Nina Conti

Summary

Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster Guest: Nina Conti Release Date: September 17, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this lively, whimsical episode, celebrated ventriloquist and comedian Nina Conti joins Ed Gamble and James Acaster in the dream restaurant to construct her ideal meal. The trio delves into Nina’s comedic career, her unique approach to ventriloquism, the joys and trials of live performance, her new film Sunlight, and her relationship with food—from pistachio trees to the humble Weetabix. Expect trademark Off Menu surrealism, playful banter, and a deep dive into Nina’s world both on and off stage.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Nina’s Comedy & Ventriloquism

• Inventive Stagecraft: Ed and James praise Nina’s originality, particularly her use of masks and audience participation (04:08–04:51). James notes, “She occupies such a unique place on the comedy landscape, the Nina Conti place. ... She’s so funny, so original, so inventive.”
• The Mask Show "Whose Face Is It Anyway?": Nina discusses her touring show where audience members wear masks, becoming spontaneous puppets. She reflects:

  “It’s always good. ... I’m making it very compact. In October, I’m doing a lot of touring.” (11:13)

• Audience Participation Gone Wild: Sometimes, improv exceeds even Nina's expectations, as when audience members ended up flapping their hands and chanting “ducky, ducky, ducky”:

  “Something flipped and suddenly I couldn’t speak. ... I’ve taken this somewhere just so stupid that I can’t speak.” (13:07)

2. Life As a Ventriloquist

• Monkey Puppet’s Origin and Role: The famous monkey puppet is central to Nina’s act (also featured in a Christopher Guest film, 06:22–07:16). Nina shares how the monkey provides both comfort and a creative outlet.
• New Puppets & Creative Challenges: Trying new puppets doesn’t always work. Nina created an elaborate “granny” puppet but found it lifeless:

  “I would look at her and think, ‘Say something, god damn it.’ Nothing. Just a sad, needy look like a dog you have to leave in the house.” (18:44)

• Split Personality on Stage: Nina describes the psychological split of performing with her puppet:

  “I try to have nothing to do with what comes out his mouth. ... I wonder if I’ve grown little separate neural pathways that are slightly different from my own over time. I hope I have.” (49:36)

3. Sunlight — Film Directorial Debut

• Seven Years in the Making: Nina talks about creating and starring in Sunlight, co-written with Shenoah Allen, about a woman who won't leave a monkey suit, representing freedom from identity constraints (26:30–28:04).

  “It’s a love story between a man and a woman who doesn’t want to come out of a monkey suit, which is me.” (26:47)

• The Onstage Monkey Suit Experience: Nina found performing in the suit freeing yet physically challenging—“my happy place because I couldn’t ... it was very freeing ... but it was very stuffy and I couldn’t breathe.” (27:26–27:36)

4. Restaurant Behavior, Loyalty Cards & Rude Delis

• Water Choices: Nina prefers “belting stuff from the Highlands ... stuff that hurts,” when it comes to sparkling water (21:10–21:41).
• Loyalty Cards Reluctance: James confesses to dodging loyalty cards, furthering Off Menu’s habit of food-adjacent social critique (‘It’ll become a stress in my life I don’t need’ – James, 23:32).
• New York Deli Rudeness: Ordering broccoli rabe from a brusque NYC deli is described as a cultural performance in itself:

  “You have to go early in the morning or the rabe will be gone. ... They shout at you to wait and then you go...” (53:14–53:51)

5. Food Memories, Childhood & Family

• Spaghetti Pomodoro: Nina’s main is a family recipe made by her Italian father:

  “My dad makes a spaghetti pomodoro ... with fresh tomatoes, and it comes from his father. ... I made a video of him making it with the monkey.” (43:49–44:51)

• Sugar on Weetabix: Her dream dessert—evoking childhood nostalgia:

  “When sugar was just ... everyone having ... a great fine thing to have a pile of sugar on a Weetabix. So it’s like a snowy mountain with the milk on it.” (68:32–68:39)

• Unusual Food Preparation: Nina shares family quirks—her father’s unique methods for porridge and toast, e.g., “flapping” toast to keep butter from melting and dipping hot porridge into cold milk (73:10–74:17).

6. Sobriety & Life Changes

• On Quitting Drinking: Nina describes the benefits:

  “I have zero beer now... I wouldn’t have made the film [Sunlight] if I hadn’t stopped drinking. ... Life is way better.” (58:15–59:32)

7. Surreal Tangents & Memorable Moments

• Popcorn Hammocks & Cinema Acid Trips: The trio imagine elaborate cinema seating with popcorn hammocks, sparking speculation about psychedelic visions:

  Nina: “This is lovely, but it’s a little tame as hallucinations go.” (09:30)

• Dream Measurement Metrics: In typical Off Menu fashion, food quantities are compared to body parts—thumbs, ears, etc.—when discussing Weetabix and milk ratios (69:04–71:29).
• Planting Seeds Up The Nose: Nina recalls as a child, “I planted seeds up my nose ... thank God they didn’t grow, because they might have...”
  (76:00–76:13)

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Comedy’s Discomforts:
  “I would dig my nails in because I would get the giggles. Cause it was serious and I wasn’t allowed ... I had to hold my hands in a clasp ... and pretend to take an unnatural interest.” – Nina (31:26)

• On Mask Show’s Unpredictability:
  “Suddenly I couldn’t speak. ... I’ve taken this somewhere just so stupid that I can’t speak. You’ve got me. I blew the fuse.” – Nina (13:07)

• On Family Food Rituals:
  “My dad always ate [porridge] with a separate bowl for the milk ... you never pour the milk on the porridge.” – Nina (72:50–73:10)

• On Monkey Puppet’s Honesty:
  “He’s just honest. ... He’s not out to be rude. I mean, I guess my honest self might be rude, but I consider it sort of straight talking. ... He’s got a steady [voice] and just says things quite honestly.” – Nina (47:47)

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Nina Conti’s Dream Menu

| Course | Dish/Drink | Details | |------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------| | Bread | Poppadoms (mini, Dirty Duck Pub, RSC days) | “Thin sauces. Fun sauces.” (29:24) | | Starter| Pistachio nuts from a tree | Described as “beautiful pink buds” in Greece (37:41) | | Main | Dad’s Spaghetti Pomodoro | “Al dente, fresh tomatoes, garlic in oil, no cheese.” | | Side | Broccoli rabe from Di Paolo’s Deli (Little Italy, NY) | “A bit bitter, oily, lots of garlic.” (53:21) | | Drink | Painfully sparkling Highland water<br>Pouilly-Fumé white wine<br>Chili margarita<br>Espresso martini<br>Zero beer (currently sober, but dreams of proper ones) | “Belting stuff from the Highlands ... hurts.”<br>“Cold Pouilly-Fumé … chili margarita … all of it!” | | Dessert| Weetabix with a thumb’s height of sugar and cold whole milk | “One Weetabix, snowy mountain of sugar, ears’ worth of milk.” (69:04–71:29)| | Extra | Various milky cocktails (White Russian, Pina Colada, Mudslide) | “Mudslide Weetabix, sounds amazing.” (72:01) |

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Memorable Segments & Timestamps

• 03:41 – Off Menu ritual: Ed and James introduce Nina
• 09:00 – Hallucinatory musings: popcorn hammocks in cinemas
• 13:07 – Nina recounts improvisational meltdown on stage
• 26:30–28:04 – Deep dive into Sunlight and the liberation of the monkey suit
• 29:05 – Poppadoms or bread choice and Royal Shakespeare Company stories
• 47:47–50:41 – The inner life of the monkey puppet and psychological ‘severance’
• 53:21 – Italian deli rudeness, broccoli rabe, and food rituals
• 58:15–59:32 – Sobriety’s impact on creativity
• 68:32–71:50 – Sugar on Weetabix, with body part–based metrics
• 76:00–76:13 – Childhood mischief: planting seeds up the nose

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Final Thoughts and Tone

The episode blends genuine affection for food with comedic surrealism, personal revelations, and Nina’s unique artistry. The chemistry between the hosts and Nina is infectious—balancing silly tangents with sincere insight into what makes both her comedy and her dream menu tick. Nina’s candor about creativity, sobriety, and growing up in a family of odd food habits adds warmth and relatability to the episode.

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For more on Nina’s tour (“Whose Face Is It Anyway?”) and her film Sunlight, check out her website and follow Off Menu for more culinary comedy magic.

Transcript

[A]

Hello, it's Ed Gamble here from the Off Menu podcast.

[B]

Hello, it's James Acaster here from the Off Menu podcast and before the episode starts, we'd like to talk to you about All Our Relations, a nonprofit co founded by your friend of mine, comedian Jen Brister and Georgia Takax.

[A]

Yes, All Our Relations was originally started to support 15 families in Gaza when the genocide started, but now supports 21 families and funds several mutual aid projects including two seven day food kitchens and two mobile food parcel delivery schemes as well feeding hundreds of families in Gaza every single day. They've created an absolutely amazing thing and we feel like, you know, it's the Off Menu podcast. We talk about food and we are very lucky to eat wonderful food and have access to absolutely brilliant food all of the time. And I think we need to talk about people who have access to no food. James.

[B]

Absolutely. So if people would like to donate, please go to allourrelations.co.uk, or look at the links in Jen Bristow's bio on Instagram. Every penny raised goes to supporting people in Gaza.

[A]

Thank you so much and enjoy the episode.

[C]

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[B]

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[D]

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[E]

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[F]

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[E]

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[A]

Welcome to the Off Menu podcast. Taking the creme of conversation, adding the sugar of friendship, and blowtorching with the flame of the Internet. Creme brulee podcast. Creme brulee.

[B]

That is it. Gamble. My name is James A. Caster. Together we own a dream restaurant. And every single week we invite in a guest and ask them a favorite. Ever start a main course, dessert, side dish and drink? Not in that order.

[A]

I just said creme, but for creme brulee. But it's more complicated than that. But, you know, I didn't want to take up too much time with that bit.

[B]

And this week, our guest is Nina Conti.

[A]

Nina Conti, what a wonderful comedian, ventriloquist.

