Russell T Davies - On Dr Who, Grief and Gay Representation on TV

0:00And if you look at my stuff, look, my stuff breaks down into Doctor Who and gay. And really, that's all I've done. It's quite right that I don't drive. I would murder people. I basically have never left the pram. I always save for a rainy day and then one day it rains. How to Fail is brought to you by Arla Lacto Free. Delicious dairy with all the taste, easier to digest. Welcome to How to Fail with me, Elizabeth Day. This is the podcast that treats all failure as a learning opportunity. Before we get into this episode, please do remember to like, follow and subscribe to ensure that you never miss a single conversation.

0:56collect it. Tonight, we feast! An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up fees, may I buy. Some evil thing happened here. Three people die in a quiet suburb, in the same house, years apart. It's not a coincidence. This wasn't ghosts and goblins, okay? These were From Sony Music Entertainment, this is What Happened to the Harrisons. Start listening today, wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribers to The Binge can listen to all episodes, all at once, ad-free. Russell T. Davis was born and raised in Swansea, the child of two classics teachers. His home was filled with talk of myths and heroes and the downfall of civilizations.

1:49themes he has made central in his work as one of the UK's foremost TV writers and showrunners. Davis read English at Oxford and started out on youth programmes before writing for Coronation Street and in 1999 blazing onto the scene with Queer as Folk. The groundbreaking show, with its frank depictions of gay sex, garnered controversy and popularity in equal measure, attracting 3.5 million viewers per episode. From there, Davis wrote hit after hit, Bob and Rose, A Very English Scandal, Years and Years, It's a Sin, and of course, a wildly successful revival of the long-running BBC show Doctor Who.

2:30He was awarded an OBE in 2008, has been nominated for countless BAFTAs and has won four. His work is perhaps best described as radical with a giant beating heart. In his new memoir, The Queerest of Folk, Davis himself compares it to battling through fog and soup and sewage, which might lead to a million dead ends. But maybe his fellow writer, Frank Cottrell Boyce, put it best. When asked what his greatest contribution was to British TV drama, Cottrell Boyce answered simply, saving it from extinction. Russell T. Davis, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you for that good old Frank. And a good old Frank.

3:14Checks in the post. Lovely man. Really wonderful man. It was an education and a joy reading your book, The Queerist of Frank. Oh, thank you. Because I love TV almost as much as you do. Almost. And not only have you written so much of the TV that has shaped our last few decades, but you love consuming it. Yes. What is it about TV? To this day. The other day, my boyfriend never watches TV. it's all clips and streaming with him and the other day I made him sit down and watch the afternoon quizzes on ITV like Tipping Point and then The Chase by the end he was completely sold he loved The Chase he was completely devoted to it he's like going that's one of the best afternoons I've had in ages so it still works yes thank you thank you for educating him quite frankly what was your earliest memory of television?

4:03it's literally Doctor Who I hate to be obvious but you can look up the dates I was three years old and William Hartnell regenerated into Patrick Troughton, the first Doctor, into the second Doctor. I remember that, and it's missing from the archives. If you could take a little wire and download my memory onto the screen, we'd recover a lost episode. I genuinely remember it. I was terrified, absolutely terrified. What was the experience of writing a book like rather than a TV? Kind of lovely. I mean, I like writing full stop. I love the fact it's called a memoir. I found that very posh, a memoir.

4:36I thought memoirs were written like in Parisian attics with a quill, and I'd be dying of consumption. It's a memoir. So that makes me laugh. I never called it that. The publishers call it that. I was a memoir. I thought it was just me, really. For example, there's a lot about my husband in there, my lovely husband who passed away eight years ago this month. And it's nice to kind of bring him back to life and memorialise him and kind of enshrine him. He'd be laughing so much at the thought that he was in a book anywhere in print. So yeah, I'm really happy to do that. Your late husband, Andrew, I found those chapters so extraordinarily moving to read.

