Hello and welcome to sitcom geeks we're at the landed know comedy cross-accomedy events, which is very exciting I've got Dave Cohen with me as normal Hello, and we also have a wonderful guest in the form of a man who needs no introduction I'm just gonna call him our Murray. Hello. Hello. We are very excited that you're on the show I think we did actually you know we interviewed Al many years ago So actually if you want to if you want to listen to us talking to Al about yeah, we have spoken of a career Yeah, and how he got into the pub landlord.
What are you laughing at? Is that's right? Yeah? What are you laughing at?
So we thought let's not let's not talk about all those things because the problem is he's all those things are now for me They're sort of encrusted patter. Yeah, they're well rehearsed when I end up yes being interviewed by local Ray Simon D Yeah, and the sky episode where people meeting when Harry Hill met Al Murray Yeah, it's not impossible to see yeah, that's as BBC foreshow right there. Yeah, which one of us is the depressed one? Well, maybe just reflect a little bit on what we talked about what you say earlier on your interviews And one of the things that you which might be is pricked up at we when you talk about the Windsor's yeah, and you really enjoyed it I mean enormous fan of it.
Yeah, and it's got proper jokes in it. Well, it's not so much that it's that it's meant to be really funny It isn't and it's not doing it. I mean the thing is you say that it sounds good And this is the thing is this obviously comedy is an enormously broad church But what the Windsor's definitely isn't is an edgy drama with some black jokes in it. Yeah, you know you don't human or whatever It's not a comedy of manners.
It's not a it's not a comedy that reflects on what even is comedy You know any of those things and it's not matter unless it needs a matter joke to get a laugh at your situation It's just it's just a sort of cartoon. Yeah, but I can't say the reason I think it works Well, it's because the characters are just total cartoon characters, but we they're so familiar to us Yeah, and we know that their lives are absolutely ludicrous and you know you can watch the crown and Pick up that anyway, just to sing that stuff But actually I think they're spitting image used to do it as well But they are spitting image Well, it's quite interesting is actually because I mean I wrote on spitting image for all of course and a long time ago And I remember the first meeting at Joss Pilberg came in and you know when he was a junior person on it But you know the same he does now exactly like they chun up with it and we were given the list of don'ts And one of them is you know the audience don't like the puppets try and keep the sketches under 30 seconds because the audience just don't Look at the puppets and and I remember being like thinking what? How would you learn yourself in this situation? How was your research come back and tell you that?
And then and that was also the year of those very long John Major sketches Oh, yeah, and I'm thinking you'd be at home watching the show to do your homework thinking I think the audience don't like the puppets Yeah, but the but the wins is this they've done that exactly with it and and actually how pin pin drop accurate It's portrayal of their lives is I don't know It's reality and they have their own reality. Yeah, the role family So they've done a reality of the raw family and it's really really funny for it and the way they portray Prince Harry I think is really is really funny because it's him going oh god I'm stuck with you know Lord snoopitururs and you know in Baron Smokes whatever and you think that's that's probably what he's like Yeah, yeah, it's not far off. Yeah, exactly and then also the way they portray Megan is really funny that I want you don't touch your soul and be a real But you know the tiny true feelings that's actually been presented to us. Yeah, so they've just run with it and It's not only it's not only that it's not about me funny.
It's actually that is satire Yeah, it is satire in a way that in a way that going who the Tories are good It's not satire Or isn't Jeremy cool below but he's not sat on the thing they did with Corbin it was brilliant in many young and sexy irresistible to women and on the phone to Hezbollah It's just yeah, yeah What's what's lovely about it such a great thick script and it's and you can you can see the actors These are like comic actors that you're kind of used to seeing around being being the mates flatmate in the 13 something sitcom or whatever And here they are just you know getting a chance to get a chance George's Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah That's what's really been about that they've been they've been given anything that'd be allowed to run with it Yeah, and so much of what a lot of comedy commissioning ought to come down to giving people yeah time Yeah time to run with it and you know we're gonna talk about 40t hours Legendally only had 12 episodes, but they were several years apart Yeah, so the second series was well after the thing had been repeated people knew the characters Yeah, you know, so so the the the Windsor's has the jump start of well, we know these characters Yeah, and here they are looking at you sort of up speed on the general Which is why the great old cliche, you know one of the books Well the only books I read about comedy when I was starting out was by Ronald Wolf Who wrote on the buses and stuff and he just said you can't beat the uniform because I mean, you know who everyone is They're wearing a uniform and you know the same military stuff. You got rank who's in charge of who you can just latch on to that Yeah, I'm arcus. I'm really important. Yeah, you're playing status I'm one character playing another and That's the whole of the whole of the army is I mean The I mean sounds I mean sounds like it wins as you just think what's this done on channel for this?
