Cally Beaton: From MTV Exec to Stand-up Comedian

0:00Cally Beaton: I've been a single mum most of my kids' lives. I was the breadwinner. I had to earn money. Loads of people pulled me to one side and said I was mad. Welcome back to What's the Trick? I am your host, Ben Hanlon, and this is the podcast where I sit down with the world's most creative people to try and understand their creative process. Today's guest is Cally Beaton. Let me tell you this for a story. So Cally Beaton was Senior Vice President at Viacom CBS. So they own MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central. And her job was based out of London, but she traveled the world a lot. And she was basically involved in dealing with multi-million pound budgets on deciding which shows to buy and roll out globally.

0:41So she's responsible for South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants, other shows as well. And then at 45, she was a single mom of two kids and everything changed. She was having dinner with Joan Rivers. Clang, there's a name drop, isn't it? And Joan Rivers says, why don't you just become a stand-up or do stand-up? Two weeks later, she tried her first ever gig. Three years after that, she quits her job. This massive job in a boardroom walks away to become a comedian and to become a comedian. Sorry. And it long story short, it worked. She's now very successful. She's been on Live at the Apollo. She's done loads of single show.

1:19She's toured with her own show. And she's also in 2025 released her first book, Namaste Mother Truckers, if you know what I mean. and that become a Sunday Times top 10 bestseller. So I really want to understand how. How are you able to walk away from such a high-powered job and follow your passion? Because how does that work financially? How does it work practically? And we get into all of that. She tells us about that. And I also want to know about her creative process. How could she spot TV shows that were going to be hits? What was the creative process there? How do you create comedy? And also being an author, How do you sit down and write a book?

1:57I want to understand all of that. At times, I should point out, there's a little bit of naughty language in this. So obviously, I've mentioned the name of the book has got some naughty words, but there's others as well. So if you've got any kids listening, just be aware of that. We met up in London in the studio, the podcast room, which is where we film. You'll hear more about that later. It's a really, really great, inspiring conversation with Callie Beaton here on What's the Trick? Welcome to What's the Trick.

2:25Cally Beaton: Thank you, Ben. It's lovely to be here. Well, it's air-conditioned. Air-conditioned. And a hot day. All you've got to say to a woman my age is, would you like to come somewhere with air conditioning? And I wouldn't have mattered what this was. We could have been talking about devil worship. I'd have been like, for sure. I just saw you walking past it. Exactly. We hadn't even planned it. I was just there sweating under a bus shelter, and you took pity on me. I did. I did. But luckily, I've got some questions, so that's good. That's good. And the book, which is extraordinary, given this wasn't planned.

2:53Cally Beaton: What are the coincidences? Let's start. But really simply, and you've been really honest about this, obviously, you've talked about this. So let's take let's go back to when you were 45. You were working at Viacom. You're a single mom of two kids. One you've said has got special needs and you quit all that to pursue comedy. And I just think it's such an interesting place to start. You talked briefly about why that niggle was there and why you wanted to do it. But how does somebody actually do this? how do you quit your job and carry on and start as a comedian well there's a little bit more of a transition to it than that so i did my first ever gig at 45 but it was an open mic gig in the bottom of a you know down and dirty spit and sawdust south london pub like we all start out as comics yeah so i had been doing stand-up on the open mic circuit for five years by the time i quit my job so i did it as a side hustle yeah we'd leave boardroom life put on my sneakers get into venues, often writing material as I went.

3:55Cally Beaton: You know, I had real gun to my head to be creative, which is interesting in terms of how it's carried on for me because I literally would have half an hour in the tube and I'd be like, what am I going to write? What am I going to say? And so I had had five years sort of honing my craft and by then I'd got some bits of telly and radio. So I was starting to get, yeah. Let's just start there. So when you say five years, I'm guessing your job's quite busy and hectic. My job was quite busy. How many nights a week are you going out, almost like Batman, as a separate four nights a week? You kind of have to, they say, I don't know what they say now, because this is over 10 years ago.

4:31Cally Beaton: They used to say then it was fairly prescriptive. They would say 100 gigs before you'll start to kind of find your chops. And I'd say that's about right. I think it's a bit different now because some people are starting out and they're finding their feet on YouTube and they're not necessarily really ever, some of them not ever doing that, sort of hoofing around the open mic circuit, some still are. In my day, before it was very much more, you know, about what you do online, what you did on stage, it was about doing these 100 gigs. And people used to say, again, I have no idea if this is still true, people used to say you need to be doing three or four gigs minimum a week or you're not going to get better.

5:10Cally Beaton: And I would say for me that was correct. So you really need to kind of get some momentum behind you. So, yeah, loads of nights a week I would be leaving the office. sometimes you do two in a night so obviously that was more economical um and exhausting but more economical with your time so i was doing so i paid my dues in that way and i'd done quite a lot of that stuff over in new york because i would be in new york for board meetings once a month yeah and so i did a lot of my early stand-up work was in the states and a huge amount of my influence of what i like creatively had been american comedy because i'd worked for american companies a huge amount of my career so I'd had sort of 15-20 years in the orbit of some pretty awesome people comedically and show businessly so I was quite American influenced and then I did quite a lot of stand-up over in the states I learned quite a lot doing that the circuit over there when you're starting out it's quite different I would say we're probably this huge generalization and there are exceptions to this but as a rule of thumb I would say we're better at writing stuff here I I think people starting out on the British circuit are often quite good writers.

6:19Cally Beaton: But over there, they're really good performers. They all land it. They know how to, I don't know if they go to classes and do it or they just watch other standouts. But even on the open mic circuit, they are slick. Do you think that when I think of about British and America, I mean, you've actually worked with Brits and Americans in the boardroom, like you say. I just noticed that maybe it's something they're taught in school. To stand up and talk to a room, I mean, I'm hugely generalising, but a lot of them can do that, almost like they've been taught it more at school than we have, I feel. I don't know if it's true.

6:52Cally Beaton: I don't know if it's taught or there's definitely, and again, for every generalisation, there are exceptions. So there'll be people now throwing their shoes and electronic devices at us for saying this or at me. but I would say having sat in boardrooms in the States for a very long time and spent a lot of time in American office culture they sort of take themselves a bit more serious than we do like we're quite self-deprecating we'll sort of be like oh no don't don't mind I remember quite early on in one of my first board meetings someone asked me to do something I said oh don't give that to me I'm an idiot I'll mess it up and they went really and I was like no no no no not really and I thought, oh right, no, can't say things like that.

7:32Okay, so you've been doing all this behind the scenes, you've building up your chops, you've got skills, you were good and then what was the trigger then to go, right, I'm going to quit this and now it's going to be full time. Did you have things banked, ready to go?

