Gavin Esler In Conversation with Alan Davies

hello welcome to in conversation the incredible and very very funny Alan David barely credible we do live in interesting times in stand-up comedy wasn't available sorry I'm not giving them not letting them to see you mr. s should we get started absolutely far away right he's an alumnus from the University of Kent strand unbelievable he got to one he's he's he's he's come back to tell us how much he enjoyed it no at you first sod the board's here than you yes I was here in 1984 I started and I was doing a drama degree and my father said what sort of job you gonna get with that and I thought hopefully no job at all doing at Jarama degrees did not have a and I wanted to do comedy but no one else did that was a handicap and then but you you did plays here right from the start because the fourth-years who did a directing specialty cast their place from first and second years because third years were doing their final exams so whether you liked it or not you'd find yourself and also the Dramatic Society would put plays with me a couple of times a turn and then you'd get involved somehow so I've done the lights up there and I'd always remember being up there and banging my head on the grid and really nearly knocking myself out with people being very impatient down here about not focusing burning my hands on barn doors and what did painting oh yeah we painted massive swastikas huge swastikas because we did fear and misery of the Third Reich was a production of fear a misery of the Third Reich took it to new levels and we didn't play here where the set was supposed to advance get smaller and smaller and smaller it's called the Empire builders as the family went up through the house and they were escaping this terrible noise all very surreal so it's cardboard boxes and remove the carbon boxes it was a good idea except at the end we had to crawl through a hole into the smallest room in the house and my costume courtly olat came down my friend Richard is where the funny people whoever made my life was a stagehand and he was just an even first he didn't even notice that it had all gone over and then all the audience this must be a tradition because I had a friend who was playing the the madman and the mates there George any play and you know the big entrance where she comes in at the top of the stairs and she's very very glamorous you she's got this long dress unfortunately the long dress caught on the top bit of the stairs and as she's walking down this very large bit of wood followed her Klunk Klunk Klunk Klunk is it is that was that preparing you for a life of stand-up and other things well I did do stand-up while I was here but no in here I came back here in about 95 and didn't I show that I'd done at the end of my fringe here before it's a huge acclaim but my stand-up debut was at the Whitstable Labor Club which when was that when was that that was in 1988 and in Hollister he used to be under the railway bridge in Whitstable we've got something there's a bit of murmuring well now it moved right it moved up the road a bit didn't it but it used to be right under the bridge and that's now Whistle Stop Cafe or so then what it is heartbreaking well then no students couldn't afford to live in the place anyway but 1988 that was labour the wilderness years wasn't it yeah you had to have something stays you know we were quite we were very active comparatively yeah when C&D was very active and believe it or not there was an act that had to be an anti-apartheid movement it was a minority voice in the United Kingdom to be opposed to apartheid in South Africa it wasn't the view share by government who was happy to have Nelson Mandela in jail we renamed the Student Union Building Nelson the Nelson Mandela building and that helped a great deal [Laughter] yes the Afrikaners were trembling at that foot you occupied various parts of the university property like most the registry we occupy the registry in a nice place to occupy wasn't it I was trying to get off with Julie Carlyle to be honest with you she wasn't interested and years later she told me it's because my trainers had velcro fastening I mean I to burn those trainers in a heartbeat if I'd known it was about the velcro fast food really cleaned up your actor but I can't remember why we occupied it but we did we were most annoyed because there was a camera security camera on top of the library and someone noticed on day 2 that it had been turned and pointed at us imagine now that in the world we live in now we were so mortified and furious about surveillance when you did your first stand-up did you think you were any good were you any good well the good thing about stand-up is you know immediately by the noise or lack of noise and I had talked a lot about how in Whitstable at that time there were no cash points which was a constant source of grief because lots of checks were cashed in pubs and Whitstable it is for one pound fifty and every a Dillon's bookshop on campus and everybody stole books from doings bookshop and we thought Dimon's must be stealing the books themselves from somewhere else and so there was a lot of so it was a lot of talk my first set about things like that but I'd made people laugh about already in the Neptune or wherever we went for a drink and so I had and then I wasn't I was talking about doing comedy and some stand-ups came here and did a show in Elliott JCR and I thought maybe I could do this you know I know we went up to a bunch of us went up with a play up to the Edinburgh Fringe in 86 and I saw Rory Bremner and he was just so funny ridiculous