203. James Acaster: He Welcomes Hecklers

Is it more common in Britain than here? Because I feel like heckling is not that common here. It's much more common in Britain, yeah. I saw Paul McCartney do a Q&A and get heckled by someone who wasn't satisfied with his answer. What did the person say? They said, try and answer all the questions properly, Paul. Oh, come on. It's Paul McCartney. That's outrageous. It's Paul McCartney in 2022. That is outrageous. Doing a Q&A in a 2000 seater. Wow. That is the voice of the great James Acaster. At last, we have James Acaster. We've been doing this podcast for five and a half years. People have been saying since episode three that James Acaster should be here. He is an extraordinarily prolific and funny and smart stand-up comic from the UK. He has a new special on HBO called Heckler's Welcome. It is exactly what it sounds like. He opens it up to the crowd. for people to heckle him. It's very unique, especially. He plays drums interstitially, and he's a fascinating guy. Never met him before. People have talked about this guy to me for years. I've never crossed paths. I think you're going to love this episode. By the way, thanks to everyone who has signed up for working it out premium on Apple Podcasts. The people we call the Birbilia Familia listening to the premium episodes. Here's what you get when you sign up for premium. You get all the episodes without ads. That's a big thing people have requested. You get every episode without ads. And then you get these bonus episodes. We did a new bonus episode last week where Connor Ratliff and I punched up your jokes that you sent us to workingitoutpod at gmail.com. Also, I just recorded another bonus episode that's a little bit different. Something we haven't done before that we're dropping very soon where I include material that is unreleased. Just like a clip from a show that I've done recently at a club in New York where I'm doing all new material and then talking out with my producers like where it could go, what it could be. And we talk about thematic ideas and directions that could go in. So it's very in keeping with the spirit of this original podcast, which is sharing the work in progress with you, the listeners, and the premium listeners get even more access to that. We thank you for that. I just added a few more dates where I'm supporting John Mulaney along with Fred Armisen in May in Colorado Springs, Eugene, Oregon, as well as Bend, Oregon. Also, I will be in Los Angeles at the Netflix is a joke festival May 6th at the Wilshire Ebel Theater. I'll be performing probably 30 or 40 minutes of new material and hosting a night with comedy friends. I feel like you won't want to miss that. I think it's going to be some exciting comedy friends. All of these tickets are at burbigs.com, B-I-R-B-I-G-S.com. And by the way, thanks to everyone who signed up for the text message alerts. If you want to join that mailing list, text Burbigs to 917-444-7150 to be the first to know about my upcoming shows. Man, do I love this conversation with James Acaster today. Fascinating person. He started doing stand-up after he survived a really bad car wreck, and then he wrote out a bucket list. And guess what was on the list? Stand-up comedy. Now he is a massively popular, wildly talented, and original comic. We talk about his journey today. We talk about some wild experiences he had with hecklers, which inspired his new special, Heckler's Welcome. I was lucky enough to catch him when he was in town at the Beacon Theater in New York City for a couple nights. Enjoy my conversation with the great James Acaster. Your fandom is really specific, I think. Like, the fans of you are like, James is our guy. We like no one else. You ever notice that? Well, you don't really look at yourself online, but, like, that's what a lot of people say. They're like, our number one is this. No other entries. But I think it's a testament to how specific you are. When I watch your specials, I'm like, nothing is like this right is that on purpose uh i think maybe not so much now but when i was starting out i was obsessed with that sort of stuff can't be like anyone else yeah you know like and like i guess in quite an unrealistic way you know when i was in bands before that i was playing drums in local bands me and my friend graham who i was in all the bands with were like we have to be the most original band and not sound like anyone do a sound that no one has ever heard before yeah and obviously you know the more you do it the more you're like i don't know if that's possible and then like with stand-up kind of yeah also that thing of like to my own detriment to begin with to the to the point where like i was hiding punch lines because i was i didn't want the audience to see the punch line coming i wanted this to be so original right so like i remember like in how i was writing it just everything was so hidden so that i could like surprise them in different ways that right that you're not supposed you know like rejecting all the rules before i've learned them in order to be original and then actually conceding what i need to do is learn how to do these things and put myself in the shoes of the audience a little bit more and not be so concerned about um i have to do what no one else has done and i can't ever be compared to anyone and all that i think that definitely to begin with hurt me a bit you know i think like the other thing that people why people bring your name up to me is that like i talked about jumping through a window you talked about depression in like your special which has the the best comedy special name that i've ever heard which is called lasagna hate myself 1999 yeah very pleased with that that is a that is come on yeah i was very pleased that's a great title i was so pleased the day i decided to do that so we know it's ones where you know you ever do are you talking to other comedians and you're dropping stuff in casually, but really looking for praise. And you're like, yeah, I sent my new show title away today. It's stupid, man. It's so stupid. It just sounds ridiculous. It's called Cold Asana, I Hate Myself, 1999. Looking at them, waiting for them to tell you that that's brilliant. I think I was pretty insufferable. That's a great one. But I think that that's also why people, like I think you and I have the thing in common, which is like, that's a lot about depression. and being suicidal