(music) (5 hours) Stand-Up Monday’s Boring Objects LMBYTS #1540 Jason Newland 19th January 2026

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name, my name is Jason Newland. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. This is Let Me Bore You To Sleep.

And today is Monday's Boring Objects. If you have any questions for this coming Q&A Friday, please go to my Facebook group, Jason Newland's Boring Group, and you can ask a question there. You can ask me anything.

Oh, oh. So today is the I think it's the 19th of January 2026. And I do believe my eyes will be closed partially during this recording because my eyes are tired.

Because it is probably about nine o'clock. haven't really done a lot today. But partly that's because Vinnie kept waking me up last night.

I'm talking like, every hour and a half or whatever, he'd wake me up. And I didn't know what he wanted. I kept taking him into the garden.

He'd do away, then he come back inside. I took him out three times just in ways. When I took him out this morning at eight o'clock, I think he did three poos.

So I'm guessing he wanted to do a poo. Why he couldn't have gone in the garden? I don't know. Now, some of you that have never never watched or listened to me before, might be thinking, if this is kind of a relaxing session, aimed for sleep and being calm.

Why is he starting off talking about poo? That's an unusual subject. I hope he's not going to talk about poo the whole session. Hope that's not going to be his boring object for the week.

Well, I could, I think we all could, to be fair, couldn't we? I think we could all talk about poo for an hour. I'm not going to be talking about that. So today, I think I ended getting up about three, 3.30 maybe in the morning.

So I just had enough of him waking me up. So I got up at 3.30. Had my breakfast about four. Listened to some music.

Went back to sleep. He woke me up again. I don't take him out till it's light.

I'll take him in the garden, but I can't see where I am when I'm outside. So and then as soon as it was light, which is about eight o'clock, just before eight, I took him out and he seemed okay after that. I thought he wanted more food.

So I was giving him more food and he kept eating it, which is probably making him want to go to the toilet more. Why was he eating it then? But literally he was just, I don't know what he was doing. But every time I woke up, he was staring at me.

I don't know if he was prodding me or licking my face or whatever. The thing is, when I'd get up, I'd walk towards the front door and he wouldn't follow me, which usually is a sign that he doesn't want to go out. Because in the past, when he's needed to go to the toilet, he goes, he runs to the front door and is like, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.

It's peaking. It's, but no, nothing. So I don't know what you could do with that really, can you just, it is what it is, but I didn't get much.

So today I've been kind of trying to catch up on my sleep and had a shower. I didn't, see yesterday I was tidying up this room. I don't know if you can see behind me, although the, the, the background Cara sent me some, some backing, sort of putting my, on my walls, which I'm going to put up tomorrow.

But I've also sort of, I don't know if you last saw the videos, there is a lot of stuff on that table behind me. So that's been moved and I've cleared a lot of stuff out and put it into the storage room, but it's still messy in here on the floor. But it's all right.

It's fine. It's just, I, I can't just couldn't be bothered to do anything today. And I've really gone between just eating breakfast cereal, watching a bit of YouTube, see what's on telly.

There's not really much on telly. So, and then sleeping, trying to sleep. I did do some washing yesterday.

So I did some laundry. So that was good. And did I do anything else today? I don't know.

I'm not sure. Yeah. I had a little look, a look through, because I've got, I've got jasonnewland.com. I do actually have another website.

It's a, it's a secret one. It's not really a secret one because people are visiting it. So, but that's where I'm going to, well, that's where I store all my recordings.

Although I'm a little bit behind on that one. But I won't say the name of it because it's, I'm so behind. I mean, the Let Me Bore You To Sleep, I've got, I'm about, I'm over 100 recordings behind on that one, as far as uploading the recordings.

So once I've done that, and get it a bit more organized, then I'll kind of let you know what the address is, the website address. I'll have a link to it as well on my website, you know, jasonnewland.com. Trying to think I need to have a shave, shave some, have a little trim, shave my hair off again. Need some new, I need some decent clothes as well.

But hey, every time I manage to save a little bit of money, a few hundred quid, you know, I end up giving it away to someone that needs help. So ideally, I just need to get a little, I need, I need a certain amount of money in the bank, just safe for veterinary bills or stuff like that. And I also need to get myself some new glasses, get an eye test.

So that's going to be a few quid as well. And have something there aside for if I have to go to the dentist and have a tooth extracted, because that costs a lot of money. So just I need a buffer, just a little buffer.

