Russell Howard: Comedy, Fame & Fatherhood

0:00Mo Gilligan: Yes, what's good people? My name is Mo Gilligan and this is my podcast beginning, middle and end. Now, my guest today has built a record-breaking career using humour to connect, question and uplift. Whether he's poking fun at politics or observing everyday life, he remains one of the most positive and universally loved comedians in Britain today. We speak about everything from touring to TV shows to being a dad. We also talk about his new stand-up show, Don't Tell the Algorithm, which he'll be touring next January. It's the globally loved, hilarious Russell Howard. How are you and yourself the other ways though, man?

0:43Because you've been touring, touring, man. I have before this. Yeah, man. And now I'm back in the top secret.

0:50Mo Gilligan: Yeah, I think when I done your podcast, you was touring then as well. I was I was doing kind of European stuff and Americans I haven't toured in the UK for like two years so I've been doing like Europe and America and Australia yeah yeah I always see it on your socials where I'm like Russell's Russell's working man before I was working Russell's working working man I love it but you're from Bristol you speak about Bristol a lot yes you're a very proud what's it called Bristolian yeah did that kind of shape your comedy because you mentioned it a lot You mentioned Bristol a lot. You also mentioned your brother.

1:26Mo Gilligan: Your brother's got epilepsy, right? How did that start to shape your comedy world in some ways? Because my mum is from Wales and Bristol's right up the road. Do you know what I mean? So does your mum have a Welsh accent? She does. My mum grew up just outside of Cardiff in Barry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'd go there every other summer for that summer holidays. So my granddad is Jamaican. So there's a massive Jamaican community in where my granddad's from. So my granddad's from a place called Grangetown in Cardiff. There's a massive Bangladeshi community, a massive Somali community, massive Chinese community.

2:09Mo Gilligan: And then there's a big Jamaican Caribbean community there as well. So what was Bristol like? Just all shivering their tits off in Wales. Do you know what I mean? For Jamaica to bury. there's a lot of Jamaicans in Bristol though there are yeah there's a lot of Jamaicans in Bristol yeah the carnival my cousin Lee likes to frequent that yeah yeah in answer to your question does it shake me what I would say about the West Country is there's a there's a gentleness to it and everyone's kind of it's quite a sing song yeah and it'll be alright do you know what I mean it sort of has that kind of flow to it so maybe that's and I have a lot of cousins a lot of uncles I spent a lot of time, you probably did as well, sort of at weird family parties, you know, sort of observing these kind of like gargoyles and strange, interesting extrovert characters.

3:02I remember like, I don't even know if he was an uncle, just somebody and I'm like eight and he's got a pint of cider and he's like, I could drink three of these, kill you and not know I'd done it. And you're like eight, but just kind of then running over to your cousins and going, he's mental. You know what I mean? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's sort of like my childhood was very much that, you know, like eating crisps in car parks and watching adults and chatting with my cousins. You know what I mean? It was sort of very, I don't know, just stories and incidents and everything's kind of in a state of flux and flow.

3:38Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, of course. And then you'd be at home just going, what the fuck? And then at school talking about it. So it's very chatty and very bubbly and extrovert. And just loads of kids and loads of kind of family members coming around. And that's my childhood, I would say.

3:57Mo Gilligan: Because the reason why art is because Bristol, whenever I've gone to Bristol, it's one of those places I play that feels like the most... It's like you're saying, like, it's a very extrovert of a city where, you know, you still see, like, art graffiti on the wall. Do you know what I mean? It's not just, like, graffiti. It's, like, art graffiti. there's a really good nightlife still in Bristol. I know a lot of people from Cardiff would go to Bristol on a night out. Do you know what I mean? Did you ever go to Lakota? Have you ever been there? I've not been to Lakota, no. That was kind of like this sort of legendary kind of like club in Bristol.

4:31And during COVID, like legends, they opened up the car park so you could do gigs there. So I was travelling from London to Lakota to do these kind of, these gigs in this car park. Sometimes it was raining and everyone was covered over and it was like tables of eight, you know, but it's, I don't know what it is, it's just got a, it has a nice energy Bristol, it has a nice, you know, it's got a little bit of, you know, it's got a little bit of spice to it, but there is, I don't know, there's a, it's able to laugh at itself. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah,

5:04Mo Gilligan: a hundred percent. It's an accent, everyone's like, ooh, ah, you know, but, but everyone's sort of fine with it and that's how we speak. We don't really mind. It's a bit like Birmingham. I think Birmingham and Bristol have that sort of thing in common where it was like a much mocked accent and then Birmingham got the Peaky Blinders and just left us behind. But there's never been like a Bristolian Tommy Shelby. Do you know what I mean? It's not going to happen. But it's probably a similar thing with Wales that it's like, you know, it's just got that slow way of speaking and everyone's like, oh, you know, sheep shag or whatever.

5:37But all those kind of gags. Yeah, man. But actually, there's kind of lots of community and comedy. Yeah. You know what I mean?

5:46Mo Gilligan: I've always found that there's a real beautiful sense of community in Bristol. Like, I love gigging there because people are really up for the show. It reminds me of when I do a show in maybe like Brighton, where it has this community of people that are just like, yeah, we don't really give a fuck, you know. Say what you want. Do what you want. Yes. Yeah, it's really, it's very authentic. Where's your favourite place to gig in the UK? Favourite phrase to gig is probably Manchester's up there because I was going to Manchester when I was in my early 20s just to go out. So Manchester's always felt like home from home.

6:20Mo Gilligan: Got a lot of friends in Manchester. Birmingham is actually one of my favourites. Birmingham's a great city to do comedy. Do you know what it was? Outside of London, it was the first place that I'd had a big audience that wasn't London. That's funny. yeah it's so like but those moments when you the things are beginning to change i remember when i was like 23 and i suddenly from nowhere like i would go to lincoln university and people would be waiting to watch me so i was like randomly quite big in lincoln do you know what i mean and then it's so funny isn't it that you suddenly go oh god i can't wait to go there or like sheffield or like these little comedy clubs where people have seen you yeah and then you have to have a new show for them when you see them again.

7:02Yeah, yeah, yeah.

7:02Mo Gilligan: It's exciting. Because you studied at university as well and studying at uni, what was your trajectory when you were younger? Because I'm so intrigued to how you got into comedy because I know in your show, Good News, you would always reference like your brother a lot. You know, you'd always like reference your brother and I guess there's like something about having a brother that has this playfulness that can sometimes shape your comedy but then you can go to university because you've studied this thing which is like i'm just meant to do this thing at this stage yeah does that make sense i did university because everyone else did and i kind of you know sort of got swept along with that's kind of what you do and the first week that i did it i found an open spot night and went and did my first ever gig the first week i did uni and then my course was basically like this bedfellow to my hobby so i i would do uni and i worked not massively hard but just cracked on and then i'd be doing gigs in like bristol and plymouth and bath and worcester and swindon and anywhere sort of in the southwest and that was my i guess a bit like like a mobile dj do you know what i mean like but that was that was it and i just got the bug you know like there's two things that happen i remember the first time i kicked a football i was like well this is all i'm gonna do yeah do you know what i mean you know you like eight nine and you're like well this why would you do anything other than kick this yeah and then sort of about 16 i kind of got into like a lee evans video and a billy connelly video and i sort of just got obsessed with that and then i did my first gig when i was 18 and just changed my life because i was going i'm gonna do this you know it was so absolute i it was such a perfect night out like if you're if you're not the best looking bloke you know and you go into a nightclub like it's it's fine but then if you're doing a gig and you're being funny and you're you get to orchestrate the night out it's like why would you not want to do that yeah and um yeah i just i got probably how like singers get or artists get or filmmakers get or writers get you when you have that first itch you know what it's like that you know and you came up in a slightly different way you were doing kind of social media things but you must have had that similar thing where you you go oh something's happening here there's a resonance and people are like, I'm kind of getting something and it's a really, it's such a lovely feeling of going, oh, I've made my own fire.

9:41Mo Gilligan: Yeah, yeah. I need to show other people my fire. That sounds wanky, but do you know what I mean? No, that's true. There's definitely that thing of, I liked being good at something and liked getting better at it. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? It's kind of, that's how I would describe it. I also look at it as like when you play the video game Mario where you get the star and in that early stage you're just running through and everything's just working for you. So you're not really worried about a bad gig or a good gig. You're like, oh my God, I'm just gigging and I'm actually getting paid for it.

