June 2, 2008
BUG SHOWS, OUT OF FOCUS GROUP @ BFI AND OTHER LIVE NEWS
IT’S A GIG-O-RAMA!
Herewith details of several new BUG dates, as well as a few live appearances I’ll be making in comedy mode. Hope you can make it to one or two.
OUT OF FOCUS GROUP @ BFI SOUTHBANK, FRIDAY 4th JULY 2008, 6.10pm
I’m really excited about this and I think it’s going to be a good night so do get in there early with ticket bookings. I used to do these at The Zetter Hotel for a fairly tiny audience and I’m looking forward to trying it out in a larger venue. Basically it’s around 90 minutes of live comedy from myself and guests, interspersed with bits of video I’ve made. For our inaugural BFI Out Of Focus Group there’ll be a bits and pieces from previous shows as well as brand new stuff, all taking advantage of the top quality audio visual facilities at the BFI.
NOTE: The show has now been shifted from a smaller cinema to NFT 1, the biggest auditorium where we do BUG. If you’ve booked tickets already and wish to check on your new seat allocation call 0207 928 3232. Apologies for the fannying about. You can also use that number to book tickets if you haven’t done so already or;
you can book on line for Out Of Focus Group at BFI here
As well as my contributions I’m expecting to be joined on the night by:
so I really don’t see how you won’t dig at least some of it a lot. I hope it will be the first of many such nights, albeit on a not particularly regular basis.
BUG 08 @ BFI SOUTHBANK THURSDAY 31st JULY 2008, 8.45PM
BUG 07 a couple of weeks back was a compromised hoot. The good parts came thanks in no small part to Dougal Wilson, our special guest and latest victim of my idiotic steamroller interview style. At one point Dougal related an anecdote about having been in the audience at a previous BUG when the chap sitting next to him started slagging off ‘that Douglas Wilson’. “I think you mean Dougal Wilson. That’s me actually” said Dougal to his deeply embarrassed neighbour. Well, it turned out the same chap was in the audience again and we got him up on stage to give Dougal a hug and bury the hatchet. As Dougal is about 6 foot 5 and this chap was about my height (and I’m the size of a tall hobbit), it was a bizarre but oddly delightful sight. Dougal is currently looking after award for best sport at BUG so far!
The bad parts of the night were due to an insurmountable problem with the sound that all but ruined a few of the videos we showed, most tragically the new video for Flight Of The Conchords, which is at least 50% about the lyrics. It was desperately frustrating for us to say nothing of our audience. It’s the only technical hitch we’ve ever had at BUG and everyone’s confident it won’t happen again but if you were there that night, I do hope your night wasn’t ruined for that reason. If your night was ruined because of me I’m still sorry, but I can’t really guarantee that won’t happen again.
You can book for BUG 08 here.
Here’s a wonderful film we sneaked in at the end of BUG 07 that I think withstood the crappy sound. It’s called ‘I Met The Walrus’ and although it isn’t strictly a music video it features the words of John Lennon and it’s amazing so we hoped no-one would object to us including it. The story behind it is that in 1969 when John and Yoko were in Toronto as part of their bed-in for peace tour, a 14 year old Beatles fan with a tape recorder called Jerry Levitan knocked on every door of the hotel where he knew Lennon was staying until he found him at which point Lennon was good enough to give him a 40 minute interview. The tape of the interview gathered dust for around 35 years until Jerry Levitan met a young animator called Josh Raskin whose work impressed him sufficiently for him to allow Josh to make a film to accompany an edited section of this Lennon tape. The result was nominated for an Oscar this year but remarkably few people I talk to about it have actually seen it. Enjoy.
ADDENDUM I failed to mention the vital contribution to ‘I Met The Walrus’ of illustrator James Braithwaite. But now I have. Click on his name, his site is both acey and spacey. But not Kevin Spacey. He’s here running through some non spontaneous impersonations with varying degrees of brilliance. Good Pacino, but my 3 year old son does a better John Gielgud than that Spaceboy!
BUG MASSIVE ATTACK SPECIAL @ BFI, THURSDAY 19TH JUNE 2008, 8.45PM
Massive attack are curating this year’s Meltdown and have agreed to let us feature some of the fantastic videos they’ve had made for them over the years in a BUG special. Even if you’ve seen them all before this will a chance to see them all big and loud on the big screen and as far as I know the Attackers themselves will be talking to me on stage. If that turns out to be bollocks I’ll let you know. Got to remember to resist the urge to ask 3D if he has to wear 3-D glasses now he’s a bit older.