So hopefully I'll have that by the summer. And then I'll just be there in case I need, you know, to take Vinnie, or whatever, that kind of stuff. What's that got to do with Monday's boring objects? When I was sitting on a toilet earlier, I was thinking, what should I talk about? I do a lot of my thinking on the toilet.

That's where my brain is. What should I talk about? I thought, well, I could talk about the stand up comedy. I don't think I've really talked that much about it.

I've talked about it like vaguely. I've done don't have really gone into sort of huge details about my process at that time. And because it lasted for eight years, although admittedly, it did peter out last couple of years, but I was solidly involved for for at least four years, I was like, solid.

I had a full stomp. I was I was proper, like, involved in it. And then I was still involved, but I just did less.

I still performed in 95 still performed in 96. I didn't perform a huge amount in 96. To be fair.

In fact, probably very little. And 97. I did a few more gigs 97 near the end of 97.

So like September to the end of the year. And then 98 was the very last year. So I did it for seven years, didn't I? 1234567.

Seven years and one gig. Mind you, technically, I started in 1990. Because I did two, I did two gigs in 1990.

Two talent contests. But that was, I didn't know what I was doing. Some would argue I never did.

Which could be a fair point, really. The good thing, I mean, one thing I can say is that was loud, isn't it? One thing I can say is, I was performing on the London comedy circuit at probably the peak time, and possibly the best time to do it. Which is what a lot of people say, like in the 90s.

Comedy, alternate comedy started like late 80s. But then, and there was very, it wasn't a lot of clubs. Then 1990s, more clubs opened.

And, but it wasn't huge amounts of comedians, which meant I knew, I knew so many comedians, because I knew so many comedians. Because we'd all be performing on the same night. And so there were like, New Act nights.

But even the New Act nights would have sometimes like an established comedian, that maybe is on TV or on tour, or like, getting material for his next tour, or her next tour. And they're just trying out some new material. So Jack D might turn up or Harry Hill or Lee Evans or, you know, whoever.

And that is, you'll see that sometimes even, probably even now someone like Jimmy Carr, or Lee Mack, you probably see turn up at a comedy club, unannounced, they'll just turn up and say, Oh, can I do can I do 10 minutes? No, no comedy promoters gonna say no to that. Are they, let's face it. And so they might just bump someone off.

I mean, not literally. But they might just say, Okay, well, you know, you can go, we're going to put them on instead of you or just extend the night. I guess it depends because some people do go to see a specific comedian.

You know, some some comedians do have a following, especially with social media and that so they might actually be going to see the headline act. And they don't want to see Jimmy Carr. They've come to see the comedic comedian they want to see.

So they probably see I still can't see a scenario where Jimmy Carr wouldn't get to go on if he wanted to. I mean, what promoter would say no, they just wouldn't, would they? I mean, if Jimmy Carr turned up at a gig, and he said, I want to try, I just want to test out my one man show. Can you kind of take over the whole evening?

Just get rid of all the other acts.

The promoter is going to say yes. Maybe the comedy store wouldn't. Pretty sure they would.

The other comedians might not be happy, but they'd still get paid. So it was kind of I mean, Robin Williams and Richard Pryor used to do that in the comedy store in, I think it was Los Angeles in America. And I've heard stories from comedians that actually they went on to be famous themselves, but they'd be getting their first headline gig at a comedy store, which is a big, big deal.

You know, in America, just like in this country, the comedy store is one of the top places to perform, prestigious. And in stand up comedy, I think the improv is another place in America as well. So now I know it is, but I think it's another one of those, it's like top places.

Probably a lot more as well that I just don't know about. And these comedians say, Oh, I was so excited. I was getting my first full gig.

I was doing 20 minutes. I've never got a chance to perform in front of the owner of the comedy store before. So maybe Missy Miffy? Miffy? What is it? Oh, can't remember her name.

She's the mother of what's his name? Freddy fingered my horse. What was that? That? Remember? That's that film that movie. I think he no, Paulie Shaw, not Paul, that's Paulie Shaw.

Paulie Shaw, his mum owned and run the comedy store. So if you know who Paulie Shaw is, and this comedian, I'm kind of partly making this up. But this comedian kind of got his 20 minutes through the rest of the management, but she'd never seen him.

So he was having this opportunity to perform in front of her. And she was pretty much. And the comedy store would have people in the background from other shows that like from TV places.

