Will Sharpe

James, huge news from the world of off-menu and indeed the world of the world.

Yes.

Ever heard of the Royal Albert Hall?

I have.

We've done live shows there.

And guess what?

We're doing more live shows there next year.

Sure, a lot of them are sold out already.

But we thought, hey, throw these guys a bone.

Let's put on one final Royal Albert Hall show in that run.

The show will be on Monday, the 16th of March.

It's going to be a tasting menu, a returning guest coming back, receiving the menu of another previous guest.

Those shows have been a lot of fun.

We cannot wait to do them live.

Who will we pull out of our little magic bag?

You'll have to come along on the 16th of March to find out.

If I'm correct in thinking, presale tickets go on pre-sale on the 10th of September.

Pre-sale tickets are 10th of September at 10 a.m.

And then the general sale is 12th of September at 10 a.m.

So if you miss out on the pre-sale, don't forget general sale is only two days later.

The day in between is for reflecting.

Get your tickets from royalalberthall.com Hall.com or offmenupodcast.co.uk.

Hey, it's Brian Christopher.

Ready to show the summer?

You're in luck.

I'm hanging out at Chumpa Casino, and you're in for a treat.

Chillax with hundreds of games, daily bonuses, exciting spins, and epic prizes.

It's all here, always free to play.

Kick back, have fun, and head to chumpacasino.com.

Let's make this summer legendary.

Sponsored by Chumba Casino, no purchase necessary, VGW Group, void where prohibited by law, CTNC's 21 plus.

You check your feed and your account.

You check the score and the restaurant reviews.

You check your hair and reflective surfaces and the world around you for recession indicators.

So you check all that, but you don't check to see what your ride options are.

In this economy, next time, check Lyft.

When you think of skyrocketing brands like Aloe, Allberts, or Skims, it's easy to credit their success to great products, sleek branding, and brilliant marketing.

But here's the overlooked secret.

The real magic lies in the engine behind the scenes, the business powering their business.

For millions of brands, that engine is Shopify, making selling seamless for them and shopping effortless for us.

Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Aloe Yoga uses.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash retail, all lowercase.

Go to shopify.com slash retail to upgrade your selling today.

Shopify.com slash retail.

Welcome to the Off Menu Podcast.

Taking a can of passion fruit and raspberry kefir water,

opening it up and drinking it.

And you're James Acaster, and that's what he's got a can of.

I'm literally sitting here drinking it now.

Yeah.

This is the point we've come to.

That is Ed Gamble.

My name is James A.

Caster.

Together, we own a dream restaurant.

Every single week, we're inviting a guest to ask him a favour ever.

Start our main course, dessert, side dish, and drink, not in that order.

And this week, our guest is Will Sharp.

Will Sharp, a wonderful actor,

writer, director.

He's done so many things.

Amazing, man.

Like, I i love him in white lotus i absolutely loved him in a real pain yes um and you

have a history with will sharp i've known him for many many years don't know him as will sharp i know him as tom tom sharp wow you know pretty crazy name change for that guy but yes excited to see him not seen him in a while it'd be so nice to hang out and catch up will i be a third wheel no not at all doing the catch-up no no no he might hate me you never know he could hate you yeah he could hate me to the first guest yeah

um but listen even though you and Will are very good friends,

if Will does say the secret ingredient, we will kick him out, Ed, and I hope he'll be okay with that.

Yes, I think he'd accept it.

Well, let's see.

This week, huh?

Yes.

The secret ingredient is

lotus biscuits.

I've already said white lotus, so people can put that together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We could have just said white chocolate.

That would have been funny just to go with the word white instead of lotus.

Yeah.

Like a really tenuous one.

But yes, lotus biscuits.

I mean, if anything, I think people do think that they're that they've had enough of biscoff certainly biscoff but no one really talks about the biscuits no the ogs the biscuits are pretty rubbish huh the biscuits are pretty rubbish it's the sort of thing you'd see in like a conference room of a hotel yeah yeah in a little turns out

if you mash them all up into baby food people absolutely love it yeah

stuit more biscuits yeah there's a lot of biscuits that i love but actually maybe if they were a spread i'd love them even more which biscuits are we thinking i think any biscuits.

I reckon I would love it if they suddenly bought chocolate chip cookies out as a spread.

Yeah, so would I.

I would spread that and stuff.

Chip-off.

Huh?

You could call it chip-off.

Do you have to end it with off?

Yeah.

Chip-off the old block.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

Bourbon biscuits, bourbon biscuits.

I would love that.

I'd love custard cream spread.

Oh, my God.

I'd love custard off.

Custard off, a piece of better than cream off is a name.

It's better than you.

Man, I'd love all of these.

Yeah.

Like, I guess.

Yeah, I wouldn't want digestives as a spread.

I don't know, man.

It might work.

And chocolate digestives would work.

We shouldn't put this out.

Oh, yeah.

We shouldn't.

Don't release this.

We should pattern this.

We've got to pattern this.

We've got to make it a thing that we do this.

We put this out.

Because otherwise, people are going to do biscuit spreads.

Yeah.

And then we won't get any of that sweet dough for it.

Sweet dough.

That's what we're calling it.

That's what the company's called.

Yeah.

We should get on with the episode.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is the off-menu menu of Will Sharp.

Welcome to the dream restaurant, Will.

Hi.

Welcome, Will Sharp, to the Dream Restaurant.

But it's been here for some time.

That felt weird calling you Will.

Why?

Why?

Because I know him by all different names.

Oh, yeah, all different names.

Do you?

Yeah.

So you two have a history.

Yes.

Yeah.

You went to university together, was that?

No way, I couldn't write it.

I couldn't get in there.

You went to two different universities, and Ed knew you because you were rivals.

Well, I guess commonly rivals, but sometimes we'd do stuff together almost.

Friends?

What uni were we talking here?

Durham from the man.

Docksbridge.

We both went to Docksbridge.

Docksbridge.

Yeah.

That's disgusting.

Yeah.

No,

Will went to Cambridge.

I went to Durham.

But some people at Durham referred to Durham, Cambridge and Oxford as Docksbridge, which was pathetic.

That's not a thing.

Some real losers.

I think mainly Ed.

Ed.

Oh, yeah, me.

I mean, me, yeah.

Also, like, Durham, not getting many letters in there.

No.

That's true.

It's proportional.

It's proportional.

Yeah.

Oh, you went to Oxford.

Yeah.

That's cool.

We did.

Yeah, so we'd sit

and then and then after uni, we did like bits together, didn't we?

Yes.

Comedy bits.

We had a hit sketch group.

We had a hit sketch group.

Let's talk about this hit sketch group.

Oh, man.

What was it called?

What was it?

Them Four Horsemen.

Them Four Horsemen, it was called.

I think we maybe did four shows.

Four shows.

And

we kept planning to do one on Christmas Eve.

Yeah.

Christmas Day, actually.

If you're still on Facebook,

you can probably find the invite to the event somewhere on Christmas Day.

So you're going to do a Christmas Day gig.

And who is the four of you?

I mean, I'm guessing Nish is involved in this somehow?

No, no, no.

We did

another thing with Nish, which is sort of like...

I was thinking about this because

coming in.

It was called something like the Club for Men Who Are Not Usual.

And it was one of those like sitcom ideas that immediately, immediately doesn't work.

Yeah.

And we had like, I think like an old camcorder and filming stuff around this flat.

And all I remember is there was some shoes in the fridge.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Nish called his suit his nine to five shield.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And immediately we're like, the point of these people is they do things that are not usual.

But they're really boring.

Yeah, yeah.

Where does it end?

Yeah.

Unsustainable.

I remember that where there was a shot, like one shot where one of us like made a cup of tea from the beginning.

Oh, yeah.

Like talking for ages about not being usual and then like walked walked to the toilet, pulled it down the toilet and flushed.

Oh, yeah, that's it.

Without mentioning it.

That's funny.

That's a funny bit, but that's sort of funny.

It was really funny for us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we had a laugh, didn't we?

It's a load of funny, nonsensical things, but after a while, I imagine for a viewer, it was maddening.

Well, there weren't any viewers apart from us, so it didn't matter.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know if we even cut it together, to be fair.

Yeah.

That's a shame.

Well, I do have some old them for horsemen sketches on

a hard drive somewhere.

Oh my gosh, exciting.

So who are the other two horsemen?

Tom Williams, who's no longer in comedy.

No, I do.

English teacher.

English teacher.

And

Al Roberts.

Al Roberts.

Stafflets Flats.

Stafflets Flat.

Yeah, I do know who that is.

Yeah.

You know Al.

It's funny

after the Williams guy to make out like I didn't know Al Roberts.

Yeah.

And you've done some other stuff since.

With Al?

Without me.

I've done some other stuff.

Yeah, you've been up to some stuff.

Do you feel guilty when you do stuff without Ed?

I feel guilty when I listen to this podcast.

I felt because so many times I've been like, oh,

I should message Edge just to say I'm really enjoying it.

And I haven't really, I didn't really do that.

That makes me feel pretty.

Well, I've not messaged you saying I'm enjoying all your stuff.

Yeah, I suppose.

Maybe that's how it works.

What happened with the four horse people that means that you don't text each other anymore?

I guess we're just sort of got...

got busy in other ways.

Yeah, sidetracked.

You know, you get sidetracked and then the sidetrack becomes your your main track.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm a late.

There are other things like swimming around in my head, but I'm like, we don't need to get

maybe come back to them like

you ever find yourself on set filming something and thinking back to the days of palling around with this young whippersnapper?

Do you know what?

I do feel like there is a thing where

no matter what the scale is of a project, this is a bit of an earnest answer.

But like, I feel like it does sort of feel like just hanging in a good in a good way at its best you're just kind of figuring stuff out with your mates and trying to make it funny or make it work or whatever so i do sometimes think of that and like tom kings is another person i'd work with a lot in the past so i do think of those days sometimes yeah would you ever put like pitch an idea on set like if you were on an exciting project but you know maybe the right joke here is flushing a cup of tea down the toilet

maybe i'll try and work that in

yeah

would you have to check with these guys

uh the other i think you'd be all right with it it would be like a little wink you know in the ether and see if see if you know see if they despawn well look i officially give you permission to use anything from the club for men who are not usual

if it's them for me stuff you're gonna have to you're gonna have to call me because i at some point i do want to do the um the song of the uh cowboys teaching kids how to count.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that sounds good.

