S8, E11: Diane Morgan, actor

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:07A quick warning, there is some strong language in this episode. I'm Grace Dent and this is Comfort Eating from The Guardian. A podcast where we pay homage to the lesser celebrated foods in life. Because even as a restaurant critic, I believe the food that matters most is often that snack you cobble together when you're curled up on the sofa. Each week, I ask my guest to lift the lid on what comfort foods have seen them through their lives. Because you can tell a lot about a person from what they eat behind closed doors.

0:50Oh, hello there. Now, I have been re-watching some of what I think to be the funniest TV made in recent years. In anticipation of today's guest, it is the comedian Diane Morgan. I am thrilled to have finally pinned this woman down. It has taken me ages, but I have done it. And I've got to get my house looking its absolute best. I've got a sense that she's got an eye for detail. just moving this houseplant to be a little more visible because if you need to add the smoke and mirrors of extra elegance into your life houseplants are your friends there you go problem solved diane morgan was a jobbing comedian before her big break in 2013 when she landed the role of philomena kunk in charlie brooker's weekly wife the character philomena has since spawned an ecosystem of books and TV shows and a huge cult following online.

1:52If you've been under a rock, Philomena is a mockumentary historian who makes you do multiple double takes to check if she really did just ask an Oxford don, if King Arthur really did come a lot. She does it with an extra deadpan face. I don't know how she does that. You may also know her from the hugely popular show Motherland, which explores the trials of middle class motherhood. She plays the anti-hero Liz, a single parent who stores all her food in the freezer, including crates of eggs. Diane has got a prominent seat at the table of Brit comedy, but I want to know what she's stuffing her face with when no one's watching.

2:33And she's back home in London's Bloomsbury, where she lives with her partner, Ben. I'm going to ask her. She'll be here any second. I think this yucca's dead.

2:51Diane Morgan, welcome to Comfort Acer. Thank you for having me. It's so good to have you here. I have wanted you on this show. I have wanted you enjoying your vat of tea that I've just given you. The biggest cup of tea I've ever had. I've wanted you here for so long. You have been quite slippery. Well, it's series eight. I've been wanting you here since season one. Really? You once said that you bought 500 adult nappies when you were filming the cult BBC comedy show Inside Number Nine. This was when you had to spend a very long time out on the water in a pedalo. Like men can hold their bladders longer than women.

3:29Yeah. And I thought if I'm good, they said we're going to be out on this lake all day and we don't want to go to the toilet now because we don't want to have to all pack up and come back. It's going to be such a faff. So I went into panic mode and thought, what if I need a piss? So I thought, I don't nappies. Surely that's the way. Went on Amazon. I thought I was buying a box of 50. It was 500. So a box of 500 nappies is still in the garage. I could have brought you a few. I've got so many questions. Well, I did wear one. Did you put one on? Yes, I did. You watch that on telly. I was sat in one in the boat and I had like rubber leggings on as well.

4:11So I had to be really careful that you couldn't see this big nappy under the rubber leggings. Did you use it? No, it wasn't deployed. And weirdly and sadly, I didn't need it all day. I think the fear, and I dehydrated myself naturally. I didn't need it. But I did test it out the following day. lots hovering over a toilet just in case it didn't work. I just wanted to see if it would get all the wee. Yeah, did it? Yeah, it did. It was amazing. I'd be bothered about using it in front of someone. No, because of the face I would pull. The face. How do you just do a little wee or a big wee while talking to the cast of Inside Number Nine?

4:55And then they're going, so what are you going to do at the weekend? And you're... I think that's how you're a great actor. That isn't the face I always pull when I'm wearing. I reckon that's what Gary Oldman does. Method pissing. You know, it looks like you're thinking about something else. He's actually having a piss. I bought my tuna for the cats, eyelashes and toilet roll. There's nothing worse than getting recognised when you're buying bog rolls. Getting like a box of like 50 through the jackass. Awful. Get it online. Get like 5 ,000 online and you feel like a king. Do you book buy anything else?

5:32No. There's an Ottolenghi sauce I'm obsessed with at the moment. I've started book buying that. It tastes like it's been steeping for months. It's so delicious. Like a foot. Yeah. Jesus Christ, it's fucking incredible. Yeah. It went on sale in Wageshow, so I was like, get five of those in there, please.

