E64: Jo Brand on Comedy, Dating, Relationships, Political Correctness & Mental Health

Today Alex and Rebecca chat with British comedy legend Jo Brand. They discuss comedy, Jo's first time on stage, political correctness, Jo's career working in a psychiatric emergency clinic, misconceptions about mental health and many other topics.

Interviewed by Dr. Alex Curmi with Dr. Rebecca Wilkinson - Give feedback here - thinkingmindpodcast@gmail.com Follow us here: Twitter @thinkingmindpod Instagram @thinkingmindpodcast

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Transcript

Jo Brand, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. Pleasure. Thanks so much. You're the first comedian we've had on the podcast, so welcome. Something I've always been curious about. I've always wanted to ask a standup. This is when was the first time he became aware of humor, of being funny, of making jokes. Do you remember? Well, I suppose it was a very young age because I am the middle child. I had two brothers and they were like terrible practical jokers, and they teased me as well. They both zoned in on me. And so I suppose 1s times when I kind of inadvertently got my own back on them were great. And my favorite was I, how old I was like six or something. We lived in the middle of nowhere in Kent, and we were playing in the woods, and one of my brothers trod in a wasps nest and they all came out like really angrily and I ran one way and my brothers ran the other way, and they chased my brothers and stung them really badly. I know that's terrible to be pleased, but it was like it felt like a little comedy victory for me, I suppose. Yeah, I guess growing up around brothers, it must. It must have been like a tough environment, and you have to figure out how you're going to hold your own in that kind of space. Yeah. Because they I mean, they grew up to be lovely guys, you know, and but they were just so horrible when they were young and they and when they joined forces, they were, you know, four times as bad. So you do learn strategies. Yeah. And also my mum was as tough as old boots. So you know, that helped. And you were quite rebellious when you were younger. Is that right. No. That was a nun. 1s Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to say how it happened, but we kind of my parents. Didn't get on well when we went into our teenage years and they were sort of heading for divorce, and my mum left quite a lot of times because my dad was really hard work, to put it mildly. And he suffered. He suffered from depression and he had a terrible temper. And, you know, we kind of walked on eggshells around him for a long time. And so when you're a teenager and particularly when you're a girl, he was kind of quite traditional. He he wanted me to be ridiculously demure and I didn't want to be. So we always had clashes. And and then when kind of boyfriends came on the scene, it was even worse. And I think it got to a stage where, I mean, he's actually knocked out one of my boyfriends one night because how did that happen? Well, he was extremely posh, this guy, and came from a very wealthy family. I don't know how I managed that, but because I was just an oik, you know, um, and my dad was a dyed in the wool socialist, you know, as I'm pretty much. Yeah. So he brought me home late. And my dad, he was he was such a cliche. Sometimes he kind of did that. What do you mean by bringing my daughter home at this time? And this guy said to him because he was, like, privately educated. He said he went, my dear chap, like, that's the worst thing you could see. That's a thing you could say. And my dad said, um, if you say something like that again, he did tell him, I'm going to hit you. And he said it again. I have no idea why. I think he must have thought my dad was joking or something. And he went, but my dear chap and my dad lapped him. He must have thought, my dear chap always works well at the gentleman's club. Indeed. Sadly, we weren't the gentleman's club, so I think at that point we all realised. I know my mum wanted to leave and, um, I think they'd just had enough of me because I used to get out of my bedroom window at night and go clubbing and all that sort of thing, and I got into the garage window one night, fell on my dad's car and dented it. You know, it was it was typical hideous teenage shenanigans, really. And at that time, how much inside do you have about that? Do you kind of. I'm curious even about dating and choosing relationships, because there's that stereotype that you might choose the boy that's going to piss off your parents the most. Yeah. Do you think any of that was playing a role? I didn't identify him in a line up. But, you know, I, I think I was very much drawn to someone that was rebellious. I mean, he was quite rebellious as far as his family were concerned as well, because I think one thing that happens with very wealthy families is that their children. Ends up rebelling against their sort of status quo. So he didn't really work very hard. And he lay about and actually he used drugs. And so, you know, his family were were like really, really 1s pissed off with him as well. Yeah. Well, this is a curious one because, I mean, classically, we think of wealth as a good thing when it comes to raising kids. Wealth can be tricky because if you grow up in a wealthy family, you're very insulated from from the ups and downs of reality, which most people have to face when they're young and which I think is very healthy for your psychological development to face difficulty. Have you watched that TV show White Lotus? Now people keep telling me to and I haven't. So yeah, White Lotus is is one of the cool things about that show is it illustrates how when you're very wealthy, it insulates you from reality and it deadens you a bit inside because like human beings are made to encounter challenges, and that's what shapes us, I think, in a lot of ways. So how old were you when you left the family home? I was sort of very late 16, just 17, I think. Yeah. I moved in with this guy into a scuzzy bedsit. Not like you do. And rather weirdly, my parents with some negotiation with the school because I was doing my A-levels, they managed to get the school to agree for me to go back one day a week to do my A-levels, and I got a job in the civil service, and my job was that the Department of the environment and my job was to pay my cleaners every week and organize their tax and all that sort of thing. Uh, but what I remember really well about that job was I sat next to a woman in the office, and opposite her was her husband. And they'd been working together there for 17 years. And I remember thinking, I never want to do anything like that. I mean, they're very sweet and all that, but I just sort of found that just looking at it from outside to seem stifling. There's something about that day to day office life. The 9 to 5 sentence, that humdrum of office life that's quite nightmarish. It was nightmarish. And again, this wasn't deliberate, but it was someone's birthday. And we all went for a drink in the sort of club house at lunchtime. And I didn't have a lot to drink, and I don't think I was really drunk, but I fell asleep on my desk and dribbled all over it and got caught by my manager, and I was kind of rather sweetly asked to leave rather than get sacked. And you're still a teenager at this point? Yeah, yeah. And how did he get into psychiatric nursing? Because, of course, you a psychiatric nurse for ten years. That's right. Because, um. Well, what what happened was I, I kind of reconciled, like, a bit with my parents, and they, they, they split up and got back together a lot. And I moved back in with them for a bit after I split up with this guy. Basically what happened with him was he worked up in London during the week, and I used to meet him at weekends, on Friday nights. And after about, oh God, not very long, 5 or 6 months maybe. I went to meet him at the pub. This was in Hastings in Sussex, and I got there half an hour early and he was kissing someone else in the corner. What a bastard. And I'd, I'd thrown up my whole. 