[B]

Many more things besides one of the absolute greats. She occupies such a unique place on the comedy landscape, the Nina Conti place. And is. And it's just incredible. Like, she's so funny, so original, so inventive. We're very lucky to have her on the podcast.

[A]

Yes, absolutely, we are. And she is on tour. It's been extended into the autumn with Nina Conti, Whose Face Is It Anyway? And this, I think, involves a lot of, I mean, the brilliance of Nina Conti, of putting these masks on audience members, using them as her puppets, improvising by what they do with their bodies and their movements. It's absolutely incredible. It's always good.

[B]

Always good. One of the only people I've ever seen absolutely take the roof off of the tent at Latitudes, the comedy tent, which is notoriously hard to play. And you'll see horror stories. Well, there's been like, reports in newspapers of comedians walking off stage during that gig because it is a bit difficult.

[A]

And it's one of the nicest festival gigs.

[B]

It's one of the nicest festival gigs. Audiences often are really enjoying the comedy in that tent. But, you know, they're at a festival, they're lying down, they're not being that vocal about it, laughing that loud. They're just chilling out and watching the Comedy. It takes a really engaging comic that they can't just get completely drawn into to really make them laugh out loud. Especially to the point where everyone in that tent is losing it.

[A]

And let me tell you, that comic ain't me.

[B]

That comic ain't me. But it is Nina Conti.

[A]

Kids run around like stray dogs.

[B]

Yeah. Literally, the times I've done it, I'm just talking within my allotted time, and then I'm walking off. And Joe.

[A]

What?

[B]

I don't even bother slagging the gig off on stage. That's how much I'm not invested in it. I waited till I'm on a podcast years later.

[A]

But Nina's brilliant. This is the point.

[B]

Yes. Nina is absolutely fantastic. However, if Nina does pick the secret ingredient. Ingredient, which we have deemed to be unacceptable, we will be forced to kick her out of the dream restaurant. So this week, the secret ingredient is. Monkey Nuts.

[A]

Monkey Nuts. Monkey Nuts. Because, of course, probably the puppet that is most famous from Nina's repertoire is a monkey called Monkey.

[B]

A monkey called monkey, who I first saw in a Christopher Guest film. I think. I can't remember which Christopher Guest film it is, actually. I think maybe for your consideration, but there's a scene where Nina plays a. A weather person. She's in the weather report and just has the monkey with her. You just go, oh, I guess that's the thing. But I didn't know who she was. Didn't know that it was like, you know.

[A]

But you saw Nina as well in that, right?

[B]

Yeah, Nina's there.

[A]

She's like you said, I first saw Monkey in the Christopher Guest film, and I thought that's pretty harsh.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

If she's.

[B]

It's also where I first saw Nina.

[A]

She's done an audition tape, but monkey's been reading off camera, and they've gone, who's doing the reading lines? It's a monkey. Get the monkey in.

[B]

Let's get the monkey in for that part. Yeah, they're both in it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But I was like, it's weird that that person's got a monkey on their hand.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I think I'm gonna look into that person, see who it is. And discovered the comedy of Nina Conti.

[A]

Nina has also directed a film, her directorial debut, and written the film, co written with Shanoa Allen. It's called Sunlight, and it's done the festival. So keep an eye out for Sunlight.

[B]

Yeah. It's bound to be on a platform soon, and we're gonna talk to Nina about it, find out more.

[A]

Executive produced by Christopher Guest.

[B]

Really yes, Well, I think I know where they met.

[A]

This is the off menu menu of Nina Cont. Welcome, Nina, to the Dream Restaurant.

[D]

Thank you for having me.

[B]

Welcome, Nina Tonty, to the Dream Restaurant. We've been to you for some time.

[D]

Oh, wow. Exciting. Did you spill something? It sounded explosive.

[B]

Well, I did sound like I spilled something, didn't it? Yeah, yeah. What? What would be the worst thing I could have spilled just then? What would be the best thing?

[D]

Minestrone, but worse.

[B]

Yeah, that's bad because you've got bits in it.

[D]

Corn.

[B]

Fun to look at.

[A]

Fun to look at. And pretty fun to pick up and put back in a box and eat still. That's why when I go to the cinema, I tip my popcorn all over the floor. Cause I know the staff will really enjoy picking that up and eating it. And eating it. Yes.

[D]

It's really hard not to spill your popcorn in the cinema.

[A]

It is.

[D]

There's something large about that. There's no way to put it under your feet. I never feel very tense about where my feet and my popcorn are.

[B]

Yeah, well, there's nowhere else to put it.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

They should provide like overhead storage, like on trains, for you to put your pop. You put your popcorn in.

[A]

What about the people sat behind you?

[B]

Bad luck. What? Popcorn all over the floor. You can't have both.

[A]

So hang on to one or the other. Are you imagining above your head, wherever you're sitting?

[B]

Yeah, but like a net.

[D]

Yes, now you're talking.

[A]

A net.

[B]

Like a net shelf.

[D]

In fact, the whole cinema is hammocked.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

We're lying in hammocks and we have separate hammocks for popcorn.

[A]

Separate hammocks for the popcorn next to you. And then you can just reach over and. And pick out the popcorn. Are you thinking?

[D]

Yeah, yeah. On either side.

[A]

Or you could lie in a hammock and then just. They could come and pour the popcorn into the hammock with you and then you're just in a sort of big old hammock full of popcorn.

[B]

It would fall through the holes. But like, I think maybe if people were beneath you, that'd be nice. Because then they'd be. Get the rain with the popcorn above them.

[D]

This is like. We need acid. I think there's something. This is lovely, but it's a little tame. As hallucination. As hallucinations.

[B]

I've never done drugs. This is wild for me.

[D]

This is why I haven't done.

[A]

What should we add to the cinema?

[D]

I don't know. I was just thinking, I've got to kick this up a notch. What are we gonna do with this popcorn now? You know what I mean?

[B]

Surely you've done acid. Your shows are crazy. Look at that face you're putting on people. I know.

[D]

It's very like that. It's very like. It's like a dungeon or something. Yeah.

[B]

You must have been on acid to write that.

[D]

No, no. No, I haven't. Believe it or not, I'm scared. Scared. My dad told me when I was about 14 that he knew someone who curled into a ball and screamed for a year after taking acid. And it really went in. It went in. So it's obviously a lie now, looking back.

[A]

Gotta be a lie.

[B]

Gotta be.

[D]

It's a lie, dad. But there are those childhood lies that you don't. You don't unpick them until you're much older and go, hang on a minute.

[A]

You know that whole thing of. You get told if the wind changes, if you make a stupid face, the wind changes, you'll stay like that.

[D]

Exactly, yes.

[A]

My mum told me she went to school with someone who that happened to. That genuinely happened to. But I think my mum believed it, really. She said a girl came back after the summer break and her face, she'd been making a stupid face and her face had changed. Pretty sure it's like. Yeah, she was convinced by it. I was like, how old were you? She's like, 13, 14. I was like, you sure it wasn't a different girl? A different girl or just like the changes of life? She's got a different face.

[B]

I haven't seen him in a while. Got a haircut. Speaking of faces, whose face is it anyway?

[A]

Great length, man.

[B]

The fantastic show by nina Conti, autumn 2025 tour extension. That must mean it's been a popular show, Nina.

[D]

It's been very nice. Yes. It's been full.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

So we're doing more and I'm making it very compact. In October, I'm doing a lot of touring. I'm so sorry. I'm feeling really guilty. I shat on the popcorn Hammock dream, but I think it was tame.

[B]

You feel bad that you did that, do you? You were blocking an impulse.

[D]

I spotted it and I blocked.

[A]

Maybe we can add some shit to it.

[B]

Maybe.

[D]

So sorry.

[A]

You eat the popcorn, you shit it through the hammock.

[B]

Never shit through a hammock.

[D]

Oh, no.

[A]

Imagine, like, Play Doh Factory.

[B]

Play Doh Factory.

[D]

Oh, geez Louise.

[A]

Not tame enough for you?

[D]

Oh, God. I know.

[B]

Joe Lycett's back.

[D]

Yeah. Have you seen his back? Coming through it's like a chair or something.

[A]

It's a hammock, I think. Yeah, yeah, it is a hammock. He did that with. Yeah.

[B]

I got mistaken for Lysit again at the weekend by two apps. They were hammered. But it was like five in the afternoon. I went in a shop. They're absolutely trashed. They clocked me and they. Well, for one, they were calling me James Lancaster. And then they were like, so good. You're special. And eight out of ten Cats does Countdown. And I was like, what are you talking about? They don't do comedy spec. 8 out of 10 cats does countdown just do comedy specials? They were like, no, no, your special was on that. And one of them was Australian. He kept saying, look, cunt. It was, it was a good countdown. You read out the letters that you sent to the car parking guys. I was like, that's Joe Licey. No, no, no, that's not special. Yeah, it's not special. It was a segment that he did on it. They were furious that I wouldn't admit. They thought I was being. They said, stop being humble. Stop being humble and saying it wasn't you.

[D]

Wow.

[B]

But what we're talking about is your show, not Joe Lycett on 8 out of 10 cancelers. Countdown.

[D]

My show. I just did four in Scotland and I got to a point at the end of the one last night in. Oh God, it's so hard to remember where you've just been. I was in Aberdeen.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And I got to a point where I had people going like this. I can't remember how it started, but I'm just showing the listener these tweaky little birds my hands are making on either side. And they were all, all four people were going like this. And I was making them say, ducky, ducky, ducky, ducky, ducky, duck, ducky, ducky. And something flipped and suddenly I couldn't speak. And I have to apologize and say I've taken this somewhere too. Just so stupid that I can't speak. You've got me. I did it. I blew it. I blew the fuse.

[A]

There must be those moments now and again. Cause I get them and I'm just like up there just telling stories or whatever. But when you're doing that and you've got the audience involved with the mask, you must just be like, take a moment and go, how's it got to this?

[D]

What's happened now? I'm looking left and right going, what is happening in the universe in this little square? 12 foot square. It's really Odd, but it was delightful.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And coming out the train in Aberdeen and seeing the rain in the face in the back of the car parks and these sort of flyover roads that have pavements and then, then you get to the theater. I think I'm definitely in the right job because this theater feels like the best building to be in right now anywhere. You know, it's like cozy. The lights come on, you. Oh, thank goodness. Home. But then I made them do that.