You know this should be on well, yeah, but that's that's what always happens Isn't it? This is on the wrong channel, but if I if I you almost feel like if we say that out loud they'll cancel it Big mistake the thing is I think the BBC 90 we wouldn't take a risk on that because they'd run into they'd run into BBC certainly was they run into telling my old saying mission to be saying it was time for Jennifer cut that space for them. Yeah, and yet channel for have shown consistently. They really don't care what they may think if anything annoying them It was a good thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah purchase for them. Yeah, but in terms of some sort of being broad or whatever Whenever Ben Elton gave his his that comedy lecture thing when the BBC decided to make a comedy pro You know broadcast a lecture about comedy rather than spending money making a comedy show We were very supportive of what he's what he said because he says this is really odd British thing about always trying to be funny Hmm, and I think that's a real problem. It sounds like you probably a little bit sympathy for completely Yeah, completely, but I think that's from coming through the stand-up circuit. Yeah, um where you had you know the comedy circuit was very much A cold bath if you weren't making people laugh.
Yeah, because why wouldn't it be and so my instincts have come from there really and really thinking How am I gonna make this audience laugh and then you know Steve Martin talks about when he made movies you think about the laugh at the back of the room who's thinking about that Yeah, and is enormously important and I there's a bit me. I mean maybe maybe the flip of this is I'm envious of the people who aren't worried about Yeah, my show my stand-up instinct so Something big coming in of that you just think yeah Things if you can you can but yeah, if you can make if you can approach it like that Well, good luck to you. There was a there has been a long long critical culture of now You'll read a thing that says it's laugh out loud funny But is that what we want right now from comedy? Yeah, or you know a guild said about me It makes you laugh this show, but is it the right kind of laughter?
It's funny to the right kind of fun. Yeah, you know I can't win it. Yeah, yeah, yeah as if making people laugh is easy anyway, I think we've come in a way we come full circle really because when seniority here when I was the shows I was watching as a kid about So I stepped on some the likely lads and whatever they were not six gags a minute shows No, but they were they were laugh out loud funny But you know they were the laugh out loud funny was the story and the character came together in my yes I'm well, you're gonna be careful to do is not say what you want is a is It's pan to my friends, you know, where we're you know, that's why they became because I think with the growth of the The writer performer and the sort of the gag gag culture So then there was this like okay, so nobody's have to be funny funny funny funny And so we lost a little bit of the drama of the you know your porridge is and you know, that's whatever and and now But you know with the office and everything where people are free Comedians seem to want to be more making shows without the audience And so and this was something I mentioned today as well about how you know the top comedy performers and writers Well having their in their non-audience sitcoms as a in the it doesn't in the edit and say well that joke Yeah, that's a really funny joke But we got to take it out because it's jarring with with the story way that's in the way that's sort of thing. Well, actually Yeah, very good point.
Yeah, so I think we now are at the stage where I go the story is back again, but we haven't yet found the way to Weld it Between means and anyway in all these things the fashions so people confuse something being dark with the Very boring. Yeah, commonly supposed push boundaries. That's not supposed to make you laugh pushing boundaries is one of the means is it's disposable Yeah, some companies can do that. Yeah, or use that.