Yeah.

I can't

I've got I've got a video of it somewhere and I refuse to watch it because I look haunted.

You look haunted.

In what way?

Well, it was back in my bigger days and I'd say I look like I'm wearing a fat suit in a 90s film and I'm very tired.

I hope we're all pretty tired.

Yeah.

We also, there was one sketch that we filmed which the only, we were just all eating mullah rice.

Do you remember that?

Remember Muller rice?

We just got bought like 20 muller rice.

Yeah.

And there was the main theme of this sketch show seemed to be that there wasn't really a joke in any of us getting.

So it was just we were just eating Muller rice.

Yeah.

Nothing.

Good.

I mean, it's all right.

What we'd do is we'd have a show and we'd go to your flat during the day.

We'd just mess around for ages and one of us would go, that's a sketch.

That would do.

Yeah.

Me with a fake beard on and then the tight over my head.

Oh, old man.

Old man.

Old man, the rocker.

Yeah.

Old man rocking in a rock and roll band.

Yeah, I'm an old man.

I was playing the guitar.

smashing away.

Yeah, smashing away on a guitar.

I was clearly, I think I'd had too much coffee and I was just like, just running around with the guitar.

And they were all like, that's great.

That's that's a guy.

Yeah.

It does sound great though.

I've got a bus pass, but I'd take it to Wembridge.

You've got a pair of tights on your head.

Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, yeah.

Why were the tights looking soon?

You look bold.

So you're a bold old man.

Yeah, kind of, but it just looks so weird.

You're just making them look mental.

Yeah, yeah.

Just squished your face up.

Yeah.

And then you put a beard on top.

Yeah, it looks horrible very funny for us very funny for us i like old man in the rock and roll bat

maybe at the end of this we'll see if we can find paradise yeah yeah i could do it for a photo we could do a photo afterwards aside from muller i don't see much of a foodie world do you like nice i do like i do like food i think i'm sort of of that level where i appreciate it when it's good but if it gets a bit too uptight and fussy then it starts to sort of get on my nerves a little bit.

So, but and have less time, like having young children, I like less time to go out but when we do manage to go out i do enjoy it and i do eat quite a lot what's the ceiling for uptight and fussy do you have a meal that you've had where you're like there we go that's too uptight i think a like a quite good barometer is if they refill your water for you is like i quite like to be in charge of that yeah yeah um because also like you might be in conversation and you're just sort of getting into a flow and then suddenly it's like oh sorry just going to stop for a second

and then you sort of have to start again like so maybe that is a good barometer for it.

I don't mind if it's a small amount of food on a big plate sometimes.

Don't mind that.

Yeah, that's fine.

That's okay.

As long as you're getting another

plate with a small amount of food on it.

But the water thing, because I always feel I want to say thank you every time.

Exactly.

You can't just be like ignore that.

You have to engage.

Yeah.

Because when people do ignore them,

I can't see this person again.

And sometimes you're catching up.

It's like quite personal things you're talking about.

So you have to just sort of be like pause for a second.

Do you know what I mean?

anyway, thank you for my water.

Thank you for the oh, thank you very much.

No, you have to say, Thank you for my water, thank you for my water.

Is that your

just in case they think you're thanking them for something else?

Yeah, yeah, I have to meant for the water, by the way.

Yeah,

I have to make it worse for them so they stop doing it, right?

Yeah, so that's awkward for them that I keep saying thank you for my water.

You know, you can just ask.

I've told, I've said this on the podcast before, no, like my dad at meals has been like, you can leave that there, yeah.

Oh, that's good, I'll do that myself, assertive, all right, and also they'll I'm sure they'll be happy with that as well.

Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, they won't care.

As long as you're polite to them and say, oh, don't worry, you can just leave that there and I'll sort it out.

They'll be like, oh, great.

But I, in my head, think they're going to go away and think, that was my whole evening.

What do I do now?

What do I do now?

Yeah, they're going to give you a small amount of spit on a big plate.

Yeah.

There you go.

Call it a foam.

Call it a foam.

Foam's a good barometer as well.

It's quite, yeah, if there's like an ingredient that's like, oh, or you didn't notice it was, it had been, it's been turned into something too unusual.

Yeah.

And you're, oh, I was really looking forward to that.

And now it's sort of a gas.

Like, that, I mean, sometimes it works, but occasionally you're like, I wish it was just what it is.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah.

I wish it was an egg and not.

Yeah, but I'm not a complete, like, complete ignoramus.

No.

Well, I don't think so, man.

Good to say at the top of the pot.

Speaking of water, we'll start off with Star Spark and Water.

I'm normally just tap.

Okay.

And I quite like, for example, in Japan, where pretty much always there's a default is there's just tap water.

Because it's just like less admin.

Yeah.

So that's my default.

It's just tap water.

Tap on the table?

Tap on the table.

And are you having that cold?

Are you having that just like as is?

Yeah, cold.

And do you want water from Japan, tap water from Japan?

No, I quite like it when you guys imagine like that there's some like perfect spring.

Like it'd be great if it was like, this is just water, but by the way, it's like it's quite special.

That'd be good.

Yeah.

Do you need it to be special?

Unusual water.

Do you need someone to tell you it's special?

I want to know that it's like, like, you know, it's come from a mountain or like.

This might help.

If you're, maybe the mountain is like one wall of the restaurant and you're sat next to it.

So you've got, you've got it coming in.

And then.

And here's a question.

When you fill it up from the mountain, are you thanking the mountain every time?

Yeah.

Thank you for water.

It's a good question.

Maybe that's part of the spiritual, I don't know, religious malls of the play.

I love, though, how you were like,

this might help as if it was a really small thing.

What if the wall of the restaurant is a mountain?

This might help.

This might help.

This helps people sometimes.

I don't mind it.

Mountains are really big, though.

Yeah, and I feel like the scale of it, I don't even know if it would feel like a wall.

It would just be like, let's go with it.

What's the biggest mountain you've been up?

Heard Quest.

I don't know.

Sorry.

Bad answer.

I'm sorry.

I don't know.

Good question.

Bad answer.

I've never said that to a guest before.

I have been skiing in my life before.

It's probably up one of those, but I don't know.

You are not prepared to

the biggest mountain in the United States.

I genuinely don't know.

Oh, shit.

I'm terrible at geography.

Oh, shit, you don't know.

It's probably

somewhere in the Rockies, probably.

The Rockies?

Yeah.

Have you been up a mountain in Japan?

I actually have never been up Mount Fuji.

I've looked at it, but I've not been up.

We're not counting that.

We can't have what's the biggest mountain you've ever looked at.

No, that's not what was asked.

But

I don't have a factual response to that.

Sorry.

Nor a riff.

It's real.

I've got a guest will say, I don't have a riff for that.

I don't have a factual response or a riff.

So you're going to have to move on.

We're moving on.

Do you want the mountain wall or are you struggling to imagine?

Let's go for it for now and then see something might come of it.

You know, let's see.

Pop loves or bread.

Pop loves or bread.

No shot.

Pop loves or bread.

Oh, yes.

Yeah.

Bread, probably.

Bread.

I suspect.

Yeah, yeah, yeah take us through it what's the bread

so there was a bread in Atlanta

went on like a west coast road trip with so quite a while ago who the hell is that sof's my other half yeah

and

not Atlanta Portland other side

started started

started off up there coming through Portland and quite early on in the trip How we like to sort of arrive in a city is basically just to walk around.

But you can't really do that in America.

Didn't realize that I was quite sort of let's say overexcited so we walked a long way on this day found this place called I think it was called Olympic Provisions in Portland somewhere yeah and that's such a hipster restaurant it was quite a hipster restaurant

and they had like a focaccia

and because we were so exhausted and so hungry it was just the most delicious bread I've ever eaten and I became like sort of like Will Ferrell in Elf or something where I was just kind of I got up and also maybe because I was in America I was like I should behave like an American I got up out of my seat went over to like the counter where everyone was like cooking and was like what's going on with this bread this is the best bread and they were like it's just it's just for catcher I was like but you've done something to it and they were like is it the salt and I was like no there's more anyway uh we were remembering this place uh a few months ago and I think it's just like a chain.

It's like I'd gone into Pizza Express and ordered ordered some garlic bread and been like, what is going on with this?

How are you guys doing this?

You guys are magicians.

So that's the best bread experience I've had.

And do you think, looking back on it, do you think the walk really was part of it?

A lot of these are like, seem to be dependent on basically like the context of eating it is part of the experience or something.

And so it was definitely that it was just like so hungry and tired.

And

I think when you feel like that, sometimes bread is just like the perfect food so for your dream meal do you want to go for a really big walk beforehand maybe down the mountain maybe maybe go around the mountain more yes come now hold on but i thought the wall was the mountain you're walking up it as well going out maybe going out well no you could start on the mountain top of the mountain walk all the way down into the restaurant oh i was imagining the mountain was flushed to the so it's just like a mountain wall but you're saying you could walk up out of it still out of the restaurant

in the top of the restaurant yeah okay there's a hatch like like in lost yeah

do you remember that Do you remember when they found the hatch in Lost?

Didn't see it.

Didn't watch it.

I remember when they found the first hatch, and then the whole season they found probably a hatch and episode, didn't they?

Yeah, a lot of them.

They just kept finding hatches.

Yeah, because they didn't know where the story was going, so they kept adding hatches.

So in the writer's room, they just

chuck in another hatch.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's probably.

I'd imagine they had a little bell as well every time they added a hatch.

A hatch bell.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I guess if there's some kind of like hunger involved, that definitely would make the bread more delicious.

Do you think?

Yeah, you're going to be really hungry.