6:00Okay, the moment has come where I'm going to find out the comfort food that you've brought for me today. Yes. I want you to remove the tea towel. Okay. Press yourself. Reveal your snack. Oh, Diane. Have you tried these? I'm hoping you haven't. Have you tried these? Are these, right. Have you heard about these? What I am looking at is simply two enormous bags of crisps. So I've always loved salt and vinegar crisps. The more vinegary, the better. Like discos. I like, one of my mottos is I like a crisp that hurts me. Yes. Explain what they are. Right, these are from the co-op supermarket. They're co-op, irresistible, hand-cooked, sea salt and chardonnay wine vinegar crisps.

7:01It's a bit vermuthful, isn't it? Yeah. But they're absolutely... If you like that kind of very vinegary crisp, these are always sold out. You've got to be so quick. It's the sea salt, but it's booze. They're a boozy crisp. But you can't taste the booze, though. You see, this is definitely a crisp where the next day you might find just little bits of skin hanging off the bottom of your tongue. It'll burn your gums off. They're great! Would you ask for these in your dressing room? No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to seem like a dick, you know, like I'm demanding anything. Oh my God. I don't want people to go, oh, she is asking for stuff.

7:41Imagine saying, can I have some co-operatively irresistible hand-cooked sea salt and Chardonnay wine vinegar crisps, please?

7:51I want to talk to begin with about your most famous character, Philomena. Philomena Cunk from Charlie Brooker's Weekly Wipe and now has her own kind of cosmoverse. She's got Cunk on Britain, Cunk on Earth, there's books. YouTube's full of you. TikTok. TikTok's full of you. I know I am. Yeah. She's a little bit Ali G and a little bit Mary Beard. You go in asking, Mary Beard, asking world-class historians and academics questions. If anyone's listening, an example, an art historian, Philomena says, what was Renaissance when you're asking about the Renaissance? My first question is, is there a trick to keeping a straight face?

8:37I know how important it is for the joke to work, to be as absolutely serious as possible. And I'd just be fired. So those two things combined. Occasionally, I will laugh so much that I'm uncontrollable and we have to stop filming. Those bits are cut out, obviously. I did a play when I first left drama school at the Bolton Octagon. There would come a point every night in the play where I would laugh uncontrollably. And because I got into the habit of that bit of the play would make me laugh, I just couldn't cope whenever we came to this particular bit. Even if nothing funny was happening, the thought of last night made me laugh.

9:25Yes. And it happened so often that I'd just have to walk off stage because if I spoke, I'd just start laughing. And the director threatened me with, you're going to be fired. If you keep doing this, we're going to have to let you go. Okay. But that doesn't stop you laughing. Yeah. If anything, it makes you worse. So I just have to bite my tongue until it bled. To me, it's sitting with the awkwardness. You love that. I relish that. Oh, darling. Some people hate that, don't they? There's things that you do that people say to me, you need to see this. And they send me the clip and I almost can't press play.

10:11Because I'm feeling the awkwardness that you don't feel. but how? yeah I love that it's my favourite thing because if you do stand up you have to go past you have to go through that awkwardness stage because there'll come a time when you say something and nobody laughs and you've got to get over that you've got to get over people not laughing it's fine you don't die there's a very different thing going on than telling a joke and people not laughing what we're doing here is self-created awkwardness taking academics some of the most serious people on earth there's a little joy and glee in your faces but these people are serious you can't mess with them they're never messed with that's it, it's that pretentiousness I love kind of like showing that up do you feel bad?

11:08no, not at all, I love it, I relish it can't get enough so Steve Kay who played Dennis Pennis, do you remember Dennis Pennis yes I do, he was great what Dennis Pennis did in the 90s, massive cult figure going to people pricking the pomposity of it and what I heard him say was that in the end he couldn't do it anymore, it started to weigh so heavily on him this idea that the crew book you a hotel room and you sit in that hotel room waiting for this 10 minutes that you're going to get to go in and tell Steve Martin he's unfunny. Yeah. And to see his face crumple, but you don't feel that. No, I don't think she's actually as nasty as Dennis Penis was.