[B]

Why did you make them do that?

[D]

Well, it happens without any planning and someone lifts their hand and I'm watching everyone like a hawk for something to go with. Somebody lifts a hand. Like, I don't know this. I suppose they were gesturing about my monkey or something. But I make him say, I have a duck and I have two and this one's happy and this one's sad and then it's just gone. And then other people start lifting their hands and they want to have their ducky duckies. And everyone's going, ducky ducky. I'm like, what sort of. What sort of blobby nonsense have I come up with here? How do we. How do we get home? How do we rise somewhere higher minded?

[B]

You met Blobby?

[D]

Never met Blobby. I'd be terrified.

[B]

I met Blobby.

[D]

Have you?

[A]

Yeah, I'd love to meet Blobby.

[B]

In and out of the suit. Out of the suit. Quite the thesp. Is it? Really talks quite loftily about Blobby.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Talks about Blobby in the.

[D]

In mask. Like the mask.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[B]

I guess you gotta do sometimes, you know.

[D]

Yes.

[B]

I've seen you. Your amazing documentary, her master's voice. When you're doing the ventriloquist dummies in the evening, when you've had a bit to drink. I don't think you know which is which, Nina.

[D]

Maybe not.

[B]

That was compelling stuff. There's a point when you push a dummy off your hand and you're like, you're horrible.

[A]

What you think, you think Blobby goes home, gets pissed, puts the head on.

[B]

Guys, where is he?

[D]

Is there a head? Is it a separate head?

[A]

Good question.

[D]

There's a one long.

[B]

Yeah. I didn't see him standing like that with a. Yeah, I just saw him completely out the costume or in the costume where he is full Blobby even in rehearsals for. For the panel show.

[D]

Wow.

[B]

And you cannot get him to do what he's told.

[D]

Just Blobby doesn't make a noise, does he?

[B]

He sounds blobby. Blobby Blobby.

[A]

Yeah, that's how we know he's called mister.

[D]

That's the guy in there is the one making the Blobby noise.

[B]

Nuts. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. He's going insane. I think it's him doing it.

[D]

Well, you actually didn't ask that question.

[B]

I should have asked that question, but I'm not. But you're, like, in the same biz as Blobby.

[D]

Yeah. Listen.

[B]

So you would have thought to ask that.

[D]

Is that okay to say that, James? That's not. No.

[A]

How does that make you feel when James said that? You're in the same business, Bobby.

[B]

It's been pretty similar. I can't.

[D]

Please.

[A]

You just said you were on stage shouting, ducky, ducky, ducky. I know that's not far away from Blobby. Blobby, Blobby.

[D]

That was the absolute nadir of my career.

[B]

Last time I saw you was a Christmas party, and I think I spent most of it reprimanding you for giving me the hardest gig of my life years ago.

[D]

I know. You want to go for it again one more time?

[A]

I'd love to hear this. Please.

[D]

I thought I didn't come out well as this story.

[B]

I think you'd come out well. I think it's just funny. I think it's a funny circumstances. When Nina and I did a New Material night, what we were told was a new Material night, we turned up and then we discovered while we were there, the comp air was on. Everyone was having a bad gig. There was about 20 acts on. And the comp air at one point spoke to someone in the front row who revealed how much they'd paid for their ticket. And Nina was next to me. And he went, what the fuck? That's loads. We can't all be going up there doing new stuff.

[A]

Oh, no.

[B]

And I was like, well, it's new material. We're not getting paid. And Nina was like, I don't feel good about this. And then I just saw her put the new puppet back in her bag and then bring out the monkey. And I was like, you're in trouble. I was like, nina, I'm on after you. What are you doing? Goes on. Just obliterates. Not just the venue. All of Soho was, like, in ruins after this gig. Like, absolutely. The audience's heads are spinning around and popping off. People can't believe how funny it is. It's literally the best. So, you know, Nina's, like, got, like a set with that monkey. That is some of the best comedy you'll ever see. Yeah, go on up that with my newest stuff.

[A]

Why didn't you pivot?

[B]

Because I didn't have anything like that.

[A]

Come on.

[B]

Even my old Martin, James, ready to eat apricots pure.

[D]

This is probably a note there to do the art. That's what you should do. That's why I think. I think he's more valiant in that story. Because you go on, you do your new stuff. That's how you create. You're a professional world going, but I.

[B]

Gave those people a good night.

[D]

Yeah, all right. I gave them.

[A]

James refuses to give people a good night.

[B]

Famously.

[D]

I think I probably didn't have new material. I probably was just thinking, you did have new material.

[B]

You had a bunch of puppets that were all new. They were all sitting at the back next to me while I was watching you looking at those guys going, have.

[A]

You ever had a new puppet to do, new material? And then it turns out it just doesn't work.

[D]

Yeah, I've never really had any other puppets than Monkey. I had a granny for a bit, and then I thought it was a man puppet, actually that put in a dress. But then I thought, I'll get an actual granny. And then I'll. I spent a lot of time and money designing this old lady. And then when she arrived, she had nothing to say. And I would look at her and think, say something, God damn it. Nothing. Just a sad, needy look like a dog that you have to leave in the house. And so I don't.

[A]

She's sitting there when you come back from gigs being like, did you have a good time? Did you have another good one? Did you? He's the fucking monkey again.

[D]

Terse. And just like this feeling of owing. And so I ended up just using Monkey, really. There's something so comfortable about that monkey. To me, it's the one. It's the one. It's got the. It's got the voice. I was gonna say I've definitely fallen to my. For my own illusion, but he's very easy, fits in a handbag. He's very straight looking face that you can project anything on. So I don't really. I have. I'll be really surprised if I use another puppet. It serves the purpose. I'm not a puppet guy. I'm not actually a monkey guy either.

[A]

Well, now this. This thing of putting the masks on the audience as well, I think when you hit on that, that must have been absolutely huge.

[D]

But that's lovely. And it just keeps generating new stuff. Yeah, I love that. And I've started making my own of those a bit. And then I've got somebody. I've got a better system now with 3D printing them and you can come up with a few more faces more quickly. So, yeah, it's different every time. And that's really a relief. It's lovely.

[B]

If Ed, myself and Benito were puppets, who do you think would be the most inspiring? If you looked at us to. And who would have the most to.

[D]

Say, well, Benito's the most inspiring in this situation. He hasn't got a mic and it's like, what would he. What would he say?

[A]

What's he thinking?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, he's thinking a lot of stuff.

[D]

I mean, you get capable with your own faces. I don't feel like the need to override what you've got. Yeah, you know.

[A]

You know, yeah. The silent producer is a. Is an intriguing character.

[D]

It's very intriguing. It's very, very.

[A]

He definitely hates our guts, I'll tell you that.

[B]

He hates our guts. If he was a puppet, he'd be slagging us off. Even though he's fucked up a lot this week, we always start with still. A sparkling water, Nina.

[D]

Oh, yes. I'm going to go sparkling belting stuff from the Highlands. Not this gentle Italian biz. Yeah, that really stuff that hurts.

[B]

You want stuff that scoria.

[A]

The roof of your mouth feels sparkly.

[D]

Strong bubbles, spiky bubbles. Yeah.

[B]

How ferocious do you want the bubbles?

[D]

Like, as ferocious as it gets.

[B]

Yeah, you want to feel it?

[A]

Well, this is the dream restaurant, so we can take it dangerously ferocious if you want.

[D]

Yes, go for it.

[A]

It's really going to be painful, though. Yeah, it's going to be like a big cup of pins.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like they're moving really fast.

[D]

Okay, let's go for it. It's instantly hurts.

[B]

Wow, you're tough, man.

[A]

Yeah, you're so tough.

[B]

How long you been tough for?

[D]

Yeah, 10 minutes.

[A]

Yeah, 10 minutes toughness.

[D]

10 minutes toughness. Tap. Do you get a lot of tap?

[B]

Some people do specify tap and it's because where they grew up or where they live has very good tap water and they're very proud of it.

[A]

No, I also think it's people who want to seem down to earth during an interview. Yeah, yeah. They're like, oh, no, I just have tap. You look at them and you're like, you ain't having tap.

[B]

Yeah. No way.

[A]

You'd throw tap back in your assistant's.

[D]

Face in a restaurant. I actually often do go tap when they say still or sparkling. But then you feel guilty. It's like, oh, okay. Tap Luddite.

[A]

I don't think you should feel guilty. I think they set it up so you have to ask for tap. So, yes, when they go, do you want still or sparkling water? You have to make that step and say tap to get it for free.

[D]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

All they're doing is trying to get more money out.

[D]

Yeah. It's true.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And you should say all that to them. Yeah, yeah. You go, I know what you're doing.

[D]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Be like, I know what this is.

[D]

Yes.

[A]

Bring me sparkling water. That's painful.

[B]

Let's start as we mean to go on here and be honest with each other and open and have you try and just pull the wool out bars and trick me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, sometimes it's other way around. Yesterday I had a whole thing with my. The Shop around the Corner for me. Always trying to get me to have a loyalty card.

[D]

Oh.

[B]

And I'm always like, no, I don't want one.

[A]

What do you mean always? Do they know it's you every time or do they offer it as a new.

[B]

I know it's me every time. They always offer me a lot of cardigan. Once up, once I had it and I lost it within a week. And I was like, I'm not bothering with this. And. And yesterday she was like, come on, just you in here all the time, just get a loyalty card.

[A]

She's got a point.

[B]

I was like, I'm not having one. I don't. I'll lose it. It'll become a whole thing for me where I've got to remember to have it. It'll become a stress in my life. I don't need. And I'm trying to say to her, I'm loaded without saying it. And I try to say, look, eventually I had to go, look, look, I promise you, I'm gonna come in here just as much as I do anyway, either way. So you're either gonna get more or less money.

[A]

What sort of shop is it?

[B]

Just a nice shop. I get. Go and get my. My fruits and vegetables. Go get my smoked salmon. Go and get my kombucha.

[D]

Oh, it's that you can get a loyalty card in a shop like that.