Book tickets for BUG Massive Attack Special here
THE BIG CHILL FESTIVAL FRIDAY 1st – SUNDAY 3rd AUGUST 2008
As well as a special festival edition of BUG, I’ll be doing half an hour of live stuff (probably Famous Guy) at The Big Chill Festival, which takes place at Eastnor Castle, Herefordshire. BUG will be on the Saturday night (2nd August) and my live set will be the following night (Sunday 3rd August). The line up for the festival (which includes Hot Chip, The Mighty Boosh and Bill Bailey) looks good so I’m looking forward to it, big willy style.
Details and tickets for Big Chill 2008 here.
That’s it for now. I’ll be posting in the next few days about the release of Adam & Joe’s Song Wars album Volume 1 and a transmission date for my BBC3 pilot, MeeBOX.
Cheery-bye-hat
Adam 02/06/08
March 29, 2008
RADIO 4 PILOT NEWS!
‘A WEEK WITH ADAM BUXTON’
Hey ho hoo ha! It’s been ages! How are you? I haven’t posted for a while because I’ve been distracted by an increasingly steady trickle of bits and pieces that may or may not ever see the light of day (that’s life on the exciting margins!) Earlier this month I wrote and recorded a half hour pilot for BBC Radio 4. It has the provisional title ‘A Week With Adam Buxton’ and it’s a mix of sketches and character bits (there’s some Famous Guy in there) as well as interjections from my Dad, Nigel Buxton (a.k.a. BaaadDad). Helping me perform the sketches were Amelia Bullmore (Jam, Brass Eye and Big Train) and Matt Berry (Snuff Box, Mighty Boosh, Darkplace and IT Crowd) who were both as good as you’d expect (ie. very).
We recorded the show in front of an audience at the Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House. I would have posted details for getting tickets here but they all went very quickly so I wasn’t able to. If you were one of the people who came along, thanks, you were a very good crowd. It was really fun to do and it would be a hoot if the BBC saw fit to commission a series but I won’t hold my breath. As I’ve discovered with MeeBOX (my TV pilot for BBC3 which is still awaiting a transmission date) things like this can take a very long time in the Big British Castle. I’ve heard the radio pilot is likely to go out some time in the autumn, so I’ll let you know when I hear a definite date.
With all these pilots I should be given a fricken pilot’s license! Ha ha ha. I made that joke at the recording but I thought I’d repeat it for those who weren’t there. I went on to say that I’m now able to fly commercial airliners but they won’t let me have my own series! Obviously I sincerely hope that doesn’t turn out to be the case, even though there’s a fuck sight more money in flying planes than making culty comedy shows.
Here’s the Radio 4 pilot team in the green room before the recording. From left to right: producer Ed Morrish (who got the thing off the ground, thanks Ed!), me, my Dad, Amelia and Matt.
August 3, 2007
RADIO, TV AND VARIOUS GOOD STUFF NEWS!
I’VE BEEN AWAY!
But now I’m back and despite the weather going all biblical and television finally being exposed as the cesspool of deceit I always suspected it might be I’ve got a fair bit to enthuse about. First let me tell you how my gig at the Albany went before I went so rudely AWOL.
MY GIG AT THE ALBANY, 12th JULY 2007
On my way to The Albany I was cycling past stationary traffic on Whitehall when someone opened the passenger door of a black cab and I slammed right into the edge of it. I went most of the way over my handlebars and sustained quite a serious bashing to my right shoulder, left thigh and shins. I didn’t flip out but I said to the guy who was looking at me with a mixture of alarm and indignation, “what are you doing opening the door without looking!?†He came back with “what are you doing cycling up on the inside?†“That’s generally where people cycle†I replied. Yesss! Score 1 for me!!! He looked chastened but not perhaps suitably chastened. The show was starting in 10 minutes so I decided against a pointless row and peddled on, a little shaken and achy. I suppose in those situations the correct thing from a legal point of view is to exchange details in case my injuries turned out to be more severe than I thought and I decided to call Baines & Ernst or whoever. I can’t help feeling that life’s too short though.
The gig went OK to begin with but I quickly lost control of the filthy mother. For a start I had foolishly drunk a pint of fizzy lager backstage and for the first few minutes of my act I was negotiating with a belch that refused to surface and torpedoed my concentration somewhat. Plus the lights on the tiny stage, which were only a couple of feet from my face (but several faces from my feet), seemed unusually bright. I could see Rob Baker, who was an AP on The Adam & Joe Show sat in the audience. ‘Fuck’ I thought, ‘I haven’t seen him for ages and now he’s going to think I’m a loser.’ All in all in was in a bad frame of mind and that was before I got to the new stuff I’d just finished writing just hours earlier.