5:09Oh, thank you. I'm so sorry for your loss and I hadn't realised it was this month eight years ago. Yes, weirdly. September's always very strange for me because he'd been ill for years but he started being specifically ill on the 29th of August about the 29th of September he was dead. The month literally went like that. So every September is strange for me. I can literally remember the gradations of his illness going down and down and down and down. So yeah, it's forever written into September that. How do you cope with that muscle memory? Oh I like remembering it I'm glad that it's, I'm happy to remember if I went through a September without thinking about it I think that was rather odd and sometimes you do, you miss a day you go oh that was the day you went in the hospital and I kind of berate myself for missing things so I'm always happy to think of him I think it's like, I don't find that painful, I find it natural Yes, he He died of a specific brain tumour.

6:07Yeah, glioblastoma multiforme. I'm so glad you said it and I didn't have to. Long words, yeah. And we'll perhaps talk a bit more about it later, but he was given this prognosis, which he didn't want to know his prognosis. Nope, never asked. He never knew how long he had. But you look at the statistics, he had about 18 months to live and he lived for eight years. And sometimes I wonder if he lived for eight years because he never had a prognosis. He was never expecting to die, which I don't like to give that out as advice. it's like that's how it worked for him if you might be suffering out there from from that or know people with it everyone's different maybe for some people knowing the prognosis helps them helps them put their life in order but for him i think i mean there were many many times those eight years where we'd end up in casualty at four in the morning and he'd have the worst headache he'll be throwing up and he never went into hospital thinking this could be it this is it he just think oh this is annoying i'm in real pain i've got to fix this so maybe that helped How is it with your boyfriend now?

7:04Yeah Do you talk about Andrew with him? All the time My lovely boyfriend Oliver is completely respectful And when I make him sit and watch The Chase I'm like, Andrew, love this, watch this Like that, all the time, non-stop And they're still I still sit there going, oh God, there's a million stories A million anecdotes And anything in my house will remind me of something that happened on and on ago He hasn't complained yet Anyway You cared for Andrew during those eight years. And you've described yourself in various ways as sort of addicted to work and TV. During that time, you did less, but you produced two of my favourite shows of yours.

7:42Oh, right. You wrote It's a Sin, or It Got Made, and Years and Years. Both of them astonishing and both of them dark, as well as being warm and wonderful and the classic Russell T Davies mix. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When you think about those shows now, do you feel, gosh, that's really enmeshed with what was going on in my life? I wonder. I mean, you're getting old anyway. When you put it like that, I kind of think my work has taken a darker turn. I think with Tiptoe recently, which is the darkest thing in the world. And maybe that's part of it. Maybe that his illness and death has darkened me. But I'm getting older anyway.

8:20god I could sit here and talk for three hours about my arthritis that's that's the real bastard thing so maybe that's aging or maybe that's maturing or maybe I think I think I think there's more of a happiness in my stuff that's maybe slightly fading but maybe that's just being 63 I don't know it's a sin in particular you write in the book about how you know it's taken a lifetime for you to be ready to write that yeah yeah it's funny when I look at the book now What I hadn't realized was when I come to write something, how long it's been sitting, waiting in my mind. I wasn't aware of that, except as I wrote chapter after chapter, I was going, oh, I thought of this 20 years before I wrote it.