11:59I think Dennis Penis was actively sort of vicious and that's what made it so brilliant. But I think Philomena's slightly different in that she's sort of just thick. and it just creates an awkward atmosphere, and it's nice to see how people respond when they know they're on TV and they can't go, oh, this is fucking ridiculous. I'm not doing this. They have to answer, trapping them into that situation and seeing what they do. My heart's beating fast just when you're talking about it. But has anybody ever got very, very cross afterwards? Have you been legal letters? No, I remember when we first started doing it, we'd get these experts in and no one had seen the show so they didn't know what they were signing up for they'd just signed the release form and uh and then I think I spoke to someone maybe it was about Churchill but I was trampling all over this guy's favorite topic and you could see the fury that I was getting everything wrong and I didn't care enough about Churchill and you could see the anger boiling up in him and he looked like he was going to punch me and I secretly I was sort of thinking this will make great television it's not so needy isn't it imagine how great that would be I'll be on the news do it but then they stopped filming and they got him to sort of calm down and carried on with it but I remember saying don't in future don't do that just let the because it's funnier i think the more angry they get the funnier it is was academia something you specifically wanted to puncture because there's something about academia that you love yeah it's nice clean kill for you that isn't it i think it's pretentiousness seriousness pretentiousness just taking things too seriously needs taking down a peg or two doesn't it i found it terrifying when you were arriving the fact though that i knew that the one thing you added in your armory was no fear of silence oh you're not you bothered about silence no i definitely feel it more than you do you know what i hate when you're on the phone with someone and uh there's awkward pauses say you're on the phone to the bank or someone about the roof and they go, let me just check that.

14:30They'll fill the silence with their own sort of music. And I always say, why are you doing that? You don't need to do that. It's fine. Let's just have some silence. I don't think I would do my own music. I wouldn't do my own music. Let me just check. I think I would definitely go, oh, my computer's quite slow today. That kind of thing. You've got to have a running commentary. I would probably put it on mute so that at least the silence was mad. Oh, thank God. Then I kind of...

15:10I'm going to go back to you growing up. I want to hear just a bit about the Morgan family when you were young. Me, my mom, my dad, my brother. My brother's six years older than me. We all loved comedy. That was prized more than anything. You know, it wasn't like, you know, you do your best. That's all you can do is what my parents would say. But then you all sat around and watched Porridge and stuff like that with my dad. All the comedies. Monty Python. Rising Damp. And also they used to show like Laurel and Hardy in the afternoons, which I loved. All the silent comedies like Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton.

15:48and Lucille Ball. And so I soaked all that. I absolutely loved all that. Was your dad funny? Yeah, he was funny, very dry. But my mum can't tell a joke to save her life. She's, you know, she's very mumsy. Like she won't remember, get it in the wrong order. So we would then take the piss out of that. There's a real beauty in that. Yeah, there is. There's someone trying to tell a joke. I've got a joke. I've got a joke. How's it going? So there's a donkey. No, not a donkey. Hang on, let me start again. I've got it wrong. Have an air. What did I say the joke was? Why are you telling it? Jokes are never funny.

16:25They're more like a puzzle. Well, your mother certainly was. Yeah. But did she sit with you when you were watching all the comedy? Yeah. Because my mother used to just go, well, this isn't funny. Me and my dad would just be like lapping up like Kenny Everett and stuff like that. Yes, Kenny Everett. And she would go, well, I just don't see what. Do you know what? The only thing my mum wouldn't watch comedy-wise was Benny Hill.

16:53And I was quite young when Benny Hill was on. I loved Benny Hill. I didn't really see what was rude about it. But my mum was like, I'm going having a bath. For any listeners who aren't aware of Benny Hill, I will say. Isn't it amazing that there are people out there who don't know who Benny Hill is? I do feel a certain amount of responsibility to the younger generations. We're just going to have a chat about Frankie. Yvonne. Yeah. And just people that are going to go and put that on and they'll see an old man in a Mac chasing a load of women through a park and as a woman gets to a bush, it would like pull all of her clothes off.

17:29Yeah. And there'd be a little bald man and he'd slap him on the head. It was that kind of, that level, wasn't it? I'd be fascinated, but I never found it funny. Did you hear my bones then? That was my shoulders. That was absolutely incredible. Wasn't it? Does that do that normally? No, I've never known that. It was like you were doing your own self-imposed chiropractic manoeuvre. I put my hands on my hips, listeners, and both of my shoulders made a funny popping noise. Anyway. Did you sit round a dining table and eat? Were you that, yeah? Yeah. Yeah, we'd eat. Saturday, typical Saturday, what's being served?