Needless to say I was no way on top of these shiny new nuggles and after a few minutes I managed to completely silence a previously very jolly room. In my defence they went quiet during a dramatic passage for which silence was entirely appropriate, but later on when some laughs would have been welcome, they remained disrespectfully silent. In fact it was probably the quietest reaction I have ever got for anything I’ve done live. It was so extremely quiet I couldn’t help laughing a little at the utterness of the quietude. They only started laughing again when I had left the stage and Dave Armand & Nick Tanner had returned.
In the past that kind of reaction would have shaken me a fair bit but for the first time I found myself not minding too much. I knew the stuff I had written was good and I just needed to do it more to make it work. It’s worse if you know deep down that you’ve gone out with some ropey old shite and been busted for it.
Anyway, I’ll let you know when my next experiment with silence is due. Now for the rest of this week’s inconsequential fartcloud.
THE TAO OF BERGERAC NEWS!
Back in mid June I played a part in the first episode of a live recording of a new Radio 4 comedy series called The Tao of Bergerac by Will Smith and Roger Drew, who I met while working on Time Trumpet. Inspired by an audio book of John Nettles reading the Tao, the show features Will ‘navigating the minefield of his life’ and it’s very good indeed. I can say that without smugness because I had absolutely nothing to do with it’s creation other than turning up and reading one of the parts on the night in the incredibly fancy new BBC radio theatre in Broadcasting House. You can listen again to the show here and catch future episodes on Wednesdays at 6:30pm on radio 4.
One of the most amazing parts of this excellent programme is when at the end Will links random films to episodes of Bergerac by connecting the work of their featured stars. I should stress that only the first of these was scripted. When we recorded the episode Will took about 6 or 7 films shouted out by members of the audience with no prior preparation and was able to link every single one to specific episodes of Bergerac in less than six steps with no hesitation whatsoever. It was one of the weirdest, nerdiest and most strangely impressive things I have ever beheld. Check it!
BBC PILOT NEWS!
This month I start work on my pilot for the BBC with the provisional title of MeeBox (although that may well change as there seems to be a glut of projects with ‘box’ in the title at the moment). The overall idea is to create a sort of spoof of the kind of material you find on places like You Tube, ie. clips, virals and ‘vlogs’ from various ludicrous characters (including Famous Guy and possibly Ken Korda) spouting off about all kinds of moronic crap. I’m aware that there are probably about 100 other projects not dissimilar to this either being pitched or in production at the moment, but I hope I’ll be able to make it my own somehow! Basically I’m going to try out all kinds of different bits and see what fits and what doesn’t.
One of the things I wanted to do was incorporate some phone call stuff that wasn’t so much pranky as character based but having seen a few clips of E4’s excellent Fonejacker, I might steer clear. If it was just another shit Crank Yankers type thing it wouldn’t be a problem but Keyvan Novak and his chums have breathed enough new life into phone japes, I’m worried that particular route might be a bit redundant for the time being, although as with Trigger Happy TV, I’m always amazed when someone does just one thing, albeit very well, for a whole half hour and then makes a whole series of it. That’s the way to get into people’s head though I guess. Keyvan Novak’s clearly a talented guy though. Can really be the same unfeasibly handsome Iranian actor who appeared in Holby City, Spooks and Syriana?! If so, I feel another Sasha Baron Cohen coming on…Bastard! If you haven’t already seen it, type ‘fonejacker ‘ into You Tube and get watching, you’ll definitely like at least one or two. I’ll keep you updated with pilot news in the next few weeks.
VERY LATE FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS RADIO & TV SERIES NEWS!
As usual I’m a few years late with the latest comedy sensation, but over the last month my life’s been improved by Flight Of The Conchords. In case you’re as tardy as I, they’re two engaging Kiwi chaps who write very amusing songs, mainly parodying various musical genres in a non tedious way and banter winningly in between. I only just listened to their radio series a few weeks ago. It’s a peach! This week I got hold of a couple of episodes of their US TV show from Bit Torrent and it’s an even more delicious peach! Joe, if you’re reading this, check out this amazingly loving and spot-on tribute to the sublime ridiculousness of early Pet Shop Boys from episode 2. How much more kindred do you want your spirits!?