1s A whole existence for him. Exactly. For him. So I think that taught me an early lesson. Yeah. So then you reconciled with your parents on some level. I moved, actually, I moved to Tunbridge Wells because I went to school there and I had some friends there. And so while he was at work one day, I just stripped the entire place in quite a sort of, you know, a bit of retribution and revenge in a way, so that when he came home he would open the door and and there'd be nothing there. And his stuff, was it more stealing it, burning it or. No, I can't, I put it somewhere where he could get it. I gave his stuff to someone, so I didn't I wasn't, I didn't absolutely. So you're going for like the shock value of walking into your. Yeah. I like the idea of him opening the door and there being an empty room. That's amazing. 1s I know, not very nice, really, but I think hell hath no fury. There is some truth in that. Yeah, absolutely. Especially when you've totally overcommitted yourself. And isn't that the way that we find people, that we think the people who we think we should give up everything for are precisely the people that we shouldn't give up anything you're saying, right? You could write a book about that because people do that sort of thing all the time. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I don't know if you ever. I'm sure you don't because you're the wrong type of customer. But I look at Mumsnet quite a lot because it's not what people think it is. It's not like, oh, have you got a good recipe for a Victoria sponge? It's kind of divided into sections. And there's one section called relationships. And it's so sad really. The poor women in these pointless, abusive relationships with like really horrible men when they describe what they do. And, um, you know, I think that there is something about women. I don't know what it is, whether it's their history and their sort of abusive father, maybe, or whatever it is. Um, you know, that they end up repeating the same pattern. It's. Yeah, it's depressing, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I think repetition is a is a feature of everyone's life. And then the question is, do you have healthier or unhealthier repetitions? Have you ever heard of the narcissist codependent dynamic. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like that's the idea that we're talking about that. There are people who their. Their psychological pattern is to kind of disown their agency and their power and to look for it in other people. And then there are people who really overemphasize their agency and power and how much work they have. And they're narcissists, and they kind of lock together in this toxic pattern. Yes, dear. Hideous, isn't it? But it sounds like you've got out of it. You're in a long marriage. Yeah, I've been married since. 2s I should remember, shouldn't I? Because I know. 1997. And how do you feel like that's taught you lessons about what could make a successful relationship? Well, I think my motto for a lot of my life has been lower your expectations. And certainly I think as far as relationships are concerned, I kind of knew a lot of women when I was younger who would just say things like, oh, I really want to get married. And I'd say, well, what? What does that mean? You know what? What do you mean? What sort of person do you want to get married to? You know, where do you want to be? How do you want it to be? And people would just see that. Um, I think it's quite different now, actually, in a way. But they would just see that as a goal. And you know, you know, you know, men were going around going, oh, I really want to get married. They were going, I hope some, you know, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not including them all in this. But certainly the dynamic was very different. No absolutely. I mean men have a similar like a similar but different problem. Men are like I want to sleep with someone. Yeah, but they don't think who do I want to sleep with? No, absolutely. It's so interesting isn't it. And but and I think like that women try and pretend that's not the case when they know it is. And and then, you know, that they're kind of really hurt when they have a one night stand and someone's not interested afterwards. I feel like I want to go round with like young women that go, this might in it, this might happen. It just just be prepared. There's an idea in our culture that women should date more in a male style that, that. 2s Sort of more of a loose attitude to sex is something is sort of a indicator of female empowerment. And of course, women being able to make whatever choices they want is a good thing. But I wonder if there's a dark side to that, that women end up falling into these traps like you outline that, you know, people do become attached after they have sex, and they can fall into despondency if they're having a lot of partners lately. Is that a man's idea that women should do that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 1s I think that there's your answer then. In a way, I think I think women need to. 2s Look into themselves a bit, realise what a lot of them are like and act accordingly. You know, because I think there is a pressure. Well, I think like dating these days is so interesting because you have things these days called situation ships, friends, oh my God, friends with benefits, you know, and I feel like that's always been the case. We just didn't give it a name and we didn't try and sort of, you know, legalize it if you like and say, that's all right to have that because because I think it's it's something that's been sort of manipulated to make women believe that's okay. But a lot of women that because my daughters are 22 and 20. And so, you know, I hear kind of hear what's going on with that generation and try and learn the words and all that. But, you know, a lot of women aren't aren't happy with that, really. They've kind of been forced to believe they should be like that. So they sort of tolerate it really. And it just depending him just swung from one point to another. Absolutely. And you can liberate people to make their own choices, while at the same time telling people, you know, you have a nature. And that nature means you have certain predispositions and desires and aversions. And of course, we've been generalizing a bit because a lot of men want loving relationships. A lot of women want to be able to enjoy sex, but not fair on them so far. That's right. I'll pull myself up. But 2s I think we're still struggling as a society to figure out how can we give people choices without putting people into boxes? Yes, absolutely. Well, one big issue for me is, is how black and white everything is, you know, I mean, if you look in the if you look in the tabloids, for example, you know, that's bad, that's good, there's nothing in between and there's no nuance at all. I mean, obviously my comedy, I know, are not famous for new ones, but that's my comedy, you know, it's meant to make people laugh. It's not meant to be a political discussion about what I think about an aspect of society, but I do feel that's why so many discussions about everything as a stopped in their tracks, because people take such extreme opposing views and neither of them will move inwards. It's it's really hard, I think. Absolutely. And I guess in comedy you almost want to move to a black and white position because you're trying to disrupt a pattern. So let's say people think a certain way about relationships and then you construct a joke about relationships. If that joke is too nuanced, it doesn't disrupt people's normal thinking. We come in with like a sledgehammer with something black and white. Absolutely. And I was kind of very aware of that when I started, because on the comedy circuit at the time, there were probably about 15 women and about 250 men. And so it was very rare to ever be on a bill with another woman. It just never happened, you know, and I think sort of you, you have a kind of. You know, a sort of level of confidence. And in terms of comedy, women's confidence is very low and men's is very high because they'd always ruled the roost and they'd been doing it for donkey's years, you know. And so I don't remember thinking this consciously, but I know I kind of went in and I thought, I'm just going to be really shocking and see what happens. 