HARRY HILL: Life's Too Short to Be Serious | GREAT MOMENTS

0:02Hello everyone, I'm Jamie Laing and this is Great Moments. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Great Moments. Thank you so much for coming back. Now this week we are revisiting my conversation with the incredibly funny Harry Hill. I mean, one of the funniest people I've ever met. Harry Hill is one of Britain's most loved comedians, but we talked about so much more than just comedy. Now in this great moment, he opens up about losing his close friend, Sean Locke, and what loss has taught him. It's an amazing episode. If you like this great moment, you're going to love the full episodes.

0:33You can click on the link in our show description, but enjoy this great moments with Harry Hill.

0:41You were doing TV back and you were voicing You've Been Framed. Yeah. Yeah. You were taking over television. Yeah. It was like a double, double bill. Yeah. I think if you didn't like Harry Hill, That was a very difficult time for you. And there are those people. But would you, is this, is it? It was a very dark period for those people. I hated that period of television. But you had this iconic image, right? Yeah, it was just luck, you know, with the big, oh, the big collar and, you know, the bald head is nature. You know, the glasses, okay. I found glasses that were, you know, distinctive. I mean, everyone wears glasses like this now, but actually when I wore them, it was sort of a decision, you know.

1:30And then with the big collar, I just, you know, I mean, I just had a shirt with a big collar because I used to buy my stuff from Oxford. And in the 80s, 90s, the shirts that you bought were from the 70s or 80s. And you felt like it looked funny. People would say to me, oh, that's good. you know that big collar thing really yeah yeah so that and that's it's the old adage and you know if you ever do go back to stand up uh i will it's about if it works keep it in and this is a weird but it's like a uniform right because you put your uniform on yeah and you go to work yeah and then when you take it off i don't have it to make a decision i always think like you know if you're alan davis or i don't know jack whitehall or something you've got to choose a suit or you've got to choose a tie what am i going to wear on my feet or you know what am i i don't have that decision i just boom there is a whole rack of them 130 big collar shirts which one shall i wear always white well i got a few color i've tried with you know when i do junior bake-off and they were keen for me to be a bit more brightly colored for the children so i've got some you know like a red one and a pink one and a brown one.

2:43But when you also an advantage because when you then take off your uniform you become less recognisable. Exactly. It's brilliant. Also you know you can divide your life up not just for tax purposes but you can divide your life up so you have your you know real friends who call you Matthew He's revealed it Matthew. Is that the headline that we're going to get? There is it. Harry Hill is not called Harry Hill. And then there's the other people, like yourself. No, I wanted to call you Matthew and you said no. We're not there yet. Okay, fine. So what are we just podcast friends? I'm not a real friend.

3:25This is a transactional. So when I save your number, do I have to put it as Harry Hill? Just put big collar. So, yeah, it is good to have that divide. I mean, it's a funny thing. I do think of myself as Harry Hill, though. I mean, it's because I've been doing it for so long. I don't, you know, and sometimes if I'm, I don't know, I might be on my way to a gig and I might say to myself, come on, Harry, or, you know, I do refer to myself. Yeah. Is it easier to almost play a character in a way? Because then you can turn that off and turn it on rather than actually living in that existence. Because that's quite exhausting, maybe.

4:06Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know comics like that who seem to be always on. I mean, I think if you want to be a comedian, you don't really have any choice about what kind of comic you're going to be. It just emerges. You know, when I started, I wanted to be a deadpan comic. I was a fan of Jack D and Stuart Lee and Arnold Brown, people like that. So when I first started, I was sort of doing an impression of them. So I had good jokes. so they would get laughs but it was like me it wasn't really me it was what i you know and that's quite common when comics they sort of do the person they like that is why and then you have to find your own identity and then gradually you you hopefully you if you stick at it long enough you'll find the thing yeah that's a big you know a lot of being funny is not about i mean but i what the percentage is maybe 80 of it is about you not about your material it's about your confidence and your funniness has anyone ever tried to do you because i have seen i was on a bill not yet familiar yeah no not that but the i have been on a bill and i was on a bill with this guy and i'm thinking you you're doing this is me you're doing like me wow you run on stage doing me i thought wow you're doing me in front of me and i'm me i was thinking is i think it got his hard enough to do it and i'm me and you're doing me everyone knows i'm here it's like yeah it was fun it was funny but i was thinking this is not helping you how important is it in life to be silly i think it's important to retain a playfulness you think you've got to try and retain that you know that gets knocked out of us as kids if you yeah you know yeah you get two kids together they just start playing that they mucking about you know it's uh and uh and it and that does get knocked out of you as you get older because you get responsibilities you get worn down and it's important to try and retain some of that and i think possibly what people like about me is that they don't have to do it themselves they just see me doing it me being silly and you know being i've realized this being an adult is is exhausting and and when my parents used to say to me when i was younger these are the best years of your life i'm like surely they're not and they're not childhood yeah they said these are the best years of life and i was like that can't be true In some ways it is.