or maybe somewhat suicidal. Having suicidal thoughts, yeah. Suicidal thoughts. And do you feel like having done that, do you feel like your shows after that, you felt a pressure to just like open up to everybody? Yeah, so like, because that's interesting because I kind of, I love music. You love music. And like, I look at bands and go like, well, they don't, you know, go in a certain direction and then they're married to that forever. They can, some of my favorite bands were just album to album. Except the Rolling Stones. I'm shocked. Actually, that completely takes it apart. I know you mean that. But like, and so like I was worried about that because I did that show. And then the next one I did, which was like about my relationship with the audience, kind of like just naturally became as well a bit about mental health because it kind of had to. and I was a bit yeah a bit concerned that like oh do I have to do this forever I don't want to do that forever and so like with the show I'm touring now I've consciously not not done that really and I've like tried to I think always just kind of listening to uh just what you're drawn to and just going I'm just going to run towards that because I don't think I don't think they really want me they might think that they want me to carry on doing what the last show was but they once they see this new one if i do it well that should be what they want i had a thing where at a certain point so many of my shows had an arc yeah that people would be like this show didn't have an arc well they don't have to have an arc yeah yeah that can get in your head when you're writing sometimes and you think like oh but the last one had this and this one doesn't have that yeah but even though i don't necessarily sometimes i'll feel like that with other people's where i remember going to see the master and being like you know just having there will be blood in my head oh that's interesting as i sat down to watch it right and then the final scene i was like here we go this is going to be the last film is my favorite final scene in any film ever so this is going to be something let's see what they do and then they sit down and they have a conversation and they leave right and i remember going home and saying to my partner like what is that ending i like the whole film and that ending sucked yeah yeah and uh she was like that's not he's not trying to make there will be blood again right and the next time i watched it i was like i don't know what was wrong with me but like it was just i just wanted it to be what it was but of course i've already got there will be blood i don't need it again i have that sometimes we're like i'm writing my next movie right now and sometimes sometimes i'll see a movie that's so good that i'll just I'll go I'll be in despair I'll be like oh no it's not that and sometimes my friends will shake me out of it and be like right it's not that yeah yeah of course it's not it's your movie that that's their movie this is your movie yeah how many do you find I find with each show cycle I'm learning the same lessons over again and it's annoying yeah like to not go like you've learned this every time that you just should commit to your own voice and it doesn't matter what other people are doing totally or anything but like you just forget it and have to learn it again even stuff like delivery and stuff and going like no you've got to deliver this faster you like like you've gone back into doing it too slow again and like in the last tour you like learned that you have to up the energy when the rooms get bigger or whatever the thing is yeah and like it is weird how there's those things where a podcast like this is really encouraging for creative people because there are these like you know rules that people can like identify and latch onto but you're constantly relearning those rules oh yeah they don't just all stay with you and you've got them with you forever and go okay new show here's everything that i learned before and i'm just gonna start from this place yeah i feel like if there's i hope if there's one takeaway from people listening to this podcast is that all of us are as artists are just failing all the time no but I do hope that that is the takeaway of this podcast sometimes is like oh yeah these people who maybe I like their work or maybe I don't like they're also insecure about what they're doing all the time yeah do you have it um you play drums like really well oh I mean like really well like and you have them as interstitials in the heckling special yeah which is on HBO now in Sky there in in britain but in uh here it's on hbo it's so good but where did how'd you come up with that idea to like cut up your special drums sometimes it's like so i think i was doing the show and it was like you know the whole idea of the show originally was that like anything goes the audience can do whatever they want yeah i thought here we go it's gonna be chaos and then it wasn't so i'd written all this material and i wanted to write a show that they could then ruin if they wanted to and And that was the idea was that I did have a show. I'm not going on with nothing. Right. And then they can heckle me and we'll see where it goes. So you didn't come in with that? No, I kind of, I remember the first one I did, I was like, I'm basically workshopping material, but you guys can ruin this whenever you like. Is it more common in Britain than here? Because I feel like heckling is not that common here. It's much more common in Britain, yeah. Definitely. I've seen us being more rude here. And I've seen like comics deal with hecklers by just not trying to be funny at all and just telling them you're rude and you're spoiling this for everyone and then everyone applauding the comedian. If you did that in the UK, the whole room would turn on you. Because you're not good enough. Yeah, I had it on a tour, my own tour with my own name on the ticket. I think I mentioned it in one of my shows, but like, and there were two people on the front row who for the whole of the first half kept on shouting out and they were pretty hammered. And in the interval, they were told by the staff, look, you know, in the second half, you guys have to stop doing this. Everyone else is paid to be here. you just have to stop. And if you do it again, we are going to escort you out of the venue. And they went, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. And