1s I think that's a I don't think there's anything braver. Then stand up. Really. I think in other things, being a firefighter, being a physiotherapist physically rather. But in terms of your social reputation and like psychologically it doesn't get well. Yes, yes, I suppose so. Yeah. But a lot of people say to me, you know, I couldn't do what you do, but I think that people could if you gave them the tools. You know, a handful of heckle putdowns ranging from quite pleasant to nuclear. Yeah. And if you have to use nuclear first, then you're in trouble, you know, and people take things so personally as well, you know, I, you know, say to like, like sort of younger comics, you know, if, if someone's heckling you and saying something really nasty, it doesn't mean they mean that about you. It means they've, they've just had a fight with someone or they've been sacked or, you know, it could be a hundred different reasons. But some people just take on that whole pain, which unfortunately social media has allowed to be multiplied a million fold, you know. Yeah. I mean, people, even when they're discussing their ideas and opinions, they think my opinion about politics is a part of me. And therefore, if you disagree with my opinion about politics or whatever the issue is, you're attacking me on some basic level. Absolutely. We don't have that basic training of. You need to be a little bit detached from your ego, from your ideas, even your performance in something. Let's say you're learning to play an instrument, or you're learning stand up or you're learning about podcasting. You need to dissociate yourself a bit from your skill level. Yeah. And your performance though? Absolutely. People need people. I always thought, you know, school doesn't really teach you what you need to know in some ways. So say academically, yes, it may well do, um, you know, but in terms of relationships and the more subtle kind of shades of how you deal with certain things, I think that would be so useful at school and how to manage your emotions. Yeah, absolutely. Because a lot of people can't, can they? I mean, you know, I'm I'm not excluding myself from that occasionally. I can't either. But, you know, it's very useful to have some tools to do that isn't it. Yeah. I mean, we're psychiatrists and a huge amount of my job. I was saying this on a podcast that came out this morning, a huge amount of my job. I felt I had to learn separately, outside of the curriculum through my own reading, largely reading psychology books and things like that. So either we start teaching this in schools, or we start having a very direct conversation with young people that's like, you're not going to learn everything you need to know from the from school. You need to do your own research. Yeah. I mean, can I ask you a question? Yeah. Um, because do you do you think that, um. What the sort of personality a psychiatrist is and how they behave is an important component of their job. Can you explain the question a bit more? Okay. Well, it particularly pertains to one thing, which is that I'm talking about clinical psychologists, actually. But when I was a senior charge nurse in the emergency clinic, um, and we'd. No, no, it was before that, but I was at Brunel University and a friend of mine became a clinical psychologist. But I remember her telling me that the Maudsley doesn't interview clinical psychologists. It just creams off the ones with the highest exam right marks. And to be honest, I thought that was a terrible thing to do because I think you don't you don't know who you're getting, do you? You don't know how sensitive they are. You don't know. I mean, not that you can tell whether someone's sort of likely to be abusive or unkind or whatever, but I think an interview gives you a bit of an idea of what social skills somebody has. And if you're a psychologist, to me, it's important that you have the basic minimum skills rather than just being extremely intelligent. Yeah, absolutely. So I guess the problem with the selection process you outlined, we just picked the people with the best results is you're only selecting for intelligence. All intelligence is, is the ability to make like abstractions and to manipulate those abstractions and to solve problems. And intelligence is in the same thing as wisdom. And like you say, it doesn't say anything about your personality. There are a lot of very intelligent doctors who lack people's skills and need to have people skills in any specialty. Psychiatry especially, I would say. But I remember my first job, which was ten years ago, and I was working on a surgical ward. The, the, 1s the surgeons were different in terms of how good they were at surgery. And we all knew who the best ones and the worst ones. But the best surgeon was really good at surgery and really good at talking to people as well. That's the perfect combination, isn't it? Yeah. I think for psychiatry you need to be really good at thinking about things differently, exploring new ideas, and you need to be very empathic, I think. What do you think, Rebecca? To answer your question, I said, I would say in psychiatry it's the same with all walks of life, in that you'll have very good psychiatrists and you'll probably end up having very bad psychiatrists. I think absolutely. You need the skills of empathy and compassion. I think you need the ability to want to learn from other people, because we've all grown up individually and see the world in an individual way, and you will have your own thoughts. But actually, I think it's a skill to learn from other people so that you can incorporate other people's views in your practice. Because every patient is different, regardless of what area of psychiatry you go into. I think that's a very important skill. And but and also, I think, you know, time and just practice and because we all learn every day so much. So I suppose the other thing is to be. To be humble with yourself so that you always learn. That's a quality missing in surgery quite a lot of the times. We always, we always are always quite mean to surgeons on the podcast. And the honest answer is I haven't I don't know many surgeons, so I don't really know what to say. Yeah, I think they've got a reputation, you know, I mean, certainly I used to share a flat with two anaesthetists from King's actually, and that, you know, the sort of legend about surgeons was they couldn't wait to get off for the weekend to sail their yacht round in know. I don't think that's the case anymore. It's not changed anymore. I don't, I don't. Well, absolutely. Of course there is. Yeah. That's changed a lot hasn't it? 1s Do you remember the first time you ever went on stage? 2s Ish. Mainly because I was quite drunk. Yeah, because I was overcompensating. I was very, really, really anxious, you know, because I'd never done anything like that before. I'd. I'd left university. And I don't really know how you wrote a stand up set, because these days there's endless kind of workshops and, you know, podcasts and all that. So nothing in my day. And I didn't even know how to become a comic, really? I thought you had to go to drama school. Right. So I wrongly auditioned for drama school. Totally humiliated. So in the end, I just that the 80s happened and they started being the open mics in alternative comedy clubs. So, um, I decided I would do a benefit because a friend of mine was setting up a benefit with comedians and she said, just come and do five minutes. So first of all, I was on last, which is a really bad place to put a new act. But she didn't realise that she should be, you know, building to someone more experience. So it was midnight, I probably had about five pints of lager and I can't really hold my drink at all. And I had written a really inappropriate, slightly over academic set about Freud's work. 1s Amazing. What are you in this red? You this time? Yeah, this was off this because when I did nursing and I did a degree at the same time, there was a joint mental health nursing and a degree course at Brunel University. So, yeah. And do you remember any of the jokes from that says, oh my God, no, I probably written it down somewhere. No, I've actually wiped the contents of that night from my head because it was awful in, in every way you could imagine. And actually what happened was there were two male stand ups at the back who were notorious for doing sort of like like they had a kind of rather arty sort of. In approach there at so thereat consisted of things like lying on broken glass. You know it was I it was like art kind of stupid. 