Yeah, and some use you know, it's like it's like Tim vine wouldn't be funny if he was being edgy You know, you'd be very confusing. Yeah, we're making audience laughs They'd be going the same way that you know Michael Macken so I was suddenly work and yeah talking about foreign policy the way Franky Boyle might would confuse the hell out. Yeah, I heard that was something I wanted to mention my speech But I ran out of time as I thought you know, let's use our imagination Let's record a sitcom with starring Frankie Boyle and Michael Macken time stuck in a room together for some reason Maybe I hope you're enjoying my chat with almari recorded at the craft of comedy festival back in June during that glorious summer It's a great event to get along to in London No, and I'm sure there'll be another next year maybe see there or see you much sooner in London on the 5th of December at the Museum of Comedy when we will be recording our hundreds episode of sitcom geeks with special guest Marcus Brickstock and Sarah Morgan Marcus you will know from that television as well as an out show and he teamed up with Sarah Morgan to write the Wilson Save the World which is very funny radio for sitcom and Sarah also has some brilliant thoughts about how sitcom families are constructed So come and hear those first hand plus will be in the bar afterwards chatting So come along and put some faces two names and voices book the tickets now for that find us on Facebook or Twitter for details or Google Sitcom Geeks Museum of Comedy and I'm sure we won't be very far away One last thing if you enjoyed the podcast and you wanted to pay your ways it were do join us on Patreon and hopefully we'll make it Worth your while with free books and patreon only podcasts and early access to Britain interviews like this one with almari So let's get right back to that now And your story of how did you basically pulled the pub landlord out of thin air to help you out in a gig But I noticed that you were at a gig trying to be funny for you Is it was it performance that you were the first attraction? Yeah, what was it comedy that knows completely attracted to performance?
Okay? Totally I did a lot of acting at school and played in bands at school and I was fascinated by the idea of performance And we had a dramatix who got into my my gang We got who got us to write a bit and then when I got to university I wanted to act but didn't have the nerve to act In fact going on stage and trying to do jokes. Yeah seem to me simpler than having to pass an audition Sing to me you're wrong The sounds of sir, but it still makes sense to me. Okay, I could go for an audition with another 19-year-old.
Yeah, nothing about anything I'm going to board school. I've got authority Questions in my life, okay, I'm a slightly distant relationship with your parents. Well, yeah, maybe They require distance. Sorry mum, basically You're not listening to me.
No, and I could cope with the dramatix you're saying you need to do this part on that part You're not right for this, but the idea of someone like me who I knew I was green when I was 19 I knew I knew nothing so the idea of one of my peers saying oh, I don't think you're good for this part and someone else should do it It was something my ego I was constructing at the time was not capable of dealing with it However getting on a stage you're getting a laugh out of an audience. Yeah, well, then I'll find out if I could do it Yeah, that's a democratically kind of like I am funny. Did you hear that? But that's always been the appeal of doing stand-up right Democratic hot line I was in bands a lot in my teens and 20s and you know we if we've had a drummer who was like half as good as you were At a drumming we would have been you know, we would have been off I mean you could surely have gone down that yeah, but I've no confidence in that at all Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love playing the drums and that's why I didn't that's why I decided not to pursue it because I knew if I'd Pursuit I wouldn't enjoy it And I know loads of drummers who have been a quite brilliant musician One of my friend of mine is who's now you know topping top ten drums in the world poles and his self-confidence is like a win-free Well, okay, but what some days he knows he knows that good He is another days he's vomiting for a dozen In a bucket for a good stage because he thinks I can play drums I'm hopeless and I know I would never ever I'd never have ended up as good as him when he's good I'd have been as bad as he thinks he is when he thinks he's bad and still and still worse Yeah, so but comedy just it was it seems so direct and the honest honesty of laughter of an audience laughing seemed to me to be really a way of Pursuit performing and and and that comes but that comes from watching television.
Yeah, we laughed around it. Yeah Yeah, yeah, we're watching comedies with laughter on it. You know as a where you go watch a drama Yeah, I mean I never know if it's any good. Yeah.
Yeah. I was like that with the first series of Game of Thrones I watched the first two or three episodes. I think it's like that is well. No, I was thinking is this good Yeah, I'm thinking yes, that's right.
Yeah, I was thinking is this good or is this nonsense? I can't quite tell and I kept thinking I wonder if after take they all started they basically they went I'm a big fan of many things being both right. Yeah, yeah, but I can I've seen all of them So I just thought well, I asked a friend of mine is a bit who's an actor and then she said I said how do you know? Yeah, how do you know?