I’m telling you, if you’re partial to super talented, funny musicians (see also Matts Holness and Berry and Julian Barratt ) and the kind of enjoyably odd conversational rhythms that the Boosh do so well then it’s time to book your Conchord flight! (yeah? Get me a job on a shit magazine, IMMEDIATELY! But not NOW!) Look out for many exciting US comedy talents in the Conchords TV show too, some of whom, like Eugene Mirman and Kristen Schall, were on the bill with David Cross when he was over here a few weeks back. Here’s one more blast; surely the last word on pathetic rap (although nothing will ever stop me pathetic rappin’!) ‘I’m a motherflippin’!’
June 21, 2007
ADRENALINE MORE NEWS!
BIKES AND GRINDHOUSE PT. 2 (WITH SOME ENTOURAGE & SOPRANOS OFFAL THROWN IN AND NO BIKES)
Firstly, please excuse the fact that I appear to have temporarily turned into another internet critic, a form of life so humble that not even David Attenborough would be curious about it’s filthy rituals. OK, let’s go.
The first episode of Entourage series 4 was bad. In fact it was perhaps the worst episode of the show so far. They’d done it as if it was a documentary about the making of the film they were working on. Unfortunately the badly observed conventions of the genre acted like a giant wall between the audience and all my much-loved Entourage buddies! We were left with a weedy sounding British guy providing a fake voice over that failed to parody any recognisable film show or behind the scenes documentary maker I’ve ever heard of, shots of people having dramatic plot based freak outs that would NEVER be caught on camera (let alone cleared for use in a behind the scenes piece), and unfunny interviews with Entourage protagonists being indiscreet in a way that you simply never, ever see on an interview of this kind.
Now, obviously I’m taking all of this much too seriously and Entourage doesn’t pretend to be surgically accurate with it’s portrayal of Hollywood life, but if you’re going to fuck with such a great formula, at least stick to the flipping rules! I’m sure they’ll be back on track next week. After all, for my money the Sopranos took a bit of a dip at the beginning of their sixth and final season, but the last 8 or 9 episodes were right back on target and the controversial finale was absolutely what you’d hope for from a show that was very seldom didactic or simple minded. OK, so it was no Lenny’s Britain, but the Sopranos was an extraordinary show and I’ll miss it very much. If you’ve never seen it, well, I wish I was you and I still had it all ahead of me is all I can say.
If you’ve never seen Grindhouse, er well, your nerves are possibly a little less shot than mine. Edgar Wright organised a screening at London’s trendy Soho Hotel last week so that he could show both films with fake trailers in between (one of which Edgar directed) the way Tarantino and Rodriguez intended. Indeed, this non stop double bill format was the way American audiences saw Grindhouse but I believe the two films are being split in the UK, which seems a shame as part of the genius of the whole thing is the way you respond to various kinds of tension after spending such an unusually long time in the cinema (or not if you’re one of the millions that stayed away in the US).
First of all the screening itself was fun because half the world of British comedy was there, including various members of League Of Gentlemen, The Mighty Boosh, Garth Merenghi and Little Britain. Also Peter Jackson! When we’d all been reminded not to go to the toilet during the trailers in the middle and risk missing Edgar’s contribution, the lights dimmed and the first film, Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror, began.
It was pretty good. It reminded me a lot of the kind of films that Joe and I would go and see of a weekend at school, for example Reanimator, The Hidden, Return Of The Living Dead, The Stuff etc. As with those films, I was sort of amused and slightly grossed out a couple of times but it was never really terrifying or really funny, which is the problem with a lot of genre splicing outings for me. The scene in Dusk Til Dawn where it looks as if Tarantino’s character might rape Juliette Lewis’s character has more grimly real tension in it than anything in Planet Terror. Also it’s weird how seeing a girl with a machine gun attached to the amputated stump of her leg is much less exciting than being told about it.
Planet Terror finished and the fake trailers rolled. I’m biased but I thought Edgar’s (’Don’t') was quite easily the best. As a properly funny spoof of the imagery and tone of those kinds of late 70’s, early 80’s horror trails it was head and shoulders above the others. Eli Roth’s effort was OK, albeit revolting and not that funny.
Roth turns up in the first section of Tarantino’s contribution, Death Proof. As I said before, part of the effectiveness of this film may well have been down to having just sat through Planet Of Terror and being totally immersed in the Grindhouse experience subsequently, but I came out of Death Proof feeling completely shredded in a way that I have only been a few times going to the cinema. E.T. and Schindler’s List spring to mind. And Harold & Kumar Get The Munchies.