10:12Mo Gilligan: But people want to come. I don't even know that people know who I am. But I'm turning up and there might be someone at the door that's like, we've come for an hour to see you and you're like, what, to see me? Yeah. Oh, okay. Thanks. Thanks a lot for that, man. What a lovely way of looking at the world though. like does Mario ever have feelings? Do you know what I mean? But it's like, it's Pac-Man there going, God, I'm just banging against the wall. Do you know what I mean? But yeah, like Lara Croft when she's just kind of bouncing like that. But I don't know, particularly when you're a kid, it's just you're on this kind of quest to kind of go, I wonder if I can, like, I wonder if I can do that.

10:53You know, that kind of courage to kind of, and none of my family members were in like showbiz or anything like that. it was inconceivable and you tell your mates i'm gonna do stand-up like you're fucking mental why would you do that you know you can't do that and you think yeah i wonder you know so

11:10Mo Gilligan: did you have your first gig at 18 18 yeah what was that like before going on stage as opposed to after so my first gig i was sick beforehand i was terrified and and then i kind of went on stage and it was this kind of blur. I kind of felt like, okay, I think I've got this. I had moments where I was locked in and jokes worked and people were laughing and then I came off and was just like hyper and then realised instantly, I was like, that's me, that I knew I could do it. It's very interesting. A lot of comics that you meet, They either die on their first gig and then they kind of have this sort of sadomasochistic urge to replace that awful experience with something better.

12:02Or you're trying to emulate that first rush where you go, oh my God, it's a bit like catching a wave, I guess. If you're lucky enough, you go surfing, you catch your first wave and you're like, this is insane. And then you're kind of chasing that. And then the first six gigs I had were incredible. and then the seventh died in my ass and it and it broke me and i remember being in the green room just going oh my god oh my god i'm feeling like shame and embarrassment and just mortified and then kind of walking out and feeling everyone looking at me just oh geez but in my head going god i'm gonna have to get better because that can't happen again yeah so i was already like a lifer at that point i can't imagine what it must be like to die the first time you do it and have the kind of self-belief to go ah i'll be right again can you imagine that like genuinely imagine if you'd have died in front of 40 people 12 of whom were your mates yeah and they're like we can't ever speak tomorrow again like it would be so so awful yeah you know and um but that that's it really it just it was it was life-changing and suddenly you had this kind of mechanism through which you can do life that's what stand-up feels like it's probably the same as songwriting i guess yeah where you can have something terrible happen to you but there's always this part of your brain that's going there's probably a song in this there's probably a joke in this there's do you know what i mean it's kind of you know that's kind of the way that we now process existence which is not the best way of doing life.

13:40It's a really good way of doing comedy.

13:42Mo Gilligan: When you was on stage, did you feel like you knew what you was doing? I feel like as a comic, when I look back, I'm like, I had a few jokes here and there but I don't really think I knew what I was doing to the sense of like, I knew I was writing some jokes and I was telling them to people but I also was, I can't say I was winging it but I just had this confidence and belief that I was like, I don't really know what I'm doing, but I just know I can make people laugh. Yes. But then there was a moment where it clicked where I'd really looked at like, oh, I've just done a callback. I don't even know what...

14:19Mo Gilligan: I just referenced something. Yes. And it was only until I really started understanding comedy and I'm like, oh, okay, cool. So what am I doing? That's crowd work. And those things, then it was like, I'm ticking off this thing, you know? i think you always looked like you were enjoying yourself and that might have been your accidental superpower do you know what i mean like as in people probably saw you that first time you went hello and you because you've got a nice presence the audience probably went oh hello like you don't look nervy do you know what i mean and maybe i the the first feeling i had was my material wasn't good and it took me a long time to write funny but i could i could be funny or be a bit kind of awkward and then go oh that was a bit awkward i was able to like you know what i mean of like say something there was shit and then go i don't know why i thought that was funny but in my head and then suddenly they're like oh god he's a i was quite self-aware yes yeah that was my that was my little skill that i could go i don't know why you know you're very good at breaking down that fourth fall as comic an audience member that you address what's going on you go back to the comedy then you address it again and then you have you know you have a section of comedy that you go into you you have a really amazing unique ability to do that and the way you was able to transcend it on television was was a really unique skill that not a lot of people can do that you still felt like as an audience member from the TV, it's still translated in the audience, if that makes sense.

15:57Do you know, I got an amazing bit of advice when I was young. Somebody said to me, flirt with the camera. Like, act like the camera is somebody you're trying to impress. I just thought it was such a great... So it's not like you speak to the audience there and then you kind of look at the camera and you're trying to catch the camera's eye so that they're like, oh, he's kind of looking at me.

16:18Mo Gilligan: Do you know what I mean? I'm not saying I ever did that, but I always thought that was quite a useful way of because TV and stand-up are so different like particularly if you're doing a big room you're orchestrating it whereas if you're kind of doing it in front of the telly it's sort of just this little square do you know what I mean? I remember the first time I did Mock the Week I did stand-up in the room and it ripped it and then I watched it on telly and I didn't look at the camera once because I'm playing the kind of room so you're at home on your sofa going why is this prick not looking at me?

16:47Do you know what I mean? but because you're you're so concentrating on them but i don't know it's just it it's the same as anything it's sort of experience and sort of learning and standing on the shoulders of giants and seeing the way that people you like do it and go oh that's interesting and okay the way they do that oh see you know what i mean and we all there's there's a really nice ecosystem in stand-up where there aren't that many dicks it doesn't strike me most people are kind of all right and we're able to talk to each other and we have a shared experience that you and I both know what it feels like to smash a gig where everyone thinks we're a genius but also to die on our ass and know that feeling of walking out with your stomach twisted going oh my god what what was I ever thinking that I was funny so this right we've we've done war years do you know what I mean it's kind

17:40Mo Gilligan: of interesting and i think that shared experience is so vital in us comics talking to each other in the sense of when we're on stage we're not competing with each other so it's just like oh man i've done that gig what's it like it's a nice room you know people are like this or you know that there's that shared you know i've done a show yesterday and the guy who was hosting it said to me andrew mentzer so what's the crowd like yeah they're good but on the right hand side they're little bit Larry like comics do that like yeah that's the thing to look out for yeah so immediately I knew when I spoke to that right hand side I was like okay cool oh this is what you're on about and you're talking about it's very rare that comics would say no they're great yeah yeah talk to the right hand side yeah they're gonna love you yeah yeah do you know what I mean but it's such an English word that hey Larry like as soon as as soon as I hear Andrew say that I'm like Right.

18:36Do you know what I mean? It's so expressive, but you understand what it means. Like, I'm not sure, can crowds be leery in Europe?

18:44Mo Gilligan: Yeah, no. I don't mean they can. Like, you're not going to Holland and going, watch out, I'm very leery. Like, do you know what I mean? They've got a bit of Baltham tonight. You know? I feel like when I started doing shows in Europe, I don't know if you had this, actually. I want to ask you, because you do a lot of shows. Like, I remember doing a show, and I don't know if this is just my experience, but when I've done a show in Denmark, did you have this thing where they clap almost before the punchline at the lead up? Did you have that? Yeah, what I noticed, that they're so pleased with themselves that they've understood the joke, that they're applauding themselves.

19:21Yeah, yeah, yeah.

19:22Mo Gilligan: But it's wild. But they're literally listening to us in their second, sometimes third language. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because there are no Danish comedians in London. Schnoogle boogle foogle. You know, there's no keys to going, he's right, he's right, schnoogle boogle, foogle, we don't do that, you know. And they concentrate so much on what we're trying to say. What I love most is when you realise how different the language is. So I remember telling a story about somebody that nicked a cow, right? So nick a cow in England, steal a cow. In Sweden, nick, stab. so they're looking at me going why is why is he so jolly about the story where a cow is being maimed and in my head i'm like what the fuck's up with these people it's just a story about someone nicking a cow and every time i said nick and it wasn't until i got the end of it i went what happened and somebody explained it you're like oh my god but then there's so much comedy in that it you know you realize i've been talking to a danish comedian simon talbot actually we were on tour in America and we're on the tour bus and I said I said I'm exhausted man I'm just gonna hit the sack now you know what that means but if you're Danish and you hear another comedian saying he's so tired he's gonna hit the sack he thinks you're going into your bunk to punch your test like like and then I say to me she probably hit the sack too man he's like I'm not doing that but do you know what I mean it's like you realize there's all these extra layers in in Europe and kind of like slightly less so in America but then American audiences are like when you listen to those old specials and you hear a comedian tell a joke and then like two seconds later there's this huge laugh from the back and you go that just doesn't happen yeah in England people laugh and then go next yes you know but there isn't that kind of rolling oh my god you know and you realize it's england i would say is the hardest place to do stand-up it's a great place to do stand-up but there is definitely that thing of come on in mate yeah come on you know rather than oh my god we're in the presence of yeah yeah a king do you know what i mean it's just like it's so funny you say that because i feel like for me being a londoner and living in london my whole life the hardest place for me to do stand-up is here in London.