18:07I think it was a sort of meat and two veg sort of thing. Or my mum would make a pie. Do you know what? But when I think back now, and I think she would constantly come up with meal ideas, because now, don't you find it exhausting? No sooner has a meal gone that you've got to start thinking of the next one. Continuously. I can't stand it. Yeah. I think if I lived alone, I'd just eat cornflakes. Yes. I just cannot be arsed thinking up another meal. I love the independence with food that being single gives you, though. So if there's anything... Well, you just eat anything. It's that you don't have to pretend to have a meal when you don't want a bloody meal.

18:48Yeah, you could have mini rolls on a rye-vita. Two pickled onions. Yeah, a whole trifle. Or nothing. No one's going to judge you. So like half a bottle of flat Diet Coke and a Marlboro Light. It's a slippery slope though, isn't it? That eating what you want and dressing how you like because you run out of clean clothes. You start wearing sort of fancy dress. you're wondering why nobody wants to go out with you you've got to enjoy those moments though and like Quentin Crisp's house a dead plant like Quentin Crisp's house yeah what did he say he said doesn't get any thicker after 8 years or something doesn't he don't clean your house he said just keep your nerve life's too short that's it keep your nerve that's brilliant yeah I love that he's absolutely right who cares

19:48your dad was a physiotherapist your mom was a full-time mom yeah you once said you were confused about what class you actually were because there's like a working class background but sometimes you think you were actually middle class i've got one question that'll decide it yeah did you have normal broccoli or tender stem oh my god i mean i only started having tender stem broccoli like a couple of years ago i think you were a working class family really i didn't know it existed did you ever have uh quinoa and did you know how to say quinoa no i think you were working class i've always felt very working class but then people go oh well you can't be can you know because you know you you're on the telly i've got a real chip on my shoulder if anything you bought some farrow and ball paint and you've got you had a show on radio 4 so therefore you must be middle class now you must have it never leaves you were you funny at school yeah i think so i but i would be very i was very shy like painfully shy so i'd sit at the back and sort of whisper things to people and they'd occasionally say out loud and get the laugh and i'd start I'm thinking, oh, I get a bit annoyed about that.

21:00I got over it. All my report cards used to say, Diane is a quiet girl, painfully shy. Yeah. Right up until, like, sixth form, I was so shy. It was a real problem. And then what happened? I think I wanted to be a comedy actress so badly that it would sort of like, I'd feel shy and terrified on one hand, but then on the other hand was so ambitious to be a comedy actress that I'd just feel sick by turns because I'd have to do things to get where I wanted to be but I'd hate doing it because I was so shy. But there was a point at drama school where, and I remember this so vividly, I sort of did a Derren Brown on myself.

21:50I was queuing up in the canteen one day and I knew I had some kind of sort of exercise that we all had to do where we had to stand up in front of everyone and recite something or do something and I was dreading it like every time you had to stand up on your own and do something in front of people I'd feel physically sick and it would ruin my life I'd be just like thinking oh god I've got to do that later I just feel awful Oh, awful. I just couldn't live again until I'd got it out of the way. And then I remember thinking, but I don't have to feel that way. I could just not be shy anymore. And then I was never shy ever again.

22:35Oh, my God. I know. I just made the decision that it was a choice that I'd made to be shy, and I didn't have to be that person. I could choose to be this kind of a person. Do you know, this is another interesting thing. When I was at drama school, three years, every single lunchtime, I would get a cheese roll. Every single day for three years. The same cheese roll. I'd have a cheese roll from the canteen. It's just a roll and it's got grated cheese in it. And butter. And a cup of tea. And I think it was a Kit Kat. Every single day for three years. Why nothing different? Say them again, Diane, they'd say to me.

23:18And I was like, yes, please. And I didn't realise that I'd had it every day for three years until one of the dinner ladies said, should I have it every single day? You're not bored of it, Diane. And I'd be like, no, I love it. I love this idea of you being so bloody, well, one shy, but also really, really ambitious. Yeah, I wanted to do comedy so much, I can't tell you. And I know that makes me sound like I was such a wanker, but I loved it so much. I was so nerdy about what made something funny and why something wasn't funny. And it gave me such comfort watching comedy. Yes. Comforting. These people, they were like, they were my friends.