you know and I thought this could be it this could be the thing maybe we could do something like this and and I had some friends in a band and they were doing a benefit to the the Labour Club for amnesty and they put my name on their bill they put my name on the poster with that house we put your name on the poster you got to do your comedy so did and how do you go about it I mean do you write things down do you do you keep it on your head how did you did you stand in front of the mirror seeing actually what I did actually early on in the front of the mirror with a broom handle sending it was a microphone I didn't take the microphone out because my hands were shaking so much and then a couple years later I remember doing a gig in Parliament the ban and banana cabaret which is still running and I was walking about on this kind of makeshift stage and the microphone was shaking and and it was affecting the sounds I had to take it out and then when I started walking around people laughed more actually physically being funny physically it's a good thing but I did in those early days I would just stand it would go very very fast try and say all the things I've thought of as quickly as possible and go I noticed I actually did some research it may not look like it it's not what journalists do I know I never know yeah I'd never get a comment on Daily Telegraph go on Twitter you started out in 1988 the Whitstable labor club you were named Time Out best young comic in 1991 you got the critics award for comedy at the Edinburgh Festival in 1994 that seems quite fast yeah it's all downhill from there yeah is that you bleeped 1994 I got a critics award for comedy at the end of a fringe I've got blase about it I was sharing a flat with Armstrong and Miller they weren't selling any tickets they were living it was hilarious I put it in the toilet rarely laughed as much as I did in that three-way you're suggesting it's a little bit competitive a little bit but they weren't competitive with me though because they were a double act they were competitive with Parsons and Naylor their hated rivals and they were all Oxbridge boys and they couldn't bear Carson Sedalia much funnier in selling a lot more to me that did overtake them but I got that prize and I thought this is the first of many and I've never had another pricing I missed that on the Perrier Award it was supposed to be me and Harry Hill who were vying for it and neither of us got it and it turned out that the jury was split and they added up all the second votes and these are two Australian guys good Lena and Woodley won the prize and they became good friends of mine and I went out to stay we're allowed to stay with Colin Lane in Australia and he put the Perrier Award on the bedside table free which is good because it makes a lot of shelf space and cabinet space it sounds like karma when you put the award on the Shelf I mean you did it took to others yeah exactly Jonathan Creek and the other things you do I mean you've got a huge lead very Korea we'll get into Qi in a minute but I mean did you ever think you just like to do it all just like to be on the stage you just like to do you obviously just don't like to do one thing no and that's I liked about always willing to act and I wanted to act from the get-go and it's quite difficult to do I didn't go to drama school and I walked Jubilee and I've got a lisp disaster combination but I fortunately David remlick and Suzy Bell pinned david reme it was the right and creative Jonathan Creek and Suzy Belle been his producer produced for years all his one foot in the graves and in 95 they were looking for someone to play Jonathan Creek and Nicholas Lyndhurst had said no and Hugh Laurie had said yes and then and then they audition 38 and it was the 90s so they audition 38 white men obviously and so I got in as the 38th white man to be auditioned and it was my big break it was really huge in those days that you get 12 million views on a Saturday night so then I'd go down to the Comedy Store my old sort of stomping ground is where they had only been performing there for five years and people say to me what's this thing you're doing my mum says it's good the weekends and their parents are saying all it's a very good show at the moment by the man who did one footing the guys got the Caroline Queen didn't know it would run and run and well run and run Qi 18 is a 18 series yes it sounds right here's some of the Qi ones we started in 2002 the pilot was before - yes they're not being very helpful are they what happened was I was I got offered commercials for the abbey national and I'd always said to my agent it was an old-school showbiz agent and I remember going away I said we'd like to represent you will you come in and I went in and I was sitting in reception and the receptionist said pick up the phone and press the button I said Ronnie Corbett on orbit on three let me introduce me to Tony Hancock there's obviously a long since passed away but Tony Hancock's agent and I suddenly felt like I was in the show B showbiz establishment but what they want you to do is commercials and pantomimes and the summer seasons they don't want you to do anything else that's where all the Wonder is and the people who make the one girl from those things are the agents the agents and promoters so cannon and boar when they did 16 weeks sold out and a 3,000 seat theater in Blackpool we're getting an 800 quid cash in an envelope we each and then takings were staggering but that's that so that's what these guys won't use that hit me right and when I did to her in the 90s twice they did rip me off they