8:59And that's a constant theme. I go, oh, wow, I didn't know that. And there still is that store of ideas waiting. I once read somewhere, I once read this great saying that said, you will have every idea you will ever have before the age of 16. And you spend the rest of your life coming to terms with that. Now, whether that's true or not, it doesn't matter. it's interesting yes it's very interesting and if you look at my stuff look my stuff breaks down into doctor who and gay and really that's all i've done and that's all there before i was 16 that was there ticking away all i've done is like write different versions of that ever since so maybe there's something in that it's a sin in particular because you were tackling the aids crisis yeah and there was a moment in your memoir the queries for folk where you quote a friend of yours and it was gosh it was such a strong quote i actually sent it to a friend of mine who'd lived through the same period which one it was about how you sent your friends back home to die in their childhood bedrooms while their parents kept them hidden from the neighbors i mean i wrote five hour drama and i could have just done that one sentence actually what an astonishing time and that lived with me for 40 years i mean the thing about it's a sin was that when the age crisis came along i fit that age I was 18 in 1981 I was leaving home in 1981 when that virus first appeared in Britain and and I've lived through that crisis and I've lived through the prep and the invention of medication and and now the astonishing world we have now we can just take a pill a day and be completely fine we're untransmittable undetectable means untransmittable etc I mean what a what a story and I had to address the Manchester vigil the other day and which is a very sad occasion where we remember all those we've lost and all those who fought.

10:46But actually, also, the story of HIV and AIDS is one of the greatest successes in medical history because there's still no cure, but it's being beaten. And that was initially led by the public, by the community, by when the government wasn't paying attention, when the NHS wasn't paying enough attention at the beginning. It was literally a community uprising of people who came together and raised money and demanded research and demanded medicine and demanded better conditions. It's an astonishing thing to read. Like we recently had the COVID vaccine, the creation of that was an astonishing success, but was piggybacking off a lot of what had been learned throughout the HIV years.

11:25So it's a tragic story. It's not only a tragic story. That's what I love about it. Yes. That's a great metaphor for so much of your work, really. I suppose, yeah. Queer as folk. Now, until I read... Absolutely. Phil, there was no seamless link to rimming. But I want to talk about the rimming scene. I know. My career comes down to this in the end. Hello. Welcome, everyone. I had forgotten that it was 1999. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Long time ago now. When they were discussing in the House of Lords, lowering the age of consent for homosexual couples. Yes, what a primitive world that was. Unbelievable. And Section 28 was still there then.

12:02Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing. And you wrote a rimming scene. I did. Tell us about writing the rimming scene and whether you thought, gosh, this is a bit, I don't know whether this is going to get. I think a lot of us thought a lot of quearest folk would never get broadcast. At the same time, that's not true. Two things are true simultaneously. And also Channel 4 exists to show that kind of stuff and still has supported me for many, many decades now. So it felt like the right thing to do. But I remember very specifically thinking I wanted something that was outside Nathan's imagination because as a young gay boy completely closeted and silent, he would have been fantasizing about all sorts of things.

12:43He would have been masturbating over all sorts of things and he would have had ideals and wishes and hopes and dreams. And I don't think that would have been in his imagination. I needed something absolutely new to happen to him that night. And literally bear in mind the lack of access to porn in those days. What a simple world that was. And now, of course, it's beamed into the brains of eight-year-olds. It's like it's rotting our society right at the heart. But then it was precious and strange and belonged in London only, in the back streets of London. So it needed something absolutely new and revolutionary and brilliant to happen to Nathan that night, to just confirm and make him joyous and say, yes, you're on the right path now.

13:25And I wanted that to be a physical eye. I didn't want people talking and saying, hey, be gay, glad to come out. It's like I needed an explosion in his head. And that's what that was. One of the things I hear a lot from listeners is how tiring it can be when your mind just doesn't settle. And I can only imagine this feels even heavier with intrusive thoughts. It's that quiet sense of being worn down by something you never asked for and never wanted, but just can't seem to switch off. If you struggle with this, I want to tell you about NoCD, because it's a resource that genuinely helps people. No CD provides specialized treatment for OCD.

14:05And what I appreciate about their approach is how human it feels. You're matched with a licensed therapist trained in ERP therapy. That's exposure and response prevention. And over time, you learn skills that help your OCD symptoms become manageable so you can live more of the life you want to live. If you're struggling with OCD or unrelenting intrusive thoughts, No CD can help. Book a free 50-minute call to get started at learn.nocd.com slash fail. Your first failure is your failure to learn how to drive. Yes, to this day. Also, I've saved many people's lives, so this is not a failure. It's a lifesaver.