I can, as the genie, make you very hungry before every course of this amazing so that everything tastes that amazing brilliant yeah but like a safe level of hunger yeah i won't kill you thank you um

also i i think there is something to like chains abroad when you like go in a chain that you've not been in yeah you really do appreciate it way more than the people who live there and are like this is incredible i think so yeah um because you you haven't had that particular thing before yeah it's new to you so you're less like numb to it and also i i guess you are sort of like genuinely sampling the culture of the area in a way yeah so it's legit i agree but have you ever had that embarrassing thing of then speaking to someone who's from that place and going i went to this great place say olympic provisions i would have done that about this place and they'd be like

oh right yeah i see

because you work with a lot of american actors now and you could really like go up to someone like Yeah, Will Ferrell and go, I was like you and Elf when I went to this amazing place called Olympic Provisions.

Have you heard of it?

It's like, that is a shitty chain.

That's a shitty chain.

You'll find from the film.

There's this amazing place called Taco Bell.

I don't know if you've heard of it.

But that is exciting going to a place like Taco Bell that we only hear about in films.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't mind that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is exciting.

I remember the first time I went to Taco Bell is in San Francisco.

I was very excited about it.

I was walking to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Did you enjoy it?

The Taco Bell or Golden Gate Bridge.

It was food.

No, it was bad.

It's bad.

But that's kind of good because it lives up to its rep.

And I was with some American.

On my way walking there, I'd made some friends who are also walking to the Golden Gate Bridge, but they were Americans.

Okay.

And at one point they were like, we should get some food.

And I was like,

I want to experience a Taco Bell.

And they laughed at me for a very long time.

Yeah.

And then went in with me to get Taco Bell.

And then

watched me eat it and be disappointed.

I was like, no, we're not happy.

But what I do remember, and I still think about this a lot, one of the guys we went on Golden Gate Bridge and at one point we looked down and there was a very small little kind of like hut, I guess, right on the on the stone by the water, where clearly some like guy who works on the Golden Gate Bridge goes.

Yeah.

And one of the guys I was pointing at it and went, that's my house.

And I really laughed for ages that it was his house.

And I still think about it now.

I think that was really funny.

You said that was his house.

Like, I genuinely think it's funny.

And it wasn't.

No, it was just a little shed.

Just for the human sense from, I guess.

It was like a little shed at the bottom of the Golden Gate Bridge by the water.

I was like, that's really funny.

You said it was his house.

He probably thought you'd fall fall for it because you're the sort of guy who wants to go to Taco Bell, right?

Yeah, so he pointed for this English guy.

He's like, oh, cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, can we come around?

Yeah,

I'll come over later tonight.

Yeah, yeah.

So close to the Taco Bell.

Yeah,

I can't wait.

Your dream starter, Will.

Right.

Maybe.

Uh, I think it's called, is it called Gav Gavros?

Or like basically sort of deep-fried fishes?

Deep-fried fishes?

Yeah.

Ed.

Is your husband like this?

That?

That.

Let me know.

More like a sort of

Frito Misto.

It looks like deep-fried fishes.

But these look like specifically like one fish, right?

Maybe.

They look like sort of sardines.

Just for the listener, Will has passed Google images to Ed.

Yeah.

It's Google imaged Gavros.

Yeah.

So Greeks.

There's loads of little pictures of deep-fried what look like pilchards or sardines.

I think that's more.

Are they in anchovies?

Or maybe it's not that then.

It's not that.

Because

free-to-one mistooks.

I'd think more like a sort of tempura style batter.

Yeah, well, I guess like some kind of deep-fried small fish.

I don't think it's anchovies.

But I remember one time, again, it's like, it was on holiday with some friends and it was in Greece.

And it's like, you've been in the sea that day and it's really hot.

And again, you're probably quite hungry.

Yeah.

And then I just remember that being like just a really satisfying, you know, just from calf kind of thing, but it's like just a greasy bag of little fishes and they're very crispy.

And then like the, it's not too bonesy.

Yeah.

But there are, but the bones are in it, right?

And the heads are still on, isn't it?

And the heads are still on.

I love that.

You just crunch.

Just crunch it away.

Like

crisp.

So it's like, I guess it's, yeah, it is fish, but it's not like overwhelming.

That was

pretty salty, I'd say.

Yeah, pretty salty.

You're squeezing lemon on the top?

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Was it hard on the holiday to like enjoy all the little fish, um, with a nagging doubt that your wife had slept with your friend?

What?

Because you were suspicious and you were certain that

your wife had slept with your friend in the hotel, so you couldn't really enjoy the fish, yeah.

I was eating them, you know, in a really contemplative, angry way, yeah.

It's just like, what were the fish is right?

I don't know, betrayal.

I think you should have warned all your friends you were going to tug yourself off in that show, man.

I was so excited, I was so excited for you that you were were in it, and then I pop it on, enjoying myself.

And then I'm like, oh, I did not need to see that.

No, apologies for the group email, but just as a heads up, I'm going to talk myself off in this show.

I'm really going to go to town on myself.

I know I haven't spoken to many of you for some years, but just as a heads up, I'm going to talk myself off in this show.

Just in case

you're going to watch it because lying on your side, I think you're lying on your side.

Oh, yeah, you're lying on your side, tucking yourself off.

But yeah, you could have put that in the menu as usual.

Yeah,

who who lies on their side doing it?

Like a painting.

Yeah.

Like a painting.

Luckily, this is the first time Will and I have met, so when I saw that, I was just like, this is brilliant.

Yeah, yeah.

You look like you.

I didn't know you.

I didn't know you.

So I was like,

go for it.

Go on, lad.

Go on, lad.

Go on, lad.

Yeah, well, I've said you've never done that.

I've said that, have you?

Out loud while I was watching that scene.

Go on, lad.

I keep getting served a video on YouTube shorts of

it's like a ring camera doorbell thing

of an old Jehovah's Witness ringing the doorbell and from like Yorkshire.

He's like, oh, it's Jehovah's Witness.

And the guy on the other end of the doorbell goes, just having a wank at the moment, mate.

And the guy pauses and then goes, all right, good luck.

So many times I've watched that.

Amazing.

Yeah.

You're from Yorkshire?

No, I'm not.

Yeah, you are.

I saw a film.

you were from Yorkshire.

Oh, yeah.

From Yorkshire in Mill Payne.

Oh, yeah.

Sheffield.

You can't deny it.

So this is the sort of interview style that we need to talk about.

What?

He was talking to me about this before you got here.

Where we have actors on, and then you go, you're in that.

And they go, yeah.

And then you don't follow it up with anything.

Why should I have to?

It's good segues there.

He's spotting.

He knows more about than I do.

The links are perfect.

But he's never a question.

I've teed him up.

Teed him up.

Okay, here's the thing about that film.

I think the funniest line in that film, genuinely, is when you say, thank you, David.

Oh, thank you.

I think it's so funny.

Thank you.

I went to a screening of that film where Jesse Isabel did a Q ⁇ A afterwards and talked about you at length and how much he likes you.

And then he said that that line was improvised and it blew my mind.

Was it improvised?

It was kind of improvised.

It was like, basically, the joke was built into the scene that I give Kieran Culkin's character a much more heartfelt goodbye.

And it wasn't scripted that I said anything to Jesse, which I thought was a bit weird.

So, I just thought, but I should probably do not very much so that the joke still carries.

So, like, the joke was in the scene, and it was also, I think, it was the last, we're really running out of time, and so it was like, we only have time to do one take of this.

So, I was like, well, shoot your shot, I guess.

And I think afterwards, he was like, that was so funny.

I don't think he will make it in the film because it's too silly.

Oh, really?

But he sort of came around.

I've not seen it yet, but I've just checked now because I can check with you now.

Do you tug yourself off for me?

I don't know.

Great, because I want you tonight.

It's just about like a Holocaust tour.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's there.

He's a tour guide.

He's in a professional capacity.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's absolutely no way.

Yeah, no time.

No time to tug yourself off.

No.

No.

No.

Even if you improvised it, I was a book episode.

That's probably not going to make it in.

Yeah, I don't mean that.

Yeah.

That will make it in, Will, but thank you.

I didn't got to shoot my shot.

Yeah.

Seen that film three times.

What?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Really like it.

See some for the rest of us, buddy.

Laughed out loud at that line all three times.

Actually, the third time I got home literally the other day and my partner was watching it.

And she's from up north.

So the first one she said, she said, is he from Yorkshire?

I was like, yep.

And then

I was upstairs and I heard that that scene was coming up.

So I literally stopped on the landing to listen to it from the landing to see if she'd laugh at, thank you, David.

And she did.

And I was like, and I'll shout it down.

Good line in it.

So that's good.

He improvised that.

Jesse Eisenberg said it at the Q ⁇ A.

She's asking him to double-check.

James and his partner live completely separate lives on their own.

Just shouting at each other across the fact.

That's the way I like it.

Good night.

Love you.

Good night.

Love you.

Don't cheat on my me with my friends on holiday.

It was a weird thing where, so it was obviously shot in Poland and the amazing like Polish crew, but the sound guy.

was from Sheffield and had just moved to Poland.

And so like the day before, I'd been chatting with Jesse about maybe I could do it in this kind of voice to sort of soften him up a bit and make him a bit more like Brian Coxy.

And he was like, oh yeah, that's great.

Let's do that.

And then on the next day, on the first day on set was this guy from Sheffield.

I was like, it's perfect.

You can just keep an eye on it.

It's like a weird coincidence.

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

Talk about refreshing.

You know what else is refreshing this summer?

A brand new phone with Verizon.

Yep, get a new phone phone on any plan with Select Phone Trade In MyPlan and lock down a low price for three years on any plan with MyPlan.

This is a deal for everyone, whether you're a new or existing customer.

Swing by Verizon today for our best phone deals.

Three-year price guarantee applies to them current base monthly rate only.

Additional terms and conditions apply for all offers.

We get it.

It's more important than ever to get the most out of your money.

Options are key.

Options like Lyft, where you get great rewards, especially with partners like Dash Pass by DoorDash.

If you're a Dash Pass member, just link your DoorDash account and you'll get 5% off on-demand rides, 10% off scheduled rides to the airport, plus two free priority pickup upgrades every month.

New to Dash Pass?

To sign up for a three-month free trial, check Lyft.

Terms apply.

Ever wonder why you have insurance for your car or home, but not your digital life?

Meet Webroot Total Protection, your digital bodyguard that is built for real life.

