Coming up, do you have any tips now for Mountbatten Windsor?
I have been able to make a living doing what I enjoy.
You make pornos or you see a lot of actors and character
comedians, they get their inspirational from life itself.
You're a man of great experience with the opposite sex.
Most of the really filthy lines were studied were written by Bob
Mortimer. Dirty bastard.
He is. Paul Chowdhry's Don't Ask Me
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aisle for Misses Ellswood. I'm joined today by a man, a
myth, a legend. Some might know him as a former
car salesman or a closeted landowner.
He's an iconic comedy actor, entrepreneur.
He's known for one of the biggest comedy creations this
country has ever produced, The Fast Show.
He now writes books about a young James Bond.
Kings, Queens and Mountbatten's the legend himself.
Very rarely does this young man do interviews where he's here
today, Mr. Charlie Higson himself.
Well, thank you for that marvellous introduction.
Welcome to the Don't Ask Me That podcast.
Downhill from here. You know, I've been a fan of
yours for at least 50 years now and to actually have you on the
podcast is real honour and a privilege.
Well, it's very nice to be asked.
Thank you. Is there anything that I can't
ask? I just want to clear that up
from the beginning. There's I did say you were a
closeted. Landlord Well, that that that
was obviously acting. Yeah, I'm not actually a
closeted. Oh, really?
No, you're open. I'm I'm fluid.
I'm fluid. But yes, am IA landlord.
No, I'm not a landlord. I'm a land owner.
Oh, you're a landowner? Yeah.
Where's the a fluid landowner? Where Whereabouts is this land?
Well, it's a house. Oh.
That's are you the place you live in?
Yes, I just thought because don't take this wrong where
you're white. I thought you were in some of
the country. Well, yeah, I secretly own about
30% of the countryside. And what an incredible career
you you are having. I wouldn't say had, I'm saying
having because obviously your career was still active.
Yeah. Well, if you can call it a
career, I mean it it. I never sort of set out and said
that's what I want to do. So, and things have largely
happened by accident and just meeting people and being in the
right place the right time. And I've done lots of different
things because I, I, I kind of, I, I like to do new things all
the time. I don't have to get stuck doing
just one thing. And maybe, you know, maybe if I
had stuck to just doing, say, the Vast show, maybe I would be
a major landowner. Yeah, it was a huge success, The
VAST show. That's correct.
It was, it was. I mean, it's interesting because
it actually it was, it was only on, it's only ever on BBC Two.
So you know, just by moving, particularly in those days from
BBC Two to BBC One, you sort of double your viewing figure.
In those days, I remember when it was on TV, we've only had two
channels it. Wasn't quite.
That long ago it was. We only had BBC One and BBC Two.
It was way before ITV, Channel 4, even Channel 5.
It was great times. If only that had been the case,
then more people would have watched us.
But you know, I mean, these days people, you know, particularly
young people, they'll watch anything anywhere And but, but
back then people did, you know, a lot of people would never have
what, you know, watched any other channels and say BBC One
and ITV. Nowadays people watch anything.
They even watch this sometimes. This is how bad things are, that
you could turn on your phone and watch me on your phone.
Nobody uses a phone to make a phone call.
Anymore I know, isn't that amazing?
But long before the FAR show, your first love was music, and
people don't know this about you.
You fronted a band called the Higsons.
I did. I did.
I mean, obviously some people know it about me.
We did have fans. The other Higsons know about it
and and this was, this was hardcore hip hop music, right?
Well, almost. It was the sort of white
equivalent. Folk music.
Sort of scratchy indie white funk.
And you've spoken about reinventing yourself actually as
a teenager and testing the punk nickname switch.
Yes. While heading to university.
I'd had a very ordinary middle class upbringing in in the Home
Counties. My dad was a classic commuter
and I wanted to make people think I was more exciting than I
really was, and I knew nobody was ever going to give me a
nickname, so I made one up. Yeah, it's a great nickname
because you, you reinvented yourself as a teenager.
Have you ever thought of reinventing yourself as a
teenager now? Well, you can identify as a
teenager. Yes, well, you can identify as
anything these days. Can't.
You. Well, that's very offensive.
We've gone very hard right very quickly.
Well, I all right. Well, well, would I?
I wouldn't. You can identify as a banana if
you want to identify. Yeah, no, I'd, I'm, I'm, I'd,
I'd, I'd be terrible at trying to be a teenager.