I went on, and they heckled me as soon as I went on. And I said, like, now, guys, you've been warned that you're going to get kicked out if you do it once more. Well, that was once more, but I'll just let that one be a freebie and just don't do it again just for the sake of everyone in the room. No one backs me up on it. I carry on going. They do it again like two minutes later I go okay but you know what has to happen You do have to leave now And they were like completely like they were hearing that for the first time Like what are you talking about And I was like, you just have to leave. And security came to get them. And then a lady who wasn't even sitting with them went, are you joking? You're going to kick them out. They've paid for a ticket. And I was like, well, you've all paid for tickets and they're running the show. And she went, if they're leaving, we're leaving. And the whole front two rows left. So it was like, I don't know, it was a smallish venue. It's probably about 25, 30 people got up and they walked out. And one of them was a little old lady. She was probably in her 70s. Was yelling at me, if you can't handle heckles, you never should have got on that stage. Wow. And they all walked out. And after the show, I was still on social media at that point. And maybe this is one of the reasons I've come off of it. But I remember firing up my, Twitter mentions and they'd all those front two rows gone to a bar together and took a photograph all of them flipping me off and uh and tweeted it at me so there was no that is so rough yeah it was like oh that's my own name on the ticket do you feel like your persona or like what people's expectations of you are from your fan base limit what you can talk about no like there's anything where you're like ah they're gonna be a little bit pushed by that no you know like it's it's always like how you talk about it i think that well you know in this new show that i'm doing there's a few bits where like i've never talked about this before and some of my audience would definitely maybe say like oh yeah i like to see him because he doesn't do dirty material you know sure i've gotten that before too and then but then actually they don't they'd be surprised that if you frame it well and you do it from a different uh angle they actually do like hearing it is funny yeah um and and that's like part of the fun challenge of going like how do i took like i've thought of this joke and like you know i could go up to another comic and go hey this would suit you but actually i could work this into the polarity of clean versus dirty i feel like often is the wrong one yeah it's almost like the polarity should be like thoughtful versus thoughtless uh-huh you know it's like yeah it's like if it's thoughtful it can be as dirty as you want it to be if it's thoughtless it's like well maybe like work harder on that yeah yeah yeah i think so and like and like because you're trying to like just think about your your comedy voice and think about who you are and your persona or has to be coming from that right in a way that suits all of that you know yeah and like sometimes that you know i had started that called this annual special by coming out and just swearing as much as I could and saying like I swear now and I'm a even though I you know I use that kind of language in previous shows but people just never really clocked it and said you know he's a clean comedian that's not true but also I don't want people coming to see me who their only criteria is I like clean comedy except a genre or a sense of humor that's just like, I don't know what that is really. People just have this predisposed like idea of, if you swear on stage, use bad language on stage, then you're lazy, which I don't think is true. So I wanted to go out of the front and be like, anybody who's here because of that. Right, no, totally. Never come and see me again, but also knowing that that's a funny attitude to have. So not taking that attitude too seriously and making fun of the fact I'm trying to share to those people. I remember that happened when I toured my special Thank God for Jokes in like 2015 or something like that. And I cursed. But what's funny is I'm cursing to quote someone else. Yeah. I'm cursing to quote David O. Russell and whatever, the Muppets, and what I cursed by accident in performing with the Muppets. And a lot of people, my agent came to me at one point and was like, the word is getting around that you're not clean anymore. And I didn't even know what he was talking about. I was like, this is not even different than what I was doing before. Yeah. And I think that's exciting more than anything. I always talk about Josie Long all the time. I love Josie Long. Yeah, she's like, easily the comic has inspired me the most. And I remember seeing her do her show, I can't remember when it was, it was like pre-pandemic. And she just suddenly did a sex routine. She'd never done a routine about having sex before. And she kind of tiptoed into it, of going like i don't usually speak about this sort of stuff and i still feel uncomfortable talking about it on stage but i think this is funny so i'm just going to kind of do it and it wasn't just a routine about having sex it was a routine about having sex while on her period and like i like quite a graphic like and so it's so funny to go to see someone going from never talking about sex yeah to doing like a really graphic sex story that was really funny yeah and as a comic just made me go oh there's absolutely no rules this is so exciting to see josie do this and go into this area that we weren't expecting at the start of the show. I love that. And she's treating us like adults, like her audience aren't a bunch of prudes. And so it was, I remember seeing stuff like that and going, oh, we can do whatever we want, one show to the next. What were you thinking you were at the beginning of your career? I think I started out at the very, very beginning before it was a career. I was like, I loved Josie and Ross Noble and Daniel Kitson and a lot of the comics who were kind of going out and just like seemingly just being themselves with the audience and were all very likable. And I was trying to kind of go out and be super friendly. Like Ross Noble goes out and he's just like, oh, look at you guys, this is great and all this. So I was really trying to do that and it wasn't scanning at all. Like they were