Webroot takes the guessing game out of cybersecurity so you can confidently browse, bank, and be yourself online without the worry of hackers lurking around the corner.

With Webroot Total Protection, you get antivirus that scans six times faster and takes up 33 times less space than the other guys.

Identity protection with up to $1 million in fraud expense reimbursement and 24-7 US-based customer support.

VPN protection that hides your IP address, personal data, and location from hackers.

And cloud backup with unlimited storage that works automatically in the the background.

With plans for individuals and families, Webroot makes it easy to live a better digital life.

Go to webroot.com forward slash promo and get 50% off today.

That's webroot.com slash promo to get 50% off today.

Live a better digital life with Webroot because peace of mind shouldn't be optional.

When you think of skyrocketing brands like Aloe, Allberts, or Skims, it's easy to credit their success to great products, sleek branding, and brilliant marketing.

But here's the overlooked secret: the real magic lies in the engine behind the scenes, the business powering their business.

For millions of brands, that engine is Shopify, making selling seamless for them and shopping effortless for us.

Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Aloe Yoga uses.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/slash retail, all lowercase.

Go to shopify.com slash retail to upgrade your selling today.

Shopify.com/slash Shopify.com/slash retail.

Do you main course, bro?

Right.

This is where it gets a bit

silly.

Okay.

So we like silly here, right?

We're silly guys.

I was trying to think of like I've got some ones like kind of that I've discounted because they felt sort of a bit boring or something.

Yeah.

And then I was like, is this allowed?

So

what

I'm trying to think is, you know, like Japanese kaiseki meals.

I don't know that.

It's like a kind of multi-course meal where basically, like, I don't know what the actual Japan, like what the actual structure is, but like, there's often like one that is specific to the season and then one that's grilled and one that's, I don't know, like

pickles or something.

And I was trying, is that allowed?

Because it's like many different yeah, because it comes on like one, one tray basically, though, doesn't it?

Sometimes, yeah.

So I was trying to think maybe something like that.

I was trying to think of something that was, I've got also just what I would choose if I had to pick one Japanese main course as well.

But I was thinking maybe this way, and I was also thinking, is there a way to hack it where some of it could be like less sort of,

you know, beautiful Japanese cuisine and just kind of like nostalgic things that I remember, like sort of more basic.

Yeah, because I think if you go for a kaiseki sort of style thing,

then you've got the you know multiple little dishes, little dishes, yeah.

Then what goes in those dishes is up to you.

Yeah, yeah, so you can have normally they choose, but on this occasion, I can sort of choose, right?

That's what's choice.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's my pitch for how to approach this.

Yeah, pitch acceptance.

Thank you, guys.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I think you can have one of those trays.

Okay, one of those trays.

And I do like, I do like that, and often I don't actually know what I'm eating.

Yeah.

So it, and sometimes it's kind of like some kind of tofu-based situation with some like seasonal vegetables that have been pickled.

Like I do like those little tiny dishes that, and you're like, I don't know what this is, but it sort of wakes you up and it feels really refreshing.

So some of those things,

you know, like nice budget.

But I also, I was thinking, like, there was, there's a couple of cereals that you can only get in Japan like there's one called Genmai Flakes

which is almost says a bit like special K but it's a bit different and you can only say anytime we go back to Tokyo be like go get a box of Genmai Flakes and there was also Kellogg's one which had I'm pretty sure has been discontinued which was called Combos and it was like Frosty's but on it was tiny little speckles of chocolate oh yeah like tiny little like poppy seed size

and the mascot for it was a was like a light blue gorilla yeah uh and combos delicious but you can't get it anymore so maybe tony the tiger was pissed off when that happened you're like it's basically well i still think that's great well tony the favorite looks mark a tiger yeah yeah tony tiger's one he's stood the test of times yeah he has one um

so maybe like also could be like some little bowls of things like that so a couple of little bowls of the cereal the gamma flakes and the combos some you know more serious like pickled daikon and other bits and bobs.

And there's normally like a, I don't know, just like a grilled fish or something or like just a tiny bit of meat.

Do you know what I mean?

Do you have specifics of the sort of fish that you'd like to see on here?

No.

For the listener,

you have got an you've got notes on your phone, so you have prepared for this, but it's still the vaguest menu.

Well

I'd be interested to see what you've actually written down because a lot of it is things I'm not sure.

How many times have you written the word sort of?

There's question marks, which I guess it's like.

Oh, cold sober.

Oh, no.

Yeah, I love that.

Yeah.

That was going to be if I had to just pick one, if this was disqualified, I was trying to have too many things.

I was just going to have...

Again, carrying on in the, it's hot weather, cold sober noodles with like some nori, some tempura, that kind of thing.

But that could be a part of this.

You can put that on the tray.

You have a little bowl of.

Yeah, sort of like layman's.

And that is great because it gives us something specific to go on this tray.

What kind of fish would be good?

I guess a white fish.

A white fish, yeah.

Or an eel?

It's probably, yeah, unagi, maybe.

Just for a while.

That's my favourite.

I don't want to influence you, but unagi.

Do you know what it is?

I think it's because this, like, normally with this kind of thing, you don't have to choose.

That's part of it is that it just comes

like that.

I'm not having to choose.

Yeah.

I do like that.

But just to let you know, if you hand over

the power to us,

God knows what's going to be on that train.

For example,

Diniro found that out.

Yeah.

Well, Ed will be getting the revenge for not being warned about the tugging off.

Yeah.

It's a big thing.

He'd be like, I'm not going to warn you about this tugging off then.

Also.

Do you remember when we were driving back to London from Bristol and in a slightly on my cassette way, I was like, oh, do you want to make a playlist for the drive-back?

Oh, no.

What was Ed's playlist?

Oh, it would be horrible messages.

It was a track from the count from Sesame Street had an album of counting songs 15 tracks from that album but all of them the same track yeah I don't remember that but God I'm gonna laugh

I really I'm so happy I've maintained that level of humor That's exactly what I do now.

I mean, it was funny, to be fair.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Now on tour, I don't want the like, yeah, culinary equivalent of that coming my way.

And is it just the counting for the whole song as well?

Every, yeah, all of them.

He was counting in different ways and different genres.

But it's just one track.

Just one song 15 tracks.

Or maybe there was like one

actual sort of music track that you put on to Mr.

Act.

Yeah, that's funny.

And then after that, it was Dean 15 to count from Sesame Street.

Great.

That's good stuff.

I still do that sort of thing on tour now.

Yeah, yeah.

He's found himself a tour manager who absolutely loves being treated like that.

Yeah.

Wait till we go to the Starbucks drive-thru and then put on Crazy Frog at full volume.

Love that.

Of course.

The tequila song, of course.

And also that, yeah, Ed's tour manager seems to forget the crazy frog prank because I've been in the car because he did the off-menu tour as well.

And I knew that this had happened to him repeatedly.

Yeah.

I'd heard about that.

And every time we stopped at a drive-thru, Ed would do it, but it would genuinely take Paul by surprise.

Yeah.

Who couldn't believe it had happened?

Yeah.

That was the first time.

Yeah, every time was like, oh no, I'm trying to order my coffee and Crazy Frogs play.

And Crazy Frog's great.

Oh, you keep doing it.

Yeah.

I do think I'm going to try and do a sort of write a long read for The Guardian about reappraising the crazy frogs.

I think everyone hated it at the time, right?

But listening back to it, they loved it.

It's really fun.

This aged well.

Yeah.

I think all the snobs, like us, let's face it.

Yeah, back in the day.

Hated it.

Yeah.

And now we're reappraising it.

But all the people who liked it originally, which was a lot of people.

Yeah.

They're over it now.

Yeah.

It's like the other day I did that with Gangnam Star.

Yeah.

You were into it.

I was like, this is good.

Yeah.

This is a good stuff.

This is great.

Yeah.

But at the time, I was like, shut up, you guys are a bunch of idiots.

The world is stupid.

We're going to hell.

And now I'm like, you need a bit of a distance.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

It's a good track.

Yeah.

So we're not letting Ed choose what's going on.

Well, you can.

I mean,

Nato is good.

What's up?

You know, like the little...

So it's like.

tiny little soybeans.

My kids call them spider's webs because they get streaked.

Do you know what I mean?

Gooey.

It was actually on, on, I think it was on celebrity get me out of here.

Yeah.

As when people started complaining about, can you stop eating living things?

They put that on as like the most disgusting thing you could imagine.

So that's why I was eating it like, oh,

I'm going to die.

But it's just, I like it.

I think it's just texturally, there's nothing in Western cuisine that is equivalent to that.

Fair.

Because it's like slimy and gooey and you put, it just stretches forever.

Yeah, it's really long strings of i don't even know what that is there's always something gooey on a kaise

because i've had other things that are like green sort of yeah like you just you're like i don't know what this is

green i don't know what this is put that in there light that down bonito yeah

and yeah there's often like yes just some kind of little piece of beef really delicious beef okonomiyaki that's good maybe have and okonomiyaki probably wouldn't normally be in a kite but i just like it yeah it's like maybe i can i've never known how to say i think i say it down I think I said it different every time.

How do you say it now?

Even though I've just heard you say it.

Yeah.

And I know this is wrong.

Yeah.

I would then say economy yaki and I know that is not right.

That's not right.

That's basically right.

I think there's a whole other syllable in there when you said it.

I think you said every syllable.

Okonomiyaki.

I don't think you did all very well.

I don't think I did.

You didn't nail the oh.

No.

I think you did it really well.

Do you want do you want a bit of a big okonomiyaki or do you want a tiny little one?

I think small.

Because that's part of the fun is like you get lots of little things to try.

I think there's one more thing.

Oh, so this is like

can we speak about Okonomiyaki for a bit?

Sorry, yeah, that's the point of the podcast.

Yeah,

no, no, no.

The point is that we let the guests lead.

I love it.

I think it's great.

Sometimes they cook it in front of you, don't they?

Yes, with it on a little hot plate in front of you at the table.

How do we describe it?

It's like somewhere between a pancake and an omelette.

Yeah.

Often there's noodles inside, spring onions.

Do you like it with all the noodles inside and stuff?

I don't mind that.

Yeah.