She said well if the director says carton when we move on to the next season I've got it right right and I couldn't I said you come here because that's just how this works Yeah, I'm thinking I'll say he's a laughter or well, they go but it's also like I don't necessarily trust his judgment Is it because you're a control freak then do you think you know? No, I don't think it is. I think I think I think I'm a control freak No, no, no, no, no, no, I know I know well, I think well, yeah, I mean brother problems with that experience. It's often uses a pejorative.
Yeah Yeah, I guess I sort of meant it like that I am about I'm about well I am about sort of performance and the things I got into performance because performing I really wanted to do it because it felt like a way of offering a sort of I had no I had no self confidence when I was a teenager Or like a wild bubbling version of this sometimes I would be and sometimes I just wouldn't know who I was at all and being on stage You can you can box off. Yeah, I confident be confident Yeah, and it was a way of being good at something. Yeah, I'm going to say all my own terms rather than you know, yeah Yeah, being good old levels. Yeah, yeah, there's someone else's and you sort of can control the room and therefore you can be in that Yeah Thing that I noticed with stand-ups is that there is sometimes and not in your case But I think I have seen stand-ups who think that because they get laughs from an audience when they're performing therefore They know yes is right.
The instinct for the laugh if you can if you can Find a way of Solve that puzzle. Yeah, they'll be able to solve other puzzles too I think often one of the things is if you're used to doing your own thing and you don't listen to other people because you think well the way I do this is certainly Perfect well up to this point and when I started doing Tea when I did time to go and please the big the big difference was having to basically let rich rifle through all my material Ring me out and go I need a line for this and I come up with one or go I've got one from here and then he just remembered it and and it felt very difficult at the time But actually I couldn't have done what he did at all He was coming from a writer's perspective in a completely different way and and you have to open yourself for that is Right to comic stand-up comic performance. He's hard, but it's not impossible, but you know you got your instincts Yeah, what is it what I mean to talk briefly about something please because it's a sick comment. This is a good one Did you yeah, how was that for you in terms of what I learned?
I learned the thing I kind of the thing I've learned was One of my major frustrations with it was is people assumed that because I was doing a big performance I didn't know what I was doing right right that it was some sort of accident that I'd not tempered the stage act right to put it on television Was in fact I was playing a big character. Yeah in front of a live audience That's what we were trying to do. Yeah, and I remember being quite sort of mystified by a lot and thinking well What is this show you would rather we'd made with these raw materials and it wouldn't have been yes funny Yeah, we can go back to a a-gill on that because he hated bluestone for two Yeah, because it basically wasn't a very serious anti-war comedy. Yeah, what it wasn't mash Yeah, and so he was just you know he had an idea what the show should be and then he was furious, but it wasn't You know, I'm carrying a review from you know 2001 with with with with someone who I had to then meet in a quite agreeable Social situation sit over the table from them I could think I could think of every one of that review and think you know what you kind of you you you at that point saying that about us Yeah, especially given what they then went on to some of the stuff they then went on to do okay And you're thinking thanks a bundle because yeah, because I actually you know I always think this with everything I've ever done if you always think if you just give us another series Yeah, we'd still be making it yeah, yeah, but there we are well That's interesting because I was live tweeting part of your talk today and someone I think Cameron Yard was all the thing I'd said about you know We were talking gentleman, please and he said he said this will be this will be a great time to see that back on TV But it would but I mean like forever these things.
It's very sweet when people say that but it's not to me You know and even it where I don't know if we'd how we do it and how we visit whether we want to do it Yeah, because one of the one of the features of it is that we were trying to do American style Yeah, 26 episode. Yeah, better down dancing in and then the next series was 17 We made 37 in the end. Yeah, right. Um incredibly short space.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and it was really intense And Almost too much all at once to learn anything from it. You know, we look back on it.
Okay. I think also you were a little bit unlucky that it was the This was the kind of the sky's skies skies Tondence David David Bodeer should be also Harry infield's thing which they said have been you know the audience contribution So it was if you go into the he going to one of the sketches that really like you think You know he had a character who went into the chemist and asked for a pilot They said, you know that the show is literally from audience contributions. Well, this explains why we don't ask audiences to write Yeah, but there was something there was a little bit of a kind of a what we have now as well It's because audience that comes are so rare that you know when the new the next thing comes along. It's like all our hopes Are invested in this time?