14:44It's like I can't and it terrifies me. To this day, I sit in a car. You can drive, I bet. I sit there thinking you're a genius. You're a genius driving that thing. How you do it, it's quite right that I don't drive. I would murder people. On my last, I had three tests. On my last test, right, you're at a junction. Is that what it's called? The things, roads, and I'm at the wheel. So I'm at a junction. I'm like a crossroads, and I want to turn. Turn right, says the instructor. So there's oncoming traffic. On the test, I turned into the oncoming traffic. All the oncoming traffic had to stop while I turned right.

15:20And I thought that was right. That's what I'd be like as a driver. Okay. I actually thought that was right, because even on a test I was kind of distracted and not taking it seriously or thinking I was king of the road or something yes this is my right of way thank you very much that when at the end of that test he said I'm sorry you failed I'm quite right too yes absolutely no complaints here that was my third test and I got worse with every test and at that point I came in that thinking right so I must have been about 25 or something 24 and I came out of that test thinking right now no, you've got to earn enough money to get taxis for the rest of your life.

15:56And that's what I've done. That's the motivation. That's what I've done. Honestly, it's like, and I swear, it's like there must be five or six occasions in my life where I've really stood there, God, I wish I could drive now. But I think every driver has five or six occasions in their life where their car's broken down, where they wish the same thing. So I think I've kind of leveled out along the way. I think the money levels out. I haven't had to buy a car, all those taxi fares. And I love a black cab. they're dying now won't get Uber absolutely refuse union breaking bastards can't bear them won't allow them in my phone even won't even have their give me a black cab totally with you why do you think you're such a bad driver you mentioned they're being distracted and I wonder if there's part of you that is so interested in other people that you're constantly looking out the window that is part of it looking at oh look at that god help you there's a sexy man on the pavement I'm like yeah like that also So I was terrified of it.

16:53Absolutely terrified. I think because I knew what a bad driver I was. And for me, a lesson was like a test. You know, people are scared before their test. I was like that before every lesson. I took no joy in sitting there. I was never happy. I never felt right. Honestly, I hate it. I hate it to this day. Do you find it easy to trust other people who are driving you? Oh, yes. I don't think about it. Yes, I'm like, basically, I've never left the pram. This is what I've done. I've just had a life where I get taken everywhere. Like, that's good for me. Thank you very much. What a lovely day. Because you also said you don't ride a bicycle.

17:25No. You've never learned. I don't ride a bike. No, I tried someone else's bike. I fell off once. I'm a real coward. I am six foot six. It's a long way to fall. It's interesting that you're not a coward in your work. You definitely sort of push things and take risks. No, that's true. I'm not going to break my elbow doing it, though. I'll go headfirst to the windscreen. Not yet. It's no physical danger. it's quite is it timid i don't seem timid do i no yet i am when it comes to if you put me if you did a test and put me around a wheel now that's when you see me as timid about oh my god oh my god what you press on these things with your feet i can't believe it all works the gear oh my god no no no it's terrifying i totally get you i find it deeply rational to be terrified of driving even though i do drive yeah i have to make a conscious i find it easier when i'm driving on my own because I don't have the responsibility of passengers.

18:17Right. I have to make a conscious effort not to imagine a worst case scenario, which is like a terrible motorway pile up. Yeah. And I can see that image creeping into my head and I have to replace it with a positive image of me arriving somewhere. So you actually think that? Yes. Oh my God. Wow. Well, I'm allowed on the road. I've never driven down a motorway. So that's never, ever done that. There we go. Never, ever done it. And thank God I'd be, oh no, I'd be dangerous. Talking of imagery, you write in your book about how you write TV scripts and how you often start with an image and there's a man and woman sitting there and she's furious with him.