I'm not a fan of.

so that's more like a saka style i think with like loads of stuff yeah and i i don't mind the noodles but i i like i quite like it when there's like cheese and pork on it and stuff yeah you can have that at the same time i think yeah and a massive dirty one in kyoto yeah i would just make it as dirty as you possibly can did you enjoy it just a bit just a bit you can get like those dry fish all of these things sound disgusting when you say them in english but like dry fish flakes

bonito flakes oh my god yeah great bonito your flakes yeah

They're in another discontinued series.

He was on the box.

You were on the box.

Blue.

Blue Bonito.

He was just shaving.

Yeah, yeah.

That's why it failed.

That guy's dry skin.

Didn't look at the appetite.

And yeah, it normally comes with some kind of like Worcestershire-y sauce, bulldog sauce, tonkatsu sauce.

And Kewpie Mayo.

And Kewpie Mayo.

Because I'd had it in England before, and it's making fun of you.

But when I had it in Kyoto, they squirted that bottle from really far away.

Yeah.

He held the bottle so far away, and I was sitting behind this thing.

Yeah.

I was like, are you kidding me?

Brother, you're going to get it all over me.

And then what does the rest of my day look like?

Yeah.

But he just completely on the pancake.

Did he have the multiple nozzles?

I don't know.

I mean,

I think my adrenaline was so high.

I love the double nozzle.

I've never seen that.

You never seen the double nozzle?

I think even when you buy Kippie May Mayo,

they sell it to you with a spare nozzle.

Oh, okay.

You can get a a double nozzle because you know when they like proper go for it on the occonomy, okay, like it's like loads of double lines, interesting.

Yeah, that's like with

Tepanyaki, the Trixie,

yeah, like an amate.

Like some of the chefs who do that,

it's like a circus, yeah, flipping eggs everywhere,

chucking eggs, just lands perfectly on the pan.

Onion volcano, and

I did the one of those in a little secret little room in a hotel.

An onion

volcano.

I need a secret little tapanyaki room.

It was just me and my partner and then these two businessmen and felt a bit pervy.

Right.

They did or you did.

You guys did.

I felt like I had gone into a little perv den because like the businessman.

Is this in Japan?

Yeah, yeah.

But men in suits in like one o'clock in the afternoon drinking beers in a little dark room feels a bit seedy.

And we were all just watching this chef doing all the food.

And I was like, is this, am I a pervert?

Felt pervy.

Watching the cooking?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because it felt, because the businessman threw me off.

Okay.

The businessman looked like those guys would normally be in a strip club.

That's like a sort of Darren Brown experiment where it's like, I'm going to make James Acaster find cooking pervasive

putting the environment.

James grew up religious, so basically anything he does, he feels guilty and pervy.

Yes, I have to avert my eyes from most things.

Okay, fair enough.

It was very, very close.

Kewpie Mayo.

I love it.

I'm so glad you can get it here now.

I love the little baby on the Cupie Mayo.

Yeah.

One of my favourite masks.

Not for James, though.

Not for James.

Look at that.

But what I feel sad about is when you take it out of the plaque, because it comes in a plastic bag, you take the Mayo out, it's a completely blank bottle, the baby doesn't get a look in.

Fair enough.

Why is the baby not on the bottle?

That's a shame.

I thought they were on the bottle.

No, I think they're just blank bottles.

Okay.

Well, look it up.

Maybe you're getting like bootleg cream.

I might be getting bootleg QP.

But it's good.

It's like a bit more like salad cream, isn't it?

It's on the way to salad cream.

It's richer.

It's not all the way to salad cream, but it's not quite as clean as

your Hellman's or whatever your mayonnaise of choices.

Well, I think this is very good to cultivate this hat for

a main course.

Yeah, cool.

Okay, thank you.

You would have it as one course.

I love the cereal on there.

Sometimes, pardon me?

I love the cereal on there as well.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's nice.

Yeah.

And snacks, probably a few just like snacks, Japanese snacks.

Just chuck them on there.

Which Japanese snacks?

You know, every time you suggest something,

we are going to ask you for specifics.

I'll just keep saying

whatever.

What about

koala no matchi?

Do you remember?

Well, you weren't eating it then.

Koala, but koala biscuits.

Tiny koala biscuits.

Like a biscuit on the outside, a little bit of chocolate on the inside.

Okay, so or acorns.

There's also acorn equivalents, that kind of thing.

Because isn't there like a frog version as well of those?

Maybe.

I don't remember that.

What are the ones called that we get here quite a lot?

Are they koala ones?

Look it up.

That's Benito that Ed is talking to.

Yeah, quite a lot.

Or convenience store stuff.

Yeah.

Like an American dog from a convenience store.

I was just

lived in the cinema, I mean, you do know what I mean.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Just like a

basic corn dog from...

They sell them at the pleasant shop in Edinburgh.

What, frog?

Japanese frog chocolates?

Maybe they are just the koala ones.

Maybe you thought it was a frog, but they're koalas.

They're not koalas.

They're not koalas.

Oh, no.

I've lost my mind.

But you want some of those?

Yeah, I mean, this tray is getting pretty big, yeah.

But yeah, a mixture of quite down-market, basic, nostalgic little pots.

7-11, 7-Eleven, 7-Eleven-y, supermarket-y things, and then also some of the more like a lot of care and attention.

And you know, they've literally just picked this root vegetable off the mountain that is the wall of the restaurant and prepared it perfectly.

Mixture of that.

That's nice.

High and low kaiseki tray, please.

Are your dream sides in there?

Or is your dream side something different?

Oh, no.

She's panicked.

Oh, God.

I tell you what.

Oh, there's too many.

Speaking of sides, we know what this guy likes to do in his side.

Remember what you tugged yourself up?

Aubrey Plaza caught you.

Yeah, I do remember.

She caught you, man.

She caught you.

That must have been the person.

Did they tell you that was going to happen?

Yeah, it was in a script.

What I remember about that was going into it, I remember thinking, this is going to be so funny.

It's such a funny scene.

I mean, I guess for you guys, it was funny.

Then as we were rehearsing, it was like, just play it completely straight.

Yeah.

And so then suddenly you feel really folded.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

But I think it did make it better.

It basically made it like the tenser.

But going in, I was like, oh, it's going to be so fun.

And then it was like, oh, it's just really like tense and uncomfortable.

Yeah.

Oh, it must have been horrible to film it.

Yeah.

I mean, it's really funny because you've played it straight.

Yeah.

Because then it's more believable.

It would have made it really funny.

Yeah.

But like, yeah, I would have been, I imagine in the moment, it would have been way easier for you just to, you know.

There are some tapes silly.

Yeah, in the rushes where when she catches me, I'm doing full, like, Mr.

Bean tumbles off the bed and like, and then sort of like standing up yeah

like uh kind of trying to recover from it and yeah and sort of you know stuttering about porn and and he was like i don't i don't really need that i think we can just kind of be caught we've got that now we could just be caught doing it and just kind of

was that was that as embarrassing yeah basically was that as embarrassing receiving a note like that when you've gone that big yeah as getting caught wanking uh no it was all right it was part of the process innit but no it was it was like fair play.

Yeah, that is better.

Right, side dish.

What am I thinking?

I've got like options here.

I was thinking of maybe just going for a club sandwich.

I love this.

There's a massive tray.

There's a huge tray and then

a tiny little plates and then just a full-size club sandwich.

Just because they're good, aren't they?

They are good.

Like, they're really good.

If you're like, I don't know what, often if that's there, that's quite a good choice, isn't it?

Yeah.

As a default.

That is a choice of someone who ends up in hotels quite a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Late night hotel.

Late night hotel.

Got to get up early the next morning.

Don't want to go out.

Yeah.

Club sandwich.

Yeah.

If you're lucky and you got in late and they're only doing sandwiches.

They've got one.

Yeah.

Because on most Hovitzoni sandwiches, it is just the cold sandwiches and they're not great.

But sometimes.

Or it's like a ham and cheese panini that was hot.

20 minutes ago.

Yeah.

But by the time it gets to the house,

it's like a sandwich.

Club sandwich is a classic, isn't it?

Club sandwich is just like you feel so happy when you order it, but then when you finished eating it and it's midnight,

you are like, what the fuck am I doing?

I don't think I'm going to eat it at midnight.

No,

the context I had for it was more like, I was actually thinking of, again, like I was still in Japan.

There was a place called the Tokyo American Club

where you could go bowling and stuff.

They had like a system where you could flip through these roller decks and then get a VHS to rent.

You know, be like, oh, Land Before Time, please can we rent that one, please?

Things like that.

What a film.

Such a good film, isn't it?

It's brutal.

Sarah the Triceratops.

Yeah.

I mean, am I right?

Yeah.

It's pretty brutal, that film.

I remember money.

I think it was one of the first films I saw in the cinema.

Yeah.

Whatever kid I was with cried so much they had to be taken out.

Oh my god.

Yeah, it is.

It is heavy going when you're a kid.

You get really attached to all those characters.

Yeah.

And I still think, because after that film, I drew a lot of cartoons as a kid.

I liked drawing cartoons.

I'd always

draw little gangs like that.

Little gangs.

Base it on that.

You're so lonely.

A different animal.

Yeah.

A different animal each time, but like a cat gang or different cats.

And now I've...

You've got a cat gang.

Now I've done that in my life.

I've got four cats that are all different breeds, and I think it's Could have Lamb Before Time.

Can we see some of these pictures?

That I drew.

Yeah.

Don't know if my parents have got them.

Okay.

I'd have to check in on them.

Doubt it.

Probably thrown them away.

I'd be interested.

But they probably got thrown away on the day.

Yeah.

I remember Sarah the tric she's the one who's really grumpy

and sort of like is exiled from the group'cause she's being too grumpy.

Yeah.

And then there's like a bit in it where she basically saves all her mates.

Yeah.

And that's like for me, I feel like that's the archetype of the sort of redemption arc of like the thing that will automatically get me is if somebody has kind of somehow exiled themselves by being grumpy or like making mistakes or whatever.