21:54Is that right?

21:54Mo Gilligan: Which is weird. Why is that? Because they're funny as well. I think, do you know what it is? One, it's they know me in a sense of like, we know you, we know where you're from, where I can talk about going on the tube or what it's like waiting for a coffee. And everyone relates to that. But then I think the concentration span of Londoners, because we're such in the rat race of life of like, okay, well, all right, well, the show is 45 minutes. I better start making my way because I don't want to be out here waiting to get onto the tube because they might close the tube and I can't get home it's like bro you'll get home the tube is five minutes you'll go from one place to another in five minutes but I feel like there is this spoiltness that we have for entertainment here where every day of the week depending how much money you earn you can go to see something different I remember once performing and there was like I was performing at Hammersmith once and it was me on there was 21 Savage the rapper at the O2 I think someone else was performing there was a football game happening and that doesn't happen when you go to other places in the UK sometimes maybe in Manchester but if Man United's on everyone goes to the United game and they might go to your thing after you have to almost kind of avoid doing your show if there's a big fixture on sometimes whereas I feel like London doesn't have that it's a little bit like New York but New York there's always something going on and they're kind of used to that in some ways but I do find London is the hardest place it's like when I look at you know you like you know it's like when you tour and you look at where you're gonna be and you're like that's gonna be the one I know is gonna be hard that's the one I've got really work for and I think it's also because I'm born and bred here and my audience know that so they kind of want material that's like okay cool do some stuff about South London knowing it like do some stuff about North London and do some stuff about him being from Stockwell.

23:49Mo Gilligan: I know you'll have something. And I will. But at the same time, I kind of want to crack on with the show. You don't want it to feel like a, all right, so where are you from? Wait, like 20 minutes of crowd work. You ever done that where you're performing? You're like, oh man, I've got to tell these jokes, man. And this show's an hour. And you're looking at your clock and you're like, you're like, bro, 20 minutes of crowd work, man. Why did I do that? so like for your like your rise in terms of being a comic in terms of you started off at a really young age 18 then you get like a show commissioned on bbc radio which was the milk run the so that was yeah i did that with my friend pitch and it was that it was we didn't get a commission it was like just a show on radio one i think called the milk run that was on at like two in the morning and basically this is a real me and Al picture often speak about this there's a real window into the so we go in for this creative meeting and they must have figured out pretty quickly that we were just using this job to fund stand up because I said they go what ideas for sketches have you got and I went oh loads so does it get paid monthly or do we and they were like we'll get to that in a minute and I went you know but when are we gonna But, you know, so we didn't really pay a huge amount of attention to that.

25:11We did a few sketches. They didn't put any of them on. And then the first sort of thing that we did outside of stand-up, I did was probably Mock the Week, really, thinking about it, which I did when I was 26. Did you do an audition for that? No.

25:30Mo Gilligan: Oh, wow. So basically, I'd been gigging from 18 to 26, and then I got nominated for the Perrier at Edinburgh and they kind of saw me and then just offered me, you know, like a guest slot and I did it and it kind of went well and then they offered me a couple more in that series and then the following series they kind of offered me the whole run and that's kind of when things got a bit crazy. It's in the time before socials when, you know, I think something like, you know, 4 million people used to watch it. It was like a show. Do you know what I mean? It's like, you know, a bit similar actually with The Big Breakfast that you did when Johnny Vaughn was the funniest man in the world for a moment to us as kids.

26:17We'd see him be hilarious. Frankie had that Frankie Boyle and I sort of felt in the slipstream of his brilliance and kind of sort of went along in my own little sort of trajectory alongside him. But working alongside someone who was such a laser guided joke writer you suddenly go wow i'm gonna have to up my game here so kind of from being on the circuit i found that incredible just uh it was a real lesson in joke writing of like okay this is a half an hour show if i tell a long story that's a minute long that's not gonna make the edit so i've got to go boom boom bang you know so it's kind of interesting i really enjoyed it and then um and then from then it kind of sort of led to good news and all that.

27:03Mo Gilligan: When you're on Mock the Week, what's the pressure like as a comic? Because we had Rhys James on the podcast and he was telling me his experience of what it was like being on Mock the Week. Yeah. Where, you know, you have to section and you have to, you know, things that you wouldn't hear James Bond say and everyone goes up. Yeah, yeah. I'd watch it and be like, oh man, like you see someone go up but someone's got there quick enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's one thing doing it where it's like in the room. Yeah. But then it's almost like, do you know what it's like? What was it like? It's like a mixture of charades and fucking hit training.

27:39Like that,

27:40Mo Gilligan: because you're having to run to get there. Yeah, and I've seen that on the show. Mate, and then someone gets their elbow in, you're like, and then you, and they might do a joke that's similar. We stood up for 40 minutes and you're in your like, you know that bit in X-Men when Halle Berry, her eyes go on white. Yeah. You're like looking up to your brain going, what was that joke I wrote? like you've got like 20 jokes in your head and you're trying to remember them and it was crazy and then you'd get there and you'd be like oh what was it so it was it was like so competitive but it was i think that's what made it a good show because they would then from that 40 minutes for that one section they turned that into five minutes that had all the all the punchy all the punchy bits so it was a lesson in kind of like it's fine to have things sean lock said an amazing thing to me when i did cats he was i was quite nervous he was like all you got to do is say five funny things and they'll keep those in but that's that's the amount of time you'll be on on screen don't worry about it yeah you can say five funny things can't you so yeah i think so yeah because it's gonna be three hours you have to be pretty shit and it but that changes the way you look at it rather than going because initially you go oh my god i haven't been funny for a bit oh god you know because everyone is being so kind of funny and then you then you're looking at yourself going oh my god it's you unlock the way you haven't said anything for 10 minutes you probably you know what i mean so because i've noticed that whenever i've done panel shows i really shy away from panel shows um i think mainly because i didn't feel like i was witty enough but then I think when I've gone on the panel shows one thing I noticed about myself is one look like I'm enjoying it which I always would and two you want to be you want to be able to assist whoever's making people laugh too you don't want to be the blocker and I learnt that from drama when I used to like we used to do these improv games and it was like you'd have to go into the scene and if someone's doing something go along with it don't be there we're robbing a bank no we're not now we're in space you're like what are you doing yeah and it was the same that i realized the same thing happens on a panel show yes which is go along with the thing and also be comfortable about you know being laughed at i think once i realized you know you got i think the first show i went on was um big fat quiz of the year and jimmy that's a long show so long everyone told it's five hours and i was like it's probably not five hours and then when they start giving out the donuts and it's three hours in you're like okay this is yeah really five hours but like jimmy's the the orchestrator of that and he has a knack of like i'm gonna get you i'm gonna get you i'm gonna get you and you just know to like go along with this it's okay to get yourself like i think sometimes when you first do a panel show as a comic it can almost feel like why are you getting me man I didn't do anything but realising when you're the new kid on the block it's like no no we're gonna it's to say we're gonna break you in in it this is how you're gonna learn yes how this this arena works in some ways yeah um did you did you have to do follow the same thing in some ways where you was the new person on the show but also you're like I've got to hold my own amongst like your Frankie Boyles and your Dara's and stuff as well yeah I why I felt I think because I look so young I was the kid so I kind of sort of played the role of the kid yeah you know what I mean so I was had maybe like a wide-eyed innocence and again it's sort of I remember going back to what you were saying about you know sort of improv and yes and David Mitchell was on the show and um I had it was some gag about I can't remember what it was it was about like a runway being wet or something like that and I kind of went how do they fix it do they get like a massive hair dryer or something and david mitchell went yeah that's exactly what they did they got a great big hair dryer out and like really kind of like full stop me and i went i went mate it's a new idea i just threw it out there i don't stand by it i didn't actually think there was a fucking hair dryer we've all written jokes for this show it's so scary and like by being completely honest i was able to kind of get around it yeah but it was that thing you know when you go mate fucking hell just relax you know but there are some people that go on the shows and they kind of try and pick people off whereas I think I think I always enjoy funny people and I like I love making people laugh and I love laughing so Frankie would say something and it would just get me and then I'd be in such a good mood I'd sort of play with it so do you know what I mean so it was like being at school again your mates are saying funny and then you're like no and then you're into like I'd be with my brother a bit of one-upmanship and a bit of that's what I loved about panel shows I didn't ever feel that sense of oh god how am I going to compete it was like oh my god you've made me laugh and now I'm gonna make you laugh because we're in the same we're in the same kind of area do you know I mean I get that and it's a bit like this and do you know what I mean rather than trying to compete you're kind of like yeah yeah no I know exactly and you know sort of that really yeah so it came quite naturally because that's how i was funny at school like you were never funny on your own like your mate had to say funny and then you would top him and then he'd top you and you know what i mean but that's that's that's definitely british humor it comes through schools and football changing rooms and you know it's that thing of someone says something funny and then you're like yeah just to stay in the gang you have to say something funny otherwise you're not getting arsed out again.