7:46Cally Beaton: It was not nearly as organised as it sounds. I say in my book that your wise mind gets wiser as I can only speak as a midlife woman. I imagine it's probably not dissimilar as a midlife man. You know, we've all been on the planet half a century, whatever it is, that's a considerable amount of time. And it's unlikely we all haven't seen some things and learned some things and lived some things. So I think you get quite wise. And I think my wise mind just got wise enough to start to look around me and think, what am I doing? And I'd never been, I was never status orientated. So even though I had big jobs and big job titles, it really didn't define me.

8:25Cally Beaton: I mean, we used to, my kids would always sort of say, they'd almost think we kind of didn't have any, not that we were loaded, but that we didn't almost didn't have any money because we would still do really basic kind of holidays. We'd go to a cottage or we'd go camping or we'd, we just, that to me felt more natural than doing, I was only ever in the front of planes for work. The way I lived with my children was much more down to earth than that. So a big part of your identity was not, I am senior vice president of a global company. Which some people do link a lot of their identity to that. Oh, some people link their entire identity to it and indeed get facilitated, I think, you know, with executive assistants and teams and they kind of lose their capacity to sort of do all the normal things.

9:06Cally Beaton: And I always used to think I did it for a long time. I was in boardrooms for a long time, but I knew I was borrowing that status and borrowing those job titles. Not that I didn't do the jobs really well and I knew I was doing them well, but I always knew there would be a time when I would be at the back of the plane, not the front of the plane. and I knew there would be a time when I didn't have somebody to do my expenses, sort everything out for me. And so I think also because, and this isn't the case for everybody in the industry, certainly there's a bit of a gender divide of my age group. I think a lot of the men my age in boardrooms had not come through the ranks as a receptionist and assistant doing all the different jobs on the way up.

9:45Cally Beaton: And I had. So I knew what I knew how to do, which was everything from making the tea to signing off big contracts in boardrooms. And I kind of never wanted to lose the capacity to do that. And I had along the way a couple of times run my own things, done some other stuff. So I was always quite curious about what it was to be a bit more of a kind of, yeah, just to have side hustles and do other stuff. And I'm aware that if you want to have a side hustle, you will be everything from the person who makes the tea to the CEO. And if you're not willing to do all those things, there are people who manage to do very well without knowing how to do those things but I suspected I wasn't one of them okay so day one then after you've quit and you've worked your notice what was that looking like then did you we do if you can take us back to when that was and you're sat there in your house you know oh right I've got to work today did you have loads of things lined up or what was was it just loads of gigs how what was that first few months like It was kind of slightly chaotic, really.

10:45Cally Beaton: So I left with the year I turned 50. So I left when I was 50 and a half. And that year I had done Edinburgh that summer. I'd done my debut solo show, which I did way too early. I wish I hadn't done it that year. A show called Super Cali Fragile Lipstick. Great name. Great name. Best thing about the show was the name. It wasn't a terrible show, but it wasn't good enough for a debut. I was too new. So I'd done my debut in Edinburgh. I'd done by then a couple of episodes of QI I had I don't think I no I hadn't started corporate speaking which was the game changer financially so I had sat down with my financial advisor and anyone who hears this they might be thinking oh yeah well great for you you know pursuing your hobby it couldn't be a hobby because I was the sole breadwinner I've been a single mum most of my kids lives I was the breadwinner I had to earn money it was not an option for me to go and shilly shally about and this with that as well I don't want to get too personal, but did you in that first year have a goal of like, right, I need to make X this year.

11:45Otherwise, I'm going back to work. Yeah.

11:47Cally Beaton: So what I well, I was never going to go back to that job. So I knew whatever I did, I was going to do things differently. And I by then I trained as a I'd worked as a coach for 20 years. I'd done training and coaching of people. I'd done a lot of different things alongside my day job. So I had I did have a sort of range of different things I knew how to do. and I guess I've always been quite creative about how I make money. So I don't think I ever thought I'd go back into another boardroom. But I did sit down with my financial advisor and we looked at stuff and she said, oh, what do you think you're going to earn then in the next year or two?

12:23Cally Beaton: And I named a figure and I said, you know, I think I can earn this amount. And it was not a high figure. It was a fraction of what I'd been earning in boardrooms. and she went okay well let's base things on that then you know if I was willing to make huge changes I would survive and I was like okay let's see you know let's see if it gets to that so I did look in the eye selling everything and changing everything and downsizing radically and then this is why I kind of wanted to write the book because I feel very passionate about this when we're trying something completely new we think that we're jumping into you know cold waters that are uncharted if we're trying something new in midlife we have a wealth of skills that we have had to develop across a range of in of professional personal we know our way around the planet quite well probably and when you start to think well what is it i'd like to do and what is it I know how to do that might get me there.

13:28Cally Beaton: It's amazing how much closer to your kind of dream life you might get. And it was actually a friend who she was a comedy agent for a bit, but I didn't know her as a comedy agent. She was actually, she's someone my kid's age. So she was in her 20s. I knew her dad. I used to work alongside her dad, but I'd always kept in touch with her. I always found her a very interesting, inspirational person. And we were chatting and she said, you do know that it's not a matter of just becoming a stand-up. She said, you know, you do know there'd be a really good speaking career for you because you are a corporate voice.

13:59Cally Beaton: You know how to speak in front of people and you're funny. So she said you could bottle all that up and try and get some corporate speaking work. She then introduced me to somebody who was really dismissive of me. I've been I mean, I've been so underestimated and ignored by so many people doing this, which is the joy of being midlife and female. And this guy was very dismissive. Well, you know, it's very competitive. I don't think you're going to know. Not really. anyway I was like oh okay and then luckily the agency who first signed me Noel Gay Television signed me I think on the back of the fact that I'd got a QI under my belt and I was doing okay I think I'd done okay in a couple of new act competitions and they had this phenomenal corporate booker Lou Fenimore I don't know if she's still there I mean I owe Lou a lot and Lou just got me on the radar of all these speaker bureaus and then I she got me a massive bit of work that was a real sort of make or break moment for a big company, a big global company.

14:55Cally Beaton: And it was like doing some work for them across four different days and all of their management people were going to see me. And it was an ambitious ask and I did it and it went really well. And it was a break, a make rather than a break moment. And she got me a lot of corporate work. And then I changed agencies and have carried on the corporate work ever since. So in those earlier days, then you were able to use your time quite smart where you're like well I've got to pay my bills I'm going to go and do a corporate on Tuesday and that then means I can go and do three four five yeah whatever so you could you could cash flow that way but I never think of it so I and this again this would be this may sound like a very luxurious position to be in but trust me I'm not from sort of I'm not from money everything I you know I left home young and everything I have I've kind of earned so money for me is not a given I believe in grafting for it and what I've always tried to do in every job I've ever had is put the money to the side for a minute is this a job I want to do is this interesting if if someone offered if someone offers you a job I always think a really good thing to think is if I was waking up today and I was doing that job today would I feel excited and if the answer is yes then it's a good thing to be doing sometimes we have to say yes to things where we don't have any excitement I do we all do but I would try so I still try not to think about of all the things I do, writing, podcasting, performing, corporates, I really try not to think about them in terms of what each of them is giving me financially, as long as cumulatively I'm earning a good living.