kind of sitting there and very forced because they were like, we don't think you do think this is great and amazing. Like we think this is a really shitty bar with seven people in. I don't think you really, and then I'd have a better one when I suddenly went, you know, I'd be trying that at the top and then I'd naturally, it just come apart and I'd admit how much I'm hating this. And then suddenly they're laughing, which is a lesson that like, it was good in those situations and I had to unlearn it later on when, you know, you're being paid more and the audience are there to see you and you can't just like stop and say, I hate this, this sucks. Right, like you're arriving at the reality of what you were in. Yeah, yeah. So I guess that was the thing of like definitely trying to be those comics that I liked and then discovering pretty soon that actually how you genuinely feel is funnier. Yeah. And try and like steer more towards that. Working It Out is supported by Rula. Let's talk about therapy for a second. We talk about therapy all the time on this show. I've talked about it with Gary Gullman, with Sarah Sherman. That was a good episode where we talk about therapy. I've been in therapy, I know firsthand. Sometimes navigating mental health care can be challenging. Here's the thing about RULA. RULA helps to make that part easier. 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They have a thoughtful design approach that makes it incredibly easy to mix and match, helping you create a space that feels cohesive as well as stylish. I feel like if you went on the Article website, you could spend hours there. I was on the site and I got this little bookcase and a little rug. They all sort of have a nice matching color palette. With Article's 30-day satisfaction guarantee, you can shop with confidence, knowing that if you're not completely in love with your new furniture, you can easily return it. The peace of mind ensures that you can invest in your home without hesitation. Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim that, visit article.com slash WIO for working it out, and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com slash WIO for $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. there's an interview in the new yorker where you said basically i crashed my car when i was 18 and after that i got a bit obsessed with dying so i started doing a bunch of things to take off my bucket list what what was your relationship to the idea of death before the crash yeah and after the crash and then what is it now? I think like growing up, so growing up being raised Christian and I was like, I think that means you think about death a lot. Yeah, same. But you're not really, but then also you kind of weirdly don't believe in it as a kid. So I'm thinking about it all the time, but it's not the end. But I am thinking about dying a lot and what happens when you die. And I'm talking about that and asking a lot of questions to my parents and the people at church of like okay so where do these people go and where do we and like how do what is everybody going yeah what if i do this and then i suddenly get killed and i haven't apologized yet and all this and like so i'm thinking about it a lot and then i remember i still remember like i was 13 and for some reason i was listening to my dad had this like cassette and cd playing one and i was listening to a cassette and i think it was REM's Out of Time album. And there was a song on there, I think called, it was maybe Low or something that was very bleak and depressing sounding. And I was just like looking at the tape going around. And I think I just realized like, I had my first fleeting thought of, oh, this year's gone quickly. Sure. And then I was like, oh, this is going really quick. I'm 13. so this whole everything else could just go quick and then i could just like and then and then kind of being like oh and i might not i remember i assumed until that age i would live to 100 that that was how old you lived yeah so everyone lives to like everybody everyone's like everybody lives yeah yeah yeah come on that's everyone lives to we all get to about 100 that's your life and then i was like and it dawned on me that the years are going quickly and also i'm i could die when i'm 70 yeah and i'm 13 now and it's already going quick and this tape's going around. And I first, for the first time, felt scared of dying. And for the first time thought like, maybe I don't believe in that there's something else. But like putting it out of my head. And then when I had those, I had that car crash. And like during that car crash, you know, there's this point where I was just on two wheels like this. And it was a very small car. And I knew that, you know, if it goes that way, I'm not going fast enough to roll. So it is just going to go like that. and then it went back on its four wheels but then you know it kind of took it took about a day and then i remember sitting on the toilet and going like i could just not exist now yes and then realizing that that's what i believed that i didn't believe in anything else and i did that when you're about 19 years old yeah so i had to be like oh you believe in nothing after you die right so and then i had six months of um not being myself at all and like walking around in a bit of days and no matter what I was doing it was making me think of the universe is infinite you don't understand it you're gonna die and that will just what will that be like I'll be nothingness and just everything felt too much and too big and uh I was talking to a lot of different people and then like you know eventually got to like a good place with it by kind of refusing to look away from it and and discussing it all the time and yeah and whatever and and yeah now I think it's more that thing of uh anytime i do think you know and i do try and think about the fact that we're not going to be here forever sometimes before going on stage and i'm feeling like this is overwhelming and scary yeah a kind of good thing to remember it sounds dramatic but it like this isn going to be like everything around me will be gone one day that right it all be gone none of this will exist so this is a miracle this is amazing that you going to get to do this in this moment and it's not this thing of like it's so sad it's all going to get taken away it's more that why should it even be here why should stand up even be a thing why should this theater be a thing you know and laughter and we can and and all of this and you get to experience this and do it and yeah So rather than kind of going, because definitely for a while, I was like, the tragedy was that it's all going to go rather than the incredible thing was it's here in the first place. That's how I feel when I go to like a Knicks game. Like I'm not like a huge basketball fan, but I'm like, what a marvel. Yeah, sure. Can you even believe this? Yeah, yeah. How good these people are at this game? Yeah. What the hell's going on here? We all get to be here, watch it. Yeah. I'm eating this food. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it is. Those kind of moments. It is worthwhile to remind yourself of the marvel of everything sometimes. Yeah, and it's like, it sounds dramatic, but it just like, it does put everything in perspective. And it will just like, go, okay, this isn't such a big deal. You don't need to worry too much about this, you know. That doesn't make it. Do you have a pre-show ritual? Yeah, a lot now, because I used to not at all. And it really, it was my downfall at a lot of gigs and it's why I'd throw a lot of gigs. I was going on completely unprepared. so now it's quite extensive now and yesterday i was very very very nervous before going on my show really wanted to just get on a plane and go home and not be here and uh as in not be in new york not not be alive and um and uh i so i had to do like everything that i would do before again so i had to sit down and like just breathe and then notice five things in the room that i can see hear smell feel all that how's your body feeling checking with your body how are you really feeling with your body how how's that going to affect your show does that mean you've got to be ultra vigilant for this show about not throwing it away because like you know uh you're feeling quite negative already and you're feeling all this so like that's going to affect it so here's what you've got a uh bear in mind when you walk out there and then visualizing the gig not going how I want it to and uh and then like visualizing how I would like to respond to that so if it's if it's really quiet how do I want to perform oh that's beautiful and do that and if they're shouting out how do I want to perform and if they're on their phones you know so kind of going what do you want to do in that situation so this is what you're going to do and also remembering the things that I talked to my therapist about like what makes a good gig for me and like what factors and i was like so good audience good venue me performing well me being disciplined on stage and me trying something new at some point and he's and we were like okay you can't control the audience you can't control the venue so those two things you just kind of accept before you go out and then you just remember like okay what's the one new thing i'd like to try even if it's just editing a bit even if it's saying less words in the section let's do that and uh and then for the rest of it you're just going just focus on performing it the way you want to perform it and being disciplined enough to not um go off script in a negative way definitely in a positive way great but like but like let's be let's not you know collapse it i'm gonna cut this into a clip for social media and i am going to play it for myself before my own shows great i mean this is that's the best pre-show ritual I've ever heard of. It's, I mean, also the one other thing I do before I did my first ever gig. So I'd done a workshop in my hometown that I've been signed up to, like by someone who knew I wanted to do stand-up. So they signed me up to it and just told me you're signed up to do a stand-up comedy workshop. And I turned up and it was a guy who I think upon reflection had done maximum 10 gigs as a comedian as on the open mic. Hilarious. and was now i was now looking to earn some money cash in yeah cash in on how do you do this yeah i just i just basically going no one in this this town's done comedy so i can there was three of us who got signed up to it we all got signed up to it by someone else and every week we'd show up and he would bring a 12 pack of beers for himself and not share them uh and we would all get up and he would say you got to do 10 minutes stand up every week new every week's morning and we'd get up we'd do our 10 minutes to the other three people including him and then we'd sit down and he'd either say that was shit or that was funny and that was the only feedback you got that's insane and uh this is insane and the three of us would talk about it more yeah together like oh when you said that because we were like excited and hungry but i remember before we did our first gig and it was all three of us doing our gig and it was like a professional compare and opening act and closing act and he had put this together and he just told us before we went on you're you're setting yourself aside from 99.9 percent of the population they wouldn't do this and he said what i do before i go on is i just like stretch like that and make myself just feel nice and big and confident and uh i remember doing it and i still do that now because not because it makes me feel confident just do it and i think of him and i think about the 99.9 percent of the population and the reason why that makes me feel good i think is just the again the perspective rather than the actual i'm confident and i'm better than it's it's more remember that gig you did in that that very first gig you did in that little bar and that guy who definitely wasn't a comedian you know you stand up you know remember that you know and there's no way you should be here now oh you know so it kind of gives you that thing of like going yeah i was gonna do that and that gig that i did that first gig i'm sure it's the same for all comics if i'd never done it again that would have been one of the biggest deals of my life yeah that i got up and did stand-up comedy in a little bar in my hometown it would have been huge and so like remembering like how much of a big deal that was yeah and then looking at this show and like i'm stressing about all this career stuff or whatever or sometimes you know it is a mental health thing but like you're going it's still look at you know that and now this yeah and it does make you feel like you you get you gain that perspective a bit more rather than going