33:33Mo Gilligan: Do you know what I mean? It's sort of, you know, and again, I don't know if that necessarily happens in Danish changing rooms. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? We got the Danish listeners. Yeah, as much as I love you guys. How did things start to change then when you had your own show, Good News? Because, you know, I remember on, I remember like BBC Three, because I had Freeview at the time and it was like the one channel on Freeview that was like, there's some really good stuff on BBC Three and I remember your show was on it which was great and it was I feel like it was like the perfect vehicle for you as a show where you got to go into stand up you got to talk about the news in a way that even for me watching it I was like oh I kind of understand this and everyone's getting their fair dues in terms of how you'd speak about politics or how you speak about current affairs but then you also had this brilliant bit which was like the bit at the end which was like that really heartfelt bit of good news, which I don't really feel like I'd seen on a show before that could, you know, we've got what's happening in the politics.

34:39Mo Gilligan: I've got this person narrating it, doing comedy as well. And now we've got this heartfelt bit that that was almost the last thing I would remember of the show. And weirdly, it was one of those things that was completely my idea where I was like going, why don't we do a show where we just take the piss and then right at the end we just go, but let's not forget, things are can be magnificent because I kind of feel like that's existence and it feels like there's a brilliant book about the news by Alan de Botton and he kind of points out that a lot of times the news is the news because these things don't happen that often so the reason they're being shown to you is like I think the example he gives he kind of goes so Sierra Leone for example like we'll hear about Sierra Leone if there's been a terrible war or something awful has happened and you're like oh my god so it's always awful things in Sierra Leone you go well actually for the most part they're having food seeing their family, kids are going to school having sex with their wife cracking on and I just thought it was such an interesting thing to kind of remember that the news exists because it has to sell itself so it has to be terrifying and full of drama.

35:55Otherwise, you know, if you just told the truth about what's happening, you know, if the news was just like, well, another day, been all right. Would you have fish fingers? Fish fingers fatigue, right? You know, so I always wanted to have that thing that made you go, oh man, the world's not so bad. Because that's kind of how I feel, you know, that sometimes when you're swamped in it, you can, particularly now with algorithms, you can really feel like there's nothing but horror when the honest truth is that you kind of if you go outside you can see incredible things or you can you know like i don't know if you've ever seen a video of a deaf baby here for the first time like mate you could play that video at them rallies full of people who think this country's fucking gone to the dogs and it'll break them because that's human nature that you'd have to be the most callous evil person to not see that and go oh fucking hell the world's great do you know what i mean so i think there's something to it there's a sort of shared sort of human feeling with those moments do you know what i mean it's and i feel like that's kind of everything's become so tribal but that's we're all kind of in the middle i love seeing a video of a deaf baby here for the first time i also love it if a bloke's fallen asleep and his friend writes the word twat on his head like like nobody's one thing yeah but the minute it feels like that's who you are and you can only exist in one area and i feel like the great thing about stand-up is that you can kind of you can be everywhere and you can kind of take the piss and take the piss out yourself but it was really important to end the show with something that made people go to bed on a bit of a high and it like seeing people suffer and then get through that puts your problems into perspective sometimes it certainly does for me anyway that you just go oh my god i've been worried about a joke and this this kid with cancer has just you know completed a motorbike race and look at him smile oh my god what a fucking universe so yeah it was sort of that really but I think I could do that with authenticity because that's how I felt if I was like and now it's time for the the good news like if if it didn't make me go look at this yeah then I wouldn't have been able to do it does that make sense do you know what I mean it wasn't like a gimmick for gimmick's sake it was just like oh this is cool do you want to see this yeah you know

38:29Mo Gilligan: you have a really unique ability though Russell where you have a great way of breaking down not just comedy but also like society that you can explain it from your perspective that that you just explaining just then of what you like about laughter is such a it's not a skill that everyone can do does that help you see the world in different space when it comes to you writing material if that makes sense no but i i think but i would say the same of you so it's that thing of i i love that feeling when and i interesting i saw i don't even know where he's from i was watching there was a clip from a bbc comedy awards and he's a great big really handsome bloke he's like clearly danish or swedish and he's over here and he's chatting about being so poor that he doesn't know how to think anymore so he's at a nightclub and then his mates are like oh should we get a taxi home and he's like no no no we walk home so he then runs home from nightclubs and then he doesn't dance because he's saving himself for the run home and to me that isn't my world but it was so well observed that and so funny that i was just going i love it when someone finds a pocket and you're able to do that you know like you were saying like for you guys 20 minutes about being funny about you know southwark or south or croydon or whatever it may be i can't do that but i can watch your audience like when you do a specific joke about the wit gift center let's say do you know what i mean and they're like like but that feeling it that that's i i love it when somebody does that so so with me it's kind of like i'll try i just try really hard to kind of try and find those i think particularly if you're talking about something like politics it i think sometimes the left wing and i would i'm sort of center left i would count myself in that i think we sometimes mark maron said this and it's so true that that he said that the left wing um basically um angered america into fascism and i think there's something to that where sometimes that finger wagging and that gesticulation and this is how you're meant to be and you know and saying things like problematic and be better it actually drives good people to the warm embrace of the far right sometimes so you actually think as a comic if you're gonna like for example talking about the you know people being angry with um immigration like there's lots of jokes about that and it's it's like going seeing people go on marches to try and unite the kingdom and you're like for fuck's sake and if you do a bit of research you're like what, they cost this country money?

41:27And you're like, Amazon paid 3 % tax last year. Meta paid 12%. And the owner of the Daily Mail pays zero tax in this country. So if you hit anybody with those stats, they're going to go, all right, that's messed up. And suddenly, you're able to take their anger and put it somewhere that it could be. And if you can write jokes in that, it makes it, for me, more interesting. Do you know what I mean?

41:52Mo Gilligan: Yeah, yeah, of course. It's sort of like, it's just trying to find layers underneath stuff that kind of, because you don't unite people by waving flags. That's not who we are. We're fucking, when do we become flag worshipers? We're piss takers. That's who we are. We take the piss. We don't wave flags. It's not us, you know?

42:13Mo Gilligan: How do you find, though, when it comes to stand-up, because you've had really successful shows in Good News, which, you know, with Russell Howard Zauer as well, which also... First time you were on. First time I was ever on TV, bruv. I can't thank you enough, you know? But it kind of blew up very quickly. Yeah, no, massively. Because we had you on, and then the next time you came on, you were like a fucking... I don't think anyone's done that in terms of you came on as a stand-up. Yeah, I've done stand-up. Walloped it, and then the next series you came back as a guest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like, fuck, that happened quick.