And then they show their their true colours and so i always think of sarah the trit triceratops when i'm writing weirdly although sometimes i'm going to say triceratops yeah yeah yeah yeah and then the classic sarah the tricerato

yeah i agree with you for the most part yeah apart from and then sometimes they do that kind of stuff where the writer is clearly excusing whatever

bad traits they have in themselves they're like but don't worry about those because they want to save everyone's life yeah yeah yeah yeah so Yeah, I just keep, because I'm just going to keep doing this in my life and then eventually I'll

be fine.

Yeah, there's that.

So it's like a cover.

The redemptive act is a cover for stuff.

It's like, just because you know those things are bad doesn't excuse them.

And just because you did something good, it doesn't excuse the bad things.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is that what you mean?

That Gran Torino film, like Clint film.

I've never seen it.

He's like.

Horrible racist old man.

Horrible racist old man all the way through.

But at the end, he saves the people that he's been racist to.

Oh, that's different.

And he dies in a Jesus pose.

That's different.

And you're like, that's not Sarah the Triceratops.

No, they needed Sarah the Triceratops.

Yeah,

that's what they needed.

I've not seen Lamborfulltime for a while.

Is Sarah the Triceratops horribly racist as well?

Yeah, be honest.

And then she saves the people she's been racist to.

Yeah, yeah.

The fucking Velociraptors.

Same kinds of awful stuff about the old Velocis.

Anyway, it could be from there.

Sandwich could be from there.

Or I put like a hot dog down as an alternative.

And then in brackets with question mark, did you ever go to that place called Singbury?

No.

Yes.

It was in Leightonstone where I lived for a long time.

Yes.

And it sort of became way too popular because timeout.

And now I think, and they were always closing down, but they never did.

And now they've moved.

They've moved to Shoreditch.

I don't think they're open yet, but it's a phenomenal restaurant.

They are incredible.

But it was basically the chef and his mum in the kitchen.

Yeah.

Tiny little, like

Thai cafe, essentially.

And then it was like, I think it was like the infatuation is like number one restaurant in London.

Yeah.

People went mental for it.

It It was impossible to get in unless you knew someone.

And it was like,

it is such good food, huge menu.

So they're basically working these shifts of just like bashing these dishes out and they're shattered at the end of the night.

So I'm glad that they've now got a bigger space.

Yeah.

Hopefully they can hire more people.

They've gone mainstream.

Yeah.

Anyway, I guess I just wanted to shout them out because, but, but without,

but also don't go there.

Yeah.

Leave them to it.

Yeah,

sorry.

Did you have a dish that you wanted to?

They had like, they were famous for their razor clams,

but they also had something called mu crob, which was almost like not pork scratchings exactly, but that kind of like really crunchy, porky

things, which was good.

Yeah.

Those were the things I picked out.

But I'd say just go club sandwich.

Yeah.

Club sandwich from the Tokyo American Club

in the 90s.

And we're talking classic club sandwich, right?

Chicken and bacon and decent wacameo.

Yeah, I don't, I don't really like cheese or I don't really eat that much cheese.

So I go non-cheese normally.

But I wouldn't put a cheese in a clutch, a cheese in a flag

in there, yeah, yeah.

Lettuce, tomato, chicken, bacon, mayonnaise, cut in the triangles with the chips in the middle, yeah, yeah, and a little like toothpicky flag.

You like the toothpicky flag?

Why not?

Yeah, the toothpicks with which you don't see very often now, the little

sort of tassel at the top, you know, yeah, little vegged toothpicks, yeah.

No, no, no, no, with the little fun sort of crepe paper tassel.

The way he said that, I just suddenly felt like I was sat on a bench, sort of, yeah, there's toothpicks.

When we're old men, that's what's going to happen.

It's not often we get a guest laugh at either one of us, especially you,

when you're not trying to make them laugh.

Sure.

I think I fall into it a lot by mistake.

I realise what I've said is weirder than I thought it was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you were just being very earnest about toothpicks.

I was remembering something.

It was very general.

Papa laughed.

Gently.

It was probably like, this is the funniest thing.

This fucking guy talking to me about picks like videos.

This is why the sketch group couldn't carry on, man.

Because everything I said I thought was funny.

Nothing from this guy.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you're like, right, see you later.

He's like, ah.

Ever wonder why you have insurance for your car or home, but not your digital life?

Meet Webroot Total Protection, your digital bodyguard that is built for real life.

Webroot takes the guessing game out of cybersecurity so you can confidently browse, bank, and be yourself online without the worry of hackers lurking around the corner.

With Webroot Total Protection, you get antivirus that scans six times faster and takes up 33 times less space than the other guys.

Identity protection with up to $1 million in fraud expense reimbursement and 24-7 U.S.-based customer support.

VPN protection that hides your IP address, personal data, and location from hackers.

And cloud backup with unlimited storage that works automatically in the background.

With plans for individuals and families, Webroot makes it easy to live a better digital life.

Go to webroot.com forward slash promo and get 50% off today.

That's webroot.com slash promo to get 50% off today.

Live a better digital life with Webroot because peace of mind shouldn't be optional.

We get it.

It's more important than ever to get the most out of your money.

Options are key.

Options like Lyft, where you get great rewards, especially with partners like Dash Pass by DoorDash.

If you're a Dash Pass member, just link your DoorDash account and you'll get 5% off on-demand rides, 10% off scheduled rides to the airport, plus two free priority pickup upgrades every month.

New to Dash Pass?

To sign up for a three-month free trial, check Lyft.

Terms apply.

Your dream drink, Will.

Maybe CC lemon.

which is a Japanese lemonade in a can.

And I have a very specific memory of getting that from a vending machine after playing like the summers are really humid playing football in like a park with my brother and then just being like drenched in sweat and they have really loud cicadas in the summer so that noise is going on and just having like you're you're exhausted and you're so thirsty and it doesn't quench your thirst in any way I've tried it as an adult it's so sugary but I just remember that hit being kind of amazing well I guess the grown-up equivalent would be like a glass of beer in the summer.

Is CC lemon one of the drinks in Japan that has vitamins?

That where they're like, it's got vitamins in it.

Just googling it.

Often getting added to emails.

CC

That's good.

That's good.

Good luck finding a B C C Lemon.

I don't think so.

There probably, I mean, these days, there probably is a.

Oh, no, maybe.

No, it's called CC Lemon because of vitamin C.

There you go.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Because I got sort of, last time I was in Japan, sort of obsessed with the like vitamin shots and these like little vitamin jelly drinks.

Okay, Yeah.

Just because you feel like you're doing something good for yourself, even though in the back in the bag from the 7-Eleven every night was like just piles of squid and cheese.

Right, squid cheese and gels.

Wow.

The adverts for those vitamin drinks are often quite funny.

Yeah.

Just like guys really shouting to show how much energy they have.

Like they drink it and then they're just like going mental.

They're like climbing a cliff or something.

They're like, now I'm ready.

Watch it go, I want to be like that guy.

Yeah.

Well, they hit like they've got a baseball bat and they hit the can really far.

But maybe, well, maybe we could make a shandy out of those two things.

Like a Japanese beer on a hot day and a bit of CC lemon.

That's really nice.

What's the beer?

What beer do you want?

I don't like any Japanese, like Kirin or it apparently is different in Japan compared to what is imported over here.

Right.

But I saw this.

I remember having a, when Tom Kingsley and I made a short film in Japan and like shot in my actual grandma's house.

My actual grandma was in it and dressed up as a cockroach for us.

I remember

like you know, hiking with like the it's just him and me basically with all the gear and stuff and finding this like little bar and having like a really cold beer and a hot day.

That that kind of lager.

A lot of this meal you want to be tired for.

Tired and hungry, but I think that's because like it improves it, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I want to know more about this film, this short film.

I mean, it's on YouTube somewhere this time

like

it was it was we just yeah we went to japan it was when i was in casualty uh and tom worked for a company called blink and he borrowed like a pro sumer camera from from that company went to my grandma's house in japan to try to make a short film basically and it was often i'd be like holding my own reflector out of shot it was just very very lo-fight and lots of driving around and um getting trains and stuff i don't i haven't watched it for a while hopefully it holds holds up.

Don't know.

What's the plot?

The plot was, what was it?

It's that my

late grandfather has left me a suit.

I'm like a pest control guy.

Yes.

And I'm working on a particular house that has a cockroach problem, but the owners of the house are never there.

And I start receiving these weird notes.

And I think my granddad, meanwhile, has left me a suit.

And inside the suit pocket is like a note that says something like by the way you're the messiah and it drives him crazy because he's trying to figure out is it for me what does it mean uh and all the while he's trying to rid this house of uh of its infestation of pests i can't really remember how it finishes i love but essentially he's just sort of it spins him out spins him out and it's in japan i love it that sounds bonkers it was quite bonkers i'd watch that sure

but be my guest

on youtube man i don't watch it on youtube let's tom's take it'd be good it'd be good to change the algorithm a little bit actually yeah

the other day i went down this fucking wormhole of watching this guy atheist guy who's debating christians and i've really enjoyed the first one and seeing him just handle the christians their ass yeah and then

the more that it went on the more videos i was watching the more i was like actually this guy's quite unlikable is that christopher hitchens no not hitchens uh he talks to hitchens at one point in another one is this younger guy okay uh and i i thought you know in in the first video, I was like, it's good because he's like, he's not, he's not taking like pleasure in defeating them.

He's just trying to have a respectful discussion, but he is defeating them.

Right.

And this is, this is like, this is nice.

This seems like a respectful discussion where he's a bit more, cares about people.

But then the more videos I watch, the more I was like, this guy's high on his own supply.

He absolutely loves himself.

He may as well be the one on his side tugging himself off.

Is that like late 90s brand of atheism where the whole thing was someone going, well, how can that be?

God doesn't even exist.

And then they dropped the microphone and everyone's like, yeah, show me the proof.

Yeah.

I had an imaginary friend.

What's blew my mind?

Yeah.

It was like that.

Yeah.

But so that's what my algorithm is now.

Oh, that.

And actually, the bit of my algorithm that I like is just loads of

skateboarders.

I'm just watching loads of skateboarders.

No.

But I love Elite watchers.

Yeah.

I love

watching Andy Anderson and Ben Cadow.

Do you think you ever would?

No way.