It was basically that and but he'll send you and you know this was like a sky I was spending 86 in pounds on comedy and this is you know here they are and you sort of think all right, okay And not many people can see them as well. So they can't you know, they get It's not a big terrestrial thing and it sort of it could have done with being done in a No way that it was put a fan for it and the thing is this but the thing is is I mean, it's always this thing you're making a program and then people go you read the review You read your video you get some feedback you know, we didn't try to make such it. Yeah We weren't it wasn't it. I enjoyed it.
I don't know what I mean. I'm not sad. I'm not obviously How bad how bad are we? Yeah, can we make it away?
Yeah, but the reviews are slightly accusing you of sort of going out of your way to annoy them Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah It was just more I think the thing that because they were they were kind of sent out there and they were naked and that this is sky are Investing in quality here as two audience sitcoms, you know the hardest thing to get right. Yeah, and it was just like we We're starting with you know, like we're we're the new kid in town. Yeah, well and also let's start with the biggest thing The thing is though is Gareth Gwenland produced produced and directed the first series in the first seven You know, so Gareth came was making only fools at the time. Yeah, yeah, so we hadn't what we had all right rich And I weren't you yeah, what we hadn't done was you know got some yeah, it's not those 21 year olds Yeah, to produce and direct the thing.
Yeah, we've gone we've gone to the guy responsible for the mega hit And he was he was toking into the show. Yeah, he said this is this is completely you know picking up from where you guys are Yeah, from the alternative scene if you want to go that yeah, well you are stepping in and trying to make a really cool thing He was he was completely yeah on board with us in fact often thought we got a bit too clever for ourselves You know in reflection on what yeah, you know, and Roy Heather was in it. He was in only fools. So yeah, yeah, so we wasn't like it wasn't like we You know, that's how it was presented is that we sort of who are these up starts on Sky and skies of rip murder Evil Empire as well that and in fact we got like a guy of Kevin Garrods tote and then we got Richard Bowden, you know, yeah, you know the thing or two back comment I mean yeah, yeah, and so it wasn't it wasn't this full center.
There we are You know the thing is we still made a load of them Mm, and then and then and then what happens the reason it stopped us we suffered executive change So we had a new groom and she said if you thought about setting in mega looft and we declined yeah Yeah, yeah, I think asked us to do a thing we were never gonna do so right yeah I sort of knew yeah, as you were describing you know this new company the way I always feel about audience comedy particularly Which is why when a big new mainstream one comes up I was feeling at that moment like I'm in the it's world war one I'm in the trenches and all my and some mates of mine over there a literary back to go over the top Yeah, and you show I know I'm just wondering if I'm ever gonna see him again I know it's completely like that. I mean yeah, yeah absolutely and I always think I always think there's lots of stuff I don't like but I always just gonna look like good luck. Yeah, you know, like it's not for me But good luck, you know because you are putting head about the parapet and boy they do share Just before we move on to full-time hours the last thing is talking about drumming going back to me In the when we spoke to Jason Haysley on this podcast a while ago musician of a considerable time Yes, indeed. Yeah, and yeah, and also now podcast It's an ordinary good and he's good everything but Jason talks about how Comedy to him is music right and there was a real rhythm to it And I'm wondering if you can just think as a drummer you can just hear rhythms.
Yeah to what you're saying You know the shape of a sentence. Yeah, you know better written you know better written Setup under better written punchline because of the rhythms. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, it's the because it's because it's um It's after music laughter after music is the next thing isn't it?
Right if we're looking at Primal human responses, okay, right laughter after music so that they're part of the they must be the first two forms of entertainment Yeah, ever anyone wrote a play someone's on a joke. Yeah, it's a filthy one of course I think I was saying great from horrible history told me the joke Something to do with farting. Yeah, okay Of course, um, so my kids know you from playing the drums In Next week we'll be talking about his favorite sitcom and possibly yours faulty showers until then don't forget to book tickets to come down to the Museum of Comedy for a hundredth episode of the fifth of December with Marcus Biggs off in Saramorgan book tickets now go and do it now And Dave and I will see you there. Speak to you next time.
Bye bye