[A]

They know. Because you're going in to get your kombuchas and smoked salmon from a shop regularly.

[B]

Yes.

[D]

I feel like if I had managed to fill up a whole thing of stamps and then I got a free coffee.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Would it be enough? No, I don't know if it would feel enough.

[A]

What would you want instead?

[D]

Much More. I'd want all kinds. I don't know. I'd want a holiday.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I bought 10 coffees and now I'm claiming my holiday.

[D]

Fill this up. Up. Do you know what it took to remember that and bring it? And this coffee is not the big enough reward, I would say.

[B]

If it was a holiday to Aberdeen, would that be a good enough holiday?

[D]

Although I did have a holiday in a car park in Selkirk during lockdown. That was really. That was a big, big error. I fell for the photographs on the Airbnb, which were a country mansion with rolling hills, and they were nearby, but they weren't part of the bloody place. It was in a car park. I'm not joking.

[A]

So on the photos, it was like. It was just photos of the local scenery rather than the view from the window.

[D]

So I find that kind of thing painful. I found booking painful and I don't read the small print. I just think, oh, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna go. If I don't just book it. Shall I just book it? She has a book and then go. And then suffer.

[A]

Power park.

[D]

Terrible at that. Yeah.

[B]

See, in my head, you were in a car as well. You were sleeping in your car. Yeah. On the holiday. In the car.

[D]

Oh, yeah. In the car.

[B]

That's what I thought when you said that. I thought, oh, my God, it's the most depressive thing I've ever heard. But you were in a house in the car park.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

My head around how that works.

[D]

I think somebody had a garage and they turned it into a sort of a lofty barn sort of thing. But it wasn't really. It was probably still out there.

[B]

Were you in the little box with the arm that goes up and down and lets people in and out? Was that where you were sleeping?

[A]

I'd like to sleep in one of those.

[B]

In a little toll booth.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

In a toll booth? Yeah. Upright on the arm, up and down all night, please.

[A]

Sliding all the way down and then sliding back to the middle.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

If you worked in a toll booth, would you, like, duck down below the table and do the monkey?

[D]

Yes. Thank God. Then I wouldn't have to be there. It would be laughing and apologizing for everything he says. Just them.

[A]

Now the monkeys come back up. I'd really like to talk about your film, actually. Tell us a little bit about Sunlight, your. Your directorial debut.

[D]

Yes, I know. It was. It was a real pleasure to do. It's been since I began working on that. Seven years, believe it or not. I cannot believe how long it takes to make a film. But that's a love story between a man and a woman who doesn't want to come out of a monkey suit, which is me.

[A]

Yes.

[D]

And that. That really is me, I think, in the world. And so deciding that you, whatever you had, doctored yourself as the way to present in life isn't right. Not really what you want, but you're stuck in it. And then you. And you don't make good decisions because you're not a good ambassador for yourself. And then you get a monkey and you're hidden in it and you just. You don't have to be a woman or anything, and you can just start from scratch. That was kind of the premise and that's what I kind of did on stage. I got a monkey built by the woman who made Chewbacca. And I really, really loved being in it, but it was very stuffy and I couldn't breathe. But it definitely was my happy place because I couldn't. I don't know. It was very freeing. And I did an hour of stand up in that monkey straight out the gate without a plan. New material, James.

[B]

Yeah. Wow. Where was I not going on next to that gig?

[A]

Nina let me borrow the monkey costume for my bit as well.

[D]

But I was working with Shannoa Allen of the Pajama Men and we were doing little gigs together and I was sort of falling in love with him from inside this monkey suit. And I thought, this is a weird seduction, but it might just work, you know, maybe I can. Maybe I can pull this off. And. Yeah, sorry.

[B]

Anyway, do you still love him if you're not in the suit?

[D]

I do, very much. Yeah. Yeah. I came out.

[A]

But he has to be in the suit.

[B]

He has to then be in the suit.

[A]

Yeah. Someone's gonna have the suit on.

[D]

Suit just lie next to us. But I really enjoyed making it. I went to New Mexico. Felt like proper American road trip movie. And, yeah, I loved doing that. It was great.

[B]

Shinoah's a little pervert.

[A]

Oh, yes. I remember this. Go on, please.

[D]

This.

[B]

He walked at Glastonbury Festival. My girlfriend and I were in our caravan sleeping on top of the. It's so hot. It's boiling hot. So we were sleeping on top of the bed, just in our underwear. Chenoa just walked in out of nowhere.

[D]

Oh, no. He only missed his caravan.

[B]

He got the wrong caravan. He reversed out of there. He was very. It was extremely British, actually, in that moment, he was like, oh, I'm sorry. And I was like, didn't you immediately.

[A]

Shout that he was a pervert.

[B]

Yeah. I said, get out of here, you dirty little pervert. I'll slap you silly. That's Home Alone. That's from Home Alone.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Pop Lobs on bread. Pop Dumbs or bread. Nina Kunzee.

[D]

Popdoms or bread, Papa Doms or bread, you say?

[B]

Yes, just a bit.

[D]

You did just a bit say that. I would like poppadoms, please.

[A]

Lovely, lovely choice. Why, the poppadoms are. Yep.

[D]

Thin sauces. Fun sauces.

[A]

You can have all the sauces. Take us through the fun sauces.

[D]

I wasn't expecting that. Crusher was a curveball. Wow. Yeah, Poppadoms. I like those little poppadoms in a bag of crisps, kind of. They're not in with the crisps. They are the crisps. And I would have them at the Royal Shakespeare Company. I was there, darling. And the Dirty Duck Pub. After the show, they would sell those. I'd have them with my old friend Annie.

[B]

Do you want those for your dream menu? Then we'll get from the Dirty Duck Pub.

[A]

From the Dirty Duck.

[B]

Little packet of Popper Doms.

[D]

Packet of Popper Doms.

[B]

The mini ones.

[A]

People have a certain idea about Shakespeare and the rsc, the sort of. How highfalutin the whole thing is. I think people might be surprised to hear that you're off to the Dirty Duck for a bag of Popper Doms.

[D]

It's all about sort of shagging out there. I think it was. It was a bit like a summer camp or something.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

You know. But then what's it. I was going to really slag it off, but I was scared. What if I want to go back? But it was. I don't want to go.

[B]

Come on, slug it off. There. Listen to this.

[D]

It was just.

[A]

What do you think Shakespeare's gonna hear?

[B]

Shakespeare. I'm gonna hear it.

[D]

I like Shakespeare. Shakespeare would roll over in his grave if he knew how bad some of those shows were.

[B]

Well, there we go. So you leapt over the line that you were scared of approaching a minute.

[D]

There's curiosity about it and there's a. He's sort of got to behave there and all of this. But it's actually kind of a theme park, I think, when they're doing it all the time. And maybe there have been good ones. I'm talking about a long time ago. I was there in 2000. It was a long time ago. And it felt like everybody was pretending. I don't know. I just couldn't feel. I couldn't believe in any of it. But maybe I was just very sour grapes. I didn't have any lines and I was in a very tight dress and I had to not. But I had to not laugh or anything. I had to hold my hands in a clasp like that, you know, the chest bone, and pretend to take an unnatural interest in what the speaking characters were saying.

[A]

Was that your first puppet? Just the hands in front not saying anything?

[D]

The hands holding onto each other? Well, I would dig my nails in because I would get the giggles. Cause it was serious and I wasn't allowed and you had to behave well. You got told off all the time. I got sent to the voice department and stuff.

[A]

The voice department?

[B]

Yeah. Why is it for the voice department?

[D]

On day one in the Swan Theatre, we walked around and we had to say, I'm wonderful. And I can't tell you how unhappy that made me, quite rightly. And some people, these drama exercises, I think they do have their point because they get you out of yourself or something. But that really. That really broke me, that why I'm wonderful in a big voice. I felt so silly.

[B]

Yes.

[D]

But maybe now I actually, looking back, I think I was a very. I hadn't bloomed at all. I was a very tense person. And so I would say everything was stupid because I didn't want to take the risk of looking stupid.

[A]

Yes.

[D]

So actually, in retrospect, I go, go for it then. See if you can walk around the theater saying, I'm wonderful properly and sonorously, then you. Maybe you do belong here.

[A]

Can you do it now?

[D]

No.

[A]

No.

[B]

I think. I think that's one of the. Or maybe the biggest difference between comedians and actors is that I think to be an actor you really have to not give a shit about looking silly and being embarrassed and just. Just go for it. And comedians, we think everything is stupid. We don't want to do it. We feel really stupid doing that stuff.

[A]

Looking silly should be our job.

[B]

It should be our job. But actually we are very. Could we all very controlled and just the way that we like it. We don't want to do the stuff that feels. Feels stupid.

[D]

No. We don't want to do and say someone else's lines and do all of that. I know I would find it really hard going back to acting. Even if I had to go walk over there and pick up a cup.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

On the way, I'd be feeling like a fraud. Yeah.

[A]

I've never picked up a cup before.

[D]

Surely they know I'm not really going to pick up this cup.

[B]

What Was the play, what was the Shakespeare play?

[D]

I was in as yous like it and I was in Comedy of Errors and I was in a very long George Bernard Shaw play called Back to Methuselah. As yous Like. It was really the big challenge. That was the big challenge where I was really set dressing and standing in that dress. It was very difficult. So I got out of there. That's when I went to comedy was I got out of there. Yeah, I became a ventriloquist short ring the time I was there.

[A]

I had to do a school play once where I played a waiter who didn't have any lines. Cause it was like a cafe in the background of the whole play. And they were like, just come out now and again and sweep. Sweep the road. I swept that road every 30 seconds. I'd say, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like just, you know, in charge of the cafe, I'd pop out, sweep. They were like, just do it whenever you want. But like, you know, you just sweep in the road. That road was squeaky clean.

[B]

Should I be sweeping the road as the genie waiter?

[A]

Well, maybe you should. Actually.

[B]

I'm supposed to be sweeping the road. I didn't know that was one of my duties.

[G]

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Can't I just let it go?

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[B]

Let'S start with your Dream Starter.

[D]

My dream Dream Starter is a pistachio nut tree.

[B]

What tree?