18:55And that plops into your mind and then you have to explore it. Can you tell us a little bit more about your… It's funny writing. It's like all day, every day, I'm turning things into dialogue and I've typed so much that actually I see it in chunks of dialogue. I can hear you talking and it's chunks and then I reply like this and then I start to invent. I mean, I'm thinking about what I'm saying now. But if we're out there chatting, I'm kind of absorbing everyone and I'm turning it into dialogue. And I'm literally imagining imaginary people all the time in my head, not just when I'm sitting at my desk, not just when I'm going to sleep.

19:33Night and day, there are people popping up. and if someone out there had said a funny line about Christmas, I'd allocate that to someone in my head. Oh, right, she could say that, that woman. And I don't even know who she is. And maybe 20 years later, I'll find a place for that line. I literally sometimes find myself writing lines that I've thought of to say for years. I'm not just thought of the lines as a sentence in my head, but someone saying it. It's a bit mad, isn't it? It's like ghost images in my head. They're not even ghostly. They're like real people. I think the most interesting thing in the world that we never talk about is that when we dream we invent people do you do that?

20:11It's like I invent people in absolute detail who don't exist. How do we do that? Why do we do that? Why not do we I can see people in my dreams with freckles and hair and their clothes and everything and then they're gone so I'm slightly like that waking as well. It's more vague the image. Oh god I just sound nuts now You don't at all. You don't and i don't know if it's an argument oh my god i'll be walking around my house doing the washing up and or watching the telly or going up and downstairs and two people can be having an argument in my head completely unconnected to any script i'm writing i don't mean it's a script i mean it's like they're arguing i you'll hear something on the radio the radio will say it's foggy today or something and then two people will start playing that like table tennis in my head it's foggy today well you can't go then can you what but you think I'm going to go?

21:04Where are you going? And off they go and sometimes, that sounds like nonsense, but sometimes you get to a good line that way. Well, I'm going because blah, blah, blah. Oh, good line. Like, and that gets kind of stored as a little treasure in my head then. It's fascinating. It's non-stop. It's almost like you're a medium. I'm very clearly a large. Like the other Russell. It's almost like you're picking up on some kind of collective consciousness. It is, except There's no such thing. Don't get religious with me now. No such thing. But it's like, it is weird. And it's also, it's an enormous comfort as well.

21:43And it does mean that when I'm doing a script, the characters in the script do do that as well. They kind of march to the front. You mentioned in the book that Andrew, before he was diagnosed, would get headaches and then would sometimes get images of people, like a smiling Edwardian lady. It turned out to be a form of epilepsy. he would have when we realised he was starting to become ill maybe I've got a form of epilepsy he would see in his mind, not in real life he would see in his mind he would see an Edwardian lady smiling at him sarcastically and he would feel sick can you imagine? what? I mean as a man full of images in my head myself I was like what?

22:26what? what? what? and then it's funny because I went and did like It was the feeling sick that was a worry. And then you get blinding headaches. Do you think that's something strange going on here? I went to my little internet searches. And I just used all the wrong words. I used images, hallucinations, I typed. Eidetic images, I typed, because the whole thing was clever. And the only word I didn't use was seizures. If I typed in seizures, we had to go to his diagnosis six months earlier. Because I thought seizures were your classic tonic-clonic fit and the stuff you see on casualty. Seizures can take any form.