It starts inauspiciously with a long scene in a bar featuring some unappealing young women and a couple of unappealing cameos from both Eli Roth and Tarantino. It’s all self indulgent to the point of parody. Then it goes beyond parody and into boredom. Then Kurt Russel turns up as a gnarled stuntman with a scary black car who sits at the bar and eyes the unappealing women. Then he seems fairly nice so any tension there is dissipated. Then, seemingly aware that the audience will be getting quite bored by now, Tarantino pretends to drop a reel (a joke which, along with some deliberately ropey edits, is used a lot for the first part of the film then abandoned) so that the film literally, cuts to the chase. I won’t spoil it by going into too much detail but for about 5 minutes the tone suddenly darkens considerably and I found myself completely gripped and unbelievably tense!
5 minutes later, it was all over and the film seemed to begin again with a new set of slightly more appealing young women. This time there’s no jokes about dodgy edits, scratchy prints or dropped reels, there’s just these women on a road trip. Then they stop off for some lunch at a café and have a lady chat. Ooh! It’s Kurt Russell at the bar again! What’s he going to do!? Well, we’ve got a pretty good idea what he’s going to do but how long are we going to have to wait before he starts doing it this time? The answer is A VERY, VERY LONG TIME INDEED. The scene in the café with the women talking in sassy, super modern, empowered Tarantino-ese about, er, gosh I honestly can’t recall, must have lasted about 20-25 minutes. The sassy chat was again, banal to the point of parody. Then again, it waddled past parody into profound, suffocating torpor. But it’s Tarantino, I thought, he must know what he’s doing, though what can he possibly do to enliven such utter dullociousness? 10 minutes later I found out. The final minutes of Death Proof are as relentlessly exciting as anything I’ve seen for a long time, maybe ever. The question is, would I have felt that way had I not been so fucking bored for so long beforehand? Was it all a masterclass in deconstructive pacing? A brilliant cat and mouse game being played out not only between the characters on screen but between the director and the audience? Or was it a shit film with 2 really fucking good bits? I’ll leave that up to you, and if you can, go for the double!
Right, now back to dealing with frigging Facebook requests. No doubt I’ll telling people how wonderful and fun Facebook is in a few months, but right now I’m still in the very early hate and denial stage.
April 4, 2007
INTERVIEW NEWS
O RUSSELL’S WIG & B3TA INTERVIEW
Well, it’s been a few days and I’ve digested David O Russell and his wig. I don’t think there’s much I can add to the whole thing other than to say it’s a little disappointing to find that maybe his fall out with George Clooney on the set of Three Kings was more down to him than Clooney who I was much more excited about disliking (especially after trying to stay awake through Goodnight And Good Luck having been told by everyone how AMAZING and IMPORTANT it was. Jesus of Christmas!) But hey, everyone’s allowed to blow their wig once in a while, right? Especially when they’re dealing with actors who can be the most infuriatingly obtuse people at the exact point a director needs them to just do the job they’re being paid a lot of money to do, which sometimes comes down to just doing what you’re told even though it may ‘go against your instincts’. (Here’s more Huckabees friction from Tomlin to illustrate although she seems cool enough about it all now). I guess if you’re going to go all nutty at them it’s best not be filmed doing it is the thing. David O Russell is great though. I wasn’t a massive fan of Huckabees but Three Kings is just about perfect for my money. He can call me a cunt any time.
Anyway, I’ve just been answering a string of ludicrous questions sent to me by Rob Manuel of B3TA who have been kind enough to feature a few of my You Tube clips in the past so I thought I’d post the full screed here for you as a kind of pathetic exclusive with the only person who’ll give me an interview! Just before that though, in the course of plugging our Coke podcasts for this I was checking the link and noticed that beneath the little biog thing they have for us are these LOVES and HATES:
Loves: 100 greatest’ TV shows.
Hates: The industry, the establishment, the man. Jamie Theakston.
Presumably someone was being ironic but just in case there’s any confusion we do not in any way love 100 Greatest TV Shows and if we were really the kind of people who proclaimed our hatred for ‘the industry, the establishment and the man’ we probably wouldn’t be doing a podcast for Coca Cola. Also neither of us has anything against Jamie Theakston at all. While we’re clearing up misconceptions that are threatening to plunge the world into deeper turmoil, I like and admire Leigh Francis of Bo Selecta fame very much.
OK, let’s move on to this important interview, which is made up from questions posed by the users of B3TA. As an exercise in pointless time wasting I tried to answer every single question I was sent. Thank fuck I’m not in a band. If I had to do this kind of thing more than once a year I’d be on heroin like a shot!
B3TA INTERVIEW
NOW
Who pays more? The BBC or C4? (Lanc)
Unless you get more than about 4 million viewers for any one thing you do, TV doesn’t pay that well anywhere, especially these days. Advertising, now that’s different…
What have you been doing for the last 10 years? (Hummel)
Hiding from you.