16:24And I suppose as well, you've quit a job, not for money, but you quit a job that's making you money. If you were going to do things for money, there's other ways you would do it for more money. So actually this path you're on was I'm doing things because I want to do them.

16:36Cally Beaton: So I was still doing bits and bobs in my old industry. And then I, it was actually when I'd got the book deal and I got a call from somebody very interesting who I'd worked with before and they were like oh could you just come and do x y and z and come to LA and and I found myself saying no I'm gonna write now and yeah I'm not doing this anymore and and I felt a bit of a oh I did it in a really nice way I mean I know if I'd called them a year later and said actually I would like to do some work with you they probably would have said yes I wasn't burning bridges but I suppose I was backing myself creatively and going now I'm not that person anymore I'm this person yeah well you didn't yeah you didn't is that you have that one hand and i'll just keep that going because i might need it and then yeah i don't need that you can get in your own way a bit with that i think and it can be a bit too much of a safety blanket and you said you mentioned a minute ago somebody you have did speak to and it sounds like you were again you know quite wise you went right i'm going to do this thing who do i need to speak to financial advisor maybe a comedy agent just speak to another people and get the picture yeah did anybody pull you to one side and go are you mad yes did they loads of people did they loads of people pulled me to one side and said I was mad yep loads of people but my agent Hannah who I've been with for a very long time and um love her and she her dad is quite a famous or was a famous actor still is sort of famous for people who know who know him of that generation he'll be in his 70s now I guess and um I knew him a bit and I certainly knew who he was and when I'd not long signed with her and then not long after that gave up my day job and he said to me so you you know you have this board level job and now you're going to be a comedian and I thought he was going to be in awe of me and he went what are you thinking are you because he'd never had a job like my boardroom job he'd always been an actor and always had this insecurity even though he'd been a very successful actor so for him as an actor he was like well if you're on the board of like a massive media company what are you doing so that was really interesting to me that someone might sort of maybe you know about my dad's age was like what are you doing um my own family those close to me you know I think you know my dad's certainly been my parents have been really supportive since it's all happened my kids I shielded as one does they were teenagers I didn't really make a big deal of stopping my day job and and starting other things I just kind of did it and at the age they were you know whatever they would have been back then you know late teens they're not really too interested in what their parents are doing so you as long as someone's putting as long as the fridge is filling from the back then they don't really care how that food's getting there so I don't think they were that bothered now they're really proud and they get it but at the time they didn't really think about it and generally you know the next book I'm writing is is a woman's guide to mansplaining it's kind of tongue-in-cheek but it's but it is because I have had so many times being underestimated that I've kind of learned not to take that on.

19:25Cally Beaton: And it's not always by men, by the way. I've been underestimated by women as well. But it's good not to take it on. And it's good to find a way to dissociate yourself from it and go, well, that's that person's stuff. It's nothing to do with me. It doesn't say anything about me. And I'll still do my thing. Yeah. Well, we're going to dive into the comedy. And I want to kind of pick your brains on that. But before we do that, and I know we've spoken about kind of, and it's been really lovely to hear that time in your life and the situation. But I've got to ask, because people listen to it, and I think it's also going to inform the context of how you moved on to the next bit.

20:00But Senior Vice President at Viacom, can you describe in a couple of sentences what that job actually means and what your then goal was in that job? So we can get a clear picture there.

20:10Cally Beaton: So I headed up, so senior, in the hierarchy of American companies, a senior vice president is quite a senior role, you know, there's clear, clear roles and what they mean. So by the time you're an SVP, you're doing okay. And I, my job was, so I was in charge of the international revenue streams across Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, MTV, Paramount Pictures. so I was in charge of basically content being rolled out around the world so US content placed around the world so anybody who watched South Park on Channel 4 in the noughties that would have been one of my deals and equivalents of that all around the world so finished shows and also formats we would also create versions of American shows in other countries around the world which obviously is a bit more creative than selling in something finished yeah so you're so So, again, extremely creative because you're trying to, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm guessing people are coming to you with shows that already exist somewhere else.

21:08Cally Beaton: Yeah, they are, yeah. And you're looking at it going, is that going to be a hit in this territory, this territory? So you've got to be some sort of radar. Yes. Or, yeah, some sort of magnet to go, that's going to be a hit because of this or it's not because of it. Yeah. When you make those decisions, because there's a creative decision to be made there, you're trying to understand what the audience is going to think. what were your questions you're asking yourself on how do you find a hit in a tv show well it's really interesting how that changes so when i first i first worked for mtv that was the first time i did a job of that kind of nature and that was back in the late 90s mid 90s and at that point i was working for mtv in the us and i was rolling out shows like beavis and butthead real world road rules all the kind of hit shows of the time over there and some of the music driven shows and we were selling them around the world so that's where I got my kind of little black book of knowing how to sell stuff and working for those guys and it was quite kind of creative fleet of foot small team rule breaking what you did what you'd hope would be the case with MTV and then MTV became part of Viacom and I stayed for a bit and I got kind of sick of how bureaucratic it wasn't I went to ITV which was even more bureaucratic and then went back so I hopped around a bit but you so over the years you you just get to immerse yourself in international television like i knew all the broadcasters i knew what they were running i knew what they liked and you broaden it out to other genres so i knew about music then i got to know about comedy i got to know about kids so you sort of know your genre quite well because you live and breathe it but when we talk when we think about failing which goes hand in glove with anything creative doesn't it you fail um you have to fail or you're not going to succeed.

22:48Hello, it's Ben. We're going to take a very short commercial break. And I used to say it's not really a commercial break because we didn't have any sponsors. But we've got our first ever sponsor and it is The Podcast Room. So where we're recording this, and if you're watching this on YouTube, you'll see the video as well. We're recording it at The Podcast Room. What I love about these guys is they have studios up and down the country. So a few in London, I can always get one. Birmingham, Leeds, Brighton. So wherever you need to go, if you speak to the podcast room, they can probably find you a nearby studio or they can even come and record remotely.

23:21And things that I love is the team are really friendly and the quality is great. So you always know wherever you are shooting, you're going to get great video, great audio. So if you are looking for a podcast location or somewhere to record some videos, I highly recommend the podcast room. Now, let's talk about Callie. I'll talk more about her, I suppose, at the end of the show. but if you're enjoying hearing Cali and you want to find out what she's up to she's Cali Beaton Comedy on Instagram and she's obviously she's on tour as well towards the end of this year from September so go and have a look at that if that's of interest you'll be coming to a town near you and a book it's a great summer read namaste mother effers I don't know why I'm not saying it but I just don't mind anyway there you go it's a great book give it a read uh what am I up to let me give you a quick plug so i'm currently on my summer break this is i any other performers might know this i don't do any gigs for six weeks uh because all the corporates stop and then i'm gearing up for all the keynotes that i'll be giving and the corporate events i'll be doing in a q4 but uh what i have been doing in my bound time is revamping my website and there are loads of new videos about me doing my keynote and working with different clients so you can have a look on benhanlin.com and you can see how I'm making a crust.