I, I, I apologise. I did.
Actually. I'd like to retract the earlier
statement. I did call you Mr. Charlie
Hickson without asking me what your pronouns were.
And I I could have offended you that Charlie.
Yeah, well, I'd I'd I let it slide.
And you are a. I'll go with Sir.
You are, Sir. No, I'm going to identify.
Oh, you're going to identify like The Dark Knight?
Oh yeah, The Light Knight Rises. Your wife calls you Switch.
When she's angry, yeah, yeah, she sort of reverts to, to, to,
to how she first knew me. She knew you.
Because, you know, for years people called me I've, I've gone
by three names in my life which are well, I was Murray when I
was a boy. My father was an accountant and
he had four sons. And he named us in alphabetical
order, ABC and D, and I was C So he called me Charlie to fit in
with his scheme, but he obviously didn't like the name.
So he called me Murray, right, Even though my official name was
Charlie. And then I, I, I reinvented
myself. I, I identified as Switch.
And then it was actually the the guys in the band started calling
me Charlie because they thought it was funny.
You should have released some mints.
I'm not sure Charlie Mints or Switch Mints would have would
have done very well. Murray Mints.
Nah, nobody would call mints that.
No. I mean it's a bit update now,
isn't it? You've got to be at least 65
years old to understand that reference point.
Well, I am at least 65 years. Old.
We're not far off for ages. Charlie, you're 67.
I'm 51. You're never going to catch up.
I will. Eventually if I drop dead.
I will eventually catch up with you if I stay alive.
Yeah, you don't know from, but you've seemed to work out the
secret to happiness. You come across as a very happy.
Man, I'm reasonably content because I have been able to make
a living doing what I enjoy. Which?
You make pornos or you make porn.
Well, not anymore. They're writing and and you
know, it's, it's harder and harder to make a living and
writing, but, you know, I, I make things up for them.
Yeah, I could just sit down and make shit up.
It's yeah. It's fantastic and people have
paid me for that, so you know, what's to what's to complain
about? Yeah, but nowadays if you go
online, everyone makes shit up. Yes.
Nothing's real. Yes, at least I get paid for.
It yeah, you get paid for it rather than conspiracy.
Although I suppose if I if I if I went for a blue tick on X.
You can buy one now. Yes, you just buy them, but then
what I what I don't know is how many, how many is it impressions
you get when people look at your stuff?
Do you need to get to actually make any of that money back?
Yeah. To buy the tick, yeah.
You're going to buy the tick and then if you got the tick, I
think you can. You can then monetise if you're
enough people. Right on X.
Yeah, on X watch enough of your your your posts.
Yeah, I don't really get a good, good feedback from X anymore
since since it's been taken over by Elon Musk.
Yes, it's I. I have managed somehow.
I've got a fairly quiet little corner that I rarely get
bothered by. The world of nut cases out
there. Well, there's a safe haven for
them now. You see there, there's a
community that you can go to. Back in the day, you know, they
would just go and shoot John Lennon in the street.
But now there's maybe we're, we, you know, now you don't get
serial killers anymore. It's very rare to be a serial
killer because you're going to get caught within the first
killing, likely because of the CCTV.
So technology gets harder. These days everything is much
harder and sprout. You know, like your views and
hard right extreme psychopathy can have a platform and get lots
of followers from the back of it.
And maybe that'll keep them happy and they won't feel
they've got to go out. And well, they still do though,
don't they? They still.
They still, but you come from a generation where the world's a
very different and. I think, you know, was the world
very different or have we just found out what people really
think and feel? I'm sure you know, you could
visit many pubs back in the day and and you could eavesdrop on
those insane conversations, ill informed, bigoted, insane.
But we didn't know. So we all, you know, we had our
nice friends who we talked to. They call them the good old
days. The good old days, yeah.
I mean there, there was a lot about the good old days that was
that was quite shit though. Yeah, it wasn't good for women,
didn't have many rights. Which depends how far back you
go. When I was a kid.
What? Yeah.
International Women's Day you have now.
Well, let's fixed it then. Well, it celebrates.
It celebrates when they first came to this country, when women
were first arrived. What did what do you think of of
International Women's Day? Do you think we should?
We should. It's a marvellous thing that for
a day everyone can be a woman. I think that's.
Yeah, I'm a big fan of women. If you're a woman too.
Yeah, you. I like men too.
Yeah, well, whatever you fancy these days you can.