[D]

Yeah, and you eat it. The pistachios off the tree because they're very different on the tree. They're beautiful. They're pink, these lovely little pink buds. And the tree is a very beautiful tree and it smells amazing. I only met one for the first time last year and I was in love with this tree thinking that's a probably the loveliest tree I've ever seen and I didn't know what it was. But on that leaf app thing where it tells you what it is, no phone's do it anyway. It told me you take a picture and then it's like, Shazam's the tree. And pistachio came up and that was so exciting. I was like, oh, my God, those little pink butts are pistachios. And then you can open them and they're pink and they're sort of fruity and they taste amazing.

[B]

Wow.

[D]

That was in Greece.

[B]

I didn't know any of what you've just said existed until you just said it. I didn't know pistachio trees were a thing. I didn't know Shazam. A tree like this is incredible.

[D]

Yeah, it's really, really lovely. I know. We always think of them as those open guys in bowls, and they're salty and they're colorless. These were really pink.

[B]

And are they still in shells? Are there still shells?

[D]

It was a shell. You had to kind of. You bite through that with your teeth.

[A]

Obviously they're not as open. Is that when you take them off and you dry them? Maybe.

[D]

I'm trying to remember. I think some of them were maybe a open, but definitely I remember biting it open. You bit. It's crazy. Yeah.

[B]

Your dentist would tell you off for that.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Right. Molars. Yeah, it works.

[B]

Did your dentist listen to this podcast?

[D]

I haven't been in a while.

[B]

Oh, mine does.

[A]

Obviously.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What you got to know about James is when he's not recording this podcast, he lives in an animated world in a small village, like in a sort of Fireman Sam.

[D]

Oh, lovely. Yes.

[A]

Where he knows his dentist. He knows his dentist with his full name. You know his doctor's full name.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

And how long you been going to this dentist?

[B]

Quite a while. Since 2018.

[D]

I'd say, no.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that is when I moved to that flat. And then I just carried on going to. Even when I moved out, kind of seeing the same dentist.

[D]

Because seven years that. That you've been seeing this dentist. Have you seen him more than once a year?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I go quite a bit to the dentist and the dental hygienist, and then I'll see them in the corridor. My dentist just seeing the hygienist, he'll say, listen to our episode the other day. And then as soon as he says that, I'm like, what food did I say I eat in that episode? Oh, no. Did I speak loads about sweets again? Is he gonna. I mean, probably in the bad books.

[A]

James is very obsessive about things like that. So James goes to the dentist every day to have his teeth brushed.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Me again.

[B]

Because you're Ventriloquist. When you're at the dentist and they're in your mouth, I can.

[D]

Yeah, I can still talk.

[B]

Wow.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

That's great. Do you do that? I know you haven't been in a while.

[A]

Do you do them saying what great teeth you have?

[B]

Yeah. Oh, Nando, your teeth are so.

[A]

You don't need to come back for five years.

[D]

Yeah, it's. It's the. The very back of your mouth. You're using the. The back of your tongue and the soft palate to form substitute lips at the back and.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[D]

That's where you do plosives. Now that we're explosive written all over the wall behind you. Yeah, that's how you form plosives.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[D]

Tongue into the soft palate. And so that's got really not anything to do with the front of your mouth. So that can be open and things can be in. And you can still say Peter Piper and all that if you want to.

[A]

Not a huge fan of the phrase substitute lips.

[B]

No, no, no.

[A]

But I just. When something just scratches the wrong itch.

[B]

Yes. It doesn't sound nice. Yeah, yeah. Sounds pretty horrible.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

As well as. What have you said? Humping your tongue against the back of your palate?

[D]

Humping's nasty. Substitute lips is nasty.

[B]

I've lowered the tone, but I would, if I was you. I'd be talking all the time during the dentist. I absolutely love it.

[D]

Well, you have.

[B]

Especially last time I was there. Like when I went in is the hygienist and the assistant just said hello to me. No small talk beforehand. As soon as they're in my mouth, they start saying to each other, so, who do you think is going to win? Traitors. And I was like, are you fucking kidding me? I can't get. So I was having to, like, put my. Like, one of them said, to be fair to her, she said, the person who did end up winning. But I disagreed at the time. I put my hand in the air and I wagged my finger while they were in my mouth and they were like, you don't agree, I thought.

[A]

But you left the dentist there for your loyalty card.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I take that one up there every morning. A pistachio tree. Sounds amazing.

[A]

We haven't had this join it growing out of the middle of the table in the dream restaurant, you say. We say it's time for your starter and the tree grows. Grows in front of you.

[D]

Yes, if it's. If it can be sped along a bit.

[A]

Oh, yeah. No, no, I don't mean growing in real time.

[D]

Okay. Yeah.

[B]

Otherwise you. It's quite a long start. It's actually the most. The meal, if you're waiting for it to grow in real time.

[D]

Yes. A very long time.

[A]

Most of the meal. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. We don't know what the rest of it is. Yeah, yeah. Could be stuff that takes even longer.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Yes. They can roll it out. Roll it out with this big, big clump of earth.

[B]

How big is it?

[D]

I think it's on a par with another tree. Roan tree, maybe. Of a football goal.

[B]

A football goal.

[A]

Thanks for speaking our language. You took one look at us and you went, we're gonna have to make this about football for these lads.

[D]

Hang on a minute. I think the. The four of us could make about the size of a pistachio tree on our shoulders. With all the trunk on your shoulders. And we reach our hands out.

[B]

You're the trunk.

[D]

Nice.

[A]

And we should do that one day.

[D]

We'll do that one day.

[B]

And we're like acrobats on Ed's shoulders. All come out at different angles.

[D]

Yeah. And with our fingers splayed and everything. Extremities out. And that each is a bunch of pink pistachio nuts.

[B]

Your dream main course.

[D]

My dream main course. Gosh, this is a dream. I should have dreamt bigger because this is something that I can have any time. But my dad makes a spaghetti pomodoro, which is very nice, with fresh tomatoes, and it comes from his father. It's Italy. It's my Italian connection, which I tried to make the most of. I never met anyone Italian in my family. They all died. But this is a connection, this dish. And I made a video of him making it with the monkey. And he put up with it very sweetly and made the whole spaghetti with the monkey being facetious. So it's that. And you don't put the garlic in it. You don't eat the garlic, but you flavor the oil with the garlic. Good. Olive oil, fresh tomatoes, and very al dente pasta, which he has a weird thing. He doesn't use a colander. He takes a pinch, a pincer thing. Takes them out and sort of waggles them around a bit and then into the plate.

[B]

Nice. I like that.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

Is that to keep some of the water?

[D]

Yeah. It's not too drying? Yeah.

[A]

This does sound absolutely delicious.

[B]

That does sound good.

[A]

Classic.

[D]

It's quite simple. No cheese, little bit of chilli, a little bit of arrabiata, a little bit angry. That means if you're a little bit angry.

[A]

But is that what That I don't think I ever knew what that means.

[B]

Is that what it means, Arabiata?

[D]

That's what he told me.

[A]

But he's an actor as well.

[D]

He could have been lying. I don't trust him with the acid story.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. He did tell you about who screamed for a year.

[A]

Yeah, that man was very Arabiato.

[B]

And you. It's just your whole life you've had this. Your dad's been making this.

[D]

I guess so. Yeah, I think so. And then I went to. He told me that the tomatoes are the best. If you go to the Amalfi coast, that's where you get the tomatoes the most lovely. And I went there this year and had it there and it was lovely.

[B]

So maybe the man did scream for a year.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Yeah, maybe he did. Maybe still screaming.

[A]

Oh, no.

[B]

Oh, so you think it was a year when your dad told you.

[D]

Yeah, it was only a year then.

[B]

It was a year in.

[D]

Yeah, it was a year in.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

He hasn't unbold either. He's still.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Terrible for your back, that.

[B]

Awful. I mean. Yeah, he's fucked us. If he's still doing it. He's never getting out of that position. He's always going to be a little ball, maybe.

[D]

My dad was on acid when he told me that.

[B]

Yeah, that's true. It could have been when he.

[A]

Yeah, look, that man is just over there screaming.

[B]

Yeah. The past was very weird that day. All over the place. Used to call him. That's how you knew.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That guy must be on us. He's tripping balls. You said that you put up with the monkey. What does your dad think of all your. Your comedy and your shows?

[D]

I think he's sort of astounded that I would be a ventriloquist. As am I. I don't know how it's happened. It's a very strange thing to say. You are. It's not something I've been a fan of or anything. He's astounded and. I don't know, I think he's a little frightened maybe of what that monkey can say that it might be angry or maybe that I'm not okay. Is everything okay? Why is he so foul to you? That sort of thing?

[B]

Oh, that's what he says.

[D]

Yes. And I don't think of the monkey as foul. Everybody says he's a rude monkey and everything, but I don't know if he is really. I think he's kind of all right. Seems normal to me.

[B]

Yeah, I don't know.

[D]

He's the best Part of myself. That line from Tootsie.

[A]

It would be weird if the monkey was just like completely normal and agreeable though, right?

[D]

He is.

[A]

As in he's not, you know, he is rude.

[D]

He's deliberately rude.

[A]

That wouldn't. It wouldn't be a show if you had a monkey puppet who was just normal and agreed with you.

[D]

No, he's just honest. He's not out to be rude. I mean, I guess my honest self might be rude, but I consider it sort of straight talking, quite yogic, quite calm. He's got a steady and just says things quite honestly. Unlike me. I'm like fretting around at his side, but I don't think of him as rude. I think of him as steady.

[B]

Then what's like. I swear that there's bits in it where, like, if I'm thinking about the 10 minute golden. All the hits set that you did at the new material night. There's plenty of lines in that where you say something and the monkeys like fires back at you with a little, you know, with a digit.

[D]

Yes. I mean, he's. All the time call me a slut and a. Yeah.

[B]

Some people would say that's rude.

[D]

Some people would. I can't get enough of it for some reason. I. I don't know. I think I find it.

[A]

Yeah. I don't think. I couldn't say that and then start saying, I'm being yogic, guys. I'm.

[B]

I'm being yogic, you budget sluts.

[D]

It's funny.