24:34Don't know why I do it in that weird little voice, but there you go. What else do I need to tell you? Hello, by the way, if you are new, welcome. You're all very welcome. If you're enjoying this episode, I will add a little think about other episodes you might enjoy. Obviously, this Callie is an author and we had another Callie who was an author, Callie Hart, who wrote Quicksilver. It was a romantic book. It was one of our first episodes. That was a really good conversation. We had Tom Basden as well, The Ballad of Wallace Island. so British comedy really interesting how they made that film and then most recently actually a couple weeks ago from the play that goes wrong we had Henry Lewis so what I love is again I look at this we've had such a mix of people on here so if you are newish here if you haven't listened to all of them go back through the archives and hopefully you'll enjoy the previous episodes and what else I need to tell you what's the trick pod on Instagram is now live thank you for everyone who's followed it so far I'll do some more chatting and putting more content up on there than I would on my own page.

25:30So you can give that a follow if you want. And as always, what do I ask of you? If you're enjoying this, drop me a DM and just say hi. We've had a few via LinkedIn this week. If you're on LinkedIn, have DM me, if you're on Instagram. And I always try and reply back. So thank you for everyone who's been finding the show in the last few weeks. And sharing it is always really helpful. Obviously, podcasters like myself ask you to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. That would be lovely. But if you're listening to this now and think, hey I think I've got a friend or two that might enjoy this hey hey that's a new listener maybe that little ding um if you've got a friend that might like this just whatsapp on this link and go hey listen to this or if you're in a whatsapp group with a bunch of friends and go hey here's a new podcast for the summer there you go that would be really helpful you don't have to do that of course but it would mean a lot I'm really trying to grow this community so that's what I've been up to a bit of a waffle from me hope you're enjoying it so far enjoy the rest of the episode as we dive back in to what's the trick with Callie Beaton one of my biggest failures

26:31Cally Beaton: was turning down South Park so as in not not as a commission it was already existed it had been commissioned from Matt and Trey but I was asked because I headed up MTV's program distribution would we like to sell South Park around the world because we were already selling Beavis and Butthead and there were no other adult animations so why would we not do it and I just looked at it and there's no room for it we've already got beavis and butthead I don't get it I don't really see how there's going to be I just didn't get it and I was of course completely wrong and then spent the next two years trying to get it back and did get it back um and did end up you know I joke that my house is the house that South Park built so I did end up working on it but I didn't so I didn't always have a flawless instinct and what I would say is if you're gonna make creative decisions like that which are not you can't really be autocratic you know that there's a lot resting on these decisions it's about who else you engage in the decision making process so I would absolutely have a team of people contributing to editorial decisions and screening stuff who ranged from not quite school leavers although we would work with interns who were pretty young and pretty keen to just get some experience if there was an intern in our department I would get them into a screening meeting where we were looking at stuff I'd want to know what a 16 year old thought of it They were probably just as interesting an opinion without any experience as I was in a boardroom.

27:52Cally Beaton: And as I got, this was another reason I ended up leaving. As I got older, I got further and further away from the demographic that we were serving, who were our viewers. And unlike many people who stay in jobs in that, I was like, you know what? I am just not the person who should be making creative decisions about these brands anymore. I know how to run a company. I know how to manage people. I've got loads of things I can do really well but editorial decision making I just knew and even hiring people I was I had a real instinct for who to hire at sort of more junior level when I was younger and as I got more senior and older I just didn't quite have that same instinct that maybe someone 20 years younger than me would have so I also do feel quite passionately that in some creative enterprises there are things where age and experience and wisdom really pay off and there are things where they don't and so I was I think being willing to step aside is not a bad idea I've always wondered that you know MTV in the 90s and as it was I'd imagine an unbelievably crazy place it was such a cool yeah it was such a cool place to work so I was living in Amsterdam and the only job I've ever applied for in an actual paper but I say paper it was broadcast magazine but it was the physical I used to get physical broadcast magazine sent to me every week when I was living in the Netherlands.

29:10Cally Beaton: This is, in the 90s, we didn't have email. We didn't have mobiles. You know, you were quite disconnected from the mothership of the UK and the US, which is where the media hubs were. And I saw an advert in Broadcast Magazine for somebody to work for MTV, heading up, not heading up, manager of their program sales based in London, working for the New York office. And I physically sent a letter. And then I had a phone interview in my flat in Amsterdam. and then they flew me to London for a second interview and I was 25 it was really exciting this was nobody was getting nobody there weren't cheap flights none of us were hopping on and off planes all the time to a penny it was not that time so to get flown and I had no money to come back to London so we used to go once a year back to London that's when we could afford to fly back it's like suddenly got this trip to London and then three weeks later a trip to New York and I was interviewed by the M the president of MTV because at the time it was still it was a big brand but it was still not massive so this guy van toffler who's this like legendary guy and i was interviewed by him and another guy and they were like kind of cool rock and roll guys and i des i remember having that job interview first time i'd ever been to new york and the offices of mtv were and still are on times square and i stood outside the offices and on those big billboards they have on times square they happen to have beavis and butthead up there advertising in the new season and I stood and just looked at Beavis and Butthead and prayed to the gods of Beavis and Butthead that I would get the job and yeah I think within the week I was told I'd got the job and I got relocated from Amsterdam to London and which was a big deal because I was living with my Dutch boyfriend in Amsterdam but anyway it was an amazing amazing amazing job and that's why I live in Camden to this day because I bought a place to be near the office when I had my first child and I still live near the office so it was and it was a really very cool place to work and I loved the content I loved the places I went the things I did the people I met it was a dream job.

31:10Something I always think about with you is in that job and in in those jobs yes you had to spot shows but you also had to spot people yeah you had to spot stars or potential stars or people and I think it'd be really interesting if someone from your position that perspective do what was it about those people that made them impossible to ignore or stand out from everyone else what was when you look at and you might even see it today when you look at telly or even on the circuit what do you see that maybe us lot don't see in those people it feels like it's kind of

31:42Cally Beaton: like obvious in a way and maybe it is I don't know if it's something that you have from working in the industry so thinking of names here that people would know so I remember Maisie Adam and started out probably two, three years after I did. And I saw her when she was very, very new at a showcase that I was also in. And I remember saying to my agent, who's that? And she went, oh, she's called Maisie. And Maisie looked very different then, but she was clearly just going to be, I mean, she was just going to be amazing. I said, well, clearly she's going to be a massive star. Like there was no question.

32:13Cally Beaton: She was just different from everyone else around her. She had, yeah, there was just something about her, about her delivery, her content, her everything. I was like, well, you know, she's got it. You know, people like Kevin Hart, we were working with him before he was selling out stadiums, not long before, but just before. And you could just tell, again, he had that complete fluid. He was just a star. He was already a star before he was a star. So, and then we would also work with people like Joan Rivers and people who were obviously huge stars. So, yeah. And is it that just when you compare them to their peers, they're just doing something different?

32:49Cally Beaton: So Steinfeld gets a bad press from lots of people in terms of what he stands for and all this, various things about him, regardless of what you think of him as a person. I used to love watching Seinfeld and yeah, incredible. It is an incredible show. All four of the main cast are superb. And even if you watch it on telly and they obviously record it in front of a live studio audience. so you're hearing the laughs they're not added on afterwards and you just see same with friends you know look at look at a show like that an ensemble sort of piece and you will see if you actually stop to look and imagine i'm imagine i'm in a studio now watching it you'll see that every one of them has something that most people couldn't do every one of friends they have something that most people couldn't do all of the they all they all have something that others would not easily do I read um Matthew Perry's autobiography which is really worth a read actually about creative process as well and also if you're at all interested in the topic of addiction um which I am and he just hearing him talk about what it was like on the set of friends and what it was like when that was casting and all the people that age in Hollywood wanted it and what it was that got the people who got it the show what they did in the show So and it kind of sums up really well that thing that you just that there's a thing that some people can just do.

34:11Cally Beaton: And I think it's a bit like people watching this or listening to this will know that feeling when you're going to watch something live, whether it's music or theater or comedy or dance. And what you want is to just know the person on the stage has got it. They're sorted. You can just relax. They know what they're doing. and that's when you can suspend your imagination and just watch. It's when you're slightly aware that that person's acting or doing comedy or doing magic and you're a bit like, oof, I don't know if this is going to work. And people can be very accomplished but still not completely put the audience at ease.

34:49So one of our other guests was Brian Conley and he's had this amazing career here in the UK and I said to him, Con, what is your kind of secret sauce? There's one thing if you read it. And he said it's when you walk on stage you have got to own it oh yeah and basically what you've exactly just said yeah they cannot see nerves or fear they need to see that you've got it yeah and once you show them you've got it

35:13Cally Beaton: they'll be like fine yeah exactly that and one of the things i always say to people who are nervous speakers is is when you first get on the stage turn up so get up on the stage take the microphone and take a second or two and just take a second because you're in this new space, which is you on stage. Look at the audience. Look at the room. Bring with you anything you've noticed about the room. You know, we all know we get great props for doing something that can only be live. You know, a spider walks across the stage and we do something with that instant credibility because you can't set that up.

35:47Cally Beaton: But there's a version of that. So turning up and being willing to be present. And yes, absolutely owning the room. I mean, I did a lot of emceeing when I was starting out as a comic. And I think there's a certain authority maybe that came with because of my boardroom career, maybe when I had a microphone, I knew how to own a room. But I think also I would just I was in charge. I think people took it. They were like, yeah, you seem like you're in charge. And they would relax. They'd be like, yeah, yeah, you seem to know how to run a night. And they actually more than even being funny, although obviously you do need to be funny.

36:18Cally Beaton: I think they just want to be like, oh, yeah, I want to be in your hands for the night. This seems fun and relaxing. Yeah. And if you think about winning over an audience, I would say probably 60 % or 70 % is the character of the comedian. Oh, yeah, for sure. If you get that right, if you kind of walk on and go, well, this person seems like they've done it before. Yeah. If it's your first time and somehow you're pretending, that's going to carry you most. Like you say, if you learn those tricks, really, in the beginning, and then you can build on it. But let's talk about, so you mentioned it already, some of the qualities you had doing that job.

36:49Let's do the transition. so what qualities do you think from previous career did you take with you for comedy I think you mentioned a little bit about being able to stand yeah stagecraft definitely so I had stage

36:59Cally Beaton: craft I knew how to I knew how to hold a microphone I knew how to engage with an audience not through formal training I had very little media training but I had done a lot of that type of stuff and I I sort of worked out what worked and what didn't so I think my stagecraft was was the downside of that my stagecraft was better than most of my peers starting out but that probably allowed me not to focus as much on content I like think I was a bit I was I think you're right lots of comedians get into it because they're great writers and they want a platform for their writing and others get into it because they're great performers and they want to perform yeah and I was probably more the latter and I wasn't very confident in my material and I didn't like to fail and I didn't like mess and I didn't like and you know you can't write your best material without really having some pretty shit gigs.

37:46Cally Beaton: And I wasn't very willing to have bad gigs for a long time. I still find it really hard. I don't actually find it too hard to land new material. Once I commit to it, I'm usually all right at it, but I hate doing it. I'm like, oh, I just want to do something glossy. I want to please people. I want to be perfect, you know. Well, let's talk about the new material. So now, obviously, you've got multiple hats that you wear, but a full-time comedian. What does that look like for you? Are you sat up every day writing? Where do the ideas start and then how do they get onto the stage? It's funny, just before, in fact, it came up on my algorithm on Instagram.

38:22Cally Beaton: I saw a thing with Dawn French talking about her writing ethic. And she was saying, you know, and I'm at my desk at nine and I stop for, you know, a cup of tea and a biscuit at 11. And then I'm back again till one. And I have a CS. And I was like, oh, God. How much of that is procrastinating? I mean, fair play. I'd be scrolling Instagram for about an hour. All I know is, God bless her, God love her, I am not like that. So I need deadlines, which is why being a comedian is really good. You've got a new material gig. You're going to hopefully use it to try some new material. But my God, I leave it to the last minute.

39:03Cally Beaton: Yeah, really last minute. I would say that my Instagram stuff, since that's really taken off, that's been a massive help because I do put something out every day and I will try and I don't write it. It's kind of whatever's happened, but I do. It gets me thinking creatively every day. I'm like, oh, what can I do that anybody might find remotely interesting today? So that gets me being creating something every day that I put out into the world, which helps. So you say about the deadline and I'm exactly the same as you. I just need some think, I need pressure, apply some pressure and then something will go.

39:37So let's assume you've got this deadline, you've got a new gig coming up. Do you, is it on the, is it that day, that afternoon, or are you thinking about it all week? Are you constantly jotting things into your phone? When, where does, how does that idea start that day?

39:50Cally Beaton: It's kind of all of the above really. So I, I, I'm always jotting things into my phone. And actually one of the things I miss when I'm not trying to write a new show or write a book is that I don't have that receptacle. I had, when I had Grayson Perry on my podcast and he was talking, he does live shows as well now. And he was saying one of the, he doesn't like the travel. He doesn't like the X, Ys and Zs that none of us like. But he said one of the things he likes is there's a, you're like a magpie. You're just hunting for ideas and jotting them all down and the receptacle is the show. And I find that when it's a show or a book, I'm magpying around the place for things.

40:26Cally Beaton: And it's not because you're plagiarizing anything, but you're just looking for inspiration, observation. So I think I'm always thinking about new things creatively and I'll, I'm always writing notes on my phone. I'm always dictating things when I'm out walking the dog that, but actually the actual sitting in a disciplined way, I, I have not cracked. I mean, I must have cracked it because I wrote a book and I do know that a lot of that involves sitting down, but I don't feel like I've cracked it. So with the comedy then, do you, would you just look at your notes and go, okay, that's, I'm going to say that.

40:59And you'll just.

40:59Cally Beaton: I would then write it up a bit. But very often when you said afternoon of day of, yes, afternoon of day of evening of, yes. I mean, my goodness, I cut it fine. I will very often, yeah, I think maybe because of the boardroom days when I used to have the tube journey to do it. some of my best stuff came out of being on a tube from the office to wherever and going I've got to write something and some of that I do have a good memory for new stuff so I kind of remember it quite well quite quickly which is a good thing um yeah so it's very last minute and and then it never comes out right anyway there's stuff all my good stuff on stage almost all of it comes out while I'm on stage so as in either I'll the thing I've written will morph into something different or the ad-libbing turns into the thing I love the muscle the muscle gets sharper yeah it's much sharper I come up with or afterwards the other time I write really well is after a gig so then I have really good ideas some of my best gags came from leaving gigs and the going not even necessarily about the show I've just done oh that'll be a really funny thing I'm gonna write that down that's a good yeah so that idea of and I think we can all do this actually when you drive driving away from again how would I do that differently now and it sounds silly but you just it just creates that muscle of yeah you can do better than that you can do you can learn it again if and it will come up again somewhere and i have exactly that yes let's talk about the book so we talked about comedy and we talked about how you write that so this is quite an interesting one very simply how do you get a book deal does the idea come first or does the publisher come first can you talk us through yeah for sure it's by the way and by the way this is a brand new world to me as well people sort of think if you're in media you get it but actually it's completely different world publishing we It was a brand new world to me.

42:43Cally Beaton: So I knew I wanted to write a book. For a long time, I thought I want to write a book, a kind of memoir plus kind of a book. And I wasn't really sure quite what the book would be. And my procrastinating took the form of many years. And then I kind of came up with an idea for what I thought the book would be. And then I just reached out to lots of people, lots of literary agents, and pretty much how anybody else would like looking them up, looking who was in books I liked. Yeah. So we'll talk about the literary agent. So you had the idea first. I had the idea first. And where did this idea come from?

43:19Did it come from you like a lightning bolt? No, and it wasn't this idea.

43:22Cally Beaton: It wasn't Namaste Motherfuckers. It was a book called Be More Orca, which I may yet write, so maybe I shouldn't be talking about it. Be More Orca. Yeah. Great title. Be More Orca. And that's based on the fact my son is an autistic zookeeper and I've learned many feminist lessons about the animal kingdom from my brilliant autistic zookeeper, Some, among which are the stories about whales who go through menopause. They're the only other mammal known to go through menopause apart from humans. And orcas are particularly wonderful because the post-menopausal grandma orcas have all the power and the wisdom.

43:57Cally Beaton: They are in charge. So I thought calling it Be More Orca was a really, and it was going to be a sort of tongue-in-cheek, a memoir plus with lots of sort of feminist animal funny stuff in it so that was kind of the book so memoir with takeouts which is the format the book I wrote ended up being and I wrote a book proposal but kind of I literally looked online like what do you how do you write a book proposal and there's loads of formats you can follow it's very easy to find so I kind of did what it said and then I started sending out my book proposal to I asked a few people I knew like people like Benji Waterstone or Waterhouse as he's known for his writing.

44:36Cally Beaton: He'd just got a really big book deal. So I asked a couple of mates who'd got book deals. I said, who did you speak to? What did you do? And then I just looked at literary agents. I literally looked in the back of books that I liked and people pretty much always thanked their agent. And I would say, oh, you've thanked Blah at Curtis Brown. I'll write to them. So then people have an agent and then you get an agent like you would in other types of media. And their job is to believe in your pitch, get it, and go, right, I know who's going to. So you got an agent? I got an agent. She took no prisoners.

45:07Cally Beaton: I ended up with a 30 ,000-word, extremely robust book proposal under her tutelage. And then she took it out to some 30 ,000-word book proposal? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, with sample chapters, you know, marketing plan. And she said to me, if you can't get the proposal to the level it needs to be, why do you think you're going to be able to write the book? It's a good question. And that comes from, well, give us a proof of concept. Yeah, exactly. Or we're going to invest in light with anything, right? Make it easy for people to say yes and don't make them have to make leaps of imagination because they won't or they can't.

45:40Cally Beaton: So make it easy. So yeah, so she got me to the point where I had a really good book proposal. She took it out to some publishers and yeah, one of them was interested. Well, a couple of them were interested, but one was the right fit. So we've got this book, I've got it, I've got it, so we've ended up with a, how many pages? About 300. Yeah, 80 ,000 words that book is. 80 ,000 words. Yeah. What's the deadline for you to write this? And how did you then? Nine months. Nine months. Ten chapters, nine months. It's like it's scarred in your brain. Yeah. Ten chapters, nine months. Because that's a lot.

46:14Cally Beaton: That's too much to write. Is it? That's a lot to try and write a chapter every three weeks, effectively. So how did you do it? What was your plan? Well, I literally, because I only had three weeks per chapter, I say that now, and I'm now similarly in an absolute race to the finished deadline on my next book. And I'm like, oh, that sounds all right. Three weeks per chapter. I just, I made myself do it to that. And the way it worked, every three, every chapter. And by the way, I'd done a lot of groundwork. I had written the proposal. I'd done lots of research. I had a skeleton. I had notes all over the place.

46:46Cally Beaton: Every chapter, I knew the chapter headings. I perpetually was dropping ideas into the chapter headings. So I did have a load of raw material. And the way it would work was the same every chapter, which was I would spend a week procrastinating, avoiding, dropping ideas on my phone dictating whilst dog walking not sitting down second week make myself sit down and write and write and write and it was absolute shit third week polish it third week make it not shit hold on so week one is all the ideas yeah looking around talking putting it in the phone avoiding cleaning the house so that i didn't have to write also in that week you're giving yourself a nice pat on the back you're going hey you're great you're great this is brilliant you're not judging yourself no i am judging myself because i think i should be sitting writing not walking the dog and dictating yeah but you but gosh your cupboards are cleaned out and yeah yeah the house is immaculate everything's done i've called to change internet providers seven times you know i've done everything the garage has been cleaned it's all the to-do list has just been worked through to perfection but i know i know i'm hating myself i don't believe is anyone writing for eight hours a day i'm sure there are people i think i'm rold dahl used to write for eight hours a day but i don't think he was probably a great metrosexual house husband And I don't think he was doing a lot else, maybe, that was of great use to the household.

48:01Cally Beaton: And I run my own household. So I don't think you need to write eight hours a day, but you need quality writing hours. I don't think it's about number of hours. It's what are you doing in the hours you're writing. So I guess maybe my writing days are more like six hours. And that might be two hours before I walk the dog in the morning and then nothing till I do four hours at night. I mean, you know, it's all over. But what's interesting about what you said, so we had a guy called Brent Forrester on the pod who writes for The Simpsons and writes for The Office. American guy, really great guy. But he talks about the writer's room of getting ideas.

48:34Cally Beaton: Yeah, writer's rooms are great over there, how they do it in the States. And he talked about this separating what he called the session where we're getting as much down as we can and giving everyone a pat on the back. Yeah. He said, I'm not in that session. I'm not trying to critique myself too much. Yeah. I'm letting what he called the genie out the bottle. Yeah. And it seems like in that first week was a bit more of that. Yeah. Like, let's just get it all down. Let's get it all down. And then in the second week, again, still get it all down a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Get it down. Richard Osman said to me, get it down, then get it good.

49:04Cally Beaton: And I mean, it's worked for him across everything he's ever touched and done. I mean, it's a machine. I know. It's like, could you do something that's not so successful? And he told me that after he'd written, I think, the first of his books was when he gave me that advice. And I really have to remember that. and actually honestly the biggest thing that holds you back creatively is thinking you're not going to do something good and if you're willing the thing that conned me every three weeks to do the next chapter would be I realized the thing that held me back was thinking I wasn't going to write a good chapter not that I couldn't write a chapter so every chapter I would say doesn't matter if it's the shittest chapter in the book just write this chapter it doesn't have to be a good chapter i would i if one believes in universal ordering or manifesting things i would just ask for the willingness to sit and do it not for the not for the capacity to do it brilliantly do you know we had a good few episodes ago i had a tv another tv who writes for um more serious stuff and he had this thing which was just basically write dialogue for screenplays yeah he said i'm going to write the worst dialogue i can so it's i'm going to the shop goodbye i hate you i hate you like whatever it is sounds quite good yeah but he said he said it was just get it as bad as you can yeah so at least you've got and then you edit it yeah yeah the editing is is the thing and i think having a knowing that something can be wrestled something that can be wrestled into shape i think is really important and and also the bits you have to go through all those processes all the bits when i came to read the proofs back and by then obviously i'd read it all quite a lot of times but I'd not there comes a time when you read your book as a book for the first time because until then it was chapters and it wasn't the whole book in one go and when I read it in one go and I was like oh I don't know if it's gonna be a good book or what it's gonna be like and then there were all the bits I absolutely loved I they all were the bits that come out of all that painful journey and finally it cut through like bashing through rock and then there's a duel you know so there I remember I barely remember writing that but I do remember what led to me being able to write that And John Cleese, I'm sure you know it and have been talked to about it before on the show.

51:17Cally Beaton: So he did this brilliant talk on creativity. It's findable online. I've not heard this. So he does this brilliant talk. And I think it was at a corporate event. And he talked about creativity in the process of writing. And the whole way he writes is brilliant. But he says all of it is so relevant. And in his way, it's almost the reverse engineering of what I'm saying. so he said the sitting down making yourself sit and write and it's crap and it's not funny and it's not creative but he his opinion is unless you sit and do that bit the brain isn't free to go and run off and while you're in the shower come up with the bit you actually wanted to write so unless you're gonna set yourself the discipline of being creative you're you're not allowing your brain to be able to be creative so it's almost the opposite way get sit and write and then your playful brain yeah once let away from the desk will do something clever you mentioned it briefly the new book are you allowed to say what it's about yes so it is about mansplaining i've said online it's a woman's guide to mansplaining so i have announced it even though it's not out till next year and it's more it's not as bigger i think namaste motherfuckers has been my magnum opus for non-fiction this next book is is a fun more of a fun book a bit more than a toilet book but a fun book um but with a bit more substance than the title might indicate so it's actually You can have some funny historical sort of things about mansplaining and like how Plato mansplained and how Jane Austen was mansplained to.

52:41Cally Beaton: So some funny historical things and some things you can do if you are mansplained to. And where did that idea come from? Did it come in one go? Yeah, that came in one go. So that was it actually came in one go. I was having a Christmas lunch with my publisher and then there was a book that they had just published called How to Piss Off Men, which I didn't know they'd published, but I'd seen it in all the shops and it was a great title. and then I said well I said let's do a woman's guide to mansplaining so we can keep working together and it'll be a similar thing and it's also come out of the fact that whenever I put a reel on Instagram that's anything to do either by name of mansplaining or by topic they go viral and I get thousands of it so some of what will be in the book are the most stupendous examples from my followers oh so you already know that there's a little bit of like oh there's tons of stuff oh yeah there's a vibe there there is it's also it's controversial there's going to be people going why are you writing a book about mansplaining you know that's sexist that's old school so it's controversial it'll annoy some people which is all good but the fact that you can sit at a lunch maybe you're having a glass of wine whatever you're doing and you go oh what about oh yeah and then boom now it's happened yeah how good is that yeah it's really i mean we say happened yeah it does still need to be finished i know or perhaps slightly written but no it's um it no it's great Let's quickly talk about titles and niches.

54:01So Namaste Motherfuckers was a strong title.

54:04Cally Beaton: Yeah, and it was already my podcast, so the title existed. Yeah, the brand existed. And I think because you've come from a TV background as well and capturing people's attention and brands and titles. Yeah, it's got to stand out. Yeah, and the other one you said about, is it How To Be? A Woman's Guide to Mansplend. Be More Orca, was that right? Be More Orca, yeah. Again, very, okay, it's not come out, but very catchy title, right? Yeah, yeah. What's your thoughts to that on how important is that title? It's really important. I mean, Richard Herring, with whom I recorded in this very studio not long ago, but Richard Herring said to me, did I regret having a sweary title?

54:37Cally Beaton: Because he had one about, from his testicular cancer, I can't remember, something about, had the title balls or bollocks in it. And the book never got put in the window and was never on the table. And he said, do you regret it? And actually mine does, maybe not in the windows, but it has been very visible in a lot of bookshops. So I don't, and because it's asterisk, I don't mind the fact when I promoted it on mainstream radio and TV shows that they couldn't name it because it made people Google it and then they bought it. Because by the time you're looking it up, you might as well just click buy.

55:09Interesting as well. So, I mean, there was the book Subtle Art of Not Given a Fife, right? Now, in fact, they'd just been called The Subtle Art of Not Caring.

55:17Cally Beaton: Yeah, no one would have bought it. Would anybody have bought it. I know, yeah. And interesting, we had, you know, Mischief Theatre who did The Play Goes Wrong. Yeah. And he said it a couple of times. The title of their plays is a huge factor in ticket sales. And the play that goes wrong was so simple. Yeah. Everybody got it. It was just that kind of. Oh, it has to be simple. People can't. Yeah, it has to be simple. And it has to do what it says on the tin. And it has to be findable. And it has to make you. It has to be memorable. And yeah, that to me is just is second nature from working in telly.