1s Yeah, a little bit. But they were very drunk as well. And they just can I swear on this. Yeah. They just started chanting fuck off, you fat cow, over and over and over again. And in the end I just thought, yeah, better fuck off. So I did. I probably lasted, I don't know, 4 or 5 minutes. You should have been thinking, wait 20 years, I'm going to be baking on TV. Well, yeah. I mean, you know, and 1s oh God, it was. And actually I was insulated against it quite a lot because I was very drunk because a lot of it just so presumably getting on stage the second time. What did that take? Was that difficult, having had a bad experience the first time? 1s But I think what what was right about the second time was because that was a benefit that was sort of set up in a rather inappropriate venue in, in the West End. Um, and the people that had come to see it weren't normal natural comedy fans. The second one was actually at a proper comedy club. So you do kind of need the rules to tell the audience how to believe, so how to behave rather so they knew that they were supposed to be a comedy audience, and they were supposed to either laugh or not laugh. So those parameters in place were helpful, and so it did go a bit better. I remember my first joke ever I did at that, which is I thought was hilarious, but it wasn't according to them. But basically what I did was I had a big white t shirt on a really baggy plain white t shirt, and when the compere started building up to announcing me, I put a blood capsule in my mouth. I went on stage and I coughed like that and it all went down my t shirt and I went, oh, I must give up smoking. And 2s I thought that was hilarious. Not a peep. Just it was a bit too much for them, I think, you know. But I persevered with it 6 or 7 more times, and I just said, well, hello ahead of my time, behind my time, whatever I was, it didn't. It never really worked. And so at what point do you start thinking, I'm going to make a career out of this? Was it very gradual or was it just like from the start? No, I think it came in sort of like like reveals almost, you know, so at one point someone was, I think probably the third or fourth gig that I did that they were starting to go kind of a bit better, and they actually offered me a proper comedy booking at a theatre in Notting Hill. And so I was like, oh, you know, I'm on the road to success now. And that didn't go terribly well. But, I mean, it was a booking. And then the other thing I did, because I kind of was aware of the circuit, so I sort of slightly, um, played a game, whereas a lot of people were phoning up The Comedy Store, which was the big, massive venue at the time, saying, oh, please, can I come and work there? I just sort of studiously looked in the other direction, and they eventually called me and said, would you like to come and work? And that to me was like a really big thing. Yeah, yeah. So you went to use an indirect route? Yeah. I didn't kind of clamour. And then also I was asked, this is after two years to audition for a show called Friday Night Live, which is a live stand up show. And also the fact that they'd asked me to audition kind of gave me hope because it meant, well, they must think I'm at least good enough to consider. And so I got through that audition and did Friday Night Live. I was still working in the emergency clinic, um, when I did the audition, and then when they offered me a slot on TV, I resigned because I thought, I cannot bear to go on TV and everyone at the Maudsley kind of knowing about. Yeah, absolutely. What was it like working in the emergency clinic? 1s I absolutely loved it. And it took to me, what's important about a place like the emergency clinic is that you can absolutely 100% rely on the people that you work with. Um, and so for the first and this was a psychiatric emergency clinic. Yeah, it was and the setup was, I mean, I just think it's so I know they closed it down because of money, really, and because it was expensive to run. It was 24 hours. And absolutely anyone that wanted to could walk through the door and be assessed. And also we covered the whole of South London for police section 136 as well. So we would take people from, well, from the whole area. So that was quite a common thing. Um, and, you know, it didn't happen very often, but occasionally if someone would fly over from Italy or and get off a plane and come straight here because they'd heard about it, that happens to. 1s So happens, does it? Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? So really it was it was a totally unpredictable place to be. And I kind of liked that about it, really. And I was a staff nurse there for. Oh hang on, why did I say 1s two? So I was there for six years and I was a staff nurse for about four years, and then I was a charge us and then the senior charged now. So once I kind of got my hands into them, I could sort of influence the staff that we had. So that was helpful. And presumably you're seeing people with relapses, say, of schizophrenia, bipolar, that kind of thing. Oh, absolutely. I mean, we had a group of people that we knew really well. And so we kind of knew when they came in again, you know, exactly how how we could, could kind of not manage them exactly, but how we should be. And I mean, a lot of these illnesses like psychosis, schizophrenia, when people are manic states, they're quite hidden from society. Unless you know someone or you're someone that's affected by it. 1s I don't think people often have a clear understanding. They only have an understanding based on a distorted media portrayal or something they see in the news. What do you think? People often misunderstand or misconceived about these kinds of mental health conditions. Most things, to be honest, I mean, I think. 2s First of all, people seem to see it as a sliding scale, so you get people going in quite bipolar I am, do you know what I mean? And not understanding that actually there's a discrete kind of illness that people have. They just think it's a, you know, and the same goes for a lot of other conditions, because I think people don't understand depression and clinical diagnosed depression. And so over a long time, I think it's better than it was. But I think people always thought schizophrenia was, you know, the sort of dual personality. Yeah, I think lots of people still think that. Do you? That's depressing, isn't it? Really. Um, but but I think it, you know, it's hard to explain to a sort of to a layperson. Yes, absolutely. To someone that's got no, no kind of experience at all. I mean, I do try every time I hear someone, you know, sort of talking about it in that way, but it's very hard to know, um, because I think everything's really changed a lot these days. And we're far more accepting towards, like mental health problems. We keep calling them something different, and I think people haven't caught up with it. I mean, I hear people saying, oh, I've got mental health. Well, do you know what I mean? It's like, well, actually, I think what you're saying is you've got poor mental health or you're, you know, or you're mentally ill. Yeah. But, you know, people feel bad because no one knows what they can say that is a problem anymore because it's a sensitive area. Do you see that? They feel that people are more worried about being offensive than in the past? Yes, I think they are. I think, I mean, nobody kind of wants to upset anybody. Um, but. 1s You know, I do think in a lot of ways that our society is quite fractured. I mean, like it always has been in the way that the younger generation. You know, comes up with lots of new ideas and, um, 1s you know that, for example, um, in the whole area of mental health. 