So they might get you on to go on to the the late late show or the Johnny Carson show or whatever different ones there are. And apparently once you get on one of them shows, that's your career project dialing up. Because of the million, 2 million or whatever people watching, you're, you're just, you suddenly you can do sellout shows, because you've been on TV.

So, and this comedian, I've been saying I was all ready and I was ready to go on and suddenly I heard an announcement. Ladies and gentlemen, we're excited to announce to you. And the comedians get all excited to go on and said, we've got someone come in, someone you'll know, you'll know their name.

He's thinking, wow, they know my name already. Like Richard Pryor. Or whoever.

But yeah, it's like, Oh, brilliant. And it's not like Richard Pryor could go on for 10 minutes and then you go on after him. Richard Pryor is no one's opening act.

Just like Robin Williams is no one's opening act. Or Steve Martin or any, you know, any of the big stars. They were once, but yeah.

And I have seen that. I've seen that happen. But I've never seen, I've never seen someone close the club down though.

As in kind of just say, I want to do, can I do my one man show? And they just send all the comedians home. I'm not saying it's never happened, but I've never seen it in this country when I was involved. But most, you know, I imagine most promoters would say, yeah, of course you can.

Won't pay, won't pay him or her, but pays the comedians that were going to get paid anyway. But because I have to find their, because I think the way it works with comedians when they're on tour, a lot of them do. So they have to have the material, it's new material.

Because if they're going on tour every year or every two years, they kind of have to have new material, fresh material. They have to try it out somewhere. So it will be partially trying it out in little clubs, partially trying it out as they go along on tour.

So maybe, you know, mix it in with some old, really old stuff, you know, whatever. But it's kind of a progression. And then at the end of the tour, they're leading up to maybe doing a Netflix special or an Amazon special where they get paid millions of pounds for their special.

So I don't know how much, I wonder how much they get paid for the actual gig. So I've heard that some of the agencies that promote stand-up comedians just take so much of the money that there's no money in actually doing shows or touring. They get more money just for doing normal gigs because they don't have to share it with anyone.

That can't be true of everybody. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it, would they? I mean, I heard the other day from a comedian saying, it's on YouTube saying, all you got to do to get your own tour and to get your own TV show and all that stuff is just appear on a panel show, like a little bit regular, a few times, so people know who you are.

And again, you skyrocket up, you get more appearances on different TV shows, you get enough, maybe your own show, or maybe you just go on tour as a stand-up comedian.

And they know your name because they've seen you on TV. Remember John, is it John Bishop? I'd never seen John Bishop before. So I was kind of, or if I had, I don't remember him.

But I know he was on some chat shows, you know, he was on some kind of panel shows, and then he was touring, and then he had his own TV show. And I was like, I didn't know how he came, where he came from. Suddenly, he was just there.

But someone said something really funny the other day, not funny, but quite true. When they see a comedian on TV, they must say, oh, they're rubbish. Why are they on TV? Which is very, it's really weird.

The idea that a TV executive would just happen to be out on a Saturday night in a comedy club, maybe saw someone at the bar that was telling jokes before, he's funny, let's stick him on our stand-up comedy show. Maybe give him a comedy tour, his own TV show. Probably not, you know.

And anyone, to get your own TV show, you're going to be headlining all the major gigs. And to headline all the major gigs, you're going to have years and years and years of experience behind you doing it. I'm not saying it takes years to become a headliner, but to go from a headline to be a TV star, it's not instant, it's not like a sudden thing.

Saying that, saying that, Adlo Hanlon, who was in Father Ted, he went from, he did it pretty quick, pretty, pretty quick. He came over from Ireland, I think he'd won some contests in Ireland. He came over, he won all the contests, all the talent contests here, stand-up contests that there were in London.

Maybe he travelled around the country and did Manchester and other places. He was headlining, like, almost instantly. So he was, and he was in Father Ted by, what was it, 94? Maybe it was a little bit later than that, maybe it was 95.

But it was within a few years. So he, he did really well, really quickly. Harry Hill was another one.

He was, see, Harry Hill, I don't know how long it took him to be on TV and famous, not long, but it's still just a few years. It's not like, it's not like instant for anyone. But the thing that he did that I didn't see everyone do, is he would turn up anywhere, anywhere that he could perform, he would go.

He would happily do the Comedy Store, Jonglers, maybe do three or four gigs in a night on a Friday, Saturday night and go to, no, go to, there's a really, a really hot, it was the Tunnel Club, it was Malcolm, Malcolm Hardy's, forget the name of it. But he used to go, maybe he'd do that on a Sunday. That was a big, huge crowd.