[A]

I've been steady.

[D]

I'll never not find it funny. And calling me a sleep. I don't know why that. What does that mean? That I find that so funny. And then if I say don't tell us, call me. That hasn't aged well, you know, we'll just say it again and it got just some reason.

[A]

Well, that is funny. Monkey. Monkey. Calling you a slight is funny.

[B]

Yeah. As long as you know. As long as we know it's actually you doing it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

As long as we know it's me doing it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. If that was you and Shinoah and Shadowa said that on St, I'd be like. Like I got used to.

[D]

It's a bit much.

[B]

Yeah, well, that's not. That's not funny coming from a perv. Yeah, yeah. That's rich coming from. You should know. He look perv. But like, that's part of the thing, isn't it? Is that we know it. We know it's you.

[D]

Yes.

[B]

But also we're not sure that you know it's you. Nor am I as the audience. We're like, does she know that's her?

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Because that comment from the monkey seemed to have genuinely caught her off guard just then.

[D]

Yeah. And it's true. And I've leant into that as much as possible, so I have let control go. I would like to encourage madness and, you know, split personality with that monkey. I try not to get in the way. I look at him and I try to have nothing to do with what comes out his mouth. So I wonder if I've grown little separate neural pathways that are slightly different from my own over time. I hope I have. I have to go on a brain scan and see what happens when he's talking or when I'm talking. It'd be really fun to see a different bit. Like tough. I hope so. Been working at it for ages.

[B]

I think severance.

[A]

You think it's like severance?

[D]

Severance, yeah.

[B]

It's like severance, I think. Yeah. He's your any work self and you're the outie.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

And you're on stage together and you don't know that it's both you.

[D]

No, I have to look at him as well for it to work, actually. I have to look at the face to proper, properly engage the severance. Because then it seems to talk to me. And during a bad gig, I look at it and it seems to look at me like, this is not good, Nina, You've let me down.

[A]

I say, he takes responsibility for the bad.

[D]

No, he looks at me blankly like, nah, wasn't this not okay, Nina? They don't like you and I'm here having to put up with this.

[A]

Quite a toxic double act, really.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Just like us.

[A]

Yeah, it's true.

[D]

But then sometimes he's a real friend, like in with the French. The Paris food gig I did where everybody's standing up and they're taking little morsels off trays and people. And there was music playing and it was a. I shouldn't have done, but I thought Paris would be nice. And they weren't listening. It was just a lady on stage with a teddy trying to hold herself together and they were all chatting and I looked at Monkey and, oh, my God, I could have hugged him. It's just like the only friend in the world. We were in it together and I looked at him, really, I wanted to just hug him and leave.

[B]

As this is a food podcast. Do you remember any of the food at the food gig that you did and was.

[D]

I'm afraid I don't remember.

[B]

I just remember the monkey.

[D]

I had a nap under the table before. I went on feeling really bleak. It was a tough one.

[A]

It was a tough one because they were all going as. That lady was napping under the table.

[D]

Just now with her puppet.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Are you kidding me?

[A]

She thought, he's the crazy lady.

[B]

I kicked her earlier. Did I talk too much?

[A]

Can't I just let it go?

[E]

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[D]

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[B]

Your dream side dish.

[D]

God, I haven't made these fun enough. These are all real. I was in New York recently.

[A]

We started with a pistachio tree. I don't want you to worry about your menu. This is fantastic. We've had a lovely pistachio tree, a beautiful dish that reminds you of your dad. And he used to cook it and still cooks it with the monkey. We've got all of these.

[B]

Thank you.

[D]

Thank you.

[B]

We've got Shakespearean popper Doms. It's great.

[D]

Okay, Great. Great. Well, this is broccoli rabe.

[B]

Oh, yes.

[D]

R A, A B. And it's from Little Italy in New York. And when I was doing shows there last year, there's an Italian delicatessen which I think is called the Paolo. I hope it is. And it was on the corner. And you have to go that early. They're a little bit rude to you. You have to stand in a special place to the queue. You don't walk up to the counter because they're not like that. And you have to wait. They shout at you to wait and then you go. But you have to go early in the morning or the rub will be gone.

[A]

Right.

[D]

And it's freshly made. And so. And then you go up and you talk to them and they do explain a lot about the food. You realize it's kind of a show and that's why you had to wait your turn. You can't interrupt the show. And that was really lovely. And I had that most days.

[A]

That does sound delicious. And I'm still not totally sure I've seen it on TV shows. I'VE seen people talk about it.

[D]

I had to buy it.

[A]

I don't know what it is, really.

[D]

I don't know how it is.

[B]

Is it quite bitter?

[D]

It's a tiny bit bitter, yeah. And it's much thinner, stringier than broccoli.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

But it's softer. It's so delicious. Yeah. A little bit bitter also.

[A]

Cause I think I've only ever heard Americans say broccoli rabe. So I didn't know it was actually called broccoli rub. I thought they were saying Broccoli Rob.

[B]

Yeah, I thought that because the first place I heard it was the American office where Andy Bernard's character has a friend called Broccoli Rob. But the way he says it, I thought he's saying. Because it's a person, he's talking about Broccoli Rob. His name was called. His name was Broccoli Rob. And. Oh, that's. And because they never. You never see that character. It's a friend of his from college who he talked about who he was in an acapella group with, and he gets mentioned a few times. And you're like, well, I guess it's a guy called Rob who liked broccoli.

[A]

Or he has got big sort of puffy hair.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Like broccoli. Yeah.

[B]

He could have had puffy hair like broccoli. So, like, you don't know any of that. And then actually, when I learned it was broccoli rabb, I was like, so hold on. What the. That character's named after an entire dish. That was even more questions for me.

[D]

Yeah. Rob sounds easier to say because Rob, you get lost in that vowel. That's a shame, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Don't take acid and try and say Rob. You'll be saying it for a year.

[D]

Eating Rob in a song, tops. I don't like a double A. Really?

[A]

No. I lose.

[D]

Lose the will to live before the end.

[A]

Well, how did they prepare this broccoli rabe?

[D]

I didn't see that. I imagined it was a slow saute or a saute. That's another difficult one. Sauteed rabe. Yeah. I think that they. It's very oily, and there's a lot of garlic in it. It you do eat. It was delicious. That's on the side.

[B]

And I gotta ask as well, because you said these men were rude. The. The staff are rude to you. Now, earlier you said the monkey wasn't rude, and we know what the monkey says. So how bad must these people have been? What were they calling you?

[D]

Yeah, I think I got just shouted at quite sternly to get in the queue because I went to the counter and they didn't want me there at all. Yeah, back in the queue. But it was. I don't know, it's Italian. It's kind of charming road, you know.

[A]

It'S part of the experience.

[D]

It's not so bad.

[A]

Ye.

[D]

Yeah. Over there, it's not so bad.

[A]

I, like. I get a real kick out of doing things right and following the rules, so I'd be. The first time I went and I'm told off for going to the counter, I'd be gutted and I'd have to build up the bravery to go back. Really, the courage I did.

[D]

It took a lot.

[A]

But then when I go back and do the right thing straight away, I'd love it. And I'd love it if someone else was there for the first time and they messed up.

[D]

I'm not exactly what happened.

[A]

How do you not know this?

[D]

Yeah, they're gonna get it.

[B]

Oh, yeah. When I first started, you know, doing gigs in London, little boy from Kevin, I'd stand on the wrong side of the escalator, get bollocked. Now, if I am about to go up the escalator and I see someone standing on the wrong side, I'm like, here we go.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Oh, rubbing my hands together.

[D]

Strapping.

[B]

Well, I don't even want to walk up that side, but I'm doing it. I can't wait.

[A]

It's a family with small kids.

[B]

Yeah. Excuse me, can you and your stupid fucking kids move out the way, please? Absolutely brilliant. And then they. They always move, muttering, Our people in London are so rude. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You. You stand on that side of the escalator. It's written everywhere, you idiot. I love it.

[D]

Do you cause trouble in the public?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

Do you just say off to people?

[B]

No, no, no, no. I'm actually very nice. I'm very polite. And I said, excuse me. But I think. I think. I think almost I do it in a way that's even worse.

[D]

You have to, because you're famous, though. If you weren't, do you think you would let it out a bit?

[B]

No, no, no, no. I've never. I've always tried to be as nice as possible, but they can tell. They can see it in my eyes now. I'm like, oh, excuse me. They're like, that guy, he thinks my kids are idiots. Yeah, yeah, fair enough. Fair cop. I dream drink.

[D]

I've stopped drinking for three years, but dream drink. I can have wine I could have white wine. I could have pouy foume cold.

[A]

Beautiful.

[D]

Oh, it's been ages. I could have a chili margarita. I could have everything again. I could get it all back. I could have a tequila.

[A]

Yes, you could.

[D]

Oh, can I? Yeah. It's been so long. Three years. Wow. And I'm not going back to it because life is way better.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

But, you know, obviously I still love it. And a pint of lager with my poppadon crisps. Oh, my God.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

You know, yeah, I get. I could get really hammered on my deathbed, but I have to wait because I'm getting so much more done. I'm sleeping well. Managed to make a film. I would never have made that. That would have been a dream dinner if I hadn't stopped drinking. But now it's a real dinner. That film.

[A]

That's huge, isn't it? To say you wouldn't have made the film.

[D]

Yeah, I don't think I would. You would have such long evenings without booze in them. I mean, the evening, it's a whole work day. You can do. You can send all the emails and make the film happen. You can fund a film if you're not getting drunk. And that was. I look back on that with great relief.

[A]

That's very motivating as well.

[B]

Yeah, that's great to hear. Because, like, yeah. I mean, I'm trying to stop at the minute.

[D]

Are you?

[B]

I've done three weeks so far.

[D]

Oh, well done.

[B]

But, like, yeah, that's what I do. Feel better. But then also, like, I'm definitely at that point where I'm just like, I'll think of a drink that I like. I'll be like, oh, my God. Yeah, that tastes so good.

[D]

Yeah, it tastes so good.

[A]

I'm not drinking a huge amount at the moment. I am having, you know, nights at home where I'm not drinking and the evenings are definitely longer, but I just don't do anything. It's also really easy. Just watch a bit of telly.