someone's gonna just feel like oh this is gonna suck or what's the point of this gig or whatever and actually you go you're forgetting like where this sits in the grand scheme of things and for you personally working it out is supported by helix helix makes award-winning sleep products tested and reviewed by experts like forbes and wired helix offers a 120 night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty 120 nights. I've been a Helix customer myself for many years, since the beginning of this podcast, almost six years ago. Everyone on the staff here at Working It Out has a Helix mattress. We all really love them. I know a thing or two about sleep, and Helix makes the best mattress I've ever slept on, and I've slept on a lot of mattresses. I travel quite a bit. I'm staying in a lot of hotels. Traveling actually can be hard. If I could bring my Helix mattress with me on tour, I would. Go to helixsleep.com slash per bigs and you will get, this is a really good deal, 27% off site-wide. Exclusive for listeners of Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out. That's helixsleep.com slash B-I-R-B-I-G-S for 27% off site-wide. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you. helixsleep.com slash per bigs. Who are you jealous of? Who am I jealous of? Do you know what? I was saying it in the car on the way here, talking to my partner. I literally said it out loud. I never say this about anyone. I went, I'm really jealous of Cameron Winter. As I was talking to her on my phone. Who isn't? So I was like, Paul Thomas Anderson, I'm filming him live now. I know. And all this. Yeah, yeah. So like, yeah. But I was like, her response was like, oh, are you? And I had to be like, not his life, like his career, not his life. I want my life with you. I don't want... I want my life with you. I don't want... I don't want Cameron Winters' girlfriend. I don't know what's going on there with him personally. I definitely don't want to be in a band. Right. But I was jealous of his solo career. sure i'm like oh that looks but then i said to her but then there's that thing as well where you idealize it because i was like yeah but you know it gets to do this this music is like just touching so many people's lives now in ways that they can't even put into words and you know he's not walking on stage and getting people shouting do the kept in town fc song at him and and she said james when we went to see him someone literally heckled turn around to him amazing and i was like oh yeah i I forgot that when we saw him and he was back to the audience playing the piano and he was backlit and it was this, you know, he's performing it and everyone was like on tenterhooks. So it was like, turn around. Yeah. And he kind of like tried to brush it off and then they heckled him again. I was like, oh yeah, I'm kind of... You witnessed it. I was there. And yet you blocked out that part for the idealized version of his life. Completely. I saw Paul McCartney do a Q&A and get heckled by someone who wasn't sat aside with his answers. What did the person say? They said, try and answer all the questions properly, Paul. Oh, come on. It's Paul McCartney. That's outrageous. It's Paul McCartney in 2022. That is outrageous. Doing a Q&A in a 2000 seater. Wow. And someone answered the, that's a very British heckle. Yeah. Answer the questions properly, Paul. Yeah. Too short an answer. what is a time you remember feeling pure joy uh i mean definitely i i remember going to there's a theme park in england called alton towers which uh my parents took us to as a surprise when we were kids and all day it was just i loved it so much we're going on these roller coasters it's it's like the theme of it is just nothing alton towers they don't really lean into the theme and it's quite bleak when you go as an adult but as a kid all these roller coasters were incredible about it yeah i remember buzzing so much of it and i remember being in a queue for a ride we'd already been on me and my dad yeah and i looked up at him and i was like dad this has been the best day of my life wow and he went you're nine uh what's the best piece of advice someone's given you that you used um i mean again i feel like josie long did tell me in the early days to just experiment as much as you can before people know who you are and they can't judge yes and man i definitely as an open spot was like okay one gig to the next i just do whatever i'm feeling on the way there and i feel like she would say this now as well it's like that actually doesn't need to stop with when people don't know you and now i think she would say well i know i talked to her the other day about her new special that she's filming. She's absolutely still experimenting and doing stuff that people wouldn't expect of us. So that's great. So you have a podcast called Off Menu. And you, you talk about sort of dream meals. Yeah. Can you say what yours is? Because I feel I mean, you must have covered it before. Yeah, I haven't heard one where you talked about it. Yeah. So I've done quite a few on there. Every time it's like 100 episodes, we like do our own and stuff my dream main course is always this beef wellington i had in amsterdam yeah and i just keep on choosing that every time even though i should vary it up but genuinely it's not been beat yet and it is pretty amazing although the really annoying thing is we had robert de niro on the podcast did you really yeah we did and that's how on earth would you book robert de niro it's bonkers so basically um i mean you'll know like you kind of get solicitations like here's the people we've got and you go yeah yeah yeah yeah and then you never get the huge ones but whatever right and it just kept on being that his name wasn't going away from this list as it got smaller and we were like well clearly that's not gonna come through and then on the day we were like in this hotel ready to interview him going like surely he not going to show up this is ridiculous and then uh and then the pr team came in and they were like we love off menu like oh this is why This is why It because there two young guys who are like you know in their 20s who listen to the podcast and they've just told him. And when we interviewed him, it became clear that he kind of does live his life with, he turns to the people around him and say, what would you recommend? Right. And then he does it. So like all his food choices, he couldn't choose