42:46Mo Gilligan: I sat on the sofa, which was made of newspapers, I remember, and I was so nervous because even at that stage, it's like Super Mario. It was just like, oh, I'm doing this and doing that. I'm doing that. But yeah, I'd never, I can't thank you enough for putting me on your show at that time where. But we did that with loads of people, man. It was like, that was the great thing of, and again, that's props to Jason Dawson who booked the guests and booked the stand-up guests because it was that thing of, we, you know, Acasta, you, Romesh,

43:18Ed Gamble, fucking you name it. they all did their first stand-up performances like ashton b they all did their first ever gigs on good news and then it was like this like and the sky show it was like this lovely starter gig before you would go on to do in your case your own stuff or a live at the apollo or whatever you know but it was that lovely kind of okay this is what it feels like oh that went quite well hey do you want to come on cats do you want to come on the royal variety whatever it may be yeah yeah do you want to host the brits for fuck's sake like it's sort of that thing of you have to start somewhere you can't go straight in imagine that yeah you know going straight that's very courageous of

43:59Mo Gilligan: you to have a vehicle like that for comics which again even when we done later show i i then replicated that in a sense of i remember being a comic and going on to your show so i wanted to make sure I had the same vehicle for other comics just to because it was more so that that I just had a clip of me on the stage somewhere that wasn't a comedy club that was on tv that I could do my set and it was like oh I remember I'll never forget the night before me and a friend of mine called Conrad and he helped me make the music and we was up till so long because you couldn't have copywritten music basically yeah yeah yeah so he made the beat we was I didn't have any sleep and And I was like, I can't hope it goes well and stuff.

44:41Mo Gilligan: And even meeting you, I was like, oh, right. That's so hard, man. Oh, shit. Like, right. He's really here. Like, and driving into Sky, it was, yeah, it was definitely one of those moments that felt like, oh, right. Like, there's something happening. I don't know what it is. But just going on TV just feels like this thing happening. Did you watch it? I did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what was that like? And it's mad because I didn't even have Sky. so I had to watch it when it was on YouTube so then watching it on on YouTube because I was like oh man I'm nervous man like and then watching it back I remember having this grin of like going back to the warm face and just smiling I'm like oh right shit and I'll never forget when you know you introduced me it's like Mo get a look at everyone and I was like oh right shit here I am whole family around watching me on television and I think for me at that time because I'd done a lot more social media stuff people just knew me as like oh like I see you do the characters so it was a perfect way to show people that like i can do some stand-up yeah um and it's funny isn't it it gives you a it give in particularly with your kind of mum your dads and your uncles yeah yeah there's something about telly that gives you a legit a legitimacy yes and it's yeah yeah it's if you don't belong in that world and you don't have like people forget to be on telly is mad it's like can you imagine like how your mum must have felt yeah she's like oh my god that's my boy being really funny and he's on the telly like do you know what i mean and then they kind of get used to it i'm like oh you know he's on the telly do you know what i mean of like when you know when you're next on the telly you're like you forget that first time it's incredible and so strange and you're you're watching yourself it's i remember doing one of the ones i did jonathan ross for the first time and it was like you've done you've done fallon you've been but have you done stand-up or have you been a guest on that?

46:36Mo Gilligan: I was a guest on that. See, I've never been a guest. I've done stand-up on that. See, they asked me to do stand-up. Yeah. But because I was touring, I didn't want to do my material on a platform that I still was going to do the show for another year. Yeah. So I was like, I don't really want to do stand-up because I'm still in this tour. The tour was still quite new. Yeah. So they said, cool, we'll park it. And then they called and then said, yeah, we want you to be a guest. and i was like oh that's even now now i can just be me and have a bit of jokes here and there rather than set material how was it like doing stand-up on there well that's what i mean it goes back and i've been so the first time i did i think i did fallon when it was i know 2015 so i've been going for a while and i've been on telly over here for probably you know at least eight years used to it but that feeling flipping it when they when they hold that in the curtain and you're just like go it just it feels like it's you know when you go to like um aqualand in europe and it's one of them rides where suddenly the floor's gonna drop and you're like what am i like you're sort of like that and then you're you go out and you do it it just it was so exciting but so terrifying and kind of it's quite interesting to know that you can still feel like that of going well i've got you know and similar how how how you must have felt what amazed me about Jimmy Fallon he knocked on me he knocked on my door before I came on he said oh thank you so he doesn't know who I am yeah someone's told him my name but he's made the effort to knock on everyone's door and go thank you so much coming on the show I've seen your clips even if he hasn't he gives a fuck I thank you so much really sweet and Lauren Hill was one of the guests okay so she sings a song in the rehearsal and i'm like 10 meters away yeah and i mean you know we talk about like talent yeah when you just see her just sing a song acapella you're like what the hell yeah and and then somebody said don't worry you're going on before her you're like thank you following lauren hill jesus when i went on mine it was shakira wow yeah so shakira was on and yeah like massive entourage and yeah you're just there with comrade yeah you know what was mad was like so it was me and my tour manager javan when we're out there and in the day i think we just we was just in new york at the time so we went somewhere in the daytime um if we went to serious xm uh radio so we went to do the radio we walked there and we seen all these people waiting and i was like oh who's that for was oh it's for shakira and i said oh wicked man and i said oh I think she's doing Fallon later.

49:21Mo Gilligan: He goes, what? Shakira? Bro. And it's so weird because I feel like when you do a UK panel show, it's very much whoever's on, you're not going to go, hey, what's up? You're all right? Because you're all on the sofa together. And as the comic, you get to, Kylie Minogue says something, oh, I can, oh, I wonder what it's like. Oh, I love that song. And you get to say a little comedy bit, whereas you're very separated. I found it anyway. It was just like, yeah, that's her team. you don't speak to her yes yeah yeah me and lauren yeah yeah yeah well i just didn't feel like it's like oh what am i gonna say like i just sort of like gave her the eyes if to go that was great you know and she's like thank you but it was like yes you know other than that it's like it's not really the oddest i did um conan o 'brien and novak jokovic was the guest and he he just won wimbledon for the first time.

50:16And I sort of said, oh, well done. Congrats on Wimbledon. And he was like, were you there? And I said, oh, no, no. And he was like, oh, fuck. And it was this really human moment where I'd like let him down. He's like, why didn't you go? I said, I can't really afford tickets to the Wimbledon final. Do you know what I mean? It's like, but they are wild when you find yourself in those sort of, those American worlds where you're just, you know, you're doing, you know, whatever it may be. But even they are beginning to kind of like, you know, Corden show doesn't exist anymore. They kind of, it feels like Jimmy Kimmel show is going to be like Colbert is, it's kind of, it feels like those old sort of like showbiz, you know, like those hillsides that you were aiming for are kind of gone a bit versus socials and kind of podcasts.

51:11are Sonal the things you do. And they're great. And they're fun. And you get a different side to people. But it is odd, isn't it? That kind of like when we were kids, it would be like, oh, I'd love to do Letterman or whatever it may be. I wonder.

51:26Mo Gilligan: I think when I realised once I'd gone on the show, how big it was. Because I was in America at the time and then some people came to the show I'd done in Philly. And these two women were like, yeah, we just drove from Boston. We've seen you on the Fallon show. You're really funny. and I was like oh my god it's understanding that reach which I don't know if that always translates here if you was just on a show once I reckon it did years ago like Parkinson it would have been it would have been that thing of like when Billy Connolly went on Parkinson and then the next day he was the most famous man in the world in the country rather but yeah you're right it's sort of like it's like it's now it's that thing of like it would be similar to what you did of just building up this kind of this audience online.

52:15Do you know what I mean? It's so interesting. There's so many comedians. Do you know how many tours are going on at the moment in the UK? Just comedy.

52:26Mo Gilligan: Do you know? How many tours? 196. There's 196? What, just stand up? Tours. Oh, rough. Mate, it's crazy. Because you're on tour as well, aren't you? I'm on tour. I'm on tour. Yeah, and there's 194 in that mad. but that you and you you suddenly go that we're in this kind of boom but you know in a time when everyone's on their phone clearly people have a deep desire to then go to a show and just be lost and then they want to lost in laughter and also it's like it's like a societal orgasm you're kind of like you're all lost and so rare that you eat you know we don't really go to the cinema anymore you what you'd stream it at home but it's one of the few places alongside like a big music gig where you'd go right i'm gonna go watch that and you're kind of laughing together and you kind of come out and your jaw hurts you can't remember what they spoke about you just feel good there's no phones in here yeah man at comedy gigs yeah you'll get a couple but it's not you go to a music concert now and that and it's interesting you get some musicians that are like oh man put your phones down but i guess it's just another generation now who want to capture the moment where comedy you can't put your phone and record and laugh at the same time yeah it just doesn't work and it never translates when you watch it back so having pictures of fireworks or you know you're like okay well it's a firework but it's better in the moment when you see it you see the colours and it come down and stuff how do you find touring because you do big arenas all around the world not anymore not anymore because what I since I stopped doing the TV show I'm quite lucky now that I get to do I get to do like big theatres that's kind of I'm doing a couple of arenas in the UK, but for the most part, I'm just doing those kind of, you know, those like sweet, you know, like Apollo's, Palladium's, those two, like a 2000 seater.

54:20If you're lucky enough to be able to do like, you know, four or five of those in a week. Yeah. They are honestly, it's just the show is great and it's so much better and I can be better. so I like being like in a 2000 seater in Manchester for Thursday to Sunday and just kind of getting it so I and then going to going to Europe I'm lucky but I'm able to do a similar size similar size in Australia and then in America I sort of do sort of anywhere really between 500s to a thousand you know and then sometimes you know you'll be in a comedy club you know in America and I quite like that I like the experience of it but I think touring is gonna change for me because of my son being born like the idea of going to going to America doesn't you know I'll do a gig in New York but the idea of going to like Minneapolis

55:19Mo Gilligan: because touring in America is you've got to do it properly and you've got and you've you've got to then be there and you know I think without a thing without a tv show it's it's kind of a bit it's a bit thankless it's fun and it's fun for the hang but it's not as fun as doing a gig in england and then being able to drive home and see your son walk do you know what i mean it's sort of so i feel like i have where you are now with yeah man totally totally it's just kind of all the cliches are true it's absolutely blown my mind as to how much uh enjoyment you get out being a dad i mean don't get me wrong it is you know it's tough and at times that sleep deprivation there's some real Guantanamo Bay shit going on but you know they laugh or you know my son put his head there the other day he just rested his head on my arm and you're like well who knew that's what my inner arm was for but it was I couldn't have been happier he just led there with his little face and you're just like oh my god but that feeling of being utterly loved where he's like I'll just put my just put it there you know I mean you know so I I kind of I think much that I'll tour you know every kind of three years every two years and then in between just go to clubs and figure stuff out until I'm ready to tour again which I love and I'm lucky enough that I'm kind of in a position where I don't need to kind of work in the way that I did it's because I'm an old man now so I've kind of I've been doing stand-up for like nearly 30 years so you know what I mean so it's kind of like i'm all right you know and i've kind of done my i've done my time on the road how about you because you've got two kids so how does that change for you it's you know i think i've realized when when i'm with my son and i take him to the park i'm not oh gilligan stand up where on the saturday night i am and then sunday i'm just dad yeah and putting him on a slide is all i care about rather than just okay cool i need because i i always gig in like a black t-shirt and black trousers.

57:26Mo Gilligan: So I'm like, I'll make sure I find the trousers, get to the gig on time, do a sound check. Whereas all I care about is like, scoot your bum and slide down. Don't get, because he's got his trainers on when he's sliding. So I'm like, don't get your trainers caught because the grip will make you, will make your legs go over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just knowing that's all I care about. And then it's like, okay, cool. We've done that slide. Let's do another slide. Let's, all right, let's put him on the swings and just having those moments are some of the most it really like you know like where you're like okay cool by title I am a dad but now I'm I'm pushing this swing and I can't push it too hard I can't push it too soft but I have to do it just perfectly that he keeps smiling because if he doesn't then I'm like okay I'm doing too hard and then I've got to figure out afterwards I'm like okay cool after the swings what do you want to do now well I'm in charge of this and I'm just dad I'm not I'm not someone that people know off the TV I'm not I'm just being dad and I think that feeling is...

58:27And what's funny is that you, I don't know if you experienced this, but you're told this beforehand. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're like, honestly, things will change. And you're like, will it? Will it? Because I've done the O2. And then suddenly you're like,

58:42Mo Gilligan: oh, okay, I take you back. You were right. Yeah, 100%. But it's lovely, isn't it? It's just kind of, you know, it just makes your world a bit richer and you just feel fortunate that the universe has kind of coloured you in this way and you kind of like you know who knew hanging around a park was fun who knew swimming yes was the greatest thing in the world yeah yeah with your kid i mean slightly weird if you go on those kind of those that's the only time it's slightly strange that the first time you go to the swimming class with your boy your or your kid you're sort of if you're you know famous you're very much aware suddenly everyone's like going how can i ask that's russell howard's nipples like do you know what I mean and not that I've got peculiar nipples but you're sort of very aware of like you know without saying it you I'm still dad but they're like well you know you're right and you're like yeah yeah did it take you a long time to put that guard down though because for me it did because I knew people would see me as me from the tv with my child rather than like just oh that's a dad does that make sense yeah I don't know you're probably right you you instantly have that kind of protection up and you know yeah did it but maybe it did but I also kind of um yeah I kind of kicked in pretty quickly and you sort of realize you just kind of you're sort of so zoned in on them yeah that you're like you just don't care well he came on tour with us as well when we did when we did America and we did Europe and my wife came and we were on a tour bus and you know it was it like and so my wife and my son had this sort of back of the bus and they were in the kind of you know the star bit with the bed and i was in one of the cabins so i could sleep and then as soon as i'd wake up i'd look after my son and we'd we'd go out to diners and you know and then he'd be in green rooms of like these theaters in america and you'd check who'd been on the night before and you're like it was a death metal band get him off the floor like that in case there's coke everywhere you're like do you know what i mean you know it was it was a folk group hit the floor you're fine so but that as an experience was incredible and then you know the he got to see all these things you know he went to you know oh it was it was the best but then he started walking you're like okay i'm not sure we can do this anymore do you know what i mean but um yeah i love it it's it's it's the best and it it just changes you it changes your comedy it changes what you feel you need like it tempers your ego and it you you realize it's also very easy if you've been lucky enough to achieve things as you have that you probably you know i might be putting words into your mouth here but you probably don't feel you need to do stuff because you've done everything you wanted to do yeah and now you've got and now you've got kids and what what an absolute cherry on top yeah do you know know what I mean it's just the accomplishments you have from your career it's seeing them what it pales into insignificance seeing them laugh I will see your your kids laugh up against you hosting the Brits and I guarantee which you enjoyed more yeah yeah yeah it's mad because even with my little girl this morning changing her and just like you know just making sounds like she goes she smiles and I'm like, oh my God.

1:02:04Mo Gilligan: I don't care about any laugh now rather than her laugh or my son's laugh, which is, I think it's that thing where, you know, even after gigs now, where all I care about, as soon as the gig's done, get me in the car and gone. I don't, that, I think there used to be a thing as a comic where you sometimes want to wait around because you still want to hold on to some of that magic afterwards of like, oh, the gig's done, I just want to chill out, talk to my friends. That was fun, wasn't it? Yeah. sometimes there isn't I I would also have an ego in a sense of like cool that was oh did you see that bit oh man that bit was great and da da da da and you got another one tomorrow and you can enjoy being in you know the green room for a little longer than you're ready to set off whereas now yeah you speak to anyone who knows me and it's just like yeah after gigs I'm gone I'm the same I can't wait I love being on stage but when I say thank you good night see you later yeah I want to get home as quick as possible absolutely it's like even when i'm doing like top secret it's just like there's not a photo of me at that club as soon as i've done it like that it's just i mean i'm out the back i just but i just also i've never really had that thing just in case someone went i thought it was and then it would eat me away so i'd rather just have the you know the kind of victory in my head but yeah it it's um it's the best in it it's so much fun but seeing him laugh and you realise just, it's one of those things where you're like, oh, I can pull a face.

1:03:35Yeah. So I can, you know what I mean? And you can figure out what makes them laugh. Yeah. And then, why would you not do that forever?

1:03:42Mo Gilligan: And I think what the beautiful thing is, is that as much as, Can you imagine, sorry to interrupt, can you imagine that feeling? The first time you pull that face at your kid and they're like, all right, dad. And they don't. Do you know what I mean? And you become embarrassing. That must be fucking heartbreaking. like temper it down a bit. Do you know what I mean? That moment, I cannot imagine what that's like when they're like 12 or something. They're like, Dad, you're such a dick. Ah, you loved me. Sorry, what were you going to say? No, your end though, like how do you start to like, because you were saying just a minute ago, like in terms of comedy, you call yourself an old man, but then also you've got this wealth of experience of doing shows all around the world in places like China and stuff like this as a comic.

1:04:31Mo Gilligan: And, you know, growing up, a lot of the comics are the ones that I loved that had the life experience, especially watching comedy from such a young age. It was listening to... Who were your guys then? I think top five, it was probably Richard Pryor. And I didn't really know much about Richard Pryor. And I probably knew more about him from the films. so when I got to understand comedy and everyone would say Richard Pryor, Richard Pryor and then when I listened to him I was like oh I get the thing now because I've only seen him in films Eddie Murphy, that was always that's for me, that's my my guy in it when it comes to comedy Eddie Murphy always liked Chappelle I think Chappelle, seeing him do stand up and then the sketch stuff because I fell in love with the Chappelle show me and my friends used to watch that are like 17 year olds because he got it from the States.

1:05:25Mo Gilligan: You know, it was at a time where it's like, it would be like a region two. So region two, we'll play in region one. I probably put Kevin Hart because Kevin Hart, watching Kevin Hart and seeing the scale of comedy, which was a bit like how football is now, where it's like, we still have the artistry of it. But then there was this business side that I didn't ever really care about until I seen, I was like, oh wow, you do fashion. You do, you know, do movies. you do comedy there's that side of it that I was so intrigued about and I think that that for me is the I think Chris Rock I think Chris Rock was the one comedy comedian that I'd watched speak about issues and politics and make it funny in a way that I was understand at such a young age oh mate well it's sort of is it Bring the Pain so I think Bring the Pain is 93 isn't it yes and that's got so I think that's got the routine about what's his name?

1:06:26Who's the famous guy? How am I blanking on his name?

1:06:29Mo Gilligan: OJ Simpson! OJ Simpson! It'd be so weird if somebody in a studio nearby just hears me shout, OJ Simpson! Like he's here. But that routine, oh my god, like that I'm not saying you should have killed her but I understand. It was just like you can feel, I remember my dad my dad was working in Florida and he came home with that video can you imagine that he goes oh yeah i've got a video for you we're 13 and dad's like this bloke's the funniest person you've ever seen and we watched that we're like flipping heck didn't get half of it but just loved it it's kind of yeah i've always i i've always had a thing for chris rock from that like you know bigger and blacker bring the pain even that what the one he did um you know that thing of having a daughter and he said i've got one achievement now in life or one thing i've just got to keep my baby off the pole yeah like it's sort of like there's a sort of a showbiz parent that i know what that means do you know what i mean you gotta you've got you've got to keep them off that kind of like slippery sort of slide of just like oh god imagine if your son's a fucking influencer you'd be like oh yeah like if you're gonna do it do it but you know what i mean must be weird but um yeah that's pretty good five man pretty good five probably I think the last one is probably probably Lee Evans I think it was seeing a comic be so physical and turn into the thing he's talking about yeah and just be non-stop it was like he never stopped it was always like I'm gonna be the 50p and I'll be the 20p I'm gonna do every example and I'm and I'm showing you I'm physically sweating and I'm watching I remember seeing him live and it was the one comic I'd watch live and first going to comedy shows and just not i didn't stop laughing i was so in awe of like oh my god how are you doing this and it's until you become a comic and you're on stage and you're like all right cool i'm not really even moving and i'm sweating so how yeah demanding was that to do every night where you know it's like sometimes russell when you do a show and you're like i'm knackered and you're like i can't do this again so i'm just gonna chill out for the rest of the day so i don't know how i think once i i'd seen the it's like the engine of a comic to think and then be so physical yeah use i don't know pianos and play music that was always a comic i sat there and i was like wow that that what you're doing is it's so rare until you start doing it on stage but richard pryer and lee evans oddly are similar in that respect because like there's a lot of personification so like sort of think of that routine with with richard pryer when he when he shot his car yes yeah and it's that brilliant thing where it's like you know the vodka was like why don't you shoot the car i was like yeah yeah and he shoots the car and the wheel was like you know but he he becomes every part of the car yeah yeah and what's incredible about that that's a routine i don't even know what it from this like that that whole album is from the 70s i think it's still funny yeah it's it's it's mind-blowing because you can watch clips that were done like two years ago and they just don't mean anything and this you know what i mean it's like like he is a trip like i would say him and george carlin are the you know like have those moments where you're like jesus christ like just such kind of forever funny yeah billy conley has that as well like what you know those forever funny guys where you're like that's still good that's still you know kind of resonates in terms of like where you are as a comic where you know you're able to do shows in different parts of the world yeah you've had a very successful career on TV and you know, you have podcasts and, but you're also looking at a side where you're like, I'm a family man.

1:10:14Mo Gilligan: I'm someone's son. I'm someone's dad. Sorry. And you know, where do you start to put your eggs in your basket in a sense of, do you slow down? Because I feel like as any comic, we want to slow down, but we get the itch and we're like, I want to go back out. I want to do a top secret on a Thursday. friday see if i still got it and then you you realize i've still got it and then you're like i could write a tour from that new bit yeah um you and for myself even going to like some of the clubs and doing some crowd work to an audience who didn't expect me to come but then also some people who have no idea who i am is it makes me go back to what it felt like when i first started in some ways which is very different from the tours yeah um so like what is your what is your want in terms of your your next chapter of your career of being a father so I think in terms of like my career that I like to so I'm really so I've got a tour that starts in January and this is we're currently November and I'm trying to get it all together and it feels so on a Monday there will to a Wednesday I work and I like work I put in the hours so I write all day and then I'll gig every Monday every Tuesday every Wednesday and then Thursday to Sunday I'm a dad like I'm a full-time that's what I'm doing and I find that is a sort of you know three days four days and obviously I see my son on the other days I I kind of I scratch that itch for myself and I have a sense of creative purpose for me.

1:12:03But I also have a reason why I'm doing it. So it's made me a lot more courageous to go, listen, this is a Monday. There's 100 people in this room. You have to say that thing you wrote this afternoon, even if you think it might not be good. You can't do anything old. You have to risk it. so it's made me better and well actually it's not necessarily made me better it's made me more courageous in terms of trying stuff and it made me realise that I want to do a show tour that show and then have a break and then do it again but not do it on a yearly cycle I want to let my well fill up with life experience not just so that I'm kind of got the the notepad out so I can go oh something's happened but just to be a human being and then just being in a in a different phase where you're you know every couple of years you've you feel like you've got something to say and you're not bothering people and you're not kind of constantly putting your hand out to go oh can I have more money for a tour do you know what I mean I just kind of I I want to do it for the sake of doing it I actually think interestingly what what Chappelle did when he came back the interesting is i don't really know chapelle before stand-up chapelle in recent years but what's interesting is so he had chapelle show he walked away from that and then he's he obviously had his kids and he was clearly doing gigs he was doing the equivalent of his top secrets until his kids were of a certain age but he was probably mostly a dad in that period and then came out of hibernation as it were and then suddenly had a new special what felt like every year for like five years yeah yeah in i and i think this there's kind of a lot to be said for that of kind of like i i quite i want to i want to tour do my show and then go away and then come back with new ideas and then go again rather than i don't feel that need to be in the kind of club every week, seeing if I've still got it.

1:14:18Do you know what I mean? I'm going to kind of back myself to kind of go, I'll go away for a year and then just come back. And I still make notes. There's a thing that Woody Allen does that he basically, he'll write something down and then he just puts it in his desk. If he has an idea, he just writes it down, puts it in his desk, lives his life, writes an idea, puts it in his desk. And then when he has to do a film, he literally kind of pulls out the desk empties, looks at all the notes and goes, oh right, it's that and that's kind of what our iPhones are now if you make your little notes half of it's fucking madness it's not muck around, but there's the beginnings of stuff and I bet you I could look through yours and I'll see routines that started off as a little thing of like, you know mums at discos, whatever and your brain will go, you know, my mum does this and you leave it alone and then when you need to you come back to it so that's kind of where I feel like I want to just be just be kind of a normal person and just be a dad go to the park like let my son have a rich life take him to football you know all these kind of things whatever he wants to do and and then kind of come out of hibernation with things to say yeah because that's what it feels like increasingly that's the great thing about stand-up that and that's what i mean like doing all these gigs i'm doing at the minute all these previews the show's beginning to get muscular you know when you kind of like okay there's it's not flimsy anymore there's some there's some big bits and it's big laughs and i haven't really got the order figured out but the meat of it is is there and it feels like it's got some nice kind of like warmth to it um and i just like doing that for three days a week and then hanging out with my family but but i really like those three days and i don't think there's anything wrong with that like like to actually compartmentalize yourself and go that's okay because for three days i'm in the office as it were even if my office is you know a sticky floor nightclub where you're like is this a thing yeah you know but it's kind of i think if i wasn't doing those three days i think i'd go mad because i need that kind of um i need that output so whatever that if i've got somewhere i can write or think or be with my sort of thoughts for the future yeah i think that'll do for me how about you

1:16:49Mo Gilligan: yeah I think for me it's I've only learnt to find that to find that in the last probably year or so how old are you so I'm 37 I'll be 38 next year well there you go you're ahead of me in terms of you know I'm 45 and I've only just figured that out you're 45 yeah you look good for your age don't you know I'm getting it yeah I think I'm going to be you look good for your age man but you know a bit like DiCaprio he suddenly looks like a pickled onion I think I think that's what will happen with me I'll just suddenly like go do you know what I mean because he's handsome but he doesn't look like he used to.

1:17:21Suddenly, he became a pug like one day. But he does, he's kind of got that, you know what I mean? But he ain't, he ain't Leo from Titanic anymore. Do you know what I mean? He's, there's a lot going on. Go on. For me,

1:17:37Mo Gilligan: I've been lucky enough to find the perfect balance of doing things like this, a podcast where I can come in central London and it's, it's different from what it's like from doing TV where it's so many different opinions. It's the commissioner, it's the producer, it's the exec producer, it's okay, we're filming it. That bit works well. Do it again. And you're like, I don't know if we can do it again. We'll try it. And you do it again, it doesn't work. And I feel like I really found my love again when I went back on tour and got to do comedy in places where, like you're saying, English isn't their first language.

1:18:14Mo Gilligan: And like going to Denmark where again, they clap at before the punchline and for me as a comic i was like bro this is a whole new world i'm not used to doing comedy here or doing shows at places where i would say okay well you know the warm-up will go on for i don't know 25 minutes and then we'd have a break it allows everyone to get a drink and i'll jump on at nine and people are like come on it's it's 8 55 we're waiting and I was like no but I thought that would make sense and I feel like having that is the thing that when I go to bed at night I sit there and I'm like oh like I wanted to do that thing and that's what fulfilled me as opposed to I've done it because I had to pay some bills and yeah you know it's an incredibly it's an incredibly privileged position to be in and if you're lucky enough to get there it's to remind yourself that the true joy is the idea and then finding strangers to explain the idea to and then the strangers laugh you realize you're not mad and you've created this little bit of happiness and then you go to bed you know with if you're lucky enough to be in that position where you don't necessarily have to worry about you know kind of bills or whatever it just becomes about like I wonder if that joke about a duck's funny yeah literally that's me you know at night time as soon as I got home and I tell my girlfriend I'm like I've done this new bit today it was really funny isn't it funny though so I watch but can your girlfriend tell when you're trying out a new bit to somebody because my wife is just like she can tell I'm like I'm literally straight into it I can feel her going she can't tell but she likes to tell so she she loves it when I tell a story so if we're with friends and whatever and she's like I'll tell that story when that thing oh great so she's emceeing yeah so I tell the story and then she'll be like no no no but say it and I'm like okay cool and so English isn't her first language so she's from Brazil but she speaks Portuguese so when I'm with her friends and I'm telling this story and I'm like oh you guys get that bit oh okay alright you understand so it's like almost doing in stand-up but then she has this beautifulness of like she'll say to me she goes oh you know what you should talk about you should talk about you know when the parcels come and it goes to the neighbor and you get really annoyed about that you speak about that it's really funny and i'm like it's not i don't really know babes if i can get the comedy out of that and she was like oh okay but but also it's quite a nice you know it's it's this this like it's pretty good observation even for her to kind of go yeah yeah yeah funny that you like do you know what i mean like i love people like that i'm not very good at that i can kind of do big things but i can't always notice little things like that like isn't it weird that you're kind of i remember mackintyre doing that where you know you see somebody do an observational bit you're like and he was on about google earth and that thing of like why is it when you go on google earth the first thing you do is look at your house and you're like, fuck.

1:21:30Of course, you know what I mean?

1:21:31Mo Gilligan: But that's the best, the best kind of comedy really is and it's the hardest to do is when people go, oh my God, that is so true. But it's, you know what I mean? It's a real, it is, it's a real skill. Have you gigged in Portugal? No, I'm doing, I'm doing Lisbon. I'm doing Lisbon. Oh, it's insane. Is it nice? It's brilliant. So cool. But also, if you've got like, you know, if you're, if you're a missus, speaks Portuguese. Just, you know, get a couple of phrases. Oh no, I've already got some. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. And they're suddenly like, oh God. But I got one wrong though. Fucking hell, they really let me have it.

1:22:09For a while, I really upset Portugal because there's a phrase where if a girl is too attractive, they say, she's too much sand for my truck. So that's their phrase. That my truck as the man couldn't possibly carry her sand. And I got it wrong. I said something like, there's too much sand in her truck because I misremembered it. And I put it up as a clip. Fuck me. Portugal lost their mind. They're like,

1:22:41Mo Gilligan: why don't you stick to your own language? Do you know what I mean? I was like, I'm English. This is what we do. We're not very good at foreign languages. But it's the best, honestly. It's such a... Have you been to Lisbon as well? Yeah, I've been to Lisbon. Oh my God, what a city. god damn that's the other thing I love that's the end it's that thing of being able to travel the world doing our silly little job with your family do you know what I mean of like right we're going to Lisbon I'm going to do it and daddy's going to do a show and then the rest of the week we'll hang out yeah yeah yeah yeah that's a win isn't it yeah oh Russell man I love that it's really great that's the first time we've properly like hung no no really really I really appreciate you as a just as a person like one putting me on your show many years ago you know coming back and doing like your podcast and stuff like that but you're also like a massive inspiration i think as a comedy as sorry as a comedian watching you tour and do shows all around the world which is like oh right like it's it's it's possible to do shows in because that was my first fear of like oh man i'm gonna go to some of these places i don't even know if i've got an audience there but like even just seeing it on your socials and I'd see you performing like Germany and Berlin or Denmark and I was like, rah, it's possible, man.

1:23:58Mo Gilligan: I've seen it's possible and before then I didn't know if it was possible. But no, you're a massive inspiration, man. To myself and many other comics out there. So, one, again, thanks for coming on the podcast. Pleasure. Loved it. And two, again, I know I've said it before, thanks for putting me on TV, bruv. First ever, you know. Pleasure. Yeah, bruv. 100%. I put you in my book as well, you know. Really? Yeah, man. It's in my book, man. got to read yeah yeah yeah but also uh thanks for repaying the favor because you got you i so i there's i'm every comedian is a frustrated something else but i've and i've often loved the idea of trying to write a song and i've never been able to write a song so so on your on your tv show what was the raps what was the rap thing yeah i think it was me you craig david and leanne pinnock yeah yeah so yes and it was a thing where you were you had to write of is it a nursery rhyme rap yes so yeah yeah so i i wrote humpty dumpty in the style of kendrick lamar's humble yes you did that was fucking cold but but and the funny thing is because i was given some some potential lyrics that somebody went you could do this and i was like i'm gonna write it myself yeah and i felt like your producers go are you white boy right like you're gonna write a kendrick lamar Humpty Dumpty It's funny because the producers are white as well Oh are they?

1:25:21There you go Well there you go But I Mate honestly it was it was so much fun like doing that show and it was it was it was it was and it was Dermot O 'Leary and all wasn't it that was the funny thing Yes Dermot O 'Leary but you put me on I was on after Leanne Pinnock who's a singer I remember so I had to follow her fucker and then that first I loved it so it was so much fun but genuinely

1:25:47Mo Gilligan: that was yeah it was it was one of the joys even my brother rang me up and was like it's pretty good that pretty good yeah yeah a bitch be scrambled yeah it was good I loved it no thank you Russell I appreciate it man this is your beginning middle and end thank you very much bro thanks sir appreciate you man hey what's up thank you so much for listening to the podcast today now a lot goes in to making each episode I know you hear my voice but there's a team behind the scenes who helped make it and if you did enjoy it i'd really really appreciate if you could show the love to them by giving us five stars and if you also have the time please leave us a review it's always appreciated and we love reading the comments and of course we want to keep making it better thank you for listening and have a great day peace