ripped me off nicely very nice round numbers came through and I said well surely I know for a fact that we had 450 people in in Bristol or that sure that isn't that Matt and money from that gig alone and they I said I want to see the boxart returns and they said oh you won't get them so anyway that's where I was like it when you're grumpy good but I mean that sounds like a pretty nasty business me you're the talent you're us every night but it did mean was also naive about it I said I don't want to do adverts and they said what if we can get you a really big deal and I said to come back to me when you got me a million quid and he came back and he said I've got you a three-year do or the Abbey National for nine hundred and seventy five thousand pounds and I said you have no and that really threw me that was so much money it wasn't guaranteed because I'm gonna do one year they had the option to pull out at any time but the first year was 300 grand or something right so this is five times where I'd get for that Jonathan Creek series it was for about six days work I come you know holy so I said to me it's how you use the phrase we took the shilling we took the shilling when it came and the upside of those ads was I met John John directed all of those commercials we made ads for the abbey national for four years some of them were really really funny and we worked hard to make the funny in the face of all kinds of opposition maybe national and and while we were making those ads which finished in Medinah from 97 to 2001 John came to me and said I've got an idea for a quiz show you get points for being interesting and I always like the shows where he could be a bit discursive we didn't have a listed gags prepared in advance you kind of crowbar in this there's nothing wrong with good gag writing a good gag delivery that's you know it's great but that's not what I do I like to be off-the-cuff I like to tell stories and I like to it to be a bit of a mess because something something comes out of that but if everything's all set up and you just say what you're prepared to say nothing happens really in the room um and John was of a similar point of view and so he said well I'm glad you said that because I'm not only people seem to think it's a good idea will you do the pilot that most certainly will do the pilot we did the pilot and then we came to do a series and he said I thought there'd be two team captains you know he said I'm gonna have you as the only regular so I've got to be funny every week no matter what no matter who's there and Stevens in the chair and he's formidable there's frightening I mean it was actually probably being in those days we became good friends and we are good friends but I mean he was just bought me I mean you're boring and talking not very much between the line the panel didn't know what was going on that couldn't understand any of the questions I couldn't get any of the answers right kind of Anderson would get really annoyed the audience none of them had seen Qi right in the second series I remember Stephen going there's anyone seen Qi and about four people put their hands now they queue around the block to see Qi and sandy comes out at the beginning and they're all cheering that love UI then that's been one of the greats you know joys of my working life is how I've been very very lucky because Jonathan Creek thank you I was greatly loved by there by the people who watch you bet yeah but you put your finger on something if by the second series most people haven't seen it how come you got the second series what was the what the magical ingredient that led people to with the money question them the most shows got a second chance usually unless they were really and John was a really very important figure and still is of course in comedy and he had done a show for a long time Stephen was it's hard to believe now because Q eyes do bit Curtis but to get Stephen on every week in something was very it was rarely appeared on television it's it turn up in his own show doing sketches or return up in Blackadder being hilarious general but he didn't often see Stephen you might turn up on a chat show sometimes since I have him in the chair just being off-the-cuff and being Stephen for all this was a real coup and I think and I think we were always a shoo-in for a second series actually if we didn't mess up the first series I want to throw open to questions a minute but how heavily edited is it because I have this vague suspicion that you might say things that they might want to take out for legal reasons we've done so many jokes about masturbation and the royal family when we finally become a Republican it's going to be the best-selling if you got the offcut someone ought to be keeping those because you can all really the could really hit the fan in that family the queen is holding it together yeah but moving on swiftly from that particular area but you know how how much do you record we record about two hours and by half an hour yeah and do you know do you feel we've got it do you know that bit that was really quite funny that bit was funny but they're not going to use it for some reason yeah there's a bit of that there's so much research done the research team worked for months and months months there's so much stuff in the show that if you've got four half people half a brain in the head if they can't think of something which doesn't stimulate some conversation or some remark want something there's so many pictures to talk about there's so many odd facts there's so much personal enmity between people that really there's so much to work from