[B]

Yeah, he loves watching telly.

[D]

You're right. I panic. I get panic attacks watching telly or starting a long show that's a box set or something. Oh, my God. I really feel like my life is.

[A]

Oh, I love it.

[D]

Ebbing away.

[A]

Yeah. I hung a wash up last night. I'm so proud of myself.

[D]

What took me four minutes on?

[A]

No, I paused the tv, Went and hung it up. Put podcast on while I did the washing. Yeah. Because I was like, I'm gonna hang this washer up, but I need Something going on in the background. I need something going on.

[B]

He needs something going on.

[A]

So I hit play and I was like, this would be good. I'll listen to a podcast while I do this. And I'd really built up to doing this one chore.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

So in my head, I think I thought it was going to take maybe two, three hours long.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

So I hit the podcast. I hung the washing up. It was two and a half minutes. It took me because I paused the.

[D]

Podcast again so fast. No, it's a great. That's a great tip. That's a life hack.

[A]

So, yeah, had a busy night last night. Yeah.

[D]

This guy, I can do. I can just about do television if I've got. Got a jigsaw. I was gonna say who am I? But I did have a jigsaw. I put a jigsaw out at Christmas and the cat shat in it and they treated it like a litter box. And then I didn't know it was like in there. Wasn't that film with Richard Dreyfus, that one that Spielberg made ages ago, Close.

[B]

Encounters of the First Guy? Close Encounters of the First Guy.

[D]

Why that's coming up in my head. But the jigsaw had turned into these sort of pyramids.

[B]

Yeah. Like he sculpts with the mashed potato.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

I thought that. Well, he's really done something there with jigsaw, but I'm really scared to done a shit in it to touch those pyramids. Yeah, it was bad. It was bad what he'd done. So I don't know. You have to do jigsaws very quick at my house or that will happen.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What if you looked at the shit and you realized that when he had, like, put it all together in that pyramid, he's actually done the jigsaw.

[D]

Yeah, that would be really wonderful.

[B]

He's actually put all the pieces together and made it a 3D little jigsaw.

[D]

Yeah, it was amazing.

[B]

But he did.

[D]

Yeah, he did create a landscape from it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Well, I'm sorry to hear that. That is pretty bad that that happened. What was the jigsaw of? What was the picture?

[D]

The jigsaw was Moomins.

[B]

The. The finished cartoon.

[D]

Yeah, the finished cartoon. Yeah.

[A]

I love that. Don't know why. I think whatever it was specifically would have made me laugh, but Moomins particularly.

[B]

Yeah, it's funny. Do you like the Moomins?

[D]

Like them well enough. Yeah. My son's friend is Finnish and that. That's why that was there, because I'd bought it for her. For Christmas, because she's finished. Oh, dear me.

[B]

That's not good.

[D]

Dear me.

[B]

Oh, dear.

[A]

That's such a mum choice.

[B]

There you go. You're finished. This is the Moomins.

[D]

Well, they did have a T shirt with Moomins on it when they came back from Finland. So, you know, they'd opened the door.

[A]

They're very. They are very proud of the Moomins in Finland, from what I can work out. So I think it's a fair enough. It's a fair enough gift.

[D]

Good.

[B]

But I've been. I've spent all of one day in Finland and I was given a Moomins mug by someone as a gift.

[D]

So they, you know, it's okay then.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

All right, good.

[A]

They know it's their royal family, the movements.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

My cat doesn't know that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

They sweep all the, you know, all the bad stuff about the Moomins under the rug and try. Try and ignore it. You know, One of the Moomins swears it can't sweat.

[A]

Yeah. One of the Moomins had the other one killed in a car crash.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah, that's. That's a. That was a grisly episode.

[D]

Grisly. I actually don't realize. I don't know anything about the Moomins.

[B]

They could, like.

[D]

Are they talking about.

[B]

Oh, yeah. One of them stopped talking to the press about how him and his wife have been treated, and everyone's like, shut up.

[A]

They got a Spotify deal.

[B]

Yeah. They're like, shut up, guys. If you don't like the limelight so much, why don't you just shut up? That's what people say to him. It's not fair.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Your dream drink.

[D]

My dream is.

[A]

Oh, is the wine.

[B]

The wine is all the booze. What kind of wine?

[D]

All the booze. It's another horrible. It's like broccoli rabe. It's a hard one to say without sounding like a toss up.

[A]

It's the puy, puy, puy, puy fume. That's what you call the jigsaw after your cat got to it.

[B]

That works. That does work. Yeah.

[A]

Puy fou mae.

[D]

Oh, Christ.

[A]

Hello.

[D]

It's really something terrible. Ingredients.

[A]

Okay, we'll throw in a spicy margarita as well.

[D]

Yes, please. And a chili margarita.

[A]

A chili margarita.

[D]

Chili's in it.

[B]

It, yeah.

[A]

Beautiful.

[D]

And coriander in it.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, nice.

[B]

Lovely.

[A]

And also a pint of lager with your bag of crisps from the Dirty duck.

[D]

Yes. Yeah, I can pop it on crisps and Nespresso. Martini. I mean, there are so many good drinks.

[A]

Yeah, there are.

[B]

So what? The more drinks you list, the more impressive it is that you haven't drunk for three years. It's very impressive.

[D]

There were so many lovely ones. Yeah, I know. I have zero beer now. I have zero beer after the show because it's helps a little bit.

[B]

Is there a good one? If you found a good one, what's your favorite?

[D]

Heineken one's good. And this is what everyone says.

[B]

Everyone says the Heineken one's the best.

[D]

Yes. If it's really cold and someone's put it in a glass and you sip it, you can sometimes go, oh God, was that real?

[B]

You just had to wipe your mouth.

[A]

Then you sounded like worried as well. You sort of went, oh God, is that real? Well, I actually want to trick yourself.

[D]

Yeah, yeah, no, I've broken it.

[A]

Do you have nightmares about breaking your three year stint?

[D]

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd actually killed someone. I woke up and I killed someone. I was like, this is so much work to cover this up or to. And then, and then it was because I was drunk and I'd let it happen or I'd deliberately done it. Yeah. And that was such a joy to wake up from that and go, oh, I don't have to.

[A]

It's the best.

[B]

Just to be clear, your main worry when you had killed someone was that it would be a lot of work to cover it up.

[D]

Chop, big chop.

[A]

And that you'd broken your three year st.

[B]

It wasn't, oh my God, I've killed someone.

[D]

Well, the person that I'd killed was dangerous. Who was it a dangerous person? I can't tell you remember who it was, but they were malevolent and it had to be done. Yeah, but not everyone knew how malevolent they were. And it was a big story. Can be a big. These are the traces I have of it in my mind. I've been trying to remember my dreams more since David lynch died because the thread is he was into transcendental meditation and all of that. So I had a little bit of a go at that.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And there's a, there's another region where it gets a little bit dreamy and you can start to actually tap into remember. And I have been remembering my dreams a lot more since then.

[A]

That's pretty cool.

[D]

And I did some meditating on the way here and the taxi driver had the radio on and it was so noisy and irritating and infiltrating that I put my headphones in and put some Strong Tibetan music Humming SONOROUS notes in. I came in here and it was still going in my pocket. And James said, what's playing on your phone? There we go.

[B]

Anina went on.

[D]

I didn't want to dive off.

[B]

Nina went, no, I can't.

[A]

And I was like that on your phone.

[D]

No, I don't want to divulge that. I've been transcendental meditating yet. I'm too new to it and it sounds too weird, but it's David Lynch's fault. I've been on a deep dive for the last couple weeks.

[B]

Have you done the paid bit at the beginning?

[D]

No, I did the introductory course and actually the woman was like 20 minutes late and, and not very apologetic. And then she went up to the desk and said, is there been a delivery for me? And is the, is the photocopier working? Is the fax working? Or can I. And I thought, this is not, this doesn't bode well. Reaching enlightenment.

[A]

You've got to be mindful throughout all of these things. I know.

[D]

I did think, she's obviously, she's very chill. She's not in any rush.

[B]

Favorite David lynch film.

[D]

Before we erase her head is amazing. I love that one. The puppet and that is amazing. Have you seen that? Ducky, Ducky Acid.

[B]

We arrive at your dream dessert.

[D]

Yes. I lowered the tone here. I was just thinking what would be fun. And I, we. Back in the 1980s when sugar was just, I don't know, everyone having. It was a great fine thing to have a pile of sugar on a Weetabix. So it's like a snowy mountain with the milk on it. That be dessert.

[A]

Amazing.

[B]

That's fair enough. I, I love, I love stuff. I mean, I, I, I used to do that as well. That's very nostalgic.

[A]

Pile of sugar.

[B]

Yeah, I used to go, yeah, it.

[D]

Has to be a peep.

[B]

So you see it.

[A]

Yeah, bananas as well.

[B]

No, that's Nowadays. Nowadays I'm a goddamn grown up and I put slice up some bananas on my way to big sp. But back then I was just heaping on that sugar.

[A]

Is it something you actually do now, but you know, your dentist is listening, please. How high is this pile of sugar? I want to.

[D]

I think it's about as high as, you know, your thumb. That kind of height.

[B]

It's like a. Yeah, well, okay, I didn't do that. Yeah, but like that, that's, that's impressive.

[A]

As high as my thumb or James thumb? Because James got a really long thumb.

[D]

No, not the way across the way you lie your thumb laterally along the way to bits.

[B]

Oh, just the. Okay. Not as long as your thumb. As wide as.

[A]

Yes.

[D]

When you add the milk, it's going to pour away. So maybe a little bit more so it ends up about this.

[B]

Yeah, I can relate to that.

[A]

Okay.

[D]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is. It's funny, I've been measuring things. My metrics are weird. Today.

[B]

You'Re mainly measuring stuff by like bits of our body, what we have looking at us and going, so how many wheat a Bix?

[D]

One, actually.

[B]

Whoa, whoa. Fancy what we are. We're in a Michelin starred restaurant.

[D]

I'll tell you why. Because my bowl is a little bit small in this dream and there isn't room for two lying flat. One would be upright and you wouldn't get the sugar even.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

So we gotta have just one. But you could have another one afterwards. So you want the sugar enough? Sorry?