When I was five, I got put on a skateboard and pushed us to some stinger nails.

Oh, don't want that again.

Absolutely no way I'm doing that again.

So, with your like religious,

did you have like a specific kind of turning point where you realized how you feel about all that stuff?

Uh, no, it's just gradual, just gradual as I was growing up, especially like through being a stand-up and whatever, right?

Yeah, where it's very uncool to be religious.

It's an angle, pathetic, it's an angle,

but uh, but yeah, no, I kind of just like steadily moved away from it

and uh had a gig the other day where like a whole group of Christians came to see me, a whole church group.

And I ended up talking to them for most of the show because one of them was secretly recording the show and I caught them.

Just in case.

Yeah, and it was a Christian recording me.

I was like, that's not very Christian.

Being all sneaky.

Did you call them Christian?

I don't think it's the most anti-Christian thing I could think of.

I wouldn't go, that's not very Christian,

recording a show secretly.

It's one of the Ten Commandments.

You should know it.

Don't record.

Don't record the show.

Yeah, yeah.

We must respect them.

But

a very big conversation with them.

One of them kept telling me that Jesus loves me during the show.

Whoa, that's quite a hard hackle to handle.

Yeah, I was just like, well, with all due respect, I'm not sure.

Yeah.

Not sure that's true.

And then someone at the back started shouting out that they love Satan.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Obviously, that kicked off his head to you.

Yeah, I go to every one of his shows.

Yeah.

Who's there?

Say you love Satan.

Just send it.

He's sending someone to every venue.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm dressed as a count from Sesame Street.

Your dream dessert, Will.

Again, I could probably choose one, but I've got like three.

Trio.

Trio?

Trio?

Maybe.

Do you remember that chocolate bar?

No, I don't.

Trio.

Trio.

Yeah.

Don't remember it.

I want a trio and I want one now.

Don't remember it.

It was good.

Thick chocolate.

Yeah, thick old chocolate.

But you know, it was up against a lot of competition.

There was clubs and all sorts of events.

Clubs, I remember.

Yeah, yeah.

yeah.

Clubs like post-football.

Do you want to sing a penguin?

Do you want to sing the song?

No.

Okay.

Sing ahead.

We've just done trio.

I think someone else needs to take up the mantle thing.

Yeah, you're the one who sings the songs.

Join a club.

Yeah.

It's got a new jingle.

Pick up a penguin.

Yeah, yeah.

We had a really fun joke over there.

Do you remember that really funny joke over Texas that I did about penguin?

No.

And Nish was coming back from Australia and he texted us saying he'd watched the full series of

the penguin.

Yeah.

And I said, in Australia, it's called the Tim Town.

That's a good joke.

It's a good job.

Safe space.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I even said, it's a great joke and it's clean.

Yeah.

Very tidy.

Anyone can enjoy that if they have a knowledge of Australian and English biscuits.

I feel like even if you don't know,

you still would get it.

That's how good a joke.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You'd be like, well, that must be an Australian version of the penguin.

Sounds like a brand.

What's your trio?

Oh, sorry.

Yeah.

So one of them tried to invent something, but it's sort of, I'm sure it exists.

Yeah.

It's like some kind of chocolate.

I don't think it's a cake.

I think it's like a tort.

So

I don't really like the spongy guys.

I find that a bit boring.

I like it to be really dense.

So I think it's flowerless.

Will's reading this albatum, by the way.

This is all written down.

That's got to be sad for you if something's flowerless.

it's like a word search basically

oh my god

well the rejection there

no i liked it never i know i mean it must be very reject you must feel rejected when someone says they want something flowerless flowerless no i prefer it i prefer it because it's i like it to be dense so that

like so dent i basically like to feel like i'm being punched in the face by the chocolate like you can slam the torque on on the table and it would keep it shape.

Jesus Christ.

So that kind of thing.

I thought it was well I just knocked over my empty cup of coffee but I forgot it was empty so I thought I'd just you were panicking and then you realised there was something Jesus Christ over the top of your talking button.

That wasn't because

it's amazing how quickly they go back to religion, isn't it?

It's the first time they knock over a coffee cup.

Sunday Jesus is back in his life.

Please forgive me.

I know what you mean about flowerless chocolate.

You just want that intelligence.

That's what I prefer.

Some people don't like that and they find it a bit like it's too much hard work, but that's what I I prefer I hate a gap where you see like a gato and it looks beautiful and then they put the knife into it and almost goes

so much I'm not into if it's too fluffy yeah

I don't know it's like a bit fillery do you know what I mean I just want to get straight to the point yeah of the chocolate cake yeah so one of those with maybe some like matcha ice cream and some berries or something like that something like that yeah that sounds great which is fine that could be that could be it on its own sounds lovely but then i had two sort of nostalgia ones which you can discount or they can be like in they can be like, we talked about it, but they're not real.

So one of them is my

late British grandma.

One of my earliest memories is when we lived in Japan, coming to England and learning how to make a lemon tart with her.

And so that lemon tart with just like shop-bought vanilla ice cream and that squeezy chocolate sauce that

went hard.

Yeah.

Did you ever have it?

Oh, yeah.

What's it called?

I mean, I don't know if it's literally.

It's called magic.

Magic, yeah.

Magic name.

It had some kind of magic.

Magic sauce or something.

But you pour it on, and then the cold makes it go hard.

Great, that's exciting, isn't it?

That's a goodie.

And then the third one is, so it's kind of like

ice magic.

Is that what it's called?

Because Ben doesn't want to be heard on the podcast.

Sometimes he has to whisper stuff.

So he just looked at Ed and went, Ice Magic.

He does absolutely.

Andy used to be a magician, so that might have been something he did back in the day.

Ice Magic.

He'd be at a party, and someone would be

drinking their glass of drink at a party and then they look down and the ice had gone and he'd go, ice magic.

He's holding the ice in his hand.

He's crunching it and it's like, woke my google.

They can see his gum on the side of the glass.

But that was very helpful.

Thank you.

So it was called ice magic.

Well, I didn't say ice magic, I said, I think I had magic in it.

Oh yeah.

So carrying on from that kaiseki tray, often like, and also at my grandma's house, like the pudding would just be basically like a really good piece of fruit, like melon or like a strawberry that's like really big.

Yeah, something like that.

Like Japanese fruit, where it's like you go into a

food hall and it's like 800 quid for a well, I don't know, well, okay, why not if you're paying 800 quid?

Yeah, 800 quid.

Genie's paying, then go for it.

You got it.

I don't think I've ever done that in Japan and gone and bought like the really expensive fruit in like one of the malls or whatever, but I've been to look at them.

But even if it's not that, even if it's not the kind of stunt fruit, it's still, you can get like a kind of reasonably priced, but like really good, tasty kind of, oh, I've suddenly realized that all the other versions of melon that I had, it was just sort of like a, almost like a memory of eating a melon.

This is a melon, you know, this is an empirical melon.

Yeah.

So that, something like that, that would be, if I'm carrying on the theme of having too many things, that would be the three things.

Yes.

Yeah.

But I could just choose the chocolate.

Or we can actually want to.

There's plenty of dessert dessert hacks you can do.

Oh, yeah.

You need pre-dessert, trolley, dessert, petty-four.

That's for example.

That's petty for.

A stat of, what are they called?

Stack.

I've got a stack.

A little stack.

What is it?

You know what I mean?

A little tower.

Like a tea tray.

Like a thingy.

Tea tray.

No, not tea tray.

That you'd get a high tea.

Yeah, you'd get it.

A car park of food.

Car park of food.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a car park of food.

That's what they say when you go for afternoon tea at the beginning.

Through a car park, please.

Yeah, yeah.

Here's your car park.

And I had a shout-out to once we tried to make a banana misu.

It made me really ill.

You can guess what that is.

It's too misou with banana in it.

Made us really sick.

I thought you were mispronouncing me so.

Yeah.

No, banana misu.

Banana missoo.

Was that something you'd read about?

Was there a recipe or did you invent the banana misu?

No, so my

rep as somebody who prepares food is that I'll be doing really well, really bad at following recipes.

Be doing really well just kind of busking my way through it.

I'm quite good at making something out of nothing.

So if it's like, we've got nothing in the house, actually I can find a meal out of whatever's there we tried to make a chicken stock once did we yeah didn't go away in that we'll come back

um but um well for a bit tried to make a chicken stock for a sketch this is the sketch making chicken stock no no other jokes um but i'm quite like my rep is that i'll fuck it up at the last minute right so be going really well and it's like looking good and then i'll just sort of be like maybe i'll do this and then i'll sort of be like well you've ruined it now that was the banana master that was the banana so i'm gonna try and make a

bananas in it.

Why not?

Why did you do that?

But the reason why it made us ill was not that it was something else involved.

Maybe the eggs.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Or the cream, the cheese.

And it tasted bad or good.

It tasted all right, I would say.

I thought banoffy.

I can't remember.

I can't remember.

Well, it is banoffee, but on this occasion, it's banana and coffee, right?

Yeah.

She's a new banoffi.

What made us ill was I put poison in it.

He's always right at the end, he puts poison every time.

And there was one Christmas where I tried to make improvise pudding that went really wrong, where I thought of you because you're famous for your sweet tooth.

And it was basically like as you're kind of heading out of the Christmas season, you sometimes have like boxes of biscuits and chocolates and just leftover stuff that you're like, what am I going to do this?

So I was like, I'll just make like a fridge cake out of all of these things.

Brilliant.

And had no system or any sort of scientific knowledge for how to do it.

So essentially it was just melting down snacks and then put it in the freezer.

And it was really bad.

It looked terrible.

And it was so sweet that it felt like

you would faint from eating it.

And for some reason in my mind, I must have been listening to the podcast around.

I was like, maybe James Acaster would manage this.

Yeah, I think my dad definitely would.

Yeah, I mean, even if I couldn't, I think the big guy

would have a swing at it.

The big dog could do it.

The The big dog.

Nudge it his way.

And even if he didn't like it, he would eat all of it.

Wild saying with his mouthful, this is very too sweet, Will.

Right.

It's not very good.

What about Wilde shoving?

Yeah, even for me.

He's like, even for me, this is too sweet.