yeah the there's always half an hour in there and and nowadays they do an Excel which is 45 minutes the thing about it is I remember nothing of it I mean I had nothing and when the show comes out which is normally six or ten months later people I think have been on Qi but they haven't any people you know Q often but I remember and then but more than once it's happened to me where I've been sitting at home and they've said something and I've sat at home sort of mouthed what I would say and then I stay on and there's that weird Tragically my brain really does only have about four parts and the Qi research team produces know exactly what and how to trigger it and how to do it they spend a lot of time more than they admit trying to work out and make me look stupid I want to have some questions for the audience here but I've got some great ones that emailed or said sent to his here if your life was an episode of as yet untitled what would you call it and why I'll go to the audience this is just Dean to get you into trouble who has been your favorite guest on Qi and why do you remember any I was like Ronni Ancona just as offensive and one more and then we'll bring a house what is chosen a favorite comedian who rich Hall we haven't done every month so much these days because quite often it just puts a hat on and doesn't say anything at all you say three brilliant things then after a while you think we need someone who talks more and what is your favorite Qi fact you don't know any my favorite one and I said this in about 400 interviews over the last 18 years we found out on Qi you know when the Vikings set out in Long ships from and go out onto the open seas not knowing at all what there is it seems like an act of complete madness knowing what we know now about how far away new families is what they would do is they take birds on these ships they take Ravens and they'd let the Raven go and the raven flies incredibly high and you can see it's black you can see it it can't land or water if it sees land it'll go to the map and you can follow it if it can't see land it comes back to the boat so if you just release the Raven a couple of times a day fingers crossed eventually you do have to keep the Ravens alive on the boat with something and so but that I thought that was Viking sat-nav is pretty amazing let's bring up the lights and have some some sorts of questions from the audience can we do that there we go who would like to have a go first yes lady down the front we've got we got microphones yeah it's not a Qi question but I don't go back quite as far as Whitstable labor club but screaming blue murder hemel hempstead out in the cellar joke competitions and all that yes just wondering whether you did ever get rid of those ants in your flat that's flat and I used to see an end and then I'd see an end to go there he is again and I always think it was the same and in there never occurred to me that there were and then one day I move the telephone table and there was this they were coming in and I lived in a basement and they were coming in under the scope well yeah over them quite a long routine about ants been hoovered that's very good don't remember saying that I used to I'll see what we salute joke commendation I'll ask the audience return of endearment for Josie lights and a term of abuse for jokes I don't write and those that would have been that night step but we used to do what's the difference between a famous person and a household object and my favorite one was what's the difference between Ted Heath and ass and a sieve and the one that one was you can't fence with Ted Heath on your face I used to do two nights a week in Birmingham when there was a couple of lads in Burma I mean I've rumor had it they did go in some writing comedy because they won it everywhere brilliant anybody else anything at all any discussion any welcome questions about the household of Hannah Davis yes lady there do we have a microphone yes good i like welsh loud voices i wondering what it was like working with Rik Mayall on Jonathan Creek I know he played the detective in the wheelchair I've just always wondered what he was like to work with it was a joy yeah he's my hero Rick and it's really it makes me very sad he was my absolute hero he was my hero when I was 16 and the young ones he came on he I remember think I just fade little things I remember about Rick that was one time when we were in the caravans all getting their costumes on their little vans and the set was about five hundred yards away it was an industrial estate so it's a little bit too far to walk very walkable but there's a car there with a driver to go in the car here it's gonna come we got in the car a Rick setting up front that he goes to the driver step on it [Laughter] hey laughs wheeler he made enough all the time and then he did one of the scenes he had to be in a wheelchair and he had to learn how to work with motorized wheelchair and you could just hear him he drove into people he had a couple of people quite badly it was an absolute liability and all you can hear is him that sorry we laughed and laughed and laughed and I told him that I'd when I was doing the other national verse you get quite good people in the crew you'd get the cameraman from Batman or you'd get I remember Madonna's costume or makeup woman and and the costume a woman had worked with Sean Connery and she gave me a pair of ugg boots because it was freezing home and she goes and I put them on and she goes you know wore those laughs and she goes Sean Sean Connery wore those then she told me that Sean Connery for his clothes I perspire