[B]

You want the sugar on the flat side?

[D]

I want it flat.

[B]

I used to line them up, you know, like on like, you know, whatever.

[D]

Like toasts in the toaster.

[B]

Like toast in the toaster. I get about four. And then I'd put the sugar on top of those.

[A]

On the side. On the sides of them.

[B]

On the. Huh? Yeah, on the sides of them.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Which all lined up to make one surface now.

[A]

But then you, you're only getting the sugar on a little bit. Right. So you're not.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I agree with Nina that you need to get as much surface area of the sugar as possible. Right. So it would be the flat.

[B]

Yes. I mean, you know, I'm learning it. We're all learning.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

You know, but I've never done done it like that.

[A]

I like that in your dream that the bowl is small and you're not willing to change that.

[D]

Sorry, that's how it comes. Yeah, that's how it comes. Otherwise it's a white bowl. 2. A two wheatpix wide bowl. Is one of those kind of someone kind of bowl.

[B]

Like a lasagna dish.

[D]

Yeah, we're getting into that.

[A]

We don't want to get into that.

[D]

No, no, thank you.

[B]

Much milk in there?

[D]

Munch milk. Enough milk? Yeah, there'll be a little bit. What body part will this do? And he has this side on ears worth of milk in the bottom of.

[A]

The mine Or James, I've got quite small ears.

[B]

Yeah, he's got little tongue, I guess.

[A]

They're the same thickness, aren't they?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, same, same thickness. That's why yours looks so weird.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Such gross Metrics. I'm sorry.

[A]

What sort of milk?

[D]

What sort of milk? Yeah, I think it'll be whole. I've gone oat recently, but it's got to be whole milk for that. But in the 80s.

[A]

Well, you're already shitface. You might as well have a whole milk at this point. Right?

[D]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Got your espresso martini with this.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

What's the milkiest cocktail there is? Oh, it could be pina colada. White Russian. Mudslide. Mudslide. Weetabix.

[A]

Mudslide. Weetabix. Sounds amazing.

[B]

Yeah. That was my best friend at school. Little kid called Mudslide Weed.

[A]

Don't ask how he got that name.

[B]

Let's just say that Jigsaw will never recover. He got involved. That sounds great. I really like this. You're not warming it up in the microwave. Some people warm up their Weetabix in the microwave. I think it's sacrilegious.

[D]

No, I think that's sacrilegious. It would have to be cold milk. Yeah. The frosty for the snow theme is this snow capped mountain, this Weetab mix.

[B]

Is this your favorite cereal as well? Is this the king of cereals Wheat, your mix?

[D]

No. I think I would go for a Sugar Puff or a Frosty, if I'm allowed. I don't have it these days. This is like just the kids. It's like nostalgia thing. Yeah. I have a very mature porridge. You know, it's made with water and salt.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

And the weird way my. My dad always ate it was with a separate bowl for the milk. And then you've got the. The salt porridge, water in one bowl. And you take the hot porridge and you dip that into the cold milk so that the milk's still cold around the spoon and you get hot and cold in your mouth at the same time. You would never pour the milk on the porridge.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

I like this. So the milk's always cold.

[D]

It's always really cold. Porridge is hot.

[A]

That's a good system.

[B]

And it's still like all mushed up porridge. It's not like. What?

[D]

What do you mean?

[B]

Just trying to. Just try to think about what the porridge looks like.

[A]

Looks like?

[D]

Yeah. It's actually on the kind of watery side and it's in a bowl far away from you because you have to start with that. Then the milk. So the milk doesn't have long to travel to the mouth. You see what I mean?

[A]

Oh. So the porridge is furthest away. It comes on the journey into the.

[D]

Cold milk, straight up into the mouth quick. Because you've got to keep those temperatures separate.

[A]

I love it.

[D]

Yeah, Very specific.

[B]

Lined up like that.

[D]

It's unusual, isn't it?

[B]

What are you doing this every morning?

[D]

It's unusual. There are things that he does that. Yeah, now I realize are unusual. There's also the way he makes. Makes toast is he then flaps it like with long arms like he's bringing a plane in. And that's because you have to cool it down or the butter will melt onto the toast.

[A]

He doesn't want the butter?

[D]

No, no. There's very, very specific temperatures. But I've inherited these things now because I think that's how it's done, you know.

[B]

So you do that with the toast?

[D]

I. I do. I flap my toast.

[A]

When was the first time you realized that toast flapping wasn't normal?

[D]

I did think I just one day looked at him and thought, that's. You look like you're flying. And that's really unusual. Yeah, I don't know, maybe I was about 35.

[B]

Okay, I'm gonna read your menu back to you now and see how you feel about it. You would like sparkling water, painfully sparkling water. You would like a packet of popping on crisps from the dirty Duck Pub with a pint of lager. Start. You want a pistachio nut tree main course, your dad's spaghetti pomodoro. Side dish of broccoli rabe from Depaolo's in New York. For a drink you would like. Now, I knew as we were saying this earlier, you're not gonna remember how to say this, James. Puyli pouli.

[A]

You know, say the elves, man. Puy. Think of the jigsaw.

[B]

Puy. If you may think of the jigsaw White wine. You also want a chili margarita at some point and an espresso martini at some point.

[D]

Point.

[B]

Dessert? A pile of sugar on a single flat Weetabix with an ears thickness of milk and maybe a mudslide on the side.

[A]

Beautiful. I love it. That was a delicious menu.

[D]

Thank you. I'm so glad you liked it. I. I think it's.

[B]

I think it's very nice.

[D]

Great.

[A]

I want some spaghetti pomodoro Now I want some Weetabix.

[D]

Spaghetti is great without anything on it. Spaghetti is great.

[B]

Even like just hard spaghetti. Would you eat that?

[D]

I would, I'd give it a go.

[A]

You can do that?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Some people. You do it.

[A]

I put one in my ear once.

[B]

What?

[D]

Oh, no.

[B]

Yeah, a hard one.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Touch my own brain.

[D]

Ah.

[B]

He didn't touch his own brain.

[A]

I swear down, I touched my brain.

[B]

He didn't touch your own brain.

[A]

I swear down I planted seeds up.

[D]

My nose when I was a kid.

[A]

You planted seeds up your nose?

[D]

Yeah. And it was such a bad idea. It was, too. And then couldn't get them out. And then it just. Just like. Thank God they didn't grow, because they might have. That might be the right environment for them.

[A]

Pistachio tree.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

You were trying to grow seeds. That was the aim.

[D]

What was the aim? It was very. I hadn't thought it through.

[B]

But you stuffed them up there, wanting to plant them.

[D]

That might grow up there.

[B]

Can you remember what they were, what you were growing?

[D]

They were tiny, and I think they came out of a poppy.

[B]

Poppy seeds?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Imagine if that on Remembrance Sunday, just pulled a poppy out your nose.

[A]

That'd be the new standard then.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Every year people are going, why aren't you growing a poppy out your nose?

[B]

Yeah. If you don't pull the poppy out your nose, you don't care about the fallen.

[A]

Nina, thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant.

[D]

Thank you, Nina. Thank you.

[A]

There we are. James, what a great menu.

[B]

I love the menu.

[A]

I love the tree.

[B]

I really want to try those pistachios now. It sounds like another world, a completely different thing. Huh?

[A]

Try the tree.

[B]

I'm not gonna try the tree. What, take a bite out of the tree?

[A]

Well, you take. No, you take the nut off the tree. Right.

[B]

You take the nut off the tree. Put the nut in your mouth.

[A]

Talking of nuts.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They weren't monkey nuts. Luckily.

[B]

We were skating on thin ice there. Yeah, we were, but they weren't monkey nuts, so it's okay.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

We didn't kick Nina out of the restaurant, but, like. But yeah, there were some pistachio nuts in early doors.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

That could have been out during the.

[A]

Starter, which I wouldn't have liked that.

[B]

I wouldn't have felt good about it.

[A]

Although, then we could have switched up. Monkey could have.

[B]

Come on, Joe. What we could have done.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Like, there's nothing that says we can't do that. Yeah, that would have been good. I really wish we kicked her out.

[A]

Yeah. Too late.

[B]

That would have been funny. But it was funny as it was. Let's face it, I had a good time.

[A]

Very, very good episode. Go and see Nina on tour. Whose Face Is It Anyway?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's been extended into the autumn. Go and check out the [e-mail] and get yourself a Ticket for shows near you.

[B]

Yeah, for shows near you. Ed, do you have anything to say? I know that it's been a tough week, but it has been fucking up. He's been fucking up all week.

[A]

He fucked up a lot this week.

[B]

It was a real shame.

[A]

He was supposed to send us Sunlight, the film to watch that Nina's made. He fucked that up. Thank you very much for listening. We will see you again next time. Bye.

[B]

Bye.

[D]

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[A]

Oh, hi, James. Have you heard the news?

[B]

Oh, yeah, go on.

[A]

You and I are modern boys. Because the off menu podcast is now on YouTube.

[B]

This is embarrassing.

[A]

Why is it embarrassing, man? You love YouTube.

[B]

I love watching clips on YouTube. Sure, now people can watch clips of off menu on YouTube and full episodes. But it's embarrassing, man.

[A]

It's not embarrassing at all. It's really cool. We're on YouTube with the great and good. The coolest people in the world are on YouTube. Me, you, Logan Paul.

[B]

Who's Logan Paul? The dad from Succession at Off Menu Podcast. That's what Benito's calling us now. And we're on TikTok. This is embarrassing, man.

[A]

It's not embarrassing, man. We're cool. We're like Olivia, Rodrigo and Ed.

[B]

People have been asking us, badgering us, bothering us. Actually, they want to watch the Stephen Graham supercut from the Stephen Graham episode so they can see all of his reactions to us, everything that he did or Benito has bent to their whims and he's going to put it on YouTube. He's going to do it.

[A]

It Follow us at off menu official on TikTok at off menu podcast on YouTube, you can watch clips from the podcast and on YouTube you can watch full video episodes. People have been asking for it and you're finally getting it. Full video episodes. So you can see every single nuance on our little faces.