What was it like working with Armando Iannucci? (connor)
I didn’t see him that often as most of my Time Trumpet bits I did on my own in my studio, but on the days when we had meetings or we were shooting the talking heads stuff, he was scrupulously polite, funny, encouraging and well groomed. I like him very much.
How is YouTube changing the process of getting comedy on TV? (Monty Propps)
Now they can steal all their ideas from just one place. I’m joking! The best way to get people in television excited about something is to just make it yourself so they can see what you’re on about. Then if you can put it up somewhere like You Tube it means they don’t have to go to all the effort of unwrapping a package, reading your crap letter and loading a tape or a DVD (which often won’t work in their shit old machines). Now of course it’s a question of whether it needs to be on TV at all. There’s all sorts of financial opportunities opening up on the net for people making their own stuff and TV is looking more and more like an unnecessary headache fraught with compromise and unhelpful second guessing. It still seems somehow more legitimate though doesn’t it?
Did your mainly student audience grow with you? Or are you now making comedy for another lot of poncy student grant types? (mongychops)
Don’t know about that. People that come to my gigs or say hello in the street are either my age or about 18. They’re never poncy though and I can’t tell if they have grants. They deserve them.
Do you use YouTube for material you know you’d never be able to clear, copyright-wise, if it were on a traditional TV channel? (Fraser)
In part, yes.
How long did it take to learn the words to ‘Help the Police’? (pep)
3 days.
Are you really like that dad in the car (you are, aren’t you?) (pep)
Yes.
Do you feel insulted when… I say that I thought Jimmy Carr played Tim Messenger in Hot Fuzz? (Palmer the person )
Not in the least. Jimmy has always commented on our round faced similarities. I’m a little less successful and a little rounder in the face, but it I’d rather people mistake me for him than oh I dunno, Hitler.
Has Joe Cornish turned into a bitter and twisted hermit due to your new lease of fame? (prodigy69)
Is this my new lease of fame? Could you tell me when the lease runs out? I think Joe now owns his fame so he’s certainly not jealous of my lease.
Want to pimp your latest project? Then pimp it here - hard. (Rob)
Project pimping, hmmm. Well it would be great if people would check out our Coke podcasts on I-tunes or the [Coke Music website] but apart from that I’m working on a couple of things which I’ll be able to say more about when they’re more advanced. If people are interested the best place to find out more is my blog.
GENERAL
Who the bloody hell are you? (Much easier than checking wikipedia) (god save the queen)
Just a man. With a man’s courage.
Should we be more concerned that Google are trying to take over the world? (Prof Undercover)
They’ve asked me to be king of quite a large part of it, so yes, I think you should be very concerned because I’m going to be a very bad king.
What would you mostly likely have ended up as if the funny thing didn’t work out? (Prof Undercover)
Glad you think it’s worked out. I would have carried on being a bartender. Still might go back to it. It’s a fun job. Have you seen Cocktail? That’s exactly what it’s like.
Do you sleep with your beard over or under the covers? (Afinkawan)
I’m clean shaven at the mo. When it was giant it lay above the covers in it’s own little sleeping bag.
Aren’t you old Westminsters? How did school affect your humour? (The Alchemist)
When you get there they inject you with a cocktail of hauteur and self hate. It’s a delicious blend, which informs a lot of what we do.
Tell us what Dido was like at school? (Rob)
She was a few years below us and anyway, if she was blonde and sexy she wouldn’t have given us the time of day. Giles Coren (of Times restaurant critic and channel 5 film show fame) was a contemporary of ours though and he was a twat for a long while, but then he went nice and we got to be friends. I was a twat too mind. Other old Westminsters include synth pop pioneer Thomas Dolby, scandal prone education secretary Ruth Kelly, Bush ponce /Gwen Stefani foil Gavin Rossdale and genius drunky Shane McGowan (who was expelled unsurpsingly). See? The world’s full of public school wankers. We’re not so bad!
What about Louis Theroux? (brianftang)
He’s a very old friend. He was always annoyingly clever but very funny. You can see footage of him from those days in the extras on our Adam & Joe DVD. He was always one of those people you knew was going to do alright.
What’s the most ridiculous bit of trivia you know? (Afinkawan)
Robbie Williams
Would you ever go on Big Brother? Why? (pep)
Don’t think so. It’s evil. Didn’t you know?
Will you lend me £10? (the RAND corporation)
Surely that’s the oldest thing you can put as a question in one of these things. If you’re genuinely in trouble, I’ll see what I can do.
