there's there's
13:01stuff that you don't want to happen in public or in conversation or on stage or like are you yeah
13:10guarded or sensitive in that way or something I mean you know what happened was you asked me that and
13:17um so um so I did all of that stuff and then got the all clear from from that situation
13:29yeah then
13:30there's um four years of like MRI scans and CT scans every three months just to check I was okay
13:38then I got the all clear hugged it out with my doctor and then um a year later which is
13:45um
13:46um last uh December uh I found another lump in in my hip and I got I had all the
14:01tests and all of
14:01that stuff and then got diagnosed again with cancer yeah so and I haven't told anyone like I've never
14:10talked about it in you know in public yeah and so um it felt it did feel like a um
14:18felt like a big
14:20place to start and so it said so with that one I so I had an operation last it's a
14:28year ago so last
14:29last um February and they removed they removed that tumor and then um I started a course of
14:41immunotherapy in March of last year and so every three weeks I do this immunotherapy exactly the
14:50same as last time they removed everything and they scan everything so I don't have cancer now yeah but
14:55I'm doing the treatment for that and I've been very fortunate and when it happened it was all
15:02completely and utterly entangled with the release of our film so I got diagnosed I think in the January
15:13and then that night I did my show which was talking about at one point in my show I'm talking
15:23about when I
15:23got diagnosed with cancer five years ago and then I did that show for a week then went to Sundance
15:30for the
15:30film festival and then we opened the film and then I just remember being on stage with um Griff and
15:40who directed it and Carey Mulligan who's in it and Tom Basden I mean there's a sort of numbness about
15:47it
15:47because there's just it sort of feels impossible that these two things are happening at the same time
15:52where I don't know how emotional I would have been in Sundance it's at altitude you know it's really
15:58it's in the mountains and there was a lot going on and I was so overwhelmed that we made our
16:03film
16:03and that it was going well so it probably would have done done it on its own and yeah there
16:10was like
16:10one interview where I just slightly lost it I'm not surprised it sounds like being a double agent
16:18or something it sounds well it is slightly I mean it's weird when you ask the question at the start
16:25where I didn't I didn't quite know what to do with the question because you can say no I'm fine
16:30I mean
16:31that's another way of doing it I could say yeah no I'm fine how are you but there was I
16:36thought maybe
16:36you might have read something or something I don't know idea how it got into my head it's the
16:41handshake yeah how weak was it it was very strong that's what alarmed me what's he pretending this guy's
16:51covering an illness up it the the the treatment and the illness story alongside the kind of the
17:03the jet taking off in the film world sounds like a movie does it yeah I think so I kind
17:10of felt like
17:11when I was in hospital I thought it felt like a I write books as well like little books of
17:16kind of
17:16poetry and dialogue and I was thinking when I was inside there that there's definitely a book I just
17:24couldn't it was so interesting like experiencing both those things they were on consecutive weekends the
17:30um Sundance and then the operation and so it felt it's quite I mean you don't really have to be
17:38someone working in our job to notice the similarities they're like quite stark where you're like getting
17:45a chauffeur driven car in one chapter and over here I'm on a line bike and then over here you're
17:54like
17:54being given this amazing food and drinks but here there's this sort of gray plate of mints and then
18:01you've got these amazing PR girls who are like taking place and stuff like that and the nurses and then
18:06you've got the premiere and you've got the operation you know it is completely wild you've got this you
18:12know five-star hotel they're putting you up in you've got this you know hospital ward where there's
18:17one guy who's like quite rude but maybe I mean now even talking to you about it it's it's obviously
18:27because it's my life and you don't know and if anything about it you know if with friends you sort
18:35of chip away at things and you talk about small elements of it but to give the whole like I'd
18:40never
18:40really talked about the whole year so maybe it maybe it is more maybe there's a chance it could
18:46be a yeah what kind of stuff makes you laugh um I know it's bad but like if I think
18:56probably the
18:56thing I watch most is The Office and just keep going back to it again and again and again I
19:03must have
19:03watched those like there's only 12 14 episodes I just kind of there's something comforting about it
19:11but I'm not like probably to be fair sitting roaring at a sitcom no no it's been quite the chat
19:22there's a lot going on hasn't it well I think you should open with ill again get to your places
19:32I don't think you were so you're surprising um thanks for coming on and uh thanks very much
19:44for talking to me real pleasure
19:54and now ladies and gentlemen would you please welcome back
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