And then on a Monday, he'd turn up in Streatham or Brixton to the Comedy Pit, up the creek, that was a Sunday night in Greenwich. So go to maybe, I'm just saying as an example. And he'd go to maybe, you know, Brixton, Streatham, for the Comedy Pit, where there might be 12 people in the audience, maybe six, including the other acts, you know, it'd just be a very small, small audience.

And it'd be a door share. So he'd be making a fiver, probably. Yeah, the weekend he's probably made himself probably, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, about 500 quid, maybe more actually.

Yeah, probably a good, I don't know, one, two, three, four, five. Yeah, probably about a thousand pound over the weekend from the bigger gigs. So he didn't care.

He'd go every single place, just to practice his material. He'd even go to the open nights where the new acts would perform. So he could try out new material.

So when someone sees a comedian on stage, on TV, it's all rubbish. I think, well, okay, we've all got our personal preference. Of course, I do find it interesting how people talk from their own perspective as if it's fact for the whole world.

It's like they've now, I have the final say on this, and I've decided that they're not very funny. I don't really work like that. And they only get TV jobs or getting onto a panel show.

They have to actually audition to be on those panel shows. You know, the comedy panel shows, apart from the famous people, but to get on there, to start with, you have to audition. You can't just turn up and get on there.

You have to be invited and be auditioned two or three times. And then maybe they'll let you on once. And if you're good, they'll let you on again.

And maybe you'll end up being a team captain or whatever of the comedy quiz, whatever it is, whatever it is. They've got years and years and years and years and years of experience, thousands of gigs. And someone's at home.

They're rubbish, they are. It's like, why are they on TV? Why? They're on TV because people laugh at them. Because pretty much everywhere they go, an audience laughs.

Although, I don't know who it was who said this. It was Stuart Lee or it might have been. What's his name that did the he's a comedian, but Alan Davis.

It was Stuart Lee or Alan Davis said I think it might have been Alan Davis. He said to me, so you've got the audience, you know, and out of the audience, you've got probably maybe 60% like you. If it's going really well, maybe 70%.

You've got 10% don't really care. They're not even listening. But you're going to have at least 10% that really don't like you, that really think that it's rubbish.

But they're drowned out by the people that are laughing. So you're not going to be liked by everyone. And because in the comedy clubs, people don't go while they didn't used to go to see the comedians, they go to have a comedy night, they wouldn't even know who the comedians were.

Because generally they weren't famous. I don't know how things are now. I mean, I'm not involved anymore.

So things might be a lot different. He's staring at me again. I did find that interesting though.

So it is just, I don't know why he has to do this, but he doesn't just stay like, just leave me alone, mate. I haven't done anything all day. And now you're hassling me.

Don't get me get my punching gloves, a boxing gloves. I'm gonna have to have another punch up. He looks like he's gonna punch me.

He's got his hands like that. You're like a little kangaroo, you know that? Yes, you do. So I found that interesting, because yeah, not everyone's going to like you.

Even the tour, if you're on tour, like Jimmy Carr, for example, people take people with them. Generally, I mean, I used to go to comedy clubs on my own to watch acts. But, you know, I think most people have got friends and stuff.

So there might be a group of people, maybe a group of six people, friends, and two of those people might think, this is rubbish. Why have I come to this? So just because it might be expensive to go and see the comedian, it doesn't mean that everyone that goes to see them is going to like it. Because some of them might not be fans, or might have not heard of them before.

Also, I've told this story before, but I was blown away by it. Blown away. And I think this has happened twice.

And the one particular one really, really blew me away and how we can be affected by what's happening. So there's a comedian called Earl Oken. And he looked like Roy Orbison.

He had a guitar and he sang very softly. And I'm not sure if I'd ever seen him before, to be fair, I might have done. But it was at the comedy club that I was at.

I was there on a Friday and Saturday night. And I saw him the Friday night. And he was headlining both nights.

The Friday night, they were literally chucking stuff at him. I mean, chucking beer, chucking bottles, not glass bottles, but they were chucking things at him, which is highly, highly unusual in that venue, especially to someone that was just sitting there calmly. It's not like he was there being abusive or being aggressive or anything.

They absolutely hate it, like really vile energy. And I thought, why have you booked this comedian? He's really bad. Why is he headlining? I started to think.