so much for his close-ups he takes he often takes his trousers off [Laughter] if you watch him in a film you can rent you probably just feel his undershorts extrapolate he probably had a bucket of ice would just be waiting from a shop [Laughter] yes and the people at the back - I can't see - what what what did you learn the University of Kent [Laughter] [Music] do you know something the drama department I am sure is greatly improved but wait for one term why did classical drama in my second year which is Aeschylus Sophocles Euripides and then Aristophanes and and some of the Romans as well plautus in the Commonwealth and I didn't think it would be of interest and Dame Shirley Barlow who was the master of area at college at the time stood in for our usual teacher lecturer who was on a sabbatical and she came in and took second-year students in classical drama she was a classicist one of the leading classicists in the country and she sat in front of us I guess she was about 60 years old and she didn't have any notes she didn't have any photocopies she didn't do any admin at the beginning she would just say so Sophocles it was like that someone would say I didn't understand the bit where this happened and she would say well I thought it was and after two hours or whatever it was if you hadn't read the plays you felt like an idiot you've wasted your time you felt like you'd miss something it was the most compelling and fascinating teaching I had in all my time yeah and it instilled a mere lifelong love of all those playwrights and in fact when we went to Edinburgh in 1986 we did Lysa's started by Aristophanes and we did it as a musical mrs. Pete Mattel is a wonderful theatre director who created the theatre company he's in Sydney now and he's still working as a professional theatre director and we call it lysis structure with an exclamation mark as in Oklahoma [Laughter] we beat them into submission there must be yes hello lady in the back and the gentleman the front and with shows like Damned and flack you've done quite a few things that are funny but based on society and what societies like do you think eventually society will get to the point where actually you can't make comedy onyx it's just too unbelievable [Music] well yes when the satire is really very good the thing I was proud of with Damned was that if you didn't see it I think it's probably on 4od or whatever their on-demand platform is it was set in the children social services department and we got quite a lot of compliments from people who worked in children's social services and so some of the storylines were really quite difficult they managed to fill it with comedy by creating Kassel characters in the office who were ridiculous some of the best comic actors you could find you know people that Kevin Holden and Hamish potatoes on the side of a bus everywhere I go now because he's the lead and that film about the Beatles and they Kandace after two series so I don't know what quite what they want no one knows what they want job Lord will tell you that he's been working comedy for 40-something years no no they don't know what they want no one knows what they want so as far as what the next scene comedy is God knows but as far as politics goes actual living satire is it does that make it I've come to the judgement in a second but I talked to her Armando Iannucci about it a little while ago during the thick of it and he said it's got to the or about the thick of it it's got to the point where it's difficult to cook with it because how do you make it funnier than it is in real life well how can you satirize Johnson how can you satra he sits there the first time that Laura Koons Berg speaks to him when he's gonna stand on it she makes a few points about his complete untrustworthiness he's actually being a liability as foreign secretary meant is the woman is imprisoned in Iran and then he makes some remark about wealth of the that minestrone of observations if I could take just a crouton from what you said [Laughter] you guys former Laura and completely ignored what was being said as he did when he went around the country with that stupid bus three years ago which we seem to be ridiculous and laughable and then something became horribly real then she sat down with him pregnant into the other day and their first question to him was what would you do on your first day in office what would you do in your first day well I think it's very important to have that's what someone would say you just got off a bus a real actual bus not a fake lying bastard no one said it's what knowing me about ago no one said they just assumed that no one would vote to leave the European Union because they thought well everyone surely realize it's a big park the biggest free-market that's ever existed in human history at a time when China and Brazil and India and Russia and the United States a huge powerful economies being within that free market is a much safer place than being on the outside and being on the outside makes you what it doesn't make you Great Britain two mythical pasts it might make you Dubai if you really make a mess of it what do you think we're gonna be like Luxembourg or Ireland and Amazon and all these people are gonna come here and not pay tax but live here as well it really is it does nonsensical but you could persuade people that the immigrations are bad nor awful thing and it will be a bad lawful thing if there's not enough places for people to live so if you know that a million people are coming and labour knew it and Cameron knew it and they all pretended they didn't know it they knew they