Who’s your favourite comedian/comedy show? (mofaha)
I’m sort of obsessed with the Boosh and Snuff Box right now. All that lot are hard to beat in my book. Tony Law makes me really laugh. Joanna Neary. Vic and Bob, Harry Enfield, oh you know, the usual people. I’ve just got a DVD of this Irish show called Soupy Norman which is a Polish soap that was re-edited and re-voiced by Barry Murphy and Mark Doherty, a couple of legendary Irish comics who did some stuff for Time Trumpet (they did the Dragon’s Den stuff). It’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in a very long time and it’s in 10 minute chunks so if someone hasn’t put it on You Tube yet, it has to be a matter of time before they do.
What music do you like ? (connor)
Indie/arty pop mainly but a bit of everything really. Pixies, Bowie, Frank Black, Tortoise, Eels, Kings Of Leon, Built To Spill, Guided By Voices, Travis, James Brown, Radiohead, Jim Noir, Guillemots, Yo La Tengo, Beach Boys, The Shins, The Fall, Sparks, Beatles, Dylan, Eno, Talking Heads, Magazine, Spoon, Silver Jews, lots and lots! I wish I was a great musician more than anything.
What websites do you visit obsessively ? (connor)
Don’t really visit any one obsessively but Graham Linehan’s blog is always interesting as is Fat Pies.
What nerdy thing did you do recently ? (connor)
I went to a BBC ‘talent’ dinner last night and sat round the table were, Harry Enfield, Paul Whitehouse, Dara O’Brien, the bloke from Top Gear who nearly died, Paul Merton, Jack Dee, Mitchell & Webb, Ian Hislop, Graham Norton, Dom from Dick’n'Dom, Claudia Winkleman and a load of other well known faces. I waited til everyone was pretty pissed then got out my camera and starting snapping away until I started to get weird looks and one of the waiters came over and asked me to stop. I think he thought I’d sneaked in. Is that nerdy enough? Maybe it’s just uncool.
Why the hell did you grow a beard? (P3te)
- To help me ‘get into character’ for my Edinburgh show in 2005
- To see if I could
- To hide my double chin.
Daddy or chips? (SkUG)
Fuck Daddy. Fuck chips.
Have you ever smeared Marmite over your face and pretended to be a badger? (ShittingBabies)
Nice name there ‘ShittingBabies’. Is that an old Navajo moniker? I think you know I haven’t smeared Marmite on my face and pretended to be a badger. You’re just working some kind of angle aren’t you?
Have you ever raced midgets? (ShittingBabies)
You again? What’s your angle?! Should I pretend I have raced Midgets? Would that make me look good? Would you be happy about it? Where can it all go?
Have you ever worn womens underwear? (Sticky Label)
Yes.
What’s the meaning of life? (connor)
If you’re looking for it on the internet you’re in for a frustrating trek.
Where do babies come from? (ShittingBabies)
Oh Christ. Amazon. Is that the right answer?
I caught my penis in my zipper before a school play once. What have you done to your penis? (ShittingBabies)
What is this, a zany private audience with ShittingBabies? Yes I caught my knob in my fly too. It really hurt. Now what?
Batman or Superman? (I bet it’s Batman) (mofaha)
Bad betting there mofaha. It’s Superman.
Do you find ginger people aborent? (KaiserPro)
Some very disappointing spelling here chaps, come on buck up! Finding ginger people abhorrent is like finding David Hasselhoff kitsch and amusing. A bad use of time.
What did you want to do when you were younger? (Palmer the person )
I wanted to be either an astronaut, a corner shop owner or a gynaecologist. True.
How would he have made the Star Wars Prequels good? (HappyToast)
Who’s ‘he’? George Lucas? Well he should have got people like me and Jimmy Carr to do cameos in them. Then they would have been amazing! Justin Lee Collins would have made a brilliant Chewie come to think of it. It’s all in the casting.
Should Gillian McKeith be destroyed? (Watney Heckbulb uhnnnnnnnn)
Maybe not destroyed but sequestered certainly.
Do you know Dom Jolly? Is he as big a prick as I imagine? (Prof Undercover)
Don’t really know him. I’m told he’s alright.
How many pillows do you like to sleep with? (Letum)
Can’t believe you bothered to type that question and I’m bothering to reply. Isn’t the internet amazing!? I sleep with one pillow.
Have you ever thrown dog poo into your neighbour’s garden? (The Neville)
Fuck dogs. Fuck poo. Fuck neighbours and Fuck gardens. Is that unequivocal enough for you?