And I watched the whole act. I thought it was just terrible. Fast forward to Saturday night, exactly the same act.

And it was hilarious. And the audience gave him an encore. Different audience.

But it was the same act. And it was funny because in order for it to be funny, you have to be able to hear him. And people were shouting on the Friday night.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Get off, get off. Get off, get off.

Bring the disco on. Bring on disco JJ. Sexy JJ, sexy juicy JJ.

And I just, and I thought, it's weird because I was influenced by the Friday night. And I wasn't looking forward to seeing him Saturday night. I thought, oh God, go through that again.

Because it was not very pleasant. And just to show his professionalism, that he still came back and did the gig and absolutely smashed it. Now, I'm sure I did way, I did a hell of a lot more bad gigs than he ever did in his whole career.

And he'd been going for a long time. But I'd never had a bad gig like that. I never had people chucking stuff at me.

That's the one thing I can say. But I think back then they probably thought I'd chuck stuff back at them. So maybe that's why they didn't.

But I don't know. It was kind of very strange how literally doing the same thing can be interpreted differently, not just by the audience that were different, but by me, who was the same person. I was seeing exactly the same thing.

And it went from being really rubbish to being genius. It was hilarious what he was doing. It's weird, very strange.

That's when I realised that I didn't realise anything. I learnt nothing from it at all. And that's how I like it.

If I can have an experience and learn nothing, that's the perfect scenario. I'm trying to go through life with learning as little as possible. That's my goal in life.

So I guess I'm talking about comedy without talking about my part in the comedy. So I'll continue just talking about the comedy. Some of the weird moments.

There was a comedian. He was at the comedy club that I used to frequent. And he got on stage.

And he's a very famous comedian. He's also famous for different reasons, infamous possibly, you could say. And I'm just standing there talking to the doorman, my friend, and someone shouts, he's got his thingy out.

I'm not going to say the word. His woo-woo. He's got his woo-woo out.

And we looked and he was literally just waving it around because the audience didn't like him. It was just another light. It's just a bad gig.

It wasn't anything he was doing. But I mean, it was at that point. So he decided, he decided to get his wing-wing out.

So he was kicked out and barred from ever coming back into that place again. But this is before he was famous. And then he got famous.

And I think he did pretty much did whatever he wanted. But he did that before he was famous. And I was a little bit shocked at that.

I was like, really? There was another time when Ricky Grover, and if you know Ricky Grover is, he's huge. Like he used to be used to play a character called Buller, who's like a convict. And he's a really big, strong X-Boxer.

So he was on stage one night. And this bloke came up to his daughter, who was sitting near the door watching her dad, just waiting for him because he was doing like multiple gigs at night and just go between gigs in his car with his daughter, just taking her out for the night. And he started being rude to her.

Like saying, you know, just like probably drunk and just was being inappropriate. And I said, that's enough of that. He said, what are you going to do? I said nothing.

But he said that bloke on the stage, the bloke is three times bigger than you. That's currently wearing a stocking over his face, like a bank robber. He'll probably have something to say because he's her dad.

And he kind of left. I don't know if he left the club, but he kind of disappeared into the night as it were into the crowd. Oh, dear.

The thing is with Ricky, so he won't even remember this, but he gave me a lift home in 1995 or 94. Again, because I don't know if he lived in Stratford, but he gave me a lift to Stratford. And this was after hanging out in the club, the comedy, comics room upstairs above the comedy club.

And he had a sports car. So he gave me a lift and he was talking. I'd never seen his act.

I think he I don't know if he was new, newish. I'd never seen his act. But I'd met him a couple of times.

No, I think I probably remember the first time I met him, but I might have seen him. But I'd never seen, didn't know who he was. And he basically, I thought he was being real.

He was doing his buller act on me. I didn't know. So I'm sitting in the car shaking, thinking I've got this absolute crazed maniac driving me home, talking about all his times in prison.

And I believed it until I actually saw his act by the buller act. And I realized, oh, okay. It was an act.

I was like, really? I couldn't believe I fell for it. There was another time I did. I went out with, there was a bunch of comedians.

I think, yeah, because we used to hang around and I used to, even though I wasn't very good at comedy and I didn't, didn't have any success really. It was my social life. So I still used to hang around with other comedians, not just, just new starters.

Because basically some of the people started at the same time me, a few years later, like headlining. So I was hanging around with them, still friends with them and that. And we're quite a few of the people who were headlining, get their own TV shows and stuff like that.