his dream meal because he just went, I just want to have whatever's good. And we were like, no, but. imagine you can just have whatever starter you want he went oh just have whatever whatever because yes how he lives his life and it is actually quite insightful yes that his life is going into restaurants sitting down and he says bring me the best thing and they do that um so like yeah so like that was what that was like um but when he was on he didn't want to choose a main course and he was like whatever's good and we say how about this beef wellington i had in amsterdam he said yeah if it's good i have that it is good it's good he's like yeah and ed kind of went maybe we can switch the beef for like wagyu beef for you so it's even nicer and he went yeah that sounds good to me and then ed ed goes on a european tour doing his stand-up and he books himself in at this restaurant that does the beef wellington and because they've heard that episode they make Ed a Wagyu Wellington. Oh, wow. Which is even better than the one that I had. Oh, that's interesting. It's my dream. That's impressive. Wow. Do you have any material you're working on that's like half-baked? Or sometimes we work out material on the show or we just talk through it, really? Yeah. So at the minute, because the point where I am with my show at the minute, nothing's really that half-baked now. It's all just like tweaked and stuff. There's a bunch of stuff that didn't make it in. but also the one i tell you the one that i always every single time i start a new show there's a bit of material and i think it's because i don't like just like ditching stuff that i've got a good feeling about and i think when i was an open mic so when i was like very very first gigs ever i was 23 and i had a bit that i was like this is going to crush everyone's going to absolutely relate to this this is great observational material and i went on and i would just say um and this went badly every time so i know i know i know that you don't feel pressure to laugh but just so you know there's no pressure to laugh okay never works so i would go on and be like um hey do you remember when you were in school and you didn't have pubes yet but you told everyone that you did and there's nothing and i was like no i'm pretty sure that's what everyone did at school and then i tried it so many times as an open mic comedian i i just throw it in at so many gigs and then like okay and then like i every single time i had a new show that i was going to take to edinburgh in the early stages pubes was in there yeah go on say that nothing now because i did speak to someone about it so i think i mentioned it on my podcast and Ed was like, I didn't do that when I was in school and I don't remember people doing that at my school. And I was like, right. So in my school, it was a thing. And this is why I thought it was an observation. It's not just because like I did it. Everyone at my school talked about how many pubes they had. So like it was a huge thing in my year. People would be like, I've got so many pubes. And like just like, oh, sometimes there's so many pubes and like I just don't know what to do with them all. There's so many of them. and like i remember it being a huge thing when people would brag and people go how many pubes you goes oh so many pubes and like it was a thing in my school i think i'm with ed i don't think it was a thing when i was growing up but i also like when you say it as a joke i get it i believe you and i enjoy it i'm like that's fun yeah well i think the thing is more you know just thinking about it in more recent years is just to tell them what my school was like and that it is my school no of course this is i'm kind of saying up top this is none of your schools i'm about to talk about yes this is none of none of you grew up with this but i want you to know this was real in my school yeah and uh and we all used to just boast about how many pubes we had in my school year specifically i don't think it was even over school years yeah my school year we were obsessed with who had the most pubes and who was like you know the most mature you could also go the other way with it which is like which is like you remember how in middle school and then you start with that and then you go into a bunch of other specific things that there's no way it was true of them sure yeah yeah just take it further yeah i go more and more just outside the realms of like reality yeah i remember uh one of the girls in my year just being like so many pubes it's crazy you guys don't even realise and then a guy so he would have been 13 just says to her or says to the whole table actually I prefer when women are completely shaved down there he's 13 and I remember all of us being like what the fuck like all of us like we're lying about how many pews we've got but you're weird that's really unsettling that you've got a preference at 13 already He was like one of those kids who's had a computer in his room immediately. I remember one joke I wrote years ago that I've never, you know, I haven't put it on stage, but I'll try it. Which is like, I remember like in, I think it was like fourth grade, the principal would ring the bell for recess. And then she'd let someone in class do it. Like, and I always was like, I want to ring the bell, but they never let me ring the bell. It was always like this girl, like Maria Bononi. and then like one day it was like eighth grade and like maria benoni i found out like had had sex like it was something big i was like i i still haven't rung the bell yeah that's great but i'll try i think i will try it because i kind of like it as an idea because it's so true by the way of that age that age is like devastating for like what people are doing and what people aren't doing and what you've done and what you haven't done. But especially for people who go on to be performers and want to be performers. You want to ring the bell because you're, there would have been people in that class who were like, the last thing I want in my life is to be the person ringing that bell. You're absolutely right. And you're like, I want to ring it so much. Yes. And Maria Benoni is like, it's absolutely killing me right now. She's just ringing the bell. And I can't believe she has to do it. She doesn't even know how lucky she has it. Yeah. And now she's your Cameron Winter and she's having this great life. She's my Cameron Winter. And