were coming and they wanted them to come because we've got an aging population and they wanted an imported workforce the only people are going to come here work hard build businesses buy things in shops rent houses buy houses and generate wealth for the country that's what they wanted and they've got that and those people came here and they're all around you working and no one said let's make these people welcomed let's if they don't understand English let's help them at school let's help them if they're struggling to get let's help these people because they're coming to us and they're gonna they're gonna enrich our country and they're gonna make us richer and we're all getting old and useless and we need these people to help us the most important thing that we have to do is we have to build houses we've sold off all the council houses we need to replace them because here are some people come in who won't be able to afford to buy somewhere they are going to swamp the rental sector the rental sector is already full of people or on housing waiting this these people are on the breadline this isn't a joke these people who voted to leave are on the breadline in many cases quite often with people who are in the lowest poorest areas of the country there's not enough housing schools aren't good enough and there's not enough job opportunities if you're just on that poverty line which is a line that's going up all the time more and more people slipping under it of course you feel as though immigration is a threat if you're on an island as we are freedom of movement means invasion if you're in Romania and Bulgaria and you're your parents and your grandparents grew up behind the Iron Curtain freedom of movement means freedom to move and when Nigel Franz went on something like question time he held up his European Union passport as if it was a contemptible document and said European Union the first words of my possible 508 million people have got one of these some implication that 508 million people were going to turn up and want to live here which will mean the entire population of Germany the entire property of Italy in Spain I mean that's a nonsensical idiotic and intended to scare monger and frighten and if you remember in 2016 there was also the Syrian civil war there was which is a and I believe this to be the case is the first climate change civil war because it was four years of crop failure and that led to a civil war in that country there was this huge scare about migration of people of up to a million people coming we would take 20,000 we still shamefully won't take enough child refugees in this country and so people were terrified that were being invaded and that fear that dog whistle - racism for people like for our fear of who know we're going to be swamped we're gonna be swamped we didn't have enough houses they wouldn't build any houses they weren't honest about emigrate they didn't encourage us to believe that immigration is good for us and they may arrogantly held a referendum they thought they would cruise through and then the day after he lost Cameron just walked out the door and went and lived in his friend's seventeen million pound house in Holland Park and the only thing about this it pleases me is a normal public book [Applause] I will come to you in a minute you have just come across with a lot of facts about various things including something which people tend to ignore which is the climate change emergency which helped produce population movements and your business is in Qi is phat based but it's but it's funny do you think people actually care about facts about the facts of immigration the facts that people who come here tend to be younger tend to have jobs tend to work tend to make money before our taxes among other things do you think people care about facts or do you think they care actually I feel people feel a certain way about foreigners about migrants and about the society in other ways is it worthwhile making a factual argument or is it just worthwhile doing what other people do in politics which is tap into feelings I think Johnson's copying jump he's doing it quite deliberately he's not answering the question he's just hoping the people buy into the lovely chat everyone knows he's not he's an appalling ass and i think that trumps matter of day in day out about the new you can't trust the news media you can't trust and use me you know which has resulted in the assaults on journalists i think you have to rely on facts there isn't a little turn ative you have to James O'Brien's written a brilliant book how to be wrong a fantastic book where he's just challenging people on basic assumptions assumptions always swamped where then it's too much of this there's too much of that and this happens that no it was in the answer to three questions that things fall apart there was a phrase that came up sometimes during the referendum campaign which was you haven't done the reading which I visit one of my favorite places people start to talk you say it's him you haven't really done the reading on this have you you don't know what you're talking about there was some brilliant bits where people would say well the EU has done nothing for us nothing for us at all and then behind them there would be a building which would say funded by the European Union that cunning liberal media appointed their camera when they've done nothing for us and there's this Symphony Hall and the conference centre and some other building all partially funded by the completely unable to make the case based on facts so here saying the rumor about bananas nonsense about