You can like anything you want. Yeah, these days.
But before television became a full time reality for you, you
did whatever you needed to do to pay the rent from what I
understand, including decorating work.
Yes, I was a very good decorator.
I I heard while trying to make a living from music and writing,
your part time occupation was decorating and I don't know if
this is true but you once decorated the Dalston House
shared by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie Dalston Dalston House.
Yeah, we did. Stephen and Hugh did that
classic thing that students used to do.
I presume they still do it today, but probably can't afford
it necessarily. But four of them clubbed
together and bought a, bought a property and they needed it
doing up. And Harry Enfield was working
with them at the time, knew them.
Paul and I were big friends at Harry's and he said, oh, he said
to Stephen, are you, oh, my mates Charlie and Paul, they
can, they can do your place up. So we did.
Yeah. We, we decorated their house in
Dalston. And then by the time they sold
it, Paul and I, our career had taken off.
So we bought it off them. Yeah, I heard you and Paul ended
up buying the very same house. Yes.
Well, we knew it was a nice house and very well decorated.
That yeah, you were you tempted to steal anything while
decorating Stephen Fry's house is a question one.
Of the questions, No, I mean, he did have one strange item.
He, he had a, it was a house that was divided up and he had
the sort of ground floor and he, he kept the front curtains shut
24 hours a day, very heavy sort of dark curtains.
And he had a big, as I remember it, he had a big piano in there,
not that he plays a piano. And on the piano was a stuffed
cat of a, it was a real cat stuffed.
And if I, if I, if I was going to nick anything I'd have, I
would have nicked the cat. But so you've actually been in
Stephen Fry's closet. I have.
And did you come out of it or? Yeah, and it and and left it
better decorated than when I went.
In You came out of Stephen Fry's Closet, I.
Did. Which he didn't do for many
years. I Yeah.
When did he? I know.
I think he came out fairly soon. Well I remember he was doing the
play at the West End in the 80s or 90s and and then disappeared.
The fame itself is a, is a is a weird.
It's, it's just, but now we live in a climate where every
everyone is famous. Everyone's got a podcast now,
you see. I know two people that don't.
Really. Yeah.
Your wife? Yeah, my wife and one of my
boys. And they don't have a podcast.
No, I've been trying to get them to do one.
Yeah, but yeah, I mean the fame thing is is a weird.
It's a strange thing, isn't? It and, and, and it's trying to
we, we did fast show tour recently and we did, we did, I
think we did about 10 days at the London Palladium nights.
And you know you'd get up and have an ordinary day and you're
doing what you ordinary do with your wife, who doesn't treat you
any differently to anyone else, with my, with the shops, and you
come back. Sorry, did you say with my wife?
Yeah, yeah, with your wife. And then, you know, I'd get on
the Tube and I'd go down and I'd get to the London Palladium and
I'd have walked down Double X St. and there'd be huge sort of
illuminated posters out the front, the vast show and
pictures of me. And I could walk past the queue
and none of them would recognise me and go in the stage door.
And then you're on stage and you're going hey.
And they're all going wow, hey, amazing.
And then you come out and you come back out and you go on the
tube and you go home again. I mean, you, you must get it.
You know, you do your huge gigs at Wembley or something where?
And then you, you come off and you're just just you.
Just normal again. Yeah, Well, I sold out and I did
the O2 last year and I was going to take the tube there, but the
problem is it's the Jubilee line and it goes straight there.
There are aren't many other lines, so everyone's going to be
on that. Everybody funnels in yeah,
those, those events. So when you hit the some venues,
you can get away with it, but the Palladium, I wouldn't even
risk that because that's a big, that's what, 2002 1/2 thousand?
Yeah. No, that's all right.
Yeah, that's a big venue to to to, to hit public transport.
Because I did. I'm not not a single person.
Once I'd gone past the stage door, there'd occasionally be
coloured people there. No 1C, No one you know it's
London. No one who's you knows who you
are. Everyone's famous in London,
aren't they? You can't.
You can't walk the streets. There's a great, there's a great
quote actually about how, how to deal with with fame.
Apparently Laurence Olivier was talking to Sir Ralph, Sir Ralph
Richardson, right? And he said, Ralph, you're going
out and about and you, you, you go on the tube and things and
you live a fairly ordinary. I mean, how do you deal with,
with, with people recognising you?
He said, oh, I, I, I just, I just wear a hat and it's fine.
And Laurence Olivier said no, no, that's no use.