So I, everyone, someone came into the comics room and said, Eddie Izzard is performing wherever. Now Eddie Izzard was, there was two comedians, comedian. One was Eddie Izzard, one was Sean Locke.

So Sean Locke was pretty much the comedian's comedian and everyone wants to see him because he was so funny. Eddie Izzard was, and I say this word very carefully, an enigma. There was no one like Eddie Izzard.

When he was doing what he did, nobody did what he did. There was, there was nobody. He was so original and I ended up going to see him, but I think it was the after show that he did some performance, whatever.

So I went along with a bunch of comedians, just jumped in one of the taxis. And we ended up in this, I think it was an Indian restaurant. It might have been in Brick Lane.

With all these comedians, I mean, some famous, all famous now, but some famous at the time. And even Eddie Izzard wasn't like, he wasn't famous at the time. He was kind of well known, but he hadn't quite, you know, kind of made that leap to be household name.

And I'm sitting there with all these people and I had nothing to say. I didn't know what to say. I had no money for food either because they were all eating, because they were getting paid, they were all professional comedians.

And I think my friend bought me a drink, it was either Coke or whatever. And he said, do you want to get some food? I said, no, I'm fine. I'm not hungry.

I was. But I was like, wow, it was like, this, this is the life. This is the life that I wanted.

It's not the life that I got. I mean, I had a little taste. That was a little taste of it.

But I wanted to be at that table, having earned it, you know, to be one of them, to be successful and to be, well just successful. And really good at what they did. And I wasn't.

But it still had a little taste. It's like, okay. And it's not about being around people that are famous, because there was a few people that were doing TV gigs and stuff like that.

Maybe a bit of TV stuff. But at the time, I don't think anyone was actually. No, because early 90s, I don't think anyone was actually sort of doing regular TV stuff.

But then they all went on to do TV stuff. People like Mark Lamar. So that's another thing I'll talk about.

Mark Lamar, he great comedian, great stand up. And he did a talk, he was on TV, he did quite a few TV shows. He did Shooting Stars, he did Nevermind the Buzzcocks, he did The Word, and he did Big Breakfast.

They're just four I can think off the top of my head. He hosted Nevermind the Buzzcocks. He was on one of the panels for the Shooting Stars.

He went door to door on the Big Breakfast and The Word, he was one of the presenters. So, so I knew him to say hello to. Not like bestest friends or anything, but just I knew him right from 91 onwards.

And I remember seeing him, I think it was about 1999 or 2000. And I don't know why he was in the club, I think he might have done a gig, he might have done a, he might just come along to try out some new material. Or maybe he was there with someone while they were on stage, waiting for them to get off.

And I said to him, about his gigs, he'd just done a tour, just finished doing a tour. And I said to him, you know what, I don't want to put this in a bad way, but I just want to say, people that will see you on TV don't realise how good you are. How, as a stand up, they don't, it doesn't, I was almost saying that you don't come across, he didn't come across well enough on TV, I didn't mean it like that.

I think Nevermindabuzzcocks kind of showed his personality a lot more than anything else he did. But the stand up community, the stand up was so, again, different from anyone else. He could, I saw him, literally, a member of the audience was looking at a table, he got about 10 minutes worth of material just from that.

He just ad libbed. And in a way, I think if he hadn't gone on TV, I'm glad he did go on TV because he got to be successful and everything. I think he would have, I would have been interested to see what direction he would have taken with the stand up.

Because not only was he brilliant, but also he was, he had the looks and he also dressed really well. He was the best dressed comedian on the circuit. And one of the most handsome ones, he was just like, everything was perfect, his hair greased back and he, you know, everything was just spot on with him.

So I'd be interested to see where he would be now, because not just what kind of comedy he'd be doing. I'm not even sure what he does anymore. I guess if he does radio, he might be doing stand up again.

Anyway, I said to him, I said this to him, I said, look, people don't seem to know how, don't realise how good you are. Because you can say that about a comedian, if you know them, you can say, realise how good you are, how talented, and they're going to, it's not like you're like, praising their ego. You're just talking facts.

Because if someone's headlining every comedy club in the country, then they're really good, like really, really, really, really good. So it's not a question about whether or not they're brilliant at comedy or not. So that's all he answered.

So my question is, why weren't the audience, people at home realising how good he was? And he said, you know what, I said it, but I tried to do it so he didn't get upset. So it wasn't supposed to be a dig. It was like, I was generally didn't understand it.