55:48Cally Beaton: Right. We're going to wrap things up then, Callie. Ben's Fast Five. Are you ready for my Fast Five? Yeah. Yeah, I think I might have only known about a few of them. But let's see. Let's see what the first five are. We can edit that bit out where in case I'm meant to look like I didn't know about them at all. No, it doesn't matter. I think people realise that I give them to people ahead of time. It's all good. First question is the Highlander question. In the film Highlander, they kill each other, the other immortals. And when you kill another person, you steal their skills and expertise. Now, you don't have to kill anyone.

56:14No, that's good. I don't like killing people. What I am asking, if you could steal anyone's skills or expertise, dead or alive, who would it be?

56:21Cally Beaton: that's an easy one it would be Stephen Colbert and I anyone who is a fan of the kind of US talk show late night circuit will know him from the late show so he's an amazing he's CBS late show host yeah but I know him from when he worked when he did stuff for us on Comedy Central so he did the Daily Show then he did the Colbert Report and he is you know he trained with Second City He is a superb improviser. And just if you don't know who he is, just watch any of his late show monologues, how he does it, what he does, how he says it, how it's written. And he was delivering a 10 to 12 minute brand new monologue every night on network television and in character to just the most phenomenal level, often live.

57:13Cally Beaton: You know, he's a he's a phenomenal, phenomenal broadcaster. Well done. You've got it. Time capsule. So you can only keep one thing you've ever done. It could be a whole project. It could be a joke, a show, whatever you want. what would you keep the rest of your work is going to be disappear well I can probably say this now because I'm coming to the end of my tour and it's the surprise end of my tour um that I so I used to play the piano as a child and I didn't play the piano for 40 years and I picked the piano up again uh two years ago after a chance conversation with Alistair McGowan who lots of people know the impressionist Alistair McGowan who who took up piano in his in later in life in his 40s and we met at a thing and came up that I used to be a pianist he threw down the gauntlet and said you know I curate a piano festival would you like to play I said I really don't play anymore Alistair anyway because of that conversation I got a piano teacher and I do now play and the twist at the end of my show is that I play in on the audio something I used to be able to play as a child and it's relevant to a thing I'm talking about in the book and I said can you imagine when I was 11 I could play that and you know and here I am at 57 and I can't even play Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and then at the end of the show I can play it that very piece and it's the piece that I it's a piece of Debussy called Dr.

58:36Cally Beaton: Gradas Ad Parnassam which I used to be able to play really well as a child and after quite some effort I've mastered it again as a 57 year old so I would have me playing Dr. Gradas wow fantastic wow that's great it's also a little glimpse into how you then take it all up live and you have the nice bits at the beginning and yeah yeah at the end lovely well structured show this one lovely uh let's talk about culture vulture what have you seen recently video tv film theater anything can i say something i've read because i've literally just finished i finished it on the way here so i'm gonna say it because it was so brilliant um it was called the names by florence knapp and it is her debut novel she's actually a she's a she sort of does you know sewing and create stuff she's kind of artist and she has written this book called the names which has i believe won various awards and is the most never mind for a debut novel it's just the most phenomenal book and the names it's about there it's it's a the names refer to the name of the central boy character so a baby boy is born and he's given three different names and three different versions of his own story and you then see how his life plays out when he was given each of these names and the same characters around him but his name is different in each one and so it's three brilliant stories interwoven as one and it's i mean i'm i i my next big project will be a will be a novel to write a novel and i devour novels at the best of times and that was a phenomenal read wow fantastic once again it's called it's called the names by florence knapp k-n-a-p-p done right thank you magic wand i'm going to hand you my magic wand with this wand big responsibility your magic wanders that's quite powerful it's quite good it actually works yeah unlike the other fate ones yeah um and with that you can make anything vanish from the world of comedy entertainment to make that world a better place what would you vanish well i guess what i would like to get rid of in life of would be the same as it would be any kind of misogynistic you know unfortunate sleazy kind of stuff that is not very nice for women in that industry so i would take that out of my I don't know if my industry's got it worse than many others it's definitely got it in small pockets so yeah I'd get rid of anything that made um anyone feel unsafe to be in their working environment get rid of that so not not a funny answer but a useful one if I did have that some people would say just drunks on the front row but no I like the drunks on the front row I'd rather have drunks on the front row than apathy I'd rather have a good heckle than apathy yeah Well, very, very well done.

1:01:13That is gone. And my final question for today is, what is the trick to completely changing your career and following your passion?

1:01:24Cally Beaton: It's being willing to fail. So the only thing that stops you trying things is thinking you won't be good enough at it. So when you said 99.9 % of people listening won't get a book deal. well lots of people listening whether or not they could get an advance to do a book could they write a book lots of people could write a book and the thing that will be holding them back is they'll be like yeah but i don't know if i can write a brilliant book you don't have to know if you can write a brilliant book do you think you could try and write a book and it could be a maybe you think it's going to be a crap book but you want to write it well then be willing to write it and who knows it might be a really really good book fantastic that's a great end to the episode.

1:02:03Thank you very much. My pleasure. My pleasure. So there we go. That was What's the Trick with Callie Beaton. I loved that episode and listening back, there are a few things that jumped out at me. I really liked the bit about writing her book and getting the book deal. So that whole process, how to get a book deal, I've never heard it put as simple as that. The way she just went, right, I made a list of publishers that I like the look of or literary agents. I reached out to them. You then have to create this pitch document and if you can't do that then you haven't got much of a book anyway and then you pitch it and then you write like that I just thought was really interesting uh maybe because somewhere down the line that's something on my like bucket list really so I was like oh wow that's really valuable um and then when she was writing it that get it down then get it good we've heard it before in different variations from creatives but get it down then get it good and then um how she thought about chapters i thought was i've never heard it put so simply that yeah a chapter took three weeks a research week write bad stuff week and then make it not crap week i just thought okay i could that feels way more doable than staring at blank pages if you had your chapters in that kind of format i thought was interesting so anyway that's what i took from it i hope you enjoyed the conversation as always like i say hit subscribe so you don't miss next week and what's coming out in the future uh what's the trick pod on instagram you can give that a follow and as always if you are new here go and have a deep dive or drop me a dm i want i genuinely love to hear that people are listening to this and it really essentially for my own ego just makes you feel like oh okay this is this is a thing that people are enjoying so thank you for anyone that is uh thinking about doing that and then what i need to tell you a few thank yous thank you to the podcast room as i mentioned great place to go look them up as well the podcast room big thank you to jack from creator social who helps pod produce and make a lot of the video and jen my video editor as well my producer my pod producer bryany who i've even had to put it in brackets i don't know why i put it brackets on my notes brackets wife who's my wife i don't know why i needed to remind myself of that uh but i did and then finally annika who schedules all the content as well so that is the team behind what's the trick and enjoy the rest of your week i'll see you all next week bye