you want to be her. Yeah. But not everyone else in that class. I have a bit in the Heckler's show where that's me crying because I wasn't being chose to go up in front of the class. Yeah, yeah. And not realizing that's not everyone else's experience. Other people are sitting there going, the last thing I want to do is get picked. The last thing I want to do is get picked. But you want to ring the bell. No, you're right. And who knows what Maria Benoni is even doing now. And by the way, you pointing out that not everyone wanted to ring the bell is news to me. Yeah, it is news. I didn't even know that. And you know what? I bet Maria Benoni, because she got that out of her system, is not doing a career in performing arts or anything. No, no, I don't think so. But you, as the person who didn't get to do it, got a fire in your belly. Yeah. And now here you are writing this material to stay on stage. I wrote this down, which is, I was in line at a pharmacy down the street the other day and there's 10 people in line and there's a woman behind me on speakerphone. There's 10 of us in line. We're crouching. It's the winter. Yeah. and she's on speakerphone and she says i wrote it down she goes karma's a bitch yeah she goes karma's a bitch karma's gonna come right back at you and i thought i hope that's true yeah because i think you might end up next to someone shouting in your ear while waiting for anxiety medication yeah karma's a bitch karma's a bitch sometimes just hearing those people just say stuff when i was like really early on as a comic i was on the train and heard and i tried to turn this into material at the time but i just didn't know at all where to go with it sometimes you overhear it and there's nothing beyond what you overheard yeah and it was just these this group of like women my age like early 20s saying to this guy we are not lying to you we saw a hedgehog on a cat's back i love that going down the street i'm not lying to you we are not lying And we all saw it. I wonder though. That sounds, I mean, I would say the tenacity with which that was said makes me believe it somewhat. Do you find when you, because you do this podcast and you try out your new stuff. Yeah. What's it like when you then go on stage and you do the stuff you were originally talked about in the podcast? It's so funny. I talked about this recently because we just did the 200th episode with John Mulaney and it's better. Wow. I always thought for years, you can't burn your material. You shouldn't burn your material by sharing with people early. But actually, what happens is it's this cult. The people who listen to this podcast is a cult group of people. It's not everybody. It's not all the people in the audience. It's like 10% of the audience. So for 90% of the audience, it's all new. 10% of the audience who are listening every episode, yeah, they know like a version of it. They know an early version. they know middle version sometimes they know later version but they're kind of like I get emails all the time messages are like I really like seeing the stages yeah like that's part of it that's how I feel when I watch comics I don't know if you have this when you watch other comics I like the early versions yeah yeah I love seeing comics develop a show sometimes yeah you do get to just like see certain comedians at different stages of a show spaced out yeah it is great to see what stays what goes and what gets whittled down. The final thing we do is working it out for a cause. Is there a nonprofit that you like to support and we will contribute to them and then link to them in the show notes? Friends of the Earth. Friends of the Earth. Yeah, I mean, just like any environmental charity at the minute is like incredibly important to give to, support. Friends of the Earth is foe.org. Yeah. the best thing is that you can feel very, there's a lot of climate anxiety and you can feel very helpless with all of it. And it's nice to sign up to something like that, get regular emails of like, you can sign this petition, you can do this, donate to this, whatever. And it's quite a regular way of being able to actually engage with a problem that is obviously very overwhelming. Ominous and massive, yeah. We will contribute to them. We'll link to them in the show notes. James, thanks so much for coming. It's such an honor to have you here. Thanks for having me, man. Working it out, cause it's not done. Working it out, cause there's no... That's going to do it for another episode of Working It Out. You can follow James Acaster, jamesacaster.com. He's not on social media, but he does have a website. All of his tour dates are there. He'll be touring all over the UK this spring and summer. Check out burbigs.com to sign up for the mailing list to be the first to know about upcoming shows. and you can get the text alerts by texting Berbig to 917-444-7150. You can watch the full video of this episode on our YouTube channel. At Mike Berbiglia, subscribe because we are posting more and more videos. Don't miss it. Our producers are myself along with Peter Salomon, Joseph Berbiglia, Mabel Lewis, and Gary Simons. Sound mix by Ben Cruz, supervising engineer, Kate Polinsky. Special thanks to Jack Antonoff and Bleachers for their music. They have a beautiful new song out this week called You and Forever. I love that song. Man, beautiful song. Cannot wait for that record. Special thanks, as always, to my wife, the poet, J. Hope Stein, and our daughter, Una, who built the original radio fort made of pillows. Thanks most of all to you who are listening. If you enjoy the show, please rate us and review us on Apple Podcasts. There's so many ratings and reviewings. We really appreciate it. Thanks most of all to you who are listening. tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell Robert De Niro. I know one of you out there knows Robert De Niro. Hey, Bob, you can call Bob. Bob, as long as you're taking recommendations on whatever's good, check out this podcast called Mike Birbiglia's Working It Out. It's where Mike Birbiglia works out jokes and talks about the creative process with other comedians and creatives. You can listen to it while eating the beef wellington that James Acaster recommended. Also, Mike Birbiglia does a cameo in your Meet the Fockers sequel, but you probably don't know that. You're not really in that scene. Anyway, thanks, everybody. We're working it out. We'll see you next time.