the NHS I don't know really what the answer is but I didn't you do have to keep facts are essential and need to be more widely spread trouble is you know this at the moment if you're online this so much isn't true and I like this new thing I'll be reading about this week deep fake it isn't true it's almost like a goldfish it's like a fish tank and you're looking at a fish tank and if you imagine there's 500 fish in there and 200 and then a fake fake fish in 3-under then a factual fish but you can't tell the difference when you're looking at the tank you can't tell the difference so if that's the news meter and this is the world of information that you live in you don't really know if you begin to not trust the news media you are in trouble and they last read an article this week saying if Google start their own currency we're all screwed I mean now I trust the Guardian I trust the independent I trust the New York Times after that I'm struggling to be honest with you during the election campaign I the European election campaign and lady said to me I'm gonna vote for Nigel Farage and I said you mind telling me why and she said because the European Union is totally undemocratic I didn't know where to begin No so I said thank that's interesting thank you anyway I just wanted to ask you because you were involved in comedy but you went did a program I think is causing like how long's a piece of string about physics I did what what brought you to do something factual like that horizon made I made a couple of horizon documentaries they got a bit of stick for involving me because I was evidently some sort of gateway for a viewer might not normally watch horizon some sort of conduit you know this every man knows that bloke from Qi you understand nothing maybe will understand this horizon if he understands it and they did lead me through quantum physics the single most fascinating subject really extraordinarily interesting and they did double their viewing figures so they were able to up stick two fingers up other people who wanted horizon kept pure and just for the scientists because the science was correct and we did some very interesting things about measuring a piece of string turns out it's impossible including going up to a chat into the Rope Factory in Chatham man have you been in there they made ropes on there for the Royal Navy and there's a building there that's a quarter of a mile long some of those ropes were very very long it was a very big Navy wasn't it and but you remember Michael goes phrase that people have had enough of experts do you I wonder whether and it's a big lesson for universities experts because that's what universities are partly about have to explain themselves better and maybe you know having somebody who's famous for comedy is one of the good ways of doing that in other words it's quantum physics sounds I don't really know I'm not sure I'm not really going to be interested but if you can make it approachable and interesting then you you make a case for it maybe those of us involved in universities need to be better at that perhaps so perhaps so it's this I worry about you know I've got three kids now I want them to be yes I wanted to be interested I don't want them to be watching love you are telling how do you know how bad is Mike Pence is even more dangerous than Trump right the vice president the United States the one who talks about the theory of evolution it's just a theory it's only a theory it's a proven theory right it's just the things called a theory it's a scientific term they think science on the one hand they say I do have an issue with fake balance you've gotta have a balanced argument so you get that guy chaudhary on all the time - people think this and nine million people have proven this in laboratory balance well I used to say that you know you say it's raining I say it's not that's not balance one of us could go outside and have a look yeah but that's not always what happens is it well now if you have a the President of the United States who wants to tell you that climbing climate change is fake because his friends and the fossil fuel business want him to say that for them you know but he's now on the internet cuz he's got it he's got a beef with Sadiq Khan who's a very popular hard-working mayor of London he wants to say that the hospital was a sea of blood and there's in this murders kind of have an its could have an actual effect on their lives in London in terms of the number of visitors who want to come it's wildly irresponsible the murder rate in every major American city Dwarfs that of London even New York which actually is quite clean for murder it's compared to other cities is double or triple the London murder rate there had been a spate of killings it's appalling and there is no doubt at all and cressida it was saying it again today but cuts in police in police funding and see police they are affecting that so this is a result of our government's policy not an mayor's policy it's really the ignorance and the falsehoods are actually dangerous but the forces are dangerous in another way too because the the Washington Post says that mr. Trump told 10111 falsehoods in 828 days of the presidency which is 12 a day and that includes weekends when he's playing okay so therefore if he says for example it was Iran that attacked ships in the Straits of Hormuz it was around who did it now it may be around who did it but if you have a track record of saying things which are demonstrably not true it makes it very difficult for people to believe you when you say things which might be true and if you're the president