22:57seizures can take the form of seeing an Edwardian lady smiling at you sarcastically isn't that weird? it is, I've never come across that and then after his first operations he had to take a lot of that epilepsy medication because it turned nasty as well he starts seeing people like there were just people in the garden trying to get into the windows and it was like what? and then even in the shower he thought someone was standing behind him that was the worst of his illness actually and very quickly and it was funny because like his regular doctor was away so they sent the psychologist who sat there saying does the television never talk to you like that and i was sitting there going no it's not that i was and you're supposed to shut up in these sessions i was that annoying husband go shut up like that and i don't know no he's not going mad he genuinely thinks there's someone in the shower with him when the right doctor came back dr mcbane who was just brilliant who just said oh that's that's a seizure that's epilepsy so she upped his uh epilepsy medication and they vanished I mean it was at my most powerless then there isn't anyone there but the nasty different shapes and forms that can take Andrew was a civil servant so a different world incredibly supportive of you and your career you sound like you had a wonderful relationship and I know that this is an impossibly large question but I also know it will help so many people because there are so many people grieving at any given time how did you cope are you coping with that loss and that grief you just do don't you it's like and what you realize is everyone does i mean actually find me someone without grief they're gonna be quite young friend of mine recently said i've been to my first funeral he was 40 i was like where have you been what's happened to you what little gilded cage have you been living in it's extraordinary is it 40 it's like what the hell and i always kind of say to myself that the day after hiroshima everyone went to work it's like the worst thing in the world happened everyone got up the next day and went to work because you've got to and you do you say i have no magic solutions to this i wish elizabeth i could sit here and say i do this and think of that but there isn't a magic solution other than the fact that you need to earn a wage you need to have your tea i remember when andrew died one of his friends said to me don't forget to eat i was like not a problem really what a stupid thing to say i'm not going to forget to eat bless him he was being very kind i mean maybe it helped that he was ill for eight years so i knew it was on its way i don't think that's true because it's still a surprise when it happens even in the end he found that spent that final september going down and down and down still you wake up on september the 30th and be dead that's shocking like you're not ready for that no matter what but i'm lucky uh lovely family lovely friends um i always think as i say in the book i go on a ridiculous amount about we could afford to be ill.

25:48And that's a big, I get paid very nicely in my job. Not only that, but I save. I've saved and saved and saved for years, for decades. I always save for a rainy day and then one day it rained. And in those, we went to the Christie Hospital in Manchester for his treatment, which is one of Europe's biggest and best cancer hospitals, which we did. You'd sit at the Christie next to people who traveled miles to get there, who come to Manchester and stayed overnight. It was like a five minute drive from our house. We were so lucky to have that place. But you realize the busiest door in that entire hospital is there's a door where they sort out people's benefits.

26:22Because people have been told you can't go back to work. You've got to have six months off work. You've got to have a year off work. You're never going back to work. How are they going to live? We never had that problem because I'd saved and saved and saved. And he could have stayed ill for 10 years and we'd have been all right. So there's a comfort to that. And so everything you're talking about, being ready for losing him, we'd had the comfort and almost the elegance of being free to imagine that. And still it hits you like a brick. And still you carry on. Because actually the truth is what I just described in my job, all those voices, they don't stop.

26:56My thinking didn't stop. Actually, after he died, a month after that I delivered the last episode of Years and Years. Imagine the Years and Years production team. they must be like should we get someone else to write it I don't think they ever quite told me what a crisis they went through because they were waiting for the last episode and they were so lovely they dedicated the entire show to him on BBC One which is a really lovely thing to do but they must be going what the hell do we do now but of course I delivered it it's like actually once he's dead I had nothing else to do I wasn't going to sit in the house just sitting there I got on my job and I love my job and I wrote a great episode I think so you wrote such a great episode i think about years and years all the time do you wow really yeah all the time it's all happening now it's all happening sadly sorry i started watching it i just started dating the man who is now my husband oh i remember i was watching it in his flat in balham right and it was and it is such a brilliant piece of television but i had to take breaks yeah it's tough it's tough yeah yeah yeah in the way that it needs to be and it's impassioned and it's warm and dark and all of the things.

28:04And there's no question there, really. I just wanted to say that to you. It's important for me to say that to you because it's become one of those cultural reference points for me. Talk about how to fail. That died a death. It died an absolute death. It had the lowest viewing figures in the world. So much so, when it came to the national television awards, and I love the national television awards, it wasn't eligible for the long list. It wasn't for best, never mind best drama. It wasn't eligible for the long list for new drama. no matter what you thought of it, it was definitely new because its viewing figures were so low.