But Wild is still putting it back and not even having to swap, like, not even having to chew it, just like

straight down.

Yeah.

He would have helped you out.

Can I have a digestif with it?

Yeah.

You know, like one of those bitter Amaro-y fernabranca.

Fernabranca, yeah.

That that kind of thing i don't mind that kind of like slightly petrol-y afterthought yeah it's cool it is it is genuinely good for digestion as well i find yeah if you're really full and you have like a fernet branch i would be probably yeah oh absolutely yeah you're gonna be full mate you've had a club sandwich on top of everything

yeah yeah i think when your side dishes are club sandwich you know that you're gonna be full yeah i'll read your menu back to you now see how you feel about it yeah you want tap water from the mountain yeah the ball of the ball of the best track yeah uh for catcher from olympia provisions portland yeah

is is that what you googled it's olympia provisions sorry thanks who knows how they that's a mountain made that bread is it olympia oh yeah you love mountains yeah obsessed obsessed

the deep-fried small fish with lemon small you never got to the bottom of what fish it was uh

main course you got a tofu situation gemai flakes is it gamai gemai flakes Keller's combos, pickled daikon, white fish, cold, sober, which I didn't know it was pronounced like that until you said it.

I've I've been saying sober.

Yeah, it's like saying pari.

You wouldn't say pari.

I might start saying pari.

I say pari.

I always say it.

Yeah, I go get

like that.

It's funny.

Nomi tempura, natto.

Natto.

Yeah.

Green.

I don't know what it is.

Yeah.

That's what it says here.

Beef, small, economy hacky, and koala biscuits.

Yeah.

Side dish, club sandwich.

Yeah.

Drink CC lemon shandy.

They're pandas.

Oh, yeah.

Hello panda.

Hello panda.

Hello panda.

Yeah, you'd recognise them.

The pink, I don't like the pink ones.

I like the normal ones.

Okay.

Thanks.

Drink CC lemon shandy with Japanese lager.

Dessert, flourless chocolate torte with matcha ice cream and berries and grandma's lemon tart and a big fruit.

Big fruit.

Big fruit.

And a big fruit.

Yeah.

And you would also like a digestive at the end.

Yeah.

Needs an edit, doesn't it?

It's a bit.

But you just got to get it on the page, right?

Yeah, it's like, it's like, yeah if we'd walk through it and sort of pick some things out yeah that would make sense but oh yeah i'd love that meal though i think it would be nice and the main meal is kind of like also you can you can decide afterwards what it what it involves

i haven't asked will about eating on camera i like i like you normally ask

about eating on camera you ate on camera yeah in i think you you eat on camera white lotus and in real pain what was the best food uh the food in Real Pain was quite good.

In the White Lotus, I remember there was like a breakfast scene where they were like, what do you have for breakfast?

And I was like, oh, I don't know, like eggs on toast or something.

And everyone else had fruit.

And I was like,

well,

if we're supposed to have fruit, then I'll have fruit.

I suddenly felt weird.

But in the Lena Dudham show that's coming up, I remember making a choice because of that thing where once you tune into watching actors eat, you sort of can be quite distracted.

I was like, I'm just going to eat as much as I can in every scene and make it.

And also, because he's like quite socially uncomfortable.

So I felt like that's, I eat a bit like that anyway in my life because it's like just a way of having something to do.

So in that show, I made that choice to eat as much as I can.

See if you notice.

Oh, I'll notice.

I'm always watching how much they're eat

in those kind of scenes.

And I don't like it when they just push it around the plate.

This Lena Dunham show.

Yeah.

Quick heads up.

Yeah.

How, are you doing any tugging in it?

Am I tugging off?

I don't think so, but there's like

I do not remember how much

on-camera tugging you're doing that you can't I don't think so, but there is a there's like some yeah, there's some like intimacy scenes in affected commas, but I don't

I don't mind that as much as the tugging, yeah, not lying on my side tugging off

You promise

promise, yeah Promise.

Yeah, I think we had a show and we roasted a chicken and then just

put all the bones in the pot and we'd i think all i remember is really laughing that we had a show that night we didn't know what we were going to do and we were making a chicken steak okay

my favorite memory of what we did in that sketch group was we once split an hour with a different group

and uh one of the guys had gone viral for a sketch that they'd done online and it was really blown up and we split this hour with them and we were like hey maybe um just to mix it up like because maybe we could like you could do one sketch in our half hour.

We'll do one sketch in your half hour.

It might be funny even.

So they did the viral sketch in the middle of our

half hour.

Absolutely killed.

Everybody just lost.

Loss all their friends as well.

Yeah.

The sketch we chose to do in the middle of their set was called Bow.

What it involved was.

It's lost its way.

What it involved was we would come on.

and bow as if it was the end of the show, even though it wasn't.

And then we'd go off again.

Nobody knew what was going on.

No laughter.

I think some people thought it was the end of the show.

Yeah.

No material involved.

We'll do bang.

We should do bow, guys.

That's that.

Guys, we should do bow.

My favorite thing that happens in that group.

Yeah.

Fucking hell, that's funny.

Did you do bow in your own show?

Usually, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there would be a sketch where you just come out and bow the colours.

But we'd have the, we also had the order of sketches hung up so the audience could see them, right?

Yeah, so they'd see that there was a sketch coming up called Bow,

and they'd be like, I wonder what that's going to be.

It's just a Bow.

That was a joke.

And there was another one called Pizza Express,

where we would just act as if we were in Pizza Express, and we just order a meal.

There was no jokes.

And Al Roberts would always...

He would always put in a gag.

And we're like, that's not the rule.

You've got to order strictly from the menu.

Guys, I don't know what.

And then he would panic and he would throw in like a funny made-up pizza or something.

And then me and Ed and Tom would be kind of like, Can't do that, mate.

Bothered them afterwards.

Yeah, yeah, because it would always get a massive laugh as well.

Yeah, it could be like, finally, some comedy.

But it was a more confusing sketch.

So they'd come away going, what was that sketch?

Because it was just all normal.

There was one funny line, but the whole thing was just like they were pizza express.

So it must have failed.

Whereas if the whole thing is just normal,

that must be the joke.

We did one where we all did stand up at the same time as well.

Fucking Fucking the worst sketch people ever heard.

Funny for us.

Yeah.

Thanks so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant, Will.

Thank you, Willie.

Thanks for having me.

Well, there we are, James.

A lovely chat, a lovely catch-up.

Quite a lot of nostalgia for me.

I liked seeing you take a trip down memory lane with Will.

And we've been messaging each other since we finished recording, reminding each other of more than four horsemen sketches.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, how nice.

Tom Williams with a stylophone.

Yeah.

Just making faces and then playing the note.

And at one point, he did that.

But I think it was called MC stylophone.

Yeah.

Sort of like had a rapper outfit on with the stylophone sat at the back of the stage doing a collab with old man.

I love old man.

Yeah.

I actually really like old man.

I think old man's really funny, especially he loves rock and roll.

Old man rocker.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's funny.

I think that would stand the the test of time.

That would still be funny if you brought it back.

I thank you, Will, for not saying Lotus Biscuits either.

We didn't have to kick you out.

He was worried we'd picked sushi as a secret ingredient for a laugh.

For a laugh?

Yeah, because we thought he might pick sushi.

Why would we think that?

Well, because he likes Japanese food.

Oh, I had a lot of stuff from Japan.

Yeah, imagine if we'd done that.

He's half Japanese, for God's sake.

I don't think it would have reflected well on us if we'd done that to Trap him.

No.

But maybe just bear that in mind for another guest.

yeah trap him anyone that we know that's japanese food we'll get them with that and we'll say that's the will sharp special yeah he told us to get you

uh look out for will in too much the new leaner dunham series which is available on netflix now and there's a lot of off-menu friends in there in that cast yes um richardy grant of course richard hey buddy how you doing uh leo reich who we've not had on the podcast before but is a fantastic how have we not had leo reich on the podcast what's our problem the guy's too busy he's in leaner dunham's new series he's had an adrian special yeah i think we have tried yeah

yeah

um well leo if you're listening please pick up the phone please it's desperate huh that's desperate oh sorry i am uh touring europe in november oh uh and i'm touring america in 2026 february 2026 so get onted edgamble.co.uk for tickets.

If you are someone who lives near some of the places that I'm going that will be available to see on my website.

Or if you want to travel there.

Or if you want to travel there, I wouldn't travel there.

That's a lot of pressure on me.

Maybe they just like the travel.

They like the trip.

Here's the deal.

You travel if it's over land.

If you're crossing a sea, I'd rather you didn't because that's quite a lot of pressure.

Well, you'd be surprised.

Some people will cross sea for it and there will be the rudest audience members you have on the tour.

Thanks, James.

As ever, you're invigorating my love for stand-up.

Any time, Ed.

Thank you, James.

Thank you, Will.

Bye-bye.

Thank you, Will.

Bye.

Popsicles, sprinklers, a cool breeze.

Talk about refreshing.

You know what else is refreshing this summer?

A brand new phone with Verizon.

Yep, get a new phone on any plan with Select Phone Trade-In and MyPlan.

And lock down a a low price for three years on Any Plan with MyPlan.

This is a deal for everyone, whether you're a new or existing customer.

Swing by Verizon today for our best phone deals.

Three-year price guarantee applies to them current base monthly rate only.

Additional terms and conditions apply for all offers.

We get it.

It's more important than ever to get the most out of your money.

Options are key.

Options like Lyft, where you get great rewards, especially with partners like Dash Pass by DoorDash.

If you're a Dash Pass member, just link your DoorDash account and you'll get 5% off on-demand rides, 10% off scheduled rides to the airport, plus two free priority pickup upgrades every month.

New to Dash Pass?

To sign up for a three-month free trial, check Lyft.

Terms apply.

Hello, I'm Carrie Add.

I'm Sarah.

And we are the Weirdos Book Club Podcast.

We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival.

The date is Thursday, 11th of September.

The time is 7pm.

And our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies.

Tickets from kingsplace.co.uk.

Single ladies is coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September.

At the London Podcast Festival.

The rumours are true, Saturday, the 13th of September at King's Place.

Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet.