Stand Up Comedian Rhys James

0:00Mo Gilligan: Hey, what's happening people? My name is Mo Gilligan and this is the Beginning, Middle and End podcast. Now this is where I'm going to be asking some of my favourite people about how they started, where they are now and the legacy they want to leave. My guest this week is a witty comedian who transformed a university hobby into a respected career. From open mics to podcasts, panel shows and solo shows, he's carved out a niche as a reflective, quick-fire comic voice on his rapid rise to fame. He's going to be joining me today talking about his new book, You'll Like It When You Get There. It's none other than the fabulous Rhys James.

0:45Mo Gilligan: Welcome to the podcast, by the way. Thanks for coming on. I really, really appreciate that, man. um it's the last time i seen you was at um that uh apple event yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah man yeah yeah yeah but um yeah no thanks for joining the pod man so you didn't grow up in london i grew up in hertfordshire i'm in hertfordshire yeah it's kind of like london really it was a 25 minute train into central london yeah but you know i didn't do that that much i suppose but like hertfordshire is a bit interesting because like i when i moved to north London I was like right Hertfordshire is really really close but then it's like there's some places that I didn't even know was Hertfordshire like I just thought St.

1:25Mo Gilligan: Albans was St. Albans I thought it was its own place and I think because I grew up like in real inner city like London I thought like St. Albans was like right that sounds really far but then when you're in Hertfordshire you're like everywhere feels quite close together Hatfields St. Albans yeah that's where I grew up was like Harpenden which is the next one to St. Albans it's in between in St Albans and Luton. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's where it drops off a cliff in terms of, you know, St Albans. I do these gigs in St Albans sometimes and I'm like, I say like, I'm from Harpenden or whatever and people boo and I go, fuck off, you like us.

1:58Yeah. We're a little breakwater before you get to Luton. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:00Mo Gilligan: We're putting some distance. And Luton is real, you know. Luton's where I used to go like, that's when I was first allowed as a teenager or whatever to like go out on my own kind of thing with our parents. It's like you go into town in Harpenden but then it'd be like, you want to go to Luton because that's where the cinema is and bowling and the Namco arcade and the Armdale. And you go to Luton and it will always be Luton is where people say, have you got time? We had a Namco, but our Namco was in, where is it? It's on South Bank. It used to be on South Bank. Wow. That's where the Namco used to be.

2:29Mo Gilligan: That sounds like a fancy Namco to me. Well, the thing is, it's like you would go there because if you went to like Chocodera, which was in Piccadilly back in the day, you would get robbed. That would, yeah. So you'd go there and you'll be like, ah, okay. So Namco was okay because it was mainly that tourist that went in there. But I think they've shut it down though now. But that would be like, yeah. Well, I would get robbed in Luton quite a lot when I would go to do that. My geography of Luton is mainly based on 24 hours in police custody. Luton and Bedford. That's my perception of Luton. I'm like, he kicks off, man.

3:01Mo Gilligan: There's big players on shows like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Luton again. I'm like, I love the name too bad, you know. I once won on an arcade machine in the Namco, in Luton. I won a mobile phone on like the claw thing oh shit I picked up a thing and like you exchanged it and it was like oh this is like a phone it was like a SageM phone oh yeah yeah you know that remember that yeah you're showing your age now boy yeah right oh no I'm old but I won that and then basically like left the Namco bit into the normal bit of Arndale or whatever and I sort of immediately got mugged for it yeah it was still in the box it just immediately was just taken from it you know like back in those days where you're just like come on man this is not a phone that's robbable this is a SageM phone who wants that yeah I feel like Even at the time, it was like, at least get a Nokia.

3:42Mo Gilligan: Yeah, because Nokia was like the iPhone of its time, innit? Yeah. So if you take in a SageM, you're just following through with the robbery now. I just looked muggable. I was just so muggable. I still am pretty muggable. No, man. But then it was like, I was so small for my age anyway. And I was just like holding this foot. I would have just looked like the perfect kid. When you was young, was you quite short? Yeah. Because you're what? Like six foot, right? Six foot, six feet? Yeah. Let's call it six foot. Why not? Yeah. That tells you the answer, doesn't it? I'm 5 '11", and I'm brave enough to say that.

4:13Did you have a growth spurt? No, it was gradual, but it was like, I was just like a real late bloomer. So I always looked really young, and I was really short. And I had braces till I was like 18.

4:23Mo Gilligan: Okay. So I was up against it. Yeah, because you've got good teeth, man. That's because I had braces till I was 18. Yeah, bro, your teeth are good, man. Thank you very much. But the only reason why I say it, because I got my teeth done, innit? So when you get your teeth done, it gives you the confidence to tell a number of people. You're like, oh, you've got great teeth, man. You've got great teeth. Because before that, I was like, I'd say silently to myself I would say You'd be furious But then you're going to look at my Because I had small teeth That was my thing I had some small joints So I had a lot of gum With small teeth Did people mock you for that?

4:53Mo Gilligan: Yeah They'd be like You've got cute teeth I'm like I don't like that I didn't like I fucking hate it Well I had to put up With the word cute a lot Yeah You know what I mean That was the thing Where it's like That's what girls would say to me They would just be like Because I played football and stuff So I was friends with all the like yeah yeah kind of all the cool guys and they would just be getting called like fit and sexy and stuff by the girls and it would be like and your cute friend yeah that was a hard one man that's your auntie says yeah do you know what i mean when there's a girl you're like oh my god i like you but you're cute you're like oh it's over for me so yeah i guess yeah but also you know i was writing a lot of poetry and stuff for these girls so you know oh big time yeah yeah that's your romance That's your in, yeah?

5:34Oh, I was doing way worse than that. What were you doing? I once sent a single white rose to a girl's house, and I'd never met this girl, and she had never heard of me until she saw my name underneath the phrase, your secret admirer, and then my full name, which is very much the opposite of a secret admirer. And also, it's creepy, isn't it? Because a secret admirer is sort of like, oh, someone in the office. So you do know who is it going to be, and there's a bit of mystery. Not just a random stranger from the town you live in who's been observing you on the internet. But that's romance though, man.

6:04Look. To send a rose flowers. We're still in touch. How old were you at this time? I was probably 13, 14. Okay. But one single white rose, I think is like more, it feels like a sort of something you do to like mark someone in the mafia to say like, you're next. It doesn't feel romantic, does it? That was a 13 year old's budget. That was the issue. That's why it was one. Yeah. But like, no, it needs to be a bunch of red roses.

6:27Mo Gilligan: I feel like it's the thing that you do where you think, you know, in your head you're like, this is going to be so romantic. it's gonna pop off yeah I'm gonna look like this is gonna change my life we're gonna get together straight away live happily ever after so you sent it to her house you had her address I've got her address from someone yeah I didn't follow her but I asked a friend of her so I didn't because I just think like you know like in your head where you've done that you're like this is really romantic but I just think like what that would feel like for a parent now to be like wait the parent of the guy sending it or the parent of the girl receiving it the parent of the girl receiving it because you'd be like oh right someone didn't just give you this in school or just leave it at the doorstep.

7:03Mo Gilligan: Is that... What child went to the depths to send this? Yeah, and I don't even... I'm not even certain that you could do that on the internet at the time. So I might have had to go into a florist and say, can you deliver this to this house? And like really arrange it. Fucking hell. And that's not... Like I was just... But I was a guy who was big on big gestures. So I'd watched this show called The O.C. Remember that show, The O.C.? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, The O.C. About Orange County. And there's a character in that called Seth Cohen who was also supposed to be a bit of a dweeb. He was like a 26...

7:33It was Adam Brody who was like a 26-year-old guy who's like ripped. But he's meant to be like a pathetic dweeb. So he represents me in the show. And he's always kind of like doing these gestures and it's working because it's a TV show. So I would always do stuff like that. And like there was a girl I was in love with for a long time at school. And then I bought us... This is showing my age as well. I bought us two tickets to go and watch Kate Nash do a concert.

7:55Mo Gilligan: Oh, right, boy. In between buying the tickets and going to the gig, she got a boyfriend. Yeah. and there's some thought in your head of being like, oh, I wonder how sort of threatened he is by the idea that I've got us these tickets and we're still going to this thing. Well, he's so unthreatened that he drove us to the gig. He was just like, yeah, have a great time. Hit some money. Yeah, whatever. Just enjoy it. How old was he? Hit some oysters. My head is spinning right now. I'm probably 15, maybe 16 at this point. So he took you to the gig with his girl? Yeah. Because he was like, oh, you're going off with your lame little friend.

8:27So he wasn't even threatened. This guy's not going to try it on. It's fine. Yeah, I bought the tickets as a romantic gesture, and then it's like, oh, fuck's sake. I've got to go now. And then he was just like, yeah, cool. All right, boy.

8:38Mo Gilligan: Yeah, that was pretty brutal. That's Kate Nash. Kate Nash had the song about lemons and bitter, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bitter. Yeah. It was like very Mockney style, wasn't it? It was just after Lily Allen. Yeah, I remember that phase. Because in my head, I was like, did he? I was just thinking, did you say Kate Nash or Kate Bush? I was like, right. Wow, Kate Bush, that's bold. Imagine going to see Kate Bush. Kate Bush on a non-date that you're trying to make a date. Wow, that's intense. That's some big tickets to give away, man. Shit, I would definitely jump to the chance, man.

9:10Mo Gilligan: But you went to university at University of Manchester, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was that like? Because I know that's quite a... I feel like that's one of those universities. It's up there with your Leeds, University of Leeds. I feel like University of Newcastle, where I feel like people, whenever you go to one of those universities that's in a place like Manchester, which I think Manchester is great for nightlife, it's almost like you're like, I'm really leaving home. I'm leaving home. Yeah, definitely. And I'm moving to a big city. Big industrial city, Manchester. It's very intimidating.

9:48Mo Gilligan: Massively. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was that like for you? Because you studied politics and international relations, right? Well, I'd already started doing gigs at this point so i did my first gig before i went to uni oh so all i cared about was doing gigs and being a comedian and so a big part of the decision to go to manchester was there's loads of gigs there oh so it's like kind of got to a point when it was between nottingham and manchester and i was like i can be a comedian manchester i am a uni student in not yeah yeah um and that so that kind of informed the whole thing so like most of my social life was around doing comedy i would go on these nights out and stuff but really it's like it got to a point where like oh it's a saturday everyone's going to this club or whatever well i'm going to oldham to do 10 minutes hoping to get hoping to get 20 quid next time kind of thing yeah because i just only care about being a comedian bless you and so i didn't really like i didn't engage with uni as much as i wish i had but i because i was just like and i was just constantly trying to drop out as well but my parents wouldn't let me i was constantly being like i'm a comedian i'm going to be a comedian thank god i didn't drop out because obviously you need that time to actually get competent what made you want to be a comedian uh it's one of those weird things where like i just wanted to i think we do this thing we all love to do this thing where it's like create this origin story around like oh i had to be a wisecracker because you know i was small i could easily intellectualize this and say i was small and like i was in the cool gang but so i had to be like joe pesci to those guys and like cracking wise because that's the only way they'd keep me around because i wasn't good enough at football and people would bully me but then i would say a quip and you go wow i just wanted to be and then I was that's the reality of it is like I was a big fan of comedy yeah and I would watch all the dvds of all the comedians and then I was like yeah I want to do that and also you know talks to sort of the privilege of my upbringing a bit that there's never been a moment like from 15 onwards where I didn't think well I will be this yeah yeah people always ask me in interviews like when was the moment it clicked and you thought like this is actually going to work like five years in or something it's like no it's the opposite I just assumed I'll just keep going until it happens was you quite confident because when you were talking about you know if you're sending a rose to a girl or you're like i'm gonna buy you two tickets i feel like as someone who is at that age who is romantic it's like a level of confidence to be like well i like you enough that i want to take you out or i like you enough that i'm gonna send the rose to your house and i'm gonna like i i'm gonna send it to your house i'm not gonna leave on a doorstep and you're never gonna know do you know i mean right right it's like a level of confidence that you know it's gonna come back to you and i feel like it's the same i think it was naivety the romantic stuff was just like, just not really realising that this is so embarrassing and everyone will take the piss out of you.

12:22Because I was deathly afraid of being embarrassed, which is a mad thing to then do those sorts of gestures. They did feel like a secret to me. Like I sort of thought, this is so personal. No one would ever tell their friends about this and mock me about this. Of course they do. Because imagine receiving a single white rose from a stranger and telling no one. That's worse than sending it. It's so creepy. So no, I was like shy and quite angsty. I think the thing with sending those things is like if you know if the girl I sent that rose to had responded and been like let's meet up right now I would have been terrified and then I would have been like I would have been stuttery and I would have been really nervous if we had met up then so it wasn't confidence it was like if there was distance like it felt abstract to send or to write a poem or to send a rose because I wasn't confronted with the actual thing stand up wise I don't really know I don't really know because I was like a nervous kid but I would do skits in assemblies and stuff.

13:16Oh, okay. And again, I could intellectualise that and say it was about control and getting laughs on my terms and stuff. And it's like, no, I just think I like performing. I like acting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was just like, oh, this is what I can do. And I don't know, there was something about like, because obviously stand-up can be so embarrassing. But I find it now, I don't know if you have this, if it goes badly, I'm sort of embarrassed for the audience rather than me. And I'm like, you came to it, you fucking idiot. I was always going to do this I'm lucky you've had a terrible night out I'm still going home

13:47Mo Gilligan: yeah I know what you mean there's moments where you're like this didn't really go to plan didn't really go well but there's a confidence I probably have now knowing where you're like it's alright though yeah it's that isn't it you just sort of because if you die on your ass enough times you know this doesn't matter at all it probably yeah it doesn't matter and you know I've had enough like great gigs that also didn't matter. Yeah. They ended and then it was over and there's like, nothing comes of that either. So you might as well just dismiss all of them immediately. You just end up at home on the sofa if it goes well or badly.

14:22Mo Gilligan: You do the gig of your life and then like, I don't know if you have this where you know, like sometimes you're, for me it's my adrenaline is so high. I'm like, wow, that's great. And I'll be talking about maybe like a callback or something that I've done to myself on the way home and I'm driving and I'm like, that bit was great. And I really like that bit. and could have done that a bit. And then you kind of get home and you're like, okay, yeah. Back to reset. All right, got to wash the dishes. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. There's been enough examples of like, wow, I'm riding on such a high back to reality that is exactly the same like, wow, I'm on such a low from that.

14:58And then it's just like, yeah, you are going to have to go home and you're just back to normal straight away. So you sort of don't care.

15:04Mo Gilligan: You said just a minute ago where you were saying about how you would do performances on stage at school and you like to do skits where where did where did that come from was that honing in on just like a funny that you might have because for me like i remember growing up and i used to i used to love watching like like eddie murphy or like um jim carrey in a lot of those kind of silly films yeah that made it like it felt like it it was okay to be silly if that makes sense yeah yeah yeah and then when i'd be in school it was like okay cool i'm gonna be silly because I've seen that honed in in like a film that I love um where did that come for you in terms of like wanting to perform like on stage at like a like school or you know like a drama class at such a young age so I think it's my friend Sam when I was growing up my best mate was like in this uh we were like 10 and he was going every weekend to I'd be like what are you doing this weekend let's hang out kind of thing and then he'd be like oh I've gone I can't I go to this like drama club in Luton actually yeah yeah yeah in Luton Amateur Dramatic Society god imagine that but um lads the acronym is lads but yeah and then he was like I go to that and he's just like you should just come and then I went once and it really was like out of my comfort zone certainly at that age I wasn't I wasn't funny yet I wasn't trying to be funny yet and I was like not very forthcoming with this stuff I probably was at my most shy around that age but I went to this thing and it was all like kind of improv-y games and stuff like that um and a lot of it would be okay right you and then do it after school on thursdays and then on saturdays and it'll be like you three go off and it would be he put us in threes kind of thing and then it'd be like go off and come up with a wedding scene and that's like all you'd have and you've got 10 minutes and you come up with it and i just noticed that every time we did that i would i would really push for like a com it to be a comedy scene like a sketch and i of really push for the big funny part yeah and i think it's because it's the only thing i understood how to do from watching it you could be like all right like you say watching those people you go you go really big and you sort of shout and you just like seem crazy that's not how i do comedy now at all yeah but at the time it was like as a kid you're kind of that's the comedy you're exposed to and so i would always do that and we'd always come back in and they'd be like the reason i put you three as a group is because you're 10 and you could play a kid and you've played the father of the bride in this thing and gone crazy what are you doing and i was like it seemed funnier um and then they we did one like one big play that we did at this theater in luton for like a week and that was oliver and obviously i looked exactly like oliver twist so based on no talent just on appearance i got cast as oliver just from then i was like right well i'm the main part now so i can do anything but then i quit immediately that drama group and then back at school doing drama I just had so much confidence because the one time I'd done a play I was the lead part which I didn't realise was obviously purely on appearance and not on skill because all the feedback would be like wow isn't it brilliant that you remember all those lines which is the most insulting thing you can say to a comedian which is except how do you think that went or did you enjoy that but if you say well how do you remember it all they're my thoughts so I'm not remembering it I'm just speaking it's life exactly I'm just talking about my own life but that was like the feedback which means that was shit acting, but you are 10.

18:26And then it would just be like, I would do drama at school and then my same friend was doing drama as well. And it would just be like, we would just get asked, I think, like, oh, will you guys do like a sketch in assembly for end of year and stuff? And then we would always just write. They were always like breakfast clubby type sketches. They were like a detention scene or something like that. And we would just play the stereotypes of like, one of us is a goth and one of us is like a rude boy or something. But they always went well. You know what I mean? It wasn't embarrassing. it wasn't like i think people were just like yeah this is good so i think all the people you expect to bully you for that were sort of my friends yeah yeah yeah and so they were just like yeah cool that's that's what you do and then we play for the football team so it's fine it's so it's

19:04Mo Gilligan: so interesting because it was similar where i went to school and we would do drama and you'd come over scene i don't know why though we would always do bank robbery scenes yeah nice bank robbery scenes and is that because you wanted to do like guns and you wanted props kind of yeah because there was always the guys in drama who would like go into the prop bit and just get out big sticks and just like be smashing sticks around and then ask what the scene is they'd be like it's a sword but also I don't know if you had this in GCSE drama we would always have these mats so in the side would just be a mat so you're like cool I can clearly do the bank review you're going to shoot me and I'm going to do the most dramatic fool on this mat we clearly don't need this mat we don't even need to fall I don't even need to get shot in this but you were like yeah no no I'm going to come in and I'm going there's no money here but you shoot me and it was just like so you could just crash onto this mat yeah but that was great that was so much fun we do that but before we'd done that we would just do I don't know why we'd just do wrestling yeah wrestling would just be like let's do a bit of wrestling first like I don't know why warm up with a bit of WWE well that is acting I suppose but yeah not what you mean not relevant to the scene before you like came up with the scene you would just wrestle and then the teacher would be like oh guys you've got five minutes left and he's like alright cool I'm gonna go in answer the money you're not gonna give me the money and I don't know why we do this but within this bank robbery scene bear in mind it'd be about four of us four boys someone would always give birth I don't know what the fuck that was about and he'd be like yeah but you're pregnant you're a pregnant woman and then someone would just put a jumper up their top and be like please I'm pregnant and be like why the fuck are we doing this when you're a kid it's like that's the most dramatic thing you can imagine happening is that like someone gives birth during a bank robbery is like that's what whenever you would have to devise a thing at GCSE I think Stephen Merchant did a bit about this in like his DVD where it's like all you tick off all the dramatic things that can happen in a drama they all happen at once and like it goes to a blackout and just chairs scrape along the floor Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

21:13Or being relocated and stuff. Yeah, exactly.

21:15Mo Gilligan: The lights go, they fade out, and then they come back again. It's a shame we didn't sort of wrestle to warm up for other subjects, isn't it? When it was like, solve this equation, it's like, give me a sec. And then you're just doing a DDT on someone. I need to get it out of my system. So then, when you go to university, you started doing stand-up comedy. And you've done some competitions as well, right? Oh, yeah, all those classic, like... How did you find the comps? like because you've done like uh comedy central's funniest student uh laughing boy as well um i did all of them i did like laughing horse and i did did you amuse moose i did amuse moose the old 60 second audition or whatever in the middle of the day i did uh so you think you're funny all this stuff but i they were always like chortle stuff like that they were all all right they're all all right but what i found with competitions for a number of years was like the people who do best in those because it's five minutes and there's 10 acts maybe every night it's like the really distinctive slightly weirder acts would always be the memorable ones who stand out but then they were always the ones who struggled when they would win these competitions and then have to do 20 minutes somewhere an hour somewhere to sustain because there's no point of comparison everyone's doing normal stand-up you're doing something crazy this is so exciting to watch in this context then immediately after all these people became great after a few years but immediately after they'd get all these opportunities and it would be like actually when there's not a load of normal stand-ups before you for you to stand out from this is annoying yeah yeah um and so all the people who did really normal straight stand-up at those competitions but don't stand out and didn't get that far could immediately go into the clubs and and do a job kind of thing yeah so there's some where i did all right in those competitions but typically there would be ones where there wasn't very many weird acts you know i mean where it's like everyone's a stand-up that's where i might place and come third or something but by comparison to anyone doing something a bit bolder i would just sort of disappear i would just be like you know i mean i just blend into the background kind of thing competitions are crazy because it is i think comedy competitions are crazy because it a lot of competitions some i remember there used to be some competitions where they say you have to bring a you have to bring a friend yeah as an audience member yeah but also you can go to competitions and you see someone getting a lot of laughs and you're like wow this person's really good getting a lot of laughs but they brought about 15 they've got 20 people in the audience And you'd be like, it's weird because you're watching it and you're like, right, this guy's, you know, this guy, all this girl's like, all right, they're smashing it, man.

23:40Mo Gilligan: And then at the end, when they've won, they'll be at the bar and all their mates are there and you're like, oh. Yeah. I've been hoodwinked. Yeah. And you're just like, oh, so you can cheat this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You can cheat. But I wasn't, I never wanted anyone to watch me for years. so like when I went to uni there was like all the people I lived with at uni in first and second year they were like when can we they spent two years being like when can we come and watch you keep saying you're a comedian yeah and they were like see videos of me on the internet and be like it's funny I want to come watch and be like no let me get good I'm shit let me get good because I was just like I know there's something but I haven't figured it out yeah yeah and also I had bad experiences of bringing people really early on and having just like the worst deaths of all time and stuff the first people I brought to gigs was like my parents and they came to like a competition i did and it went fine but i like had jokes about them having sex and stuff like that and i was like but it wasn't true i was just like oh what's a crazy thing for a 17 year old to say yeah but then they were there god this is an awful memory actually but yeah i would just it was stuff like that really awkward stuff like that but i would like scrape through often to like semi-finals maybe occasional finals i would never really do better than that yeah yeah how did you do did you win any i didn't win any um laughing horse i think I got oh I got to a final with the laughing horse nice that was fun because I was like I'm in the final and I'll never forget I had a really bad cold and they'd done this thing where you have a number you put it in a hat and that's going to dictate where everyone goes in the lineup yeah yeah and I remember just being like I've got a cold but I was like I just don't want to go first don't want to go first I kept saying like I just want to I want to just see what the vibe is because I've got a cold I'm just going to like wait see what the vibe is and then boom I can just do my set I pick boom I'm first I was like it's done yeah also it's hardest because they by the time they're judging it yeah you're the furthest away furthest away so no one remembers it was done it was like the first one up and yeah and I remember I can't remember I think there was a guy where one of the other comics and I was like oh I was like oh I'm first and he was like oh it's alright mate don't worry man you'll be fine you'll smash it another guy looked at him and he was like this guy's dreams are dead his dreams dead it's like you come on bro we all know man was there a person in your generation when you were doing the competitions who just you always lost to was there anyone who was just like this guy's just winning all of them because it no because i only only ever done i think two competitions right okay like i think i i remember doing laughing horse before and i think i i might have got to the quarter finals yeah and then they say online like you can only enter this once so i entered again yeah and he didn't remember me so i was like great yeah i've got to the finals that's how successful that first yeah yeah yeah i was like perfect man um yeah i think i think i might have won the semi-finals um i remember just waiting so long but by the time i got on i forgot about my set and i was like i think there was like a storm or something that had happened in the uk so i kind of mentioned that and i think even for the audience it was like oh a relief someone who's not doing like a structured set he's just talking about what's happening right now yeah i think that's i think i won well yeah because those new act competitions are everyone is so scripted oh yeah and they can't deviate got in it yeah yeah and you get such credit if something happens like i remember doing one where as soon as i took the mic out of the stand the cable fell out and because i just sort of confidently did that i made a joke like that's the worst joke ever probably out of it of like oh good start or something like they were just like what a brave young boy who's learned to deal with it it hasn't completely collapsed you're like it'd be crazy to not reference it yeah or like if someone goes on when there was like a really weird act or something or really high energy guy and you go on your deadpan when those guys would go on and go like oh there's going to be a bit of a gear shift now they would just get the biggest reaction because it was like wow you're doing the most basic level of competence of how to be a comedian on a bill but you're brand new isn't this incredible do you ever remember like seeing like some of those acts and they'd have like like i remember seeing acts and they'd have like some stuff like prepared like they might have like a suitcase and they're like they've got props and and i'll be like oh cool man and they go on and they get there early they might have a costume on or something you watch it and they're like yeah so but it's hard because you know like when you know you're like okay you're kind of like a kind of character act with a load of props and i know that if you've done this on a normal comedy night it works because it's the randomness of what's going on and it's an audience you're like what the fuck is going on he's like yeah so i've got this bit and the joke might go to something else and you're like oh that works but on a competition where people are like okay cool like i'm judging everyone bait and that it just never would work no like i'd see so many acts that have like a suitcase with some props or it's always a suitcase isn't it yeah it's like an old-fashioned like 1950s old school comedy man yeah yeah and it's like pun guys would have that yeah yeah yeah and they have it's that thing where they got a joke yeah and then they throw it away and then they got another one and I'd be sitting there watching just like it's just it's too much effort to not be embarrassing yeah because you're like if you do if you go into that much effort you have to annihilate it because if you go into that much effort and it's not working it's like and you really thought about this as well and you really tried whereas if you were just saying jokes it's like you can kind of make it seem like oh I'm just riffing so it's fine that this is bombing yeah but when you're like no I clearly prepared this because I attach these eyes to this cheese grater.

29:18So I've really thought about this gag. I wish I could think of what that joke would be.

29:26Mo Gilligan: Laughing Horse was great. There wasn't anyone in it that I would always lose to. I think when I done Laughing Horse, I think the winner was, I think Sophie Hagen won. She was incredible, man. You know when you just know, you're like, this person's going to win. Yeah, this person's going to win. and then I think I'd done Amuse Moose and they'd done the final in Edinburgh and at that point I was just like I hadn't been Edinburgh so I was like wow I'm going to Edinburgh and I'm going to do comedy there, this feels amazing and who won I think George Lewis won George Lewis won that one I don't know where I got placed I don't know, I wasn't second or third but they'd done this like I don't know, you know like where you don't get placed but they have this whole like here's an act that we loved basically right right right a little honourable mention but it was kind of like it was kind of like a runners up but it wasn't if that makes sense but I think it was that it's sort of annoying that because it's like you can't put that on a CV no you can't put that all you're using these competitions for is to put them in emails to promoters to try and get gigs literally yeah yeah I mean for years I had quarter finalists laughing horse on my email I would send yeah it's like as if you're a promoter reading that thinking well I've got to book you Hugh got through one round of the easiest competition in England yeah oh god it's so embarrassing quarter finalist FA Cup who gives a shit yeah that was oh god a horrible time but that's like the way you do it right and the reason I entered all of them is because when I before I started well when I just started comedy I started because I was like 17 but and every comedian on TV which is all I had access to was 40 50 years old and so I thought okay I'll just wait I'll just get a job and then later on I'll be a comedian but then Russell Howard and Jack Whitehall broke through and they were both young Jack Whitehall especially was like 18, 19 and was presenting Big Brother or something yeah yeah he was one of your kind of inspirations at the time well I just looked him up yeah I just looked up like how is this young guy doing this and his CV at the time on like his website was all those competitions it was all like so you think you're funny laughing horse whatever Hackney Empire new act of the year and then I was like oh right so that's how you get that's how you present big brother yeah yeah he's the only example of that in history and so i just entered all those competitions because of that and so all most of those competitions were my first gigs it was like because that was the only way i knew how to get stage time i didn't go and do like a bunch of open mics and then do the competition i would get there and people would be like the people you'd meet at like laughing horse they would say like oh i'm gonna wait a year to enter so you think you're funny because it's a bigger one and i'd be like wait a year yeah i've already done it it was like my third gig and so i would you know i would lose a lot of these gigs but i was like brand new and it's just like a way to get five minutes of stage time to a full audience you started getting like success quite early on in your career in terms of like going to competitions and going to you know uh that edinburgh fringe that you done your first oh you done your debut at the pleasant's comedy reserve right yeah i did the comedy reserve so that was like that is like a mixed bill thing where the Pleasants which is one of the big venues in Edinburgh like do auditions and then they pay for like four of you to come up and you do 50 all of you do 15 minutes on this bill a night it's one of I think it's one of the best ways it's a really good way to do Edinburgh when you're new um and that still the the call when they said you can do the comedy reserve we'd like you to be the comedy reserve it's still the most exciting moment of my career yeah it's the most excited i've ever been i was in my halls at uni in first year and i was like oh my god this is incredible i get to actually do this it's because i also i'd been to watch it the year before because jack whitehall had done it so i'd seen on his cv the jack whitehall had done pleasant comedy reserve i thought right i've got to get on that went to watch the year before and doc brown was on it who i knew and i said to a mate who i'd taken to watch it i was like i'm going to do this next year and it's the i'm like so not like that and it's the only time i've ever manifested something successfully because but that's naivety i didn't know how hard it was to get and how many people would be going for it then you do like three nights of auditions in london and you're just doing five minutes and i remember it just went really well and then i still didn't hear about it and then nick helm said no i don't want to do it and so i was the fifth choice out of four and so i got it because nick helm was like you weren't allowed to do another show if you're doing that and he wanted to do his solo show yeah and so i got it because thank god for nick helm being too ahead of his time he was like now i'll do an hour and the first night of doing the comedy reserve is the first time i'd ever done longer than 10 minutes on stage you had to do 15 yeah i mean it was a horrible month i bombed every day it was awful but so how long was you on stage for 15 but i was like stretching a 10 out like yeah so i would have to write every day to try and get this extra five but it was just a hard gig so yeah like it would nothing stuff would never work you know i mean it would be like okay but it was never great but you say you bombed every night but was that just you like looking back at the material you're like wasn't my best work because i feel like with edinburgh it it you i feel like the audiences there are much nicer in terms of when you have to like do like your 50 minutes at a club do you know i mean if you're at like a professional club you're like ah okay this is whereas i feel like at edinburgh the audiences are like oh yeah we're just paying five ten pounds they're not gonna heckle you like they would at a club they're not going to like sense weakness but they they're they're easier if for they'll go with experimentation a lot more okay but i wasn't really doing that i was doing normal club stand-up yeah and so you're kind of you almost want it to be a club atmosphere because you want like there's nothing better than a rowdy crowd that's on your side yeah yeah like that's the best feeling but they were never going to be a rowdy crowd in edinburgh because it was like a 50 seater it's like it looks like a lecture hall yeah the it's never gonna have atmosphere of that they don't know what they've come to yeah there's all these great solo shows of like people doing really interesting things and they're coming to watch like a mixed bill thing of like oh these are the stars of the future or whatever and then we were all kind of struggling except for one guy daniel simonson norwegian comedian who now lives in new york and we just we were supposed to rotate the order every night and after like two days we were like you go on last none of us want to go on the rest of us would just struggle but they definitely would go with more and also they wouldn't have, I don't know if the audiences would have left being like they all bombed they'd have been like that was interesting but they wouldn't have been like that was really funny because I've always found with Edinburgh you can't really do like gag stand up club stuff there because everyone is doing like stuff that's one that's so personal but you might get like an act who is like for an hour that guy who does a competition five minutes and has a suitcase with loads of props he really comes to life in the hour yeah do you know i mean it's like yeah this is what my my hour is in terms of like this is what the whole show is based around was i've always felt like if you go to edinburgh with a a load of gags and you're like i'm very gaggy i've got this bit i've got that that bit there i just feel like the audience a bit like yeah we've kind of come to see a play my reviews in edinburgh would be like what a breath of fresh air he's just doing jokes what a lovely palate cleanser for the rest of the festival and you're like the comedy festival and the guy doing jokes is standing out what are you on about i always found that so frustrating even like literally the 2023 tour i did i went and did it in edinburgh for a week and every review was like wow how is he doing this there's no emotional heft in this at all he's just making us laugh this is incredible and i'm like yeah because i didn't write it for the edinburgh fringe i wrote it to go around the rest of the country where they don't want you to do that yeah they yeah it's it's the complete opposite when you start like touring they're almost like yeah we we just want a night out and we want some jokes they were they don't want anything too personal yeah we don't want anything heavy heavy we're like oh yeah unless you can make that hilarious yeah but in edinburgh you know you people can can fall in the trap of trying to force that that trauma or that heft or something like that personal bit into it when it shouldn't be there or it's not necessary i've sort of done that in early shows where i was like okay i need that bit people would call it like the sad bit of 40 minutes or whatever but it's like you sort of learn once you as soon as you start touring you like even if you've had a successful edinburgh with that sad bit in it as soon as you get on tour you're like we'll get rid of that that's the bit that goes immediately cut that man let's just do some crowd work yeah because like the first when you're on tour the first what 15 minutes is crowd work in the place that you're in yeah especially if you go to those places where like they just want to laugh they've had some drinks we're in Coventry they just want to get to the jokes in my experience they don't want to laugh in Coventry they don't want to do anything I like Coventry you didn't like it I struggle in Coventry every time Coventry's on my list man that's one of the few on my list I was like Coventry where's your list that's where you're like oh hard hard not going back there not like going back but you're like oh man this is going to be a tough one man Coventry definitely hard work yeah well it's not hard but there's this run of gigs run by this loveliest man but it's in Barnard Castle and I think Hexham and a couple of these like quite remote northern places and the gigs are actually fun yeah but the crowd are very old and so you have to the gig has to be about for me how much younger I am than the crowd like I can't everything I talk about has to be through the lens of I know you don't know what I'm on about but and so you make it work and actually what I found on my last tour is like lots of the crowds were older than I expected them to be yeah so just from ad-libbing you end up with 15 minutes of stuff about the crowd's age that they laugh at it's not like that insulting yeah but then i got back to hackney empire and i was just like muscle memory i'm just saying like oh this crowd's so and then i'm looking at everyone's 22 and just like what we're in hackney what are you on about we got blue hair um and so i just lost 15 minutes of the show immediately and had to just be like okay all right i'll do some chat yeah yeah um but coventry's the one that became a punchline for the rest of the show for the rest of the tour because I would just be like I just would be doing like at least we're not in Coventry yeah for the rest of the tour see Coventry was nice for me I'll tell you what was really hard when I first toured there was when I'd done Norwich oh really I love Norwich fucking hell really Norwich Playhouse yeah yeah yeah love it that left a mark on me man really that was a so what it was we was in Norwich for I had two shows there this was probably like 2018-2019 we had a show on Tuesday we had wednesday off and we had a show there on thursday so we had stayed there from tuesday wednesday and then thursday we went home um that wednesday it was like desperate to leave oh my god i can't believe i've got to do another like yeah you know anyone listening that's from that that's from norwich like it's a beautiful place i was like this place is really nice and touched old castles old churches and stuff like this but when it got to the point where we were we went bowling.

40:20Mo Gilligan: And we had bowled so long that we were like, fuck, man, this is fucking... Bowling is one of the most funnest things you can do. Because the aim is... But you bowled yourself bored. We got so bored that we was like, all right, let's go and play some of the arcade games. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We played the arcade games for so long that I was like, I've probably spent at least 200 pounds in here. But you're in this great cultural historic city. There's so much culture and history in Norwich. Time has never gone slower in Norwich. You're bowling and you're in the arcade. Listen, man. We went to... They had like a...

40:54Mo Gilligan: You know when they've got like an outlet? We went to like an outlet. So we went to like, oh, cool, go to the outlet. We get some discount. You're just hitting all these things you can do in any city or town in the country. Come on, man. When you're in Norwich, there's so many cool things. Like what? Yeah, I don't know. I'm in and out. I'll do the gig and I'll go out. I tell you, we got so bored that we were... Like time, it just felt like it was going so slow. we was like night time we had planned we were like okay we're gonna do some fun stuff we went cinema and then we were like okay I'll tell you you are having a sort of 13 year old boy's dream day out then we went rollerblading we blew some bubbles and we had hiccups for an hour we went to Great Yarmouth we drove to Great Yarmouth and we went to the casino fucking hell come on you keep opening it up like we went to Great Yarmouth and then of course you go to somewhere and then we went on log flume.

41:47Mo Gilligan: We went to the casino because this was a stage in my life where I was just like, I really used to like going to casinos. I didn't have a gambling addiction or nothing, but I was like, this is quite fun here. Hey, I've been in this phase of my life. So we went to the casino. Did you have a system? So my game was roulette. And did you do the martingale system? What's this one? Wow, I had a period where I was martingaling it a lot. What's that? And I was dragging people into it. The martingale system in roulette is basically doubling down on a 50 on a supposed 50 50 choice you always win eventually yeah so let's say you choose red or black let's say you choose red yeah so you start with 10 pounds on there if it loses you put 20 pounds on there and then if that wins you just go back to 10 each time and so over time yeah it does mean sometimes you have to get to putting like 500 down on because you're just doubling it every time so it'd be like 10 20 40 80 it gets to like 360 i think and that's when like you have to have enough money that you and also they have limits on what you can do yeah but in theory it should it should never happen enough that you don't win money even though you're doing it in increments of 10 and so for a period me and my friend Adam would go and do this and we'd just do it every day and then as soon as we got to£100 profit we would leave every day and then I we were doing this it was great and we had so much cash because we were just like fuck it let's do the Martingale system because we thought obviously the zero means that this doesn't work over time and the casino always wins but we were doing this and it was just like a really fun like stupid dumb thing to do then I went on holiday and I came back and he just had all this cash because he had just been doing it while I was away.

43:15Then eventually we got back and he was like, let's go. I'm doing it every day. I've got loads of money. Let's go. We did it. And it got to a point where he had like 12 spins in a row that had gone against him. And he would have had to put down like£2 ,000 or something on this. And he was like, I'm out. We've got to go. I'm not doing that. Because then you think the odds are in your favour. And then when it comes to putting down a big chunk of money on one of the things, it does just feel 50-50. It's all of a sudden. And you go, yeah, it's always 50-50.

43:39Mo Gilligan: I didn't know this, man. But that was like we that was just like a classic example of me being like in my early 20s thinking I'm fucking Ocean's Eleven. Yeah. Yeah. I'm tricking the casino doing they would look at the groupies would look at you like you're a fucking idiot because they know exactly what you're doing. Yeah. They'd be like, oh, it's one of these dickheads. He solves the system, the ancient casino system where we famously always win. And we would also be like, make sure the cameras don't see you doing it because we thought we were doing so. It's not illegal because he doesn't want you to do this.

44:08But that was how I would do it. But what would you say? What would you do? you're doing random numbers so I would

44:12Mo Gilligan: always do 32 34 36 I'd do my old door number 31 and then the rest I would put money based on football as I like so number 7 David Beckham number 14 Henri number 9 Ronaldo was this a profitable system do you know what it's weird because I first started playing roulettes when I went to Vegas and I won first time ever that's how they get you and I won I want a lot of money to the point where I went back to the guys and my friends was in the room because like one of our friends had run out of money so he was having a debrief meeting of like okay guys we're going to get a table but we ain't got enough money so can and I walk in and I've got you know like when you get dollars in the casino there's something about getting dollars where you're like whoa this is whoa man especially those ones you mean dollars like more than getting like pounds yeah it's like dollars feel special you might be like 20 you got your 21s so you're like wow can I get that ward there yeah I've got like a hundred dollar bill so I'm like wow look at that and I think I want about five hundred dollars I'm not too sure off just$25 took a friend of mine to Taco Bell I felt like the man I was like yeah get whatever you want in Taco Bell like it's only me and then coming back and all my friends are like well I was like yeah I want some money now I was like how much of that$500 I had friends asking me so uh how do you how do you do it how do you do it man so i was like yeah man you know you want to you want to bet on red like red always wins yeah yeah to the point where the next day i was like betting again i got lucky again and then i started coming up with phrases you know one of my friends i wish i bet on i was like bet on red there's no blood shit and i get winning and winning and winning so at this point like i went to that's like tales tales never fails in a coin flip go to great yarmouth and we get to the casino now i'm seeing people put you know their money down on the numbers and at this stage i don't really do the numbers i do red or black i'm seeing guys put all these chips on so i'm like right we've got some high rollers here in great yarmouth so i'm like oh boss let me change up i've got 80 pounds can i get can i get fives put them into fives he's like yeah so he gives me five so i'm like all right cool i'll spread betting there's one guy he wins big and I can't remember he's got a lot of chips on like a number and you know he doubles he gives them these chips I was like oh cool man I was like wow man people I'm seeing people win with these big chips so I said to him I was like oh bro how much did you did you start with he goes oh mate it was 50p I'm like 50p and I'm here with fucking 5 pounds on a number and then everyone would just put like 50 one guy was like yeah I put a pound a pound on I was like yeah no no no you're not in Vegas anymore you're in Great New Orleans these are 50p these are the 2p machines basically yeah I was like okay fair enough man but no that Norwich for me was I when I was a kid like it was secondary school I was probably 14 I tried to run a casino in my house in your house for one night and then my parents shut it down I remember going to school I'd like made a roulette board out of paper and stuff yeah and I like I was like into blackjack and poker and stuff like that.

47:29And so I had a deck of cards and it was like, I'd laid it all out on the table before I'd gone to school. And then I went to school and I was like, casino at my house tonight, one pound entry. And then bring money to gamble with.

47:39Mo Gilligan: It sounds like a vibe, you know? I was like, yeah. And then I got home and I was like at the door like a bouncer being like, where's your pound? And my mum came in and was like, you can't charge people to come into my house. What the hell are you doing? And I was like, mum, I'm a businessman. I'm trying to be an entrepreneur. What the hell are you talking about? And then it just got shut down immediately. I think they came in and then we like played poker or something, but just like friendly. Because she was like, this is insane. This house is not a casino. This isn't much I've done now. I'd be like, listen, how can I get in on this?

48:03Mo Gilligan: Exactly. Let's just, I'd be hustling, man. The house always wins. Yeah. I took that very literally. Oh, that's sick, man. My house will always win. Yeah. But it only happened once and then. You're probably shut it down, man. Got shut it down. So where you are now within your middle is like, I feel like what I really rate about you is like, watching you on Mock the Week is, bro, like, I think. Once I got to do like television and I went on, I don't know, I've been on the odd few panel shows, but Mock the Week is not a joke. And bro, you're fucking cold on that, man. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much.

48:40Mo Gilligan: I know like a few comics that have done it and they've all said, yeah, like that is, a lot of comics I know who have done it, it's like they've all said how hard it is. But you make it look very, very easy. But it's also one of those shows that's like, it's been around for so long, but it's such a staple. but I feel like there's a lot of comics that I've worked alongside or I've seen or I admire their work and like seeing a comic that you see on that that's when you're like oh yeah like I know that that's not a joke on that show do you know what I mean? Right, right, right. How did you find it?

49:12Yeah, I was lucky because all the chat about it before it had a reputation before I got on it of it's a bear pit and you'll never get a word in and everyone's trying to fuck you over on that show But by the time I got on it, it hadn't been like that for a while, I don't think. And it was lots of like the sort of school year in comedy above me were on it. And they're sort of friends of mine. So, you know, you're told all this stuff like it's a bear pit and everyone's trying to fuck you over. But the day before we did the recording, Rob Beckett phoned me and said, good luck, Matt. He was on it with me.

49:43But he was like, good luck, man. Here's how you do it. Like, here's a bit of advice or whatever of how to play it. Ed Gamble was on. He'd always sort of like, you know, helped me with lots of advice and stuff anyway. ways that he was like always going to have my back on the show and try and team me up and stuff like that gary delaney on the day came to my dressing room was like i know you've done a few panel show bits before but here's the sort of intricacies of this one here's how to play it and it was all just advice like it's so fast moving that you're gonna have to say a lot of new material basically you're riffing a lot and it stuff will bomb obviously yeah yeah but it's so fast moving the audience won't even notice so don't be embarrassed we're all gonna say stuff that doesn't land but someone will already be talking so they won't even notice they didn't laugh they'd just be like oh i've got to look over there now a joke that is going to work or whatever and like it resets they don't think this guy's not funny it just resets every joke because that's a show really compared to most other of the panel shows that was about the joke not really about the personality i think so like a cat's countdown is a bit more about your persona i think yeah yeah because it's just like how would this person responds to this game effectively whereas you You could go on Mock of the Week and just sort of be all about the writing or the ideas.

50:52You could also go on and be a personality person like Jane Day Caster did or Milton Jones.

50:56Mo Gilligan: But you've written on the shows as well, right? Yeah, before I did them, I would write on some of those shows. And that sort of helps because you just sort of know that you see the mechanics of it. But I just think I was lucky because Mock of the Week was a show that suited my style massively, which is very short, few words, word economy, and trying to get ideas. Because I kind of learned that from just posting jokes on Twitter. I just learned you've got to get these jokes as short as possible because at the time I only had 140 characters. And so it just made me efficient with words and that sort of stuff.

51:24And then when the week came, it was just like, yeah, that's what that is. That last round, especially when you're going into the middle, that's tweets. So it's like, how can you translate this? And it was the perfect show for it. So I was very grateful. And actually, as it went on, as it goes on and you get more comfortable on a show like that, it does become a bit more about the personality and you prep a bit less. And you've got a good dynamic with Dara and Hugh and the others who are going to be on it. and you can sort of like, you get a bit more comfortable to lean back in that chair to not look at your notes and to just be like, yeah, it's all right.

51:51You know, you still need your jokes and stuff, but like, actually, we can just talk about Theresa May in quite a light way and just like try and make it funny and see what happens. And the best feeling on that show is when Dara would take something you'd said and sort of run with it and improvise with it and build a scene around it kind of thing and imagine it and do voices and stuff like that. That's when you knew like you'd hit on a comedy idea when he would then be like, right, and then if you got that, if you did the thing that was the runner, like the running joke for the episode and you started it, it was just an ultimate feeling of like that all came from an idea I said.

52:22Yeah. Because it's so disposable because everyone's saying so many jokes that you say something and it's just gone. But when it's like, no, no, no, we're going to keep coming back to that one. That was like fucking comedy heaven. That's shit.

52:31Mo Gilligan: Yeah, that's because I've done a few panel shows, but like I've done Big Fat Quiz of the Year, which I think for me works in a sense of because it's topical and especially if you work alongside another comic like i worked with kevin bridges who's just like like seeing him work with just like someone that i admire as a comic yeah and i probably spent 90 of that show just laughing at whatever he was saying yeah yeah yeah and just trying to bounce off because because i was like yeah i'm i just i just like you as a comic bro and the fact that we're on a team together yeah i was like hey man i ain't really i ain't really got all right too much today but i feel like that was a as a panel show it was a show i was like this i think aids me i remember doing i don't know if you've done did you do the audition for eight out of ten cats oh god yeah god yeah loads of times countless times so for anyone listening basically when you do eight out of ten cats you do this audition which is in i think when i had done it it was in oh is it tiger aspect yeah it's just in the offices of yes it's just like a meeting room yeah yeah and we've spoken about it previously on this podcast with some other comics and stuff but my god man that is like there is one thing doing these like comedy competitions where you're like oh okay cool i'll see how it goes it's based on the audience yeah whereas when it's a show and i remember telling my friends and i was just like yeah i've got an audition man eight out of ten cats and my friends are like really oh that's big man yeah because there is this thing where I feel like there used to be a time where, and I think that's really, I think also aided yourself as well, where if you're successful on a show like Mock the Week, then you'd be like, okay, cool.

54:21Mo Gilligan: I will see you on this other show. And that could also help you possibly maybe do a tour and build up your reputation and stuff as well. And not to say that doesn't happen now. I just think now it's just a lot more open in terms of you can put crowd work clips up, you can do sketches. Yeah, you can go a bit more direct. yeah yeah yeah but i think definitely like if you are good on a panel show it's almost like yeah like i can i can if if you know you've done one before yeah i could do another one of these yeah but and actually the audition stage the audition is the worst part of my mind because it's not i mean a panel show is to an audience of three four hundred people and the auditions is to an audience of 20 disinterested people who are like i've got or go watch that I'm sort of in the middle of something they were like on lunch breaks and stuff yeah yeah yeah and also it's like you kind of know who the head honcho is it's really hard not to deliver everything to them like you're looking at that's the person who's in charge the person with the clipboard every punchline you're sort of like nope she doesn't like it alright next one doesn't matter if you're making like Richard Osmond would host him quite a lot yeah yeah doesn't matter if he's laughing because he's laughing because he's a good host yeah and he's being nice but you're looking at the person in charge I did one once for Dictionary Corner the first it's like you do 10 maybe 10 minutes maybe five minutes or something but let's say it's five minutes two and a half minutes i'm annihilated i'm having the gig of my life i'm thinking well i'm about to be the new susie dent here i'm like i'm the funniest person anyone's ever seen this is incredible yeah and then i just out of it just went from that to just silence for the rest of it i just the next bit i was i had like two halves of like a bit and when i started doing my second bit they were just like now we hate this bit yeah and i was like no i wish i wish It could have been the other way around so that you leave thinking, oh, OK, that started a bit slow, but it got really good.

56:06Mo Gilligan: Yeah. But it just was like, what happened? I just fell off an absolute cliff. And I just like people would like looking at their feet and stuff. It was so awkward. It's so demoralizing, man. But it's weird because I think with comedy, like we're used to having a bad gig where that or like not even used to. But we know when we go on this stage, like the the outcome is either great. You laugh or you're not going to laugh. But you're like, that's what we put ourselves into, whether we are established or whether we're starting off or whether we're at a competition. But when you do an audition for a thing where you're like, this is so this is not even based on how funny I am.

56:42Mo Gilligan: But also, right. It's like because they always say I remember like they'd like, yeah, you know, just just just laugh at other people's stuff, too. Right. So I was I remember I said one joke. It was not funny, man. Oh, man, it was so not funny. so I spent the majority of the audition just laughing at everyone's stuff yeah right right I look like a fucking crackhead bro you would have just been like bro this guy's having a great time he's not saying he's being funny and it's just like just smile someone said to me just smile and just laugh it looks like you're having a great time so I was like yeah oh fuck it was it was horrible it's such weird advice because like did Sean Locke do that?

57:20do I associate him with just constantly laughing at everyone's stuff not massively it was so so horrible so I don't know that that is necessarily true.

57:29Jimmy Carr's very good at laughing. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he's laughing. That's the host job, it's different.

57:34Mo Gilligan: His laugh is iconic. Exactly. He's got that real iconic laugh. And so he's getting a laugh for his laugh. Yes, yeah. And he's Jimmy Carr, isn't it? So you're like, he's running the show. Do you know what I mean? He can give a joke and he can take one, but you're like, he's running the show. Whereas when I'm like, you're like a newbie. You're like, who, this guy? Nah, bro. Beat, get out of here. Oh, it's horrible, man. If you're making me up. Horrible, man. of palpitations thinking about doing those auditions god yeah that's the good thing about mock the week there wasn't one yeah they just came to watch your show and then they were like yeah you can do it but and now you're in that that you're you're in a space where you're writing as well you've got a new book app as well yeah yeah yeah and you're going on a book tour um how is this how are this how does this really like elevate what what you do in a sense of because i feel like you know you you have people that will come to your show based on like you know the material that they've seen or your your tweets um or seeing you on mock the week where you know you've built like a really solid like and trusting fan base as well and you know you know like now where you're writing and is there a pressure of writing a book that feels like oh this must be really really funny because you know it's like you on twitter you know you'd have tweets that would go viral.

58:51Mo Gilligan: And I don't know if you have this where... Because your tweets are so funny. Do you have people that... Not so much people, but one people that steal your jokes and make it out as their tweet. Back in the day, that would happen all the time. But do you have people that would do it as material? Oh, interesting. No, I never had stuff nicked by a comedian. It would be more like a platform like they would just crop your name out and then just post it um and so it was more like all of those things were doing that all the time but i couldn't care less about that sort of thing now at all yeah i just really don't give a shit about that and like you know if you have like a big like reel and or a tiktok or something then someone just like reposts it on their platform just like i don't care yeah but partly i guess that's because like well my face is in that you can't remove my face from that as much as you want to so like that that is me even though you're not tagging me it's like who cares but um i was precious about it at the time i would be like this is my joke and sometimes a comedian would do one that you've done and you'd be like uh i've actually already done that joke and they go well actually i already did it two years ago and i'm repeating it and i'm like this is so embarrassing but always it's like great minds and then actually i just found that so tedious but no with the book basically it's like i just set out to write a funny book but also like a much it's much more open than my stand-up is because because my stand-up is designed to be funny every 10 seconds.

1:00:19And so, like I say, like the whole, you know, Edinburgh being, it's not about trauma in my book at all, but it is much more an explanation of like who I grew up being and the sort of feelings around that. But just accidentally, effectively, I can't not write it like stand-up. And so like the feedback on the book is, wow, this is like stand-up. This is really like, it's really punchy in like every sentence it turns out. because also I was given advice from other comedians to read it out loud while writing it not literally while typing like a maniac but if you do a draft read it out loud when you do that just like obviously your brain just works quicker than you're reading so you just think of jokes and you just add jokes in you go or you go like oh that's a bit long without a line that's funny so I'll just chuck something in there um and then just instinctively it becomes quite stand-up-y and like the stories but what I find is my persona on stage is a little bit too like high status so if I'm embarrassed on stage the me on stage wouldn't know that they're embarrassed the audience would but I wouldn't know because I'd think I'd won in some way and so it means that whenever something embarrassing happens in my life you know how comedians are like great I've got five minutes of material now I can't do it because if I tell stories of embarrassing things that happen to me the audience are like you've just been telling us you're the best you've just been acting like you're right you can't now be low status so I just put them all in the book so everything that's embarrassing that's happened to me throughout my life is just in the book instead and it's an exploration of like humiliation and embarrassment that's that's quite cool because

1:01:43Mo Gilligan: it's quite a flip because most of the time it's like you're saying as comics we wait for the bad thing to happen to turn it into humor yeah whereas like still having that and being like well i've got to feed that the audience of what they want and the people that might have seen me on a television show or come to previous tours but i'm now feeding you something different which is in the book and it's in a written form that you can ingest and read in your own i like it being like a separate thing like i'm sort of using the separate medium to be like okay that's where i can say these things yeah but on stage it's like i'm not doing that i'm sort of you know do sort of like observational things like about the world rather than necessarily about me kind of thing yeah but then in the book i can be like all right now here's all the sort of like i guess sort of slightly more indulgent but like self-effacing stuff that's having a go at me being a piece of shit or whatever there's also things that outward look at the world and say like oh people isn't it weird how people do this we shouldn't do this kind of stuff but for the most part it's like lots of it is done through a really personal lens and i've never really been that personal while doing stand-up it's a little bit more like my theories on the world my worldview rather than you know this happened to me or this is how i like ultimately feel it would be more like everyone's an idiot and here's why it's sort of the go-to i think audiences love that though when they get a little snapshot into your life yeah for a different lens so if it is you know literature where people are like oh i didn't really notice about reese this is really interesting yeah yeah for sure that's what i'm getting from doing some of the live book shows is like definitely it feels like a really different thing and also it's interesting to get the same sort of laughs that you would get at a stand-up gig but from a completely different thing but because i'm not you can sell your book at the same time yeah well yeah you're selling obviously the whole thing is an advert for the book yeah every time you're doing this gig that you're like someone's interviewing me another a comedian and sometimes they'll be like um taking the piss out of me or the book and i have to keep you like this is an advert i'm trying to get these people to buy this book at the end of the show please stop slagging it off yeah but you know it's still fun it's really fun to go and do it and talk and just like talk in a way where i'm fully myself and i'm not switching on to like a slight stand-up persona um because you're doing a book tour right yeah yeah yeah that's like in conversations and stuff like that that does that feel like more pressure or less pressure less way less sat down it's just even the psychology of that I'm going to walk out but then I'm just going to sit in a chair it's like alright I guess I'm not at work do you have a handheld mic or do you have one of those earpiece joints handheld I keep it real because I know you like Jack Whitehall and I know he does the earpiece joint I really want to do it man I was into early Jack Whitehall when he was back in there when he wasn't in the arenas when he was holding the mic when he remembered where he comes from which is landed gentry I've always wanted to use one of those they look so fun why don't you?

1:04:31Mo Gilligan: you could use one of those easily no but the thing is there's something about what are you doing with your hands? no but I would still use my hands but just have the mic but it feels a bit lectury yeah I'd just be so tempted to do this all the time and be like so and I'd feel like I'm doing too much of a presentation yeah I know Ricky Gervais uses some of the yeah but he kind of is doing a presentation yeah he's got a little lectern and stuff yeah yeah I've always wanted to use one but I just feel like holding the mic keeps me more like in center of grounded of like okay cool i can i can go as far as the mic so if the mic can go there i can just go there yeah so i feel like having the earpiece in and also for me it would be the thing that if i'm telling a joke i like the fact that i can move the mic closer yeah yeah yeah yeah there is that there is that it's some of those things but also if it was to just stop that would be the worst thing ever of telling a joke and you're like exactly sometimes you're most about to use those sometimes at like corporate gigs and stuff and I always feel like I always ask for a handheld at a corporate really even with like with stand up yeah but when it's like presenting some awards or something and you've got to have stuff in your hand or whatever I've tried my best even like television I was like please just a handheld I don't even like it does fuck up the delivery I don't even like using a wireless mic I hate using a wireless mic I'm like nah because they're always like stop holding it at the bottom it'll cut out and it's like this is a shit device yeah yeah yeah what obviously that makes it the technology isn't there we we don't have it yet yeah so let's keep using wires yes yeah yeah that's my head in i are you one i'm also one of those comics where you know like you know when you watch another comic and how they hold the mic yeah and you watch a lot i like those comics that can hold it like kind of like that really loose like that yeah yeah yeah like or you know like where you know you're you're a comic where not like you know you're a comic where you might watch another comic do something and you're like boy i can't wait till i'm big enough to do that like and was that like holding it really low on the mic and really loose and being like i remember watching dave chappelle and he said some joke and he would hit them hits it on his leg and i was like man listen one day when i get big enough

1:06:44Mo Gilligan: he's made it so much his thing though that if you do that everyone yeah yeah well i've seen I've seen a comedian do it at a show. I went to a show in LA. I was just to watch. And this comic was hitting the mic on his leg. And I was like, it's a bit Dave, man. It's a bit Dave Chappelle. It's a bit Dave Chappelle. The one everyone's doing now is Shane Gillis holds the mic with two hands like this. And just gestures really tight in his body. Oh, is it? Gestures like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All the new acts are doing it. Oh, really? Top secret or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of quite Trump because he does the Trump impression.

1:07:13Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just all his little hand gestures. Have you ever done a mic drop? not on purpose no i think i don't like on a joke and then just like i'm out because i remember

1:07:25Mo Gilligan: seeing chris rock do it chris rock i think was the first comic i ever seen do a mic drop but chris rock's one was the best because it was so high he'll tell a joke and be like new york i'm out bow and it would drop and people would get up and i was like i'm fucking doing that bro i can see why you would think that it really would not suit my style but it doesn't work it's a it's very it would be a punchline if I did that but you know what it is I just think it's such an American thing to be like I'm so good it's confidence in that way British people do not like to see that they don't no no no because the first thing oh he's a bit too big for his boots yeah they're like why he's damaging the mic yeah yeah yeah I thought that was nice and I'd done it I'd done it on a show where this is at a point where I was just on a line up of comics and I was like I'm going to drop the fucking mic.

1:08:11Wait, when someone had to come on after you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

1:08:14Mo Gilligan: And I remember the comedian hosting. I can't remember who it was. And he picked up the mic, but he said something back on the mic and he was just like, yeah, bro. Like, don't ever drop the mic again, bro. And I was so embarrassed. I was like, oh, fuck. So on a mixed bill, if the guy before me dropped the mic, I would, my whole set would be about that. All I would talk about was how you just dropped the mic. Bro, it was not dropping the mic worthy enough. For me, I was like, even when I look back, it was so cringe. I was like, fuck, man, that was so embarrassing for me. Make sure to follow me on Instagram.

1:08:47Good night. Alex Turner famously did it, the lead singer of Arctic Monkeys, at the Brits or something like that. And he did this insane speech, and he's saying like, oh, that good old-fashioned rock and roll, it just won't go away. And he's doing this speech of like, it may hibernate from time to time, but it always rears its head around again. and then he goes, this has been a delight to make this album. Invoice me for the microphone. But he does his admin pre the drop. If you need to, invoice me for the mic. And then it's gone. That's a barter. Well, that's how you get the public to be on your side.

1:09:20It's like, oh, he is going to pay for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:09:24Mo Gilligan: No one's out of pocket as a result. So, Rhys, as you like, now you're in a space of like, you know, you do live shows, you have been on television. you've got like a really nice fan base that will follow you and be really interested in what you're doing whether it's you know covering for people on radio whether it's doing podcasts and stuff and even like now where you know you're doing a book tour like which is kind of like I guess for you you're like it's like it's doing stand up but you're also able to promote a thing where you're like all the jokes are in this thing so I don't even have to turn up and be like okay cool because I know the pressure of like when you're like like you're saying you've got to go to Coventry and be like I don't know if they're going to find this funny or is this going to be any good in Norwich where now you're in a place where you're like the people coming like my stuff and they've not even paid to really hear any jokes tonight they just want to buy the book so as a comedian where do you start to like look at your end of how you want to start I guess almost like piecing like everything together because comedian to comedian i feel like us comics the the older we get the more experience we have where we'll be like okay this works that doesn't work um yeah how do you start looking at your end where you know you have like you're saying you you admire like a comedian like jack whitehall or you know russell howard how do you start looking towards your end where you have you know you probably have a younger you know reese james who looks up towards you know your stuff he follows you on twitter and wants to laugh at your your jokes but still read your book you know how do you start to aid that part of your your um your career well i think it's like the i thought this before writing the book but it's sort of solidified a lot it's like i want to it's like expanding into other mediums slightly and so like i would love to like direct i would love to like write screenplays and stuff like that and be in that world i like i would like to act i'm less fussed i would like quite happily write and direct a film and not be in it you know what i mean i've done oliver so i don't really need to do that i've got that out my system um and just like different ways to explore like how to be funny because like like i say it's like quite different being funny in a book like as much as it's written a bit like stand-up it feels very different way of being funny and there's like with stand-up there's ideas i would have abandoned because they didn't get a laugh in the first 10 seconds yeah that you just have a bit more space to explore in a book and and like i can delve a bit deeper before we get to all the laughs kind of thing and you don't feel that pressure of like eyes on you and because reading a book is such a personal experience yeah you know you're talking to one person rather than you know 500 or whatever so um but and like a film i guess is another thing it's like a completely different thing so i'd like yeah i would like opportunities to do that are sort of what i'm going after um relatively unsuccessfully at the moment but you know that's if we're looking at an end point those sorts of things in terms of legacy um the main thing i care about is being someone who doesn't care about legacy uh like i would what i would love everyone to say about me when i die is he was an absolutely brilliant writer and comedian who definitely didn't care about legacy he was incredible and he doesn't care that we thought he was incredible um which obviously means i so care but like i think the idea of legacy is intrinsically a bad thing uh because and it just holds you back it can only hold you back um but it's fucking hard to escape like how other people perceive you and people's opinions of you it's hard not to think of that because there might be someone else that writes it for you right you know you might be in a space where like you know in the next 20 years someone is documenting everything you've done to then put it all in a book right that's not even written by you that's like this well that's it you can't legacy is one of those things you just absolutely can't be in control of and every time you see could see when someone's trying to control it and they're gripping the cup too tight and it's like it's just like what you've got to let go and just like do things you want to do and hope for the best that it ends up being this but like who cares you can't take it with you so just like but ultimately you know i've written a book effectively about how massively concerned i spent my childhood with other people's opinions of me how scared i was of being embarrassed and how it would make me avoidant and i wouldn't go to things because i would think fuck what if this happens and all that sort of stuff and all the humiliating things that have happened that didn't matter at all in the scheme of things so i clearly do care about perception i wish i didn't and so therefore my dream is that everyone says he didn't care about how he was perceived that's the absolute dream he didn't care about the legacy and then i'll be like yes it worked my legacy they don't think i care about this yeah that's the only thing that i actually care about them saying is that i didn't care yeah that's the dream well risi man is it's been nice to properly touch base because i think we've ever we've only ever seen each other across parts in parts yeah just like hey how you doing man good to see you man how's this man yeah but um no man you're incredibly funny but also it's like your journey is so similar also to mine in ways of like how you are like a creative that I don't know it's like when you you know you talk about acting and from an early age and you're rooting to stand up where a lot of comics we get into the space of comedy where we're like oh like I'm funny at this thing but I also like this thing I like directing but when I was young I'd done a bit of acting and I guess it's like you've probably found the perfect place where you're like this is the thing I'm going to hone into because it gives me the most joy and those things are things that i'll tap into it if the opportunity arises but i get probably more joy of just like being in control of the thing that i like to do well people always want to i think there's always like um you want something else you know if you whatever you've got you sort of always want something else no matter what that thing is that you've got and you sort of do have to take stock a bit and go like i spent sort of 17 years trying to get good at stand-up don't chuck it away because i'm bored yeah yeah just make yourself not bored by writing new stuff and and like trying to keep be present in the gigs and stuff like that and not just phoning it in and stuff that's the way to do it don't chuck this away just because like oh but now i want to try this thing yeah um and that's what i have to keep reminding myself and that's why you have to just keep putting gigs in the diary and then like showing up but when i say showing up i don't just mean literally i mean like on stage showing up for the crowd and being like i do this thing when i'm in those ruts i just do this thing where i just like think how long can you go in your set before you start you know i mean before you actually start saying any of your jokes yeah whether that's crowd work which for me it often isn't more just like commenting on the environment and how much riffing can you do about oh that person's doing like it's not a conversation it's just like the room looks like this or the people in this town must be like this or whatever you can do how long can you get with good laughs before you think okay i'm out i've got to start my material now which is which i know is going to work or whatever yeah and that's what just keeps you like i think feeling fresh about the art form of stand-up comedy or the craft maybe rather than art form but definitely like i think all stand-ups get in ruts and like every stand-up who's on tour will be just be talking about like oh fucking i'm not doing a tour again they all do that while they're on tour as soon as they're off tour they're like i gotta get on tour this is so boring but this is why comedians write books they write books because they were on tour thinking i want to stay at home for a year yeah yeah yeah yeah get me a book deal i don't want to have to go on i don't want to have to go to norwich for three days and then you and then you you get home and you're like you're writing the book thinking fucking i need to do of stand-up yeah man 100 % man that's it that's what being a human is the cyclical nature of all of it everyone's just thinking like what's the other thing I could be doing and then as soon as you're doing that you know this grass is always greener isn't it but that's why it's good to do multiple things so that you can just do it in and I'm not I'm a project guy I'm an all-in on a project guy I'm not multiple spinning plates guy I can't do it my head doesn't work like that so when I hear about these like comics who are just like oh and then I had to get on a motorbike to go to this thing really quickly and get to there because then I was doing in a corporate for this but then i had to go i was presenting a tv show for bbc2 but then i had to get back because i'm doing my tour i'm just like i might i can't do that yeah it needs to be like i'm doing this i'm cancelling everything else while i'm doing this because i've got to be all in on a project because i just get so wound up if i can see that i'm not doing it to the full ability if you know what i mean so like there'd be people who'd go try their like scenes we like to see jokes from the week like the night before the recordings and i'd be like what are you doing i'm writing all night i can't go out i've got to be at this desk the performance is tomorrow.

1:17:59Mo Gilligan: That's a proper, if we go back to football and allergies, that's a proper centre midfielder, boy. I'm getting stuck in I'm here for the slide tackles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm managing box to box. I'm not on a night out with Jack Grealish, okay? I'm getting my head down early. I'm watching a film and I'm going to sleep in the hotel. Put it on the keeper. Yeah. Put it right on the keeper. Ah, Rees, man, it's been a pleasure, man. And it's been just nice to properly sit down and just connect, man. Pleasure, thank you. tickets for your your book tour are they available still are they sold out yeah I don't know when this is going out we might be it might be finished there might be one left there might be one show left but I think but people can buy the book but I think that show will be in Norwich at the Playhouse so maybe don't come hey Ray I've always had a great time in the Norwich Playhouse just for anyone listening I do like Norwich no you just had a bad time but in 2018 it was it wasn't fun for me in Norwich yeah yeah fine but I will go back there's one left there I think Anya Magliano is interviewing me there I think that will be on reesejames.co.uk otherwise get the book have you bought your own book yet in the shop well not in a shop I ordered four copies of it to test how that would affect the Amazon chart yeah and it went down is it yeah it went down like a thousand places I think it's like they go that's you mate we know that's you how dare you and I did that and then there's a big chapter in the book about how much I hate my neighbours and then I wasn't in when it got delivered and went to them and I was absolutely shitting myself and they were going to read your book and be like, what the fuck, man?

1:19:31Yeah. So get it just for that chapter and knowing that awkwardness happened.

1:19:34Mo Gilligan: Oh, man. Yeah. Well, listen, Rhys, this has been your beginning, middle and end. Thank you very much. Oh, what a pleasure. Thank you. Really appreciate that, 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.

1:20:05Mo Gilligan: Thank you for listening and have a great day. Peace.