24:03Yeah. You know, more can wise. They were like, I loved them. Well, there was certainly no plan B because my sources tell me that you've got a G in maths. I got a G in maths, yes. I feel very understood because I got an E in maths. Did you? In maths, which some of my team were saying is the, it's just the equivalent of basically giving the fingers to the examiner. Yeah. I think they even tried to get like a different maths teacher in who was like, no, no, no, I can teach you. She just needs a bit of it. But even he was like, no, there's no hope with this one. Do you never kind of feel like you should go and do GCSE maths?

24:40No. I hate it. I hate it so much I hate anything with numbers makes me feel sick I just think you don't need it I think now that chip and pins come in people have stopped counting backwards into your hand you know you change because I would never follow that

25:11in your late teens you put your nose to the grindstone you got busy with some work you've had an array of jobs but the one that i'm most fascinated in is uh your stint at a fish and Bolton. I think that working at a chip shop is actually much more difficult than people would imagine. Well it was because I only lasted a week. Turns out it was very difficult. Talk me through that week. What happened at the chip shop? Honestly it's not there anymore so I can slag it off. They showed me round and upstairs all the potatoes were kept in a bath. You'd have to scoop the potatoes out with my bare hands and put them in the chipper Yeah.

25:54It was just like a massive vat. It was disgusting. There was like green slime running down the walls and stuff. Yeah. You sure it wasn't mushy pee? It could have been, yeah. But I couldn't work the till or anything. I was absolutely fucking useless. Did they let you fry the fish? Don't let me do anything. It takes four years to do that. It does take four years. Yeah, you've got to train you up. Well, then from there you went to the Last Drop Village Tea Rooms in Bolton. Is that still there? Yes, it is. Never been. It's so cold because they used to hang people there. Oh, well, that's cheer, isn't it?

26:32Yeah. And people go there, they don't know. That's why it's called the Last Drop Tea Room because it'd be your last drop. I would take people's orders. I only lasted a day. I took people's orders but forgot to bring out their order. Someone asked for a cream tea and I didn't know what a cream tea was. That's probably a sign that you're working class, isn't it? I put cream in tea. I thought it was just a cup of tea and instead of milk, it was cream. At this point, your acting career is still a twinkle in your eye, but it's then that you meet lifelong friend, a brilliant actor, Maxine Peake. Star of Shameless and BBC One legal drama, Silk.

27:15You've got these two massive northern talents with huge ambition. Yeah. Hanging about together. But how did you stay friends rather than hate each other's guts? She got into RADA and then got Dinner Ladies. So the sitcom Dinner Ladies is the one written and produced by the late, great Victoria Wood in the late 90s. It's a cult classic. Yeah. And I was still, you know, le chipper-y, you know. And I just felt so sad that I thought maybe I'll never make it and I'll have to just watch her on TV flouncing around. I think it's really hard when your friends become successful. It was sort of like the end of Withnail and I, you know.

28:01Yeah. Before she even got the job, I knew that she was going to be in the show. they talked about it on tv and i thought oh my god i bet maxine gets in that show and she did she rang me up and she said oh my god i've just had an audition for victoria wood and i've i've got this job and i was just like oh fantastic and to someone like you to someone like you who's grown up it was like my absolute dream do you know what we'd we'd go to the old three crowns and I've had cider in black every Friday and occasionally Sarah Cox would walk in and I'd be like oh my god who's that because she I think she was a model yeah she was a model she looked absolutely like a an effing supermodel yeah in Bolton yeah yeah yeah I remember oh my god who's that because she stood out so much it was like seeing Claudia Schiffer and a Lowry painting.

29:00And I said to Maxine, who is that? And she said, oh, that's Sarah Cox. I'm going to say some words and see if you can work out where they're from. Okay. Pa-pee-pee-poo-poo-poo. Elocution. Yes. I watched you on that. Did you? On the South Bank show? Yeah. So this is like elocution lessons that you did and there's a clip of it, you and Maxine. Me and Maxine, who in Bolton couldn't get arrested. We couldn't get into any amateur theatres or anything. No one will give us a time of day, nothing. So we thought the only way we'll get into drama school is if we lose these accents. I just thought that's the only thing we had going for us.