I tried that. Nobody recognised me.
So I think there are some people who want it.
But you come. You come from the golden era,
the 60, the swinging 60s. Yeah, but I was only, I was, you
know, I was 12 when the 60s finished, so I didn't do a lot
of. Swinging, but in those days a
lot of 12 year olds were having kids by then.
I I look at documentary footage of the 60s and I think, I cannot
believe I was actually alive at that time.
It seems like a million years ago in another world.
It was very different 90s. I was born in the 70s, which
wasn't as good as the 60s. 70s was pretty grim.
Is everybody these days, you know, sort of talking, talking
England down and saying, oh, things are so much better.
And they'll show sort of footage from the 70s of some people
smiling and saying, look how much better it was.
But the 70s was grim. There just weren't as many
ethnics around, which is why. I suppose that's partly what
they're. I think I think that's.
Look at all these people smiling and.
And yeah, yeah, look, they're all white.
What on earth has happened since then?
Yeah, people like you, you've ruined it for us.
You know, people like I'm white, I identify as a white man, so I
preferred it when it was just us.
In those days, yes, Yes. Although you could identify as
an ethnic these days, it depends what you.
Yeah, it was a very different time.
And I was born in London and now they want me to go back to where
I come from, which I find quite fascinating.
Are you? Well, maybe you Are you in a
different borough now? No, still northwest London can't
even move boroughs. Isn't that happy?
No, I don't, only the land except my house.
But you are. The characters obviously are
iconic now from the Far show. Swiss Tony is your famously
Swami and smarmy car salesman who explains everything through
sexual innuendos. Yeah, no.
Is it an innuendo or just reference?
Reference sexual references. Yeah, no, I suppose it is.
It is a form of innuendo. Would you say no?
A lot of people say to you, you can't get away with that in the
current climate of comedy, which I would disagree.
With I, I, I hate this idea that nowadays we can't do comedy
that's funny or something. It's like, you know, it's like,
as I said before, we were doing a fast show too.
And occasionally, you know, he'd be speaking to the fans
afterwards and they say, oh, it's great.
You know, it's so nostalgic. Gosh, you, you know, you
couldn't do that these days. You think, well, what do you
think we were just doing for the last 2 1/2 hours?
You can do it live with. 3000 people and I say, well, it it's,
it's permanently on UKTV on the and it's on iPlayer.
So I mean, what in what way can we not do this these days?
People have this idea that somehow comedy is you're not
allowed to do comedy anymore. And then I say to him, have have
you ever watched a Jimmy Carr special on Netflix?
I have never seen. Well, it's it's quite eye
opening. I actually started with Jimmy
Carr. I started my career.
Hello Jimmy Carr throwing Yes, it is wrong in some people's
eyes. No matter how much you give a
homeless person for a cup of tea, you never get that cup of
tea. That's can I just say that's a
terrible impression. I'm sure he'll love that
impression, but I think stand up comedy now has become, you know,
it's the in No Offence Your Day, mainstream comedy was different
to alternative comedy and you were considered an alternative
comic and mainstream comedians with people like Bernard Manning
or the mainstream circuit who would share jokes.
Now the mainstream circuit is people like Jimmy Carr or comics
of that ilk, and the alternative scene is surreal comedy, but
it's all merged into one now. Where do you position yourself?
I position myself in the high echelons of life stand.
Up. But yeah, I mean, people forget,
you know, as you were talking about the 80s, we went through
it all before, you know, then it wasn't called woke, it was
called political correctness. And did you do stand up at any
point? No, I never did.
I I never had the the that had enough of a damaged personality.
That's good. I I would.
I would. You know, there were people
just, I, I have to be out there. I want to be on stage.
I, I want to make people laugh and I, I, I have the courage to
do that. I, I, you know, I like writing
and I like doing character stuff.
I could have maybe hidden behind a character on stage.
Yeah, I mean, they're probably now they say a lot of comedians
may well have ADHD or some form. Certainly a lot of them that I
know do. I'm sure within a few years
we'll come to discover that comedians have some neurological
disorder. And the problem is, you see,
they'll they'll, they'll, they'll get medication when
they're young and they'll never be funny.
Well, who is funny anymore? Well, Johnny Depp saw your stuff
in America and came over. He was a big fan.
He was always a bit of an Anglophile, and he used to hang
out with a lot of English musicians, and the first show
was always popular with musicians.