28:34They had a threshold below which you're not allowed to be nominated. We were below that threshold and that's how low the viewing figures were. And yet it's weird. People, well, obviously I've got a bit of confirmation bias because it's the one thing people want to talk to me about. But I do meet a lot of people who watched it. I think I've met them all now. You were the last. I was the one. You were the last. I tracked her down at last. That's so interesting. And what a good example of how sometimes great art is not valued in the way that it should be at the moment it's put out there. Well, it's funny.

29:02Years later, it went to Netflix and it worked there. It got to number six on the viewing figures, which was that's ferocious competition there. So it's like it waited its turn. Yeah. And I mean, it terrifies me. The one thing that happens in years and years is Trump launching a nuclear missile, which I do not believe will not happen. That's going to happen. How can a man that mad not use the biggest maniacal toy that we have in the world. It's going to happen. That's on its way. Nice to meet you. Let's move on to your second failure. Let's sit here in the ashes and embers of a dying world. Oh, my God.

29:39And moving on. Yeah, so you're... What's my second one? Remind me. Well, I'm going to change the orders because we mentioned drawing. Oh, yes. It's your failure to draw, as you put it. You said to me, I'm a really good cartoonist. I am, I swear. And every day I think I'm in the wrong job. Yeah, yeah. Because you started out doing sort of graphic design stuff. I did on a very light sense. I illustrated stories from BBC Wales. They had a Jack and Ori type show. I did theatre posters. I did very lightly. I illustrated a series of books about the confessions of a vicar's wife. Unbelievably. They're on my shelf.

30:13Until book number three came along in which she gave advice on what to do if your child is homosexual. Which is to pray that away. And I said I can't illustrate this. I literally sent that back to the publishers going you're on your own now imagine she put that in print I can't remember her name now but there's some book they're still on a shelf somewhere Conventions of a Vicar's Wife so I was kind of like I did some illustration I'm in the very first edition of Blitz magazine do you remember that? issue one I'm in that which and it's a very I can draw well but I can cartoon really well it's kind of asterixy, peanutsy strong line, heavy shadow strip right now I'm not kidding you it's nothing I like more than a collar it's like my mind right now is drawing the shadow under your collar I'm obsessed with this that you've got a lapel it's a lapel there and as well as those voices of talking people I'm like drawing a straight line and there's the line of your lapel and I cannot not draw the shadow under the lapel it's like a compulsion and I'm drawing that in my head all the time all day it's like there's a great line your hair has got a great scoop to it so that underneath it falls into absolute black and that's in very simple cartooning terms that's beautiful to draw it's beautiful hair full stop i love thank you i love how visually you it's non-stop i cannot not do it so and and it's almost like an itch in my hand and i'm really sad that i don't do it more because actually when i was really when i drew a lot kind of like my late teens into my mid-20s i would draw and draw and draw all the time i was allowed to draw i used to cover my school desk in cartoons and the teachers would let me it's like they they think oh they were beautiful these things and and and amazing scenarios and when i went to granada i had a fantastic secretary called vanessa in the days when secretaries were called vanessa she wasn't my pa she was my secretary and i love vanessa but still mates to this day and i used to draw so much that she covered my desk in paper she got huge sheets of paper and covered my desk and i'd all day i'd sit there and draw on it and then she'd take them away she said she framed them and put them up at home and she probably just chucked them in a bit i do believe that the more you draw the better you get but the opposite of that corollary is that the word yes yes i never say that normally corollary um is that the less you draw the worse you get and i feel like it's i really feel like a failure i feel it's i feel like i've let it down i feel like it's decayed and i feel like it's a physical thing in my hand i don't think it's in my brain i think it's in my hand and i think i can draw and i don't draw and also I'm getting older now it's like if you look at the greatest cartoonist in the world it's Charles M.