that could be a problem if you start a war that's the first time in my life what I've seen something and actually thought which I know a lot of people have been thinking years people even thought about 9/11 well I actually thought I bet the Americans have done that that's what I thought but I've done that because they are itching for a war then you can feel it when they're itching for a war you could just it's in the air they want to get around they just desperate to get Iran they've got a whole list of things they can say about Iran funding terror groups which will give them a chance to wheel out the latest weaponry and kickstart their armor it's industry and then they'll be able to go in and clean up and rebuild it all the whole thing it's like that film vise happening all over again I was in Dubai last week doing a stand-up gig very odd wasn't entirely sure about going there for all kinds of reasons mainly to do with human rights and gay rights and everything else is questionable there but I went I went I found myself on a bill with four white men because I presumably because the promoter was English wouldn't dare to put on the bill that I went on the following week and Brighton which is one lesbian one black woman me and Ed Byrne and a female compared and a spangly jumpsuit by matt friend of mine who lives out there and she lives a little bit at the coast and in a huge port are coming the name of just north of dubai and her partner is the harbour master and he told me that the value of the cargo one of those tankers is two hundred million dollars I like one tanker a one tank well it's absolutely jaw-dropping so that boat is what is the single most valuable vessel on earth there's nothing there's no other thing than the single thing flying or floating that it's worth more the value of what goes through the Straits of Hormuz this is a hugely provocative act and whoever's responsible or what combination of events God knows but it felt designed to provoke something and that's why I feel it's very frightening my taxi driver brought me tonight from Afghanistan I was talking about Afghanistan see what is this gonna be another part of the world that's gonna be thrown into chaos hundreds of thousands of deaths just at the whim of a lunatic we talk about other world leaders this is an actual lunatic I mean really I mean serious mental health professionals have questions it's fitness to hold any job at all to be a barista now face baristas just got a few minutes left one thing that I discoveries yeah oh there we go and just just a final thought um I saw you fairly recently graduated with an MA in creative and life writing from Goldsmith's what was that about and why did you do that I'm interested because you and I'm you're sorry but you could be making a lot of money and you are making a lot of money but you could what why would you do that what's in it I it was a two-year part-time course and I wanted to go back to college I wanted to go back to being a student didn't make the most of my time here I didn't listen a lot I thought I knew everything you know no more stupid Shirley Barlow was the one of the few people with Sophocles Aristophanes yeah and I wanted to go but and that but also the one it's a write about things that I haven't things happening my childhood things I'm within my family which I've never talked about and I've never been able to stand up about or touched on a little bit at times but and and I've written a childhood man wine we'll see if we can find a publisher but that's I wanted to go through a plate my tutor said to me little right like Noah's looking over your shoulder and you need to write the thing that makes you cry or you need to write we write to learn what we don't know we don't write to sit down everything that we know we write to find out what we don't know I didn't really understand what he meant when he said it but by the end of the end of the course I completely understood what you meant and the some of the teaching there was exceptional some of the reading that I've done is that I've been guided towards by the teachers there's been fascinating so I really need some of the best things I've ever done so if you're thinking about going back into education I mean Frank Skinner said to me years ago he's a very intelligent guy I can used to be a teacher and he just said lessons are good just lessons any lessons it is a matter of you having golf lessons or swimming lessons German lessons or coding lessons or cooking lessons always be having lessons in something and I thought I was good advice and just do you think it will be published you hope it will be published was it private is it something you've shown other people where I've been sending it out to people it's intensely private and I will publish I see a contradiction there but on that point thank you very much thank you [Applause] that time already that was great yeah and thank you all for your contributions tonight which will go to the Kent Opportunities Fund which as you saw at the start is something really important for many of our students so thank you all for coming [Applause]

Channel: University of Kent

Views: 15,590

Rating: 4.915493 out of 5

Keywords: alan davies, gavin esler, comedy, comedy store, stand-up, stand up, arsenal, brexit, jonathan creek, as yet untitled, QI, QI Elves, John Lloyd, the dog rescuers, damned, bbc, channel 4, channel 5, writing, life, theatre, drama, acting, television, whitstable labour club, edinburgh fringe, canterbury, alumnus

Id: jlot1Mm3O8Q

Length: 54min 16sec (3256 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 28 2019