It was a sort of easy thing to watch on a tour bus, and he hung
out with the record producer. Nelly.
Nelly something. Nelly Furtado.
It wasn't Nelly Furtado, it was the other Nelly.
Big Nelly. Oh, Nelly.
With the with that patch that crossed his eye that he did was
the song Lily did the famous Nelly track.
It's cutting out in here, so take off all your clothes.
It could be a real thing, I don't know.
But anyway, he spent like a week with him in Spain or something,
and they watched the fire show over and over and he he, he
became slightly obsessed with Paul Whitehouse.
Yeah. I never hung out.
I almost met Johnny Depp because I went to a Doug Stanhope show.
Is this an anecdote? I almost met Johnny Depp.
You worked with him.
This is when he was with the wife he went to court with
because Doug Stanhope was a big, he was a good friend of his.
So he used to go around the world with Doug.
Stand up is a great comic. Yeah, Yeah, on my podcast.
And and then he said, oh, hang out.
I was hanging out with him after the show at Brookston years ago
and he said to hang out, We're going to through my friends are
coming down. I said I have a bit knack and
I'm going home, mate. Open the paper the next day.
Johnny Depp's there hanging out with him.
I could have got the scoop on what what happened with that
marriage. He does like a drink though.
I couldn't possibly say. He couldn't comment on that,
obviously, but through these sexual innuendos, as you put it,
where see a lot of actors and character comedians, they get
their inspirational from life itself.
Yes, you're a man of great experience with the opposite sex
if these are the. Well, to tell you the truth,
most of the really filthy lines in Swiss study were written by
Bob Mortimer. Dirty bastard.
He is he is completely you know, people think of him as all
cuddly old Uncle Bob national treasure.
He's he's he's got a dirty. Really.
Oh yes, so he was a real womanizer back in the day.
Not necessarily, he just had dirty thoughts.
There's a difference. Now you've got to make that very
clear. Yes, having thoughts, but acting
on those thoughts like Louis CK, who would whip his Dick out and
start, you know, but he did apparently ask for permission
before he you know, and they would they would laugh and
thinking this is this is horrendous.
But then he'd get his Dick out. You know we live in a climate
now where you can't just whip your Dick out.
Yeah, I know if this was the 70s.
If this in the good old. Days, no problem.
Get your Dick out, yeah? You're encouraged to.
In Sainsbury's. Put it on the counter.
Yeah, well, there there was an unexpected item in the bagging
area at that point, the classic Swiss Tony line.
Go on. Making a cup of coffee is like
making love to a beautiful woman.
It's got to be hot. Have you ever used that in real
life? Well, no, there, there's a great
thing about being able to do characters is you can do and say
all the things that you you, you wouldn't do in real life.
That's what Nigel Farage does. Yeah, I think a lot of a lot of
a lot of prominent people have created a public persona for
themselves. Whether he does Swiss Tony
jokes, I don't know. No, I mean it with his extreme
racism. Right.
I'm not comparing you to Nigel Farage.
I. Think you just did?
I hope you're enjoying the podcast so far.
Just a reminder, this show is brought to you by Mrs. Elswood
Pickles. Now bringing punch to your
podcast, Mrs. Elswood Pickles a packed for freshness crunch.
Back to the show. What about?
What about the the royal family and and?
Well, you see, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a bit pissed off with
the royal family. So last year I published a, a, a
history book, a history of the monarchy called Willy, Willy
Harry Stee. It tells the story of this
extraordinary dysfunctional family that you can follow from
one generation to the next, right from William the Conqueror
up to the present day. And they're a bunch of they're
all completely fucked up from start to finish.
No offence if you're a member of the royal family watching this.
Yes. And and then I sort of finished
the book by saying, well, you know, there are problems with
the royal family and everyone's saying, oh, Andrew's not
behaving very well. That will, you know, you know,
this is it's never been like this before this bad enough to
say, well, it's been far, far worse.
We cut the head off one of the monarchs a long time.
And I said, you know, they've got some problems, but they're
as nothing compared to what happened before.
But the book came out before all the recent you know, the stuff
that you know. He's now not even a member of
their whole family anymore. It's a mount.
It's a Mountbatten and and there's no mention of that in
the book. You know, because history
doesn't stop history. Every day there's more history.
It repeats itself. But the interesting thing is
people do say, you know, is this, does this mean the end of
the monarchy? And you have to think, not
really, no. The only reason people are
absolutely obsessed with Andrew and it and it fills up all the
all our time and space is because he's part of the
monarchy. Well, he's not.
You know, if he was just some businessman, no one would be
bothered. But there is.
So there still is a absolute obsession with this weird soap
opera of the monarchy. And also the fact that he was on
this Epstein island, allegedly, obviously, I have to say
allegedly. I don't are there?
Are there records of him actually being on the island?
No, he wasn't on the island, he were just friends with.
But certainly, yeah. And obviously there's
photographic evidence of him with them.
Were photoshopped. They were.
They were photoshopped. He can't deny that he was a
friend of of Epstein. That was Photoshop.
He wasn't there. They put the they.
They can't. I don't know what defence he's
going to come up with now, but. They were they.
Emily Maitlis interviewed him from Newsnight and he said there
were Photoshopped. I know.
I mean, I have an extraordinary interview that was.
His daughter asked him to do the interview, said this will get
you out of hot water. Just do an interview with Emily
Maitlis. I'm not, I'm not sure they're
the they're the most, I'm not sure they're the brightest
branch of the Rolf. Charles, by all accounts, is
very, very bright. Yeah, I've I've heard an
architect. He's interested in a lot of
things and you know, it's one of the reasons that he struggled in
his marriage with Diano is that she, she was a lovely person,
but no intellectual. But she, you know, she married
very young and married into royalty and I.
Know, and it was a it, you know, it was it was a, it was a sort
of marriage process that echoed so many others down the years of
like, oh, you should marry this person for this reason.
Yeah, but at the time he wanted to be her Tampax.
Remember that one? Well, actually what he was
saying was that he didn't want to be a Tampax.
I thought he said he did want to be a Tampax.
No, he said. I would like to come back as
close. I'd be reincarnated as close to
you as possible. Then he said, knowing my luck,
I'd come back as your Tampax. So he wasn't saying I would like
to be. He was sort of saying the
opposite. A strange analogies you to make
though. We, you know, if any of our
personal conversations that we'd had with people that we were
sexually involved over the years were recorded and written down
verbatim. All of mine have been.
They would. They would be startling and
weird and shocking and you go, what the fuck?
But that's because we're human and we have these conversations
when we're not expecting it to be recorded.
Yeah. Do you think the public have
have almost fallen in? What do they think of of
Camilla? They used to call her horse face
back in the day. I know people were very unkind
about her. I, I, I, I know her a bit
because she's very involved in literacy and trying to do
something about literacy and in literacy charities that I'm
involved with. And I also do fact.
In fact, I saw her yesterday. Did.
You get her on there. Could.
Could we? She might come on, she's, she's
really, you know, she's a very friendly, down to earth person.
But I, I, I do a short story writing competition.
I, I'm one of the judges on that called 500 words that she is the
patron of. And we had the final at Windsor
Castle with, with a load of kids who'd written stories and it was
great. It's a great thing to do.
And, you know, I, I think she is a, she is generally a good
person. And you've been to the palace.
I've been to Buckingham Palace a few times, yes.
Any good? I wouldn't want to live there.
What? Windsor cars is much nicer.
It's just these big soulless rooms.
Well, you get parking free in London.
My car. You've been accused of creating
a woke bond. I, I wrote a series of young
Bond books and then for the coronation of King Charles, the
Ian Fleming Estate got in touch with me and they said they've
got an idea for a book, a charity book to coincide with a
coronation called On His Majesty's Secret Service.
Could I come up with something, a short story or something?
And I actually wrote in the end, a novella.
I had to create a, a Bond. Classically, it's 35 years old.
Fleming tried to keep him 35 years old across 12 years of
writing books. That's his that's how old he
should be. And, and I and I and I thought,
you know, if I'm writing about a contemporary James Bond, I've
got to write about a guy who's 35 years old today.
And he's kind of very different views and world views to someone
who went through the Second World War, which prejudice
prejudiced his ideas about foreigners and, and, and and he
had a sort of certain views on the British Empire and all of
that kind of stuff. So I tried to write a bond who,
who had all the attributes of a classic giants bond, but wasn't
wasn't as rapey. I think the word is that is used
these days. Some people got really upset
with was was my choice of villains.
I the villain is sort of slightly inspired by Farage and
Rupert Low and all those times it is it is a a populist leader
who as we have touched on before, he's not a man of the
people on any rings, but he's manipulating people for their
own ends and pretending to be fighting for the ordinary
people. And it was Americans really
mainly got very cross about this and saying, hell, you know, if
James Bond these days, he'd be fighting, you know, Muslims and,
and, you know, left wing communists and, you know, these
aren't the enemy. And I tried to rationalize with
them and, and, and discard. I think there's no point.
So I took to basically, if people posted this stuff online,
I would simply post back a clip of the the famous Michelin web
sketch where they're S S officers and they they're going,
are we the enemy? People don't like to think, oh,
wait a minute, are are we being portrayed as the bad guys?
We're the good guys. Nobody really has ever thought
of themselves as the bad guys. Surely everybody thinks I'm
doing the right thing. I might have to do some quite
extreme things to get my way across.
But really in the end, what I believe in is right.
Nobody wants to think they're they're they're the baddie.
So, yeah, and, and the spectator didn't like it.
The spectator thought it was terribly woke.
You know now, now they want Bond to be a woman.
They who are they? Sorry, they them.
Who are they them? They, you know, there's been
debates out. There have been debates, but
nobody, nobody who who who makes the films have ever seriously
suggested that they would make Bond.
Or a or a bond of of a different nationality.
That that, well, a different nationality would be tricky
because he has he, he has to be British, but he could be, he
could be black, he could be brown.
That's not a problem. You've written a book called
Willy, Willy, Harry Stee. Yes.
It's a short history of our kings and Queens.
So I've been asked to ask you, do you have any tips now for
Mountbatten Windsor? What should he do in this
situation? Have you met him by the?
Way No, I've not I've not people who have met him say he's not
the the brightest button in the tin and.
See nowadays we live in a world now was if in England, if you
know someone that knows someone that knows someone that met
someone that met Epstein, you're cancelled.
But in America, you could be a a best friend of his, and you're
the president of the United States.
It's an extraordinary thing, isn't it?
Out of all the accusations about Epstein and everything people
saying about him and only two people apart from chilling?
And me and you. Well, we'll go into that come on
my podcast and talk about that. Only two people have have a
fallen and being accused of anything and and of being
interviewed by the police. My previous guest was actually,
she met Jeffrey Epstein. Really.
So my previous guest on the podcast, Michelle de Swartz, was
a model at the time in a line up and Epstein came into the room.
A whole bunch of models said, yes, take that, take that one,
take that one. And he didn't pick her because
she's a mixed race black and Jewish and he was repulsed by
black women. So racism saved her life.
It's her launch line. I don't know what to say about
that. My question then would be what's
your views on black women? So what?
What advice? You know, the fact that no
Americans have been called, called up.
No, it's, it's, it's ex Prince Andrew and and Peter Mandelson.
It's a, it's a, it's an extraordinary thing.
If it is so toxic and so awful and so ghastly, is the worst
punishment that might be cancelled.
Might be cancelled. Well, what are the He was a
billionaire, so he was if you had an association with Epstein
may have been for business purposes.
Well there was that. Was she an ex model who said if
you're not in the Epstein files you're a loser?
Because he hung out with all the most successful, influential,
powerful people he could. We should ask people to put us
on the list. It could help you sell books.
This podcast would be a huge hit.
If I was on that list, I might ask myself to be edited into the
list. OK, you're not going to get on
the list. He was a terrible racist.
One, I wasn't couldn't be on the guest list.
Well, Deepak Chopra was on the list, though, allegedly.
Yeah. So he he was allowed on Deepak
Chopra as he puts in so, so there were some Asians and and
he wasn't a disabledist because Stephen Hawking was on the list.
He was having a great time. I don't know the full insurance
and outs. Of no and and and what the list
contains, but you know you're. Being on the Epstein list is
very much like making love to a beautiful.
Woman you you would say Tony would be on the list.
Which Tony would love to have been on the list.
I know we're we're we're short on time, so I'm trying to round
this up as succinctly as possible.
You could have saved time by not actually saying that bit.
I was hoping to use this platform to confess to three
murders, but we're running out of time.
Is there anything in the Far Show you wouldn't do again?
Is there any joke you wouldn't now people say, you know, like
the Little Britain has had a little backlash for for blacking
up. I know you didn't black up in
the Far Show. Little Britain, they, they, they
did want to push the boundaries and see how far they could go.
And that has, you know, has come round to bite them in the arse.
And I think they, they fully, in retrospect, think actually that
was wrong. We went too far there.
That was, that wasn't something that needed us to push against
it. And and they did set out to be
shocking, not all the time. The fast Show we never, we
never, we weren't trying to be offensive.
We weren't trying to annoy people.
You know, there were, there were a couple of couple of sketches
we did that were sort of parodying racist attitudes,
which is quite hard then if you're not showing it in context
and it looks like you might just be doing.
Racism and and that, that's a really tricky 1, you know?
Especially when there's no people of colour on the show.
Well, we did have people of. Colour I was never on your show
and I was very offended by not being asked.
Well, we, yeah, we, I didn't know you at the time, that's
true. But we had Colin MacFarlane was
was on a fairly regularly. We had Felix Dexter.
On yeah, Felix what what a talent he was I.
Used to. He put him on.
Felix was amazing. He was.
He was a very, very funny guy. Never.
Given his own vehicle. Either, No, I mean Paul and I
worked with him on a, on a a special.
It was a pilot for a that would have been for his own series.
And it was funny and he was very funny in it, but the BBC didn't
go with it. Speaking of the BBC as this
thing, and I know you don't want to upset the BBC.
No. But as we speak we're coming off
the back of the Baftas. Yes.
And a man with Tourettes shouted the N word out and people took
offence to this. Obviously people with Tourettes
don't have any inkling of what's about to be said and it's a
neurological disorder. Sometimes mean you have
intrusive thoughts as a human being and you will say the worst
possible thing. Yeah, and we often we, we, we
often have to, you know, we're, you know, when you're in certain
situations, you think, Oh my God, wouldn't it be terrible if
I shouted this out? Oh, I mustn't do it.
And yeah, if you've got Tourette's, you've got no.
And also in 2023, no black people were nominated for a
BAFTA. So he may have been thinking
this is horrific and also this is the most horrific thing that
could be said which which the disorder.
It's an extraordinary, it's an extraordinary thing.
But they have the right to be offended.
These two liberal sensitivities that have somehow sort of
clashed with each other and nobody quite knows how to deal
with. It I think the black community
have the right to be offended by that word, obviously, and the
the people with Tourette's also have the right to defend why
they say these things. But it's the people in the
middle that have the problem. I put a joke out all next saying
I've never seen someone but Tourettes walk around Brixton
Shang at the N word, which I thought would have been quite
funny because I'm offending both groups of people there.
You see, which is where a joke is and the amount of abuse I got
off the back of that because it turns out when I was growing up
during the 1970s, when I heard people shouting out the P word
and the N word all the time, I didn't realise how many people
had Tourette's. Nowadays they call them racist.
But can you be racist and have Tourette's?
This is the question. I'm sure you could.
This is the I didn't think that was possible anymore.
Are there racist Tourette's people?
But I don't know. This there must be.
So we don't. I don't know how many Tourette
people there are with Tourette's.
I'm sure Davidson isn't a racist.
No, he's not. But it's possible he could be.
Well, he's not. I don't know.
I'm sure he didn't say that because he was a racist, but
anyone can be racist and have Tourette's.
I'm sure, yes. Have you met Jim Davidson?
Jim Davidson. Sorry.
John Davidson. I think his problem is
Tourette's. Maybe it is.
I'm I'm sure he's a relative of I'm not there's no relation
there with Jim Davidson and John Davidson, but my thoughts go to
both communities there who were. Totally.
I mean it, it was, it was an impossible situation.
Yeah, and and the editor who doesn't realise how to wait it
out an N word. Well.
They obviously didn't. They obviously didn't hear it
because it's not like. Well, I won't bother to read it
out. Well, they did edit out other
bits. Well, they heard them at the
time. They were clearer.
Because then they went, there was a song.
I remember when Michael Jordan and and Delroy were just stopped
at that point. Yeah, well, as you would.
I mean, it was it's like this is like the worst possible thing
that can. Happen well.
I hope the producer is enjoying his P45I.
I look forward to interviewing him on the podcast.
I want to thank you. What honour and privilege it was
to be on. The well, it's been lovely to be
here. And you're a living legend.
Well, I wouldn't go that far. I'm living.
You're living. And you've you've contributed so
much to the community of comedy within the UK and further afield
globally. Well, you know, making comedy is
a lovely thing to do. Hopefully we'll work together
soon. Yeah.
Thanks for watching this podcast so far, hope you're enjoying it
and if you are, leave a five star review, drop some comments.
I might even read them out in future episodes and give you a
shout out.