And he said, he'd just finished a tour. And more than a few times, he had people come up to me and said, I can't believe how funny you were. That was really funny.

And Mark Lamar was all about him. Mark said to me, he said, why were they coming to see me if they didn't think I'd be funny? But being on TV, that's enough to get an audience. If you're on TV, and maybe they're not going to know what kind of comedy he does by watching maybe one of the shows, but the other shows, they wouldn't know what kind of comedy he was doing.

But then you think about it, though. If you go to see Richard Pryor, if you go, I know he's not around anymore, but for people who went to see Richard Pryor live in concert in the 70s, late 70s, having seen him in Stir Crazy and the movies he did with Gene Wilder and all that stuff. And if they didn't know what his albums had never listened to one of his albums before, but they were going to see him because he was at one point, around the time he was in Superman 3, he was the highest paid Hollywood star, Richard Pryor was.

So they began to see him in concert. And can you go away, please, Vinnie? She's annoying me now. What's the point in doing it? Maybe he wants to go to the toilet.

Perhaps I shouldn't be be a grumpy old man. I'll give you cuddles. There you go.

My hand can give you cuddles. But he, he, I forget what I was talking about now. I'm trying to think whatever, what other stories do I have that I could tell you? Some weird stories.

Oh, there was one night where there was a petrol station around the corner from the comedy club. So this was, I think it was a Saturday night. The whole area was cordoned off around like Shoreditch.

And there was a message to everyone to leave the area. You know, because they're basically hundreds of gallons of petrol had gone missing. So they thought there'd been a crack or something, you know, in the tank that holds it all, which means it could be underneath all of the buildings.

And it could basically, you know, be catastrophe. So until they found out where it all gone, they recommended everyone close their clubs and their nightclubs and their pubs and a lot did. But my friend did.

He didn't close. So we were there. And that must be one of the strangest nights ever.

Because wasn't really sure how the night was going to end. Very strange. Oh, yes.

Very, very strange. I was another time when I was outside with my friend used to give me a lift home. He was the doorman.

So it's like, I don't have to we were sitting in a car, he was just getting ready to start the car. And suddenly we see I'm talking about 100 people walking down the road, like it's more of an alleyway than a road. So he turned his lights off, turned the lights off inside the car, locked the doors and just watched.

And these people, they were demonstrating about something. So come from somewhere in Shoreditch, I don't know what they were demonstrating against. But they were jumping on the cars, not his car.

Thankfully, but they were literally jumping on different cars and pushing bins over and stuff like that. It was like a flash demonstration or whatever's weird, especially at that time in night. Very strange.

Trying to think any particularly strange things happen just in comedy in in general. I remember there was a comedian called Jimbo, who is my friend. And on my on my, my gigs, I've got tapes.

Sometimes he's the only one laughing. All you can hear him is go, huh? Huh? That was it. And they'd be laughing.

That'd be it. I think sometimes the audience laughed at his laugh. But they weren't laughing at me.

And his his gig, the way he performed, and he's still performing today. But he's now known as the legend, the legend the legendary Jimbo. Because he's been going for a long time now.

I could have been me. Can you imagine if I was still performing? Wow. So he was at 3090.

2000 2002 to 2036 years, or 35 years, instead of seven years. I really I was gonna go back. I didn't quit.

I just sort of semi just had a break. That was it was semi retired or had a break. And then I moved away from London.

And I got caught up in other stuff. As life presents it, you know? Oh, yeah, Jimbo. Honestly, we was upstairs above a lot of clubs were above pubs.

They were just, you know, they were clubs, but they were just maybe 50 people above a pub. Or in the basement of a pub. That's what most of the gigs were.

Then there was some places that had, they're in a pub, but that big, huge, or, you know, I say, like, call 100. None of the audiences were massive. And up the creek, probably 250, maybe more in Greenwich.

It's never big audiences. Soho, quite a small audience, but lovely audience. And the Meccano club in Islington.

That was, again, a nice audience, but quite small, but I was in a basement. Soho was in Soho, it's above a pub. And there wasn't many purpose made comedy clubs.

So you had the comedy cafe. And there was my friend's club, there was Jonglers. There was Lee Hurst built a comedy club.

Called the comedy. What was it called? I can't remember what it's called, but he built a club. Because Lee Hurst, Lee Hurst is really good, really great comic.