1s You know, younger people are saying, you know, it shouldn't be so stigmatized. And that's all absolutely true. But to some extent it does need to have some boundaries. They do need to be some boundaries. And I'm kind of I'm I think there's a kind of things are changing at the moment. And, um, no one's kind of quite sure where to go or how to manage it all. And we're in a crisis as particularly with Camhs and yes, you know, that it just seemed not to have any staff and people are waiting years for an appointment and that it just can't be like that. If you're a teenager and you're waiting three years for an appointment, your life. In those times. He's going to have, you know, so drastically changed. It kind of almost doesn't seem worth bothering. Yeah. It's terrible. I feel like there are a few problems running in parallel. There is. I think there's a lot less stigma being applied to more common mental health difficulties, like depression and anxiety. Yeah, I think there's still a huge ignorance about more severe mental health problems like schizophrenia and bipolar. 1s At the same time, I see the younger generation fetishizing mental health and almost having depression or having anxieties, almost giving you some kind of prestige. Or it's a marker somehow that your life is interesting, I agree. Um, and, and what you pointed out, which is that we're all becoming very atomized with there seems to be what a lot of people are talking about is a disintegration of shared experience. We all live in our micro realities now because we all there's so much there's so many media outlets, so many channels you could follow, so many platforms. Everyone is living in their own little world, and we can't even agree on a common landscape. Before we start to tackle a problem. You need to have your own show on the radio. Well, I mean, that's I guess that's kind of what this is. Yes. No, absolutely. But, you know, I think there are some podcasts that are so fascinating that they shouldn't just be restricted to people that like listening to that person on that podcast, if you know what I mean. Yeah, it's quite terrifying. And I'm wondering whether it will change. Have we been in this situation before? I don't I don't know. Is it? Do you think it's something that will come in waves and will settle down? Or do you think we're just on a trajectory of mental health? Yeah. Issue. Well, if I look back at how things were when I was, you know, a nurse and a trip, I mean, it is quite a long time ago, but also it's not really that long ago at all. And when you think of those huge sort of psychiatric hospitals in the middle of nowhere that look like horror film set, you know, and people have been in there for years. And, you know, I went to a few of those when because one of our jobs was to deliver people that come to us such to their area hospital. But and then I think they made a mistake because they then said, well, let's, let's put people out in the community. And to me, there wasn't much of a community. Community meant. And this is a cliche, I know, but I'm just being extreme for the sake of making the point. But community meant on the 22nd floor of a of a tower block, and with people around them that they didn't know and so well what community is that and what support is that? And obviously, the idea was that you have a community mental health team that supports you and but they're not flexible. So you go, I'm having a crisis on a Sunday morning at 3:00 in the morning. Oh, then I have until nine. Do you know on Monday? Do you know what I mean? And that's why to me, the emergency clinic, expensive as it probably was, I didn't really investigate that side. But I think a service that responds 24 hours a day, I mean, people with mental health problems, they don't keep to a timetable. You know, there's only oh, I can't I can't have a breakdown until Tuesday or my therapists on holiday, do you know what I mean? It's just I think because responding on the hour and being available all the time is more expensive. It's disappeared. And I, you know, I'd like to get my hands on it, but I mean, we I don't know, it's it's politics. It's disgusting. It's, you know, not well it's the government isn't it. Sort of making choices about what we spend our money on. Absolutely. I think there are some trusts in London that do have an emergency service, and we did have one. 1s But it was shot recently. But I don't know the politics behind that. I'm a bit of an ambulance chaser, literally, because I watch a lot of those shows, you know, ambulance and. 2s Because I just think they're so interesting and particular from a mental health point of view. They are coming along behind everyone else. And so many people, they go and see. The major issue is some sort of mental health problem with with train or with psychosis or anxiety, and then literally isn't anybody else because they're isolated people who live in the most appalling conditions. No one knows them or gives a toss about them. And these lovely people, you know, go in and. They're wonderful because they'll spend 2 or 3 hours there. But then the problem with that is someone else is being told, oh dear, you're having a heart attack. We can't come till Wednesday, you know, I mean, it's I don't know, it's is it just money? I don't know, I don't, I don't know, I think I have to say, I think working in psychiatry is an absolute privilege, and you really do see the world in a different way. And I'm curious to know what kind of life lessons you learnt from when you worked in psychiatry. 2s Oh, crikey. What sort of life lessons did I learn? Well, I think, um. One thing I learned is that actually, you know, you get on much better in life if you're a decent person who's honest with people and you're kind, quite honestly. Yeah, you might think that sounds a bit a bit dull, but, um, yeah. And you know, the thing that people do is me, which I find quite interesting. They think I'm actually like how I am on stage, you know, and that I do just want to get hold of, of a shotgun and go 1s blasting men 1s willy nilly. But it was like I was saying earlier, I deliberately exaggerated everything and people. That's what people kind of in a way, want you to do. And then I'd kind of have people going to me, oh, you hate men, don't you? And I used to feel like saying, that's one of the most simplistic questions that you can ever ask anyone. No, of course I don't. But that's comedy, do you not? You know. Anyway, there we go. So I would say that was the big life lesson. And also, whatever happens if if you're under some sort of threat, do your best to look as if you're calm. And then that works for comedy as well as being being in a nurse and under some sort of threat. Because when, when, when you panic, people have a sense of, you know, oh, you're falling apart. And Brit comedy audiences. They don't want to stroke you and help you get back on track. They want to destroy you if they see you faltering a bit. And I think in a situation maybe where you're under threat, you know that person feels out of control. So if you start to be out of control as well, that just frightens me even more. And it makes them behave more, you know. Extremely, if you like. Yeah, because I guess when you're on stage, you're the alpha in the room. You're the de facto lead in that moment in time. So they're looking for you. They're looking to you for signs of emotional stability. Like, does the alpha have charge? Are they in charge? Are they okay. And then if they're not okay, maybe we need a new alpha. Well, I don't