6:49In some ways it is because, like you said, our naivety is ruined by experience. Yeah, hormones and experience. Yeah, that's literally what it is, right? And there's always something amazing. That's why Peter Pan kicks ass. You got him on as well. Yeah, I got him on next. Peter, tell me about it. What was your relationship with that dog, your nanny? That was weird, wasn't it? The nanny was a dog. Was it a dog? It was called Nanny. Was it actually a Norlands trained dog? That was weird. It was weird. Yeah, I just thought of that.

7:31It actually is weird. Why was the Nanny the dog? Yeah, I don't know. What would it do? I don't know. You're getting this ready? You're getting this ready? Sounds like Chewbacca. Fish fingers. That's why I like doing Junior Bake Off, because the kids are so funny. And also it's funnier than it's nice that they're other people's kids as well. So they go home at the end of the day.

8:09I was very lucky to do eight out of ten cats a couple of times. I did Countdown as well, and I did it with Sean Locke. Yeah. How did he treat you? uh he could be like scum and i liked him even more for it and you know what's so funny what was so brilliant and i kid you not this is how amazing it was we did 810 cats that's funny we did 810 cats yeah the next and we spent i don't know five six hours together the next night yeah because you're there all day Yeah, the next night I met him outside the Groucho Club in Soho. Right. And I went, Sean, and he went, oh, come on, we can have a photo. And I was like, no, I was with you.

8:53I was with you last night. He didn't recognise you. He didn't recognise me. It was literally like 12 hours later, didn't recognise you. I said to him, because I only did it a couple of times because he said, oh, why don't you come on? because, you know, this is when he was not very well and it was just a sort of chance to hang around with him. And I said, Sean, I said, I've noticed that when the other comedians are doing the, you know, that Dictionary Corner thing, which is often like new comedians getting a little five-minute bit. I said, you don't laugh at them if you don't find them funny. I said, you know, and it kind of looks a bit awkward.

9:33I said, you know, it wouldn't hurt just to laugh. And he goes, I don't want to encourage them. And that was sort of his. So good. Yeah. It was like he wasn't, I mean, he was interested in what people thought, I guess, but not to that extent. Not like me when I'm thinking, how do I look? You know, I'll laugh. Yeah. Where do you want me to laugh? Which camera do you want me to laugh down? I'll do that. I'll do that. So eager to please. Yeah. I'll do that. Yeah, I'll do that. It's unusual in a comic because most of us are kind of at heart people pleases. When he died, how, I mean, I think for many of you guys who are such good friends with him, that was pretty tough, wasn't it?

10:19Well, yeah. I mean, this is the reality of getting older, unfortunately. Someone said to me the other day that it's the interesting people that die and you're left with the dull people, which is like a really awful prospect, isn't it? I mean, obviously that's not true. Yeah, it was awful. I mean, he was, you know, he was unwell for a long time and he kept it hidden and was very kind of funny about it, you know, in a way. That's what I find scary about life is that, and I've got, I'm at the ripe old age of 22, 35, where suddenly I sort of, you know, I think about parents and all these, life suddenly goes.

11:02Yeah, it speeds up, certainly, yeah. It suddenly gets, like, I feel like age of, like, 0 to 15 years took ages. And then it just gets quicker and quicker and quicker as we grow up. And it's scary. Yeah, yeah, it is scary. But that's why we have to enjoy the moment. And on that note, goodbye.

11:26One of the great gifts to me was, although I wasn't cut out to be a doctor, what I learned from being a doctor for, you know. Seven years. When I was in medical school for five, but then I was only really a doctor for two, three maybe, was seeing people dying. you know people who uh had saved money all their life who had you know been jogging and were fit and you know it seemed to me it was completely random when your moment came really and i thought and it was clear to me you've got to you've got to make the most of it and you've got to you know life is short and that was um and everyone learns that lesson actually but and you're beginning to learn it you know i can hear uh but often it doesn't come till you're 50 60 whatever what what is important in life the important the important thing is not what you think it is when you're younger you know it's not money it's not uh houses and uh stuff it's success it's not even it's not success it's i mean you know you need enough of this stuff but uh you know it's it's actually the process it's the day-to-day it's the you know um you know one of them uh my wife and my sort of happiest times is we for some reason it's stuck in our mind we were sitting on a bench in nice eating a cream bun sharing this massive cream bun I love that, the simplicity of it.

13:05Yeah. And it's actually those things. It's not even like, you know, everyone says, oh, I've seen my baby being born. It's not actually even those. It's just a laugh, you know, with the kids in the car or, you know, breaking into song when you're, you know, hearing a song on the radio and you all sing. You know, it's just, it's actually a lot of those kind of mundane things. Why was that moment with the bun so great? It just seemed kind of, I don't know, perfect, I suppose. Yeah.