He was on TV on, they think it's all over. That's comedy sports show. And he was the, he became really famous for that.

I'm not really sure what happened. I don't know if he just didn't want to be on TV anymore, but he did tours and he, I know he had some proper back problems. He had a lot of pain in his back.

So I think he affected him. But he's one of these people who always remembers names. He used to come when I would see him and say, all right, Jay? All right, Juicy? So yeah, thanks, mate.

I can never remember his name. There's something wrong with that dog, honestly. It doesn't do that when I'm sitting down, honestly, and he does it when I'm making a recording.

I don't understand. So yeah, that was it really. He's trying to fit.

Oh yeah, Jimbo. Once he climbed out the window. So he got on stage, then he climbed out of a window, crawled along the window ledge outside, bearing in mind we was like, high up.

And I went to climb in the next window. But the other window he tried to climb through was locked. Couldn't get in.

So he had to climb back through the other window again. So it was funny. But there was a comedian called Spike Breakwell.

I'm sure his name was just Spike when he did the comedy. But me and him got on really well. I think we should have done a double act, actually.

But he used to go on stage and tell the most horrible jokes and then point to me and said that was Jason's joke. Seriously, he did one about, I'm not gonna say what he did, but he did one. I wonder if you'd remember.

I know he's written a book and stuff. I looked him up the other day. I haven't seen him in decades, but he, we both were kind of quite had similar senses of humor.

So I was for what we, it's too late now, but what we should have done at the time, what we could have done is because he was in a wheelchair. So but he was a proper pee taker. He was, you know, and kind of so was I. So what we could have done is go on stage and made fun of each other.

And just ripped each other to bits. And it would have been funny for the audience, I think. And we both kind of had the same, I thought there was no limits.

We didn't do it. But there was, we didn't really have that limits there. We kind of didn't care.

Nothing was sacred, really. So I think if we'd have aimed at each other, rather than at the audience or about other people. It would have been really funny.

And to be fair, because he was a writer, he wrote comedy as well. So he probably could have come up with a lot of ideas about what I could say to him. And so yeah, it would have been interesting.

But I kind of think that if we'd have done that, it might not have worked. But I kind of think it might have done. You know, just no preparation, just introduce ourselves.

And also, I'd get on stage and just leave him in a wheelchair at the bottom of the stage. And just be you know, just being obviously young at the time. And it would be a joke to him.

He knew it was a joke. So it's nothing funny about wheelchairs. I'm just saying, he told jokes about it.

And he, I think his opening joke was, this beer is strong, I could walk when I first got here. Something like that was his opening joke. And he told me some stories as well, because he was born like that.

And he went to a school and he yeah, told me quite a few stories about his life. When he was, we used to hang out and stuff. I think out of everyone, me and him could have had quite a good double act.

That's why I think because I'm quite reactive person when it comes to saying something, if someone says something to me, my brain works pretty quick, more quicker than normal than normal for me. And so someone's trying to put me down or have a go at someone, I kind of go very quick reactions. So you know what you mean? I'm gonna explain it to a 17 times.

I think it would have been funny. It might not be funny. But it might be funny.

Mind you, I just I just worried that I'd thought this is going really well. The audience are laughing. And I get off stage and he's really upset because I said stuff that upset him, which is was not be what I'd want to do.

Okay. Whoops, I thought we had a future career going on there. I thought you're going to be the new cannonball.

So I do believe that's Vinnie is staring at me. I'm he does. I don't know what it is about him staring at me that's really annoying me.

Probably because I woke up to that stare about four times last night. Even his nostrils are flaring. Are you alright Vin? What do you want? What do you want? Come here.

Come here. What is it baby? What is it darling? What is it? He might need a toilet might need a wee wee. Do you need a wee wee? I'm gonna go.

So I saw that comedy. I could talk about this for hours and hours and hours and hours. And I think it's one of those subjects that I could talk about infinitely.

Not just about my own experiences and experiences that I start to remember from the past. But also just I've had a love of comedy. Since I was a kid, really, it's love comedy.

So I could talk about it from various different perspectives, from performing to being an audience member to working in a club to knowing comedians personally to just it's all kinds of or just watching comedy on TV, you know. So on that note, I'm going to go and find out what Vinegar is wanting me to do. Thank you for listening.

Remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy. Be gentle with yourself. You deserve to feel safe.

And remember that you're going to be okay. Lots of love. Bye.

Bye, bye, bye.