know. It's true. And I mean, that was one of the big things I learned early on in comedy is I'd go on, I get the most horrendous sort of abuse from, from guys in the audience, and I would just look like I didn't give a shit, just like, look at them, you know? And and they get tired of it. And it would sort of enrage them a bit as well. And I would quite like that. But, you know, it, it does work. Um, but it's a hard earned lesson. I ran off once crying, you know, I mean, I didn't achieve it overnight. It kind of took quite a lot of practice, but, um, I just think don't show any weaknesses. Can be quite a male thing in a way that is, isn't it? I wouldn't do it everywhere in my life, but certainly in comedy it's very helpful. And did you feel that was that ability to not show weakness? Was that something? Was it still very much like an outside persona, or was it something you were able to sort of integrate into your own personality? Well, I always think if you if you are something enough and you want to be it enough and you pretend to be it enough, you can eventually become it. So yes, I think it really did. Pretending to not be perturbed by things actually helped me. Yeah. It eventually. You're not perturbed. Yeah. That's right. What's it like to be on stage when you're absolutely killing? When you're killing? Glorious. I mean, it's lovely because I think comedy is also about people's identification with you so that some of the ideas you express, I mean, you know, I know I express extreme ideas, but certainly there's nothing better than a massive room full of of men and women laughing together and, you know, but the women laughing more, 2s laughing at the expense of the men. Well, yeah, because it's for so many years it was it was like the other way round, you know. Um, so yeah, I mean, yeah, it's an amazing feeling. And, um, you know, I hear people saying, oh, you know, I just couldn't come down after that show. And I was on cloud nine for hours. I never felt like that afterwards. I just thought that was great. And now I'm going home. But at the time, you kind of feel you've almost been sprinkled with magical comedy does. Because anything you say, whether it's off the cuff or not, they just roar with laughter at, you know, that doesn't happen very often, that it's that brilliant. But and you get into a kind of zone. And I often feel when I'm watching comedians, it's it gets to a point where it's not so much about what they say, but the way they say it conveys such confidence and congruence in what they're saying, that you're just you're in for the ride. Yeah. And the laughter just it's the laughter almost spills out of you. Yeah. It's so interesting because I always thought that there's a range of comedians, there's the people that write absolutely brilliant material, but they can't deliver it. And then there's the people whose material's terrible, but they have a very charismatic personality. So they could say something that another comic would try and it would just die, you know, and that's very common. And then you've got the people who's who are charismatic and their material's brilliant and they just fly. You know, they're the Michael Jordan's. Yeah. Yeah. When you were developing your standup, where you writing a lot of stuff down because obviously you've since gone on to write a lot of things, a lot of shows. Or were you more working out things on stage? 2s No, I'm a writer down, you know, and then I sort of learn it. And a lot of my jokes are like a bit wordy, and they very much depend on the order that I put something in for it to work. So I kind of find that quite hard. And these days my memory is like, so disintegrating that 1s I put like notes on the speakers when I'm on stage with my whole set. And I do feel slightly ashamed of that. And I said to her, a theater guy, recently, because I went on a little tour, I said, I feel terrible that I do this because I kind of feel like it's cheating. And he said, everybody does it. And I was like, really pleasantly surprised because I thought it was just me, because I was old, you know? So and presumably you're writing down reminders rather than whole. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Not not verbatim. Obviously. I'd have to have about 20 would be nothing. 1s But actually I hear that some people do that. The biggest stars have an autocue which rolls at the back and, and does the whole thing word for word. So I'm not telling you who they are on this though. Okay, fine. All right. I'll tell you after. Oh, awesome. 1s What do you find makes a joke work? Or what's the difference between a joke that succeeds and a joke that fails? 1s I think there's so many different ways the joke succeeds. One one of them. 1s Is shocking people you know by where the punchline is. Just like a gut makes people gasp and then they laugh. And, you know, at one thing I think lots of comics do is they're really delighted when something weird happens to them because they can write a routine around it, like Chris Rock. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, um, you know, sometimes just saying something that's happened to you is funny because I've got an Apple Watch. I've got no idea what most of the features are, but like, it takes all this data from you say it knows what my age is and it's hilarious, as I was when I was on tour, Andy, who I've toured with for 20 years, he he drove and his car seats are very low. And I kind of tripped once when I was getting in the car and sort of landed a bit weirdly, and a message came up on my watch that says, you appear to have had a very heavy fall. And I just tell that to the audience and they laugh. You know, sometimes life gives you the material. Absolutely. So it's just about judging things like that. Do you think that will get a laugh? And you can't always be, you know, absolutely sure it well. So to try it, um, do you find it's important for a comedian to very much be engaging? With life offstage to get those interesting experiences to to in order to develop material. THAtrillionEALLY says something, something interesting to me in engaging with their life or with aging, with political life, and not necessarily politics and culture, although obviously a lot of comedians do, but just engaging with their life on some level, because I think I heard on another podcast that a lot of comedians in the 80s were traveling around a lot, and their whole life became standup and didn't really have a life of their own. And you saw a degradation of their material as a result because they didn't really have any, didn't have a talk about. No. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think so. And but I think, you know, that there's a real continuum now of how much people reveal of their real lives on, on social media. You know, I've seen some people that literally having a miscarriage and filming that their emotional reaction to it, which I personally find, you know, overwhelming and a bit weird. You see it on Twitter a lot. Yeah, absolutely. Like someone's Twitter bio would be like the worst thing that happened to them. Yeah, yeah. It's like part of our identity now is bad things that happen to us. I know a very big part, I think. I mean, I also notice, you know, there's a lot of Edinburgh shows this year are about tragedy in people's lives, losing a relative, having mental health problems, some, you know, an hour long, a show about something really terrible that happened to somebody. Um, and that's kind of very different, really, because I think when you if you look at comedy very early on in, say, the 40s, 50s, the 60s, it was pretty much one liners. So that man goes into a pub, you know, or 1s what do you call a something. But and over the years that's changed. And certainly when I started comedy in the 80s, people were starting to talk a bit more about themselves, but they were still doing what were kind of identifiable jokes. But these days, in some ways, comedy people don't even feel they need to do jokes all the time. They can just talk about they mean. It's