If you could have one thing in the entire world named after you, what would it be? And why? (The Neville)
Ricky Gervais. Then everyone would think I was a genius.
How do you get your spring water tasting so watery? (Count Vanderhoff)
Yeah.
What were the best and worst nicknames you ever got given? (Afinkawan)
BEST: Let me see… on a good day I used to get called Genius Boy, Rimshot Masterclass, Fiery Apollo 5000, The Lazer Briefcase, Jimmy Bignutz, Harrison Ford, Cleverhandsome or Jesus Strength. WORST: On a bad day it would be either Failure Face, Shitlamp, The Ugly Man, Shit On Face, Shithair, Dogshit Face & Neck, Fat Queer or Shit Instead Of Head. I think some of the names came from the fact that I had a bit of shit near my head in those days. Kids can be cruel.
Tell us a joke? (rob)
Fuck jokes.
ADAM AND JOE
Who’s got this biggest penis? You or Joe? (ShittingBabies)
ShittingBabies, back with the hard-hitting questions again. I’ve never seen Joe’s winky but he tells me it’s large. I’m medium/large so I guess Joe has the edge.
Tell us about the disturbed cat featured in the adam and joe show intro? (mofaha)
If you’re nerdy enough to be asking me about disturbed cats you should be nerdy enough to know we did a different title sequence for each series so I’m not sure which one would have featured the cat in question. Doesn’t ring any bells though, sorry.
Whose star wars figures did you use for the Adam and Joe show? (ShittingBabies)
Those were mine. My Ma saved them in the attic all those years, along with many of the old toys that we exploited so relentlessly on the show. Good old Ma.
Was the piss up in the brewery the single greatest dare ever pulled off? (ShittingBabies)
Piss Up In A Brewery was one of our slightly better stunts/pranks. It’s not exactly world class as far as daring goes though is it? Dick & Dom kicked our ass many times on that front.
Who was the giver, Adam or Joe Cornish? (Bats)
Is this an anal sex question? I bet you’re straight, right Bats? Why do straight men LOVE chatting about bottom sex so much more than any gay man I’ve ever met? But maybe this is not a bottom question but a charity question. If so, I’m the giver. And if not.
What’s your favourite song you’ve made? Mine was the Jazz Queens! (ShittingBabies)
Jazz Queens was a good one, glad you like it. I personally think the Robert De Niro Calypso takes some beating. I could listen to that one for pleasure.
Should Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad Dad stand for parliament? (ShittingBabies)
That would be deeply depressing. I know I wasn’t supposed to take that question seriously but I suddenly did.
What was the greatest idea put forward that you weren’t allowed to use? (Neon Blue)
Well we pretty much used everything we ever came up with, didn’t you notice? I always wanted to leave a bike unattended and film from a distance as some shitbird went to steal it then I’d jump out and confront them, but that idea got over-ruled every time I brought it up for being too lame and pointless. Then a few years later there was a show called SWAG on Channel 5 that did exactly that. And it was lame and pointless.
What’s Baaad Dad up to nowadays, and how did he cope with the fame? (jme)
He lives by the Sussex Downs where he enjoys walking and drinking expensive booze. He loves it when he gets recognised. He calls me up and tells me all about it every time.
Has george lucas ever demanded royalties? or made any other comments about your old starwars toy sketches? (mutated monty)
No. The closest we came to hearing from the Lucas camp was when we passed on a tape of some of our Star Wars toy things to Rick McCallum (producer of the prequels who used to frequent a shop run by a friend of ours). He told our friend that George had seen them and thought we were ‘crazy’. The question is, did he mean crazy-brilliant or crazy-nutty or just crazy-unhappy? Or was it the more likely crazy-what-a-pair-of-twats? Whichever way he wasn’t feeling litigious about it.
Would you come round my house and record an episode of “Vinly Justice” starring me an’ my record collection? (The Neville)
That’s just not practical The Neville. Plus I used to hate doing those things anyway. Only Stereolab and Frank Black ever made us feel properly welcome. Otherwise it was invariably awkward and uncomfortable (mainly our fault for invading their real houses, dressing up like freaks and doing bad comedy copper voices). Actually Cerys Matthews was very nice too. And Gary Numan. The rest of them were cunts. Except for Nick Heyward and Neil Hannon. And Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. OK, it was just Dave Navarro who was a cunt. And Dweezil Zappa (Ahmet and Moon Unit were nice). Ray Manzarek was bit of a toolkit too. Mark E Smith started off being nice then went cunty for a while then went back to being nice. It was stressful though. I can’t go through all that again, not even for you The Neville.