like I was saying earlier, just things that happened in your life can be funny, you know? Um, and so someone will talk about them, say their mother dying and some, you know, weird thing that the nurse said that was inappropriate or, you know, and, and sort of almost like a, like a diary with, with kind of built in jokes that actually happened in it, if you know what I mean. Yeah. And my impression is that comedy in the past was a lot lighter and much more of a break from whatever your life was. 1s And I kind of think that's because life was hard and you needed a break. And now I feel like life in some ways is harder, but in many ways is obviously a lot easier. And this mirror image effect has happened where our comedy has become super dark, almost as if to compensate with the lack of friction. Well, if you think you know wars and things earlier, you know, and people were much kind of harder in a way. I mean, that cliché of stiff upper lip and all that sort of thing, you know, that you hold it all in and you kind of soldier on. I think we've moved away from that. And I think the, you know, the perfect point is in the middle somewhere maybe. Who knows? I mean, you know, who am I to say? But yeah, I agree with you really. People almost making things darker for themselves, you know? And of course, one of the cool things about comedy is you can confront darkness and make it into something. That transcends it on some level. What's the theme of your show at the moment? What kind of ideas are you grappling with? Well, if I'm perfectly honest with you, I'm 66 now. I'm a bit bored with it all. I'm. You know, I can't help it because I've been doing it for so long. I've had. I had an awful few years. You know, bereavement wise, I've lost. I'm sorry to that. My pet parents, both my brothers, two out of my three best friends, all in the last 6 or 7 years. And so I just I'm kind of sort of taking a back seat with it. So I suppose when I did, when I did this tour, I, you know, I'm a, I'm very gobby person and I say inappropriate things and they arrive out of my mouth before I've had a chance to stop them. So I get into quite a lot of trouble with the with the tabloids. Yeah. And everything is taken very, very literally. 1s Do you see him? There's a lot of comedians talk about wokeism as as an issue. Obviously, Wokeism is more associated with the left than the right. Do you see it as an issue, one that's impacting free speech or artistic expression or anything like that? 1s Well, I think the problem it reminds me of the 1980s when there was something called political correctness, which is where certain words in certain leftwing councils were being 1s questioned. And so you would you would have things like people say, oh, you can't say blackboard anymore, right. Like, you know, a blackboard kids would have in school because it's because it's racist. I think to some extent it's it's similar to that in a way that there's a kind of group of people that have decided on a code, but they haven't checked with everyone else. And so first of all, you don't know what the code is. And secondly, if you break, if you break the code, you don't know until someone's told you that knows what the code is. And I think it makes things very difficult because I think, you know, I feel things are quite fractured in this country at the moment in terms of people's attitudes. And my issue has always been. Don't engage with someone who's on such a great distance away from you in terms of the spectrum of what you're discussing. Just try and wait until people are a little bit more reasonable, you know, and people are prepared to meet in the middle. And there are people on every front with every issue that will meet in the middle, but their voices are reasonable and quiet and they don't get promoted on online. And that either end loudness wins the day at the moment in terms of of press and you know, 1s and being heard if you like. Yeah, absolutely. One thing I'm curious about is what distinguishes what makes British humour British. I think it's quite complex because I think, you know, the British because of our history. Um, we were horrible and we went everywhere and we created misery and horror and violence, you know, um, and certain people in this country are proud of the empire, erm, even now. And other people think it's absolutely shameful. 1s Could it? Could it be both? Could there be things that you could be proud of and the same love at the same time? Yeah. You've caught me out at my own game there because, you know. Yeah, there are. I'm again sort of referring to the extreme. Oh, yeah. Yes. To some extent you can meld them together and you can be proud of bits of it may be, but again, it's that thing of let's just move to the edges and we'll shout and you'll shout. And I can say that because I come from an ex British colony. Oh, where do you come from? From Malta. Oh do you. Yeah. Oh, I've been to Malta. Yeah. We became independence in like 1960, but I think we got some of the best that the Empire had to offer. There's some disagreement, but I think in the grand scheme of things, we got a lot of the good stuff and very little of the bad stuff. So I think there is this duality even to the to the history of the empire, depending on, on where it was and a particular time. Absolutely. Um, yeah, it's it's a difficult one. Mean that? 1s There's a there's a guy who I saw very fleetingly the other day on a news program. He was trying to get reparation and, you know, in terms of like trillions for all the damage that was that was done. And, well, he's taught he's the prime minister of an African country, and I can't remember which one. Now he's talking about his own country, but basically he kind of means every country that's that was included in know as far as particularly Africa. Yeah. And. And. 1s You know, in some way. Some people go, oh, well, that's absolutely ridiculous. And then other people go, no, you know, this suffering. But it's all to do with the fact that our people that were related to you, who were born 200 years ago. How responsible are you for their actions? It's a question how responsible does a particular person feel even about the acts of their immediate father? AB absolutely, let alone an ancestor from 200 years never held responsible for the acts of my father. There you go. It went that bad? I'm exaggerating, but yes, absolutely. So that's just your parents. So if you think going back that far, it's quite a difficult case to make in some ways, isn't it? Especially since human history is just dominated by stories of oppression and yeah, just terrible thing after terrible thing. And it feels like almost I mean, I think in this country, like, we're kind of half and half, I think half. Roughly, British people feel guilty for what we did, you know? And in terms of the more local you go. So like the Highland Clearances and the potato famine in Ireland and Wales invading Wales, and actually our I sense like in a, in a minor, you know, it might be bigger the minor but part of those populations that they really really hate English people. Um you know and. 1s I can kind of I can kind of understand that. But, you know, we have sort of got to get on a bit. So it's a it's a difficult one really. I mean, I remember once sitting in a pub in Swansea in Wales watching England play Germany in the football, and I was the only person in the pub supporting England because all the Welsh for that job on it, you know, and I kind of understand that. But it's not something that English people really know or, or experience. They don't understand us because, yeah, don't understand it at all. So I'd say there's a difference between like English sense of humour, a bit of guilt for a lot of people, whereas, um, you know, like I've done terrible things in Scotland before, sort of just deliberately ramped up the when I've, when they've started or me, I've done it. I don't deliberately do it on purpose. But if someone starts on me, you know how to defend yourself. I'll bring it up a notch or two and then just really create. Yeah. I mean, I think what everyone's trying to avoid, like people who feel really guilty about. 1s The past as far as the society goes, or people who feel excessively proud of their past. As far as their society goes, they're both trying to avoid something. And I think what they're trying to avoid is that they, as individuals, are capable of doing immensely bad things and immensely good things. And the problem with the good things, the possibility of doing good things is there's a huge sense of responsibility. And the problem of that, that we are capable of doing bad things also imposes a huge sense of responsibility. And I think. We're trying to escape from that by projecting the possibility of badness onto someone else, or saying anyone that's associated with me, they're great. They're not just great. They were like, the greatest ever. 1s And it's just a waste of time because we need to be thinking about ourselves, what we can control, and our future. How are we supposed to live our lives in the in our particular predicament, in our particular context? And all this discussion about who's to blame from 200 years ago seems like a huge waste of mental bandwidth. Yeah, we're meant to be. You know, we might be sort of getting better, but I think a lot of younger women's lives are getting worse because of the way social media has kind of majored on porn, OnlyFans, all that sort of thing. I think women's lives are kind of a bit of a misery now. And, you know, sometimes, and I always thought the 1760s and 70s are worse, but I don't know if they are for young women because because of how easily you can target people these days. And the internet encourages you to commodify yourself. And in the case of women, it encourages them to commodify their sexuality. Yeah. And it's and I think it's also incredibly confusing as well, because we're at a time where we're told that we've got it's so different to 50 years ago for women, but at the same time, we do have the only fans and the porn. And as a woman who isn't that young. I'm 29. I'm confused to know how. 2s I'm confused to know how how I should feel and whether I should feel proud or resentful. And yes, I think this is the whole thing of the extremes, and you can be somewhere in the middle, but it's difficult to know how to navigate when when currently I feel like there's so many conflicting. 1s Things going on? I don't know. Yeah. I think it's hard to know how to be if you're kind of young. You know, a young, young woman like you these days. Um, I mean, I love older women because basically they don't give a shit anymore. Most of them. So they just say what they want, you know? And actually, they are quite scary. And that's a good thing too. But I think as younger women, you're juggling two sort of weird conflicting. Things, you know, because you, you, you want to kind of meet guys and you want to be attractive. To them. But on the other hand, you want to retain, you know, the ability to say no and your independence and to do what you want. I mean, not at the expense of everything else, because I think compromise has gone out the window a bit these days as well. But, you know, you want to have some kind of agency to manage your life. And, and I think there's, you know, because we're kind of globe, you know, the sort of, you know, a bit of a global village. Now, there are competing cultures with very different attitudes towards women. And so it's kind of hard to know where to go with that, because you want to respect people's cultures, but you don't respect the behavior that's meted out to women sometimes. So it's hard. Yeah, it's incredibly confusing. And I also think in this current day and age, you can learn so much about so many things. Information is so accessible, but you can't know everything about anything. And if you're in a situation where you don't understand a particular topic that someone's talking to you about, I think people expect you to know everything that they know everything about. And if you're caught in a debate and you don't know everything, then you're massively belittled. And I find that I don't know if this is just my life experience, but particularly as a woman, I feel massively belittled if I don't know everything about someone's particular opinion, and I find it hard for people to just accept that maybe we don't know everything, but that doesn't mean that we're not on the same level as other people. Yeah, I think women still, if you look at the way that women suffer in Parliament, for example, the amount of abuse that they get, and I think that's a very particular type of abuse, it. It's like that that men are threatened by women having power. I think politically I think they are is a particular type of power, I think. Do you not think I completely agree? I think people are. Well, everyone is is intimidated by other people's powers as humans. I think that's a natural instinct. And I think I don't want to stereotype. But particularly men do feel more intimidated by power against other men as well as other women. I think that's a very real thing. I certainly do feel that it's worth pointing out that men are intimidated by women, period. Even a woman that doesn't have power because the beauty, the the, the femininity sexuality of women essentially represents an ideal that men have to, on some level, live up to. This is how our race evolved. Like women chose the best men to mate with, and that caused men to step up and become better. And then the whole species became better. This is how our species evolved. So I think women are intimidating to men. And then I think women with power are especially intimidating to men, especially if they're insecure. And men who chase power are often insecure. Yeah. And I also think the the major issue with that is that men have the physical power to override the power in women that they feel frightened of. So that's all a bit of a weird balance, isn't it? Really. And it's kind of scary if you're a woman. Yeah, definitely a be scary in a way if you're a man as well. But the problem men are facing now is they feel very disconnected and they feel like any attempts to improve themselves. 1s And become more assertive to find their life's purpose is seen as now toxically masculine. A lot of I agree. There's a problem, I agree, and it's very difficult path to tread, isn't it? And it's like it's it's always men versus women versus how do men and women complement each other and how should they build lives together? Because that's at the end of the day. How we function as a society is I think the family is very important. I do, but I mean, you know, if you if you think it wasn't that long ago that you had the husband who go to work and come home and everything would be done for him, I mean, that was quite a long time ago. But like these days, how do you juggle the problem of both? Both part, you know, both halves of a couple working, bringing up children. Unless they've got loads of money, you can't. It's a huge problem. It's a massive problem. And how like household chores, divided. How is everything split and negotiated? Yeah. And I mean I go on women's women's websites and women finds child rearing boring. They just do. Especially when kids are little, you know, because because your whole world is centred around them and they're really annoying. They won't do what you say and they'll 1s try and walk off a cliff or possibly bleach over themselves, you know? So you're like your special thing them 24 hours a day and and there's nothing wrong. Don't say don't think with saying that. But I think women feel very guilty about it, you know, because it's meant to be this rosy kind of, oh, me cuddling my rosy cheeked child and we'll say happy together, blah, blah, blah. And actually, the grind of it is, is can be boring. And that's why men don't want to do it as well. Well, Joe have talked about us all. Thank you so much for spending some time with us, and we'd be happy to have you back on the program at some point in the future. Pleasure. Thanks so much, I enjoyed it. 2s Thank you.